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Distractive Talk-Society

Reestablishing the Foundations of Interaction

Matthew M. Kryzanowski

The Benefits & Drawbacks of Living in a Discursive Society

Western society is primed for talk. In modern times, it would be even more observant to say that in the West, we have become all mouth. The linguistic approach to attaining knowledge is embedded into Western cultural consciousness, and we reap the benefits. Yet, it is as though we have forgotten there are moments where what is not said reveals greater truths to us more than can be understood through words.

At the quarter century mark, there is merciless competition for our attention. For example, a cell phone pings in the middle of a blossoming conversation. It is ignored. The phone pings again, then annoyingly, it pings more. Finally, an: “I have to take this” completely derails the present moment and the presence within it. Modern culture easily leads to distraction. Distraction is the greatest form of modern temptation. How could it not be so? Bullet-like messaging bombards us from any direction!

Amid an intentional deep read online (of something that can no longer be found elsewhere), multiple out of context pop-up messages might suddenly appear on a reader’s screen. The reader becomes disoriented momentarily. The reader turns their attention to clicking away from the intrusions. But then, the disruption causes the reader to be unable to relocate the article in which they had formerly been immersed. Worse still, the reader might have been so far torn out of their contemplative state that the deeper understanding or truth they were seeking became lost. These things can happen even when technology is only minimally involved. It would be difficult to say that these things do not happen in the absence of technology because sophisticated forms of technology have become deeply enmeshed into everything we do. As a result, it is easy to forget that it remains present.

Paradoxically, the ways in which the discursive bias in Western culture have been a tremendous benefit and blessing have also led to the escalating problems of today’s loud and abrupt world. Historically, concepts such as freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of association (including religious freedoms), when treated responsibly, have been drivers of Western innovation and economic prosperity (including responsible electronic expression of the same). Being able to discuss difficult ideas in good faith, in open and objective ways, even perhaps through heated but civil and respectful dialogue, without fear of reprisal, has assisted Western nations in becoming the most prosperous in history. Open exchange of ideas among individuals, free from intrusion of monarchy, or free from the prying eyes of a government looking down on citizens, has benefited the West. However, it is reasonable to say that it has become increasingly difficult during the age of technology overload for Western societies to continue to uphold these long-held principles of civil interaction.

When societies encourage, or at least, do not discourage people from freely exchanging information and freely discussing ideas, ideas debated and civilly agreed or disagreed upon, conducted in a manner such that people who dialogue can detach the quality of the ideas a person speaks from the character of the person speaking the ideas, contributes to robust and healthy civic dialogue. Even if an idea is spoken that does not further an important discussion, or is full of erroneous assumptions, it is better that it be heard rather than to have an idea fester under the surface because it goes unheard, or if it has been rendered unspeakable. The freedom to engage in open discourse is foundational to the core of any healthy, just, and civil society. Societies where people are encouraged to speak their mind become blessed with civic engagement, and an optimistic and hopeful citizenry personally invested in the betterment of society. Turning to the way that spiritual matters have been traditionally conducted, the Western spiritual/religious consciousness has followed a primarily discursive trajectory also, and where religious and spiritual dialogue and ideas are exchanged freely, without fear of reprisal, this has been beneficial similarly.

Intellectual stimulation and vigorous discussion are of course something the brain craves (tech companies know this). When a new level or form of knowing or understanding is attained through efforts of the mind, these sorts of  ‘mind-accomplishments’ might settle the ‘talk-brain’ for a time. The mind will rest itself in satisfaction. Yet, even when the talk-mind rests, it will not rest for long. The talk-mind craves newness. It becomes restless, even agitated, in the absence of more stimulation. Curiosity within the talk-brain is seeking greater ‘highs.’ This is true even though the Western world has already achieved a historically high degree of economic and material prosperity, a level attainable for the average person, such that the abundance of which would cause Roman emperors to gasp. Unfortunately, the level of material abundance achieved has been accompanied by complacency, indifference, and even restlessness. The Western discursive mindset has created such a comfortable and successful way of life that purposelessness and boredom abound, and people are seeking something more still.

At the core of the Western talk-brain is the will to pursue something fresh, something new, something that surpasses what has been experienced previously. This something reflects a desire within people to seek out and connect with something that is contradictorily, less tangible than what material abundance can provide.

So what is it then?

Amid the chatter, the e-distractions, the quest for newness, what is it that is new that we are really seeking to discover? Is what we are seeking new in one sense, yet not ‘new’ in a different sense? Is what we are seeking both good and new? What does the last question mean in the Christian sense?

What drives inspiration within the inquiring talk-mind? How often has someone found a solution to a persistent problem and when asked how they figured out what to do, they simply said that it ‘just came’ to them? How often has an inquisitive mind stumbled onto something great they were not expecting and asked: ‘How does that work?’ Only to go on to find a new and wonderful solution to a yet unresolved problem? Also, perpetual day-in-day-out efforts of methodical and repetitive brain work might, in other situations, yield benefit for society in cumulative effect. There are few limits to what the discursive talk-brain can do. Therefore, it must be asked then, not only, what is the talk-mind really seeking, but also, what inspires the talk-mind to manifest itself to word?

Often, we are aware of our own mind while it operates in the background, we can question our own thoughts internally, we can even second guess ourselves. By second guessing our own mind we have a built-in check and balance for how we represent ourselves to others. These things are foundational to ensuring that our talk-mind will express itself in a sensible way.

However, there is something the restless talk-mind cannot resolve with more words. The talk-mind as manifestation of a restless spirit, simply put, requires rest. As a talk-mind cannot be made to rest through more talking, so it is that a restless spirit cannot be made to settle when it is distracted. To settle one’s restless spirit is not the same sort of problem as settling one’s restless mind. A restless spirit cannot be resolved in the same way intellectual problems can be resolved. The logical talk-mind can find the answer to 453 x 521 and feel settled at least for a moment. With a person’s spirit, the restlessness within it requires a different kind of settling. Like the overly talkative mind, a spirit that has become overly restless but cannot settle with ease, and has become a suffering spirit. Both require something more, not only to be restored from modern life’s endless busyness, but both require something more to be prepared for what modern life brings.

