Stud. Hist. Phil. Biol. & Biomed. Sci. 39 (2008) 181 186
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Stud. Hist. Phil. Biol. & Biomed. Sci.
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The sex reform movement and eugenics in interwar Poland
Magdalena Gawin
The Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History, Polish Academy of Sciences, Rynek Starego Miasta 29/31, 00-272 Warsaw, Poland
a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Keywords: This paper focuses on the relations between a liberal group of sex reformers, consisting of writers and
Birth control
literary critics, and physicians from the Polish Eugenics Society in interwar Poland. It illustrates the par-
Sexual reform
adoxes of the mutual co-operation between these two groups during the 1930s and analyses the reason
Eugenics
why compulsory sterilisation was rejected by politicians. From the early 1930s two movements began to
Compulsory sterilisation
forge an alliance in Poland: the sexual reform movement which advocated freedom of the individual, and
Abortion
eugenics, which called for limiting the freedom of the individual for the collective good. This paper draws
Hygiene
attention to several issues which emerged as part of this collaboration: population politics, the relation-
ship between reformers, eugenicists and state institutions, and the question of how both movements
eugenics and sexual reform perceived the question of sexuality, birth control and abortion. It will also
focus on those aspects of their thinking that led to mutual co-operation.
Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
When citing this paper, please use the full journal title Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences
1. Post-war reconstruction of the nation state and eugenics was Tomasz Janiszewski (1867 1939), a physician and a zealous
supporter of the promotion of physicians to positions in the civil
The regaining of Poland s independence in 1918 marked the service in the newly reborn nation state. During the period of state
beginning of a long process of building the administrative structure construction, an intense rivalry developed between doctors and
of the state. The integration of Polish territories into a single whole lawyers; doctors wanted to oust lawyers from national health pol-
required overcoming strong regional differences in terms of con- itics. The main organization supporting doctors in their ambition to
trasting levels of economic and social development. Polish territo- achieve top positions in the national administration was the Polish
ries were ruled by four legal systems: different civil law and penal Eugenics Society (PES), formed in 1922 under the leadership of the
codes and different tax and monetary systems. The western border specialist in venereal diseases, Dr Leon Wernic (1870 1953).
of Poland was determined at the Versailles Treaty. The Eastern bor- The eugenics movement had taken shape gradually from the
der did not take shape until after Poland s victory in the war time of the revolution in 1905 when Russia began to permit the
against Soviet Russia in 1920. The Polish Soviet war ended with forming of associations (prohibited from 1864). The PES was an off-
the peace treaty of Riga in 1921. It was only in 1923 that the Con- shoot of the Society to Combat Venereal Diseases and Prostitution
ference of Ambassadors in Paris, acting as the executive organ of (SFVD). Members of this association propagated social hygiene,
the Allied powers, finally recognized Poland s eastern border. combated prostitution (with a distinct division between abolition-
In constructing an administrative framework for the Polish ists and supporters of regulation) and supported women s emanci-
state, doctors played an active part. It was through pressure from pation and all the progressive social movements (Gawin, 2003, pp.
medical doctors that a separate Ministry of Public Health, Work 84 87). The leader of the SFVD, Leon Wernic, contributed to the
and Social Welfare was created in 1918. At its head was the psychi- medical and popular journals Zdrowie (Health), Medycyna (Medi-
atrist, Witold Chodzko (1875 1954). The scope of the Ministry of cine) and Kronika Lekarska (The Medical Chronicle) and also collabo-
Health included a wide range of activities. Under its authority were rated with the feminist magazine Ster (The Helm), published in
three departments health, social welfare and work. The deputy Warsaw from 1907 1914.
