# Speech of B. Tarashkevich

- URL: https://syn.by/en/history/archives/speech-of-b-tarashkevich/
- Published: 1924-06-21T19:55:00+00:00
- Updated: 2026-11-10T01:39:56+00:00
- Section: Archives
- Language: en
- BE edition: https://syn.by/historya/arkhivy/pramova-b-tarashkievicha.md
- RU edition: https://syn.by/ru/istoriya/arhivy/rech-b-tarashkevicha.md

> Member of the Sejm Tarashkevich analyses Grabski's budget in the Sejm and argues that the Polish treasury is being put in order at the village's expense, and that the state lives on military expenditure. He then criticises the policy in the schools.

![](https://syn.by/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/illustration-1304-1024x585.webp)

13. VI. 24, in the Sejm, during the debate on the exposé of the Prime Minister and Minister Grabski.

Marshal: The floor belongs to Mr. Tarashkevich.

Mr. Tarashkevich: High Sejm. The anarchised gentry of the 18th century held a conviction that was ruinous in its consequences, namely that Poland "nierządem stoi" (stands on disorder). Today another conviction has taken root, one that I think will be no less fatal and ruinous in the future, and it reaches up to the heights of political thought: that

Poland stands by a miracle.

We have the miracle of Poland's resurrection from the dead, the miracle of Poland's healing, or the miracle on the Vistula, and the latest miracle, the healing of the treasury, or financial sanation.

One must not think that the main illness of today's economic life is bad money.

The cause of the illness lies far deeper, in a deep economic crisis. The war itself was already the beginning of the economic crisis. It began because the national industries, national and nationalist industries, competing with one another, led to armed struggle.

The conclusion of peace did not in any way halt the economic crisis, but rather brought it into a new phase and deepened it across the whole of Europe, and even across the whole world. It is known that the great economic magnates of Europe, England, France and Germany, have lost a considerable part of their markets in the colonies, which during the world war, creating their own industries, freed themselves from dependence on European suppliers.

Gentlemen, after the period of inflation, after the period of the fall of the currency, a second period has set in, the period of economic crisis. Economic crisis and inflation are the two ends of the same cudgel, which today strike by turns the unhappy Europe.

Between this Scylla and Charybdis, inflation on one side and economic crisis on the other, one can wriggle out quite conveniently; the example is Czechoslovakia.

Let us look, then, at how this already patented financial genius, Mr. Grabski, wriggles out between these dangers.

The taxes lead to the destruction of the village.

Mr. Grabski, as is known, has reached not only for incomes but for part of property. And how is this part of property taken? It is taken, so to speak, as the wind blows.

The methods of the agents of the Ministry of the Treasury, chiefly in the countryside, very often simply border on fraud.

Above all, the taxpayer does not know how much, when and at what time he will be able to pay his taxes.

Furthermore, the level of taxation in a country ruined and destroyed by the war reaches the measure that exists in a country flourishing in prosperity, like Italy. Besides, I would have to say that the tax system of Poland at the present moment is immeasurably irritating, especially in our Belarusian lands. Whereas the peasants were used to paying a tax on land, today they pay a countless number of various taxes, "państwowych i komunalnych" (state and municipal), so that there is truly no week when a tax does not have to be paid. And there are, for example, such taxes as provoke sheer indignation in the eyes of the taxpayers. Such a tax is, for example, the "spadkowy" (inheritance) tax.

When a father dies in a peasant family and leaves behind a widow and orphaned children, this "spadkowy" tax appears truly a penalty for death, and that is how the peasants understand this tax.

It is known and confirmed everywhere that Mr. Grabski's methods of healing the Treasury lead to the complete impoverishment of the village and to an industrial crisis.

The Polish budget is a budget of war.

While the slogan of peace has been cast in Western Europe, Polish politicians maintain that "si vis pacem, para bellum". And in truth this principle has led, and leads, to war. Wishing to create peace, wishing to be a creator of peace, one must prepare peace properly. Member of the Sejm Barlicki said this rightly, but, unfortunately, did not quite want to draw all the consequences from this slogan, for, wishing to prepare peace actively, surely one should reduce the military budget?! And the Polish budget is plainly a military budget, because at least 57% of the budget goes to armaments and the army. People often ask whether Poland has militarist intentions, whether Poland pursues an imperialist policy. I would say that

Poland pursues a militarist policy,

but does not for the time being need to have militarist intentions, because today Poland is entirely

saturated with foreign population and foreign lands,

and it is precisely in order to keep this foreign population, these minorities, above all the territorial ones, that is, the Ukrainians and Belarusians, in due discipline and obedience, and to break them, that a military budget is needed. And this is the result of the great blindness of the policy of the government circles, because no army, even if Poland armed the whole population from head to foot, men and even women, no army, I say, in the near future will be able to fight on two fronts, whether against Russia as such, or against a union of eastern peoples, and at the same time be able to fight Germany on the other side. That is why Polish policy should be peaceful, not military.

