Józef Piłsudski
Polish Socialist Party

In 1892 Piłsudski returned from exile and settled in Adomavas Manor near Teneniai. In 1893, he joined the Polish Socialist Party (PPS), and helped organize their Lithuanian branch. Initially, he sided with the Socialists' more radical wing, but despite the socialist movement's ostensible internationalism, he remained a Polish nationalist. In 1894, as its chief editor, he published an underground socialist newspaper called Robotnik (The Worker); he would also be one of its chief writers and a typesetter. In 1895, he became a PPS leader, promoting the position that doctrinal issues were of minor importance and socialist ideology should be merged with nationalist ideology because this combination offered the greatest chance of restoring Polish independence.

On 15 July 1899, while an underground organizer, Piłsudski married a fellow socialist organizer, Maria Juszkiewiczowa, née Koplewska. According to his biographer Wacław Jędrzejewicz, the marriage was less romantic than pragmatic. Robotnik' s printing press was housed in their apartment first in Vilnius, then in Łódź. A pretext of regular family life made them less suspect. Also, Russian law protected a wife from prosecution for the illegal activities of her husband. The marriage deteriorated when, several years later, Piłsudski began an affair with a younger socialist, Aleksandra Szczerbińska. Maria died in 1921; in October that year, Piłsudski married Aleksandra. By then, the couple had two daughters, Wanda and Jadwiga.

In February 1900 Piłsudski was imprisoned at the Warsaw Citadel when Russian authorities found Robotnik ' s underground printing press in Łódź. He feigned mental illness in May 1901 and escaped from a mental hospital at Saint Petersburg with the help of a Polish physician, Władysław Mazurkiewicz, and others. He fled to Galicia, then part of Austria-Hungary, and thence to Leytonstone in London, staying with Leon Wasilewski and his family.
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