Jozef Pilsudski was born on December 5, 1867 in Zulow, Lithuania. Józef was born into the Pilsudski family and was most closely associated with his older brother Bronislaw, later a famous ethnographer. Bronislav studied in St. Petersburg, where he became involved with Russian revolutionaries. Jozef helped his brother in secret activities.
In 1885, Jozef graduated from high school. Choosing a specialty that would ensure his livelihood, he went to medical school. His only student year took place in Kharkov, and on March 22, 1887, Yuzef was arrested.
Bronislaw Piłsudski is an active participant in the conspiracy and organization " People's Will", like Alexander Ulyanov and a number of others, was sentenced to death. The tsar "pardoned" Bronislav to 15 years of hard labor. Zyuk, as a minor, was a witness and was administratively exiled for five years for a "state crime" Eastern Siberia: Kirensk, then Tunka, areas of the Baikal region and Irkutsk. In Siberia, Yuzef earned money by teaching lessons, reading, and hunting.
In June 1892, Pilsudski returned to Vilna. New friends have appeared. Socialist books and brochures were discussed in a close circle. Of the classics in his “socialist era,” F. Engels was closest to Pilsudski.
Pilsudski became a member of the Polish Socialist Party in 1893, a member of its Central Executive Committee in 1894, and soon headed the party.
Piłsudski took over key positions: managing its finances and publishing activities. Having become a professional revolutionary, he devoted his main attention to the press, To the central authority party newspaper "Rabotnik" in particular. He personally edited the first 37 issues of the newspaper.
It was the discovery of the printing house that led to the arrest of Piłsudski in February 1900 in Lodz. Pilsudski was again threatened with exile for 10 years. He feigned madness and spent five months in a mental hospital in St. Petersburg until he escaped.
Having restored his truly fragile health, in the autumn of 1901 Pilsudski returned to party work, initially for security reasons in London.
Already during the revolution of 1905-1907, Pilsudski's circle of interests changed. A semi-legal period began, a period of gradual departure from socialism. Piłsudski became obsessed with the idea of creating paramilitary anti-Russian organizations in Galicia, and in 1910 the Streltsy Union was created.
In 1915 German troops occupied the Kingdom of Poland, dividing it into Austrian and German parts. The crisis of the occupation system forced the governors simultaneously in Warsaw and Lublin on November 5, 1916 to issue proclamations on the creation of the Polish state - a hereditary monarchy with a constitutional system, in a military alliance with the Central Powers. Before the election of the king, the Regency Council was placed at the head of the state.
The German authorities rendered Pilsudski his penultimate “service”: in the summer of 1917, he was imprisoned in the Magdeburg fortress. The reason was the call not to take the oath containing the oath of allegiance to the military alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary, the consequence was the dissolution of the legionnaires.
In Poland, the land was burning under the occupiers and their henchmen. The German government sent its representative Count G. Kessler to Magdeburg on October 31 and received assurances from Pilsudski that the Poles would not go to war with Germany for Poznan and Pomerania, that Bolshevism was the common enemy of Poland and Germany, and that it itself was not dangerous to Germany.
In a few months, Piłsudski promised, he could create an army capable of crushing the revolution. It was important to deliver Pilsudski to Berlin, and from there to Warsaw. Either on November 9 or 10, as Pilsudski claims, he was in the capital, and on November 11, 1918, the Regency Council transferred power to him. The head of state, who is also the commander-in-chief, was born Polish army.
By the summer of 1919, Pilsudski already had a strong position. He declared his commitment to democracy and the law. With his signature as commander-in-chief, on November 16, 1918, the establishment of the Polish state was announced.
In April 1919, Piłsudski personally led the operation to capture Vilnius from Lithuania. A third direction has also emerged: an offensive, “quiet” for now, to the east, against Ukraine, Belarus, and in fact against the RSFSR.
The victory of Soviet power in Ukraine did not suit Pilsudski. He decided to directly intervene in the civil war among his neighbors.
Pilsudski, contrary to the position of England, whose government was against the war, launched an offensive in Ukraine with the support of France. As is known, the attackers Polish troops They broke through the front and took Kyiv on May 7. But they immediately rolled back. The Ukrainian peasant did not long for the return of the Polish lords. In the summer of 1920, the Red Army was approaching Polish lands.
Wanting to get a personal distinction - marshal's baton, Pilsudski, despite the resistance of the Sejm, issued an order: “I accept and approve the title of First Marshal of Poland.” On November 14, 1920, he accepted the marshal's baton from the hands of soldier Jan Weřík. In March 1921, the Sejm adopted a Constitution, according to which the head of state is controlled by the Sejm and cannot simultaneously be the commander-in-chief of the army.
The Marshal did not want to be a president subordinate to the Sejm. In the new balance of power, there was no place for Pilsudski in the state and army. He pointedly refused the position of Chief of the General Staff offered to him and proudly declared that he had given everything to Poland and now wants to enjoy family life. He “secluded himself” in the suburb of Warsaw - Sulejówka, an estate given to him by the army.
