The paper discusses the difficulties encountered when trying to define the opposition in the post-war Polish political system. There is even disagreement over what terms should be used to describe those groups that sought to defy the political legitimacy of the authorities of the period. There were many factors involved, of which a main one was the considerable variety of ways in which the situation was contested. The text also refers to several typologies of the opposition that can be found in the literature and which, at least to some extent, demonstrate this variety. It presents the roles played by the opposition, which were partly identical with those in democratic systems, and partly unique.

The paper broadly discusses the social role of the Roman Catholic Church in Poland in the years 1944/1945–1989. The authors answer a key question from today’s perspective: during the communist era, was the Church in permanent opposition to the communist system? Their conclusions are quite clear: the activities of the Church as an institution went significantly beyond even the broadest definition of ’opposition’. In many matters, the Church substituted for the state. In others, it provided an alternative space unspoiled by an ideology that forced people to renounce their own convictions. It was also a place where millions of Poles had an opportunity to form their own independent thought.

This article examines certain parallels in the political transformation in Hungary in the context of events in other Central and Eastern European countries. The starting point for the text is the outstanding role of culture, and particularly of writers, in the activities of the opposition in our region. Time Zone had a decisive influence on the course of political events. Most points in common are to be found in the developments in Hungary and Poland. The events of 1988 in both countries had a mutual impact on each other, like two gearwheels (as in 1956). The Round Table talks in Warsaw are an example of this, for they sent an important signal to the opposition in Hungary. This regional interaction led to a strengthening of relations within Central and Eastern Europe.

The aim of the article is to reconstruct the events of March 1968 at the Nicolaus Copernicus University (NCU) in Toruń. When compared with other academic centres in Poland, the protests of students in Toruń had a limited reach, and there has been no comprehensive study on this issue so far. However, recently discovered archival sources allow us to better understand the origins and the course of the student protests in Toruń in 1968. The actions of the state authorities and the Security Service towards the academic circle in Toruń are characterized in detail. The article also describes the activities of the then NCU’s authorities towards the protesting students. The work adopts the critical analysis method of historical sources. The outcome of the conducted research is the most comprehensive account at present on the events of March 1968 in Toruń.

The Prague Spring of 1968 represents the most extensive attempt at reform Communism. Delayed destalinisation brought various changes, and socialism was to be given a “human face.” At the end of March 1968, K 231 was established, associating political prisoners convicted under Section 231 for “subverting the republic,” and over three thousand of them from all over Czechoslovakia gathered in Žofín, Prague. They were called “former people” or “hostile persons” by the ruling Communist regime. Political prisoners stated that they did not want to be a political party. They actively built their organisation – they established local, district, regional and provincial branches. They were headquartered on Karlovo náměstí (Charles Square) in Prague, eight commissions were active, and their mission was to achieve legal, civic and social rehabilitation. Around 80,000 members subscribed to the “reform process,” demanded the removal of all discriminatory measures and emphasised that they were not seeking revenge, but justice. Political prisoners from Slovakia became involved in the establishment of K 231, but soon decided to go their own way and set up their own organisation. The Slovak Organisation for the Defending of Human Rights, a sister organisation of K 231, was founded on 7 April 1968 in Bratislava. Although former Czech and Slovak political prisoners acted amicably, they became as undesirable for Dubček’s reform Communists as the Klub angažovaných nestraníků (Club of Involved Independents) or the preparatory committee of the Social Democratic Party. Throughout the Prague Spring, they tried to legalise their activities, but in vain. Instead, they remained under observation by the secret police, and under pressure from Moscow, hostility and media attacks against them escalated. With the occupation of 21 August 1968, when all hopes were shattered, their five-month tenure ended. On 5 September 1968, the Ministry of the Interior refused to register K 231, and the association ceased all operations. Numerous representatives went into exile; those who remained in their homeland became “people of interest” to the State Security, were monitored, called for questioning, and their “counter-revolutionary efforts” were denigrated. In fact, their work showed the possibilities and limits of the Prague Spring. Former political prisoners were still strong enough and their association had great potential, not only moral, but also intellectual and educational. Strong personalities, strong stories – the first organisation of political prisoners in Czechoslovakia.

