Organisation of the Polish Nation – Polish League (Polish: Organizacja Narodu Polskiego – Liga Polska, ONP-LP[1] or ONP[2]) is a Polish centre-rightpolitical party founded in 2000 that actively participated in local and parliamentary Polish elections, bringing together activists from Poland and Poles in exile. The party was created with an aim to create a common front for Polish communities abroad, providing them legal and political representation.[13] Ideologically, the party declares to stand for and strictly adhere to "national, cultural and Christian values born out of the over a thousand-year history of the Polish State".[4] The ONP-LP also considers itself to be based on the "Christian, agrarian, nationalist and anti-liberal" tradition.[14] It has immigrant community clubs and cooperates with Polish diaspora organisations in Switzerland, Norway and Australia.[15] The party participated in the 2005 Polish parliamentary election[16] as well as the 2005 presidential election,[17] albeit it only won a marginal number of votes. It also ran on electoral lists of nationalist parties until 2019.[18]
The party promotes Catholic, Christian democratic and corporatist values, considering "land, resources, property, landscape, environmental, cultural values" to be an integral good and following the Catholic social teaching. In its program, the party also plans to fight "against the degeneration of the democratic system", promote Polish patriotic tradition, and to guide the Polish economy by the "national and state interest of Poland" through nationalization programs.[15] The party also opposes abortion,[19] and is highly supportive of Catholic media such as Radio Maryja.[20] It also praises the interwar Sanacja regime and promotes a new Polish constitution based on the 1935 April Constitution.[20] One of the main priorities of the party are the Polish communities and repatriates from Russia and Kazakhstan, with Organisation of the Polish Nation actively representing their interests. The ONP-LP is inspired by and claims to be a successor of the liberal democratic Polish émigré organisation Liga Polska [pl], founded in Switzerland by Zygmunt Miłkowski following the failure of the January Uprising.[9]
History
In 1990, the Polish Basel Forum [pl] was established to assist the transformation of the Third Polish Republic at the economic level. However, due to a lack of capacity, this did not materialise. It was therefore decided to establish a political party. On 25 October 2000, a grouping under the name "Polish League - Polish Nation's Organisation" was registered in the Register of Political Parties. The party was founded and developed by Polish nationalist communities in Switzerland and Chicago, including the newspaper "Our Poland" (Polish: Nasza Polska) and the Eugeniusz Kwiatkowski Maritime and Economic Association (Polish: Stowarzyszenie Morsko-Gospodarcze im. Eugeniusza Kwiatkowskiego). At the time of its declaration, the party was declared to be a "united front to save Poland" and was to represent "a refusal to expropriate Poles from their property, national heritage and religious heritage".[5]
On 24 February 2001, a founding congress was held with the participation of delegates from Poland, Western Europe and North and South America. The creation of party structures began in the country, as well as abroad (in Norway, Chicago, France, Switzerland, Australia and Canada). In 2001, attempts by the party to co-operate with Stronnictwo Narodowe activists failed, and they subsequently formed Liga Polskich Rodzin [pl]. However, some members of the Polish League ran on LPR lists, failing to gain seats. In 2002 the party took part in the local elections, and in 2003 in the 2003 Polish European Union membership referendum it campaigned to vote against Poland's membership in the European Union.[11]
Polish membership in the EU
After the 2003 referendum passed and Poland became a member of the European Union, the party continued to oppose the European Union as well as the Polish membership in it. The party argued that the European Union is dominated by Germany, and that Poland is an inferior member that will be exploited by the much wealthier Western countries. The leader of the party, Jan Pyszko, blamed the Democratic Left Alliance for pushing for the membership in the EU and for mismanaging the aftermath of entering the EU, writing: "Instead of the promised growing prosperity - a ‘return to normality’. - what followed was economic collapse, growing corruption at the highest levels of state leadership, further theft of national assets, robbery and all the symptoms of bankruptcy."[21]
Patriotic Front of the Socialist Left
Despite being a right-leaning party, the Organisation of the Polish Nation – Polish League has friendly relations with some left-wing Polish parties, being particularly supportive of left-wing nationalist ones.[22] In December 2003, the party became a part of a political alliance Patriotic Front of the Socialist Left (Polish: Patriotyczny Front Lewicy Socjalistycznej), composed of marginal left-wing parties and some right-leaning ones. The Patriotic Front was heavily critical of the 1990s reforms that transitioned Poland to a capitalist free market economy, arguing that while the Polish governments of the 1990s promised a "free, prosperous and democratic Poland", the reforms instead resulted in massive unemployment, loss of social rights, poverty, the collapse of health service and wealth inequality.[23]
