Everything about Roman Dmowski totally explained
Roman Dmowski (b.
August 9,
1864,
Warsaw - d.
January 2,
1939,
Drozdowo,
Poland) was a
Polish politician,
statesman, and chief
ideologue and co-founder of the
National Democratic Party ("
Endecja").
Early life
Born in the
Congress Poland,
Russian Empire as a student he became active in the
"Zet" Polish Youth Association (
Związek Młodzieży Polskiej "Zet"), organizing a student street
demonstration on the 100th anniversary of the
Polish Constitution of
May 3,
1791. For this he was imprisoned by the Russian Tsarist authorities for six months in the
Warsaw Citadel.
Later Dmowski headed the
National League (
Liga Narodowa). In
1895 he settled in
Lemberg,
Austria-Hungary (modern
Lviv,
Ukraine; known as
Lwów to the Poles), and in 1897 co-founded the
National-Democratic Party (
Stronnictwo Narodowo-Demokratyczne or "
Endecja"). The
Endecja was to serve as a political party, a lobby and an underground organization that would unite Poles who espoused Dmowski’s views into a disciplined and committed political group. In
1899, Dmowski founded the Society for National Education as an ancillary group. A brilliant
biologist, he won much prestige within the Polish community with his scientific accomplishments. In
1898-
1900 he resided in
France and
Britain. In the face of an ascendant
Germany, he argued for
tactical Polish
cooperation with
Tsarist Russia and brought about a pro-Russian reorientation within the National-Democratic Party. In
1901 he returned to Austrian partition of Poland, taking up residence in
Kraków.
Upon the outbreak of the
Russo-Japanese War in
1904, Dmowski traveled to
Japan in a successful effort to prevent her from providing
Józef Piłsudski with Japanese assistance for a planned insurrection in Poland, an insurrection which Dmowski felt would be doomed to failure.
In
1905 Dmowski moved to
Warsaw, at the time, part of the Russian partition of Poland. During the
Russian Revolution of 1905, Dmowski favoured co-operation with the Imperial Russian authorities and welcomed
Nicholas II's October Manifesto of
1905 as a step in the road towards renewed Polish autonomy. Dmowski himself was a
deputy to the
Second and
Third Dumas and president of the Polish club within it. Before 1914, Dmowski was prepared to settle for Polish autonomy within the Russian Empire, as he believed that an independent Poland would swiftly become dominated by Germany, as Germans (in his view) had a better developed state and stronger social organisation. In light of what he regarded as German superiority, Dmowski felt that a strong Russia was Poland's best protection, and best chance for reuniting all Polish territories under one rule. In Dmowski's view the Russian policy of
Russification was impossible against Poles, while Germans would be far more successful in their
Germanisation. Dmowski's great rival Józef Piłsudski argued that
Russia was a greater threat to the Poles than either
Germany or
Austria-Hungary [for example"With the Germans, we lose our land. With the Russians, we lose our soul".]
Political Outlook
Throughout his life, Dmowski deeply disliked Piłsudski and everything he stood for. Dmowski came from an impoverished urban background and had little fondness for Poland's traditional social structure.
First World War
In 1914 Dmowski praised the
Grand Duke Nicholas's Proclamation of
August 15,
1914 which vaguely assured the Czar's Polish subjects that there would be greater autonomy for "Congress Poland" after the war, and that the Austrian provinces of East and West
Galicia together with
Pomerania province of
Prussia would be annexed to the Kingdom of Poland when the
German Empire and
Austria-Hungary were defeated. However, subsequent attempts on the part of Dmowski to have the Russians make firmer commitments along the lines of the Grand Duke Nicholas’s Proclamation were met with elusive answers. In
1917, in
Paris, he created a
Polish National Committee aimed at rebuilding a Polish state. In September 1917, the Polish National Committee was recognized by the French as the legitimate government of Poland. However, the Americans refused to provide backing for what they regarded as Dmowski's excessive territorial claims. The American President
Woodrow Wilson reported, "I saw M. Dmowski and M. Paderewsi in Washington, and I asked them to define Poland for me, as they understood it, and they presented me with a map in which they claimed a large part of the earth."
