"The Career of Marshal Pilsudski" by W. Henrici
From the magazine Osteuropa, May 1931 issue, Vol. 6, No. 8
In the Red Square in Moscow, opposite Lenin's mausoleum, stands the monument to Prince Dimitri Mikhailovich Pozharsky and the Nizhny Novgorodian starost, the butcher Kuzma Minin. These two men were the saviours of the Muscovite Empire from the Poles in the early 17th century. A Polish army had conquered Smolensk and Moscow and occupied the Kremlin. The Poles were not far from their goal of expanding their empire from Poznań to Moscow. Then the national and religious counter-movement began, led by Minin and Pozharsky, who succeeded in pushing back the Poles after months of fighting. At that time Moscow's pressure on Poland was felt and since then it has been increasing until finally, under Catherine II, it became so powerful that Poland disappeared from the map. Among the Poles living today, there is hardly anyone who resisted Russian pressure as energetically as Joseph Pilsudski.
He comes from a Lithuanian1 noble family that lived near Vilna2. When Pilsudski was born on March 19, 1867 in Zulow3, his father's castle was in the Vilna governorate. Little Joseph was Russian, not Polish. The governorate of Vilna was part of the “western region” of Russia. Russians, Lithuanians and Poles have disputed it for centuries. The Russians claim that this area already belonged to the first Russian state, that the population professes to the Greek Orthodox Church and is related to them. The Poles gained this land in the 14th century by uniting Poland with Lithuania. They have since endeavored to polonise these areas. They succeeded in attracting noble Polish settlers there and in polonising the native Lithuanian nobility. It is worth noting that Pilsudski comes from such a polonised Lithuanian noble family. Pilsudski inherited from his ancestor characteristics that are generally foreign to Poles: tenacious adherence to a decision once made, ruthless execution, putting oneself aside and overcoming all obstacles that stood in the way.
He himself tells how his mother read to the listening children in the twilight hours from works of Polish poets, and how his imagination was seized by the pictures of a great independent Poland, as it existed a hundred years ago. The aversion to everything Russian increased when the family gave up the estate due to financial collapse and moved to Vilna. At the grammar school there, Joseph had to wear the uniform of a Russian student. In dealings with teachers and students he was only allowed to speak Russian. Everywhere only Russian influence could be seen: Russian officials, Russian administration, Russian railways and Russian churches. The boy clung all the more to Polish memories. The fact that he was only allowed to read the beloved Polish poets secretly in hiding only strengthened their influence. Thus the young man had become a fanatical Pole and a hater of Russia. It is therefore not surprising that in Kharkov, where he was to study medicine, he was more concerned with politics than with studies. He was 20 years old when Russian conspirators thought they had found a useful tool in him. They suggested that he take part in an assassination attempt against the tsar. Pilsudski refused. He didn't care about tsarism, fighting the tsar or the ruling regime. All he cared about was the fight against Russia, its complete dissolution, which in his opinion alone could bring independence to Poland.
Although Pilsudski did not participate in the plan to assassinate the Tsar, he was exiled to Siberia for five years. Like so many conspirators, he used this time to study and ponder how the undermined plans could be brought to fruition. When Pilsudski returned to Vilna in 1892, he joined the “Polish Socialist Party” (Polska Partja Socjalistyczna, P.P.S. for short) that had been founded in Paris shortly before. He had to promote his idea of liberating Poland from Russia. In his opinion, the workers and peasants, who were mostly dissatisfied with their lot, were easier to win over than the bourgeoisie4, who were in favor of a compromise with Russia in order not to lose the large Russian market.
It is not widely understood that Pilsudski, against whom workers and peasants are now united in opposition, once belonged to their party. One understands it when one realizes that Pilsudski's aim was not to spread Marxist ideas but to arouse indignation against Russia. So Pilsudski becomes the editor of the socialist party newspaper “Robotnik.” He manages to evade Russian efforts for years. With a thousand lists5 he knew how to hide the printing and distribution of his paper from the Russian police until one day (1900) he was arrested. He plays the idiot, waits for his chance and finally flees to Galicia under adventurous circumstances. Here is his field of work from now on. As his compatriot, Poland's greatest poet Adam Mickiewicz, had sung: “Give us a total war6, O Lord, for the freedom of the people!”, Pilsudski wanted to ensure that a Polish army was ready at the right time to meet Poland's claims to assert independence. He begins to train riflemen, to organize small combat troops, “insurgents.”