How Jesus Prepared Himself to Deliver the Sermon on the Mount

It could be said that Jesus began his ministry with the Sermon on the Mount. It was during the Sermon on the Mount that Jesus first addressed the considerable number of followers who sought him and drew near to him. Yet, what it was that attracted Jesus’ followers to him in the first place, if not his words?

If we read into the Gospel of Matthew as literal narrative for a moment, people came to Jesus when they realized he was able to heal them of sickness, both physically and spiritually (Matt. 4:23). Jesus healed all kinds of illnesses of mind, body, and spirit (Matt. 4:24). In the sense of healing the mind and spirit, Jesus healed people from the things that had a hold over them. This in the sense that ‘demons’ can be thought of as illness of mind and spirit (Matt. 4:24). It was not until after news of, and witness to the healing power of Jesus spread, that Jesus then addressed his followers in a more formal and authoritative way with the spoken word on the mount (Matt. 5:2). Not only this, but before Jesus spoke the Word of his great message, the authority of the words he spoke rested upon a deeper foundation still.

The Authority of the Sermon on the Mount did not come from the Words Jesus Spoke Alone. The Precedent for the Sermon was First Built on a Non-Discursive Foundation

Spiritual Foundation: John the Baptist was reluctant to baptize Jesus (Matt. 3:14). Nevertheless, in fellowship, Jesus assured John the Baptist that it was indeed justifiable for John to baptize him (Matt. 3:15). By sanctioning John the Baptist to do this, it signified the completion (fulfillment as at Matt. 3:15) of the old covenant the Jews already had with God. With the fulfillment of the old covenant completed, the new covenant that would be revealed through Jesus had also begun (Matt. 3:16).

Reflective Foundation: Jesus then went with the Spirit into the desert (Matt. 4:1). He was alone, fasted, and became hungry (Matt. 4:2). As people, when we are alone with our thoughts and our longings (hungers), both spiritually and physically, we are more likely to become receptive to the temptations of this world. So, before we can really know this world, and become steadfast within it, we must confront ourselves alone, to know ourselves first. In modern times, we can read into Jesus’ time alone in the wilderness and see that today’s temptations reside in distractions that pull us away from being both present and with presence. We can also read into Jesus’ time in the wilderness to clearly see the ways in which the present world readily offers multiple pathways not only to individual distraction but worse, to individual self-destruction. More importantly of course, from how Jesus spent time alone in the wilderness, we can reflect and learn from the ways in which he renounced the ills of this world.

Healing Foundation: After choosing his disciples (Matt. 4:17-22), Jesus taught initially in local synagogues in Galilee (Matt. 4:23). More notably, at this time Jesus directly sought out the ill and infirm to heal them (Matt. 4:23-24). It is also notable to point out that it was Jesus’ capacity to heal physical illness, spiritual sickness, and diseases of mind, that particularly drew crowds from regions nearby and from far away (Matt. 4:24-25)

If the Gospel of Matthew can be taken as chronological narrative of the events that began Jesus’ ministry, then, it was not until Jesus had first established his ministry upon the above spiritual, contemplative, and healing foundation that his sermon was delivered, and delivered with the weight and significance it carries to this day. If the above is accepted, then it was on a non-discursive foundation by which Jesus’ authority was established, and it was upon this authority that so many people were drawn to him and his teachings. After Jesus modelled this formative template, it is then that the Gospel of Matthew describes how Jesus started the Sermon on the Mount : "...opening His mouth, He began to teach them..." (Matt. 5:2, NASB).

The greatest teaching on the ethical standard for human interaction and on the relationship between people and God was given by Jesus only after he had searched himself. If the son of man looked inward before opening his mouth to speak, so should we. There is something to be said for familiar axioms such as “think before you speak,” “know thyself” or other figures of speech related to what we say. For Christians, the Book of Proverbs, notably in chapters 15-18,   provides insightful wisdom into what happens when our words are not grounded in healthy faith, nor connected with our spiritual and contemplative self. Ensuring that our words and actions are aligned in heart and mind with the teachings of Christ and the ethical standard of living he set for us is as important in the 21st century as it has ever been. 

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Polish Catholic Resistance to Soviet Terror

Faith, Identity & Non-Violence

Timothy Kryzanowski

Polish history has been regularly marked by foreign invasions, partitions and occupations. For centuries its neighbours sought to subjugate it for reasons of political and economic exploitation and cultural expansion. Poland’s struggle for self-determination has thus been a defining feature of its identity.

The 20th century in this regard was especially pivotal. During the Nazi occupation of the 1940s Poland once again faced cultural obliteration. Its neighbour to the east, the Soviet Union managed to remove Poland from the grip of Nazism toward the end of the war only to subject it once again to foreign domination in the form of the state-sponsored terror of Stalinist communism. The Catholic Church in postwar Poland demonstrated that long term peaceful resistance rooted in moral and spiritual guidance could gradually counteract harsh repressionist measures, ultimately contributing to the downfall of this totalitarian regime and setting a precedent for non-violent resistance worldwide.

The Polish Catholic Church, deeply embedded within Polish identity, since its establishment as the official religion in 966 through the conversion of Prince Mieszko I, played a central role during this era. While initial resistance efforts, such as the armed guerrilla conflict waged by the remnants of the beleaguered Polish Home Army, a scattered array of forest-dwelling rebels and ad hoc attempts at coalition building by inexperienced but democratically minded politicians proved ineffective against the Soviet-backed Polish communists, it was the Church that became a moral anchor for civil society in the face of repressive Soviet materialism.

This tension between materialism and transcendence became a defining feature of the Polish resistance under Soviet domination. The State made attempts to suppress religious expression, censor Catholic instruction and infiltrate church institutions. Figures such as Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski and eventually Pope John Paul II concretized this perseverance advocating for a strategy of endurance in the face of oppression while quietly strengthening the moral and spiritual foundation of Polish society. In doing so, the Church demonstrated the power of nonviolent struggle against State terror and offered insight into the way in which transcendent values can be wielded against totalitarian regimes.

