National Democracy
Narodowa Demokracja |
|
---|---|
Leader | Roman Dmowski |
Founded | 1886 |
Dissolved | 1947 |
Headquarters | Warsaw, Poland |
Ideology |
Polish nationalism National conservatism Anti-Semitism |
National Democracy (Polish: Narodowa Demokracja, also known from its abbreviation ND as "Endecja" [ɛn̪ˈd̪ɛt̪͡s̪jä]) was a Polish political movement active from the second half of the 19th century under the foreign partitions of the country until the end of the Second Polish Republic. It ceased to exist after the Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland of 1939. In its long history, National Democracy went through several stages of development. Created with the intention of promoting the fight for Poland's sovereignty against the repressive imperial regimes, the movement acquired its right-wing nationalist character following the return to independence. A founder and principal ideologue was Roman Dmowski. Other ideological fathers of the movement included Zygmunt Balicki and Jan Ludwik Popławski.
The National Democracy's main stronghold was Greater Poland (western Poland), where much of the movement's early impetus derived from efforts to counter Imperial Germany's policy of Germanizing its Polish territorial holdings. Later, the ND's focus would shift to countering what it saw as Polish-Jewish economic competition with Catholic Poles. Party support was made up of the ethnically Polish intelligentsia, the urban lower middle class, some elements of the greater middle class, and its extensive youth movement.
During the interbellum Second Republic, the ND was a strong proponent for the Polonization of the country's German minority and of other non-Polish (chiefly Ukrainian and Belarusian) populations in Poland's eastern border regions (the Kresy). With the end of World War II and the occupation of the country by the Soviet Union and its communist puppet regime, the National Democracy movement effectively ceased to exist.