Contrary to stereotypes that persist today, Polish society did not support the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact forces in 1968 en masse. In fact, it is more accurate to say that at that time the pose of friendship and fraternity propagated officially was replaced by a sincere, unforced solidarity. Many Poles expressed their opposition to this ‘fraternal help’ in various ways – from words to deeds – or showed sympathy towards the Czechs and Slovaks. This was the case not only within Poland, but also among Polish émigrés in the West and in Czechoslovakia itself. The most tragic manifestation of this was the self-immolation of Ryszard Siwec in September 1968 at the 10th-Anniversary Stadium in Warsaw. It may come as a surprise that the scale of the protests – in terms of the number of leaflets and inscriptions – was twice as large as in March 1968. Poles proved themselves to be in strong solidarity with the Czech and Slovaks, despite the pacification of some parts of society several months previously, the vacation period, anti-Czech sentiments, PRL propaganda and threats of repression (detentions, arrests, prison sentences, dismissals from work or academic positions). Today, the attitude of those who had the courage to stand up against the ‘fraternal help’ for Czechoslovakia can be a cause for pride, in contrast to the shame associated with the participation of the Wojsko Polskie in the invasion.

In the years 1980–1981, the Solidarity Trade Union conducted activities abroad, encroaching upon areas that up to then had been the sole domain of the PRL authorities. The goal of this article is to answer the question: what was the direction and specific nature of those activities, and did they get results? A secondary issue is how the PZPR leadership reacted to the union’s foreign initiatives. Documents of Solidarity, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Political Bureau of the PZPR Central Committee are analysed. The foreign activities of Solidarity grew after the trade union was registered in November 1980. The main addressees of its ‘foreign policy’ were the key trade unions in democratic states and centres of the Polish diaspora. Solidarity’s internationalisation of the movement was successful – the union corresponded with syndicates in 18 countries around the world. It sent delegations on at least 40 trips abroad in connection with study, trade unions and promotion; its members attended audiences with Pope John Paul II. The union gained material support, particularly deliveries of printing equipment. Its “To the Rescue” Medicine Bank was effective, bringing in foreign medical aid valued at 3,650,000 dollars. The foreign activities of Solidarity were not a subject of discussion among the party leadership, which did have access, however, to reports by state institutions that were observing what the union was up to abroad.

In any reflections on the opposition or social resistance during the PRL period, one cannot overlook the part played by the Roman Catholic clergy. That role can be considered through the lens of the clergy’s engagement in specific opposition activities, or more broadly, by analysing the contribution made by priests in showing Poles an alternative axiology to that proposed by the communists. Yet it would be incorrect to locate the Church somewhere in the dichotomy between the authorities and the opposition, since, both in the 1980s and earlier, the Church was more like one arm of a triangle (the other two being the authorities and the changing opposition circles), and strove to attain its own goals. It is worth noting that individual clergymen had different ideas as to the best way of achieving those goals. Some took a critical view of all activities that went beyond what was purely religious; others became involved in the debate over the socio-political order of the time. Still others, without engaging personally, permitted the parishes they were in charge of to be used by people from opposition circles for legal forms of pastoral care (for example pilgrimages, masses, children’s and youth ministries) whose content had de facto anti-system undertones. The article discusses the third of the above approaches using the examples of two parishes in Konin. These were among the pastoral centres functioning in mid-sized towns, which have received less attention in the post-war history of Poland than centres in large cities.

