The Detonator that Sparked the Fall of Communism:
John Paul II’s Pilgrimage to Poland in 1979
by Br. Iñigo Isla, SCTJM
In 1979, Pope John Paul II returned to his native land of Poland with a message that would change the course of history and would continue to resound in the heart of the human person long after John Paul’s own heart stopped beating here on earth. In the course of nine days, the Pope undid the years of physical and psychological oppression that Poland had suffered for more than forty years. This visit, often overlooked by many, was the “detonator” that ignited a ten-year struggle that would end with the fall of communism: first in Poland, and then in the whole world. Before he arrived, there was already great concern by Communist leaders about the effects that this visit could have, but nobody could have predicted its lasting implications. The “Nine days that changed the world,” as they have come to be known, shook the world to its core; yet, it wasn’t through violence or political activism, but rather through the simplicity of the Pope’s message of love, hope, peace, and Christ. In the end, it wasn’t a great political power that brought down communism, but Truth spoken by a humble man imbued with the Gospel.
How Could this Happen?
It all began with the election Karol Wojtyla, the Archbishop of Krakow, as the successor of St. Peter and head of the Universal Church in 1978. The election in itself had enormous historical implications, first because he was the first non-Italian pope in over 455 years, but also because the Pope had been chosen from a country that was considered atheist and secularized. The Soviet Union was shocked at the news, wondering how this could have happened. “Here was a high-ranking Church official on whom Communist authorities had been spying for years, and with whom they had been battling for even longer. And now he was the head of the Roman Catholic Church. No, the Soviets were not pleased at all.”[1]It was a monumental setback for a government that had tried to repress religious sentiment with little to no success; and they knew that the election of a “Slav Pope,” as he would later call himself, would be a problem for their continued efforts.[2]“It was suddenly clear in Warsaw and in Moscow that decades of work on behalf of atheism and repression in Poland had backfire. Karol Wojtyla’s election was crushing news for Communists, their ideologies, and their plans.”[3]Hearing the news of the Pope’s election, KGB officials called Polish authorities and asked: “How could you possibly allow the election of a citizen of a socialist country as pope?”[4]
The fears and sentiments of the Kremlin and local Communist authorities in Poland were exacerbated by John Paul’s desire to return to his native land. As early as his inauguration mass, he expressed to the Polish pilgrims, that had made it to Rome, this desire to visit Poland and to do so for the celebration of the ninth centenary of St. Stanislaw’s death.[5]The leader of the Polish Communist Party, Edward Gierek, understood the magnitude of the situation: he recognized that the visit of the Pope would be very dangerous for communism in Poland, however, he also understood that it was impossible not to allow the Polish Pope to return to his home. He tried to explain this to the authorities in the Kremlin, but they continued to pressure him to stop the Pope’s visit, even suggesting that he should pressure John Paul to say that he was ill and had to cancel the trip.[6]However, Gierek understood the futility of trying to stop the Pope from coming. Instead, he sought to take preventive measures to minimize the effects of the John Paul’s visit by making sure the visit did not coincide with St. Stanislaw’s anniversary (considering that St. Stanislaw was martyred by a tyrannical government), refusing permission for him to visit several contentious places, such as Nowa Huta, and limiting TV and Radio broadcasting.[7]These attempts were futile, however, and could not stifle the spirit of the Polish people and their determination to witness the historic event.
