Since the founding of the Communist state in Poland, the growth of the institutionalized basis of Catholicism there has accelerated. This trend obviously reflects a continuing growth in the social base of support for Catholicism. This article presents church-state relations in terms of confrontation between the church and Communist rule, and it postulates that the Polish Roman Catholic Church has been transformed in the course of its coexistence with Communist rule and resembles very little the Catholic Church of the prewar period. The Roman Catholic Church serves as an alternative legitimate system within Communist Poland. It is an authority system that is not constitutionally recognized, but in real terms it functions as if it were and coexists with the Communist authorities. Moreover, in the eyes of the general public, the role of the Polish church is conditional upon the performance of the Communist regime. The church's authority extends beyond the spiritual and moral domain and directly enters politics and, more recently, the social and cultural life of local communities.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
1. Seymour Martin Lipset, Political Man (New York: Columbia University Press, 1959).
2.
2. F. Zbigniewicz, “Rola Komunistow polskich w orgznizowaniu dzialalnosci LPP oraz polskich sil zbrojnych w ZSSR” [The role of Polish Communists in organizing the activities of LPP and Polish military forces in the Soviet Union], Z pola walki, no. 4, p. 16.
3.
Marian Kostecki , “Organizacyjna historia polski” [Organizational history of Poland] (Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, 1982). For example, in October 1944, the leaders of the Polish Workers Party established a special fiveman Army Department within the Central Committee whose purpose was “to further strengthen the partisan [pro-Communist] elements in the army.” Appointments of party officials to the military command and officers corps followed. Also, recruiting agencies were given more strict instructions to screen out “unreliable and hostile elements.” This obvious political selection meant that recruitment slackened; in November 1944, 10,000 so-called patriots and party-appointed members were delegated to the army and the established schools for officers. Kostecki, “Organizacyjna historia polska.”
4.
4. For example, the following so-called parties and groups were declared to have taken part in setting up the council: the Polish Workers Party, the Polish Workers' Socialist Party, the Peasant Party, the Committee of National Initiative, a group of nonparty democrats, the Underground Trades Union Movement, the Fighting Youth Association, a group of artisans' representatives, and representatives of the People's Guard, the People's Militia, the Peasants' Battalion, and the Regional Formations of the Home Army. Wolna polska, 24 May 1944. To emphasize the grassroots origin of the National Council of the Homeland, it was reported that the council was elected by the voivodeship—the highest administrative territorial unit in Poland—the district councils, and the local councils, which in turn had been elected by patriotic organizations. Ibid., 8 Feb. 1944. However, it was later reported that the voivodeship council of such an important region as Upper Silesia was created only at the beginning of May 1944—over four months after the National Council of the Homeland was founded! Ibid., 24 July 1944.
5.
5. Wladyslaw Gomulka, “Ideologiczne zalozenia manifestu polskiego Komitetu wyzwolenia narodowego” [Ideological principles of the manifesto of the Committee of National Liberation], in Artykuly i przemowienia [Articles and speeches] (Warsaw: Ksiazka i wiedza, 1962).
6.
6. For example, by the decree of 1 September 1942, the government delegate was admitted to the Polish government in the capacity of deputy premier, and three heads of the delegates' 13 administrative departments became cabinet ministers. Polish Daily, 15 Jan. 1944.
7.
7. Following the British-Polish Mutual Assistance Pact, the Polish government in London chose to collaborate with the USSR until the Soviet Union broke diplomatic relations on 25 April 1943, as a result of the Katyn investigation.
8.
8. For example, after the founding of the Committee of National Liberation in 1944 an official daily organ was started under the title Rzeczpospolita, a name strangely reminiscent of that of the official Polish underground movement, Rzeczpospolita Polska. Subsequently names of popular weeklies of various prewar Polish parties were appropriated, such as Robotnik [Worker] of the Polish Socialist Party and Zielony sztandar [Green flag], the publication of the Peasant Party, among others. This imitation extended even to the non-political press. The children's weekly, for example, was Plomyk [The little flame], the reason being that in prewar Poland the Association of Teachers published a popular children's paper under that title. Despite the variety of titles and trends, these Communist papers were very much alike. The leading articles, editorials, political commentary, and anything else of importance appeared as a rule in all papers practically simultaneously, both in openly Communist papers and in papers alleged to represent the socialists, the peasants, and the democrats.
9.
9. The further Sovietization of Poland was accelerated when Soviet Marshal Konstanty Rokossowski became the minister of defense and commander-in-chief of the Polish Army.
10.
10. Wladyslaw Adamskiet al., Polacy 1980 [Poles 1980] (Warsaw: Polish Academy of Sciences, Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, 1981).
11.
11. Andrzej Micewski, Kardynal Wyszynski prymas i maz stanu [Cardinal Wysznyski the primate and the statesman] (Paris: Societe d'editions internationales, 1982).
12.
12. Ibid.
13.
13. M. Marodyet al., Polacy 1980 [Poles 1980] (Warsaw: University of Warsaw, Institute of Sociology, 1983).
14.
14. Neal Ascherson, The Polish August: Self-Limiting Revolution (New York: Penguin Books, 1981).
