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to normalize church-state relations. The regime's major goal evidently remains to utilize Catholicism's ability to unite the people in the pursuit of national interest, and thus to gain popular support on behalf of Gierek's programs. This is particularly important in rural areas, where party control over the peasantry is often nonexistent and where the church as an institution remains the strongest organized influence. There are no mass Catholic organizations in the country sponsored by the church hierarchy, despite the continued existence of the once influential parliamentary group Znak, and of such generally pro-regime groups as the politically ambiguous organization PAX.
Although organized non-Communist political institutions, except as symbolized by the church, do not exist, the variety of ass organizations, the two non-Marxist puppet parties, and even social groupings with avowed non-political interests have an importance in Poland beyond that of similar institutions in other Communist countries. This is so not only because of the tenuous hold of the PZPR on the people but also because of the wide spectrum of political attitudes within the party itself. These factors have impelled the Polish Communists to make generally wider use of ostensibly non-Communist organizations in an effort to strengthen their control over society. In addition to this goal, the regime has taken significant steps with regard to the mass organizations designed to mobilize non-Communist support for Gierek's policy objectives, to give credibility to his pledge to give the people a wider voice in the in the social and political life of the country, and to provide controlled forums for the expression of dissenting opinions outside the framework of the party. Gierek has already made some gestures toward the two non-Marxist parties - the United Peasant Party (ZSL), and the Democratic Party (SD) - by soliciting their views on matters affecting the special interest groups that they represent. In addition, he has rejuvenated the leadership of the political umbrella organization, the National Unity Front (FJN), to make it more representative of the full spectrum of its membership.
Since it was created in 1951 to provide a means of Communist control over all political parties and mass organizations, the FJN has been largely dormant, mainly because direct Communist control over its component organizations made it politically superfluous. It was utilized primarily as a vehicle for the regime's propaganda prior to national parliamentary elections, which it nominally supervised. As a rule, the chairman of the FJN was always the concurrent head of state, who was simultaneously a member of the Communist party leadership. In a clear departure from this tradition, and in line with Gierek's effort to mobilize the broadest strata of the nation in support of his programs, the chairman of the FJN elected in June 1972 is a non-Communist. He is Janusz Groszkowski, the prestigious, 73-year-old former chairman of the Polish Academy of Sciences, a member of numerous foreign academies of science and scientific organizations, and a former member of the wartime, non-Communist underground. In addition to electing Groszkowski, the June 1972 meeting of the FJN increased the number of deputy chairman of the organization from four to six, and the number of presidium members from 18 to 22. The main beneficiaries of these changes were representatives of various Catholic groups, albeit none of them represent the Roman Catholic hierarchy.
Despite the Gierek regime's gestures toward the non-Marxist parties and attendant publicity designed to raise their prestige, Communist control over their activities remains effective. As a result, both the ZSL and the SD are echoes of the PZPR in terms of organization as well as general policy. The ZEL, which represents the interests of the peasantry, numbered 413,489 members in December 1970, about three-quarters of whom were peasants. Local ZSL organizations included almost 28,000 basic organizational units, concerned in Lublin, Warsaw, Poznan, and Kielce provinces, i.e., some of the main agricultural areas of the country. The numerically almost insignificant SD, with 88,317 members in 1970, is directed primarily at the non-Communist middle class, especially the professionals, craftsmen, and other self-employed persons. Although neither party is in a position to serve as anything but a special interest group in parliament committed to supporting Communist policies, their role as transmission belts for government directives to their membership has been augmented under Gierek to include the transmittal of non-Communist public opinion in the other direction. The ZSL, for example, shows signs of increasing its relatively important role in the countryside, where the numerically weak PZPR has often relied on experienced ZSL functionaries for meaningful contact with the peasantry. Similarly, the SD, which reportedly increased its membership to about 100,000 by late 1972, is benefiting from the Gierek regime's encouragement of private, service-oriented economic activity, and is useful in providing a legal political outlet for many non-Communist professional people.
Until early 1973, there were five mass youth organizations, all under PZPR tutelage, but only three
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