Walery Slawek (2 November 1879 – 3 April 1939) was Prime Minister of Poland from 29 March to 23 August 1930, succeeding Kazimierz Bartel and preceding Jozef Pilsudski; from 5 December 1930 to 26 May 1931, succeeding Pilsudski and preceding Aleksander Prystor; and from 28 March to 12 October 1935, succeeding Leon Kozlowski and preceding Marian Zyndram-Koscialkowski.
Biography[]
Walery Slawek was from the Podolia region of Congress Poland in the Russian Empire, and he joined the Polish Socialist Party, taking part in an armed riot against Czar Nicholas II of Russia in Warsaw's Grzybowski Square on 13 November 1904 as well as the 1905 Revolution. Scarred in the face, he wore a beard for the rest of his life to cover the scars. In 1915, he created a Polish Military Organization group in Warsaw on Jozef Pilsudski's orders, and he served as a diplomat in the years following Poland's independence, serving as the envoy to Ataman Szymon Petlyura. During the 1930s, he served as Prime Minister of Poland on three occasions, but, after Pilsudski’s death, he was sidelined by Edward Smigly-Rydz with the formation of the Camp of National Unity. Slawek failed to win re-election to the Sejm in 1938, and he shot himself in April 1939, on the eve of the invasion of Poland.