The Second World War was a political catastrophe little paralleled in human history. Poland was a major flashpoint in the clash between the Soviets and Nazis as these two ideologically driven totalitarian regimes attempted to dominate Europe and beyond. The Poles had been brutally occupied by the Nazis at the end of the war, and the Soviets eventually deposed them in 1945. While ending the horrors of Nazi rule, the Soviets brought no true reprieve to the Polish people instead ushering in their own reign of terror. According to historian Anne Applebaum there was indeed a general sense of liberation within Eastern Europe upon the close of the war.¹ Jews were able to come out of hiding and salvage some form of civic life and restrictions on the Polish language and culture put in place by the Nazis were removed. Applebaum describes accounts of women rushing out of their houses to hug Red Army soldiers.²

Despite this initial rejoicing there were also signs of brutality yet to come as battle- hardened Soviet troops, brought with them into Poland a willingness to commit arbitrary violence against local populations, including rape, looting and the destruction of churches.³ This was a flex of power that foreshadowed the Soviet presence in Poland and in other Eastern European countries as an imposition that it was to be total.

The Soviet liberation of Poland was to become the trading of one totalitarian occupying force for another. The Soviets, initially engaged in a “de-Nazification” campaign not unlike those in liberated Western European countries to rid the country of the last vestiges of Nazi rule. While this appeared sensible, it transpired unlike the liberations by the western-front Allies, such as the United States and the United Kingdom, offering democratic and pluralistic visions for post-war order.

The Soviet definition of Fascism eventually expanded to include anyone the regime deemed undesirable, with the Soviets resorting to State terrorism to purge political opposition through intimidation, deportation and execution.⁴ The Soviets used the fluctuating post-war political order of Poland to its own advantage. Without any intention of allowing its neighbours self-determination, they sought to envelop not only Poland but all Eastern Europe within its communist sphere of in- fluence. It aimed not only to impose new economic and agricultural policies, but also to reshape and ‘perfect’ the nature of the individual through complete Marxian transformation, the goal was to effectively deny Poles their sense of national identity. 

The Soviets embodied what political philosopher Eric Voegelin described in the 1930s as their own political religion.⁵ Voegelin’s book entitled Modernity Without Restraint, a highly influential study of modern ideological pathologies, claims that the outcomes of the October Revolution of 1917 represented not just a conventional shake up of Russian politics but the rise of an ideology that purports an earthly eschatological mission,⁶ which he defines as the overarching transformation of society toward a final historical resolution. This is to say that the Soviet Union engaged in the process of forcing people into a rigid social framework where individuality was curtailed in favour of collectivized thinking under the assumption that human progress is something that can somehow reach a finished state resulting in a new and perfect utopia. The leaders of the Soviet state believed it could do this by replacing religion with fealty to the State, transcendence with materialism and individuality with collectivization. This vision demanded strict control, suppressed dissent, and often led to tremendous human suffering because it was based on an unrealistic view of what humans can achieve. However, instead of delivering a classless utopia, it created a system that disregarded both human nature and historical reality, leading to destructive consequences.

While the Soviets sought to usher in the end of Polish history through this secular evangelism and create “the new socialist man,” the methods they resorted to were both deceptive and authoritarian depending on expediency. They consolidated power through a number of techniques that can be considered terroristic in nature in a similar manner to its own domestic campaign of consolidation within Russia during its revolutionary era of early 20th century. This included the disingenuous use of political coalitions as a way of jockeying for power within a weakened Poland that was in a state of rebuild. According to historian Arthur Karasz, the Soviets used ethnic Poles sympathetic to Moscow’s interests. The Polish Workers’ Party (PPR) was a small leftist party staffed with highly-trained and well-disciplined individuals who held deep patronage from the Soviet Union.⁷ The other Polish political parties in contrast, were severely weakened from the destruction of the war. The political vacuum left in place saw non-communist parties filled with political neophytes because the experienced political class were largely exiled or killed, thus it made sense for them to enter into what they believed to be legitimate coalitions with professional Soviet-trained communists.⁸ Co-operation with non-communists through various organizations generally meant in practice that most key positions were held by Soviet-friendly figures.

In 1947, national elections saw PPR leader Boleslaw Bierut win a “decisive” presidential victory, which was largely considered fraught with corruption and intimidation.⁹ Following this election came the more open use of heavy-handed violence and repression against the opposition. Bierut created a list of potential enemies of the state which included the Polish underground resistance, social democrats, former members of the Home Army, which was still loyal to the London-based Polish government in exile, as well as clerics and former communists who had been excluded from the party.¹⁰ This method of labelling opponents helped the Soviets eliminate even moderate opposition, thus the system of “de-Nazification” was really the beginning of the Sovietization of Poland.

Members of the Soviet Politburo and NKVD working in Poland were used to totalitarianism as a default structure of government, struggled to accept the idea of multiple political interests and power sharing. This caused a regularity of violence, corruption, electoral intimidation and the use of general terror both physical and psychological against their opponents and the population in general.¹¹ Perhaps accustomed to the use of blunt, heavy-handed tactics and oblivious to the moral weight and trauma associated with the site, the Soviets felt audacious enough, to briefly repurpose the Auschwitz concentration camp, utilizing its barracks to hold Polish political prisoners and religious leaders whom the Soviets perceived as a threat.¹²

With the failure of a political solution on the question of national self-determination for Poland, Soviet influence tightened around the rest of Eastern Bloc which had the effect of fomenting other forms of resistance. These resistance efforts were met with varying results. Given the brutality of Soviet liberation and as an extension of wartime, the most obvious form of resistance was armed in nature. According to historian Norman Davies in his book God’s Playground: A History of Poland, armed resistance had been provoked by the activities of the Soviet security forces. In demanding total ideological submission to Soviet forces, thousands of Poles who might have otherwise considered some level of cooperation were willing to fight.¹³

Armed resistance in Poland, however, was already a beleaguered endeavour due to resistance to the preceding wartime Nazi occupation and general mistrust of foreign entities on Polish soil. The resources required to conduct such operations were relatively scarce, while the Polish government-in-exile, though symbolically important to the Polish identity was unable to effectively communicate with the Polish Home Army (AK), leading to a disjointed and weak system of command. In the wake of Soviet political consolidation, resistance groups such as AK and the Freedom and Independence Association (WiN) were reduced to conducting guerrilla warfare from the forests of Northern Poland. Historian Anne Applebaum holds up the story of WiN as an example of the pointlessness and unsustainable character of armed anti-communist resistance in the immediate postwar period.¹⁴ Applebaum suggests that due to a lack of available resources, guerrilla warfare against the dominant Soviet forces was largely ineffective because it demanded both immediate and tangible results.