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doi:10.1016/j.shpsc.2008.03.001
182 M. Gawin / Stud. Hist. Phil. Biol. & Biomed. Sci. 39 (2008) 181 186
In 1918 the first Polish Eugenics Congress took place, entitled interventionism, World War I provided an unprecedented opportu-
the Congress on Issues of National Depopulation (Zjazd W Sprawie nity to develop health care and administrative systems that effec-
Wyludnienia Kraju), at which members of the eugenics section ap- tively serviced the combined civilian and military spheres.
pealed to the Polish authorities to introduce legislation for the Henceforth, medicine clearly became a central concern for modern
compulsory sterilization of criminals, mentally ill patients who states seeking to improve the health and productivity of their cit-
were in state institutions and prisons, as well as the voluntary ster- izens. Nearly all industrialized nations expanded the scope of pro-
ilization of those  burdened with hereditary diseases (Zakrzewski, vision of care, seeking military as well as economic benefits
1921, pp. 8 9). Since under the existing model of Polish health care (Cooter, Harrison, & Sturdy, 1998, p. 22). It was the combination
the main burden of treatment costs was borne by the state (e.g. of these two elements of post-war reality, one of a local and the
free treatment, mother and infant care), the Congress advocated other of an international nature, that was responsible for the
eugenic correction through the introduction of pre-marital certifi- radicalization of eugenicists.
cates, sterilization of certain groups of people, as well as changes in
the tax law to encourage  eugenically superior families to increase 2. Population issues
their rate of reproduction (ibid., p. 8). Simply put, eugenicists
thought that limiting the reproductive freedom of citizens was a The tendency to limit family size is generally attributed to mod-
price worth paying in order to maintain the welfare state model ernisation. In virtually all countries which experienced rapid mod-
of care. ernisation during the nineteenth century, some attempt at family
The radicalism of these proposals does not seem to come from planning is evident. In certain countries from 1870 1920 the birth
any kind of cumulative process. It was for the first time, indeed, rate fell by as much as 65%. At the beginning of the nineteenth cen-
that the issue of sterilization was discussed in public at all. The tury the country with the lowest birth rate was France, hence the
imminent prospect of the restoration of the Polish state seems to term  French family , inferring a family consisting of two adults
have been the factor which caused the demand for eugenic restric- and two children. In the United States birth rates fell by 50% during
tions to appear so early in comparison to other countries. The pro- the nineteenth century (McLaren, 1990, p. 180). The main motor
ponents of eugenic  social correction understood perfectly that any behind the drive towards modernisation remained the state. Thus
social engineering of the kind they wanted to introduce required Poland, stripped of its state institutions and deprived of a modern-
state structures: strong administration and policing. In order to isation strategy, lagged far behind its western partners. In the
draw up a list of all  individuals of little value (that is, people suf- interwar period Polish society consisted of the intelligentsia
fering from tuberculosis, alcoholics, vagrants, prostitutes, the men- (mainly descended from a large group of nobility), a small urban
tally retarded, who were all to be denied the right to marry, and in class, as well as a peasant sector which on estimate made up 60%
some cases were to be subjected to compulsory sterilization), it of the population. Class divisions were superimposed by national-
was necessary to employ great numbers of clerical workers and, ity Ukrainians (15%) and Belorussians (over 4%) lived mainly in
consequently, to allocate resources from the state budget. In addi- villages while the Jewish population (8%) lived mostly in small
tion to administration and funds, the modern state had a special towns. According to the first census of 1921, Poland s population
measure at its disposal: the monopoly to apply physical violence. numbered 27 million, and in the second survey which took place
As Max Weber wrote:  Specifically, at the present time, the right in 1938 there were 35 million. In the course of a few years, there-
to use physical force is ascribed to other institutions or to individ- fore, population growth was set at 30%, with a yearly increase of
uals only to the extent to which the state permits it. The state is 400 500 thousand people (Zarnowski, 1999, p. 598).
