Communist Party of Poland

Ground

KRPRP was founded on December 16, 1918 as a result of the unification of the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania (SDKPiL) and the Polish Socialist Party - Lefthanders (PPS - Lefthanders). In March 1919, the representative of the KPRP Joseph Unshlikht participated in the constituent congress of the Communist International , and in July the party officially joined the Comintern. In 1919, KRPP participated in the parliamentary elections, having received 2 seats in the Sejm .

In 1919-1920, fragments of large Jewish organizations flowed into the party: the Polish Bund , Poalei Zion and Vereinigte (Unification), as well as the Belarusian Socialist Party and the Ukrainian Social Democratic Labor Party . In 1920, the left wing of the Polish Socialist Party (PPS) joined the KRDP. Representatives of other leftist and socialist organizations of Poland are constantly pouring into the party ^[1] .

For the support of the RSFSR in the Soviet-Polish war of 1919-1921, the KPRP was banned and acted illegally. The Communist Party opposed the occupation by Poland of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus ^[2] . After the start of the counter-offensive of the Red Army in June 30, 1920, Białystok made up the Temporary Revolutionary Committee of Poland (Polrevkom) from the members of the KPRP and the Polish Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (b). It included: Julian Markhlevsky (chairman), Felix Dzerzhinsky , Edward Pruhnyak , Joseph Unshlikht , Felix Kon , Bernard Sachs, Stanislav Bobinsky, Tadeusz Rydvansky. The authority functioned in territories that were under the control of the Red Army and carried out nationalization of industry, confiscation of large land property and other measures ^[2] .

Democratic period

In the relatively democratic period of 1921-1926, the party continued to operate illegally. By 1923, there were 5,000 members in its ranks ^[3] . The party has influence among trade unions and, under the name of the Union of Urban and Rural Proletariat (Związek Proletariatu Miast i Wsi), participates in the 1922 elections, as a result of which it receives the support of 130,000 voters and 2 seats in the Sejm.

The second congress of the Communist Party, held in Moscow in September - October 1923, revised its attitude to peasant, land and national issues. There is a revision of positions related to the theoretical legacy of Rosa Luxemburg , which seriously determined the political line of the party. This legacy was characterized by three main points: the rejection of the Leninist slogan of "national self-determination"; rejection of the Leninist tactical slogan "land to the peasants"; rejection of the dictatorship of the proletariat as a means of terror. First of all, the issue of national self-determination was important for the Polish Communist Party. Even after the signing of the Riga Peace Treaty of 1921, she did not agree to recognize the independent Polish Republic and its borders, approved according to this treaty ^[1] .

In 1923, as the autonomous organizations, the Communist Party of Western Belarus and the Communist Party of Western Ukraine joined the KRPE. Adolf Varsky , Henrik Walecki and Vera Kostsheva are elected at a congress in the Politburo of the Central Committee of the KRpp .

Within the party there were different opinions, not only in relation to Trotsky’s opposition, but also to Brandler’s opposition within the Communist Party of Germany . In December 1923, the Politburo of the KRPRP sent a letter to the Central Committee of the CPSU (B.) In defense of Trotsky. The letter, in particular, said:

“... for our party, for the entire International, for the entire world revolutionary proletariat, the name of Comrade Trotsky is inextricably linked with the victorious October Revolution, with the Red Army, with communism and the world revolution” ^[1] .

At the beginning of 1925, in Minsk, under the slogan of "Bolshevization of the party," the third congress of the KRPRP was held. Stalin’s supporter Julian Lensky (Leshchinsky) begins to advance to the first place in the party. At the congress, the party was renamed the Communist Party of Poland.

