COUNTERCLAIM Restitution 1863 Jews Got Polish Estates Chmielewski

The Polish question in the Russian State Duma, by Edward Chmielewski. 1970

Property-Restitution Questions–Against Jews This Time–on Russian-Confiscated Polish Landed Estates. Dmowski Not Pro-Russian

This work has information of enduring relevance. I focus on that.

BLOWBACK OF RUSSIAN DIVIDE ET IMPERA (DIVIDE AND CONQUER) TACTICS AGAINST POLES

This work begins with a history of the Russian rule over Poland. For instance, the author Edward Chmielewski points out that the Russian policy of emancipating the peasants, in 1864, backfired. Unlike the peasants of Russia, the Polish peasants were not required to pay for the acquisition of land. (p. 13). However, instead of winning over the Polish peasants to the Empire and turning them against the Polish landlords, the tsarist policy helped create a Polish middle class. The peasantry became more patriotic to Poland, and more anti-Russian, than ever. (p. 14).

JEWS BENEFIT FROM EXPROPRIATIONS OF POLISH PROPERTY

By way of introduction to this sub-topic, neo-Stalinist authors such as Jan T. Gross have, in recent years, emphasized the fact that Poles acquired the properties of Jews murdered by Nazi Germany during the Shoah. Those who follow Gross would have us believe that this (somehow) made Poles complicit in the Holocaust, even if Poles were not involved in its implementation. It ostensibly made Poles beneficiaries of the Holocaust, and even meant that Poles now owe a moral, if not financial [read Holocaust Industry], debt to the Jews.

But, earlier, Jews had benefitted from Polish property losses. The following statements by author Chmielewski are instructive, (quote) Another proposal concerning Polish matters was introduced during the fifth session of the Duma. This was one to allow the sale of land in Poland from the large entailed estates of the Russian nobility. These estates had been created from imperial grants as a result of the confiscations of land from Polish landowners that had followed the suppression of the uprising of 1863. The Russian landowners were mostly absentee and had long been in the practice of leasing their land, very often to Jews. (unquote). (p. 78).

The facts are clear: Jews had, at least temporarily, acquired Polish properties that had forcibly been confiscated from its Polish owners by the tsarist Russian occupants of Poland, even if Jews were not involved in the expropriation itself.

In other words, Jews were indirectly complicit in the tsarist Russian crimes against Poles, and were at very least beneficiaries of the same. Therefore, Jews should now owe a moral, if not financial, debt to the Poles.

Therefore, can Poles now make Holocaust-Industry-style claims against those Jews whose forbears had gotten unjust enrichment as a result of the Russian-seized Polish estates? Fat chance.

RUSSIAN INTERVENTION AT CHELM

The Chelm region became a focus of conflict between Catholics and Orthodox, and Poles and non-Poles (Russians and especially Ukrainians). This situation persisted well into the 20th century.

Tsarist Russian policies were so onerous that even some Russians verbalized opposition to them, (quote) The Poles stated that in the district of Chelm the Orthodox clergy, with the cooperation of the administration, were persecuting the Catholics and forcibly expropriating the latter’s churches. In the debate, the position of the Poles received unusually active support from the entire left wing of the Duma–Progressives, Kadets, the Labor Group, and the Social Democrats. All agreed in condemning the seizure of the church as an act of militant nationalism that would inflame Russo-Polish relations and as a useless and harmful political interference in religious affairs. (unquote). (p. 67).

THE SUCCESS OF POLONIZATION

One Russian, V. A. Bobrinskii, paid a grudging compliment to the attractiveness of Polish culture. Chmielewski writes, (quote) Bobrinskii attacked the policy of Alexander I and the bureaucrats in the second half of the nineteenth century as one that had preserved the dependence of the Russian peasant upon his Polish lord with the result that more Russians had been Polonized in the past hundred years than during three hundred years of Polish rule. (unquote). (p. 127). [Obviously, the Polonization was not done by force. Had force been necessary for success, one would expect more non-Poles to be Polonized while Poland was in existence than when she was under foreign rule. Instead, the opposite was the case. This kind of success set a precedent, causing some Poles to believe that he Ruthenians (later Ukrainians) of eastern Galicia could also be Polonized.]

Given a choice, people voiced their preferences, (Quote) After the proclamation of the edict on religious tolerance in April 1905, anywhere from 100,000 to 200,000 inhabitants of the two Polish provinces gave up Orthodoxy and became Roman Catholics of the Latin rite. The problem of nationality was complicated by the fact that not all the Poles were Catholics and not all the Ukrainians were Orthodox or Uniate. (unquote). (p. 112).

ROMAN DMOWSKI NOT PRO-RUSSIAN

This Polish statesman has sometimes been criticized, by both leftists and rightists, as being too conciliatory to Russia. What are the facts?

Because this part of Poland was under harsh Russian rule, the best that Poles could strive for was concessions from the occupant. Clearly, this did not imply support for Russian policies, much less resignation to the permanent loss of Poland as a nation. Chmielewski comments, (quote) …The Poles in the Duma regarded themselves as the spokesmen of their entire nation and were therefore disinclined to enter into close and binding ties with Russian political parties (though they did frequently form various temporary alliances for tactical purposes)…(unquote). (p. 171).

Enter Roman Dmowski. Chmielewski writes, (quote) Finally, Dmowski asserted that the Kolo was not bound to any political party in the Duma but merely supported those programs and individuals that were sympathetic to the Polish nation. (unquote). (p. 54).

JEWISH VOTES AND THE 1912 DUMA ELECTIONS

This work does not discuss the Jewish support for Jagiello, and the retaliatory Endek-led boycotts of Jews, but does set the stage for this event. To begin with, the original urban self-governing policies, that limited Jews to one-fifth of the town councilors regardless of the size of the local urban Jewish population, were initially instituted by the Russian authorities in order to thwart “Jewish predominance”. (p. 139, 141). Poles concurred, for otherwise there would be “A Jewish inundation of the city administrations”. (p. 143).

Polish support for restrictions on Jewish voting led to some moralizing by certain Russians, (Quote) The speech by Rodichev, the former Polonophile, urging the Poles not to oppress their minorities prompted a reply delivered by Harusewicz. He asserted that the Poles had not given the Kadets the right to teach them lessons in political behavior, particularly since the Poles had shown such marked restraint in the Duma. He pointed out that the Kadets had supported the introduction of zemstvos into the provinces of Astrakhan, Orenburg, and Stavropol despite franchise restrictions with regards to property and nationality. (unquote). (p. 152). Touche! [Isn’t it just a little bit hypocritical of ANY Russian to complain about how Poles treat their minorities when the entire Russian Empire (tsarist and then Soviet) functioned as a vast expanse of conquered non-Russians?]

The fact that franchise restrictions occurred not only in Warsaw, but also in other parts of the Russian Empire, is eye-opening. It clearly shows that policies curtailing the rights of Jewish franchise, and supported by National Democrats and other Poles, had precedent in other parts of the Russian Empire. These policies were not something dreamed up by Warsaw-area Russian officials and those horrible Endeks, and directed only against Jews. Instead, they were widespread in scope and application.

The author does not discuss how the Warsaw Jews assumed the majority of votes in the pivotal 1912 election to the Duma. However, this was evidently related to the enfranchising of apartment dwellers, in Poland, which was sponsored by the Russian authorities owing to the fact that the Russians in Poland did not generally own real estate. (p. 139. See also p. 148).