The Civil Administration of Eastern Territories (1919–1920)

INTRODUCTION

This study seeks to discuss one of the major aspects (in my view) of the Eastern policies pursued by Poland as a re-emerging state after the First World War, confronted with the federation-oriented policy of Józef Piłsudski, the then-Chief of State, and the differing viewpoints of his opponents. This book explores the approaches adopted in relation to the actions taken by Poland in the Eastern territories not only by Germany, which had been on the losing side in WWI, but also by the victorious Entente powers. The collapse of Russia made them face a range of interwoven problems that their political elites had not previously contemplated, and thus lacked the necessary tools, let alone the essential knowledge, to effectively shape the new political reality. The interests of Russia, the notable absentee, and its increasingly active new rulers at the Kremlin, also played a crucial role. In this context, the actions of the newest entities on the world map and subjects of the events in question, i.e. Lithuania, Byelorussia, and Ukraine, was of lesser significance, although not negligible, either.

In the first place, it is necessary to define the term ‘The Civil Administration of the Eastern Territories’ [Zarząd Cywilny Ziem Wschodnich (hereinafter referred to as the ‘ZCZW’)],¹ as it is both ambiguous and capacious. The ‘ZCZW’ stood for an administrative unit established by the Polish Supreme Commander, Józef Piłsudski, in the territories of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania liberated (not ‘seized’ or ‘occupied’) by the Polish army. This office was brought into being at a particular moment: upon the restoration of independence, but before the boundaries of the reborn country were recognised internationally, in the hope of achieving a precise objective. The ZCZW can also serve as an example of the failure of a political and social concept that proved too modern for its time. Indeed, it reflects the internal Polish conflicts and the persistent dispute between the Chief of State and the Polish National Committee [Komitet Narodowy Polski (KNP)], which endured and was employed or harnessed in all political aspects ←11 | 12→of the Polish state and society in the years 1919–1920, including in the area of the Eastern Borderlands.

Now I must make a methodological remark at this point. One consequential obstacle encountered by both the participants and witnesses of those events, and ←12 | 13→future scholars – including the author of this book – has been the fluidity of the terms used during that period. The same word could mean something different to different people. In 1923, Józef Piłsudski stated publicly that the term ‘federation’ proved too smart for the ‘weighty and apish granny’, which personified public opinion.² This ascertainment leads to the conclusion that none of the terms such as ‘union’, ‘plebiscite’, ‘election’, ‘Poles’, ‘Jews’, ‘Byelorussians’, or even ‘army’/‘the military’, ‘Bolsheviks’, or ‘concentration camp’ ought not to be used without first being accurately defined.

As an experienced, long-standing archive documentalist at the Institute of History, Polish Academy of Sciences, I have decided to employ a research method adapted to the physical condition and nature of the archival sources I came across in my research. The Old Prints and Manuscripts Section at the Capital-City-of-Warsaw Public Library contains a fond named ‘Zarząd Cywilny Ziem Wschodnich’, comprising approximately 24,000 folios. A meticulous reader of the sources contained in this fond will surely notice that the various materials in it have never constituted an orderly whole, and were hastily sorted out and discarded at some point. Incomplete materials from various periods, districts, (not all) departments, sections, inspectorates, starosties, counties, etc. have been arbitrarily interspersed. Most of these documents are copies or duplicates (including carbon copies), some are poorly legible drafts typewritten or handwritten on both sides – usually in Polish, but also in Byelorussian, Lithuanian, German, and French. The archives have twice undergone a hasty evacuation, in 1920 and then again in 1944; hence the chaotic layout of the documents, with minor exceptions. The work procedures of the officials and clerks might have left an imprint, too. The ZCZW’s offices functioned in an unrestrained manner; even the bookkeeping was done using different systems. Prolific typing errors by the registrars, missing dates and places of issue, and the common use of outdated receipt stamps were also frequent.

After the Second World War, the fond was divided into a total of 118 handwritten volumes of varying size.³ The aforesaid Warsaw Public Library collection also contains the personal documents of Jerzy Osmołowski, the ←13 | 14→Commissioner-General, which are referred to throughout this book.⁴ Following a three-year query, I was able to draw up a tentative inventory of the ZCZW fond, comprising extensive extracts and photocopies. This research provided a huge amount of material, which resulted in pointing the way for further research.

