The Spring Will Be Ours
by Andrzej Paczkowski
Introduction: Twenty Years of Independence
The Main Political Forces
For two hundred years, until the mid-seventeenth century, the Poland that dominated the eastern part of Europe was one of the powers of the continent. The country suffered, however, from numerous internal weaknesses; modernization lagged behind, and a succession of wars had inflicted considerable damage. During the eighteenth century three neighboring states—Russia, Prussia, and Austria—developed into absolutist powers that exerted constant pressure on Poland. In 1795 they finished dividing the country between them, and Poland disappeared from the world map. This happened despite feverish efforts to reform the state (which included the adoption of the Constitution of 3 May 1791, the first constitution passed in Europe) and despite the armed struggle of 1794 led by Tadeusz Ko_ciuszko, known for his role in the American Revolution. The Poles subsequently made numerous attempts to regain their independence, and each time they were defeated. They lost even during the years 1807-12, when they tried to take advantage of Napoleon’s expansionist policies, becoming his most loyal ally, and during the years 1830-31 and 1863-64, when they waged a lonely insurgent struggle against Russia, which had seized the largest part of the Polish state. They also lost when they took action in tandem with revolutionary movements in Prussia and Austria (1848) and in Russia (1905).
From the end of the eighteenth century the problem of how “to fight one’s way to independence” dominated Polish political thinking and shaped the main ideological divisions. It became one of the basic components of Polish culture and helped to create a national mythology that glorified struggle, self-sacrifice, and death in the cause of the homeland. This way of viewing the world and Poland’s fate was reinforced by the romantic era, which prized the dramatic act of the lonely individual. For some romantics, Poland itself came to personify such an individual; it was seen as “the Christ of Nations,” from whose suffering a new and better world would arise, one in which all nations would be equal and free. There was no shortage of alternative visions. Some people thought that uprisings brought nothing but bloodshed and that Poland’s situation worsened after each successive defeat. They argued that the nation’s survival would be better served by cultivating religious belief and the mother tongue, and, in particular, by modernizing society and ensuring economic progress. This tendency became especially strong after the defeat of the 1863 uprising and had ties to European positivism and scientism. Others thought that Poland should merge into the monarchies that had divided the country and, in exchange for supporting them, obtain partial autonomy. There were also some people who argued that only a worldwide revolution of the dispossessed would bring general liberation. But many Poles, of course, focused on their immediate concerns and did not think in terms of the nation. Poland remained a society based on estates, and only a narrow stratum drawn from the szlachta—nobility, landowners, and gentry—and the intelligentsia was active in public life. The majority of the population paid little attention to political questions, and the partitioning powers even managed on several occasions to turn the Polish peasantry against the insurgents, the great majority of whom were members of the szlachta or intelligentsia of szlachta origins.
The situation began to change during the last decades of the nineteenth century, when, in Poland as elsewhere, modern political tendencies and parties began to form, and rapid economic and social change drew an increasing number of people into public life. While Poland was in many ways similar to other countries, the Polish political landscape also had its own specific characteristics. One major difference was the fact that Poland was divided into three regions subordinate to three different countries, each region differing from the others in terms of political and economic conditions. The opportunities for political activity in liberal Prussia, which was undergoing rapid modernization but was also strongly anti-Polish and xenophobic, were different from those in backward Austria, whose rulers were engaged in a process of liberalization and aiming to create a multi-nation state. The situation was different again in authoritarian and centralized Russia, which was without a parliament or political parties until 1905. As a result, political organizations were fragmented; for example, three separate socialist parties existed, one of which—in Russian Poland—was illegal. In Austrian Poland there emerged a relatively strong peasant party that for many years had no equivalent in the rest of Poland. The nationalist party had a single clandestine central body but in each part of the country it was active under a different name and pursued slightly different policies. Each part of the country had a different currency, different banks, a different level of economic development, a different structure of property ownership, different relations between the various ethnic groups, and—in Russian Poland—even different weights and measures, including a different railroad gauge. Also important was the fact that in all three cases Polish territory lay on the periphery, forming a border area in which the central authorities were more concerned with constructing fortifications than with developing industry.
In each part of Poland, however, the key issue was the same: the lack of an independent state. The question of whether to attempt to revive the Polish state and, if so, how this could best be achieved was the subject of bitter disputes of a kind unknown in democratic republics such as France, in democratic and liberal monarchies such as Great Britain, or on constitutional monarchies such as Italy. From this point of view Polish political movements at the beginning of the twentieth century and during World War I can in general terms (which inevitably involve simplification) be divided into the independence movement, the nationalist movement, and a number of lesser ideological-political groups.
Members of the independence movement believed that it would be impossible to create a sovereign state without the use of armed force and that the conflicts emerging among the partitioning powers—between Russia on one side and Germany and Austria on the other—would result in a war that would create conditions for a national uprising. Poland’s most famous romantic poet, Adam Mickiewicz, had already prayed for “a war of the peoples” that would create an opportunity for Poland to regain independence. This political tendency was led by Józef Pi_sudski, one of the founders of the Polish Socialist Party (PPS), which began functioning in Russian Poland in 1892 after being established by émigrés in Paris. Although Pi_sudski was a socialist, he believed that regaining independence was more important than social revolution. For the PPS, the main enemy was tsarist Russia, and the party carried out its first broad-based actions (including terrorist attacks) during the revolution in Russia, which spread to what had formerly been Polish territory. Pi_sudski tried to turn the revolution into a national uprising in which workers were supposed to play the major role. The failure of the revolution in Russia crushed all hope that such a struggle could bring success, but it did not mean that the notion of military action was abandoned. The independence movement included socialist parties in all three parts of the country, as well as smaller left-wing and centrist groupings that had emerged out of the nationalist party. It was active in all parts of Poland, albeit to varying degrees—weakest in Prussia, strongest in Austria.
The one country in which Poles enjoyed genuine autonomy and had significant political influence was Austria, so it was only there that preparations could be made to create a Polish army. Pi_sudski thus offered to assist the Austrian general staff in the approaching war with Russia. His offer was accepted. Some politicians associated with Pi_sudski, especially the conservatives, thought the best possible solution would be to transform the dual Austro-Hungarian monarchy into a triple, Austro-Hungarian-Polish, monarchy and that the best opportunity for such an outcome would be provided if the Polish territory seized by Russia could be annexed to Austrian Poland.
As soon as World War I broke out, Pi_sudski and the Austrians formed the Polish Legions, a force that was attached to the Austrian Army. They took part in the fighting along the eastern front but their attempt to instigate a mass uprising in Russian Poland during the early days of the war was unsuccessful. Most of the population remained passive, partly out of fear of taking a personal risk and partly because of the strong influence of the nationalist movement, which advocated a completely different approach. The Legions numbered roughly twenty-five thousand volunteer soldiers, and were thus of little military significance when viewed against the overall scale of what became known as the Great War. They did, though, possess their own uniforms, banners, and decorations, and commands were issued in Polish. They also created a strong esprit de corps, as the legionaries had a strong sense of mission and saw themselves as a kind of collective romantic hero, whose self-sacrifice would bring Poland’s dreamed-for independence. Their very name evoked the legions that the Poles had established to fight alongside Napoleon’s army. As their leader, Józef Pi_sudski became the center of carefully nurtured cult, a fact that acquired tremendous importance at a later date. While Germany and Austria were happy to exploit the anti-Russian sentiments harbored by many Poles, they had no intention of carrying out Pi_sudski’s plan or the plan of those who advocated the creation of an independent Polish state after Russia had been driven out of central Poland in 1915. Local self-government was introduced, and it was now permissible to speak Polish in schools and administrative offices, but Berlin and Vienna were in no hurry to merge Polish territory into a single unit or to grant the Poles sovereignty over even a tiny corner of it. They were, of course, lavish with their promises and they even established some ersatz institutions of state power: first, a Provisional Council of State, then a Regency Council and, beneath it, a government with extremely limited powers. In the summer of 1917, after the tsar had been overthrown and the United States had entered the war, thus tipping the balance in favor of the Entente, Pi_sudski renounced all further loyalty to Austria and Germany. He was arrested and imprisoned in the fortress at Magdeburg, near Berlin, and on his orders the Polish Military Organization (POW) was formed, an illegal organization that was intended to be a continuation of the now disbanded Legions. Pi_sudski thereby demonstrated that his previous alliance with Austria and Germany had been purely tactical and that he remained determined to fight for Polish independence.
