League and Self-Defense (, LiS — also means fox in Polish) was a short-lived Polish political alliance between the left-wing populist Self-Defense of the Republic of Poland (Samoobrona) and the national conservative Christian right League of Polish Families (LPR) in July 2007. The alliance was directed against right-wing populist Law and Justice (PiS) that first formed a coalition with both parties, but then gradually marginalized them and shuffled away their ministers. The coalition was marked by mutual distrust as the parties had radically different outlooks, tied together by Euroscepticism, opposition to capitalism and aversion to PiS. The coalition was only polling 6% (below the 8% threshold for coalitions), and was dissolved by September 2007, shortly before the election. In the 2007 Polish parliamentary election, both LPR and Samoobrona failed to reach the 5% electoral threshold, losing all their 92 Sejm and 10 Senate seats. The downfall of both parties is considered to have been caused by PiS appropriating their political rhetoric.
Despite being a coalition of a far-left Samoobrona and a far-right LPR, League and Self-Defense produced a coherent program that emphasized the common points of both parties, such as their opposition to the European Union, NATO, the Iraq War and War in Afghanistan. Both parties also shared a voter base that wished for the return of security of the socialist welfare state and protection from the risks of open markets. This allowed the coalition to position itself as anti-capitalist. The coalition had a basic social program based on "protection of life from the moment of conception until natural death", anti-corruption and "zero tolerance" reforms for schools. Economically, the coalition sought a halt to privatization, empowering trade unions and greatly expanding welfare, social pensions and the minimum wage, as well as tackling foreign capital and big business. Given its higher amount of seats and popular support, the left-wing Samoobrona dominated the coalition, which gave League and Self-Defense an ideologically left-wing profile, especially economically.
Origins LPR and Samoobrona Initially, the two parties that would found League and Self-Defence had nothing in common. Self-Defence of the Republic of Poland (Samoobrona) was considered a far-left, socialist party similar to neocommunism ideologically. Polish political scientist Jarosław Tomasiewicz described it as a "radical-populist" party that combined agrarianism, nationalism and "Soviet-style" communism. Samoobrona cooperated with fellow left-wing parties, first in the anti-austerity coalition Social Alliance for the 1998 Polish local elections, and then by supporting the 2001-2003 government of social-democratic, post-communist Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) and agrarian Polish People's Party (PSL), as well as forming local coalitions with the SLD. Samoobrona withdrew its support of the SLD-PSL government and broke all of its agreements with SLD following the decision of the SLD to forcefully break up farmer protests and continue privatization measures. PSL itself also withdrew from the coalition after SLD lifted custom duties meant to protect Polish agriculture.
In contrast, the League of Polish Families was a far-right, Catholic nationalist party that was a continuation of the National Party, an idiosyncratic party that attempted to unite nationalist movements and continue the legacy of Roman Dmowski and his movement of National Democracy. LPR mostly focused on social, cultural and moral issues, along with opposition to the European Union. In contrast to the traditionally laissez-faire, free-market outlook of Dmowski and his nationalist movement, the LPR denounced the post-communist transition to capitalism in Poland as a "socio-economic experiment" that had "greatly deleterious effects on the Polish families". LPR campaigned on an unambiguously right-wing, Catholic nationalist and traditionalist program, appealing to patriotic, nationalist and anti-capitalist values; it promoted Catholic values as "moral and material protectors" and presented itself as the defender of Polish national interests which, according to the party, were compromised by the EU, foreign capital, big companies, privatization and social welfare cuts.
Ideological overlap The anti-capitalism of LPR allowed for some overlap, on both partisan and voter level. According to political scientists, Tomasz Zarycki and George Kolankiewicz, LPR "held objectively left-wing views on issues such as privatisation, state intervention in the economy and redistribution of wealth", combined with "strong opposition to Polish EU membership and, more generally, a nationalist and anti-cosmopolitan worldview." Samoobrona, meanwhile, presented itself as the defender of the working class, the weak, and the needy; Polish farmers and the poor began to consider Lepper their advocate. To this end, both Samoobrona and LPR appealed to those who considered themselves "losers" of the capitalist transformation and felt marginalized and excluded by the socioeconomic changes that dismantled the socialist system in Poland. Samoobrona focused almost exclusively on socioeconomic interests and had a vague cultural outlook that attempted to appeal to socially marginalized groups, including LGBT (along with SLD, Samoobrona was the only party to support same-sex civil unions in 2004), but at the same time avoid alienating the socially conservative working class. However, Samoobrona and LPR shared their opposition to the European Union and globalization. Given how Samoobrona considered SLD to have betrayed left-wing values by 2003, both LPR and Samoobrona began to see themselves as the only alternative to the establishment and economic liberalism.
