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04/07/2005
Pope John Paul II
[Next Hott Spotts April 21...Lebanon]
“How many divisions has the Pope?”
--Joseph Stalin
[In light of the death of Pope John Paul II, I thought I’d replay a
series I did for this link back in March 2001.]
Utilizing the Mitrokhin archives from the KGB defector Vasili
Mitrokhin, as well as other more standard reference works, it is
easy to see why Communist authorities in Poland, as well as in
Moscow, were concerned about Pope John Paul II when he first
burst on the scene.
Whereas the Hungarian Uprising and Czechoslovakia’s Prague
Spring had failed to dislodge Communist regimes, the lengthy
struggle for freedom in Poland not only changed the face of a
nation, it led to the dismantling of the entire Soviet empire. And
through it all stood the man who would become Pope, Karol
Wojtyla.
Born in 1920, Wojtyla was the archbishop of Cracow in the early
1970s when he first got the attention of the KGB in Moscow.
Then “Cardinal” Wojtyla was a former actor and a charismatic
figure. Author Christopher Andrew notes, “The undermining of
the empire built by Stalin after Yeltsin was begun not by the
military might of the West but by the moral authority of the first
Polish Pope, which rapidly eclipsed that of the Polish
Communist Party.”
KGB an
d SB (the Polish security apparatus) monitoring of
Wojtyla commenced in 1971. Authorities were concerned over
his “subversive” behavior and as early as 1973-4 there were
thoughts of prosecuting the cardinal for his sermons. Three of
them during this period were deemed to be violations of the
Criminal Code, which provided for terms of imprisonment of up
to ten years for sedition.
According to an informant, during one sermon Cardinal Wojtyla
declared:
“The Church has the right to criticize all manifestations and
aspects of the activity of the authorities if they are unacceptable
to the people.”
After World War II, the Communists in Poland tried to
implement their system of agriculture which proved to be a
disaster for the nation’s peasant farmers. Collectivization, the
grand experiment throughout Eastern Europe, was such a failure
in Poland that it was suspended in 1956. The government thus
had to heavily subsidize food and it was a major reason that as
the 1970s progressed the country was crippled with a huge
foreign debt. And as the debt burden increased the government
attempted to raise consumer prices, with disastrous results. In
1970 and 1976 there were massive strikes and riots against the
moves.
Commenting on the principle that started it all, Cardinal Wojtyla
remarked:
“Collectivization led to the destruction of the individual and of
his personality.”
It was easy to see why both the KGB and SB were concerned.
Wojtyla had the guts to make these kinds of statements and it
was clear he was committed to ideological subversion.
During the food riots of 1976 he set up a fund to assist those
who had been imprisoned for taking part in the clashes and he
began a concerted effort to involve himself with the formation of
the Workers Defense Committee (KOR), what was to become an
alliance of workers and dissident intellectuals. The future Pope
met with KOR’s leadership frequently.
And around this time Wojtyla began to invoke the example of
St. Stanislaw, a martyred bishop of ancient Cracow, as a symbol
of resistance, proclaiming:
“St. Stanislaw has become the patron saint of moral and social
order in the country...He dared to tell the King himself that he
was bound to respect the law of God...He was also the defender
of the freedom that is the inalienable right of every man, so that
the violation of that freedom by the state is at the same time a
violation of the moral and social order.”
In May 1977 Cardinal Wojtyla spoke before 20,000 after a KOR
activist was allegedly murdered by the SB. Then in 1978 Pope
Paul VI died. Pope John Paul I was elected but he lived a mere
two months. So on October 16, 1978 the puffs of smoke rising
from the Vatican announced to the world that the first non-Italian
pope since the 16th century, Karol Wojtyla, was the new leader
of the world’s Catholics.
In deference to his immediate predecessor, he took the name
John Paul II. Church bells rang throughout Poland. Attempting to
associate itself with the joy in the streets, the Communist Party
leadership sent a note to the Vatican expressing gratitude that “a
son of the Polish nation...sits on the papal throne.” Of course
there was little real joy amongst the authorities, and, for its part,
the KGB was concerned that what did exist may actually be
genuine.
The day after the Pope’s elevation the head of the KGB mission
in Warsaw sent the following assessment to Moscow.
“Wojtyla holds extreme anti-Communist views. Without openly
opposing the Socialist system, he has criticized the way in which
the state agencies of the Polish People’s Republic have
functioned, making the following accusations:
--that the basic human rights of Polish citizens are restricted;
--that there is unacceptable exploitation of the workers, whom
the Catholic Church must protect against the workers’
government!
--that the activities of the Catholic Church are restricted and
Catholics treated as second-class citizens;
--that an extensive campaign is being conducted to convert
society to atheism and impose an alien ideology on the people;
--that the Catholic Church is denied its proper cultural role,
thereby depriving Polish culture of its national treasures.”
The stage was set for a showdown between Warsaw and Moscow
over how to handle John Paul II. Clearly, he would want to
return to his homeland. That wasn''t a good thing.
Back in 1978, 90% of Poland was Catholic, the highest
percentage for any nation in the world. Equally “troubling” to
the Communists was the fact that the seminaries were jammed.
Priestly vocations were on the rise. The Soviet ambassador to
Poland reported back to the KGB in Moscow.
“The Catholic Church will now make even greater efforts to
consolidate its position and increase its role in the social and
political life of the country.” The only positive that they saw in
having Wojtyla stationed in Rome was the fact that the clergy in
Poland no longer had their leader on site.
