The National Workers' Party ( pl, Narodowa Partia Robotnicza, NPR) was a political party in
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...
.
History
The NPR was established in
Warsaw
Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...
on 23 May 1920 by a merger of the
National Workers' Union and the National Party of Workers.
[Jerzy Jan Lerski (1996) ''Historical Dictionary of Poland, 966-1945'', Greenwood Publishing Group, p380] Strongest in
Greater Poland
Greater Poland, often known by its Polish name Wielkopolska (; german: Großpolen, sv, Storpolen, la, Polonia Maior), is a Polish historical regions, historical region of west-central Poland. Its chief and largest city is Poznań followed ...
,
Pomerania
Pomerania ( pl, Pomorze; german: Pommern; Kashubian: ''Pòmòrskô''; sv, Pommern) is a historical region on the southern shore of the Baltic Sea in Central Europe, split between Poland and Germany. The western part of Pomerania belongs to ...
,
Łódź
Łódź, also rendered in English as Lodz, is a city in central Poland and a former industrial centre. It is the capital of Łódź Voivodeship, and is located approximately south-west of Warsaw. The city's coat of arms is an example of canti ...
and
Silesia
Silesia (, also , ) is a historical region of Central Europe that lies mostly within Poland, with small parts in the Czech Republic and Germany. Its area is approximately , and the population is estimated at around 8,000,000. Silesia is split ...
, it had around 150,000 members by the following year.
[ It received around 5% of the vote in the 1922 elections, winning 18 seats in the Sejm and three in the Senate.]Dieter Nohlen
Dieter Nohlen (born 6 November 1939) is a German academic and political scientist. He currently holds the position of Emeritus Professor of Political Science in the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences of the University of Heidelberg. An expe ...
& Philip Stöver (2010) ''Elections in Europe: A data handbook'', pp1509–1512 Józef Piłsudski
), Vilna Governorate, Russian Empire (now Lithuania)
, death_date =
, death_place = Warsaw, Poland
, constituency =
, party = None (formerly PPS)
, spouse =
, children = Wan ...
governments until 1926, but then split into two factions; one retained the NPR name, whilst the other became known as NPR-Left. The NPR-Left supported Piłsudski's Sanation
Sanation ( pl, Sanacja, ) was a Polish political movement that was created in the interwar period, prior to Józef Piłsudski's May 1926 ''Coup d'État'', and came to power in the wake of that coup. In 1928 its political activists would go on ...
regime, whilst the NPR, which had been reduced to around 80,000 members, opposed it.[ The 1928 elections saw the NPR's vote share fall to 2%. As a result, it was reduced to 11 seats in the Sejm and two in the Senate.][
In 1930 the NPR joined the ]Centrolew
The ''Centrolew'' (, ''Center-Left'') was a coalition of several Polish political parties ( Polish People's Party "Wyzwolenie", German Socialist Labour Party of Poland, Polish People's Party "Piast", National Workers' Party, Polish Socialist Part ...
alliance,[ which contested the 1930 elections. The alliance won 79 seats, of which the NPR took eight. It later became part of the ]Front Morges
The Front Morges was a political alliance of centrist political parties ( Polish Christian Democratic Party, National Workers' Party, Związek Hallerczyków) of interbellum Poland. It was founded in 1936 in the Swiss village of Morges by General ...
, and by 1934 only had around 20,000 members.[ The party boycotted the 1935 elections,][ and in 1937 it merged with the ]Polish Christian Democratic Party
Polish Christian Democratic Party ( pl, Polskie Stronnictwo Chrześcijańskiej Demokracji, PSChD, commonly known as ''Chrześcijańska Demokracja'' or ''Chadecja''Note that the terms ''Chrześcijańska Demokracja'' or ''Chadecja'' in Poland can ref ...
to form the Labor Party.
Ideology
The party's platform in 1921 called for social solidarity and a strong parliamentary democracy, and supported autonomy for national minorities except Jews
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
.[
]
Election results
Sejm
References
{{Authority control
Defunct political parties in Poland
1920 establishments in Poland
1937 disestablishments in Poland
Political parties established in 1920
Political parties disestablished in 1937