Lepper, the idea to create a trade union, and then a political movement, was born after a meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Leszek Balcerowicz in the autumn of 1991: "Everything that happened afterwards - with me and Samoobrona - I therefore owe, to some extent, to that two hours long conversation of 10 years ago".

[82] The beginnings of Samoobrona activity date to Lepper's home village Darłowo, which has been plunged into poverty between 1989 and 1991 as a result of the neoliberal Balcerowicz Plan, which dismantled the socialist economy in Poland in favor of a capitalist free-market one.

[2] In front of the Darlowo town hall on 24 September, farmers put up unpaid agricultural equipment, having fallen into a spiral of debt due to the introduction of variable interest rates as part of the implementation of Balcerowicz's reform plan.

The list of the Provincial Farmers' Self-Defence Committee (Polish: Wojewódzki Komitet Samoobrony Rolników) opened by the party's leader received only 3,247 votes in constituency number 21, covering the then Koszalin and Słupsk voivodeships.

[91] Samoobrona repeated slogans about the corruption of power, disregard for peasants and workers, accused the government of stealing Polish land and property and selling it to international capitalists, while Lepper also spoke of Poles starving in small towns and villages - pensioners, the unemployed, farmers.

The prosecution proceedings initiated in this case ended in a failure after less than a year: when Lepper was returning from a trade union congress in India, he was spectacularly arrested after crossing the border in Kudowa (4 April 2000) and then released after three hours.

The main concept behind the socialist coalition was almost identical to Samoobrona's goal as a political party - to represent social groups that had been hurt by the capitalist transformation in Poland, which Ikonowicz listed as farmers, workers, pensioners, and students.

[114] The involvement of Piotr Tymochowicz's professional image creation company resulted, among other things, in a more attractive appearance for Andrzej Lepper (a solarium tan to mask blushing in moments of nervousness, well-tailored suits).

The Self-Defence candidates appeared in the media wearing distinctive white and red ties, which not only made political identification easier for the voters, but also encouraged them to perceive the party as a strong and cohesive patriotic team.

[27] Among their numerous exploits there are such diverse incidents as using their own loudspeakers after being cut off for exceeding the permitted time, or claiming that the largest opposition party (Civic Platform) met with members of the Taliban in Klewki (a village near Olsztyn) to sell them anthrax.

Some experts, such as the Lithuanian sociologist Zenonas Norkus, assert that the operation was a political move by Jarosław Kaczyński, who already planned to end the coalition and needed a reason that implicating Lepper in bribery activities would give him.

All three heads of Telewizja Polska (Szwedo, Szatkowski, Orzeł) were associated with the Law and Justice party - the informal arrangement assumed that the position of TVP president went to PiS, and of two vice-presidents - to Samoobrona and Democratic Left Alliance.

[146] In the end, Lepper won 1.28% of the popular vote and did not make it to the second round; he offered to endorse one of the main presidential candidates, Kaczyński and Komorowski, and wrote to them asking for their opinions on increasing the minimum wage, raising pensions and annuities, as well as their agricultural policy and international affairs.

Polish political scientist Rafał Chwedoruk praised this decision, arguing that a coalition with AGROunia would help the Civic Platform appeal to rural voters, who hitherto considered the party elitist and urban-centric.

[79] German political scientist Nikolaus Werz described Samoobrona as an anti-globalization and anti-capitalist party that promotes protectionist, socialist and nationalist policies, combined with "a noticeable nostalgia for the People's Republic of Poland".

The party's program proposes a 'great national programme of economic revival', marked by a retreat from "satanic values" defined as the pursuit of maximum profits, getting rich, ruthless competition, degenerate consumerism, total commercialisation and contempt for the weak.

[204] According to Luke March, the party promoted a radical anti-globalisation and anti-neoliberal rhetoric and closely embraced trade unions, with the resulting economic program being an agrarian socialist and left-wing populist vision.

Samoobrona promoted a highly interventionist system and wanted to replace materialism and consumerism with a closer relationship with the natural environment, including "the preservation of small-scale family farms and a humane treatment of animals".

[255] Political scientists Michael Minkenberg and Pascal Perrineau noted that while Samoobrona evades easy programmatic classification on social issues, a part of its agrarian appeal and "common-man" identity was built on nationalism, "cultural traditionalism" and authoritative protectionism.

According to Piskorski, given the presence of a number of features which would indeed make it possible to classify the party into the Eurorealist camp (an ambivalent attitude to the accession, the secondary role of this issue in programme pronouncements, variability of rhetoric resulting from the assessment of the mood of the electorate), "such self-identification seems to be largely justified".

Describing the party, German political scientist Nikolaus Werz wrote that Samoobrona "rejects globalisation, criticises the free market economy and strikes a protectionist, socialist and nationalist tone.

In numerous party programme documents issued over the course of several years, there were frequent references to the achievements of John Paul II and attempts to interpret Polish socio-economic reality in terms of the pope's proposed ethical standards.

The party promoted an utopian vision of "Polish socialism" based on small family farms, rural co-operatives, an end to the exploitation of the countryside and nationalised industry, with peasants being considered the "healthiest element of society, both biologically and morally".

The party's program from 2003 also stated: "The Self-Defence of the Republic of Poland is guided by the social teaching of the Church and fully shares the indications of the greatest moral authority of our times, Pope John Paul II, contained in his encyclicals".

The post-1989 socioeconomic situation in Poland was described as "socio-economic satanism" or "economic genocide", and the party manifesto read: "All the tragedies that the Poles are experiencing ... are the consequence of the loss of their own sovereignty and the subordination of the country to foreign interests, as carried out by a group of venal politicians who, thanks to political fraud and by lying to the Polish people, have been able to make their own decisions.

Given the much higher level of religiosity in rural areas, Samoobrona's leaders often appeared at religious ceremonies without political risk and even gained some support, for example on the occasion of the Jasna Góra Harvest Festival.

[317] Party's program promoted the concepts of "eco-development" and "econology", which were described as replacement of consumerism and materialism in favour of "a closer relationship with the natural environment, the preservation of small-scale family farms and a humane treatment of animals".

[321] Environmental activism of Samoobrona and AWI bore fruit in July 2000, when Polish Minister of Agriculture, Artur Balazs, declared that the government will oppose Smithfield's plans to introduce corporate farming in Poland.

It urged environmentalists activists to solidarize with Polish farmers and not "divide trade unions into right and wrong", and to fight climate change and environmental destruction in alliance with the disadvantaged rather than for the "interests of the import lobby".

[375] Selbstverteidiung used a left-wing and populist-socialist rhetoric that mimicked the one of Samoobrona, demanding a new economic system in Germany that would create conditions for "ordinary people to live with dignity", and decrying the capitalist order as one that divided society into "very poor and very rich".