The problem of state – Church relationships in the reality of pre-war Poland has been subject to multifaceted analyses many times. Education and connected with it educational practice can be undoubtedly recognised as an important sphere of this unequal rivalry because of wide possibilities of indoctrination. The article – from this particular point of view – looks at the activity of private Salesian tailoring gymnasium in Wroclaw, which seems to be a transparent example of the clash and – with the passage of time – combat between the communist authorities and the Catholic Church. When looking at the youth groups and organisations functioning in the school, as well as the means of realising the educational programme imposed by the education board, one can see a particular practice of the school’s management to choose “the lesser evil”. It was connected with dynamic activities to conform a catholic school to the reality of the Polish People’s Republic, which turned to be only short-term solutions. The authorities strove successively to the total dismantling of Catholic school system and accomplished their goal at the first opportunity, also in case of the Salesians in Wroclaw by ending the short history of the tailoring school.