My contribution to the adjournment debate refers to important events in the history of the Polish nation. This year is the centenary of one of the major watershed moments of contemporary European history. In the early 1920s when the Soviet Communist revolution in Russia had done most of its gruesome work, the revolutionaries turned their attention to expanding the revolution beyond their borders.
In Europe, which was still recovering after the devastation of the Great War, many new nations regained their independence in the wake of the fall of the old continental empires. Poland was one of those countries that returned to the map of Europe after almost a century and a half of foreign colonial occupation. Of course, many other nations were reborn throughout Central and Balkan Europe but the Communist push into the west could not be achieved without steamrolling through Warsaw, the capital of Poland.
This year, many Polish-Australians join with their compatriots overseas in celebrating the defeat of the Communist armies in the ensuing Russo-Polish War. Strangely, that war is little known in the west but the defeat of the Red Army, notably at the gates of Warsaw in 1920, stifled the Communist revolution's expansion into western Europe, thus changing the course of history.
At the time, the spirit of revolution was ripe and significant sympathy for the cause of Lenin and Stalin existed among large sections of German, French and Italian society. Leon Trotsky was convinced that the Polish peasants would join forces with the oncoming Reds and join in a combined struggle against their alleged upper class oppressors. He was wrong. National feeling united all classes in a common desire for freedom and independence. Had the Red Army broken through the Polish defence, arguably the face of Europe would look drastically different today.
The war has taken on symbolic meaning for many people around the world, not just the Poles. G.K. Chesterton was a great champion of the causes of those who stood up to the Red Army at Warsaw. He compared it to the defeat of the Turks at the gates of Vienna in 1683. That was another watershed event in European history, and also involved a Polish force defending western Christendom, but from a rival creed that time. In 1920 they were defending their and our Christian civilisation against an ideology of militant atheism. There is no better description of the sentiment that swept the country than that of Paul Suski in an article published in the Catholic Journal. The article states:
“It was a war of a Catholic nation against an army of an atheist, materialist creed, where the winning was against all impossible odds; and the Poles were painfully aware of this. Moreover, for many of them, anything imported from the east was automatically tainted by association with Poland's historic oppressor and occupier, Russia. All in all, people realized that only a miracle could save her from total annihilation. In churches across Poland, the faithful of various walks of life confessed their sins, received Holy Communion, and adored Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.
Miracle over the Vistula by Jerzy Kossak |
...Over 100,000 Poles took to the streets to beg for God’s Mercy. [The Polish] General Józef Haller lay prostrate before the image of the Black Madonna on the floor of Church Christ the Savior. Likewise did 30,000 of the gathered in Castle Square who also wept and prayed the Rosary throughout the night in front of the relics of a martyr and patron saint of Poland …. Understanding the gravity of the situation … [the Catholic] Archbishop … Ratti (later Pope Pius XI) appealed for worldwide public prayers for Poland. As the hordes of evil empire crossed the river … Polish bishops joined to consecrate their country to the Sacred Heart of Jesus …”
The battle was won and the war was over. On 18 March 1921 the Treaty of Riga was signed. Of course, both glory and tragedy can befall a country localised on the borderlands of Europe, especially one that does not easily bend its knee to tyranny.[Time expired.]
