Bain Leslie B., The Reluctant Satellites ( New York, 1960); Korbonski Andrzej, "The Polish Communist Party, 1938-1942," Slavic Review 16.3 ( September 1967), pp. 436-444; Mikolajczik Stanislaw, The Rape of Poland: Patterns of Soviet Aggression ( New York, 1948).
Brystygierowa, Julia ( 1902-1980). She was an early member of the Polish Communist party and, at the same time, was active in the Ukrainian Communist party during the interwar years. During World War II, she lived in Lvov and worked on the editorial board of the underground paper of the Lvov section of the party. She was a member of the executive committee of the Union of Polish Patriots, a communist front-organization and between June and September 1944, she was a secretary of its presidium. She was also deputy secretary of the executive committee of the Union and directed the work of its organizational department. Between 1948 and 1954, Brysty-gierowa was a member of the Polish United Workers party's central control commission. Between 1944 and 1956, she was also a director of a department in the Ministry of Public Security and a member of the supersecret Committee for Public Security. In September 1956, she was removed and retired to private life.
Polonsky Antony, and Druiker Boleslaw, The Beginnings of Communist Rule in Poland ( London, 1980).
Caritas in Communist Poland. Jan Frankowski, a shrewd Catholic layman, led this political group in communist Poland. Its origin went back to the Christian Social Society established in 1945, whose self-assigned task was to help victims of World War II. The Communist party tolerated the organization and, after the 1961 elections, permitted it to have three parliamentary deputies.
Caritas closely collaborated with the Communist party. For instance, Frankowski delivered a speech in parliament (the Sejm) in 1961, strongly supporting the elimination of two Catholic holidays from paid days of rest. He sided with the communists against the other Catholic lay organizations, PAX (see PAX) and ZNAK (see ZNAK), speaking of "uniformism" in the Catholic camp, when the church's hierarchy accused the communists of "ideological uniformism." Frankowski was revealed to have been involved in a scheme when, as vice-chairman of Caritas, he sold its subsidiary, Ars Christiana, to himself.
In 1950, the Catholic church was forced by the state to agree to the transfer of Caritas which was, until then, under church jurisdiction, to a so-called "union of Catholics," a state-controlled front organization. In turn, the state paid 243 million zlotys a year to Caritas from which 40 million went to nuns working for the organization. In 1962, the communists removed 300 kindergartens and 60 children's homes from the jurisdiction of Caritas. It still maintained hundreds of institutions for crippled children, for mentally retarded people, and for old people, cared for by nuns. About
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Questia, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questia.com
Publication information:
Book title: Dictionary of East European History since 1945.
Contributors: Joseph Held - Author.
Publisher: Greenwood Press.
Place of publication: Westport, CT.
Publication year: 1994.
Page number: 311.
This material is protected by copyright and, with the exception of fair use, may not be further copied, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means.
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