Meetings with witnesses to history

He was born in Sima, Russia, to a family of exiles, participants in the January Uprising. He spent his childhood and youth in Ukraine. He attended secondary school in Złotopol, from where he was expelled by decision of the tsarist authorities for conducting pro-Polish activities. He passed his secondary school leaving exams in the extramural mode in Biała Cerkiew. In 1897, he began studying at the Faculty of Chemistry at the Lviv Polytechnic School. He joined the foreign section of the Polish Socialist Party (PPS) of the Russian partition. He then adopted the party nickname “Eustace”. With a group of his closest associates, he founded the magazine Promień, which became a vehicle of Galician socialists for influencing the young generation of the 'rebellious'. It was then that he met Józef Piłsudski in person.

In 1900, he interrupted his studies and took up an apprenticeship in sugar factories in Podole and Bukowina. At the same time, he was politically active in arousing the independence movement among Ukrainians.

After completing his studies, he moved with his wife Felicia to the Russian partition. In accordance with a decision of the Polish Socialist Party’s leadership, he began working in Warsaw in secret printing and typesetting shops. In 1909, he became a member of the Party’s Central Workers' Committee and later headed the Party’s Organising Department. In 1912, as a result of a split in the PPS-Revolutionary Faction, he moved to the PPS-Opposition.

From 1912 to 1914, he worked in the oil and gas industry in Borysław.

In August 1914, he joined the Polish Legions. In his agitation work, he used the skills he acquired in the underground. On the request of Józef Piłsudski, he supervised the making of seals for the Commander-in-Chief and the National Government. He served as an intendant at the Polish Army Commissioner in Jędrzejów, then was assigned to the office of the Polish Army Commissioner in Kielce, where he was head of the city’s administration and supply management department. At the end of August 1914, he was appointed pro tempore Commissioner of Polish Army of the National Government for the towns of Starachowice and Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski.

He was actively involved in organising the structures of the Polish National Organisation (PON) in the Russian partition. He was a member of the PON Council. From December 1914, first as an emissary of the PON and then of the Military Department of the Supreme National Committee (DW NKN), he led an agitation and recruitment campaign and collected funds for the Legions in the German partition. From March 1915, he acted as an emissary of the NKN in the Sieradz district.

From May 1915, he also developed his independence activities in Łódź. Faced with the prohibition imposed by the German authorities on the agitational activities of Legion emissaries, Siedlecki took up the post of delegate of the DW NKN in this city. As he mentioned, "The task was very difficult. This was also one of the main reasons that I, an old conspirator, was sent to Łódź. I had to work secretly here, of course. Before leaving, I communicated with Tytus Filipowicz. (...) he did not want to give me any instructions, claiming that I myself knew how to act"[2]. As a representative of the NKN, he brought together patriotic organisations by initiating and co-founding an inter-party institution, the National Committee of the City of Łódź (KNmŁ). He developed the repolonisation campaign by organising the so-called "Section for the Polonisation of the City" at the Committee. These actions were aimed at encouraging the inhabitants of Łódź to boycott shops and institutions including schools whose buildings had Russian and German-language signs. When there was no response to the Committee's appeals, militants of the PPS and the National Workers' Union (NZR) removed or painted over information boards. Having fallen into disfavour with the German authorities, he went into hiding to avoid arrest and then made his way to Piotrków. He described his activities in Łódź in his memoirs[3].

In August 1915, after Warsaw was occupied by the Germans, he resigned and placed himself at the disposal of Piłsudski. He joined the group of trusted legionnaires who had returned to civilian life, and who joined the clandestine Polish Military Organisation. In November 1916, he was discharged from the Legions for health reasons.

From 1916 to 1919, he served as director of the Natural Gas Plant in Kałusz near Borysław. He combined his professional work with political activity. In 1917, through Jędrzej Moraczewski, he was admitted to the clandestine Organisation A. In agreement with the leadership of the Piłsudski camp, he prepared an underground location near Kałusz, in case Piłsudski escaped from Magdeburg.

