Lódz Rebellion of 1905

Łódź Rebellion of 1905 

a rebellion of workers in Łódź on June 22–24 during the Revolution of 1905–07 in Russia. The rebellion was preceded by a wave of strikes in Łódź in May and June 1905. On June 20 strikes broke out at all the city’s major industrial enterprises, and on June 20 and 21 political demonstrations involving thousands of persons took place. On June 21 the demonstrators were fired upon, and on June 22 the Łódź Committee of the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania called on the workers to begin a general political strike. On the same day the workers struck at almost all enterprises; spontaneous armed clashes with the police and troops broke out and grew into an armed rebellion. About 50 barricades were erected. On June 24, tsarist troops suppressed the rebellion, killing and wounding about 1,200 insurgents. Despite the spontaneous nature of the Łódź rebellion, it is of great significance in the history of the Polish proletariat’s class struggle. The proletariat of Łódź set “a new example, not only of revolutionary enthusiasm and heroism, but of superior forms of struggle” (V. I. Lenin, Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., vol. 10, pp. 310–11).