The beginning of the 1980s was marked in Yugoslavia by Tito’s death, an economic crisis and the start of the rivalry between its republics and their representatives. This portended further extraordinary changes in Yugoslavia. The rivalry of interests between republics was reflected also amongst the communist elite. Nevertheless their approach to the new challenges they faced was to maintain the status quo in both internal and foreign policy. They were reluctant to make any major changes in their international policies and because of that they presented a restrained attitude towards Solidarity. On the other hand, in the realm of the social and cultural life, some significant while not numerous signs of sympathy towards the upheaval in Poland at the beginning of the 1980s were visible. It was predominantly in cultural life where Polish culture was highly appreciated and Branimir “Johnny” Štulić, the frontman of the significant rock band Azra, wrote the song Poland in my heart. Both Azra and the famous Slovenian rock group Laibach reacted also to the imposing of the Martial Law on 13 December 1981. While in Johnny Štulić's lyrics, the activities of the Polish authorities were condemned, the Slovenian band recognized the measures undertaken by Wojciech Jaruzelski as the proper one. It was a small group of Yugoslav dissidents from Belgrade, dominated by marxists with a minor but still significant role of liberal civil right activists, that highly appreciated thee Polish contestation towards communist authorities. The assumption of the marxist group represented by Dragomir Olujić and Pavluško Imširović was that Solidarity was the “true movement of the working class” fighting for human dignity, freedoms of conscience, speech, assembly etc. This human right context was crucial for liberal, human rights activists in their sympathy towards Solidarity. Lazar Stojanović, a anticommunist director, was the most influential person in the second group. Support for Solidarity coincided with their actions like petitions, demands directed at the Yugoslav authorities against the curtailment of social freedom. They were fascinated by the resolute stance of the Solidarity leaders and observed events in Poland with delight as they were not able to apply “Polish solutions” in Yugoslavia. A Yugoslav left-wing group led by Olujić and Pavluško Imširović carried out a few actions directed to express their solidarity with Solidarity. After the imposition of Martial Law they prepared a petition directed to Jaruzelski and gathered five thousand signatures to show their condemnation of the Polish authorities. Despite disapproval of the authorities in Belgrade, they organised a demonstration in front of the Polish embassy to show sympathy with the victims of Martial Law in Poland. The most significant action was the flying of the flags with the inscription “Solidarity" on July 1982 during a huge public meeting organised by the authorities with theme of "Solidarity with the Palestinian nation”. Due to their activity eight people were detained and jailed while their colleagues who supported them and demanded their liberation were also imprisoned two weeks later.

The aim of this publication is to study the organisation and main currents of the activities of the Red Aid of Western Ukraine in the 1920s and 1930s in Volyn and Eastern Galicia. General empirical and strictly historical research methods were employed, including chronological, problem-oriented, and historical comparative methods. The organisation studied was formally subordinate to the Red Aid in Poland (which constituted a division of the International Red Aid) but was de facto dependent on the Communist Party of Western Ukraine (KZPU) ideologically, financially and organisationally. Despite its illegal status and repressions by law enforcement agencies, the organisation effectively carried on charitable activities to help political prisoners from the extreme left and members of their families. Promoting the communist movement, the Red Aid of Western Ukraine destabilised the socio-political situation in the country. It was therefore monitored by various levels of the Polish security forces, which became well acquainted with the structure of the organisation and how it operated.

This article concerns the evolution of the Greek Catholic Church in terms of its approach to issues of nationality in Eastern Galicia. The author shows the enormous role played by the Uniate clergy, led by the Metropolitan of Lviv, Andrzej Szeptycki, in the Ukrainification of the Church. Szeptycki subordinated his political sympathies to the primary goal of bring Russian Orthodoxy and the Catholic Church together (building a new union). By helping the Ukrainian movement, he gained sympathy among the Greek Catholic clergy, who were important in conducting missions in the East. As to his foreign contacts, at the beginning of the First World War he cooperated with the Austrians, and later attempted to establish contact with the Tsar in order to support the process of building a great Ukraine at the end of the war. At no stage of his activities did he see any need to cooperate with Polish politicians; on the contrary, he was against Polish aspirations in the former borderlands of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In this way, the Greek Catholic Church, and Szeptycki himself, came into a lasting conflict with the renewed Polish state.

The Control Department of Cordon Movement at the Central Headquarters of the State Police of Central Lithuanian was established by Central Lithuanian Decree No. 376, October 1921. Its control structures supervised the flow of goods and persons through the neutral belt towards the Republic of Lithuania. It acted on the basis of the Implementing Rules of the Director of the Department of Internal Affairs (No. 549, Annex 2). On this basis pass rules were created. It was liquidated on 31 May 1923.

