Polish Middle Class Jews Delayed MacDonald

Cultural Insurrections, by Kevin B. MacDonald. 2007

Non-Polish Author Confirms That Jewish Economic Hegemony, Over Poland, Greatly Delayed the Development of a Polish Middle Class

Much of this work overlaps that found in Kevin MacDonald’s earlier books, especially CULTURE OF CRITIQUE and UNDERSTANDING JEWISH INFLUENCE. [Please see all my reviews of MacDonald’s works.] He maintains his view of Jewish-GOYISH conflicts as evolutionarily-driven ones. Towards the end of this book, MacDonald seems to be advocating a mild form of white nationalism.

YES, VIRGINIA, JEWISH COMMUNISTS WERE REAL JEWS

In debates today in Poland, about what sometimes is called the Zydokomuna, one often hears the rather creative argument that Jewish Communists were not really Jews. It turns out that this is an old exculpation, going back at least to the 1920’s. (p. 30). Kevin MacDonald presents convincing evidence that Soviet Jews most definitely maintained a Jewish identity–a secular one, that is–even if they had never been to a synagogue or seen a Menorah. (pp. 64-69).

ETHICAL UNIVERSALISM?

The author examines Jewish influence in some detail. He points out that Jews are skillful in framing the promotion of their interests in terms of ethical universalism. (p. 193).

HISTORY IS NOT BLACK AND WHITE

This work includes analysis of Yuri Slezkine’s THE JEWISH CENTURY and Henry Ford’s infamous THE INTERNATIONAL JEW. It also features many items of interest. For instance, Henry Ford wrote of the Jewish massacre of tens of thousands of Christians during the Persian conquest of Jerusalem in 614 A. D. (p. 243). This has been confirmed: See my review of Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence (Jews, Christians, and Muslims from the Ancient to the Modern World).

JOURNALISM AND JEWS

Author Kevin MacDonald faults Henry Ford for exaggerating the Jewish role in the economy (pp. 225-226), and especially for giving credence to Jewish conspiracy theories such as the PROTOCOLS OF THE ELDERS OF ZION. (pp. 240-on). However, some other matters raised by Ford are legitimate grievances. Here is what Henry Ford wrote about the state of motion pictures, echoing Polish cardinal August Hlond, “Frivolity, sensuality, indecency, appalling illiteracy are the marks of the American State as it approaches its degeneracy under Jewish control.” (p. 227). [Remember, Ford wrote this in 1920! Were he alive today, what would he say—regardless of validly-understood Jewish influence or otherwise–about the Hollywood moral sewer?] Henry Ford, not known as a devout man, also complained, back in 1920, that Jews are trying to wipe out of public life every trace of Christianity. (p. 231). What would he say, today, about the Jews’ almost-spectacular success in having done so?

SURPRISING NON-POLISH INSIGHTS ON POLAND

This is not a book on Jewish-Polish relations, and Kevin MacDonald is not a specialist in this area. It is therefore surprising and gratifying to see the refreshing sophistication of his understanding of the Jews in Poland. I devote the remainder of my review to this subject.

JEWS HINDERED THE EMERGENCE OF A POLISH MIDDLE CLASS

Poles get berated when they hint that Poland’s huge Jewish population inhibited the development of Poland’s middle class, thus materially contributing to her weakness at the time of the Partitions (as noted by Roman Dmowski). Kevin MacDonald astutely realizes that it was true.

He comments, (quote) …their [Jews’] ability to create ethnic monopolies in goods and services. When Jews won the economic competition in early modern Poland, the result was that the great majority of Poles were reduced to the status of agricultural laborers supervised by Jewish estate managers in an economy in which trade, manufacturing, and artisanry were in large part controlled by Jews. On the other hand, in most of Western Europe Jews had been expelled in the Middle Ages. As a result, when modernization occurred, it was accomplished with an indigenous middle class…it seems reasonable to suppose that the Christian taxpayers of England made a good investment in their own future when they agreed to pay King Edward I a massive tax of £L116,346 in return for expelling two thousand Jews in 1290. (unquote). (pp. 53-54).

HENRY FORD ON POLES AND JEWS

Whatever the deficiencies in his understanding of the Jews, industrialist Henry Ford had a solid grasp of the 1918-era Jewish anti-Polish propaganda that featured alleged massive pogroms in Poland. MacDonald quips, (quote) THE INTERNATIONAL JEW also presents an interesting account of various descriptions of the anti-Jewish actions in Poland in 1919. The article of November 6, 1920, compares several accounts of the situation in Poland and notes that a very pro-Jewish account by Sir Stuart Samuel, the Jewish head of the British mission to Poland, was widely publicized, including being placed as advertisements in newspapers. On the other hand, accounts by Henry Morgenthau, Sr. (also Jewish, and former U. S. Ambassador to Turkey) and Captain P. Wright (a member of the British mission to Poland) that were less flattering to Jews disappeared from public awareness to the point that copies of them were difficult to obtain. (unquote). (p. 235).

[The informed reader can think of the very-similar modern example of the Jedwabne massacre. It has been hyped the media, and made into an indictment of Poles as a whole. Meanwhile, Jewish testimonies pointing to the responsibility of the Germans and not the Poles, as the main killers of Jedwabne’s Jews, have been ignored. See, for example, my review of Deliverance: The Diary of Michael Maik, a True Story.]

Most significant of all, MacDonald, and Henry Ford before him, realized that there was no simplistic dialectic of the bad Pole and the good Jew. Both sides were at fault. Thus, MacDonald comments, “THE INTERNATIONAL JEW emphasizes Jewish sympathy for communism as an important issue in Polish anti-Semitism…” (p. 235).

It is common sense but, especially nowadays, common sense is not always so common.