Self-Defence of the Republic of Poland
The Self-Defence of the Republic of Poland is a Christian socialist, populist, agrarian, and nationalist political party and trade union in Poland. The party promotes agrarian socialist and Catholic socialist economic policies combined with a left-wing populist, anti-globalization and anti-neoliberal rhetoric. The party describes itself as left-wing, although it stresses that it belongs to the "patriotic left" and follows Catholic social teaching. The party is sympathetic to Communist Poland, which led political scientists to label the party as neocommunist, post-communist, and far-left.
Though considered a "political chameleon", Self-Defence of the Republic of Poland is generally regarded as a left-wing party by historians and political scientists. According to Andrzej Antoszewski, Self-Defence was a radical left-wing party that by postulating the need to stop privatisation and protect workers' interests, often overlapped with neo-communist parties. In English-language literature, the party is described as a radical left-populist party. In the wake of the SLD's electoral defeat in 2005, Self-Defence was sometimes referred to as the "new left". It was also called a left-wing party with a populist-agrarian face. Political scientists also described it as socialist, allowing it to form alliances with the Democratic Left Alliance. On the other hand, its anti-neoliberal and nationalist narrative also allowed it to briefly cooperate with PiS and LPR in 2005.
Founded by Andrzej Lepper in 1992, the party initially fared poorly, failing to enter the Sejm. However, it was catapulted to prominence in the 2001 parliamentary election, winning 53 seats, after which it gave confidence and supply to the Democratic Left Alliance government. It elected six MEPs at the 2004 European election, with five joining the Union for Europe of the Nations and one joining the PES Group.
It switched its support to Law and Justice after the 2005 election, in which it won 56 seats in the Sejm and three in the Senate. Lepper was appointed Deputy Prime Minister in the coalition government with PiS and the League of Polish Families. In 2007, he was dismissed from his position and the party withdrew from the coalition. This precipitated a new election, at which the party collapsed to just 1.5% of the vote: losing all its seats. On August 5, 2011, the Party's leader, Andrzej Lepper, was found dead in his party's office in Warsaw. His death was ruled a suicide by hanging.
History
Beginnings
The origins of Samoobrona date back to a spontaneous protest movement of farmers from Western Pomerania and the Zamojszczyzna region, which developed into a trade union. The very creation of the political party was originally aimed solely at supporting the 'Samoobrona' Trade Union of Agriculture, which had played a leading role for a long time. Samoobrona as a movement had communist origins, and it originally was a peasant movement associated with the Polish People's Party, which back then was an agrarian socialist party associated with the fallen communist regime, and was considered one of the post-communist successor parties based on the nostalgia for the previous, socialist regime.As Lepper reported many years later. Lepper, the idea to create a trade union, and then a political movement, was born after a meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Leszek Balcerowicz in the autumn of 1991: "Everything that happened afterwards - with me and Samoobrona - I therefore owe, to some extent, to that two hours long conversation of 10 years ago". In January 1992, the Trade Union of Agriculture "Samoobrona" was registered. The political party, which initially appeared under the name Przymierze "Samoobrona", was registered on 12 June 1992. In addition to representatives of ZZR "Samoobrona", it also included activists from the Metalworkers' Trade Union and a Green faction headed by J. Bryczkowski. In its first political declaration, Samoobrona described itself as a "radical" party that represents the interests of the economically disadvantaged and those living in poverty.
The beginnings of party's activities date to Lepper's home village Darłowo, which has been plunged into poverty between 1989 and 1991 as a result of the neoliberal Balcerowicz Plan, which dismantled the socialist economy in Poland in favor of a capitalist free-market one. As the state sector of agricultures was dismantled and privatized, rural areas experienced an extreme spike of unemployment, poverty and social exclusion. Unfavourable prices of agricultural products on the market further aggravated the situation - between 1990 and 1991, agricultural prices increased threefold while industrial prices increased tenfold, drastically diminishing the purchasing power of Polish agriculture. This was combined with a huge decrease in farmers' real income. In Lepper's region, the situation became particularly critical as a result of heavy rainfall, which caused local flooding.
