The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB

After extensive lobbying by the Soviet embassy, which had received an advance copy, the report was rejected and it was agreed that a revised version should be prepared, emphasizing Poland’s supposed achievements in Socialist construction under the leadership of the PUWP.¹⁰⁸ Aristov continued, however, to complain that “ideological work remains a most neglected sector of the PUWP’s activity,” and that the PUWP leadership was failing to master “the revisionist right-wing opportunist bias in the Party.” The press was deeply tainted by revisionism and Eurocommunism, while Polish translations of Soviet textbooks were openly disparaged:

Currency has been given to the idea that the Soviet model is unsuitable for Poland; the PUWP is incapable of solving contradictions in the interests of the whole of society, and a “third path” needs to be worked out. There is increasing criticism of real Socialism.¹⁰⁹

As the time for John Paul II’s return to Poland approached, the official mood in both Warsaw and Moscow became increasingly nervous. On April 5, 1983 Pavlov forwarded to Viktor Chebrikov, the KGB chairman, a request from Kiszczak for “material and technical assistance in connection with the Pope’s visit”: 150 rifles of the kind used for firing rubber bullets, 20 armed personnel carriers, 300 cars for transporting plain clothes personnel and surveillance equipment, 200 army tents and various medical supplies.¹¹⁰ According to Pavlov, Kiszczak was close to panic, declaring that he could no longer “rely on anyone.” SB sources in the Vatican reported that, though statements drafted for John Paul II were usually moderate, he tended to depart from prepared texts, improvise and get carried away. Kiszczak feared that he would do the same in Poland.

The SB’s only ground for optimism was the decline in the Pope’s health since the assassination attempt in the previous year. “At the present time,” said Kiszczak, “we can only dream of the possibility that God will recall him to his bosom as soon as possible.” Kiszczak seized eagerly on any evidence which suggested that the Pope’s days were numbered. According to one improbable SB report, which he passed on to the KGB, John Paul II was suffering from leukemia but used cosmetics to conceal his condition.¹¹¹ Two years earlier the KGB had received an equally inaccurate report from the Hungarian AVH which claimed that the Pope was suffering from cancer of the spinal column.¹¹² About a fortnight after Kiszczak’s appeal for help from the KGB, Aristov reported further evidence that the Polish authorities were wilting under papal pressure. Having at first refused to allow large open-air masses at Kraków and Katowice, they had given way and agreed to both—thus running the unacceptable risk “of inflaming religious fanaticism among the working class.”¹¹³

On the eve of the Pope’s arrival on June 16, 1983, the underground Warsaw weekly Tygodnik Mazowsze expressed the hope that his visit would “enable people to break through the barrier of despair, just as his 1979 visit broke through the barrier of fear.” In his first words after his emotional homecoming at Warsaw airport, John Paul II reached out to those imprisoned and persecuted by the regime:

I ask those who suffer to be particularly close to me. I ask this in the words of Christ: “I was sick, and you visited me. I was in prison and you came to me.” I myself cannot visit all those in prison [gasps from the crowd], all those who are suffering. But I ask them to be close to me in spirit to help me, just as they always do.¹¹⁴

At every stage during the next nine days, as during John Paul II’s first visit four years earlier, the gulf between his immense moral authority and the discredited one-party state was plain for all to see. Even Jaruzelski sensed it during his first meeting with the Pope in the ornate surroundings of Belweder presidential palace. Though a nonbeliever, Jaruzelski later admitted that, “My legs were trembling and my knees were knocking together… The Pope, this figure in white, it all affected me emotionally. Beyond all reason…”¹¹⁵