tempts to force Polish workers to return to one and the same time to the dilemma work. This was the message contained in Car- Poland's leaders and the strong hold of religion dinal Stefan Wyszynski's sermon broadcast on in Poland. Socialist Challenge talked to Oliver 'If Wyszynski can't get them to return to the Roman Catholic church in Polish society. 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 reintorced 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 and than its Hungarian counterparts. wanted maintain its political influence over the masses and its leader, Cardinal Wyszynski, was clever enough to realise that he could DOI oppose this popular measure.
Although the Polish church pays lip service to supporting ODDOSILOD movements Poland today, a look at its post-war history shows limited that support has been.
After initially opposing the Communist social legislation on abortion, divorce, and civil marriage, deal was struck between church and state in April 1950. As a result the Polish bishops called on the Polish people to respect the laws and institutions of the The church conaemn ciergy wn are gulty of anv underground or anti-state achow. tivity' in return ment allowed religious education in the schools, and the only government's Catholic university in a Communist country, Lublin University, was set up East European mounted a wave of repression as part of a campaign against Tito, the leader of the Yugoslav Party would dared to break with Stalin. and punish those the govern Stalin's death in 1953.
VIOLes was neard was further the working class, who had alliances period of Party.
In Hungary Lazlo Rajk was anti-semitic executed as an 'agent of Tito';
sham trials, torture, and imprisonment took place in every ot the country in Eastern Europe until Yet no fascist from the leaders of the Polish church.
tion In 1956 the close relationship between church and state these purges.
consolidated. the face of the upsurge inside Power Gomulka, the head of the Polish Communist Party, decided to make revolutionary forces. The only TOLE mits way for the regime to defeat the militant base of the working class movement was to make a nouncemen deal with the peasantry and the needed' Land was de-collectivised so that only 10 per cent remained in the hands of the state. The movement, allowcu full religious practice, representaParnament, and the publish own Gierek Wyszynski loyally urged all Poles to vote for Gomulka in the elections that year and conback the the 1960s. The church itself flourished in this By the end of the '60s there were three times as many nuns and twice as many monks in Poland as there had been in the '30s. Bishops were paid higher salaries than central committee members of the Communist, Another test for the Polish church came in 1968. A big campaign was launched against intellectuals and dissidents who were critical church hierarchy, who in the inter-war years had backed the semiNational Democraci Party and had a strong tradiof anti-semitism, raised not a word of protest against sion' Adam Michnik, a left wing Christian writing in The Church, the Left and Dialogue, adthat the latter reached retirement age, the Communist leader sent a personal letter to the Vatican requesting that he should stay on as Cardinal.
dissideni 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.
Skills 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 tenAs 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
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square behind the Polish television last week.
THE Catholic Church in Poland stands four Gierek regime in its at-
work, then there's certainly no politician who can,' commented a Polish journalist, pointing at MacDonald and Jo Singleton about the role of