John Paul and the Parallel Poland
GROSS, JAN T.
IGNORING THE GOVERNMENT John Paul and the Parallel PqJjJJYjCJ by jan t gross The television broadcasts of Communist Party Secretary Edward Gierek greeting Pope John Paul II in Warsaw early this...
...During those nine days, it was as if official Poland were nonexistent—invisible, except for its inability to provide enough field toilets or food stamps to accommodate the crowd, and tor its police roadblocks thai prevented even more people from joining the celebration...
...Suddenly, in a country whose regime runs virtually everything from nursery schools to funeral parlors, millions of people spent 'ime together and enjoyed themselves tremendously outside of any state-sponsored institution...
...The political bureau of the PUWP could do no more than sit and wait until the visit ended...
...The principal formula adopted by this new movement is precisely to organize society outside of the official establishment...
...His presence was a formidible challenge to the regime...
...it had been rendered powerless...
...The series of mass gatherings throughout the Pope's visit must be viewed in this context...
...There are some 40 uncensored periodicals published in Poland today, and there is a free university, an independent farmers' association, plus much more...
...Poland belonged to the Pope—he, not Gierek, was the Leader...
...it gave the cleavage a new intensity as well...
...They were the culmination, the most spectacular physical evidence, of the vitality of the parallel Poland...
...Because the economy has proved incapable of satisfying the demand for everything from food through place was an explosion of their feeling of solidarity...
...The protagonists were the then Prime Minister...
...A government so little thought of by its subjects is ipso facto one that lacks authority...
...When the institutionalization of civil society occurs in Poland, it will occur outside of the Communist Party and outside of the Catholic Church...
...Civil society is located somewhere in-between the Church's ambition to bring about all-encompassing solidarity and the Communist Party's strategy to destroy all solidarity and bring about social atomization...
...Josef Cyrankicwic/, and his newly appointed chief of diplomatic protocol, Kr/ys/lof Rad/iwill...
...From the moment he landed in Warsaw, Karol Wojtyla could have done whatever he pleased...
...Specifically, it is important to note that despite the obvious differences between Wojtyla and Gierek, there are some similarities too...
...And the experience was equally unusual tor the Communist brass, who J vn 1. CiKiiss, j //,'n eonlnhm, >> u> lfh'\e /'c/CO, /iiA7/(A wi /(>/,>cl <// )jie i inversus and o die uiidnu ,>t Polish Society I iklci Oct nun Occupation found their sovereignty over the citizenry temporarily suspended...
...Poland is a prime example of this process: After 35 years of Socialism, the fundamental problem for the government is how to find the ideal balance between corruption and repression—a sad regression in a country with a proud history of statecraft...
...Both were promoted from within the ranks of the two most strictly centralized and hierarchial organizations in the history of mankind—the Catholic Church and the Communist Party...
...Moreover, in 1976 a novel phenomenon came to light that has since developed into a permanent feature of Polish life: a large democratic opposition willing to openly engage in a variety of undertakings...
...The Polish people did not use the visit, however, to express antigovern-ment sentiments...
...For decades work discipline has been decaying, with people attending to their business during company time—i.e., at the expense of the State...
...Who was the host and who the unwelcome guest...
...But the event had its sobering side as well...
...Rather, what took for the souls of Polish citizens—as we could all see on television—the regime's single recourse is to keep a firm grip on their bodies...
...For although the Pope is a Pole, although there are more Catholics in Poland than anywhere else in Eastern Europe, and although the Polish Church is bolder and more robust than any other in the region, the State and society are separated in all "peoples democracies...
...Since (he Council of Minis(ers at that time occupied the old Radziwill palace, the Prime Minister greeted his new employee with feigned embarrassment: "Sir," he said, "I am not sure which one of us should play the host here...
...It would, therefore, be a disaster for the future of pluralist democracy in Poland if citizens were led to believe that a replacement of red banners with black robes is an answer to the nation's political problems...
...Yet Polish society was not wholly unprepared for this demonstration of concerted action outside of government-sponsored institutions...
...Politics, in short, must be secular and permit people to enter many associations for many reasons...
...As tar as the government was concerned, the Pope was the unwelcome guest...
...Don't let it worry Your Excellency," replied Radziwill, "Our family sold (his place lo a circus owner back in 1812,when we needed cash to pu( up a cavalry detachment for the Emperor Napoleon...
...But the uniqueness of the Papal homecoming should not be allowed to overshadow its relevance to all Communist-ruled countries in Eastern Europe...
...They were joyous, not angry, and throughout they simply ignored the government...
...IGNORING THE GOVERNMENT John Paul and the Parallel PqJjJJYjCJ by jan t gross The television broadcasts of Communist Party Secretary Edward Gierek greeting Pope John Paul II in Warsaw early this month reminded me of an anecdote I heard several years ago in Poland...
...The barbed exchange offered little consolation to the President of the Council of Ministers of the Peoples Republic of Poland...
...To command obedience, it must rely on fear or the self-interest of those to whom it grants privileges...
...as far as society was concerned...
...Both were elected only once, by a small group of individuals who, like themselves, were successful "organization men"—the conclave of cardinals and the politburo...
...It simply underlined the fact that while the new regime could appropriate the instruments of government and the nation's real estate, it could not wipe out the centuries of Polish culture...
...All of this is the result of groups of citizens purposefully ignoring the regime and asserting at considerable personal risk their constitutional rights...
...The spiritual and material life of the population have long been flowing around the official Poland of Party organization, economic statistics and newspaper headlines...
...True, the government was still in charge of transportation, utilities, traffic control, and similiar everyday matters, but it was deprived of political initiative...
...Yet John Paul's visit did more than confirm a long-suspected truce...
...By showing that civil society continues to exist and is dramatically capable of manifesting itself, John Paul's visit was a powerful message of hope to the people of the region, and a warning to their already uneasy rulers...
...he could have even said "L 'etat c 'est moi" and in no time shut down Communist Party headquarters all over the country...
...So too in IS>79, with the strange meeting between the Polish Pope—the embodiment of the nation's millenial tradition of Catholicism—and the first Secretary of the Polish I'nited Workers Party (PUWP) —which was installed in power .'5 years ago In the Soviet Union...
...Having lost its bid medicines to apartments, a parallel market has arisen and even a parallel currency (American dollars are far more desirable than Polish zloiys...
...Hence the transformation, under despotism, of ruling classes into les classes digerantes (the digesting classes...
...If anyone doubted the split between society and government in Eastern Europe, there is now taped evidence...
Vol. 62 • June 1979 • No. 13
