In November 1914, the National Democracy members with other conservative pro-Russian activists established the Polish National Committee (Komitet Narodowy Polski, KNP) calling for a fight against Germany that was considered one of the greatest enemies of Poland. The committee tried to form the independent Polish army, called the Puławy Legion (Legion Puławski), but the undertaking failed due to the lack of commitment of the Russian authorities that only limited themselves to hasty declarations about the future unification of Polish territories.

The following year, the German offensive led to the occupation of Warsaw. In this situation, the committee members and supporters decided to move to Russia. From 1916, when Russia started to grow weaker, Dmowski believed that it was necessary to focus on the Western allies. Therefore, he launched a campaign in France and Great Britain to restore independence in Poland.

After the February Revolution in Russia, Dmowski and his co-workers and allies established the Polish National Committee on 15 August 1917 in Lausanne. Dmowski became the president, and the members included, among others, the conservative Erazm Piltz or count Maurycy Zamoyski, one of the wealthiest Poles who financed the activities of the organisation. Another important member was the pianist and future Prime Minister of Poland Ignacy Jan Paderewski, who was engaged in the work for the compatriots in the United States.

The Polish National Committee became a body that was recognised by the Entente as a political partner and representative of the Poles in international affairs. On the committee’s initiative, the Polish Army, also called the Blue Army because of the colour of the uniforms, was formed in France. It included about 100,000 soldiers and was directed by General Józef Haller. In the autumn of 1918, through the agency of the committee, Chief of State Piłsudski earned international recognition for the state that was being restored. Moreover, the committee members, along with the representatives of the government in Warsaw formed the Polish delegation that was sent to the Peace Conference held in Paris in 1919.

When the war broke out Piłsudski ordered mobilization of the Rifleman, the Riflemen’s Associations, and the Polish Rifle Squads. He called that new joint organization the First Cadre Company (Pierwsza Kompania Kadrowa), assuming that it would become the cadre of the future Polish Army. Piłsudski became the commander of that 144-man-strong detachment. On 6 August 1914 the First Cadre Company crossed the Austrian-Russian border and entered the Polish territories appropriated by Russia in the 18th century. Piłsudski intended to spark off a general anti-Russian uprising. His plan failed though as the uprising did not break out and the Company was liquidated. In autumn Józef Piłsudski became the commander of Brigade I of the Polish Legions — another military formation organised within the Austro-Hungarian Army. The Legions fought against Russia until 1917, when they were reorganized. Piłsudski was imprisoned by the Germans. Released in November 1918, he became the Chief of State in reborn Poland.

In 1906–1907, Piłsudski decided that it was impossible to keep successfully fighting against Russia in the Kingdom of Poland and put the insurrection plans to work. In that situation, Ziuk focused on gathering financial resources for further activities and forming an organisational basis for military activities, including the establishment of the Association for Active Struggle (Związek Walki Czynnej) in 1908. Piłsudski’s letter to Perl shows the turn he took in the decisive moment for the Polish pro-independence left.

One of the first manifestations of the new politics described by Piłsudski in the letter took place on 2 September 1908, when the socialist revolutionaries assaulted a Russian mail train near Bezdany and stole more than 200,000 rubles. The resources were later transported to Galicia and used to settle the debts of PPS and support the families of their imprisoned companions.

The organizers of the January Uprising, which broke out in the Russian partition in 1863, tried to win the peasant masses over to the national cause. The Insurgent National Government had drawn conclusions from the people’s insignificant support for the November Uprising and from the tragic Galician Slaughter. In the absence of a regular army, the support of the peasants was crucial to the success of the uprising. As early as January 1863, the National Government issued a decree enfranchising the peasants in the Kingdom of Poland. Two months later, on 12 April 1863, a similar decree, known as the Golden Writ (Pol. Złota Hramota) addressed to the rural population of Volhynia and Ukraine, was issued in Warsaw. The text, in Ruthenian, was printed in gold Cyrillic letters. The decree was part of the plan to prepare a national uprising in the whole the pre-partition area seized by Russia. The Golden Writ introduced personal freedom for the peasants, gave them their own courts independent of the lords, and enfranchised them on the land they farmed. It therefore made reference to social needs and sought to provide better conditions for the peasants than those proposed by Tsar Alexander II in his decree of 1861. The document itself was arbitrarily modified by Marian Sokołowski, a National Government commissar, who halved the minimum area of land to be allocated to participants in the fight against the Russians. The impact of the decree was much less than expected. This was due not only to the cultural distance between the peasants and the nobility, which also existed in lands that were predominantly ethnically Polish, but also to animosities between the Orthodox Ukrainian people and the Catholic Polish nobility, which were exploited and fuelled by the Russian government. Just as in 1846 in Galicia, so now most of the addressees of the Golden Writ saw the uprising as a predominantly Polish cause spearheaded by the nobility. Although the Golden Writ did not bring the expected results, it was the last significant document written in the spirit of the community of nations of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and has come down in history as an initiative aimed at joint action to restore brotherly independence and political understanding between the Poles and the emerging Ukrainian nation.