The Nine Days
Pope John Paul II landed in Warsaw on June 2nd, 1979, “He disembarked from his Alitalia 727 and knelt and kissed the ground of his beloved country. As he did, church bells rang throughout the nation.”[8]He met with Church and government officials at the airport, before heading to the center of the city, to Victory Square, sign of Poland’s national pride and independence. The subsequent mass at Victory Square would turn out to be one of the most significant events, not only of his trip, but in Polish and world history. It is estimated that around 300,000 people attended the mass, while thousands more watched through Television.[9]
At one moment during his homily, John Paul had to stop because of the tumultuous applause and chanting of the people, a chant which lasted fourteen minutes: “We want God! We want God!” Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, personal secretary of John Paul from 1966 until the Pontiff’s death in 2005, recalled the moment, “I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that the atmosphere was almost supernatural.”[10]This particular moment, this particular ovation, was a turning point for the people of Poland. It was the moment when the people of Poland were liberated from fear: the people stopped being afraid and it was the Communists who were afraid.[11]The government understood what was happening, and they were terrified. “An apparently indestructible system, which had forced its ideological creed unopposed during more than thirty years of absolute rule, was suddenly forced to be the mute and powerless witness of the symbolic collapse of its ideology, its power, and, one might even say, its spell.”[12]
The rest of the trip followed this theme. After Warsaw, the Pope went to Gniezno, the place where Christianity began in Poland. Here, he met with a million Poles in three separate events, speaking about the importance of education and the importance of Polish culture.[13]After Gniezno, the Pope went in pilgrimage to Czestochowa, Poland’s national shrine and home of the miraculous icon of Our Lady of Czestochowa. He entrusted Poland to Our Lady and encouraged the Poles to have hope, and trust in Our Lady’s protection. In his meeting with the bishops of Poland, he spoke about unity, calling them to be united as an episcopate and to continue to challenge the State to guarantee the basic human rights of the people.[14]Another important event happened on June 7 when he visited Auschwitz-Birkenau, the “Golgotha of the contemporary world,”[15]as he referred to it. It was a somber, yet necessary visit: he had to come to the place where the dignity of man was so deeply violated to remind the world of the truth about the human person and issue a warning that what happened there may never happen again.
John Paul II spent the last few days in Poland in his own Krakow, the place he had called home for over forty years. The reception he received, especially from the youth, was overwhelming. During the four nights that he was there, the streets around his residence where completely filled with mostly young people who sang and cheered. The Pope would join them from his window, singing and joking with them.[16]During his encounter with the youth on June 8th, emotions ran high and there was concern that riots would arise due to the inspiration of John Paul. However, understanding the gravity of the situation, the Pope began joking and going back and forth with them to defuse the tension. “The banter back and forth continued until about 10:30 P.M., the Pope mixing jokes with admonitions drawn from his from his formal remarks…the atmosphere slowly changed and tensions gave way to reflectiveness.”[17]The trip finished with a mass “attended by the largest crowd in Polish history—between 2 and 3 million.”[18]His message was clear: man is made for God and for love, and no one could take this away from him. Before leaving Poland, John Paul thanked both the Polish people and the Polish authorities for the courage that they had shown in being a part of the papal visit; and, with a final blessing, he returned to Rome. By the time he left, “thirteen million Poles, more than one third of the nation’s population, had seen the Pope in person. Virtually everyone else had seen him on television or heard him on the radio.”[19]In nine days, John Paul II returned hope, faith, and courage to the Polish people; this set the stage for what was to come.
The Power of Truth
During a meeting between President Truman, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin, an alleged conversation was reported in which Churchill expresses his concern about how the Pope would react to the proposed plan for Poland. Stalin responded, almost jokingly, “Mr. Churchill, how many divisions did you say the Pope had?”[20]One cannot help but notice the irony: the successor of the Pope Pius XII defeated the successor of Stalin. So, what was the power, the divisions, that the Pope had that could defeat one of the greatest military powers in history? It was Truth. St. John Paul II used the only weapon he had during his visit to Poland in 1979: his words, which were full of Truth.
