The article regards the public debate focusing on the assessment of the political transformation andthe model of modernisation implemented in Poland after 1989. In recent years, the conservative and right-wingcriticism, which focused on pro-Western modernisation and the liberal discourse of transformational success,is more and more often accompanied with self-criticising statements uttered by the former liberal leaders ofthe democratic transformation and with appeals for a radical retribution of the past which are put forward bythe young generation of Polish intellectuals. On the basis of the analysis of the public discourse between 2013and 2017, the author differentiates between the retribution and reckoning dimensions of the liberal and leftistdiscourse, reconstructing its interpretative and argumentative structures. The discourse of ‘being disappointedwith the transformation’ is considered a symptom of the condition of public debate in Poland.