Ethnic and Social Diversity in the Membership of the Communist Party of Poland: 1918 - 1938

Abstract

The Communist movement in interbellum Poland was a small political entity that did not constitute a threat to the power of the state, nor did it become a visible presence since it failed to attract a majority of the working class. The movement, overall, consisted of a number of parties, organizations and groups, usually illegal, but some at times provisionally legal. The Communist Party of Poland - CPP (Komunistyczna Partia Polski - KPP) was the main party, entrusted with the guiding role by the Comintern, and also the umbrella organization and ideological reference point for the Communists throughout the twenty-year existence of the Second Polish Republic. The CPP was originally formed under the name “Communist Workers' Party of Poland” - CWPP, (Komunistyczna Partia Robotnicza Polski-KPRP). In 1920, it briefly took on the designation “Section of the Communist International” of which it was a founding member. By virtue of its name, the Party proclaimed a total proletarian orientation, ignoring the reality of an almost completely agricultural Poland at the time.