Political movements of the Polish Underground State outside the coalition government: a few research proposals

Abstract

Many underground political groups formed during the German occupation.
The organisations created in big numbers during the first two years of occupation,
but sometimes also organised later – like the Piłsudskiites – represented all
possible pre-war ideologies. Although they originated from different political
and social backgrounds of the interwar period, and sometimes, as in the case
of the Alliance of Democrats, directly from interwar political organisations,
their occupational activity was not a simple continuation of the pre-war one.
It resulted from the totally different political situation and conditions in which
they acted. With the moment of formation, they introduced new quality to the
Polish political life. The article, which is mainly based on archives, documents
and printed reports, aims to justify the necessity of research into the issue
and proposes to develop a catalogue of related issues and problems, inter alia
a description of organisational structures (managerial and lower levels), a territorial
range and membership strength, characteristics of publishing houses
and their technical resources (printing shops and a distribution system), forms
of communications within organisations, sources of finance, establishing the
pre-war political and social background of members, a presentation of the relations
between and the attitude towards the government-in-exile, the Union for
Armed Struggle-the Home Army, the Government Delegation for Poland, the
‘big four’ political parties and relations between organisations acting outside,
characteristics of political thought, a discussion of the practical functioning of
each organisation in the conditions of extremely brutal occupational policy as
well as repression and activists’ martyrdom.