EN
The aim of this article is to provide a historical overview of the problem of efficient regional politics as related to interregional politics, i.e. the spatial policy of the country. The analysis and the evaluation of regional politics and changes in spatial structure should take account of the political, social and economic conditions existing in the periods of development. In Poland of the interwar period, in the second Republic of Poland, the regional politics was very effective due to the fact that the objectives of a plan and an investment programme together with its spatial aspect constituted an integrated whole. After World War II, when Poland's political and economic sovereignty was limited, a planned economy was mainly based on five-year and annual investment plans, taking a department and a sector into consideration. Directional long-range plans (for 20 years) had been worked out since 1958. The plans formulated separately the principles of spatial and locational policy. These principles did not affect the question of the purposefulness and megalomania of central investments. The regional politics focused on territorial planning and on the procedure for determining locations for the investments of the central plan. It aimed at reducing the interregional discrepancies in socio-economic development. However, its implementation was restricted by the processes of concentrations in industry, the decreasing number of new investments and the diminishing freedom to choose locations. Despite existing constraints, it should be noted that the regional politics did have effects in the past three economic decades, mentioned in the article. Historical process shows that the effective regional politics is conditioned by its close relationship to economic policy, high economic growth and regional diagnostic conditions.