Putting an end to his manuscript in July 1976, Adam Michnik could not foresee today's events and the significance that his book can acquire for people who have little knowledge in the recent history of Poland and only know firsthand what place the Polish Church has occupied in the country for the last thirty years. This book brings a lot of alphabetical, but unknown truths to the Russian reader, especially since the author himself looks at the Church from the outside. His view is the view of a left-wing unbelieving intellectual, a "democratic socialist," as he declares himself, the view of a person who, with some delay, overcoming prejudices and prejudices, was convinced that it was the Church in the conditions of Polish totalitarianism that was the only consistent defender of human freedoms, that it is she who is a natural (and not only tactical) ally of anyone who defends human rights.