The Socialist Discussions

During Kalecki’s first years at the institute the economic situation in Poland deteriorated. From its post-independence peak in 1929, national income fell by 18 per cent over the following three years. The fall in business investment was even more dramatic. In 1932, it was a mere 36 per cent of its already anaemic 1929 level.1 Unemployment, which was in any case rising steadily through the 1920s, doubled between 1929 and 1931.2 As economic desperation, poverty and enforced idleness increased, political tensions rose. Pilsudski’s 1928 rapprochement with big business and the landed classes had been followed by a crackdown on trade union and peasant activists. His supporters took to aping the political manners of the Italian fascists, whom many of them admired. Invasions of the chamber of the Polish parliament, the Sejm, by military officers seeking to intimidate deputies, preceded key votes by Polish parliamentarians. Opposition deputies were beaten up. In response, the socialist parties formed an alliance with the peasant parties and the Christian Democrats (the Centrolew alliance, to indicate its centre and left-wing composition) to oppose Pilsudski’s government. On 25 August 1930 Pilsudski forced the resignation of the prime minister and took over personal control of the government, dissolving the Sejm and denouncing parliamentary interference with his government. On the night of 9/10 September 1930, the leaders of Centrolew were arrested and interned in the fortress of Brześć. The main peasant politician, Wincenty Witos, fled across the border to Czechoslovakia.