Sanation (Polish: Sanacja, Polish pronunciation: [saˈnat͡sja]) was a Polish political movement that came to power after Józef Piłsudski's May 1926 Coup d'État. Sanation took its name from his watchword—the moral "sanation" (healing) of the Polish body politic. The movement 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."[1]
Sanation preached the primacy of the national interest, contended against the system of parliamentary democracy, and supported authoritarian government. In 1928, in an effort to broaden its influence, Sanation created a "Nonpartisan Bloc for Cooperation with the Government," which existed until Piłsudski's death in 1935. Sanation then broke up into several factions, including "the Castle."[1]
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Named after the Latin word for "healing" ("sanatio"),[2] the Sanation movement mainly comprised former military officers who were disgusted with the 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. Since Piłsudski disapproved of political parties, which he saw as promoting their own interests rather than supporting the state and the people, the Sanation movement never led to the creation of a political party. Instead, in 1928 Sanation members created a Bezpartyjny Blok Współpracy z Rządem ("Nonpartisan Bloc for Cooperation with the Government"), a coalition political party 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.
Piłsudski mixed democratic and dictatorial elements while pursuing "sanation." Poland's internal stability was enhanced, while economic stagnation was ended by Eugeniusz Kwiatkowski's 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 tranformed itself into a full-scale dictatorship. Freedom of speech and press and political parties were never legally abolished, elections (except those of 1930) were basically free, opponents were usually dealt with via "unidentified perpetrators" rather than court sentences. Józef Piłsudski's personal cult 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[3] and with increasing pressure on the opposition started a new campaign, the new elections being scheduled to November.[4] Using the anti-government demonstrations as a pretext, 20 members[3] of the oppositions, including most of the leaders of Centrolew alliance (from Polska Partia Socjalistyczna, PSL "Piast" and PSL "Wyzwolenie" parties) were arrested[5] in September without a warrant, only on the order of Józef Piłsudski and then-Minister of Internal Security, Felicjan Sławoj Składkowski, accusing them of plotting an anti-government coup.[6] The opposition members (who included the former prime minister Wincenty Witos, and Wojciech Korfanty) were imprisoned in the Brest Fortress, where their trial took place (thus the popular name for the election: the 'Brest election'). A number of less known activists were arrested throughout the country.[3] They were released after the end of the election in the same month. The Brest trial ended in January 1932, with 10 accused receiving sentences up to 3 years of imprisonment; the appeals of 1933 confirmed the sentences. The government however gave the accused choice of emigrating: five of them took it, the other five to serve the prison term instead.[5]
In April 1935, shortly before Piłsudski's death, a new constitution (the "April Constitution") was adopted, which supported Sanation's principal ideas: a strong centralized state with a presidential system of government. Piłsudski died soon after, however, and Sanation faced some serious internal problems. Eventually it devolved into three separate movements:
The first of these Sanation movements soon lost much of its importance, but the other two continued the ideological struggle over the shape of the country until the outbreak of war.
During the 1939 invasion of Poland, many Sanation members were taken prisoner-of-war by the Germans, while others evacuated to Romania, where they remained to war's end or managed to reach France and Britain.
Though France insisted on excluding Sanationists from the Polish Government in Exile, many remained highly influential. During the war, Sanation members created several resistance organizations, including in 1942 the Fighting Poland Movement (Obóz Polski Walczącej) and the Convention of Independence Organizations (Konwent Organizacji Niepodległościowych), which in 1943 became subordinate to the Home Army and in 1944 merged into the Union of Independence Organizations (Zjednoczenie Organizacji Niepodległościowych).
After World War II, the forced exile of many Sanationists was made permanent by the communist regime, which branded them enemies of the state.
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The Confederation of Independent Poland, founded in 1979, is the principal sanationist political party in Poland today.