Origins
The Second Polish Republic was, in comparison to Western European standards, a poor and backward country, and its economy was far behind such nations, as Germany, Great Britain and France. The most developed areas were concentrated in the west, in the territories which had belonged to the German Empire (especially Upper Silesia), while central and eastern parts of Poland were underdeveloped, with high unemployment. The Great Depression hit Poland hard, especially in the countryside.
Late 1920s and early 1930s were times of crisis, but the overall situation began to improve around 1935. European economies began to recover, and foreign investments reappeared in Poland. This created a visible economic revival, nevertheless, millions of people, especially in overpopulated areas in the south, were unemployed. Eugeniusz Kwiatkowski wanted to change the situation, and on June 10, 1936 in the Polish Parliament, he sketched his four-year national investment plan. According to his project, the plan would cost between 1650 - 1800 million zlotys, and it was based on Polish capital. A year later, it turned out that initial costs were insufficient and Kwiatkowski raised them to 2400 million zlotys.
Read more about this topic: Four Year Plan (Poland)
Famous quotes containing the word origins:
“Lucretius
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“The settlement of America had its origins in the unsettlement of Europe. America came into existence when the European was already so distant from the ancient ideas and ways of his birthplace that the whole span of the Atlantic did not widen the gulf.”
—Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)