(5 of 9)
In charge of the lay organization Serov put a bumptious, indestructible gangster named Boleslaw Piasecki. Piasecki had worked as an agent for Mussolini, later for the Gestapo; when he was picked up by the NKVD, he eagerly ratted on his associates, most of whom were promptly liquidated. But nervous Boleslaw, casting about for further life insurance, landed in Pax—officially called the Social Radical Movement of Polish Catholics. The organization had the monopoly on religious publishing, plus the manufacture and sale of all religious articles. The resulting flow of cash provided Piasecki with a luxurious villa, where he kept a Jaguar and plenty of caviar and cognac to drive the blues away. Piasecki did his best to sell the Stalinist brand of anti-Catholic Catholicism. But most of the laity and all of the hierarchy stood firm. Today Pax still controls much of its commercial empire and is still in charge of Caritas, the Catholic welfare organization over which the church seeks direct control. But by and large Pax is utterly discredited.
Even less successful was the organization of the Patriot Priests, headed by Father Jan Czuj, hard-drinking dean of Warsaw University's theological faculty, who started with a group of Catholic chaplains in the Polish army who had been trained and brainwashed in the U.S.S.R. during the war. By best estimates, the group never numbered more than 200 to 300.
Pious Protest. "Operation K" was what Communist Party members called the campaign against the church, and they overlooked no detail to make it more effective. Troops were ordered to see special indoctrination films on Sunday mornings to keep them from attending Mass. In many state restaurants and canteens, meat was served regularly on Friday, even if it was unavailable during the rest of the week. Religious processions were drowned out by jazz-blaring loudspeakers. Religious houses were closed (thousands of nuns took jobs to support their communities), and religious education in the schools was all but ended by harassment.
But all this effort achieved only the opposite effect. Schoolchildren from whose classrooms the crucifixes had been stripped arranged for a different child to bring a crucifix from home each day, or else drew crosses on the walls. Even some party functionaries sought out remote churches to attend Mass and held clandestine church weddings late at night, the bride bringing her veil in a briefcase. Piety became a form of protest. Swedes began noticing that the Polish sailors visiting their ports did not swear the way they used to. Well, said the sailors, they'd rather be good than Communist.
The Conditions. In the hands of the Communists, Cardinal Wyszynski suffered no physical hardship, only isolation. He was never brought to trial as he had feared. He was confined successively to four convents; in the third he was even allowed to see visitors.
Some of his visitors were deputations from the Communists offering his release. If he agreed to give up his post of primate, said one delegation in 1955, he could preach, hear confessions and say Mass. "I prefer to pray for you gentlemen here," replied Cardinal Wyszynski coolly.