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When Poland's Stalinist government fell in October 1956 and Wladyslaw Gomulka took power, he lost no time in sending representatives to the cardinal to discuss the conditions of his return. Now Wyszynski was in a position to dictate the terms on which he would accept his freedom, for Gomulka needed Wyszynski's tremendous personal authority to keep Poland's anti-Red fever under control. The cardinal's bargaining power was nothing less than the Soviet army that might roll over Poland if things went out of control.
Wyszynski laid his conditions on the line for Gomulka's emissaries: release of all imprisoned bishops, priests and monks, full implementation of the 1950 church-state agreement, with special emphasis on restoring religious teaching in the schools, plus an agreement to hold general elections. The conditions were promptly accepted, and on last Oct. 29. the cardinal climbed into his black 1947 Ford and drove back to Warsaw. That night the cardinal's car swung into the courtyard of the primate's palace and its headlights picked out the kneeling forms of the cardinal's personal staff waiting to greet him and receive his blessing.
He preached his first sermon at Warsaw's Church of the Holy Cross, where he had been scheduled to speak just before being taken prisoner. "My dear children of God.'" he began. "I am a little late—only a little more than three years. Forgive me; it is the first time that anything like that has happened to me."
Heroes in Truth. So began the unique cooperation of cardinal and Communist that has steered Poland through six shaky months of peace. Tensest time of all was the election campaign, when it became clear that many voters, incensed at having few candidates but Communists to vote for, were planning to stay away from the polls or scratch out the Communist names. Either action would have gravely jeopardized Gomulka's position and brought the threat of Russian intervention. All across Poland parish priests told their flocks what would be required of them, and bishops ostentatiously dropped undeleted ballots into the boxes. Cardinal
Wyszynski, however, voted late at an unexpected polling place in an effort to avoid newspictures that might identify him too closely with a Communist—even if not a Russian Communist—regime.