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Special pages :
For Poland (1875)
| Author(s) | Frederick Engels Karl Marx |
|---|---|
| Written | 24 March 1875 |
Printed according to the newspaper
Published in English for the first time
Source: Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 22
This article reproduces Marx's and Engels' speeches at the meeting of January 23, 1875 in London organised by the Polish People society (see Note 4) to mark the 12th anniversary of the Polish uprising of 1863-64. It was written by Engels for Der Volksstaat and printed in it on March 24, 1875. The meeting was chaired by Walery Wrôblewski. Speaking at it were members of the more advanced section of the revolutionary-democratic refugees from Poland, Russia, Germany, France and some other countries. Among them were members of the Paris Commune Leo Frankel and Prosper Olivier Lissagaray. A report of the meeting, including the text of Marx's and Engels' speeches, was carried by the Polish magazine Wici (Zurich) on January 30, 1875, the Russian newspaper Vperyod! (Forward!) (February 15), and other periodicals.
This year, too, a memorial celebration was held in London to commemorate the Polish uprising of January 22, 1863. Large numbers of our German party comrades took part in the celebration; several of them made speeches, among whom were Engels and Marx.
“There has been talk here,” said Engels, “about the reasons for the revolutionaries of all countries to sympathise with Poland’s cause and intervene on its behalf. Only one thing has been forgotten to mention, namely this: that the political situation in which Poland has been placed is a thoroughly revolutionary one, leaving Poland with no other choice than to be revolutionary or to perish. This was already evident after the first partition, which was brought about by the efforts of the Polish nobility to maintain a constitution and privileges which had lost their right to existence and were harming the country and public order instead of preserving peace and securing progress.[1] Already after the first partition a section of the nobility acknowledged the mistake and came to the conviction that Poland could only be restored by revolution;—and ten years later we saw Poles fighting for liberty in America.[2] The French Revolution of 1789 found an immediate echo in Poland. The Constitution of 1791[3] with the rights of man became the banner of revolution on the banks of the Vistula and turned Poland into the vanguard of revolutionary France, and that at the very moment when the three powers which had already despoiled Poland once were uniting in order to march to Paris and strangle the revolution.[4] Could they stand back and allow revolution to gain a foothold in the centre of the coalition? Unthinkable. Again they hurled themselves on Poland, this time with the intention of completely depriving it of its national existence. The unfolding of the revolutionary banner was one of the chief reasons for the subjugation of Poland. The country that has been dismembered and struck off the list of nations because it was revolutionary can seek its salvation nowhere else but in revolution. And for this reason we find Poles in all revolutionary struggles. Poland realised this in 1863, and during the uprising whose anniversary we are celebrating today published the most radical revolutionary programme[5] that has ever been drawn up in Eastern Europe. It would be ridiculous should one consider the Polish revolutionaries to be aristocrats wishing to reconstruct the aristocratic Poland of 1772, just because there exists a Polish aristocratic party. The Poland of 1772 is lost and gone forever. No power will be capable of raising it out of the grave. The new Poland, which the revolution will put on its feet, is as fundamentally different socially and politically from the Poland of 1772 as the new society towards which we are hastening is fundamentally different from present-day society.
“One more word. No one can enslave a people with impunity. The three powers that murdered Poland have been severely punished. Look at my own country: Prussia-Germany. Under the signboard of national unification we brought upon us the Poles, the Danes and the French—and have a threefold Venice[6]; we have enemies everywhere, we have encumbered ourselves with debts and taxes in order to maintain countless masses of soldiers who must also serve to suppress the German workers. Austria, even official Austria, knows full well how dearly that little bit of Poland has cost her. At the time of the Crimean War, Austria was prepared to go to war against Russia provided that Russian Poland was occupied and liberated. However, that did not agree with Louis Napoleon’s plans, and still less with Palmerston’s. And as far as Russia is concerned, we see: in 1861 the first major movement broke out among the students, all the more dangerous since the people were everywhere in a state of great agitation as a result of the emancipation of the serfs; and what did the Russian government do, well realising the danger?—It provoked the uprising of 1863 in Poland[7]; for it has been proved that this uprising was its work. The movement amongst the students, the profound agitation of the people vanished at once, giving way to Russian chauvinism, which descended on Poland once it was a question of maintaining Russian rule there. Thus perished the first significant movement in Russia as a result of the calamitous struggle against Poland. The restoration of Poland is indeed in the interest of revolutionary Russia, and I hear tonight with pleasure that this opinion agrees with the convictions of the Russian revolutionaries” (who had expressed this view at the meeting[8]).
Marx said roughly this: The Working Men’s Party of Europe takes the keenest interest in the emancipation of Poland, and the original programme of the International Working Men’s Association declares the restoration of Poland to be one of the goals of working-class politics.[9] What are the reasons for this special interest of the Working Men’s Party in the fate of Poland?
Firstly, of course, sympathy for a subjugated people, which by continuous heroic struggle against its oppressors has proved its historic right to national independence and self-determination. It is by no means a contradiction that the international Working Men’s Party should strive for the restoration of the Polish nation. On the contrary: only when Poland has re-conquered its independence, when it once again exercises control over itself as a free people, only then can its internal development recommence and will it be able to take part in its own right in the social transformation of Europe. As long as a viable people is fettered by a foreign conqueror, it must necessarily apply all its strength, all its efforts, all its energy against the enemy from without; for this length of time, then, its inner life remains paralysed, it remains unable to work for social emancipation. Ireland, Russia under Mongolian rule, etc., provide striking proof of this thesis.
Another reason for the sympathy of the Working Men’s Party for the resurrection of Poland is its special geographical, military and historical position. The partition of Poland is the mortar binding together the three great military despotisms: Russia, Prussia and Austria. Only the reconstitution of Poland can break this bond and thus remove the greatest obstacle to the social emancipation of the peoples of Europe.
