By Benjamin Wolaver 

Once considered the ‘Great Experiment,’ American democracy has become the “Great Standard” by whose light all other nations are examined. In this time of war, we have recognized that freedom is synonymous with peace. If government of the people must be government by the people, then freedom of the people must be freedom by the people. Freedom resides in the hearts of individuals whose collective convictions form the spirit of a nation. Religion is pivotal in defining the culture and morality of a society; the morality of a society is vital to the adherence to the rule of law; the rule of law is essential to peaceful democracy.

However, men write laws, and what sort of man must the people choose to write the laws that rule them? Will voters be seduced by the politician who exploits the violent passions of the masses? Or will they have the wisdom to choose leaders who appeal to reason and are guided by love? When given the chance to man the ship of destiny, will they select the path of truth or will they embark on a course toward tyranny? These are the questions to be determined in a nation’s transition to democracy, for the rule of the people cannot succeed unless the people in turn are governed by their own beliefs and by natural law.

‘When everything was fine
And the notion of sin had vanished
And the earth was ready
In universal peace
To consume and rejoice
Without creeds or utopias,

I, for unknown reasons,
Surrounded by the books
Of prophets and theologians
Searched for an answer,
Scowling, grimacing,
Waking up at night, muttering at dawn. ¹

So wrote Czeslaw Milosz, a Lithuanian poet, who, after serving as a diplomat in the Communist government of Poland, fled to France to denounce the oppression he had witnessed during the horrific years of the German and Soviet invasions.² It paints a poignant picture of the psychological and spiritual repression that plagued the Polish people in the 1970’s.

The People’s Republic of Poland, reshaped by Stalin in 1948,³ armed with the atheistic mindset of Lenin, had persecuted the largely Catholic population for their religious beliefs. According to historian Paul Johnson, ‘Hitler had closed its schools, universities and seminaries, and murdered a third of its clergy.’ Yet, inexplicably, by the 1960’s, ‘the number of religious – i.e. priests, nuns and monks – 22,000 in 1939, had grown to 36,500. There were 50 per cent more monastic foundations, priories and convents than before the war.’⁴

All across the weary country, spiritual revival began to sweep through the streets. With their renewed purpose and self-worth, the people of Poland took it upon themselves to shake off the fetters with which the Communists had shackled their minds.

The forming of Solidarity, an anti-communist trade union, provided a venue for revolutionary-minded citizens to voice their beliefs.⁵ Continuous economic downturn gave credence to the opposition’s claims of Soviet malfeasance.⁶ Under the leadership of Lech Walesa, a devout Catholic⁷, the opposition group swelled to ten million members.⁸ It formed a deadly threat to the corrupt regime. For years the union, born on the wings of spiritual revival, battled their Communist oppressors. The democratization of Hungary and continuous pressure from the free world took its toll on the decomposing despotism.⁹ In the end, the Communist party relinquished its control over the country by allowing the open, democratic, and internationally monitored elections of June 4, 1989.¹⁰ After enduring imprisonment, interrogation, torture, and intense persecution, Solidarity won a decisive victory, and the Communists lost the political hegemony they had possessed for decades.¹¹

The democracy that emerged was diverse and enduring. Lech Walesa won the 1990 presidential election, which ushered Poland into the post-Communist era.¹² The newly empowered Solidarity instituted a ’shock therapy’ economic policy that did away with the socialized distribution system and exchanged it for a free market, resurrecting the Polish economy.¹³ Adam Michnik, a leading Polish revolutionary, began a liberal newspaper, Gazeta Wyborcza, which today is the most circulated in Poland. It was a striking contrast to the propaganda of the old order.¹⁴ In a sweeping reformation, Poland had gained a free government, free press, and an economy of free enterprise. The emergence of a democratic Poland instigated a slew of revolutions, which would proceed to abolish the puppet dictatorships that had dominated the political landscape of Eastern Europe.¹⁵

None of this remarkable success would have occurred without the staunch religious beliefs of the opposition leaders. When days were still dark and the power of the Soviet Union loomed like a giant above them, Walesa and his compatriots held firm to the religious principles of truth, justice, and God-given freedom. This not only enabled them to withstand the oppression of the Communists, but to faithfully transfer power to the people.

Jedediah Purdy, in his book For Common Things, writes: ‘the centerpiece of Central European dissent was the aim of recovering personal integrity and public truth with a single gesture. The dissidents’ chief weapon would be neither the bullet nor the ballot, but the truthful sentence… an extraordinary moral clarity crystallized in the politics of dissent.’¹⁶

The moral clarity that Mr. Purdy refers to was not only a reaction against the lies and propaganda of the Communist government, but was directly related to the religious beliefs of the opposition leaders. Under Communism, the Government was god. But under the leadership of Solidarity, government lowered itself to become the servant of the people, in order that the people, as well as the government, might be ruled by an inner desire to live according to the moral laws inherit within their own belief system. Without this inner fire, no successful democracy would or could have emerged.

