Volume 26, Number 1 · February 8, 1979
The Open Political Struggle in Poland
By Abraham Brumberg
Most of the reports on the new pope have had something to say about his part in the political opposition in Poland, but few have given any clear sense of who takes part in that opposition or how, over the last two years, it has become one of the most startling developments ever to take place in a communist country. Not only the Church but many people outside it have brought this opposition about. Twenty years ago it was possible to say that the regime, faced by a restive intelligentsia, a hostile peasantry and working class, and a powerful adversary—the Church—was uneasily allowing a semi-official 'pluralism' to exist. The liberal Catholic coalition called ZNAK, for example, has since the mid-1950s been able, with edgy official tolerance, to send a few of its representatives to the Sejm, or parliament, and put out journals with carefully couched views critical of the regime. But during the last two years something quite new has taken place: a vigorous opposition working outside the system, criticizing official policies entirely in the open, and offering its own political programs. The regime has not been able either to crush these new opponents or to ignore them.
Feature, 5446 words
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