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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 January 2017
In May, 1926, the retired First Marshal of Poland and former Chief of State (1918-22), Józef Piłsudski, at the head of certain military units devoted to his person and with the enthusiastic approval of the political and social forces of the Polish Left, staged a successful coup d'etat against the Polish parliamentary system dominated since the elections of November, 1922, by an agglomeration of Right-Center political parties. Though on the morrow of his victory Pitsudski moved swiftly and effectively to avert the devolution of his coup into a genuine social or even political revolution—to the consternation and disappointment of his allies on the Left—the May, 1926, crisis nevertheless became the great watershed of Polish political life between the two world wars. It signaled the failure and death of parliamentary democracy throughout the area of East Central Europe, and its divisions have run deep within Polish political memories to this day.
1 The elections of November 5, 1922, for the Sejm, the lower but more powerful of the two houses of the National Assembly, gave 163 seats out of a total of 444 to a bloc of rightwing parties and 70 to the centrist but nationalistic Piast Peasant Party. The latter party, which until these elections had generally declined collaboration with the Right, then reversed itself after a final alliance with the Left during the two presidential elections of Gabriel Narutowicż and Stanisław Wojciechowski by the National Assembly in December, 1922. Led by Wincenty Witos, the Piast Peasant Party in the middle of 1923 became a perennial ally of the Right. This coalition could thereafter effectively dominate the Sejm but failed to give Poland stable governments. A more radical peasant party, named Wyzwolenie (Liberation), had 49 seats, the Socialists (Polska Partia Socjalistyczna–PPS) 41,.and other Left parties 30. The non–Polish national minorities elected 87 Sejm deputies, of whom 66 formed themselves into a minority bloc, which was potentially in a pivotal position should the Right–Piast combination ever founder. In the Senate, elected on November 12, 1922, the Right was proportionately even more strongly represented, in part because of higher age qualifications for the vote. It held 49 of the 111 seats.
2 Eventually, all the states of this area, with the exception of Czechoslovakia, succumbed ito royal or military or political dictatorships.
3 Legion and POW veterans were again subdivided into officers and sergeants, the latter frequently regarding the former as careerists. Cf. ławoj–Składkowski, Felicjan S, “Wspomnienia z okresu majowego,” Kultura, No. 6/116 (June 1957), p. 104 Google Scholar.
4 Loessner, Anton, Josef Pilsudski (Leipzig, 1935), p. 162 Google Scholar.
5 Piłsudski, Józef, Pisma zbiorowe (Warsaw, 1937), VIII, 258, 283 Google Scholar; hereafter cited as Pisma. Stanisław Wojciechowski had been elected president on December 20, 1922, by the National Assembly to succeed Gabriel Narutowicz, who had been assassinated on December 16, 1922.
6 Pobóg-Malinowski, Władysław, Najnowsza historia polityczna polski 1864–1945 (London, 1956), II, 458 Google Scholar.
7 Pietrzak, Michał, ed., “Jak doszlo do wojny domowej: Przewrót majowy,” Kwartalnik historyczny, LXVI, No. 1 (1959), 144 Google Scholar.
8 Loessner, op. tit., p. 163.
9 Piłsudski's decree is reprinted in Pisma, Appendix I, Vol. VIII, pp. iii–v.
10 At the time of the January, 1919, elections, the Polish frontiers, especially in the east, were still indefinite. The elections took place only within the areas controlled by Polish authorities on January 26, 1919, and later in Poznania and Wilno. In effect, therefore, the eastern minorities were excluded from representation in this Constituent Sejm, which kept itself in power during the first four crucial years of the organization of the new state.
11 Porczak, Marjan, Rewolucja majowa i jej skutki (Cracow, 1927), p. 8 Google Scholar.
12 “This crime did more than any other stroke of fate to make the Marshal [i.e., Piłsudski] an embittered man The gravest consequence of the assassination … was probably its effect upon Pilsudski's mind He had no reserves of patience, and the notion that the Right were murderers fermented in his brain.” Reddaway, W. F., Marshal Pilsuds& i (London, 1939), p. 171 Google Scholar.
13 Daszyński, Ignacy, Sejm, rząd, król, dyktator (Warsaw, 1926), p. 28 Google Scholar. In a later book, W pierwszą rocznicę przewrotu majowego (Warsaw, 1927), Daszyński estimated that on the eve of the 1926 coup there were 28 parties and political clubs in the Sejm. Cf. Zweig, Ferdynand, Poland Between Two Wars (London, 1944), p. 44 Google Scholar.
