Stefan
WYSZYNSKI (1901-1981)
Primate of Poland.
B. Aug. 8, 1901, Zuzela
(county Ostrów Mazowiecka). In 1924 he finished the religious seminary in Wloclawek,
1925-29 studied canon law and social sciences at the Lublin Catholic
University (KUL), in 1929 received his doctorate in canon law. From
Oct. 1948 archbishop of Gniezno and Warsaw, primate of Poland; from
1953 cardinal. Arrested 1953, held in Rywa³d, Stoczek, Prudnik,
and Komañcza; released in Oct. 1956. In mid-60s, together
with the Polish Episcopate, he made a gesture of reconciliation
between the Polish and the German nation, addressed to the German
bishops; this caused a hostile and violent reaction of the party
and state authorities. Member of the Vatican Congregation of the
Clergy and the Commission for the Revision of Canon Law Code, he
took part in the proceedings of the Second Vatican Council. He played
a major role in the election of Karol Wojty³a to the Papacy;
in 1980-81 he acted as a broker between the "Solidarity" movement
and the communist authorities. His works include: Katolicki program walki z komunizmem ("A
Catholic Programme of Combating Communism", 1937); List do moich kap³anów ("A Letter to My Priests", 1969); Listy pasterskie prymasa Polski 1946-1974 ("Pastoral
Letters of the Primate of Poland 1946-1974", 1975); Koœció³ w s³u¿bie narodu ("The Church in the
Service of the Nation", 1981); Zapiski
wiêzienne ("Notes from Prison", 1982); Nauczanie spo³eczne 1946-1981 ("Social Teaching 1946-1981", 1990).
D. May 28, 1981, Warsaw, a couple of weeks after the assassination
attempt on John Paul II, and a few months before the introduction
of martial law in Poland.
The selected fragments
are from Kultura bolszewizmu
a inteligencja polska ("The Culture of Bolshevism and the Polish
Intellectuals"), originally published 1938 in W³oc³awek,
reprinted from underground press CDN: Warsaw 1982, pp. 3-6, 13-23,
26-29 and 31-35.
The Bolshevik experiment coincides with a severe worldwide economic crisis.
A crisis usually entails intensified efforts of the human mind to
finds its root causes. This effort is even more dedicated when it
is subjected to the pressure of accumulated experience and the knowledge
that unemployment and poverty of the masses lead to moral debasement
and disintegration. The causes of this multi-faceted evil lie deeper
than in a temporary economic downturn; they are to be sought in
the very structure of the economic system and must be directly referred
to this evil. This is why so much is being said today about the
need to change the system, and not only in the communist or socialist
camp, but also among Catholics. When such a phenomenon as the Bolshevik
revolution, a reconstruction of society along collectivist lines,
occurs in this sort of atmosphere, we should not be surprised if
it arouses widespread interest, that here and there it even stirs
up some hopes. These are often the hopes of people who are hungry,
homeless, and jobless, to a certain extent excluded from the process
of the distribution of economic goods; of people for whom questions
of economic systems are of secondary importance, since their priority
is bread, which they must procure even at the cost of bringing the
system down.
The Bolshevik agitation, which exerts a particularly strong influence upon
the disaffected (understandably enough from the psychological point
of view), proclaimed the creation of a new type of state, which
would be a protest against the exploitation inflicted in bourgeois
states by thousands of exploiters upon millions of exploited and
which would be governed by the proletariat. Naturally, this proclamation
was eagerly welcomed by the masses. However, it did not occur to
them that power is vested not in the proletariat, but in the party,
numbering only 3 million in a country of 170 million citizens. Within
these 3 million only a small minority, carefully weeded out through
purges, belongs to the proletariat. Likewise, it did not occur to
them that being a member of the proletariat does not always give
access to the party. The party itself, organized along military
lines and having its ruling oligarchy, is in fact not a democratic
body, but a means of exercising violence on the remainder of the
proletariat and of the citizens. Were it known more precisely what
this highly acclaimed constitutional change in the Soviet Union
has led to, there would not be so many hopes attached to this fact
as there are now.
Reading the countless descriptions of travels in Bolshevik Russia, articles
in journals, one sees immediately what impresses the visitors most:
energy and audacity in the economic domain, a resolute, strong power
exercised dictatorially. The reader confronts these images with
the crisis of democracy and parliamentarism in European countries,
with the ineptitude of governments in the social and economic sphere,
etc. These painfully felt defects create the psychological ground
on which dictatorships grow. The reader is not always aware that
dictatorial government in the Soviet Union, exercised with the aid
of the army, the police, and the GPU, put an end to all civil liberties.