The second major political tendency to emerge at the end of the nineteenth century (in 1894, to be exact) was the nationalist movement, which also advocated independence for Poland but believed all attempts to confront the partitioning powers with armed force were doomed to failure. Supporters of this tendency argued, instead, that the struggle for independence required that national consciousness be instilled and steadily reinforced among the peasantry, petit bourgeoisie, and workers. They advanced the notion of national solidarity and attached great significance to Catholicism as a defining characteristic of Polish national identity versus Protestant Prussia and Orthodox Russia. They opposed any cooperation with revolutionary movements in the partitioning countries, both because they were generally opposed to revolution based on class struggle and because they believed that such a revolution conflicted with Poland’s national interest. The nationalist movement had deep roots in Prussian Poland, where the economic dynamism and nationalism of the Germans were especially evident, but the German Drang nach Osten was feared by Poles in all parts of the country. The nationalist movement was, then, largely anti-German, which naturally tempered its anti-Russian elements. The movement was also influential in Russian Poland, although until 1905 it could not function there openly. Eventually the nationalist movement came to regard the Jews, too, as an enemy, and its use of anti-Semitic propaganda increased its popularity among the petit bourgeoisie, who saw the Jews as their chief competitors. Because of its proclaimed solidarism—both social and national—and its attachment to religion, the nationalist movement attracted many conservatively inclined landowners, Catholic priests, and members of the tiny Polish bourgeoisie. It possessed a clandestine central organization, known as the National League, separate political parties in each region of the country, and an influential youth organization (Zet). The parties founded by the League referred to themselves as national democrats, and they became known collectively as the “Endecja.” Also close to the League were the Christian-democratic parties and trade unions that were emerging at this time. The League was led by Roman Dmowski, more of an ideologue and political thinker than a charismatic leader. The nationalist movement was more cohesive than the independence movement, which was essentially a loose conglomeration of different groups and parties.
Events in Russia during 1905-07 had a decisive influence on the final shape of the nationalist movement. The Endecja adamantly opposed the PPS’s attempt to transform the revolution into a national uprising, and the dispute was such that armed gangs from the two sides clashed with each other. Dmowski believed that Russia’s evolution towards liberalism would make it possible to broaden the autonomy of Polish territory and that Russia’s economic and technological backwardness meant that, in the long run, it posed less of a threat than Germany, which was rapidly modernizing. He thus advocated Polish participation in the newly created quasi-democratic institutions, such as the parliament (Duma). In the emerging conflict between Germany and Austria on the one hand and the Triple Entente of Russia, France, and England on the other, Dmowski supported Russia and hence the Entente. When the nationalists adopted a pro-Russian line, abandoning their slogans calling for independence in favor of a program calling for autonomy within a tsarist state, several groups and organizations—including Zet and the National Workers’ Union—defected to the independence movement. Although Endecja influence was thereby weakened among the intelligentsia, which was attached to the romantic myth of armed struggle for independence, it remained strong among the social strata that provided the movement with most of its support.
After the outbreak of war Dmowski increased his efforts to persuade Russia to declare that one of its goals was to unify Polish territory, and he assumed that Russia’s democratic partners in the Entente would accelerate the liberalization of the tsarist state. When Russian forces were beaten back from central Poland, most of the Endecja leaders left for Russia, while Dmowski went to Western Europe to lobby on behalf of Poland. After the overthrow of the tsar and the creation of the democratic Russian Republic, he intensified his efforts, with considerable success: in June 1917 a Polish army was formed in France; the Polish National Committee, set up by the Endecja, established contacts with a number of political leaders and diplomats, and in the fall of 1917 was recognized by the Entente as Poland’s official representative. The committee’s representative in the United States was the famous pianist, Ignacy Paderewski, who had some influence in the White House. One point of the peace program that President Woodrow Wilson presented to Congress on 8 January 1918 concerned the establishment of an independent Polish state.
During the time when the nationalist and independence movements were forming, other political groupings also emerged and entered into various kinds of relationships with the two main tendencies. Political parties representing conservative landowning interests were influential in all the areas where large landed estates were to be found. Such parties were especially influential in Austria, where Polish conservatives frequently held high government office. They had little impact, however, on the broader society. The situation was quite different in the case of the peasant parties, which gradually expanded their influence in rural areas—and peasants made up the majority of the population—but had no influence among the elites. The strongest peasant party, known as the Polish Peasant Party (PSL), emerged in Austrian Poland as early as 1895. There were also some tiny liberal-democratic parties, supported by the intelligentsia, and some Christian-democratic parties, which were heavily influenced by the clergy. Associations and organizations of the kind we refer to as civil society developed rapidly—cooperatives, business and professional associations, learned societies, savings and loan associations, sports and tourism clubs.
Given that this book is concerned with the fragment of Polish history lasting from 1939 to 1989, we must make separate mention of the revolutionary movement based on orthodox Marxism, since the party that emerged from that movement became the dominant political force in Poland after World War II. Its adherents, initially few in number, believed that Poland’s independence was a secondary issue and that the struggle for independence simply served to mask the class contradictions that were the real motive force of history. In 1893 there emerged a party calling itself the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania (SDKPiL), which functioned in Russian Poland and cooperated closely with the Bolsheviks, Lenin’s faction of the Russian Social-Democratic Party. Some of its ideologues, such as Rosa Luxemburg, not only denied the need to struggle for Poland’s independence but also argued that, given worldwide tendencies towards economic integration, the notion of national sovereignty was a pernicious utopia. During the years 1905-07, when the SDKPiL became a significant political force, some PPS members also came to believe that priority should be given to social (proletarian) revolution; they opposed Pi_sudski’s policies and created a separate party called the PPS—Left (PPS—Lewica). After the collapse of the revolution both these parties lost influence and gradually drew closer together, a process that was particularly evident in Russia in 1917, when they both voiced support for the Bolsheviks. Several SDKPiL members played a major role in the October Revolution, among them Feliks Dzierzy_ski, who came from a similar social background (szlachta) and the same region of Poland as Pi_sudski. In 1918 these two parties held a joint conference in Warsaw, where they merged to form the Polish Communist Party (KPP).
All in all, from the 1890s to the end of World War I, despite the fact that no Polish state existed, a political scene emerged that was similar to those existing in the democratic or liberal countries of Europe: from advocates of worldwide political revolution (the KPP) to left-wing groups (such as the PPS) and centrist parties (the PSL), to right-wing (Endecja) and conservative tendencies. There was a large political elite and some well-known leaders. From this point of view, Poland was prepared for independence, but it lacked the military strength to overcome the partitioning powers. The appropriate moment finally came in the fall of 1918, when, as a result of their defeat in war, first Austro-Hungary and then Germany found itself engulfed by revolution. In Russia civil war had already been raging for a year. Something like a geopolitical vacuum was created. Poland now had an exceptional opportunity, but to exploit it fully the Poles would have to fight for several years to obtain advantageous borders. And they also had to wage an internal struggle over the nature of the state and who would lead it.
The
Struggle Over Territory
The armed struggle over the shape of Poland’s
frontiers lasted until 1921. In relative terms, the borders
with Lithuania and Czechoslovakia were established with
the least military effort, but in both cases one of the
two sides was dissatisfied with the outcome. Lithuania objected
to Vilnius being included in Polish territory, while Poland
laid claim to the part of Silesia around Cieszyn (the so-called
Trans-Olza region) that was now part of Czechoslovakia.
There was no armed confrontation with Austria, which collapsed
completely in the course of just a few weeks in the fall
of 1918. Nor was there a problem with the German forces
that had occupied the territory of Russian Poland—they
agreed to withdraw without fighting. But in December 1918
an anti-German uprising exploded in Pozna_, leading to a
six-month struggle over the western frontier and access
to the Baltic. Polish units quickly occupied most of the
area of Prussian Poland inhabited by Poles, but the situation
was not finally settled until the Polish-German border was
determined at the Versailles Peace Conference (attended
by President Wilson). The decisions of the great powers
were especially important in the case of access to the Baltic,
but they did not satisfy the Poles, since Gda_sk, the largest
port in the region, was designated a Free City under the
direct administration of the newly created League of Nations
and thus did not form part of Poland’s sovereign territory.
The Germans accepted this situation only because they had
no choice. Another bone of contention was the fact that
Polish territory (what the Germans called “the Polish
corridor”) separated East Prussia from the rest of
Germany. In an effort to ensure that the economically valuable
region of Silesia was incorporated into Poland, the Poles
organized three uprisings—in 1919, 1920, and 1921.
Finally, in 1922, the Entente agreed to divide the region
in a manner that left roughly half a million Poles on German
territory and a quarter of a million Germans in Poland.