The Sulejówk recluse actively intervened in army reform projects, especially the creation of the structure of its high command. Finally, Pilsudski achieved: the post of Minister of War on December 27, 1925 was taken by his most loyal supporter, General L. Zheligovski.
He concentrated divisions loyal to Pilsudski near Warsaw “for maneuvers”. It was possible to perform. The omniscient "Times" reported on May 28, 1926 that England stood behind Pilsudski and funding for the preparation and execution of the Pilsudski actions came through English Ambassador in Warsaw.
In 1926, on May 12, Pilsudski, still in the halo of the “left,” began a march from Rembertów to Warsaw. The speech of the outstanding conspirator was brilliantly prepared. None of the government troops from the provinces were able to move towards the capital. Three days of civil war, “as brutal as any other,” costing 1,300 victims, ended in victory for the Pilsudians.
Pilsudski became an unlimited dictator.
In the system of created power, Piłsudski became prime minister in 1926-1928 and 1930, during periods of difficult political campaigns, such as the 1930 elections,
invariably retained the posts of Secretary of War and Inspector General of the Armed Forces, that is, the army, real power, and complete control over foreign policy.
In 1928 he suffered a stroke and paralysis. right side, the hand never came off completely. In addition, liver disease began to make itself felt.
The 1930 elections were a turning point in Piłsudski's career. His personal organizational, political, and journalistic campaign brought victory. His supporters received 55 percent of the mandates.
In 1930, there was his personal triumph and at the same time an increasingly accelerated physical decline. A weak heart and liver disease brought constant suffering. Zyuk did not tolerate doctors, did not believe the name.
Hitler's rise to power worried Pilsudski. During the years of the global economic crisis, Pilsudski and his circle understood that Poland was extremely interested in the market in the east. "Most of our trade deals involve Germany and Russia." “With Russia there is always a short period of time.” Pilsudski was forced to move towards rapprochement with the USSR. Bearing in mind everything that Pilsudski said about Russia, it should be recognized that during his reign the relations between neighboring countries turned out to be the best in the interwar 20th anniversary.
The heyday of Polish-Soviet relations was 1932-1934. In 1932, a non-aggression treaty was signed between the two countries, and he arrived in Warsaw Soviet ambassador V. Antonov-Ovseenko.
To protect itself, in January 1934 Poland signed a non-violence pact with Germany. The Polish side considered that it had balanced relations with Germany, but the pact only postponed a future decision territorial claims Germany to Poland. Poland refused to participate in the Eastern Pact, just as it did not respond to soundings about providing Soviet aid against the aggressor. And this despite the fact that Pilsudski personally believed that the pact with Germany would be “enough” for four years, that is, until 1938, after which “complications” would begin.
In May 1935, Pilsudski's condition deteriorated noticeably.
Poland has come a long way and not an easy path to independence. There was a period in its history when it lost its independence and was divided between Germany, Russia and Austria-Hungary. Nobody dreamed of unification and the return of independence.
This period of oblivion lasted 123 years. But at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, a man was born whose role in the history of the Polish state can hardly be overestimated - Jozef Pilsudski, elevated to the status national hero. Who was this man, what was his role in the history of Poland and why he is famous, we will consider further.
Jozef Piłsudski - short biography
The origin and childhood of the future hero
Jozef's parents came from famous and ancient families. The father is from the Ginetovich family, and the mother is from the Billevich family. In fact, Jozef was not a Pole, but belonged to a people called Litvins in those days.
Zyuk (as Yuzef was called in the family) was born on December 5, 1867 and was the second of twelve children in the family. Until 1874, the family lived on the Zulov family estate, and after a fire that destroyed it, they moved to Vilno (modern Vilnius).
Here, together with his brother Bronislav, he entered a Russian gymnasium - he had no choice, since at that time there were other educational institutions didn't exist. While still at school, Jozef showed his character - he organized a self-education circle, contributed to the supply of books in Polish from Warsaw, and actively resisted the course of general Russification that was being introduced by the Russian regime.
There were many Jews studying at the school, with whom Zyuk became friends, and after that he was always surrounded by representatives of this people. At this time, the idea of rebuilding the Polish state and liberating it from Russian domination was formed in Jozef’s mind.
The turbulent youth of Jozef Piłsudski
After graduating from high school, Pilsudski did not think for a long time about where to continue his education and entered the University of Kharkov at Faculty of Medicine. But he only managed to study for one year - Zyuk was expelled for participating in riots organized by students. He left Kharkov and went to St. Petersburg, where his brother Bronislav studied law. He was part of the Narodnaya Volya organization, whose members fought for democratic reforms and dreamed of overthrowing the tsar.
The matter was not limited to dreams - Narodnaya Volya members were involved in attempts on life Alexandra III, for which the Pilsudski brothers were arrested for their participation. They could not prove Yuzef’s guilt - he was only transporting a package with parts for an explosive device. However, this did not help him avoid punishment - exile for a period of 5 years in Siberia. The brother was sentenced to death, later replacing the death penalty with 15 years of imprisonment.