In the book “The Sword and the Shield,” which reveals the secret
archives of the KGB, you get a sense of the paranoia surrounding
John Paul II; much of it justified. For example, Polish Party
officials were in awe of Wojtyla’s intense and mystical
spirituality. They reported back to Moscow that he often spent
six to eight hours a day in prayer (true) and the KGB became
concerned when the Pope wanted to send his red zuchetto (the
cardinal’s skullcap), that he had worn at the papal conclave, to a
church in Lithuania to be placed on the altar. [The Pope sought to
inspire his compatriots in Vilnius.]
With John Paul II in Rome it was also just a matter of time
before he would want to make a triumphant return to his native
homeland. Early in 1979 Polish Communist Party boss Eduard
Gierek conferred with Leonid Brezhnev on the topic. Brezhnev,
one of the true idiots of the 20th century, wanted Gierek to figure
out a way to block the trip.
“How could I not receive a Polish pope,” said Gierek, “when the
majority of my countrymen are Catholics?” In response,
Brezhnev told Gierek that he would need to convince the Pope to
come up with an illness. “Tell the Pope - he is a wise man - that
he could announce publicly that he cannot come because he has
been taken ill.”
Gierek ignored his boss and on June 2, 1979 one million people
converged on the airport road as well as the Old City Square.
Over the next 9 days, more than 10 million of Poland''s 35
million saw John Paul II in person. Of course he did not hold
back in his homilies. Often referring to himself as the “Slav
Pope,” he singled out Poles, Croats, Bulgarians, Slovaks, Czechs,
and Russian.
“(I) come here to speak before the whole Church, before Europe
and the world, about those oft-forgotten nations and peoples.”
And this bit.
“The future of Poland will depend on how many people are
mature enough to be nonconformist.” The entire visit was
dubbed “Our Nine Days of Freedom.”
By 1980 the KGB was attempting to institute a propaganda
campaign throughout the entire Soviet Union as a way of
discrediting the Pope and to demonstrate that he was dangerous
to the Catholic Church. Of course this failed miserably. And at
the same time a new round of strikes was spreading; particularly
in the Baltic port city of Gdansk, home of the Lenin Shipyards.
An illegal organization of trade unions, Solidarity, gained
millions of members. The leader was Lech Walesa.
Walesa was an electrician from Gdansk, as well as a devout
Catholic, who had been in contact with Karol Wojtyla in the
years before Wojtyla was elevated to Pope. As the economy in
Poland collapsed in the summer of 1980, the Church played a
critical role in mobilizing opposition to the Communist
government. On August 27 the nation’s bishops approved a
document that explicitly claimed “the right to independence both
of organizations representing the workers and of organizations of
self-government.”
The Polish Politboro met with the Soviet ambassador, explaining
to the Kremlin’s representative that they had to allow the
creation of some form of trade union. “We have no other
political means of normalizing the situation, and it is impossible
to use force.” The days of crushing an insurrection with brute
force were over. The people would never submit to such tactics
and the leadership knew this. Plus, there was this issue of a
Polish Pope, the man whom Stalin once claimed had “no
divisions.”
On August 31, 1980 the Gdansk Agreement was signed. The
government finally capitulated on the formation of new trade
unions, even giving them the right to strike. In addition the
Communists agreed to broadcast Mass every Sunday over the
state radio. With flourish, Walesa stepped in front of the
television cameras to sign the document, wielding an oversized
pen with a portrait of John Paul II on it.
The following month Eduard Gierek, Communist Party boss of
Poland since 1970, was forced to resign. Two months later,
Solidarity was formally recognized by the government and the
union, feeling its oats, called for free and fair elections.
Moscow, in a fit of rage over Poland’s apparent cave in, sent
Russian, Czech, and East German troops to the border, though
they were withdrawn soon after.
Then in May 1981 Pope John Paul II was shot in St. Peter’s
Square by a Turkish terrorist, narrowly escaping death. The
blame was focused on the Bulgarian secret police who, allegedly,
received the command from Moscow. Nothing has ever been
proven in this regard. The incident did, however, embolden
Solidarity even further and in December 1981 the new head of
state, General Wojciech Jaruzelski, imposed martial law and
replaced some key Communist Party officials in the government
with military officers.
[Jaruzelski would comment later, upon meeting John Paul II,
“My legs were trembling and my knees were knocking
together...The Pope, this figure in white, it all affected me
emotionally. Beyond all reason...”]
Solidarity was suspended and the government placed hundreds
of dissidents, including Walesa, under arrest. During this period
a priest active in the movement was murdered by the police and
the troops brutally suppressed any strikes that broke out as a
result of the hardball tactics.
But while martial law remained in place for two years, it was
easy for all to see that the economy was stagnating and that
opposition remained organized, even if below the surface.
Walesa and Company certainly knew they had the Pope’s
support. It was only a matter of time before the winds would
change in their favor, something which happened in 1985 with
the arrival of Mikhail Gorbachev.
In 1989 free elections were held in Poland with Solidarity
emerging victorious. There was no one prouder than Karol
Wojtyla...Pope John Paul II. As historian Norman Davies
writes, the Pope “undermined Communism by sheer force of
personality and his support for human rights...For the captive
peoples of the Soviet Bloc, he proved to be the steadiest beacon
of hope shining from the West.”
Sources:
"The Sword and the Shield," Christopher Andrew and Vasili
Mitrokhin
"A History of Modern Europe," John Merriman
"A History of Europe," Norman Davies
"One World Divisible," David Reynolds
Hott Spotts will return April 21.
Brian Trumbore
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