In Poland, Józef Piłsudski needs no introduction. He remains one of the most important figures in the country’s history, with a continuing gigantic influence on the Polish nation. In the West, however, he is not widely known. The publication of the first Western scholarly biography of Piłsudski, by Joshua Zimmerman, is therefore a welcome event.
Joshua D. Zimmerman is a professor at Yeshiva University in New York; his interests include Polish-Jewish relations in the first half of the twentieth century, the history of the Bund, working-class movements in the late nineteenth century, and the Holocaust.[1]
The subject of Zimmerman’s research this time is Józef Piłsudski. Since the author is not from Poland and is therefore emotionally unattached to the controversial figure of the country’s first marshal, it will be extremely interesting to examine Piłsudski from an entirely unprejudiced, critical perspective.
Following an introduction, the book contains 18 chapters and an epilogue. The review copy in PDF format contains a total of 641 pages. The publication also includes the Piłsudski family tree, a dozen or two photographs and maps, endnotes, acknowledgements, a list of illustrations, and an index. It lacks a separate bibliography, which somewhat hampers efforts to trace the sources on which it is based.
In the introduction, the author begins the book with two quotations. The first, from Adam Michnik, concerns Piłsudski’s desire for a multinational state. The second is from Andrzej Garlicki, who claims that Piłsudski saw himself as able to shape the course of history and Poland’s destiny according to his will; “like other great persons from the past”, he thought he should be able to dominate others. Zimmerman proceeds to explain (p. 6) that the book will portray Piłsudski through his dual legacy of authoritarianism and pluralism. The first legacy – the “white” legend – concerns Piłsudski’s tolerance, especially towards the Jews; the second – the “black” legend – is that of the May Coup, the 1934 declaration of non-aggression with Germany, the formation of the Bereza Kartuska camp, and the preparation of a constitution which gave a permanent form to authoritarian governments. In the subchapter titled ‘Piłsudski’s literature’, the author discusses the existing works on Piłsudski, starting with the first one, published in 1915 and written by Wacław Sieroszewski. He then discusses the foreign-language works published before the Second World War as well as Władysław Pobóg-Malinowski’s biography. Zimmerman also points to Oskar Halecki’s A History of Poland, published in the United States in 1943, the first to portray Piłsudski in both a positive and a negative light. After the Second World War, historiography was divided into two camps: behind the Iron Curtain, the black legend reigned, elements of which also appeared in works of Polish post-WWII emigres in Western countries; meanwhile, in most works of émigré historians, the white legend was in the ascendancy, casting Piłsudski as a national hero. Zimmerman notes that Andrzej Garlicki, a historian from the University of Warsaw, was the author of the first fully fledged scholarly biography, which both continued and departed from the image of the black legend (p. 11), yet this author focused largely on Piłsudski’s failures, especially in the 1926–1935 period, paying considerably less attention to his successes (1914–1920). Zimmerman points out that the main and for years only biography of Piłsudski was that written by Wacław Jędrzejewicz, who portrays the marshal as a hero – the resurrector of Poland. Concluding his literature review, the author details the most important biography in Polish, by Włodzimierz Suleja, who demonstrates both Piłsudski’s positive and negative features.
The biography begins with a chapter entitled ‘Childhood and Adolescence’. Zimmerman briefly describes Józef Klemens’s ancestors, paying much attention to his parents, especially his father, Józef Wincenty, and his unsuccessful business interests. Interestingly, he refers to Piłsudski Senior as an agricultural “visionary” with a very future-oriented approach to running his farm (p. 25). The next pages paint a tableau of the fire on the Piłsudski estate in 1874 that forced the family to move to Vilna (which became the favourite city of the future Marshal of Poland, as Zimmerman notes on more than one occasion in the book). He discusses the Russian schools that Piłsudski attended, the last of which he completed in 1885. Of course, there is also a passage about the Russian teachers who would appear in Piłsudski’s nightmares much later (pp. 36–37). A small comment: the quotation about 15-year-old Piłsudski throwing out the Muscovites refers to not the whole of Poland, but only Zułów (p. 38). After completing school, Piłsudski went to university in Kharkov, but Zimmerman mentions this only briefly before proceeding to describe the beginnings of Piłsudski’s revolutionary activity in Vilna and arrest for involvement (albeit only incidental) in the plot to assassinate Tsar Alexander III, resulting in five years of exile in Siberia. According to Zimmerman, although Piłsudski’s involvement in the plot was only incidental but his elder brother Bronisław’s involvement was direct, these events represented a turning point in Piłsudski’s life.
