The Polish Socialist Party – Revolutionary Faction (Polish: Polska Partia Socjalistyczna – Frakcja Rewolucyjna, PPS–FR) also known as the Old Faction (Polish: Starzy) was one of two factions into which the Polish Socialist Party split in 1906.[1] The Revolutionary Faction's primary goal was to restore an independent Poland, which was envisioned as a representative democracy. It saw itself as a spiritual successor to the Red Faction of the 1863 January Uprising, which had the goal of creating an independent Polish-Lithuanian-Ruthenian Commonwealth.
History
Split in the Polish Socialist Party
Leader of the Revolutionary Faction, Józef Piłsudski
For several years, the Polish Socialist Party had an internal struggle: Originally, the PPS was founded as a patriotic, pro-independence party. In preparation for the creation of a new Polish army and in order to fight the Russian occupants, the PPS, led at the time by Piłsudski founded a Combat Organization, that became extremely active in the 1905 unrests in Russia. The Combat Organization grew increasingly influential and cooperated with the Japanese Empire, receiving funding in exchange for information and strikes against Russian state servants. While Piłsudski was concentrated on preparing the basis for a future Polish Army, the PPS was taken over by more internationalist, marxist-leaning members, which were worried by the rising popularity of Piłsudski and his Combat Organization.
That internal struggle led to the party to split, with the marxist members becoming the Polish Socialist Party – the Left (also known as PPS–L or the Young Faction), which believed that Poland should be a marxist country, established through proletarian revolution, as part of a larger international communist movement, in collaboration with the Russian proletariate. The idea of an independent Polish state was abandoned by that faction. Piłsudski and his followers thus left the party and founded the Revolutionary Faction of the PPS in 1906. The declared goal of the party was a reborn Polish commonwealth. The party would serve to gather funds for a Polish army.
Activism
With the Combat Organization of the Polish Socialist Party and the conspiratory Związek Walki Czynnej, the party continually worked to build the basis for a future Polish army.
It organized several raids and assassinations of Tsarist officials in the Russian partition, most prominent the Bezdany raid, which became the last action of the PPS–FR in the Russian partition.
After that last raid, Piłsudski and his followers left the Russian Empire and moved to Galicia-Lodomeria (Austrian Poland), where there was a relative freedom. In the Austrian partition, Piłsudski was able to organize several paramilitary organisations under the guise of being rifle-clubs, which would be the basis for the Polish Legions in 1914.
Thus the leadership of the PPS–FR would become some of the most prominent fathers of Polish independence, with many of them serving as Prime Ministers, famously Aleksander Prystor and Walery Sławek, two as Presidents (Wojciechowski, Mościcki) and several ministers.
Newspaper of the Revolutionary Faction "Robotnik," celebrating the anniversary of the January Uprising (1863)The Riflemen's Association exercising in Zakopany