The biography of the Polish hero is a little similar to the life of the leader of the proletariat - V. Lenin:
- Both Vladimir and Jozef had older brothers who were sentenced to death at the same time, only Bronislav renounced his convictions, for which the sentence was changed to exile, and Alexander, Lenin’s brother, was nevertheless hanged;
- both politicians were expelled from universities in their first year;
- They were both sent into exile, where they became interested in the ideas of Marxism, although Jozef’s interest soon faded.
Beginning of political activity
Returning from exile in 1892, Jozef joined the Polish Socialist Party, soon becoming its head. At the same time, he fell in love and married Maria Yushkevich, who was also a member of the party. Jozef organized an underground printing house where the newspaper Rabotnik was published.
In 1900, the printing house was discovered and the couple were arrested. Maria was released after 11 months, but Zyuk feigned insanity and was sent to a hospital. From there, with the support of a Polish doctor, he managed to escape.
At this time, the war between Russia and Japan began, and Jozef went to Tokyo for help in the fight against tsarism. He did not achieve success - he received only material reward and, returning back, began organizing combat groups - “Sagittarius”, “Falcon”, which were financed by robberies.
During the First World War, these organizations supported Germany, since Pilsudski believed that with its help he could get rid of Russian domination. However, the German authorities did not share his position and in 1915 occupied the Polish lands and divided them - part went to Germany, part to Austria-Hungary. After Józef forbade swearing allegiance to Austria-Hungary, he was arrested and imprisoned in the Magdeburg fortress.
Return to the homeland and creation of Poland
The First World War ended with the defeat of Germany and its allies. As a result, Austria-Hungary ceased to exist as a state, a coup took place in Germany and Jozef was released and returned to his homeland, where the Regency Council transferred all power to him.
Józef became the head of the Polish state, and all troops were under his command. Piłsudski dreamed not only of independent state For Polish people– his plans included the creation of “Intermarium” - the unification of Belarusian, Lithuanian and Ukrainian territories under the wing of Poland. To do this, he concluded an agreement with Petlyura about joint actions against Soviet troops. The agreement also stated that Ukrainian lands come under Polish rule.
These ambitious plans of Jozef were not destined to come true. Although at first things went well - the Poles occupied Vilnius, Minsk and Kyiv. But already at the end of May the situation changed - the Red Army approached Warsaw and the city miraculously escaped occupation. The Battle of Warsaw, which became known as the “Miracle on the Vistula,” helped Poland avoid Sovietization. In gratitude for this, Józef was elevated to the rank of Marshal of Poland in November 1920.
In 1921, a Constitution was adopted, according to which Poland became a parliamentary republic. Józef resigned from his position because he did not want to obey parliament. In the spring of 1926, a coup took place, the cause of which was the economic crisis and Jozef became prime minister and military leader, receiving unlimited power. Pilsudski ruled until his death from cancer in 1935. His heart was buried in Vilnius in his mother’s coffin, and his body rests in Krakow in the Wawel castle complex.
Pilsudski Józef Klemens Giniatovic Kosciesza(Polish Józef Klemens Piłsudski ["juzɛf piw"sutski], revolutionary nickname "Dzyuk"; December 5, 1867 - May 12, 1935) - Polish state and political figure, the first head of the revived Polish state, founder of the Polish army; Marshal of Poland; nicknames - Komendant (Commandant), Marszałek (Marshal), Dziadek (Grandfather).
Biography
Jozef Pilsudski was born on December 5, 1867 in Zulow, Lithuania, a subject of the All-Russian Emperor and King Polish Alexander II. At baptism, the fourth child of Józef Wincenta-Peter and Maria from Billewicz Piłsudski was named Józef-Klemens. His relatives called him Zyuk. The Pilsudski family belonged to the Polonized Lithuanian gentry. Illness (tuberculosis) and frequent childbirth brought the 42-year-old woman to the grave. The children were left in the care of their father and Bonn, a French woman and a German woman. Jozef spoke five languages - Polish, Russian, German, French, English.
In the close-knit Pilsudski family, Józef was most closely connected with his older brother Bronisław, who later became a famous ethnographer. Bronislav studied in St. Petersburg, where he became involved with Russian revolutionaries. Jozef helped his brother in secret activities.
In 1885, Jozef graduated from high school. Choosing a specialty that would ensure his livelihood, he went to medical school. His only student year was spent in Kharkov, and on March 22, 1887, Yuzef was arrested. Bronislaw Pilsudski, an active participant in the conspiracy and organization of “Narodnaya Volya,” like Alexander Ulyanov and a number of others, was sentenced to death. The Tsar “pardoned” Bronislav to 15 years of hard labor. Zyuk, as a minor, was a witness and was administratively deported for five years to Eastern Siberia for a “state crime”: Kirensk, then Tunka, the Baikal region and Irkutsk. In Siberia, Yuzef earned money by teaching lessons, reading, and hunting. Piłsudski was freed from hereditary tuberculosis forever. Having freedom of movement in the region, he met several generations of fighters against tsarism, Russians and Poles, the rebels of 1863, members of the Proletariat party, anarchists, sectarians, socialists of all views.
