Pilsudsky and Petliura

[The_Last_Word]

After seeing Jarema▓s stupid comment about Pilsudsky and Petliura as if they were liberators of the Ukraine and guardians of its independence, I decided to write this post.



Polish dictator Yuzef Pilsudsky was not as much a hero as he was a power-hungry imperialist, comparable to Hitler and Stalin. Pilsudsky dreamed of restoring the Rec Pospolita empire in its 1772 borders, which was the predominant orientation of Poland▓s foreign policy in the interwar years.

In 1887, he was arrested and sent to Siberia for several years for involvement in the plot to assassinate Tsar Alexander III by Lenin▓s older brother Alexander Ulianov. Pilsudsky▓s brother was also involved. In 1918, Pilsudsky became the ruler of Poland. He was the first dictator in Europe to attempt to redraw its map after WWI. Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin were not even in power yet when megalomaniac Pilsudsky began to carry out his imperial ambitions of geopolitical dominance in Eastern Europe, according to 1772 boundaries.

His criminal past got the best of him again when Pilsudsky financed terrorist activities of revolutionary Savinkov, assisted in the formation of criminal gangs of Bulak-Balakhovich and others in the ranks of the Polish army. Pilsudsky sanctioned reprisals against the members of the Russian Red Cross mission in Poland headed by Veselovsky.

In 1919-1920, he concluded a treaty with another dictator, Petliura, who in turn betrayed his own people. Pilsudsky used Petliura for personal gain with little regard for other Ukrainians.

In 1920, it became known from Galician revolutionary officials that the local population was welcoming the Soviet social-political change as liberation from Polish oppression. A couple of months prior to that a Ukrainian nationalist agent within the ranks of the Bolsheviks, Feodor Konar, wrote to a nationalist leader V. Vinnichenko that Ukrainian peasants in West-bank Ukraine were ⌠so friendly to Russia that it was scaring him┘ People were deserting from Petliura▓s army en masse, most of them those same ▒damned▓ Galicians┘■

During and after the Soviet-Polish war, 50,000 to 60,000 Russian prisoners were confined in Polish concentration camps under humiliating conditions. Pilsudsky beat Hitler to it in creating such camps, which were dubbed ⌠Death Camps■ by their inmates. Even Polish intelligence was appalled at the inhuman living conditions in the camps as was evident from one secret report on the matter. But nothing was ever done, and all of the prisoners were left to die in these camps. No apologies or regrets of any kind were ever issued by any Polish officials ever since.

Also in 1920-21, without informing the Seim parliament, Pilsudsky orchestrated and carried out the capture of Vilnius and eastern Lithuania by general Zheligovsky. At first a puppet regime was established, but later it was completely annexed by Poland until 1939.

On all captured territories Pilsudsky carried out systematic Polonization of the non-Polish population. Orthodox churches were closed, some even destroyed, Ukrainian and Belarussian schools and cultural associations were persecuted. Ukrainians nationalists organized underground resistance and, in 1934, assassinated Polish interior minister Peratsky. Pilsudsky▓s reaction to the incident was less than that of a sane man. He threatened to ⌠flog everyone■ and ⌠peel their skins off. No mercy to anyone √ women or girls┘■ Later that year he followed up with his threats by establishing the Bereza Kartuzska concentration camp in eastern Poland.

After becoming the sole Polish dictator in 1926, Pilsudsky never missed an opportunity to sneer at the parliament, calling it a ⌠Seim of political prostitutes■ and humiliating its deputies in their faces. The personality cult of Pilsudsky had the same traits of vulgarity and tastelessness as cults of other dictators, like Stalin, Hitler and Mussolini. The sad part is that many Poles, and even some Ukrainians, today honor the dictator as a national hero, when in reality they should be ashamed of him.

In the 1930s, Pilsudsky▓s regime was eager to recognize the Third Reich in Germany. He believed that his own territorial ambitions would find support in Nazi Germany. In 1939, Polish foreign minister Bek met with Hitler and told him that Ukraine is a ⌠Polish word■ for ⌠eastern borderland territories,■ in a bid to lay Polish claims to all of Ukrainian territory in Soviet Russia.

