Roman Dmowski, as well as a number of another politicians or publicists, he formulated his own views and authoritative declarations on the national character of Poles, as well as any another nations, especially those that shaped the political reality of the time and the civilisational face of Europe, thus affecting more or little the destiny of Poland. The nature of the Poles and the civilisational condition of our country depended to a large degree on the chances of further preserving our national identity. Later, after 1918, the maintenance of the recently regained independency was besides threatened by the thought of the "export revolution", which was utilized by russian Russia's politics. Dmowski, however, paid peculiar attention to the German threat, which resulted not only from the military advantage of this nation, but besides from its advanced level of economical and method development. Russia, on the another hand, seemed little dangerous to him, as in civilisation it stood lower than Poland and so it did not have the assimilation force which was represented by Germany, which for hundreds of years has absorbed further areas inhabited by Western Slavs, and so besides Poles.
Thinking about our western neighbours, he besides spoke about the attitudes of Poles themselves, which were frequently inadequate in relation to our position and so were the subject of his concern. any of the statements of the leader of the intention were besides of far greater importance, going beyond strictly political matter. Here is 1 that is peculiarly worth remembering and drawing the right conclusions.
Dmowski wrote: “We Poles who heard us face our direction all day Ausrotten(Exterminate – footnote B.G.), for various tones spoken by all actually German camps, we had the most chance to know the spirit of this era. We besides had to realize that responding to this slogan with German declarations of Christian love or Masonic humanitarianism leads to the suicide of the nation, that it does not show the superiority of the nation, but is simply a cloak covering its wickedness.”.
It should besides be remembered that he was not a sociologist or typical of another teachings dealing systematically with the condition of different communities. He was a politician who did not make a compact doctrine constituting a closed whole. In the interwar period, ideological systems frequently called "total truths" were created, which aimed at formulating non-negotiable views on the most crucial issues of human existence. They were then instilled in an indoctrinated society. Dmowski was against this kind of gnomes. He besides felt that “the political maturity of the nation is not about uniting thought.”
We should besides bear in head that his statements are frequently dependent on subsequent political and social situations. Sometimes they are a symptom of a stage, and then vanish without explaining why. Therefore, in Dmowski we will not find any uniform explanation of the Polish national character, as well as a precise strategy model for the first postulated and later existing Polish state. This does not mean that there is no request to survey his comments on the above and another issues. On the contrary, by undergoing careful analysis and utilizing the comparative method, many of them can be learned about fundamental issues during the fresh past of Poland.
National Democracy in terms of idealism was not the same as its leader at all times. The most crucial transformations in the process of its improvement took place with the reversal of the influences of "pismism", which were visible at the end of the 19th century and in the early years of the 20th century. In the present Endek ideology, many basic issues were re-evaluated under the influence of increasingly stronger Catholic worldviews. This improvement of the situation resulted in the final years of the second Republic of Poland crystallizing the fundamentalist imagination advocated by the "young"ness of the Polish state, which would, of course, be governed by them. The improvement stages of the Dmowski camp, signaled here, did not, of course, have an impact on the perception and consequence to various properties attributed to Poles, the condition of Poland as a state and society, as well as the related situations. It besides counted the clientele of the party, which in the period after the revolution of 1905 and the conduct of any liberalisation in Russia took on rather a mass character, which affected its intellectual profile and the panoramas of interesting matters, and among them besides those that afraid worldview and the resulting values.
When examining Dmowski's views on Poles and Poland, the above conditions cannot be ignored.
A large dose of views about Poles and their social, intellectual and cultural condition was included by the leader of the national camp already in his flagship text, which became “Thoughts of a modern Pole”, first printed in 1902. True, not only popularity “Thoughts’,but the periodic resumption of these could contradict the above-mentioned opinion of staged external conditions on the issue of further views, but the issue does not look so simple. First of all, the views set out in this brochure are so accurate that it would be hard to marginalize them, not to mention the full rejection. So they functioned for years and actually functioned today. Author ‘Think’He chose a kind of communicative that did not manifestly conflict with Catholic sentiments. As a consequence of this text, it did not happen the same destiny as the work of another of the founding fathers of the Endecia, Zygmunt Balicki. This is, of course, the text entitled “National egoism towards ethics” and the concepts of treating the Catholic Church as a “national institution” or distinguishing it autonomously from Christian ethics “national ethics”.
