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Comments by Zbigniew Kowalewski via Facebook on Eric's article: I strongly agree with Blanc when he says that "due to the prevailing Marxist historiographical focus on Bolshevism and central Russia, the distinct contributions and experiences of revolutionaries in the borderlands of the Tsarist Empire have been mostly marginalized", or, to say it more exactly, nearly totally ignored. I find that it is fine that Blanc speaks about the PPS because of the historical importance of this party in the Polish workers movement. Some thinkers like Kelles-Krauz and other left-wing militants and currents of the PPS elaborated some important and advanced ideas. Especially Kelles-Krauz had advanced ideas on how to link the struggle for the independence and unity of Poland with a workers' revolution. He was also, in my opinion, brillant and unique among Marxists on the Jewish question in Eastern Europe as a nationality question, but at the same time he was a disappointing Polish statist on how to solve this question. In general, his advanced ideas were not followed by the PPS leadership. He was criticized for stressing too much the permanent revolution (the term was used in this debate before the appearance of the first texts by Trotsky on permanent revolution in Russia) and, on the other side, Pilsudski was criticized by the leadership for not stressing permanent revolution enough or at all. During the 1905 revolution the PPS build, under Pilsudski's command, an impressive working-class based military organisation. It was the biggest nad most active revolutionary armed organization in the Russian empire during this revolution, and both Lenin and Trotsky observed it as an experience that should be studied When, in 1939, Trotsky wrote that “the theoretical work [on the question of workers’ self-defense] must consist of studying the experience of military and combat organizations of the [among others] Polish revolutionary nationalists”, he had in mind the Combat Organization of the PPS active in the 1905 revolution (its characterization by Trotsky as "revolutionary nationalist" was not exact, because it was a socialist one). After the 1905 revolution and the split of the PPS in two distinct parties, the PPS-Left and the PPS-Revolutionary Faction (including the Combat Organization), the latter quickly returned to the historical name, the PPS, and established itself definitely as the majoritary but reformist party of the Polish workers' movement. Inside the PPS, and later outside this party, but with its support, Pilsudski developed its own "national-revolutionary militarist" project, weekening progressively its links with the workers' movement, finding a petty bourgeois base for its implementation, and forming an alliance with Austria against Russia in the imperialist war. The left of the PPS and, later, the PPS-Left as a distinct party were unable to maintain its position, stressed in the article, on the Polish nationality question and the fight for the independence of Poland in the framework of a program and strategy of workers' revolution, The position adopted by this party and presented in a positive light by him was abandoned relatively quickly and became close to the position of Luxemburg and the SDKPiL. So the evolution of the PPS-Left in this field finished in a failure. And when, in 1918, the PPS-Left and the SDKPiL fused to form the Communist Workers' Party of Poland (KRPP), later renamed Communist Party of Poland (KPP), this new party was totally unable to put the nationality question on the agenda. So, the PPS became the standard-bearer of the independence and unity of Poland inside the workers' movement, adapting itself and the majority of this movement to the building of a bourgeois national State. So, both sides of the workers' movement, the PPS on one side, and the SDKPiL and the PPS-Left on the other side, failed dramatically. The former fought for the independence and unity of Poland but abandoned the workers' revolution, becoming the left-wing actor in the building of the bourgeois state, while the latter fought for workers' revolution but ignored the struggle for national independence. In this manner, both contributed to the failure of workers' revolution in Poland. It should be clear, and I think it is not in this article by Blanc, that there was never, on a long term, a consistent current and/or party able to present a programmatic and strategic alternative to the the positions of both the PPS and the SDKPiL. But there is something else: and very important, too: both sides failed totally to have a correct position on the nationality question of Ukrainian, Belarusian and Lithuanian nationalities colonized and oppressed historically by Poland. There could not be a a revolutionary position on the Polish nationality question without a revolutionary position on the Ukrainian, Belarusian and Lithuanian nationality questions. _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com