EVOLUTION IN POLAND
Commonwealth and Foreign
By JOHN A. KEYSER IN Poland the final decision between totalitarianism or a return to a more democratic development has not yet been taken. The question is, who is to undertake the leadership of the State ? The problem is a very-real one, in several 'directions. Since the death of Pilsudski in 1935, and in particular since the promotion of his military successor, Rydz-Smigly, to the rank of Marshal at the end of 1936, a certain dualism in Polish governmental policy has been noticeable. This has not yet disappeared. The period of office of the present President of the Republic, Professor Ignacy Moscicki, is nearing its end. Within the Government camp a fight is evident con- cerning the successor to this constitutionally decisive post. Large opposition parties are still permitted which, although not in agreement with each other, nevertheless undoubtedly command collectively the support of a strong majority of the people. There are many signs that their influence upon the Government and the administration—non-existent during the last eight years—might shortly become important.
President Moscicki, who has been in office since 1926, was until the death of Pilsudski, overshadowed by the strong personality of that man, who was the real founder of the new Polish State, the hero of popular legend, and the actual ruler of the army and the administration. The President, together with Pilsudski, gave up his early revolutionary Socialism to become the upholder of a national military State. But he always conceived this system only as a means of educating the race, which for more than a century had existed without its own State. The first decisions on questions of principle which Moscicki took without Pilsudski demonstrated his desire for a gradual democratisation. He dismissed the Prime Minister, Slawek, who in 193o put through the sharpest measures against the democratic Opposition, and who, in 1935, had altered the Constitution and electoral law so that the country was led by a small band of the " elite." The new Cabinet consisted of more liberal followers of Pilsudski. They could have paved the way for a compromise with the, moderate Left, but they met with no success, and soon were replaced by the Government which is in office today.
This Government, like its predecessor, relies largely for support upon the army. The help of Marshal Rydz- Smigly's military authority has been enlisted. This army leader had previously kept apart from matters of domestic policy. He was opposed to the reintroduction of political parties and considered it simpler to widen the narrow basis of Government by the formation of a national organisation of both patriotic and social character. For such a purpose, he thought he could win over first of all the nationalist youth who were in the ranks of the Right-wing Opposition. The President allowed the attempt, but was anxious that this new Government, of " National Unity," should not develop into the single-party system of the totalitarian States. However, the recruiting of these national youth groups of the Right led to the discrediting of the new organisation. These elements, who were strongly anti-Semitic and favoured Fascist methods, had, therefore, in the interests of the maintenance of public order, with great trouble to be removed again. As a result, the formation of a new Government Party had to be postponed and finally it was reduced to the level of a centre party.
The problem of how to enlarge the basis of State leadership therefore remained in all its essentials as undecided as before. The Labour and Agrarian Parties remained mistrustful of the nationalist methods of handling the minority pro- blem, such as the closing of the doors to the professions against Jews and State development of the " Polonisation " of Ukrainians and White Russians with the aid of the Catholic Church. These parties were also opposed to Colonel Beck's foreign policy, with its avoidance of any opposition to Germany. , They considered, however, the fulfilment of the electoral reform on a democratic basis as decisive, and in this connexion the Government, by giving half promises, left the way open to concession.
The greatest obstacle to the process of democratisation lies in the composition of the two Houses of the present parlia- ment resulting from the Slawek Government's newly introduced reactionary electoral law at the end of 1935. At the elections the majority of the electors abstained from voting as a protest against the exclusion of all Opposition candidates. Consequently, the moral authority of the present Sejm and Senate is very small. If the electoral law is again to be reformed, then either the two Houses must give their consent, or else the Govern- ment must once again permit a less reactionary parliament to be elected with the help of this reactionary law itself. The first of these two methods can hardly attain its object since the present Deputies and Senators do not want to undermine the basis of their own political existence. Already the moderate reform of the Provincial electoral law, which the Government demanded from parliament, has been threatened with reaction, especially by the Senate. At the head of the two Chambers, there are two decided representatives of the totalitarian ideas of the 1935 Constitution, the President of the Senate, Colonel Prystor and the Speaker of the Sejm, Colonel Slawek. The latter, who, as Prime Minister, was the chief author of the existing public law, is also parliament's candidate for the forthcoming Presidential election.
Constitutionally this election must take place at the latest by the beginning of 1940. President Moscicki, who would then be in his seventy-third year, is hardly likely to stand for a third time. An electoral committee of 8o members, 75 of whom are members of the Senate and the Sejm, must select a candidate. The retiring President can also name one candidate, and a People's Plebiscite decides between the two. It is not likely that the Pilsudski followers will quarrel among themselves, which would give the Opposition the chance of a decisive vote. On the other hand, neither Moscicki nor Rydz-Smigly wishes Slawek to become President of the Republic. They know that if that took place, a totalitarian regime, whiFh would subject the army to its leadership, would be unavoidable. Therefore, nothing remained but to dissolve parliament, whose legislative life had yet to run until the autumn of 1940, before the Presi- dential elections. If the composition of the new Sejm and Senate is more in accord with the views of Poland's present leaders, then the electoral fight for the Presidential election would be superfluous. If the retiring President, does not put up a candidate in opposition to the one named by the committee, then their man is automatically elected.
The Polish Peasant movement cannot, under the existing State law, come to power. Moreover, it cannot alter the system by revolutionary methods. This was demonstrated by the great suppliers' strike of 1937, during which serious clashes with the police took place resulting in more than seventy deaths and by which the peasants gained nothing. The tension between the political will of a great part of the population and the power of the governing minority is, for the Polish State and its military ability, delicate. A slight lessening in this tension should take place if, as a result of the Provincial elections of this year and next, the Opposition is again called upon to share the responsibility at least in the self-government of the Communes. In this case, in the Polish villages many members of the democratic peasant movement and in the Ukrainian villages representatives of Ukrainian Parties would undertake the • leadership of the local communities, which at present, although not impossible, has become increasingly unlikely, owing to official methods. In the towns, partly the nationalist Right-wing Opposition and partly the Socialists will return to Provincial power, which is now mostly in the hands of Government commissioners. This would represent the first step towards the co-operation between the leading followers of Pilsudski and one or other wings of their old opponents.
Should this co-operation be further postponed, the danger would increase of the present regime finally being unable to find a way to an understanding with a majority of.the people. Their heirs would in this case not be a moderate democracy, but a nationalistic Fascism of• the extreme Right. A system such as this in a mixed State like Poland would have to use sterner measures than the Fascism known in other countries and would in consequence be met by a stronger opposition. Whoever considers the existence of the Polish State as a necessity for European co-operation and peace could only envisage such an internal development in Poland with great anxiety,
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