Analysis of the extant data, such as opposition press and documents, shows that participants of the first Solidarity did not know or use the concept of civil society. The dynamics of discourse of the first Solidarity found its climax instead in the concept of the self-governing Republic. Only in 1987, after a general amnesty for political prisoners, the concept of civil society was adopted, replacing the concept of the underground society which had been current under Martial Law. Thus, the neoliberal concept of civil society displaced the concept of self-governing Republic.