** Cold War Poland Catholic Church








Cold War Poland: The Catholic Church


Figure 1.--The Communists like the NAZIs attempted to destroy the Polish Catholic Church during World War II. The communists brutally renewed that campaign after the War during the Stalinist era. After the 20th Party Congress, the Communists adopted a more restrained, but still hostile policies toward the Church, recognizing that the devotion of the Polish Church could not be crushed. Rather a kind of uneasy standoff developed between the Church and Communist state. Here Polish Catholics are openly celebrating the First Communion of their children, we think in the 1960s. The Communists adooted a longer term, less brutal effort to supress the Church. Then two events upended Communist plans. The Catholic Church chose a popular Polish cardinal to be pope (1978) and Polish workers founded Solidarity (1980).

Adolf Hitler and his ally, Joseph Stalin, invaded Poland launching World War II (1939). The occupation of Poland was a disaster not only for the Polish people, but for the Catholic Churchn itself. The Germans and Soviets set out to destroy the Polish nation and the Church after the disolution of the Polish state, the Army, and the universities, was the only important national institution left standing. The German supression of the Church was most brutal in the areas of Western Poland annexed to the Reich. Priests were shot or arrested and interned in concentration camps where many perished. The Germans are believed to have killed some 3,000 priests. Others were deported to the General Government. And had the Germans prevailed in the War the priests in the General Government as well as the general population would have eventually been targeted there as well as part of Generalplan Ost. This was a foretast as to what the NAZIs palnned for the larger Reich after the War, the destruction of Christian churches and the creation of a new NAZI state religion. The Soviet authorities in the parts of eastern Poland that they invaded and occupied also attacked the Church. Priests were among those Poles the NKVD shot or deported. And after the Red Army drove out the Germans (1944), Soviet authorities renewed the attack on the Church. Poland's new Stalinist leaders under Soviet tutaledge launched a brutal campaign of supression, adopting the tactics of the atheists campaigns in the Soviet Union. This did not end until Stalin's death (1953). Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski had become an international symbol of resistance to totalitarian Communism. The 20th Party Congress ushered in a new era (1956). Communist Party reformers ended much but not all of the brutality. They did not, however, end its efforts to supress the Church which was a integral component of Marxism. They recognized that the devotion of the Polish people was to strong to attack fontally. A kind of informal truce developed between the Communist State and Catholic Episcopate. The open assault on the Church would end, but a range of less brutal restrictions. In return, the Church would not only refrain from involving itself in politics, but recognize the legitimacy of the Communist state. As a result, Polish Church gained a range of toleration and freedoms that were unprecedented in the Soviet Empire. The Church was allowed to publish periodicals, although the Goverment severaly limited the number of copies published. The Church's right to control the selection and training of its priests was recognized. Most astounding was allowing religious education to again take place in state schools. There were, however, restrictions and these were expanded as the spirit of the 20th Party Congress wained and the Communists continue its struggle with the Church. The clergy remained stidently anti-Communist and the bishops would at time speak out against government policies. This of course was anethma to the Communists who saw all criticism as essentially a crime and only confirmed the need to destroy the Church. Only the devotion of the Polish people prevented this. The Ministerstwo Bezpieczeństwa Publicznego (Ministry of Public Security of Poland -- MBP) covertly surveilled the clergy. Priests who stepped over a poorly defined line were arrested for a wide range of real or imagined offenses. The Communists also set up a wide range bureaucratic obstacles. The most serious was to make it difficult to build new churches for the faithful seeking defy the Comminists. The Communists had total control over the media and used it to relentlessly attack the Church. This was less effective than it migh be because the widrer population understood at the Government controlled media could not be believed. The state and church eventually came to understand that they lacked the power to destroy the other. A kimd of uneasy stability developed. Although Communist rule continued repressive, they were unable to supress the Catholic Church. Not only does did Church survive the Stalinist era, but it florished. The Church emerges as the most prestigious national institution, the only one that stood up to Soviet domination. And then two earth shattering developments rocked Poland. First the Catholic Church chose a Polish Pope--John Paul II (1978). At first the Communists did not understand how important this was and were unsure how to address it. Second, Polish workers founded Solidarity (1980). This shocked the Communist authorities in Warsaw and Miscow--workers were susposed to be the bed rock of Communist rule. Instead they were deeply devoted to the Church, mistifying to doctrinaire Communists. Together the Polish Church backed by the Varican and Solidarity began the destruction of the Commnist state and wth it the entire Soviet Empire.

