Opposition and Failure
The opponents to the Patriotic Party were mostly grouped in the Hetmans' Party (Stronnictwo hetmańskie), and included Hetmans Stanisław Szczęsny Potocki, Franciszek Ksawery Branicki and Seweryn Rzewuski. They formed the Targowica Confederation in defense of the traditional Golden Liberties and the Cardinal Laws, and called on the Russian Empire for assistance. Empress Catherine II of Russia readily obliged, as she saw the Constitution as a threat to Russian influence in the Commonwealth, and a possible long-term danger to absolute monarchy in Russia itself.
After the War in Defense of the Constitution, which was won by the Confederates and their Russian allies, the Patriotic Party's principal leaders – Kołłątaj, Potocki, Małachowski – emigrated abroad, where they prepared the ground for the Kościuszko Uprising of 1794. The subsequent failure of that Uprising in turn led to the Third Partition of Poland, ending the existence of the Commonwealth. The Patriotic Party's attempts to reform the Commonwealth thus ultimately brought about its total demise.
Read more about this topic: Patriotic Party
Famous quotes containing the words opposition and/or failure:
“Except for poverty, incompatibility, opposition of parents, absence of love on one side and of desire to marry on both, nothing stands in the way of our happy union.”
—Cyril Connolly (19031974)
“Human beings are compelled to live within a lie, but they can be compelled to do so only because they are in fact capable of living in this way. Therefore not only does the system alienate humanity, but at the same time alienated humanity supports this system as its own involuntary masterplan, as a degenerate image of its own degeneration, as a record of peoples own failure as individuals.”
—Václav Havel (b. 1936)