History of Poland - Second Polish Republic (1918–1939)

Second Polish Republic (1918–1939)

After more than a century of rule by its neighbors, Poland regained its independence in 1918, internationally recognized in 1919 with the Treaty of Versailles. The Paris Peace Conference and the Versailles treaty that followed resolved the issue of Poland's western border with Germany, including the Polish Corridor, which gave Poland access to the Baltic Sea, and the separate status of the Free City of Danzig. Plebiscites in southern East Prussia and Upper Silesia were provided for, while the issues of other northern, eastern and southern borders remained undetermined, inviting military action.

Of the several border-settling conflicts that ensued, the Polish–Soviet War of 1919-1921 was the confrontation fought on a very large scale. Piłsudski had entertained far-reaching anti-Russian cooperative designs for Eastern Europe, and in 1919 the Polish forces pushed eastward into Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine (previously a theater of the Polish–Ukrainian War), taking advantage of the Russian preoccupation with the civil war. By June 1920, the Polish armies were past Vilnius, Minsk and (allied with the Directorate of Ukraine) reached Kiev, but then the massive Bolshevik counteroffensive moved the Poles out of most of Ukraine and on the northern front arrived at the outskirts of Warsaw. The seemingly certain disaster was averted in August by the combination of Piłsudski's military skills and a dedicated national defense effort.

The Russian armies were separated, defeated and pushed back, which forced Lenin and the Soviet leadership to abandon for the time being their strategic objective of linking up with the German and other European revolution-minded comrades (Lenin's hope of generating support for the Red Army in Poland had already failed to materialize). Piłsudski's seizure of Vilnius in October 1920 poisoned Polish–Lithuanian relations for the remainder of the interwar period. Piłsudski's planned East European federation of states (inspired by the tradition of the multiethnic "Republic of Both Nations" and including a hypothetical multinational successor state to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania) was incompatible, at the time of rising national movements, with his assumption of Polish domination and with the encroachment on the neighboring peoples' lands and aspirations; as such it was doomed to failure. A larger federated structure was also opposed by Dmowski's National Democrats. Their representative at the Peace of Riga talks opted for leaving Minsk, Berdychiv, Kamianets-Podilskyi and the surrounding areas on the Soviet side of the border, not wanting to allow population shifts National Democrats considered politically undesirable, including what would be a reduced proportion of citizens who were ethnically Polish.

The Treaty of Riga of 1921 settled the eastern border, preserving for Poland, at the cost of partitioning the lands of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania (Lithuania and Belarus) and Ukraine, a good portion of the old Commonwealth's eastern lands. Ukrainians ended up with no state of their own and felt betrayed by the Riga arrangements; their resentment gave rise to extreme nationalism and anti-Polish hostility. The territories in the east won by 1921 would form the basis for a swap arranged and carried out by the Soviets in 1943-1945, who at that time compensated the reemerging Polish state for its eastern lands lost to the Soviet Union with conquered areas of eastern Germany.

The successful outcome of the Polish–Soviet War gave Poland a false sense of being a major and self-sufficient military power, and the government a justification for trying to resolve international problems through imposed unilateral solutions. The interwar period's Polish territorial and ethnic policies contributed to bad relations with most of Poland's neighbors and to uneasy cooperation with the more distant centers of power, including France, Britain and the League of Nations.

The rapidly growing population of Poland within the new boundaries was ¾ agricultural and ¼ urban, with Polish being the primary language of ⅔ of the inhabitants. A constitution was adopted in 1921. Due to the insistence of the National Democrats, worried about the potential power of Piłsudski if elected, it introduced limited prerogatives for the presidency.

