STRUGGLE OF SANACJA CAMP FOR ACCEPTANCE OF THE 1935 APRIL CONSTITUTION IN POLAND

Abstract

This article deals with an important problem of the Polish history during the interwar period, which has not yet found a special and proper reflection in domestic historiography. It studies the sphere of internal political relations: transformation of the constitutional foundations of the state structure in the Second Republic in Poland in the first half of the 1930s (1918-1939). The article highlights the circumstances accompanying the process of developing a new constitution, the conceptual basis for the state construction of the san-acja camp in Poland, the role of J. Piteudski in the process under consideration. The camp is viewed as the initiator of the process. The stages of constitution development are singled out, discussions on individual constitutional provisions within the camp are presented and the final approval of the agreed draft is made. The study follows the course of political confrontation between the sanacja camp and the opposition, which negatively perceived the desire of the ruling camp to review the constitution in accordance with their views. Attention is drawn to the difference in the approaches of the leading parties of the Polish opposition to the transformation of the constitutional foundations: the authoritarian aspirations of the nationalist Stron-nictwo Narodowe, not without participation of sanacja, contradicted the aspirations of the centrist and leftist parties of the democratic wing of the Polish opposition to preserve the foundations of the parliamentary-democratic system. The latter included the Polish Stron-nictwo of Christian Democracy, the National Workers' Party, the peasant Stronnictwo Ludowe, and the Polish Socialist Party. It shows how sanacja, in spite of opposing the opposition, managed to achieve the adoption of the constitution. The characteristic of the constitution is described as authoritarian, which predetermined the subsequent political evolution of the state system and political relations in the final years of the interwar Poland.