Прометеизм: Польский проект ослабления России и СССР

Political project to weaken Russian Empire

Prometheism or Prometheanism (Polish: Prometeizm) was a political project initiated by Józef Piłsudski, a principal statesman of the Second Polish Republic from 1918 to 1935. Its aim was to weaken the Russian Empire and its successor states, including the Soviet Union, by supporting nationalist independence movements among the major non Russian peoples that lived within the borders of Russia and the Soviet Union. Between the World Wars, Prometheism and Piłsudski's other concept, that of an "Intermarium federation", constituted two complementary geopolitical strategies for him and for some of his political heirs.

Throughout the years 1918–1939, according to Charaszkiewicz, the Polish Promethean leadership consistently observed several principles. The purpose of the Promethean enterprise was to liberate from imperialist Russia, of whatever political stripe, the peoples of the Baltic, Black and Caspian Sea basins and to create a series of independent states as a common defensive front against Russian aggression. Each Promethean party respected the political sovereignty of the others. Any disputes between Promethean parties were placed in abeyance pending the liberation of the several parties from Russia. By mutual consent of the Polish and Ukrainian Prometheans (if occasionally less than whole heartedly on the Petlurists' part), largely Ukrainian populated areas of southeastern Poland were treated as an internal Polish sphere of interests and were off bounds to Ukrainian Promethean organizing. The Polish Promethean leadership, writes Charaszkiewicz, regarded the other Promethean nationalities as equal partners in the common struggle against Russian imperialism. Contrary to what has sometimes been thought, according to Charaszkiewicz the Polish General Staff did not treat the various Promethean émigré communities merely as political instruments to be exploited for ad hoc purposes of diversion. Prometheism had no organizational or political backing in any Polish political party of the left, right or center. Within the Piłsudskiite camp [obóz Piłsudczyków] itself, Prometheism found many opponents. Paradoxically, among young people in Poland's National Democratic Party—arch rivals of the Piłsudskiites [Piłsudczycy]—and some other opposition youth organizations, the Promethean question was spontaneously taken up and gained advocates. Poland's role in the Promethean process was marked by the conclusion of a Polish–Ukrainian political and military alliance (the Warsaw Agreement, April 1920) with Symon Petlura's Ukrainian People's Republic, Piłsudski's expedition to Kiev (begun April 25, 1920), the designation (February 1919) of Bohdan Kutylowski as Polish minister to the Ukrainian People's Republic, the accreditation of a Polish minister to Caucasus, the naming of a military mission to Caucasus, and the Crimean Republic's motion at the League of Nations (May 17, 1920) that Crimea be made a protectorate of Poland. Marshal Piłsudski's immediate collaborators in this period included Witold Jodko, Tytus Filipowicz, Gen. Julian Stachiewicz, Col. Walery Sławek, Col. Tadeusz Schaetzel, a Maj. Czarnecki, August Zaleski, Leon Wasilewski, Henryk Józewski, Juliusz Łukasiewicz, Tadeusz Hołówko, Marian Szumlakowski, Jan Dąbski, Mirosław Arciszewski, Maj. Wacław Jędrzejewicz and Roman Knoll.

The last, fifth period of prewar Polish Prometheism (1933–1939) was, in Charaszkiewicz's words, one of "seven lean years." A number of developments contributed to this:

The Polish Soviet non aggression pact (1932) stopped Polish policy makers from continuing Promethean work in the field. It was felt that in the Soviet Union a process of national renewal was to some extent taking place spontaneously in the Promethean countries, thanks to the existence of autonomous republics, to Soviet support of general education in the national languages, and to natural reactions of protest among local peoples to economic, religious and cultural phenomena; and so activity on the ground could be dispensed with for the moment. The solidarity and strength of the political émigré communities should, however, continue to be maintained. The conclusion of the Polish Soviet pact led to the Polish Foreign Ministry and all Polish governmental authorities distancing themselves from external Promethean undertakings. This substantially reduced the effectiveness of those endeavors and created a view in international Promethean circles that Poland was slowly moving away from Prometheism. Henceforth the whole Promethean question, including the administration of funds, became concentrated within Office 2 at the General Staff's Section II (intelligence). The deaths of Ramishvili and Zaćwilichowski (1930) and of Hołówko (1931), the most active promoters of Prometheism, were an irreparable loss to the movement. The worldwide economic crisis, and resultant austere government budgets, suddenly reduced available funds by nearly 50%, bringing all Polish efforts down to merest maintenance levels. The death (May 12, 1935) of Marshal Piłsudski, founder of Prometheism, was yet another powerful blow. In Charaszkiewicz's view, it left Prometheism — "a political idea of rare visionary power that required prophetic [powers of] political prediction" — lacking a patron of comparable authority. Piłsudski's death was experienced as a personal loss by the Promethean peoples. Henceforth the movement's efforts continued more by virtue of inertia than by encouragement from new Polish decision makers. Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Germany, the creation of an anticommunist bloc in the Berlin Rome Tokyo axis, and its eagerness to collaborate with national Promethean movements, created a difficult, complicated situation for the Promethean organizations that remained in Poland's political orbit. While the Promethean political forces aligned with Poland were of higher quality and potential, the Germans' relentless propaganda created a dangerous rival to Polish Promethean efforts. The latter in this period, according to Charaszkiewicz, "were utterly devoid of activity, character and plan." The rise of danger on Poland's west fostered a view in many Polish minds that the country's eastern border should be quieted. Until Piłsudski's death in 1935, little changed in respect to personnel on the Polish Promethean side, apart from the official distancing of government leaders, especially in the Foreign Ministry, due to the concluded Polish Soviet pact. With the shift in government leadership beginning in June 1935, there ensued a clear decline in Polish Promethean leadership. The "group of colonels" lost their influence; Col. Tadeusz Pełczyński took a much less active role; and his successor, Col. Marian Józef Smoleński (generally known as "Józef Smoleński"), and Charaszkiewicz's immediate superior, Col. Jan Kazimierz Ciastoń, did not embrace Prometheism. Tadeusz Kobylański, Col. Schaetzel's successor as chief of the Foreign Ministry's Eastern Department, though inclined to support Prometheism, lacked a deep enough political foundation and faced substantial financial impediments. The attitudes of Marshal Edward Rydz Śmigły and the chief of the General Staff, Brigadier General Wacław Teofil Stachiewicz, remained to the last uncertain.

The Promethean agenda continued, during World War II, to interest other countries, including Germany (especially in regard to Ukraine), Finland (struggling with the Soviet Union), France and the Soviet Union's neighbor, Turkey. Edmund Charaszkiewicz concluded his February 12, 1940, Paris paper with the observation that "Poland's turning away from these [Promethean] processes can in no way halt [them], while leaving us sidelined and exposing us to enormous losses that flow from the age old principle that 'those who are absent, lose.' [Poland]'s central position in the Promethean chain dictates to us readiness and presence at any disintegrative processes in Russia, and a leading Polish participation at their accomplishment." After World War II, the Government of Poland was effectively a puppet state of the Soviet Union and was in no position to resume an acknowledged Promethean program. Despite this, the Polish people, through Solidarity, played a major role in the Revolutions of 1989. The 1991 disintegration of the Soviet Union largely vindicated the predictions of those Poles and others who had anticipated the event and, in some cases, had worked for it. On November 22, 2007, at Tbilisi, Georgia, a statue of Prometheus was dedicated by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and Polish President Lech Kaczyński. Erected in the land where, according to Greek myth, the Titan had been imprisoned and tortured by Zeus after stealing fire from Olympus and giving it to man, the statue celebrates the efforts of Poles and Georgians to achieve the independence of Georgia and of other peoples from the Russian Empire and its successor state, the Soviet Union. Prometheism has regained relevance in political discourse following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Free Nations of Post Russia Forum brings together a number of movements aiming for the independence of national minorities within the Russian Federation.