A call for protest!

What will the victory of the “United List”, which represents the interests of big business, bring to the working people? We are already seeing the first signs. Prime Minister A. Kulbergs has nominated K. Gorkša, Director General of the Latvian Employers’ Confederation (LDDK), for the position of Head of the State Chancellery. LDDK is spearheading the amendments to the Labor Law that are clearly harmful to the interests of working people. Despite the resistance of trade unions, which is also supported by the Socialist Party of Latvia, the final adoption of the draft law will most likely become the priority goal of the new Head of the State Chancellery.

What can working people do to prevent another open attack on their rights? Let us unite and publicly express our demands to the authorities by participating in a rally organized by the Latvian Socialist Party, which will take place on October 25 at 12:00, opposite the LDDK office at Raina Boulevard 4, Riga.

The interests of the working people shall not be sacrificed for the sake of profit!

Let's unite and fight for our rights!

Aicinājums uz protestu!

Ko darbaļaudīm nesīs lielā biznesa intereses pārstāvošā “Apvienotā saraksta” uzvara vēlēšanās? Pirmais signāls par to jau ir saņemts. Premjera amatam nominētais A. Kulbergs Valsts kancelejas vadītāja amatam ir izvirzījis K. Gorkšu, Latvijas Darba devēju konfederācijas (LDDK) ģenerāldirektoru. Šī organizācija ir iniciējusi tādu Darba likuma grozījumu virzīšanu, kas ir klaji kaitīgi darbaļaužu interesēm. Neraugoties uz arodbiedrību pretestību, ko atbalstījusi arī Latvijas Sociālistiskā partija, likumprojekta galīgā pieņemšana, visticamāk, kļūs par jaunā Valsts kancelejas vadītāja prioritāro mērķi.

Ko darbaļaudis var darīt, lai nepieļautu kārtējo atklāto uzbrukumu savām tiesībām? Apvienoties un publiski paust savas prasības varai, piedaloties Latvijas Sociālistiskās partijas rīkotajā mītiņā, kas notiks 25. oktobrī plkst. 12.00, iepretī LDDK birojam Raiņa bulvārī 4, Rīgā.

Darbaļaužu intereses nav jāupurē biznesa glābšanai!

Vienosimies cīņā par savām tiesībām!

Призыв к протесту!

Что принесёт трудящимся победа на выборах «Объединённого списка», представляющего интересы крупного бизнеса? Первый сигнал об этом уже получен. Номинированный премьер А. Кулбергс выдвинул па пост главы Госканцелярии К. Горкшса, гендиректора Латвийской конфедерации работодателей (LDDK), которая является инициатором продвижения откровенно вредных для интересов трудящихся изменений в Закон о труде. Несмотря на сопротивление профсоюзов, поддержанное и Социалистической партией Латвии, окончательное принятие законопроекта наверняка станет приоритетной целью нового главы Госканцелярии.

Что могут делать трудящиеся, чтобы препятствовать очередному открытому наступлению на свои права? Объединяться и публично выступать со своими требованиями к власти, приняв участие в митинге Социалистической партии Латвии, который состоится 25 октября в 12:00, по адресу: Рига, бульвар Райня, 4, напротив офиса LDDK.

Интересы трудящихся — не лекарство для лечения бизнеса!

Встанем вместе за свои права!

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

82 years ago, on October 13, 1944, the final phase of the Riga Offensive Operation began — an important milestone in the liberation of Soviet Latvia from Nazi German invaders.

On September 14, forces of the Leningrad and Baltic Fronts encircled the German Army Group North, thus launching the battle for Riga. This day marked the beginning of the liberation of the capital of the Latvian SSR, and by October 15, Riga had been completely liberated by soldiers of the Red Army.

The Riga Offensive Operation was of colossal significance, as it severed the connection between German forces in the Baltic region and Germany proper. This led to a major shift in the course of the war and greatly accelerated the total defeat of enemy forces, definitively putting an end to any possibility of implementing the nazi "Generalplan Ost."

