National Workers' Party

National Workers' Party

Narodowa Partia Robotnicza
National Workers' Party Narodowa Partia Robotnicza
Founded	23 May 1920
Dissolved	9 October 1937
Merger of	National Party of Workers; National Workers' Union
Merged into	Labor Party
Headquarters	Warsaw, Poland
Newspaper	Sprawa Robotnicza; Głos Robotnika
Youth wing	Związek Młodzieży Pracującej „Jedność”
Ideology	Solidarism; Corporatism; Factions:; National Democracy; Left-wing nationalism; Christian left
Political position	Centre
	Politics of Poland; Political parties; Elections;

The National Workers' Party (Polish: Narodowa Partia Robotnicza, NPR) was a political party in Poland.

History

The NPR was established in Warsaw on 23 May 1920 by a merger of the National Workers' Union and the National Party of Workers.^[1] Strongest in Greater Poland, Pomerania, Łódź and Silesia, it had around 150,000 members by the following year.^[1] It received around 5% of the vote in the 1922 elections, winning 18 seats in the Sejm and three in the Senate.^[2]

The party was a member of the Józef Piłsudski 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 regime, whilst the NPR, which had been reduced to around 80,000 members, opposed it.^[1] 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.^[2]

In 1930, the NPR joined the Centrolew alliance,^[1] which contested the 1930 elections. The alliance won 79 seats, of which the NPR took eight. It later became part of the Front Morges, and by 1934 only had around 20,000 members.^[1] The party boycotted the 1935 elections;^[1] in 1937, it merged with the Polish Christian Democratic Party 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.^[1]

Election results

Sejm

Year	Votes	%	Seats	+/–
1922	473,676	5.41 (#6)	18 / 444	–
1928	228,119	1.99 (#10)	11 / 444	7
1930	Part of Centrolew		8 / 444	3
1935	Boycotted
1938	Boycotted

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g Jerzy Jan Lerski (1996) Historical Dictionary of Poland, 966-1945, Greenwood Publishing Group, p380
^ ^a ^b Dieter Nohlen & Philip Stöver (2010) Elections in Europe: A data handbook, pp1509–1512 ISBN 978-3-8329-5609-7