In chronological terms, the first war was not with the Germans
but with the Ukrainians, who made up the majority of the
population in Eastern Galicia, which formed part of Austrian
Poland. The Polish-Ukrainian conflict reached back hundreds
of years. It was not only an ethnic and religious conflict
but also a social one, as almost all the landowners were
Polish and the great majority of the peasants were Ukrainian.
Most Poles favored the rebirth of the state within its pre-partition
borders, which extended far to the east. Pi_sudski dreamed
of drawing all the nations situated between Germany and
Russia into an enormous federation in which Poland, by virtue
of its size, would be the leader, while Dmowski wanted to
see a unitary Polish state, in which other Slav peoples
would become assimilated. The Ukrainians, however, had been
going through a national revival since the mid-nineteenth
century and believed that the independent Ukrainian state
then being formed should include all the land currently
inhabited by them, including the areas that had belonged
to Kievan Rus only until the twelfth century. Conflict was
unavoidable. It erupted in November 1918, when Austria collapsed
and the Ukrainians attempted to make Lvov—a city in
which the majority of inhabitants were Poles—the capital
of the Western Ukrainian People’s Republic. The fighting
lasted more than six months and ended in complete victory
for the Polish forces. This bloody confrontation served
to deepen the chasm between Poles and Ukrainians, who felt
humiliated by their defeat.
Poland’s eastern frontier, including the frontier
in areas inhabited by Ukrainians, was actually determined
by the outcome of the Polish-Soviet war, the greatest challenge
to the reborn state. The first clashes between Polish and
Bolshevik forces took place in January 1919. The Poles enjoyed
a string of successes in battle, seizing control of Vilnius
and Minsk, with some assistance from Latvia, which was also
fighting against Bolshevik Russia. Pi_sudski, who was president
(literally, “head of state”) and commander in
chief, could not, however, bring himself to join forces
with General Denikin, who in the summer of 1919 appeared
to be defeating the Red Army. At that time the Poles were
more afraid of the White Russians, who had not recognized
Poland’s independence, than of the Bolsheviks, whose
days seemed to be numbered. Only when the main White Russian
forces had been defeated by the Bolsheviks did Poland conclude
a treaty of alliance with the Ukrainian Republic, headed
by Semyon Petlura. Under the terms of the treaty, the Ukraine
ceded eastern Galicia and Volhynia to Poland, and Poland
pledged to launch an offensive against Bolshevik Russia,
liberating the entire Ukraine. Following a lightning attack,
Polish forces, aided by Petlura’s troops, entered
Kiev in May 1920. Their success was, however, short-lived,
partly because of the attitude of many Ukrainians, who remembered
the recent war with Poland and did not support Petlura’s
policy. At the same time, the Bolsheviks had decided to
try to carry the revolution to Western Europe and were preparing
a massive offensive. They introduced conscription and tried
to induce tsarist officers to join the Red Army; Trotsky’s
advisors even included the former commander in chief of
the tsar’s forces, General Alexei Brusilov. Fearing
that they would be encircled, the Poles withdrew from Kiev.
They did so at the very last minute, when the Russian offensive
under the command of Mikhail Tukhachevsky got under way
on 4 July 1920. The Polish retreat was conducted in conditions
approaching panic.
Within a month the Red Army had penetrated deep into Polish
territory. The Russians set up their own, Soviet, power
structure, and on 1 August in Bia_ystok they established
the Polish Provisional Revolutionary Committee, a makeshift
institution of state power that was headed by well-known
Polish communists. The West European left was hostile towards
Poland, which it viewed as a “counterrevolutionary
state,” and a number of strikes—including strikes
by dockworkers—shut down deliveries of weapons and
ammunition. In Poland, however, the sight of the Red Army
on the banks of the Vistula galvanized the population and
led to a political consolidation, from which only the communists
dissented. As a result, Polish troops succeeded in halting
the Russians on the outskirts of Warsaw, and on 16 August
they launched a counteroffensive that ended in complete
victory—in less than two months Polish forces were
once again in Minsk and had reached the former Austro-Russian
border. Both sides were, however, completely exhausted,
and a ceasefire was signed on 12 October. Five months later,
on 18 March 1921, in Riga, the Latvian capital, they signed
a peace treaty, which determined the border between the
two countries and provided for the establishment of diplomatic
relations. Paradoxically, then, Poland was both the first
country to clash militarily with Bolshevik Russia and the
first to country to recognize de jure its existence. Under
the terms of the treaty Poland recognized Soviet Russia’s
right to central and eastern Ukraine, and disarmed and interned
Petlura’s army as well as the tiny Belorussian contingent
that had fought alongside Polish troops. Thus Pi_sudski’s
notion of a grand federation evaporated under the pressure
of events.
For nearly three years—from 1 November 1918, when
the Polish-Ukrainian war broke out, to 5 July 1921, when
a ceasefire was signed following the third Silesian uprising—Poland
was engaged in exhausting struggles to determine the shape
of its territory. It emerged finally as a state with a surface
area of 389,000 square kilometers and a population of 27.2
million (as a result of the high birth rate, the population
had risen to 35 million by 1939). In terms of both area
and population, Poland ranked sixth among the countries
of Europe. It was thus a medium-sized country, but among
the “Versailles states,” i.e., those that had
been formed or had acquired a new territorial identity after
World War I, Poland was both the largest and the most populous.
For this reason, and because of the memories it nurtured
concerning its former glory, it was also the most ambitious.
There was widespread feeling that Poland was—or rather,
ought to be—the leader of the entire region. One must,
however, agree with the view that the countries of Versailles
were “an unstable collection of weak states, divided
by historic and irredentist animosities,” and that
“the power vacuum” that emerged in the region
as a result of wars and revolution “invited foreign
manipulation and influence. Predominantly conservative regimes
dreaded the new Bolshevik virus and succeeded in repelling
it, but the renascent Germany’s economic and military
power proved irresistible.”
Independent Poland: Problem Number One—the Economy
Poland’s weakness was evident to outside observers and to a large part of the country’s political elite. Shortly after the wars and the uprisings had come to an end, many Poles began to feel that they were under threat. This feeling was initially stifled by the awareness that the country’s greatest enemies—Russia (now communist) and Germany—were living through a lean period and licking their wounds. Nevertheless, people were already asking themselves: How long can this state of affairs last? What will happen when these countries once again become militarily powerful? The chief “Polish problem” remained, then, essentially the same as it had been since the end of the eighteenth century: in the event that Russia and Germany resumed their place on the international stage, it was highly likely that they would query Poland’s territorial integrity—meaning, of course, its independence. Many factors contributed to Poland’s being weaker than the Poles would have liked and weaker than it needed to be to ensure its own security. At the time, political conflicts and personal rivalries between party leaders were singled out as a leading cause of weakness. With the benefit of hindsight, however, other factors appear more important. Two were crucial: the state of the economy and divisions between the various nationalities.
Poland was a relatively poor and largely agricultural country
(the peasantry made up 65 percent of the population). A
large part of agriculture was extremely backward, and landholdings
were dispersed. Only in the west were larger owner-operated
farms to be found, while the central
and eastern regions were dominated by szlachta estates,
in which modern management methods had made few inroads.
In terms of industry, the most highly developed region was
again the west, including Upper Silesia, an industrial center
on a European scale. Also significant were the industrial
centers of Warsaw, the D_browski Basin, and the Kraków
Basin; the oil fields around Lvov; and the textile industry
in _ód_, exaggeratedly referred to as “the
Polish Manchester.” After years of war and wasteful
exploitation, the country was devastated: industrial output
in 1919 was less than one-third of the pre-war level; roughly
30 percent of the country’s physical assets had been
destroyed. The country had virtually no capital, and throughout
the interwar period one of the greatest issues facing the
Polish government was the need to obtain—and repay—foreign
loans. The influx of private capital was often of a speculative
nature; during the period 1939-33, for example, roughly
2.5 billion dollars left the country in the form of interest
payments and dividends—an amount equal to the state’s
annual budget at that time.
The lack of financial resources resulted in large part from
the disruption of economic ties, and the loss of markets
and access to cheap raw materials. Previously each part
of the country had been linked with the economy of its partitioning
power: agriculture in the western regions flourished as
the supplier of food to Berlin, one of the largest and richest
cities in Europe; the textile workers of _ód_ dominated
the limitless Russian market all the way to Vladivostok;
oil from Galicia was guaranteed a market across the whole
Austro-Hungarian empire. All this had come to an end: Russia
descended into chaos and then proceeded to build a powerful,
but autarchic, economy; Germany, once the country’s
largest trading partner, had its own problems, partly because
of the need to pay war reparations; and the Austrian market
simply ceased to exist after the collapse of the monarchy
and was subdivided into three smaller markets with reduced
absorptive capacity. The vortex of revolution and civil
war in Russia destroyed many Polish fortunes, landholdings,
and bank accounts; nearly half a million Poles—wealthy
managers and merchants, or highly valued (and highly paid)
experts—returned from Russia to face unemployment.
