Českoslovanská strana agrární

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The Českoslovanská strana agrární (German: Czechoslovak Agrarian Party , until 1905 Česká agrární strana / Czech Agrarian Party) was a farmers' party in Austria-Hungary and later in Czechoslovakia . It was founded in 1899.

history

For a long time, the Czech parties of the Old Czechs and Young Czechs had claimed political representation for the entire nation. Nevertheless, politically they mainly represented the interests of the urban population. Although the farmers criticized this fact, there were only a few proposals for the establishment of a farmers' party during the 1870s and 1880s. In addition, the Young Czechs managed to position themselves as spokespersons for the building in the mid-1880s, which made the Young Czechs the strongest Czech party in the state elections in 1889 and the Reichsrat elections in 1891 . Since the cooperation between young Czechs and farmers 'representatives was difficult, several farmers' associations and parties were founded in the 189s. One of them was the South Bohemian, conservative “Bohemian-Moravian Agricultural Party ” ( Českomoravská strana hospodářská ), which had emerged from the “State Farmers' Union for the Kingdom of Bohemia” (Zemská slská jednota pro království české) by Alfons Ferdinand Šťastný . After Stanislav Kubr founded the Central Bohemian Farmers' Association (Středočeská selská župa) in Central Bohemia in February 1896, the Politická selská jednota (Politická selská jednota) was established a few months later in East Bohemia at the instigation of František Udržal . While Kubr and Udržal initially acted in agreement with the Young Czechs, Kubr subsequently separated from Udržal and the Young Czechs and renamed his organization the "Association of Czech Farmers for the Kingdom of Bohemia" (Sdružení českých zemědělců pro království Českélců). From this association, the Czech Agrarian Party emerged in 1899, which served as a framework for various interest groups and formulated the political program. In 1900, the State Farmers' Union for the Kingdom of Bohemia also joined the Czech Agrarian Party.

While the Association of Czech Farmers had 2,000 members in 1897, the number of members increased to 18,000 as a result of the establishment of the Czech Agrarian Party in 1897, in 1900 the party had 20,000 members, in 1912 the party, which now operates in all the countries of the Bohemian Crown, had 91,000 members. In order to expand its influence, the Agrarian Party also founded branch organizations such as the Central Association of Beet Growers or the Central Association of Czech Agricultural Cooperatives, the Agricultural Bank (Agrání banka) and a printing and publishing cooperative that, among other things, produces the weekly newspaper “Obrana zemědělců” (Defense of Farmers) and from 1906 published the daily newspaper "Venkov" (Land). After the Czech Agrarian Party merged with representatives of the peasant parties from Moravia and Silesia in May 1905, the party appeared in all Bohemian countries as the Czechoslovak Agrarian Party. In 1906, Udržals peasant association finally joined the party.

The program of the Agrarian Party was all about the importance of the agricultural class for the life of the Czech nation and economy. To this end, the Agrarian Party pursued a social and cultural penetration of the rural population by means of its own agricultural ideology. At the state level, the Agrarian Party stood for a weakening of centralization, a strengthening of self-administration, an increase in competence for the state parliaments and for the further development of the school system. The Agrarian Party also advocated equal access for women to education. If the Agrarian Party was initially negative about the extension of the right to vote, the party members finally committed to the reform of the Reichsrat election order in 1906 , which ultimately made them the strongest Czech party in the 1907 Reichsrat election . The Czech Agrarian Party was able to expand this position in the 1911 Reichsrat election.

After the founding of Czechoslovakia in 1918, the party renamed itself Republikánská strana zemědělského a malorolnického lidu (RSZML, Republican Party of the Agricultural and Small Peasant People, Agricultural Party for short) and temporarily became the strongest party in the republic.

literature

  • Jiří Pokorný : Associations and parties in Bohemia. In: Adam Wandruszka , Peter Urbanitsch (Ed.): The Habsburg Monarchy. 1848-1918. Volume 8: Political Public and Civil Society. Volume 1: Associations, parties and interest groups as carriers of political participation. Publishing house of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 2006, ISBN 3-7001-3540-8 , pp. 609–703.