What have the working classes to do with Poland?

I.

To the Editor of The Commonwealth.

The Commonwealth, No. 159, March 24, 1866

Sir – Wherever the working classes have taken a part
of their own in political movements, there, from the very beginning, their
foreign policy was expressed in the few words – Restoration of Poland.
This was the case with the Chartist movement so long as it existed, this
was the case with the French working men long before 1848, as well as during
that memorable year, when on the 15th of May they marched on to the National
Assembly to the cry of “dive la Pologne!” – Poland for ever! This
was the case in Germany, when, in 1848 and ’49, the organs of the working
class demanded war with Russia for the restoration of Poland. It is the
case even now; – with one exception – of which more anon – the working
men of Europe unanimously proclaim the restoration of Poland as a part
and parcel of their political programme, as the most comprehensive expression
of their foreign policy. The middle-class, too, have had, and have still,
“sympathies” with the Poles, which sympathies have not prevented them from
leaving the Poles in the lurch in 1831, in 1846, in 1863, nay, have not
even prevented them from leaving the worst enemies of Poland, such as Lord
Palmerston, to manage matters so as to actually assist Russia while they
talked in favour of Poland. But with the working classes it is different.
They mean intervention, not non-intervention, they mean war with Russia
while Russia meddles with Poland, and they have proved it every time the
Poles rose against their oppressors. And recently, the International Working
Men’s Association has given a fuller expression to this universal instinctive
feeling of the body it claims to represent, by inscribing on its banner,
"Resistance to Russian encroachments upon Europe – Restoration of Poland.”

This programme of the foreign policy of the working men of Western
and Central Europe has found a unanimous consent among the class to whom
it was addressed, with one exception, as we said before. There are among
the working men of France a small minority who belong to the school of
the late P. J. Proudhon. This school differs in toto from the generality
of the advanced and thinking working men; it declares them to be ignorant
fools, and maintains, on most points, opinions quite contrary to theirs.
This holds good in their foreign policy also. The Proudhonists, sitting
in judgment on oppressed Poland, find the verdict of the Staleybridge jury,
“Serves her right.” They admire Russia as the great land of the future,
as the most progressive nation upon the face of the earth, at the side
of which such a paltry country as the United States is not worthy of being
named. They have charged the Council of the International Association with
setting up the Bonapartist principle of nationalities, and with declaring
that magnanimous Russian people without the pale of civilised Europe; such
being a grievous sin against the principles of universal democracy and
the fraternity of all nations. These are the charges. Barring the democratic
phraseology at the wind-up, they coincide, it will be seen at once verbally
and literally with what the extreme Tories of all countries have to say
about Poland and Russia. Such charges are not worth refuting; but, as they
come from a fraction of the working classes be it ever so small a one,
they may render it desirable to state again the case of Poland and Russia,
and to vindicate what we may henceforth call the foreign policy of the
united working men of Europe.

But why do we always name Russia alone in connection with Poland?
Have not two German Powers, Austria and Prussia shared in the plunder?
Do not they, too, hold parts of Poland in bondage, and, in connection with
Russia, do they not work to keep down every national Polish movement?

It is well known how hard Austria has struggled to keep out of
the Polish business; how long she resisted the plans of Russia and Prussia
for the partition. Poland was a natural ally of Austria against Russia.
When Russia once became formidable nothing could be more in the interest
of Austria than to keep Poland alive between herself and the newly-rising
Empire. It was only when Austria saw that Poland’s fate was settled, that
with or without her, the other two Powers were determined to annihilate
her, it was only then that in self-protection she went in for a share of
the territory. But as early as 1815 she held out for the restoration of
an independent Poland; in 1831 and in 1863 she was ready to go to war for
that object, and give up her own share of Poland, provided England and
France were prepared to join her. The same during the Crimean war. This
is not said in justification of the general policy of the Austrian Government.
Austria has shown often enough that to oppress a weaker nation is congenial
work to her rulers. But in the case of Poland the instinct of self-preservation
was stronger than the desire for new territory or the habits of Government.
And this puts Austria out of court for the present.