considered the sole source of the   right to use violence (Weber, Apart from the high birth rate, another factor which affected
1946, p. 77). It was this particular element that led to the forging moral issues was the Catholic character of Polish society. I am
of links between the nascent eugenics community and government not concerned here with the Church s authority as a direct influ-
bodies. ence, or with political ties with the Church, but rather with what
For Polish eugenicists, the point of reference was the state, not Ruth Benedict (1934) refers to as the  pattern of culture . This con-
the nation. For this reason they tried to maintain good relations cerns the social norms, moulded to some degree by religion, which
with the political camp centred around Józef Pilsudski (from shape certain forms of conduct. I assume that this pattern of cul-
1926 known as the Sanacja) keeping up fierce opposition to the Na- ture, and not the legal system, is the overriding factor in relation
tional Democrats. Whilst Polish eugenicists used the term  nation , to values adopted by society. To give an example: in the Russian
they were not in fact nationalists. Eugenic selection was intended partition, civil divorce (in force since Napoleon s civil code of
to strengthen the reborn nation state. The presence of many doc- 1807) was abolished in the 1820s, and this was the state of affairs
tors of Jewish descent in PES illustrates the political stance of Pol- up until the outbreak of World War I. However, it would be naïve
ish eugenicists who, despite using the term  nation and  race , to suppose that this law was in any way respected, since individual
remained in opposition to the nationalists. biographies suggest quite the opposite. The numerous separations,
Throughout the two decades of the interwar period, eugenicists marriage annulments, and even conversion to Protestantism by the
made repeated appeals to support the state s political structures, intelligentsia in order to obtain a divorce are blatant examples of
encouraged physicians to assume top posts in the state apparatus, the flouting of religious prohibitions which were not socially hege-
and succeeded in pushing through the idea of a public health ser- monic. Marshal Josef Pilsudski, the legendary creator of the inde-
vice. From 1918 until 1924, when the Ministry of Public Health was pendent Polish state, was a religious convert, who abandoned
dissolved as part of austerity measures, it was always headed by a Catholicism in order to obtain a divorce, yet who, as a Protestant,
member of the Polish Eugenics Society. The eugenics of the inter- publicly thanked the Virgin Mary for the regaining of Vilnius. De-
war period was therefore a movement that drew upon the re- spite evident opposition by the Catholic Church, as in the case of
sources of the state as the institution empowered to pursue the encyclical Casti Connubii (1930) condemning contraception,
eugenics policy on a large scale. there was no attempt to prohibit contraceptive propaganda
This feature of Polish eugenics was strengthened not only by (Gawin, 2000, p. 230). In Poland there were no notorious court
this local factor, that is, the restoration of the Polish state, but also cases against proponents of Neomalthusianism (such as that
by a processes of a universal and at the same time more profound brought against Margaret Sanger). Therefore it can be said that
nature that gathered momentum in the wake of World War I. Ow- around questions of morality, including divorce, birth control,
ing to a combination of two factors, mass conscription and state homosexuality and even abortion, there reigned an atmosphere
M. Gawin / Stud. Hist. Phil. Biol. & Biomed. Sci. 39 (2008) 181 186 183
of mild consensus, allowing the breaking of supposed religious magazine Literary News (including Tadeusz Boy-Zeleński, Irena
norms. However, legal attempts to regulate marriage and abortion Krzywicka, Pawel Hulka Laskowski, Antoni Slonimski and Maria
laws provoked a moral debate which engaged both eugenicists and Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska, among others), became involved in
advocates of sexual reform. the moral reform movement. Literary critics, and especially Boy-
Zeleński, translator of French literature, satirist and theatre expert,
3. Birth control, abortion and eugenics
initiated a moral campaign in aid of birth control (he coined the
term  conscious life as an equivalent of  birth control ), divorce
The Neomalthusian issue and the use of contraceptives pro- and the allowance of abortion for social reasons. It was not by acci-
voked heated discussion among eugenicists from the outset. De- dent that this campaign coincided with the work of the Codifica-
spite their declared progressivism, Polish eugenicists lacked a
tion Committee. The Codification Committee consisted of lawyers
common standpoint when it came to abortion and birth control is- working on the unification of civil and penal codes. A subject of
sues. A clear majority of eugenicists led by Leon Wernic argued
dispute in this Committee was civil marriage legislation (civil mar-
that the lack of offspring among upper classes caused unfavourable
riage legislation existed only in the former German partition, while
changes in the social structure Wernic (1927a). The most valuable
in the Austrian partition there was civil and church marriage legis-
citizens, the healthy and educated, had few children, whilst the
lation, and in the former Russian partition there was only church
poor, ill and degenerate reproduced readily. Seeing the connection
marriage). There was also the question of allowing abortion.
