TSARIST POLICY TOWARD THE POLES

It is illuminating in the light of the traditional Polish foreign policy to compare the treatment meted out to the Poles by the barbarous, autocratic government of fellow-Slavic Russia to that which they received from the enlightened con-siitutional monarchies of Prussia and Austria, both German states. To quote the Catholic Encyclopedia again:

"After Poland disappeared from the political map of Europe, each of the three states which absorbed it began to carry out its own policy in the annexed territory. . . . Austria and Prussia in particular sought to repress the Polish national spirit. Colonization of Polish territory with German colonists was begun systematically. In Prussia, all church lands were confiscated and the Catholic clergy as a whole were made answerable for the political crimes of individuals. Under Russian rule, hostility to the Polish national spirit was not entirely open but the persecution of the Uniats continued."

In other words, there was comparatively less official persecution of Polish nationalism or Polish Catholicism. Since the Uniats were not Poles but Ukrainian Greek Orthodox peasants whose clergy had been organized under Polish pressure into a semi-autonomous Catholic Church, Russian-Greek Orthodox counter-pressure to get them to re-enter the fold can hardly be termed persecution of the Poles. Raymond Buell in "Poland" notes:

"A Polish writer (Eugenjus Kwiatkowski) calls attention to the essential difference between the Russian and German oppression of the Poles during the partition period. Russia had some sort of Pan-Slavic Union under Russian hegemony as its main creed. In this vague Pan-Slavic Empire, the Poles were to have their place as one of the Slav peoples. Russia opposed Polish independence. Always, however, in one form or another, the existence of an ethnically Polish territory was recognized. Not so Germany. There the fight against the Poles took the form of a systematic attempt to denationalize the provinces inhabited by Poles and transform them into purely-German provinces. German policy tended toward domination and extermination, which even the more liberal Germans interpreted as a national necessity."

This difference in policy was as striking in the economic as in the ethnic sphere. In Germany government funds (100,000,000 marks in 1886) were appropriated to buy up Polish land and dispossess the Polish peasantry and particularly the Polish nobility so that the latter became extinct as a class in German Poland. In Tsarist Russia not only were the Polish landowners not dispossessed of their estates in Russian Poland but were permitted to hold on to their vastly larger estates in White Russia and the Ukraine, so that there was the anomalous situation of the "subjugated" Polish nobility owning and exploiting millions of "liberated" White Russian and Ukrainian peasants.1

To this day the obstinacy of the Polish Government on the question of "Eastern Poland" is primarily based on the natural disinclination of the Polish ruling class, chiefly "East Polish" landowners, to surrender the right to exploit these millions of Russian peasants on their vast White Russian (Byelorussian) and Ukrainian estates. Tsarist industrial development was mainly in the West, and Polish industry was a chief beneficiary. The Encyclopedia Britannica testifies:

"The abolition in 1851 of the customs frontier between Russia and Poland laid the foundation for an extraordinary industrial expansion. The Russian Government took every possible means to assist this expansion. . . . The Polish upper and middle class achieved a well-being far superior to anything enjoyed by their cousins in Austrian Galicia."

The foregoing does not mean, of course, that the Polish people were not oppressed. The Tsar's Government had its own reasons for its special terms to the Polish landed nobility and manufacturers. It sought to base its rule of the subjugated Polish people on their support. But it is pertinent to note that Russian rule was less prejudicial to Polish nationhood in every sense than German or Austrian rule.2


1Both these accounts focus on German settlement of Polish territory and equate that to oppression of the Poles, avoiding any account of Russia's actual treatment of its Polish population. As Florence Farmborough writes (Poland & the Poles in the Peoples of All Nations). our emphasis: "With respect to the Austrian Poles, it should be remembered that they were not subjected to the same severity of treatment as were their compatriots in Prussia and Russia, but were allowed a fair amount of freedom and a measure of self-government. This re-acted favourably on the Poles in that part of the world, who set about organizing and developing their own societies. They were permitted also to have their own schools and their two Universities, and were not hindered from occupying certain official positions. On the other hand, the intellectual life of Russian Poland had to exist as best it could. In order to bring about the denationalization of the people the Polish language was proscribed [prohibited]. All instruction was carried on in Russian. Even in their play hours, children were not allowed to speak their own tongue—which is not unlike Russian, spelt differently, however, and written with Latin letters, and is distinctly of a more sibilant nature. One result of this attempted Russification of the Poles was a high percentage of illiteracy, since the people chose to be ignorant rather than read and write in Russian. As an example of the treatment measured out by the Tsarist regime, it should be noted that the Censor, established in Warsaw, saw fit to prohibit a wide range of books.... Not only was the reading of the works of Mickiewicz, Slowacki, Krasinski, and Lelewel (the national historian) forbidden, but the very names of these writers were not allowed to be mentioned."
2The facts of history are diametrically opposed to the pro-Soviet account: no other rule was as demonstrably and egregiously prejudicial to Polish nationhood as was Russia's.

"Behind the Polish-Soviet Break" was published by Soviet Russia Today, New York. We do not endorse the Soviet account of historical events or their circumstances contained therein.
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