Unfortunately, the uprising had become pointless before it even began. The preparations in the territories under the Prussian rule were uncovered by the police, and the plotters were arrested. Attempted armed attacks were quickly put down. Using the conflict between the nobility and the peasantry, the Austrian partition authorities instigated peasants to go against their masters. Known as the Galician Slaughter, the events resulted in the death of thousands of noblemen, including many who were preparing for the uprising. In the territories under the Russian rule, there were sparse riots with few supporters, all of which were easily quelled by the Russian army. Kraków, a free city at that time, was the only place where the uprising broke out on a larger scale.

The insurgents threw the Austrian garrison out of the city and established the National Government, which declared itself the rightful Polish government. It issued an appeal aimed at rousing Polish people from all partitioned territories to the uprising. The manifesto follows the main trend in the then democratic thought. It proclaims Poland without any class division where all peasants’ duties towards the nobility would be lifted and where they would be granted property rights. It was the first uprising that propagated so radical slogans of social reform. This should not come as a surprise, since all of the National Government members were connected to TDP or underground organisations supported by TDP.

The government manifesto met with quite strong response from the inhabitants of Kraków and the area. There were even more volunteers to the uprising than the insurgents could equip. It soon turned out, however, that the expected riots in the remaning Polish lands were unsuccessful. The Austrian army entered Kraków and defeated the insurgents during one battle. The uprising was crushed, but it was undoubtably successful in putting the peasants’ cause first in the fight for the liberation of Poland.

As a result of the rivalry between the liberal and the democratic fraction within the Association, the radicals, dominated by the liberals, established a new organisation called the Universal Polish Nation Confederation in 1837. Soon afterwards, the Association of the Polish People was dismantled. Szymon Konarski was arrested by the Russians in 1838 and executed a year later.

The TDP was a radically democratic and republican organization. Its platform called for fighting for independence by means of staging another uprising on Polish territories. The main force was to be peasants, incited to fight with slogans promising radical social reforms, predominantly their being granted the land they cultivated. An introduction to the uprising was to the peasants’ enlightenment through revolutionary ideals, which was to be achieved by TDP emissaries sent to Poland. At the same time the TDP blamed the nobility for the fall of the uprisings staged so far. In the democrats’ opinion, that social stratum’s aversion to reforms and weakening its own position was the reason why peasants did not feel a connection to the Polish cause. Consequently, the insurgents always remained in the minority, unable to form an army capable of defeating the partitioners.

The Poitiers Manifesto, announced in December 1836, is an expression of the above ideas. It is noteworthy that in line with the liberal and democratic ideas as well as Joachim Lelewel’s historical ideas — who was one of the most eminent TDP members — the Manifesto acknowledges all individuals’ inherent freedom and equality. It emphasizes the indispensability of the equality of all people living in the future Commonwealth and at the same time the inherency of the democratic political system, which feudalism had deprived people of.

Among TDP members were many eminent émigrés, who aimed at starting another uprising on the Polish lands. It is enough to say that all three members of the National Government, which was established in 1846 within the framework of the Cracow uprising, had ties with the TDP and the underground it organized.

Influenced by the radical patriotic sentiments sweeping the streets of Warsaw, the deputies to the Sejm resolved unanimously on January 25, 1831 that Nicholas I be removed from the throne of Poland. This was tantamount to severing the personal union between the Russian Empire and Poland, declaring the Kingdom’s independence, and continuing the war against Russia. All the attempts made by the Uprising’s interim authorities in December 1830 to agree terms with Russia thus came to naught.

Following the collapse of the November Uprising, the act on dethronement was whisked away to France and safeguarded there from the Russians, who sought to obtain and destroy it.

The Constitution introduced hereditary succession to the throne for the Saxon Wettin dynasty, in reference to the provisions of the Third of May Constitution. The Sejm was maintained as a bicameral parliament, consisting of a Senate and a Chamber of Deputies. Bishops, voivodes and castellans (titular offices by then) held seats in the Senate ex officio, just like in the pre-partition Commonwealth. As in France, the executive power was strengthened. The government consisted of ministers. A Council of State chaired by the king and consisting of ministers, a secretary and four referendaries, was also set up according to the French model. The Council was tasked with drafting laws, resolving conflicts of competence between courts, cassation jurisprudence, and bringing ministers to justice. Similarly, following the French example, the country was divided into departments and districts, headed by prefects and sub-prefects respectively.