Settlers' Party
The so-called Asunike Koondis ( " settlers association ") was a political party in Estonia during the interwar period. It saw itself as an interested party of the Estonian peasants.
Name
The party is usually called in the short form " Siedlverband " (literally " Association of settlers "; Estonian Asunike Koondis or in the more common in the interwar period genitive form Asunikkude Koondis ).
Its official name was first Ülemaaline Asunikkudeja Riigirentnikkude Liit - " Gesamtestnischer Federation of settlers and state tenant " from formal party's founding in 1925 Asunikkude, Riigirentnikkude yes Väikepõllupidajate Koondis - " Association of settlers, government tenants and small farmers " and from 1931 Põllumeeste, Asunikkude yes Väikemaapidajate Koondis - " association of farmers, settlers and Kleinhofbesitzer ". The name describes both the three main target groups within the Estonian electorate.
Background
1918 called the Republic of Estonia from their separation from Russia and state sovereignty. The Constituent Assembly ( Asutav Kogu ) created 1919/20, a democratic state on the Western model. She decided a comprehensive land reform in October 1919. The landowners, who was mainly in the hands deutschbaltischer nobleman, was expropriated.
The agricultural land was distributed among previously landless Estonian peasants ( " settlers " ), which created 56,000 new farms. There were 23,000 " State tenants " which their farms leased by the State ( and later acquire through years of lease could ).
Estonia was in the interwar period still largely an agricultural country. Outside the cities, Tallinn and Narva, the country was industrialized low. The radical land reform of 1919 created a new social stratum of Estonian peasants. According to their political influence grew in the parliamentary system of the young republic.
Foundation
The partly living in cities large farmers (and a good part of the Estonian industrialists ) were mostly in 1917 founded, right-wing conservative " Estonian Country People's Union " ( Eesti Maarahva Liit ) politically organized, in 1920 in "covenant of farmers " ( Põllumeeste Kogud ) renamed.
The new small farmers in the country chose the early 1920s, notably the Social Democratic Labor Party -oriented Estonian ( Eesti Tööerakond ). The demands of the labor party in the election to the Constituent Assembly after a comprehensive land reform and social justice for all residents of Estonia were met with the rural population on fertile ground. After implementation of the land reform of 1919, the ideas of the Labour Party at the new farmers but lost traction.
In this gap came the settlers newly founded association, which organized itself always better politically. He understood at first rather than a non-partisan advocacy of new small peasantry. For elections to the second term of the Estonian Parliament ( Riigikogu ) 1923 Association of the settlers but then decided its own list of candidates. She immediately reached 3.8 % of the vote and went with four deputies in the 100 -member parliament. As a political party was the settlers' association in 1925, a year before the next general election, officially lifted out of the baptism.
Election results
At the next parliamentary elections in 1926, the party increased its vote by more than ten percentage points. She stayed throughout the interwar period a significant political factor in the Estonian political landscape.
Participation in government
The party played a stabilizing role in the Estonian parliamentary system of the interwar period. From December 1925 to the end of the Estonian democracy In 1934, she was - except for the period between February 1931 and February 1932 ( Cabinet Pats III) - represented in any coalition government. She was in principle capable coalition with all other Estonian parties.
Programmatic and personalities
The party had no comprehensive ideological program. Their work was based on the principle that the only wealth Estonia is agriculture and would encourage accordingly by the state must. At the same time the party demanding the legal and economic equality of rights of small farmers with the large farmers. She remained a party of the center and balance. Often the Siedlerbund complaining in the coalition governments, the Office of the Minister of Agriculture for themselves.
Leading politicians of the party were the ( repeated ) Minister Oskar Koster, Johannes Friedrich Zimmermann, Otto deep and Karl Johannes Berg Soon, the last President of the Riigikogu before the Second World War and the diplomat Heinrich Rudolf Penno Laratei.
Mouthpiece of the party was from 1926 to 1929, the newspaper Maa ( "The Land "). Editor in Chief was in 1927, the influential journalist and long-time deputy Jaagup Loosalu. In 1929 the newspaper renamed in Maaleht ( "Land newspaper "). The party was also the agrarian monthly newspaper Uus Talu ( "The new yard" ) near which appeared from 1925 to 1940.
Association project with the big landowners
In the late 1920s, the interests of the großagrarischen " Federation of Farmers ' Association and of the small peasant settlers adjusted to more and more. More so were the demands that unite both political groupings into a single Agrarian. The challenges of the global economic crisis intensified in all Estonian parties to the trend towards mergers total to counteract the strong fragmentation of the party system and the Parliament.
On January 26, 1932 a few weeks before the general election in 1932, it came to the union of the two agrarian factions. The official party to the merger "party of the united farmers " ( Ühinenud Põllumeeste Erakond ) was decided on a Unification Congress on 29 February 1932. The party was at the elections with almost 40 % of the vote and 42 of 100 seats by far the largest political group in the Estonian Parliament; However, they missed the target absolute majority significantly.
The party merger did not last long. He was a union project of the party leaders, without the base was taken. The joint party and its parliamentary group dropped out a year after the election, on 18 May 1933 apart. The main reason was the dispute about a devaluation of the Estonian kroon to make the export economy competitive again. The "covenant of farmers " refused decided.
Presidential Election 1934
In the early 1930s came the Estonian parliamentary system under increasing pressure from the extreme right-wing extra-parliamentary opposition. The " covenant of freedom fighters" made front against the unstable political system, with its frequently changing governments. He called instead for a leader state.
In a referendum succeeded the " covenant of freedom fighters" to push through a new constitution that entered into force on 24 January 1934. She put the newly created office of the president at the center of the political system; Parliament and government should play only a weak role.
In April 1934, elections should be held to the President and the new parliament. The boiler Association to win the popular, non-party ex-general Johan Laidoner for a candidacy succeeded. He ran against the likely election winner Andres Larka from the " covenant of freedom fighters" as well as against Konstantin Pats from the "covenant of farmers " and the Social Democrats August Rei.
End of parliamentary democracy
The elections did not take place at the last moment. On 12 March 1934, the incumbent heads of state and head of government Konstantin Pats crack in a bloodless coup the power. He made Laidoner supreme commander of the armed forces. The leadership of the settler association was not privy most likely in the coup plans.
Pats did with the subsequent approval of Parliament for six months to declare a Verteidiungszustand and arrest the leadership of the " Federation of freedom fighters." The forthcoming elections were postponed.
On September 7, 1934 Pats prolonged state of defense surprisingly for a year. A week later Minister of the Interior announced Kaarel Eenpalu that Parliament should meet only a special meeting; the agenda must be approved by the government. On September 22, 1934, the parties were occupied with an operating ban. The road to a police state began.
On September 28, 1934, the Parliament since the summer break first came together again. The government required to choose the former military Jaan Soots President of the Parliament, which rejected the vast majority of MPs. Parliament chose instead Rudolf Penno from Siedlerbund as its new chairman. Penno was thus de facto elected leader of the opposition against the authoritarian regime of Pats and Laidoner. At a further meeting on 2 October 1934 all the settlers' association, the government sharply and accused her of breach of the constitution. However, the resistance was in vain. On 3 October 1934, the government issued a ban on further parliamentary sessions. The party broke up in the following months.