Central National Committee (Polish: Komitet Centralny Narodowy (KCN)) was the underground coordinating committee of the Polish independence movement in 1860s Congress Poland which was responsible for preparing a general uprising against Tsarist rule in order to reestablish Polish independence, lost after the Partitions of Poland. It represented the "Red", left wing, faction in the independence movement, which emphasized an end to serfdom without compensation to landlords as a necessary component of the Polish national struggle, as opposed to the "White" faction which advocated more moderate social reforms, while also supporting Polish independence.
The committee was organized in June 1862, in Warsaw. After establishing underground cells, levying a national tax to fund the upcoming insurrection and appointing a Polish police, it issued a manifesto for the beginning of what became the January Uprising against the Russian Empire. Thereafter it transformed itself into the Provisional National Government/Polish National Government of Poland (on January 22, 1863).
Its main leaders included Stefan Bobrowski, Jarosław Dąbrowski, Zygmunt Padlewski, Agaton Giller, and Bronisław Szwarce. The official publication of the committee was the newspaper "Ruch".
The Home Army was the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during World War II. The Home Army was formed in February 1942 from the earlier Związek Walki Zbrojnej established in the aftermath of the German and Soviet invasions in September 1939. Over the next two years, the Home Army absorbed most of the other Polish partisans and underground forces. Its allegiance was to the Polish government-in-exile in London, and it constituted the armed wing of what came to be known as the Polish Underground State. Estimates of the Home Army's 1944 strength range between 200,000 and 600,000. The latter number made the Home Army not only Poland's largest underground resistance movement but, along with Soviet and Yugoslav partisans, one of Europe's largest World War II underground movements.
From 1795 to 1918, Poland was split between Prussia, the Habsburg monarchy, and Russia and had no independent existence. In 1795 the third and the last of the three 18th-century partitions of Poland ended the existence of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Nevertheless, events both within and outside the Polish lands kept hopes for restoration of Polish independence alive throughout the 19th century. Poland's geopolitical location on the Northern European Lowlands became especially important in a period when its expansionist neighbors, the Kingdom of Prussia and Imperial Russia, involved themselves intensely in European rivalries and alliances as modern nation-states took form over the entire continent.
The January Uprising was an insurrection principally in Russia's Kingdom of Poland that was aimed at the restoration of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. It began on 22 January 1863 and continued until the last insurgents were captured by the Russian forces in 1864.
The Polish Workers' Party was a communist party in Poland from 1942 to 1948. It was founded as a reconstitution of the Communist Party of Poland (KPP) and merged with the Polish Socialist Party (PPS) in 1948 to form the Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR). From the end of World War II the PPR ruled Poland, with the Soviet Union exercising moderate influence. During the PPR years, the conspiratorial as well as legally permitted centers of opposition activity were largely eliminated, while a communist system was gradually established in the country.
The Polish Scouting and Guiding Association is the coeducational Polish Scouting organization recognized by the World Organization of the Scout Movement and the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts. It was founded in 1918 and currently is the largest Scouting organization in Poland. The first ZHP was founded in 1916, the current one is the fourth organization with this name. It is a public benefit organization as defined by Polish law.
The Polish Underground State was a single political and military entity formed by the union of resistance organizations in occupied Poland that were loyal to the Government of the Republic of Poland in exile in London. The first elements of the Underground State were established in the final days of the German and Soviet invasion of Poland, in late September 1939. The Underground State was perceived by supporters as a legal continuation of the pre-war Republic of Poland that waged an armed struggle against the country's occupying powers: Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. The Underground State encompassed not only military resistance, one of the largest in the world, but also civilian structures, such as justice, education, culture and social services.
Rada Jedności Narodowej was the quasi-parliament of the Polish Underground State during World War II. It was created by the Government Delegate on 9 January 1944.
The Greater Poland uprising of 1848 or Poznań Uprising was an unsuccessful military insurrection of Poles against forces of the Kingdom of Prussia, during the Revolutions of 1848. The main fighting in the Prussian Partition of Poland was concentrated in the Greater Poland region but some fighting also occurred in Pomerelia. In addition, protests were also held in Polish inhabited regions of Silesia.
