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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, AUGUST 7, 1981
PAGE 13
Walter C. Clemens, Jr. in the July 10, 1981 CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR writes
this:
Poland may well mark the beginning of the end for the Soviet empire.
The most important link is the mailed vest guarding its western flank
has become unhinged, portending� unraveling of the entire system.
The Kremlin finds itself in a no-win situation. To send troops against
Poland would plunge all Europe into another Dark Ages; but noninterven
tion signals both a failure of will and of ability to control Eastern
Europe....
Solidarity's transforming role, the revitalization of Poland's parlia
ment, greater democracy within the party itself--all these and other
changes underway in Poland will elicit a domino ripple throughout
Eastern Europe and even the USSR. "If the Poles can do their thing, so
can we."
This line of thinking will spread from one erstwhile
satellite to another.
And in the WALL STREET JOURNAL of July 14, 1981, Leopold Tyrmand writes about
the importance of Catholic opposition to Marxist dogmatism in Poland•
...whatever eventually happens in Poland will be of ! magnitude
comparable to the Russian revolution.
The developments in
Poland
differ importantly from other milestones of rebellion within the post
war Soviet empire.
Tito's sedition was a conflict of personali
ties•...The Hungarian uprising was a romantic outburst of youth and
army officers.•..The Czech rebellion was an intellectual mutiny, with
no roots in the nation, which from the outset abjured confrontation
with the Soviets.
What began in Gdansk, Poland, is the first authentic social upheaval 2.!!
an all-national scale in a country ruled by a Communist Party on behalf
of the Soviet Union.
It challenged the absolutism of communist
power•••.
.••During the formative stages of the
consultants and theorists were prominent
lie intelligentsia, not always acting
church's guidelines.
Solidarity movement, its key
representatives of the Cathe
in precise obedience to the
No one in the West should be deluded:
Solidarity is ! Christian
democratic political occurrence, all lip service to the communist
raison d'etat notwithstanding. It is a phenomenon that surprises even
the Poles themselves••.•The emergence of a powerful and highly intel
lectuali�ed group that receives its inspiration from Catholicism and
knows how to transmute religio""u's" ideology in�modern political
weaponry (and with explosive effects) is astounding••.•
Suddenly Catholicism relinquished the status of traditional form and
became a hotbed of politicized thoughts, convictions and beliefs. This
fatally undermined the communists' psychological infrastructure, a
development that would have been impossible without the Catholic intel
ligentsia--the vital link between church and society.
The Soviet Union is in a peculiar position:
Short of instigatinQ a
bloodbath it £fill do nothing.
Most likely the Sovfe1: leaders wilI