The National Party gathered together most of the political forces of Poland's National Democracy right wing. Shortly before World War II the National Party, 200,000 strong, was the largest opposition party.[3]
In the 1930s two main factions competed within the National Party, the "old generation" and the "young generation", divided by age and political programs. The old generation supported parliamentary political competition, while the activist young generation advocated extra-parliamentary political struggle. In 1935 the young activists took over the party's leadership. In 1934 a substantial part of the young faction split off from the National Party, forming a National-Radical Camp. During World War II, many National Party activists joined the National Armed Forces and National Military Organization resistance organizations.
Name
Roman Dmowski admitted that many people preferred the party to be called in the old name - the National-Democratic Party. He chose the shorter name for the following reasons:
to emphasize that a new era had begun in connection with the rebuilding of Poland
in his conviction that the democratization of Poles had already taken place, and the time had come to transform them into a nationally aware political community
to emphasize that the National Camp pursues politics in the name of the entire nation (without division into states or classes)
in his conviction that the determinant of proper politics is to "sincerely and honestly place the good of the nation above all interests and ambitions."[4]
History
Genesis of the National Party
The establishment of the Sanation dictatorship forced the National Democrats to thoroughly revise their previous political tactics. On 4 December 1926, at a convention in Poznań, Dmowski, who had previously kept to the sidelines of political life, focusing mainly on writing, announced the formation of the Camp of Great Poland (OWP). It was to be a supra-party social movement for the self-organization of as many Poles as possible, and at the same time for the formation of the younger generation as the future state elite. Hence, the decision to establish an autonomous Youth Movement within the OWP, headed by Jędrzej Giertych, Tadeusz Bielecki, Jan Mosdorf, and Zdzisław Stahl, among others. Current politics continued to be handled by the ZLN, but after losing the elections to the Sejm in 1928 (manipulated by Sanation), it was replaced by Dmowski with a new structure, the National Party, whose primary task was political work in parliament and in local governments. In place of the National League, critical of Stanisław Grabski, who had headed it until recently, Dmowski established a two-tier secret internal organization, known as the "Guard," which was to watch over the National Camp and at the same time ensure continuity of work in the event of arrests or delegalization. The "Guard" included politicians who would play important roles during the war, including Roman Rybarski, Władysław Folkierski, Stefan Sacha, and Mieczysław Trajdos.[5]
Handover of the OWP to the young generation
The influx of youth into the OWP turned out to be so great that in 1931 Dmowski decided to make another move - to hand over the OWP to the young, probably with the intention of handing over the entire National Camp, as it was then accepted to call National Democracy, to activists born between 1900-1908. In doing so, he followed the principle of "striving forward," which he articulated at the All-Polish Youth congress back in April 1923: "nothing of what the camp has created - except, of course, the basic principles of ideology - is a dead formula to be learned and not to think further." He admitted that he himself had already departed "from many of the things" he had written about earlier, and called for "the constant effort to think."
By 1933, the OWP had more than 200,000 members, and was directly influencing another 100,000 people. A simple demographic calculation suggested that in time, the Sanation would be atrophied and replaced by a young generation shaped by the OWP. Unwilling to allow this to happen, and finding both attempts to scout Dmowski and administrative harassment ineffective, the regime announced the dissolution of the OWP on March 28, 1933, under the false pretext of threatening a coup d'état. More than a dozen activists were arrested, including Jędrzej Giertych. Presumably to intimidate Dmowski, on May 14 his secretary, 29-year-old Jan Chudzik, who at the time also headed the Young Section of the SN, was assassinated. Fearing another civil war after 1926, Dmowski recommended refraining from retaliation and moving from the disbanded OWP to the still-legal SN. Political violence, however, was on the rise.[6]
