Emigrant Leaders of Working Party towards Sanation in the First Months of the Second World War

Abstract

The first months of the Polish authorities in exile saw a conflict between the activists of the Working Party and the “sanacja” political milieu. Karol Popiel and Izydor Modelski were staunch advocates of limiting the influence of the “sancja” regime on the political life of the country and emigration. It was manifested by the establishment of a commission and its works on the causes of the failure of the September campaign. The politicians of the Working Party shouldered the responsibility for the Polish-German clash on the members of the pre-September ruling authorities. Another area of conflict was the Committee of Ministers for the Affairs of the Country. It was a body competent for the leading of the underground struggle in occupied Poland. In the initial stage of the committee conducted by General Kazimierz Sosnkowski, who was linked with the milieu of the “sanacja” regime, attempts were made to keep a representative of the Working Party at a distance. This was connected with the then political competition between the Alliance of Armed Fighting (with some potent influences of the “sanacja” regime) and the Central Committee of Independence Organisations (with the leading position of the Working Party) for a leading function in the Polish underground state. In this case confrontation ended with a peculiar compromise – CKON ceased to function, and a representative of the Working Party became a permanent member Committee for the Affairs of the Country.