What Roman Dmowski wrote about Poles in his ‘Think’? His opinions on Poles are frequently very clearly critical and sometimes very ironic. His assessments mainly concern their ability to defy the invaders on all possible levels of life at the time in the process of ruthless competition. This was the most common mention to the Prussian land. It should be recalled here that in the views of many German politicians and ideologists of the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries, Poles should vanish not only from these areas, but besides from lands further east. For example, an ideologist specified as Paul de Lagarde promoted the thesis about the necessity of Germanizing Polish lands all the way to Bug. Another ideologist, Josef Ludwig Reimer, who is already a racist, proposed isolation from the Polish population – citizens of the Second Reich, persons belonging to the Nordic race, giving them certain privileges and thus alienating them from their non-Nordordic relatives and thus creating conditions for their faster Germanization. Non-Nordics would be forced to leave the Prussian business territory in accordance with his project. Another example of German pre-hitlerian ethnopolitics in relation to Poles was the plan to take over after the victorious planet War I of the Western districts of the Kingdom of Poland, buy out the land there and settle the German population there. The prospects of the endurance of Poland on their lands were so very dark. In order to proceed in specified a threat and effectively defend against the opposites, i.e. the failure of land and identity, a model of an integrated society, conscious and having a advanced level of material civilization, which was a very crucial origin in confronting a man.
Did specified a image represent the Polish society of the end of the age of partitions? In 1 of his statements, Dmowski supported the opinion that in 50 years' time, or possibly only in 30 years' time, Poland will endure a final defeat in the Prussian partition. He so pointed to the various shortcomings of his society and its disadvantages, the greater the German pressure.
“Our nation,” he wrote, always utilized experience, spiritual resources, the age work of another peoples who overcame it in civilization. In relation to what he took, he has given very small to humanity."
And then:
"Our nation, in terms of material strength, in terms of abundance and wealth, has remained far behind those peoples who present decide mainly about the destiny of the planet and the uplifting of material resources is 1 of the more urgent and crucial tasks of our being."
This lag behind Western Europe Dmowski explained the systemic specificity of the First Republic, which was expected to consequence from the fact that the nobles majoized another social layers and associated underdevelopment of cities and towns, which usually contributed the most in the process of the improvement of civilization. The Polish nobleman, as a kind of citizen exempt from competition with another people, who, on the another hand, takes place in cities where trade and various kinds of entrepreneurship developed, was to represent passive type. besides agriculture, grown with the hands of a serfdom peasant, did not require specified dynamics in action as another branches of manufacturing. Dmowski thus presented the problem:
"The destiny of the average nobleman did not depend entirely on his ability and character's qualities, he was so bound by the privilege and standard of life that his individual qualities were very small about them: he could be a genius and a moron, he could be a man of Christ's morality and a villain, he could be the incarnation of energy and a classical infirmity, in the end, he could be a coward as a knight, and he could always live according to the noble standard, and he could hold his moral position among the nobles, due to the fact that he was a nobleman, a associate of the family."
Next Author ‘Think’ It contrasts specified a individual figure with the form of a merchant who “must be something” in order to effectively conduct his business erstwhile the Polish nobleman “very small had to, and mostly was, what he wanted”. He didn't request to fight and he became passive. Its features took over the formulating in the 19th century as a separate layer of social intelligence, according to Dmowski, besides characterized by passiveness. Poland, as the leader of the destination believed, fell, “because it derailed in development.”
The words of harsh criticism of the guiding layers of Polish life are frequently repeated on pages ‘Think’. Their author besides draws another profile of a man able to fight and "any kind of expansion". So he stands on his side, ironic about the national traits he stands for. In his statements we find even words of affirmative interest in Prussian mentality, indicating that it serves well to accomplish success in politics, where everyone usually fights with everyone. Dmowski is far from apotheoising specified rules, which, for example, was made by the leading ideologist of Ukrainian nationalism Dmytro Doncow, but he is simply a realist according to the times. He felt that ruthless competition was a fact, and waiting to change the situation in this respect was simply out of the question. Dmowski is undoubtedly impressed by countries specified as France and, above all, England. In contrast, Spain, which fell with the course of the 19th century, raises clear disregard, even though it is simply a Catholic country, like Poland. His motto, which he preaches on pages ‘Think’ it is essential to have expansive features, not simply resisting extermination and appealing to moral values, treated as an almost exclusive basis of action and a reason for pride as a evidence to a advanced humanistic culture. Dmowski categorically stated:
"The moral strength of the nation is not its defencelessness, its innocence, but its lust for a broad life, its desire to multiply national achievements and influence, and its willingness to sacrifice to accomplish national goals". On the another hand, “Our national morality, with any barren sentimentalism, present is mostly about the deficiency of full active love of our homeland, and the political views of our enlightened general are extraordinary, the different from the politics of another nations, that they deficiency the basis of any healthy policy, namely the national self-preservation instinct. We are a nation with a distorted way of political thinking” (...) The nation (...) slow created a way of thinking, facilitating the final abdication of the historical function (...). Infirmity he called nobility, cowardice with prudence... he began to live in a planet of moral delusions, and by adapting to that being, he even began to dull all healthy tendencies, all manifestations of self-preservation instinct."