During the early post-war years many social groups suffered
enormous losses as a result of hyperinflation: in 1923,
in the course of a single month, the exchange rate of the
dollar—the main currency used for trading purposes—increased
more than five-fold. Out of fear of its enemies to the east
and the west, Poland was obliged to maintain a sizeable
army. This was a point on which all parties agreed, but
the effort placed yet another burden on the economy.
It was a costly and time-consuming process to unify the economy, to create a single market and financial system (a new currency, the z_oty, was introduced 1924), a single communications network, administrative structure, and legal system. For example, a uniform Penal Code was not introduced until 1932, leaving the three codes of the partitioning powers in force for more than ten years. Although the feeble domestic market and impoverished population yielded only a trickle of tax revenue, the state felt obliged to provide assistance to the economy. It was largely thanks to such assistance—akin to Roosevelt’s New Deal but on a much larger scale—that economic reconstruction and development took place. It was a slow process, and successes were achieved with only the greatest difficulty, but still, during the 1930s signs of modernization were clearly visible: the tiny fishing village of Gdynia was transformed into an ultra-modern port, which during 1937-39 handled more cargo that any other port on the Baltic; several hydro-electric power stations were constructed in the south of the country, and a number of factories in the chemical, metal, and defense industries were built to high technical standards; an enormous number of public buildings were erected (museums, theaters, universities, schools, post offices, stadiums, railroad stations, and so on), and new railroad lines were established. Just how slow this progress was, however, is attested to by the fact that only in 1938 did industrial output reach the level of 1913. Periods of rapid growth were few and relatively short-lived (1921-22, 1926-28, 1935-38). Other countries, such as Czechoslovakia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Finland, had similar problems in creating new domestic markets and economic systems.
Agriculture, with its many structural problems, was in dire straights and suffered most from the Great Depression that began on far-away Wall Street and about which the Polish peasants had, of course, not the slightest idea. As a result of overall backwardness and the effects of the crisis, many peasants—especially in eastern and southern Poland—lived outside the market framework, consuming most of what they produced and selling the tiny surplus for a few miserable pennies in the local markets. While industry had already emerged from the crisis in 1933, the countryside did not revive until two years later. The miniscule purchasing power of the peasantry had a negative effect on the development of industry and contributed to the retention of archaic trading customs in rural areas. In many regions the only forms of contact with the national economy were small-town fairs, which many peasants could reach only by walking long distances, and the small traders who went from village to village peddling their wares. Only slowly did the age-old division between smallholders and landless peasants on the one hand and wealthy landowners on the other begin to disappear. In 1919 and 1920 parliament passed a law on agrarian reform, limiting the size of landholdings, but neither the state nor the peasantry had the resources needed to purchase land. The result was a rapid increase in the number of what were referred to as “surplus people” in rural areas. Young people who went to seek their fortune in the cities had a far greater chance of reinforcing the ranks of the unemployed than of finding even short-term employment. One of the most important channels of reducing overpopulation—emigration to America—was blocked by Washington’s new immigration policy. All this resulted in an unstable social situation; on several occasions the country was rocked by a wave of strikes, which—as in the fall of 1923 and the spring of 1936—turned into riots that the police suppressed with the use of firearms. During the period 1934-37 peasants also staged a number of strikes, involving the boycott of local markets. The largest such strike, in 1937, lasted ten days, and several dozen people were killed by the police.
In this respect, however, Poland was no different from other European countries. Even countries that were relatively much wealthier than Poland, such as Great Britain, France, and Germany, were frequently shaken by strikes. Although poor, Poland was not, then, “the pariah of Europe”: per capita national income was the same as in Spain or Portugal and much higher than in the Balkans. In spite of all its economic problems—both structural and short-term (such as inflation or the Great Depression)—thanks to its considerable size and relatively large population, Poland was a country that had to be reckoned with in Europe. Or in any event, one that could not be ignored: either as a producer (of coal, for example) or as a potential consumer. Poland was also an active consumer and producer in the field of culture, in terms of both high quality artistic endeavor (for example, W_adys_aw Reymont received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1924) and popular culture: a large number of newspapers and periodicals were published, films were produced, thousands of people turned out to watch football matches, and Poland won several Olympic medals. Poland also “exported” scientists and artists. Some Polish products were renowned, and Poles had particular cause for pride in the successes of the country’s pilots, who flew planes that were produced in Poland. Nevertheless, this did not create a real power, despite the numerous statements the country’s rulers made to that effect in the 1930s in the attempt to convince their citizens that Poland was a strong state.
Number Two—Relations Between Nationalities
Another factor that weakened the country was its national composition. Like the majority of Versailles countries, Poland was made up of several nationalities. Ethnic Poles accounted for approximately 65 percent of the population; the largest non-Polish groups were Ukrainians (roughly 15 percent), Jews (nearly 10 percent), Belorussians (about 5 percent), and Germans (about 4 percent). The geographical distribution of the national minorities was of great significance. Large concentrations of Germans were to be found in Silesia and Pomerania, areas adjoining Germany. In many eastern parts of the country the minorities were actually in the majority. In the province of Volhynia, for example, Poles made up less than 25 percent of the population, Jews accounted for 5 percent, while 70 percent were Ukrainians; Belorussians made up a similar majority in Polesie. The Jewish population was far more dispersed, living mostly in the towns and cities of central and eastern Poland. As a result, Jews made up roughly one-third of the inhabitants of Warsaw, and in several other large towns—such as _ód_ or Vilnius—40-50 percent. Many small towns were actually Jewish settlements (shtetl), and in some cases less than 10-20 percent of the inhabitants were Poles. Ethnic divisions were overlaid by social differences. The overwhelming majority of Belorussians and Ukrainians were peasants, who for centuries had regarded Polish landowners with hatred, and the large landholdings that were divided up in the regions where they lived were largely assigned—with government assistance—to Polish soldiers who had distinguished themselves in the war of 1920. The Germans were generally wealthier than their Polish neighbors, and this was true of both farmers in Pomerania and skilled workers in Silesia. Jews dominated many professions, which aroused envy among the Poles, while many of them made a living from trade in rural areas and were thus perceived by Polish and Ukrainian peasants as “bloodsuckers.” Ethnic differences were reinforced by religious differences: the great majority of Poles were Catholics; the Germans were usually Protestants; the Jews, of course, followed Judaism; and the Belorussians and some of the Ukrainians were Orthodox, although most of the latter were Greek-Catholic, which increased the gap between them and their Polish neighbors. During the nineteenth century some assimilation of Polish language and culture did take place. This process was most advanced among the Jews living in the larger towns of Russian and Austrian Poland (in Prussian Poland, the Jews assimilated German culture). However, the overwhelming majority of the national minorities lived within their own cultures and did not speak Polish. To the majority of Jews, it was simply an alien culture; to the Germans it was “inferior” to their own; and to the Ukrainians it was the culture of an occupying power.
It is striking that Nobel laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer, a Jewish writer born in Poland, has written numerous stories set in Poland but Poles rarely appear in these tales and usually do so only as figures in ethnic conflicts. There was some common ground: roughly 10 percent of Jews declared Polish to be their mother tongue, numerous Jewish newspapers and books were published in Polish, the Polish boxing champion, Rotholc, was a Jew, and the Polish national chess team was made up of Jews; Wilimowski, a German from Silesia, was one of the stars of Polish football. A considerable proportion of the Polish intellectual and cultural elite—poets, actors, theater and film directors—consisted of assimilated Jews. They frequently came under attack from Polish nationalists, but the majority of Jews also viewed them as alien. During the 1930s a process of assimilation was evident among young people who studied Polish language and history in school or served in the Polish armed forces.
Nevertheless, the dominant feeling was one of difference,
strangeness, and often—enmity. This was true not only
of minority attitudes towards Poles but also of Polish attitudes
towards the minorities.
National differences are not necessarily a source of weakness,
of course. Poland’s culture and economy flourished
in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries thanks in part
to such figures as the great astronomer, Nicolaus Copernicus,
a German from Toru_, who studied in Kraków and was
a member of the Polish clergy, and Wit Stwosz (Stoss), who
was born in Nuremburg but lived in Poland, where he carved
the altar in Kraków’s Mariacki Church, the
greatest Polish work of art of that period. German merchants
from Polish Gda_sk exported grain and timber to Western
Europe, thereby providing a living to the Polish szlachta.