Pilsudsky first concluded a non-aggression pact with Hitler in 1934, surpassing the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. Pilsudsky failed to see his own reflection in Hitler. In signing the pact, he laid a path for Poland▓s demise, because his and Hitler▓s geopolitical ambitions were destined to collide and lead to conflict.

Pilsudsky▓s military achievements were hardly worthy of any praise. His sole opponent was Soviet Russia, who on the other hand was fighting numerous enemies, like White Russian armies of Denikin, Kolchak and Yudenich, Estonia, Latvia and Petliura, as well as foreign intervention. Russia kept a defensive stance toward Poland when Pilsudsky started the war to fulfill his territorial ambitions.

Little is ever said of Pilsudsky▓s secret agreements with Soviet Russia during the war. He was a foul traitor, who betrayed his fellow anti-Soviet allies, the White Russian generals. He considered them more of a threat to Poland than Soviet Russia. He continued to receive financial support from England and France for the war effort against the Soviets, but he used it to undermine the White Russian resistance against the Bolsheviks, while at the same time secretly conferred with the Soviets to decide how to conduct military operations.


Petliura was not as popular as some believe, he was not recognized by the peasants and workers of the Ukraine during the turbulent years of the Russian Revolution and was banished several times. He eventually betrayed his own country without any regrets.

Petliura▓s shameful pact with Pilsudsky resulted in transferring Ukrainian Galicia, Volynia and Kholm to Poland in exchange for Polish military support against the Red Army and recognition of a Ukrainian state. The Polish army disregarded local interests and after defeating a regiment of Sech Streltsy continued to establish their order in the newly conquered lands. There was never any talk about a Polish-Ukrainian federation between Petliura and Pilsudsky, nothing of the kind was ever mentioned in their pact. Petliura knew he was surrendering Ukrainian land to eventual Polonization.

In his book, Vinnichenko later wrote that Ukrainian nationalists did not care for their people as much as they worshipped power and the state, whatever it may have been. When the Poles were smashing the Ukrainian Dnester army in Galicia, no one bothered to take any action, even when help was offered from Soviet Russia on favorable conditions. Instead Petliura gave up the regions to Poland. Pilsudsky was no savior, because he intended to use Petliura▓s armies as a shield against the Soviets, since he didn▓t have a care about Ukrainians and wanted to control all of the Ukraine eventually. Petliura also carried out anti-Semitic pogroms in the Ukraine.

The so-called Ukrainian ⌠patriots■ didn▓t care much for the true national interests of the Ukrainians, instead they supported Petliura as if he was the national state and the final goal. Eventually they still dumped Petliura in favor of another leader, with no success either. This patriotism was directed more toward the political party, a patriotism for a piece of the pie and state privileges, as Vinnichenko put it. In other words, a patriotism of national betrayal. Toward the end of Ukraine▓s brief experience in technical statehood, a handful of ⌠players,■ who took power in their own hands, fled and passed responsibility to Petrushevich, whom they proclaimed the ⌠dictator,■ of the Ukraine.

Eventually, the Ukraine became a Soviet republic annexing several Russian provinces, and Galicia and western Belarus became Polish provinces.

[The_Last_Word]

I thought this post fits better on this thread, so I'll reply to it here.

Originally posted by Zbyszek
This is a bit trifling but the more posts are sent here by The_Last_Word, the more I appreciate Jarema's jocular answers.

Yes, of course, it is always easier to stick your head in the sand, or up your own ..., you know where, rather than confront the issues.

The TLW's biased descriptions on many Ukrainian/Russian/Polish issues culminating in the foul account of Hetman Petlura and Marshall Pilsudski, equating him to Hitler and Stalin show that TLW is not a good friend of the young Ukrainian state.

According to you, to be a "good friend" to Ukraine is to overlook any crimes, atrocities or genocides committed by its leaders or so-called heroes.
The same may be said in regard to Poland. Would I also have to ignore the crimes and wrongs committed by Pilsudsky to become a "good friend" of Poland?
Also, I am not the only one to compare Pilsudsky to Stalin and Hitler, because there is plenty of historical evidence to support that.