between affluence and state security, eugenicists foresaw the risk
In taking up these moral concerns, literary circles were strongly
of a depopulated Polish nation. Similar arguments were used in
influenced by Anglo-Saxon culture. Writers drew attention to the
the abortion debate. For the eugenicists Leon Wernic, Gustaw
accomplishments of Margaret Sanger, Bertrand Russell, H. G. Wells,
Szulc, Stefan Kramsztyk and many others, abortion was to be con- Norman Haire and Havelock Ellis. In 1931 Zeleński drew attention
demned (Gawin, 2003, pp. 139 143). They rejected abortion for so- to Poland s absence at the congress of the World League for Sexual
cial reasons (for example, the poor economic situation of mothers),
Reform (WLSR) in London (1929) and Vienna (1930) (Boy-Zeleński,
yet they accepted abortion for eugenic reasons as a means of pre- 1931). One year later Henryk (Herman) Rubinraut, a physician and
venting the birth of children with physical or mental defects.
proponent of birth control among Jewish people took part in the
From the early 1920s the second wing of eugenicists pointed to
WLSR congress in Brno.
the benefits to be gained by the dissemination of contraceptive
The figure of Henryk Rubinraut, one of the most active doctors
methods and they accepted abortion for social and eugenic rea- among the reformers, deserves particular attention. Born in 1894
sons. One doctor who adopted the doctrine of Neomalthusianism
in Warsaw into a Jewish family, he went on to study medicine in
in the field of eugenics was Roman Zadebowski. In one of his arti- Graz, Austria, and graduated in 1921. He worked closely with the
cles he argued that next to sterilization, contraception was the best
socialists and set up, together with the socialist activist, feminist
instrument for regulating reproduction (Zadebowski, 1919, p. 185).
and doctor Justyna Budzinska-Tylicka, the Birth Control Section
He subscribed to birth control clinics, which would disseminate
of the Workers Society for Social Services (within the Polish Socia-
contraceptive methods among the lower classes. This viewpoint
list Party), where he also acted as secretary. In August 1931, just
slowly gained support among PES members.
prior to the opening of the first Conscious Maternity Clinic in War-
Almost all eugenicists supported the idea of sex education with
saw set up by the Birth Control Section, he began to correspond
the underlying aim of delaying sexual initiation and thus protect- with Margaret Sanger, an activity that lasted intermittently until
ing the young from venereal disease. Prostitution was considered
1960 (Kuzma, 2007). In his letters he informed her of the progress
to be the main cause of the spread of venereal disease. In the battle
of Neomalthusianism in Poland and expressed his wish to join the
against prostitution eugenicists finally had considerable success.
international movement for family planning. A month earlier he
Leon Wernic, in collaboration with the Health Ministry from
brought the same matter to Edith How-Martyn, who headed the
1918 to 1919, took part in the drawing up of legislation abolishing
Birth Control Information Centre in London, set up in 1930. Rubri-
brothels throughout the Polish state. According to the new law
naut also made contact with other German and British birth con-
brought into force after regaining independence, prostitution, as
trol activists. He played an important role in spreading birth
distinct from procurement, was not a punishable offence. The
control propaganda among unassimilated Jews, to whom Polish
authorities used regulation in order to oblige prostitutes to under- writers and doctors had limited access (as a result of the language
go continual checks and compulsory medical examinations. Eugen- difficulties). In booklets written in Yiddish, he called upon Jewish
icists paid close attention to all research concerning the
women to consciously plan their families and limit unwanted or
phenomena of prostitution. In the 1930s they initiated an exten- excessive childbirth (Rubinraut, 1931). Like Sanger, he was an ar-
sive survey concerning the social background, living conditions
dent advocate of compulsory sterilization, which in his view was
and mentality of Warsaw prostitutes.
the means of breaking the chain of degeneration. In 1933, thanks
In their commentary on this survey, eugenicists raised the issue
to the efforts of Rubinraut and Zeleński the Polish branch of the
of  sexual deviation , a category that included masturbation, sad- WLSR was formed (Boy-Zeleński, 1933). In the signatories found-
ism, masochism, fetishism and impotence (Wernic, 1927b, p. 17).
ing declaration, they repeated the mission statement of the WLSR:
On the matter of homosexuality, which was defined as sexual devi- to encourage birth control, child sex education, protection of
ation, one eugenicist stated that:  through homosexual relation- unmarried mothers and illegitimate children, equal rights for
ships the strength of the nation in terms of size and quality is
women in social and political life and prevention against venereal
diminished, and the reproductive ability of healthy women and
disease and prostitution (through the abolition of regulation). To
their offspring is reduced: those descended from homosexual per- this they added a further two elements: to introduce civil marriage
sons must be considered of little value (Morawski, 1934, p. 73).
legislation and to abolish the penal sentence for abortion as well as
capital punishment (Crozier & Gawin, 2006, p. 326).