specified reflections are clearly visible in ‘Think’ and another early texts of Dmowski from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. As you can see, he gives a alternatively mediocre assessment of the political sense of the Polish guiding layers of this period. At the same time, it expresses its hope of rebuilding our society, and this is due to the promotion of especially peasants, which should change their intellectual image and extend the scope of national consciousness. For the leader of the index, the characteristics of Poles from the Prussian business are notable in the function of the model, where the constant fight against Germany for maintaining its positions creates dynamic, applicable and productive attitudes. On the another hand, the Russian partition, in which the fight against Poland was not as ruthless as in Prussia, preserves the erstwhile mentality, which makes it easier for society to stay in conventional inactivity, although there are besides changes, as he noted.
Dmowski encourages all the time in ‘Think’ to ‘the ability of Poles to fight” (...) due to the fact that brave nations are useful for fighting, only in fighting they grow up”, (...) “throwing up the sphere of their actions.”Criticizes the mentality of the Polish intelligent from the turn of the century, as well as the culturally close earthly spheres. In these layers, it sees a set of features that contradict improvement dynamics. He claims that both the old features and the atmosphere of the disaster after the January uprising made the situation worse, strengthening “The passiveness of our characterIt’s okay. ” 1 effect, as he put it, is "transition from action to contemplation" and expanding features contrary to active attitudes ensuring success in not only individual but besides national life. Dmowski besides marks the spread in the advanced layers of society “Intellectualism”, “aesthetism” and “ethism”, and although he does not say it fully, he explicitly rejects these symptoms of spiritual life in Poles, as they do not represent a solid backdrop for a hard fight for endangered existence. The interior life is drawn to him as an alternate to external life, where man is primarily to carry on “getting the planet and constant growthIt’s okay. ” “Intellectual” attitudes are opposed to “active” attitudes. Against the background of developed Western nations, he assesses the Polish situation as anachronistic. She can't spare even ridicule. Here are his words:
"We so have in the spiritual sphere of life the hallmarks of a transformed society, whose political function has already been played, which only in the area of detached spiritual creation can service humanity, self-capable of surviving only with thought. However, we are neither very civilized nor our spiritual creation is peculiarly high... And our generality, despite its inclinations, does not excel at all to another nations, nor with a level of head or good taste. You might say with all due respect that there are nowhere as many intelligent intellectuals and as many tasteless aesthetics. We, in no social sphere, are predestined, but on the contrary the highest, even the most polished spheres of our nation should be considered uncivilized."
besides criticized by Dmowski's "intellectualism" and "aesthetism" are to draw the guiding layers distant from the regular struggles of the conflict for existence, and "ethism" leads to a misunderstanding of the mechanisms governing politics, which has bad consequences.
This is the author ‘Think’ unambiguously assigns to Poles “the inability to think about Polish matters in the same way that they think about their another nationsIt’s okay. ” This is an allegation of the deficiency of realism and the transfer of “Polish” to the perfect sphere, which entails the inability to decently measure threats. The expression of this is, among others, the belief in the anticipation of eliminating expansive aspirations from politics and the unconflict persistence of nations within their historical borders. specified reasoning is viewed by the leader of the mindset as an expression of deficiency of self-preservation instinct. As he writes, and these are years before the First planet War, this is expressed, for example, in the absence of specified a Polish policy in Galicia, which would advance effective protection of the Polish population there against developing Ukrainian nationalism. This negligence attributes to the visible cosmopolitan part of Polish intelligence, which puts universal values above national values. Dmowski protested against specified attitudes, treating them not as an expression of political immaturity, but as a profoundly rooted trait of an anti-national nature. He besides felt that specified people were present in all 3 occupations and within all political orientations. He called them even ‘enemyinternal’With whom there is no compromise.
"This species of Poles by name and language – as he wrote – has grown numerously during the populous period of the fall of the national spirit, and even for a short time reigned rapidly assimilation of the young generation. He does not realize that in global relations there is an extended sphere of affairs in which there is neither right nor wrong. The ruling regulation is only the competition of separate interests, and taking a position then cannot be the consequence A sense of justicebut a sense of solidarity with 1 of the fighting parties’.
Here 1 can see the functioning of the 2 ethic concepts: “national ethics” alongside “Christian ethics”. The “Półpolacy”, as Dmowski called them, do not accept specified a state of affairs, which makes them worthless to the Polish origin and should vanish as a harmful element.