As to Prussia, her share of Poland is too trifling to weigh much
in the scale. Her friend and ally, Russia, has managed to ease her of nine-tenths
of what she got during the three partitions.”’ But what little is left
to her weighs as an incubus upon her. It has chained her to the triumphal
car of Russia, it has been the means of enabling her Government, even in
1863 and ’64, to practice unchallenged, in Prussian-Poland, those breaches
of the law, those infractions of individual liberty, of the right of meeting,
of the liberty of the press, which were so soon afterwards to be applied
to the rest of the country; it has falsified the whole middle-class Liberal
movement which, from fear of risking the loss of a few square miles of
land on the eastern frontier, allowed the Government to set all law aside
with regard to the Poles. The working men, not only of Prussia, but of
all Germany, have a; greater interest than those of any other country in
the restoration. Of Poland, and they have shown in every revolutionary
movement that they know it. Restoration of Poland, to them, is emancipation
of their own country from Russian vassalage. And this, we think, puts Prussia
out of court, too. Whenever the working classes of Russia (if there is
such a thing in that country, in the sense it IS understood in Western
Europe) form a political programme, and that programme contains the liberation
of Poland – then, but not till then, Russia as a nation will be out of
court too, and the. Government of the Czar will remain alone under indictment.

II.

To the Editor of The Commonwealth

The Commonwealth, No. 160, March 31, 1866

Sir, – It is said that to claim independence for
Poland is to acknowledge the “principle of nationalities”, and that the
principle of nationalities is a Bonapartist invention concocted to prop
up the Napoleonic despotism in France. Now what is this “principle of nationalities”?

By the treaties of 1815 the boundaries of the various States of
Europe were drawn merely to suit diplomatic convenience, and especially
to suit the convenience of the then strongest continental Power – Russia.
No account was taken either of the wishes, the interests, or the national
diversities of the populations. Thus Poland was divided, Germany was divided,
Italy was divided, not to speak of the many smaller nationalities inhabiting
south-eastern Europe, and of which few people at that time knew anything.
The consequence was that for Poland, Germany, and Italy, the very first
step in every political movement was to attempt the restoration of that
national unity without which national life was but a shadow. And when,
after the suppression of the revolutionary attempts in Italy and Spain,
1821-23, and again, after the revolution of July, 1830, in France, the
extreme politicians of the greater part of civilised Europe came into contact
with each other, and attempted to work out a kind of common programmer
the liberation and unification of the oppressed and subdivided nations
became a watchword common to all of them.” So it was again in 1848, when
the number of oppressed nations was increased by a fresh one, viz., Hungary.
There could, indeed, be no two opinions as to the right of every one of
the great national subdivisions of Europe to dispose of itself, independently
of its neighbours, in all internal matters, so long as it did not encroach
upon the liberty of the others. This right was, in fact, one of the fundamental
conditions of the internal liberty of all. How could, for instance, Germany
aspire to liberty and unity, if at the same time she assisted Austria to
keep Italy in bondage, either directly or by her vassals? Why, the total
breaking-up of the Austrian monarchy is the very first condition of the
unification of Germany,

This right of the great national subdivisions of Europe to political
independence, acknowledged as it was by the European democracy, could not
but find the same acknowledgment with the working classes especially. It
was, in fact, nothing more than to recognise in other large national bodies
of undoubted vitality the same right of individual national existence which
the working men of each separate country claimed for themselves. But this
recognition, and the sympathy with these national aspirations, were restricted
to the large and well-defined historical nations of Europe; there was Italy,
Poland, Germany, Hungary. France, Spain, England, Scandinavia, were neither
subdivided nor under foreign control, and therefore but indirectly interested
in the matter; and as to Russia, she could only be mentioned as the detainer
of an immense amount of stolen property, which would have to be disgorged
on the day of reckoning.

