PILSUDSKI AND HIS COUP

Evening Star, Issue 19298, 10 July 1926, Page 22

PILSUDSKI AND HIS COUP

CAUSES OF THE CRISIS A BEVOLMTIOHARY KHIGHHRRANT THE IDOL OF A SECTION. Pilsudski's coup—if small things may bo compared to great ones—boars some resemblance to Napoleon’s return from Elba (says a writer in tbo 1 Observer ’). Generals and regiments sent out against tiro “ usurper,” then and now, joined their old chief, whilst a wave of revolutionary excitement swept the country. But Napoleon failed primarily because, after a revolutionary opening, he tried in vain to re-establish his Imperial respectability. Pilsudski, tlie quondam revolutionary, has once 11101 o reverted to revolutionary means, but apparently without revolutionary puiposo. Having tumbled into revolution, ho tries to regain legal ground and keep aloof from the strife which his own action has brought to a bead. But one thing seems certain, that neither superiors nor enemies ieol inclined to leave him in that position. Beyond that no one seems to know his mind. _ During the last few years Pilsudski has been an idol rather than a leader, tbo embodiment of a legend, and not the exponent of a programme. Poland’s resurrection was brought about by extraneous events, not by Polish achievements ; but whatever, there was in Poland of self-sacrificing effort during the last twenty-live years, and of independent Polish action in the war, was connected with the person of Pilsudski, and it is this which gives him his unique position. Ho had started as a leader of the Polish Socialists, bub In’s aim was national independence, not social revolution. Poland’s independence could only come through an internal defeat of Tsardom; tins could not bo achieved except by wide, popular movements; mass movements in our days require social programmes. In tbo Polish Socialist movement Pilsudski found rich recruiting grounds for his “fighting squads,” and bo succeeded in grafting on to it a national revolutionary militarism, which connection to this day makes the Polish >Sociaiist Party and the Polish army unlike those of other countries. HIS PART IN THE WAR. In 1911 Pilsudski and bis men, always at war with Russia, joined tbo Central Powers. But when these, having conquered all Poland, still refused to commit themselves to Polish independence, Pilsudski stopped recruiting for his legions, and in August, 1916, by a demonstrative act of “ insubordination,” forced the German Supremo Command to dismiss him at the very moment when they wore planning to expand the legions into a Polish army. la November, 1916, the Austro-Gcr-man proclamation of Polish independence seemed to offer a new startingpoint; Pilsudski returned, but willnhe programme, “No Polisli army without a Polisli Government ”; and as the Germans would not concede a Government, lie obstructed flic formation (J an army. In March, 1017, tbo Russian revolution swept away Tsardom,_ and Russia, acknowledged Poland’s independence. Pilsudski’s policy now turned against Germany, and by July, 1917, to set a flaming sign to tho nation, lie was planning some mad coup against the Germans in Warsaw. They sent b'im to prison at Magdeburg, and most of his adherents to internment camps. THE DISTRUST OF POSNANTA. In that supremo crisis not all the legionaries adhered to Pilsudski. Many Galician Poles from the regular Austrian army, though sincere Polisli patriots, had" also a feeling of attachment for Austria; moreover, the higher officers among them were professional soldiers, with antecedents very different from those of Pilsudski and Ins militant revolutionaries. However much they might admire Ids groat qualities, they were temperamentally incapable of following him in Ids politicalnnmilitary course of revolutionary insubordination. They may have been ducks, even lame clucks, whilst bo was an eagle, and yet they did not deserve all the contempt which was freely shown them by his followers. The cleavage of those days continues in the new Polish army, and was one of tlm_ lactors winch led up to the present crisis. Whilst in Russian and Austrian Roland Pilsudski had become a national hero, Ids personality carried no appeal to Posnania. , 'Tins is a country of well-to-do reactionary peasants, and of clerical “ petit bourgeois,” economically efficient in their small way, unimaginative, narrow in mind and arid in spirit, For generations they had been bullied,

