Polish Socialist Party – Revolutionary Faction

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The Polish Socialist Party – Revolutionary Faction (Polish: Polska Partia Socjalistyczna – Frakcja Rewolucyjna, PPS–FR) also known as the Old Faction (Polish: Starzy) was one of two factions into which the Polish Socialist Party split in 1906.^[1] The Revolutionary Faction's primary goal was to restore an independent Poland, which was envisioned as a representative democracy. It saw itself as a spiritual successor to the Red Faction of the 1863 January Uprising, which had the goal of creating an independent Polish-Lithuanian-Ruthenian Commonwealth.

History

Split in the Polish Socialist Party

For several years the Polish Socialist Party had an internal struggle: Originally, the PPS was founded as a patriotic, pro-independence party. In preperation for the creation of a new Polish army and in order to fight the Russian occupants, the PPS, led at the time by Piłsudski founded a Combat Organization, that became extremely active in the 1905 unrests in Russia. The Combat Organization grew increasingly influential and cooperated with the Japanese Empire, receiving funding in exchange for information and strikes against Russian state servants. While Piłsudski was concentrated on preparing the basis for a future Polish Army, the PPS was taken over by more internationalist, marxist-leaning members, which were worried by the rising popularity of Piłsudski and his Combat Organization.

That internal struggle led to the party to split, with the marxist members becoming the

It organized several raids and assassinations of Tsarist officials in the Russian partition, most prominent the Bezdany raid, which became the last action of the PPS–FR in the Russian partition. After that last raid, Piłsudski and his followers left the Russian Empire and moved to Galicia-Lodomeria (Austrian Poland), where there was a relative freedom. In the Austrian partition, Piłsudski was able to organize several paramilitary organisations under the guise of being rifle-clubs, which would be the basis for the Polish Legions in 1914.

Thus the leadership of the PPS–FR would become some of the most prominent fathers of Polish independence, with many of them serving as Prime Ministers, famously Aleksander Prystor and Walery Sławek, two as Presidents (Wojciechowski, Mościcki) and several ministers.

Later History

With the failure of

Józef Piłsudski, Walery Sławek, Aleksander Prystor, Ignacy Daszyński, Kazimierz Pużak, Tomasz Arciszewski, Rajmund Jaworowski, Leon Wasilewski, Mieczysław Niedziałkowski, Norbert Barlicki, and Jędrzej Moraczewski.

See also

• Polish legions in WWI
• Riflemen's Association
• Związek Walki Czynnej

References

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