Even the very inviolability of the person was helpless in the Bolshevic
State against the formidable power of the Cheka. When the Glavnoye
Politicheskoye Upravlenye (GPU) was created by a decree of November
16, 1922, it was equipped with wide-ranging powers, including the
power to arrest, to impose severe punishments without trial, from
exile and forced labor up to the death penalty. The decree of January
3, 1923, issued by the Commissariat of Internal Affairs, confers
on administrative organs the power to resettle citizens, even without
naming the destination. These powers are even more expanded by the
laws concerning emergency measures to be used to maintain the "revolutionary
order" (of March 8, 1923, and the decree of March 28, 1924, issued
by CIK). The very existence of GPU, as an organ not accountable
to the police and to administrative bodies, passing sentences without
any established procedure or right to appeal, is highly characteristic
of the condition of civil liberties in the Bolshevic State. Freedoms
so circumscribed constitute a legally binding system that leaves
the individual entirely at the mercy of the state administration.
The situation of civil liberties in the Soviet Union is best illustrated
by the existence of a category of people not to be found in any
other country: the so-called lishentsy
and the byvshy lyudii. They are deprived of civil
rights, live outside the law and are robbed of any opportunity for
a decent existence under the new conditions. Here are some groups
belonging to this category: those using the labor of others for
profit, those living from income not deriving from their labor,
private merchants, salesmen and commercial agents, monks and priests
of all denominations, if their ministry is also their occupation,
etc. [...]
This bondage is exacerbated by the subordination to the purposes of state
of all essential economic goods, which are used by the authorities
to exert control over citizens. Having the production and distribution
of these goods in its hands, the State makes the citizen dependent
on it in the smallest details; no wonder, then, that it can exercise
the desired influence over the masses. This task is made easier
by the fact that the complete state monopoly of the press deprives
citizens of an opportunity to express their views.
Certain costs must be paid by the citizen to have a strong government whose
social utility is dubious. It is remarkable that the numerous defenders
of constitutional liberties in many countries whose systems of government
do not deny these liberties are so admiring of the Soviet Union,
which has so blatantly banished these liberties.
Sympathizers of the collectivist system are greatly influenced by their
conviction that the whole Soviet system is based on labor. Their
ideal is a "State of organized Labor". We shall put aside the question
of whether this ideal is right; but it is worth reflecting whether
the organization of labor introduced in the Soviet Union can be
found attractive.
Bolshevism divides citizens into those who work and those who do not work;
article 68 of the Soviet constitution assigns to the first group
all citizens whose livelihood depends on "productive and objectively
useful labor". The question as to who belongs to this group is left
to the discretion of the Soviet authorities, and this decision determines
the rights of the citizen. Only those who work are entitled to political
rights (article 68), are eligible for positions in trade unions
and offices, are entitled to lodgings, have easier access to university
studies, and are even treated more leniently during criminal trials.
Adopting the principle that he who does not work also need not eat (article
18), bolshevism introduced compulsory labor; but the rewards for
this labor are not the same for all citizens. The labor of a certain
category of people might not correspond to the revolutionary purpose
and might not be of revolutionary use. Therefore, those who perform
it will be included in the group of non-workers. They are the lishentsy,
people who are outside the law and towards whom administrative organs
may exercise unqualified discretion. Indeed, the lishentsy are employed for public works which are, in fact, forced
labor. Apart from prisoners, another category used for compulsory
labor are inmates of concentration camps, especially numerous in
Northern Russia (the Solovets Islands on the White Sea). The labor
of these tens of thousands of political offenders is used especially
for felling trees. [...]
There is pressure to impose various "voluntary" self-restrictions on civil
rights, adopted "by their own free will" by citizens, in response
to directives of the Central Committee of the Communist party, issued
with a view to a better, though remote future. This led to the creation
of the institution of so-called subotnitsy,
that is workers who restrict their right to rest, and work for the
state on holidays if there is an urgent public commission to be
done. This moral coercion, backed up by the threat of forfeiting
food rations, generated the so-called udarnye brighadii, work-teams that undertake
extra work after hours without pay. The freedom of work is also
circumscribed by the use of factory workers to perform some urgent
tasks.
