Chrześcijańskie Stowarzyszenie Społeczne w rzeczywistości politycznej PRL w latach 1957–1974

Abstract

The Christian Social Association in the political reality of the Polish People’s Republic in 1957–1974 Formed in October 1957, the Christian Social Association was founded on the basis of a breakaway group in the ‘PAX’ Association, referred to as ‘secession’. In late September and early October 1957, its leader, Jan Frankowski, removed from the editorial board of the group’s weekly Za i Przeciw leading ‘secession’ activists, who styled themselves ‘non- affiliated democratic left’. He established a small Catholic organisation which had a loyalist programme, and which was intended not to cause trouble for the authorities, gaining some political and economic concessions in return. However, Frankowski did not want to come into open conflict with the Church, a stance that irritated the communists, who wanted to strengthen the association in order to use it to fight the Episcopate and other Catholic groups. In the 1960s an opposition to Frankowski emerged within the organisation’s leadership, seeking to activate the association. In 1968, the president of the association lost Zenon Kliszka’s patronage, which, in the atmosphere of the March political purge, facilitated his dismissal. Zygmunt Filipowicz, an MP, became the new head of the organisation, but he drew his support from several activists who were in conflict with each other. The course of events within the association and the struggle between volatile coalitions resulted in 1972 in a clash between the general secretary, Kazimierz Morawski, and Stanislaw Jan Rostworowski, MP, both seeking to become the organisation’s president. Both were Ministry of Internal Affairs agents and their conflict led to chaos throughout the organisation. In the end, with the support of the communists, Morawski became the president, while Rostworowski was marginalised. The Christian Social Association was unable to win political independence or genuinely increase its importance within the country’s political system, and Rostworowski’s attempts to change this state of affairs had a significant impact on his defeat.