Remediation

In May 1926, in a situation of economic crisis and rising unemployment, Jozef Pilsudski makes a coup. The leadership of the Communist Party, led by Varsky, supports the coup, considering it the path to a "revolutionary democratic dictatorship" ^[4] . In Warsaw, PPC members are involved in street clashes with supporters of the Vincent Vitos government, which they consider to be fascist. On May 13, together with the Polish Socialist Party, they organize a general strike. However, soon the Comintern recognized the actions of the leadership of the Polish Communist Party as erroneous.

The discussion of the “May mistake” and the 1926 coup itself took place at the fourth congress of the checkpoint, which was held in Moscow - May-August 1927. There is a split into a majority ("right") and a minority ("left"). Supporters of Lensky (the "left faction") claimed that the coup was fascist, while the "right" - Varsky, Kostshev and others - considered it the beginning of a military dictatorship that tended to fascism. The struggle between the two factions lasted until the end of the 1920s.

In the 1920s and 1930s, the checkpoint agitated workers and peasants to fight the “reorganization regime”, organized numerous strikes and combat actions (general strikes of the Lodz textile workers in 1928, 1933, 1936 and other years) ^[5] . Despite pressure and repression, the Communist Party manages to maintain its representation in the Sejm until the 1935 election ^[6] .

In the 1930s, the PPC had approximately 20,000 members. Many communists were imprisoned: 3,775 people were arrested in 1930, 3,507 people in 1931, and 6,982 in 1932. On the initiative of the Communist Party in Poland, a wide network of legal left-wing newspapers was created (over 300 titles). The central organ of the party was the illegal newspaper Czerwony Sztandar (Red Banner) and the magazine Nowy Przegląd (New Review) ^[5]

Spanish Civil War

Members of the PPC took part in the Spanish Civil War . Polish communists fought as part of the Dombrowski inter-brigade .

Comintern Line

The end of the 1920s - the beginning of the 1930s is marked by the so-called. "Third period" of the Comintern ^[7] . In the context of this tactic, the fifth congress of the Polish Communist Party was held in 1930, at which the PPS was characterized as a fascist party and the imminent onset of the revolution was announced. However, by the mid-1930s, tactics were changing. In 1935-1937, according to the decisions of the Seventh Congress of the Comintern, the CPT advocated the unification of the actions of communists, socialists and other forces in a common struggle against fascism ^[5] .

The factional struggle in the party began to fade in 1928-1933. Leaders of the "right" were pushed back from leading posts. In 1929, Julian Lensky became general secretary of the Communist Party. By the end of the 1930s, repression already affected Lensky and his supporters. The leading figures of the checkpoint were shot in the Soviet Union: Adolf Varsky, Joseph Unshlikht, Edward Pruhniak, Vera Kostsheva, Henryk Walecki, Julian Lensky and many other Polish communists, such as the writer Bruno Jasensky . Together with the CPT, its components were defeated: the Communist Party of Western Ukraine and the Communist Party of Western Belarus .

On August 16, 1938, the Executive Committee of the Comintern declared the Polish Communist Party “wrecking” and voted for its dissolution ^[8] . After the dissolution of the checkpoint, the Polish Communists continued to operate in trade unions and other public organizations. In January 1942, former members of the CPT, led by Marceliy Novotko , Pavel Finder , Malgozhata Fornalskaya , Boleslav Moloyets and others, initiated the creation of the Polish Workers' Party . In 1956, the CPSU , the Communist Party of Italy , the Communist Party of Bulgaria , the Communist Party of Finland and the Polish United Workers Party in a joint statement declared the dissolution of the checkpoint in 1938 unreasonable ^[5] .

• Communist Party of Poland (1965)
• Communist Party of Poland (2002)
• Polish Workers Party
• Isaac Deutscher

• KPP w obronie niepodległości Polski. Warszawa, 1952

• Trotsky L. D. Greetings to the Polish Left Opposition (1932)
• Speech by CPR representative Jan Belevsky at the 17th Congress of the CPSU (B.) (February 2, 1934)
• The appeal of the Polish Bolshevik-Leninists (1938)
• Checkpoint History Site (Polish)