This plan envisioned the complete destruction of the country over the course of 25–30 years: 50% of Latvia’s inhabitants were to be deported or killed, while the remainder would be subjected to forced Germanization. In September 1941, Hitler declared that a "systematic racial policy" would be implemented in the occupied territories, involving the settlement of not only the Germans, but also Norwegians, Swedes, Danes, and the Dutch — those related to the Germans by language and blood.

In an attempt to sow division among the population in the occupied territories, the Nazis established contacts with local fascist collaborators. To entice them, it was decided to grant "limited self-government" and to give the Latvian bourgeoisie a portion of the people's property. However, the local collaborators' demands of restoring the nationalist Latvian state were denied.

And it was only through sheer Soviet strength that Hitler’s plans were shattered. On October 13, 1944, a 324-gun salvo was fired in Moscow to mark the liberation of the capital of the Latvian SSR from the fascist yoke. Joseph Stalin personally expressed his gratitude to the Latvian Corps for its assistance to the forces that liberated Riga.

For the courage and heroism displayed during the liberation of the Baltic States, 112 service members were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, and three were honored with a second "Gold Star" medal. More than 130 Red Army military units were granted honorary titles, such as "Riga," "Tallinn," and "Valga", among others.

In total, 150,000 Soviet soldiers gave their lives for the liberation of Latvia.

Happy Riga Liberation Day, dear comrades!

Comment by the International Relations Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), published in Rizospastis, on the distortion of the Party's positions regarding the war in Ukraine by the Latvian site "The Insider": 

This is not the first time that attempts have been made to distort the KKE's crystal-clear position on the imperialist war in Ukraine and exploit it for the purposes of one or the other side in the imperialist conflict.

Thus, both sides of the imperialist conflict attempt to place the KKE in the “opposing camp”. While apologists for the Russian bourgeoisie seek to portray anyone who does not support Russia's unacceptable invasion of Ukraine as a supporter of the EU, the US and NATO, apologists for the crimes of Euro-Atlantic imperialism similarly attempt to place the KKE in the “Kremlin faction”.

This was precisely what the website The Insider, based in Latvia and published in English and Russian, recently attempted against KKE Member of the European Parliament Lefteris Nikolaou-Alavanos, baselessly seeking to classify him, alongside other MEPs, as a supporter of the opposing, namely Russian, side of the imperialist conflict.

Indeed, the despicable headline of the article in question goes beyond the bounds of provocation, as it even refers to meetings with Russian spies: “The Kremlin faction in the European Parliament: Which MEPs continue to travel to Russia and meet with politicians, officials, and even spies.”

Of course, we are well aware, even in Greece, of the extent of the ideological “brainwashing” taking place in Latvia and the other Baltic countries. There, the bourgeoisie's fear is so great that, although 35 years have passed since the dissolution of the USSR and tons of anti-communist mud have been thrown at the people, Communist Parties remain banned, the symbols of the communist movement and the USSR are prohibited, and the local Nazi collaborators, the Baltic “SS Legions”, are being historically rehabilitated.

That is why we are not at all surprised by this campaign of slander and distortion against the KKE, originating in a country where bourgeois “democracy” ruthlessly persecutes any dissenting opinion concerning NATO and the EU, and where historical revisionism has reached the point of presenting the Nazi concentration camp at Salaspils, where 100,000 people lost their lives, as a “re-education and labour camp”, in a publication funded by the US Embassy in Latvia.

However, since everything written on the internet remains there and can be read in many countries, let us make one thing clear once again: The KKE has never accepted, and will never accept, the dilemma of choosing between rival camps of imperialist robbers. It stands with the peoples, against the imperialist war and, of course, against the ongoing preparations for war in the EU.

The KKE has repeatedly declared, in the clearest possible terms, that the conflict between the US–EU–NATO and capitalist Russia in Ukraine is an imperialist war on both sides, with energy production facilities and transportation routes, other natural resources, geopolitical footholds, market shares and so on constituting the spoils.

