http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheis ... rometheism or Prometheanism (Polish: "Prometeizm") was a political project initiated by Poland's Józef Piłsudski. Its aim was to weaken the Russian Empire and its successor states, including the Soviet Union, by supporting nationalist independence movements among the major non-Russian peoples that lived within the borders of Russia and the Soviet Union.[1]
Between the World Wars, Prometheism and Piłsudski's other concept of an "Intermarum federation" constituted two complementary geopolitical strategies for him and some of his political heirs.[2]
A brief history of Poland's Promethean endeavor was set down on February 12, 1940, by Edmund Charaszkiewicz, a Polish military intelligence officer whose responsibilities from 1927 until the outbreak of World War II in Europe in September 1939 had included the coordination of Poland's Promethean program. Charaszkiewicz wrote his paper in Paris after escaping from a Poland overrun by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.[4]
"The creator and soul of the Promethean concept [wrote Charaszkiewicz] was Marshal Pilsudski, who as early as 1904, in a memorandum to the Japanese government, pointed out the need to employ, in the struggle against Russia, the numerous non-Russian nations that inhabited the basins of the Baltic, Black and Caspian Seas, and emphasized that the Polish nation, by virtue of its history, love of freedom, and uncompromising stance toward [the three empires that had partitioned Poland out of political existence at the end of the 18th century] would, in that struggle, doubtless take a leading place and help work the emancipation of other nations oppressed by Russia."[5]
A key excerpt from Pilsudski's 1904 memorandum declared:
"Poland's strength and importance among the constituent parts of the Russian state embolden us to set ourselves the political goal of breaking up the Russian state into its main constituents and emancipating the countries that have been forcibly incorporated into that empire. We regard this not only as the fulfilment of our country's cultural strivings for independent existence, but also as a guarantee of that existence, since a Russia divested of her conquests will be sufficiently weakened that she will cease to be a formidable and dangerous neighbor."[6]
The Promethean movement, according to Charaszkiewicz, took its genesis from a national renaissance that began in the late 19th century among many peoples of the Russian Empire. That renaissance stemmed from a social process that led in Russia to revolution. Nearly all the socialist parties created in the ethnically non-Russian communities assumed a national character and placed independence at the tops of their agendas: this was so in Poland, Ukraine, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Georgia and Azerbaijan. These socialist parties would take the lead in their respective peoples' independence movements. While all these countries harbored organizations of a purely national character that likewise championed independence, the socialist parties, precisely because they associated the fulfilment of their strivings for independence with the social movement in Russia, showed the greater dynamism. Ultimately the peoples of the Baltic Sea basin—Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — won and, until World War II, all kept their independence. The peoples of the Black and Caspian Sea basins — Ukraine, Don Cossacks, Kuban, Crimea, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Northern Caucasus — emancipated themselves politically in 1919–1921 but then lost their independence to Soviet Russia.[7]
In 1917–21, according to Charaszkiewicz, as the nations of the Baltic, Black and Caspian Sea basins were freeing themselves from Russia's tutelage, Poland was the only country that worked actively together with those peoples. In these efforts, Poland met with opposition from the western coalition; the latter backed the (anticommunist) "White" Russians in their endeavor to rebuild the erstwhile Russian Empire. At the same time, according to Charaszkiewicz, Germany, with her occupation forces, strengthened her influences in Lithuania and Latvia, manipulated Ukraine's Lt. Gen. Pavlo Skoropadsky toward Ukrainian federation with a possible future non-Bolshevik Russia, and attempted a German hegemony in the Caucasus against the political interests of Germany's ally, Turkey. Germany's true intentions were at last made manifest in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, concluded with the Bolsheviks in 1918.[8]
During Skoropadsky's period in power in Ukraine, Germany was at war with both Bolshevik and Imperial Russia. Germany did, however, have an alliance with the Cossack territories of Don and Kuban; these declared their independence from Russia, and Skoropadsky channeled German armaments aid to them. The western Allies, however, chiefly France and Britain, did not want to see Russia lose territory and, following Germany's collapse in 1918, forced Skoropadsky to propose Ukrainian federation with Russia — thereby causing his fall from power and eventual Bolshevik victory in Ukraine, much as also happened in Georgia and Azerbaijan.