Chapter 2 discusses Piłsudski’s Siberian exile in Kirensk and Tunka. The author uses the interesting ploy of showing his subject’s psychological condition at the time through his extensive correspondence with his family. He focuses in this chapter on describing the marshal’s later romance with Leonarda Lewandowska, particularly their lengthy correspondence, and also the end of the relationship. Zimmerman uses these letters to Leonarda to show Piłsudski’s state of mind, emotions and family issues. Slightly less space is devoted to presenting the young exile’s relations with important figures who made a decisive impact on his views: Bronisław Szwarce, Stanisław Landy and Michał Mancewicz.
The next chapters (3–5) concern Piłsudski’s underground activity. Chapter 3 begins with his return to Vilna on 30 June 1892. The author writes little about the beginning of Piłsudski’s acquaintance with Maria Juszkiewicz, although he does mention the fact that Roman Dmowski also made overtures towards his future wife (p. 78). He also describes his participation in the activities of socialist organisations in Vilna and his contacts with Jewish socialists until the formation of the Polish Socialist Party (PPS) in Warsaw in March 1893. This is followed by Piłsudski’s activity in the PPS, the Jewish question and his debut writing for Przedświt, his trip to London, and the inaugural printing of the Robotnik newspaper. The author notes, importantly, that it was on these pages that Piłsudski first presented federalist ideas. In my view, this chapter spends too much time discussing contacts between the PPS and Jews. Chapter 4 moves on to Piłsudski’s international activity, i.e., his trip to London for the Fourth Congress of the Second Socialist Internationale, then the printing of Jewish newspapers and brochures, but particularly his trip to the International Socialist Congress, where he was keen to secure a resolution on Poland’s independence but was unsuccessful due to Rosa Luxemburg’s opposition. Chapter 5 explores Piłsudski’s life after returning to Vilna, including workers’ issues, discussions with his colleagues (such as Leon Wasilewski), and the question of building monuments to Adam Mickiewicz and Mikhail Muraviev (particularly interesting here is Zimmerman’s depiction of Piłsudski’s views on these events), concluding with his marriage to Maria Juszkiewicz, the move to Łódź, and his arrest in 1900. Also in this chapter the author deals at length with his subject’s contacts with the Jewish workers’ movement, but there is little about Piłsudski’s actual activity among Polish workers; the author also focuses on the texts he published in Robotnik and issues related to PPS’s political programme.
Chapters 6 and 7 are transitional, containing such elements as a description of Piłsudski’s audacious escape from a Saint Petersburg hospital, then his journey to London and to Galicia, and his writing of articles in Galicia until the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War. Here we could insert a general remark that throughout the book Zimmerman is more interested in the PPS’s relations with Jews and Lithuanians than in issues concerning Polish workers and independence – this applies particularly to Chapters 3–6. A minor quibble is the author’s not entirely correct use of the term “Lithuanian city” for Vilna in 1903 (p. 167). He also discusses two important texts: ‘How I Became a Socialist’ and ‘The Revolutionary Struggle in the Russian Partition’, printed in Krakow.