4. Conscious life The question of homosexuality, although not included in the
founding declaration of the Polish section of the League, was raised
While eugenicists were mainly interested in matters of procre- by Boy-Zeleński as well as Irena Krzywicka. The novel by Radclyffe
ation, for the birth control movement the most important issue Hall, The well of loneliness (published in Poland in 1933), was re-
was sexuality. Towards the end of 1920s, writers, political ceived enthusiastically by Krzywicka and Boy-Zeleński as it
commentators and poets gathering around the opinion-forming emphasized the natural inclinations of homosexuals and called
184 M. Gawin / Stud. Hist. Phil. Biol. & Biomed. Sci. 39 (2008) 181 186
for the lifting of penal sanctions against homosexuality (Boy-Ze- Zeleński, who until now did not treat seriously those eugenicists
leński, 1930, p. 5). In this field reformers achieved a degree of suc- who  raved about the yellow peril (he alluded to the alleged flood
cess as sentencing for homosexuality was lifted in the new penal of Asiatic races into Europe), realized that they remained his sup-
code of 1932. In the same code, abortion was permitted where porters (Boy-Zeleński, 1958, p. 243). With the founding of the Soci-
the mother s life was endangered and in cases of rape and incest. ety for the Promotion of Family Planning (SPFP) in Krakow in 1932,
Abortion was also permissible where the mother was mentally the centre for campaigning around sex reform moved from Warsaw
handicapped or the victim of abuse. In other circumstances abor- to Krakow. A year later the SPFP merged with the local branch of the
tion was a criminal offence with a three-year prison sentence for League for Sexual Reform, and as a result, the Society for the Promo-
women seeking abortion and five years for the doctor performing tion of Family Planning and Moral Reform was created with its
it. Meanwhile, reformers demanded that abortion should also be headquarters in Krakow. This organization published the journal
permitted for economic and social reasons, and thus fiercely criti- entitled Conscious Life.
cised the new regulations:  We can see at once that the battle has Among Polish eugenicists a new wave of radicalism started to
ended with the defeat of common sense and the health of society. emerge. In 1933, Poland s neighbour Nazi Germany introduced a
The new code has undone the work of the Codification Committee sterilization act. In 1934 Questions of race (Zagadnienia rasy), the
and namely its most important achievement: the clear, bold use of eugenics project of the PES appeared, foreseeing compulsory segre-
abortion for reasons both social and material (Boy-Zeleński, 1932, gation and sterilization of individuals suffering from the following
p. 7). conditions: congenital mental deficiency, hereditary epilepsy,
Representatives of women s organisations who expressed their schizophrenia, manic depression, hereditary deafness and blind-
views in newspapers showed very disparate opinions on the sub- ness, severe hereditary physical disability, and severe alcoholism
ject of abortion. Conservatives agreed on the whole with the bill, (Projekt Ustawy Eugenicznej, 1934, pp. 45 70). At the same time
while progressives fiercely criticised it. One participant of the de- Scandinavian countries including Denmark, Sweden, Norway and
bate neatly summarised the discussion:  How strangely different Finland (from 1935) introduced compulsory sterilization.
are the ethical judgements of individuals . . . in one it appears as The desire for sterilization among Polish eugenicists was sup-
a monstrous atrocity of infanticide, to another it is a minor surgical ported by the moral reformers. In 1934 the First Polish Congress
operation (M. B., 1930, p. 21). for Matters of Birth Control and Sexual Reform was held. The fol-
A second debate regarding marriage legislation emerged over lowing resolutions were adopted:
the next few years. Sex reformers and eugenicists were united in
The protection of the health of current generations as well as
subscribing to secular marriage legislation. But the debate pro-
care for the health of future generations is among the principle
voked such passionate opposition from the Church that until the
duties of the state. Thus the state should, based on objective
outbreak of World War II marriage legislation was not unified.