While remaining with the enunciations coming from the first phase of the activity of the advent, it is essential to add that Dmowski distinguishes in Polish society respective types of reasoning about politics. Sam represents nationalism, which simultaneously besides calls patriotism. It is meant to mean an active attitude, which should include all sides of the existence of the nation, and not limited to “the fight for freedom”. He points out that it is only 1 origin in national life that has far more aspects. According to him, the broad Polish general does not realize this sufficiently. In the context of akin issues, the leader of the destination besides distinguishes the category ‘old-date patriots’, It is now more clearly exposed to a fresh trend in Polish politics, which became nationalism in the late 19th century. This direction understands much more of its function as national solidarity than the erstwhile independency formations did. It so responds more to the conditions of a fierce conflict for the interests of the nation. Unless Dmowski does not perceive these "old-date patriots" as declared opponents, the most strangers are to him "Cosmopolites". According to him, they are simply incapable to comply with the requirements of national solidarity and conditions of fierce conflict for the interests of a nation not understood as a collection of loose human individuals, but as a modelly compact organism. Of course, it is besides not appreciated by socialists, even in the fact that Poland is curious in regaining independence. They do not meet the basic conditions which Dmowski put in place for Poles to meet the political and civilisational situation of Poland. The properties of the Poles of the time are judged not to be sufficiently adapted to the tasks of effectively resisting the obstacles threatening Poland at the end of the age of partitions. According to him, “the planet is little and little of a place for the weak and the helpless” and “more and little attention is paid to those who passively endure harm.” Dmowski besides treats the tendency existing among Poles to treat "his physical and moral weakness" as a virtue which is an expression of noble qualities of character. specified an attitude is considered to be worshipping fiction and simply false. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, as has already been noted above, he has hopes of social change, i.e. going out to the audience of representatives of folk layers and expanding their national awareness and the ideological work of his own camp. The dominant speech in his political publications from that time may best express this sentence:
“We must live, grow, make activity in all fields, we must strive to become a strong, invincible nation... we have a work to live and to get out.”
As is known, akin rules and values did not dominate within the endection throughout its operation. Years after the revolution of 1905, which brought any liberalisation in Russia, and as part of it the anticipation of electing Polish representatives in the Russian parliament-Duma elections, resulted in a considerable numerical improvement of the camp, in which so far people specified as Popławski, Balicki and Dmowski have given a tone. This environment has ceased to be just an elite ellipse with a circumstantial political philosophy. Dmowski himself then noticed that there was a blur of nationalism of the “Overview of All Poland”, which Polish did not understand. The Parascience proceeding of Sigismund Balicki's pen "National egoism towards ethics" was last published in print in 1916. However, eleven years later, a program brochure entitled “Church, Nation and State” was published, where the leader of the national camp announced the wide beginning of his environment to Catholic values.
Professor Roman Wapiński called this trend "the process of burning nationalism with Catholicism into 1 full thought in the thought of National Democracy", and the author of this text presented it in comparative terms in the book "Dylemats of Polish nationalism: a return to tradition or a rebuilding of the national spiritIt’s okay. ”
It should be stressed here that akin ideological formations were not a property of the Polish national camp. These developed in respective Western European countries, and interwar years are sometimes called by many political scientists and historians a period of “evolution” or even “an anti-liberal revolution”. Faced with threats from the utmost left and after experience of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia, Hungary and partially in Germany, liberal democracy seemed insufficient to effectively hold forces hostile to the current order.
Analyzing Dmowski's subsequent texts, it is easy to see that over the years complaints and at least ironic speech relating to “Polish passiveness” are disappearing, and encouraging fighting and occupying offensive attitudes in individual and collective life. Associated with Catholic values, nationalism is now frequently called the "national idea", and the "nationalist" replaces the "nationalist" in various enunciations. The concept of “Christian nationalism” besides appears in use, with time in the endeck and national-radical ideology the influence of Tomistic doctrine is increasingly marked. On the another hand, the conflict of erstwhile nationalism with liberalism now receives support from Catholicism’s attitude towards the second direction. Let us remember that liberalism in the Church was called “sin”, which the external manifestation of which became, among another things, a brochure entitled. “Liberism is simply a sin”, a pen by 1 of the prominent Spanish clergymen of Fr Felix Sard y Salvani. specified changes besides made the population increasing in the 1930s. In the 20th century, the young endeciation gradually became more and more reluctant to Italian fascism, whose ideologists referred to the authority of Hegel philosophy, contrary to the spirit of Catholic personalism. In 1931, an anonymous publicist who signed a pseudonym was very brief and accurate. Alticos in the diary Szczerbiec.