Chapter 8 is a very important one, covering issues from the period of the revolution in 1905. Zimmerman discusses Piłsudski’s departure to Japan and meetings with the Japanese authorities, yet he deals with them quite briefly and with an emphasis on Dmowski’s counterproposal. He also explores Piłsudski’s activity at the time of the 1905–1907 revolution in the Kingdom of Poland (stressing that his subject was less interested in revolutionary activities, despite the admiration of his comrades, and paid more attention to working on the creation of Poland’s own military organisation in the form of the Union of Active Struggle, rightly foreseeing that liberalisation in Russia would be short-lived). This chapter also includes the beginnings of Piłsudski’s romance with Aleksandra Szczerbińska and the collapse of his marriage to Maria. In my opinion, Zimmerman should have expanded on the question of the Russo-Japanese War because Piłsudski (as the author later notes) was hugely interested in Japanese military action against the Russians and studied individual battles in minute detail. Indeed, this was such an important issue for him that in the 1920s he decided to award the Order Virtuti Militari to the surviving veterans of the Japanese operations (Zimmerman could have developed this issue to include the text cited in the footnote).[2]
Chapter 9 begins with Piłsudski’s final wishes, thoughts, or guidance regarding the future direction of Poland’s political landscape and leadership in the event of his death, which he sent to Feliks Perl before the Bezdany raid. The author describes this operation itself in quite general, undetailed terms. He then sketches the creation of the Riflemen’s Association and the Union of Active Struggle, as well as cooperation with the Austrian Army intelligence (Captain Józef Rybak), followed by his lectures on the January Uprising. The chapter concludes with the famous Paris lecture of February 1914 (the author quotes the memoirs of the Russian socialist Viktor Chernov) and the outbreak of the First World War. Zimmerman portrays Piłsudski here as a man preparing to embark on efforts to form an army to regain independence.
The subject of the next two chapters, 10 and 11, is Piłsudski’s activity during the First World War. They contain standard elements that had to be included in any biography of the marshal: the march of the First Cadre Company and Piłsudski’s address on this occasion. Zimmerman concentrates more on political activity and issues of cooperation with the Supreme National Committee (NKN), leaving less room for the military activity of the Legions. Chapter 10 ends in August 1915, with the capture of Warsaw by the Central Powers. Chapter 11 concerns Piłsudski’s activity between 1915 and 1918. There is a great deal here about his activity, relations with Germans (e.g., General Beseler), the oath crisis, and his internment in Magdeburg. The author also outlines the development of the Polish question in 1917–1918: Wilson, the Polish National Committee (KNP). For me, however, this chapter is missing two things: 1) the question of Polish formations in the East (Naczpol, the Polish Chief Military Committee in Saint Petersburg, chose Piłsudski as honorary head of the Union of Military Poles, and for a moment he even considered breaking through to the East); 2) the information that Brigade II of the Polish legions swore allegiance to the Central Powers and only withdrew this obligation following the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.
Chapter 12 begins with the fall of the Hohenzollern monarchy in Germany, meaning Piłsudski’s release followed by his return to Warsaw and capture of power. It is good that the author presents various views on this event, not just positive ones; his account suggests that everyone was in favour of Piłsudski taking power and ensuring order in the country. However, I have a few comments on this chapter: Daszyński’s (Lublin) government was dissolved on not 16 November but 12 November. Further controversies are caused by the sentence on p. 293, which states that “Piłsudski sent army officers to Poznań” and that “Poles had taken control over Poznań province by November 1918”, which is not quite true. The uprising did not start until 27 December 1918, after I.J. Paderewski’s journey via Poznań to Warsaw. Similarly controversial is the description of the taking of power in Lwów by the Ukrainians from the Austrians: it was not the viceroy who handed control to the Ukrainians, and it was not merely an “opportunity” for the Ukrainian National Council but a well-planned process that had been going on since 16 October 1918. Lwów railway station was not occupied by the Ukrainians but came under a Polish-Ukrainian agreement, although it was later Poles who manned the area of the station. It is also not quite correct to call the capture of Lwów a “Polish uprising”; here, Zimmerman is following the conclusions of Damian Markowski’s book, but the latter’s arguments are unconvincing. In my view, we should refer to the Polish-Ukrainian struggles for the city. The author also depicts the anti-Jewish violence that broke out mainly in Galicia, especially the pogroms in Lwów and Kielce. However, it is important to note that in the section on anti-Jewish violence he does not mention that it was not only soldiers but also the urban underclass who participated in the pogrom, and those arrested by the police for looting also included Ukrainians and Jews. The conclusion to the chapter is excellent, however, as Zimmerman magnificently captures the situation in which Piłsudski found himself upon his return to Poland in November 1918 – one of chaos and a lack of a strong army.