We should also consider as coercion the campaign of propagating among workers
the so-called samozakreplenye,
that is attachment to industrial plants, aimed at preventing workers
from moving from factory to factory and created a kind of social
class: fabricae adscripti. Under the decree from
November 1932, missing one day of work or unaccounted absence entails
expulsion from the factory, the forfeiture of ration tickets and
the expulsion from lodgings. No wonder that under such circumstances
and with such consequences hanging over the worker, a "work race"
develops in Soviet factories, often to the detriment of the quality
of products. As we can see, then, although theoretically work is
not compulsory for persons who have civil rights, in fact, as a
result of all these "voluntary" self-restrictions, the compulsion
does exist.
In practice there is no equality of remuneration for the same amount of
labor. Bolshevism has created a whole system of privileges that
violate proletarian equality. Moreover, this takes place in the
most sensitive area, that of food. The system has engendered a new
social morality. Whole categories of industrial workers, specialists,
Stakhanovites, heroes of labor, have access to special shops, closed
to the Bolshevik proletariat. The Soviet Union creates a new Bolshevik
nobility, whose privileges are not within the province of political
rights, but within the sphere of gastronomic rights.
The system of labor is an enslavement from which there is no way out under
current conditions. There is no way out for workers, as they cannot
claim their rights along the path accepted in our country, that
is through trade unions - for the only trade unions that exist are
state-sponsored, subordinated to the interests of the ruling party
and the bureaucratic state administration. What in every bourgeois
country is regarded as an attainment of the working class, that
is, freedom of association, has no practical significance for the
Soviet proletariat. However, the Soviet State cannot abandon this
system, because the success of actions undertaken by the Soviet
Union is possible only if exploitation of labor is maintained. [...]
Admirers of the new Russia speak a lot about the development of education
in the Bolshevic State,. Even if we disregard the fact that this
growth is observable in every country, we should note that the advancement
of culture in the Soviet Union is threatened by the very assumptions
of communist thinking.
"Our culture is a Marxist culture", K. Radek stated in Wiadomoœci Literackie. Marxism is
quite disdainful of intellectual culture. The very concept of labor,
limited to physical work, must create an unfavorable attitude towards
intellectual work. Bolshevism, which gave uncritical credence to
all the tenets of Marxism, from the outset used the emotions, rather
than reason, as its guidepost. Under the slogan of daloy
gramotniye, it launched a campaign against the professional
intelligentsia, against specialists and experts, trying to put into
effect the assumption that each worker who knows basic arithmetic
is capable of managing a factory workshop, and that "every woman-cook
is capable of governing the country", as Lenin said. These premises
gave rise to the whole issue of vydvizhentsy, simple workers - self-taught - placed at the head of
industrial workshops in the name of principles. Utopian communism
remained utopian even after Engels promoted it "from a utopia to
a science", as is evidenced by the history of the Bolshevik revolution.
It took the sad experiences with the vydvizhentsy
for the authorities - under the pressure of sad necessity - to gain
respect for specialists. Having decimated its own professional class,
the Soviet Union had to import costly foreign experts, and if these
experts were able to achieve anything, this was only because they
were exempted from the impact of Bolshevik laws, hostile towards
intellectuals and educated people.
Such an atmosphere cannot be favorable to the development of culture. In
the Soviet Union there is no freedom of scientific research; in
a state which adopted Marxist logic as official, which identifies
the purpose of scientific research with its revolutionary utility,
objective scientific research cannot exist. In the area of intellectual
work bolshevism aimed at a monopoly, wanting thereby to impose on
science its criterion: historical materialism, and to inculcate
in its citizens the materialist understanding of history. With that
aim in view, the paper industry was nationalized in one of the first
moves in the economic field. Taking control over all publications,
bolshevism made it impossible to print any magazines, leaflets,
or books. Communism became the official doctrine of the state, not
subject to criticism.
Wanting to enclose citizens in the sphere of collectivist thinking, bolshevism
turned Russia into one vast prison that no one is allowed to leave.
The idea was that Soviet citizens entirely lose touch with Western
civilization; the whole young generation is being brought up in
isolation from the Western world, and when this generation takes
power, it is difficult to say what terms, what concepts it will
use when communicating with Europe. It is in such conditions that
a new "science" is created, Bolshevik "science", based on historical
materialism. What cultural value can it possess? The mentality of
a Bolshevik citizen, deprived of the possibility of comparing its
own achievements with those founded on Christian principles, becomes
a narrow, fanatical cast of mind, and by virtue of its materialist
standpoint a fundamentally fallacious one, because it is fragmentary.
