The Union of Town and Country Proletariat (, abbreviated ZPMiW, , abbreviated СПМіС, ) was a political organization in the Second Polish Republic. ZPMiW was founded in August 1922, initially mainly as a platform for the Communist Workers Party of Poland (KPRP) to contest the 1922 elections. The organization was led by a Central Electoral Committee, with as its chairman, as its secretary and serving as its vice chairman and treasurer.
1922 elections
KPRP and the minority wing of Communist Party of Eastern Galicia took part in the 1922 elections through ZPMiW. 77 local electoral committees of ZPMiW were set up across the country. The ZPMiW list for the November 5, 1922 Sejm election had the number 5.
Electoral programme
Ahead of the November 1922 elections, the Central Electoral Committee of ZPMiW issued an appeal in August 1922. This electoral platform outlined the objectives of the movement; calling for the creation of a united front of the proletariat to struggle against the bourgeoisie. The appeal called for the creation of a socialist republic whose government would represent the interests of the urban and rural proletariat, socialization of industries, mines and natural resources and the expropriation of courtly, church-owned or monastic lands for redistribution to the workers. The appeal condemned the national chauvinism and antisemitism of the National Democracy bloc. ZPMiW called for full freedom for German and Jewish minorities for cultural development, calling for the end to discrimination against the national minorities in education, administration and the judiciary. It demanded establishment of trade relations with Soviet Russia and Soviet Ukraine. The appeal included calls for the creation of a Polish Socialist Republic and a World Federation of Socialist Republics.
The ZPMiW press
ZPMiW conducted out extensive publishing activities and printed significant amounts of propaganda materials, in spite of repetitive confiscations by the government authorities. As ZPMiW was a legal, over-ground organization the KPRP tasked it to conduct the press publishing activities on behalf of the underground party. KPRP established a clandestine 'Central Editorial Office' after its 3rd conference held in April 1922. This Central Editorial Office oversaw the publishing of the ZPMiW press. The Central Editorial Office consisted of five members: Izaak Gordin/Aleksander Lenowicz, , Szczepan Rybacki, and , all central KPRP cadres. However, as publishers and editors of the ZPMiW press, the organization generally used names of individuals not publicly associated with the KPRP, such as Szymon Tenenbaum, Gustaw Pirutin, Alter Goldman (Lucjan Marek), J. Sroka, Mikołaj Szurkowski, Józef Zawadka, Szyja Koszewnik and Edmund Mączewski.
During the course of the lead-up to the 1922 elections, ZPMiW published a total of 17 short-lived newspapers. Twelve of the periodicals were issued from the Warsaw headquarters of ZPMiW and two from the East Galicia Central Electoral Committee of ZPMiW. The first ZPMiW organ to appear was the Yiddish language weekly Undzer Cajtung, which began publishing in the second half of August 1922.
The thrice-weekly newspaper Proletariat was launched as the central organ of ZPMiW. served as the editor of Proletariat, under the alias 'Maria Lewińska'. Ryback, who was a known communist cadre, was the publisher of Proletariat. The publishing of Proletariat was delayed, as Warsaw government authorities were suspicious that it would be an organ of the illegal KPRP. In the end three issues were published, dated September 27, September 29 and October 1, 1922. The Proletariat coverage on the election mainly focused on attacking PPS, the main competitor of ZPMiW for the working-class vote. The latter two issues of Proletariat were confiscated by government authorities. Krygier, Publishing and Printing Inspector of the Warsaw Government Commissariat ordered publication of Proletariat to cease publishing. Police authorities issued warnings to shops and news kiosks not to sell the publication. On October 9, 1922, the Warsaw headquarters of ZPMiW published one issue of Biuletyn Centralnego Komitetu Wyborczegoj Związku Proletariatu Miast i Wsi ('Bulletine of the Central Electoral Committee of the Union of Town and Country Proletariat') with 'Maria Lewińska' as its editor.