Many of the latter were actually of Lithuanian or Russian
origin, and one of Poland’s greatest poets, Mikolaj
Rej, was a Protestant. During the interwar years, more than
a hundred years after the fall of the multi-nation szlachta
republic, after years of intensive russification and germanization,
in a new geopolitical situation, things were different.
The presence of unassimilated minorities, frequently hostile
to Poland and the Poles, had a negative influence, both
internally and externally.
In domestic politics, it led to the development of radical nationalist tendencies, which in turn led to the deepening of political and ideological divisions in the country. Radical nationalism was to be found not only among Poles, but also among Ukrainians and Germans. It even existed among Jews, in the form of the party of the so-called revisionist Zionists, but they did not attack the Polish state. An organization that did have anti-state aims was the Ukrainian Military Organization, a clandestine terrorist organization that was more active than the legal Ukrainian political parties, which had set themselves the goal of gradually and peacefully winning national autonomy within the Polish state, along the lines envisaged by Dmowski during the period 1905-15. The proliferation of nationalisms injected a strong element of violence into political life. A telling example is the case of the first Polish president, Gabriel Narutowicz, who was murdered by a Polish fanatic in December 1922 after right-wing extremists accused him of having come to power only with the help of parliamentary deputies representing the national minorities. Ukrainian terrorists carried out numerous assassination attempts. Some of these were unsuccessful, as in the case of President Stanis_aw Wojciechowski in 1924; others were successful, as in the case of the minister of internal affairs, Bronis_aw Pieracki, murdered ten years later. In retaliation, the police conducted a brutal pacification of the villages where the bandits had taken refuge; often such operations were carried out on the basis of nothing more than suspicion or denunciation. Not only homes and businesses were destroyed, but also churches; and mass arrests were carried out. As a result, Ukrainians were the largest single group among political prisoners during the whole interwar period, outnumbered only by communists of various nationalities.
The onset of the Depression brought with it an increase in anti-Semitism, an age-old phenomenon—as it was throughout Europe—and one that had acquired drastic forms during the Polish-Ukrainian and Polish-Bolshevik wars. Although no large-scale pogroms took place after 1920, during the 1930s there were more than a dozen acts of aggression involving crowds of people, and a far larger number on a smaller scale. Their victims were usually Jewish shopkeepers in small towns, who were attacked by their local Polish competitors and peasants from the surrounding villages. In some cases people were killed, but in the most well known pogrom, which took place in 1936 in the town of Przytyk, one of the three people killed was a Polish woman. In another incident, police shot and killed four people while dispersing the crowd. One major change in comparison with previous periods was the growth in anti-Semitism among the intelligentsia. For example, despite opposition from left-wing students and faculty, several universities introduced what became known as “bench ghettos” (Jewish students had to sit separately from the Poles), there were demands for the enforcement of a numerus clausus to limit the percentage of Jewish students to the percentage of Jews in the population as a whole, and there were even demands for the complete exclusion of Jews from the universities. Nationalist gangs attacked Jewish students and their defenders on the left. The representatives of some professions, notably lawyers and physicians, demanded legal limits on the number of Jews entering the profession. The state authorities never went that far. Nevertheless, in the second half of the 1930s some members of the ruling group suggested organizing the large-scale migration of Jews (to Madagascar, for example) and proposed restrictions on Jewish religious practices (ritual slaughter); in 1936 Prime Minister Felicjan Sk_adkowski became famous for his remark concerning Jewish trade: “A boycott? Most certainly.” In his defense we can only add that the alternative to a boycott was pogroms. The authorities supported Jewish emigration, but on the basis of an agreement with Zionist organizations. As a result, at the end of the 1930s roughly 40 percent of the Jews in Palestine came from Poland. Some of them made the journey feeling they were going to the Promised Land rather than fleeing danger; others left for both reasons.
Anti-Semitic tendencies were reinforced by much of the Polish press, which continued to feature a cartoon stereotype that first appeared during the war of 1920: the Bolshevik Jew, a giant with a knife between his teeth, joins forces with the Russian, a bloodthirsty bear, to attack Poland, an innocent woman trying to protect her young children. Another favorite motif was a caricature of Leon Trotsky with exaggerated Semitic features and Lenin as a “slant-eyed Asiatic.” Although the nationalist parties were generally anti-German, from 1933 onwards they were happy to point to the “de-Judaization” of Germany and took from Nazi propaganda the caricature of the Jewish plutocrat and the image of the disease-bearing insect.
Polish-Belorussion and Polish-German relations were less tense, although they periodically flared up. The Poles never really rid themselves of their fear of Germany, a fear mixed with hatred, and the brutal and perfidious Teutonic Knight was often cited as the typical German. The Germans living in Poland had no difficult in receiving the anti-Polish message contained in the contemptuous and disdainful remarks made by many German politicians—or their reminders that Poland was just a “seasonal state.”
The country’s non-Polish inhabitants had the same civil rights as the Poles, and could take part in elections to parliament and local self-government bodies (the Jews even had their own communal assemblies). The national minorities had their own political parties, trade unions, cooperatives, banks, newspapers, and sports clubs. There was, then, no discrimination de jure, but regardless of which particular party was in power, discrimination existed de facto. Ukrainians, Belorussians, and Germans were most affected, Jews less so. This discrimination was not drastic, but the national minorities found it painful and irksome. It was virtually impossible for a non-Pole to become a state official or a judge, to get a job with the police, the post office, or the railroads. They were not admitted to officer training schools or to elite military units, such as the air force or navy. The few Jews who became high-ranking officers (up to the level of general) and state officials owed their careers to the fact that they had served in Pi_sudski’s Legions, which were predominantly left-wing in their politics. A few Georgians who had previously served in the Russian army served temporarily in the Polish army (among them the father of the future Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General John Shalikashvili, who was born in Warsaw), but no Polish citizen of Ukrainian nationality achieved a similar status. With the exception of communists and socialists, non-Poles did not belong to Polish political parties, and the parties of the national minorities did not form parliamentary coalitions with the Polish parties. Most of the time, in fact, they had no desire to do so.
Despite all this, it cannot be said that Poland was any worse than other European countries with a multi-national citizenry. In democratic Czechoslovakia, Ukrainians, Hungarians, and Poles had absolutely no chance of reaching high office; even the Slovaks complained about Czech dominance, and some of them wanted to break away from the republic. In those days standards concerning treatment of minorities were different from those of today (in the United States, gentlemen’s clubs would not admit Jews or Catholics, and the same was true of Harvard). One way or another, national conflicts had a devastating effect on Polish political life and undoubtedly had a destabilizing influence on the state.
One further aspect of these conflicts is relevant to an understanding of the Poles’ attitude towards communism and socialism. The majority of people among the national minorities who were dissatisfied with their lot swelled the ranks of nationalist groups, but there were some who opted instead for the communist movement. The movement espoused not only social equality, which would already have been enough to ensure support, but also internationalism, a slogan that the Soviet party seemed to be putting into practice, given the high positions achieved by russified members of other national groups—Jews (Trotsky), Poles (Dzierzy_ski), and Georgians (Stalin). From the moment the revolutionary movement appeared on Polish soil, it attracted national minorities, particularly Jews from the intelligentsia and the middle class. Just like everywhere else in Europe.
The situation changed after 1918, when communism began making inroads among Ukrainians and Belorussions. The KPP was transformed into a kind of federation that included two autonomous sections, the Communist Party of Western Ukraine and the Communist Party of Western Belorussia. It is estimated that ethnic Poles made up roughly 33 percent of KPP membership, Jews—about 25 percent, and Ukrainians and Belorussians—40 percent. Of course, there were considerable regional variations: in the eastern provinces the party was largely made up of Jews and Ukrainians or Belorussians, in the central regions—Jews and Poles (the party had very few members in the western provinces). Regardless of the fact that Jewish or Ukrainian communists were regarded—as were their Polish comrades—as “outcasts” by the majority of the national group to which they belonged, many Poles came to believe that the KPP was not only anti-Polish but also non-Polish. Right-wing groups seized on this point repeatedly in their propaganda, as did some groups in the political center. This made it easier for the public to accept the fact that the KPP had been delegalized, even though the reason for delegalization was that the communists had called for the overthrow of the “reactionary” Polish state.
