Political changes after 1935

The death of Piłsudski created a major crisis for the régime he had created. Although ill and unable to take any real part in government in the last years of his life, Piłsudski personified an ultimate authority which could settle all disputes over the direction of policy and which could preserve the unity of the heterogeneous groups which supported him. His death thus forced into the open the deep divisions within the Sanacja because there was no one among his followers who could assume his mantle. This was immediately evident in the crisis over the succession. On a number of occasions Piłsudski had informed his entourage that the office of president, with the vast powers it enjoyed under the new constitution, was to be held by Walery Sławek, who had again become prime minister at the end of March 1935. Sławek, the marshal's closest confidant, was not a happy choice. A man of irreproachable honour and decency, he was politically naive and quite unfitted for the heavy responsibilities of power. He was accustomed to implementing Piłsudski's instructions without question and was shattered by his idol's death. Alexander Prystor, who was deputed by the inner group of colonels to rouse him from his inactivity in the tense period after Piłsudski's funeral, remarked that he believed even then that ‘ Walery at a moment's notice would reach for the telephone to ask the commander for an appointment’.

Sławek's obvious incapacity caused President Mościcki to resist the pressure of Piłsudski's inner circle to resign his office.