Ryszard Reiff (July 4, 1923,

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

– December 9, 2007) was a Polish politician, lawyer, publicist and resistance fighter. He was a deputy to the Polish parliament (

Sejm The Sejm (English: , Polish: ), officially known as the Sejm of the Republic of Poland (Polish: ''Sejm Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej''), is the lower house of the bicameral parliament of Poland. The Sejm has been the highest governing body of t ...

) during the

1968 Polish political crisis The Polish 1968 political crisis, also known in Poland as March 1968, Students' March, or March events ( pl, Marzec 1968; studencki Marzec; wydarzenia marcowe), was a series of major student, intellectual and other protests against the ruling Poli ...

and again during the Martial law in Poland.

Biography

Born in Warsaw in 1923, Reiff studied law at the

University of Warsaw The University of Warsaw ( pl, Uniwersytet Warszawski, la, Universitas Varsoviensis) is a public university in Warsaw, Poland. Established in 1816, it is the largest institution of higher learning in the country offering 37 different fields of ...

. After

German invasion of Poland The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week afte ...

, he took part in the

Polish resistance movement in World War II The Polish resistance movement in World War II (''Polski ruch oporu w czasie II wojny światowej''), with the Polish Home Army at its forefront, was the largest underground resistance movement in all of occupied Europe, covering both German a ...

. He was a member of the right-leaning

Konfederacja Narodu Konfederacja Narodu (; ''Confederation of the Nation'') was one of the Polish resistance organizations in occupied Poland during World War II. KN was created in 1940 by the far-right National Radical Camp Falanga (ONR-Falanga) political party from ...

(Confederation of the Nation) underground organization and commanded one of the first units of the

Uderzeniowe Bataliony Kadrowe {{Polish Underground State sidebar Uderzeniowe Bataliony Kadrowe (''UBK'', English: ''Striking Cadre Battalions'') were armed anti-Nazi resistance units organized by the right-wing Polish organization Konfederacja Narodu. They existed between 1942 ...

(Cadre Strike Battalions). Later, he became a member of the

Armia Krajowa The Home Army ( pl, Armia Krajowa, abbreviated AK; ) was the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during World War II. The Home Army was formed in February 1942 from the earlier Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Armed Resistance) esta ...

(Home Army) by default as the Konfederacja Narodu merged with it, and fought against Nazi Germans near

Navahrudak Novogrudok ( be, Навагрудак, Navahrudak; lt, Naugardukas; pl, Nowogródek; russian: Новогрудок, Novogrudok; yi, נאַוואַראַדאָק, Novhardok, Navaradok) is a town in the Grodno Region, Belarus. In the Middle A ...

. As a member of Armia Krajowa, he was arrested by the Soviet

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union. ...

, and imprisoned for two years (1944-1946). In 1946 after the Soviet liberation, he started work as a publicist, becoming involved with the pro-communist, but also pro-Catholic faction in the Party. First, he worked in Dziś i Jutro newspaper, and from 1950 to 1953 he was a chief editor of

Słowo Powszechne The PAX Association () was a pro- communist Catholic organization created in 1947 in the People's Republic of Poland at the onset of the Stalinist period. The association published the ''Słowo Powszechne'' daily for almost fifty years between ...

daily and publishing arm of the secular Catholic Polish government sponsored

PAX Association The PAX Association () was a pro-communist Catholic organization created in 1947 in the People's Republic of Poland at the onset of the Stalinist period. The association published the ''Słowo Powszechne'' daily for almost fifty years between 19 ...

, during the darkest years of

Stalinism in Poland Stalinism is the means of governing and Marxist-Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union from 1927 to 1953 by Joseph Stalin. It included the creation of a one-party totalitarian police state, rapid industrialization, the theory o ...

. In 1976, he became PAX deputy director, and in 1979, its full director. He adopted a position supportive of

Solidarity ''Solidarity'' is an awareness of shared interests, objectives, standards, and sympathies creating a psychological sense of unity of groups or classes. It is based on class collaboration.''Merriam Webster'', http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictio ...