Despite the severity of these conflicts—especially between Poles and Jews and Poles and Ukrainians—they did not by themselves threaten the security and territorial integrity of the state. The threat largely came from Poland’s neighbors: both the Soviet Union and Germany (first the Weimar republic, then the Third Reich) tried to make use of the national minorities to intervene in Poland’s internal affairs, and essentially to prize away part of its territory. The Soviet Union was especially active in this regard in 1924. In the eastern provinces, inhabited largely by Belorussians, subversive units made their way across the border to carry out attacks on landed estates, local officials, and even small towns. This activity was halted by the specially created Border Guard that was stationed along the entire length of the Polish-Soviet border. Moscow did not try anything like this subsequently, but there was always a state of tension along the border. The Soviets operated through the KPP, which, as a section of the Comintern, was wholly subordinate to Moscow. Some spying also took place, and in 1939 the Soviets organized subversive operations that were intended to assist the Red Army’s invasion of Poland. Germany did not use the Germans living in Poland to engage in any overtly seditious activity, although during 1938-39 subversive groups were organized and espionage increased. The Germans’ chief weapon in their efforts to weaken Poland was the Ukrainian radical nationalist movement, whose headquarters were located in Berlin. There terrorists received training and were provided with safe haven. Pro-German sentiments among the Ukrainians were relatively strong, and Berlin promised—directly or indirectly—to establish an independent Ukrainian state on territory then belonging to Poland and the Soviet Union.
On an international scale, more significant than subversive activity was the constant pressure on Poland, which Soviet and German propaganda depicted as a country that oppressed its national minorities. By the mid-1930s both countries had again become major powers and each of them was ready to defend its “kinsmen”: Moscow—the Ukrainians and Belorussions, Berlin—the Germans. This made it easier to conceal aggressive intentions, although it is certain that most Ukrainians were not longing to be part of the Soviet empire (especially once they had information about the great famine in the Ukraine). Nor did anyone ask whether all the Germans wanted to become citizens of the totalitarian Third Reich. While it cannot be said that information about the disadvantaged position of Poland’s national minorities was actually inaccurate, it was frequently exaggerated in order to provide a pretext for aggression. On occasion, Jewish groups also joined in the propaganda campaign against Poland. The fact that after 1933 these attacks coincided with the Nazi’s anti-Polish campaign was a bitter paradox. Bitter for both Jews and Poles.
Domestic Politics
Despite the major political changes that took place in Poland after 1918, the main ideological groupings that had been formed before World War I survived unchanged. As a result, the main political conflict continued to be that between the independence movement led by Pi_sudski, subsequently known as the “legionaries” or “Pi_sudski-ites,” and the Endecja, led by Dmowski until his death in 1939. Nevertheless, during the crucial years 1918-20 these two camps managed—while maintaining their ideological disputes and sometimes violent political clashes—to arrive at a consensus on the most important issues and even at a division of roles. As head of state, Pi_sudski assumed command of the armed forces and responsibility for the situation at home. Dmowski became Poland’s chief representative at the Versailles conference and defended the state’s interests in the diplomatic arena. In November 1918 Pi_sudski appointed a left-wing government, but faced with a difficult internal situation, he decided in January 1919 that he needed to reach agreement with his opponents and assigned the post of prime minister to Paderewski, who was politically close to Dmowski. One of the main tasks of this government was to hold parliamentary elections; these took place on 19 January and resulted in the Endecja holding the largest number of seats. The parliament passed the so-called Small Constitution (intended to be temporary), which stabilized the position of the highest state authorities, and also confirmed Pi_sudski in his position as head of state and commander in chief, giving him extremely broad powers. In 1920, when the country’s very existence was threatened by the Red Army, a coalition government was formed under the leadership of Wincenty Witos, head of the largest peasant party and considered a politician of the center-right; his deputy, on the other hand, was a socialist, Ignacy Daszy_ski. The government, referred to as the Government of National Salvation, also included members of the Endecja. Nevertheless, once the threat had passed, the two camps resumed their all-out political struggle and never again cooperated with each other. Even in 1939, in the face of war, the Pi_sudski-ites—by that time ruling without Pi_sudski, who died in May 1935—disdainfully rejected the opposition’s proposal to create a coalition government. This had no bearing on the outbreak of war or the course that it took, but it was evidence of the changes that had taken place in Poland and the depth of political divisions.
Generally speaking, the interwar years can be divided into several periods, although the most important turning point is undoubtedly that of May 1926, when Pi_sudski—with the support of the socialists and the entire left (including the communists)—carried out a coup d’état. While the country was still fighting to establish it borders (1918-21) political life was lively, developments followed one another rapidly, and debates were heated, but it was external events that were most important during this period. The next period, which opened with the passage of the Constitution of 17 March 1921, is usually referred to as the period of “Sejmocracy.” The constitution favored the legislature over the executive, and, at the same time, numerous political groups were emerging onto the political stage. As a result, successive governments lacked a stable parliamentary majority, and Sejm deputies were the dominant force in shaping one government after another. The moment of truth came in November 1922, when for the first time elections were held across the country to both the Sejm and the Senate; together they were to elect the president, which involved abolishing the position of head of state. Pi_sudski was dissatisfied with the much reduced role of the presidency under the new constitution and announced that he would not be a candidate for the office. The election campaign was marked by sharp disputes, and the outcome was unexpected: no single party had enough seats to form a government alone. The Endecja list obtained 28 percent of the seats, several quarreling centrist parties jointly had 30 percent, and the left had 22 percent. The greatest surprise was the success of the national minorities, who fielded a joint list; despite the fact that most Ukrainians boycotted the elections, the list obtained 20 percent of the seats and thus became a force to be courted by all sides.
The most important point about the elections was, however, that they brought home the fact that Pi_sudski, the dominant political figure of his time, a charismatic leader with a strong authoritarian bent, did not have his own political party. The only party that claimed close association with him did not obtain a single seat. He could, of course, count on the support of the PPS and the smaller left-wing parties, but this was not enough to allow him to play the role that he had envisaged. The Pi_sudski-ites began to question the value of parliamentary democracy, and since they held senior positions in the armed forces and the state administration, their opinions could not be ignored. The murder of Narutowicz brought with it a sharp escalation of political conflict; as a last resort, a non-party government was formed under General W_adyslaw Sikorski, who speedily gained control of the situation, but the event deepened the gulf between the left and the right and Pi_sudski. A succession of center-right governments carried out the administrative, financial, and economic unification of the country, but this was accompanied by severe social conflicts, partly the result of hyperinflation. A major factor in political life was the instability of the center parties, without which no government could be formed. Numerous splits in these parties resulted in frequent changes of government, and government weakness brought with it, as is often the case, corruption. This made it easier for the Pi_sudski-ites to criticize democracy and argue the need to “cleanse” or “purify” the state. (Their use of the old-fashioned word “usanowac” resulted in the group thereafter being known as the Sanacja.) In the spring of 1926, when the Endecja and centrist parties formed yet another government, headed by Wincenty Witos, Pi_sudski’s supporters stepped up their attacks.
This time it was no longer just a matter of words. Pi_sudski, in retirement since 1923, had for several months been preparing his return to political life, and the formation of the new government provided his supporters and the entire left with the pretext they needed to act. On 12 May 1926 several thousand soldiers, under Pi_sudski’s command, marched from their barracks near Warsaw to the capital, where no more than a few hundred soldiers were stationed. After three days of skirmishes, in which 400 people were killed, the president and the government resigned in order to spare the country a full-scale civil war. At Pi_sudski’s suggestion, the marshal of the Sejm, Maciej Rataj, appointed as prime minister Kazimierz Bartel, a professor at Lvov Polytechnic. The Sejm and the Senate accepted the fait accompli, and with the votes of the left and the center, Pi_sudski was elected president. To everyone’s surprise, however, he turned down the post, saying that by its vote parliament had legalized the coup and that he wished for nothing more. He did, though, have a candidate for the post in the person of Ignacy Mo_cicki, another professor and even less well known than the prime minister. On 1 June Mo_cicki was elected president.
The period of “Sejmocracy” thus came to an end, although Pi_sudski was often obliged to take account of the balance of forces in parliament, as the left-wing parties gradually deserted him to join the opposition. The elections that took place in March 1928 had little effect on the situation. These had been delayed for several months in order to give Pi_sudski and his supporters time to organize a political party. They put together a conglomeration of various political tendencies, ranging from a group of socialists who had left the PPS to conservatives, and they called it the Non-Party Bloc for Cooperation with the Government (BBWR), a name that reflected Pi_sudski’s dislike of traditional political parties. Although the Endecja suffered a huge defeat (obtaining only 8 percent of seats in the Sejm), as did the centrist parties (roughly 12 percent), and while the BBWR was the largest party (27 percent of seats), it did not have enough seats to form a government on its own. For the next two years, therefore, Pi_sudski exploited a number of legal loopholes. He frequently changed prime ministers, sometimes heading the government himself. Sometimes he threatened Sejm deputies and sometimes he made them promises. In one way or another he finally removed all opponents from the state administration and self-government agencies, from the boards of state enterprises and banks, from the police and the officer corps. To a large extent the BBWR became a ruling party that attracted careerists rather than an organization with a firm ideological basis. In 1930, when the hitherto divided opposition began to form a coalition under the name of the Union in Defense of Law and the People’s Freedom (known as the Centrolew), Pi_sudski decided it was time for the final offensive. At the end of August 1930 the president dissolved parliament. Shortly afterwards, twenty former Sejm deputies were arrested and consigned to the military prison at Brze__, on the River Bug; among them was Witos, three times prime minister. A number of less well-known activists were arrested across the country. The crackdown was especially severe in the eastern provinces: several dozen Ukrainian deputies were arrested, and armed clashes and a brutal pacification campaign cost the lives of more than a dozen people.