In 1919, Siedlecki and his family settled permanently in Warsaw. In the same year, he started to work in the authorities of the Union of District Government Bodies of the Republic of Poland, then, from 1921, in the Cooperative Economic-Investment Association of District Self-Governments in Warsaw.

He was editor of the weekly magazine Samorząd, where he published an article on the return of Upper Silesia to the Motherland. He joined the activities of the PPS Combat Team for the benefit of the Silesian insurgents. A clandestine explosives plant operated in his flat until June 1920.

He was a senator in the first term (1922-1927) from list no. 2 of the Polish Socialist Party, and in the fourth term (1935-1938) from the list of the Non-Party Bloc for Cooperation with the Government - National Unity Camp. He was a supporter of Poland's economic autarky. Representing the Parliamentary Union of Polish Socialists, he was politically active in Polesie region. He drafted a memorandum addressed in September 1923 to Prime Minister Wincenty Witos on the political and economic crisis in the region. He also devoted his speeches to the political situation in the USSR, particularly in the Caucasus. He condemned Moscow's imperialism and nationalist policies.

Between 1925 and 1931, he served as president of two cooperatives: Warsaw Housing Cooperative and Housing Cooperative "Domy Spółdzielcze". The activities of the cooperatives managed by Siedlecki, which resulted in the delivery of one and a half thousand flats, were the response of PPS circles to the housing crisis affecting working-class families.

He was chairman of the board of the "Our Home" Society, which ran a care and education centre for children. In 1928, the Society embarked on the construction of new premises for a children's educational institution in Warsaw's Bielany district, a move that was strongly supported by PPS political circles. In his charitable work for 'Warsaw street children' he collaborated with Aleksandra Piłsudska, Adam Skwarczyński and Janusz Korczak.

Stanislaw Siedlecki was counted among the precursors of the Promethean movement, working for political cooperation with the national and ethnic minorities of former Russia, directed against the imperial policy of the USSR. As editor-in-chief of the Przymierze magazine, he was among the initiators of the first Promethean organisation in Poland, which was the Union for the Rapprochement of Reborn Nations. On 12 March 1926, he launched the key Promethean institution in the Second Republic of Poland, i.e. the Eastern Institute in Warsaw. He served as President of the Institute until 1939. He was also included in the elite group of honorary members of the 'Prometheus' Club. In 1939, he drafted a memorandum addressed to the ruling camp, entitled "The Promethean movement among sub-Russian peoples in exile in Poland".

After the outbreak of war, Siedlecki made his way east with his family. Facing Soviet aggression on 17 September 1939, he committed suicide in Krzemieniec. He was buried in the cemetery at the Roman Catholic Parish in Krzemieniec (now Ukraine). The senator's family - wife Felicja and daughters Maria and Irena - were arrested by the NKVD (Soviet secret police agency) in June 1940 and deported to a labour camp in Siberia. Under an amnesty in 1941, they made their way to Uzbekistan, where the 6th Infantry Division of the Anders Army was being formed. Due to her poor health, Felicja Siedlecka was placed in a Polish field hospital. The senator's daughters served in the Women's Auxiliary Service. In August 1942, the Siedlecki family was evacuated to Iran, then to India. The senator's wife died in 1944 in Bombay. The daughters emigrated to Australia in 1950.

In 1932, Senator Stanislaw Siedlecki was awarded Cross of Independence.

-----

[1] A biographal note of Senator Stanislaw Siedlecki has been included in the following publications: I. Maj, J. Maj, Senator Stanislaw Siedlecki. Youth and the beginnings of political activity (1877-1918). Contribution to a biography, "Humanities and Social Sciences HSS", vol. 25, 27 (4/2020), October-December 2020, pp. 21-39; A. Pacholczykowa, Stanisław Siedlecki (1877-1939), "Polski Słownik Biograficzny", vol. 36, 1995-1996, pp. 555-558.

[2] I. Maj, J. Maj,op. cit, p. 81.

[3] Eustachy (Stanislaw Siedlecki), Spolszczenie Łodzi. Wspomnienie z czasów okupacji niemieckiej [in:] PPS Workers' Calendar for 1923, Warsaw 1923, pp. 76-79.