Ryszard Reiff

Ryszard Reiff (July 4, 1923 – December 9, 2007) was a Polish politician, lawyer, publicist and resistance fighter. He was a deputy to the Polish parliament (Sejm) during the 1968 Polish political crisis and again during the Martial law in Poland.

Born in 1923, Reiff studied law at the University of Warsaw. After German invasion of Poland, he took part in the Polish resistance movement in World War II. He was a member of the right-leaning Konfederacja Narodu (Confederation of the Nation) underground organization and commanded one of the first units of the Uderzeniowe Bataliony Kadrowe (Cadre Strike Battalions). Later, he became a member of the Armia Krajowa (Home Army) by default as the Konfederacja Narodu merged with it, and fought against Nazi Germans near Navahrudak. As a member of Armia Krajowa, he was arrested by the Soviet NKVD, and imprisoned for two years (1944-1946).

In 1946 after the Soviet liberation, he started work as a publicist, becoming involved with the pro-communist, but also pro-Catholic faction in the Party. First, he worked in Dziś i Jutro newspaper, and from 1950 to 1953 he was a chief editor of Słowo Powszechne daily and publishing arm of the secular Catholic Polish government sponsored PAX Association, during the darkest years of Stalinism in Poland. In 1976, he became PAX deputy director, and in 1979, its full director. He adopted a position supportive of Solidarity, an independent Polish trade union. A Catholic intellectual, he was a committed critic of Polish government policies, and he once urged a coalition to be formed of leaders from Solidarity, the Polish United Workers' Party, and the Catholic Church, advocating "the establishment of a corporatist arrangement between major political actors as the only way to stabilize Poland's political situation and resolve the deepening economic crisis." From 1965 to 1969 he was a deputy to the Polish parliament (Sejm).

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