Union of Active Struggle
The Union of Active Struggle (
Lwów by Józef Piłsudski, Marian Kukiel, Kazimierz Sosnkowski and Władysław Sikorski, all members of the Combat Organization of the Polish Socialist Party
in the Kingdom of Poland.
History
After the extremely successful
Austro-Hungary. Piłsudski was convinced that the Central Powers
would first defeat Russia but that they, in turn, would be defeated by England and France. His documented prediction, in the event, proved correct.
ZWC was led by Piłsudski, and below him was the Main Council (Rada Główna) and Association Department (Wydział Związku) composed of four members: Kazimierz Sosnkowski, Władysław Jaxa-Rożen, Stefan Dąbkowski and Zygmunt Bohuszewicz. Many of ZWC members were students. ZWC had members in all three partitions, as well as in some larger academic Polonia centers outside Poland.
From its inception, ZWC received crucial support in the highest circles of the
subversive destruction as means to achieve the political goals.[2]
As the Austro-Hungary government preferred to have more control over the secret paramilitary organizations, two legal organizations, subordinated to ZWC were created in 1910 with the approval of officials in
First World War
it became no longer necessary.
In 1912 the
Provisional Commission of Confederated Independence Parties (Komisja Tymczasowa Skonfederowanych Stronnictw Niepodległościowych)). It then become more autocratic, with Piłsudski (the Commandant) and his deputy, Sosnkowski (Chief of High Command) assuming most responsibilities and power. In 1914, ZWC had 7239 members, which would form the basis of the Polish Legions in World War I
.
Notes
- Lwów under the direct leadership of one of Piłsudski's closest disciples... Kazimierz Sosnkowski. The function of the organization was to secretly train Poles in guerrilla warfare. When the PPS refused to supply funds for such an operation, Piłsudski himself took over its direction and partly funded it with money from the Bezdany raid."
- ^ Zerkalo Nedeli (the Mirror Weekly), Kyiv, February 3–9, 2001, in Russian Archived 2005-11-26 at the Wayback Machine and in Ukrainian Archived 2005-11-07 at the Wayback Machine.
- ISBN 0-226-79145-9
- ^ Polish Academic Information Center, University at Buffalo(text from Library of Congress Poland: A Country Study.)[1] Poles suffered no religious persecution in predominantly Catholic Austria, and Vienna counted on the Polish nobility as allies in the complex political calculus of its multinational realm. In return for loyalty, Austrian Poland, or Galicia, received considerable administrative and cultural autonomy. Galicia gained a reputation as an oasis of toleration amidst the oppression of German and Russian Poland. The Galician provincial Sejm acted as a semiautonomous parliamentary body, and Poles represented the region in the empire government in Vienna. In the late 1800s, the universities of Kraków and L'vov (Polish form Lwów) became the centers of Polish intellectual activity, and Kraków became the center of Polish art and thought. Even after the restoration of independence, many residents of southern Poland retained a touch of nostalgia for the days of the Habsburg Empire.
References
- Richard M. Watt, Bitter Glory: Poland and Its Fate, 1918–1939, New York, Simon and Schuster, 1979, ISBN 0-671-22625-8.
External links
- The Second World War Bios (see Sikorski)
- (in Polish) Związek Walki Czynnej, PWN Encyclopedia
- (in Ukrainian) .