The material constituting the ZCZW fond at the Warsaw Public Library aroused virtually no interest for many years. Interestingly, Aleksy Deruga, author of the seminal work on Poland’s Eastern policy in the years 1918–1919, never came across these records.⁵ The memoirs of Jerzy Osmołowski, Commissioner-General of the ZCZW, donated to the National Library after 1954⁶ were written years after the facts described therein, and in a radically different political situation, by a man eager for recognition on the one hand, and visibly bitter on the other. I have therefore concluded that this particular account – contrary to the diary of Michał Kossakowski,⁷ Commissioner-General’s representative in Warsaw – does not actually hold the value attributed to it by many historians, and I resorted instead to reconstructing the period’s events mostly on the basis of the official documents produced in 1919–1920. However, despite the above reservations, these memoirs proved to be of significant assistance in writing this study. The Special Collection at the National Library in Warsaw contains, moreover, the archive of Stefan Szwedowski, a nationalist activist.

The queries made at those places have enabled me to attempt a personal evaluation of the circumstances surrounding the events in question. I did my supplementary research at three archives in Warsaw. Apart from the Kossakowski diary, the Archive of the Polish Academy of Sciences contains the documentation of Marceli Handelsman and a (barely legible) diary by Ludwik Kolankowski, the first Civil Commissioner. At the Central Archives of Modern Records [AAN], in ←14 | 15→addition to the minutes/records of the Council of Ministers, I made use of the Borderland Guard Society fond and the ‘Collection of Duplicates’, as well as the fond of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Lastly, at the Central Military Archives, I studied the Laudański Dossier.

The collection of manuscripts at the Lithuanian National Library (Lietuvos nacionalinė Martyno Mažvydo biblioteka) contains the documentation of the estates owned by the Kossakowski family, among which ‘compromising’ materials were concealed. The Lithuanian Archives of Modern Records (Lietuvos centrinis valstybės archyvas) offer a clearly structured collection of materials left behind during the 1920 evacuation, entitled ‘Civil Administration of the Eastern Territories’. Its most interesting portion includes proofs of the political preferences of Poles; namely, the inhabitants of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania, as of 1919, and their correspondence with the Polish National Committee in Paris. The manuscripts at the Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences (Lietuvos mokslų akademijos biblioteka) are a treasury of knowledge for researchers of all periods. Among the many collections that I have found there, Marian Świechowski’s dossier deserves particular mention for the extent and significance of its materials concerning Polish-Lithuanian relations. Its controversial contents, arousing much emotion, have already been published.⁸

Lithuania’s Archives of Historical Records (Lietuvos valstybės istorijos archyvas) contains, among others, the collection of the Society of the Friends of Science in Vilnius (Towarzystwo Przyjaciół Nauk w Wilnie), which includes the incredibly valuable Vilnius Land’s Collection of Documents. It should be borne in mind that access to the vast majority of these materials was practically impossible before 1991, for many more than just Polish nationals. Therefore, not only was I the first Polish researcher to reach these records, but some folios in the files were numbered for the first time only because I had ordered for them. The ‘stock’ compiled during these queries was subsequently complemented ←15 | 16→by photocopies of five important documents concerning Lithuanian matters from the Józef Piłsudski Institute in New York, donated by Dorota Cisowska-Hydzik, MA, an attendee of Professor Andrzej Ajnenkiel’s doctoral seminar, who researched the Polish National Committee. My gratitude is also due to Mr Andrzej Czarniakiewicz from Grodno, who provided me with photocopies of valuable documents from the Belarusian archives.

As it emerges from the collected material, the effects of the special policy pursued proactively by the Germans after their capitulation played a role in 1919 not to be underestimated in the development of the situation in the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania’s territory. The author was unable to conduct detailed queries in the German archives; this gap, however, is repaired to some extent by the source-based paper delivered by German historian Wolfgang Petter at the conference ‘1920. On the 80th Anniversary of Poland’s Victory over the Red Army’.⁹

