Agrarian socialist movement in Poland
The AGROunion (, AU) is a left-wing agrarian socialist political movement in Poland formed by Michał Kołodziejczak. AGROunia criticizes the actions of current politicians in relation to the state of agriculture in Poland and organizes agricultural protests and information campaigns. The party declares to be built on agrarian socialist ideals and to have taken inspiration from the left-wing nationalist Samoobrona movement, Fighting Solidarity, as well as pre-war agrarian movements such as Polish People's Party "Wyzwolenie". Officially registered in 2022, the party became a socialist party with agrarian and Catholic overtones, with the leader of the party stating in 2022 that "faith, tradition, and Saint Mary herself are all elements of socialism for me". The party denies the labels of populism and nationalism.
AGROunia first entered Polish politics in 2018 as a social movement and a trade union, and became famous for its high-profile protest actions. AGROunia's activists blocked roads, scattered apples and threw pig carcasses. The main demands of the protests included trade protectionism and price control of agricultural products. The movement was considered conservative and had ties with right-wing agrarian groups, but did not participate in the 2019 election. In 2021, AGROunia became a political party and embraced left-wing ideology: the party invited several left-wing activists to its congress, and a socialist, Jan Zygmuntowski, was chosen to formulate AGROunia's economic program, which included breaking up monopolies, construction of additional housing and wage increases. In February 2023, AGROunia entered a coalition with liberal-conservative Porozumienie, considered the liberal wing of the United Right. The coalition was dissolved in May 2023, and in June 2023 AGROunia entered a coalition with a left-wing regionalist party "Nowa Demokracja - Tak" instead.
In the 2023 Polish parliamentary elections, AGROunia candidates competed on KO's lists. This pushed the party's hitherto ambiguous stance on social issues in a liberal direction: in August 2023, AGROunia stated its support for abortion on demand up to the 12th week of pregnancy. The party moved to advocate for legal recognition of same-sex partnerships, and expressed its belief that Poland needs to transition to renewable energy, although it stressed the need to protect the poorest parts of the society from transition costs first.
History.
Origins.
Michał Kołodziejczak, born in 1988, is a farmer who was elected in 2014 to the Błaszki municipal council as a Law and Justice candidate. He was expelled from the party in 2015 for organizing protests. Excluded from the party during his term of office, Kołodziejczak created the "Vegetable-Potato Union" () in 2018, which organized protests against the government's policy of culling pigs to fight the African swine fever virus. The movement was initially strictly agrarian and dealt with farmer issues only, but it soon started expanding into blue-collar and trade union environments as well. First demands of the movement included a change of the minister of agriculture, changes in grain imports, the alignment of European Union subsidies to the level of Western Europe and normalization of diplomatic relations with Russia.
Soon afterwards, on 7 December, the AGROunia association was established. AGROunia already attracted media attention in March 2019, when it organized a farmers' protest in Warsaw. The protest was caused by the poor situation of Polish farmers due to several factors - the prolonged consequences of sanctions imposed on Russia, the African swine fever epidemic and the government's belated response to it, as well as the change of the Minister of Agriculture in 2018. There was also the issue of persisting drought that limited harvests, caused by the 2018 European heatwave. The protest was spontaneous and caused public disorder, disrupting traffic and blockading the roadways. The protests intensified after a few days, something that Michał Kołodziejczak attributed to the indifference of the authorities regarding the demands of the protesters. AGROunia maximized the attention that the protest attracted by wearing the vests used by the Yellow vests protests, burning tires and dumping grain and pig carcasses - elements that drew extensive media coverage and caused AGROunia to be compared to the far-left Self-Defence of the Republic of Poland (Samoobrona). The party also presented demands similar to the ones once put forward by Samoobrona, such as demanding a law that would oblige stores to supply at least 50% of their agricultural products from local farmers, graphic labeling of food products with the flag of country's origin, negotiating an end to the Russian embargo on Polish fruits and vegetables, giving more autonomy to rural self-governments, reforming chambers of agriculture, and more state intervention in the agricultural market.
Consolidation into a party.
The demands and policies of AGROunia grew more radical as it transformed itself into a political party and organized more protests. AGROunia also started discussing the problems of land ownership, especially in context of income inquality in the Polish countryside and the domination of large landowners. The party also expanded its rhetoric - Kołodziejczak declared the initiation of a "community of farmers and consumers", arguing that AGROunia is not only for farmers, but for the disadvantaged and dissatisfied people at large. AGROunia accentuated that high prices are dictated by large retailers rather than by farmers, and argued that this problem could be solved by extensive regulation and stave intervention, together with restructurization of the Polish economy that would empower local producers and give people more control over production. The party also started to call their protests "peasant uprisings" () and made references to the traditions of the Polish peasant movement. In September 2019 the party drew more attention by exposing that apples imported to Poland are labelled as Polish to dupe the customers. In addition to campaigning on the issue of "food sovereignty", the party also focused on ecology and social justice, which was noted as "green leftist" discourse by the media.
Kołodziejczak started expanding his political connections by forming sister parties and associating himself with already existing ones. In June 2019, Michał Kołodziejczak announced the formation of the political party Prawda. On 25 July that year, the hitherto PolExit party (led by Stanisław Żółtek, at the same time the president of the Congress of the New Right) was re-registered as Zgoda, under which name Michał Kołodziejczak eventually decided to form the formation, but did not formally become a member and in mid-August withdrew from the project (in January 2020 the party rebranded itself as PolExit). In May 2021, Michał Kołojedziejczak announced the formation of a party under the name AGROunia. An application for its registration was filed in August of the same year, and the court registered the party on 3 March 2022.
