Editing Józef Piłsudski (section)

==Polish Socialist Party==
In 1892 Piłsudski returned from exile and settled in Adomavas Manor near [[Teneniai]]. In 1893, he joined the [[Polish Socialist Party]] (''PPS''){{r|PolandGov}}, and helped organize their Lithuanian branch.{{r|Urbank97_88}} Initially, he sided with the Socialists' more radical wing, but despite the socialist movement's ostensible [[proletarian internationalism|internationalism]], he remained a Polish nationalist.{{r|McM03_209}} In 1894, as its [[chief editor]], he published an [[bibuła|underground]] socialist newspaper called ''[[Robotnik (1894–1939)|Robotnik]]'' (The Worker); he would also be one of its chief writers and a [[typesetter]].{{r|PolandGov|PWN|Urbank97_93}}{{sfn|Piłsudski|1989|p=12}} In 1895, he became a PPS leader, promoting the position that doctrinal issues were of minor importance and socialist ideology should be merged with nationalist ideology because this combination offered the greatest chance of restoring Polish independence.{{r|PWN}}
[[File:Jozef Pilsudski in 1899.jpg|thumb|upright=1.0|alt=A photograph of a young man, looking towards the left|Piłsudski, 1899]]
On 15 July 1899, while an underground organizer, Piłsudski married a fellow socialist organizer, [[Maria Piłsudska|Maria Juszkiewiczowa]], ''née'' Koplewska.{{r|Alabrud99_99|Garlicki195_63|Pobog-Ma90_7}} According to his biographer [[Wacław Jędrzejewicz]], the marriage was less romantic than pragmatic. ''Robotnik'''s printing press was housed in their apartment first in Vilnius, then in [[Łódź]]. A pretext of regular family life made them less suspect. Also, Russian law protected a wife from prosecution for the illegal activities of her husband.{{sfn|Jędrzejewicz|1990|loc=pp. 27–8 (1982 ed.)}} The marriage deteriorated when, several years later, Piłsudski began an affair with a younger socialist,{{r|McM03_209}} [[Aleksandra Piłsudska|Aleksandra Szczerbińska]]. Maria died in 1921; in October that year, Piłsudski married Aleksandra. By then, the couple had two daughters, [[Wanda Piłsudska|Wanda]] and [[Jadwiga Piłsudska|Jadwiga]].<ref>{{Cite web|last=Drążek|first=Aleksandra|date=8 August 2021|title=Córki Piłsudskiego - co wiemy o losach córek marszałka|url=https://kronikidziejow.pl/porady/corki-pilsudskiego-co-wiemy-o-losach-corek-marszalka/|access-date=6 September 2021|website=kronikidziejow.pl}}</ref>

In February 1900 Piłsudski was imprisoned at the [[Warsaw Citadel]] when Russian authorities found ''Robotnik''{{'s}} underground printing press in Łódź. He feigned mental illness in May 1901 and escaped from a mental hospital at [[Saint Petersburg]] with the help of a Polish physician, [[Władysław Mazurkiewicz (physician)|Władysław Mazurkiewicz]], and others. He fled to [[Galicia (Central Europe)|Galicia]], then part of [[Austria-Hungary]], and thence to [[Leytonstone]] in London, staying with [[Leon Wasilewski]] and his family.{{r|PolandGov}}

===Armed resistance===
In the early 1900s, almost all parties in Russian Poland and Lithuania took a conciliatory position toward the Russian Empire and aimed at negotiating within it a limited autonomy for Poland. Piłsudski's PPS was the only political force prepared to fight the Empire for Polish independence and to resort to violence to achieve that goal.{{r|POleksa04}}

On the outbreak of the [[Russo-Japanese War]] in the summer of 1904, Piłsudski traveled to Tokyo, Japan, where he tried unsuccessfully to obtain that country's assistance for an uprising in Poland. He offered to supply Japan with [[intelligence (information gathering)|intelligence]] to support its war with Russia, and proposed the creation of a Polish Legion from Poles,{{r|Urbank97_109–11}} conscripted into the Russian Army, who had been captured by Japan. He also suggested a [[Prometheism#Sources of Prometheism|"Promethean" project]] directed at breaking up the Russian Empire, a goal that he later continued to pursue.{{sfn|Charaszkiewicz|2000|p=56}} Meeting with [[Yamagata Aritomo]], he suggested that starting a [[guerrilla war]] in Poland would distract Russia and asked for Japan to supply him with weapons. Although the Japanese diplomat [[Hayashi Tadasu]] supported the plan, the Japanese government, including Yamagata, was more skeptical.{{sfn|Kowner|2006|p=285}} Piłsudski's arch-rival, [[Roman Dmowski]], travelled to Japan and argued against Piłsudski's plan, discouraging the Japanese government from supporting a Polish revolution because he thought it was doomed to fail.{{r|Urbank97_109–11|Zamo87_330}} The Japanese offered Piłsudski much less than he hoped; he received Japan's help in purchasing weapons and ammunition for the PPS and their combat organisation, and the Japanese declined the Legion proposal.{{r|PolandGov|Urbank97_109–11}}

