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Managing Religion in Communist-Era Poland Catholic Priests Versus the Secret Police

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Managing Religion in Communist-Era Poland Catholic Priests Versus the Secret Police SzporerManaging Religion in Communist-Era Poland REVIEW ESSAY Managing Religion in Communist-Era Poland Catholic Priests versus the Secret Police ✣ Michael Szporer Tadeusz Isakowicz-Zaleski, Ksièía wobec Bezpieki [Priests against the Secret Police]. Kraków: Znak, 2007. 433 pp. Solidarity was a moral revolution with strong religious overtones, sparked in large measure by the election of the archbishop of Kraków, Karol Wojtyla, as pope on 16 October 1978 and his historic pilgrimage to Poland on 2 June 1979. These momentous events, which Soviet leaders worried would cause unrest in Poland, were seen by many Poles as a validation of the historical nar- rative of their oppressed land as the “Christ of Nations” resisting “atheistic Communism.” John Paul II evoked this narrative during his second pilgrim- age to Poland during the dark days of martial law, when he memorialized Car- dinal Stefan Wyszyñski, who died on 28 May 1981. The pope told the crowd at St. John’s Cathedral in Warsaw that he stood beneath the cross “with all my compatriots, especially those who are acutely tasting the bitterness of disap- pointment, humiliation, suffering, of being deprived of their freedom, of be- ing wronged, of having their dignity trampled upon.” Solidarity acted in close alliance with the Roman Catholic Church, and the union’s struggle for human dignity and freedom became a question of na- tional redemption, often using religious symbols and rituals such as “the Mass for the Nation,” as acts of deªance and moral cleansing. Although one can ar- gue whether Pope John Paul II was personally the fulcrum of revolt, the rise of Solidarity and the demise of Polish Communism are difªcult to imagine without him. The Roman Catholic Church played a critical role in offsetting the Communist regime, beginning with Primate Stefan Cardinal Wyszyñski. Among the many priests who later helped Poland to freedom were the philos- opher cleric Józef Tischner, who perhaps best exempliªed the values of the Journal of Cold War Studies Vol. 12, No. 3, Summer 2010, pp. 115–120 © 2010 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 115 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/JCWS_a_00004 by guest on 27 September 2021 Szporer democratic opposition; the Solidarity martyr Father Jerzy Popieluszko; and the Free Trade Union (WZZ) priest from Gdynia, Father Hilary Jastak. The Polish security forces made vigorous efforts to penetrate the Polish Catholic Church, eventually enlisting as informants some 15 percent of the 25,000 priests in Poland, but this was a much lower rate of penetration than in other professions, notably journalists and professors. The Polish church for the most part retained its autonomy, faring better than elsewhere in the for- mer Soviet bloc, and helped to shape the opposition mentality that eroded and eventually brought down the system.1 Recent revelations of extensive col- laboration by priests, notably in Father Tadeusz Isakowicz-Zaleski’s acclaimed book, provide a valuable correction to the historical record but do not greatly detract from the image of the Church overall as having resisted Communism. The Church, among other things, served as a refuge for many in the darkest moments of the Communist era and helped to force change by throwing its support behind Solidarity. A Pole of Armenian descent, Father Isakowicz- Zaleski ministered to the striking workers at the Lenin Steel Works in Nowa Huta in 1988. He began his research after familiarizing himself with a 500- page security police ªle on him, which included a video of thugs from the Se- curity Service (SB) in 1985 as they severely beat him and used cigarettes to burn a V for Solidarity victory on his chest. Throughout the Communist era, the Polish secret police fought religion in Poland. During the Stalin era, watchful vigilance against internal political threats was coupled with violent repression. The internal security apparatus in Poland applied extralegal “administrative measures” (to use the phrase coined by Feliks Dzerzhinsky, the founding director of the Soviet state security or- gans) to battle the “enemy within,” including the Catholic Church. The struggle against the Polish church began as early as 12 September 1945 with the abrogation of the Vatican concordat and increased over time with the im- position of severe restrictions on religious institutions through nationalization of church property, the forcible seizure of buildings, limits on church publica- tions, and the closure of publishing houses and print shops.2 In 1952, seminaries and church dormitories were closed, and in subse- 1. In general, rates for collaboration in Poland, judging from the list of around 240,000 names com- piled by Poland’s Instytut Pamiëci Narodowej (Institute of National Remembrance, IPN)—a list leaked by the Polish journalist Branislaw Wildstein in 2005—were lower than in other Soviet-bloc countries. In East Germany, for example, an estimated one in six citizens collaborated with the State Security, and similar rates of collaboration existed in much of the USSR, including the Russian Ortho- dox Church, which was systematically penetrated by the State Security Committee (KGB). The Lithu- anian Catholic Church, which suffered prolonged repression, is still divided between those who re- sisted and those who collaborated and gained leading positions in the hierarchy. The resignation of bishop Stanislaw Wielgus in Poland prompted Lithuanian Cardinal Audrys Backis to give assurance that reorganization of the church in Lithuania had made KGB connections unlikely. 