The central problem that John Paul II had with communism was not economic or political, but rather that it was based on a false understanding of the human person. The lies about man that communism imposed, mainly that he does not need God, are contrary to authentic human anthropology and, therefore, turn on man. He explained this during his first homily of the trip in Victory Square:
Man is incapable of understanding himself fully without Christ. He cannot understand who he is, nor what his true dignity is, nor what his vocation is, nor what his final end is…Therefore Christ cannot be kept out of the history of man in any part of the globe, at any longitude or latitude of geography. The exclusion of Christ from the history of man is an act against man. Without Christ it is impossible to understand the history of Poland… The history of the nation is above all the history of people. And the history of each person unfolds in Jesus Christ.[21]
These words resounded in the hearts of the Polish people who were genuinely seeking God. They had been thirsting for this truth, and it was this truth that would impulse them to not settle for less than their dignity. John Paul II brought back the Gospel to a country whose government had tried to eradicate it. “[The Gospel that John Paul brought] was the Gospel they wanted, not the false faith of Marxism-Leninism,”[22]and the reaction of the Polish people to John Paul’s visit reflected this.
The words of St. John Paul II during his nine days in Poland were a beacon of hope and strength; and, by reminding them the truth about their identity, gave the Polish people the courage to fight for their rights. He reminded them that the power of Christ was with them, and, therefore, there was no reason to be afraid. The Pope said that in these times, people needed to have the courage to fight for the Truth, but to do so in the spirit of the Gospel, which is a spirit of peace. The idea that the change had to come through peaceful means was at the core of his message, as it is in the Gospel. Finally, the words of the Pope and his mere presence brought the Poles together in a way that only he could do. By speaking of the identity of Poland as a nation, he was calling them to unite in order to fight together, for together they were strong. “The Poles who turned out by the millions looked around and saw they were not alone. They were a powerful multitude. The Pope spoke of human dignity, the right to religious freedom and a revolution of the spirit--not insurrection. The people listened.”[23]Yes, with just his word and his presence, John Paul was able to unite the Polish people, remind them the truth about their identity, and give them the courage to stand up for the Truth.
The Beginning of the End
The revolution that ensued began at the moment that Wojtyla was elected Pope. “Monsignor Jared Cielecki captured the importance of October 16, 1978, when Karol Wojtyla became John Paul II: ‘There, on Saint Peter’s Square, when [Wojtyla] came out of the balcony – that was the end of communism.’”[24]Yet, this was only the prelude; it was the Pope’s visit to Poland that truly started the Revolution. In the months that followed the visit, it was clear that things were changing. The newfound courage of the Polish people began to manifest itself, and slowly, the peaceful resistance began.
There were signs of a widespread commitment to moral and social recovery. The dissent grew bolder. The workers made insistent pleas for recognition of their right to strike…in the name of solidarity, the working class revolted against a deceitful ideology that for too long had falsely claimed to defend the interests of the workers and promised to establish a dictatorship of the proletariat.[25]
Yet the workers maintained their commitment to peace and their commitment to truly honor the visit of John Paul by being faithful to his words. The movement, which began to go by the name of “Solidarity” under the leadership of a common electrician by the name of Lech Walesa, was marked by the spirit of the Gospel. Furthermore, the Catholic faith was central to the movement and their commitment to the words of the Pope was clear. Cardinal Dziwisz recalls the moment when the Pope saw the images of the protestors on their knees waiting to receive the sacraments:
As soon as he saw that, the Holy Father exclaimed, “Maybe the moment has come! Well, well, this is incredible; it’s never happened before! The workers are fighting for a just cause, to protect infringements on their right to work. And they are doing it peacefully. They’re praying! They’re proclaiming their faith in God and Our Lady! Their confidence in the Pope!”
Yes, the workers believed the message that the Pope had delivered, and were confident that, with the help of God and Our Lady, they would succeed. They were no longer afraid.
