On the 110th anniversary of the Manifestation on Grzybowski Square

Significant historical events serve as a kind of mirror for subsequent generations, which reflect upon them in an attempt to extract essential lessons for the present.

What lesson, then, does the memory of the Manifestation on Grzybowski Square in Warsaw on November 13, 1904, teach us?

It was the first active, offensive action by an organized Polish force against the occupier since 1864. As such, it broke the passivity of a large part of society, contributing to the psychological turning point that was the events of the 1905 Revolution.

It was carried out by the Combat Organization of the PPS, a party that had in its program both the demand for Polish independence and fundamental social changes aimed at civic emancipation and improving the living conditions of the broad masses of the nation. Regardless of the fact that time has seriously verified the utopian comprehensive projects of social transformation, there is still a healthy core in combining the demand for national freedom with concern for the condition of its broad social layers. If a nation is to be one political body, like an organism - and such unity is desirable for its effectiveness and strength - then each individual, as if a cell in the organism, must understand its role within it. This understanding is impossible without free time, at least to observe public life, not to mention participating in it. Therefore, the demand for an 8-hour workday (then a revolutionary demand in Tsarist Russia) has not only a dimension of facilitating the regeneration of the workforce, but also its civic dimension. Free time created the possibility of participating in social life, thus becoming a more conscious part of the nation. This also applies to other relevant demands at the time.

It is worth noting that combining national and social demands also had a certain practical sense for the Polish cause. Poland's independence had to be won (then and later), which meant that a decision had to be made to engage in this risky struggle. It is easier to make such a decision if there are more arguments in favor of it, and the argument that an independent Poland would also mean an improvement in the lives of every citizen, including common people, was certainly a significant one.

Does a lesson emerge from this aspect? Yes, namely that an independent Poland should protect the interests of all Poles. It is obvious that people are different and not everyone can contribute equally to the common effort. This natural inequality must be taken into account, but it is also important to remember that, especially in times of trial, unity of the entire nation is needed – from the entrepreneur to the worker cleaning the hypermarket. If, in the moment of trial - and no one knows when it may come - a blasé celebrity flees the country, it will not be a great loss for the national community. But if the masses of the people show indifference, it will be a national tragedy. And the lack of concern from the state about their situation encourages indifference and flight, as if opting out of the community of fate that is the nation.

Therefore, the reviving national movement should not succumb to today's fashionable liberal shamans who reduce the nation to just a sum of earning individuals in one geographical and legal space. Such an approach may have been valid in the USA where there was long no real external threat and the culture derived from Calvinism facilitated social discipline.

A medium-sized nation neighboring strong enemies should be a community - creating and, if necessary, fighting. Otherwise, it will not survive.

Historians examining the history of our community notice a constant tendency to emphasize our distinctiveness and uniqueness in many areas, that sense of pride in our own creative work. (And this is regardless of the existence in our culture of a strong trend of "mental photocopiers" imitating foreign patterns simply because they are foreign.) The same is true of this revolution, which we began earlier than it actually started. For although the crisis in the Tsarist Empire began as early as 1904, historians only count the eruption for January of the following year. On Polish lands under Russian partition, the beginning of the revolution can be marked by the shots on Grzybowski Square on November 13, 1904, another contribution to our independence in everything.

It is worth noting that although the revolution itself failed, it brought obvious benefits to the Polish cause - such as permission for private Polish schools or the tsar's decree introducing religious tolerance (1905), which allowed the Podlaski Unitarians to abandon Orthodoxy and ultimately assimilate into Polish culture. This was achieved not through negotiations or any compromise proposals, but solely through the language of Browning pistols and dynamite - the language that the tsarist regime understood.

This was made possible by withdrawing the armed force from the nation and organizing its use (even if only in the form of militias). Possession of force conditions the ability to participate in the struggle for existence, which is the history of nations. Participation in this struggle creates opportunities for everything else and is virtually a condition for achieving anything, because, as the well-known Indo-European philosopher said: "Struggle is the father of all." 

Barnim Regalica