After the coup d’état of 1851, Louis Napoleon, the Emperor
“by the grace of God and the national will”, had to find a democraticised
and popular-sounding name for his foreign policy. What could be better
than to inscribe upon his banners the “principle of nationalities”? Every
nationality to be the arbiter of its own fate – every detached fraction
of any nationality to be allowed to annex itself to its great mother-country
– what could be more liberal? Only, mark, there was not, now, any more
question of nations, but of nationalities.

There is no country in Europe where there are not different nationalities
under the same government. The Highland Gaels and the Welsh are undoubtedly
of different nationalities to what the English are, although nobody will
give to these remnants of peoples long gone by the title of nations, any
more than to the Celtic inhabitants of Brittany in France. Moreover, no
state boundary coincides with the natural boundary of nationality, that
of language. There are plenty of people out of France whose mother tongue
is French, same as there are plenty of people of German language out of
Germany; and in all probability it will ever remain so. It is a natural
consequence of the confused and slow-working historical development through
which Europe has passed during the last thousand years, that almost every
great nation has parted with some outlying portions of its own body, which
have become separated from the national life, and in most cases participated
in the national life of some other people; so much so, that they do not
wish to rejoin their own main stock. The Germans in Switzerland and Alsace
do not desire to be reunited to Germany, any more than the French in Belgium
and Switzerland wish to become attached politically to France. And after
all, it is no slight advantage that the various nations, as politically
constituted, have most of them some foreign elements within themselves,
which form connecting links with their neighbours, and vary the otherwise
too monotonous uniformity of the national character.

Here, then, we perceive the difference between the “principle
of nationalities” and the old democratic and working-class tenet
as to the right of the great European nations to separate and independent
existence. The “principle of nationalities” leaves entirely untouched the
great question of the right of national existence for the historic peoples
of Europe; nay, if it touches it, it is merely to disturb it. The principle
of nationalities raises two sorts of questions; first of all, questions
of boundary between these great historic peoples; and secondly, questions
as to the right to independent national existence of those numerous small
relics of peoples which, after having figured for a longer or shorter period
on the stage of history, were finally absorbed as integral portions into
one or the other of those more powerful nations whose greater vitality
enabled them to overcome greater obstacles. The European importance, the
vitality of a people is as nothing in the eyes of the principle of nationalities;
before it, the Roumans of Wallachia, who never had a history, nor the energy
required to have one, are of equal importance to the Italians who have
a history of 2,000 years, and an unimpaired national vitality, the Welsh
and Manxmen, if they desired it, would have an equal right to independent
political existence, absurd though it would be with the English. The
whole thing is an absurdity, got up in a popular dress in order to throw
dust in shallow people’s eyes, and to be used as a convenient phrase, or
to be laid aside if the occasion requires it.

Shallow as the thing is, it required cleverer brains than Louis
Napoleon’s to invent it. The principle of nationalities, so far from being
a Bonapartist invention to favour a resurrection of Poland is nothing but
a Russian invention concocted to destroy Poland. Russia has absorbed
the greater part of ancient Poland on the plea of the principle of nationalities,
as we shall see hereafter. The idea is more than a hundred years old, and
Russia uses it now every day. What is Panslavism but the application, by
Russia, and in Russian interest, of the principle of nationalities to the
Serbians, Croats Ruthenes, Slovaks, Czechs, and other remnants of bygone
Slavonian peoples in Turkey, Hungary, and Germany? Even at this present
moment, the Russian Government have agents travelling among the Lapponians
in Northern Norway and Sweden, trying to agitate among these nomadic savages
the idea of a “great Finnic nationality”, which is to be restored in the
extreme North of Europe, under Russian protection, of course. The “cry
of anguish” of the oppressed Laplanders is raised very loud in the Russian
papers – not by those same oppressed nomads, but by the Russian agents
– and indeed it is a frightful oppression, to induce these poor Laplanders
to learn the civilised Norwegian or Swedish language, instead of confining
themselves to their own barbaric, half Esquimaux idiom! The principle of
nationalities, indeed, could be invented in Eastern Europe alone, where
the tide of Asiatic invasion, for a thousand years, recurred again and
again, and left on the shore those heaps of intermingled ruins of nations
which even now the ethnologist can scarcely disentangle, and where the
Turk, the Finnic Magyar, the Rouman, the Jew, and about a dozen Slavonic
tribes, live intermixed in interminable confusion. That was the ground
to work the principle of nationalities, and how Russia has worked it there,
we shall see by-and-by in the example of Poland.

