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Poland The Era of National Insurrections
For several decades, the Polish national movement gave
priority to the immediate restoration of independence, a
drive
that found expression in a series of armed rebellions. The
insurgencies arose mainly in the Russian zone of partition
to the
east, about three-quarters of which was formerly Polish
territory. After the Congress of Vienna, St. Petersburg
had
organized its Polish lands as the Congress Kingdom of
Poland,
granting it a quite liberal constitution, its own army,
and
limited autonomy within the tsarist empire. In the 1820s,
however, Russian rule grew more arbitrary, and secret
societies
were formed by intellectuals in several cities to plot an
overthrow. In November 1830, Polish troops in Warsaw rose
in
revolt. When the government of Congress Poland proclaimed
solidarity with the insurrectionists shortly thereafter, a
new
Polish-Russian war began. The rebels' requests for aid
from
France were ignored, and their reluctance to abolish
serfdom cost
them the support of the peasantry. By September 1831, the
Russians had subdued Polish resistance and forced 6,000
resistance fighters into exile in France, beginning a time
of
harsh repression of intellectual and religious activity
throughout Poland. At the same time, Congress Poland lost
its
constitution and its army.
After the failure of the November Revolt, clandestine
conspiratorial activity continued on Polish territory. An
exiled
Polish political and intellectual elite established a base
of
operations in Paris. A conservative group headed by Adam
Czartoryski (leader of the November Revolt) relied on
foreign
diplomatic support to restore Poland's status as
established by
the Congress of Vienna, which Russia had routinely
violated
beginning in 1819. Otherwise, this group was satisfied
with a
return to monarchy and traditional social structures.
The radical factions never formed a united front on any
issue
besides the general goal of independence. Their programs
insisted
that the Poles liberate themselves by their own efforts
and
linked independence with republicanism and the
emancipation of
the peasants. Handicapped by internal division, limited
resources, heavy surveillance, and persecution of
revolutionary
cells in Poland, the Polish national movement suffered
numerous
losses. The movement sustained a major setback in the 1846
revolt
organized in Austrian Poland by the Polish Democratic
Society,
the leading radical nationalist group. The uprising ended
in a
bloody fiasco when the peasantry took up arms against the
gentry
rebel leadership, which was regarded as potentially a
worse
oppressor than the Austrians. By incurring harsh military
repression from Austria, the failed revolt left the Polish
nationalists in poor position to participate in the wave
of
national revolution that crossed Europe in 1848 and 1849.
The
stubborn idealism of this unprising's leaders emphasized
individual liberty and separate national identity rather
than
establishment of a unified republic--a significant change
of
political philosophy from earlier movements.
The last and most tenacious of the Polish uprisings of
the
mid- nineteenth century erupted in the Russian-occupied
sector in
January 1863. Following Russia's disastrous defeat in the
Crimean
War, the government of Tsar Alexander II enacted a series
of
liberal reforms, including liberation of the serfs
throughout the
empire. High-handed imposition of land reforms in Poland
aroused
hostility among the landed nobles and a group of young
radical
intellectuals influenced by Karl Marx and the Russian
liberal
Alexander Herzen. Repeating the pattern of 1830-31, the
open
revolt of the January Insurrection by Congress Poland
failed to
win foreign backing. Although its socially progressive
program
could not mobilize the peasants, the rebellion persisted
stubbornly for fifteen months. After finally crushing the
insurgency in August 1864, Russia abolished the Congress
Kingdom
of Poland altogether and revoked the separate status of
the
Polish lands, incorporating them directly as the Western
Region
of the Russian Empire. The region was placed under the
dictatorial rule of Mikhail Muravev, who became known as
the
Hangman of Wilno. All Polish citizens were assimilated
into the
empire. When Russia officially emancipated the Polish
serfs in
early 1864, it removed a major rallying point from the
agenda of
potential Polish revolutionaries.
Data as of October 1992
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