Immediately after the loss of independence by the peoples of the Black and Caspian Sea basins and the annexation of those lands in 1921 by Soviet Russia, Poland was the only country in Europe that gave material and moral support to the political aspirations of their Promethean (pro-independence) émigrés. Only after Hitler's accession to power (January 30, 1933), states Charaszkiewicz, would Germany begin showing a strong interest in the Promethean question. Likewise Japan and Italy evinced some interest,[8] and France and Great Britain lent moral support.[9] Nevertheless, German propaganda and competition with Poland here notwithstanding, Germany's approach departed from the basic ideological tenets of Prometheism; the German approach essentially constituted, in Charaszkiewicz's words, "an elastic, opportunistic platform for diversion, amenable to exploitation for current German political purposes in any direction." He emphasizes that in this field there were never any organizational or ideological ties between Poland and Germany. The legitimate national representatives of the Promethean émigrés allied with Poland showed a marked political loyalty to Poland.[10]
Principles
Throughout the years 1918–39, according to Charaszkiewicz, the Polish Promethean leadership consistently observed several principles. The purpose of the Promethean enterprise was to liberate from imperialist Russia, of whatever political stripe, the peoples of the Baltic, Black and Caspian Sea basins and to create a series of independent states as a common defensive front against Russian aggression. Each Promethean party respected the political sovereigny of the others. Any disputes between Promethean parties were placed in abeyance pending the liberation of the several parties from Russia. By mutual consent of the Polish and Ukrainian Prometheans (if occasionally less than whole-heartedly on the Petlurists' part), largely Ukrainian-populated areas of southeastern Poland were treated as an internal Polish sphere of interests and were off-bounds to Ukrainian Promethean organizing.[11]
The Polish Promethean leadership, writes Charaszkiewicz, regarded the other Promethean nationalities as equal partners in the common struggle against Russian imperialism. Contrary to what has sometimes been thought, according to Charaszkiewicz the Polish General Staff did not treat the various Promethean émigré communities merely as political instruments to be exploited for ad hoc purposes of diversion.[12]
Prometheism had no organizational or political backing in any Polish political party of the left, right or center. Within the Pilsudskiite camp [obóz Pilsudczyków] itself, Prometheism found many opponents. Paradoxically, among young people in Poland's National Democratic Party—arch-rivals of the Pilsudskiites [Pilsudczycy]—and some other opposition youth organizations, the Promethean question was spontaneously taken up and gained advocates.[12]
The history of Poland's interwar collaboration with the "Promethean peoples" falls into five periods.[12]
First period (1918–21)
the first period (1918–21), Poland established her new eastern boundaries in wars with Soviet Russia and Ukraine; her borders with Germany, in the Poznan and Silesian uprisings, and in plebiscite operations in Warmia and Mazury; and her southern borders in plebiscite operations and a brief war with Czechoslovakia over disputed areas of Cieszyn Silesia, Spisz and Orawa.[12]
In the Baltic basin, Finland, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia emerged as independent states. Poland was among the first countries to extend them recognition,[12] although Polish-Lithuanian relations were strained following the Polish-Lithuanian War.
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Poland's role in the Promethean process was marked by the conclusion of a Polish–Ukrainian political and military alliance (the Warsaw Agreement, April 1920) with Symon Petlura's Ukrainian People's Republic, Pilsudski's expedition to Kiev (begun April 25, 1920), the designation (February 1919) of Bohdan Kutylowski as Polish minister to the Ukrainian People's Republic, the accreditation of a Polish minister to Caucasus, the naming of a military mission to Caucasus, and the Crimean Republic's motion at the League of Nations (May 17, 1920) that Crimea be made a protectorate of Poland.[14]
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Second period (1921–23)
During Poland's second Promethean period (1921–23), after the Treaty of Riga that ended the Polish-Soviet War, Poland went forward with her independent life within established eastern borders alongside the Baltic states.........
