To Kill a Priest : The Murder of Father Popieluszko and the Fall of Communism

About this book

To Kill a Priest captures the wide ramifications of the story of Father Jerzy Popieluszko a popular young parish priest in a Warsaw suburb who steadfastly spoke out from his pulpit against the abuses of communism and supported the then-banned Solidarity trade union. Abducted by the Polish secret police on 19th October 1984 his savagely beaten body was found 11 days later in an icy reservoir.Kevin Ruane documents how for the first time a communist government was forced to try and condemn the repressive actions of its own security agents and admit its own wrong-doing. It proved to be the decisive crack in the fortress of Eastern Block Communism forcing it - for the first time within its own boundaries - to share power with a non-Communist the Solidarity trade union.