Where Is Poland? | Revolution

Chapter 9

Revolution

The Revolution of 1905 was the first revolt of the partition-era which did not bring only losses. Massstrikes broke out throughout the Polish territories. People fought for social and national issues to the tune of 'Warszawianka'. And eventually they did gain certain politicalprivileges.

Newspaper hawkers on strike, Warsaw, 1905. Photo: Polona.pl

Kingdom of Poland on strike!

The Tsar’s absolutist rule, Russia’s humiliating defeat in a war against Japan, and the terrible situation of peasants and workers stoked up a revolutionary tumult in many places of the Russian Empire. In the Russian-held Kingdom of Poland this uprising was particularly impressive – over 6991 strikes broke out within one year. Mass revolts started not only in industrial centres, such as Warsaw, the Dąbrowa coalmining region, and Łódź, where a strike of textile workers turned into the bloody Łódź Insurrection (22-24 June 1905), but also in smaller towns and villages. The strikes spread into the Polish-inhabited lands of Austria-Hungary and the German Empire.

A widespread strike among school pupils reached unprecedented levels. They vowed to boycott the official schools until their demands were met: Polish as the language of instruction, education fees abolished, no more discrimination against Jewish students in regard to school admission, and lesser control exerted by school authorities over the students. During the strike, classes were held in private apartments, as a network of alternative education expanded throughout the Polish lands.

Lyrics for the 'Warszawianka', post 1906. Photo: Polona.pl

Warszawianka - The Greatest Socialist Hit Ever

Probably the most famous socialist song in Polish, the ‘Warszawianka’, has an interesting backstory. It was written by political and socialist activist Wacław Święcicki in 1879, during his imprisonment at the Warsaw Citadel. Legend has it that Święcicki smuggled the lyrics out of prison by marking the appropriate letters in a copy of Adam Mickiewicz’s Pan Tadeusz. The music was composed by another inmate, based on a melody from a song dating back to the January Uprising.

It was first sung in the streets of Warsaw, during a workers' demonstration in 1885, but gained its current reputation in 1905 when it became the anthem of workers demonstrating during the Revolution of 1905. The ‘Warszawianka’ (or ‘The Whirlwinds of Danger’ as it is known in English), also became popular outside of the country: a variant of the song became the anthem of the socialist organisation Second International (1889), its Russian version was popular in the Soviet Union, while the Spanish one, called ‘A Las Barricadas’, was sung by anarcho-syndicalists during the Spanish Civil War (1936-39).

Postcard, 1905. Source: Polona.pl

When common folk became citizens

The period of revolution was not just a time of strikes and street clashes. It was also an era of exceptional social activity that saw the emergence of various associations and initiatives that laid the foundations for the development of civil society in Poland when it eventually remerged as the independent Second Polish Republic. In the Russian-held partition, Poles gained important privileges: the right to establish associations, access to private education in their native language, and the ability to elect their own representatives to the newly established Duma. In addition, grass-roots efforts resulted in the establishment of scientific societies, museums, and public libraries, as well as the development of a cooperative movement. Workers were allowed to form trade unions. Censorship abated and it became permitted to speak Polish at lower-level public administration offices.

However, most of the economic demands, such as an eight-hour work day, social insurance, and the right to holiday leave, were effectively blocked by the lobby of factory owners. A very striking example of the practices employed by the latter can be seen in a lockout at the factories in Łódź, when approximately a hundred thousand workers were deprived of a means of supporting themselves for a year.

The Revolution of 1905 transformed the Polish mindset, providing a certain founding myth for the Polish state when it did re-emerge (for example, as many as four later prime ministers of Poland were then fighters of the Polish Socialist Party).