In the case of AK and WiN, their fighters had to survive under constant threat of capture or death, with limited access to supplies and support.¹⁵ These tactics were also futile be- cause the pre-war social structures had been shattered anyway. Fighters were often young men who had lost everything during the Nazi occupation, including their political and social ties to friends, family and community.¹⁶ Many of these men were simply alone together in the forest. Without these ties they were isolated and in many cases demoralized without strong institutional backstopping their beliefs and actions.

The Soviets in their role were no strangers to civil conflict having gained experience against subversive elements on Russian soil during the period of consolidation in the 1920s. In Poland, the Soviets were quite good at using psychological terror tactics to infiltrate and to root out remaining members of AK and other militant groups that were loyal to the Polish government-in-exile.

Further complicating matters, was the fact that the Soviets had enlisted ethnically Polish communists to set up a security apparatus known simply as The Security Office (UB).¹⁷ This office was made up of Poles willing to push Soviet interests in Poland. This had the effect of transforming the structure of the armed conflict from relatively straightforward struggles of local resistance against a foreign aggressor into a complicated civil conflict that saw fighting Poles hesitating to fight against fellow Poles for ideological gain. Nonetheless, this newly created office ruthlessly carried out arrests, trials, imprisonments, and executions against anyone who would oppose communist goals.¹⁸

The new localized nature of the conflict led some members of WiN to struggle with the idea of killing those who were considered countrymen, and it also brought in practical difficulties over how to identify friend and foe.¹⁹ This caused fractures and schisms within the armed movements. By utilizing ethnic Poles, the Soviets were able to infiltrate and co-opt armed resistance groups. According to Applebaum, the secret police even created their own pseudo-version of WiN, which kept up contact with naïve foreigners and Poles whom Applebaum notes were unaware that the clandestine organization was actually a police operation.²⁰

By the late 1940s, with armed resistance crushed and political movements suppressed, the Polish people turned inward to preserve their national identity and to resist Soviet control in subtler ways. This inward shift involved relying on cultural, religious, and social institutions as sources of resilience. Foremost, Catholicism became the cornerstone of emerging alternative resistance, embodying the nation's historical and spiritual values. Historically, the Polish people have endured numerous instances of foreign domination. According to Mary Gautier in her article Church Elites and the Restoration of Civil Society in the Communist Societies of Central Europe, Poland's lack of natural boundaries, such as large mountains or wide rivers, has left it vulnerable to invasions and partitioning. Over the past two centuries, Poland has been partitioned out of existence by Tsarist Russia, Prussia, and Austria.²¹ Due to traditionally weak political structures as well, the Polish people have often turned to the Catholic Church as a defender of national identity. During the years of partition, the Church was the only institution permitted to express itself in Polish, making it synonymous with the preservation of the Polish language and culture. Indeed with the destruction of the most significant opposition groups, the former political elites, the landowners and the army, the Catholic Church became in effect the only institution with vested interest in the Polish people that remained.²²

The Soviet occupation in the postwar period repeated earlier efforts by targeting Polish Catholicism as a central pillar of resistance. To the Communists, Catholicism represented a potent and formidable moral competitor and a kind of fifth column, in the non-traditional sense, precisely because it sought to preserve the traditional Polish cultural identity, standing in direct opposition to Communist ideology.

The Church not only offered an alternative source of moral authority but also served as a rallying point for community organization and cultural preservation. Its deep ties to Western Europe and the Vatican made it an even greater threat against efforts to Sovietize Poland because the linkage provided an avenue for Western ideas and resources to continue to filter into Poland and to remain in the consciousness of the Polish people.

Because the Catholic Church had been so influential in the pre-war period, integral to the daily lives of up to 95% of the population,²³ the Soviets, up until the late 1940s, felt it necessary to tread lightly toward their goal of complete control over Poland’s religious dimension. There was a strong realization among Communist leaders that direct attacks on the church would only serve to alienate the population. Instead the initial approach was one of cautious pragmatism. According to Historian Elizabeth Valkenier in her article The Catholic Church in Communist Poland 1945 to 1955, the communists found it wiser to take a mild and even conciliatory approach to religious affairs in Poland.²⁴ This represents a significant contrast to approaches taken during the so-called War on Religion within the Soviet Union in the 1920s whereby the Russian Orthodox Church was subordinated to Soviet interests.

From the time of the October Revolution, Soviet leadership held strong disdain for religion. Marx famously referred to religion as the “opiate of the masses” while Lenin himself referred it as a “bourgeois tool designed to be- fuddle the working classes.”²⁵

Anti-clerical policies went into effect in the 1920s within the Soviet Union specifically targeting the Orthodox Church due to its association with Czarism. Lenin felt that in doing so, he could not only enrich Soviet coffers with property plundered from the church but that it was also enable him kill off anti-Soviet reactionaries thereby teaching the public hard lessons about resistance to the Soviet regime.²⁶ Orthodox leader Tikhon was arrested and forced to publicly ‘make peace’ with the Soviets, while they also attempted to deeply influence church doctrine. This attempted destruction of the Orthodox church in Russia was justified under the guise of ushering in a new era of secular progress and modernity.²⁷

Thus the Soviet approach of treading lightly toward the Catholic Church in Poland owes to the fact that the communists were very aware of the Church’s influence on civil society and as an international institution holding strong connections across Europe and beyond.

