PL 1: Józef Piłsudski, Polish freedom fighter

Following c.865 years of existence as a state power on the European stage, and also following 23 years of territorial losses, in 1795 Poland disappeared entirely from the political map. In 1918, after the First World War, and after 123 years of simultaneous partition by three separate empires – Russia, Germany, and Austria – the ancient Polish nation regained its independence.

This essay is a hagiography of the Polish independence movement’s protagonist Józef Piłsudski, and it will broadly outline of how that independence was achieved. Certain complexities of the wider movement and society have been deliberately overlooked in this essay. These will be explored in a future essay, and their omission on this occasion will allow an element of contrast with the follow-up piece.

 

 

 

A colourful character
 

In 1918 Józef Piłsudski became the first head of state of the newly independent Polish Republic. He had dedicated his entire life up to that point to politics. He was born in 1867, in what is now Lithuania, and what was then the Russian Empire. His father had taken part in the failed 1863-64 uprising, and young Józef would follow in his father’s footsteps.

 

The educational curriculum of the school which he attended was largely preoccupied with facilitating a Russian assimilation programme. However, Józef and his older brother Bronisław Piłsudski brothers set up an extracurricular Polish-language self-education club. They are pictured together here aged 17 and 18.

 

Józef’s education was cut short, due to his medical college throwing him out due to his anti-Tsarist actions. Subsequently, not long after his 19^th birthday, he was exiled to Siberia for 5 years for his ties to an assassination plot on the Tsar. This had been organised by his older brother Bronisław – a fascinating character in his own right – as well as Vladimir Lenin’s older brother, Aleksandr Ulyanov. Whilst in exile, Józef befriended the Polish diaspora, participated in prisoner revolts, and worked as a teacher.

 

After his release from Siberian exile in his mid-20s, Józef became an organiser and then a leader in the nascent Polish Socialist Party during the 1890s. Most, if not all, other political parties within the Russian state did not advocate Polish independence. Piłsudski steered his party towards a firm position on Polish independence, at a time when other groups contented themselves with notions of improved Polish regional autonomy.

 

In 1896, Piłsudski represented the party at the 4th Congress of the Second Socialist International held in London. It is worth remembering that the First International, led by Marx and Engels, 1864-76, emerged in the context of the failed Polish Uprising of 1863-64. In a spirit of anti-imperialism, both of these Internationals supported Polish independence. That said, the support was a split rather than a unanimous decision, on which more in the follow up essay.

 

In 1900, Piłsudski was arrested in Łódź for producing socialist publications, as well as the alleged murder of two spies. Here is his mugshot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Following transportation to the Warsaw Citadel where he was to await trial, he faked insanity, and was consequently sent to a hospital in Saint Petersburg. Just over a year after his arrest, comrades were able to organise his escape from that hospital, largely thanks to an onside Polish Socialist doctor. After this escape, Piłsudski resided in Austrian Poland, and then in London.

 

In February 1904, war broke out in the far east over the competing imperial ambitions of Russia and Japan. The Polish Socialists immediately sought to establish ties with the Japanese embassies in London and Paris. When this failed, Piłsudski and a comrade Filipowicz travelled from London, through North America and Hawaii, to Japan. They negotiated with the Japanese Imperial Government in Tokyo, to whom they offered to provide military intelligence secrets. They also offered to organise a Polish Legion to fight against Russia, which would be formed from the Polish deserters and prisoners-of-war who had been conscripted into the Russian army. Furthermore, they offered to raise an uprising in Poland, thereby opening up conflicts for the Russian regime in both the east and the west. In return they sought Japanese support for the Polish cause during a future peace conference, as well as funding for the newly proposed Combat Organisation of the Polish Socialist Party.

 

The Japanese government offered a smaller sum of money than expected and rejected the proposal of a Polish Legion. Some additional funding came from the Japanese Socialist Party. That the scheme was only a partial success can at least in part be attributed to the presence of right-wing Polish nationalist Roman Dmowski in Japan, who argued against the Polish Socialists’ proposals.