To all intents and purposes the opposition was paralyzed, and the next elections were characterized by numerous cases of fraud; in some cases votes cast for the Centrolew were declared invalid. In these conditions, the BBWR won 56 percent of seats in the Sejm. This was enough to form a government but not enough to change the constitution. Unless, of course, the government could use its powers to take advantage of a number of loopholes to introduce changes. This turned out to be the case, and in April 1935 a new constitution was finally approved by parliament. This took place just a few weeks before the death of Pi_sudski, who had been ailing for some time; it goes without saying that the changes had his complete approval. What became known as the April Constitution sanctioned the authoritarian nature of the state. The president acquired enormous powers, plainly towering over not only the government but also parliament (among other things, he appointed one-third of the senators and had the power to dissolve parliament at will, to call it into session and to defer sessions). He had the power to issue decrees with the force of law and to conclude and ratify international treaties without their being approved by the Sejm. According to one article of the constitution, the president was responsible “to God and history,” not the nation. The age at which people became eligible to vote was raised to twenty-four, and the new electoral law avoided all mention of political parties as society’s basic representatives. In protest, the opposition boycotted the next elections in September 1935.
After 1930—and essentially after the May coup—Poland came less and less to resemble a democratic state, although it was not a dictatorial country like the Third Reich or fascist Italy: opposition political parties continued in existence and their newspapers continued to appear; independent trade unions and associations functioned, and there was considerable freedom of speech. Nevertheless, a single group exerted such a grip on power that it became impossible to bring about a change in leadership.
One of the chief requirements of democracy was thus unfulfilled. Although efforts were made to observe the law, political opponents were subjected to brutal treatment. For example, in 1934 the government introduced regulations allowing people to be imprisoned without first having been sentenced by a court of law, simply on the basis of an administrative order. The people detained in this way were confined, under harsh conditions, at a camp in Bereza Kartuska. Eleven of the politicians arrested in 1930 were sentenced to prison, but a number of them—including Witos and Herman Lieberman, a socialist—managed to leave the country and emigrate. Also in emigration was the Christian-democrat politician, Wojciech Korfanty, the popular leader of the Silesian uprisings of 1919-20 and another politician who had been prosecuted.
Because of their roots in the Legions, military personnel played a major role in the state, often occupying positions in the government and administration; in 1936 the president referred to Pi_sudski’s successor to the highest position in the army as “the second most important person in the state.” Of course, when Pi_sudski was alive it was he and not the president who was the most important person in the state. After his death, disputes erupted within the Sanacja. The BBWR was dissolved and replaced in 1937 by the Camp of National Unity, whose program was both more authoritarian and more nationalistic. Despite personal conflicts among some of the more liberal Pi_sudski-ites, and despite deepening social and political conflicts, the Sanacja retained sufficient cohesion to remain in power. A ruling triumvirate emerged, its members consisting of President Mo_cicki, who had been re-elected in 1933; Edward Rydz-_mig_y, who took over the position of General Inspector of the Armed Forces, the highest position in the military, and who was appointed marshal in 1936; and Józef Beck, minister of foreign affairs since 1932. Economic policy, a major issue in light of the high level of state ownership in industry and banking, was in the hands of Eugeniusz Kwiatkowski, a talented manager, who was close to the president and held the position of deputy prime minister. All in all, then, the Sanacja was unified and self-confident. Its leaders, who were also the leaders of the state, were convinced that Poland, too, was unified and strong.
One reason why the Sanacja believed it was in a position to govern indefinitely was the fact that the opposition remained fragmented. The parties were simply too diverse. In addition, political attitudes had become so polarized that a rapprochement between nationalists and socialists was out of the question and the centrist parties even began to distance themselves from the Endecja. Nevertheless, some consolidation took place. The most important such development was the 1931 merger of the three peasant parties into a single Peasant Party (SL), in which a younger generation of activists, people such as Stanis_aw Mikolajczyk and Stanis_aw Mierzwa, came to play a more prominent role, although the party’s unquestioned leader was Witos, the “king of the peasants.” In 1937 several groups joined together to form the Labor Party (SP). It was headed by Karol Popiel, and included among its supporters General Sikorski, who had been ousted from the army following the May coup. In 1936 a number of politicians in exile agreed to cooperate with each other in the political arena. The group included Witos, Lieberman, Korfanty, and Sikorski, a frequent visitor to France, where he was much admired. This agreement was forged under the patronage of Paderewski, who had been living abroad since 1924, and the group became known as the Morges Front, after the town in Switzerland where his house was situated. The Peasant Party was particularly active, organizing many mass demonstrations and the peasant strike of 1937. The Labor Party was much weaker, but had some influence among the middle and working classes. The PPS was both active and influential, but after the death of Daszy_ski the absence of a leader capable of bridging the differences between its right and left wings reduced the party’s effectiveness. The left wing was interested in cooperating with the communists, who since 1935—when the Comintern launched its policy of popular fronts—had been trying to play a role in legal political life and rid themselves of the accusation that they were agents of a hostile power. This cooperation was beginning to bear fruit for the communists when the party was dissolved by the Comintern in 1938, as part of Stalin’s Great Purge. All the most important leaders, who were in Moscow, were shot. Paradoxically, the only leaders to be saved were those then sitting in Polish prisons.
On the surface, the biggest loser of the May coup—leaving aside Polish democracy itself—was Roman Dmowski. The Endecja, which in 1929 renamed itself the National Party (SN), never regained the influence it had had before 1926. In addition, an extremely active and radical group led by Boles_aw Piasecki broke away in 1934 to form what was essentially a fascist organization, the National Radical Camp (ONR). The National Party was not a weak organization; it had a large membership, published several newspapers, and had a clear-cut—and increasingly radical—political line, but the temptations of sharing in power or at least establishing better relations with the ruling camp were too strong for the nationalists’ traditional social base, the landowners and bourgeoisie, and the wealthier middle class and civil servants. Even the Catholic clergy no longer supported the SN as solidly as before. The party was also weakened by the fact that the aging and ailing Dmowski had no successor capable of leading the party. I said above that the Endecja was the biggest loser “on the surface,” because while the party itself no longer played the role that it did in earlier times, the nationalism that it espoused took root in a variety of social groups, including some that had hitherto been immune. Even the Sanacja became infected, although Pi_sudski himself always thought first in terms of the state, not the nation.
Nationalism was nourished by social attitudes but attitudes were themselves shaped by the extremist propaganda and aggressive actions of a few small but determined political groups. Many of them made a major impression on the public, as was the case in 1936 when a gang of hoodlums occupied the tiny town of My_lenice, in symbolic tribute to Mussolini’s “March on Rome.” While it remained anti-German and anti-Ukrainian, the National Party became increasingly anti-Semitic in its focus. Perhaps because this particular enemy was weaker than the others.
Although the opposition was unable to oust the Sanacja from power, it had considerable influence in society, especially during the years 1936-39, after Pi_sudski’s death. While it was clear who governed Poland, it was hard to say who ruled the hearts and minds of its citizens.