In June 1892, Pilsudski returned to Vilna. New friends appeared. Socialist books and brochures were discussed in a close circle. Of the classics in his “socialist era,” F. Engels was closest to Pilsudski. In “Russian socialism,” Pilsudski was attracted by criticism of the capitalist system, his struggle against tsarism, “the main enemy of the Polish working class.” “Deep hatred of Russia” became the main point of his political program And main theme his propaganda. Pilsudski became a member of the Polish Socialist Party in 1893, a member of its Central Executive Committee in 1894, and soon headed the party.
Pilsudski took over the key (not only for the underground party) positions of managing its finances (“In our time, there is no power without money”) and publishing activities. Having become a professional revolutionary, he devoted his main attention to the press, the central organ of the party, the newspaper Rabotnik, in particular. He personally edited the first 37 issues of the newspaper.
It was the discovery of the printing house that led to the arrest of Piłsudski in February 1900 in Lodz. Pilsudski was again threatened with exile for 10 years. He feigned madness and spent five months in a mental hospital in St. Petersburg until he escaped.
Having restored his truly fragile health, in the autumn of 1901 Pilsudski returned to party work, initially for security reasons in London (until April 10, 1902). There, however, I did not find anything to do, I gave one lecture, and participated in a discussion at a Bund meeting.
Already during the revolution of 1905–1907, Pilsudski's circle of interests changed. He increasingly moved away from political party activities, turning into the military leader of the military organization of the PPS. To replenish the treasury, in September 1908, Józef personally led an attack on the postal car ticket office at Bezdan (near Vilna). The production amounted to 200,000 rubles. The action in Bezdany almost ended the period of activity of Pilsudski, which he called “criminal.”
A semi-legal period began, a period of gradual departure from socialism. Piłsudski became obsessed with the idea of creating paramilitary anti-Russian organizations in Galicia, and in 1910 the Streltsy Union was created. By 1914, his military units numbered 6,449 people. Few became archers, fewer than Pilsudski expected and the Viennese authorities hoped. The idea failed on the intended scale. During the First World War, three empires - Russia, Germany and Austria-Hungary, which divided Poland in the 18th century, opposed each other. The front passed through Polish and Ukrainian lands.
Pilsudski, who declared that the Polish saber should also be thrown into the balance of war, declared himself commander-in-chief and head of the Polish national government in Warsaw. At the beginning of August, several hundred archers crossed the border of the Kingdom of Poland, but were soon driven back. Pilsudski became convinced of the hostility of the population of Russian Poland to his ideas and the failure of the Streltsy undertaking. Jozef, “who had not remembered his socialist past since the war,” was lucky again. His political rivals, if not opponents, I. Daszynski, W. Witos, S. Stronski and others, created the Main National Committee in Krakow, which began to form Polish legions as part of the Austro-Hungarian army under the command of an Austrian officer. Pilsudski was offered a regiment. He was subsequently promoted to brigade commander (commandant). Piłsudski took part in the battles against Russian troops in Podhale, Bukovina and Volhynia, as it seemed to him then, “a little drunk with his courage.” Russian troops defeated the Austrian ones, and all the battles glorified by Pilsudczyk’s legends with the participation of legionnaires were essentially defeats, blows to Pilsudski’s pride.
In 1915, German troops occupied the Kingdom of Poland, dividing it into Austrian and German parts. The crisis of the occupation system forced the governors simultaneously in Warsaw and Lublin on November 5, 1916 to issue proclamations on the creation of the Polish state - a hereditary monarchy with a constitutional system, in a military alliance with the Central Powers. Before the election of the king, the Regency Council was placed at the head of the state.
The German authorities rendered the penultimate “service” to Pilsudski: in the summer of 1917, they imprisoned him in the Magdeburg fortress. The reason was the call not to take the oath containing the oath of allegiance to the military alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary, the consequence was the dissolution of the legionnaires. So from a collaborator he turned into an enemy and a victim of the invaders. In Magdeburg, Pilsudski lived in complete comfort. At the end of July 1918, Pilsudski sent a letter to the regent, Prince Zyubomirski, with two attachments: about himself and his supporters military activities. He made excuses about cooperation with the occupiers, listed his merits, proved that only he cared about national security and independence.
In Poland, the land was burning under the occupiers and their henchmen. The German government sent its representative Count G. Kessler to Magdeburg on October 31 and received assurances from Pilsudski that the Poles would not go to war with Germany for Poznan and Pomerania ( West Prussia), that Bolshevism is the common enemy of Poland and Germany, and that it itself is not dangerous to Germany. In a few months, Piłsudski promised, he could create an army capable of crushing the revolution. It was important to deliver Pilsudski to Berlin, and from there to Warsaw. Either on November 9 or 10, as Pilsudski claims, he was in the capital, and on November 11, 1918, the Regency Council transferred power to him. The head of state, who is also the commander-in-chief of the Polish army, was born.
