Patriotic Party

The Patriotic Party (Polish: Stronnictwo Patriotyczne), also known as the Patriot Party or, in English, as the Reform Party, was a political movement in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the period of the Four-Year Sejm (Great Sejm) of 1788–92, whose chief achievement was the Constitution of 3 May 1791. The reformers aimed to strengthen the ailing political machinery of the Commonwealth, to bolster its military, and to reduce foreign political influence, particularly that of the Russian Empire. It has been called the first Polish political party, though it had no formal organizational structure. The Party was inspired by the ideals of the French Revolution, and its name, proudly used by themselves, was a tribute to the Dutch Patriots.

The Patriotic Party ceased to exist soon after the adoption of the Constitution when, in the War in Defense of the Constitution, the Targowica Confederates, backed by the Russians, overthrew the reformed government. In 1795 the Third Partition of Poland ended the Commonwealth's independent existence. Many of the movement's leaders emigrated abroad.

The reform movement were responding to the increasingly perilous situation of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, which only a century earlier had been a major European power and the largest state on the continent. By the early 17th century, the magnates of Poland and Lithuania controlled the state and they ensured that no reforms would be carried out that might weaken their privileged status (the "Golden Freedoms"). The peculiar parliamentary institution of the liberum veto ("free veto"), in effect since 1652, had in principle permitted any Sejm deputy to nullify all the legislation that had been adopted by that Sejm. Thanks to this device, deputies bribed by magnates or foreign powers, or simply content to believe they were living in some kind of "Golden Age", paralyzed the Commonwealth's government for over a century . The government was near collapse, which gave rise to the term "Polish anarchy".

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