Endo- and exogenous causes of marginalization of the Democratic Party in the 1990s

Abstract

The subject of research is the Democratic Party, which was established during the Second Polish Republic. After World War II, it was one of the elements of the Polish party system. The aim of the study is to present the internal and external factors that influenced the political marginalization of SD in the 1990s. Remarks on the subject of the title, which were scattered in various publications by the author, were collected and re-interpreted. The crisis of the leadership in the party, lack of consistency in the actions taken, liquidation of press resources, conflicts in the relations between the SD leadership and field instances, the outflow of members, disintegration of committees and circles, poor knowledge of democratic principles, inability to prepare an attractive program offer, frequent changes of party leaders – this is the most important internal causes that determined the political marginalization of the SD. External considerations were also important here. First of all, functioning in the conditions of the hegemonic party system was not conducive to organizational, personnel and program development, which had to cause various deformations. After 1989, in the conditions of the free formation of the party system, the new groups accused the SD of cooperation with the Polish United Workers’ Party and legitimizing the political system of the People’s Republic of Poland; voters also remembered it. All political activities undertaken by this party under such conditions ended in failure and exacerbated the internal crisis.