Initially, England portrayed by Dmowski as a function model besides disappears in this function from his statements. Without doubt, the large economical crisis that developed in the late 1920s and 1930s besides had a major impact on this situation. After all, it undermined the prestige of developed Western countries. It was even thought that “capitalism was ending. It was only about what after capitalism." In 1931 she besides appeared in the encyclical Quadragessimo anno The concept of corporateism, which was most utilized in Portugal by prof. Salazar of Economics. In 1934 Adam Doboszyński published a book entitled “National Economy”, which included his own economical strategy task for Poland. There he questioned entirely industrialism and capitalism, creating conditions for the numerical improvement of the proletariat of a class susceptible to socialism, communism and materialism. At the same time, the thought of the fresh mediate Ages as defined by Mikołaj Bierdiayev in the book "New mediate Ages" was spread in this political environment. It was translated into Polish by 1 of the national activists Marian Reutt. This was a model imagination of the Christian civilization of the pre-reformation period, whose basic values were proposed to proceed in opposition to the Enlightenment, the 19th century as an epoch and as a full almost modernity. Both Doboszyński and Bierdjayev were opponents of these cultural ideals, which lay at the base of previously admired by Dmowski imperial England or observed with interest of Prussia. Now it turned out that the capitalist "hunt for profit", as Doboszyński said, was powerfully suspected from a moral point of view. He besides proclaimed that in the foreseeable future a large manufacture will be liquidated in Poland, and the individual will be replaced by a small-towner, owner of a tiny workshop about the mentality of the holder by definition hostile to the concepts of the far left. specified workshops will besides become the basis of the manufacturing system. Thus the large capitalists will disappear, and the threatening overthrow of the established order class conflict will be averted forever. akin ideas in the national camp were besides promoted by the brochure Wojciech Zaleski entitled “Poland without proletariat”. This would change not only the class arrangement, but besides the moral climate in society. However, it was not considered whether specified an economical strategy would besides give Poland adequate force so essential to face the spectrum of confrontation with powerful neighbours.
In specified an atmosphere no longer unthinkable as an educational perfect and the recommended pattern was dynamic, capable of fighting from the very rule and moving forward at all costs the man whose imagination was spread years ago by Dmowski. At the same time, which should be stressed here, the various young publicists in their statements clearly indicated that economical matters were the last ones to attract the attention of the social communities from which they came. This is what Zdzisław Stahl, 1 of the leading figures of the generation of “young” endetics, wrote in his brochure “In the Face of economical Issues”, while Karol Stefan Frycz, a journalist, praised “the perfect of civilization in the Polish court” from the first pages of “National Thought” to trust on a calm and free from tensions of life. akin statements were many in the Endek publications of the 1930s, and it could even be said that they gave speech there. In the margins, there were uncommon voices, specified as prof. Roman Rybarski, economist and author of many books in this field, which was ironic about the national “romantic poverty” which Adam Doboszyński and his akin ideologists of publicists and organization activists worshipped.
What was so crucial in the early 20th century, for example, for Stanisław Brzozowski, who in a different way than Dmowski, but besides very categorically raised the problem of Polish underdevelopment and the resulting threats to Poland, disappeared from the cards of Endeck publications. In writings created during the end of his life, Dmowski no longer took criticisms of the psychology of the nobility, whether the erstwhile or the contemporary landownership. He besides did not consider the problem of cultural promotion of Polish masses.
specified a change of his statements about the cultural values of Poles was, of course, influenced not only by worldview preferences, but besides by external conditions. After rebuilding the Polish state, fresh problems and fresh situations arose. The Second Republic was besides a country which was not uniform in national terms. Poles were only about 63 % of citizens there. However, this fact was not exhaustive. There were immense cultural differences generating various conflicting interests. Under the partitions, it was not yet clear how society could function in practice in its own independent state. Many social and political problems were seen in a different perspective. The general criticism of apparent backwardness in many areas of life was so fundamentally applicable and useful, but after independence, fresh political, social, cultural and economical problems were triggered. The planet was different, too.
Firstly, even the Polish population itself was not uniform in terms of national awareness. Adam Doboszyński, mentioned earlier, wrote about the state of things that existed at the beginning of the Second Republic, stated: "The Polish population was inactive rather formless at the time, in which the national consciousness covered at most a 3rd of people speaking Polish (...) in 1918 a large part of workers and most peasants did not realise their belonging to the national community." He continued to stress the function of regained independence, which in this respect caused large changes in the desired direction, but regretted that even after the Second planet War "we are inactive facing an highly crucial task of extending the Nation to all people speaking Polish." He besides pointed out that the business and extermination of Germany, which integrated society under the common banner, contributed to the nationalisation of the Polish masses.
Similar accounts can besides be found in many another texts from that time and verbal statements of witnesses of the era in which the endecia and Dmowski himself were created and operated. So the image was not upbuilding. It was complemented by observations by researchers of relations in the Polish countryside. For example, Aleksander Świętochowski, in his book "History of Polish peasants", published in 1928, told a crushing criticism of the inhabitants of the Polish village, excluding only the Prussian occupation. He refused most Polish peasants basic civic values, and even average honesty in everyday life not only public but besides family.
