Lithuanians and Poles Against Communism After 1956. Parallel Ways to Freedom?
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Lithuanians and Poles against Communism after 1956. Parallel Ways to Freedom? The project has been co-financed by the Department of Public and Cultural Diplomacy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs within the competition ‘Cooperation in the field of public diplomacy 2013.’ The publication expresses only the views of the author and must not be identified with the official stance of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The book is available under the Creative Commons Attribution License 3.0, Poland. Some rights have been reserved to the authors and the Faculty of International and Po- litical Studies of the Jagiellonian University. This piece has been created as a part of the competition ‘Cooperation in the Field of Public Diplomacy in 2013,’ implemented by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2013. It is permitted to use this work, provided that the above information, including the information on the applicable license, holders of rights and competition ‘Cooperation in the field of public diplomacy 2013’ is included. Translated from Polish by Anna Sekułowicz and Łukasz Moskała Translated from Lithuanian by Aldona Matulytė Copy-edited by Keith Horeschka Cover designe by Bartłomiej Klepiński ISBN 978-609-8086-05-8 © PI Bernardinai.lt, 2015 © Jagiellonian University, 2015 Lithuanians and Poles against Communism after 1956. Parallel Ways to Freedom? Editet by Katarzyna Korzeniewska, Adam Mielczarek, Monika Kareniauskaitė, and Małgorzata Stefanowicz Vilnius 2015 Table of Contents 7 Katarzyna Korzeniewska, Adam Mielczarek, Monika Kareniauskaitė, Małgorzata Stefanowicz Anti-communist Opposition in Poland and Lithuania – a Similar, Common or Parallel Phenomenon? 23 Danutė Gailienė Traumas Inflicted by the Soviet and the Nazi Regimes in Lithuania: Research into the Psychological Aftermath 59 Gražina Gudaitė Reflections of the Soviet Legacy in the Life of an Individual and the Psychotherapeutic Process 81 Monika Kareniauskaitė Anti-communist Tendencies in Soviet Lithuania between 1965 and 1988: Shape, Contents and Development 109 Valdemaras Klumbys Change in the Concepts of the Relation between an Individual and the Regime in Lithuanian Sovietology 141 Jerzy Kochanowski “We Are too Poor to Stay in Poland for Holidays…” Mass Tourism and Illegal Trade in 1960s. The Polish Perspective 163 Regina Laukaitytė Relations between Lithuanian Monastic Institutions and the West during the Soviet Period 183 Michał Łuczewski Lord and Giver of Solidarity. The Anatomy of a Top-down Revolution 205 Krzysztof Mazur Inapplicability of the Solidarity Movement. On the Reasons behind Rejecting a Project of the Political Social Movement 229 Adam Mielczarek Solidarity in the Framework of Social Movement Theory 257 Ainė Ramonaitė and Jūratė Kavaliauskaitė Free from The Soviet Regime: Self-subsistent Society in Soviet Lithuania 285 Paweł Sowiński Samizdat – the Art of Polish Publishing Resistance 311 Marek Wierzbicki Playing Politics or Play as Politics? A Study of a Portrait of Young Opposition of the 1980s 335 Dainius Žalimas The International Legal Status of Lithuania and its Resistance to the Soviet Union 375 Marcin Zaremba Cold, Hot, Boiling. Attitudes of Poles from the ‘Winter of the Century’ until the Summer of 1980 Anti-communist Opposition in Poland and Lithuania – a Similar, Common or Parallel Phenomenon Katarzyna Korzeniewska, 1 Adam Mielczarek, 2 Monika Kareniauskaitė, Małgorzata Stefanowicz Anti-communist Opposition in Poland and Lithuania – a Similar, Common or Parallel Phenomenon? The question concerning the extent to which Lithuania and Poland’s path in the struggle against communism could be seen as common or parallel, requires some justification. On the one hand, there are few studies that would compare the experience of the anti-communist dissent in different countries. This phe- nomenon is most often perceived as unique and impossible to compare. On the other hand, in the political and moral dimension, all these particular experi- ences were in fact a struggle against a common enemy. One more argument in favor of the very idea of comparing the experiences of Poland and Lithuania is the subjective factor – the image of Poles and Lithuanians as nations leading the anti-communist resistance among other communist countries and Sovi- et republics (including Russia itself), respectively. This was true both in the post-war period and later, in the post-Stalinist era, which is the focus of this book. In terms of historical knowledge, it is difficult to deny the exceptional dynamism of the pro-independence attitudes in both Polish and Lithuanian societies of that time. 1 The research has been financed with the resources of the National Science Centre awarded in the framework of financing post-doctoral internships under the decision no. DEC-2013/08/S/HS3/00508. 