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SHORT NOTES

Robert Witalec, Spółdzielczość kredytowa systemu Schulzego w Małopolsce w latach 1873-1939 [Credit Co-operatives of the Schulze System in Lesser Poland in 1873-1939], Rzeszów-Warszawa 2008, Muzeum Historii Polskiego Ruchu Ludowego w Warszawie, Instytut Pamięci Narodowej. Oddział w Rzeszowie, 294 pp., tables, index

The book prescnts the development of credit co-operatives of the Schulze system which, alongside the Reiffeisen co-operatives, was another type of organized co-operative movement. Franz Herman Schulze, a lawyer from Saxony and a mcmber of the Prussian parliament, was one of the initiators of mutual-aid co-operatives. They developcd in Galicia after 1873 when the law on profit-making and economic companies camc into force, for the law madę it easier to set up new firms. The introductory chapter provides generał information on the socio-economic conditions in Galicia and the forms of the population’s organizations. The next two parts depict the credit co-operatives, their legał foundations and structural changes up to 1918 and in the Second Republic. The author compares the dcvclopment and results of the Schulze system co-operatives with those of the co-operativcs of the Reiffeisen type. He shows the participation of auditing unions in the work of co-operatives (it differed in each system) and the role played by the State in their consolidation. The book is based on documents from the Archivcs of Modern Records in Warsaw and the State Archives in Rzeszów. (OL)

Włodzimierz Mich, Wyzyskiwacze przeciwko wywrotowcom. Walka Związku Ziemian ze Związkiem Robotników Rolnych Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej w latach 1919-1926 [Exploiters against Subverters: The Fight Conducted by the Landowners’ Union in 1919-1926 against the Union of Agricultural Workers of the Polish Republic], Lublin 2008, UMCS, 245 pp., index of persons

During the last few years Włodzimierz Mich has been conducting research on Polish landowners in the Second Republic. His previous book (The Landowners’ Union in Warsaw [1916-1926]’, Lublin), published in 2007, depicted the development of the Landowners’ Union, an organization set up on the basis of the Landowners’ Mu-tual-Aid Society, which had existed for a year in the Congress Kingdom of Poland. The author wanted to reconstruct the strategy used by the Landowners’ Union to regulate relations between employers and farm-hands. The book covcrs the years between the outbreak of agricultural strikes at the beginning of the inter-war period and the verdict of the Supremę Administrative Tribunal of March 1926, which laid the legał foundations for the regulation of labour relations. After a radicalization of relations in 1920 and 1921, the trade unions slackened their activity and the moods calmed down. The workers’organizations, including the Trade Union of Agricultural Workers (ZZRR), the advcrsary of the Landowners’ Union, strengthened their organizational structures. Both sides tried to secure