A 100 years ago, there was a May bombing, a classical armed coup. a coup against the legal authorities of the Republic. 379 people died, about 920 wounded. On the streets of Warsaw, Polish troops shot at Polish troops. If Piłsudski had lost, he would most likely have been brought to trial for trying to forcefully overthrow the constitutional order of the state. However, he won – and winners compose past cards highly effectively.
After May 1926, parliamentary democracy in its then-shaped form ended in Poland. Sanation began to build an authoritarian system, although for years the word was carefully avoided. Officially, there was talk of "rejuvenation". In practice, this meant the marginalisation of parliament, subordination of state institutions to the ruling camp and violent trials against political opponents.
The Brest process is simply a symbol of this policy. Opposition leaders were arrested including erstwhile Prime Minister Vincent Witos. They were imprisoned in the Brest fortress, where beatings, humiliations and brutal treatment of political prisoners occurred. It was peculiarly embarrassing that this happened not under Russian or Prussian occupation, but in an independent Polish country, and with the participation of Polish officers.
Sanation besides created conditions for political retaliation against part of the officer corps. The generals and officers who, in the days of the assassination, sided with legal authorities were dismissed, imprisoned or destroyed in various ways. The circumstances of the General's death stay unexplained to this day. Vladimir ZagórskiWho disappeared after the fall of May without a trace. Controversy concerns the General's death Tadeusz Rozwadowski – 1 of the key architects of the 1920 Bolshevik victory. A country that so eagerly appealed to the honor of an officer began to divide the characters into “the right” and “the wrong”. any went to the national canon, others went to the political absence or to the cemetery.
The 1981 martial law, regardless of moral and political assessments, was of a different nature and a different scale of violence. The fatalities were respective dozen, although each of these deaths remains a tragedy and a political burden. Thousands of people were interned, civilian liberties restricted, independent union movement suppressed. However, the interned Solidarity leaders were not tortured or liquidated. Many of them attended the circular Table after years. Sam Jaruzelski yet agreed to disassemble the system, partially free elections and peaceful devotion to power.
There are besides amazing biographical similarities between Piłsudski and Jaruzelski. Both of them met the Russian Empire by coercion and repression. They were both military men. Both considered that the State was in an emergency situation requiring force. Both of them concluded that legalism could be suspended in the name of the “higher right of state”.
However, the difference was in relation to legal formalism. Jaruzelski tried to put martial law into the legal framework of the Polish People's Republic — with resolutions, decrees, decisions of the State Council and the full ritual of legality. Piłsudski, on the another hand, simply utilized force. He did not effort to convince him that he was acting in accordance with the March Constitution. He didn't put on legal decorations. He felt that military triumph in itself created a fresh political reality. The external situation was besides different. Jaruzelski had before him ready to intervene armed armies of the russian Union and the Warsaw Pact, Piłsudski was deprived of specified threats.
The coup d'état, which absorbed hundreds of victims and led to an authoritarian strategy ending in September 1939, has been described for years and continues to do so almost in the genre of romanticist legend. On the another hand, the martial law, which ended with a peaceful political transformation and the transition to democracy, is presented exclusively as an absolute evil without any historical context.
History is seldom impartial. And memory policy — even less. any are called “the fathers of the nation”, others “the usurpers”. frequently it is not the method of action that determines who controls textbooks, monuments and state ceremonies after years.
Leszek Miller
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