[1] Walery Sławek was born on 2 November 1879 into an impoverished noble family, in the village of Strutynka [pl] in the region of Podolia, then part of the Russian Empire.

His father, Bolesław Sławek, worked at a sugar plant owned by Count Józef Mikołaj Potocki.

He continued his activities: during a raid on a train near Milanówek on 9 June 1906, a bomb exploded in his hand, injuring his head and chest.

Furthermore, he permanently lost hearing in his left ear, and for the rest of his life, Sławek wore a beard, which covered numerous scars on his face.

In mid-1914, he joined 1st Brigade, Polish Legions, but in August, he did not march with First Cadre Company to Congress Poland, remaining in Kraków.

At the same time, he formed a secret body within the POW, called Military Association (Zwiazek Wojskowy), later renamed into Organization A.

On 29 November 1923 Sławek was transferred to the Officer Reserve Corps, and on 30 June 1924 he became chairman of the Association of Polish Legionnaires, together with Adam Skwarczyński.

Soon after the May Coup, Józef Piłsudski sent Sławek to the Tarnowski family's Dzików Castle, for a series of talks with members of Polish nobility.

Before the 1928 Polish legislative election, Sławek came up with the idea of creating a new pro-government political body, the Nonpartisan Bloc for Cooperation with the Government (BBWR) of which he was the chairman.

After the collapse of the government of Kazimierz Bartel, on 29 March 1930, Sławek became Prime Minister of Poland as one of the so-called Piłsudski's colonels.

On 30 June a massive anti-government rally took place in Kraków, the Congress for the Defense of Law and Freedom of People (Kongres Obrony Prawa i Wolnosci Ludu).

The size of the Congress took the government by surprise, and on 23 August 1930 Sławek resigned, claiming that he was unable to be prime minister and chairman of the BBWR at the same time.

Following the so-called Brest Election, Sławek returned to the previous post and once again became the Polish Prime Minister (December 4, 1930).

Due to the fact that in late 1930 and early 1931, Józef Piłsudski spent three months in Madeira, Sławek was de facto the most important person in Poland.

He faced several difficulties: the economic situation of the country was worsening, the opposition fiercely attacked the cabinet, and the Pacification of Ukrainians in Eastern Galicia (1930) had just ended.

Sławek urged members of the BBWR not to engage in any talks with the opposition, and the government quickly accepted a number of new regulations.

On 15 August 1935 deputies and senators of BBWR handed to Sławek a privately purchased manor house, located in the village of Janowiczki, near the site of the Battle of Racławice.

Walery Sławek planned to replace the dissolved BBWR with a new structure, called Common Organization of the Society (Powszechna Organizacja Społeczeństwa).

A few weeks later, he was named chairman of the Józef Piłsudski Institute of Modern History, a post, designed to keep him away from political life.

Sławek himself decided to accept the invitation, but later stated that his promotion to Marshal was one of the saddest days of his life, as he was of the opinion that Józef Piłsudski was the only person worthy of that rank.

On 2 April 1939 at 8:45 p.m. (the exact hour of Piłsudski's death), Sławek shot himself in the mouth at his Warsaw apartment, located on Jan Chrystian Szuch Avenue.

Sławek was buried at the Powązki Cemetery; among the pallbearers were Aleksander Prystor, Janusz Jędrzejewicz, Michał Tadeusz Brzek-Osinski and General Lucjan Żeligowski.

Wacław Jędrzejewicz, who was responsible for the collection of the money, contacted a number of influential people and organizations, including Generals Tadeusz Kasprzycki and Wacław Stachiewicz, Adam Koc, the Association of Wilno, Chicago's Polish Independence League and the Association of Formers Soldiers of the 5th Infantry Division.

Polish writer and air-force pilot Mieczysław Pruszyński, in his book "The Secret of Piłsudski" ("Tajemnica Piłsudskiego") claims that Sławek's suicide was directly linked to the Anglo-Polish military alliance, and British guarantee to Poland, accepted by Józef Beck: "Sławek killed himself after British guarantee to Poland had been announced and accepted.

For him, Beck's trip meant the war with Germany and the end of Poland" (Mieczysław Pruszyński, Tajemnica Piłsudskiego, Warszawa 1997).

A few hours before his death, Sławek met with a man named Bogdan Podoski, to whom he said: "I know it, I feel that they are leading Poland to destruction, and I do not know how to react against it".

In 2004, in a Polish Newsweek article, historian Dariusz Baliszewski wrote that in early spring of 1939, a group of leading Polish political figures, such as General Kazimierz Sosnkowski, former Premier Leon Kozłowski and Kazimierz Puzak, planned a putsch, in which they wanted to get rid of Józef Beck, Ignacy Mościcki and Edward Śmigły-Rydz, whose recent change to anti-German and pro-British policies would lead to the destruction of Poland.