THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS TUESDAY, MAY 14, 1935 MARSHAL PILSUDSKI

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22108, 14 May 1935, Page 8

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS TUESDAY, MAY 14, 1935 MARSHAL PILSUDSKI

As Marshal Pilsudski the dead dictator of Poland is most generally known and likely to be best remembered. In the course of his eventful career he played many parts for his country —Socialist leader and revolutionary, member of its provisional council, unifier of all political parties, convener of the National Assembly, Minister of War, In-spector-General of the army, Premier, President, and finally, by official title, Dictator—but when the new State was definitely provided with a constitution it was the army's presentation to him of a marshal's baton, the first ever given by it, that set a special seal on his patriotic service. Pre-eminently he was a soldier. But he devoted himself to other pursuits, as the list of his offices suggests. From other studies, including medicine, he turned ardently to law, and this interest went with him into politics. "He seems to have come," wrote Max Gorynski of Warsaw, an enthusiastic friend and admirer, "straight from the time when Poland was a nation of soldiers and lawyers, but to have left behind him everything that could, and did, defile the use of arms and the practice of the law." Many, even in Poland, have been inclined to think differently about this head of their nation. "While some political parties have been in the habit of appealing to him as the Man of Destiny, others have not scrupled to deride him, perilous as that attitude has been. To them all he has said, with a bluntness fully characteristic, that destiny must be worked out by the members of every party, and he has taken care to show that their task must be undertaken, if they really loved Poland as he did and incidentally valued his good opinion and practical approval, in a way offering opportunity for much use of the sword. In this he customarily set a vigorous example. Five generations of Poles had dreamed of military prowess. It was a Polish penchant—in hours of ease and sleep. A favourite gibe of Bismarck's, as can well bfe understood of this apostle of blood and iron, was that the Poles were politicians in their poetry and poets in their politics. Pilsudski altered that indulgence of shadowy visions. A high romanticism of purpose moved him, but he was utterly realistic in method, so given to hard realism that he acquired much disrepute for ruthlessness. In sober truth, he fashioned the sword that was to win independence for Poland, and pressed its use on a people rather reluctant to wield it. He created the national army and led it on campaigns, most notably against Russia when the Soviet leaders broke with the Allies. That campaign came to grief, yet it won for him an unshakable popularity with the masses, and thus out of it came his opportunity to mould the political fortunes of his country. It gave him also an established position in the regard of the army, and over this he has stood guard, lest it should become the weapon of any separate party—even the one most loyal to himself—and has employed it to enforce order as well as to achieve a coup d'etat ventured as the speediest means of attaining personal power. It is a way that many have tried to take in other countries ; few have succeeded for long, and he stands practically alone with his long record of military control. In several changes of parliamentary ex- ; periment, when it appeared certain that he must be superseded in political leadership, he has reappeared as Minister of War, with a permanence of administrative survival quite remarkable; and right up to the choice of him as acknowledged dictator, above the presidential office, he kept this signal distinction as a soldier. It has often looked like a sheer anachronism in an age of democracy, but the Poles have found little fault with it and elsewhere it has found recent favour. Pilsudski is both enigma and outlaw to those venerating democracy, but the Polish character, in social defects as well as alluring dreams, explains much and partly justifies it. Where this unusual man, one of a diverse group in Europe thrown up by the Great War—some of their , names are potent beyond question, whatever be thought of their methods—differed from the rest was in his incongruous clinging to legality, even to idealism, in every hour of his triumph. "It is not easy," to quote his friend Gorynski again, "for mere politicians to read aright a mind masterful and self-willed, and yet bending before a self-im-posed moral imperative." This naive praise of Pilsudski may seem fatally prejudiced, yet it can be defended against critics. Time and again, most memorably after the military coup d'etat that set him securely aloft, he stood aside the moment he saw the people's path open to their right to say what they wanted. The sword was suddenly lowered in salute to democratic ideals. When his career is scanned no moment looks less promising than that on Armistice Day when he was released from prison in Magdeburg, to return to his country. It was then without money, without

order, without trade, without internal peace, without any surety against neighbouring enemies. But he set to work, grappling with national poverty and starvation and chaos. Poland is still poor and troubled, but it is now neither mendicant nor negligible. Mainly the improvement must be credited to him. With all his faults, he counted for most in the uplift. What now will happen? Internal strife may recur, the understanding with Germany may crumble, and new problems may arise in company with old ones returned. Pilsudski is to have successors, but how they will shape and what they will accomplish is not easy for anyone to say.