The youthful nature of the OWP also had side effects. Young people, severely affected by the Great Depression, sought radical remedies, inspired by corporatism, the American New Deal program (implemented since 1933) and especially Italian fascism, which was attracted by the idea of solidarity, social policies, the development of the automobile and aviation, modernist construction, modern art, the violation of the liberal paradigm and socialism, despite the fact that it originated from socialism. The 27-year-old Stefan Niebudek, a member of the Main Board of the SN, succumbing to youthful idealism, wanted to see in Benito Mussolini a resurrector of the ancient Roman tradition, a unifier of the Italian nation, and at the same time a defender of the Catholic faith. His reportage titled In the Country of Black Shirts, written under the influence of a ten-day trip to Italy at Easter 1937, was perhaps the most far-reaching apologia for Mussolini's state in this political formation, with the author paying more attention to Catholic cultural monuments and relics of antiquity than to the infrastructural achievements of the regime. Under the influence of fascism, there was a fashion for uniforms, greeting each other with the Roman salute, and parades through the streets of cities. This was also the influence of the experience of World War I, as well as the egalitarization of societies in its aftermath, resulting in the postulate that everyone, regardless of background and wealth, should look alike or even the same. Dmowski found this fashion funny. He gave way to the young, but did not put on the uniform himself.[7]
Generational conflict
Another effect of the youth character of the OWP was the growing generational conflict in the national movement, most fully described in Wojciech J. Muszyński's book "The Spirit of Youth. The Polish Organization and the National-Radical Camp in the Years 1934-1944. From Student Revolt to Independence Conspiracy." The mass transition of young people from the disbanded OWP to the SN soon led to tensions between the "old" and the "young," with a dilemma emerging among the latter whether to stick with Dmowski's conservative political methods or to follow the path of "national revolution," also seeking answers to the question of how Catholic Poland was to survive between the socialist Soviet Union and national-socialist Germany. Added to this was the fundamental question for the Second Republic, how the postulated nation-state should function, since Poles made up less than 70% of the population there, while the rest were minorities, the most numerous of whom were Ukrainians and Jews.[8]
The period of splits: 1933-1934
Union of Young Nationalists (ZMN)
In 1933-1934, there were splits in the SN. First, a small group of young activists from Poznań and Lwów, centered around Zdzisław Stahl, left and formed the pro-state Union of Young Nationalists (ZMN) (mainly in Poznań and Lwów), with the participation of, among others, Zygmunt Wojciechowski.[9]
National-Radical Camp (ONR)
On April 14, 1934, a group of Warsaw academic youth, led by Jerzy Czerwiński, Władysław Dowbor, Tadeusz Gluziński, Jan Jodzewicz, Jan Korlec, Jan Mosdorf, Mieczysław Prószyński, Henryk Rossman, Tadeusz Todtleben, Wojciech Zaleski, announced - in the cafeteria of the Warsaw University of Technology - the formation of the National-Radical Camp (ONR). Its ideological declaration, drafted mainly by Mosdorf, was published the next day in the weekly magazine "Sztafeta". While outside Warsaw the vast majority of the youth opted to remain in the SN, in Warsaw 90% of the SN Youth Section - a total of about 2,000 people - joined the ONR. Dmowski's tactic of gradual generational change, despite attempts at mediation, ended in failure. He accepted it with bitterness, accusing the founders of ONR of the mindset and character of eternal students, especially since he did not, after all, abandon his intention to hand over the helm to the younger generation, which soon came to pass, when Tadeusz Bielecki, Jędrzej Giertych, Kazimierz Kowalski began to take power in the SN.
The ONR-ists officially showed Dmowski respect, while privately they referred to him with irony, as an infirm politician who did not understand the new times. In a letter to Father Józef Prądzyński, Dmowski wrote that he preferred not to announce in the newspapers that he severely condemned the fronda, so as not to put weapons in the hands of opponents. At the same time, he stressed: "I condemn it, not only because it breaks up the unity of the national camp, but that it is in itself stupid and harmful to our cause."
The leaders of the ONR were imprisoned in the Bereza Kartuska camp after just two months, and on July 10, 1934, the regime declared it banned, and led to the closure of "Sztafeta". To demonstrate the power of the authorities also detained approx. 100 SN members throughout Poland. This further radicalized the younger generation.[10]
Generational shift: 1937-1939
Kazimierz Kowalski - president of SN 1937-1939
With Dmowski's backing, in October 1937 the 36-year-old Kazimierz Kowalski became head of the SN's General Board. This marked a generational change. Until June, the ZG was headed by 70-year-old Joachim Bartoszewicz, Dmowski's associate in the Polish National Committee, a senator, and author of many program studies, such as Polish policy issues (1929). Between June and October 1937, Tadeusz Bielecki, a peer of Kowalski's and at the same time his rival, temporarily served as chairman. Kowalski had previously headed the Łódz District Board of the SN, and had appeared as an attorney in many political trials. He was said to have won Łódz for Dmowski in 1934. Poles made up only 58% of the city's population, which meant that the vast majority of them voted for either the SN or the Christian Democrats, then allied with it. Kowalski was supposed to become the city's deputy mayor, but this was prevented by Sanation, which established a board of trustees, and Kowalski was jailed for seven months on the pretext of disrupting the May 3 holiday. Soon the city council was also dissolved. As Giertych wrote, nevertheless, efforts were made to initiate a policy whose determinants were the Polonization of offices, commerce, intermediation (concessions), and thus the reduction of the role of Jews (who constituted 35% of Łódz's population), as well as the abandonment of statism resulting in the waste of money, the reduction of taxes and far-reaching savings, and the promotion of small property at the expense of large ones. Presumably, this course the SN would try to continue in a situation of coming to power at the central level.[11]
