Oblicza buntu społecznego w II Rzeczypospolitej doby wielkiego kryzysu (1930-1935). Uwarunkowania, skala, konsekwencje [Social riot in the Second Republic during the Great Crisis era (1930-1935). The circumstances, range and consequences" (original) (raw)

The book is a comprehensive analysis of the social riot phenomenon during the so called Great Crisis period which in Poland occurred within the years 1930-1935. The book recreates the reasons for the social disturbances, their form and course as well as the short- and long-term consequences. We have defined the “social riot” as the people’s group public outbreaks which did not comply with the functioning law regulations and usually generated — to calm them down — forms of ad hoc physical abuse from the state organs. Linking the studied cases to the economic and political situation caused the following incidents to be excluded from the scope of our interest: incidents between particular communities/societies (unless during the course of an event the intervening organs responsible for the internal governance became the object of attacks themselves), cases of political terror/sabotage and outbreaks of a criminal character. The range of observations covered the whole territory of the Polish state, most important groups and social and national classes as well as the main political trends (the ruling camp, socialists, members of peasant parties, nationalists, communists). The study has been based upon all main categories of historical resources for the first half of the 20th century: archives, the press, relations, iconography. The first group of sources has played the most important role. We have used the resources of 26 archives in Poland and of 15 foreign institutions (in Belarus, Lithuania, Russia, Ukraine, Great Britain). The study consists of four chapters arranged in a problem frame. Chapter 1 is of an introductory character. It discusses the background of the social unrests of the Great Crisis era. The chapter contains two sub-chapters dedicated to social and economic (1.1) and political issues (1.2). In Chapter 2 we have recreated the most important forms of social riots. In the first five sub-chapters we have taken into account the variety of the distress origins. We have discussed social unrests based upon: strikes (2.1), unemployment (2.2), the resistance against the state policy in rural areas as well their inhabitants’ attitude towards the property right (2.3), political conflicts, understood as clashes between the opposition and the ruling party (2.4) and the opposition against the police activities (2.5). The next two parts present armed actions (2.6) and incidents that did not comply with the accepted classification method (2.7). The last part (2.8) of Chapter 2 contains a characteristics of groups of participants in several incidents (including, among others, the sex, age, material status, education). Chapter 3 discusses the role of the state apparatus. In contains an analysis of reactions of the state institutions to cases of social unrest. The next sub-chapters discuss activities of all levels of political administration subordinated to the Ministry of the Interior (3.1), the police (3.2), tax administration (3.3), courts and the public prosecutors (3.4), self-governments (3.5) and the army (3.6). Chapter 4 presents various repercussions of social riots. We have discussed the problem of the ruling camp elite’s response to the incidents (4.1), described the consequences of the events for the legal system and the shape of political geography (4.2), and have presented changes that occurred within the system of securing the public order (4.3). Separate sub-chapters have been dedicated to echoes of social unrests in public opinion (4.4) and the riots’ long-term effects that chronologically exceed the interwar period (4.5). An integral part of the study is the annex. It contains a catalogue of 830 incidents of social riot that constituted the base for the analysis. It comes in the form of a tabular listing. The annex contains data on the location of each incident, its date (a day date when possible), a short presentation of the incident’s course, an approximate number of participants, a keyword description of the state authorities’ reaction. The catalogue also provides the number of victims: injured and killed. It takes into account both the perpetrators of the incidents and the law enforcement representatives. The book contains a name and geographical index. The social riot in Poland during the Great Crisis era had its dynamics and regional specificity. It reached its climax in the years 1932-1933, when most spectacular public outbreaks occurred. During that period several armed incidents took place and the social unrest in rural areas involved thousands of peasants. In the years 1934-1935 a significant decrease in the protests’ intensity can be observed. Taking into consideration the whole period 1930–1935, one can conclude that incidents occurred more often in the western part of the country where people of Polish nationality were predominant. In the eastern part incidents took place mostly in rural areas. The events resulted in ca. 170 fatalities and several hundred of the injured. One can assume the unrests involved several hundred thousand people. In the vast majority of cases the distress took form of singular, short-lived, territory-isolated incidents. They did not provide a pretext for cooperation of main opposition groups, they did not simultaneously involve representatives of various social groups either. They were either peasant (rural) or workers’/unemployed outbreaks. Dispersion of the protests made suppressing them by the ruling parties easier. Yet the success of the authorities did not mean violent protests of the public had been eliminated for long. They intensified again in 1936.