The history of the Czechoslovak military unit in Poland, its engagement in the defence of Poland in September 1939, its capture by the Red Army and time in the Soviet Union between 1939 and 1941 has been given special attention not only by Czech, but also by Polish and Russian historiographers since the 1960s. Nevertheless, the potential for researching this issue has not been completely exhausted. One of the areas where inaccurate or misleading data has been carried over for years is the question of the unit’s personnel, especially after its capture by the Red Army. The study aims to eliminate, or at least clarify, these inaccuracies using a detailed analysis of primary resources from a personnel perspective that have not been fully used. The research succeeded in reconstructing the numbers of Czechoslovak soldiers who managed to reach Romanian territory in September 1939 or later, specifying the number of transports of soldiers released in 1939 and 1940 to Czechoslovak military units in France and the Middle East, identifying a group of those who decided to collaborate with the Soviet regime and deserted or were expelled from the ranks of Czechoslovak foreign armies, and especially those who fell victim to NKVD repression and were imprisoned in the Gulag. A group of soldiers who disappeared within the Soviet Union without a trace was also defined in a basic way.

The paper discusses the situation of the Polish minority in Latvia under Soviet occupation from June 1940 to June 1941. The overall situation of Poles and of the repressions taken against them are outlined, including the nature and consequences thereof. Particular attention is paid to the repressions encountered by two Poles who were officers in the Latvian Army: Piotr Gaidamowicz and Jan Olszański. To the losses suffered by the Polish nation due to Soviet repressions, we should add 220–226 Latvian Poles who were arrested – mainly for patriotic activities in Polish organisations and in the service of the Latvian state, which was friendly towards Poland – and either shot or deported to remote parts of the USSR from where for various reasons they were never able to return to their homeland. Poles were the only national minority in Latvia whose members created their own resistance groups against the Soviet occupation, and in the indictments prepared against them by the Soviet apparatus of repression, this Polish national factor played a prominent role.

The article is focused on one of the episodes of the Soviet-Polish relations during the World War II (the Great Patriotic War) – a reception (banquet) at the Catherine Hall of the Grand Kremlin Palace in honour of the Prime-Minister of the Polish Government in exile Władysław Sikorski with the participation of Joseph Stalin. In this article, the details of the preparation are described by the Soviet side for the visit of the Prime Minister of the Polish Government to the USSR, where this reception took place. Special attention in the article is devoted to the activities of the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, its Protocol Department for specifying the date of the banquet, the drawing up a list of the participants from the Soviet and Polish sides, and the seating order at the table. In the article the peculiarities of the reception ceremony on December 4, 1941 are revealed along with the list of the dishes served. The conclusion of the article emphasises the exclusive character of this dinner. The main sources for the article were the materials of the Archives of Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation, as well as the memoirs of the members of the Polish delegation participating in this feast.

In August 1941, two SS cavalry regiments were sent into action in the territory of the former Polesie province of Poland. At that time, the area was under the control of the German Army. The nominal aim of the operation was to fight against the remaining Red Army troops and the first groups of Soviet partisans. In fact, though, at the order of Heinrich Himmler, for two weeks SS units were engaged in exterminating the local Jewish population. In Chomsk, Hencewicz, Motol, Święta Wola and Telechany, all Jews captured were murdered. In Dawidgródek, Janów Poleski, Łuciniec, Pińsk and Pohost Zahorodzki, many or all of the male Jews above the age of 15 detained were murdered. This genocidal operation resulted in the deaths of at least 15,000 people. It was unprecedented in that it involved the extermination of the entire Jewish population of several locations by regular front-line units.