The alliance proposed policies such as taxation of 'excessive wealth', increasing the minimum wage, restoring the social benefits of the communist Poland, and state control of the economy. The Patriotic Front also argued that the Polish entrance into the European Union resulted into loss of economic sovereignty of Poland, which "may even threaten the loss of its own statehood". The parties of the alliance signed a declaration arguing that Poland has become dominated by foreign capital and is now a "quasi-colony". The parties also condemned policies such as privatisation and allowing foreign capital in Poland, and proposed protectionist laws as well as ban on foreign ownership in important industries. However, ultimately the Patriotic Front of the Socialist Left never carried out political activities.[23]
Jankowski affair
In August 2004, the party attracted controversy by defending and claiming the innocence of Polish Catholic priest Henryk Jankowski, who was accused of child sexual abuse. Together with the Union of Polish Organisations in Switzerland (Polish: Związek Organizacji Polskich w Szwajcarii, the Organisation of the Polish Nation – Polish League issued a statement in which it strongly protested "against the slander directed against Father Henryk Jankowski" and declared its readiness to "stand in defence of his reputation, honour and truth".[24] Jankowski was never convicted, and the issue remains unresolved; in 2023, the Polish court censored parts of a 2018 documentary showcasing the accusations against Jankowski, stating that the documentary included unverified and unproven information, and that there was no evidence to portray Jankowski's guilt as certain.[25]
2005 elections
In the 2005 Polish parliamentary election, The Polish Nation's Organisation - Polish League put forward six candidates for the Senate, but none of them obtained a seat. They were:
The ONP-LP candidate in the 2005 Polish presidential election was party chairman Jan Pyszko - he received 10,371 votes, i.e. 0.07%. The press noted that despite being a Polish émigré activist, Pyszko did not speak Polish well.[26] Polish weekly Wprost compared Pyszko to the 1990s Polish populist presidential candidate Stanisław Tymiński, arguing that both Tymiński and Pyszko represented a kind of populist rhetoric that was outclassed by left-wing populists such as Andrzej Lepper.[27] During the election, the ONP-LP was characterized as a nationalist and anti-EU party that promotes the 1935 Polish constitution and the interests of Polish diaspora.[28] Pyszko summarized the views of his party as following: "We say an absolute ‘No! ’ to the European Union. We say absolutely no to abortion on demand. We say absolutely ‘no! ’ to the germanisation of our Polish land and national assets. Let us get the best Polish women and men into local government."[19] His main campaign slogan was "Poland's future your future".[29]
The party ran a low-profile campaign, spending about 6000 PLN on the presidential campaign in total; in contrast, the winning party, right-wing populist Law and Justice, spend 7.3 million PLN.[30] Jan Pyszko became the oldest presidential candidate in Polish history, as he was 75 at the time.[31] The election was marred with irregularities, as despite only winning 0.07% of the popular vote, Pyszko won 13% of the vote in the Silesiak gmina of Rudnik, while the left-wing populist candidate Andrzej Lepper did not gain a single vote there.[32]
In the 2005 Polish parliamentary election, the party entered talks with the Self-Defence of the Polish Nation, a right-wing nationalist split from the far-left agrarian party Self-Defence of the Republic of Poland. The ONP-LP as well as Self-Defence of the Polish Nation planned to organize a joint list for the election. Ultimately the two parties did not participate in the parliamentary election, but Self-Defence of the Polish Nation endorsed Jan Pyszko in the presidential election.[33]
Later activities
In 2006, the party put forward a proposal to create state-owned media that would target Polish diaspora. This media was to promote national consciousness amongst Poles abroad and establish a flow of information between the Polish state and Polish immigrant communities. In order to pursue this goal, the party created the All-Polish online newspaper KWORUM (Polish: Polsko-Polonijna Gazeta Internetowa KWORUM) the same year.[34]
In 2008, the party attended the party congress of an agrarian party Piast Faction, created in 2006. The congress was also attended by some former activists of the Self-Defence of the Republic of Poland as well as Polish People's Party. During the congress, the ONP-LP informally became a part of the Piast Faction, in an agreement that was based on the German CDU/CSU union. Both parties declared their intention to create a "Christian-popular-nationalist bloc" that would oppose liberal parties such as the Civic Platform. Some political proposals put forward during the congress including developing the mining industry in Silesia, improving the health service in Poland, and allocating additional funding to education.[12] In February 2008, the Organisation of the Polish Nation – Polish League together with the Piast Faction supported farmer protests against exports of meat products from the European Union. The farmers demanded additional quality controls of imported meat, together with restrictions that would ensure that Polish meat is prioritized in the market.[35]
In 2010, the party attended the funeral of Stefan Melak, Polish activist and journalist who died in the Smolensk air disaster. Together with the Organisation of the Polish Nation – Polish League, the funeral mass was also attended by the Confederation of Independent Poland as well as members of veterans’ organisations.[36]
