Sanacja

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Sanacja (Sanation) was a coalition political movement in the interbellum Second Polish Republic. It was created in 1926 by Józef Piłsudski as a broad movement to support the "moral sanation" ("restoration to health") of the Polish body politic before and after the May 1926 Coup d'État that brought Piłsudski to virtually dictatorial power. From then until 1939, Sanation was the dominant political force in Poland, largely controlling the government.

[edit] History

Named after the Latin word for "healing" ("sanatio"), the Sanation movement mainly comprised former military officers who were disgusted with the corruption in Polish politics. Sanation was a coalition of rightists, leftists and centrists whose main focus was the elimination of corruption and the minimization of inflation.

Sanation appeared prior to the May 1926 Coup d'État and lasted until World War II but was never formalized. Since Piłsudski (as had George Washington in the 18th century) disapproved of political parties, which he saw as promoting their own interests rather than supporting the state and its people, Sanacja never led to the creation of a political party. Instead, in 1928 Sanacja members created a Bezpartyjny Blok Współpracy z Rządem ("Nonpartisan Bloc for Cooperation with the Government"), a bizarre coalition political party that denied being a political party.

Although Piłsudski never claimed personal power, he exercised extensive influence over Polish politics after Sanacja took power in 1926. For the next decade, he dominated Polish affairs as strongman of a generally popular centrist regime. Kazimierz Bartel's government and all subsequent governments would first be unofficially approved by Józef Piłsudski before they could be confirmed by the President.

Piłsudski mixed democratic and dictatorial elements while pursuing "sanation," or national healing. Poland's internal stability was enhanced, while economic stagnation was ended by Eugeniusz Kwiatkowski's reforms. At the same time, the Sanation regime prosecuted communist parties (on the ostensible formal grounds that they had failed to legally register as political parties) and sought to limit the influence of opposition parties by splitting their forces.

In April 1935, shortly before Piłsudski's death, a new constitution (the "April Constitution") was adopted, which supported all of Sanation's main ideas: a strong centralized state with a presidential system of government. Piłsudski died soon after, however, and Sanation faced several serious internal problems. Eventually it devolved into three separate movements:

  1. The Leftists (Lewica sanacyjna, formed around Walery Sławek), who sought a modus vivendi with the opposition;
  2. The Castle (Zamek, formed around President Ignacy Mościcki, who resided in the Warsaw Castle – hence the movement's name), which became the center; and
  3. The Rightists (Prawica sanacyjna, formed around Edward Rydz-Śmigły), who soon became virtually indistinguishable from the Camp of National Unity.

The first of these Sanation movements soon lost much of its importance, but the other two continued the ideological struggle over the shape of the country until the outbreak of war.

During the 1939 invasion of Poland, many Sanation members were taken prisoner-of-war by the Germans, while others evacuated to Romania, where they remained to war's end or managed to reach France and Britain.

Although France insisted on excluding Sanationists from the Polish Government in Exile, many remained highly influential. During the war, Sanation members created several resistance organizations, including Obóz Polski Walczącej and Konwent Organizacji Niepodległościowych in 1942, which in 1943 became subordinate to the Home Army and in 1944 merged into Zjednoczenie Organizacji Niepodległościowych.

After World War II, the forced exile of many Sanationists was made permanent by the communist regime, which branded them enemies of the state.

[edit] Notables

[edit] Today

The Confederation of Independent Poland, founded in 1979, is the principal sanacja political party in Poland today.

[edit] References

  • Holzer, Jerzy (July 1977). "The Political Right in Poland, 1918-39". Journal of Contemporary History 12 (3): 395-412. 

[edit] See also