14 On May 15, 1923, Witos laid the groundwork for his coalition with the Right by the “Pact of Lanckorona” in which he promised not to go beyond a modest degree of land reform in return for the Right's support of his ambition to be Prime Minister. On May 26 Sikorski was overthrown by this partnership on the specious pretext that a parliamentaryparty regime would be more democratic than Sikorski's nonparty one. On May 28 Witos was installed as Prime Minister, but was in effect the hostage of the Right, which dominated his cabinet. His alliance with the Right and his betrayal of the expectations of the peasantry for radical land reform led to the secession from his Piast party of left-wing groups led by Jan Dąbski and Jan Bryl. In January, 1926, these founded a separate Peasant Party, the Stronnictwo Chłopskie. Witos was well characterized as follows by Stanisław Thugutt, the leader of the more radical Wyzwolenie Peasant Party: “Witos could have been a great peasant but, alas, chose to become the court fool of the gentry.” Quoted in Pobóg–Malinowski, op. cit., II, 474, n. 29. In the 1930's he became more radical. Sikorski, it seems, did not forgive the politicians of this Right-Piast coalition for toppling him. Though his quarrel with Piłsudski was as stubborn as theirs, he lefused to come to their aid when the same coalition found itself under Pitsudski's attack in the coup of May, 1926. The Right had already been hostile to Sikorski when he stepped into the assassination crisis in December, 1922, and was still suspicious when he replaced Sosnkowski as War Minister on February 17, 1924. Ibid., p. 460.
15 Szeptycki had been Austrian Governor-General of Lublin in 1917–18 (resigning in protest against the concessions made to the Ukrainians by the Central Powers in the negotiations at Brest–Litovsk), and commander of the Polish northern front during the Polish– Soviet campaign of 1920. He was a brother of the Uniate Metropolitan of Lwów, Roman šeptyĉkyj, who was a world–famous patron of the cultural and national aspirations of the Ukrainian minority of Poland.
16 See Piłsudski's farewell speech to the officers of the General Staff in Pisma, VI, 19.
17 His first publication after retirement was a lengthy pamphlet in memory of the murdered President Gabriel Narutowicz, reprinted in Pisma, VI, 36-59.
18 Szeptycki's project is reprinted in Pisma, Appendix I, Vol. VIII, pp. vi–viii.
19 Bohdan Podoski, “Organizacja naczelnych wladz obrony państwa: Skic historyczny“ (an unpublished manuscript in the archives of the Piłsudski Historical Institute in London), p. 5.
20 This incident is recounted in an unpublished fragment of the memoirs of President Ignacy Mościcki preserved in the archives of the Piłsudski Historical Institute in London.
21 Pietrzak, op. cit., p. 129. The Right also hoped to link Piłsudski with the insurrectionary incidents of November, 1923, in Cracow. As for Bagiński and Wieczorkiewicz, they were condemned to death, pardoned by the President, scheduled for deportation to Soviet Russia in exchange for two Poles, and murdered by a Polish official on March 29, 1925, as they were being taken to the border-crossing point. The murderer was let off with two years’ detention. See Pobóg-Malinowski, op. cit., II, 432. It has been suggested that Wieczorkiewicz and Bagiński were in fact Polish counteragents within the Communist movement, killed in error.
22 On March 18, 1924, there opened in Warsaw the court-martial of one Lieutenant Błoński of the Second (Intelligence) Department of the General Staff on the charge of having made false depositions. Błoński had stated that in October, 1923, he had been requested by his superior, Major Pieczonka, who in turn was allegedly acting on the instructions of General Stanisław Haller, Chief of the General Staff, to spy on Piłsudski at Sulejówek and that money and assistants were to be put at his disposal for this purpose. On March 21, 1924, Piłsudski testified at the Błoński trial that he had indeed been spied upon over many years. (His testimony is reprinted in Pisma, VI, 212-17.) On November 19, 1924, the trial was suspended as a result of the prosecution's withdrawal of its charges against Błoński. See Wierzbiriski, Fryderyk, Warszawa nie odpowiada (Warsaw, 1960), pp. 47–51 Google Scholar. For Błoński's later role in the coup of May, 1926, see Rzepecki, Jan, Wspomnienia i przyczynki historyczne (Warsaw, 1956), p. 45 Google Scholar.
23 Among Piłsudski's alleged offenses were the theft of Poland's royal regalia and treasonable relations with the Bolsheviks during the campaign of 1920. The latter allegation was a distortion of the nature of Piłsudski's contacts with Lenin during the autumn of 1919, when each regarded the Denikin army as a threat to his own position, since that army was both anti-Soviet and dedicated to regaining Imperial Russia's frontiers, which had included the lion's share of Poland.
24 The speech is reprinted in Pisma, VI, 24-35. The banquet was attended by representatives of the arts and sciences and politics, including the first postwar premier, the Socialist Jędrzej Moraczewski, who also addressed the gathering, as did some other guests.
