Undemonizing Dmowski on Jews Dillon

The Inside Story of the Peace Conference, by Emile Joseph Dillon. 2011

A Non-Pole Rationally Assesses Roman Dmowski and His Well-Reasoned Position on Jews

This book (review based on original 1920 edition) covers many topics, and I focus on a few of them. The author is remarkably even-handed with reference to Poland. However, the author does not have a pro-Polish bias. He repeats certain negative stereotypes of Poles and their presumably-deficient governing ability. (p. 269, 389).

Nowadays, Roman Dmowski is commonly demonized by leftists (LEWAKS) and certain Jews, who like to appeal to emotions (Hater!) instead of thought, and Poland is excoriated for resisting the Minorities Treaty. Author Dillon approaches the subject rationally, and provides the necessary balance (elaborated below).

This work is full of interesting information. For instance, Dillon assesses Bolshevism in general. He characterizes Trotzky/Trotsky (Braunstein/Bronshteyn) as “an unscrupulous despot, in whose veins flow the poison of malignity. His element is cruelty; his special gift is organizing capacity.” (p. 385). This is in contrast to those today who “rehabilitate” Communism as something that was idealistic and benign (as under Trotsky) until it later “went bad” under Stalin and Stalinism.

THE LITVAKS (LITWAKS): IMPLICATIONS OF POLITICIZED JEWISH SEPARATISM

Although the author does not use the term Litvak, he realizes the fact that these many descendants of Polish Jews had little sympathy for a resurrected Poland. He quips, (Quote) The Lithuanian Jews, however, were of a different way of thinking, and they opposed the Polish claims with a degree of steadfastness and animation which wounded Poland’s national pride and left rankling sores behind. (unquote). (p. 260; See also p. 80).

MINORITIES TREATY: SEPARATE-NATION RIGHTS

Emile Joseph Dillon, in effect, sees Jews as wanting to have their cake and eat it too–simultaneously antagonizing Poland and then wanting special rights from the new Polish nation. He elaborates on this as he comments, (Quote) Moreover, the foreign Jewish elements there, which have immigrated from Russia, having lost–like everybody else before the war–the expectation of seeing Polish independence ever restored, had definitely thrown in their lot with the enemies of Poland. Now to put into the hands of such enemies constitutional weapons is already a sacrifice and a risk. The Jews in Vilna [Wilno, Vilnius] recently voted solidly against the incorporation of that city in Poland…The Jewish coalition in Vilna inscribed on its program the union of Vilna with Russia…(LA TEMPS, September 14, 1919)…Are they to be treated as loyal Polish citizens? We have conceded the point unreservedly. But to give them autonomy over and above, to create a state within the state, and enable its subjects to call in foreign Powers at every hand’s turn, against the lawfully constituted authorities–that is an expedient which does not commend itself to the newly emancipated peoples. (unquote). (p. 499).

THE MINORITIES TREATY AND BOGUS POGROM ACCOUNTS

E. J. Dillon characterizes what became called the Minorities Treaty as one that endows Jews with what various special privileges, and one that forces Poland, and other nations, to renounce part of their sovereignty. (p. 453). This, of course, concurs with the Polish position.

The 1918-era accounts of massive pogroms in Poland are instructive. Dillon again sees eye-to-eye with the Poles, (Quote) We are able to be hauled before a foreign tribunal whenever one of our minorities formulates a complaint against us. How easily, nay, how wickedly such complaints were filed of late may be inferred from the heartrending accounts of pogroms in Poland, which have since been shown by the Allies’ own confidential envoys to be utterly fictitious. (unquote). (p. 504).

POLITICAL HYPOCRISY OF THE MINORITIES TREATY

Dillon characterizes the world-parliament as essentially an Anglo-Saxon assembly whose political conceptions were to be impressed upon others. (p. 509; see also pp. 496-497). Moreover, the Anglo-American powers were imposing something on Poland that they did not adhere to themselves. Dillon, quoting an unnamed speaker, says, (Quote) We are to bind ourselves toward the Great Powers, who themselves have their minorities which complain in vain of being continually coerced. Ireland, Egypt, and the Negroes are three striking examples. None of their delegates was admitted to the Conference. (unquote). (p. 504).

MINORITY RIGHTS–IF THEY ARE FOR JEWS, AND TO HECK WITH OTHER MINORITIES

Even apparently innocuous Jewish demands often turned out to be demands for special rights. Consider the protection of the Sabbath. Dillon comments, (Quote) M. Gauvain writes: “One may put the question, why respect for the Sabbath is so peremptorily imposed when Sunday is ignored among several of the Allied Powers. In France, Christians are not dispensed from appearing on Sundays before the assize courts…Catholicism has adapted itself in practice to laic legislation and to the exigencies of modern life. It may well seem that Judaism in Poland could do likewise.” (unquote). (pp. 505-506).

Now consider the Jewish demand for special government-funded Jewish schools in Poland. Emile Joseph Dillon comments, (quote) Another eminent Frenchman, M. Denis Cochin, who until quite recently was a Cabinet Minister, wrote: “I have spent a large part of my career in demanding for French Catholics exactly that which the Conference imposes elsewhere. The Catholics pay taxes in money and taxes in blood. Yet there is no budget for those schools in which their religion is taught…(unquote). (p. 507).

ROMAN DMOWSKI CONFRONTS JEWISH INFLUENCE

Instead of avoiding the subject of Jewish influence as a forbidden anti-Semitic one, or going to the other extreme (of making allegations of nefarious Jewish world-control schemes that entail shadow governments ruled by all-powerful malevolent Jews), Dillon rationally addresses specific and demonstrable forms of Jewish influence. He notes that, (Quote) Of all the collectivities whose interests were furthered at the Conference, the Jews had perhaps the most resourceful and certainly the most influential exponents. There were Jews from Palestine, from Poland, Russia, the Ukraine, Rumania, Greece, Britain, Holland, the Belgium; but the largest and most brilliant contingent was sent by the United States. (unquote).

The author provides an atypically balanced portrayal of Roman Dmowski and his conduct at the Peace Conference. (pp. 79-81). It is a welcome alternative to the usual simplistic hatchet jobs. In fact, Dillon casts Dmowski as the one who was the underdog, as he remarks, (Quote) M. Dmowski appeared at the Conference under all the disadvantages that could be heaped upon a man who has incurred the resentment of the most powerful international body of modern times. He had the misfortune to have the Jews of the world as his adversaries. (unquote). (p. 79). Dillon adds that, (Quote) Polish Jews who appeared in Paris, some of them his bitterest antagonists, recognized the chivalrous way in which he conducts his electoral and other campaigns. (unquote). (p. 80).

DMOWSKI: NO SPECIAL RIGHTS FOR JEWS

Emile Joseph Dillon avoids the stereotyping of Jews as he displays his understanding of where Roman Dmowski was coming from. He comments, (Quote) The frequency with which the leading spirits of Bolshevism turn out to be Jews–to the dismay and disgust of the bulk of their own community–and the ingenuity they displayed in spreading their corrosive tenets in Poland may not have been without effect upon the energy of M. Dmowski’s attitude toward the demand of the Polish Jews to be placed in a privileged position of wards of the League of Nations. (unquote). (p. 81).