Józef Piłsudski's strategic goal was to resurrect an updated, democratic form of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, while working for the disintegration of the Russian Empire, and later the
Soviet Union, into its ethnic constituents. (The latter was his
Prometheist project. According to Dziewanowski, the plan was never expressed in systematic fashion but instead relied on Piłsudski's pragmatic instincts. According to British scholar
George Sanford, about the time of the
Polish–Soviet War of 1920 Piłsudski recognised that the plan was not feasible.
Opposition Piłsudski's plan faced opposition from virtually all quarters. The Soviets, whose
sphere of influence was directly threatened, worked to thwart the Intermarium agenda. The Lithuanians, who had
re-established their independence in 1918, were unwilling to join; the Ukrainians, similarly seeking independence, likewise feared that Poland might again subjugate them; argued for an ethnically homogeneous Poland in which minorities would be
Polonised. Many Polish politicians, including Dmowski, opposed the idea of a multiethnic federation, preferring instead to work for a
unitary Polish
nation state. others view such claims with skepticism, pointing out a
coup d'état in 1926 when Piłsudski assumed nearly dictatorial powers. In particular, his project is viewed unfavourably by most Ukrainian historians, with
Oleksandr Derhachov arguing that the federation would have created a greater Poland in which the interests of non-Poles, especially Ukrainians, would have received short shrift. Some historians hold that Piłsudski, who argued that "There can be no independent Poland without an independent Ukraine", may have been more interested in splitting Ukraine from Russia than in assuring Ukrainians' welfare. He did not hesitate to use military force to expand Poland's borders to
Galicia and
Volhynia, crushing a
Ukrainian attempt at self-determination in disputed territories east of the
Bug River which contained a substantial Polish presence (a Polish majority mainly in cities such as
Lwów, surrounded by a rural Ukrainian majority). Speaking of Poland's future frontiers, Piłsudski said: "All that we can gain in the west depends on the
Entente—on the extent to which it may wish to squeeze Germany", while in the east "there are doors that open and close, and it depends on who forces them open and how far". In the eastern chaos, the Polish forces set out to expand as far as feasible. On the other hand, Poland had no interest in joining the western intervention in the
Russian Civil War Failure 's plan for "
Third Europe", an alliance of
Poland,
Romania, and
Hungary In the aftermath of the Polish–Soviet War (1919–1921), and the establishment of the
Ukrainian SSR, Piłsudski's concept of a federation of Central and Eastern European countries, based on a Polish-Ukrainian axis, lost any chance of realisation. Piłsudski next contemplated a federation or alliance with the
Baltic and
Balkan states. This plan envisioned a Central European union including Poland,
Czechoslovakia,
Hungary,
Finland, the Baltic states,
Scandinavia,
Italy,
Romania,
Bulgaria,
Yugoslavia, and
Greece—thus stretching not only west-east from the Baltic to the Black Sea, but north-south from the
Arctic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea. In comparison, Czechoslovakia had more success with its
Little Entente (1920–1938) with Romania and Yugoslavia, supported by France. Piłsudski died in 1935. A later, much reduced version of his concept was attempted by
interwar Polish Foreign Minister
Józef Beck, a protégé of Piłsudski. His proposal, during the late 1930s, of a "
Third Europe"—an alliance of Poland, Romania, and Hungary—gained little ground before
World War II supervened. For economic reasons, the tendency in eastern Europe was to follow the lead of
Berlin rather than
Warsaw. According to some historians, it was the failure to create a strong counterweight to Germany and the Soviet Union, as proposed by Piłsudski, that doomed Intermarium's prospective member countries to their fates in World War II. ==World War II and after==