Workers' Councils in Poland ( pl, rady robotnicze w Polsce) or councils of workers' delegates ( pl, rady delegatów robotniczych) were representative organs of workers and peasants, set up at various times in Poland throughout the 20th century, but in greatest numbers towards the end of the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

on Polish territories.

History

The 1905 Revolution

Workers' councils emerged as a form of direct working class self-organisation lands of the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War ...

Latvia Latvia ( or ; lv, Latvija ; ltg, Latveja; liv, Leţmō), officially the Republic of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas Republika, links=no, ltg, Latvejas Republika, links=no, liv, Leţmō Vabāmō, links=no), is a country in the Baltic region of ...

and

Congress Poland Congress Poland, Congress Kingdom of Poland, or Russian Poland, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland, was a polity created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna as a semi-autonomous Polish state, a successor to Napoleon's Duchy of Warsaw. I ...

, during the

1905 Russian Revolution The Russian Revolution of 1905,. also known as the First Russian Revolution,. occurred on 22 January 1905, and was a wave of mass political and social unrest that spread through vast areas of the Russian Empire. The mass unrest was directed again ...

(as well as its Polish element). In 1905, 93.2% of

's industrial workers went on strike. 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.REWOLUCJA 1905-07 NA ZIEMIACH POLSKICH
Encyklopedia Interia, retrieved on 8 April 2008 Congress Poland was one of the centres of revolutionary activity during this period.

1918–1919

In this period, most of the councils were formed in east-central Poland. 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. The most numerous and radical councils were located in

Kraśnik Kraśnik is a town in southeastern Poland with 35,602 inhabitants (2012), situated in the Lublin Voivodeship, historic Lesser Poland. It is the seat of Kraśnik County. The town of Kraśnik as it is known today was created in 1975, after the mer ...

Lublin Lublin is the ninth-largest city in Poland and the second-largest city of historical Lesser Poland. It is the capital and the center of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 336,339 (December 2021). Lublin is the largest Polish city east of ...

Płock Płock (pronounced ) is a city in central Poland, on the Vistula river, in the Masovian Voivodeship. According to the data provided by GUS on 31 December 2021, there were 116,962 inhabitants in the city. Its full ceremonial name, according to th ...

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officiall ...

Zamość Zamość (; yi, זאמאשטש, Zamoshtsh; la, Zamoscia) is a historical city in southeastern Poland. It is situated in the southern part of Lublin Voivodeship, about from Lublin, from Warsaw. In 2021, the population of Zamość was 62,021. ...

, and

Zagłębie Dąbrowskie Zagłębie in Polish means coalfield. It can refer to: * Górnośląskie Zagłębie Węglowe, a mining region * Zagłębie Dąbrowskie, a mining region *Zagłębie Sosnowiec, an association football club *Zagłębie Lubin Zagłębie Lubin S.A. ...

; some set up their own military self-defence units, the

Red Guards Red Guards () were a mass student-led paramilitary social movement mobilized and guided by Chairman Mao Zedong in 1966 through 1967, during the first phase of the Cultural Revolution, which he had instituted.Teiwes According to a Red Guard lead ...

. A short-lived

Republic of Tarnobrzeg The Republic of Tarnobrzeg ( pl, Republika Tarnobrzeska, ) was a short-lived political entity, proclaimed on 6 November 1918 in the Polish town of Tarnobrzeg. Its main founders were two socialist activists Tomasz Dąbal and the Roman Catholic pr ...

was proclaimed on 6 November 1918. The main organisations behind the initiative were the

Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania The Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania ( pl, Socjaldemokracja Królestwa Polskiego i Litwy, SDKPiL), , LKLSD), originally the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland (SDKP), was a Marxist political party founded in 1893 an ...

and the Polish Socialist Party – Left, which soon merged to form the Communist Workers Party of Poland. Other workers' organisations and parties competed for influence within the councils as well, including the

Polish Socialist Party The Polish Socialist Party ( pl, Polska Partia Socjalistyczna, PPS) is a socialist political party in Poland. It was one of the most important parties in Poland from its inception in 1892 until its merger with the communist Polish Workers' ...

, the Bund in Poland and the National Workers' Union. The councils were dismantled around July 1919, following the withdrawal of the Polish Socialist Party (which in many cases had a council majority), and suppression by the Polish government, which saw the councils as a barrier to the formation of a Polish state.

After World War II

Apart from the 1905–1907 and 1918–1919 periods, workers' councils in Poland had also been set up in 1944–1947 in the aftermath of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

and in the

Polish People's Republic The Polish People's Republic ( pl, Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa, PRL) was a country in Central Europe that existed from 1947 to 1989 as the predecessor of the modern Republic of Poland. With a population of approximately 37.9 million ne ...

during the Poznań protests and

Polish October Polish October (), also known as October 1956, Polish thaw, or Gomułka's thaw, marked a change in the politics of Poland in the second half of 1956. Some social scientists term it the Polish October Revolution, which was less dramatic than the ...

of 1956. Strike committees and councils appeared during the strikes of 1980–1981 as well.

References

{{Reflist Aftermath of World War I in Poland Defunct socialist parties History of socialism Russian Revolution Second Polish Republic Socialism in Poland

History

The 1905 Revolution

1918–1919

After World War II

See also

References