The peasants from the erstwhile Prussian business of Świętochowski wrote: "They entered the resurrected Poland socially and economically mature, mentally intelligent, morally cleaner". Galician peasants treated much worse. They were to be: “Insatiable looters, ready for specified a slaughter of the masters of the earth by the law they had done eighty years ago through lawlessness.” Of course, he meant Galician slaughter.
For specified a state of affairs, the author of the “History of Polish peasants” blamed of course the erstwhile Polish nobility and the peculiarly negative social strategy of the First Republic. However, from the point of view of the politics and condition of the reborn Polish state, only the present state from the first half of the 20th century and the tough requirements of the then-established policy mattered. Nevertheless, in the years of the Second Republic there was no shortage of pre-trial apologets of relations in Poland, as evidenced by the renewed books, e.g. Antoni Chołoniewski "The Spirit of Poland's History" and Artur Górski "Ku why Poland went". They besides find their readers in our country after 1989!
The pessimistic signals contained in Świętochowski's statements were no exception. akin features of the peasant layer were noted by others, e.g. Melchior Wańkowicz, Stefan Żeromski and various politicians, diaries and people of the pen. Marcin Wichmanowski, a contemporary investigator of the consciousness of Polish peasants, writes that at the end of the age of partitions there was a “wide national indifference of peasants. The peasants did not know national traditions or national symbols. In his diary Jan Słomka mentioned the indifference of national Polish peasants – the mayor of Galicia, while Vincent Witos even suggested that the peasants “feared Poland, believing that the Polish woman would come back... and... noble captivity”.
Thus, the image of our society at the beginning of regaining independency looked poorly, and a state based on the principles defined by the Constitution of 1921 could not function smoothly. The function of the executive under the Basic Act was very tiny in relation to the powers of parliament, and especially the Sejm, as the parliamentary chamber was more privileged than the senate. The fact that the government had to have the assurance of the parliament, as well as being politically accountable to it, reduced the function of execution in the government of the Second Republic. Moreover, it was the Sejm that was regarded as the expressor of the will of the nation, which made him enjoy considerable legislation. Not so much did the parliament have much power, but the parliament, having a peculiar position, and the 2 chambers were not equal. After all, it was the talker of the Sejm who presided over the National Assembly, as well as he succeeded the president erstwhile a vacancy appeared in his place. frequently attacked by the left Senate, it did not have a legislative initiative, nor did it have a control function over the government, nor could it simply impose amendments to the laws adopted by the Sejm, but even they could be very easy rejected. Governments have frequently changed, which has besides contributed to inertia and caused a negative attitude of society to parliament as well as to execution. organization factions clashed, paralyzing the administration of the state apparatus. specified a course of events caused a taste expressed as powerfully in the ellipse of Marshal Piłsudski as in the political environment of Roman Dmowski. There, observations of the mechanics of governing the country, specified as the Second Republic, were accompanied by reflection on the condition of Poles themselves and their intellectual predispositions. This is demonstrated by the statements of the leader of the national camp quoted here and another statements, including criticism of the disadvantages of various social circles in Poland and pointing out their shortcomings compared to Western societies, where there was to be a cultural dirt that enabled a reasonably efficient functioning of parliamentary democracy. In the second Republic, according to Dmowski there was no specified soil. He complained about mass sailing in fresh times on the top of the Polish political life of "raw foods" disorganizing the state.
It is apparent that Roman Dmowski, as a political leader and an icon of the national camp, could not so openly and sharply formulate his courts of different social layers, as Alexander Świętochowski quoted above did. The current policy always counts for the favour of the public opinion, and in peculiar the most many layer in Poland at the time, which were peasants. While the endectic and even national-radical ideologists thought in the 1930s about reducing the proletariat class, it was different with the peasant class. A more right-wing part of the folk movement was, after all, treated by Endecian politicians as a possible ally, although, as we know, the problem did not look so simple in practice. The opinions about peasants expressed by the Endek luminaries could not be as categorical as in Świętochowski. Despite this, reading Dmowski's writings and taking into account the nature of his criticism of various social circles in the Second Republic, it is easy to realize what was going on. While advancement in national awareness and enjoyment of Polish peasants could have been optimistic at the end of the age of partitions, after 1918 it was not enough. It was besides about citizenship, adequate level of civilization and organisational and production capacity that could sufficiently support the efficiency of its own state.
The 20th interwar anniversary, which brought about the crisis of liberal democracy, as well as the large economical crisis of 1929–1933, brought fresh problems to politicians and ideologists. The dysfunction based on the March II strategy of the Republic became an impulse for fresh thoughts and attempts to act actively to improve the situation. In the organization sphere, the task of the Camp of large Poland – an organization which was to argue Poland's own imagination not only of liberal democracy and of course of the left, but besides of the power in the country of sanitation for respective months, and to bring on the phase of active politics fresh elements, namely "conscious forces of the nation".