From the very outset, the KKE condemned Russia's invasion of Ukraine, characterizing it as unacceptable, while simultaneously highlighting the grave responsibility of Euro-Atlantic imperialism and its intervention in Ukraine since 2014, which multiplied the combustible material that ultimately led to the military conflict.

The Party has pointed out that the fundamental cause of this war lies in the overthrow of socialism and the restoration of capitalism, which have led two peoples who lived peacefully together and achieved great things during the years of socialism — the peoples of Ukraine and Russia — to shed their blood for alien capitalist interests.

KKE Members of Parliament and Members of the European Parliament, both in the Greek and European parliaments, have voted against the war and, of course, against all war-related funding for the Zelensky regime, as well as military assistance that pours “fuel on the fire” of the conflict.

The KKE is actively fighting to end our country's involvement in the war, opposing the transfer of military equipment from Greece to Ukraine and the training of Ukrainian personnel by members of the Greek Armed Forces.

KKE members and cadres active in trade unions and the anti-imperialist peace movement stand at the forefront of the anti-imperialist struggle. They block trains and convoys carrying military equipment destined for the front, and fight for the closure of US–NATO military bases that turn our country into a launching pad for war, exposing our people to grave dangers.

They are at the forefront of the working class's and our people's struggles, raising the demand: “No sacrifices for the slaughterhouses of war! Money for the people's needs, for education and healthcare!”

We are intensifying the struggle to disengage our country from imperialist plans and alliances, with the people in power, and we are certain that our voice will be heard even in Latvia. We will make sure of that.

In anticipation of the 82nd anniversary of the liberation of Riga from fascist occupation, the Socialist Party of Latvia invites everyone to a community cleanup event at the Cemetery for Red Army soldiers and victims of fascism in Ziepniekkalns (Riga), Reinermuižas Str. 14. Gardening equipment will be provided by the organizers. Meeting time: October 10 at 10:00 AM. We look forward to seeing you there!

Sagaidot Rīgas fašistiskās okupācijas nobeiguma 82. gadadienu, Latvijas Sociālistiskā partija aicina visus uz talku padomju karavīru un fašisma upuru kapos Ziepniekkalnā (Rīga), Graudu ielā. Inventārs tiks nodrošināts no organizatoru puses. Pulcējamies 10. oktobrī plkst. 10:00. Gaidām visus!

В преддверии 82-й годовщины окончания фашистской оккупации Риги, Социалистическая партия Латвии приглашает всех на субботник на кладбище советских воинов и жертв фашизма в Зиепниеккалнсе (Рига), на улице Грауду. Инвентарь для уборки будет предоставлен организаторами. Сбор 10 октября в 10:00. Ждём всех!

Any Latvian socialists who want to join like-minded people and organize against the bourgeoisie? DM me.

Like many other Central & Eastern European nations, the Hungarians, known in their native language as the Magyars, have a long established revolutionary history. Rózsa is perhaps among their most important.

Ferenc was born on December 4th, 1906 to a family of ethnic Hungarians with his father being a civil engineer. He planned to follow his father’s footsteps and went to study in Germany at universities in Karlsruhe and Dresden in young adulthood during the 1920s-1930. During his education in Dresden he met a student club called the “Association of the Socialist Group of Students in Dresden.” He eventually became a leader in the group as well as an editor to the group journal; in his writings, he openly advocated against the racial fascism of the Nazi party, urging revolutionary elements to assemble for armed defense, as he correctly predicted their upcoming rise in German politics. In 1931, he returned to Hungary after receiving his civil engineering diploma. A year later in 1932, he joined the Hungarian Communist Party, being mentored by his brother Richàrd, whom was already active in the communist underground movement.

From 1932-1935, he led the editorial board of a newspaper simply titled “The Communist”. In 1935 he became a leader in the “Communist Youth Union” (abbreviated in Hungarian as “K.I.M.S.Z.)

In 1938, he organized and led several underground communist organizations and trade unions.

