Polish Middle Class Jews Delayed Whitton

A History of Poland: From the Earliest Times to the Present Day, by Frederick Ernest Whitton. 2015

Jews Delayed the Development of a Polish Middle Class. Poland Less Feudal Than Most Other European Societies. Opportunistic Tsarist Russian Abolition of Serfdom

This work (review based on the original 1917 edition), begins with early history and ends with the eve of the resurrection of the Polish state. Because this book was published before Poland was restored after 123 years of partition, it is not influenced by this later event. Because there is so much information presented in this book, I focus on a few issues.

JEWISH COMPLICITY IN THE PARTITIONS OF POLAND? JEWS INHIBITED THE DEVELOPMENT OF A POLISH MIDDLE CLASS

Some Polish thinkers, including Endeks, suggest that the large number of Jews in Poland contributed to Poland’s decline, thus facilitating the Partitions. Whitton essentially agrees as he comments, (quote) In time these [Jews] came to be practically the only business class in the country…The burghers, therefore, declined, and came to have alien interest; and this failure to replace feudalism with a strong middle class was a decided misfortune for Poland. (unquote). (p. 204).

THE OPPRESSION OF THE SERFS IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

This author paints a bleak picture of serfdom in Poland in the last few centuries before the Partitions. However, this was not always so. During the reign of Casimir the Great, there was a code in 1368 that had given the peasants possession and rights of property, as well as means of acquiring their freedom. (p. 64).

UNDEMONIZING POLAND’S NOBILITY

The social stratification within the SZLACHTA (gentry) was less than that in most other European countries at the time. Whitton comments (quote) It should be remarked, however, that, although the terms “feudal” and “feudalism” have been employed in describing the Polish national system, these terms have been used in their wide sense. Feudalism, as it existed in Western Europe, i. e., the system of tenure of land held form the Crown, and implying service to the Crown in return, was unknown in Poland…Within it [Polish nobility] all were equal. There were no titles, and the only distinction in rank depended on executive offices to which any noble could aspire. Poland was, therefore, an “aristocratic republic”. (p. 208).

THE PARTITIONS OF POLAND: THE VICISSITUDES OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICS

Whitton takes the position that there was no single cause for the Partitions themselves. (p. 196). Interestingly, at the same time that Poland was on the chopping block of the partitioning powers, Turkey was also, but Frederick the Great vetoed this proposal. (p. 145).

The author elaborates on the many ways that the Polish state declined in the century or so before the Partitions. He compares the Partitions with a plank on a ship starting (Poland declining) and the sea entering in (the aggression of the partitioning powers). (pp. 213-214).

POLAND’S INSURRECTIONS WERE NOT ROMANTIC, QUIXOTIC ACTS OF BLOODLETTING

The author has a graphic description of the 1794 Kosciuszko Insurrection and the events at Raclawitz (Raclawice). (pp. 178-on). Then, in describing the November 1830 Insurrection, Whitton parts ways with those who consider it a futile, romantic misadventure. He suggests that this insurrection would probably have gone the way of the Poles had the Great Powers intervened at the proper time. (p. 246).

NOT AN ENLIGHTENED PUSH FOR EQUALITY: OPPORTUNISTIC TSARIST RUSSIAN FREEING OF THE POLISH SERFS

Whitton realizes that the tsarist Russian policies were intended to drive a wedge between the different social classes of Poles, and that furthermore they created a new form of peasant dependency—that on the Russian government. He thus describes the edict of March 3, 1861; (quote) All peasants attached to the soil became free cultivators, with the permanent occupation of part of their land, the rest being left to the lord. The permanent occupation might be exchanged for absolute ownership by a money payment, and the Government organized a system of loans to enable the peasants to free themselves at once by becoming debtors to the State. There were political as well as humane motives for the measure, which extended the Emperor’s authority at the expense of the nobles. (unquote). (p. 252).

This process continued, (quote) A ukase of March, 1864, gave the peasants the fee-simple of the lands which they had hitherto cultivated as tenants at will, and a purposely vague right to access to the nobles’ forest and pasture lands was also assigned them. (unquote). (p. 255).