European Council President Donald Tusk | Grzegorz Michalowski/EPA Donald Tusk’s call to defeat ‘Bolsheviks’ marks Polish political return The power of ‘those who want to disintegrate Europe’ is growing, says European Council president.

ŁÓDŹ, Poland — The Polish people should rise up and "defeat today's Bolsheviks" in the country's ruling Law and Justice party, European Council President Donald Tusk told a crowd of over a thousand cheering supporters Saturday.

The former Polish prime minister's call — on the eve of the country's independence centenary — to form an opposition movement against the government, is his first mass rally in Poland since he left for Brussels in 2014. After years of treading carefully in domestic politics, it marks the beginning of an apparent run for president in elections slated for June 2020.

“Freedom has a future in Poland,” Tusk told the crowd gathered at the “Freedom Games” conference, in a former power plant turned cultural center.

He remembered two great Polish leaders — Józef Piłsudski, who defeated the invading Soviet army in 1920, and Lech Wałęsa, who led Poland's Solidarity trade union to victory over the communist government in 1989. "When Piłsudski defeated the Bolsheviks and when Wałęsa defeated the Bolsheviks, they had a much more difficult situation, but you can now more easily defeat today's Bolsheviks."

"Without rights and freedoms, there is no Polish independence [that is necessary] to protect these rights — let's defend freedom and defend Polish independence," he said.

Poland's November 11 independence day — which coincides with the conclusion of World War I — marks the end of a 123-year-long partition by neighboring powers.

"When the Poles were united ... then they always won — we have to do it and unite," he said, calling on supporters to prepare for the European Parliament election next May.

Tusk's bombastic rhetoric contrasts with the more cautious approach to Polish politics he has hitherto adopted. Since becoming Council president, he has been careful not to intervene directly, only occasionally criticizing the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) for breaching the rule of law in Poland.

The tension between Tusk and Law and Justice is not just political, it has also taken a sharp personal turn. He has been accused of treason and threatened with prosecution for murder by PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński, who holds Tusk responsible for the death of his brother, Lech Kaczyński, in a 2010 plane crash in Smolensk, Russia. Tusk has sought to temper his political criticisms for fear of inflaming the animosity with the PiS leadership.

But during the last few months he has dropped hints he may return to Poland to run for president once his Brussels tenure ends. The Łódź speech — which was greeted by shouts of "Donald Tusk, Donald Tusk" from the crowd — is his clearest indication yet of a more active future role in domestic politics.

"A powerful Poland in a united Europe means the rule of law, free courts and the media," he said in reference to the controversial PiS reforms of the judiciary which has brought censure from Brussels, as well as the party's attacks on independent media.

He also criticized Poland's rulers for threatening the country's independence. "Those who speak with enthusiasm about Brexit and American isolationism and those who are full of praise about [Russian President Vladimir] Putin will inevitably threaten Poland's independence," he said

And in a direct reference to a recent remark by President Andrzej Duda that the EU is just an "illusory community" he said: "One who stands up against a united Europe is in fact acting against Poland's independence."

Outside of Poland, Tusk said the "forces of those who want to disintegrate Europe are growing." And he said that when traveling to European capitals, "it sometimes seems to me that there are politicians there who just wait for a visit of the Archduke Ferdinand" — a reference to the Austrian aristocrat whose murder in Sarajevo in 1914 led to the start of World War I.

In his 30-minute speech Tusk was also critical of U.S. President Donald Trump — "my namesake," as he referred to him.

"We witness threats of a global dimension … and the world's dynamic equilibrium can easily change into a dynamic disequilibrium," he said. "For the first time we have an American administration which, lightly speaking, is not well inclined toward European unity."