, an independent Polish trade union. A Catholic intellectual, he was a committed critic of Polish government policies, and he once urged a coalition to be formed of leaders from

, the

Polish United Workers' Party The Polish United Workers' Party ( pl, Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza; ), commonly abbreviated to PZPR, was the communist party which ruled the Polish People's Republic as a one-party state from 1948 to 1989. The PZPR had led two other lega ...

, and the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

, advocating "the establishment of a corporatist arrangement between major political actors as the only way to stabilize Poland's political situation and resolve the deepening economic crisis." From 1965 to 1969 and from 1980 to 1985 he was a deputy to the Polish parliament (

). On the night of December 12/13, 1981, martial law was proclaimed in Poland. In an effort to try to make the implementation of martial law appear legal, the Polish military ordered the

Polish Council of State The Council of State of the Republic of Poland ( pl, Rada Państwa) was introduced by the Small Constitution of 1947 as an organ of executive power. The Council of State consisted of the President of the Republic of Poland as chairman, the Marsh ...

—a collective presidency—to approve it by a formal vote. Reiff was the only member of the Council of State to vote against the measure, and he lost his position in the council the following year. In January 1982, he was removed from his leadership of PAX by several members of the organization. Some observers were reported to have concluded that this was because those members wanted to change the direction of PAX towards a pro-government stance similar to what it held in the 1950s, though one source contends that the removal was engineered by the leadership of the Polish government in an effort to re-assert its control over the group. From 1980 to 1985, he was once again a Sejm deputy. With the coming

fall of communism The Revolutions of 1989, also known as the Fall of Communism, was a revolutionary wave that resulted in the end of most communist states in the world. Sometimes this revolutionary wave is also called the Fall of Nations or the Autumn of Natio ...

in Poland, from 1989 to 1991 he was a member of the

Solidarity Citizens' Committee The Solidarity Citizens' Committee (''Komitet Obywatelski "Solidarność"'', KO "S"), also known as Citizens' Electoral Committee (''Obywatelski Komitet Wyborczy'') and previously named the Citizens' Committee with Lech Wałęsa (''Komitet Obywate ...

, and joined the Democratic Union party. He was a chairman of the Association of

Sybirak A sybirak (, plural: ''sybiracy'') is a person resettled to Siberia. Like its Russian counterpart '' sibiryák'' the word can refer to any dweller of Siberia, but it more specifically refers to Poles imprisoned or exiled to Siberia or even to thos ...

s (Polish exiles to Siberia). Between 1939 and 1941, and 1944 and 1953, around 1.8 million Poles were deported to the Russian region of

Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...

, resulting in 500 000 deaths. Ostensibly, the deportations occurred to those who had resisted the Soviet takeover of eastern Poland in 1939, assisted the

Nazis Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...

during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, and who were members of the

Polish Home Army The Home Army ( pl, Armia Krajowa, abbreviated AK; ) was the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during World War II. The Home Army was formed in February 1942 from the earlier Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Armed Resistance) esta ...

—an anti-

Communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

resistance group during the war. A number of human rights groups in Poland protesting against the deportations that occurred, formed the Siberian Union in 1988 with Reiff as its leader. He died on 9 December 2007 in Warsaw.

Footnotes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Reiff, Ryszard 1923 births 2007 deaths Politicians from Warsaw People from Warsaw Voivodeship (1919–1939) PAX Association members Democratic Union (Poland) politicians Members of the Polish Sejm 1965–1969 Members of the Polish Sejm 1980–1985 Members of the Senate of Poland 1989–1991 Home Army members Polish deportees to Soviet Union Polish people detained by the NKVD Commanders with Star of the Order of Polonia Restituta Officers of the Order of Polonia Restituta Knights of the Order of Polonia Restituta Recipients of the Order of the Banner of Work Recipients of the Silver Cross of the Virtuti Militari Recipients of the Cross of Valour (Poland)