Chapter 13 is about negotiations with the KNP to establish a uniform Polish representation in the international arena and appoint a Legislative Sejm. Zimmerman offers an interesting depiction of Piłsudski through the eyes of Western diplomats and journalists and does not hesitate to cite the Western press from the period. I have just one comment: the Communist Party of Poland (KPP) was formed only in 1925; prior to that it was the Communist Workers’ Party of Poland (KPRP).
Chapter 14, “The State Builder”, presents what in my view was the most important aspect of Piłsudski’s activity: his efforts, which lasted even until late 1920, to construct a state amid wars with Poland’s neighbours. However, I have numerous comments on this chapter. First, on p. 335, why does the author find the federalist idea “controversial”? It seems that Zimmerman could be looking at the incorporation of the federalist concept from a somewhat present-day point of view. I am not sure whether Piłsudski did indeed think in such terms in early 1919. The author includes the famous quotation about the Eastern frontier where “there are doors that open and close”, which is an excellent illustration of his policy at the time. Piłsudski was therefore adapting his policy to the circumstances. A more serious shortcoming of this book is the author’s exceptionally brief treatment of the question of the war in Eastern Galicia, a matter which in fact played a major role in his policy; there is no mention, for example, of the fact that Piłsudski saw the outbreak of the war as a bad thing that complicated his political plans in the East. Zimmerman omits Piłsudski’s reflections on the border in Galicia entirely, devoting just one sentence to the offensives in May and July 1919. I also have concerns regarding the question of the division of Cieszyn Silesia at the Spa Conference: the author does not mention the context of the Poles’ defeat on the Bolshevik front, meaning that no other result was possible at the time. There is equally little on Dnieper Ukraine. Symon Petliura is referred to only a few times in the book, although in 1920 he played a key role in Piłsudski’s Ukrainian policy. The author discusses the Treaty of Warsaw at great length, but his presentation of Piłsudski’s address given in Vinnytsia on 17 May 1920 could also have included, for example, Isaak Mazepa’s impressions and opinions from his memoirs.[3] It is unclear why the author completely overlooks the Battle of the Niemen River, which was the culmination of the routing of the Red Army that was carried out during the Battle of Warsaw and sealed the failure of Lenin’s programme. The chapter is saved somewhat by its conclusion: Zimmerman asserts that the Treaty of Riga was a failure of two programmes – the federalist one and Lenin’s aspirations. Minor quibbles: p. 338 – Kowel was captured from the Ukrainians in February 1919; p. 343 – Rumsza was still a colonel at the time, and it was actually the remnants of the Fifth Siberian Rifle Division who returned to Poland; p. 348 – should say “remaining neutral”?; p. 351 – the talks in March 1920 took place in Borisov, which the author does not mention; p. 361 – the 10th Soviet Army was not on the Polish front, so I assume the author is referring to the 10th Rifle Division. The question of the camp in Jabłonna needs to be treated separately and one must be very careful with numbers: 17,680 Jewish soldiers, a figure based purely on press reports, is definitely too high. This was the number given in the order for their internment; however, in reality fewer were interned, according to scholars including Jerzy Kirszak.[4] In general, this chapter is disappointing and unbalanced: again the author covers Jewish issues in depth, while summarising Ukrainian matters in brief and general terms without understanding the delicate nuances (the West Ukrainian People’s Republic, the Ukrainian People’s Republic, the issue of Eastern Galicia). There is no mention of Piłsudski’s declaration that the Eastern Galician question was closed for a generation, nor of his attempts to negotiate with Metropolitan Sheptytsky. A major flaw in my view is the author’s failure to discuss the issue of the “third Russia” (neither “white” nor “red” Russia, which Piłsudski wanted to build with revolutionist Boris Savinkov), as well as his stance on the members of the “White Guard” (General Karnicki’s mission, issues of the Third Russian Army, formed in Poland in 1920). There is also no mention of the Belarusian question.
