Self-Defence Rebirth

The party was formed in July 2007 from a merger of the Self-Defense Social Movement party and several other marginal groups formed by splitters from the Self-Defense of the Republic of Poland.

The original Samoobrona started fracturing in March 2006, when Self-Defence Social Movement (Polish: Samoobrona Ruch Społeczny) was founded and organised its first convention in Czosnów near Warsaw. The convention was attended by around 100 people, former members of Samoobrona who left the party or were expelled from it. Sławomir Izdebski, the current leader of Self-Defence Rebirth, was elected the party's chairman. The party used to be a faction within the original Samoobrona party, and was involved in protesting privatisation and fighting evictions.[9]

Party leaders included fifth-term senator Henryk Dzido, fifth-term MP Alfred Budner (and the party's only parliamentarian) and fourth-term MPs Marian Curyło, Waldemar Borczyk and Zbigniew Witaszek.[10] The party also included Sławomir Izdebski, a prominent agrarian trade unions activists related to Polish People's Party and the peasant movement.[11]

In the parliamentary elections in 2007 Alfred Budner and Sławomir Izdebski ran for the Sejm from the Law and Justice list, but did not obtain a seat as an MP. In Konin electoral district, Alfred Budner received 6736 votes, and Sławomir Izdebski in Siedlce electoral district received 3838 votes.

In November 2007, another new party that split from Samoobrona was created - the Party of Regions created out of the regionalist wing of Samoobrona. As Self-Defence Rebirth itself was closely aligned to Samoobrona regionalist, the party postponed their convention in order to start merger talks with the Party of Regions.[12]

By the end of 2007, most of Samoobrona Odrodzenie's activists joined other groups - including Party of Regions, PSL and PiS. On 2 September 2008 it was deleted from the register of political parties.[13]

Following the suicide of Andrzej Lepper in 2011, Self-Defence Rebirth under the leadership of Henryk Dzido sought to revitalise the Samoobrona movement by uniting various minor fractured parties and movements under the single banner of Self-Defence Rebirth. Dzido was considered a conciliatory figure acceptable to all former factions and wings of Samoobrona.[14]

After an unsuccessful attempt to take over Samoobrona following the death of Andrzej Lepper in 2011, Henryk Dzido decided to relaunch Samoobrona Odrodzenie. An application for party registration was submitted in 2012, and as a result of a court order of 10 January 2013, the party was again listed in the register of political parties.[15] In 2014, the party started cooperating with Stronnictwo Polska Racja Stanu, among others. At the time, it failed to agree on a joint run in the 2014 Polish local elections with Organisation of the Polish Nation - Polish League. The SO fielded one election list each for the mazowieckie and podkarpackie assemblies.

During the convention of re-registered Self-Defence Rebirth, its leader at the time, Henryk Dzido, emphasised that the party wishes to "continue the noble ideals and program" of the original Self-Defence of the Republic of Poland party, although Dzido emphasised that the program of Self-Defence Rebirth was "modified according to the times". The party released a statement stating that only grassroots support and local structures will allow the Samoobrona movement to enter politics again, and that Self-Defence Rebirth wants to dedicate itself to building "a solid and stable membership base". Regardings its ideology, Self-Defence Rebirth announced a return "to the best traditions of Samoobrona RP", although the party also stated that it wants to abandon the common image of Self-Defence as a protest party.[16]

In 2014, Self-Defence Rebirth accepted the invitation of Samoobrona's leader Lech Kuropatwiński, with the goal of the meeting being stated as "unity in the local government elections as well as in post-election activities". As a result of the meeting, the two parties agreed on a joint election committee called "Self-Defence ONP-LP".[17] However, the planned coalition was cancelled a few days later because the activists of Polish Independence Assembly and the Organisation of the Polish Nation - Polish League withdrew from coalition-talks. As such, the electoral committee "Self-Defence ONP-LP" was annulled.[18]

In the second round of the 2015 Polish presidential election, the SO supported Andrzej Duda of PiS (against incumbent President Bronisław Komorowski). In the 2015 Polish parliamentary election, the party did not run.

Sławomir Izdebski rejoined the SO (as head of the All-Poland Agreement of Trade Unions of Farmers and Agricultural Organisations and the Social Movement of the Republic of Poland).[19].