Volume-wise, the outcome of the archival queries has surpassed my wildest expectations, although further research could undoubtedly reveal more hitherto-undiscovered materials. Printed documents are a valuable addition to the source material, notably: Akta i dokumenty dotyczące sprawy granic na konferencji pokojowej w Paryżu [Files and documents related to the issue of borders at the Peace Conference in Paris], Part I: Program terytorialny delegacji polskiej [Territorial agenda of the Polish Delegation] (Paris: Société générale d’imprimerie et d’édition, 1920). As far of the canonical Polish source publications are concerned, I have included the following: (i) Kazimierz W. Kumaniecki, Odbudowa państwowości polskiej [Reconstruction of Polish statehood] (Warsaw: J. Czernecki, 1924); (ii) Remigiusz Bierzanek and Józef Kukułka (eds.), Sprawy Polski na Konferencji Pokojowej w Paryżu w 1919 r. Dokumenty i materiały [The affairs concerning Poland at the Peace Conference in Paris in 1919. Documents and materials], vols. 1–3 (Warsaw: Państwowe Wydawnicwo Naukowe, 1965–8); (iii) Halina Janowska and Tadeusz Jędruszczak (eds.), Powstanie II Rzeczypospolitej [The emergence of the Second Republic of Poland] (Warsaw: Ludowa Spółdzielnia Wydawnicza, 1981); Tadeusz Jędruszczak and Maria Nowak-Kiełbikowa (eds.), Dokumenty z dziejów polskiej polityki zagranicznej 1918–1939 [Documents from the history of Polish foreign policy 1918–1939], Vol. I: 1918–32, (Warsaw: Instytut Wydawniczy PAX, 1989); Natalia Gąsiorowska-Grabowska et al. (eds.), Dokumenty i materiały do historii ←16 | 17→stosunków polsko-radzieckich [Documents and materials related to the history of Polish-Soviet relations], vols. I–IV (Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1961–5); Witold Stankiewicz and Andrzej Piber (compiled by), Archiwum polityczne Ignacego Paderewskiego [The political archive of Ignacy Paderewski], Vol. II: 1919–21 (Wroclaw: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, 1974) (I have also taken note of the material prepared for the second edition). I have moreover included information from the anthology Vytautas Petras Plečkaitis and Jan Widacki (compiled and commented by), Lietuvos ir Lenkijos santykiai 1917–1994: dokumentų rinkinys [Lithuanian-Polish Relations 1917–94. A collection of documents], (Vilnius: Valstybės Žinios, 1998), and from the publication Arkhivy Byelaruskay Narodnay Respubliki [Archives of the Belarusian People’s Republic.], Vol. I, issue 1 (Vilnius–New York–Minsk–Prague: Byelorusskii Institut Navuki i Mastatstva Tavarystva Belaruskaga Pis’myenstva, 1998).

The historiographical literature on the subject is listed in the bibliography at the end of the book. The pre-war historical works, which discussed those of the reasons behind the failure of the Eastern programme that remained within the range of influence of the Polish authorities, were affected by the understandable reluctance to undermine the morale of the state at a time when the tears of widows and orphans of the recent war had not yet dried. This topic was not explored during Piłsudski’s lifetime, either by his followers or, strikingly enough, by the Marshal’s numerous antagonists. No witnesses were contacted and few accounts survive, whereas the existing ones tend to omit the subject.¹⁰

For several decades after the Second World War, there were no appropriate conditions to discuss any issues related to the Polish-Soviet War. In the last decade, one important study by Janusz Szczepański saw the light of day,¹¹ but it ←17 | 18→offered no new findings in the field concerned in the present book. The abundance of archival source material that has so far remained outside scholarly interest or discourse, as well as the adopted method of reconstruction of the mechanism that dismantled the ZCZW, has prompted me to limit the amount of personal comments on the literature to the necessary minimum.

However, several titles should be mentioned at this point. Quite a number of authors have explored Józef Piłsudski – the man/figure and his political activity, as well as his interactions with the National Democratic camp.¹² The works by Jan Jurkiewicz,¹³ Aleksy Deruga,¹⁴ Adolf Juzwenko,¹⁵ and Józef Lewandowski¹⁶ all carry an extremely high value owing to the material they contain. The period in question is also covered in a study by Leon Grosfeld,¹⁷ to whose discussions with Tadeusz Jędruszczak (with the participation of Colonel Kazimierz Rosen-Zawadzki) I listened attentively at the Polish Academy of Sciences’ Institute of History in the early 1980s. One cannot deal with the history of the ←18 | 19→region concerned without being acquainted with the valuable studies of Piotr Łossowski¹⁸ or Andrzej Skrzypek.¹⁹ The contents of the Warsaw Public Library’s ZCZW fond has also been of interest to Krystyna Gomółka²⁰ and Aleksandra Bergman,²¹ both of whom were exploring the Byelorussian question. Roman Wapiński²² devotes attention and numerous publications to the history of the Polish national(ist) camp’s Eastern policy in the period 1917–1921, which constituted a political alternative to the concepts of the Chief of State. Among the works published in recent years, several deserve a mention. The internal policy constitutes the subject of the document collections Communiqués of the Supreme ←19 | 20→Command of the Polish Army, Section III [Komunikaty Oddziału III Naczelnego Dowództwa Wojska Polskiego] and Reports and Communiqués of the Supreme Military Authorities on the internal situation in Poland [Raporty i komunikaty naczelnych władz wojskowych o sytuacji wewnętrznej Polski].²³ External politics, shaped by the circumstances of the defeat, i.e. beyond the influence of the Poles, is discussed in Andrzej Nowak’s analysis of the Eastern policies,²⁴ as well as in a dissertation by Piotr Okulewicz,²⁵ written under the tutelage of Przemysław Hauser.²⁶ Regardless of the political convictions of certain authors, these studies unquestionably permit the establishment of numerous important facts.

