Jewish Economic Privileges Scale Reddaway

Marshal Pilsudski, by William Fiddian Reddaway. 1939

January 1863 Insurrection. Pilsudski the Young Polish Revolutionary. Scale of Jewish Economic Hegemony. Teschen/Cieszyn 1938

his work by an Englishman has details on every major aspect of Pilsudski’s life. It also touches on various developments in interwar Poland (1918-1939).

THE POLES’ JANUARY 1863 INSURRECTION AGAINST IMPOSSIBLE ODDS

The author first discusses partitioned Poland in the 19th century. For example, in the Poles’ ill-fated January 1863 Insurrection against tsarist Russian rule, the tsar hurled 400,000 Russian regulars against about 20,000 Polish irregulars. (p. 7).

JEWISH REVOLUTIONARIES WERE ANTI-TSAR, BUT HAD NO SYMPATHY FOR JUSTICE TO POLAND

Reddaway comments on how Pilsudski’s plans in the Polish Socialist Part (P.P.S.) differed from that of potentially comparable movements among Jews: (quote) Thus the Jews in Russian Poland produced many revolutionaries, but few who could think that the first object of revolution must be Polish independence. The Jewish league, or BUND, might form a valuable ally of the P.P.S. against the tsardom, but, as the organ of an international people, it could hardly embrace a strictly national Polish cause. (unquote). (p. 25). [Of course, had Poland’s Jews retained a Polish identity, their loyalties would have been to a sought-after resurrected Poland over any internationalist cause or sentiment.]

PILSUDSKI THE YOUNG REVOLUTIONARY

One atypical feature of this book, compared with other books on Pilsudski, is the detail it devotes to the Pilsudski revolutionary attack on a tsarist train in Bezdany on September 2, 1908. (pp. 52-59). Contrary to the statements of Gillie, another British author on Pilsudski, the attack did not take place at the Niemen River. The take included 200,000 roubles (rubles), then equivalent to 33,000 pounds in 1939 money. (p. 58).

THE 1920 POLISH-BOLSHEVIK WAR

The author compares Pilsudski’s federalist conception, involving Lithuania with Poland, with that of Scotland being a part of Great Britain, yet retaining its identity. (p. 119). Reddaway has a fine chapter on the 1920 Bolshevik War. (pp. 126-134). Pilsudski repudiated those who accused Poland of being the aggressor: “Imperialism, he declared, was foreign to the Polish character, and those who laid it to her charge did not know Poland.” (p. 131). Pilsudski’s overall policies had paid off for Poland in other ways, as recognized by the author, “Against Weygand’s advice, he had clung to Lwow; against the Allies’ precepts, had had in substance recovered Wilno.” (p. 143).

JEWISH ECONOMIC HEGEMONY IN THE NEW POLAND (1918)

The Jews in the new Poland owned four times the wealth suggested by their numbers. (p. 149). [There were 10 Jews for every 90 non-Jews. The Jews collectively owned 40 units of wealth for the 90 units of wealth for non-Jews. This means that Jews owned roughly 40/(40+90), or nearly 31% of Poland’s wealth.]

PHILOSEMITE PILSUDSKI AVERTS A JEWISH-PROVOKED POGROM

Pilsudski was a friend of the Jews, even when they were enemies of Poland, as described in terms of the pogrom-threatening situation facing Pilsudski upon his entry into Wilno [Vilnius] on April 19, 1919. Reddaway comments: (quote) Only the Jews, the ruling class during the Bolshevist regime, fired and threw hand-grenades from their windows, and were barely saved by Pilsudski from a massacre. (unquote)(p. 121).

THE FAILED POLONOPHOBES’ ATTEMPT TO DISCREDIT THE NEW POLAND (1918)

Thanks to Pilsudski and his achievements, Europe’s opinion of Poland improved in time. Reddaway comments (quote) Instead of a hot-headed and unstable upstart, Europe began to see in her the future guardian, solid, pious and pacific, of the eastern marshes, a barrier keeping Germany and Russia apart, and perhaps destined, in concert with Rumania, to link commercially the northern and southern States and seas. (unquote)(p. 296).

Meanwhile, Poland’s population continued to grow. Some 30,000 net Poles were added to her population every month in the early 1930’s. In 1937, the population increased by 406,000. (p. 289).

PILSUDSKI’S UNTIMELY DEATH

In early April 1935, Pilsudski became noticeably leaner. He was diagnosed with liver cancer, and was dead within a month. His heart was buried in Wilno and the rest of his body was buried in Krakow.

CIESZYN/TESCHEN 1938: THE POLES TOOK BACK FROM THE CZECHS WHAT THE CZECHS HAD TAKEN FROM THE POLES IN 1918

Reddaway takes the Polish side in the Teschen (Cieszyn) dispute. Czechoslovakia had seized this small Polish-majority border area around 1918 while Poland had been embroiled in border wars with Germany, and had faced other distractions. (p. 140). In 1938, Beck, a pupil of Pilsudski, considered Poland’s reacquisition of Teschen a type of vindication of Pilsudski, considering the pain that Pilsudski had experienced over Poland having been slighted in this regard. (p. 313).