Political and military initiatives of the Polish left wing emigrant centers in Russia (March–November 1917)

In 1917 Polish military men in the Russian army, taking advantage of the inter-revolutionary propitious conditions for grassroots organizational initiatives, undertook the task of establishment of their own union structures. This activity was in line with the process of separation of ethnic constituents of the former imperial army and their gradual transformation into independent formations. Apart from Poles, among others, Latvians, Ukrainians, Byelorussians and Georgians followed that direction. This tendency got reinforced after the Russian summer offensive defeat. In the case of the Polish military men, party conflicts – transferred from the political scene into the Union of Military Poles theatre – interfered with the fulfillment of these plans. Programmed already during the establishment of the Main Committee of the Union of the Left Wing Military Poles and of the Supreme Polish Military Committee, the conflict arising between these centers proved to be so absorbing for both sides that the opportunity to organize a Polish army counting tens of thousands of soldiers was lost. The establishment of the three Polish Corps in the merely incipient form meant leaving thousands of Polish soldiers outside these formations, which made them vulnerable to the influence of the Russian revolutionaries. Such indoctrination was conducted by the radical Russian left and its supporters from the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania, the Polish Socialist Party – Left, the Polish Workers’ Union “Promień” and Polish Revolutionary Military Clubs.911713