This significant turn to transcendent values after the failure of pragmatic political coalitions and armed confrontation illustrates Voegelin’s philosophical argument. At the individual level, it is incredibly difficult to suppress the spiritual realities of a population and replace them with strictly materialist ideological constructs. Voegelin argues that spiritual values resist repression because they connect individuals to a deeper order of existence, beyond material or political constraints.²⁸ In other words, the nature of Catholicism as held within the Polish people served as a bulwark against communism in a way that was not so apparent in other countries that were subject to Soviet postwar imperialism as well. According to Historian Seweryn Bialer, in his article Poland and the Soviet Imperium, the Polish Church represented a virtual alternate government with a moral authority and international support unmatched by any postwar Eastern European regime.²⁹ For example, the populations of both Hungary and Romania struggled to centralize their resistance around an alternative organizational structure. In October 1956, thousands of students angry with repressive Stalinist policies violently protested Matyas Rákosi’s Soviet backed regime, but under a scheme of Hungarian national identity rather than religion. While they managed to achieve some reform, it came at a great cost, as the Soviet military invaded Hungary leaving thousands of people dead in the process.³⁰

In Hungary, the absence of a transnational cultural network embedding itself into Hungarian resistance movements meant that Hungarians didn’t have the same kind of international moral support that the Polish Church might have been able to muster during times of upheaval. As a result, the Soviets felt emboldened to use brute military force to crush the uprising without the same level of international condemnation or fear of escalation that might have occurred if the Catholic Church had been more directly involved. The Hungarians had also engaged in fully armed insurrection, which led to a full military response from the Soviets while Poland under the guidance of the Church worked peacefully to secure concessions within the existing framework. The Romanian Orthodox, in contrast to the Polish Catholic Church, saw itself succumb deeply to communist influence during the post-war period and beyond. According to Historian Lucius N. Leustean, while other churches were abolished, the Orthodox Church benefited from co-operation with the regime.³¹ Leustean concludes that the communist authorities in Romania filled the church leadership with their own allies and in exchange, the clergy received state salaries and other financial aid. Using religious leaders to disseminate communist ideology to the public the Orthodox Church became active proponents of the regime, urging the faithful to back the country's Soviet influenced reconstruction efforts.³²

Under Soviet rule, the Romanian Church became a member of the so-called “Orthodox Commonwealth” which like its sister church in Russia became a tool through which the communists could continue its evangelizing in favour of Soviet causes unimpeded within religious circles on an international level.³³ This meant that Romanians could not count on the Orthodox Church as a reliable moral opponent of the communists.

As a result, the regime of Nicolae Ceausescu was perhaps enabled to become the most brutal of all Soviet-backed governments in the Eastern Bloc and was able to thoroughly develop a cult of personality throughout Romanian society in a way that Bierut and other communist leaders in the region could not. According to, Historians Lucian Turcescu and Lavinia Stan, in 1955, during the canonization of Romanian saints in Bucharest, Western European church leaders observed the opulence on display of the Orthodox clergy contrasted by observable economic difficulties within lay Romanian population.³⁴ Indeed, the Orthodox Church’s compromised position during the Romanian revolution, resulted in deep reputational damage, and left them in a weakened position to lend moral weight to democratic transition and in the post-communist period. National debate over Orthodox collaborators continues.³⁵

Unlike Poland, where the church played a role in legitimizing new democratic institutions, both Hungary and Romania’s churches were seen as either marginal players in the transition to democracy or in need of reputational rehabilitation. The Polish Church, for its part, operated as a central pillar of Polish national life, maintaining a well-organized network of charities, schools, and media outlets.³⁶ This institutional strength, coupled with a post-war religious revival, allowed the Church to function not only as a source of spiritual renewal but also as a critical foundation on which to rebuild Polish communities in the face of Soviet domination. Bialer echoes a joke within Vatican circles that suggests the most Catholic countries in the world are Poland, Ireland and the Vatican in that order.³⁷

Clearly, Polish resistance was not abstract but deeply rooted in the Church’s tangible influence on Polish society.

As highlighted by Elizabeth Valkenier, the Church had additional safeguarding through constitutional guarantees. Since the Soviet regime was unable to easily subvert the Polish Catholic church, as it did the Orthodox Church in Romania, the Soviets would try to secure compliance through concessions. In contrast to Hungary and Romania, the communist regime in Poland made notable concessions to the Church, such as exempting its real estate holdings from land reform policies. While it is true that the Church wanted to reobtain the rights and privileges it had in the pre-war era, the overarching goal of the communists was to slowly and quietly undermine Church authority and win over Catholic opinion under the guise of a democratic reconciliation between Marxism with Catholicism.³⁸ This compromise however would not stand among Church authorities as the episcopate took a firm stance against the provisional government rejecting what it saw as totalitarian tendencies, urging the faithful to vote their Catholic conscience in the provisional elections.³⁹

In contrast, the Romanian Orthodox Church formally adopted a new political theory called the “Social Apostolate,” a concept allowing the church to survive contingent upon an official charitable partnership with the state, focusing on initiatives that aligned with state goals but downplayed independent spiritual initiatives.⁴⁰ The Polish Catholic Church rejected similar proposals from the Soviets, such as co-operation with Social Catholics, a political group which nominally accepted Marxism but claimed to be traditionally Catholic. Social Catholics were willing, with communist oversight to promote Catholic social teachings in areas like labor rights and cultural policies such as marriage, attempting to work within the system while maintaining a distinct Catholic identity. However, Social Catholics faced criticism from the Catholic hierarchy, which viewed such cooperation as a compromise of its core spiritual principles.⁴¹

Despite the internal tensions between Church and State, the political landscape was shifting and with Bierut’s election that meant that the Catholic Church was now faced squarely up against a totalitarian regime. Rather than turning to open hostility against the regime, the Church moved to assert itself on moral and social matters as a means of attempting temper Communist appetites for re-structuring society into the Soviet model. The Church still claimed autonomy, but removed itself from direct competition with the government in the political realm as a way of remaining within the hearts and minds of the population. It did so, according to Valkenier, by engaging in public morality campaigns against alcoholism and what it considered hooliganism, which likely arose due to the catastrophic de-moralization of Poles who lives had been shattered during wartime.⁴² The Church sought to spiritually heal and rebuild those lives and communities. Through its pastoral letters, the Church urged Catholics to resist the "rampant spirit of materialism" but also encouraged them to "respect the goodwill of those persons in the materialist ranks who sincerely work for a better tomorrow for the working classes.”⁴³ This shows that the church was instrumental in framing itself as an independent alternative to communism while working within its constraints and recognizing the individual dignity of their oppressors. Without directly challenging for political authority, the church was able to help preserve the Polish culture through the promotion of a cohesive social identity that spoke to Poland’s pre-war heritage diametrically opposed to communist efforts.