This was the beginning of the Solidarity movement that would eventually bring down communism in Poland, and, by extension, all of Easter Europe. Yet this movement would not have been possible without John Paul. Lech Walesa explains:
“Fifty percent of the collapse of communism is his doing. More than one year after he [visited Poland], we were able to organize 10 million people for strikes, protests and negotiations. Earlier we tried, I tried, and we couldn't do it. These are facts. Of course, communism would have fallen, but much later and in a bloody way.”[26]
General Jaruzelski, head of the Communist Polish state beginning in 1981, shared Walesa’s views about John Paul’s visit in 1979. He said, “The fall would have probably come, but it would not have been as fast and as bloodless. That was the detonator.”[27]Even Mikhail Gorbachev, head of the USSR at the time of its fall, said: “Everything that happened in Europe during these past few years would have been impossible without the Pope, without the important – including political – role he was able to play.”[28]The fact that leaders in both sides of the conflict have the same understanding of the role that John Paul II played in the fall of communism is a clear indication that this claim is irrefutable.
Looking Back
The Historical importance of this event cannot be understated, and yet, at the time, many downplayed it due to its religious dimensions. On June 11, 1979, The New York Times published an article on the Pope’s visit which claimed that “As much as the visit of John Paul II to Poland must reinvigorate and reinspire the Roman Catholic Church in Poland, it does not threaten the political order of the nation or of Eastern Europe.”[29]Time would show just how wrong the New York Times was. Yet, even at that time, many understood the lasting effects that the visit would have. One of these, Ronald Regan, would prove to be a subsequent ally of John Paul in the fight against communism. After witnessing the events in Poland, “Regan reached a conclusion. ‘He said then and there that the Pope was the key figure in determining the fate of Poland…He was overcome by the outpouring of emotion that emanated from the millions who came to see him.’ For Regan, this helped solidify a ‘deep and steadfast conviction that this pope would help change the world.’”[30]Regan was not wrong, these two men would help reshape Europe and bring an end to communism in Western Europe.
While the impact of the Pope on the fall of communism is now largely accepted, many have yet to understand the reason for his arduous work for this end. For St. John Paul II, the struggle against communism was not a fight against a political system, but the fight for the human person. His program was not about overthrowing communism, but about protecting the true dignity of the human person.[31]It is only in this light that we can understand the fecundity of his work. John Paul was not just another political leader, he was not just a leader for the religious movement, he was a man who became Christ for others, and, through that, they were able to understand who they were. The phenomenon which happened in Poland was precisely because he was not just another leader, he was the image of Christ calling his people to be who they truly are. Many attempt to discredit his influence because of the religious dimension, yet it was this religious dimension, his holiness in other words, that was the true driving force behind the revolution.
The last point to mention is that, while his influence on the fall of communism is unquestionable, it is not as well know. In other words, many do not know how much the Pope truly did for Western Europe (and the whole world for that matter); yet, this is just the way he would have liked it. John Paul never did anything for recognition or praise, he did it out of love for Christ and the human person. He truly saw each and every one of those who were suffering as his brothers and sisters, and their pain was his pain. His love was so great for the human person, that he could not stand to see man’s dignity being attacked in such a profound way. He understood that the achievements he accomplished were not his achievements, but the Lord’s. And this is why, perhaps his most important contribution to the fall of communism is the one that will remain hidden: his prayer. John Paul was a man of prayer and prayer was the source and strength of everything that he did. It can be said with certainty, that more than anything else he did, the Pope’s prayers were the reason for all his success, and, therefore, the success in his fight against communism.
Looking Forward
There are two fundamental teachings that must be understood when analyzing the Pope’s visit to Poland in 1979 and its effect on the fall of communism. The first is that the fight is not over. While incredible progress was made in John Paul’s fight for the protection of the dignity of the Human Person, there are still countries that are suffering under this oppression. Countries such as Cuba, Nigeria, Afghanistan, China, and Venezuela, to name a few, are still being oppressed by totalitarian governments. Furthermore, the errors spread by Russia, of which Our Lady spoke in Fatima in 1917, are still prevalent in contemporary culture. Under the guise of different names, communism and its lies prevail today in society. For this reason, we must allow John Paul to speak the same words that he spoke in 1979 to our own hearts. We must not be afraid to open wide the doors to Christ and to allow him to show us who we truly are. Yes, we must have courage to fight for the Truth, for only the truth shall set us free. (cf. John 8:32)
The second fundamental teaching that must be understood is that, if we want to change the world, we must be holy. Yes, above everything, it was John Paul’s holiness that made him such an influential figure in history. He was truly authentic: authentic in his love, authentic in his words, authentic in his goal to reach Heaven and help as many as he could get there with him. This authenticity was the fruit of his holiness, and the reason why he was such a powerful witness. This is the reason for the detonation that took place when he visited Poland in 1979.
