Drawing of the 1905 revolution from a 1908 issue of RobotnikPoznań protests of 1956, workers hold a sign saying: "We demand bread!"
The 1905 Revolution
Workers' councils emerged as a form of direct working class self-organisation on lands of the Russian Empire, including Latvia and Congress Poland, during the 1905 Russian Revolution (as well as its Polish element). In 1905, 93.2% of Congress Poland's industrial workers went on strike.[2] The first phase of the revolution consisted primarily of mass strikes, rallies, demonstrations – later this evolved into street skirmishes with the police and army as well as bomb assassinations and robberies of transports carrying money to tsarist financial institutions.[3] Congress Poland was one of the centres of revolutionary activity during this period.[4][5]
1918–1919
In this period, most of the councils were formed in east-central Poland.[6] Due to significant disputes over the political and economic future of the newly independent Poland, the councils failed to create an executive committee. Nevertheless, over 100 workers' councils operated in Poland in the years 1918–1919, assembling around 500,000 workers and peasants.[1] The most numerous and radical councils were located in Kraśnik, Lublin, Płock, Warsaw, Zamość, and Zagłębie Dąbrowskie; some set up their own military self-defence units, the Red Guards.[1] A short-lived Republic of Tarnobrzeg was proclaimed on 6 November 1918.
The councils were dismantled around July 1919, following the withdrawal of the Polish Socialist Party (which dominated the councils), and suppression by the Polish government, which saw the councils as a barrier to the formation of a Polish state.[7]
^Tych, Feliks (2018). "Przedmowa". In Wielgosz, Przemysław (ed.). O rewolucji: 1905, 1917. Instytut Wydawniczy „Książka i Prasa”. pp. 7–29. ISBN9788365304599.
^Luksemburg, Róża (2018). Wielgosz, Przemysław (ed.). O rewolucji: 1905, 1917. Instytut Wydawniczy „Książka i Prasa”. ISBN9788365304599.