In August 2018, the party established cooperation with Samoobrona.[20] On 7 October of the same year, the chairman of the grouping, Henryk Dzido, died.[1] In the 2018 Polish local elections and in the 2019 Polish parliamentary election, SO did not run.

Coat of arms of Poland from 1919, that the party wanted to restore

Self-Defence Rebirth by and large follows the ideology of its original party, Samoobrona. The party utilises left-wing populist and anti-establishment rhetoric. Henryk Dzido stated: "The privateness that appeared in Samoobrona, the issue of pathology, corruption, are all alien to us".[2] The party classified itself as left-wing, describing itself as "as left-wing as Samoobrona was when we founded it".[2] Self-Defence Rebirth pledges to follow the left-wing, left-nationalist and Catholic socialist ideals based on those of the Samoobrona party.[8]

While the program of Self-Defence Rebirth is identical to the one of the Samoobrona party from the 1990s, the nature of the movement is different as it represents only some factions within the original party. Self-Defence Rebirth came from a faction of Samoobrona known as the Social Movement, which focused on blocking evictions, aiding pensioners and protesting deregulation and privatisation policies.[9] The party is also closely related to agrarian trade unions, reflecting higher emphasis on rural issues and agrarian socialism in the new party.[21] Self-Defence Rebirth is also aligned to the regionalist wing of Samoobrona, and wanted to form a merger with the Party of Regions.[12]

Self-Defence Rebirth also heavily emphasises its Roman Catholic character, and portrays itself as a party committed to the principles of Catholic social teaching as well as Catholic socialism.[4] This is in contrast to the original Samoobrona party, which would gradually transform itself from a traditional protest party to a "stabilised left-wing party", drifing closer to the mainstream post-communist left-wing parties.[22] According to Piotr Długosz, Self-Defence Rebirth promotes a new kind of a socialist system based on agrarian and socialist ideals, while the Samoobrona itself focused made appeals to the nostalgia for the Polish People's Republic; as such, Długosz considers the latter an "heir of the communist regime".[23]

It was reported that party meetings of Self-Defence Rebirth were started with a prayer, instead of the "folkish" character of the original Samoobrona party. Self-Defence Rebirth also cooperated with Political Catholic partie such as "Polska Racja Stanu" and "Samorządna Polska". The party supported a civic initiative that called for the Sejm of Poland to grant Jesus Christ a special title in Poland; the party also called for a restoration of the 1919 Polish coat of arms, which it defined as "a white eagle with a crown enclosed by eight arches surmounted by a cross, without stars on the shoulders of its wings".[24]

Despite its more religion-oriented rhetoric, the new party is considered to be more left-wing than original Samoobrona, and was created in a response to the proposal of a merger with a right-wing League of Polish Families party.[10] This proposal, unofficially known as League and Self-Defense, provoked an outrage in the Samoobrona party, as the majority of party members self-identified as left-wing and considered this union unthinkable.[25] Upon founding Self-Defence Rebirth, Henryk Dzido emphasised that he intended the new party to be more "as left-wing as Samoobrona was when we founded it", reflecting the view that original Samoobrona had drifted away from its left-wing roots.[2]

The party is critical of neo-liberal policies and argues that neoliberalism brought Poland to the brink of a collapse on an economic, social and moral scale. Running on a staunchly anti-establishment platform, Self-Defence Rebirth argues that large corporations "mercilessly exploit" Polish workers, leading to "economic totalitarianism, financial terror, information restrictions and bogus, corrupt democracy".[26]

Self-Defence Rebirth promotes the ideals of egalitarianism, primacy of labour over capital, social ethics and aggressive economic interventionism. The party wants to restore state monopolies on most industries, especially the ones considered most strategic, including the defence industry, rail networks and telecommunications, and advocates for strict regulations on the financial and banking sectors. According to the party, money would be produced according to the need and prices of basic commodities would be heavily regulated. The role of the state is to intervene in order to keep commodity and energy prices low.[26]

The party believes that consumerism and materialism should be replaced in favour of an agrarian socialist economy that would promote a closer relationship with the environment, humane treatment of animals and replacing big farms with small, family-owned ones. Similarly to the original party, Self-Defence Rebirth promotes the concepts of "econology" and "eco-development", based on a "a new way of thinking based on theories of social systems, ecology and social ethics and morality in politics and economics".[26]

• Self-Defence of the Republic of Poland
• League of Polish Families
• Andrzej Lepper
• Party of Regions (Poland)

• Self-Defence Rebirth website