Repressions Against Polish Clergy in the USSR 1939-1987

Abstract

The paper discusses repressions against Polish clergy on the territories of the II Republic from 1939 to 1941 and the situation after the incorporation of these lands to USSR in 1945. Fighting the Church was one of the foundations of Soviet communist system, which declared the Catholic clergy to be a dangerous counter-revolutionary force commanded from Vatican. Soviet policy was to eliminate physically the clergy from the society. During the war methods included war crimes, off-handed death sentences, long-term sentences in Gulag camps or deportations without any lawful basis. After the war there were no death sentences. Priests were judged in courts and condemned to long-term sentences in camps. Constant invigilation and forging of cases against clergy continued in USSR until the ‘perestroika’ of Mikhail Gorbatschev. The paper scrutinizes methods of forging cases against priests and Soviet laws that put the security forces in the way of pursuing priests. The number of victimized clergymen ca 500, is also discussed, as well as the length of their sentences and their life and work in the Gulag camps.