Police policy in the schools.

Gentlemen, let us look at what internal policy this "apolitical" premier, who promised from this tribune to be impartial and apolitical, is pursuing in the sphere of schooling. One can boldly say that there has never been so "shameless" a minister in relation to the schools of the national minorities as Mr. Mikłaszewski. (Shouting on the Right. Voices: How can one say of a minister that he is shameless?! This cannot be listened to!)

Vice-Marshal Moraczewski: (rings the bell). I ask the Gentlemen to calm down. If the speaker has said something improper, I will learn of it from the stenogram and call him to order.

Mr. Tarashkevich: If I have used an improper word, I am ready to give satisfaction for it, but let the Gentlemen only listen to how Minister Mikłaszewski, systematically closing schools, introduces the police system into the school.

Well, after May 1st the Belarusian and Jewish schools in Vilnia received from the Vilnia school superintendent's office an inquiry as to which teachers and pupils did not come to school on May 1st. I do not know what I should call this… (Shout, a voice: May 1st is a Belarusian holiday.)

The land question.

Or the land… This question is the first one for the broad masses of the Belarusian and Ukrainian population. How does this question stand? A land reform is constantly promised. In the end, it is neither the government's fault nor the administration's that the matter of land reform has been carried through the Sejm in one way or another. But how do the land offices treat the Belarusian peasant? There they ask first of all who you are: are you a Pole or a Belarusian? They help some and put obstacles in the way of others at every step.

The highest authorities, the highest state "czynniki" (authorities), set to guard order, say that only Poles in the Polish Republic have rights, that only they are masters of the land, and that all the others are citizens of the second class. Who said so, and where he said it, you know well again. (A voice on the Jewish benches: The one whom we elected. By a lucky turn of circumstances he was not killed, like Narutowicz.) To keep in obedience a population that has truly lost the patience it had until now, legions of police are needed today. Alongside the army, alongside the military, stands a second, police army. Before our eyes Poland (a voice on the minorities' benches: they hunt people!) is more and more degenerating into a police state. (A voice on the Right: it defends you from the banditry that exists in Russia!) What is going on with this banditry, I will tell you right now. Last year, hearing of the violence of the police, I travelled to the districts of Pinsk and Kosava. I toured the two districts, and there, after the well-known attack at Telekhany, there was hardly a village, and in the village there was not a man, who had not been tortured in a loathsome, brutal manner. The old men, with clenched teeth, said nothing, but the young people, in whom hot blood boils, said:

Now we will look for a road to revenge!

This is one of the causes of "banditry". And I assert resolutely that the more police there are in the Borderlands, the greater the unrest will be, the more there will be of what the gentlemen, rightly or wrongly, call banditry. For this police in the Borderlands, in the numbers in which it is stationed there, truly has nothing to do but provoke. Our people have never yet seen such police oppression, such a regime. (A voice on the Right: Which police is the gentleman speaking of, the border police or the internal police?) The internal. So, where formerly one policeman, or one guard, or likewise one Russian uriadnik managed, there are today 10, 15 policemen. Yet even this policeman has not been tested as a suitable professional element. This policeman, whom the state cannot pay adequately, because having so much police it cannot pay well, seeks side earnings. I know perfectly well that in a whole series of small towns the police have an order to deliver so-and-so many reports within a month. And if this policeman does not deliver, he is thrown out.

Finally Poland has lived to see foreign states and humanitarian organisations intervene in this matter.

So what do you intend to do with this matter? Minister Grabski spoke here not at all as premier, but only as minister of finance. He thinks that matters of internal and foreign policy and budgetary and financial matters have nothing in common, and does not want to talk about it, and if he does anything at all, he does it in secret. Nobody wants to treat this matter seriously and truthfully, and if anyone does want to treat it, he would like to do it by some half-measures. (A voice on the Right: And what is the whole measure? A voice on the Left: self-determination!)

Territorial autonomy would not resolve this matter conclusively for any length of time, but would only patch it up.

Yet our Belarusian people no longer believe today in the possibility of territorial autonomy, for they know that even if some Sejm, under compulsion of some "causes", carried this matter through and gave autonomy, there is no certainty that this autonomy, like the constitution, would not be violated and broken. The Belarusian people ascertain only facts, and today they turn their eyes to the east all the more (voices: Jazda! (Off with you!) A voice on the Left: but together with the land and the people), where they see a possibility of development, and where much is being done to improve, of course, the peasant's present difficult economic position.

At a time when our population, suffering oppression and systematic persecution, is losing trust in the state itself, it is hard for us to have any trust in Mr. Grabski, such a one-sided politician. All the more shall we protest against giving him any full powers. Having no trust in the present government, we likewise have no trust in the present Sejm and demand new elections. Finally, we cannot have overly great hopes of a new Sejm either. Observation and cold reasoning compel the conclusion that the resolution of these burning tasks must be awaited soonest from deep upheavals, from political and social revolution…

(Words: that is precisely what you are waiting for)…