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Social Democrats versus “Social Patriots“: The Origins of the Split of the Marxist Movement in Poland1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2017

M. K. Dziewanowski
M. K. Dziewanowski*
Affiliation:
Russian Research Center, Harvard University
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Extract

The Meeting of the Foreign Association of Polish Socialists which took place in Paris in November, 1892, had in the minds of its organizers a twofold purpose. From an organizational point of view, it represented an attempt at unifying some feeble remnants of the working-class movement of Russian Poland, that had survived the mass arrests of 1891-1892. From an ideological angle, it was an attempt to bring about a synthesis between the cosmopolitan program of the “Proletariat” and the patriotic ideas of the “National Socialists,” to marry the Marxist doctrine to the national aspirations of Poland and thus to remedy the split which divided the Socialist labor movement. Both these purposes were achieved by the foundation of the Polish Socialist party (Polska Portia Socjalistyczna) called PPS for short.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Slavic and East European Review , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , February 1951 , pp. 14 - 25
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 1951

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Footnotes

1

This paper is based on a part of a larger project entitled, A History of the Polish Communist Party. The research for this project is being supported by the Russian Research Center of Harvard. The author gratefully acknowledges the assistance granted to him by this institution.

References

2 How the unification and then the split actually worked has been described in great detail by Kiełza, A., “Wspomnienia z Pracy w PPS i SDKP,” Dzieje Najnowsze (Recent History) (Warsaw, 1947), No. 3–4, 450–487 Google Scholar.

3 In 1900 it merged with a group of Polish-speaking workers in Lithuania and adopted the new name: “Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania,“ SDKPiL for short. The merger was brought about by Feliks Dzierzyński.

4 All these documents are to be found in a collection of materials edited by Szmidt, O. B., Socjaldemokracja Królestwa Polskiego i Litwy. Materiały i dokumenty, 1893-1904 (Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania. Materials arid Documents, 1893-1904), (Moscow, 1934), I, 3-9, 9-17, and 74–97 Google Scholar.

5 Ibid., pp. 55–60.Google Scholar

6 See also her article on “Social Patriotism in Poland,” reprinted by Szmidt, op. cit., pp. 133-134.

7 For the polemics with this point of view see Mazowiecki, L. (Kulczycki, L.), Historia ruchu socjdisty cznego w zaborze rosyjskim (A History of the Socialist Movement in Russian Poland) (Cracow, 1903), pp. 312–323 Google Scholar. Also Gumplowicz, W., Kioestya polska a socjalizm (Polish Question and Socialism) (Warsaw, 1908), passim Google Scholar. Also Krauz-Kelles, K. (Luśnia, M.), Wybór pism polity cznych (Selection of Political Writings) (Cracow, 1907), pp. 111-167 and 242–272 Google Scholar.

8 Mazowiecki, op. cit., pp. 326-327 and 334. O. B. Szmidt in his collection of documents on the Social Democratic movement for the period 1896-1899 gives only a couple of insignificant items, see op. cit., pp. xiv and 163-164.

9 Mazowiecki, op. cit., pp. 338-39; Szmidt, op. cit., pp. 134-165.

10 For the more essential of her writings, see Luxemburg, R., Gesammelte Werke … , ed. Froelich, P. (Zetkin, E. and Warski, A., Berlin, 1922–28), Vols. I-IV Google Scholar.

11 This pamphlet written by Luxemburg in 1895, under the pseudonym Maciej Rózga, became one of the main propaganda publications of the party on the national problem.

12 Neue Zeit, XXI, Vol. II, 1903.

13 Two of these attacks were published in English, by the “Antiparliamentary Communist Federation” of Great Britain, under the title, Leninism or Marxism (Glasgow, 1935).

14 Later on, in 1906, this wing managed to get control of the party and formed the group which was to be called the PPS-Left (PPS-Lewica).

15 As regards the attitude of the Polish Socialists, especially the PPS to the Jewish problem, see also Materialy do historii PPS (Materials for History of the PPS), ed. A. M. (Aleksander Malinowski) (Warsaw, 1907), I (1893-1897), 161-162, 211-219, 221, 290-291, 301-302; also Informator, Stronnictwa polityczne w Królestwie Polskim (Political Parties in Russian Poland) (Cracow, 1904), pp. 72-73; L. Plochocki (L. Wasilewskl), Rosyjskie partie polityczne i ich stosunki do sprawy polskiej (Russian political parties and their attitude toward the Polish problem) (Cracow, 1905), pp. 66-67; L. Wasilewski, Zarys dziejów Polskiej Partii Socjalistycznej . . . (An Outline of History of the PPS) (Warsaw, n.d.), pp. 58-60, 82, 84-85, 106, 110-112, 115, 136-137, 154-155. For the attitude of the SDKPL toward Jews see Szmidt, op. cit., pp. 311-316 and 607.

16 Mazowiecki, op. cit., pp. 347-348. PPS, ed., Księga Pamiątkowa PPS (The Memorial Book of the PPS) (Warsaw, 1923), pp. 177-178.

17 Rafes, M., Očerki po istorii Bunda (Sketches on the History of the Bund) (Moscow, 1925), p. 45Google Scholar; N. A. Bukhbinder, Istorija evreiskogo rabočego dviženija v Rossii (A History of the Jewish Workers’ Movement in Russia) (Leningrad, 1925), p. 87.

18 Bukhbinder, op. cit., p. 95; Rafes, op. cit., pp. 144-145.

19 The material concerning this period of activity of the SDKPL is to be found in the work of Szmidt, O. B. Socjaldemokracja Królesttva Polskiego i Litioy, 1914-1918. Materialy i Dokumenty (Moscow, 1936), passim Google Scholar.