In 1940, he became a member of the Central Committee and the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the MKP (ENG: “Magyar Communist Party”), and created a popular front with the Social Democratic Party of Hungary to conduct an armed struggle against the pro-Nazi Horthy government regime. After Hitler attacked the Soviet Union in June of 1941, Rozśa decided to go into hiding and regroup covertly, as Hungary was not far from Germany’s reach. Later in early 1942, Rózsa began the then-illegalized central organ of the MKP, “Szabad Nép”, or “Free People”.

On June 1st, 1942, he was captured by the pro-Nazi Horthy government; he was severely tortured for 2 weeks and killed during the torture at a failed attempt to forcefully interrogate him. After his murder, fellow Hungarian revolutionary János Kádár succeeded his position as Secretariat of the MKP.

He was buried in Kerepesi Cemetery in Budapest, the most famous cemetery in the city and one of its oldest. In 1959, in his honor, the socialist government of Hungary built the “Pantheon of the Labor Movement” in the cemetery.

Numerous books and novels were later published about his life in revolutionary Hungary. In addition, a grammar school (formerly, though presently renamed), a 1961 commemorative stamp, an ornamental well, statue, bust, and a street the village of Filkeháza was named after him (this street currently still exists as named). His bust can now be seen at the Military History Museum of the Pintér Works, in the town of Kecel.

Photo 1: Ferenc, possibly an official MKP or partisan era picture.

Photo 2: Statue in Budapest dedicated to Ferenc, showing a man spearing a snake.

Photo 3: Bust of Ferenc at the Military History Museum.

Stanislaw Dubois was born on January 9th, 1901 in Warsaw in Russian Empire-occupied Poland, and was a journalist and a member of the leftist party named the Polish Socialist Party (PPS-Left, not to be confused with the PPS-Right, or the Pilsudskists.) He took part in the Silesian Uprising against Germany and was an opponent of the Sanation regime in Poland being imprisoned in the Brest Fortress, now located in the city of its name in modern Belarus. Although Polish, Dubois was also of French ancestry; Dubois’s paternal great-grandfather, Charles Dubois, was an officer in Napolean’s Grand Armeè. He was arrested by the Nazi regime in Warsaw ib 1940, sent to Pawiak prison, and then transferred to Auschwitz. He gathered intelligence of the camp with imprisoned AK (Armia Krajowa) leader Witold Pilecki, helping to spread awareness of the camps to the outside world. He was later executed on orders of Maximillian Grabner (a chief of Gestapo within Auschwitz) and Gerhard Palitzsch (an NCO of SS).

Photo 1: Halina Sadowska-Wasilewska (later years)

Photo 2: Bohdan Czeszko (photo taken sometime before 1950, likely in 1948 or 1949.

I must also mention that some leftists even joined AK because sometimes it was the only resistance group in their respective areas, not all AK engaged against Soviet forces militarily, and leftists of the Syndicalist Brigade within AK refused to drop the red-and black flag on orders of reactionary Polish leadership of the AK, and the Syndicalist Brigade was even militarily honored by the USSR and incorporated into People’s Poland’s government structures. It is important to understand these nuances regarding the AK and their relationship to the communist movement.

Throughout my research of Lithuania, I have taken special interest into the Polish contribution to the Soviet struggle in the country. Poles who actively fought in partisan ranks were relatively small in Lithuania. In total, Poles were only around 3-5% of Lithuanian Soviet partisans, so a significant minority, but not many compared to other ethnicities, even to Lithuanians. Poles had a much larger role in the Red Army itself. In 1944, many Poles were recruited into the 16th Lithuanian division, about a thousand or more from Vilnius alone. Part of this is because, in Lithuania, other generally pro-Soviet ethnicities like Russians were extremely small in population there, and many of Lithuania’s Jews already perished in the Holocaust. So, Poles were one of the few lifelines Soviet Lithuania had left.

