On September 26, 1908, around 11 p.m., a train rolled into the tiny Bezdany station near Vilnius. Several dozen people were waiting on the platform. Among them was a gray-haired man with a bushy mustache. None of the travelers had any idea that the moustached stranger was ZIUK, i.e. Józef Piłsudski, the leader of the PPS terrorists pursued by the Tsarist Ochrana.
When the train stopped on the platform, one of the waiting people suddenly ran up to it and threw something inside. Moments later the small area of the station was pierced by a powerful bang of an exploding bomb.
At this signal, a group of fighters of the Polish Socialist Party under the command of Walery Sławek, who was traveling in the train, disarmed the gendarmes guarding the mail car. The other passengers panicked, terrified for their lives and health. It's a robbery! The risky game, which was at least punishable by torture and most likely death, was worth the candle. The train carried over 200,000 rubles! Polish militants under the sign of the red banner have not seen such cash yet.
Still from the movie "Piłsudski"
Several dozen minutes later, the mail car opened for them. The jump on the train in Bezdany, which was attended not only by the future head of state, but as many as four future prime ministers of the Second Polish Republic:apart from Piłsudski, also Walery Sławek, Aleksander Prystor, and Tomasz Arciszewski, ended with a complete success. No wonder that Bezdany often appears in the more 'daring' biographies of the Marshal those who remember his leftist, terrorist past.
Also, the first film biography of Piłsudski, which is currently shown in cinemas, could not ignore such a delicious plot. We are talking about the film by Michał Rosa, with the main role of Borys Szyc. The director captured the course of the loudest robbery in Polish history. In fact, the jumpers were very lucky. They carried out the action extremely ineptly . Despite his mishaps, Piłsudski did not lose his composure to the end, and when necessary, he could bluff ...
A comedy of errors
In Rosa's film, one of the fighters complained after the action that the bomb planted on the railroad tracks, which was supposed to immobilize the train entering the station, had not been fired. It did indeed happen. Alexander Lutze-Birk was responsible for the distribution of loads, but he did it ineffectively. He placed the load on the wet ground. This one ultimately did not explode due to the moisture. As a result, in order not to give the engine driver time to move the train again and escape from the station, Birk started shooting at the locomotive. Using a revolver, he terrorized its staff and ordered them to go to the station building, where its staff and travelers were held under arms. Interestingly, one of the fighters had several dozen people at gunpoint there. In his other hand he had a bundle wrapped in a rag. He claimed that it was a bomb that he would fire if he disobeyed. He was actually holding a cloth and paper wrapped in… a can of herring. But he was so convincing that none of the terrorized travelers even flinched.
It was not better on the platform. As soon as the train with the money appeared at the station, the fighters were to run to the window of the wagon with the parcels, knock it out with a stick and throw a bomb there. In fact, the participant responsible for this was not able to break the glass. He ran alongside the train and clumsily hit the glass. The surprise effect vanished like a soap bubble. With his "knocking" he alerted the Russian gendarmes. One leaned out the door. There was an exchange of fire. Fortunately for the terrorists, their bullets were more accurate. The Russian fell dead on the platform. During this time, we finally almost managed to push the bomb through the hole in the shaft. The cargo, however, almost exploded in the hand of the attacker, throwing it over a nearby fence and doing little damage to the wagon itself.
Action pod Bezdanami was Piłsudski's most daring action
When the train finally stopped, the fighters under the barrels of their rifles began to lead the passengers to the station building. The rest of the attackers, led by Piłsudski, tried to get into the compartment with the parcels.
It is true that the attackers managed to terrorize the gendarmes from the escort of the wagon, but the full happiness was not yet able to break through the armored door of the compartment in which the parcels were located. The escorts also hid there, sure of their safety. Attempts to breach the door were unsuccessful, and the explosion was not an option, as the attackers no longer had explosives. Piłsudski then decided to bluff . He shouted loudly in Russian to the guards outside the door, warning that he had a bomb and would detonate it if they didn't open the compartment. He gave them 10 seconds and began to count down slowly:10, 9, 8, 7…
The moment of nervous anticipation and the power struggle between PPS fighters and escorts was perfectly shown by Michał Rosa in his latest film. The service of the compartment could not withstand the tension. The door swung open and the escorts under the barrels of their revolvers came out, hands up.
Now it was left to find big money and run away in time, but here too the problem arose. The robbers were operating almost in the dark . The acetylene lamps that were used to illuminate the interior of the compartment broke. As a result, once they got inside, they lit themselves with flashlights, which, however, gave too little light to act quickly, especially since they had hundreds of packages and bundles to search! The compartment was almost filled with correspondence.
Wanted poster
And again they did not run out of luck. Found packages of money and securities. Over 200,000 rubles went into the hands of Piłsudski and his people . The action at the small station in Bezdany lasted 45 minutes. "ZIUK" ordered a retreat just before the next train arrived at the station. Nobody died among the fighters. The losses on the Russian side include two gendarmes killed and a few wounded.
Bezdany 1908 was the most daring attack in the history of the Polish left-wing movement. They were also the first and only terrorist action involving Józef Piłsudski. He never returned to this method of fighting. The money obtained during the jump on the train with the money allowed him to finance a much more ambitious undertaking: building shooting organizations - the seed of the future Polish Legions and the future Polish Army .