World War II (1939-45)

Adolf Hitler and his ally, Joseph Stalin, invaded Poland launching World War II (1939). The occupation of Poland was a disaster not only for the Polish people, but for the Catholic Churchn itself. The Germans and Soviets set out to destroy the Polish nation and the Church after the disolution of the Polish state, the Army, and the universities, was the only important national institution left standing. The German supression of the Church was most brutal in the areas of Western Poland annexed to the Reich. Priests were shot or arrested and interned in concentration camps where many perished. The Germans are believed to have killed some 3,000 priests. Others were deported to the General Government. And had the Germans prevailed in the War the priests in the General Government as well as the general population wuld have eventually been targeted there as well as part of Generalplan Ost. This was a foretast as to what the NAZIs palnned for the larger Reich after the War, the destruction of Christian churches and the creation of a new NAZI state religion. The Soviet authorities in the parts of eastern Poland that they invaded and occupied also attacked the Church. The Sovietbattack on the searchbwas even more brutalmand thorough than the NAZI assault. Priests were a prime NKVD tarket. Monastaries were closed. Priests were among the Poles the NKVD shot or deported. We are less sure about nuns. We do not know if they were shit, but they were deprted. Both were encarcerated in the Gulag.

Soviet Victory in the East (1944-45)

Liberation is unlike the sitution in Western Europe not the correct term for what occurred in Eastern Europe at the end of the War. It has to be understood that World War II was not launched by Hitler alone. It was a joint effort by Hitler and Stalin who partitioned Eastern Europe among them (1939). What happened in Poland was just which vicuiys totalitarian state would prevail. It proved to be the Soviet Union, but in no way was in liberation. The only real difference between the two was that the Soviets were not set on the mass extermination of the Polish people as revealed in Generalpln Ost. That is of course a hge difference, but it does not mean that the Soviets were not intent on mass murder and the destruction of the Polish nation and church. As a result of the World War II experience and relations with the West, Stalin modified his goals. He now accepted the existence of a Polish state, along as he could control it. But he was still internt on destroying the church as part of his atheism campaign and because it was an independent Polish nationlist institution. And he moved the Polish nation with all its Catholics east --redrawing borders and deporting Poles in the east to the west.

Stalinist Era (1944-56)

The Red Army swept into Poland as part of Operation Bagration, the great Soviet offensive that destroyed German Army Grouo Center, driving the German beyond the Vistula (July-August 1944). The Soviets at the same time created the Polish Committee of National Liberation/Lublin Committe to challenge the Polish Governent in Exile (July 1944). They made promises of democracy and civil rights. And they promises to the Church in Poland, including restoration of property that had been seized by the NAZIs (1939-44) and NKVD (1939-41). [Cieplak] The Red Army drove the Germans out ofthevrest of Polans (late-1944). Once in powerm, Soviet authorities renewed their assault on the Church thatbthey had began (1939). Poland's new Communist leaders has been carefully selected by Stalin. And under orders from Stalin initiated a brutal campaign. They found that bthey could not use the tactics the the Soviets were urging. Stalin had used incredadbly brutal tactives including executions and deportations as a NAZI ally during the World War II occupation of Poland (1939-41). [Solzhenitsyn, p. 77.] Repressive policies were renewed after the Soviets regained control of Poland (1944-45). This would continue even after Stalin's death (1953). The Poland the Comminists ruled after 1945 was a very different country than before the War. The NAZIs obliterated the large Jewish minority (1939-43). The German minority fled or were expelled (1945-46). Than the Soviets annexed pre-War eastern Poland and expelled ethnic Poles. Eastern Poland had diverse ethhnic population invluding Belarusians, and Ukrainians, many of whom were Eastern Oerhodox. Thus the post-War Poland was a very homomgenous population of Poles committed to the Catholic Church which had a long history of resisting foreign occupation. [Ediger] The Polish Communists now in power saw that a more gradual atheist camapign was needed. There was a strange mixture of Catholcism and Connunism at first. Polish Comminist General Karol Świerczewski, a hard-core Stalimist, was given Catholic funeral rites. Communist state-controlled radio broadcast mass until 1947. Comminist Bolesław Bierut's presidential oath 1947 ended with the phrase 'so help me God' (1947). [Tighe] This gradual approach was not well recieved in the Krelmin. The Polish Comminists actually made concessiins to the Church. Concessions that were not made elsewhere in the new Soviet empire. Notably, religious instruction was allowed in the schools, but the authoriries adopted measures deigned to limit Church activiries, especially access to children. The actions against the Church did not weaken public attachment to the Church, it did weakened public support for the Communists whuch in turn made them increasingly dependent on the Soviets. [Dinka] This in turn alienated fomestic support. President Bierut led a faction of the Party which advocated adopting brutal Soviet methods. Władysław Gomułka and other modderates advocated a more vmoderate uniquely Polish system, meaning not slavishly following the Soviet. Immrdiately after seizing Eastern Europe at the end of the War, Stalin followed a policy if involving non-Communist parties, but then initiated a policy of seizing abasolure power and applying Soviet policies. In Poland, Bierut initiated policies sesigned to turn Poland into a Stalinist state (1948). Religion was actively discouraged tompromote Communism. [Walaszek] The Communist Government sought to eliminate the presence of the Church and Catholicism and religion from Polish natiinal culture. As part of this effort, the Communists introfuced multiple policies tobdestriy thevChurch. First, they began to isolate the Polish Church from the Vatican. Second, the Governmrnt sought to turn punlic opinion against the Church. Third the Govrnment tried to disrupt the functionong of the Church andcsewdiscenbsion by appointing true religious leaders with clerics eilling to follow dictates of the Church. [Staar] Fourth, marriage had been secularized earlier, but civil records were removed from the clergy's jurisdiction (1949). [Walaszek] Polish society after experiencing war-time pescurions at the hands of the NAZIs and Soviets (1939-45) was not inprepared for the post-War Stalinist policies. The primate of Poland, August Cardinal Hlondon, had instructrd Catholics not to support political parties that were hostile opposed to Catholic teachings. [Dolan] He was the only member of the College of Cardinals to be arrested and taken into custody by the Gestapo during World War II. This instruction was suppressed by the Governmnt (1946). Some Poles knew about what had occurred in the Soviet Union. Others were aware of the Katyn and other NKVD killing opperations. The Church leaders were even better unformed than the generalm public. There was a long history even before the Bolshevik Revolution in the Soviet Union of operation under the rule of hostile regimes. [Clark] The Polish state has disappeared as a result of Polish Partitions (18th century). Poland was divided between Aus-tria, Prussia, and Russia. The Prussians and Russians in particular were hostile to both Poles and their Catholic religion. These tactics generally worked elsewhere in the Soviet Eastern European Empire. They did not work in Poland. Pples organized underground universities whuch taught uncensored history including lessons in Polish nationl history and culture. Many Poles continued to openly attend Church sevices. [Ediger] In fact, Church attendance gradually increased to the consternation to Government and Communist Party officials and their ever watchful Soviet handlers. There were several reasons that the Communist ateist campaihn failed. First, was the devotion of the Polish people to the Church rooted in both moral and historical reasons. Second, the failure of Communism to produce a pesperous economy. Third, the brutality of Communist rule. Fourth, ironivally the fact that the the Communists never employed the degree of lethality and and brutality Stalin emoloyed in the Soviet atheist campaign. Stefan Wyszynski gradually emerged during the Stalinist era as the Church's leader in a three decades struggle with Communist authorities. Nikita Khrushchev's Secret Speech at the Soviet 20th Party Congress ushered in a new era of reforms (1956). The Khrushchev ordered intervention in Hungary and threat of intervention in Poland, however, made it very clear that there were limit on what the Soviet Union would tolerate.