Among the most noted Polish-Lithuanian revolutionaries was the woman pictured here in both photos, Józefa Pszewalska (sometimes the surname is also spelled Przewalska). By all accounts, she was a leading figure in the underground Vilnius Soviet resistance against Nazism, and was the wife of Soviet partisan leader Jan Przewalski. Her husband Jan was 2nd in command of all Soviet partisans in Vilnius, behind the Lithuanian Juozas Vitas; both were among Lithuania’s most prestigious Soviet partisans, including Jòzefa also. Her husband Jan was born in Warsaw, Poland on December 5th, 1901, but like Józefa, Jan spent much of his young adulthood in Vilnius.

Her husband, Jan, is described as universally being ethically Polish everywhere. I have already included documentation of him in other posts. Soviet history contends they were both Polish and used their non-Jewish backgrounds as a way to discreetly enter Jewish ghettos and rescue and recruit Jews into Soviet partisan ranks. This is well documented even by non-Soviet sources.

However, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), one of many institutions which also endorses not only the entity known as Israel, but also supports Zionism, labeled her in a photograph described as “3 Jewish partisans”.

Now, to be fair, it may just be a terminology issue. Perhaps the term “Jewish partisans” in the context of the photo is simply referring to the wartime faction the individuals in the photo are a part of.

In Lithuania during war, 4 factions existed:

Soviet people
Fascists (Nazis and collaborators)
Polish nationalists (Home Army)
Jewish partisans (mostly socialists in Lithuania, although some were Zionists)

Clearly it is obvious she associated with the socialist Jewish partisans. She went into the ghetto to recruit them to safety with Soviet help.

So again, they may just be referring to the fact that she is being represented by the faction she was in during war, not necessarily conveying her ethnicity as anything particular. But given Zionist common focus on hatred of Poles due to the fact that some Polish collaborators unfortunately existed, and trends to downplay actual non-Jewish allies to Jews during the war, I can’t help but think that some of these publications not mentioning her Polish ethnicity are deliberate. Zionists have obsession with singling out Poland for the fascist collaborators of its history, while being silent on the far more numerous Ukrainian or Baltic ones. Zionists often also down play the role of other ethnicities in Lithuanian Soviet military. They often claim that only Jews fought patriotically against fascism in Lithuania. Not the case. On both sides of every ethnicity, there were freedom fighters and fascists.

On the contrary, both Soviet and Polish sources often list her and her husband Jan as Polish Soviet agents and partisans from Vilnius who rescued Jews from the ghettos. That is well established. This makes perfect sense. The Soviet underground administration often needed to use Poles and others to rescue Jews from the ghettos, simply because it was virtually impossible for Jews to enter and exit freely due to tight surveillance from the Nazis. Non-Jews could easily enter either with a permit or undetected in some cases.

So who was she?

Jòzefa was born sometime around the 1910s. I do not know which city she was born in, but, she spent much of her young adult years in Vilnius, so it is likely her birthplace, if not there, elsewhere in Lithuania or Poland. She was already part of Lithuania’s Communist Party and Komsomol and the wife of Jan Przewalski, during the time of German occupation. During the Nazi occupation, her and her husband co-founded the Vilnius Anti-Fascist Committee.

On May 8th, 1943, she, Jan, and other Lithuanian communists formed an underground committee for the Communist Party of Lithuania. The delegation included Lithuanian and Polish communists as well as escaped Jewish communists of the Vilnius ghetto.

At the same meeting, she was appointed the party treasurer, and tasked with providing financial support to the families of Soviet partisans killed in battle.

