ABSTRACT
The first organizations of a Christian democrat nature began to appear on the political scene of the three regions of Poland belonging to Russia, Prussia and Austria shortly after 1890. Prior to the creation in November 1918 of the independent Polish state, however, the Christian democrat movement was relatively weak and scattered. This dispersion was primarily the result of marked social and political differences between the different parts of Poland. It was in the territories annexed by Russia that the Christian democrat movement was most strongly represented: territories where, in 1916-when the region was under German occupation-a Christian democrat party, the so-called Workers’ Democratic Party, was launched. Two other sizeable groups were operating in the territory annexed by Prussia: one in the region of Great Poland and in Pomerania, and the other, which was less active, in Upper Silesia. Wojciech Korfanty,1 who was later to become the most prominent politician in the Christian Democratic Party in independent Poland, and the only one really known by Polish people at large, was associated with the party from the outset. In Galicia, the region annexed by Austria, several small groups operated but they were isolated from one aother and of minor political importance.