For any government with totalitarian leanings that aimed to reshape civil society this rep- resented a very serious challenge and the communists decided that power sharing was not particularly desirable. Thus it was in the late 1940s and into the 1950s, the communists made a sustained and genuine attempt to attack and diminish the influence of the Church. The Soviets began with indirect propaganda campaigns against the Vatican seeking to stoke mistrust of Church leaders by drawing attention to instances where the Vatican demonstrated neutrality and was perceived to have shown sympathy for the Nazi regime in Germany.⁴⁴ As Soviet power increasingly consolidated in the early 1950s; they went further by instituting a campaign intended to promote official separation Church and State. Demonstrating the temperate nature of their response, the Church was willing to work within this structure provided that the separation was reciprocal, and that the Church would receive assurance that it would not be interfered with on spiritual matters within its schools, churches, the press and other aspects of civil society.⁴⁵ The Church’s agreement to officially separate from the State was a tremendously sensible decision in the circumstances. As noted previously the Church was already in effect a virtual government itself, existing side-by-side with the communists. In the case of the separation, while the communists saw it as an opportunity to marginalize the Church on political matters while promoting itself as a modern secular government, this would not necessarily have diminished the Church’s influence within civil society. Instead it would have enabled it to continue to foment resistance to the materialist worldview within the hearts of a supportive Polish public while providing moral guidance within the civic sphere. In this instance separation of Church and State would have functioned as a de facto power sharing arrangement. Something that no totalitarian entity could tolerate.

Thus the Soviets continued to chip away at Catholic influence with policies designed to eliminate genuine Church participation in civil affairs including the nationalization of church property and attempting to appoint bishops and pastors while demarcating their own parish boundaries.⁴⁶ The attacks also shifted directly toward the Polish clergy. This included harassment, repression and the interning of priests in labour camps seeking to weaken Church infrastructure and influence.⁴⁷ According to Mary Gautier, tensions between Church and State were so high that Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski who from 1948 to 1981 acted as Primate of Poland was imprisoned from 1953-1956 for refusing to co-operate with the Soviets-backed government and their attempts to subvert the Church hierarchy through the establishment of quasi-religious organizations friendly to the communists.⁴⁸ Wyszinski’s continued influence on the struggle for the allegiance of the Polish is difficult to overstate. Norman Davies refers to him as a “workhorse” for the way that he deftly walked a difficult line between avoiding a direct militaristic confrontation with the regime that would have been crushed by Soviet forces and behaving steadfastly in favour of policies that served the character of most Poles. According to Davies, his refusal to compromise with the party on social fundamentals while resisting calls for violent and open rebellion represents his “simple patriotism, radiant piety and total integrity.”⁴⁹ Echoing this patriotism was a citizenry that largely refused to compromise. Gautier argues that one of the most effective ways ordinary citizens opposed communism was by supporting the churches. Participation in Sunday Mass was a not only a religious obligation, but it was also a reaffirmation of social piety and a form of public protest. By affirming their religious identity in the face of state power, citizens simultaneously asserted their autonomy. Their actions assisted in delegitimizing the authority of the state while legitimizing the Church’s influence.⁵⁰ In the churches, Wyszynski’s sermons presented a non-official, yet, at the same time authoritative alternate perspective on the challenges faced by the Polish people.⁵¹

As Poles clung to their identity throughout the 1960s and 1970s, two of the most significant catalysts to the fall of communism in Poland came with the election of Pope John Paul II in 1978 and the rise of the Worker’s Solidarity movement in 1980 marking a significant turning point in the overall resistance movement.

As the first Polish national elected to the position of Pope, John Paul II was the first non-Italian to be elected in 455 years and had a profound impact on the national psyche of the Polish people who through the 1970s, faced continuing economic stagnation and repressive social conditions. Coupled with the election of Pope John Paul II, was the rise of the Worker’s Solidarity Movement. Worker’s Solidarity was a social movement made up of intellectuals, artists and clergy whose foundations were laid and maintained by Cardinal Wyszynski and the Polish Church hierarchy. According to Catholic historian Gracjan Kreszewski, Solidarity was different from the secular uprisings which occurred in 1956, 1968, 1970 and 1976.⁵² Three days after strikes began, Solidarity’s leaders organized a mass within the Lenin Shipyards and symbols of Catholic devotion were displayed prominently including, a picture of the Pope placed provocatively on the shipyard’s gates.⁵³ The organization of such a movement demonstrated that civil society was independent from Marxist rule and could actively organize against the Soviet-backed regime which had always been viewed as foreign.