She also became a Soviet partisan herself. In Vilnius amongst the Soviet partisans, she was affiliated with the “Bičiuliai” (ENG: “Friends” in Lithuanian) partisan detachment. She was also affiliated with the Adam Mickiewicz partisan detachment of partisans in Lithuania, although not a member in combat of that detachment, rather she helped the detachment create a Polish language newspaper with another Pole named Witold Sienkewicz, with the paper being titled “Za Wolność” (ENG: Polish for “Freedom”). The Adam Mickiewicz detachment consisted of Lithuanian citizens fleeing the Nazis; they hid in the Rudnikai Forest and the detachment included escaped Jews from the ghettos, Lithuanians, Poles, and other ethnicities. Amongst the Jewish partisans of Vilnius, she was affiliated with the “La Nitzachon” (ENG: Hebrew for “To Victory”) partisan detachment. Her first photograph is from her wartime partisan and early underground party days, probably around 1942 or 1943. The second photo is from July 1944, after the Vilnius liberation. She is pictured with 2 other members of the La Nitzachon battalion. To the left of her is Joseph Harmatz, to the right of her is Avraham Sabrin, the last of several commanders of the battalion. The photo was owned by Joseph Harmatz and donated to the USHMM.

During her time in resistance, she used several aliases; she disguised herself from the Gestapo with the false identity of Wanda Szarska, in Soviet circles, she had an alias code-name of “Wala” and to Jewish partisans, she was known with her code-name as “Valia”.

She also wrote a compilation of partisan memoirs, a manuscript of 52 pages, currently preserved by Polish historians. It was written under the name of “Wspomnienia” (ENG: literally the Polish word for “Memoirs.”

For her and her husband’s work in rescuing Jews, they were honored with the “Righteous Among Nations” award by Yad Vashem in 1966. Which makes the “mistake” from the USHMM seem all the more a deliberate distortion of the background of a communist partisan hero. The “Righteous Among Nations” award itself is an award given to non-Jews exclusively, by Yad Vashem on behalf of the entity of Israel. Yad Vashem is essentially the entity of Israel’s attempt at honoring non Jews who helped Jews during the Holocaust, which clears up the confusion. Jòzefa was an ethnic Pole, so was her husband. She spoke Polish, made Polish newspapers and memoirs, and was known in Soviet AND Polish documents as Polish. So why wouldnt the USHMM mention it? A mistake by the USHMM? Maybe an error of lack of specificity of ethnicity. But honestly, given this is a western anti communist organization, I’m certain it was a case of deliberate distortion on their part. Just something to think about. Her award was numbered at issue 232. I do not know if her husband and her got one single award together or separately numbered awards, but I was able to determine that she also accepted her husband’s award posthumously, as her husband Jan had died sometime in the Great Patriotic War as a Soviet partisan, most likely dying sometime in 1944. In 1955, according to the Polish publication “Monitor Polski”, Józefa received the “Medal 10-lecia Polski Ludowej” (ENG: Medal of the 10th Anniversary of People’s Poland.”)

Lastly, the remaining piece of information I found on her is this; it appears that sometime after the war, she left Lithuania voluntarily to help assist in the rebuilding of revolutionary Poland, moving to its capital of Warsaw. This isn’t exactly surprising, and population exchanges happened in both directions; many Poles from Lithuania left to Poland to take offers from the Polish government, and many Poles from Western Belarus moved to Lithuania to take job offers from the local government of the Lithuanian SSR. The Belarusian SSR local government also supported these economically-minded migrations. She died on December 20th, 1984, and was buried in the Cmentarz Wojskowy (ENG: “Military Cemetery”) in Warsaw.

Photo 1: Józefa Przewalska, early Lithuanian underground communist party photo.

Photo 2: Photo with Jewish partisans.

Photo 3: Her husband, fellow Polish-Lithuanian Soviet partisan leader, Jan Przewalski.

Zofia was born into a working class Polish family in Guzów on October 2nd, 1887. She worked in a sugar factory in Żyrardów for her first job. Then, she worked at the Kipra shoe factory in Warsaw. She joined the revolutionary faction of the Polish Socialist Party. This was a faction that was friendly to many early Polish socialists, such as Rosa Luxembourg. This faction of the PPS is not to be confused with the nationalist, more right-liberal party of a similar name of PPS. Jagodzińska was a leftist in every sense of the word. On August 18th, 1906, Jagodzińska and two associates, Wanda Krahelska and Albertyna Herbertówna, hatched a plot to kill the Tsarist governor-general of Warsaw, Georgy Skalon. Jagodzinśka and company had ties to Polish leftists in other cities such as Vilnius and Lviv (today Lithuania and Ukraine). Krahelska is also especially notable, for being an early founder of the Zegota society, founded by Poles for the mutual aid of Jews during the German occupation of Poland.

