The Polish anti-religious campaign was initiated by the communist government in Poland which, under the doctrine of Marxism, actively advocated for the disenfranchisement of religion and planned atheisation. To this effect the regime conducted anti-religious propaganda and persecution of clergymen and monasteries. As in most other Communist countries, religion was not outlawed as such (an exception being Albania) and was permitted by the constitution, but the state attempted to achieve an atheistic society. The Catholic Church, as the religion of most Poles, was seen as a rival competing for the citizens' allegiance by the government, which attempted to suppress it. The Catholic Church in Poland provided strong resistance to the Communist regime and Poland itself had a long history of dissent to foreign rule. The Polish nation rallied to the Church, as had occurred in neighbouring Lithuania, which made it more difficult for the regime to impose its antireligious policies as it had in the USSR, where the populace did not hold mass solidarity with the Russian Orthodox Church. It became the strongest opponent of the regime throughout the rule of Communism in Poland, and provided a more successful resistance than had religious bodies in most other Communist states. The Catholic Church unequivocally condemned communist ideology. This led to the antireligious activity in Poland being compelled to take a more cautious and conciliatory line than in other Communist countries, largely failing in their attempt to control or suppress the Polish Church. Communist takeover (1944–1956) The predecessor to the Communist government in Poland was the Polish Committee of National Liberation, which first took office in Soviet-occupied Lublin in 1944. It initially gave favourable promises to the Church in Poland, including restoration of property that the Nazis had taken and exempting Church property from agrarian reform. The experiences in and after World War II, wherein the large Jewish minority was annihilated by the Nazis, the large German minority was forcibly expelled from the country at the end of the war, along with the loss of the eastern territories which had a significant population of Eastern Orthodox Belarusians and Ukrainians, led to Poland becoming more homogeneously Catholic than it had been. After Soviet troops occupied Poland at the end of World War II, the Soviet-backed government enacted a gradual approach aimed at gaining control of the Catholic Church in Poland. After the war was finished the government permitted Catholic welfare services to resume