Polityka wojskowa środowisk piłsudczykowskich na gruncie rosyjskim po przewrocie bolszewickim (listopad 1917 - lipiec 1918)

Abstract

The core of the pro-Pilsudski camp in exile in Russia was co-created by the emigrant structures of the Polish Socialist Party Revolutionary Fraction, Polish People's Association and Polish Military Organization. A role of a leader within the whole camp felI to the Revolutionary Fraction. Any action undertaken by the pro-Pilsudski groups during the global conflict of 1914-1918 was subject to the implementation of a primary idea, which was the formation of Polish military forces. Until the Bolshevik Revolution on the Neva, this idea was invariably associated with the view according to which Polish troops should be formed within the structures of Central Powers and used to fight against Russia. A definite re-orientation of the military policy exercised by the group occurred as late as at the turn of 1917 and 1918. At that time, leaders of the groups co-creating the pro-Pilsudski camp realized that in new geostrategic conditions it was not Russia, tormented by domestic conflict, but the previous Allies, that is Germany and Austria-Hungary, that stood in Poland's way to independence. Influenced by the information about the Bolshevik Revolution coming from Russia, the national group Polish Socialist Party Revolutionary Fraction radically changed its attitude to Polish military forces formed under the auspices of national democrats in the East. It was decided that a group of Legion officers would be sent to Russia in order to take control over military movement, shape it in an extremely anti-German character and aim at the formation of a regular Polish Army.