In 1 of the OWP's programming brochures on "Government Issue" Dmowski argued that:
"(...) the representation strategy in the form that Europe has reached, where governments leave parliament and through parliament are at any time disproved, is becoming little and little critical. The management of the state's policy in its entirety and in its individual departments is given to the incompetent people, whose full qualification is demagoguery or dexterity in intrigues, which are all the same as they are entrusted to them – trade and industry, education or navy, if they become ministers; in moments most crucial to the state, the deficiency of 1 vote is caused by the crisis and the state remains for a shorter or longer time without the government; after the crisis is resolved, a fresh government comes, which in little or little part abruptly overturns what the erstwhile 1 did."
Looking at the course of events and the associated ideological enunciations coming out of Dmowski's pen and another publicists of his camp, 1 cannot neglect to announcement that the very clear declaration of the recently created OWP on the side of the Catholic worldview and the intention to make a spiritual state in Poland, as the programme brochure “Church, Nation and State” openly proclaimed, has had a very crucial influence on the stylization of many statements. At the time, the generation of the alleged "young" endecies demonstrated itself extensively, a different spirit, separate from the dominant influences of positivism in this camp in the early 20th century. Certain wordings were no longer possible, and even the old ones were trying to stay silent. According to a study submitted by Claudius Hrabyk, erstwhile endecki activist and author of the doctoral dissertation entitled “Ideology of the All Poland Review (1895–1905)”, Dmowski categorically objected to its publication in print, motivating this with fears of causing any reluctance in many Polish Catholics. The work was only published erstwhile its author was within the Union of Young Nationalists of the erstwhile Endeck faction, which went to the position of cooperation with the sanitation. The erstwhile ostentatious praises of imperial states like England or even in part and Prussia did not echo the climate of the "new medieval" and another ideas of a fundamentalist character. And Protestantism, which besides played an inspiration for economical improvement in Dmowski's consciousness, namely the material power of leading nations, is now seen primarily as a morally questionable phenomenon, which is the reason for egoism in global relations to the detriment of Catholic nations, and specified were Poles. Dmowski, identifying with them, of course, stands for Catholicism. This religion is not, as he wrote in the program brochure OWP entitled “Church, Nation and State”, “the addition to Polishness (...) but it is in its essence”. In addition to another situation which occurred in Poland which was independent compared to the period of occupation, erstwhile the most crucial task, as Dmowski said, was to "conservate the nation", it was besides very crucial to change the political and cultural climate in Europe. This "anti-liberal revolution" was carried out in many countries. It was then written about the dusk of the ideals of the 19th century and the emergence of an era of "instinct and will". Fascism appeared in Italy, and in Germany national socialism and many follow-up movements in another countries. The aforementioned "anti-liberal revolution" began to adopt the traditional-Catholic character in Poland. The process of transformation in this direction was carried out in the endation, and then after 1934 besides in its divided groups.
If prof. Krzysztof Kawalec, author of the book devoted to the political activity of Roman Dmowski, is correct, claiming that in the early years of the operation of the All-Polish camp his political ideas were within the framework of the then "political correctness", i.e. the strategy of parliamentary democracy was adopted for something obvious, then in the interwar 20th anniversary the substance was different. Not only changes in the political climate of the time, but the reflection of conditions in the country suggested fresh solutions projects correlated with views on the condition of Poles and Poland as a social and political organism. Among Dmowski's statements from the 1920s and 1930s, there is no longer specified criticism of the Polish nobility as an adynamic and passive layer, which was expected to stem from the basis of its culture and the fact that it dominated another social layers, in peculiar burgherhood and bringing the peasantry to a state of civilization collapse. There is no more clear delight over the previously admired England and the full West. This is where capitalism was born, which, under the effects of the large economical crisis of 1929–1933, seemed to be even decaying at the moment. Western nations, so far prosperous, are already seen by the leader of national democracy as "a company to exploit another nations", and the basis for specified criticism becomes far more idealistic in its essence the way of seeing the planet than the 1 that characterized the author of "The Thoughts of a Modern Pole" at the time erstwhile he wrote this brochure in the very beginning of the 20th century. In 1 of his texts created in the years II of the Republic, the leader of the national camp emphasizes that the Polish national sense is based on another grounds of a much more altruistic nature than in the large Western nations. The conclusions show that this position is not only nobler, but besides more hard to scope and more crucial and not accessible to all. As a result, the concept of “a nation in a moral sense” is emerging in Dmówski, a choice category with advanced values. It would be the other of those that he described as "raw foods", besides frequently having a destructive impact on governments within the framework of the parliamentary strategy in Poland. In Dmowski's statements from the 1920s and in the final phase of his public activity, the idealistic component is already present. It refers to spiritual feelings and is marked by clear antimaterialism. It besides stresses:
"We have any large values that the another nations (Western – B.G.) could usage present and saved them from many dangers, and that they have not developed in our characters, or that they have disposed of in the past."
