An independent Poland without a First World War?

Was there any possibility for Poland to become a country, at least the Russian part, some time in the first half of the 20th century, had there not been the Great War or any such big war around that time.

Also, could a constitutional / democratic Russia possibly grant the Polish Kingdom some sort of a de facto independence?
 

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Was there any possibility for Poland to become a country, at least the Russian part, some time in the first half of the 20th century, had there not been the Great War or any such big war around that time.

Also, could a constitutional / democratic Russia possibly grant the Polish Kingdom some sort of a de facto independence?
What does independence mean here? There were supposedly plans to make it a self governing region of the Russian empire, but beyond that no. Poland could break off if there were a major revolution that distracted the Russian government enough.
 

NoMommsen

Donor
Maybe ...
  • No WW 1 => russian revolution in late 1914, maybe 1915 (WW 1 stopped at least for some time the revolutionary movement in russia)
  • In the "quarrels" of the russian revolution the Austria based (Pilsudski) polish "freedom fighters" stage kind of a coup in Poland for independence
  • Austria-Hungary, backed by Germany (kinda continuation of "blanque cheque") supports it
  • Russia, drawn deep into upheaveals can't oppose it
So in 1916 an "independent" polish kingdom with - perhaps - an Habsburg-off-spring as king (but at least economically germany-dependant).
 
Congress Poland would not be viable as independent state. Poland in such shape must be tied to Russia in one way or another. By the time ww1 started hopes for independence were rather low among Poles. Most Poles considered such idea to be just dream, impossible to materialize, so they did not bothered about it. When independence finally was achieved, it was considered to be miracle.
 
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TruthfulPanda

Gone Fishin'
Was there any possibility for Poland to become a country, at least the Russian part, some time in the first half of the 20th century, had there not been the Great War or any such big war around that time.
No.

Also, could a constitutional / democratic Russia possibly grant the Polish Kingdom some sort of a de facto independence?
Not likely. The Poles fucked up twice already ...
 
Poland in shape of Congress Poland wouldn't be able to stay independent economically, and probrably not militarly. The best situation for Poles would be to stay quiet and give up romantic ideas. Tsar was ready to keep autonomy and wanted to slowly reform his empire starting from Poland. Two uprisings crushed this idea and resulted in repressions for entire nation.

But as you talked about first half of 20th century it's basically too late and only WW1 could give Poland true independence. You need three empires to fall to let Poles stay independent.
 
Poland lost independence as result of extremaly bad luck (finall partitions of Poland were really easy to be butterflied away), but once it happened, Poland needed extremaly good luck to regain independence.
 

Perkeo

Banned
Maybe different 1848 revolutions would help.
The bad news is, they’d have to be a lot different.
 

TruthfulPanda

Gone Fishin'
Maybe different 1848 revolutions would help.
The bad news is, they’d have to be a lot different.
1848 revolutions are irrelevant as they do not affect Russia.
So, even if the revolutions are more successful Nicholas sends in the troops to pacify the revolutionary riff-raff ...
 
Poles have zero chances against Russia unless Russia suffers internall collapse, and even then there is good chance, that Germans would take their role. For Poles it would be better to seek for alliance with Russia to achieve at least unification of Polish lands under single rule than trying pointless rebellions, that only worsened situation.
 
The problem with Congres Poland is that all three neighbors are guaranteed to get further destabilization by mini Poland wishing to become big Poland, so there's no way they'd have permitted that. If Russia loses control Germany or A-H will restore order.
 
There is SF/ASB alternate history novel Lód ("Ice") written by Polish SF writer Jacek Dukaj portraying world, where ww1 never happened and Russian Poland still exist in 1924. Although POD for this story is ASB event-different Tunguska Event (impactor brings to Earth mysterious material with unusual physical properties called 'tungetyt' and Ice creatures called 'lute') which created new branches of industry based in Siberia, making Russia great again ;)
Abstracting from ASB element, political development of Poland does not seems that unlikely. Author even stated in epilogue, that in his opinion such outcome looked much more logical than crazyiness of OTL. Dukaj wanted to debunk some Polish national myths, for example myth of Pole as eternal conspirator obsessed about independence. In Dukaj's novel prominent Poles are interesting in making fortunes in Siberia and do not bother about such "nonsense" as independence. Piłsudski is Japan-backed terrorist, active in Russian Far East and is generally regarded as dangerous troublemaker, even by Poles.
 

Well, there could be a revolution in Russia without a world war, and that could lead to a weakened Russia losing control of Congress Poland, which could become at least nominally independent--though very likely a de facto satellite of Germany. So the question is whether "the Great War or any such big war around that time" in the original post would include internal disorder in Russia.
 
It could also happen, that Russian Monarchy is abolished in less drastic way, some more moderate revolutionaries take power, gaining support of some Poles promising autonomy or federalization.
 
Or: radical revolution in Russia is seen as danger to stability of German Empire and Austria-Hungary, so they try intervention, which ends with failure, but not totall-they get Poland and use it as buffer zone separating their corelands from revolutionary danger.
 
It could also happen, that Russian Monarchy is abolished in less drastic way, some more moderate revolutionaries take power, gaining support of some Poles promising autonomy or federalization.
National self determination was just a talking point. Liberals wanted to give minorities self-determination as long as those minorities voted to stay within Russia. Russian politicians were imperialists, all of them, from Black Hundreds to Bolsheviks, it's just that those from the left of the center wanted "correct" empire: one without an emperor (It's not an oppression if it's done in the name of democracy!). Liberal emigre Miluykov cheered when Stalin was talking back Vyborg from Finland. In 1918 Bolsheviks formally recognized Finland independence, but in long-term they obviously they wanted to overthrow its government so "the democratically elected Finnish Soviet" would vote to rejoin them.
Kadet or Socialist-Revolutionary government would react just as violently to separatism as Bolsheviks did, even though both were in theory committed to national self-determination.
 
The problem with Congres Poland is that all three neighbors are guaranteed to get further destabilization by mini Poland wishing to become big Poland, so there's no way they'd have permitted that. If Russia loses control Germany or A-H will restore order.

This. While the Czar owns Warsaw theres two other Emperors with a serious interest in no Polish state. If Russia did collapse to a point where there were no Czarist soldiers, police, or administrators in Warsaw then its likely both Kaisers would act to take the Russian portion into 'protective custody. They would use any smallest Polish unrest in their territories as evidence of anarchy and terrorism & a excuse to restore order.

Beyond that I won't judge past mid Century. A history with no Great War is so full of variables its difficult to predict where things might go after 1940 or 1950.
 
Poles were just in situation of modern Kurds. None of partitioners wanted independent Poland, even if that Poland does not include their portion.
 
Also, could a constitutional / democratic Russia possibly grant the Polish Kingdom some sort of a de facto independence?
Well, it almost did, but Provisional Government never managed to secure transition to actual government that was supposed to finalize the arrangement. Provisional Government recognized Poland's right to secede - which was in line with their overall politics: abolition of centralized governance over Caucasus and Central Asia and establishment of native committees, agreement with Central Rada in Kiev about autonomy, postponement of Finnish independence discussion till non-Provisional Government in place and so on.
If Provisional Government is any indication, hypothetical constitutional/democratic Russian government would seize power in St. Petersburg and then observe dissolution of the country with Olympian detachment (spiked with occasional impotent conservative outcry).
 
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