 

Coincidentally, Józef’s brother Bronisław, having stayed in the far east after his 15-year exile to Siberia, was also in Japan at this time, where he went on to conduct anthropological research amongst the Ainu people. I have seen no evidence either way as to whether the brothers’ paths may have crossed in Japan, or indeed ever again. It is a possibility though, particularly considering that while in Japan Bronisław was associated with Japanese Marxists and anti-Tsarist Russian refugees.

 

Upon Józef Piłsudski’s return to Poland from Japan, the Polish Socialist Party began to concentrate most of their energies on the Combat Organisation and other paramilitary groups. This direction represented the first instance of Polish freedom fighters openly carrying arms since the failed 1863-64. The strategy of armed struggle was condemned by Dmowski’s right-wing Polish nationalist party, but nonetheless dominated the Polish independence movement up until independence was actually achieved some 14 or 15 years later.

 

The Russo-Japanese war, which Russia lost, ended in September 1905 after 19 months. Overlapping with that war, a revolution broke out in Russia in January 1905. It would go on for nearly 2.5 years. During that revolution, activities conducted by the Polish Socialists included protection of workers’ demonstrations, assassinations of tsarist dignitaries and police, train robberies, and prisoner escape plots.

 

The First World War

When the First World War broke out in August 1914, Poland found itself in a new set of circumstances. The three empires which had partitioned Poland were each now at war; Austria-Hungary and Germany together on one side (as the Central Powers), against Russia, allied with the UK and France (as the Entente).

 

Various paramilitaries and ‘rifle sport clubs’ were amalgamated under Piłsudski’s leadership to form the Polish Legions, numbering 12,000 men at the outbreak of the war, and 20,000 within weeks. With the backing of the Polish Socialist Party, the Polish Legions agreed to serve on the side of the Central Powers.

 

Whilst many Poles were conscripted into the militaries of each of the 3 partitioners, but the Polish Legions are marked by their clear political purpose. The Polish Legion’s services to the Central Powers were conducted on the understanding that Austria and Germany would later stand aside and permit meaningful political Polish autonomy. The Polish Legions constituted such a small proportion of the full Central Powers’ forces. With this in mind, many Poles felt that the political leverage for the Polish cause outweighed the price.

 

Soon after the initial outbreak of war, the German army seized Russian-controlled Poland in late 1914. In an attempt to quickly resolve the Polish national question, German and Austrian policymakers set up a 'Kingdom of Poland' in that territory in 1916. Piłsudski joined its ‘Council of State’ and became the head of its military department. A new army was to be set up; the Polnische Wehrmacht. Piłsudski demanded assurances that they would not be used as German 'colonial troops', or against the French or British. With no assurances forthcoming he recognised that the Kingdom of Poland was a mere puppet state. He therefore resigned and was subsequently arrested.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sketch by Józef Rapacki.

 

 

 

 

Prior to his arrest, Piłsudski oversaw the ‘oath crisis’ in July 1917. The Polish Legions were ordered to swear an oath of allegiance to the German Emperor, but Piłsudski successfully convinced a majority to refuse. Some of them were photographed with ‘downed tools’, see below. Those with Austro-Hungarian citizenship were demoted to the rank of private and drafted to the frontlines. Those with German or Russian citizenship were interred as prisoners of war. This did not throw the Polish movement into complete disarray because other, more clandestine military organisations continued. For example, the Polska Organizacja Wojskowa which had also been led by Piłsudski until his arrest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 1918, a socialist revolution in Germany achieved the transition to a republican system and a withdrawal from the imperialist World War. The Austrian also collapsed in 1918, widening the vacuum for Poland (and other nations) to fill.

 

The Polish independence movement took the cue, swiftly prepared to mobilise, and then went onto conduct a military insurrection, the Greater Poland Uprising, which commenced on the 27^th December 1918 in German-held Poznań. By the 15^th of January 1919, Poles had taken control of most of the Wielkopolska (Greater Poland) region.

 

German socialists released Piłsudski from prison. He returned to Poland and became the head of state and announced that ‘the Polish state has arisen from the will of the whole nation'. After 123 years, Poland had achieved its independence!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Painting by Zdzisław Beksiński.