Politics in the first years following the restoration of Poland’s independence consisted mainly in exploiting a new political factor, i.e. exerting public pressure on the bodies of the democratic state, or even seemingly provoking a public response (if not outrage), in order to achieve one’s own political goals. By a lucky coincidence, one of the members of the Section of the Twentieth-Century Political History of Poland at the Polish Academy of Sciences’ Institute of History, where this book was conceived, was Andrzej Zakrzewski, a historian who never severed contacts with his colleagues despite his engagement in ‘practising history’, i.e. in politics; in fact, he has contributed to historical events. My exchanges with him have shed a new light on such sources as the minutes/records of the Council of Ministers, making me understand the necessity of relying upon several records, even if seemingly less important, in view of confirming a given argument – rather than on just one single record or message whose authors or compilers might have aimed to achieve a predetermined effect, and which later has been interpreted in the same way for a number of years.

←20 | 21→A historian must also consider the fact that the omission of some important information in a document may not result from its author’s obliviousness, but rather from the desire to withhold some knowledge for personal reasons, in the hope of achieving an expected reaction from the recipient. Politics is also an art of manipulation and, in my opinion, only relying on details brings us closer to the historical truth. And, as Józef Mackiewicz once said, only the truth is interesting. A comprehensive synthesis of all assembled facts is the only way to bring the reader closer to the true picture of the situation in the lands of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania, allowing in parallel to recreate, even if only partly, the highly significant atmosphere prevailing in the Polish administration as well as within the ZCZW itself.

The complexity of the problems tackled in this book on the one hand, and the abundance of the extremely interesting material obtained through queries on the other, caused considerable difficulty in deciding on the structure of the study. Many issues essential to discussing the policies of the Entente, the strategy adopted by Germany, or the actions of the Government in Warsaw, are covered only to the extent necessary for the purposes of this dissertation.²⁷

History values chronological order, but applying a chronological structure here has proved impractical. The only acceptable arrangement was to discuss individual problems separately, taking into account their interdependence, all the more so that many of the published findings extend beyond the chronological scope of the subject. Another difficulty was caused by the distinctiveness of social and economic issues related to the District of Volhynia as detached from the ZCZW in January 1920. Due to the overlapping and intertwining of issues and their dependence on the same external factors, repetitions and referencing to the other relevant parts of this study is unavoidable. However, the final layout appears to be optimal, given the content of the collected materials.

Chapter I provides the necessary, albeit naturally very brief, overview of the political situation worldwide and in Poland, as well as the political and social situation in the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania’s territory in the spring of 1919.

Chapter II describes the process of establishing the ZCZW, its core agenda, it structure and the later attempts at its reorganisation. Due to very frequent ←21 | 22→rearrangements at lower levels, I have refrained from meticulously reporting all the changes that took place in the organisation of the various departments and sections.

Chapter VIII describes the process of compiling the ZCZW’s agenda concerning Lithuania and Byelorussia. As the files of the ZCZW’s Department of Ethnic Affairs were largely lost to fire during the evacuation in 1920, the section is essentially based on an analysis of materials mostly originating from the archival documentation of Marian Świechowski, Acting Head of the Ethnic Affairs Department. The letters of Bronisław Krzyżanowski, found by Dorota ←22 | 23→Cisowska-Hydzik and presently kept at the Józef Piłsudski Institute in New York City, form a valuable supplement.