Political prisoners in Poland and Polish territories (under the administration of other states) have existed throughout much of the 19th and 20th centuries. In the 19th century, some Polish political prisoners started using their situation of imprisonment to act politically. This phenomenon became visible as early as in the aftermath of the Greater Poland Uprising of 1848.
The Russian Empire's first socialist party, the Polish Proletariat, established a political prisoner culture and tradition in Congress Poland, and used their imprisonment as a terrain of struggle. Political prisoners also existed under the interwar Second Polish Republic, under the Nazi occupation in World War II, and in the post-war People's Republic of Poland periods.
Until the elimination of the compulsory draft in Poland in 2009, contentious objectors to the mandatory military in Poland service continued to be imprisoned for one year, and were recognized as prisoners of conscience by Amnesty International.
History
Throughout human history, people have been incarcerated for their political opinions or beliefs, and the threat they pose to the establishment.
Partitioned Poland
In the early nineteenth century, Poland was partitioned between Russia, Austria and Prussia. In those days, political offenders in Europe were usually put in prison or under house arrest temporarily. The individuals that posed the most risk to the political system were usually sentenced to exile. However, in Russian Poland, some political prisoners were imprisoned indefinitely during this period as well. Such was the case of Walerian Łukasiński, an officer who supported Polish independence and was incarcerated in 1823. He died after 46 years of solitary confinement.
Polish political prisoners played a major role in the course of the Revolutions of 1848 in the Grand Duchy of Posen, a part of the Kingdom of Prussia. The Greater Poland uprising of 1846 had been suppressed two years earlier. After the uprising, 254 Polish activists were imprisoned upon charges of conspiracy. The trial ended on 2 December 1847, when 134 of the defendants were acquitted and returned to the Duchy. Eight defendants, including Ludwik Mierosławski, were sentenced to death, while the rest were sent to the Berlin-Moabit prison. However, the death sentences were not carried out in the four following months. On 19 March 1848, after the Revolution in Berlin succeeded throughout the Spring of Nations, King Frederick William IV of Prussia declared amnesty for these Polish prisoners, who joined the Berlin Home Guard in the evening of 20 March 1848 by founding a "Polish Legion" in the courtyard of the Berliner Schloss. They were armed with weapons from the Royal Prussian Arsenal. Ludwik Mierosławski waved the Black-Red-Gold flag of the German Revolution and the prisoners were celebrated by the public.
The took place following the January Uprising in the Russian partition. Following the trial, a number of Polish activists from the German partition who supported the insurgents were imprisoned in the and the in Prussia, and were subsequently described by Polish scholars as political prisoners.
The first socialist party in the Russian Empire, the Proletariat, was founded in Poland in 1882 by Ludwik Waryński. After a series of protests, many party members were imprisoned in the of the Warsaw Citadel, where they were allowed certain privileges and liberties not experienced by regular prisoners. From prison, Proletariat continued to organize strikes and to publish a party newspaper.
Russian administration in the late 19th and early 20th century Warsaw explicitly accepted the category of a political prisoner, mostly used to contain socialists. It was in that period that political prisoners created a unique identity, culture and tradition that was mostly associated with the Polish Socialist Party. These political prisoners used their condition of imprisonment as a terrain of struggle.