I. Introduction
In recent years, nationalism has come to the forefront as a force in politics and populist movements. The rise of Donald Trump in the 2016 American presidential election, the success of the French National Front in the first round of the 2017 French presidential election, and the increasingly powerful influence of the Scottish National Party showcase the capacity of nationalism to profoundly impact global politics. Understanding the rise and extent nationalism’s impact on social and political discourse is essential to understanding the causes and motivations of contemporary political movements.
During its short tenure as a legal trade union, Solidarity precipitated an unparalleled level of popular mobilization in a Marxist-Leninist state and experienced immense popular legitimacy. By August of 1981, Solidarity was a union of 10 million Poles, uniting workers, intellectuals, and the clergy alike. What about Poland made it capable of such an unprecedented feat?
The history of Poland is the history of oppression and loss of statehood, throughout which the Polish nation remained alive among its people, invariably fomenting resistance against its oppressor. Poland’s history is also a narrative defined by the Catholic Church, an institution that is as inseparable from the Polish national identity as is its opposition to Russia. The salience of the Polish national identity was crucial to the development of Solidarity and its singular success in an environment of oppression.
I will begin by discussing the meaning of nationalism and its political and social applications. Then, I will analyze how nationalism influenced the development of Solidarity’s ideology through the use of historical narratives and nationalist rhetoric and symbolism. Additionally, I examine how religion served as a nationalizing agent to catalyze the resistance to the communist state and consider the extent to which the Catholicism pervaded in the national identity.
II. What is Nationalism?
Nationalism can be defined through the lens of history and theories of political legitimacy. As a philosophy of history, nationalism is the idea that things called “nations” have existed throughout time and that individuals are the rightful inheritors of the nation. It establishes a trans-chronological relationship between the individual and those who have come before him to identify the individual (“you”) as a member of the nation(“we”). As a political principle, nationalism asserts that the national and political unit should be the same and nationalist sentiments arise when this principle is transgressed. On the definition of a nation, Ernest Gellner proposes that a category of people becomes a nation when the members of that category recognize their mutual rights and duties to each other in virtue of their membership in that category. Either by a belief in a common descent, a shared culture, or a common citizenship, members of a nation consider themselves a distinct community.
These understandings of nationalism are used as tools of social mobilization for the sake of self-determination and, in many cases, to motivate the struggle for independence. The ideal of one nation, one state is integral to nationalist theories of political legitimacy, which consider violations of this ideal as infringements on the sovereign right of the nation. As an agent of mobilization, nationalism relies on the claim to be the bearer of truth and protector of a common history.
III. Solidarity’s Nationalist Ideology
History and Iconography. Poland’s nationalist historical narrative is framed by several moments of significance. In 966, King Mieszko I was baptized and Poland became the easternmost point of Roman Catholicism, beginning a long tradition of Catholicism in Poland. After uniting with Lithuania, the commonwealth expanded and developed a singular form of government. Bills were required to receive unanimous approval from the parliament of nobles and the monarch was elected, demonstrating their mistrust of central authority and commitment to liberty and equality. The lack of centralization made Poland vulnerable, however, and beginning it 1772, it was partitioned between Austria, Prussia, and Russia. Consequently, the Catholic Church became increasingly central in the lives of Poles who sought to resist German Protestantism and Russian Orthodoxy. Insurrections crushed by Russia in 1791, 1830, 1863, and 1905 characterized the 123 years that the Polish state ceased to exist. Moreover, Polish memory was unlikely to forget September 17, 1939, when Soviet troops invaded eastern Poland, which saw 1 million Poles deported to Siberia. Timothy Garton Ash summarizes the consequences of the Polish historical experience best: “…the Poles are an old European people with an unquenchable thirst for freedom; freedom in Polish means, in the first place, national independence; the Polish national identity is historically defined in opposition to Russia.”