The French Revolution was a case in opposites. Paris in the late 1700’s was a center of perverse societies known as ‘Clubs,’ routinely dealing in sexual promiscuity, black magic,¹⁷ and propagandist pamphlets.18

These pamphlets were distributed en masse to large groups of peasants. France was rife with poverty, and widespread ignorance enabled opportunistic aristocrats to take advantage of the ineptness of Louis the XVI.¹⁹ This movement against the monarchy was based on a philosophical viewpoint, built on the ideals of a persuasive writer by the name of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.²⁰

In the minds of the intelligentsia, the Enlightenment had relegated the moral convictions of Monotheism to the ashes of primitive thinking.²¹ With religious beliefs scorned and rejected, Rousseau entered the scene, preaching a predecessor to Nietzsche’s Last Man. Rousseau’s Man, he claimed, would aspire to greatness by returning to the base instincts of nature.²² ‘All that comes from [nature] will be true,’ he proclaimed. ²³

His Discourse on the Origin of Inequality struck a chord among the French aristocracy and sparked a wave of wayward behavior and corrupt practices. The populace, disillusioned by the depressing nature of their lives, reacted in violence.²⁴ Concurrently, the leaders of the French Revolution launched waves of ‘massive propaganda to alter facts after events, and to change people’s minds about what they saw and thought.’ -Otto Scott, Robespierre ²⁵

But the French Revolution, though hailed by the surrounding nations as a victory for democracy, ultimately failed in its transition. As Edmund Burke aptly wrote: ‘All other nations have begun the fabric of a new government, or the reformation of an old, by establishing originally, or, by enforcing with greater exactness, some rites or other of religion… For want of these they have seen the medicine of the state corrupted into its poison.’²⁶

The eventual rise of Napoleon signaled the beginning of an unparalleled time of warfare and strife as the egotistical conqueror slaughtered thousands in needless conflict.²⁷ But even more far reaching than the Napoleonic Wars was the example set by the unmitigated Reign of Terror in France.²⁸ The Revolution of 1848 rocked the capitals of Europe, and, while some progress toward democracy was achieved,²⁹ it would prove transient and counterproductive to the overall health and well-being of the European peoples.

In conclusion, the contrast between the French and the Polish revolutions is startling. While both had profound influence on the surrounding countries and affected the political structure of Europe and the world for years to come, the motivational forces could not have been more polarized in their beliefs, methods, and consequences. While Solidarity exemplified self-control leading to self-government, the indulgence of the French Revolution led only to self-destruction.

In today’s world, an effort is under way to bring peace to a region that is dominated by a religion that is fundamentally different in its hierarchy and modus operandi than the Catholicism that revived the downtrodden soul of Poland. Whether Islam can duplicate the widespread success that Judaism and Christianity have had in cultivating peaceful democracies remains in question. This much is clear; they must encourage religious diversity, debate, and freedom in order to accomplish a transition to a lasting and peaceful democracy.

End Notes:
1. Milosz, Czeslaw. Poem for the End of the Century p. 545
2. Milosz, Czeslaw. The Captive Mind p. ix
3. Davies, Norman. Heart of Europe: The Past in Poland’s Present p. 5-6
4. Johnson, Paul. Modern Times p. 701-702
5. Purdy, Jedediah. For Common Things p. 113
6. Davies, Norman. Heart of Europe: The Past in Poland’s Present p. 371-372
7. Davies, Norman. Heart of Europe: The Past in Poland’s Present p. 51
8. Purdy, Jedediah. For Common Things p. 121
9. Johnson, Paul. Modern Times p. 759-760
10. Davies, Norman. Heart of Europe: The Past in Poland’s Present p. 418
11. Johnson, Paul. Modern Times p. 759
12. Davies, Norman. Heart of Europe: The Past in Poland’s Present p. 422
13. Historychannel.com: Poland
14. Purdy, Jedediah. For Common Things p. 115-122
15. Johnson, Paul. Modern Times p. 759-765
16. Purdy, Jedediah. For Common Things p. 115-117
17. Scott, Otto. Robespierre p. 90-92
18. Scott, Otto. Robespierre p. 131-132
19. Carlyle, Thomas. The French Revolution: A History p. 371
20. Carlyle, Thomas. The French Revolution: A History p. 413-414
21. Furet, Francois. The French Revolution 1770-1814 p. 14-15
22. Scott, Otto. Robespierre p. 7
23. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Discourse on the Origin of Inequality p. 334
24. Scott, Otto. Robespierre p. 131
25. Carlyle, Thomas. The French Revolution: A History p. 666-668
26. Burke, Edmund. Reflections on the Revolution in France p. 431-432
27. Johnson, Paul. Napoleon p. 143
28. Carlyle, Thomas. The French Revolution: A History p. 677-678
29. Historychannel.com: Revolution of 1848

© 2005 Benjamin Wolaver