In the 1920s. The Polish state entered a period of extremely long economic stagnation, the situation in foreign policy was continuously deteriorating, and contradictions in domestic policy were intensifying.
In May 1926, a thunderstorm broke out - Piłsudski went to a coup d'état. After that, he was the head of the country until 1935, and only death removed him from real power. The main pivot of Poland's political life at that time was the question of whether it would be possible to push through the strengthening of the president's powers or not.
Soon, however, the Great Depression broke out. It swept through the frail economy of Eastern European countries like a hybrid of a heavy asphalt paver and a high-speed train with sharpened wheels. A problem arose: how to overcome the economic shock. Moreover, the reforms were visibly stalled.
It was impossible to continue the transformation of the economy in favor of the landowners and the richest peasantry, in order to avoid the discontent of the bulk of the agrarians … but it was also unacceptable to stop it, already in view of the threat of indignation of the economic giants. They did not abolish the reform laws, only slightly adjusting them.
First of all, they forced the transition to farms and the abolition of the rudiments of feudalism - easements. Both proved to be very beneficial to the well-to-do stratum of the Polish peasantry. He collected loans from banks, erected buildings, used the most modern methods of land cultivation, fertilizers, and animal breeds at that time. Representatives of this social group received the right to occupy lower administrative positions.
As you know, nature abhors a vacuum. Most of the Polish villagers are going to ruin, and most of all - in the east
But the Polish rulers took the most unprecedented measures to secure loyalty. In March 1932, a decree was adopted on the allotment of land plots to Polish citizens in the east (the so-called sieges). The descendants of those who died in the wars that were ever fought by the country could receive such plots for free. The first years, recognized as politically reliable, were transferred there under similar conditions. Those who voluntarily mobilized were also ranked among them. This policy closely resembled normal colonial practice.
Meanwhile, civilian colonists were denied rights in comparison with the military. The lending rate for them reached 20% per annum. It is not surprising that friction and disagreement constantly arose between these two categories, they stood on different positions, and there were almost no everyday contacts between military and civilian settlers.
But there were more and more civilians. The amount of land given to them also grew rapidly
Other agrarian reforms were in progress. For example, khutorization (in fact, with the exception of the Vilnius Voivodeship, and even then it is weak), only since 1925. The reason is that initially the vector of further development of agriculture, pleasing to the government, was not clear. Even Pilsudski's unequivocal position in favor of the fastest introduction of the farm system was postponed for a year due to the difficulties of implementation into law.
By 1926, in the Western Belarusian lands, the average area cultivated by one of the small-land farms was less than seven hectares, which excluded the provision of sufficient efficiency, and in many cases it was not enough even for the simple provision of food for this economy. Quite naturally, Warsaw is taking a course towards increasing the concentration of land tenure. Over the next ten years, in the three eastern provinces, three and a half thousand villages were settled on farms, and the average area approached fifteen hectares. At the same time, many did not succeed in benefiting from it, since the resettlement itself was paid from the personal funds of the peasants.
The khutorization itself accelerated in the second half of the 1920s, but was halted by the global crisis and could no longer gain momentum again.
The main benefit after 1926 was received by the average level of the Polish peasantry. Along with this, the liquidation of servitude was arranged in such a way that the landowners only got rich, they began to create large agricultural firms equipped with the latest technology of the time. Peasant farms, initially weak in economic and technical terms, did not have the opportunity to carry out such an intensification. Almost all candidates for resettlement were faced with the need to take out loans or accumulate other debts. All this led to the gradual ruin of small-land farms, their owners are increasingly turning into hired rural workers. In addition, the leveling of land during the khutorization and the very quality of the allotted land were often unsatisfactory. It has become a common practice to allocate land that is remote both from the owner's village and from each other (the so-called striped land). Despite the increased overall intensity of the agrarian sector, the lack of land could not be eliminated. Judging by the way the reforms were carried out, one of the models was clearly the policy of the Stolypin model (even if this was not advertised).
