IN Łódź, Poland's second-largest city and main textile centre, city council elections were held on 27 September 1936. It was the fifth municipal election held in Poland since the nation had regained its independence, although it was only the second under the statute establishing a partial change in the municipal government's political system (passed on 23 March 1933). The first election under this statute took place on 27 May 1934. It represented the triumph of the Polish National camp, which earned 98,461 votes out of 219,638 cast. This gave the nationalists 39 of the 72 city council seats. Even the victors were surprised at the scale of their success: National Party support had increased sixteenfold since the parliamentary election of 1930. In fact, the party had not prepared a full list of councillors.

This municipal election resulted in a painful defeat for leftist workers. The Polska Partia Socjalystyczna (PPS: Polish Socialist Party), in alliance with the Bund and the Deutsche Sozialistische Arbeitspartei (DSAP: German Social Democratic Workers’ Party), secured only 27,352 votes, which gave them just seven seats on the city council. The Communists (listed thirteenth on the ballot sheet), whose candidates won 19,203 votes, failed to secure a single city council seat after the authorities had declared their list invalid. The electoral results alarmed labour circles and the Polish left, especially because this poor showing had occurred in the very city in which the Socialists had been brought to power six years earlier by the elections of 9 May 1927. It was they who grieved most over the election.

The election fixed for 27 September 1936 had thus aroused general interest in Poland. Everyone waited to see how the Łódź electorate would behave; the vacillation of the Łódź electorate was of interest not only to contemporaries but also to scholars over the years. Notwithstanding, few studies have appeared concerning the city council or the 1936 election, although the latter, as a significant event of the 1930s, has been alluded to in general histories, monographs, and regional studies.

What made the municipal elections in Łódź even more the subject of tense anticipation was the fact that the voters had given municipal authority to the National Democrats in May 1934.