Galician peasants’ movement at the beginning of the operation of the Peasant Party

Abstract

The birth of an organised peasants’ movement, the manifestation of which was the creation of the Polish Democratic Society, and then the Peasants’ Party, was the height of many years’ process, commenced at the beginning of the constitutional era. The implementation of political aims of peasant activists, the first step of which was the establishment of the Peasants’ Central Election Committee in 1895, started a new era in Galician peasants’ movement. A group of democratic intelligentsia, gathered around Bolesław Wysłouch, Rev. Stanisław Stojałowski and the Potoczek brothers, focused its political aspirations on the emancipation of village population from conservative influences and landowners and the raising of Galician peasants’’ political awareness. Despite numerous ideological and organisational failures, the birth of a new power on the Galician political scene, undoubtedly, contributed considerably to the education of the Polish society and, consequently to its rebirth.