Practically bedfellows

Although various descriptions have been given of the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) leadership, in any analyses one term keeps coming back: pragmatists. That certainly was the clarion call of SLD supporters among the Western press prior to the elections, and although since then some of the luster has fallen away, it is still safe to say that the SLD are far less encumbered by ideology than their Solidarity Election Action (AWS) predecessors. As Prime Minister Leszek Miller faces the potentially most serious challenge of his leadership - namely how to tackle the problem of EU membership for the country - that pragmatism has resurfaced in his decision to come to terms with the institution that has historically proved to be the greatest opposition to communism: the Polish catholic church.

Anyone with even a superficial knowledge of Polish history will know that the relationship between the catholic church and Poland's communists has not - to put it mildly - been a happy one. After the establishment of communism following the war, Poland became the only country in the former Warsaw Pact where the institutional catholic church retained its independence and integrity. The price it had to pay was suffering restrictions on its ability to spread the faith, limits on its freedom to publish its own press and organize universities. More outspoken priests were vilified by communist propagandists, and subjected to investigations and harassment by Poland's secret police. By the same token, however, there was tacit recognition by the communists - fully accepted after the election of John Paul II to the Papacy in 1978 - that the church was here to stay. For its part, the hierarchy of the church, too, recognized that its role under communism was not to overthrow the regime but to maintain its influence among ordinary Poles.

So, to be in a forced relationship is not new for either side. Today, of course, the agenda of Poland's left is not to destroy the Polish church. Instead, more zealous leftists - aided frequently by "liberal" politicians - seek to promote policies that slowly but surely undermine the position of the church, such as supporting pro-abortion legislation, acceptance of gay marriages and cultural relativism in schools. These committed ideological opponents of religious faith and the institutional church, of course, exist in other European countries too, and they have achieved some notable "successes" there. What is fascinating in Poland is that thus far, they remain on the fringes of, rather than at the center of, the main leftist party, in Poland's case the SLD. The SLD has always been a "broad church" party, bringing together a collection of genuine social democrats, old-time communists, progressive liberal leftists, and counter-cultural youth. While there has always been a highly visible anti-clericalist faction - most publicly represented by the notorious Nie political weekly - other SLD politicians have kept their distance from publicly supporting anti-church actions, for a variety of reasons. One factor is that many of Poland's leading leftists, especially of the older generation, have no more time for whining feminists and pushy gays than do conservatives. Those are causes that do not go down well in the more blue-collar party strongholds of the country.

More importantly, however, leading SLD politicians - and Miller especially - understand that to make an overt enemy of the church would be disastrous politically. The SLD has grand political ambitions to become "the natural party of government," and it can do so only by maintaining its grip on the center ground of politics that it so ably captured in last year's elections. For that reason, Miller is quite happy to allow the Nie weekly keep the anti-clericalists on his side but has no intention of being driven by their agenda. Second, the acquiescence of the church in his government is all the more necessary by the fact that his reputation will stand or fall on his ability to win next year's referendum on EU entry. With the Polish Peasants Party (PSL) already dangerously turning against him, the last thing Miller needs is the catholic church joining in the anti-EU front. So, it is not surprising that Miller has no enthusiasm for supporting either a liberalization of the abortion law - which raises little protest among most Poles - or gay rights. Instead, he has had high-level meetings with Cardinal Józef Glemp and a spectacular visit to meet the pope in the Vatican. Just last week, President Aleksander Kwaśniewski was following in his footsteps, extending an invitation for the pope to visit Poland again in the summer.

Also to be noted is the failure of either Miller or Kwaśniewski to exploit for political purposes the current sex scandal engulfing the church over allegations against one of Poland's top archbishops, accused of sexually harassing clerics and priests. And what will the church demand in return for their support of EU entry? Already, they have bought Miller's silence on cultural and social issues. Radicals are isolated in the more vocal sections of the SLD's junior coalition partner, the Labor Union (UP). And last week saw the extraordinary spectacle of Treasury Minister Wiesław Kaczmarek stepping in to support Poland's national catholic television station, Puls, through refusing to withdraw state shareholdings from the company and saying the station ought to be "helped" to achieve profitability. Amazing, considering that Puls had long been a favored target for SLD politicians, accusing it of being a parasite on state investments and a nest of right-wing agitation. There are few with any illusions that the current relationship between the church and the SLD is little more than a marriage of convenience or that in the long term both remain fundamentally hostile to each other. But just as for many years the peculiar circumstances of subservience to Moscow led the two institutions to accept each other's permanence, so today's exigencies of the realities of Poland's inevitable entry to the EU have resulted in an uncomfortable, but ultimately mutually beneficial, relationship.

Marek Matraszek is the Warsaw director of CEC Government Relations. He can be e-mailed at director@cec.com.pl