Józef Piłsudski

Józef Klemens Piłsudski , born the December 5th 1867 with Zułów, close to Vilnius and dead the May 12th 1935 with Warsaw, was a Politician Polish, leader of the Polish Socialist party, Naczelnik państwa (Head of State, 1918-1922), Polish Prime Minister (1926-1928, then 1930), since 1920, Dictateur of the mode Sanacja , known as of the colonels during the Second Republic, of 1926 with its death.

Patriot and popular, it was regarded as the winner of the Russo-Polish Guerre (1919-1921), and of the fight for the independence of the Poland.

Biography

Youth

His/her father, Józef, had fought against the Russians during the Insurrection of January, in 1863. His/her mother, Maria Bilewiczówna, had initiated it with the Polish literature and patriotism as of her youth. He studies at the school of Vilnius.

In 1885, it studies medicine with the National university of Kharkiv, in Ukraine, then with Université of Tartu (Lithuania), and militates in the populist organization Narodniki, which is worth to him to be excluded from the university world in 1886. Another independence group that he attends, " Prolétariat" , east dissolves in 1885, and several of his/her comrades are condemned to death. It is at this period that it reads the revolutionary poet Polish Adam Mickiewicz, but also Karl Marx, even if its chauvinism makes him reject all Internationalisme.

With his Bronisław brother, it engages in a revolutionary cell of Saint-Petersbourg, Frakcji Terrorystycznej Narodnej Woli , to which the proper brother of Lénine belonged, Alexandre Oulianov. It ensures the hiding place of the tracked members, while its elder is in charge of the intendance of the weapons and the explosives. The March 13rd 1887, the tsar of Russia Alexandre III is aimed in an bomb attack, and a score of militants are stopped, of which Josef and Bronislaw.

He is condemned on May 1st 1887 to five years of forced labors (his/her brother at 15 years) which he carries out with Kirensk, close to Irkoutsk. The way lasts seven months, by the the Ural and Krasnoïarsk, by the railroad and partly with foot. It meets there his first partner, Leonarda Lewandowska. Even if its nobility allows him better conditions, Piłsudski organizes mutinies and hunger strikes. It is released weakened in 1892.

Years with the Polish Socialist party

On its return to Vilnius, it resumes studies of right, where it meets its future political, the nationalist Roman Dmwowski), and a second woman, socialist militant and divorced enemy Maria Juszkiewiczowa, born Koplewska.

The same year, it joined the Polish Socialist party (PS) lately created with Paris. The PS is then pulled about between nationalists and internationalist, and Józef Piłsudski takes party for the first quickly. Pilsudski then decides to publish a review with his/her friend Stanisław Wojciechowski, Robotnik (the workman), clandestinely printed in the suburbs of Vilnius. At the time of the second congress of the International worker held with Paris from July in August 1896, it defends with close relations like Ignacy Daszynski or Ignacy Mościcki, the independence of the Poland like vital requirement for the Polish workmen. The PS becomes officially nationalist then.

In February 1900, the Russian police force discovers in Vilnius the clandestine printing works of its newspaper, Robotnik , to which it contributed under a false name. He is initially condemned to 5 years of detention in Siberia, but simulates a mental disease and succeeds in being made intern in a psychiatric hospital of Saint-Petersbourg. He escapes some one year after, with the complicity of his wife, and from the PS, which cannot do without him, and hides with Łódź (then in the Empire Austro-Hungarian) under a false name. For its close relations, his detention with asylum would have affected its mental health: it seems become coleric and depressive.

Returned with Riga, it occupies one of the more top-ranking executives of the PS, but rejects more and more the socialism of Russian POSDR: the independence of Poland is paramount. It is impassioned for " the art of the guerre" , and discovers the theses of Carl von Clausewitz.

During the War Russo-Japanese woman (1904-1905), it goes to Tokyo, in the hope to carry out an alliance with the Japan, to start an insurrection against Nicolas II. But this initiative is prevented by its nationalist rival, Roman Dmowski, which is satisfied with a greater autonomy in the Russian Empire, rather than of a dubious independence.

Of return, Piłsudski goes to the Revolutionary Central committee of the party, which decides toughening of the party. Strikes are then organized, sometimes violent, like that of November 13rd, 1904 with Warsaw, to protest against the mobilization in the Russian army. It creates an armed militia, “Organizacja Bojowa PS” (fighting organization of the PS, OB-PPS), which is at the origin of attacks against Russian.