2. The historian Marek Lasota of the IPN argues that the campaign actually began a bit earlier, in 116 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/JCWS_a_00004 by guest on 27 September 2021 Managing Religion in Communist-Era Poland quent years nuns were routinely removed from hospitals, social services, schools, and kindergartens. The forced transfer of 7 million ethnic Germans from Pomerania and Silesia caused irreparable damage to many church collec- tions, archives, and libraries. More than 1,000 Polish priests and nuns were arrested on trumped-up charges, and several dozen were murdered. During Iosif Stalin’s ªnal years in Moscow, the Polish Communists attempted to co- opt the Church, with some initial success, and prepared to destroy it. These efforts, however, ultimately proved futile. The “clerical commission” of the state-sponsored Veterans’ Association included only about a thousand of the so-called patriot priests, some concentration camp victims, and a few combat veterans.3 The marginal inºuence of quasi-religious associations such as PAX, despite the support they received from the regime, reºected the con- tinuing power of the Church. Although the relationship between the Church and the Communist re- gime improved after Stalin’s death—the political changes in 1956 saw the re- lease of Cardinal Wyszyñski—the breathing spell was short-lived. Having failed to destroy the Church, the Polish Communist regime set out to contain it. Although the methods used by the security forces became more reªned, pressure on the Church persisted until 1989 when the Communist regime yielded power to Solidarity. The SB’s tactics of obtaining information and sowing disinformation about the Church were elaborate, involving large net- works of agents. Methods of recruiting informants and agents were reªned, often proceeding gradually over many years, moving in steps from an in- formed source to a responsible citizen to a collaborator and even an intelli- gence agent, as in the case of Father Stanislaw Szlachta (codenamed TW Pátnik by the SB), who served as the “secure source” during John Paul II’s ªrst visit. Isakowicz-Zaleski’s account is sobering but also makes clear that the Church was not in a position of complete subservience. Most clerics refused December 1944, when Colonel Julia Brystiger headed the department for religious affairs at the Min- istry of Public Security. 3. In 1952, 485 “patriot priests” were members of the state-sponsored Society of Fighters for Freedom and Democracy (ZBOWID), which consisted almost entirely of veterans from the army formed in the USSR. An additional 300 belonged to PAX (known until 1950 as the Movement of Progressive Cath- olics), an organization devoted to reconciling the church with the Communist party. According to Hanna Diskin, the Movement of Progressive Catholics was formed on 1 November 1945. Norman Davies claims it was set up in 1947 and refers to it as an anti-Catholic, pseudoreligious organization. Any priest who belonged to a Communist organization faced suspension from duties by order of Car- dinal Wyszyñski and a Vatican decree from 1950 forbidding participation in political organizations without permission from the bishop. See Tomasz Potkaj, “W sumieniu bylem spokojny,” Tygodnik Powszechny (Kraków), 8 September 2002, p. 3; Hanna Diskin, The Seeds of Triumph: Church and State in Gomulka’s Poland (New York: Central European University Press, 2001); and Norman Davies, God’s Playground: A History of Poland in Two Volumes, rev. ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), Vol. 2, p. 579. 117 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/JCWS_a_00004 by guest on 27 September 2021 Szporer to cooperate, and many of those who did collaborate were eventually able to break ties. The book is a carefully weighed, insightful overview of attempts by the security services to penetrate and manage the Church, which was highly vulnerable as it tried to minister to the faithful in a Communist state. The re- gime expended considerable resources on propaganda and constantly moni- tored Church activities, personal correspondence, and private lives through wiretaps, surveillance, and searches. The SB attempted to curb Church inºu- ence through threats, blackmail, and, in cases involving activist priests, arrests, interrogations, and acts of violence, including assault and murder. Isakowicz- Zaleski provides numerous examples of the SB’s pervasive monitoring, such as the bugging of the Kraków archdiocese with listening devices during renova- tion by a construction ªrm that was a police front.
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