Bibliography
Barnes, Jane., and Helen Whitney. “John Paul II and the Fall of Communism.” Frontline (1999)
Dziwisz, Stanislaw., and Gian F. Svidercoschi. A Life with Karol: My Forty-Year Friendship with the Man Who Became Pope. Trans. Adrian J. Walker. New York: Doubleday, 2008.
Editorial. “Pope helped inspire his homeland to fight communism.” The Baltimore Sun, April 2, 2005. At www.baltimoresun.com.
Editorial. “The Polish Pope in Poland.” New York Times, June 5, 1979.
Evert, Jason. Saint John Paul the Great: His Five Loves. Lakewood, CO: TotusTuus Press, 2014.
Kengor, Paul. A Pope and a President: John Paul II, Ronal Regan, and the Extraordinary Untold Story of the 20thCentury. Wilmington, DW: ISI, 2017.
Melady, Thomas P., and Jacob Barrett. “John Paul II: Freedom Fighter? Provided ‘a Flag under which the Faithful could Gather.’” Priest 71, no. 10 (2015): 35-38.
The Nine Days that Changed the World.DVD. Directed by Kevin Knoblock. Citizens United Productions, 2010.
Pope John Paul II. Homily in Victory Square. (2 June 1979).
Weigel, George. Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II. New York: Harper Perennial, 1999.
[1]Paul Kengor, A Pope and a President:John Paul II, Ronal Regan, and the Extraordinary Untold Story of the 20thCentury, (Wilmington, DW: ISI, 2017), 179.
[2]George Weigel, Witness to Hope: The Biography of John Paul II, (NY: Harper Perennial, 1999), 308.
[3]Kengor, A Pope and a President, 180.
[4]Kengor, A Pope and a President, 181.
[5]Weigel, Witness to Hope,301.
[6]Kengor, A Pope and a President, 184.
[7]Weigel, Witness to Hope, 302.
[8]Kengor, A Pope and a President, 185.
[9]Jason Evert, Saint John Paul the Great: His Five Loves, (Lakewood, CO: TotusTuus Press, 2014), 64.
[10]A Life with Karol 116
[11]The Nine Days that Changed the World, DVD, Directed by Kevin Knoblock (Citizens United Productions, 2010).
[12]A Life with Karol 116
[13]Weigel, Witness to Hope, 308.
[14]Weigel, Witness to Hope, 310.
[15]Kengor, A Pope and a President, 189.
[16]Weigel, Witness to Hope, 313.
[17]Weigel, Witness to Hope, 317.
[18]Weigel, Witness to Hope, 318.
[19]Weigel, Witness to Hope, 320.
[20]The Nine Days that Changed the World
[21]Pope John Paul II, Homily in Victory Square, (2 June 1979).
[22]Kengor, A Pope and a President, 186.
[23]Jane Barnes and Helen Whitney, “John Paul II and the Fall of Communism,” Frontline, (1999)
[24]Kengor, A Pope and a President, 181.
[25]A Life with Karol 124
[26]Editorial, “Pope helped inspire his homeland to fight communism,” The Baltimore Sun, April 2, 2005.
[27]Barnes and Whitney, “Fall of Communism.”
[28]Barnes and Whitney, “Fall of Communism.”
[29]Editorial, “The Polish Pope in Poland,” New York Times, June 5, 1979.
[30]Kengor, A Pope and a President, 192.
[31]The Nine Days that Changed the World
