The Anarchist Federation of Poland (AFP) was an anarchist organization the operated underground in the Second Polish Republic.

History

The AFP was created from a merger of a group of Zionist youth - the remnants of the

United Jewish Socialist Workers Party United Jewish Socialist Workers Party ( yi, פֿאַראײניקטע ייִדישע סאָציאַליסטישע אַרבעטער־פּאַרטיי, ''fareynikte yidishe sotsialistishe arbeter-partey'') was a political party that emerged in Russia ...

and a group of Warsaw woodworkers, previously in

SDKPiL The Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania ( pl, Socjaldemokracja Królestwa Polskiego i Litwy, SDKPiL), , LKLSD), originally the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland (SDKP), was a Marxist political party founded in 1893 an ...

, whose leader was Józef Golędzinowski, secretary of the Union of Wood Industry Workers. Among the founders there were also people who had previously worked independently or in

trade union A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ...

s. The organization participated in strikes and demonstrations. It brought together a dozen or so groups from large workers' centers, including

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

Łódź Łódź, also rendered in English as Lodz, is a city in central Poland and a former industrial centre. It is the capital of Łódź Voivodeship, and is located approximately south-west of Warsaw. The city's coat of arms is an example of cant ...

Kraków Kraków (), or Cracow, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland until 1596 ...

, Częstochowa,

Tarnów Tarnów () is a city in southeastern Poland with 105,922 inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of 269,000 inhabitants. The city is situated in the Lesser Poland Voivodeship since 1999. From 1975 to 1998, it was the capital of the Tarn� ...

. The organization was established during the First National Conference, which was held on July 24–26, 1926. The meeting convened by the Organizational Committee of the Polish Academy of Sciences was attended by representatives of anarchist organizations from five Polish cities. Even before the organization was formally established, the ''Głos Anarchisty'', later the official body of the AFP, had been published. The conference adopted three documents defining the future activities of the organization. The ''ideological guidelines'' briefly presented the basic assumptions of anarcho-syndicalism, with a negative attitude towards

parliamentarism A parliamentary system, or parliamentarian democracy, is a system of democratic governance of a state (or subordinate entity) where the executive derives its democratic legitimacy from its ability to command the support ("confidence") of the ...

and the

dictatorship of the proletariat In Marxist philosophy, the dictatorship of the proletariat is a condition in which the proletariat holds state power. The dictatorship of the proletariat is the intermediate stage between a capitalist economy and a communist economy, whereby the ...

, or the postulates of a social revolution leading to a society based on the idea of federalism. ''Tactics'' contains an analysis of

Józef Piłsudski Józef Klemens Piłsudski (; 5 December 1867 – 12 May 1935) was a Polish statesman who served as the Naczelnik państwa, Chief of State (1918–1922) and Marshal of Poland, First Marshal of Second Polish Republic, Poland (from 1920). He was ...

's May Coup, to which anarchists - unlike the

Polish Socialist Party The Polish Socialist Party ( pl, Polska Partia Socjalistyczna, PPS) is a socialist political party in Poland. It was one of the most important parties in Poland from its inception in 1892 until its merger with the communist Polish Workers' ...

and the

Communist Party of Poland The interwar Communist Party of Poland ( pl, Komunistyczna Partia Polski, KPP) was a communist party active in Poland during the Second Polish Republic. It resulted from a December 1918 merger of the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland a ...

(KPP) - reacted negatively from the beginning, criticism of the activities of political parties,

s and the

cooperative A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-contro ...

movement, and finally a review of the methods of conducting direct action. In the ''Demonstration Applications'', apart from paying tribute to the revolutionaries murdered and imprisoned by the authorities, AFP appealed to anarchists around the world to carry out actions for amnesty for political prisoners in Poland. In 1928, there was a split in the KPP and the Union of Communist Youth, and some activists joined the AFP. According to police data from 1929, the Warsaw AFP then had at least 130 members, organized in 12 groups, which were in contact with each other through delegates, only through the secretariat of the organization. In 1936, Polish anarchists gained an ideological influence on the

Union of Trade Unions The Union of Trade Unions ( pl, Związek Związków Zawodowych, ZZZ) was a trade union confederation formed as a result of an attempt to unite pro-social trade unions. It operated until 1939 and was one of the three largest union centers in Poland. ...

, which was important in the country. They began to give it an anarcho-syndicalist character, which, however, was interrupted by the outbreak of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. Before 1939, a large group of anarchist youth left for Palestine under the guidance of Benjamin Wolman. During the war, members of the AFP co-created the Syndicalist Organization "Freedom". AFP activists were, among others Paweł Lew Marek, Stefania Karolina Marek, Zofia Hajkowicz-Brodzikowska, Jan Paweł Rogalski, Aniela Wolberg, Jerzy Woźnicki, Józef Dybowski, Salomon Filmus, Stefan Rosłoniec, Beniamin Wolman, Julian Komarnicki, Bohdan Ostromęcki, Jakub Galewicz, Jan Straszewski, Saul Hirsch Weindling, Mojżesz Finkelsztajn, Stanisław Banasiak, Bolesław Bolmowski.

Publications

The press body of the AFP was ''Głos Anarchisty'', and then, from 1931, ''Walka Klas''. There was also a journal devoted to theoretical issues, entitled ''Nasze Życie'' and for young people - and also edited by them - ''Młody Rewolucjonista''. AFP also published brochures as part of the "Workers' Library", as well as occasional leaflets.

References

Bibliography

* *{{cite journal , first = Dominik , last = Flisiak , title = Działalność anarchistów z lat 1926–1932 w świetle zasobu Archiwum Państwowego w Kielcach , journal = Świętokrzyskie Studia Archiwalno-Historyczne , publisher = Świętokrzyskie Studia Archiwalno‑Historyczne , year = 2017 , issn = 2353-1223 , pages = 125–135 , url = https://journals.indexcopernicus.com/api/file/viewByFileId/298223.pdf , archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20200709091915/https://journals.indexcopernicus.com/api/file/viewByFileId/298223.pdf , archive-date = 9 July 2020 , language = pl

External links

''Deklaracja Anarchistycznej Federacji Polski''
* Policyjn
Sprawozdanie o Anarchistycznej Federacji Polski
Anarchist organizations in Poland Polish revolutionary organisations 1926 establishments in Poland 1939 disestablishments in Poland