research on heredity and hygiene, prevent by law the birth of
In the reform of social attitudes to sex, disparities were visible
offspring who are ill or burdened with hereditary illness. Acci-
between sexual reform group and eugenicists. While the eugeni-
dental selection should be replaced by conscious selection
cists wished to change the existing state of affairs by adminis-
based on eugenic guidelines. (Anon., 1936, p. 47)
trative decree, paying little regard to people s state of mind,
literary circles were keen to emphasise that changes in legislation Participants at the Congress turned to the state authorities, request-
should be preceded by changes in people s thinking. The eugeni- ing the adoption of compulsory sterilization for people with hered-
cists stressed the overriding imperative of collective good, while itary diseases, the introduction of premarital certificates, and
the literary circles underlined their liberal, individualistic abortion for eugenic reasons. The commentary of Conscious Life
approach. filled up with positive opinions regarding the sterilization project
(Kirschner, 1936, pp. 23 24; Litauer, 1936, p. 20).
The PES repeatedly put forward plans for a eugenics bill almost
5. Collaboration in the 1930s until the outbreak of the war but they were rejected by govern-
ment representatives (Projekt Ustawy Eugenicznej, 1935). The de-
Despite their differences, eugenicists and moral reformers be- feat of the eugenicists was determined by a series of factors: the
gan to cooperate in the 1930s. Moral themes pervaded eugenic lit- Catholic character of Polish society, the lack of political support
erature, above all those propagating birth control. Jerzy Babecki s (from left to right) for the idea of artificial selection, and finally
comment is characteristic of the period: the repellant example of Nazi eugenics (Gawin, 2007, pp. 178
179).
As eugenicists we must state categorically that in very many
instances, conception should never have taken place. All forms
of mental suffering, moral and mental degeneration, alcoholism,
6. Conclusions
epilepsy, severe conditions of hysteria are passed on through
offspring and those burdened with these conditions should
The eugenicists campaigned on two principal areas: sexuality
not reproduce . . . In short, I am of the opinion that: 1) The Polish
and procreation. In general, where questions did not relate to
Eugenics Society should recognize and recommend the proper
heredity the eugenicists subscribed to the more liberal proposals,
forms of contraception in their pre-marital guidance services,
including the Lindsey marriage model and sex education for chil-
in those cases where offspring would be eugenically undesir-
dren and young people. They believed that if people did not pos-
able . . . 4) Doctors should always prescribe the proper form of
sess offspring, then neither tradition nor the Church should
contraception in cases where, accordingto expert knowledge,
impede the process of obtaining a rapid divorce. They accepted
a pregnancy would have cause to be terminated. (Babecki,
sexual education, which was initially understood as a means of
1929, p. 320)
preventing venereal disease, and later, as a tool for fighting preju-
In eugenicists discussions, the tone of universal condemnation to- dice and tradition, which hampered social progress. At the end of
ward homosexuality gradually disappears and eugenicists accept the 1920s eugenicists acceptance of Neomalthusianism, as well
the concept of companionate marriage as the 1930s wore on. as abortion under certain circumstances, brought them closer to
Eugenicists and sex reformers fought on a common front against the liberal left intelligentsia engaged in sexual reform. Eugenicists,
the traditionalism of the Right and the Catholic Church. Even Boy- however, dropped any liberal commitment to reforming those
M. Gawin / Stud. Hist. Phil. Biol. & Biomed. Sci. 39 (2008) 181 186 185
issues which were directly related to issues of procreation. In this the Church. Besides this, eugenicists were able to hide behind their
area they were in favour of limiting the freedom of the individual university affiliation and their academic publications and sympo-
through compulsory celibacy, segregation and sterilization of siums, thereby masking their radical character. It was only when
various categories of the  unfit . They argued that the decision to they came to the public institutions with a direct request for seg-
procreate should no longer be left to the individual, but should regation and sterilization that they met with firm opposition and
be subordinated to the needs of the community as a nation, race categorical refusal from public officials.