My advice to Ukrainians is the following: beware of dividing your country, do not show hostility to your Russian or Polish neighbours,

It's kind of too late for that, don't you think. Ukraine already repressed freedom movements in the Crimea and Carpathian Rus, and repressed language rights of the majority of Ukrainians.

but also do not repeat the most deplorable error of Rzeczpospolita

So, in a way, you yourself consider Pilsudsky's policies "errors."

and never get involved into any kind of Russian protectorate.

You idiot. This would potentially cause the Ukraine and its people great harm.

Poles have widely accepted the Ukrainian independence in their hearts but TLW's statements make me feel uneasy whether Russians are ready to accept it likewise.

[Edited by Zbyszek on 10th September 2002 at 11:14] [/B]

I don't know why you consider me the voice of the whole Russian people, however, I do bring out legitimate issues, despite your dislike and disagreement on them.

[Zbyszek]

Originally posted by The_Last_Word

Yes, of course, it is always easier to stick your head in the sand, or up your own ..., you know where, rather than confront the issues.
....You idiot...

It is not easy to "confront the issues" with a person who throws the insults to the left and right.
I opened a thread entitled "Overcoming the bad Polish-Russian past" on Russia.com. I had a very positive response from the Russian disputants there. I am ready to "confront the issues" but your tone of discussion is just offensive.
You sign your every post with "Watch out for StasUA. He deletes posts he doesn't agree with". Are you going to do it until the end of the world? He was maybe wrong (I do not know how it was) but give him a chance for improvement then.
Waving the imperial Russian symbol does not help any true discussion and is surely out of place here on the Ukrainian forum. Your crocodile tears shed about the Ukrainization of the Eastern Ukraine, even if justified, look like Goliath' crying over would-be David's wrongs. The same applies to the description of Marshall Pilsudski and the war of 1920. Poland was erased from the European map by the Tzarist regime in 1795 for long 123 years. When it was restored in 1918, Soviet Russia immediately accused her of the imperial appetites.
I will give you one small example of how things were in a small village in the centre of Poland, near Warsaw.
I was once involved in a search of the parish church records in a village nearby Deblin which was renamed by Russians to Ivanogorod(!). The records coming from the second half of XVIIIth century were written in Latin and Polish. (Polish is well developed Slavic language with the abunadant and long written history, the characters are Latin like in the other West Slavic and West European languages). The records coming from XIXth century and the beginning of XXth century were kept in hand written Russian. (Tzarist governors surely had to import a scribe from Russia). Local people could hardly understand anything of it. Every marriage, death and birth was described in Russian. So the russification came even to such a small place...
I can only add that I personally like Russian but it is not an easy liking...
To the world, Poland led by Pilsudski successfully defended the West of Europe against the Bolshevik's invasion. To you, Poland showed only the imperialist attitude. Pilsudski was surely not an angel but comparing him to Hitler and Stalin is also out of place.
TLW, you describe Pilsudski's activity as if both countries were on the par. People in Poland are aware of his autocratic style but they believed he was the only one to oppose the brutal Soviet power. The very national existence had the highest priority in the early twenties.
Pilsudski did not profit in any way from his highest post in the country. This was and still is (or rather should be) an important factor in the estimation of a politician.
The fact is that the Polish-Soviet conflict concerned terrritories of today's Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania and not the places inhabited by the ethnic Russians (I do not count Rusyns because they are not Russians). Neither Russia nor Poland had enough justified rights to these lands.
All victims and prisoners of war deserve our due respect, anyway try to think what would happen if Bolsheviks travelled to Berlin or Paris.
Your reference to Bereza Kartuska as a concentration camp is unfounded because the"concentration camp" is automatically related to extermination while Bereza was a detention camp for the communists, not aimed at any extermination and the analogy to places like Auschwitz or Kolyma means loosing the proportions. I think it is a part of my national shame but I have never found any attempt to equate Pilsudski to Stalin or Hitler in the avaliable West European or American history books.
Your description fits well the explanation given in the Great Soviet Encyclopeadia (vol. 33, 1955).
I consider myself a true supporter of the Russian-Ukrainian-Polish dialogue aiming at discovering all similarities and avoiding bitter confrontations.
It you are ready to stop the insults I can "confront the issues" my way, free of aggresion.

