ICS Working Papers Nº2/2016

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ICS WORKING PAPERS 2016
led by a president nominated by the government and comprising of delegates from local
government, corporations, the chambers of commerce, industry and agriculture, the liberal
professions and trade unions. The scope for manipulation by the government was impressive
and a homogeneous and obedient Sejm was assured. The upper house was later reduced to
96 members with one-third appointed by the president and two-thirds by electoral councils
elected by similar organic institutions Opposition parties reacted by boycotting the
elections.
Pilsudski died in 1935 and Poland remained a dictator-less dictatorship led by his closest
military associates, although with increased factionalism. The regime’s institutional fragility
following the dissolution of the BBWR led in 1936 to the creation of the Camp of National
Unity (OZN – Obóz Zjednoczenia Narodowego), a regime party that was better structured and
more powerful than its predecessor, and which was more of a single party. Adam Koc, a
young Pilsudski follower, endowed the party with a youth section that he wanted to offer to
the fascist Falanga, which had a more clerical and corporatist political programme. Koc also
proposed the liquidation of the trade union movement and ‘the establishment of a system of
corporations on the fascist model’ as part of OZN’s programme; however, this option was far
from consolidated when Poland was invaded and occupied in 1939
In the cases of Romania, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, the political space for corporatist
alternatives and its relations with the attempt to create dominant or single parties was
conditioned by the relationship of power between the monarchs, the conservative parties
and their leaders within the framework of ‘royal dictatorships’.
In the case of Romania, the short dictatorial experiment did not lead to a consolidated
regime, but the clear goal was to institutionalize a single-party regime. When on 10 February
1938 King Carol II suspended the constitution and inaugurated a period of royal dictatorship,
his first steps were to abolish the political parties, create a single party – the Front of National
Rebirth (FRN – Frontul Renasterü Nationale) – and hold a plebiscite on a new corporatist
constitution. The FNR became a triage party for candidates during the legislative, local and
professional elections. The deputies and senators not only had to swear loyalty to the king,
now the leader, but had to wear the FNR uniform, as they did in the opening session of the
new parliament in June 1939.
The fascists of Corneliu Zelea Codreanu’s Iron Guard, the Legion of the Archangel Michael, did
not respond to the royal coup d’état, and initially accepted the Legion’s dissolution. The
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