The Polish general and statesman Joseph Pilsudski (1867-1935) played a large role in the reestablishment of an independent Polish state and became its first president in 1918.

Joseph Pilsudski was born on Dec. 5, 1867, at Zulow in the Vilna district of Russian Poland, the second son of a family of the lower gentry. The harsh treatment of the Poles under Russian rule and the anti-Russian feeling pervading his environment inspired him with a hatred of Russia and a desire to liberate his country from foreign domination.

Suspended from medical school at Kharkov in 1886, Pilsudski returned to Vilna and was exiled for 5 years to Siberia in 1887 for allegedly conspiring to assassinate Czar Alexander III. Pilsudski returned home in 1892, joined the Polish Socialist party, and became its leader in 1894. He soon became editor of its clandestine newspaper, Robotnik (The Worker), but his press was discovered in Lódz, and he and...