17
REWOLUCJA:
Revolution and Reaction (1904—1914)
The last decade before the World War saw tension rising throughout Eastern
Europe. In 1904-5 Russia was-plunged into the first military conflict since the
Congress of Berlin. In 1907, the Anglo-Russian Convention completed a diplo-
matic system which openly pitted France, Russia, and Great Britain against the
Central Powers - Germany and Austria-Hungary. The Bosnian Crisis of 1908
heralded a protracted confrontation which led to the Balkan Wars of 1912-13
and the assassination at Sarajevo in 1914. Throughout these years, political loy-
alties were put to a severe test. Under the threat of war, patriotic fervour
mounted. Dissident elements seized the chance to press for concessions.
Loyalists grew more loyal, critics grew more critical, militants more militant,
the Poles more Polish. Among a welter of social and economic problems and
demands, the Polish Question was salvaged from obscurity. It all started on 6
February 1904 when the Japanese attacked the Russian fleet in the harbour of
Port Arthur in Manchuria.
In Russian Poland, the outbreak of the Japanese War caused a ripple of
excitement. In recent years, the growth of new social classes had engendered
embryonic political formations which were now emerging as fully-fledged par-
ties. Although the era of constitutional politics was not officially proclaimed
until October 1905, a number of Polish parties did not delay in issuing their
manifestos. Conferences were held, and policies were planned, in foreign sanc-
tuaries. Meeting in Vienna, the right-wing Realist Party called for the introduc-
tion of equal rights into the Polish provinces. Its wealthy, propertied members
equipped a Catholic Hospital Train for service on the Manchurian front.
Dmowski's National League, soon to transform itself into the National
Democratic Party, demanded the polonization of education and administration.
The liberal Polish Progressive-Democratic Union, headed by Alexander
Lednicki (1866-1934) and Aleksander Swi^tochowski, declared in favour of a
measure of Polish autonomy which would be compatible with the continuing
integrity of Russia. On the Left, Ptfsudski's illegal Polish Socialist Party (PPS)
envisaged an armed struggle to force the abolition of military conscription and
to further its hopes of social revolution and national independence. Its first
bojowki, or 'battle squads' were formed in May 1904. In Paris its representatives
discussed joint action with a number of potential allies including the Russian
Social Revolutionaries, and Georgian and Latvian nationalists. The leaders of