Far right in Poland

There are several far-right organizations in Poland, notably the League of Polish Families and Self-Defense of the Republic of Poland parties, which were represented in Poland's parliament following the 2005 elections, but lost all their seats in the 2007 elections. The parties of the far right received 2.8% of the popular vote in the 2007 parliamentary elections.

There is also a certain amount of nonparliamentary far-right extremism. Poland's neo-Nazi skinhead scene was estimated at some 2,000 active members in 1995. The political organization associated with that movement is the National Revival of Poland, with an estimated 500 members, raising some 0.6% of the popular vote.

The neo-fascist Polish Nationalist Union was one of the larger groups active in the early 1990s, numbering some 4,000 members and making international headlines for its attacks on Jewish property and on the Catholic Church.The major neo-fascist movement is the NOP under the leadership of Adam Gmurczyk. "Niklot" was founded by Tomaz Szczepanski, a former NOP member, in 1998, promoting Slavic supremacy (a Slavic "übermensch"). "Niklot" fights for Polish ethnic homogeneity, entering alliances with "Samoobrona" in Western Pomerania in 2002. Since the mid 1990s, the ultra-Catholic Radio Maryja station has been on air with an anti-modernist, nationalist and xenophobic program. []

"Samoobrona" was founded in 1992 by Andrzej Lepper, and rose to political notability from 2001, gaining a profile based on its fierce anti-EU rhetorics. [] In 1995, he Anti-Defamation League estimated the number of far-right skinheads in Poland at 2,000, the fifth highest number after Germany, Hungary, the Czech Republic and the United States. [Suall et al., "The Skinhead International" (1995), p. 1.]

Far right groups in Poland

amoobrona

Self-Defence of the Republic of Poland ("Samoobrona Rzeczpospolitej Polskiej", SRP) - populist agrarian party.One of the members of the Polish Sejm elected on the Samoobrona ticket, Mateusz Piskorski, was an editor and publisher of several racist magazines, openly expressing admiration for Adolf Hitler and advocating Holocaust denial [http://www.tau.ac.il/Anti-Semitism/asw2005/poland.htm]

KPN

Confederation for an Independent Poland ("Konfederacja Polski Niepodległej" KPN) - nationalist party, opposing liberal economic policies in the early 1990's.

PWN-PSN

* Polish Nationalist Union (PWN-PSN)

ZChN

* Christian National Union ("Zjednoczenie Chrześcijańsko-Narodowe" ZChN) (pl:)

NOP

National Rebirth of Poland (NOP) is a minor nationalist political party in Poland, reaching 0.6% of the popular vote in regional elections as of 2006). It is a member of European National Front and a co-founder of International Third Position.

Other organizations

* Association for Tradition and Culture "Niklot" ("Stowarzyszenie na rzecz Tradycji i Kultury "Niklot") (pl:)
* Radio Maryja

By agenda

Liang (2007:265) groups the organizations mentioned by agenda, as follows:

Notes

References

* Ronnie Ferguson, Luciano Cheles, Michalina Vaughan (eds.) "The Far Right in Western and Eastern Europe", Longman (1995), ISBN 978-0582238817.
* David Ost, "The Radical Right in Poland", chapter 5 in: "The Radical Right in Central and Eastern Europe Since 1989" (1999), ISBN 0271018119.
* Christina Schori Liang, "Europe for the Europeans: The Foreign and Security Policy of the Populist" (2007), ISBN 0754648516.

ee also

* Anarchism in Poland
* Liberalism in Poland
* Politics of Poland
* Głos

External links

* [http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,472439,00.html The Left Wing, the Far Right and the Kaczynskis] "Der Spiegel" (2007)
* [http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/07/26/news/letter.php Letter from Europe: Shaping the agenda of Poland's drift to the far right] "International Herald Tribune" (2007)