The main reason for the sympathy of the working class towards Poland is, however, this: Poland is not merely the only Slavic tribe, it is the only European people that has fought and is fighting as the cosmopolitan soldier of the revolution. Poland shed its blood during the American War of Independence; its legions fought under the banner of the first French Republic; by its revolution of 1830 it prevented the invasion of France that had been decided by the partitioners of Poland; in 1846 in Cracow it was the first in Europe to plant the banner of social revolution; in 1848 it played an outstanding part in the revolutionary struggle in Hungary, Germany and Italy; finally, in 1871 it supplied the Paris Commune with its best generals and most heroic soldiers.
In the brief moments when the popular masses of Europe were able to move freely, they remembered what they owe to Poland. After the victorious March Revolution in Berlin in 1848, the first deed of the people was to release the Polish prisoners, Mieroslawski and his comrades-in-suffering, and proclaim the restoration of Poland[10]; in Paris, in May 1848, Blanqui marched at the head of the workers against the reactionary National Assembly in order to force it to accept armed intervention for Poland[11]; finally, in 1871, when the Parisian workers had constituted themselves as the government, they honoured Poland by entrusting its sons with the military leadership of their forces.
Neither at the present moment does the German Working Men’s Party allow itself to be the least misled by the reactionary conduct of the Polish deputies in the German Reichstag; it knows that these gentlemen are not acting on behalf of Poland but of their own private interests; it knows that the Polish peasant, the Polish worker, in short, every Pole who is not blinded by class interests, must realise that Poland has and can only have one ally in Europe—the Working Men’s Party.[12] — Long Live Poland!
- ↑ Engels is referring to the system of constitutional principles of Rzecz Pospolita introduced after the formation of this state in 1569, Rzech Pospolita was a limited monarchy headed by an elective Diet, the king and the Polish nobility enjoying unlimited rights. The most odious principle was that of liberum veto, the right of any member of the Diet to ban any of its decisions, which by the 18th century resulted in extreme political anarchy and social and economic crisis. On the first partition of Poland, see Note 9.
- ↑ The reference is to the participation in the American War of Independence (1775-83) of Tadeusz Kosciuszko and Kazimierz Pulaski, who were promoted to brigadier general for their service.
- ↑ It is the first French Constitution, passed on September 3, 1791 by the National Convention. It was based on the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen adopted by the French Constituent Assembly on August 26, 1789, during the French Revolution. It proclaimed the main principles of the revolution: sovereignty of the people and the natural rights of man, the right to freedom, property, security and resistance to oppression.
- ↑ The reference is to the military alliance concluded on February 7, 1792 by Austria and Prussia, supported by Russia,against the revolutionary France. On September 20, 1792, in the battle of Valmy, the French revolutionary army defeated the forces of the Austro-Prussian coalition.
- ↑ Centralny Narodowy Komitet jako tymczasowy Rzqd Narodowy. Dan w Warszawie 22 Stycznia 1863.— Ed.
- ↑ The Italian region Venice, part of the Austrian Empire in 1797-1805 and 1814-66, was a centre of the Italian national liberation movement against Austrian oppression. By “a threefold Venice” Engels implies the territories acquired by Prussia as a result of the three partitions of Poland (see notes 9 and 11) and the Vienna Treaty of 1815, as well as Schleswig-Holstein annexed by Prussia as a result of the Danish war of 1864 and Alsace-Lorraine annexed in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71.
- ↑ See Note 14
- ↑ As is clear from the report in Vperyod! (Forward!), No. 3, February 15 (3), 1875, "The Anniversary of the Polish Uprising of 1863 in London", the secretary of the newspaper's editorial board, Valerian Smirnov, spoke at the meeting of January 23, 1875 (see Note 71). Stressing the identity of interests of the Russian and the Polish workers, he declared, on behalf of the Russian revolutionaries, that each of them was ready, "when the time of the Polish people's revolution would arrive", to join the ranks of the Poles in order to gain "social freedom for the Polish people". Also speaking at the meeting was another Russian refugee, Dmitry Solovyov, who warned against the possible compromise between the szlachta liberal party and the Tsarist government.
- ↑ K. Marx, "Inaugural Address of the Working Men's International Association" (see present edition, Vol. 20, p. 13).— Ed.
- ↑ The reference is to the amnesty of the Polish patriots kept prisoners in Prussia for an attempted uprising in Posen in 1846. The amnesty was declared by Frederick William IV in March 1848 under pressure of public opinion,
- ↑ On May 15, 1848, Paris workers led by Blanqui, Barbes and others took revolutionary action against the anti-labour and anti-democratic policy of the bourgeois Constituent Assembly, which opened on May 4. The demonstrators forced their way into the assembly premises, demanded the formation of a Ministry of Labour and presented a number of other demands, e.g., that assistance be rendered to the insurgent Poles in Posen. An attempt was made to form a revolutionary government. National Guards from the bourgeois quarters and the regular troops succeeded, however, in restoring the power of the Constituent Assembly. The leaders of the movement were arrested and put on trial.
- ↑ In the report on this meeting carried by Vperyod! (Forward!), No. 3, February 15 (3), 1875—"The Anniversary of the Polish Uprising of 1863 in London"— the following sentence was added: "It is therefore necessary to popularise the principles of the International Association among the Polish people." This sentence, which was not included in the reports printed by the Polish periodicals (see Note 71) or in Engels' text for Der Volksstaat, was written in by Valerian Smirnov, who prepared the report for Vperyod! and insisted that he had heard it from Marx himself. In a letter to Marx of February 15, 1875, Smirnov asked him to confirm this fact. Marx's reply has not been found.