Abstract
The ideological identity of the Marxist political organisation of the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania (SKDPiL) has often been defined primarily by its negative stance on the ‘Polish Question’. Most historians of Polish socialism, regardless of their own political persuasion or ideological bias, argue that the SKDPiL from its inception in 1894 staked out its infamous hard-line position against an independent Poland, a position to which the party remained inflexibly loyal for the duration of its existence. This straight-line approach also assumes that ideological and political leadership of the SKDPiL rested firmly and always in the hands of Rosa Luxemburg and her companion, Leon Jogiches-Tyszka, whose early prescriptions on the Polish Question were accepted as gospel by the entire party, with little or no opposition or deviation.
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Notes
On the SKDPiL the reader may compare M. K. Dziewanowski, The Communist Party of Poland: An Outline of History (Cambridge, Mass:, 1976) 2nd edn
J. P. Nettl, Rosa Luxemburg, 2 vols (London, 1966)
Georg W. Strobel, Die Partei Rosa Luxemburgs, Lenin und die SPD: Der polnische ‘europaische’ Internationalismus in der russischen Sozialdemokratie (Wiesbaden, 1974) with the Marxist interpretations of
Bronisław Radlak, Socjaldemokracja Królestwa Polskiego i Litwy w latach 1893–1904 (Warsaw, 1979)
Walentyna Najdus, SKDPiL a SDPRR, 1893–1907 (Wroclaw, 1973)
Aleksander Kochański, SKDPiL w latach 1907–1910 (Warsaw, 1971). For a ‘revisionist’ interpretation, see
Robert Blobaum, Feliks Dzierżyński and the SKDPiL: A Study of the Origins of Polish Communism (Boulder, Colorado, 1984).
On the Union of Polish Workers, see Feliks Tych, Związek Robotników Polskich, 1889–1892. Anatomia wcześnej organizacji robotniczej (Warsaw, 1974)
Jan Kancewicz, Polska partia socjalistyczna w latach 1892–1896 (Warsaw, 1984) discusses the origins and early history of the PPS.
An analysis of the controversy between the PPS and SDKP on the divisive Polish question in these early years is presented by Ulrich Haustein, Sozialismus und nationale Frage in Polen (Cologne, 1969).
See Rosa Luxemburg, Die industrielle Entwicklung Polens (Leipzig, 1898) as well as her later articles, ‘Kwestia polska na międzynarodowym kongresie w Londynie’, Sprawa Robotnicza (1896) vol. 25, and ‘Der Socjalpatriotismus in Polen’, Die Neue Zeit, vol. 41 (1896) pp. 459–70
Feliks Tych (ed.) Socjaldemokracja Królestwa Polskiego i Litwy: Materialy i dokumenty (SDKPiL) (Warsaw, 1957) vol. I no. 2, pp. 292–3, 297
Walentyna Najdus, ‘Z historii kształtowania się pogladów SDKPiL w kwestii narodowej’, Z Pola Walki (1962) no. 3(19) pp. 7–9.
Vladimir II’ich Lenin, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii (Moscow, 1959) 5th edn, vol. VII, p. 239.
Adolf Warski, ‘SDKPiL wobec II-go zjazdu SDPRR’, Z Pola Walki, (1929) nos. 7–8, pp. 8–50 and ‘Wstęp do materiałów o IV zjeździe SDKPiL i o II zjeździe SDPRR’, ibid, pp. 121–37.
[Julian Marchlewski], ‘Korespondencja polityczna Juliana Marchlewskiego. Cześć I (1893–1907)’, Z Pola Walki (1968) no. 3 (43) p. 187; Tych (ed.) SDKPiL, p. 457.
See Anna Żarnowska, Geneza rosłamu w Polskiej Partii Socjalistycznej, 1904–1906 (Warsaw, 1965).
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© 1992 International Council for Soviet and East European Studies, and John Morison
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Blobaum, R. (1992). The SDKPiL and the Polish Question (Revisited). In: Morison, J. (eds) Eastern Europe and the West. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22299-5_13
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