ABSTRACT
The election of the Polish Pope was bound to strengthen the morale of the anti-Communist forces; most directly in Poland but also in other Eastern European states. It was a disarming acknowledgment of how life under Communism made the nonbeliever and even people who would ordinarily be anti-clerical rally around the one institution that rejected its theology and practice. Life under Communism has a curious make-believe characteristic: its ultimate element, lack of individual freedom, tends to make other problems appear distant and relatively unimportant. And it would take some time after the fall of the Soviet Union to make the former subjects of Communism realize that freedom brings its own uncertainties and dilemmas. The Cold War was very largely a war of nerves where the Soviet Union enjoyed a psychological advantage. Awareness of the terrible potential of nuclear weapons made such threats disturbing even when it was clear that the Kremlin was bluffing.