By the summer of 1919, Pilsudski already had a strong position. He declared his commitment to democracy and the law. With his signature as Commander-in-Chief, on November 16, 1918, the emergence of the Polish state was announced and a corresponding letter was sent to the USA, Great Britain, France, Italy, Japan, Germany, and all belligerent and neutral states except Russia. By letter he guaranteed democratic foundations a new state, order and justice in the country, which should include all the lands of a united Poland. Recognition of Poland followed the convening of the Legislative Sejm (February 1919).
The Legislative Sejm legally formalized the position of commandant. Piłsudski again received the post of head of state, coupled with unpleasant criticism and derogation of his prerogatives. From now on, all orders of the head of state had to be signed by government ministers (according to departmental affiliation). The Endeks and their allies, who had received a majority in the Sejm, were gaining strength.
Poland objectively faced the question of determining the limits of the state. Having given the Entente the determination of the western borders, “to what extent it wants to more or less squeeze Germany,” said the head of state, he decided to act in the east himself.
On the very first day of the declaration of independence, Polish troops moved to Lviv with the goal of capturing the capital of the Western Ukrainian People's Republic. In April 1919, Piłsudski personally led the operation to capture Vilnius from Lithuania. A third direction (besides Galicia and Lithuania) has also emerged - an offensive so far “quiet”, to the east, against Ukraine, Belarus, and in fact against the RSFSR.
The victory of Soviet power in Ukraine did not suit Pilsudski. He decided to directly intervene in the civil war among his neighbors. The cover for the speech was a secret agreement signed on April 21, 1920 with S. Petlyura, interned in Poland, according to which the “Ukrainian People's Republic“lost” Galicia and a number of other regions to Poland (up to the borders of 1772). Poland agreed to restore the power of the directory in Ukraine. Pilsudski, contrary to the position of England, whose government was against the war, launched an offensive in Ukraine with the support of France. As you know, the advancing Polish troops broke through the front and took Kyiv on May 7. But they immediately rolled back. The Ukrainian peasant did not long for the return of the Polish lords. In the summer of 1920, the Red Army was approaching Polish lands. This is where the RCP(b), the Comintern and the Polish communists in the RSFSR came up with a plan to transfer the world revolution to Poland and further to the West, which did not have military and economic reinforcements.
In response, on July 24, 1920, a government was created in Warsaw national defense led by V. Vitos, a law on agrarian reform, a propaganda campaign has been launched to protect national independence. Participants at the Spa conference proposed that Poland urgently recognize the ethnic border in the east. Polish government representative S. Grabski agreed. But now Moscow has rejected Lord Curzon's note (July). What was needed was not a border along the Bug, but Soviet authority in Poland.
Units of the Paint Army under the command of M. N. Tukhachevsky were near Warsaw in mid-August. However, the troops, which had traveled more than 700 kilometers, did not have a reserve, the necessary combat support, rear and supply lines were disorganized, and communications were disrupted. On August 16, when Polish troops struck at the junction of the fronts and at the rear of Tukhachevsky’s troops, the Reds began to retreat.
The Narodists ironically called what happened near Warsaw on August 16, 1920 “the miracle over the Vistula.” Piłsudczyk propaganda was in full force exalting Pilsudski, the first after Jan Sobieski, who brought Poland victory in the war. Everything was chalked up to his account; he was the commander-in-chief. The Red Army continued to retreat until it became clear that neither side had more strength to continue the war. Peace negotiations began in Riga. The Pilsudczyks were unhappy.
The Treaty of Riga (March 1921) determined the ways of territorial and economic division of states. He could lay a satisfactory foundation for their future relationship. In negotiations on the conclusion trade agreement(completed in 1939), in the implementation of cultural and economic items, however, difficulties were encountered or they were not implemented.
Wanting to receive a personal distinction - a marshal's baton, Pilsudski, despite the resistance of the Sejm, issued an order “I accept and approve the title of First Marshal of Poland.” On November 14, 1920, he accepted the marshal's baton from the hands of soldier Jan Weřík. The Sejm and the “grateful” citizens behaved ungratefully towards the winner. In March 1921, the Sejm adopted a Constitution, according to which the head of state is controlled by the Sejm and cannot simultaneously be the commander-in-chief of the army. Pilsudski was convinced that the law was directed personally against him. In the 1922 elections, voters essentially gave Pilsudski (and the PPS) a ride. Success accompanied Dmowski's party and Witos Piast's party. The Sejm became center-right. The conflict between the ruling groups was expressed in the introduction of a resolution of no confidence in the head of state in the Sejm (July 1922). It was rejected by a slight majority.
The Marshal did not want to be a president subordinate to the Sejm. In the new balance of power, there was no place for Pilsudski in the state and army. He pointedly refused the position of Chief of the General Staff offered to him and proudly declared that he had given everything to Poland and now wanted to enjoy family life. He “secluded himself” in the suburb of Warsaw - Sulejówka, an estate given to him by the army. The marshal told the US ambassador: “They (the Diet) have driven me into a corner, but in the end I will destroy them, because I am stronger than all my enemies combined.”
In Sulejówka, Piłsudski again took up writing activity. He gave lectures in many cities.