educated, and disciplined by the Germans, and they repaid the Germans by hating them in dutiful obedience. They voted German War Budgets, did irreproachable service in the German army, and had-nothing in common wi .li tho revolutionary knights-errant Irem across the border. German Poland remains the stronghold of Polish reaction and tho centre of all jpovements hostile to Pilsudski. THE ARMY FIRST. In the new Poland the army has been Pilsudski’s all-engrossing concern. Political or administrative problems interest him only in so far as they affect the army. He does not object to governments being reactionary, only to their being inefficient and corrupt; clericalism in schools, tho deliberate failure to carry out tho promised agrarian reform, and the scandalous' .pppression of . tho so-called national mind-, rities, which form about 40 per veil I. of Poland’s population, call forth no protest from, tho old Radical who om e believed in national rights (hut where his own nation was concerned). After all, it was he himself who started military colonisation in tho conquered White and Little Russian pro/mccs, a thing unknown in Europe smee the days of the Roman spoila optima, and it "was lie who was personally responsible for the worst case of |>orjidy 111 international politics, Zcligownu's coup against Vila,a. One thing alone moves him—attempts to tamper with his army. /Her ho had been forced to withdraw somo throe years ago, his opponents started remodelling it. Last Novemher lMsudski was on tho point of speaking out on tho subject, but was persuaded by tho President of tho Republic to desist for fear it might impair Poland's prestige at tho time of lire London Conference. Negotiations ensued, and once more ho was to have boon jri'-ea a dominant position in the Polish army. Meantime a Government crisis, supervened, and the now Cabinet was certain to reverse tho army policy of its predecessors. Tho consequence was a military coup with a primarily military purpose. THE HERO OF THE LEFT. But however unpolitical Pilsudski may wish to be, he remains the central figure in Polish party politics, and his attempts -to dissociate himself from parties merely adds to tho confusion of Polisli politics. The parties of tiro Left adhere to him, make him their banner, try to share in his glory, and cheer wildly whenever lie kicks them. To the Right ho is an exasperating stumbling-block— were it not for him they would claim a monopoly of patriotism, and could make tho army their preserve; hut Fascismo cannot hope for victory in the lifetime of a Garibaldi, so they try to belittle Pilsudski, and nag at him with petty, relentless hatred. Pilsudski professes to have meant his coup as a mere demonstration; Lis past inclines one to believe it. Every man has but one method, and when it suits circumstances he is called lucky; but this time Pilsudski’s method seems, to say the least, exceedingly unfortunate. His long revolutionary past has deprived him of tho sense and deeper respect for legality, and ho did not fully realise what he was doing, or, rather, lie failed to foresee what tho logic of events and tho action of other men were hound to make of it. That the coup was not meant in favor of any party is proved by tho fact that in the confiscated interview which in a way Jms led to the revolt he had mixed up politicians of the Right and Left in an indiscriminate indictment. THE PATH OF ILLEGALITY. But now lie is saddled with the responsibility for a revolutionary government in a country sharply divided into camps between which the constitutional bridge has been destroyed by In's own action. 80 long as ho retains his illegally acquired powers it is a farce to talk of a genuine return to legality. “The path of law is already closed to me,” Pilsudski himself had said to the President of the Republic at tho interview they had before the first shots were fired. Still less can ho withdraw now without delivering his supporters to the vengeance of their enemies. Tho last hopes centre in a reassembly of the Diet, the one constitutional factor which in appearance lias not been destroyed by the military revolt. _ Only by intimidation can Pilsudski make the hostile majority in the Diet condone tho coup and confirm his powers. But could anyone blame h.is opponents should they refuse to meet where their deliberations would not ho free, or wonder at his supporters no* wishing to go whore their defeat w ould he a foregone conclusion? Thcrciovo, will they meet? Tho parlies of the Loft demand tho dissolution of the Diet; this would require a two-thirds majority in the Diet itself, and surely the present majority cannot bo expected to vote it in order that the Left might hold revolutionary quasi-elec-tions. The Left prepares to raise the standard of agrarian revolution; only by rallying the masses of the poorer peasant's to their side can they possibly maintain the ascendancy which tbev imagined at first they had won through Pilsudski’s military coup. _ But will they have Pilsudski and In's army on their side? He alone could keep the movement within hounds and yet achieve success. The coup may prove a “comedy cf errors” with most tragically disastrous results.