What followed was the Second Republic's short (1921–1926) and turbulent period of constitutional order and parliamentary democracy. The legislature remained fragmented and lacking stable majorities, governments changed frequently, corruption was commonplace. The open-minded Gabriel Narutowicz was constitutionally elected president by the National Assembly in 1922, but deemed not pure enough by the nationalist right wing, was assassinated. Poland had suffered under a plethora of economic calamities, but there were also signs of progress and stabilization (Władysław Grabski's economically competent government lasted for almost two years). The achievements of the democratic period, such as the establishment, strengthening or expansion of the various governmental and civil society structures and integrative processes necessary for normal functioning of the reunited state and nation, were too easily overlooked. Lurking on the sidelines was the disgusted army upper corps, not willing to subject itself to civilian control, but ready to follow its equally dissatisfied, at that time retired, legendary chief.

On May 12, 1926, Piłsudski, prompted by mutinous units seeking his leadership and intent on preventing the three-time prime minister Wincenty Witos of the peasant Polish People's Party from forming another coalition, staged a military overthrow of the Polish government, confronting President Stanisław Wojciechowski and overpowering the troops loyal to him. Hundreds died in fratricidal fighting. Piłsudski was supported by several leftist factions, who ensured the success of his coup by blocking during the fighting the railway transportation of government forces, but the authoritarian "Sanation" regime that he was to lead for the rest of his life and that stayed in power until World War II, was neither leftist, nor overtly fascist. Political institutions and parties were allowed to function, which was combined with electoral manipulation and strong-arming of those not willing to cooperate into submission. Eventually persistent opponents of the regime, many of the leftist persuasion, were subjected to long staged trials and harsh sentences, or detained in camps for political prisoners. Rebellious peasants, striking industrial workers and nationalist Ukrainians became targets of ruthless military pacification, other minorities were harassed. Piłsudski, conscious of Poland's precarious international situation, signed non-aggression pacts with the Soviet Union in 1932 and with Nazi Germany in 1934.

The mainstream of the Polish society was not affected by the repressions of the Sanation authorities; many enjoyed the relative prosperity (the economy improved between 1926 and 1929) and supported the government. Polish independence had boosted the development of thriving culture and intellectual achievement was high, but the Great Depression brought huge unemployment and increased social tensions, including rising antisemitism. The reconstituted Polish state had had only 20 years of relative stability and uneasy peace between the two wars. A major economic transformation and national industrial development plan led by Minister Eugeniusz Kwiatkowski, the main architect of the Gdynia seaport project, was in progress at the time of the outbreak of the war. The interwar period's overall economic situation in Poland was, however, stagnant. The total industrial production (within the pre-1939 borders) had barely increased between 1913 and 1939, but because of the population growth, the per capita output actually decreased by 17.8%.

The lack of sufficient domestic or foreign investment funding precluded by 1939 the level of industrial development necessary for creating modern armed forces for successful self-defense; because of its strategic and tactical priorities, the ruling establishment had not primarily prepared the country for a major war on the western front. The regime of Piłsudski's "colonels", left in power after the Marshal's death, had neither the vision nor resources to cope with the deteriorating situation in Europe. The government (foreign policy conduct was the responsibility of Józef Beck) undertook opportunistic hostile actions against Lithuania and Czechoslovakia, while it failed to control the increasingly fractured situation at home, where fringe groups and extreme nationalist circles were getting more outspoken (one Camp of National Unity was connected to the new strongman, Marshal Edward Rydz-Śmigły).

In 1939, the Polish government rejected the German offer of forming an alliance on terms which would amount to an end or severe curtailment of Poland's sovereignty; Hitler abrogated the Polish-German pact. Before the war broke out, Poland entered into a full military alliance with Britain and France; the western powers lacked the will to confront Nazi Germany and their (false) assurances of imminent military action were only intended as pressure applied to deter Hitler. The mid-August British-French talks with the Soviets on forming an anti-Nazi defensive military alliance had failed, in part over the Polish government's refusal to allow the Red Army to operate on Polish territory. On August 23, 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop non-aggression pact, which secretly provided for the dismemberment of Poland into Nazi and Soviet-controlled zones.