Chapter 15 examines the years 1921–1926, which encompassed Piłsudski’s visit to France in 1921, the change in government, normalisation of family life, the murder of President Narutowicz, his withdrawal from political life to Sulejówek, his activity as a writer, and ending with the May Coup. Unfortunately, Zimmerman writes little about the assassination attempt carried out by a “Ukrainian nationalist”, Stepan Fedak (Jr), son of Stepan Fedak (Sr), in Lwów in 1921. Information about the attack can be found in the memoirs of the elder Stepan Fedak.[5] Once again, the author demonstrates his lack of grasp of Ukrainian Galician issues. It is also a pity that Zimmerman does not cite the view of Piłsudski expressed by Prince Nicholas, son of King Ferdinand of Romania (who, during the Pole’s visit to his country in 1922, wanted to receive him nonchalantly, with a cigarette in hand, but when Piłsudski reached him, the king stood to attention, demonstrating the effect the marshal had on people). A comment on p. 388: the resolution of the Conference of Ambassadors also deemed Eastern Galicia to be an integral part of the Polish state. I also have reservations regarding Piłsudski’s history of the 1920 war, which was announced in 1924 as a response to Tukhachevsky’s publication “March across the Vistula”. Zimmerman is wrong to claim that the main conclusion from the Soviet general’s text was that the Red Army’s failure was caused by technical deficits: Tukhachevsky makes it clear that it was the divergence of the fronts at right angles that caused the defeat. Meanwhile, it should be added here that Piłsudski’s book was supposedly a response to Tukhachevsky’s publication, but it was aimed directly at certain Polish generals and had more of an impact in Poland than in the USSR. Zimmerman’s discussion of the May Coup is also rather too brief.
Chapters 16 and 17 present Piłsudski’s life after 1926, i.e., his path towards authoritarian rule. The author discusses the various changes of government, the August Novelisation, the Centrolew (centre-left coalition) and the Brześć affairs. Zimmerman shows that – with the political situation having stabilised in 1931 and amid worsening health – Piłsudski decided to manage personally only foreign policy and control of the army. The author devotes a large part of this chapter to discussing Piłsudski’s policy towards the USSR and the Third Reich, and the signing of the two non-aggression pacts. He also refers to Piłsudski’s supposed proposal to France of a pre-emptive strike against Germany. Zimmerman does not state conclusively whether such a document actually existed, cautiously accepting that Piłsudski considered such a plan, but he conclusively states that it was probably not formally presented to the French. Piłsudski’s farsightedness is striking as he anticipated that peace would be short-lived; indeed, the Polish–German non-aggression pact was a success, but only a temporary one (“it will last for another four years”). A useful addition to the chapter would have been a description of the marshal’s review of the cavalry in Krakow in 1933.
The final chapter presents the last months on Piłsudski’s life and his efforts to secure the best possible peace for Poland. Zimmerman (perhaps too) briefly depicts the marshal’s death and the ensuing mourning, also showing how he was viewed abroad at the time, as well as how the Jewish community saw his death (the author claims that the Jewish stance was that thanks to Piłsudski there were no persecutions, and pogroms began only after his death). It is a shame that he does not show Poles’ experience of the mourning. The author concludes with a critical overview of Minister Beck and his policy; what is lacking, however, is a brief discussion of his successor, Marshal Edward Śmigły-Rydz, and the policy pursued by President Ignacy Mościcki.
