Polish-Jewish Relations: 1,300 Keyword-Phrase-Indexed Book Reviews (by Jan Peczkis)

Nacjonalizm chrześcijański: narodowo-katolicka formacja ideowa w II Rzeczypospolitej na tle porównawczym, by Bogumił Grott. 2006

Polish Christian Nationalism Clarified and Demystified. Is Very Different From Fascism

Title: CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM. In modern politically correct times, nationalism has become a dirty word, unilaterally and thoughtlessly condemned as intolerant, and confused with fascism and Nazism. It deserves to be studied impartially and understood correctly.

POLISH NATIONALISM WAS AND IS FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT FROM FASCISM

Unlike Polish Catholic nationalism, fascism had been characterized by a deification of the state. Mussolini said that: “The state is absolute.” (p. 47). Following Hegel, Nazism had made the state into a god. (p. 115).

Polish Catholic Nationalism is often attacked for being exclusivist. However, this exclusivism was never absolute. (p. 92).

Nazi-style racism was almost completely rejected by Polish nationalists. This was true even of the ONR (O.N.R.) and the extremist Falanga. (p. 255).

This work discusses Francisco Franco and Spanism Carlism. For more on this, see my review of Chodakiewicz: Spanish Carlism and Polish Nationalism: The Borderlands of Europe in the 19th and 20th Centuries:

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2019/11/04/undemonizing-polish-nationalism-chodakiewicz/

Grott’s book then moves on to Salazarism, which is identified as the model of government that was the most followed by the younger Endeks. Portugal’s Salazar had rejected liberalism, individualism, class warfare, parliamentarianism, and other “pagan” notions. He also rejected unbridled capitalism and totalitarianism, and repudiated fascism. (pp. 53-54).

Study of this Polish-language volume quickly shows the reader that there always were many different strands of Polish nationalism. For instance, Roman Dmowski had been influenced by Spencer. (p. 19). Balicki wrote of “National Egoism”. Other Polish Catholic nationalists rejected the latter. (p. 85).

WHY POLISH NATIONALISM AND TRADITIONAL ROMAN CATHOLICISM GO HAND-IN-HAND

Grott believes that Catholicism and Polish Nationalism were readily synthesized with each other owing to a common set of positions, namely the rejection of liberalism, especially related to matters of free thought, and a distaste for socialism and other forms of the Radical Left, of Jews, but only as representatives of a certain set of customs, and certainly not in a racialist-Nazi sense, and of Freemasonry. (p. 294). Sometimes, certain Jewish teachings were themselves considered racist. (p. 221). However, popular anti-Semitism probably owed more to the juxtaposition of Polish poverty with Jewish economic dominance than the teachings of the Endeks and similar groups. (p. 228).