The spark of solidarity which led to the flames of Pope John Paul II’s pilgrimage to Poland proved, according to Kraszewski to be more powerful than nuclear weapons, politics or economic restructuring.⁵⁴ Paul Hofmann’s New York Times article discussing the pope’s visit further revealed the fragile nature of Polish communism during this period. He interviews an unnamed former member of the Communist Party’s Central Committee who was well aware of the major implications of the papal visit stating that “Wherever the Pope may go, to his native Cracow region or to the Shrine of Czestochowa, several million Poles will be on their knees.” ⁵⁵ He went to admit that even Poles of Marxist persuasion found the election of a Polish pope to be a point of national pride declaring “I am a Marxist and a religious agnostic. But when I heard that, for the first time in history, a Pole had become head of the church, I felt proud and happy. Yet Pope John Paul will cause trouble here.” ⁵⁶ The statement hints at the fatigue experienced felt by Polish communists in the face of Solidarity as even the Polish communists could not help but acknowledge the leader of Polish moral authority chosen by the Vatican. Furthermore, the statement suggests that Polish nationalism, as shaped and defined by Catholic spiritualism resonated even within Polish communists. This method of Polish resistance to ideological oppression, that is, through the hearts and conscience of the Polish people, represents a tremendous renewal within the Polish national spirit following the immediate oppressive aftermath after the conclusion Second World War where a political vacuum existed, and immediate competing interests saw Poles fighting, suppressing, and otherwise behaving violently toward other Poles. Shared cultural and religious values that had existed for centuries had begun to re-emerge as a unifying force against an alien terroristic ideology.

The economic stagnation and repression of the previous half century of communist rule saw the utopian dreams of Polish communists waylaid by a religious revival.

However, even in the face of a weakened political and economic regime, the Church hierarchy was careful not to incite violent uprising. Hofmann’s article also quotes an unnamed European ambassador to Poland who suggests that “The former Cardinal Archbishop of Cracow was always an eminent realist who knew exactly how far he could go. Right now the Communist regime is confronted with severe economic strains, but it may reasonably expect the Polish Pope not to increase tensions by calling for religious crusades.” ⁵⁷ This sentiment falls in line with the policy of the Church during some of the toughest years of Soviet rule. The Pope’s influence during his pilgrimage represented how soft power, which relies more on persuasion over force, can be used effectively to mobilize civil society.

Kraszewski points out that while the State did not attempt outright censorship of the papal visit across media networks, it did try different methods of drawing attention away from the papal addresses which included State television cameras panning away from the pope and instead focusing in on attendees and in Krakow in particular showing a movie about Nazi atrocities as the Pope was due to enter the city.58 This reluctance on the part of the communists to smother what was in effect a celebration of values subversive to the Soviet regime, but it exposed communist fragility and the erosion of their ability to control the civil narrative in Poland. In the case of the Nazi television screening, the attempt to recycle historical trauma into a new moral high ground suggests a response of desperate resignation unparalleled during five decades of Polish resistance. The communist regime in the early 1980s seemed tired and through poor policy and planning had demonstrated its inability to provide administratively for the Polish people. The events of this time were a clear indication that the regime had become decoupled from the will of civil life. The eventual collapse of the Polish communist regime and transition toward democracy beginning in 1989 without a violent coup showed other nations in the region and globally that terror, chaos and disorder was not an inevitable outcome of changes in regime. Poland had demonstrated to the world that long-term peaceful resistance could be more powerful than violent conflict and state- sponsored terroristic regimes.

The peaceful transition toward democracy, led by Solidarity and supported by the Catholic Church, highlighted a lasting model of resistance. By contrast, earlier efforts of armed struggle in Poland, Hungary and other countries within the Eastern bloc had been crushed by Soviet repression, had suffered from insufficient resources, became mired in internal divisions, and were unfortunately lacking in transnational support. This newfound approach to resisting ideological oppression emphasized placing focus on a higher moral authority and finding greater unity in shared transcendent values that totalitarian regimes simply cannot provide. In some ways, it represents the rediscovery of an old and familiar approach, in that the Polish Church has for a millennium been regarded as the guardian of Polish culture. As moral competitors, the Church and the Communists were exceptionally incompatible in approach to addressing the human condition.

The Church demonstrated that a unified culture, allowing for plurality of thought within a consistent and moderate moral framework, can be an effective method of resistance to totalitarian ideologies. While the Church sought to temper the regime's behaviour and to maintain an independent coexistence with the governing communists, the Stalinist approach pursued the opposite. Through terror and intimidation, the communist regime sought to eradicate plurality in favour of extreme conformity, it sought to replace individual dignity with a dehumanizing monolith, denying the human need to seek higher meaning and purpose beyond object systems of control. Romanian Historian Vladimir Tisemaneanu notes in his article Diabolical Pedagogy and the (Il) logic of Stalinism in Eastern Europe: that to fulfill communist ideology it requires destruction of inner man both physically and philosophically, suppressing individuality and the inner life of a person in favour of external ideological unity.⁵⁹ For Tisemaneanu, Stalinism is a quasi-religious structure that seeks to overturn conventional morality. He claims that the Stalinists revalued the very concept of good and evil with the goal of creating a system that abolishes traditional taboos unifying both victim and torturer into a new tangibly bleak social order.⁶⁰ This revaluation of morality served the purpose of justifying atrocities and normalizing violence in sacrifice to the State. This moral flexibility served to legitimize whatever cruelties were deemed expedient.

Revolutionary utopian materialism requires the commission of tyranny between human beings. The utilization of terror as a means of control however immediately delegitimizes a moral high ground, which the Catholic Church in Poland was able to maintain through the monumental efforts of Church hierarchy and figures like Stefan Wyszynski and Pope John Paul II. The fall of communism in Poland was not achieved through violence or terror, but through the mobilization of the Polish people around shared values of freedom, dignity, and human rights. The Leadership of the Polish Church was instrumental in framing this struggle as one of moral necessity making the Polish experience a powerful example of how terror can be defeated by plurality, peaceful action and solidarity.

◾

Notes

1 Applebaum, Anne. Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956. New York: Doubleday, 2012.

2 ibid

3 ibid

4 Applebaum, Anne. Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956. New York: Doubleday, 2012.

5 Voegelin, Eric. Modernity Without Restraint: The Political Religions, The New Science of Politics, and Science, Politics, and Gnosticism. Edited by Manfred Henningsen. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1999.

6 ibid

7 Karasz, Arthur. "Resistance in the Iron Curtain Countries." The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 271, no. 1 (September 1950): 145–56.

8 ibid

9 Karasz, Arthur. "Resistance in the Iron Curtain Countries." The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 271, no. 1 (September 1950): 145–56.