On 18 January 1991, the first rally was organised in Darłowo, attended by local farmers and the unemployed, including Andrzej Lepper. During the rally, protesters formed the Self-Defence of the Unemployed Homeless Association of the Pomeranian Region Darłowo. Samoobrona itself was then founded on 27 July 1991 as a trade union Protest Committee of Self-Defence of Farmers, with Lepper being elected as its leader. First protest initiated by Lepper then took place on 5 August 1991, which demanded that the state of natural disaster be declared in Darłowo, along with demanding special aid and compensation to affected farmers. Lepper also made an appeal to the local voivode that the government temporarily suspends the enforcement of unpaid debts on local citizens. His plea was ignored.
In front of the Darlowo town hall on 24 September, farmers put up unpaid agricultural equipment, having fallen into a spiral of debt due to the introduction of variable interest rates as part of the implementation of Balcerowicz's reform plan. Striking farmers announced the formation of the Farmers' Self-Defence Committee. The blockade of Darłowo with agricultural machinery attracted press attention, and over a period of two months, the communal protest committee evolved into the "Provincial Self-Defence Committee" of farmers in Koszalin with its headquarters in Darłowo. The farmers' protests were then supported by the Polish People's Party and the Independent Self-Governing Trade Union "Solidarity" of Individual Farmers opened by the party's leader received only 3,247 votes in constituency number 21, covering the then Koszalin and Słupsk voivodeships. Registered in only one of 37 constituencies, the 3,247 votes won by the committee amounted to 0.03% of the nationwide popular vote. With Lepper being on top of the electoral list, other two candidates of the committee were Leszek Siudek and Józef Kołodziej. Lepper presented his committee as "farmers' social movement emerged on the basis of farmers' disconent". Already in the program of the committee, Lepper appealed to populist policies and ideologies that would then shape Samoobrona - the tradition of the interwar peasant movement, Catholic social teaching, nationalism, and "real socialism". While unsuccessful, the electoral run spread the message of Samoobrona to a wider audience, and it was soon able to form associations with farmer movements across Poland.
Three months later, the second wave of farmer protests then emerged, with greater intensity than the protests of 1991. Already functioning as the National Council of the Trade Union "Self-Defense", Samoobrona delivered a new ultimatum to the government in early 1992, including the clearing of farm debts and a program of "cheap" credit for farmers, with cheap defined as credits with an interest rate below the inflation level, which amounted to 40% in 1992. After the demands were ignored, Samoobrona was joined in with other trade unions and farmer associations in aummer 1992, organizing nationwide farmer protests that soon turned radical and even violent, earning Samoobrona its reputation as a radical formation. Samoobrona then started defining its ideological character, stating the need for farmers to stand against "the dictatorship of the International Monetary Fund" and arguing: "Under communism, the Soviets ordered us Poles what to do, and now this dictatorship position has been taken over by international capitalism." Samoobrona extended its debt clearance demands to non-agricultural parts of the economy, and on 10 July, the protests reached its climax when farmers organizing a march in Warsaw, where the protesters clashed with anti-riot police deployed by the government.
In 1993, Andrzej Lepper took part in an interview with journalists Jan Ul and Henryk Gaworski, where Lepper introduced Samoobrona and the ideology of the party. Lepper identified with the rebel faction of the Polish United Workers' Party that opposed the leading "Jaruzelski-Rakowski" wing and wanted to prevent the "policy of selling out genuinely socialist ideals and values". He also stated that Samoobrona wished to replace the capitalism of Balcerowicz with "a system that would satisfy human needs, that would prioritise man over labour and labour over capital, and would not be a system of the market but a system of social control over economic life through the state and trade unions"; Lepper admitted that this system would be socialist, but stressed the "indigenous", nationalist, "patriotic" and Catholic character of Samoobrona's socialism, one that was to be inspired by Catholic social teaching and agrarian-socialist pre-WW2 peasant movements. As the movement expanded beyond its original local base in the north-western region of Poland as a result of high-profile violent protests in Warsaw, it became an actor beyond regional politics. While new regional offshoots emerged, Self-Defence was also involved in attempts to build a viable national protest movement. Its main allies in these ultimately futile efforts were extreme nationalist groups such as the Stronnictwo Narodowe „Ojczyzna”. Their joint demonstration in Warsaw on 2 April 1993, for example, turned violent and led to clashes with the police.
