journal of european integration history revue d'histoire de l ...

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Ania Krok-Paszkowska and Jan Zielonka
compounded by an “anti-Zionist” and anti-intellectual campaign. The revisionist,
Marxist, anti-clerical movement among the left-wing intelligentsia collapsed, and
for the first time they sought to form an alliance with the independent Catholic
intellectual movement. 9 The opposition no longer had any illusions about the
possibility of liberal reform within the system. The gap between the Polish ruling
elite and Polish intellectuals widened and in 1975 fifty-nine prominent intellectuals
signed an open letter protesting against amendments to the constitution that would
reinforce the leading role of the communist party, arguing that this would be an
infringement of basic freedoms and civil rights. In the following years various
independent oppositional groups emerged. They aimed at defending human and
political rights. Concepts such as individual responsibility and legality as well as
human rights were revived. Clandestine independent publishing houses documented
abuses of power and corruption by party functionaries. The emerging opposition
movements were shielded by the Catholic Church which had considerable
institutional resources as well as moral authority. The Church had been a
self-appointed guardian of the Polish national tradition throughout the entire
post-war period. 10 Its political influence increased following the election of a Polish
pope in 1978. Moreover, from the mid-1970s onwards, the institutional and
ideological decline of the party-state was accompanied by increasing reliance on
Western assistance and credits. The authorities devised a policy of “repressive
toleration”, meaning that informal political opposition was tolerated in an attempt to
gain greater access to foreign credits. 11 This, together with the Helsinki process
allowed the West to put increasing economic and some political pressure on the
authorities. It also opened the way to the birth of Solidarity in August 1980, which
signalled the creation of an independent civil society. 12
These groups and later social movements were all influenced by “European”
values. 13 In other words, one cannot understand Poland’s entry to the EU only by
considering the economic or legal aspects of this entry. Historic and cultural
symbols are extremely important in shaping the thinking and behaviour of Poland’s
political elite vis-à-vis the EU. Europeanization was a process that long predated
both the fall of the iron curtain, and indeed it also predates World War II and the
division of Europe that followed. In the next section we trace the political
developments relating to Poland’s foreign policy and the EEC.
9. A. MICHNIK, Kościół, lewica, dialog, Instytut Literacki, Paris, 1997.
10. J. TISCHNER, Polska jest Ojczyzna, Éditions du Dialogue, Société d’Éditions Internationales/
Znaki Czasu, Paris, 1985 and J. ZARIN, Kościół a władza w Polsce (1945-1950), “DIG” TSS,
Towarzystwo im. Stanisława ze Skarbimierza, Warszawa, 1997.
11. See J. STANISZKIS, Poland’s Self-Limiting Revolution, Princeton University Press, Princeton,
1984, p.166.
12. D. GAWIN (ed.), Lekcja Sierpnia: dziedzictwo “Solidarności” po dwudziestu latach,
Wydawnictwo IFiS PAN, Warszawa, 2002. See also J. ZIELONKA, Political Ideas in
Contemporary Poland, Avebury, Aldershot, 1989.
13. See for instance A. MICHNIK, Letters from Prison, California University Press, Berkeley/Los
Angeles, 1998.