Diplomacy and War
Poland’s situation was by no means secure, although for many years its two great neighbors and enemies were seriously weakened and completely absorbed in domestic issues. Bad relations with Lithuania and Czechoslovakia were of less consequence. Lithuania laid claim to Vilnius, despite the fact that only a tiny percentage of its inhabitants were Lithuanians, and for most of the interwar period Poland had no diplomatic relations with Kaunas. Only in the spring of 1938, during the turmoil brought about by the Anschluss of Austria, did Poland insist on an exchange of ambassadors. This normalized the situation, but there was no question of an alliance between the two countries. Relations with Czechoslovakia were somewhat better but far from friendly. Poland objected to Czechoslovakia’s acquisition in 1919 of the Trans-Olza, a region in which the majority of inhabitants were Polish. In the fall of 1938, following the agreement reached in Munich with Great Britain, France, and Italy, the Third Reich seized part of the Czech lands. Polish forces took the opportunity to occupy the Trans-Olza, which was then incorporated into Poland. This step did nothing to improve Poland’s international standing and was of little strategic significance in the event of a German attack. Czechoslovakia did not share Poland’s fears regarding potential aggression on the part of Moscow and viewed with suspicion Poland’s ambition to lead East-Central Europe. It tried to assume leadership of the anti-Hungarian alliance known as the Little Entente, and viewed as hostile to its interests the good relations between Poland and Hungary. Prague supported the moderate Ukrainian nationalists, and for a period of time even provided a home for the émigré government of the People’s Republic of Western Ukraine, clearly an unfriendly gesture in relation to Poland. The fact that Pi_sudski and Thomas Masaryk, each of whom dominated the politics of his own country, had such different personalities and visions of the world also played a role in the relationship between Warsaw and Prague. Poland enjoyed relatively good relations with Latvia, a small and militarily weak country with which it shared a border. The country was in no position, however, to provide support and in any case tended to gravitate towards the other countries of the eastern Baltic (Finland, Estonia, and Latvia). Poland’s warmest diplomatic relations were with Romania, with which it signed a treaty in 1921 concerning mutual assistance in the event of a Soviet attack, but the country was internally too weak to be a full-fledged partner.
Although it might have seemed that the West European powers would be interested in ensuring a strong and stable Poland, this was not in fact the case. This was largely the result of the position adopted by Great Britain; its traditional interest in maintaining equilibrium in Europe led it to be concerned about the position of Germany, and during the crucial years 1919-20 it was surprisingly hostile to Poland’s involvement in the war with Soviet Russia. It was the British foreign secretary, George Curzon, who proposed in 1919 that Poland’s territory extend as far as a line (referred to as the Curzon Line) that roughly corresponded to Russia’s western border at the time of the 1795 partition. In 1920, when Tukhachevsky was mounting his fiercest offensive, Prime Minister Lloyd George endorsed the idea. Fortunately, Polish forces won the war, but if peace had been achieved earlier on terms proposed by the British, the Polish-Soviet border would have been situated barely a hundred kilometers east of Warsaw and the country’s territory would have been 40 percent smaller. In later years, too, London treated Poland with a certain amount of disdain and it was only when Hitler’s increasing aggression persuaded Britain to abandon the policy of appeasement that the British recognized Poland’s significance in the effort to restrain the Third Reich. In the spring of 1939 Poland received Britain’s formal guarantee of assistance in the event of a German attack, but the treaty on mutual assistance was not signed until 24 August, less than a week before Germany invaded.
France, despite the entente cordiale between the two countries, always displayed a certain amount of reserve towards Britain and adopted a policy that was more favorable to Poland. It was the only country that supported Poland in the war with Soviet Russia, and the French military mission—in which Lieutenant Charles de Gaulle served—was instrumental in preparing the counteroffensive of 1920. In 1921 Pi_sudski visited France and signed a declaration of friendship and a treaty of alliance together with a military agreement. However, the so-called Rhine Treaty signed in Locarno in 1925, which involved a multilateral commitment (on the part of Great Britain, Italy, and Poland, among others) to defend France from German attack but committed only France to the defense of Poland’s western border, was interpreted in Warsaw as giving the Germans a free rein to their east. Over the next few years Paris and London signed numerous multilateral agreements, as though it was paper and not force that was going to determine whether there was war or peace. It was only with the change in German policy and the remilitarization of the Rhineland in 1936 that relations with Poland became closer. In May 1939 Poland and France signed a secret protocol that committed France to launch a major offensive within fifteen days of a German attack on Poland. This agreement constituted a major supplement to the agreement of 1921, which had effectively been dormant for many years. A more important factor, however, was the existence in France of influential groups whose views were either pro-German or radically pacifist. The famous article, “Mourir pour Dantzig?” (Should we die for Danzig?), reflected not only the views of the author, Marcel Deat, who had made the journey from communism to fascism, but the views of a broad section of the public—even those of the chief of the general staff and many other officers and politicians.
During the 1920s Poland made numerous efforts to improve relations with France and Great Britain (and also with Italy), but these were largely unsuccessful. These relations were especially important to Poland as a rapprochement was taking place between Weimar Germany and the Soviet Union, both of which had a negative attitude towards the Treaty of Versailles. Their first agreement was signed in Rapallo in 1922; this was followed in 1926 by a treaty signed in Berlin, in which both sides pledged friendship and neutrality in the event of disputes with third parties. In observing the treaty, Moscow paved the way for Germany to disregard the military restrictions imposed at Versailles: Germany was able to train tank officers and airmen in the Soviet Union in exchange for information on technological innovations. No one doubted that at least one of the main aims of the agreement was to encircle Poland. Pi_sudski was one those Polish politicians who most feared such an eventuality, but at the same time he did not trust the West European powers and trusted only in his own strength. He referred to relations with Britain and France as illusory, “exotic” alliances. He therefore initiated what became known as “the policy of equal distance” (to Berlin and to Moscow). Under Pi_sudski’s direct supervision Beck took advantage of a cooling in Soviet-German relations to negotiate a Polish-Soviet non-aggression pact, signed in Moscow on 25 July 1932 (in 1934 it was extended for a further ten years) and a joint Polish-German declaration, signed in Berlin on 26 January 1934, in which both sides pledged themselves not to attack the other. “Poland is now sitting on two stools,” Pi_sudski used to say in private, but he usually added: “This situation can’t last for very long. We have to know which one we will fall off first, and when.”1 He was right in his prediction that the situation would not last long, but he was wrong about one thing: Poland fell off both stools at once.
The tragic chain of events began to unfold in the fall of 1938, when Hitler, flush with his “victory” over Czechoslovakia, selected Poland as the next victim of his “peaceful conquests.” In October the foreign minister of the Third Reich, Joachim von Ribbentrop, presented the Polish ambassador in Berlin with the suggestion that the two countries form a common front against the Soviet Union. This was intended to sweeten the pill of Germany’s planned annexation of the Free City of Gda_sk and the construction through Polish Pomerania of a highway and railroad line between Germany and East Prussia. Hitler was not really counting on a positive response and shortly after he had occupied Prague (15 March 1939), he ordered his military commanders to begin preparations, code-named Fall Weiss, for the invasion of Poland. Stalin, who had just completed the bloodiest phase of the purges, came to the conclusion that Europe was about to become embroiled in armed conflict and decided that the Soviet Union could turn the situation to its advantage. The Comintern believed that the coming “imperialist” war would most probably end in the same way as the previous one—in a series of revolutionary upsurges. Except that this time they would have the support of the Homeland of the World Proletariat and would thus be victorious. In any event, when Hitler rescinded the non-aggression treaty with Poland on 28 April 1939, Moscow began to play a double game, simultaneously engaging in secret talks with Berlin while engaged in official negotiations with Britain and France, which were seeking to persuade Moscow to oppose the Third Reich. The Western powers were inclined to accept the conditions set out by the newly appointed Soviet foreign minister, Vyacheslav Molotov. However, the two countries most directly affected could not agree: Poland and Romania feared that the Soviet proposal to have the Red Army march through their territory could result in a situation more akin to foreign occupation than to military assistance. At this time, Berlin hastened—secretly, of course—to present Moscow with a proposal whereby the two sides would divide Poland between them, would divide the whole of Eastern Europe, from Finland to Romania, into two separate zones of influence, and Germany would act as a mediator in the protracted armed conflict between the Soviet Union and Japan. On 23 August Ribbentrop and Molotov—the well-known photograph of the occasion shows Stalin standing modestly in the background—signed in Moscow a non-aggression pact containing a secret protocol that provided for the complete partition of Poland and the “transfer” of neighboring territory—Lithuania to the German zone of influence, and Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Bessarabia (now Moldova) to the Soviet zone. This protocol was one of the Soviet Union’s most closely guarded secrets at the time of its signing and it remained so: not until 1990 did Moscow officially acknowledge its existence.
As a result, Poland found itself between the hammer and the anvil. The only—and essentially theoretical—chance of salvation lay in becoming an ally, which really meant a satellite, of one of the two totalitarian powers. However, Poland had no desire to join forces with either Hitler or Stalin. Neither the romantic uprisings of the nineteenth century nor the bitter struggles of 1918-20 had taken place so that Poland could once again become a vassal. At that time a tragic quip was in circulation: “What is the right answer to the question, Who is Poland’s worst enemy, the Soviet Union or Germany? The Germans will take our body, and the Soviets will take our soul.” Indeed, there was no good solution for Poland.