and state. The eugenicists admitted openly to placing the collective The Polish eugenics model contained two elements state aid
good over individual freedoms. and the power of enforcement which was held in reserve in order
In many respects, the Polish eugenics movement was close to to defend the collective interest. Thus neither the eugenicists nor
the Scandinavian model. As in Denmark, Norway and Sweden, the sex reformers saw any contradiction in the fact that they sat
eugenics was supported by left-wing and liberal welfare state on the committee for building community housing for workers,
advocates (Broberg & Roll-Hansen, 1996). The vast majority of and at the same time on the committee which considered bringing
eugenicists proposed raising benefits for citizens and intervention- in compulsory sterilization by the state. The eugenics of the inter-
ism in the economy (state endowments for young couples and tax war years was thus not limited to questions of procreation. It pre-
benefits for fit families). Contributors to Questions of Race (Zagad- sented a certain enlightenment, or in the words of Zygmunt
nienia Rasy) did not conceal their aversion to free-market competi- Bauman  a garden vision of the world which proposed a radical so-
tion. In their opinion,  free-market egoism leads to  human capital cial transformation (Bauman, 1989). The improvement of society
being wasted and  the labor force being exploited (Gawin, 2007, p. by compulsory sterilisation was not seen as an act of violence or
178). Advocates of eugenics sought to introduce a rational system mutilation, but merely as a desirable intervention as a step to-
of economic management, best guaranteed by government admin- wards the creation of a new social order. Sex reformers, on the
istration, in place of  free-market chaos . Such ideas stood in sharp other hand, despite seeing the danger of eugenic social correction,
contrast to the vision of the nationalist camp, which combated preferred, as Bertrand Russell (1929) wrote,  the tyranny of science
state intervention policy and promoted free competition as a mat- to the  tyranny of religion . This recognition that scientific interven-
ter of principle. tion was the only appropriate response to the influence of the
It was the cautiously progressive character of Polish eugenics Church in society inclined them towards the brutal methods of
that was the most important factor in bringing about close rela- eugenics.
tions with the birth control movement in Poland during the In terms of political influence the eugenicists, who represented
1930s. Moreover, it seems that the Polish sex reformers to some one of the largest scientific societies in interwar Poland, suffered a
extent agreed with the eugenic need for social selection, which total defeat. While seemingly concerned with social issues, they
in those times symbolized the rational modernisation of society. supplied essentially political tools for achieving their ends. Had it
The eugenicists promised to make up for the delay in moderniza- been adopted, the use of compulsory sterilisation in regions of
tion resulting from the annexations of the previous period. And mixed nationality (with greater emphasis on Ukrainians who were
both eugenicists and sex reformers favoured the idea of rationali- attempting to build their own nation state than on Jews who
zation, not only in the area of reproduction, but on other levels sought cultural autonomy), would have been a barbaric solution
of social living. Both circles popularized the rational planning of to ethnic issues. And yet what prevented that horror from happen-
city gardens, the modern architecture of Le Corbusier, and the min- ing? It is unlikely that the Church was the main player in upsetting
imalist aesthetics of interior design. The PES introduced profes- the eugenicists plans to regenerate society. The more likely reason
sional counselling, care of mother and child and worked with behind the eugenicists defeat lay in politics. During the 1930s the
women s organizations in fighting procurement and prostitution. ruling Sanacja had an overriding policy to combat extremism,
Careful analysis of both movements shows that the eugenics both social and political. The symbol of this policy was Bereza Kar-
movement carried more weight than that of sexual reform, despite tuska, a political prison where national activists, fascist and com-
the fact that its aims were far more radical and explicitly called for munist radicals people who did not stop short of using terrorist
compulsory enforcement. Eugenicists also made use of state funds. methods were incarcerated. The distinguished professors of the
The Eugenics Society, its books and leaflets, published as part of the PES did not fit this category, nor did they seek to act outside exist-
Eugenic Library, were financed by public funds. At the same time ing law and order. And yet the Sanacja s categorical and unanimous
the conscious birth clinics which were criticised in the national rejection of a number of sterilisation bills was integral to the same
press were self-funded. On a national scale, local eugenic societies fight against extremism.
outnumbered local associations promoting Neomalthusianism. In
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