25 Podoski, op. cit.j p. 5.
26 Zweig, op. cit., p. 36.
27 Violence also erupted in Borysław and Tarnów. Troops were called out to quell the disturbances.
28 Pisma, VI, 145-46. See also Wierzbiński, op. cit., pp. 40-41, and Pobóg-Malinowski, op. cit., II, 457.
29 Pietrzak, op. cit., p. 130; Pobóg-Malinowski, op. cit., II, 457.
30 Until shortly before the coup of May, 1926, President Wojciechowski had consistently wished to facilitate Piłsudski's return to the army. See Benedykt, Stefan, “O przełomic majowym,” Wiadomości, XIV, No. 667 (Jan. 11, 1959), 1 Google Scholar.
31 See Piłsudski's press interview published in the Warsaw paper Kurier Poranny on Janua r y 10, 1924, andreprin t e d in Pisma, VI, 145-47. Cf. also Piłsudski's letter in Polska zbrojna, August 27, 1924, reprinted in Pisma, VIII, 45-46.
32 Sikorski's project is reprinted in Pisma, Appendix I, Vol. VIII, pp. ix-xiii.
33 This letter was made public by Piłsudski the following year on August 15, 1925. It is reprinted in Pisma, VI, 209-11.
34 Sikorski's revised project is reprinted in Pisma, Appendix I, Vol. VIII, pp. xiii-xvii.
35 Piłsudski itemized the reasons for his rejection of the amended Sikorski project and for his refusal to serve as Inspector General of Armies under its terms in an interview given the Warsaw paper Kurier Poranny on December 11—the day of the conference—and published on December 12, 1924. T h e interview is reprinted in Pisma, VIII, 122-27.
36 Sikorski, Władysław, “Kartki z dziennika,” ed. Rosołowski, Major Stefan and published in żołnierz polski, Nos. 13 and 14 (July, 1957)Google Scholar. These fragments of Sikorski's diary are in the Central Military Library in Warsaw. For a defense of Sikorski's project on the grounds that it assured civilian control over the army through the War Minister's supremacy and accountability to the Sejm, see Kukiel, General Marian, “Jeszcze o przełomie majowym,” Wiadomosci, XIII, No. 678/679 (March 29/April 5, 1959), 16 Google Scholar.
37 Pietrzak, op. cit., p. 132.
38 For Sikorski's professions of sincerity in inviting Piłsudski to accept the Inspector Generalcy of Armies, see his “Kartki z dziennika.“
39 See Pisma, VIII, 43. It was in response to this resolution that the government publicly announced its desire to appoint Piłsudski Inspector General of Armies. Ibid., p. 45.
40 For such charges of bad faith and blind careerism on Sikorski's part, see Piłsudski's letter in Kurier Poranny, August 15, 1925, reprinted in Pisma, VIII, 209-10. See also the pamphlet of the Socialist leader Ignacy Daszyński, W pierwszą rocznicę przewrotu majoivego, p. 21 and the volume by the pro-Piłsudski historian Pobóg-Malinowski, op. cit., II, 457. Cf. Porczak, op. cit., p. 32. For a defense of Sikorski against these charges, see his “Kartki z dziennika,” and Pietrzak, op. cit., pp. 127-54.
41 See his protest in the Kurier Poranny of August 15, 1925, reprinted in Pisma, VIII, 209-10. Piłsudski made his memorandum to Sikorski public also in the Kurier Poranny on the same day of August 15, 1925.
42 Piłsudski's embittered opinion of the Sejm committee's version of the Sikorski bill was given in an interview published in the Kurier Poranny on July 27, 1925, and reprinted in Pisma, VIII, 191-94.
43 The Sejm committee's project is reprinted in Pisma, Appendix I, Vol. VIII, pp. xviii-xxiv. The chief tactician for the Right was the National Democratic rapporteur for the bill, Deputy Stefan Dąbrowski.
44 Sikorski, “Kartki z dziennika.” See also the apology for Sikorski edited by Pietrzak, op. cit., p. 143.
45 Porczak, op. cit., p. 32.
46 Daszyński, W pierwszq …, pp. 18-22.
47 Pietrzak, op. cit., p. 131.
48 See Piłsudski's press interview in the Kurier Poranny of January 20, 1926, reprinted in Pisma, VIII, 259-64. Piłsudski also developed this argument at length at a “secret“ meeting attended by about 30 of his supporters in the second half of 1925 in the Warsaw home of his devoted follower Kazimierz świtalski. This meeting is described by one of its participants, Sławoj-Składkowski, op. cit., p. 109. Other such “secret” meetings about which the authorities were in fact well informed, took place in the home of General Jakub Krzemieński. Piłsudski's insistence on the autonomy of the army command was also rooted in his conviction that a major cause of the decline and disappearance of the old Commonwealth had been the neglect of the military establishment by the society, kings, and Sejms of the century preceding the partitions. See his lecture of January 24, 1926, on this theme in Pisma, VIII, 264-69.
