On the Polish Question

Speeches made by Marx and Engels in Brussels at the meeting to commemorate the second anniversary of the Krakow Uprising of 1846. The speeches, dated February 22, 1848, were published in March 1848 in the Célébration à Bruxelles du deuxième anniversaire de la Révolution Polonaise du 22 février 1846.

In February 1846, the Polish people carried out an armed uprising in Krakow, which was under the joint administration of Russia, Prussia and Austria, against national oppression and for national independence. Although the uprising was eventually defeated, the Polish people's struggle for national liberation still gained the widespread sympathy and support of people from all over Europe, and the uprising movement had an important impact on the development of modern European history. On February 22, 1848, a conference was held in Brussels to commemorate the second anniversary of the Krakow Uprising of 1846, and Marx and Engels made important speeches respectively. In On the Polish Question, Marx and Engels showed great concern for the national liberation movement of the Polish people. Based on a macro perspective, they warmly praised the fearless revolutionary spirit of the Polish people and spoke highly of the great practical significance of the movement from the perspective of the overall interests of the proletarian revolutionary movement and the national liberation movement in Europe. First of all, Marx and Engels objectively and deeply analyzed the mutually reinforcing relationship between national liberation struggle and class struggle by using the basic theory of historical materialism, revealed that the capitalist private property in the means of production was the social root of national oppression, and pointed out that the abolition of private property was the fundamental way to eliminate national oppression. Next, they comprehensively and scientifically summarized the practical experience of the Polish national liberation movement, pointed out the inseparable connection between the world proletarian revolution and the liberation struggles of all nations, and put forward the important idea of proletarian internationalism. Thirdly, they scientifically defined the bourgeois-democratic character of the Polish national liberation movement and systematically clarified the principle that the national liberation movement must be combined with the democratic revolution, and that and that the national democratic revolution in Poland would inevitably become a direct prelude to the unfolding of the proletarian revolution in Europe as a whole, thus opening the way for the eventual proletarian-socialist revolution.

On the Polish Question is an important work in the history of the development of Marxism and an important article elaborating the Marxist theory of nations in a concentrated manner, pointing out the forward direction for the struggle of the oppressed nations of 19th-century Europe to realize their national independence and liberation, and at the same time laid a solid theoretical foundation for the proletarian parties to correctly handle the national question and provided a powerful ideological weapon for the world proletariat to unite with the oppressed nations triumphantly realize the complete liberation of the nation and to oppose hegemony.