[The_Last_Word]

Originally posted by Zbyszek
It is not easy to "confront the issues" with a person who throws the insults to the left and right.

Ok, sorry for the "stupid" thing, but what you said was really dumb, and you know it. And don't expect people not be be offended by it.

I opened a thread entitled "Overcoming the bad Polish-Russian past" on Russia.com. I had a very positive response from the Russian disputants there. I am ready to "confront the issues" but your tone of discussion is just offensive.

My tone was, as stated, directed at a certain weasel. My reply was to specific "aggressive" comments of a Ukrainian/Polish ultra-nazi on this forum.
The issue not addressed is why nobody considered Jarema's comments stupid, aggressive or offensive. No one said anything - a silent approval - because Jarema is a "friend of Ukraine," and I am not. And again, look at yourself.

You sign your every post with "Watch out for StasUA. He deletes posts he doesn't agree with". Are you going to do it until the end of the world? He was maybe wrong (I do not know how it was) but give him a chance for improvement then.

What's it to you?
Would the deleted posts also re-appear?

Waving the imperial Russian symbol does not help any true discussion and is surely out of place here on the Ukrainian forum.

I'll think about it. But my sig represents Poland and Ukraine also, if you didn't know.

Your crocodile tears shed about the Ukrainization of the Eastern Ukraine, even if justified, ...

Yes, it is justified! But I am laughing.

...look like Goliath' crying over would-be David's wrongs.

Don't victimize yourself (or the ukraine) by lame comparisons.
Being the smaller country by size doesn't make you innocent.

The same applies to the description of Marshall Pilsudski and the war of 1920. Poland was erased from the European map by the Tzarist regime in 1795 for long 123 years.

Actually, Russia liberated the Russian-speaking lands.

You would be closer to target by blaming Prussia and Austria, which actually occupied the Polish-speaking historic Great and Little Polish homeland.

In 1812, Polish armies under Napoleon invaded Russia and were beaten back, after which a large Polish-speaking part was added to the Russian Empire.
Poland to this day occupies some Belarussian and Ukrainian lands, Belostok, Przemysl, Lemkovschina (Rusynia) etc.

When it was restored in 1918, Soviet Russia immediately accused her of the imperial appetites.

This is wrong, Soviet Russia offered to make peace with Poland on numerous occasions. I already mentioned the imperial tastes of Pilsudsky, which fueled the conflict.

I will give you one small example of how things were in a small village in the centre of Poland, near Warsaw.
I was once involved in a search of the parish church records in a village nearby Deblin which was renamed by Russians to Ivanogorod(!). The records coming from the second half of XVIIIth century were written in Latin and Polish. (Polish is well developed Slavic language with the abunadant and long written history, the characters are Latin like in the other West Slavic and West European languages). The records coming from XIXth century and the beginning of XXth century were kept in hand written Russian. (Tzarist governors surely had to import a scribe from Russia). Local people could hardly understand anything of it. Every marriage, death and birth was described in Russian. So the russification came even to such a small place...

So? Are you now displaying your "crocodile tears" to me?

I did some research also. Like Finland, Poland enjoyed a broad liberal autonomy within the Russian Empire. Its population was exempt from military service, a customs border separated it from the rest of the empire, it retained its own coat of arms and state regalia, its own currency, the Seim and parliament, and conducted state functions in Polish. Russian rule was represented only by a single official in the country. After the treacherous revolts of 1830 and 1863, Poland lost the autonomy privilege and became a set of regions ruled as all others in Russia.

I can only add that I personally like Russian but it is not an easy liking...

I am sorry to hear that. Perhaps a better understanding of historic issues would bring Russians and Poles closer.

To the world, Poland led by Pilsudski successfully defended the West of Europe against the Bolshevik's invasion. To you, Poland showed only the imperialist attitude. Pilsudski was surely not an angel but comparing him to Hitler and Stalin is also out of place.