In addition to Kowalski, the ZG SN consisted of Tadeusz Bielecki (vice-president), Mieczysław Trajdos (vice-president), Wladyslaw Jaworski (secretary), Witold T. Staniszkis (treasurer) and Jędrzej Giertych, Jan Matłachowski, Stefan Niebudek, Karol Wierczak. It was not a homogeneous group, although "young" predominated. A division soon emerged between supporters of Kowalski or Bielecki. The latter was aided by the fact that the opinion-making "Warszawski Dziennik Narodowy" was headed by Stefan Sacha, who was close to him. These factions differed in their approach to the Sanation regime and foreign policy. Also weighing on their relations was the fact that Kowalski, as a politician from the social lowlands, despite his talent appreciated by Dmowski himself, could not find a common language with the Warsaw or Cracow intelligentsia, who rather saw a leader in the thoroughly educated (doctorate in Polish studies, master's degree in law) Bielecki, which in turn caused Kowalski's inferiority complex. Some saw Kowalski as a "fanatical politician," which did not win him any sympathy either. Dmowski could no longer help in resolving disputes and animosities. According to Giertych, in his last statements before he was paralyzed by the stroke, Dmowski recommended resistance to the mutation of Pilsudski's ideas, as reflected in Adolf Bocheński's famous book "Between Germany and Russia". He warned against actions against Czechoslovakia, especially expeditions into Russia to dismember it.
In June 1939 Kowalski, and with him the entire Main Board, resigned. The professorial group on the Main Committee put forward Zygmunt Berezowski, the Committee's secretary, as a compromise candidate. In the end, Tadeusz Bielecki was recommended by a minimal majority, and on June 25, 1939, this choice was approved by the Supreme Council (one hundred and several dozen SN delegates from all over the country). The new Main Board included - besides Bielecki - Mieczyslaw Trajdos (vice-president), Witold T. Staniszkis (vice-president), Wladyslaw Jaworski, Stefan Sacha, Boguslaw Jeziorski, Napoleon Siemaszko, Stefan Niebudek, Antoni Orszagh, Jozef Szmydt. Despite the disagreements, the National Party, led by Bielecki, worked quite unanimously during the last months of peace for the unity of Poles in the face of the impending war. This contributed, after the September defeat, to its popularity and credibility, especially among the younger generation, disillusioned with the policies of the Sanation and resentful of the Left, especially after the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
Times of war and occupation: 1939-1945
Mieczysław Trajdos - first leader of the wartime SN
On August 20, 1939, Tadeusz Bielecki received an emergency call up to the army and was sent to a unit in Ciechanów. It was probably also to keep the leader of the formation, which had been consistently paying attention to the German threat for several decades, unlike the Piłsudskiites, away from political settlements at the decisive moment. Through Władysław Jaworski, Bielecki only managed to hand over acting chairman duties to Mieczysław Trajdos.
On the third day of the war, the Central Committee of the SN adopted a resolution, which was published the following day by the "Warsaw National Daily". It stated that "the eternal enemy of our nation" had started a war to "snatch our freedom and our lands." The goals of the ongoing war were put as follows: "We are fighting for our freedom, our honor, we are fighting for the faith of Christ, against Her enemies, we are fighting for European civilization, threatened by the barbarism of Germanism." It was emphasized that the Poles are not alone: "With us are our allies, France and Great Britain, who, like us, stood up to fight for the moral order, peace and freedom of Europe." Germany's defeat was expected, sooner or later: "The victory that this struggle brings us means not only a lasting peace after the breaking of German power, not only the completion of the great work of reuniting the eternal Polish lands with the Motherland, not only the incorporation of Gdańsk into Poland and the resolution of the East Prussian question, but the liberation of Central Europe from German supremacy and the superpower growth of our state."
The main goal of the party was the construction of a Catholic Polish State, through combining the principles of Catholicism and Nationalism. The party advocated a hierarchical organisation of society and the transformation of the political system by increasing the role of the Polish National elite within the country.
Meeting of the party in PoznańMembers march with the Roman salute during the parade on May 3, 1937 in PoznańDe-Judeize Wilno! - anti-Semitic election poster of the Catholic National Electoral Committee, hung up on the occasion of the 1939 Wilno city council elections.
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