The Sulejówk recluse actively intervened in army reform projects, especially the creation of the structure of its high command. Finally, Pidsudsky achieved: the post of Minister of War on December 27, 1925 was taken by his staunchest supporter, General L. Zheligovsky. He concentrated near Warsaw (in Rembertow) “for maneuvers” divisions loyal to Pilsudski. It was possible to perform. The omniscient Times reported on 28 May 1926 that England stood behind Pilsudski and that funding for the preparation and implementation of the Pilsudski actions came through the English ambassador in Warsaw.
The timing was well chosen. The government tried to resolve the permanent difficulties in the economy by reducing the living standards of the population. The government coalition collapsed. Widest circles were dissatisfied with the situation in the country and the statements of the new, third Vitos government. WITH early spring In 1926, Pilsudski began to appear in the press with accusations against the Sejm and the government about corruption, the lack of law and order in the country, the corruption of parties and their inability to ensure the prosperity of the country, and raised the question of strong power.
On May 12, 1926, Piłsudski, still in the halo of the “left,” began a march from Rembertów to Warsaw. Units loyal to the government resisted. The Vistula became the frontier. It is known that after a personal meeting on the bridge over the Vistula with President Wojciechowski, Pilsudski faltered and had a mental breakdown. Anti-government actions and a coup d'etat were brought to an end by General G. Orlich-Drescher. Piłsudski, as in 1920, overcame internal struggle and became entrenched in dictatorial aspirations.
The speech of the outstanding conspirator was brilliantly prepared. None of the government troops from the provinces were able to move to the capital: the PPS organized a strike of railway workers. The declared fight against the Endeks even brought the communists (albeit temporarily) to Pilsudski's side. The communists considered the endeks to be the main class enemies of the working people.
Three days of civil war, “as brutal as any other,” costing 1,300 victims, ended in victory for the Pilsudians. The marshal issued a heartfelt order, called not to share the spilled blood and to unite in the name of Poland, and immediately began the defeat of the top of the army, taking revenge on all rivals and removing and killing those who knew a lot about him, dating back to the time of his cooperation with the intelligence of Austria-Hungary.
In the political sphere, he reassured both the right and the left. Some were assured that Russia’s social experiment was not for Poland. But at the same time he told others that the coup that had taken place was a kind of revolution without class revolutionary consequences and that he would not come to an agreement either with the Sejm parties or with banks and concerns. He is against the nouveau riche and longtime tycoons, for strong power. The President of Poland must have rights equal to royalty, responsible to God and history, and represent the entire state.
After the coup, the subordination of the Sejm, state and local administration, to the dictator began. The defeat of the democratic forces began immediately after May 12, 1926, a fatal date for Zyuk, which also became the date of his death in 1935.
Since 1926, no law, no written law has become the highest standard, but the will of the winner. Pilsudski became an unlimited dictator (while maintaining a multi-party system and the Sejm). Dictatorship of Sanitation.
In the system of created power, Pilsudski became prime minister in 1926–1928 and 1930, during periods of difficult political campaigns, such as the 1930 elections, he invariably retained the posts of Minister of War and Inspector General of the Armed Forces, i.e. the army, the real power, and complete control over foreign policy. In 1928, he suffered a stroke that left him paralyzed on the right side; his arm never fully recovered. In addition, liver disease began to make itself felt.
The next elections proved the precariousness and narrowness of the political base of Pilsudski. In 1928, only every fifth voter voted for them, and attempts to expand this base led Pilsudski to almost open union with the right. The united opposition in 1929 - Tsetrolev - had 40 percent of the seats in the Sejm.
And then Pilsudski decided to achieve the convening of a new Sejm, absolutely obedient to the dictator. The 1930 elections were a turning point in Piłsudski's career. His personal organizational, political, and journalistic campaign brought victory. His supporters received 55 percent of the mandates. To achieve success, everything was at stake, even the personal authority of the candidate. They did not shun bribery and manipulation of lists. Communists and opposition leaders were thrown into prison. By imprisonment based on court sentences in Brest, he took revenge on the leaders of Tsentrolev Vitos and the left leaders of his “native” PPS, everyone who could turn out to be dangerous.
He commented to a trusted interlocutor in 1932: “If I had lost then, I would not have ruled you fools any longer. But before that he hanged a hundred.”
1930 was the year of his personal triumph and, at the same time, an increasingly accelerating physical decline. A weak heart and liver disease brought constant suffering. Zyuk did not tolerate doctors, did not trust them. He prescribed diets for himself, mainly fasting.
As he physically declined, a group of colonels ruled more and more in his name, fighting with each other for influence over Pilsudski, but not against him.
Hitler's rise to power worried Pilsudski. The diary of Deputy Foreign Minister Ya Shembek reveals meetings about German weapons and which of the great neighbors “might become dangerous for Poland first.”
During the years of the global economic crisis, Pilsudski and his circle understood that Poland was extremely interested in the market in the east. “Most of our trade deals involve Germany and Russia.” “With Russia there is always a short period of time” (the trade deals concluded were private and short-term), Pilsudski was forced to move towards rapprochement with the USSR. Bearing in mind everything that Pilsudski said about Russia, it should be recognized that during his reign, relations between neighboring countries turned out to be the best in the interwar 20 years.