Tomasz Stefan Arciszewski was a Polish socialist politician, a member of the Polish Socialist Party and the 31st Prime Minister of Poland, 3rd Prime Minister of the Polish government-in-exile in London from 1944 to 1947 during which the government lost the recognition of the Western powers.
The Polish resistance movement in World War II, with the Polish Home Army at its forefront covered both German and Soviet zones of occupation. The Polish resistance is notable among others for disrupting German supply lines to the Eastern Front, and providing intelligence reports to the British intelligence agencies. It was a part of the Polish Underground State.
There were many resistance movements in partitioned Poland between 1795 and 1918. Although some of the szlachta was reconciled to the end of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1795, the possibility of Polish independence was kept alive by events within and without Poland throughout the 19th century. Poland's location on the North European Plain became especially significant in a period when its neighbours, the Kingdom of Prussia and Russia were intensely involved in European rivalries and alliances and modern nation states took form over the entire continent.
During World War II, Lithuania was occupied by the Soviet Union (1940–1941), Nazi Germany (1941–1944), and the Soviet Union again in 1944. Resistance during this period took many forms. Significant parts of the resistance were formed by Polish and Soviet forces, some of which fought with Lithuanian collaborators. This article presents a summary of the organizations, persons and actions involved. Lithuania was de facto independent from June 24, 1941, until June 30, 1941, when Nazi Germany took full control of the area.
Agaton Giller was a Polish historian, journalist and politician. He and his brother Stefan Giller played notable roles in the Polish independence movement and in the January 1863 Uprising.
Jan Kwapiński, born Piotr Chałupka was a Polish independence activist and politician. A member of Combat Organization of the Polish Socialist Party, he was imprisoned by Russian Empire authorities in Warsaw Citadel. After Poland regained independence following the First World War, he became a member of Polish parliament (Sejm) after being elected in 1922 Polish legislative election. He then went on to serve as mayor of Łódź (1939). After being Soviet invasion of Poland arrested by the NKVD, then freed after the Sikorski-Mayski Agreement, he joined the London-based Polish government-in-exile as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Industry, Trade and Shipping, later Minister of Treasury.
Bonawentura Niemojowski was a Polish lawyer, writer and politician. He was one of the leaders of Polish National Government during the November Uprising.
Kazimierz Pużak (1883–1950) was a Polish politician of the interwar period. Active in the Polish Socialist Party, he was one of the leaders of the Polish Secret State and Polish resistance, sentenced by the Soviets in the infamous Trial of the Sixteen in 1945.
The National Radical Camp refers to at least three groups that are fascist, far-right, and ultranationalist Polish organisations with doctrines stemming from pre-World War II nationalist ideology.
A major part of the Russian Revolution of 1905 took place in the Russian Partition of Poland and lasted until 1907. It was the largest wave of strikes and widest emancipatory movement that Poland had ever seen until the 1970s and the 1980s. One of the major events of that period was the insurrection in Łódź in June 1905. Throughout that period, many smaller demonstrations and armed struggles between the peasants and workers on one side and the government on the other took place. The demands of the demonstrators included the improvement of the workers' living conditions, as well as political freedoms, particularly related to increased autonomy for Poland. Particularly in 1905, Poland was at the verge of a new uprising, revolution or civil war. Some Polish historians even consider the events of that period a fourth Polish uprising against the Russian Empire.
The anti-communist resistance in Poland, also referred to as the Polish anti-communist insurrection fought between 1944 and 1953, was an anti communist and anti-soviet armed struggle by the Polish Underground against the Soviet domination of Poland by the People's Republic of Poland puppet regime, since the end of World War II in Europe. The guerrilla warfare conducted by the resistance movement formed during the war, included an array of military attacks launched against communist prisons, state security offices, detention facilities for political prisoners, and prison camps set up across the country by the Stalinist authorities.
The Polish People's Party existed in post-World War II Poland from 1945 to 1949. In a period of increasing solidification of communist power in Poland but with the political system retaining some formal adherence to multiparty democracy principles, the PSL was a broadly left-wing non-communist party that was not allied with the communists. The PSL was defeated by the communist-based bloc in the rigged legislative elections of 1947.