Most sacrilegious murder

Nineteen eighty-five was the year in which I became closely engaged in the revolution that was to overthrow the Soviet empire. Poland was the last of five loveless republics of the Warsaw Pact which I visited between February and April, and it was the one which made by far the deepest impression on me. For the most publicly dramatic event of my entire iron curtain tour was my pilgrimage to the church of St Stanislaw Kostko and the grave of Father Jerzy Popieluszko.

Popieluszko was the pro-Solidarity Catholic priest, whose murder by the Polish police in October 1984 is the core of this gripping and perceptive description of Poland’s decisive role in the demolition of European communism.

There is, in fact, a revealing contrast between Kevin Ruane’s perception and my own more telescopic view, but one that can easily be reconciled. For him, the killing of Popieluszko, and the train of events that followed, came at a time when the long struggle of the Catholic/ Solidarity alliance against communism seemed in danger of being crushed.