Central National Committee (Polish: ''Komitet Centralny Narodowy (KCN)'') was the underground coordinating committee of the

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken *Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...

independence movement in 1860s

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. It ...

which was responsible for preparing a general uprising against

Tsarist Tsarist autocracy (russian: царское самодержавие, transcr. ''tsarskoye samoderzhaviye''), also called Tsarism, was a form of autocracy (later absolute monarchy) specific to the Grand Duchy of Moscow and its successor states th ...

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 Serfdom was the status of many peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to manorialism, and similar systems. It was a condition of debt bondage and indentured servitude with similarities to and differences from slavery, which develo ...

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 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 official ...

. After establishing underground cells, levying a national

tax A tax is a compulsory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed on a taxpayer (an individual or legal entity) by a governmental organization in order to fund government spending and various public expenditures (regional, local, or n ...

to fund the upcoming insurrection and appointing a Polish police, it issued a manifesto for the beginning of what became the

January Uprising The January Uprising ( pl, powstanie styczniowe; lt, 1863 metų sukilimas; ua, Січневе повстання; russian: Польское восстание; ) was an insurrection principally in Russia's Kingdom of Poland that was aimed at ...

against the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the List of Russian monarchs, 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 th ...

. Thereafter it transformed itself into the Provisional National Government/Polish National Government of Poland (on January 22, 1863). Its main leaders included

Stefan Bobrowski Stefan Bobrowski (17 January 1840Sometimes given as 1841. – 12 April 1863) was a Polish politician and activist for Polish independence. He participated in the January 1863 Uprising as one of the leaders of its " Red" faction and as a member o ...

Jarosław Dąbrowski Jarosław Żądło-Dąbrowski (; 13 November 1836 – 23 May 1871), also known as Jaroslav Dombrowski, was a Polish nobleman and military officer in the Imperial Russian Army, a left-wing independence activist and radical republican for Polan ...

, Zygmunt Padlewski,

Agaton Giller Agaton Giller (Opatówek, Congress Poland, Russian Empire, 1831 – 1887, Stanisławów, Austro-Hungary) was a Polish historian, journalist and politician. He and his brother Stefan Giller played notable roles in the Polish independence movement ...

, and

Bronisław Szwarce Bronisław Antoni Szwarce (October 7, 1834 The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979)–February 18, 1904) was a Polish engineer and political activist. Born in France to Polish immigrants and educated there. He graduated from the ...

. The official publication of the committee was the newspaper ''"Ruch"''.

References

Organizations established in 1862 January Uprising 1862 establishments in the Russian Empire {{Poland-stub