Later, the 20th-century Polish dictator General Józef Piłsudski adhered to the view of Poland as a western shield, and saw Poland as having a "civilizing mission" in the east and Romantics in Poland believed they were the "chosen people" with a destiny to civilize the eastern Slavs. Piłsudski was an adherent of this conviction, which led him to launch his war against the Soviet Union in 1920.