During this period, Marshal Pilsudski still remained in power, first as Chief of State (Naczelnik Panstwa), later transitionally as chief of the General Staff (Sztab Glówny). Promethean affairs now also involved the successive chiefs of the General Staff, Gen. Wladyslaw Sikorski and Gen. Stanislaw Haller, and the chief of the General Staff's Section II (Oddzial II: intelligence), Col. Ignacy Matuszewski.[16]
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Joseph StalinIn the third period (1923–26), after Pilsudski had removed himself from power, successive Polish governments eliminated the Promethean question from their agendas. The Soviets realized Joseph Stalin's nationalities program in the Soviet Union's non-Russian areas by inaugurating the Autonomous National Republics, while suppressing the last impulses toward independence on the part of those Republics' populations.[17]
Polish contacts with the Promethean émigrés were continued, without the knowledge or consent of the Polish government: in military matters, by Col. Schaetzel, Maj. Czarnecki and Captain Henryk Suchanek-Suchecki, chief of the Nationalities Department (Wydzial) in the Ministry of Internal Affairs; and at the Foreign Ministry, by the chief of the Eastern Department, Juliusz Lukasiewicz. An exception to the Polish government's official attitude pertained to Georgian Prometheism, which enjoyed support with both the foreign minister, Aleksander Skrzynski, and the chief of the General Staff, Gen. Stanislaw Haller.[17]
Fourth period (1926–32)
The fourth period (1926–32), from Pilsudski's return to power in the May 1926 Coup to the conclusion of the 1932 Polish-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, was the period of the most determined, organized and active collaboration with Promethean organizations.[17]
In 1927 the Promethean problem was given official organizational form at the Polish Foreign Ministry and General Staff. In the previous periods, Prometheism had been treated at various high echelons but had possessed no single official home. Now a close coordination was established between Poland's Foreign Ministry and General Staff, as politically representing the Promethean question, and with the ministries of Military Affairs and Internal Affairs, as indirectly involved with it (the Military Ministry, with foreign contract officers; the Internal Ministry, with internal Polish-Ukrainian affairs).[17]
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This Prometheist period also witnessed a development that was independent of the movement, but which was destined to play a role in regard to it. There was heightened diversionary activity in Poland by the OUN (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists), supported by both Germany and Czechoslovakia and even by Lithuania. There were many acts of expropriation and sabotage against the Polish community and government by members of OUN combat units in southeastern Poland. This in turn led to "pacification" operations by the Polish authorities against the Polish-Ukrainian community.[22]
The pacifications, Charaszkiewicz emphasizes, were never discussed in advance with Polish Promethean officials. Those at the Foreign Ministry and at the General Staff were not pleased with these operations, which made Promethean activities that much more difficult.[22]
A greater shock to the Prometheists, Polish and Ukrainian, however, was the death of Tadeusz Holówko, murdered by OUN members on August 29, 1931, at Truskawiec.[22]
Charaszkiewicz is far from blaming all of Poland's difficulties with her minorities, especially the Ukrainians (who in most of southeastern Poland were the majority), on external, especially German, influences. He argues that Poland had "no planned, consistent and constructive internal policy" with regard to her minorities. This lack could not bode well for the Promethean effort, when every fifth Polish citizen (that is, six million people) were Ukrainian.[23]
Moreover, the Soviet Union sought to an equal degree to exploit Poland's internal disarray — indeed, in 1921–31, to a greater degree than the Germans. Soviet communist propaganda in Poland's Eastern Borderlands (Kresy Wschodnie), combined with a pro-Ukrainian Soviet attitude toward Soviet Ukraine, created strong pro-Soviet sentiment among Polish Ukrainians. This sentiment would persist until the subsequent mass Soviet resettlements, arrests, executions and famines of 1933–38.[24]
................................................................................................................................................1.The Polish-Soviet non-aggression pact (1932) stopped Polish policy-makers from continuing Promethean work in the field. It was felt that in the Soviet Union a process of national renewal was to some extent taking place spontaneously in the Promethean countries, thanks to the existence of autonomous republics, to Soviet support of general education in the national languages, and to natural reactions of protest among local peoples to economic, religious and cultural phenomena; and so activity on the ground could be dispensed with for the moment. The solidarity and strength of the political émigré communities should, however, continue to be maintained. The conclusion of the Polish-Soviet pact led to the Polish Foreign Ministry and all Polish governmental authorities distancing themselves from external Promethean undertakings. This substantially reduced the effectiveness of those endeavors and created a view in international Promethean circles that Poland was slowly moving away from Prometheism. Henceforth the whole Promethean question, including the administration of funds, became concentrated within Office 2 at the General Staff's Section II (intelligence).
