Provisional Polish Revolutionary Committee (Polish: Polrewkom; Russian: Польревком) (July–August 1920) was a revolutionary committee created under the patronage of Soviet Russia with the goal to establish a Polish Soviet Socialist Republic.
Polrevkom was created on July 23, 1920, in Moscow by the "Polish Bureau" of Bolsheviks, with chairman Julian Marchlewski. The decision was made during the initial successes of the Red Army during the Polish-Soviet War with the goal of providing administration of the Polish territories. The Committee was declared "provisional", because it was assumed that after a Soviet victory the power would be transferred to the Polish Communist Workers' Party.
The Polrevkom was assembled on July 24 in Smolensk, with its headquarters in an armored train, which quickly proceeded to Minsk (July 25), Wilno (July 27), and arrived to Bialystok on July 30, 1920. It set up permanent headquarters in the Branicki Palace and issued public proclamations. For their efforts they received from Moscow over 2 billion rubles. It is seen, like many other Bolshevik revolutionary committees, as a Bolshevik puppet government.
The committee consisted of the following members:
- Julian Baltazar Marchlewski (chairman)
- Feliks Dzierzynski (de facto leader)
- Feliks Kon (education)
- Edward Próchniak (secretary)
- Józef Unszlicht (party)
- Bernard Zaks (industry)
- Stanisław Bobiński (agriculture)
- Tadeusz Rydwański (propaganda)
The Polrevkom activity was related to the North-Western front of the Red Army. The South-Western front of the Red Army supported a similar Galician Revolutionary Committee (Galrevkom), seated in Tarnopol in Eastern Galicia.
The TKRP had very little support from the ethnic Polish population and recruited its supporters mostly from the ranks of Jews; 1918 Białystok were it was set up had about 75% Jewish majority.
On 22 August 1920 the Polrevkom moved out of Bialystok to Minsk with the defeat of the Red Army, and was dissolved soon afterwards. A significant number of the key persons involved were later instrumental in creation of the Polish Autonomous District within the Soviet Union.
Read more about Provisional Polish Revolutionary Committee: References
Famous quotes containing the words polish and/or committee:
“It has always been my practice to cast a long paragraph in a single mould, to try it by my ear, to deposit it in my memory, but to suspend the action of the pen till I had given the last polish to my work.”
—Edward Gibbon (1737–1794)
“The small creatures chirp thinly through the dust, through the night.
O mother
What shall I cry?
We demand a committee, a representative committee, a committee of investigation
RESIGN RESIGN RESIGN”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)