Central National Committee (Polish: ''Komitet Centralny Narodowy (KCN)'') was the underground coordinating committee of the Polish independence movement in 1860s

Congress Poland Congress Poland or Congress Kingdom of 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 was established w ...

which was responsible for preparing a general uprising against

Tsarist Tsarist autocracy (), also called Tsarism, was an autocracy, a form of absolute monarchy in the Grand Duchy of Moscow and its successor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire. In it, the Tsar possessed in principle authority and ...

rule in order to reestablish Polish independence, lost after the

Partitions of Poland The Partitions of Poland were three partition (politics), partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that took place between 1772 and 1795, toward the end of the 18th century. They ended the existence of the state, resulting in the eli ...

. It represented the

Red Red is the color at the long wavelength end of the visible spectrum of light, next to orange and opposite violet. It has a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–750 nanometres. It is a primary color in the RGB color model and a seconda ...

, 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. It developed du ...

without compensation to landlords as a necessary component of the Polish national struggle, as opposed to the

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

faction which advocated more moderate social reforms, while also supporting Polish independence. The committee was organized in June 1862, in

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

. After establishing underground cells, levying a national

tax A tax is a mandatory financial charge or levy imposed on an individual or legal entity by a governmental organization to support government spending and public expenditures collectively or to regulate and reduce negative externalities. Tax co ...

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 was an insurrection principally in Russia's Kingdom of Poland that was aimed at putting an end to Russian occupation of part of Poland and regaining independence. It began on 22 January 1863 and continued until the last i ...

against the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

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

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

, Zygmunt Padlewski, Agaton Giller, and Bronisław Szwarce. The official publication of the committee was the newspaper .

References

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