In November 2012, the party participated in a nationalist march organised by the ultranationalist far-right party National Revival of Poland. The march was organised under slogans such as ‘God, Honour and Fatherland’, ‘National Radicalism’, ‘Down with the European Union’ and ‘Here they come, here come the nationalists’. The ONP-LP and the National Revival of Poland participated in similar coordinated actions in 2012, including a protest demanding that Poland pursue an isolationist foreign policy that would seek distance from Russia, USA, as well as the European Union.[38]
In 2015, the ONP-LP organised an anti-immigrant march together with the National Radical Camp with the motto ‘Yes to repatriates, no to immigrants’. The leader of the party, Stanisław Bujnicki, made a speech during the march in which he highlighted the hardships that Poles living in Kazakhstan experience, arguing that it is difficult for the Polish community in Kazakhstan to return to Poland.[39]
The party's president until his death (18 October 2009) was Dr. Jan Pyszko, a candidate for President of the Republic of Poland in 2005. On 27 March 2010 he was replaced by Janusz Lech Siemiński, who died on 15 September 2012. He was succeeded by Stanisław Bujnicki.[3]
The party is structured along a tripartite separation of competences - the supreme authorities of the party is congress of the party, the party's president, as well as the general council. The party also has a central review board. All organs of the party are elected by its members, and the party statute separates the tenure of council members into 4-years-long terms. The most important authority in the party is the congress.[41]
The Organisation of the Polish Nation – Polish League describes itself as a patriotic and Christian grouping of a social and national character, and claims strict adherence to the teachings of the Catholic Church and the Catholic social teaching. It sets as its main objective the defence of the national identity of the homeland. It brings together activists from Poland and abroad.[9] The party supports and proposed additional funding for Catholic media such as Radio Maryja, praises the Polish interwar Sanacja regime and advocates constitutional reforms based on the 1935 Polish constitution, and supports additional vetting laws against former communist officials (known as lustration) and stressed the need to fight anti-Polonism abroad.[20] The party is also considered to be a representative of the National Democracy movement, known as endecja or neo-endecja.[8]
The party believes that state ownership in strategic sectors must be maintained and protected by adopting a package of laws guaranteeing state control over strategic sectors of the economy. It also calls for nationalised agriculture, and proposes a protectionist package that would protect Polish farmers from competitive markets. The party also wants to introduce a law that would prohibit the sale of Polish land to foreign legal persons and organisations.[42] The party is critical of the free market and capitalism with powerful private sector, believing that the free market sees "the human being as an object, a necessary factor for economic effects" and promotes "the consumerist treatment of the world, the disregard for the natural needs of man and the materialistic conception of reality".[43] The party is also opposed to abortion on demand.[19]
The main priority of the party is representing the interests of Polish diaspora; it argued that the Polish disapora is marginalised and ignored in Poland. The party stressed the need to prevent the Polish communities abroad from disappearing due to assimilation, describing the erosion of national consciousness and Polish patriotism amongst Polish diaspora as "alarming". The Organisation of the Polish Nation – Polish League proposed a program of "revival of national consciousness" that would establish close cooperation and flow on information between the Polish state and Polish diasporas. The party proposed founding state-funded youth organisations abroad, together with projects that would promote Polish literature and education. The core proposal of the party in this area was an establishment of a media outlet for Polish diaspora which would include a nwespaper, radio and a television station that would allow Poles abroad to have easily available Polish media.[34]
Despite being a nationalist party, the Organisation of the Polish Nation – Polish League represents the moderate right of the post-communist Poland. Because of this, the party has hostile relations with far-right parties such as the League of Polish Families (LPR). The ONP-LP faced numerous allegations and accusations from the far-right nationalist camp, such as the accusations of being a party controlled by Jews and Freemasons. In 2005, the ONP-LP condemned the League of Polish Families for the attacks and noted its association with antisemitic figures such as Jan Kobylański. In 2005, the party released a statement on League of Polish Families:
The role of the LPR in the opposition is not fundamentally different from the ‘opposition’ in the parliament of People's Poland. LPR MPs dazzle their own electorate with patriotic slogans, while for a parliament dominated by post-communists, they are a convenient ‘opposition’, lending credence to the political pluralism of the post-communist state. The League of Polish Families deliberately harms the ONP-LP. For example, Maciej Giertych spread lies that the Polish League of 1887, as well as the founder of the Polish-Polish ONP-LP and its members, were Freemasons. Similar lies were spread by Mr Wrzodak in Chicago. On similar deceptions and lies the LPR won its electorate especially in southern Poland. Many compatriots at home and abroad cannot understand how honest Poles could promote this artificial political creation, which, together with others in parliament, discredits us Poles and exposes us to ridicule.[44]
