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

Niemcy, Rosja i Kwestia Polska, by Roman Dmowski. 1908

Jews Not Scapegoats. Roman Dmowski’s Sophisticated View of Jews. Poles Partly to Blame. Jews Do Not Take All the Blame in Dmowski’s Thinking

GERMANY, RUSSIA, AND THE POLISH QUESTION is the title of this Polish-language book, originally published in 1908. It describes a time when Poland, as a sovereign state, was a distant memory, and the prospects of her resurrection as a nation seemed remote. Dmowski devotes much of his book to the relations between Russians, Prussians, and Austrians, and the politics between them.

POLES BELIEVED TOO MUCH IN THE GOODWILL OF OTHERS, AND IN THE POWER OF MORAL CORRECTNESS [AND STILL DO]

The author spurns Polish romanticism as a holdover from early 19th-century thinking. It was naively idealistic in that it believed that the self-evident injustice of the Partitions would become widely and strongly appreciated among the European nations, and thus lead to the restoration of the Polish state. (p. 212). The failure of the Insurrections taught the Poles that violent uprisings cannot succeed while the Partitioning empires remain in place. (p. 246). If I follow his reasoning correctly, his dim view of Polish support for the Japanese during the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) stemmed from his belief that it would not resurrect the Polish state, and only produce a new wave of Russian repression reminiscent of that following the ill-fated January 1863 Insurrection. (pp. 116-117).

POLAND’S ENEMIES BEAR DOWN ON PARTITIONED POLAND

Dmowski discusses the savage repression of Poles in the wake of the January 1863 Insurrection, and the de-Polonization conducted by Muraviev. The author describes Russia as inciting the Lithuanians to turn against the Poles (p. 7), and of stirring up anti-Polish sentiments, in general, by cultivating hostilities based on religion, class, and nationality (p. 194). The Austrians had stirred up the Polish peasants to massacre Polish landlords in the peasant revolt (jacquerie) of 1846. (p. 222). Germans, even more than Austrians, incited the Galician Ukrainian movement against the Poles, and the latter reciprocated with a strong Germanophilism. (p. 164).

The author warns of the danger of Russia’s Pan-Slavism, which actually is a veiled attempt to destroy Polishness, the oldest and most developed of Slavic cultures. (p. 136). In addition, Russian Pan-Slavism is a device for promoting Russian rule over other Slavic peoples. (p. 136, p. 194). So much for the myth that Dmowski was Pro-Russian. He most certainly was not. For further evidence that Dmowski was not pro-Russian, see:

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2019/11/04/undemonizing-dmowski-on-jews-minnen/

ROMAN DMOWSKI WAS NO REACTIONARY: JUST THE OPPOSITE

Dmowski has sometimes been accused of being pro-feudal. This is far from the case. In fact, he saw the social structure in Poland as an archaic one–and one that had been prolonged owing to the foreign rule over Poland. (pp. 222-223). Notwithstanding the efforts of the Polish gentry to end it, the peasantry remained unable to develop because of this holdover feudal structure. (p. 222). Dmowski touches on Polish peasant national consciousness. He sees the earlier peasantry as being aloof to Polish patriotic movements, as was typically the case during the 1863 Insurrection, owing to their ignorance and passivity. (p. 222-223). Of course, the Russians did their best to convince the peasants that the Insurrections were “landlord” in nature (p. 223), and the tsarist emancipation of the peasantry was a device to turn peasants against landlords. (pp. 223-224).

DMOWSKI DID NOT MAKE SCAPEGOATS OF THE JEWS: HE ALSO BLAMED “POLISH LAZINESS” FOR JEWS ACQUIRING ECONOMIC DOMINANCE

Roman Dmowski is nowadays unilaterally condemned for his views about Jews. In this book, written well after the supposed strong Endek turn to anti-Semitism by about 1900, the author devotes little attention to Jews. Moreover, what Dmowski writes about Jews is low-keyed, and totally devoid of anger or hatred. At the same time, written in 1908, Dmowski’s thinking was uninfluenced by future Pole-Jew polarizing developments, such as the 1912 Duma elections and ensuing retaliatory Dmowski-led systematic boycott of Jews, and the 1918-era attacks on the new Polish state by “international Jewry”.

The author gives figures on the decline in the relative Jewish population of the Prussian-occupied Posen (Poznan) region. (p. 14). The years (and percentages) are 1825 (6.3%), 1871 (3.9%), 1900 (1.9%), and 1905 (1.5%). [This reflects the Jews becoming self-Germanized, and moving to more economically viable regions of Germany, such as the newly-industrializing Ruhr region.]

Dmowski describes tsarist-Russian ruled Poland as one in which there are three active elements–the Russians, the Jews, and the Poles. He sees the Russian element as a relatively weak one, and largely limited to the administration. The Russian authorities tend to be mistrustful of Jews as well as Poles. (p. 183). Jews dominate the towns of Lithuania and Ukraine. (p. 39, 178). They tend to be the most prosperous, in their usual role as middlemen, in places where Polish economic life is the weakest. (p. 178). Ironic to the characterization of Dmowski making scapegoats out of Jews, he contended that Jews were elevated to prominence as middlemen in part because of the laziness of various Polish classes in developing and conducting their own economic life. (p. 180).

WHY JEWS WERE LARGELY INCOMPATIBLE WITH POLISH NATIONAL ASPIRATIONS

The Jewish intelligentsia had become partly Russified, and tends toward Russian liberal and revolutionary tendencies. (p. 38, 179). Jews, as a whole, have a strong separatist self-identity that is in enmity with Poles and Poland. (pp. 38). Dmowski chides Polish Socialists for not expecting of Jews that they refrain from opposing Polish interests and that they refrain from helping Poland’s enemies. (p. 239).

However, Dmowski’s views of Jews were in no sense Nazi-like. See my review:

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2019/11/04/undemonizing-dmowski-on-nazism-dmowski2/

THE DUMA ELECTIONS

This book is valuable because, written a few years before the pivotal events of 1912, it helps the reader understand what led up to them. In the first elections to the Duma, the entire Polish nation rallied behind Polish politicians, who had marginalized those politicians who had earlier promoted “conciliation” (now under the guise of “political realism”). [Parenthetically, this refutes the charge that Dmowski was “pro-tsarist”]. However, these new Polish politicians were coming into sharp conflict with Jewish politicians, who were a large part of the “progressive” coalition, and who sensed no obligation to be in solidarity with the representatives of the Polish nation. (pp. 122-123).

Now consider the elections to the 2nd Duma. Russia had reduced the number of representatives to the Duma, in the Kingdom of Poland, from 36 to 12. A pattern began to develop. The election of non-Polish majorities, in various regions of pre-Partition Poland, took place, except for the Wilno (Vilnius) region. (p. 127).

In the elections to the 3rd Duma, the Jews, for once, did not put up their own candidates to compete against those put up by the National Democrats. However, the overall pattern continued. Many politicians hostile to Polish national aspirations were elected, and the Poles got only 18 representatives elected (11 from the Kingdom, and the remainder from the rest of Pre-Partition Poland). (p. 129).

Obviously, Dmowski was repeatedly sensitized to non-Polish influences in the Duma elections, and understood them as affronts to Polish national aspirations. [This alone makes it easy to see why he turned against the Jews when they would not support his candidate to the 4th Duma in 1912. It was more anti-anti-Polish than anti-Jewish in character, and more a political move than an anti-Semitic one.]