Dmowski then writes:
“Our national feeling, our relation to our homeland, is not in danger of specified a unilateral distortion as we find in many Western nations. Our homeland will not, first of all, be a large material good; we as a nation will not comprehend ourselves as companies to exploit another nations; we will not see the duties of our homeland only outside, in the fight against strangers, but not little inwardly, in the vigilance of the good of the whole, at work, and in the efforts dedicated to the healing of her life and to carrying it to an always higher level."
So here we have an elite concept rooted in the belief of advanced moral and ethical values at least any of the Polish elites. In statements from the final phase of Dmowski's ideological work, 1 no longer sees the joy of emancipating the folk masses, and even the progressive penetration of national consciousness into them. There is besides no criticism or irony directed at the erstwhile nobility or contemporary continuators and heirs of its spiritual culture. The negation of the deprived civilian and political cultures of social circles, which could importantly harm the state by utilizing the expression of weak parliamentary governments and their deficiency of stability, is on the rise. Now the Pole, revived by spiritual values, is simply a material from which the “organisation of the nation” or “national elite” should be derived.
Dmowski tries to justify his suggestions, while defending local cultural and social conditions he writes:
“ It is simply a deadly preposterousness to introduce devices and methods of action in the state, requiring these intellectual and moral qualities, those elements of the social psyche that have another nations, which our nation does not have, but to ignore and neglect those values which lie in our nation, which do not be elsewhere or be in a weaker or lesser form. On these values, on these moral resources the nation strives primarily to build its own creative policy.
These main values, as I have already said, are the religion that is in our nation a large surviving force, and this advanced moral attitude towards the homeland, as I have just tried to specify it."
Dmowski besides warns against imitation of Fascism, motivating specified a view that it does not adhere to the Polish mentality. In parallel, he besides speaks against the restraint of human thought, which has become the regular practice of totalitarian systems. Of course, he did not think of the kind of pluralism that was characteristic of the liberal formation.
In the statements of the leader of the national democracy of the 1920s, there are inactive small signs of a certain dysfunctional Catholicism over the issue of success in politics. In 1926 he noted that:
"Humanitarian forms, which in the language of Protestant peoples were only a form, adornment of real pursuits, fashion de parler, by crucial parts of Catholic peoples were taken rather seriously, became chief directives of conduct".
It can be interpreted as an expression of conviction that Catholics, and so Poles, are little effective without being ruthless in their actions. However, there is no proposition to let specified methods. His message is alternatively an approval of the principles governing Catholic culture, negation of materialism, and the designation of the leading function of religion in shaping national consciousness. It was already a time of dominance in the intentions of Catholic social values, which especially after the announcement of encyclicals Quadragessimo anno In 1931, more and more circles of Poles became a mention point for them. It is crucial to emphasise that these ideologists and thinkers who entered other paths did not gain any success, and on the contrary were consistently marginalized. This process gained peculiar strength in the end years of Dmowski's life, erstwhile he had ceased his public activity and in the next period. Thus, a fresh thought formation was established in Poland, which could be called realistic erstwhile it comes to winning a government of souls. However, it clearly did not meet the requirements which the Republic of Poland had put before it a very unfavourable geopolitical situation, i.e. the situation of the country between 2 imperialist powers, which denied its right to be independently. This situation required all the means available to build the substantively strong foundations of the state, which would be able to become the center of any form of the Central European federation, as imagined in their enunciations during the years of planet War II by various leaders of both national and extremist groups. This challenge was incapable to meet the economical and social thought of the “young” of the full national camp at the time. Ideologists like Adam Doboszyński and the recipients of their concepts based their beliefs on the basis of political and even civilizational conditions that were then separated from them. The situation required building a highly industrialised economy, not a small-scale workshop economy, which was proposed by the author 3 times resumed and read in the 1930s. "National Economy". Polish “Big”, but besides in the material dimension, not only “spiritual”. A Poland populated by a dynamic human element, 1 of the basic features of which would be, as Dmowski initially suggested, instinctive “supporting forward” and striving to grow its influences, alternatively than the perfect of calmness. In general, the formation of the ‘young’ – the exception was possibly a fewer comparatively tiny circles, concentrated in Faland– she did not meet specified conditions, not fulfilling many suggestions contained in Dmowski's early thought and his co-workers. That is why present we can ask the question: should we not retake them?
Bogumil Grott
The article was published in No. 22. "National Policy".
