Gmina

Details of the growth rates of individual gminy are in Skorowidz gmin Rzeczypospolitej Polski, Statystyka Polski GSU, Series B, pt. 1, no. 8 (Warsaw, 1933), p. 61.

The current administration withdrew the legislative proposal to create powaits but maintained the decision of the previous administration to move forward on a powait pilot program. The pilot program is limited to the 46 gminy with populations of nine than 100,000, which together account for about one-third of Poland’s population. The powiat pilot program was launched in January 1994. At that time, agreements with 43 gminy were in force, and gminy were responsible for education (35 gminy), secondary health (32), social welfare (19), and culture (30) (see box 2.5).

These institutions of self-government in the Polish countryside, initially designed to empower the peasantry at the expense of the manors, were gradually transformed into instruments of the ruling bureaucracy. Centralization and merger of gminy provided one means to this end. Of the 3,083 gminy in existence in 1864, only 1,287 remained forty years later. The contraction of gminy made it easier for centrally appointed county officials to interfere in local affairs.