At the beginning of 1905, the 7th Congress of the PS is organized, and the “Young Wolves” of the party isolate Piłsudski, not sharing its independence point of view. With the congress of Vienna in 1906, the rupture is consumed between the partisans of Piłsudski is its opponents: this one creates the revolutionary PPF-Fraction (in particular with Tomasz Arciszewski and Kazimierz Pużak) keeping the newspaper Robotnik and “Organizacja Bojowa”, while the “young people” organize PPS-Lewice (which will join Rosa Luxemburg with the SDKPiL before creating the Polish Communist party). The movement being from now on in financial problems, Piłsudski will go even until personally implying on September 26th, 1906 in the attack of an armor-plated van with Bezdany (north-eastern of Vilnius). Among the team Aleksandra Szczerbińska was present, which will become his second wife (as of the death of its first, in 1921; Catholic Piłsudski being become again meanwhile). In 1909, it was proposed to him to be made initiate with the Franc-maçonnerie, which it refused.

In 1908, it re-elects armed organization OB-PPS in Związek Walki Czynnej (Union for the fight activates Union for the armed struggle, according to the translations, ZWC), divided into several local sections, among which: his with Cracow, and that of Władysław Sikorski with Lwów. The purpose of the goal of this paramilitary organization, more than to be the armed wing of the PS, was to form the future Polish army. In 1912, Piłsudski is elected with the head of the organization. In November 1912, the sections of Galicie as several clandestine parties local anti-Russian are linked with Vienna within a “provisional Commission of the independent and confédés parties”.

Józef Piłsudski de Kościesza (December 5th 1867 - May 12th 1935), marshal, noble Pole of family of Lithuania. Patriot, he was the father of the covering of the independence of Poland on November 11th, 1918.

He founded then was editor association of Robotnik (the Workman), newspaper of the Polish Socialist party. He created a revolutionary faction of the socialist party and fought for the independence of Poland, at the time divided between the Russia tsarist, the empire of Austria-Hungary and the Germany. Pilsudski had been an independence socialist revolutionist. It had represented its nation, Poland, with the congress of the International Socialist in London in 1896. It had claimed there, against Rosa Luxembourg, the right of Poland to the independence of Russia and Germany revolutionists.

Its political designs concerning Poland differed radically from those of future nationalist Roman Dmowski, who thought possible an autonomy in the Russian empire, or possibly an alliance with this one. Piłsudski, on the contrary, was in favor of alliance with Germany and the creation of the Fédération Międzymorze including/understanding the Poland, the Lithuania, the Bielorussia, and the Ukraine, State-plug between the Germany and the Russia.

After the First World War, it becomes the 1e President of Poland (Head of the State: Naczelnik Państwa) of 1918 with 1922. Craftsman of independence and sovereignty found of Poland. He fought actively against the Bolchevisme by pushing back the attack of the Russians in 1920. Starting from 1926, it takes again (and cumulates) functions in the government (Minister for the military businesses inter alia) and directs the Poland more and more towards a dictatorial mode, believer to protect the country from possible external aggressions (Germany, Soviet Union). Attending the rise of two totalitarianisms: Soviet then Nazi in Europe, Pilsudski tried as of 1933 to prevent the catastrophe which it perceived clearly. Pragmatic, worried by the fate of his country and Europe, the Polish statesman had tested, as of Rapallo, Locarno, by perceiving the rise to power of Russia and Germany, to warn the leaders of the Western democracies, his allies, and to make them react and proposing into 1933 to the French the “preventive war” against Hitler. The answer of France was that free-Polish convention was defensive and not offensive, and that the French company would not tolerate a free-Polish action against Mr Hitler.

Pilsudski in its fight against the movements considered to be terrorist, created in 1934 the camp of insulation of Bereza Kartuska, which was to function one year for the turbid period of the Nuit of the Long Knives in Germany, of the assassination of Kirov in the USSR, and of the outburst by the Kremlin of the anti-Polish action of NKVD, said “Operation POW”, but which remained open until 1939. Paradoxically, those of the Polish Communists who were held there have all survived physical liquidation their comrades of KPP in Moscow.

He died on May 12th, 1935. Its body rests with the cathedral of the royal castle of Wawel to Cracow, and its heart close to his/her mother in Vilnius. With its death of testimonys of recognition were given to him by the national minorities and religious, which lost a defender, as announced it the Ambassador of France in his report/ratio of May 15th, 1935: the organizations of the minorities join mourning by proclaiming calls and resolutions. Thus yesterday, in Warsaw, during a meeting of Ukrainian organizations, was marked a speech moving and voted a resolution. The Jewish community of Warsaw convened a meeting where were taken a series of decisions; a telegram of circumstance to the President of the Republic was written, the watchword was given to take part massively in the funeral, of the funeral ceremonies were announced in the synagogs and the decision was made to publish a monograph devoted to Pilsudski and the Jewish question. The organizations of the German minority also voted for resolutions of circumstance and their newspapers in Bern celebrated cordially the memory of the Marshal (cf Archives of the Quay of Orsay, report/ratio n° 300 of the 5/15/1935).

See too