Truce (1956-70)

Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski had become during the Stalinist era an international symbol of resistance to totalitarian Communism. Lesser individuls could be quietly dispathed by NKVD and MBP, but actions against Cardinal Wyszynski would have caused an international outcry. The 20th Party Congress ushered in a new era (1956). Communist Party reformers ended much but not all of the brutality. They did not, however, end its efforts to supress the Church which was a integral component of Marxism. They recognized that the devotion of the Polish people was to strong to attack frontally, unlike the siuation in the Soviet Union itself, and other countries in the Soviet Eastern European empire. A kind of informal truce developed between the Communist State and Catholic Episcopate. The open assault on the Church would end, but a range of less brutal restrictions. In return, the Church would not only refrain from involving itself in politics, but recognize the legitimacy of the Communist state. As a result, Polish Church gained a range of toleration and freedoms that were unprecedented within the Soviet Empire. The Church was allowed to publish periodicals, although the Goverment severaly limited the number of copies published. The Church's right to control the selection and training of its priests was recognized. Most astounding was allowing religious education to again take place in state schools. Given the beliefs of Catholics and Communists, it was from the beginning an uneasy truce.

Continuing Tension (1970s)

Despite the uneasy truce that developed after Stain died. There were continuing restrictions on the Church and incidents with the Church speaking out and the Ministerstwo Bezpieczeństwa Publicznego (Ministry of Public Security-- MBP) acting lawlessly. It is likely that both individual priests and MBP men at times acted outside the direction of their superiors. And gradually the Communists reintroduced restrictions as the spirit of the 20th Party Congress wained and the Communists continue its struggle with the Church. Another issue was that the Soviet leaders were less tolerant that the Communist Polish leaders nd wanted stronger actions aginst the church. The clergy remained stidently anti-Communist and the bishops would at time speak out against government policies. This of course was anethma to the Communists who saw all criticism as essentially a crime and only confirmed the need to destroy the Church. Only the devotion of the Polish people prevented this. The MBP covertly surveilled the clergy. Priests who stepped over a poorly defined line or were particularly successful might be arrested for a wide range of real or imagined offenses. The Communists also set up a wide range bureaucratic obstacles. The most serious was to make it difficult to build new churches for the faithful seeking to defy the Communists. The Communists had total control over the media and used it to relentlessly attack the Church. This was less effective than it might have been because the widrer population understood at the Government controlled media could not be believed. Coomunist economic failure was another fsctor. The state and church eventually came to understand that they lacked the power to destroy the other. A kimd of uneasy stability developed, but the fact that the Church florished and the Communists flundered meant that there was growing tension which could not be controlled forever.

