VIEW: Who destroyed Poland? —Ralph Shaw

Protection of aristocratic privilege was the canker that destroyed Poland. Polish magnates who owned huge estates and enormous wealth frustrated all attempts to create a strong central government

There was no Poland for 123 years. The country vanished from the world map in 1795 and did not appear again as a geographic entity until 1918. Its primary destroyers were its martial magnates, and its revivers pianists and musicians, who humbly pleaded to the victorious allies for the resuscitation of their vanquished homeland — this being stated without diminishing the sacrifices of two million Poles who fought along with the occupying powers on the promises of freedom. Once the second largest country in Europe, Poland failed to establish a stable form of government, rendering it an easy prey to the cupidity of its more powerful neighbours (Russia, Austria, and Prussia), who used the inherent weaknesses of the Polish system of governance to destabilise, dismember, and swallow up Poland.

Protection of aristocratic privilege was the canker that destroyed Poland. Polish magnates who owned huge estates and enormous wealth frustrated all attempts to create a strong central government. Cynical of authority over and above their own and unwilling to be controlled by anyone, they turned their kings into mere figureheads. Kingship, originally an inherited office, became an elected one. Fresh elections were conducted on the death of each king with the magnates and lesser nobility normally voting a foreigner into office. Mistrustful of each other, they preferred a Swede, a French, or some other non-Polish national. The few powers the king acquired were through personal diplomacy and persuasion. In the magnates’ view, they were Poland and whatever was good for them must be good for Poland. ‘Golden Freedom’, their unique political system that spiked any attempts at real political progress and liberum veto, the tycoons’ (or their representatives’) right to prorogue or disband a Seym (parliament) by a singular veto, were the aristocratic liberties they cherished and most ardently defended.

Golden Freedom guaranteed that all those who held large estates were equal in rights and privileges. It was a restrictive democracy of sorts. There was freedom, but only for those who belonged to the elite class. Other social classes — the peasants, the townsmen (merchants and craftsmen), the lesser gentry, and the small landholders — had no stake in the Golden Freedom of the moguls. The Freedom gave the elite the right to terminate the Seym, often at the behest of foreign powers, and own peasants and control their labour, prevent townsmen from owning land, and oppose any sensible reforms that a benevolent king might have proposed. Fearing that a large central army supported by their wealth might become an agent of repression, they never allowed Poland to develop a strong military. In times of war, their private armies, together with the peasants, served the purpose. Likewise, they never permitted an effective system of taxation to be developed, which kept the centre economically weak.

The magnates, in fact, were a lot of self-serving exploiters. They were able to impose a precarious social order propped up by half-baked justifications for their oppressive system. To the peasant, they positioned themselves as champions and defenders of Christianity. The townsmen were reminded that their shops and businesses were protected only because of the security that the magnates’ arms provided and the landless gentry were fobbed off with promises of equal status with the nobility.

Under Golden Freedom, the peasant lived a life of perpetual bondage in which he laboured on the land, which he did not own, for the magnate, the liege-lord, the bishop, and the king. Having sullenly rendered this forced labour to the pecking order above him — and all was above him because he was at the lowest rung of the social ladder — he toiled on the land for his family and himself.

Convoluted as this freedom was, it did testify to the rich Poles’ aversion to dictatorship and autocracy. Even though there was little chance of expanding the freedoms enjoyed by the super-rich to other classes through reforms, a revolution might have put Poland on the path to progress instead of oblivion, but such was not to be, primarily because of Russia, Prussia, and Austria. Precisely at that time, the Polish nobility was experimenting with limited democracy while its neighbours were developing rabid autocracies that would endure for more than a 100 years.

Apparently, there was not much cause for quarrel between the neighbours. Their economic systems were tied to each other and Poland, with its small army, posed no military threat to them. There were religious differences for sure — Poland was Roman Catholic, Prussia Lutheran, and Russia Orthodox — but these differences did not constitute a strong enough motive for the three countries to desire Poland’s annihilation. The lust for land was certainly a motive, but it seems that Poland was destroyed most of all because its powerful rich had helped create a weak centre, which, though weak, was experimenting with a political form of government that was anathema to the surrounding autocracies. Catherine the Great in Russia, the Hohenzollerns in Prussia, and the Habsburgs in Austria feared that their days might be numbered if the Polish-style Golden Freedom of the magnates were to spread to their countries. So, the die was cast and the three countries jointly planned the disintegration and usurpation of Poland.

They struck in 1772, 1793, and finally in 1795, obliterating Poland from the map for well over a century. Within the modern context, the parallels are eerie if one replaces the magnates with the security, bureaucratic, and political establishments of underdeveloped countries.

Ralph Shaw is the pen name of a freelance writer, who lives and works in Pakistan. He can be reached at ralphshaw11@gmail.com