49 Piłsudski later confirmed that he h a d these two officers in mind. See his interview in the Kurier Poranny of J a n u a r y 14, 1926, reprinted in Pisma, VIII, 257.
50 Piłsudski's memorandum is reprinted in Pisma, VIII, 247-48, and in Malicki, Juljan, Marszałek Piłsudski a Sejm (Warsaw, 1936), pp. 255–56Google Scholar. A detailed account of the meeting is given in Benedykt, op. cit., p. 1.
51 Krzyżanowski, Adam, Rządy Marszałka Piłsudskiego (Cracow, 1928), p. 70 Google Scholar.
52 Sikorski bitterly bewailed this act and complained that it undermined the army's confidence in the President. See Sikorski, , “Kartki z dziennika,” żołnierz polski, No. 13 (July, 1957), p. 4 Google Scholar.
53 The lowest figure, 400, is given by Bartel, Paul, Le Maréchal Pilsudski (Paris, 1935), p. 233 Google Scholar, and Landau, Rom, Pilsudski, Hero of Poland (London, 1930), p. 215 Google Scholar. Loessner, op. cit., p. 186, speaks of 1, 000 assembled well-wishers. The high estimate of 2, 000 is found in Wrzos, Konrad, Piłsudski i Piłsudczycy (Warsaw, 1936), p. 67 Google Scholar.
54 On his return to Warsaw from Magdeburg on November 10, 1918, Piłsudski inherited the legislative and executive powers of the previous regimes in Congress Poland and Western Galicia. He was recognized as the Naczelnik (Chief)—the title once borne by the great Kościuszko in 1794—and his authority was indeed virtually dictatorial. He quickly arranged that elections to a Constituent Sejm take place on January 26, 1919. On February 20, 1919, he surrendered his supreme powers to this Constituent Sejm which confirmed him as Chief of State but declared itself to be the legal bearer of state sovereignty.
55 Orlicz-Dreszer's and Piłsudski's speeches are reprinted in Pisma, VIII, 248-51.
56 Porczak, op. cit., p. 34.
57 L. Kmicic-Skrzyński, “Przewrót majowy 1926 roku” (an unpublished manuscript deposited on July 9, 1961, in the archives of the Piłsudski Historical Institute in London), p. 3.
58 Pietrzak, op. cit., p. 132; Malicki, op. cit., p p. 257-58.
59 Haller, Stanisław, Wypadki Warszawskie od 12 do 15 maja 1926 r. (Cracow, 1926), p. 96 Google Scholar.
60 Daszyński, W pierwszą …, p. 22, claims that Moraczewski suggested appointing Piłsudski Chief of the General Staff. No other source specifies this particular office and neither did the official cabinet communique, which is reprinted in Pisma, VIII, 251.
61 Pisma, VIII, 251.
62 Piłsudski's letter on this point in t h e Kurier Poranny of January 13, 1926, is reprinted in Pisma, VIII, 252-53; Cf. ibid., p. 277.
63 The Frankfurter Zeitung of February 10, 1926, speculated that another reason for Moraczewski's resignation was disagreement with the highly conservative fiscal and tax policies of the National Democratic Minister of Finance, Jerzy Zdziechowski. See also Pobóg-Malinowski, op. cit., II, 471; Le Temps, February 9, 1926. Moraczewski was replaced as Minister of Public Works on February 13 by another Socialist, Norbert Barlicki.
64 Piłsudski's interview of February 9 was published in Kurier Poranny, February 10, 1926, and is reprinted in Pisma, VIII, 277-80.
65 Pisma, VIII, 280.
66 Piłsudski's various utterances on t h e army command question from the fall of the Grabski cabinet on November 13, 1925, to his last pre-coup intervention with President Wojciechowski cover p p. 247-332, Vol. VIII, of his Pisma.
67 Loessner, op. cit., p. 189.
68 The registered unemployed increased between the first quarter of 1925 a n d April, 1926, from 185, 000 to 400, 000—which did not include either the “superfluous” village poor or the youth who h a d never been employed. Also i n April, 1926, the Polish currency depreciated rapidly. Pobóg-Malinowski, op. cit., I I, 465-72.
69 O n April 24, 1926, Poland's two unfriendly and powerful neighbors, Germany and Russia, concluded the Berlin Treaty, reaffirming their Rapallo policy of 1922 a n d intensifying the Polish sense of isolation which had already been deepening since the Locarno Treaties of October, 1925.
70 Piłsudski's statement to this effect in the Kurier Poranny of May 10, 1926, is reprinted in Pisma, VIII, 332.
71 Żeligowski's project is reprinted in Pisma, Appendix I, Vol. VIII, pp. xxv-xxix.
72 Minister of Labor and Welfare Bronisław Ziemięcki and Minister of Public Works Norbert Barlicki.
