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 ris 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,[114] 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.(1)
[The Commonwealth, No. 165, May 5, 1866]
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,[115] 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,(1) 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.[116] But this success seems only to have increased their ambition. No sooner had Constantinople fallen to the Turk,[3] than the Moscovite Grand Duke(2) 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.[117]
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 pro-fessed 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[118]; 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 accom-plished, 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: Frederic Engels
7*
Endnotes
[114] Ruthenes (Ruthenians)—the name given in nineteenth-century West-European ethnographical and historical works to the Ukrainian population of Galicia, the Bukovina and the Sub-Carpathian Ukraine, which was separated at the time from the bulk of the Ukrainian people.
[115] The unification of Poland and Lithuania was laid down by the Krevo Union of 1385 — a dynastic alliance of the two states.
[116] In the 1230s the Russian lands were invaded by the Tatars and Mongols. Their further advance to the West was weakened and halted by the resistance of the subjugated peoples. After many years of hard oppression, Russian troops under Dmitry, Grand Duke of Moscow, routed the forces of the Golden Horde on Kulikovo plain in 1380 and thus shook the foundation of Mongol domination. The final liberation was won in 1480 under the Grand Duke of Moscow Ivan III. He also scored great successes in uniting the Russian lands into a single centralised state.
[3] Garottes—robbers who strangled their victims. In the early 1860s such attacks often occurred in London and were a subject of special debate in Parliament.
[117] In June 1605 Moscow was captured by the Poles and Lithuanians who supported their figurehead, the False Dmitry, in his claims to the Russian throne. In May 1606 he was overthrown as a result of a popular uprising. In September 1610 Moscow again fell into the hands of Polish invaders who dropped all pretences this time. In October 1612 Moscow was set free by people's volunteers under Minin and Pozharsky.
[118] United Greeks—members of the Uniat Church formed by the synod of Brest in 1596 (Brest Union). It recognised the supremacy of the Pope and the main Catholic dogmas but preserved the Orthodox rite and the Slavonic liturgy. The Uniat Church found adherents mostly among the Belorussians and Ukrainians in Poland.