The heyday of Polish-Soviet relations was 1932–1934. In 1932, a non-aggression treaty was signed between the two countries, and Soviet Ambassador V. Antonov-Ovseenko arrived in Warsaw.
To protect itself, in January 1934 Poland signed a non-violence pact with Germany. The Polish side considered that it had balanced relations with Germany, but the pact only postponed until the future the resolution of Germany's territorial claims against Poland. Poland refused to participate in the Eastern Pact, just as it did not respond to soundings about providing Soviet assistance against the aggressor. And this despite the fact that Pilsudski personally believed that the pact with Germany would be “enough” for four years, that is, until 1938, after which “complications” would begin. In May 1935, Pilsudski's condition deteriorated noticeably. Those around me understood: hopeless, liver cancer, coma. But Pilsudski on the evening of May 10, having temporarily come to his senses, tried to explain “Laval, I owe Russia.” These were last words Marshal passed away on May 12.
USSR – V.I. Lenin.
Liberals are still trying to convince us that Russia is “two decades old,” and its founder was Boris Yeltsin.
Who became the founder of Poland? Or rather, the father of its re-creation in 1918. At the expense of Russia and Germany. On blood and suffering.
Meet - Jozef Piłsudski, founder of what is now Poland. Exactly the current one – Russophobic, puppet-pro-Western. But Poland was friendly to us in the period from 1945 to the very end of the 80s. But with the coming to power of Gorbachev and Yeltsin, friendship with Poland was also stolen from us, like the unity of the territory, nice story and visa-free travel across one sixth of the landmass.
And Poland was again made Russophobic. The way it was in the period 1918–1939.
How Josef Pilsudski created it. His — full name
Józef Klemens Giniatovych Kosciesza Pilsudski.
I don’t see much point in talking in detail about this ardent opponent of Russia; anyone interested in this figure will read it on their own. However, it is necessary to know this person. Therefore, we will present only ten facts from his biography. 1. The first thing I would like to note is that anti-Russian Poland was created by the revolutionary Pilsudski. He was the head of the Polish Socialist Party (PPS), a kind of analogue of the Bolshevik Social Revolutionaries, but with a nationalist Polish flavor. The irony of fate: both Lenin and Pilsudski fought against the Russia that existed before 1917. And having won this fight with the help external forces
2. The Pilsudski brothers helped the terrorists who were preparing the assassination of Alexander III obtain poison. The “freedom fighters” were going to poison the damaging parts of the bomb so that the king would die from even a minor wound. The assassination attempt was planned to be carried out exactly six years after the assassination of Tsar-Liberator Alexander II. These were the same terrorists, among whom was Lenin’s brother, Alexander Ulyanov, who was later hanged for this attempt. So, the Pilsudskis gave poison to the murderers. The elder brother, Bronislaw Piłsudski, was also sentenced to death penalty, but the king replaced it with 15 years of hard labor. Josef Pilsudski, who was not yet 20, was punished with a five-year exile in Eastern Siberia.
3. Where the newspaper was published - the organ of the teaching staff - I think there is no need to say. And it is so clear that in London. The newspaper was called Przedswita. It was in it that Pilsudski proved himself an intellectual and became a regular author, which became a springboard to the heights of his revolutionary career.
4. Not even all Poles know that for their wedding, which took place on July 15, 1899, Pilsudski and his wife left Catholicism and became Protestants. The fact is that his chosen one was divorced, which made it impossible to register the marriage in the church. Until 1916, the future head of Poland was still a Protestant. And this is in a Catholic country! But on the eve of coming to power, he again converted to Catholicism in 1916. Piłsudski, following French king Henry, could well have exclaimed: “Warsaw is worth a mass!”
5. During World War I, Pilsudski formed Polish legions in the army of Austria-Hungary and commanded them, fighting against the Russian army. How did he manage to end up in the camp of the winners if Vienna and Berlin lost the war? And he went over to the side of the Entente in time, or rather, he has always been on it. Pilsudski's plan was brilliant - first with the Germans against Russia, then with the Entente against the Germans. In the summer of 1917, he was arrested by the Germans just in time. But the point is not in his talents of foresight, but in the fact that the Entente planned to form Poland at the end of the war. Russophobic and Germanophobic - a buffer between Germany and Russia. Pilsudski was the best figure for this. He proclaimed the re-establishment of the Polish state on November 12, 1918, literally a matter of hours, after the Germans signed the “truce-surrender” in Compiegne (November 11, 1918).
6. Having come to power as a result of the First World War and the proclamation of the re-establishment of the Polish state, Pilsudski became the “author” of 6 wars, mainly with the Germans and Russians. However, your hometown He eventually took Vilno (Vilnius) from independent Lithuania. Stalin returned Vilnius to the Lithuanians in the fall of 1939, something that today in Lithuania they try not to remember. The condition for the transfer of Vilna and the Vilna region to the Lithuanians was an agreement with the USSR, which they joyfully signed.