Agrarian protests of Samoobrona were attracting widespread media attention as well as popularity, and in April 1992 Lepper founded special paramilitary group of farmers called "Peasant Battalions", referring to a Polish agrarian WW2-era resistance movement of the same name. Samoobrona's Peasant Battalions were to protect farmers against the bailiffs and evictions; after founding the group, Lepper stated: "We will strengthen physical fortitude, develop patriotism and train our military troops. We don't want war, but we have a lawless state, so we will fight the state offices - bailiffs, banks, tax
offices - with weapons in hand. We are a radical party, open to all disadvantaged people who are starving at home." The "Peasant Battalions" successfully harassed bailiffs, even reportedly shaving their heads and battering them. The party was accused by media of planning a revolution against the government, to which Lepper provocatively responded by stating his plans to expand the Samoobrona coalition with pensioners and unemployed. Incendiary comments of Samoobrona members such as "If someone has a billion or two or ten, they really couldn't have made it through legal work" became widely reported and known.
The emergence of Self-Defence as an organised political group was somewhat clouded by the alleged active involvement of former members of the communist security services who acted as advisers or activists, especially in the early days. In this context, the involvement of Soviet and Russian intelligence was also alleged. This led to calls for a parliamentary enquiry into the origins of the party and possibly its hidden agendas. One of the most striking features of Self-Defence was undoubtedly its clear longing for the former regime, which was identified with social stability and prosperity.
Samoobrona repeated slogans about the corruption of power, disregard for peasants and workers, accused the government of stealing Polish land and property and selling it to international capitalists, while Lepper also spoke of Poles starving in small towns and villages - pensioners, the unemployed, farmers. He demanded the departure of every successive government, especially ministers of agriculture. Some political commentators asserted that Lepper's actions were radicalising and argued that the party should be banned because of the criminal cases pending against the Samoobrona trade union: concerning, among other things, the occupation of state administration buildings and blockades of public roads, preventing government officials from carrying out their legal duties, the use of blackmail and intimidation against bank and court officials, and the seizure of private property.
Lepper consistently dominated the headlines by organising spectacular protests, such as the one outside the Sejm on 19 February 1993, when farmers set up 19 large scythes and one small one - as a "lady scythe" that was intended for Prime Minister Hanna Suchocka. By this time, Lepper was emerging not only as a defender of farmers, but also of all those disadvantaged by the new system. Samoobrona appeared wherever there were protests or bailiffs tried to enforce court rulings. Media widely reported on Samoobrona preventing the sale of a state farm in Główczyce and the "battle of the Sejm", when more than a thousand Samoobrona members turned up with banners "Poland for Poles" and "We will not be a feeding ground for any party", sparking clashes with the police and causing several dozen people, including Andrzej Lepper to be detained. A few months aftwards, several thousand farmers from the "Solidarity" of Individual Farmers, Farmers' Circles and Samoobrona demonstrated in front of the government seat in Warsaw, throwing sacks of straw to symbolise poverty in the countryside. Finally, the mayor of Praszka, Włodzimierz Skoczek, was taken away in a wheelbarrow after refusing to sign the resignation submitted to him.
The leaders of the party frequently got into legal clashes and confrontations with the police and the judiciary because of their unruly protests. A joke became popular among Polish youth: "I wish you as much luck as the number of convictions of Lepper". At the same time, they were also invited to negotiations by the country's leaders. Self-Defence used its formal dual status as a party and a trade union, which allowed it to put on whatever hat was appropriate at the time. In the late 1990s, Lepper reportedly maintained a particularly close relationship with Artur Balazs, an agriculture minister who led the liberal-conservative Conservative People's Party, which was part of the ruling AWS. Over the years, Balazs and Lepper together built up an extensive network of patronage in the state agricultural authorities. Balazs again served as a bridge between Lepper and the conservative right in 2005.