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FIGURE 29. Supermarket in Warsaw (U/OU) (picture)
proclaimed the Madonna as Queen of Poland, an appointment renewed each year on 26 August at the Jasna Gora monastery in Czestochowa in the presence of pilgrims from throughout Poland (Figure 32).
In the Middle Ages, Polish forces fighting under the sign of the cross stemmed the advance of the Turks and the Tatars into Europe on several occasions. Later, the aggressive actions of a Lutheran Prussia and an Orthodox Russia strengthened the identification between Roman Catholicism and the Polish nation. During the subsequent period of Poland's partition among its neighbors, the church as an institution remained intact and, in the absence of a Polish state, formed the most important unifying factor among the Poles. In consequence of this historic background, the Communist efforts after World War II to uproot religious belief and remove the institutional church as a competitor for the allegiance of the people—some 95% of whom are Roman Catholics and about three-quarters are practicing believers—became in the popular mind nothing less than the assault by a foreign power against the whole national identity. Thus, despite a generation of Communist rule, for most Poles the church still incarnates legitimate nationhood, and the Communist regime merely its institutional form. Not surprisingly, sporadic tests of strength and will have characterized church-state relations throughout the postwar era, with periods of truce occurring when both were acting in Poland's national interests.
Since December 1970 the regime of Edward Gierek has taken several unprecedented, conciliatory steps toward the church which, taken together, suggest a new basis for Polish church-state relations under Communist rule. Gomulka and earlier Communist leaders believed that Poland's religious tradition and the development of socialism were mutually exclusive and sought to demolish the former by a series of confrontations alternating with grudging truces. The Gierek regime—though no less committed to atheism—appears to have realized the identity in the popular mind between Poland's statehood and its Roman Catholic heritage. As a result, the new leadership has sought at least the passive support of the church hierarchy and laity. Within 3 days of assuming power on 20 December 1970, the new regime publicly offered to "normalize" relations with the church. In March 1971 Premier Jaroszewicz personally met with Poland's Roman Catholic Primate, Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski; since then a series of discussions has taken place not only between the church and state officials, but also between the Polish Government and the Vatican. The latter
FIGURE 30. Self-service grocery typical of most urban areas (U/OU) (picture)
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