When Russia's war with Japan broke out, Pilsudski went to Tokyo and proposed to the Japanese government that they fight with him against Russia. While Japan is attacking in the far east, Pilsudski wants to unleash insurrection in the rear of Russia. But strange: Pilsudki's bourgeois Polish opponent, Roman Dmowski7, appears in Tokyo. He also wants an independent Poland, but is striving towards this goal in a different way. As Pilsudski is against Russia, Roman Dmowski wants to create an independent Poland with Russia. Pilsudski's adventurous plans didn't follow through in Japan. He returns to Galicia. The revolution of 1905 gave new impetus to his plans. Now he begins creating “combat detachments” (Bojówka) and intensifying propaganda for the creation of a Polish army. It was a bold decision. Pilsudski found some support in the Polish Socialist Party, where there had been a strong patriotic current from the start. “To preach renunciation of patriotism is to encourage suicide,” wrote the Polish socialist Simanowski8. It was then that the concept of “the Pilsudski camp” was formed for the first time. This term has undergone some changes up to the present. In 1903 it meant the struggle for Poland's independence from Russia. Pilsudski was opposed by the National Democrats and the Left Socialists. Rosa Luxemburg said: “Even the most extravagant imagination of a coffee house politician9 cannot imagine that Poland's independence could emerge from a war between the German federal state and Russia.”
Pilsudski disagreed. Like many of his compatriots, he sensed the great, uncanny fate of 1914 in advance. Anglo-German and Russo-Austrian antagonisms became increasingly clear. Just as Henryk Dabrowski10 founded the Polish legions that fought under Napoleon's flags on all battlefields for Poland's independence, so Pilsudski wanted to forge a sword that would be available to Poland at the decisive moment. In 1908 he founded shooting clubs11 in Galicia. The Polish military movement gradually spread to all Galician cities, among Polish youth, at foreign universities and in the United States. Pilsudski founded the military magazine “The Rifleman” and issued the slogan: “Imperial Protection12 and an Army.” When war broke out in 1914, after all the described preparations Pilsudski was able to raise Polish legions quickly.
Polish troops were formed for the first time since the partitions. Pilsudski wanted to show the world that the Polish nation was alive and ready to fight for its future. In the autumn he moved from Galicia to Congress Poland with his legions and issued an appeal that said: “Poland has ceased to be a slave and wants to decide its own fate, wants to build its own future.” There was great appeal in these words, but they announced a tremendous danger for the Central Powers, especially for Germany. A victorious Polish general, supported by his troops, could make demands on German territory that Germany could never voluntarily meet if it did not want to destroy itself. “We could not hold the Rhine with an independent Poland behind us,” Prince Bismarck once said. It was inevitable that friction would arise between the Central Powers. During the Polish troops’ New Year's parade, the German governor-general proclaimed: “Long live our ally, the Kingdom of Poland.”
Pilsudski saw in the legions the germ of a national Polish army, the living symbol of an independent Poland. The Central Powers saw in the legions an increase in their armed forces in the fight against the Entente. Only when the battle was victorious could the Polish question be resolved. The contrast between the two views was too great. What had to come came: Pilsudski and his legions refused to swear the oath of allegiance to the two emperors. The danger was that Pilsudski would use his influence to stir up unrest among the allies. He was therefore arrested on July 22, 1917 and taken first to Wesel and then to the Magdeburg Fortress. The man whom the tsar had banished to Siberia was in German custody. From now on he was considered by the Poles to be the bearer of the idea of national liberation. One of his officers, General Haller13, escaped to France. There he continued Pilsudski's work of creating a Polish national army. The fact that France deployed Polish troops on its soil is so important for Pilsudski's subsequent conduct, from his release from German imprisonment to the present day, that it must be dealt with shortly. In the first years of the war France was prevented from raising the Polish question because of consideration for their Russian ally. Poland's rebirth was to take place under the scepter of the powerful tsar, as Grand Prince Nicholas Nikolayevich made his proclamation14 on August 14, 1914. After the February Revolution of 1917, the Provisional Government issued a proclamation to the Poles, in which they described in flaming words how the Russian people, who had thrown off their yoke, were now also calling on Poland for independence and freedom and were ready to give up Russian territory to the new state.