In the fall of 1904, Piłsudski formed a paramilitary unit (the [[Combat Organization of the Polish Socialist Party]], or ''bojówki'') aiming to create an armed [[resistance movement]] against the Russian authorities.{{r|Zamo87_330}} The PPS organized demonstrations, mainly in [[Warsaw]]. On 28 October 1904, Russian [[Cossack]] [[cavalry]] attacked a demonstration, and in reprisal, during a demonstration on 13 November, Piłsudski's paramilitary opened fire on Russian police and military.{{r|Zamo87_330|Urbank97_113–6}} Initially concentrating their attention on spies and informers, in March 1905, the paramilitary began using bombs to assassinate selected Russian police officers.{{r|Urbank97_117–8}}

===Russian Revolution of 1905===
During the [[Russian Revolution of 1905]], Piłsudski played a leading role in events in [[Congress Poland]]. In early 1905 he ordered the PPS to launch a general strike there; it involved some 400,000 workers and lasted two months until it was broken by the Russian authorities.{{r|Zamo87_330}} In June 1905, Piłsudski sent paramilitary aid to an uprising in Łódź, later called [[Łódź insurrection (1905)|June Days]]. In Łódź, armed clashes broke out between Piłsudski's paramilitaries and gunmen loyal to Dmowski and his [[National Democracy (Poland)|National Democrats]].{{r|Zamo87_330}} On 22 December 1905, Piłsudski called for all Polish workers to rise up; the call went largely unheeded.{{r|Zamo87_330}}

Piłsudski instructed the PPS to boycott the elections to the [[First Duma]].{{r|Zamo87_330}} The decision, and his resolve to try to win Polish independence through revolution, caused tensions within the PPS, and in November 1906, the party fractured over Piłsudski's leadership.{{r|Zamo87_332}} His faction came to be called the "Old Faction" or "[[Polish Socialist Party – Revolutionary Faction|Revolutionary Faction]]" ("''Starzy''" or "''Frakcja Rewolucyjna''"), while their opponents were known as the "Young Faction", "Moderate Faction" or "[[Polish Socialist Party – Left|Left]]" ("''Młodzi''", "''Frakcja Umiarkowana''", "''Lewica''"). The "Young" sympathized with the [[Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania|Social Democrats of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania]], and believed priority should be given to co-operation with Russian revolutionaries in toppling the Russian Empire and creating a socialist [[utopia]] to facilitate negotiations for independence.{{r|PWN}} Piłsudski and his supporters in the Revolutionary Faction continued to plot a revolution against Tsarist Russia to secure Polish independence.{{r|PolandGov}} By 1909, his faction was the majority in the PPS, and Piłsudski remained an important PPS leader until the outbreak of the First World War.{{r|Urbank97_131}}

===Prelude to World War I===
Piłsudski anticipated a coming European war{{r|Roos+Rothschild}} and the need to organize the leadership of a future Polish army. He wanted to secure Poland's independence from the three empires that partitioned Poland out of political existence in the late 18th century. In 1906 Piłsudski, with the connivance of the Austrian authorities, founded a military school in [[Kraków]] for the training of paramilitary units.{{r|Zamo87_332}} In 1906 alone, the 800-strong paramilitaries, operating in five-man teams in Congress Poland, killed 336 Russian officials; in subsequent years, the number of their casualties declined, and the paramilitaries' numbers increased to some 2,000 in 1908.{{r|Zamo87_332|Urbank97_121–2}} The paramilitaries also held up Russian currency transports that were leaving Polish territories. On the night of 26/27 September 1908, they robbed a Russian mail train that was carrying tax revenues from Warsaw to Saint Petersburg.{{r|Zamo87_332}} Piłsudski, who took part in this [[Bezdany raid]] near Vilnius, used the funds so obtained  to finance his secret military organization.{{r|EBritannica_JP}} The funds totaled 200,812 rubles which was a fortune for the time and equaled the paramilitaries' entire income for the two preceding years.{{r|Urbank97_121–2}}

In 1908, Piłsudski transformed his paramilitary units into a "[[Union of Active Struggle]]" (''Związek Walki Czynnej'', or ''ZWC''), headed by three of his associates, [[Władysław Sikorski]], [[Marian Kukiel]] and [[Kazimierz Sosnkowski]].{{r|Zamo87_332}} The ''ZWC''{{'s}} main purpose was to train officers and [[noncommissioned officer]]s for a future Polish Army.{{r|PWN}} In 1910, two legal paramilitary organizations were created in the Austrian zone of Poland, one in Lwów (now [[Lviv]], Ukraine), and one in Kraków, to conduct training in [[military science]]. With the permission of the Austrian officials, Piłsudski founded a series of "sporting clubs", then the [[Związek Strzelecki|Riflemen's Association]], as cover for the training of a Polish military force. In 1912, Piłsudski (using the pseudonym "''Mieczysław''") became commander-in-chief of a Riflemen's Association (''Związek Strzelecki''). By 1914, they had increased to 12,000 men.{{r|PolandGov|Zamo87_332}} In 1914, while giving a lecture in Paris, Piłsudski declared, "Only the sword now carries any weight in the balance for the destiny of a nation", arguing that Polish independence can only be achieved through military struggle against the partitioning powers.{{r|Zamo87_332}}<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Chimiak|first1=Galia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=d5_UDwAAQBAJ&dq=%22Only+the+sword+now+carries+any+weight+in+the+balance+for+the+destiny+of+a+nation%22&pg=PA13|title=Polish and Irish Struggles for Self-Determination: Living near Dragons|last2=Cierlik|first2=Bożena|date=26 February 2020|publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing|isbn=978-1-5275-4764-3|language=en}}</ref>