The parliamentary election campaign of 1957 was unlike that of 1952 or any which followed until 1989. Awakened democratically and free from the threat of repression, Polish society was counting on further reforms and was becoming a genuine participant in political struggles which the weakened party was unable to control. Emotions were particularly heated during meetings between candidates and voters. In hundreds of such occasions throughout the country, people presented their own views on many issues, often bluntly criticising the current government and asking very difficult questions. The most harshly assessed were the centralist candidates, imposed from above in many districts and frequently associated with the Stalinist period. Most candidates from the United Polish Workers’ Party (PZPR) were rejected, and even the authentic popularity of Gomułka could not offset the anti-communist and anti-party mood. Ruthless struggles took place between candidates of the United People’s Party and the United Polish Workers’ Party. Many people openly opposed the ruling party and called on others not to vote for communists, and were joined in this by some Alliance of Democrats (SD) candidates. This coincided with a rivalry within the PZPR – at times based on factional divisions, but more often resulting from a candidate’s position on their party’s list – mandated or non-mandated. The atmosphere was further heated by the anti-soviet mood that prevailed among a clear majority of voters and some candidates – including party candidates – and the picture was completed by anti-Semitic tendencies mainly resulting from the lasting popular stereotype of Jewish Communism. During the campaign, some became convinced it would be better to boycott the election. One of the most important causes of this was a lack of trust in those in power, though a reluctance to vote was also expressed by those for whom none of the candidates were worthy of support, whether they were from the centre or locals who were unpopular in their areas. This vision of a universal rejection of Communist Party parliamentary candidates and a low voter turnout sent the authorities into a panic. For the post-October party leadership, a PZPR election defeat would be a disaster whose consequences would be difficult to predict. And so, Gomułka put his authority on the line – he called for a vote without any deletions, sought the support of the Church, and engaged the army in the propaganda campaign. Also important was people’s awareness of the Soviet threat in the event of a defeat of the communists, as exemplified by Hungary. All these factors culminated in a high voter turnout and a massive return of blank ballots. The PZPR emerged unscathed from the turmoil of the campaign, and its leader managed to achieve most of the political goals he had set.

This article presents the little-known figure of Jan Lech, deputy director of the Office for Religious Affairs who implemented the religious policy of the PRL (1956–1961), usually portrayed in historical studies in a negative light. This, however, was just one episode in a life that demonstrates the complications those brought up in the Second Polish Republic had to face. Lech travelled a long road: he was a member of a Pilsudski youth organisation, an activist connected with the Stronnictwo Demokratyczne and socialists, a resistance member against two occupations, a fugitive from the NKVD, a prisoner in German concentration camps and an activist of the Polish Red Cross in occupied Germany. He was put under surveillance by the communist Security Office, became a dignitary of the Polish Socialist Party and propaganda secretary of the PZPR in Szczecin, a high-ranking functionary in the Ministry of Education and Higher Education and in the Office for Religious Affairs, and an activist of Polski Komitet Pomocy Społecznej. He suffered repression during the events of March ‘68, and eventually began to regret the political choices he had made.

The object case file on “Wspólnota” was kept from 1954–1971. Its purpose was to infiltrate the Order of Discalced Carmelites in Poland. Using a network of agents, officers of the Security Service (SB) gathered materials on the organisational structure of the monastery and the order, on changes in personnel, the mood within the order and its pastoral activities. In order to disciplines agents to provide reliable information, what one agent sent in was verified by another agent. In this way, the information collected featured a high level of credibility. Personal frustrations, ambition or dissatisfaction with monastic life were frequent reasons for people to collaborate. In the period under discussion, most of the information on the Carmelite monastery in Czerna stems from secret collaborators (TW) ‘Stanisław’ and ‘Sikorski’. The reports compiled by TWs gave the SB a precise picture of the ongoing activities of the monks in Czerna, their plans for the future, the part they played in the life of the Church in Poland and worldwide, and their external relations and conflicts. Armed with this knowledge, the Security Service steered processes within the monastery and the order, as clearly attested to by the fact that Romuald Warakomski was slandered and mentally destroyed by the brothers.

Józef Retinger is one of the most colourful, and at the same time puzzling, figures in the recent history of Poland. During the Second World War, he was a political advisor and grey eminence to the head of the Polish government, General Władysław Sikorski, and after the war he remained in exile. He was very active in promoting European unity. He founded the politically influential Bilderberg Group. He was suspected of being a British intelligence agent. He was also accused of working for the secret services of several other states, and of being a freemason. In the second half of the 1950s, the ntelligence service of the PRL took an interest in Retinger. This is a little-known episode in Retinger’s fascinating biography, though in fact the event is well documented in the sources. Captain Andrzej Kłos ‘Oskar’, an officer resident in London who went by the name of Jerzy Klinger as the director of the London branch of the Polish Press Agency, established contact with Retinger. Their meetings were of a social nature, and the information provided by Retinger was of minor operational value, often concerning historical issues. Practically, contact with Retinger was broken off in 1958 when Cpt. Kłos returned to Poland.

