The socially progressive program of the Polish…

The socially progressive program of the Polish rebellion has been unable to mobilize the peasantry, although it persists stubbornly.

When Russia had officially emancipated the Polish serfs in early 1864, it had removed a major rallying point from the agenda of potential Polish revolutionaries in the Congress Kingdom of Poland.

The insurgent army, equipped with primitive weapons, had survived the winter of 1863-64 in southern Poland, fighting doggedly as partisans in small detachments.

However, Romauld Traugutt and the other leaders of the rebellion who had not already fled the country had been arrested in April 1864; their execution in August marks the end of the January Uprising.

Russia now abolishes the Congress Kingdom of Poland altogether and revokes the separate status of the Polish lands, incorporating them directly as the Western Region of the Russian Empire.

The region is placed under the dictatorial rule of Mikhail Nikolayevich Muravyov, known as the Hangman of Wilno.

All Polish citizens are assimilated into the empire and subjected it to an intense Russification policy.

Harsh reprisals are designed to reduce the country to a mere province of Russia, denied even the benefits of subsequent reforms in Russia proper.

Large garrisons and emergency legislation keep the Poles down.

Many individuals involved in the rising are executed or deported to Siberia; thousands of landed estates are confiscated.

The Uniate church is abolished, and the Roman Catholic hierarchy is harassed.

A huge Orthodox church has emerged in the center of Warsaw.

The government believes that it can resolve the Polish question by winning over the peasantry and pitting them against the szlachta and the Catholic church, as well as by eradicating the historical ties between the ”western provinces” and Poland.

Catholics can no longer buy land there.

The post-1863 period marks the beginning of a final parting of the ways between the Poles and the Lithuanians and Ukrainians (the latter also are undergoing a national revival), but in the long run Russian policies will not accomplish their aims.