The book ends with an “epilogue”. Zimmerman sums Piłsudski up as an ardent democrat who always aspired for Poland to be a democratic country in which all minorities and Poles had equal freedom of choice. His attempt to push Russia’s borders eastwards towards its ethnic boundaries and to build buffer states was unsuccessful, so he regarded this failure as a misfortune for Europe. However, after concluding that the French assurance did not apply to border guarantees, he made pacts with the Germans and Soviets but had no illusions that these guarantees, especially with Germany, would last longer than four or five years. The most controversial episode in Piłsudski’s life was the May Coup, but Zimmerman demonstrates that this resulted not from a change in his views – which remained democratic – but rather the economic and political chaos in 1918–1926, as well as Polish society’s inability to implement its new obligations as a free country, respect constitutional equal rights for all, and accept the results of free elections even if they were disappointing. Zimmerman argues that the decisive moment that changed Piłsudski for good was the assassination of President Narutowicz and his shock at the press’s public praise of the murderer. In my view, the author’s quoting of the words of Władysław Pobóg-Malinowski is apt: “The Right’s murder of Narutowicz, and the complete impunity of the chief instigators led Piłsudski to the conviction that nothing can be achieved in Poland through kindness and persuasion, that force and extortion are the only way, and that one has to be tough and ruthless” (p. 492).
I have no major comments to make about the bibliography; useful additions, however, apart from those cited in the footnotes, would be Marek Kornat and Mariusz Wołos’s biography of Józef Beck,[6] as well as the works of Jan J. Bruski.[7]
CONCLUSION
This is a good, interesting, extremely balanced book. Although the author’s sympathies for his subject shine through, he leans neither towards hagiography nor towards accusing Piłsudski of dictatorial tendencies. Perhaps the book’s biggest merit is that it shows that Józef Piłsudski always remained a democrat, although the situation in Poland and the immaturity of its population forced him to employ authoritarian methods in power. Regarding the portrayal of minorities, Zimmerman is most interested in Piłsudski’s attitude towards Jews and vice versa, as well as everything related to this. An example is the emphasis on the little-known figure of Bronisław Mansperl, a Jewish soldier of the Legions, whose photograph is even included on p. 225. In contrast, the author lacks extensive knowledge on Ukrainian issues, has a moderate familiarity with the subject literature, and does not understand that, as Bruski showed, the Ukrainian question was central to Piłsudski’s political thought in 1918–1921. In sum, this is a solid biography of Piłsudski that gives non-Polish readers familiarity with the complicated life of this important figure.
[1] Joshua D. Zimmerman's major publications include: Poles, Jews and the Politics of Nationality: the Bund and the Polish Socialist Party in Late Tsarist Russia, 1892–1914 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004) and The Polish Underground and the Jews, 1939–1945 (Cambridge – New York, 2015).
[2] Wacław Jędrzejewicz, ’Japończycy kawalerami Virtuti Militari’, Niepodległość, 7 (1962), pp. 245–53.
[3] Isaak Mazepa, Ukrajina v ohni j buri revoljuciji 1917–1921 (Praha, 1942), III, pp. 24–25.
[4] Piotr Korczyński, ‘Czarna legenda 1920 r. – Jabłonna’, Polska Zbrojna, 16 August 2020 <https://www.polska-zbrojna.pl/home/articleshow/31833?t=Czarna-legenda-1920-r-Jablonna> [accessed 28 April 2024].
[5] Stepan Fedak, ‘Rozmova z Maršalom’, in Sojusz polsko-ukraiński 1920 roku. Refleksje nad przeszłością – myśli o przyszłości, ed. by Jan Matkowski and Stanisław Stępień (Warszawa, 2020), pp. 199–203.
[6] Marek Kornat and Mariusz Wołos, Józef Beck: biografia (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2020).
[7] Jan J. Bruski, Petlurowcy. Centrum Państwowe Ukraińskiej Republiki Ludowej na wychodźstwie (1919–1924) (Kraków: Arcana, 2000); Jan J. Bruski, ‘Ukraina w koncepcjach Józefa Piłsudskiego w latach 1918–1921’, Czasopismo Zakładu Narodowego im. Ossolińskich, 31 (2020), 11–25.
