TWENTY YEARS OF INDEPENDENCE 311with the Vatican gave the Church in Poland wide-ranging autonomy. The Latin,
Uniate, and Armenian Rites were officially recognized. The clergy were freed
from military service, from prosecution in the courts, and from personal income
tax. They were given a large measure of control over the teaching of compulsory
religious education in state-schools. Former church property, confiscated by the
partitioning powers and now in the state possession, was to be used for the
upkeep of ecclesiastical salaries. No agreement was reached over the conflicting
claims of Church and State over the marriage law. Regulations deriving from
before 1918 remained in force. Divorce was possible in districts of the former
Prussian Partition, but not elsewhere. In the 1930s in conditions of growing
political and social tension, the Church hierarchy moved into the attack. The
'Catholic Action' organization, introduced into Poland in 1930 under the
Presidency of Count A. Bninski, was established in every parish in the country.
Its subsidiary organizations — the Catholic Men's League, Catholic Women's
League, Catholic Youth League - counted more members than any political
party. A Plenary Synod, called at Czf stochowa in 1936 for the first time in three
centuries, and the 'International Congress of Christ the King' held in Poznaii in
1937, were both manifestations of the Church's offensive against atheism. The
growing rapprochement between the Church and the post-Pilsudski Camp of
National Unity, inspired by their common fear of disaffected non-Catholic
minorities, was interrupted by the outbreak of war.^25
In foreign policy, the leaders of the Polish Republic put their trust in genuine
independence, and in non-alignment. At Pilsudski's prompting, no more cre-
dence was given to the blandishments of the western allied governments, than in
Germany or Russia. Poland's bitter experience in 1919-20 when she was left to
fight the Red Army alone, permanently damaged French and British prestige.
The French Military Convention of May 1921 was pointedly signed after the
likelihood of further fighting was removed. Poland did not join the Little
Entente. In the 1930s, the Treaty of Non-aggression signed with the Soviet
Union on 25 January 1932 was matched on 26 January 1934 by a similar Ten-
Year Pact with Germany. It is probably true that the Polish government was
more impressed by the known monstrosities of Stalinist Russia than by the as
yet potential horrors of the Nazi Reich. But there is plenty of evidence to sug-
gest that Pilsudski seriously considered a preventive war against Hitler, if only
the western powers had shown willing. 'Strict mutuality' was the basis for rela-
tions with both great neighbours, and the Doctrine of the Two Enemies was
never abandoned.^26
The watershed of political life was reached on 12-14 May 1926 when Marshal
Jozef Pilsudski mounted a coup d'etat against the system which he himself had
initiated. He had spent the four previous years in retirement, having refused to
accept the Presidency under the restricted conditions of the March Constitution,
and having protested against civilian interference in the running of the army. He
had watched the powerlessness and instability of successive coalition govern-
ments with increasing disgust. He had taken particular offence at the way in