Generał Władysław Sikorski – minister spraw wewnętrznych Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej (16 grudnia 1922 – 28 maja 1923)
General Władysław Sikorski – Minister of the Interior of the Republic of Poland (16 December 1922 – 28 May 1923)

Summary/Abstract: Władysław E. Sikorski was born on May 20, 1881 in Tuszów Narodowe near Mielec. He graduated from the Lviv Polytechnic. Until 1918 he was active in the Independence Movement, he was a co-founder of the Polish Legions and the Supreme National Committee. In 1915 he fell into conflict with Józef Piłsudski as to the ways of rebuilding Polish statehood alongside Austro-Hungary and recruitment to the Polish Legions. From October 12, 1918 he served in the Polish Army. During the Polish-Bolshevik war (1919/1920) in the Warsaw battle in August 1920 he successfully commanded the 5th Army. Immediately after the murder of President Narutowicz on December 16, 1922 he was appointed the President of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Poland and Minister of the Interior. In this difficult and dangerous for Poland time, contrary to appearances, it was not the function of Prime Minister but the post of Minister of the Interior that gave Gen. Władysław Sikorski real power and the possibility of direct influence on the internal situation in the country, and especially on its internal security. Gen. Sikorski made personnel changes in the structure of the Ministry, removing the people responsible, as politicians and civil servants, for the December 1922 incidents. He implemented the administrative policy of the Ministry, whose main purpose was to maintain peace and public safety by fighting the political fractions and parties that directly and openly aimed at overthrowing the current political and social order. Much attention was paid by the Minister of the Interior to the affairs of national minorities, especially the Ukrainian and Belarusian ones, as well as to the socio-political situation in the Eastern Borderlands. He prepared a comprehensive policy of the State towards national minorities, the basis of which was the concept of political (state) assimilation. The Cabinet of Gen. W. Sikorski was dismsissed on May 26, 1923, but did not resign until May 28, 1923. In the years 1923–1943 General W. Sikorski served, among others, as the Minister of Military Affairs (1924/1925) and after the defeat of September 1939, in exile (in France and England), he was the Prime Minister of the National Defense and Supreme Commander. He died in a plane crash in Gibraltar on July 4, 1943.

• Details
• Contents