Samoobrona's ideological shift
Until around 2006, the relationship between Samoobrona and LPR was cold, as LPR was hostile towards Samoobrona; this was caused by the fact that until 2003, Samoobrona was a close ally of social democratic Democratic Left Alliance. In contrast, Samoobrona was always cordial towards LPR. In 2004, Samoobrona wrote that it shared LPR's opposition to the European Union, and praised it as a new, refreshing force in the Polish politics, in contrast to establishment parties. Gazeta Wyborcza also wrote about Samoobrona's leader: "Lepper, while criticising other parties, always found a few words of praise for the LPR". However, the leader of LPR, Roman Giertych, said in 2004 that "God forbid Samoobrona ever comes to power", accusing the party of "extreme demagoguery" and "Janosik-style populism". Despite this attack, later in 2004, Lepper stated: "People are fed up with these political dabblers: the wheeler-dealers from the Democratic Left Alliance, the jumpers from the Civic Platform, the converts from Law and Justice and the bunglers from the Polish People's Party. Fortunately, there are national, Polish forces in the Sejm: Samoobrona and LPR." Nevertheless, LPR was still uncertain of Samoobrona in 2005. In a 2005 debate just two days before the 2005 Polish parliamentary election, both Lepper and Giertych were invited by Polsat to a debate with journalist Tomasz Lis. In the debate, Giertych stated: "There will be no coalition between the League of Polish Families and Self-Defence. Our programmes are like fire and water." Lepper surprised Giertych by instead wishing LPR success and arguing that both Samoobrona and LPR have some policies in common. He concluded: "Shouldn't we, the pro-Polish forces from Self-Defence, the League and PiS, form a coalition?"
Mateusz Piskorski argues that there has been a gradual shift in the ideology of Samoobrona. Throughout the 1990s, as an extra-parliamentary but an increasingly recognizable party, Samoobrona combined its far-left socioeconomic postulates with social progressivism. This culminated in Samoobrona becoming an ally of the social-democratic Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) before and shortly after the 2001 Polish parliamentary election. As a reward, SLD voted in favor of Lepper becoming the Deputy Marshal of the Sejm. However, despite being elected on a social-democratic program, SLD instead embraced neoliberalism and pursued deregulation and market liberalization - it suspended collective agreements and allowed for a suspension of working regulations "where the existence of a firm is threatened", cut overtime pay, made it easier for employers to fire workers, and reduced sickness pay. The party also implemented "Hausner Plan", named after its Finance Minister Jerzy Hausner, who abolished the annual rise in pensions and public service pay, cut business tax, reduced subsidies for mines and railways, cut sickness allowance, cut subsidies for companies employing disabled workers and increased retirement age for women. This liberal economic time made the PSL, SLD's coalition partner, leave the coalition. As a minority government, SLD continued its shift, with Leszek Miller, the leader of the SLD-led minority government, proposing to implement a flat-income tax rate. This made Samoobrona break off with the SLD, and SLD retaliated by removing Lepper as the Deputy Marshal. Afterwards, Samoobrona gradually moved away from social progressivism and started approaching social conservatism. After the 2005 Polish parliamentary election, Samoobrona further moved towards the cultural right, and became a left-authoritarian party. After the 2005 election, it was described as far-left socioeconomically and centre-right culturally. From 2006 onwards, Samoobrona was also described as a left-wing, but "radical socially conservative" party.
People's National Bloc League and Self-Defense came directly from the Samoobrona's concept of "People's National Bloc", or "National-Agrarian Bloc" (). The concept of this bloc first appeared in 1999 and was actively pursued with Samoobrona until 2001; it initially referred to a possible alliance of Samoobrona with Polish People's Party as well as left-wing trade unions, such as August 80. Alliance talks were temporarily abandoned after the decision of Polish People's Party to form a government with SLD, although Samoobrona supported this government. After the SLD-PSL government fell in 2003, the concept was again brought up by Samoobrona. In the 2004 European Parliament election in Poland, LPR massively overperformed, finishing second. At this point, the concept of the "National-Agrarian Bloc" was modified to be a coalition of Samoobrona, Polish People's Party and League of Polish Families. Between 2004-2005, the prospect of this coalition appeared likely as even the leader of PSL, Janusz Wojciechowski, was supportive of the idea. However, this plan was foiled by the 2005 Polish parliamentary election, in which LPR and PSL underperformed; a Samoobrona-PSL-LPR would only have 115 seats, half of the amount needed to form a majority government.