But Pilsudsky hated Russians! He hated the Russians not because of communism, but because he was a nationalist. The Russian Orthodox cathedral in Warsaw was destroyed not because Orthodoxy became communist, but because the Poles in power hated everything Russian.
Pilsudsky at first tried to polonize western Ukraine and Belarus, but failing to succeed, he started supporting Ukrainization of the locals who considered themselves Russians and preferred to speak in the Russian literary language, rather than its Polonized version, called Ukrainian.

TLW, you describe Pilsudski's activity as if both countries were on the par. People in Poland are aware of his autocratic style but they believed he was the only one to oppose the brutal Soviet power.

The only problem with the percieved Soviet threat at the time was that Pilsudsky claimed non-Polish lands as part of his empire. Those lands were part of the new Soviet state. So he invented the threat as an excuse to invade Soviet Russian possessions.

The very national existence had the highest priority in the early twenties.

Pilsudsky's priorities were the 1772 Rec Pospolita.

Pilsudski did not profit in any way from his highest post in the country. This was and still is (or rather should be) an important factor in the estimation of a politician.

Well, serial killers also don't profit from killing. But they do satisfy their internal urges, which is enough reward for them. I am not saying Pilsudsky was a killer, however, seeing his (Russian and Ukrainian) enemies suffer was a common enough phenomenon in his life, as I mentioned in the first post, that brought him satisfaction.

The fact is that the Polish-Soviet conflict concerned terrritories of today's Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania and not the places inhabited by the ethnic Russians (I do not count Rusyns because they are not Russians). Neither Russia nor Poland had enough justified rights to these lands.

You are wrong.
Numerous sources point to the fact that the people of those lands did call themselves Russians. They spoke Russian with the local accent, read Russian works by Pushkin and Lermontov, maintained their own Russian schools and newspapers as much as they could until Polish authorities closed them down and instead supported Ukrainian schools.

All victims and prisoners of war deserve our due respect, anyway try to think what would happen if Bolsheviks travelled to Berlin or Paris.

This is an exsageration.
Imagine Poles marching to the Urals.

Your reference to Bereza Kartuska as a concentration camp is unfounded because the"concentration camp" is automatically related to extermination while Bereza was a detention camp for the communists, not aimed at any extermination and the analogy to places like Auschwitz or Kolyma means loosing the proportions.

Well, it was there. What makes you so sure that only communists were there, when Pilsudsky had enemies among the Ukrainians and Russians in Galicia also.

I think it is a part of my national shame but I have never found any attempt to equate Pilsudski to Stalin or Hitler in the avaliable West European or American history books.

They needed a hero - an anticommunist "warrior." The Poles seemed complacent to accept it, without checking closer.

Your description fits well the explanation given in the Great Soviet Encyclopeadia (vol. 33, 1955).

Never read it.

I consider myself a true supporter of the Russian-Ukrainian-Polish dialogue aiming at discovering all similarities and avoiding bitter confrontations.

I appreciate it.
But beating around the bush will only make matters worse.
Perhaps a good symbolic beginning would be to rebuild the Russian cathedral in Warsaw.

It you are ready to stop the insults I can "confront the issues" my way, free of aggresion.

I am not after the insults. I want to reveal the historic truth. If I seem to accuse some country of a genocide of hundreds of thousands of innocent Russian-speaking Rusyns in Galicia between 1914 and 1926 it doesn't mean I am throwing insults.

[The_Last_Word]

Well, Zbyszek, time has passed, and you haven't "confronted the issues" of Russia, Ukraine and Poland as you promised. Not even on other threads.

Did you even intend doing anything?

It you are ready to stop the insults I can "confront the issues" my way, free of aggresion.

[Zbyszek]

Originally posted by The_Last_Word
Well, Zbyszek, time has passed, and you haven't "confronted the issues" of Russia, Ukraine and Poland as you promised. Not even on other threads.

Did you even intend doing anything?

