THE COMMUNIST MOVEMENT 403founded in Wilno in 1897, was closely aligned with the Russian Social
Democrats, and opposed by the more nationalist Paole Sion. In due course, it
would develop close links with the PPS.
Roza Luksemburg (Luxemburg), (1870-1919) deserves special mention. Born
in Zamosc, the daughter of an immigrant Litvak family from the east, she had
few sentimental ties with her homeland. As such, she was very typical of the cos-
mopolitan, intellectual Jewish element which formed the backbone of the
socialist, and later of the Communist movements. As an associate of the
Bolsheviks in Russia, and as a co-founder of the Spartakusbund in Germany, she
was destined to play a central role in the development of a Marxist internation-
alism. An exceptional woman in a man's world, she was the single most influen-
tial theorist in the history of Polish communism.^5
In the first two decades of the twentieth century, Polish socialism was beset
by failures, and riddled with factions. In Austria, the PPSD acquired legal sta-
tus, and from 1897 sent a vocal team of deputies to the Vienna parliament. But
in Russia, the years of struggle and hope were brusquely terminated by the col-
lapse of the Revolution of 1905-6. In 1908, the PPS (Lewica) or 'Left', insistent
on maintaining the traditional trade-union structures and the traditional tactics
of industrial action, departed from the Party's leadership, which as the PPS
{Rewolucja) or 'Revolutionary Faction', prepared henceforth for organized mil-
itary action. In 1911-16, a further faction, the PPS (Opozycja) or 'Opposition'
of Feliks Perl and Tomasz Arciszewski peeled off in protest against the military
obsessions of the leadership, which in any case was losing control of Piisudski's
more successful and by now independent formations. At this same time, the
SDKPiL was rent by a schism of its own. In the course of the World War, the
PPS recovered its momentum with the expectation of national independence,
united on the need for a concerted effort to break the grip of the partitioning
powers. The SDKPiL and the PPS (Lewica), in contrast, condemned 'the impe-
rialist war' out of hand, believing that no advantage for the working class could
be gained from it.^6
By 1918, the way was open for a merger of the SDKPiL and the PPS [Lewica).
Warsaw's leftist wits talked of a mariage de raison between a poor young man
of good family with a rich girl of doubtful reputation. The Social Democrats
could offer a consistent ideological line: the Lewica boasted a mass following.
The founding congress of the new party was held in Cracow in December. It
took the name of the Polish Communist Workers' Party (KPRP). Hostile to the
'bourgeois Republic' from the start, it chose to boycott the parliamentary elec-
tions of January 1919, and for that reason rejected the opportunity of legal activ-
ity. Despite its tireless propaganda, it could not conceal the plain fact that in the
Workers' Councils, formed in 1918-19 on the model of German arbeiterrat and
the Russian Soviets, its influence was far inferior to that of the PPS, the Bund, or
even of the right-wing NZR. Its following in the working class was minimal,
and was confined to one or two districts in Warsaw, to Zamosc, and to 'Red'
Dabrowa. In the last two areas, armed demonstrations by a self-styled Red