(The following is reprinted from the
September 3 issue of the British weekly Socialist Challenge.]
Throughout the 19th century, the German Reich and the Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires partitioned Poland into three parts. The Poles were sandwiched between Russian Orthodoxy and German Lutherism. As in Ireland, the church became linked to the idea of national identity, and this identification was reinforced in this century by the division of the country in -1939 as a result of the Stalin- Hitler Pact, and by the heavy losses it suffered in the Stalinist purges.
At the end of the Second World War the church hierarchy was more cautious in its approach to the collectivisation of the land than its Hungarian counterparts.
It wanted to maintain its political influence over the masses and its leader, Cardinal Wyszynski, was clever enough to realise that he could not oppose this popular measure.
Although the Polish church pays lip service to supporting opposition movements in Poland today, a look at its postwar history shows how limited that support has been.
After initially opposing the Communist government's social legislation on abortion, divorce, and civil marriage, a deal state in was struck between church and April 1950. As a result the Polish bishops called on the Polish people to "respect the laws and institutions of the state."
The church would "condemn and punish those clergy who are guilty of any underground or anti-state activity." In return the government allowed religious education in the schools, and the only Catholic university in a Communist country, Lublin University, was set up.
Throughout the early 1950s East European leaders mounted a wave of repression as part of a campaign against Tito, the leader of the Yugoslay Communist Party who had dared to break with Stalin.
In Hungary Lazlo Rajk was executed as an "agent of Tito;" sham trials, torture, and imprisonment took place in every country in Eastern Europe until Stalin's death in 1953. Yet no protest was heard from the leaders of the Polish church.
In 1956 the close relationship between church and state was further consolidated. In the face of the upsurge inside the working class, Gomulka, the head of the Polish Communist Party, decided to make alliances with nonrevolutionary forces. The only way for the regime to defeat the militant base of the working class movement was to make a deal with the peasantry and the church.
Land was de-collectivised so that only 10 per cent remained in the hands of the state. The church was allowed full religious practice, representation in parliament, and the right to publish its own newspapers.
Wyszynski loyally urged all Poles to vote for Gomulka in the elections that year and continued to back the regime throughout the 1960s. The church itself flourished in this period.
By the end of the 1960s there were three times as many nuns and twice as many monks in Poland as there had been in the 1930s. Bishops were paid higher salaries than central committee members of the Communist Party.
Another test for the Polish church came in 1968. A big anti-Semitic campaign was launched against intellectuals and dissidents who were critical of the regime. The church hierarchy, who in the inter-war years had backed the semi-fascist National Democracy Party and had a strong tradition of anti-Semitism, raised not a word of protest against these purges.
Adam Michnik, a left wing Christian writing in The Church, the Left and Dialogue, admits that the church's behaviour at this time was worrying: "An unequivocal pronouncement by the bishops about anti-Semitism was badly needed."
Gierek, coming to power in 1970 after another upsurge by Poland's militant working class movement, went straight to Wyszynski for help. The Cardinal urged the workers to pray for "peace and calm" and to put an end to their strike.
Gierek was obviously grateful to Wyszynski. When the latter reached retirement age, the Communist leader sent a personal letter to the Vatican requesting that he should stay on as cardinal.
In dissident intellectual circles in Poland the church undoubtedly has a strong influence. The workers also clearly look to the church as a source of support in their conflict with the government.
But the Polish bishops' new found support for opposition movements is very conditional. They want to know whether the movement will increase their power and privileges in Polish society.
The church wants access to the media, full legal recognition and even more churches built in return for "services rendered to the regime in ending social tension."
As the Human Institute of Conflict Studies has pointed out: "It says much for Cardinal Wyszynski's political skills that he understood that the crisis in Poland could be transformed into a lever for strengthening the position of the church.
CARDINAL WYSZYNSKI
This explains the backing that it passively gave to the opposition movement."
But the church, like the regime, fears nothing more than the mass movement of the striking Polish workers. As the workers' combativity increases their trust in the church grows less and less. Even the "clever" Cardinal Wyszynski is finding the going tough in Poland today.