"The culture of nascent socialism" only apparently emancipates the
masses. In reality it exacerbates their ordeal by incapacitating
the first flights of imagination, forcing it into the narrow bounds
of materialist thinking. Having no soul, having no religion, which
constitutes the moving spirit of every culture, it injures the creativity
of young Russia to such an extent that one cannot see anything in
it which would merit the name of a new civilization. One can observe
an extraordinary poverty of thought, whether in literature, poetry,
and painting, or in sculpture, music, and theatre. The subject matter
of literature has been restricted to the world of production, the
screeching of cogs and the noise of conveyor belts were introduced
into poetry, and on the stage we have scenery resembling mechanized
and improved guillotines, we see the inside of factories as a background
for the collective human being. This poverty does not surprise us.
One could not expect anything more when the human spirit was imprisoned
in matter, and its flights were caught in the net of censorship.
By enclosing artistic creation within the world of industrial production,
within the world of matter, the Soviets willingly condemned themselves
to the decline of spiritual forces, which will be unable to carry
the burden of even that rudimentary education which is now fed to
the ignorant masses. [...]
When assessing communism, one must not forget about that which must take
the foremost place in this assessment - one must not forget about
the human being. For everything that the Soviet Union does has been
undertaken for the good of man, although in the name of materialist
assumptions. The Soviet Union perceives man as homo
economicus; it identifies the satisfaction of all his material
needs with happiness, and even with moral advancement. It perceives
the solution of the social problem entirely within the sphere of
material wellbeing, disregarding the ethical aspect, both in the
area of doctrine and in that of the exchange of benefits. Rejecting
the Christian religion and the morality founded on it, educators
of the collective man assumed that securing certain economic advantages
for the Soviet citizen is a precondition of remaking his mentality
to the core. They try to compensate for the lack of religious and
moral life with a materialist civilization. The development of this
civilization does not in any way entail the spiritual advancement
of man. In this way materialist civilization, preceding spiritual
advancement, reinforces the hegemony of matter, re-imposes on man
the bondage from which he has been trying to free himself for ages.
The dominance of matter is burdensome even when neutralized by religion.
Proclaiming the supremacy of matter is already painfully felt in
the "culture of nascent socialism", which enslaves man to such an
extent that he ceases to be a free agent. Man is governed by the
material world, and not the other way around. The emancipation of
man in the Bolshevik style, by putting him at the mercy of technology
and machinery, paves the way for a new era of slavery.
In discarding religious principles, as a hindrance to the material conquest
of the world, bolshevism forgot that the material conquest of the
world requires many Christian virtues. The material conquest of
the presently civilized Europe was once carried out by the contemplative
orders, which cut down forests, traced out roads, and built bridges.
By forcing people to develop a materialist civilization, in isolation
from religious life in its manifold aspects, the Soviet Union wants
to prove that "by bread alone man lives". Today they still avail
themselves of those values which for so many centuries were inculcated
in the Russian soul by Christianity: patience, courage, diligence,
obedience, etc.; virtues indispensable for the development of production.
However, what will happen once the Soviets create a new man, completely
detached from the influence of Christian virtues? He will lack the
spiritual strength to subdue matter and impose order on it. Even
the management of matter requires kinship with the world of the
spirit. These times are not remote. Even today the question of man
appears on the agenda in the Soviet Union. The Soviets built factories
turning out products of which four out of five are faulty. "Everything
founders on the quality of man". It is not enough to build Magnitogorsk,
you have to maintain it; and that requires some Christian values,
the heroism of work inspired by motives higher than earthly wellbeing.
Bringing someone up as a useful co-worker in building the new system
is impossible in a materialist atmosphere. As long as this atmosphere
prevails, the workshops will be a painful sore of the Soviet economy.
An editor of Przegl¹d Katolicki is right in pointing out that "we, European
idealists,' bend under the weight of technological achievements,
while they, Eastern materialists, have no spoons, no buttons, not
to speak about railway engines".
A crisis of man has begun in the Soviet Union, perhaps more painful than
the crisis of the Five-Year Plan. Any system devoid of Christian
life will end in such a crisis. A change of system that does not
improve man has no significance for society. This is a warning not
to build a house on sand, not to adore a civilization divested of
religious and moral components. This is a reminder that when one
rebuilds one's own system, when one tries to solve social problems,
one should combine economic reforms with religious purpose, thereby
ensuring their efficacy.
The inefficacy of bolshevism finds a particularly conspicuous manifestation
in the crisis of man, the citizen. Perhaps in the factory, the modern
equivalent of Krasiñski's Holy Trinity Entrenchment, we will
hear the admission: Galilaee,
vicisti!