CULMINATING MOMENT OF THE “STRUGGLE FOR SOULS”. SEMIOTIC APPROACH TO IDENTITY ISSUES AND TO BREAKDOWN ON “WE — OTHERS”

Abstract

The objective of the article is to present the mechanisms of identity policy and its metalanguage based on individual events of the asymmetrical conflict known as the fight for the soul government. We used historical methods to describe the sequence of conflict events as well as statistical data on the population of the state, identity and religious issues, and membership in the Polish Workers' Party. The content analysis method was applied to the speeches of decision-makers, analysis of texts and propaganda films. We used the interpretation method and the event analysis method to disclose messages at the meta-language level and explain the significance of individual actions of the parties to the conflict. The article presents the chronology and dynamics of the conflict. In the context of individual events, we proposed an explanation of the politics of that time, the events were decrypted as a meta-language that speaks to the recipient's identity. We also presented the measures that were carried out by the PPR to be accepted by society as "theirs". The reasons for the secular authorities' defeat for the government of souls were named, namely: a) sharpened post-war needs of society related to the sense of security; b) failure to perceive secular power as "their own" by a large part of society; c) atheism was not the best solution for the needs of ordinary people; d) the church according to the vision of S. Vyshinsky was aimed at ordinary people; e) the church was a daily element of human life, development, and formation; f) the communists used the meta-language of helplessness (the arrest of the image of Our Lady of Yasnagura (Luminous Mount)); g) the fullness of secular power in the hands of the Communists meant the absence of political opponents on whom the Communists could blame for the existing problems.