Ryszard Reiff was a Polish politician, lawyer, publicist and resistance fighter.

Biography

Born on 4 July 1923, he studied law at the University of Warsaw

University of Warsaw

The University of Warsaw is the largest university in Poland and one of the most prestigious, ranked as best Polish university in 2010 and 2011...

. After German invasion of Poland, he became a member of the Polish resistance movement in World War II

Polish resistance movement in World War II

The Polish resistance movement in World War II, with the Home Army at its forefront, was the largest underground resistance in all of Nazi-occupied Europe, covering both German and Soviet zones of occupation. The Polish defence against the Nazi occupation was an important part of the European...

. He was a member of the Konfederacja Narodu

Konfederacja Narodu

Konfederacja Narodu was one of the Polish resistance organizations in occupied Poland during World War II. KN was created in 1940 by far-right National Radical Camp political party from several smaller underground organizations, including the Secret Polish Army...

 underground organization and commanded one of the first units of the Uderzeniowe Bataliony Kadrowej. Later, he became a member of Armia Krajowa

Armia Krajowa

The Armia Krajowa , or Home Army, was the dominant Polish resistance movement in World War II German-occupied Poland. It was formed in February 1942 from the Związek Walki Zbrojnej . Over the next two years, it absorbed most other Polish underground forces...

 (Home Army) as the Konfederacja Narodu merged with that organization, and fought against Germans near Navahrudak. As a member of Armia Krajowa, he was arrested by the Soviets, and imprisoned for two years (1944-1946).

In 1946 he started work as a publicist, becoming involved with pro-communist pro-Catholic faction. First, he worked in Dziś i Jutro newspaper, and from 1950 to 1953 he was a chief editor of Słowo Powszechne. He was inducted into the progressive Catholic Polish organization PAX Association

PAX Association

The PAX Association was a pro-communist secular Catholic organization created in 1947 in the People's Republic of Poland. In 1953, PAX gave its support to the Stalinist show trial of the Kraków Curia, and took over the publication of the Catholic weekly magazine Tygodnik Powszechny – until the...

 during the 1950s. In 1976, he became PAX deputy director, and in 1979, its full director. He adopted a position supportive of Solidarity, 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 Solidarity, the Polish United Workers' Party

Polish United Workers' Party

The Polish United Workers' Party was the Communist party which governed the People's Republic of Poland from 1948 to 1989. Ideologically it was based on the theories of Marxism-Leninism.- The Party's Program and Goals :...

, and the Catholic Church, 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 he was a deputy to the Polish parliament (Sejm

Sejm

The Sejm is the lower house of the Polish parliament. The Sejm is made up of 460 deputies, or Poseł in Polish . It is elected by universal ballot and is presided over by a speaker called the Marshal of the Sejm ....

).

On the night of December 12/13, 1981, martial law was proclaimed

Martial law in Poland

Martial law in Poland refers to the period of time from December 13, 1981 to July 22, 1983, when the authoritarian government of the People's Republic of Poland drastically restricted normal life by introducing martial law in an attempt to crush political opposition to it. Thousands of opposition...

 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

Polish Council of State

The Council of State of the Republic of Poland was introduced by the 1947 Small Constitution. It consisted of the President of the Republic of Poland, the Marshal and Vicemarshals of Constituent Sejm, President of the Supreme Chamber of Control and could consist of other members...

—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 in Poland, from 1989 to 1991 he was a member of the Solidarity Citizens' Committee

Solidarity Citizens' Committee

The Solidarity Citizens' Committee , also known as "Citizens' Electoral Committee" , previously named "Citizens' Committee with Lech Wałęsa" was an legal political organisation of the democratic opposition in communist Poland...

, and joined the Democratic Union

Democratic Union (Poland)

The Democratic Union was a Liberal Christian-democratic party in Poland. The party was founded in 1990 by Prime Minister, Christian democrat Tadeusz Mazowiecki as a merger of the Citizens' Movement for Democratic Action and the Forum of Right Democrats .The party had a market-socialist...

 party.

He was a chairman of the Association of Sybiraks (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

Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...

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

Soviet invasion of Poland

Soviet invasion of Poland can refer to:* the second phase of the Polish-Soviet War of 1920 when Soviet armies marched on Warsaw, Poland* Soviet invasion of Poland of 1939 when Soviet Union allied with Nazi Germany attacked Second Polish Republic...

, assisted the Nazis during the Second World War, and who were members of the Polish Home Army—an anti-Communist 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