III.

To the Editor of The Commonwealth

The Commonwealth, No. 165, May 5, 1866

The Doctrine of Nationality Applied to Poland

Poland, like almost all other European countries,
is inhabited by people of different nationalities. The mass of the population,
the nucleus of its strength, is no doubt formed by the Poles proper, who
speak the Polish language. But ever since 1390 Poland proper has been united
to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which has formed, up to the last partition
in 1794, an integral portion of the Polish Republic. This Grand Duchy of
Lithuania was inhabited by a great variety of races. The northern provinces,
on the Baltic, were in possession of Lithuanians proper, people
speaking a language distinct from that of their Slavonic neighbours; these
Lithuanians had been, to a great extent, conquered by German immigrants,
who, again, found it hard to hold their own against the Lithuanian Grand
Dukes. Further south, and east of the present kingdom of Poland, were the
White Russians, speaking a language betwixt Polish and Russian,
but nearer the latter; and finally the southern provinces were inhabited
by the so-called Little Russians, [Ukranians] whose language is
now by most authorities considered as perfectly distinct from the Great
Russian (the language we commonly call Russian). Therefore, if people say
that, to demand the restoration of Poland is to appeal to the principle
of nationalities, they merely prove that they do not know what they are
talking about, for the restoration of Poland means the re-establishment
of a State composed of at least four different nationalities.

When the old Polish State was thus being formed by the union with
Lithuania, where was then Russia? Under the heel of the Mongolian conqueror,
whom the Poles and Germans combined, 150 years before, had driven back
east of the Dnieper. It took a long struggle until the Grand Dukes of Moscow
finally shook off the Mongol yoke, and set about combining the many different
principalities of Great Russia into one State. But this success seems only
to have increased their ambition. No sooner had Constantinople fallen to
the Turk [1453], than the Moscovite Grand Duke [Ivan III] placed in his
coat-of-arms the double-headed eagle of the Byzantine Emperors, thereby
setting up his claim as their successor and future avenger; and ever since,
it is well known, have the Russians worked to conquer Czaregrad, the town
of the Czar, as they call Constantinople in their language. Then, the rich
plains of Little Russia excited their lust of annexation; but the Poles
were then a strong, and always a brave people, and not only knew how to
fight for their own, but also how to retaliate; in the beginning of the
seventeenth century they even held Moscow for a few years.

The gradual demoralisation of the ruling aristocracy, the want
of power to develop a middle class, and the constant wars devastating the
country, at last broke the strength of Poland. A country which persisted
in maintaining unimpaired the feudal state of society, while all its neighbours
progressed, formed a middle class, developed commerce and industry, and
created large towns – such a country was doomed to ruin. No doubt the
aristocracy did ruin Poland, and ruin her thoroughly; and after
ruining her, they upbraided each other for having done so, and sold themselves
and their country to the foreigner. Polish history, from 1700 to 1772,
is nothing but a record of Russian usurpation of dominion in Poland, rendered
possible by the corruptibility of the nobles. Russian soldiers were almost
constantly occupying the country, and the Kings of Poland, if not willing
traitors themselves, were placed more and more under the thumb of the Russian
Ambassador. So well had this game succeeded, and so long had it been played,
that, when Poland at last was annihilated, there was no outcry at all in
Europe, and, indeed, people were astonished at this only, that Russia should
have the generosity of giving such a large slice of the territory to Austria
and Prussia.