Solidarity’s implementation of historical iconography depicted the movement as the rightful protector of the national history and identity. Characteristic of nationalistic movements, Solidarity constructed itself as the holder of the truth about Poland, its history, and the communist government. To demonstrate, Solidarity print circulations during the martial law period bore unofficial stamps that were steeped in nationalist imagery. The stamps, which were produced by the underground Solidarity press between December 1981 and 1989, depicted moments, symbols, and people of historical, religious, and national significance. Historical events featured the victimization of Poland, specifically by Germany and the Soviet Union, and heroic moments of resistance. For example, a series of stamps featured the mass execution of Polish military officers by Soviet forces in the Katyn forest in 1940, highlighting the national struggle against Russia.Additionally, the stamps featuring the coats of arms of eastern cities that were once part of Poland reflected the nationalist principle that the nation and state should be one, and failing to include parts of the nation inside that state’s boundaries violates the sovereign rights of the nation. Further, there was heavy use of Catholic imagery in the stamps, including John Paul II, Polish saints, the Black Madonna, and the cross. The duality of the cross symbolizing both Christ and Poland reinforced the idea that Poland is the “Christ of nations” and exemplified the religious and national duty that Solidarity claimed as their responsibility to fulfill. Lastly, stamps that juxtaposed prewar nationalist symbols empowered Solidarity as the natural heir in the fight for self-determination of the nation. For instance, stamps that featured Soidarity linked to the crowned eagle, which is the emblem of the prewar polish state, buttressed the movement’s claim to historically appointed authority to restore democratic statehood for the nation. By choosing to make and disseminate their own stamps, a power reserved to the Party and the government, Solidarity asserted itself as an alternative to the communist state.
Nationalist imagery was also employed by the Solidarity campaign for the first democratic elections in (). In a poster titled “Vote With Us,” a seemingly endless crowd is featured under the polish flag and the title in iconic Solidarity lettering. The viewer cannot identify individuals, but only the massive sea of people supporting Solidarity. The poster is rife with nationalist sentiment by juxtaposing the Solidarity font with the flag, depicting them as the only viable choice of the Polish nation. Further, by not featuring individuals or Solidarity’s leaders, it demonstrates that the campaign is not about the interest of individuals or leaders gaining special privileges, which was associated with the communist party; the poster exemplifies the focus on the collective. It is hopeful
, projecting the sentiment that Solidarity embodies the true will of the masses and the Polish nation and that it is the role of “you” to vote with them to make a long fought dream a reality. Further, it evokes a sense of duty to one’s compatriots, past and present, to join them in voting for democracy and against the communist party.
The proliferation of nationalist iconography was a means to establish a collective consciousness of the Polish historical condition and legitimize Solidarity’s role in the struggle for freedom that had been centuries in the making. As Jerzy Szacki noted:
“Solidarity from the outset constituted itself not as a nascent community of like-minded individuals but as the representative of an already existing community (whether defined in class or national categories), which demanded the satisfaction of its needs. The decision to join the movement was based not so much on an individual moral choice as on whether a person regarded himself or herself as a member of this community.”
Solidarity’s use of nationalist symbolism and hostrical narrative was to fasciliate group consciousness of membership in this community that had a common interest in the success of Solidarity and removal of the communist party from power. By conveying the importance of the moment in historical and national terms, Solidarity mobilized people in the name of their nation and the strife that it endured.
Citizenship. Solidarity’s membership of 10 million people transcended social categories that typically did not share common interest. In opposition to the communist regime, they shared a common motivation rooted in the desire for citizenship. Solidarity rhetoric proclaimed disgust with the communist party and its disregard for the civil, political, and social rights of the citizens, while party members enjoyed special treatment. The demand for the rights and responsibilities of citizenship, like political participation were among the rallying cries of the movement. Recall that the definition of nationalism, per Gellner, includes that there is a firm recognition of mutual rights and duties among members of the same nation. Transparency, rule of law, and democratic accountability are pillars of the liberal democracy Poles believed they were afforded the right to as the constituents of a geographic, cultural, and historical tradition. As members of the nation of Poland, the claimed the right to citizenship and mobilized for the realization of those rights.
