Łódź insurrection (1905)

Łódź insurrection
Łódź monument to the 1905 insurrection
Date 21–25 June 1905 Location Łódź, Piotrków Governorate, Congress Poland Result Russian victory
Belligerents
Polish worker militias	Russian Empire
Commanders and leaders
Unknown	Unknown
Strength
over 3,000	six infantry regiments and several cavalry regiments
Casualties and losses
151 (official) – over 200 (unofficial) dead 150 (official) – 2,000 (unofficial) wounded	Unknown

The Łódź insurrection, also known as the June Days, was an uprising by Polish workers in Łódź against the Russian Empire between 21–25 June 1905. This event was one of the largest disturbances in the Russian-controlled Congress Poland during the Russian Revolution of 1905. Poland was a major center of revolutionary fighting in the Russian Empire in 1905–1907, and the Łódź insurrection was a key incident in those events.

For months, workers in Łódź had been in a state of unrest, with several major strikes having taken place, which were forcibly suppressed by the Russian police and military. The insurrection began spontaneously, without backing from any organized group. Polish revolutionary groups were taken by surprise and did not play a major role in the subsequent events. Around 21–22 June, following clashes with the authorities in the previous days, angry workers began building barricades and assaulting police and military patrols. Additional troops were called by the authorities, who also declared martial law. On 23 June, no businesses operated in the city, as the police and military stormed dozens of workers' barricades. Eventually, by 25 June, the uprising was crushed, with estimates of several hundred dead and wounded. The uprising was reported in the international press and widely discussed by socialist and communist activists worldwide. Unrest in Łódź would continue for many months, although without protests on such a large-scale as before.

At the beginning of the 20th century, worsening economic conditions contributed to mounting tensions in Russia and Poland: the Russo-Japanese War had damaged the economy of the Kingdom of Poland, and by late 1904, over 100,000 Polish workers had lost their jobs. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Łódź had been a major Polish industrial center, heavily urbanized and industrialized, and its large working class made it an important stronghold of the Polish socialist movement. News of the 1905 Russian revolution, together with its revolutionary spirit, spread quickly into Russian-controlled Poland from Saint Petersburg, where demonstrators had been massacred on 22 January. Poland was a major center of revolutionary fighting in the Russian Empire in 1905–1907, and the Łódź insurrection was a key incident in those events. Workers in Łódź had already begun striking sometime before 22 January, and by 31 January the tsarist police were reporting demonstrators carrying placards with slogans such as "Down with the autocracy! Down with the war!". This was capitalized on by factions in Russia and Poland that wanted more or less radical changes. Soon over 400,000 workers became involved in strikes in Poland.

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