The_Last_Word,
I published my credo in Russia.com two months ago:

_________________________________________________
Do Przyjaciol Moskali (To the Muscovian Friends)
Hello Zhuk!

Nice to now that you are also active on the Russia.com site. For a time I could not log into Ukraine.com so I thought about visiting the Russian Club. The title of my contribution is also a title of the Adam Mickiewicz poem. This outstanding Polish poet perfectly understood the difference between what governments do and what people feel in their hearts. Mickiewicz was opressed by the Tzarist government but it did not keep him from being a friend of Alexander Pushkin. After reading some posts devoted to history, I feel that due to lack of information on some famous people they appear as stainless icons worth worshiping and admiration. Now, we are usually dissatisfied with the politicians because we know all their love affairs, sexual orientation, alcohol problems or indecent behaviour. It is high time we revised some biographies of our noble prominent figures. It will easily turn out that some of their deeds were dubious or even heinous. The discussion on Hmyelnitzky and Wishnevetsky on the Ukrainian site was very good for the mutual understanding.
While being much critical on the Muscovy/Tzarist/Soviet rule I believe that the most of Russian people had nothing or not much to do with the oppression. As a Pole living in Warszawa, I would never approve of invading Russia. Polish troops sent by the King of Rzeczpospolita (of Swede dynasty) reached Moscow in 17th century.
Muscovy troops reached and burned Vilnius, the capital of the Great Lithuanian Duchy being a part of Rzeczpospolita only several years later. I am sure that the Russian people
were not asked by the Tzar about being so kind and make a small bonfire in the streets of Vilna.
Mickiewicz and Pushkin are surely more reliable than Sigismund the Third and Ivan the Fourth.
Surely, I do not think we should demolish the statues of our heroes in Warszawa and Moskva, I just think that the birds dropping something like fertilizer on some noble bronze faces really do a good job.
______________________________________________________


It means I do not like to blame people but rather their governments in the past and sometimes even now.
I also can make a difference between what individuals write here and what the national stereotypes are and what is the politics of the governments.
I do not write from the outside of Poland, but from Warsaw, the heart of Poland. I wish my English was better but I hope present my views clearly enough. I am neither a professionally educated English-speaker nor a professional historian. I am an engineer. I have never been in the USA and I have only visited UK for a few days.
There are many examples of the good Polish-Ukrainian coexistence on people's level.
I am not sure if our discussion is in this case proper for Ukraine.com. Maybe it would be advisory to move it to Russia.com. Are you a Danger-boy there?

[The_Last_Word]

As much as I respect Adam Mickievich and Alexander Pushkin I don▓t have to conduct a special analysis to see what ⌠people feel in their hearts,■ as you put it. The constant blame and accusations from Poles and Ukrainians are reason enough for Russians to see how much hatred still exists among many Poles and certain Ukrainians.

I would not equate all national prominent figures into a group with illicit love affairs, alcohol problems and indecent behavior. Not all are alike.

What you call ⌠good for mutual understanding,■ I would call incomplete and one-sided. The Hmelnitsky-Vishnevetsky discussion was so biased that I question myself whether participation would bring any results.

The Russians both on the government and national level never desired to conquer Warsaw or the lands populated by Poles. At some time Russian policy was to liberate Russian-speaking lands from Polish occupation √ a well known segment of history. Warsaw became part of Russia when European politics of power balance and alliances dictated so. In Poland, on the other hand, at least on the level of government they were preoccupied with conquering Moscow and other Russian principalities from the 14the century. In the 17th century, the Polish armies captured Moscow and installed a puppet regime of False Dmitry. The Poles imprisoned the Russian Orthodox Patriarch (subsequently killing him) and were keen on finding and killing young Russian Tsar Michael.

The feeling of hatred continued into the 20th century when the newly independent Polish state destroyed Russian institutions and churches, seeing them as instruments of Russification rather than spiritual centers, and Pilsudsky was destroying everything Russian, because he wanted to resurrect the Polish empire.

In the 20th century, the Poles are obsessed with playing victims of the Katyn massacre (execution), while feeding their hatred for Russians, who suffered a great deal more from Soviet repression than any other people, on bits of such information.

I believe this is a good place to continue discussing events connected to Pilsudsky and Petliura to bring out the reasons why some people prefer to hate rather than admit guilt.