IV. The Catholic Church as a Nationalizing Agent
How did the Polish nation survive to fuel the success of Solidarity? Much of the answer lies with the Catholic Church. Catholicism is inseparable from the Polish sense of nationhood and the history of Poland is in many ways the history of its Catholicism. Never was the role of the Catholic Church in the nation of Poland more salient than in the post-war communist years. In the communist state, Poles lived two parallel lives with different codes of behavior, different languages: their public, state sanctioned lives, and their private lives, which, for the masses, was in the language of the Church. The Church earned a level of popular legitimacy that the party never did, which explains its enormous impact on the success of Solidarity and the downfall of the communist regime in Poland. In this section I will discuss specific moments of Catholicism in Poland in the decades leading up the rise of solidarity that illuminate the role of the Church and the role of religion in the national identity.
The Great Novena. On September 25, 1953, Cardinal Wyszynski, outspoken critic of the communist state in Poland, was arrested for high treason. The government action was in response to a memorandum issued by the bishops of Poland under the leadership of Wyszynski. It stated that to maintain internal peace, the government must cease its destructive attitude towards Catholicism and stop subordinating the Church as an instrument of the state. This was not Wyszynski’s first shot at the state. In 1950, he concluded a nineteen point accord with the regime that asserted the autonomy of the Church in matters of faith, religious education, hospital and prison chaplaincies, and Catholic universities were allowed, provided the Church recognized the communist regime as the government. The memorandum was in response to the regime failing to comply with the terms of this agreement.
During his internment, Primate Wyszynski planned a national pastoral initiative, what would become the Great Novena. It was a massive religious event with distinct anti-communist objectives. The goal was to confront the communist attempt to separate the Polish people from their national identity and to restore their historical memory. The nationwide event was in preparation for the Polish Catholic millennium in 1966. Each year between 1957 and 1966 had a theme that guided the church’s teachings that year in an effort to “re-chatechize” the entire nation with a unified program. The primate encouraged Poles to visit sites of pilgrimage and he himself travlled throughout Poland during the nine years. He served as a “travelling referendum” against the communist state, attracting crowds of tens to hundreds of thousands of the faithful. The Black Madonna was key feature in the travels of Primate Wyszynski and it was brought to each parish in the country during the nine years of the Great Novena. The Black Madonna of Czestochowa was a national and religious icon, thought to have defeated the Swedish invasion of Poland in the middle ages and was named the Queen of Poland. The Black Madonna was prominent in Solidarity imagery, and was often seen on Lech Walesa’s jacket. The popularity of the Black Madonna’s tour was so threatening to the regime that they seized it.
The Great Novena served numerous important purposes in the national resistance against the communist regime. For instance, it was an assertion of Church as the “bearer of Polish nationhood” and demonstrated its massive popular legitimacy. Further, it became evident who stood with the people and for the people. The religious and national sentiment fomented during the nine years of the Great Novena took place during formative years for the people who would lead Solidarity less than 20 years later. Reaffirmation of the role of the church in the historical and contemporary preservation of the Polish nation was an inescapable facet of life in Poland during the Great Novena.
1970s. During the 1970s, the legitimacy of the church grew at the expense of the regime. Poland became even more Catholic, with 93% of the population baptized by the late seventies and a doubling of the priesthood. A Catholic weekly newspaper, Tygodnik Powszechny, became the most trusted newspaper in Poland, known for its reliable information and interesting commentary. It became an important link between Catholics and non-Catholic information by virtue of its truthful information. The remarkable coming-together was noted by Timothy Garton Ash. “there was a deliberate, difficult and fruitful coming together of intellectuals from traditions that just twenty years before had been bitterly opposed: Jewish socialists sat down with Christian Democrats, former Stalinists with Home Army veterans, hardened ex-revisionists with inspissated Thomist.” Tygodnik Powszechny served an important role by bridging the divide between secular intellectuals