Poland: From Post-War Crisis to Authoritarianism

Abstract

Poland was one of the new Central and South-East European states which came into existence after World War I, its previous tradition of independent statehood having ceased at the end of the eithteenth century. Through much of the nineteenth century the Polish people waged an extremely persistent and passionate struggle to rebuild a sovereign Polish state - a tradition which distinguished Poland from all the other newly formed states. It was important, too, that the Polish nation was one of the largest ethnic groups in Europe. Just as in all new states Poland had to define its borders with both military and political actions, before a multinational Polish state emerged. Polish parliamentary democracy in the interwar years was not deep-rooted and it soon struggled under the influence of economic, social and national problems. The collapse of parliamentary democracy followed relatively early, some years before the world depression of 1929, but it was only partial - many democratic institutions and democratic civil rights survived. The discontent brought out by the crisis was directed against the ruling authoritarian forces and stimulated three mutually contradictory tendencies: the democratic, the communist and the more or less fascist. This later phase of political development was then interrupted by the outbreak of war in Europe.KeywordsPrime MinisterAuthoritarian RegimeOpposition PartiNational MinorityAgrarian ReformThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.