10 Applebaum, Anne. Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956. New York: Doubleday, 2012.

11 ibid

12 ibid

13 Davies, Norman. God’s Playground: A History of Poland, Volume I: The Origins to 1795. Revised ed. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005.

14 Applebaum, Anne. Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956. New York: Doubleday, 2012.

15 ibid

16 Applebaum, Anne. Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956. New York: Doubleday, 2012.

17 Davies, Norman. God’s Playground: A History of Poland, Volume I: The Origins to 1795. Revised ed. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005.

18 Applebaum, Anne. Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956. New York: Doubleday, 2012.

19 ibid

20 Applebaum, Anne. Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956. New York: Doubleday, 2012.

21 Gautier, Mary L. "Church Elites and the Restoration of Civil Society in the Communist Societies of Central Europe." Journal of Church and State 40, no. 2 (1998): 291–317.

22 Dinka, Frank. "Sources of Conflict between Church and State in Poland." The Review of Politics 28, no. 3 (July 1966): 332–349.

23 Valkenier, Elizabeth. "The Catholic Church in Communist Poland, 1945-1955." The Review of Politics 18, no. 3 (1956): 305–26.

24 ibid

25 Time Ghost History. "Vladimir Lenin and the Communist War on Religion." YouTube, April 7, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=0GBpPEKxcM4.

26 Time Ghost History. "Vladimir Lenin and the Communist War on Religion." YouTube, April 7, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=0GBpPEKxcM4.

27 ibid

28 Voegelin, Eric. Modernity Without Restraint: The Political Religions, The New Science of Politics, and Science, Politics, and Gnosticism. Edited by Manfred Henningsen. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1999.

29 Bialer, Seweryn. Poland and the Soviet Imperium. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.

30 Fryer, Peter. Hungarian Tragedy: And Other Writings on the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. London: Index Books (Indexreach Ltd.), 1997.

31 Leustean, Lucian N. "Constructing Communism in the Romanian People's Republic: Orthodoxy and State, 1948-49." Europe- Asia Studies 59, no. 2 (March 2007): 303–329. Taylor & Francis, Ltd.

32 ibid

33 Leustean, Lucian N. "Constructing Communism in the Romanian People's Republic: Orthodoxy and State, 1948-49." Europe- Asia Studies 59, no. 2 (March 2007): 303–329. Taylor & Francis, Ltd.

34 Turcescu, Lucian, and Lavinia Stan. "Church Collaboration and Resistance under Communism Revisited: The Case of Patriarch Justinian Marina (1948-1977)." Eurostudia 10, no. 1 (2015): 75–103. https://doi.org/10.7202/1033883ar.

35 ibid

36 Valkenier, Elizabeth. "The Catholic Church in Communist Poland, 1945-1955." The Review of Politics 18, no. 3 (1956): 305–26.

37 Bialer, Seweryn. Poland and the Soviet Imperium. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.

38 Valkenier, Elizabeth. "The Catholic Church in Communist Poland, 1945-1955." The Review of Politics 18, no. 3 (1956): 305–26.

39 ibid

40 Leustean, Lucian N. "Constructing Communism in the Romanian People's Republic: Orthodoxy and State, 1948-49."

Europe-Asia Studies 59, no. 2 (March 2007): 303–329. Taylor & Francis, Ltd.

41 Valkenier, Elizabeth. "The Catholic Church in Communist Poland, 1945-1955." The Review of Politics 18, no. 3 (1956): 305–26.

42 ibid

43 ibid

44 Valkenier, Elizabeth. "The Catholic Church in Communist Poland, 1945-1955." The Review of Politics 18, no. 3 (1956): 305–26.

45 ibid

46 Gautier, Mary L. "Church Elites and the Restoration of Civil Society in the Communist Societies of Central Europe." Journal of Church and State 40, no. 2 (1998): 291–317.

47 Valkenier, Elizabeth. "The Catholic Church in Communist Poland, 1945-1955." The Review of Politics 18, no. 3 (1956): 305–26.

48 Gautier, Mary L. "Church Elites and the Restoration of Civil Society in the Communist Societies of Central Europe." Journal of Church and State 40, no. 2 (1998): 291–317.

49 Davies, Norman. God’s Playground: A History of Poland, Volume I: The Origins to 1795. Revised ed. New York: Columbi University Press, 2005.

50 Gautier, Mary L. "Church Elites and the Restoration of Civil Society in the Communist Societies of Central Europe." Journal of Church and State 40, no. 2 (1998): 291–317.

51 Davies, Norman. God’s Playground: A History of Poland, Volume I: The Origins to 1795. Revised ed. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005.

52 Kraszewski, Gracjan. "Catalyst for Revolution: Pope John Paul II's 1979 Pilgrimage to Poland and Its Effects on Solidarity and the Fall of Communism." The Polish Review 57, no. 4 (2012): 27–46.

53 ibid

54 ibid

55 Hofmann, Paul. "Polish Communists Edgy on Papal Visit." The New York Times, November 19, 1978.

56 ibid

57 Hofmann, Paul. "Polish Communists Edgy on Papal Visit." The New York Times, November 19, 1978.

58 Kraszewski, Gracjan. "Catalyst for Revolution: Pope John Paul II's 1979 Pilgrimage to Poland and Its Effects on Solidarity and the Fall of Communism." The Polish Review 57, no. 4 (2012): 27–46.

59 Tismaneanu, Vladimir. "Diabolical Pedagogy and the (Il)logic of Stalinism in Eastern Europe." In Stalinism Revisited: The Estab- lishment of Communist Regimes, edited by Vladimir Tismaneanu, 25–50. Budapest: Central European University Press, 2009.

60 ibid

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Marina (1948-1977)." Eurostudia 10, no. 1 (2015):75–103. https://doi.org/10.7202/1033883ar.

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Voegelin, Eric. Modernity Without Restraint: The Political Religions, The New Science of Politics, and Science, Politics, and Gnosticism. Edited by Manfred Henningsen. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1999.

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