The Church Flourished

Although Communist rule continued repressive, they were unable to supress the Catholic Church. The Communists were astonihed to find that only does did Church survive the Stalinist era, but it florished. This was in sharp contrast to Communist Poland. The inherent flaws of Communism ment that the Communists failed economicall in cotrast to the capitalist west. Inefficient state enterprises could not afford to pay workers living salaries. The Church emerged as the most prestigious national institution, the only one that stood up to Soviet domination. Anti-Russian feeling was a major thread in Polish history. And then two earth shattering developments rocked Poland--a Polish pope and Solidarity.

Pope John Paul II (1978)

The Catholic Church astonished the world by electing a Polish Pope--John Paul II (1978). Popes for centuries were Italians. And the idea of a pope from a Communist country was someting no one had ever conceived. At first the Communists did not understand how important this was and were unsure how to address it. They never thought that there would be of all things a Polish pope. And once removed from Poland, the Communists had no way to control him aneven less ability to control the Polish church. And the Kremlin was also at first not concerned. Stalin's dictim (How many divisions does the pop have?) still held sway. They would soon change their mind. It is widely believed that the KGB set in motion a plot to kill the Pope.

Solidarity (1980)

Equally astonishing was that Polish workers suceeded in founding an anti-Communist labor movement with ties to the church -- Solidarity (1980). This shocked the Communist authorities in Warsaw and Moscow--workers were susposed to be the bed rock of Communist rule. The idea of anti-Communist lbor movement set Communism on its head. Instead Polish workers were deeply devoted to the Church, mistifying to doctrinaire Communists. Together the Polish Church backed by a modern holy alliance of the Vatican, Solidarity, amd American President Ronld Reagan began the destruction of the Communist state aparatus and with it eventuually the entire Soviet Empire.

Sources

Clark, Joanna Rostropowicz. "The Church and the Communist power," Sarmatian Review Vol. 30, Mo. 2 (2010).

Cieplak, Tadeusz, N. "Church and state in People's Poland," Polish American Studies Vol. 26, No. 2 (Autumn, 1969), pp. 15-30.

Dinka, Frank. "Sources of Conflict between Church and State in Poland," The Review of Politics Vol. 28, No. 3 (July, 1966), pp. 332-49.

Dolan, Edward. "Post-War Poland and the Church," American Slavic and East European Review Vol. 14, No. 1 (February 1955), pp. 84-92.

Ediger, Ruth M. "History of an institution as a factor for predicting church institutional behavior: The cases of the Catholic Church in Poland, the Orthodox Church in Romania, and the Protestant churches in East Germany," East European Quarterly Vol. 39, No. 3 (2005).

Solzhenitsyn, Alexsanddr I. Trans, Thomas P. Wjitney. The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-56: An Experiment in Literary Investigation (Harper & Row: New York, 1973), 660p.

Staar, Richard F. " The Church of silence in Communist Poland," The Catholic Historical Review Vol. 42, No. 3 (October 1956), pp. 296-321.

Tighe, Carl. "Cultural pathology: Rroots of Polish literary opposition to Communism,." Journal of European Studies Vol. 29, No. 2 (1999).

Walaszek, Zdzislawa. "An open iissue of legitimacy: The state and the Church in Poland," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science Vol. 483, "Religion and the state: The struggle for legitimacy and power (January 1986), pp. 118-34.







CIH -- Cold War






Navigate the CIH Cod War Section:
[Return to Main Polish Cold War page]
[Return to Main Cold War country page]
[Return to Main Wastern European revolts page]
[Return to Main Communism page]
[Return to Polish religious history page]
[Return to Main Polish history page]
[About Us]
[Assessment] [Biogrphies] [Countries] [Communism] [Culture] [Decolonization] [Economics] [Famines] [Fashion] [Freedom] [Hot wars] [Human rights] [Inteligence]
[Mass killing] [Military] [Pacifism] [Phases] [Science] [Totalitarianism] [Weaponry]
[Bibliographies] [Contributions] [FAQs] [Images] [Links] [Registration] [Tools]
[Return to the Cold war Home page]
[Return to the 20th century wars and crises]
[Return to CIH Home page]






Created: 6:49 PM 1/2/2014
Last updated: 1:11 PM 5/9/2020