In 1917, a split in an
organization of progressive and pro-independence youth called Filarecja led to the emergence of the
Union of Independent Socialist Youth in Warsaw. It advocated expanding
cooperation with all workers' movements. The Union quickly began its activities
in Warsaw's educational institutions and later gained supporters in the
university environments throughout the country.
In Lviv, the Union cooperated
with the Union of Polish Academic Socialist Youth Life (pol. Życie), founded
in 1921 and approved by the Senate of the Jan Kazimierz University in
1922-1923. In the 1930s, the latter was recognized as illegal, and its members
entered the Union of Independent Socialist Youth. According to Józef Zieliński,
an organization emerged which consisted of 100 members and united people of
Belarusian, Polish, Ukrainian and Jewish nationalities. The premises of the
Union of Independent Socialist Youth in Lviv were located on Sykstuska (now
Doroshenka) street 21.
In the propaganda leaflets,
the Union repeatedly drew attention to the poverty of student youth. Among the
students’ major problems were high tuition fees and lack of places in
dormitories and sanatoria. The blame for the poor situation of young people was
put primarily on the state, which, according to the organization members, did
not provide the poor young people with sufficient material assistance (the
"bourgeois" state was contrasted with the "socialist" one,
namely the USSR; it was emphasized that the "socialist" state
provided studying young people with assistance). The organization protested not
only against material oppression (high tuition fees and payments for exams or
medical examinations), but also against national oppression, which was
manifested in practice, for example, in the numerus
clausus principle in higher educational institutions. The society advanced
slogans requiring general education for children of working and peasant
families, as well as scholarships for rural and working youth. Speaking against
capitalism, they cautioned:
"In the capitalist system, youth — the blossom of
people — has nothing to look for: when we finish our studies, we start, with crowds
of the unemployed, on a long, usually unproductive journey for labour and
bread. Therefore, we have one need: if we want to live, if we want to work —
it’s the socialist system that we must strive for."
Among the leading figures of
the University's left wing associated with the Union, Józef Zieliński, a
student, mentioned Tadeusz Bojczuk, Przemysław Ogrodzieński, Maria Fiderer, and
Józef Fell. Among other figures of the left wing in Lviv, Zieliński also drew
attention to Longin Chmielewski, whom he considered "a fantast and utopian
socialist," and Adam Schaff, who adhered to communist views and was to
become one of the most important Marxist philosophers in the future. Among the
Lviv figures associated with the Union, there also was Henryk Kuroń, the father
of Jacek Kuroń.
For new members,
"ideological courses" were organized, where issues related to Marxism
were discussed, as well as the political situation in Poland, the situation of
Ukrainians in Poland or the history of the Union of Independent Socialist
Youth. In addition, the organization took an active part in the preparation and
celebration of the May 1 holiday.
At the university, the Union maintained
friendly relations with the left, popular and democratic youth and avoided all
nationalist factions and parties. The organization opposed all forms of
nationalism (Polish, Ukrainian, and Jewish). Speaking for freedom of
conscience, it struggled with clericalism in public life. Maria Federer, a
member of the Union, considered the activities of people associated with the
National Radical Camp (pol. Obóz
Narodowo-Radykalny) cynical, emphasizing that the Catholicism of Polish
nationalists was superficial.
The Union opposed all the anti-Semitic excesses
in higher educational institutions and the slogans supporting the "bench
ghetto", advanced by nationalist youth. Its members asked the rectors of
universities to take all measures to restore peace and to punish those
responsible for incidents and to pay attention to them.