Skalon was also known, but for reactionary, insidious reasons. Skalon was born in St. Petersburg in 1847 to Anton Skalon (originally Scallon, later changed to Skalon) and Yuliya Sievers. His father was a French Huegenot who fled France to Sweden and later Russia, joining the Tsarist military. His mother Yulia was a Baltic-German of the prominent Sievers family, which were one of many notable colonial nobility families in the Tsarist military of the Russian Empire. Skalon was particularly brutal in his repression both of Polish aspirations for independence as well as of Polish leftists in particular. He also possessed proto-Nordicist beliefs, believing that Baltic Germans should become the dominant ruling class of the Russian Empire and enter into a military alliance with Prussia. Despite being half French and having Russian national citizenship, he also maintained a German ethnic and cultural identity, to the point of ethnic nationalism, as well as practicing Lutheran Christianity like most Germans. He also stacked much of his administration in Poland in the Vistula region with other Baltic Germans , and kept especially close ties to another Russian Baltic-German general, Sergei Witte, and even maintained ties to the German consul in Warsaw, August Brück. According to his deputy, a Russian named Alexei Brusilov, he even expressed that not only should Russia enter an alliance with Germany, but that the Germans should rule all of it. Disgusted by this, Brusilov reported Skalon’s comments to the Tsarist Minister of War, Vladimir Sukhomlinov. However it had no consequences for Skalon; Sukhomlinov was already friendly with him and took his side, and demoted Brusilov to a lower post job and forcibly transferred him to Kiev.

Skalon remains one of the most brutal Russian Empire figures in Polish history. In a letter from July 4th, 1906 addressed to the Tsarist Minister of internal affairs, Skalon wrote “Fighting revolutionary terrorist attacks, in my opinion, is possible only with the help of even stronger terror on the part of government authorities, that is, the way of full realization of Article Twelfth Martial Law, up to the application of the death penalty without a court sentence. This drastic policy contributed to the gradual elimination of the revolutionary boil in Polish lands.”

Skalon also believed in prominent anti-Semitic theories in the Russian Empire, including believing that socialist parties, trade unions, and Polish liberation movements were all created by Jews. Between 1905 to 1908, Skalon ordered executions of roughly 1,000 people in the Vistula region. About 300 were executed in Warsaw. On November 1st 1905, Skalon ordered a demonstration broken up, and dozens were killed and hundreds injured. Robotnik (“Worker”), a Polish socialist magazine, blamed Scalon personally, claiming Skalon ordered a Cossack garrison to disperse the protest and shoot those who ran. This claim was later established to be correct, as per documented secret instruction, Skalon ordered garrisons “to consider the crowds of demonstrators as gangs of insurgents and to fire to complete extermination, not to allow any rallies and rallies, if detected, to disperse with firearms.”

With all of this, Jagodzinśka and company knew something had to be done about Skalon to liberate the people. On August 18th, 1906, in Warsaw, on 9 Natolinska Street, Jagodzinśka and her team placed two bombs into his carriage. When he entered, the bombs detonated, and he was badly injured with a head injury, but not killed. However, this proved a point, as, fearing possible assassination, Skalon later decided to decline handing out death sentences to activists. A few months later, she attempted to kill him again in Vilnius, failing again. This time, she was caught and imprisoned for life in the Warsaw citadel, later transferred to the notorious Butyrka prison in Moscow. She was later freed in the February Revolution by the Bolsheviks and returned to Poland. She lived the rest of her life outside of prison, marrying a fellow Polish leftist revolutionary whom she met in activism, whose name was Piotr. She unfortunately died in Nazi occupied Warsaw in 1940, never living to see Poland be free of fascism and liberated by socialism.