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Abstract:
Was Piłsudski a federalist? He believed that a federalist approach would be desirable to resolve the relationship between Poland and the Lithuanian, Belorussian and possibly Ukrainian lands of the prepartition Commonwealth. But he did not treat the federalist solution as a dogma, and was willing to consider other possibilities if that approach proved impossible. Piłsudski’s overriding objective was to deprive Russia of these lands and push it farther east so that it would not endanger Poland. To that aim he subordinated all other considerations, and he tried to achieve it through faits accomplis and war with the Bolsheviks. In that he failed. Despite Polish victory at Warsaw, Piłsudski had to accept the compromise Treaty of Riga which put an end to a federalist solution.