2 The research has been financed with the resources of the National Science Centre awarded in the framework of financing post-doctoral internships under the decision no. DEC-2013/08/S/HS6/00199. 7 Katarzyna Korzeniewska, Adam Mielczarek, Monika Kareniauskaitė, Małgorzata Stefanowicz After the end of the war in Poland, mass resistance of the armed under- ground structures lasted until 1947, and single formations survived until 1956 and beyond. 3 After the armed opposition ceased to exist and long before the breakthrough of the 1980s, Poland – much more often than other Soviet satellite countries – experienced mass anti-government demonstrations (1956, 1968, 1970 and 1976). The unique feature of the Polish dissent was also the variety of its forms – from independent activities of informal groups and communities, through the underground publishing movement (which was extremely rich both in terms of quantity and form) to organized civic activity, both under- ground and public. The culmination of these experiences was the rise of trade unions independent of the communist authorities – their sheer size of 10 million members was unmatched in other communist countries. The introduction of Martial Law in December 1981 and forcing the Solidarity Trade Unions underground did not stop the opposition – in fact, it often caused just the opposite: the independent publishing movement which started in 1976, in the 1980s produced hundreds of underground books and periodicals in editions of many thousands of copies. In Lithuania, long after the guerrilla war of the early 1950s ended, mass demonstrations of discontent did not appear. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the anti-communist dissent was just based on ephemeral activities of small groups of young people or individuals, which mostly boiled down to produc- ing several copies of anti-Soviet leaflets. It was the year 1972 which brought changes in this respect: a petition in defense of the freedom of conscience was signed by 17 thousand inhabitants of the three million republic. In Kaunas, several days of youth demonstrations and riots in May, which took place after the politically motivated self-immolation of Romas Kalanta showed that the 3 R. Wnuk et al., Atlas polskiego podziemia niepodległościowego 1944-1956 (Warszawa: IPN, 2007). 8 Anti-communist Opposition in Poland and Lithuania – a Similar, Common or Parallel Phenomenon Soviet regime could not count on the loyalty of a generation raised in Soviet Lithuania. What is more, it also showed that a spectacular, single act of po- litical protest may trigger mass reactions. Such reaction had no analogue in any Baltic State nor Ukraine or Russia. Also Lithuania – albeit in different conditions – developed a range of independent publications: in 1972, the first issue of The Chronicle of the Catholic Church of Lithuania appeared, and after that numerous book titles and several titles of periodicals were published by the underground press with editions of varying size and continuity, as well as political and ideological orientations: nationalist, Catholic, liberal-intellectual or socialist. From 1970s onwards, Lithuanian anti-communist dissent had been growing in scope and forms: public statements against the violation of human rights by the Soviet regime were made; people undertook activities outside the control of authorities: participated in informal religious, folk or subculture groups and took part in collective manifestations and demonstra- tions. It seems that the number and outreach of underground publications in Lithuania by far exceeded those published in fellow Soviet republics and was rather comparable in its scope with this of other socialist countries, such as Czechoslovakia. 4 Due to the fact that the attitudes of dissent in Lithuania were relatively frequent and spectacular, the country may be seen as more similar to Soviet satellite countries rather than other Soviet republics or Russia itself. The process of growing dissent proved to be crucial for the 1988 birth and shaping of Sąjūdis – a mass reformist movement which finally led to the emancipation of Lithuania from the Soviet Union. 4 See: J. Posset, Česká samizdatová periodika (1968-1989) (Brno: Továrna na sítotisk, 1991) and A. Ruzgas, Rezistentų pogrindiniai periodiniai leidiniai (okupacijų metai, 1940–1989): leidinių sąvadas (Vilnius: LGGRTC, 2010) for Czech and Lithuanian samizdat perio- dicals, respectively. According to bibliographies collected by both authors’, there was about 30 titles published in Lithuania and about 150 issued in the Czech part of Czechoslovakia during 1970 and 1990. Taking into account the proportion of inhabitants in both countries, intensity of the phenomenon is comparable. 9 Katarzyna Korzeniewska, Adam Mielczarek,