In the second half of 1960s, the counterintelligence of the Polish People’s Republic became interested in the activities of the Embassy of the Socialist Republic of Romania in Warsaw. Polish services were particularly curious about the meetings of the Embassy’s employees with representatives of NATO countries, especially with Canadians, Americans, Italians and Britons, and also about their contacts with citizens of the Polish People’s Republic. The surveillance of Romanian diplomats became particularly important after the Warsaw Pact troops entered Czechoslovakia. The Romanian army was not involved in this operation and the government in Bucharest saw this as a violation of Czechoslovak independence. Supporters of Romania’s foreign policy free of the Soviet Union’s influence were considered as dangerous ‘advocates of nationalistic and anti-Soviet tendencies’. Moreover, all contacts by the embassy’s employees were controlled, taking into account their political and propaganda aspect. Polish services were thus particularly interested in the subject matter of the meetings and talks between the Romanian diplomats and representatives of NATO countries as well as in the contents of embassy’s mailings sent to various institutions and private individuals.

From 1573–1945, the parish of Firlejów belonged to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Lviv consecutively within Kingdom of Poland, Austrian Empire and Republic of Poland, then under Soviet and German occupation. In 1946–1991, it ceased to function as a result of a decision by the Soviet communist authorities, but was reactivated in 1991. The most difficult period in its history was that of the Second World War, when both Catholics of Polish origin and the ecclesiastical structures suffered repressions at the hands of both German and Soviet occupiers. The parish was affected by severe personnel losses at the very beginning of the war, when the Soviet authorities deported dozens of Poles deep within the USSR. Afterwards, restrictions were imposed on education conducted in Polish, the scope of religious freedoms was curtailed, and the status of the Polish population depreciated. Many Catholics in Firlejów were killed as part of the genocidal programme carried out by Ukrainian nationalists. Increasingly, there were armed attacks against Poles, their property was destroyed, and many of them lost their lives. The height of the crimes was reached on 15–17 February 1944, when Ukrainians attacked the village, brutally murdering 74 people, and devastating the church, parish buildings and private buildings. In the days that followed, other nearby villages suffered the same fate. These events forced the parish priest, Fr Stanisław Szatko, to flee the parish, and not long afterwards there was a mass westward deportation of the Polish population. The small groups of Poles who remained suffered further repressions, and eventually forced Ukrainification. The Church no longer held a religious function, and the national social life of the Polish minority died out entirely. A renewal was begun by a decision of John Paul II in 1991 that reactivated the structure of the Latin rite of the Lviv diocese in the new reality of an independent Ukraine.

In October 1948, the Primate of Poland, August Hlond, became seriously ill. He was assessed as requiring hospitalisation and taken to the Elizabethan Sisters Hospital in Warsaw. There he underwent two operations that had no positive result. As a result of his illness, Cardinal Hlond died on 22 October 1948. His death sparked numerous speculations that researchers are still grappling with, and that should be addressed but this can only be done using reliable sources that bring us closer to the true course of events. Without doubt, these include: “The Words of Cardinal Primate August Hlond (Spoken Before His Death)” recorded by Fr Antoni Baraniak SDB, Cardinal Hlond’s long-time secretary; and the “Medical Diagnosis” issued after the Cardinal’s death by Prof Dr. Tadeusz Butkiewicz, which describes the course of the Cardinal’s illness and the methods of treatment employed. These two documents, discovered only recently in the files of the Primate’s Archives from the years 1945–1948 stored in the Archdiocesan Archives in Gniezno, shed new light on the issue. They indicate categorically that the Cardinal’s illness progressed naturally, and that his death occurred without the intervention of any third party. In this way, they put an end to the sensational speculations that have appeared in Polish and foreign historical writings.