Relations with the left
The party became a part of the Patriotic Front of the Socialist Left (Polish: Patriotyczny Front Lewicy Socjalistycznej) in 2003, a political alliance of small left-wing parties that sought to create a broad front with national formations, including the right-leaning ones such as the ONP-LP. The Patriotic Front sought to win over nationalist voters over to the left; one of its declarations included: "Let us not be fooled into thinking that the discussion around homosexuality, feminism or even abortion is a marker of the left!" One of the issues that the ONP-LP was able to find common ground with leftist parties on was opposition to globalization. One of the statements of the Patriotic Front repeated by ONP-LP argued that "globalism is the highest stage of capitalism and imperialism, based on the dominance of private property".[22]
The Patriotic Front opposed the 1990s reforms that transitioned Poland to a capitalist free market economy, arguing that while the Polish governments of the 1990s promised a "free, prosperous and democratic Poland", the reforms instead resulted in massive unemployment, loss of social rights, poverty, the collapse of health service and wealth inequality. The alliance proposed policies such as taxation of 'excessive wealth', increasing the minimum wage, restoring the social benefits of the communist Poland, and state control of the economy. The Patriotic Front also argued that the Polish entrance into the European Union resulted in loss of economic sovereignty of Poland, which "may even threaten the loss of its own statehood". The parties of the alliance signed a declaration arguing that Poland has become dominated by foreign capital and is now a "quasi-colony". It also condemned policies such as privatisation and allowing foreign capital in Poland, and proposed protectionist laws as well as ban on foreign ownership in important industries.[23]
Euroscepticism
Ever since its founding, the party was opposed to Polish membership in the European Union and campaigned for the 'No' vote in the 2003 Polish European Union membership referendum.[11] The party continued to oppose Poland being a part of the Union after the referendum passed as well, arguing that the EU is dominated by Germany and renders Poland an inferior member that is subject to economic domination and exploitation by wealthier members. The ONP-LP decried, amongst others, the "theft of national assets" that it considered a consequence of joining the EU.[21]
The party argues that international organisations such as the European Union seek to undermine the sovereignty of its member states, and that instead of serving the good of nations, they make their members dependent on their will. The ONP-LP claimed that Poland has become a "market of cheap labour" in the EU, as well as "a slum of Europe and a laundry for dirty money". Additionally, the party believes that the EU stifles domestic production of its member states because of the increased exports. As an alternative to the EU, the ONP-LP promotes a policy of neutrality where Poland would seek good relations with both the Western countries as well as Eastern ones like China and Russia, instead of aligning itself with the interests of a single bloc.[43]
2005 program
The political program of the party presented for the 2005 Polish presidential election used slogans such as ‘Together with Polonia’, ‘With Polonia into a better future’ and ‘A good host for Poland, caring for Poles at home and in exile’. The party mainly focused on economic nationalism, arguing that banks should be nationalized and that the Polish state should provide universal healthcare and provide free prescripted medicine.[45] The ideological declaration of the party included points such as:
holding "traitors and political impostors" to account and trial;
restoring state ownership to strategic state industries and sectors;
banning foreign ownership of Polish natural resources;
creating an electoral constituency for the Polish diaspora;
expanding state media to "represent the vital interests of the Polish people".[45]
^ abMateusz Piskorski[in Polish] (2010). Samoobrona RP w polskim systemie partyjnym (in Polish) (Dissertation ed.). Poznań: Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. p. 129.
^ abcdef"Statut". onp-lp.pl (in Polish). Archived from the original on 3 June 2017. Retrieved 2023-08-08.
^ abMalendowicz, Paweł (2013). "Polonia amerykańska wobec członkostwa Polski w NATO i Unii Europejskiej". Rocznik Integracji Europejskiej (in Polish) (7). Bydgoszcz: 175.
^ abTomasiewicz, Jarosław[in Polish] (2010). "Polska Wspólnota Narodowa: Polskie Stronnictwo Narodowe jako przykład nacjonalizmu świeckiego we współczesnej Polsce". Różne oblicza nacjonalizmów (in Polish). Zakład Wydawniczy "Nomos": 231. ISBN8376880195.
^ abcTomasiewicz, Jarosław[in Polish] (2014). Po dwakroć niepokorni: szkice z dziejów polskiej lewicy patriotycznej (in Polish). Łódź: Stowarzyszenie „Obywatele Obywatelom”. p. 239. ISBN978-83-64496-23-3.
^Hartliński, Maciej (2015). "Formalne determinanty pozycji przywódców w strukturach pozaparlamentarnych partii politycznych w Polsce". Prawo I Polityka (in Polish). 6 (1). KOPIPOL: 40–64.