First party congress.
In 2021, the organization blocked roads and organized farmers' protests, demanding a change in government policy towards agriculture. On 4 December 2021, a congress of AGROunia was held, where the most important demands were presented. The congress hosted feminist activist , left-wing activists Piotr Ikonowicz and , as well as representatives of pro-Russian circles linked to the former Change formation Mateusz Piskorski and the editor of the communist website 1maja.info Mateusz Cichocki. In August 2022, Kołodziejczak stated that AGROunia is not a pro-Russian party, and denied any ties with the far-right Confederation Liberty and Independence. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 AGROunia worked to close the border with Russia and Belarus and advocated the immediate imposition of an embargo on Russia.
The party also presented its anthem, "Jak noc i świt" (), composed by Polish musician and composer Michał Wiśniewski. Polityka noted a similarity between AGROunia's anthem and the one of Samoobrona, "Ten kraj jest nasz i wasz" (). AGROunia stylized itself as the second Samoobrona, relying on similar political environments and similar forms of disruptive farmer protests. Together with the party's extensive connections with trade unions and presence of socialist activists in the convention, Polityka argued that AGROunia clearly evokes the "agrarian left" alignment of Samoobrona. Commenting on the party's convention, journalist Piotr Trudnowski wrote: "The main impression after the convention is that AGROunia is the new Samoobrona, and that Michał Kołodziejczak is the new Andrzej Lepper."
Starting in 2022, the party had been actively supporting and organising trade unions. In May 2022, AGROunia created its own trade union called "AgroUnia Pracownicza" (Workers' AGROunion), which unionised urban workers of big companies such as Amazon (company) and Biedronka. In June 2022, AGROunia announced the incorporation of farmers' and workers' unions into its party structure, and in October 2022, the party co-founded a national farmer union called Polish Agricultural Union. The leader of the party Michał Kołodziejczak argued that Polish farmers need a strong cooperatinve and envisioned a creation of a nationwide large farmer union that would include 100.000 Polish farmers. Kołodziejczak accused Law and Justice of predatory policies that seek to undermine independent trade unions and farmer unions in Poland. 
Coalition talks.
On 7 February 2023, Michał Kołodziejczak, and the president of the Porozumienie party, MP Magdalena Sroka, announced the intention of AGROunia and Porozumienie to set up a joint federation political party. On 15 March of the same year, it was registered by the District Court in Warsaw under the name Social Movement, following an application filed by Agrounia leaders (including Michał Kołodziejczak as president) in January of that year. On 24 April, also at the request of AGROunia activists, the Stabilna Polska party was further registered (in case of formal problems with the Social Movement party), with Grzegorz Domagała as president. On 23 May 2023, it was announced that the cooperation between AGROunia and Porozumienie had ended. Magdalena Sroka of Porozumienie cited the left-wing orientation of AGROunia, and the fact that its program was to be developed by the socialist economist Jan Zygmuntowski, as the main reasons for ending the coalition.
On 5 June of the same year, at an extraordinary national congress of the AGROunia party, a resolution was adopted to change its name to Polska Praworządna (the court registered this name three weeks later), with Piotr Kołodziejczak (Michał Kołodziejczak's cousin) as its new president. In addition, on 19 June, a fourth party established by AGROunia activists was registered, under the name Social Interest. Its president was Mateusz Piepiórka. On 30 June 2023, Michał Kołodziejczak and the president of the New Democracy - YES party Marek Materek (mayor of Starachowice) announced plans to form a coalition and run under the party banner "Social Movement Agrounia YES" in the parliamentary elections in the same year. A week earlier at the congress in connection with these plans, the name was adopted by the existing Social Movement party.
In early August 2023, following the decision of Polish People's Party to form a coalition Third Way with Poland 2050, the concept of an agrarian coalition between the PSL and AGROunia was no longer available. AGROunia entered coalition negotiations with the left-wing nationalist Samoobrona movement instead. On 5 August 2023, the 12th anniversary of Andrzej Lepper's death, Samoobrona activists met together with Kołodziejczak and laid flowers on Lepper's grave. Samoobrona activists and AGROunia announced that they will be running together in the 2023 Polish parliamentary election, with Samoobrona representatives occupying leading positions on the electoral list. Kołodziejczak expressed his respect for Andrzej Lepper and his movement, stating: "He served Poland when many served only themselves and big business. He was with us, true to principle, in a world full of iniquity and betrayal".
In Civic Coalition.
On 16 August 2023, AGROunia announced its cooperation with the Civic Coalition under the leadership of Donald Tusk and his Civic Platform. The alliance was formally announced during the National Council meeting of the Civic Platform, which approved and published the lists of the Civic Coalition for the Sejm and the Senate. During the meeting, Donald Tusk stated that AGROunia will run in the 2023 Polish parliamentary election together with the Civic Coalition. This decision shocked political pundits, given AGROunia's aspiration to be a spiritual successor of Andrzej Lepper's Samoobrona. Polish political scientist praised this decision, arguing that a coalition with AGROunia will help the Civic Platform appeal to rural voters, who hitherto considered the party elitist and urban-centric. Kołodziejczak argued that the coalition is necessary to prevent vote splitting and to ensure the defeat of the United Right government; Kołodziejczak stated: "No vote must go to waste, and we must show everyone in Poland that, despite our different views, we are looking in one direction - towards a future Poland that will be strong, rich and here people will build it together. This is what I am