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| Caption16: | Kazimierz Świtalski |
Sanation (Polish: Sanacja, pronounced as /pl/) 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 to form a Nonpartisan Bloc for Cooperation with the Government (BBWR).
The Sanation movement took its name from Piłsudski's aspirations for a moral "sanation" (healing) of the Polish body politic.[1] The movement functioned integrally until his death in 1935. Following his death, Sanation split into several competing factions, including "the Castle" (President Ignacy Mościcki and his partisans).[2]
Sanation, which advocated authoritarian rule, rested on a circle of Piłsudski's close associates, including Walery Sławek, Aleksander Prystor, Kazimierz Świtalski, Janusz Jędrzejewicz, Adam Koc, Józef Beck, Tadeusz Hołówko, Bogusław Miedziński, and Edward Rydz-Śmigły. It preached the primacy of the national interest in governance, and contended against the system of parliamentary democracy.
Named after the Latin word for "healing" ("sanatio"),[3] the Sanation movement mainly comprised former military officers who were disgusted with the perceived corruption in Polish politics. Sanation was a coalition of rightists, leftists, and centrists whose main focus was the elimination of corruption and the reduction of inflation.
Sanation appeared prior to the May 1926 Coup d'État and lasted until World War II but was never formalized. Piłsudski, though he had been the former leader of the Polish Socialist Party, had grown to disapprove of political parties, which he saw as promoting their own interests rather than supporting the state and the people. For this reason, the Sanation movement never led to the creation of a political party. Instead, in 1928 Sanation members created a Bezpartyjny Blok Współpracy z Rządem (BBWR, "Nonpartisan Bloc for Cooperation with the Government"), a pro-government grouping that denied being a political party.
Although Piłsudski never claimed personal power, he exercised extensive influence over Polish politics after Sanation 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 were first unofficially approved by Piłsudski before they could be confirmed by the President.
In the course of pursuing "sanation", Piłsudski mixed democratic and authoritarian elements. Poland's internal stability was enhanced, while economic stagnation was ended by Eugeniusz Kwiatkowski's economic 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.
A distinguishing feature of the regime was that, unlike the situation in most of non-democratic Europe, it never transformed itself into a full-blown dictatorship. Freedom of press, speech, and political parties was never legally abolished, and opponents were usually dealt with via "unidentified perpetrators" rather than court sentences.
Sanation allowed the 1928 election to be relatively free, but was dealt a setback when its BBWR supporters came up far short of a majority. Before the 1930 election some opposition parties united in a Centrolew (Center-Left) coalition calling for the overthrow of the government; Sanation reacted by arresting more than 20 prominent opposition-leader Centrolew participants. Subsequently BBWR won over 46 percent of the vote and a large majority in both houses of parliament.
The personality cult of Józef Piłsudski stemmed from his general popularity among the nation rather than from top-down propaganda; this is notable, considering Piłsudski's disdain for democracy. Sanation's ideology never went beyond populist calls to clean up the country's politics and economy; it did not occupy itself with society, as was the case with contemporary fascist regimes. From 1929, the semi-official newspaper of Sanation, and thus of the Polish government, was Gazeta Polska (the Polish Gazette).
The Sanation government invalidated the May 1930 election results by disbanding the parliament in August.[4] New elections were scheduled for November 1930.[5] Using anti-government demonstrations as a pretext, 20 opposition-party members,[4] including most of the leaders of the Centrolew alliance (Socialist, Polish People's Party "Piast", and Polish People's Party "Wyzwolenie" leaders) were arrested[6] in September 1930 without warrants, on the mere order of Piłsudski and the Minister of Internal Security, Felicjan Sławoj Składkowski, and accused of plotting an anti-government coup.[7]
The opposition leaders (including the former prime minister Wincenty Witos, and Wojciech Korfanty) were imprisoned and tried in the Brest Fortress (hence the popular name for the November 1930 election: "the Brest election"). A number of less-known political activists across the country were also arrested;[4] they were released after the election. The Brest trial ended in January 1932, with ten of the accused sentenced to up to three years' imprisonment; appeals in 1933 confirmed the sentences. The government gave those sentenced a choice of emigrating abroad; five took that choice, while the other five decided to serve the prison term.[6]
A crucial turning point for the Piłsudskiites came in 1935 with Piłsudski's death. The April 1935 Constitution, adopted a few weeks earlier, had been tailored for Marshal Piłsudski. In the absence of a successor with equal authority, a reinterpretation of the new Constitution was in order. In the words of Ignacy Matuszewski, "We must replace the Great Man with an organization."
Piłsudski's death triggered Sanation's splintering, driven by two processes: competition for power and influence among Piłsudski's heirs (the wars among the diadochi – "the heirs" – as Adam Pragier termed it); and a search for a more suitable ideology which Piłsudski's supporters might accept. The intersection of personal competition and ideological differences led to discord and splintering.[8]
Eventually Sanation devolved into three factions:
The first of these Sanation factions soon lost much of its importance, while the other two continued their ideological struggle until the outbreak of World War II.
During the 1939 invasion of Poland, many Sanationists evacuated to Romania or Hungary, whence they were able to go on to France or French-mandated Syria and, after the fall of France, to Britain.
Though France insisted on excluding Sanationists from the Polish Government in Exile, many continued influential. During the war, Sanationists created several resistance organizations, including in 1942 the Polish Fighting Movement (Obóz Polski Walczącej), which in 1943 became subordinate to the Home Army and in 1944 merged along with the Council of Independence Organizations (Konwent Organizacji Niepodległościowych) into the Union of Independence Organizations (Zjednoczenie Organizacji Niepodległościowych).
After World War II, Poland's Soviet-installed communist regime branded Sanationists as enemies of the state and executed or forced many into exile.