The way was now clear for France to create a Polish army on French soil. The Polish National Committee, which took its seat in Paris under the chairmanship of Dmowski, set itself the main task of organising a Polish armed force against Germany. General Joseph Haller, with the help of French officers, French weapons, equipment, clothing and money, trained the Polish army in France. The army was six divisions strong when it drove through Germany to Poland in 1919. Meanwhile, in November 1918, Pilsudski had arrived in Warsaw. The Regency Council put him in command of all Polish troops and on November 14, 1918 he was appointed head of state, i.e. dictator in this case. The Polish National Assembly gave its unanimous approval on November 20, 1919. Poland joined the ranks of the Allied and Associated States, and its representatives put their names under the Treaty of Versailles. This gave Pilsudski an enormous task. He was supposed to steer a state that had not grown organically, but was artificially composed of the parts of three great powers on the power of the “main powers.” Each of these parts had participated in the life of Germany, Austria-Hungary or Russia for 125 years. In economic, cultural, religious and linguistic respects, they differed from each other; they still clung with all their fibers to the state whose development they had helped for more than a century. Added to this is the geographic location of the new republic. It lies between Germany and the USSR in Eastern Europe. The role naturally falls to them of maintaining good relations with both countries and of being a mediator between East and West.
It took a very steady, skillful hand, and a clear, cool head to master the difficult task. Pilsudski wasn't the man for it. His thirst for action, his flaring temperament soon seduced him to act quickly. His march on Kiev literally brought the young republic to the brink of collapse. French help saved him. Against every right he occupied Vilna and did not give it up, despite the opposition of Europe. So Pilsudski didn't give the new state, which to a certain extent only existed on the map, time to develop, to unify the bickering forces. Inside there was still no state authority, no unified administration, no unified army. The country was devastated, industry almost completely destroyed. Bismarck once predicted the main evil. In the great Polish speech of March 18, 1867, he said: “One only has to think about the idea of restoring the Republic of Poland within the borders of 1772 to be convinced of its impracticability. It is an impossibility for the simple reason that there are not enough Poles for it.” A third of the inhabitants of the new republic are not Poles. If almost a million Germans left the young republic and today, after ten years of Poland's existence, the German minority has to assert its rights at the League of Nations, this can certainly be attributed to Pilsudski's violent measures. Since the coup d'état from May 12th to 14th, 192615, all power has been with him, because the army, 30 divisions, is loyal to its marshal, and the parliament has so far only led a sham existence.
The last elections decided against parliamentarism and for the dictator. Pilsudski is a soldier and politician. Undoubtedly, he has tremendous influence. His work can be felt everywhere in Poland. Often one has the impression that a fanatic has taken the wheel, undeterred, only following his own intuition. No wonder such a statesman emanates ever-growing unrest.
The Pilsudski family has been variously described as Polish or polonised Lithuanians, they had Lithuanian noble roots but had become polonised. Some Poles such as Adam Mickiewicz identified as Lithuanian, however this identity didn’t necessarily mean ethnically or culturally “Lithuanian” in the modern sense, but rather was an expression of the Commonwealth culture.
Vilnius, Lithuania.
Zalavas, Lithuania.
Bürger. I believe the usage of the term here as it’s alternate meaning of bourgeois is more apt than it’s literal meaning of “citizen.”
I’m not sure what lists the author is referring to here.
allgemeinen Krieg. Lit. “universal war”
Roman Dmowski, Polish nationalist who envisioned a homogenous Roman Catholic and strictly Polish Poland, versus Pilsudski’s dream of Intermarium.
I’m not sure what Simanowski the author is referring to.
At this time there were groups variously referred to as “coffee house politicians” or as Lenin said “teadrinkers,” who were criticised for simply meeting in cafes and writing papers, debating each other, rather than ever actually doing anything.
Jan Henryk Dabrowski, a Polish general and patriot who had formed Polish Legions to fight under Napoleon as early as 1795.
Schützenverbande. Could perhaps mean “armed groups,” but this term is typically used for rifle associations so I believe “shooting clubs” is the apt term here.
Reichsschutz.
Referring to the Manifesto to the Polish Nation.