7. On the territory of the Polish state at the time of signing the Treaty of Riga with Lenin, there were only 64% of Poles. Therefore, active polonization began: Great Russians, Little Russians and Belarusians were forcibly converted into Poles. The Alexander Nevsky Cathedral was blown up in Warsaw. In Volyn in 1938, 139 Orthodox and Uniate churches were converted into churches and 189 were destroyed. Little Russian (Ukrainian) schools and organizations were closed. Punitive operations and arrests were constantly carried out. This must be remembered in order to understand with what joy the Red Army was greeted in the territories Western Belarus and Western Ukraine.
8. When they try to present Poland to us on the eve of World War II as a peaceful democratic state, this is a lie on all counts. It was Josef Pilsudski who signed the first international treaty with the Third Reich, where Hitler came to power. The Hitler-Pilsudski Pact (non-aggression pact) was signed in 1934. Warsaw became an ally of Berlin and together with it prepared to attack the USSR. And only the quirks of geopolitics led to Hitler destroying his potential comrades with his own hands. Suffice it to say that one of the reasons for the defeat of the Polish army in September 1939 was that there were... rear structures on the border with Germany. Defensive lines Poles were on the border with the USSR.
8. Piłsudski was not in power for the entire period from 1918 until his death on May 12, 1935. When power eluded him, he staged a coup. Maybe that’s why Polish politicians were so loyal to the coup in Kyiv in February 2014. Traditions of democracy, so to speak. But since today they prefer to remain silent about the coup in Warsaw, let us recall what happened then. In May 1926Josef Pilsudski seized power in the Polish capital (and in Poland) with the help of the faithful military units. The battles for Warsaw, which was defended by the then president Stanislav Voitsekhovsky and Prime Minister Vincent Vitos, lasted 3 days. During the fighting, 250 military personnel and 164 civilians were killed, and about 1,000 people were injured. After the seizure of power, Pilsudski declared a regime of “sanation,” that is, recovery, which survived him and lasted until the defeat of Pilsudski Poland by the Nazis.
9. As we see in the example of Ukraine, after any coup d’etat, repression begins. This was the case in Poland at that time. Arrests began and worse things began to happen. In particular, General Zagursky “disappeared” while being transported from a prison in Vilna to a Warsaw prison. He was killed on the orders of Piłsudski. In October 1930, mass arrests began - former deputies and senators from opposition parliamentary clubs were taken. Repressions were launched against Ukrainian nationalists, punitive operations were carried out, where the principle of collective responsibility was applied. And all this during the election campaign to the Sejm.
10. Piłsudski is buried at Wawel Castle (Krakow). But his heart was buried in 1936 in his mother's grave at the Rossa (Rasu) cemetery in the marshal’s favorite city - Vilna. So it rests in the capital modern Lithuania- the heart of an ardent Polish nationalist and tough leader. Poland!
All of us, as it were, hinting at the conventionality and fragility of borders in Europe, which is again being pushed by overseas politicians and bankers towards a big war...
In 1885 for revolutionary activity was excluded from Kharkov University, and in 1887, in connection with the assassination attempt on Alexander III, he was sentenced to exile in Siberia, where he was from 1888 to 1892.
Born on December 5, 1867 near Vilno in a Polish-Lithuanian family. In 1885, for revolutionary activities, he was expelled from Kharkov University, and in 1887, in connection with the attempt on the life of Alexander III, he was sentenced to exile in Siberia, where he was from 1888 to 1892. After exile, Pilsudski published the newspaper “Worker” (“Robotnik”) - the organ of the underground the Polish Socialist Party, of which he became a member back in 1892; in 1900–1901 he was in prison. During the First World War, he created a separate Legion of the Polish Army, which fought on the side of Austria-Hungary. Pilsudski believed that if Germany and Austria-Hungary won the war, Poland would gain independence. When the Central Powers captured the territory of the Kingdom of Poland, Piłsudski and his supporters went into opposition to the German and Austrian authorities.
Piłsudski spent the final stage of the First World War in German prison. Returning to Warsaw in the fall of 1918, he was appointed “temporary chief” of the state and supreme commander in chief armed forces of Poland. Piłsudski liberated the country from the remnants German troops and set a course for the formation of an independent Polish state. The initial stages of its formation were complicated by the need to cooperate with another provisional government, formed under the auspices of the Western powers and headed by another Polish patriot– I.Ya.Paderewski. In 1919, the first founding parliament approved Pilsudski as head of state and Paderewski as prime minister.
Attempts by the Bolsheviks to violate the borders of the Polish state in 1920 were stopped by Pilsudski with the active support of General M. Weygand. After the adoption in March 1921 of a constitution that limited the powers of the executive branch, Piłsudski avoided participating in the presidential elections, preferring the position of chief General Staff army. In the new elections in 1923, Pilsudski also did not stand as a candidate for the presidency.
In 1926, after a three-year resignation as “chief of state,” Piłsudski returned to restore order in a devastated and impoverished country. Once again taking advantage of the people's mandate to lead the state, he chose - in 1926, and then again in 1930 - the post of prime minister, but remained Minister of War and First Marshal of Poland. Pilsudski died in Warsaw on May 12, 1935.
