Revolution in the Kingdom of Poland (1905–1907)

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Revolution in the Kingdom of Poland in 1905–1907
Part of the
Russian Revolution of 1905

Street demonstration in 1905
Date1905–1907
Location)
Result

Imperial Government victory

  • Revolutionaries defeated
Belligerents

Russia Imperial Government

Polish reactionaries

Polish revolutionaries

Commanders and leaders

A major part of the

fourth Polish uprising against the Russian Empire.[4]

Background

Kingdom of Poland, administrative divisions in 1907

Worsening economic conditions (the recession of 1901-1903)[3] contributed to mounting political tensions in the Russian Empire, including Poland; the economy of the Kingdom of Poland was also being significantly hit by the aftershocks of the Russo-Japanese War; by late 1904 over 100,000 Polish workers had lost their jobs.[2] Conscriptions to the Russian army, and ongoing russification policies further aggravated the Polish population.[3] News and attitudes of the 1905 Russian Revolution quickly spread from Saint Petersburg (where demonstrators were massacred on January 22) across the Russian Empire and into Russian-controlled Poland. This was capitalized on by factions in Russia and Poland that wanted more or less radical changes.[5]

In the meantime, two factions among the Polish political leaders clashed.

Tsar and saw the creation of a socialist society as more important than Polish independence.[8]

Revolution

During the 19th century, Łódź had become a major Polish industrial centre. h Heavily urbanized and industrialized, it was a stronghold of the socialist movement. By January 22, 1905, workers in Łódź had been strike, and on January 31, tsarist police reported that the strikers carried placards with the slogans "Down with the autocracy! Down with the war!".[2] Similarly in Warsaw, the former capital of Poland and another major industrial centre, uprisings and demonstrations were common. There was a general strike in Warsaw on January 14 and over 90 fatalities in the city over the next few days.[2][3] On January 17, the Russian government declared that Warsaw was under a state of siege.[2]

Łódź monument to the 1905 insurrection

On 28 January, the PPS and the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania called for a general strike. Over 400,000 workers became involved in strikes all over Poland that lasted for four weeks.[3][5] That was only a prelude to an even larger series of strikes that rocked Poland over next year.[5] In 1905 to 1906, close to 7,000 strikes and other work stoppages occurred, involving 1.3 million Poles.[5] Protesters demanded improved conditions for workers and more political freedom for the Poles.[2][3] By February, students at Polish universities had joined the demonstrations to protest Russification and demand the right to study in the Polish language.[2][3] They were joined by high school pupils and even some from the elementary schools.[2] The Russian government gave in and agreed to some concessions towards the Polish nationalist movement by removing some restrictions on the use of Polish in the classrooms, many, particularly the workers, were still dissatisfied.[2][5] In some places in Poland, the school strikes lasted for nearly three years.[5] Major demonstrations occurred on May 1 (Labour Day), and about 30 people were shot during a demonstration in Warsaw.[2][7] Later that month, public order disintegrated in Warsaw for a time during a spontaneous campaign against both the criminal elements and the Russian collaborators.[5]

Miodowa Street in Warsaw, 1906, just after a PPS bomb explosion.

In mid-June 1905, Russian police opened fire on one of many workers' demonstrations in Łódź.

Zagłębie Dąbrowskie that existed from October to November 1905.[3] A similar socialist state of the Ostrowiec Republic (Republika Ostrowiecka) around the city of Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski existed from late December 1905 to mid-January 1906.[10]

Aftermath

Memorial tablet in Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski to the 1905–1906 Ostrowiec Republic

Most of the unrest occurred in 1905, but until 1906-1907, worker unrest, demonstrations and occasional armed clashes continued to occur in Poland.[3] Strikes in Łódź continued until mid-1906, when only the large Russian military presence and mass layoffs of striking workers from the factories pacified the city.[5][9] The unrest in Poland forced the Russians to keep an army of 250,000-300,000 soldiers there, an army even larger than the one fighting the Japanese in the east.[2]

Piłsudski's

interwar Poland
.

Another consequence was the evolution of Polish political parties and thought.[4] National consciousness had risen among the Polish peasants. Despite the failure to achieve the most radical goals of the revolution, the Russian government conceded some of the demands, both in the social and in the political spheres, which counteracted the defeatist feelings among many Poles, who still remembered the total defeat of previous uprisings. In particular, Russification was partially reversed in education in Poland.[4]

Gallery

See also

References

  1. .
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Abraham Ascher, The Revolution of 1905: Russia in Disarray, Stanford University Press, 1994,
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l (in Polish) Rewolucja 1905-1907 w Królestwie Polskim, WIEM Encyklopedia, Retrieved on 9 October 2007
  4. ^ a b c (in Polish) REWOLUCJA 1905-07 NA ZIEMIACH POLSKICH, Encyklopedia Interia, retrieved on 8 April 2008
  5. ^
  6. ., p.330
  7. ^ , p. 118
  8. ^ a b (in Polish) PIŁSUDSKI JÓZEF by Andrzej Chojnowski. Entry in Polish PWN Encyclopedia
  9. ^ a b c d (in Polish) Włodzimierz Kalicki, Rok 1905: Przebudzeni bombą Archived 2008-05-03 at archive.today, Gazeta Wyborcza, 2005-12-09, Retrieved on 9 October 2007.
  10. ^ Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski. Monografia historyczna miasta, Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski 1997
  11. ^ Urbanowski, op.cit., Pages 121
  12. ^ Urbanowski, op.cit., Pages 131

Further reading

  • Robert E. Blobaum, Rewolucja: Russian Poland, 1904-1907, Cornell University Press, 1995

External links

  • (in Polish) Rewolucja 1905 website about the Revolution in the Kingdom of Poland