Russian tsarina Catherine the Great had issued the approval for the sejm confederation a while ago, at a point she was considering that the successful conclusion of this Sejm may be necessary if Russia would need Polish aid in the fight against the Ottoman Empire. Stanisław Małachowski, a statesman respected both by most factions, was elected as the Marshal of the Sejm. Many supporters of the reforms were gathered in the Patriotic Party. This group received support from all strata of Polish-Lithuanian society, from societal and political elites, including some aristocratic magnates, through Piarist and Enlightened Catholics, to the radical left. The Party's conservative, or right, wing, led by progressive magnates such as Ignacy Potocki, his brother Stanisław Kostka Potocki and Prince Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski, sought alliance with Prussia and advocated opposing King Poniatowski. The Patriotic Party's centrists, including Stanisław Małachowski, wished accommodation with the King. The liberal left wing (the Polish Jacobins), led by Hugo Kołłątaj (hence also known as "Kołłątaj's Forge"), looked for support to the people of Warsaw. While King Poniatowski also supported some reforms, he was initially not allied with this faction, represented by Potocki, who preferred a republican form of a government. Events in the world appeared to play into the reformers' hands. Poland's neighbors were too occupied with wars to intervene forcibly in Poland, with Russia and Austria engaged in hostilities with the Ottoman Empire (the Russo-Turkish War and the Austro-Turkish War); the Russians also found themselves fighting Sweden (the Russo-Swedish War). At first, King Poniatowski and some reformers hoped to gain Russian support for the reforms; they attempted to draw Poland into the Austro-Russian alliance, seeing a war with the Ottomans as an opportunity to strengthen the Commonwealth. Due to internal Russian politics, this plan was not implemented. Spurned by Russia, Poland turned to another potential ally, the Triple Alliance, represented on the Polish diplomatic scene primarily by the Kingdom of Prussia. This line of reasoning gained support from Polish politicians such as Ignacy Potocki and Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski. With the new Polish-Prussian alliance seeming to provide security against Russian intervention, King Poniatowski drew closer to leaders of the reform-minded Patriotic Party. This alliance was also helped as the 1790 elections were more supportive of the royal faction then Potocki's; and the conservative faction gained enough new seats to threaten the reformers if they were to stay divided. With the mediation of Scipione