THE RISE OF THE COMMON PEOPLE 147agricultural labourers in the countryside. The communists, despite two decades
of tireless effort, made little headway until they forcibly reorganized the Trade
Unions on 'vertical' authoritarian lines after 1945.^13
The parties which sought to champion the proletarian cause by more con-
sciously political means were reft by the same divisions which beset Trade
Unionism. The Polish Socialist Party (PPS) happened to be formed in 1892 at a
moment when the revival of the national issue commanded more immediate
interest than hopes for a classless 'society. As a result it was forced to compete
for the attention of the new working class with less obviously proletarian orga-
nizations. In particular, it came into conflict with Dmowski's National
Democracy, and with Dmowski's wayward child, the National Workers' Union
(NZR), which from 1908 onwards acted quite independently. In the process, it
was subjected to endless splits and schisms. The main schism of 1906 which pro-
pelled the PPS-Lewica (Left) on its road towards the anti-nationalist communist
camp, and the PPS-Rewolucja (Revolution) on the road to its obsession with
national independence, was never healed. Directing its attentions to Russian
Poland, the PPS enjoyed little influence during the formative years over the
Polish Social Democratic Party (PPSD) in Galicia, or over the tiny PPS of the
Prussian Partition, with which in April 1919 it was eventually merged. Its rivalry
with the communists, whose theoretical programme threatened to seduce its
intellectuals, and whose tampering at the grass roots threatened to disrupt its
mass organizations, rumbled on throughout the inter-war period. (See Chapter
zz.) Its ambiguous relationship with Pilsudski, who had been one of its most
militant activists, and with Piludski's Legions, caused endless complications. Its
brief brush with power in the Moraczewski Government of 1918-19, was not
repeated; and its experiments in opposition, with the peasants in the 'Centre-
Left' block of 19Z9-30 and in the Popular Front with the communists in 1935-6,
knew little success. None the less, whether in Sejm or Senate, in the Trade
Unions or in youth organizations such as the 'Red Boy Scouts' or the 'Workers'
Universities', it remained the leading force of the Polish Left; and, together with
the PSL was one of the two mass political movements to survive the Second
World War. Its leaders included Tomasz Arciszewski (1877-1955), Adam
Ciotkosz (died 1978), Ignacy Daszyriski (1866-1936), Chairman in 19ZI-8 and
1931-4, Herman Diamand (1870-1941), and Mieczystaw Niedzialkowski
(1893-1940).^14
Within the over-all growth of the Polish proletariat, the growth of Warsaw,
the country's largest city with the largest concentration of urban workers, occu-
pies a special place. In the nineteenth century, Warsaw's economic and social
progress was hardly ruffled by the repeated political upheavals. The Risings of
1794, 1830-1, 1863—4, and 1905—6, though of enormous psychological import-
ance, must be seen as minor interludes in the city's expansion. In the last decades
of the old Republic, Warsaw had already become an important commercial
centre, and was laying the foundations of future industrial enterprise. In 1784,
in addition to the Royal Foundry by the Barbican, the gun-works at the Arsenal,