2.The deaths of Ramishvili and Zacwilichowski (1930) and of Holówko (1931), the most active promoters of Prometheism, were an irreparable loss to the movement.
3.The worldwide economic crisis, and resultant austere government budgets, suddenly reduced available funds by nearly 50%, bringing all Polish efforts down to merest maintenance levels.
4.The death (May 12, 1935) of Marshal Pilsudski, founder of Prometheism, was yet another powerful blow. In Charaszkiewicz's view, it left Prometheism — "a political idea of rare visionary power... that required prophetic [powers of] political prediction" — lacking a patron of comparable authority. Pilsudski's death was experienced as a personal loss by the Promethean peoples. Henceforth the movement's efforts continued more by virtue of inertia than by encouragement from new Polish decision-makers.
5.Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Germany, the creation of an anticommunist bloc in the Berlin-Rome-Tokyo axis, and its eagerness to collaborate with national Promethean movements, created a difficult, complicated situation for the Promethean organizations that remained in Poland's political orbit. While the Promethean political forces aligned with Poland were of higher quality and potential, the Germans' relentless propaganda created a dangerous rival to Polish Promethean efforts. The latter in this period, according to Charaszkiewicz, "were utterly devoid of activity, character and plan."
6.The rise of danger on Poland's west fostered a view in many Polish minds that the country's eastern border should be quieted.[29]
Until Pilsudski's death in 1935, little changed in respect to personnel on the Polish Promethean side, apart from the official distancing of government leaders, especially in the Foreign Ministry, due to the concluded Polish-Soviet pact. With the shift in government leadership beginning in June 1935, there ensued a clear decline in Polish Promethean leadership. The "group of colonels" lost their influence; Col. Tadeusz Pelczynski took a much less active role; and his successor, Col. Marian Józef Smolenski (generally known as "Józef Smolenski"), and Charaszkiewicz's immediate superior, Col. Jan Kazimierz Ciaston, did not embrace Prometheism. Tadeusz Kobylanski, Col. Schaetzel's successor as chief of the Foreign Ministry's Eastern Department, though inclined to support Prometheism, lacked a deep enough political foundation and faced substantial financial impediments. The attitudes of Marshal Edward Rydz-Smigly and the chief of the General Staff, Brigadier General Waclaw Teofil Stachiewicz, remained to the last uncertain.[30][/quote]
Edmund Charaszkiewicz, Zbiór dokumentów ppłk. Edmunda Charaszkiewicza, opracowanie, wstęp i przypisy (A Collection of Documents by Lt. Col. Edmund Charaszkiewicz, edited, with introduction and notes by) Andrzej Grzywacz, Marcin Kwiecień, Grzegorz Mazur (Biblioteka Centrum Dokumentacji Czynu Niepodległościowego, tom [vol.] 9), Kraków, Księgarnia Akademicka, 2000, ISBN 978-83-7188-449-8.