The way in which this partition was brought about, is particularly
interesting. There was, at that time, already an enlightened “public opinion”
in Europe. Although the Times newspaper had not yet begun to manufacture
that article, there was that kind of public opinion which had been created
by the immense influence of Diderot, Voltaire, Rousseau, and the other
French writers of the eighteenth century. Russia always knew that it is
important to have public opinion on one’s side, if possible; and Russia
took care to have it, too. The Court of Catherine II was made the head-quarters
of the enlightened men of the day, especially Frenchmen; the most enlightened
principle was professed by the Empress and her Court, and so well did she
succeed in deceiving them that Voltaire and many others sang the praise
of the “Semiramis of the North”, and proclaimed Russia the most progressive
country in the world, the home of liberal principles, the champion of religious
toleration.

Religious toleration – that was the word wanted to put down Poland.
Poland had always been extremely liberal in religious matters; witness
the asylum the Jews found there while they were persecuted in all other
parts of Europe. The greater portion of the people in the Eastern provinces
belonged to the Greek faith, while the Poles proper were Roman Catholics.
A considerable portion of these Greek Catholics had been induced, during
the sixteenth century, to acknowledge the supremacy of the Pope, and were
called United Greeks; but a great many continued true to their old Greek
religion in all respects. They were principally the serfs, their noble
masters being almost all Roman Catholics, they were Little Russians by
nationality. Now, this Russian Government, which did not tolerate at home
any other religion but the Greek, and punished apostasy as a crime; which
was conquering foreign nations and annexing foreign provinces right and
left; and which was at that time engaged in riveting still firmer the fetters
of the Russian serf – this same Russian Government came soon upon Poland
in the name of religious toleration, because Poland was said to oppress
the Greek Catholics; in the name of the principle of nationalities, because
the inhabitants of these Eastern provinces were Little Russians,
and ought, therefore, to be annexed to Great Russia; and in the
name of the right of revolution arming the serfs against their masters.
Russia is not at all scrupulous in the selection of her means. Talk about
a war of class against class as something extremely revolutionary; – why,
Russia set such a war on foot in Poland nearly 100 years ago, and a fine
specimen of a class-war it was, when Russian soldiers and Little Russian
serfs went in company to burn down the castles of the Polish lords, merely
to prepare Russian annexation, which being once accomplished, the same
Russian soldiers put the serfs back again under the yoke of their lords.

All this was done in the cause of religious toleration, because
the principle of nationalities was not then fashionable in Western Europe.
But it was held up before the eyes of the Little Russian peasants at the
time, and has played an important part since in Polish affairs. The first
and foremost ambition of Russia is the union of all Russian tribes under
the Czar, who calls himself the Autocrat of all the Russias (Samodergetz
vseckh Rossyiskikh), and among these she includes White and Little
Russia. And in order- to prove that her ambition went no further, she took
very good care, during the three partitions, to annex none but White and
Little Russian provinces; leaving the country inhabited by Poles, and even
a portion of Little Russia (Eastern Galicia) to her accomplices. But how
do matters stand now? The greater portion of the provinces annexed in 1793
and 1794 by Austria and Prussia are now under Russian dominion, under the
name of the Kingdom of Poland, and from time to time hopes are raised among
the Poles, that if they will only submit to Russian supremacy, and renounce
all claims to the ancient Lithuanian provinces, they may expect a reunion
of all other Polish provinces and a restoration of Poland, with the Russian
Emperor for a King. And if at the present juncture Prussia and Austria
came to blows, it is more than probable that the war will not be, ultimately,
for the annexation of Schleswig-Holstein to Prussia, or of Venice to Italy,
but rather of Austrian, and at least a portion of Prussian, Poland to Russia.

So much for the principle of nationalities in Polish affairs.

Signed:

Frederick Engels