In part, Wilson's objections stemmed from dislike of Dmowski personally. One British diplomat stated, "He was a clever man, and clever men are distrusted: he was logical in his political theories and we hate logic: and he was persistent with a tenacity which was calculated to drive everybody mad." Another area of objection to Dmowski was to his
antisemitic remarks, as in a speech he delivered at a dinner organized by the writer
G. K. Chesterton, that began with the words, "My religion came from Jesus Christ, who was murdered by the Jews." A number of American and British Jewish organizations campaigned during the war against their governments recognizing the National Committee. Both men had something that the other needed. Piłsudski was in possession of Poland after the war, but as the Pole who had fought with the Austrians for the
Central Powers against the Russians, he was distrusted by the Allies. Piłsudski's newly reborn
Polish Army needed arms from the Allies, something that only Dmowski could persuade the Allies to deliver upon. Beyond that, the French were planning to send the
Blue Army of General
Józef Haller de Hallenburg — loyal to Dmowski — back to Poland. The fear was that if Piłsudski and Dmowski didn't put aside their differences, a civil war might break out between the partisans of Piłsudski and Dmowski. Paderewski was successful in working a compromise in which Dmowski and himself were to represent Poland at the
Paris Peace Conference while Piłsudski was to serve as provisional president of Poland.
In regard to
Lithuania, Dmowski didn't view Lithuanians as having a strong national identity, and viewed their social organisation as tribal. Those areas of Lithuania that had either Polish majorities or minorities were claimed by Dmowski on the grounds of self-determination. In the areas with Polish minorities, the Poles would act as a civilizing influence; only the northern part of Lithuania, which had a solid Lithuanian majority, was Dmowski willing to concede to the Lithuanians. With regard to the former Austrian province of East
Galicia, Dmowski claimed that the local Ukrainians were quite incapable of ruling themselves and also required the civilizing influence of Polish leadership. In addition, Dmowski wished to acquire the oil-fields of Galica. The French didn't back Dmowski's aspirations in the
Cieszyn Silesia region, and instead supported the claims of
Czechoslovakia.
Dmowski himself was disappointed with the Treaty of Versailles, partly because he was strongly opposed to the Minorities Treaty imposed on Poland and partly because he wanted the German-Polish border to be somewhat farther to the west then what the Versailles had allowed. Both of these disappointments Dmowski blamed on what Dmowski claimed was the "international Jewish conspiracy". Throughout his life, Dmowski maintained that the British Prime Minister
David Lloyd George had been bribed by a syndicate of German-Jewish financiers to give Poland what Dmowski considered to be an unfavourable frontier with Germany. Dmowski's relations with Lloyd George were very poor. Dmowski found Lloyd George to be arrogant, unscrupulous and a consistent advocate of ruling against Polish claims to the West and the East. Dmowski was very offended by Lloyd George's ignorance of Polish affairs and in particular was enraged by Lloyd George's lack of knowledge about river traffic on the
Vistula. In the same essay, Dmowski accused the Jews of being Poland's most dangerous enemy and of working hand in hand with the Germans to dismember Poland. Dmowski believe that the 3,000,000
Polish Jews couldn't be assimilated and that they were far too numerous. In his own words, "a little salt may improve the taste of the soup, but too much will spoil it."
For Dmowski, one of Poland's principal problems was that not enough Polish-speaking Catholics were middle-class, while too many ethnic Germans and Jews were. To remedy this perceived problem, he favored a policy of confiscating the wealth of Jews and ethnic Germans and redistributing it to Polish Catholics. Dmowski was never able to have this program passed into law by the Sejm, but the National Democrats did frequently organize "Buy Polish"
boycott campaigns against German and Jewish shops. The first of Dmowski's anti-Semitic boycotts occurred in
1912 when he attempted to organize a total boycott of Jewish businesses in
Warsaw as "punishment" for the defeat of some
Endek candidates in the elections for the
Duma, which Dmowski blamed on Warsaw's Jewish population. Throughout his life, Dmowski associated Jews with Germans as Poland's principal enemies; the origins of this identification stemmed from Dmowski's deep anger over the forcible "Germanization" policies carried out by the German government against its Polish minority during the
Imperial period, and over the fact that most Jews living in the disputed German/Polish territories had chosen to assimilate into German culture, not Polish culture. In Dmowski's opinion Jewish community wasn't attracted to the cause of Polish independence and was likely to ally itself with potential enemies of Polish state if it would benefit their status. Dmowski had long advocated emigration of the entire Jewish population of Poland as the solution to what Dmowski regarded as Poland's "Jewish problem", came to argue for increasing harsh measures against the Jewish minority, though Dmowski never advocated killing Jews. Dmowski's last major campaign was a series of attacks on the alleged "Judo-Masonic" associates of President
Ignacy Mościcki. These rumors have not been proven.
Trivia
Dmowski's life has been subject to an internet
hoax posted on a webpage of a marginal left-wing party in Poland in which he was described as gay agent of Russian Empire.
Writings
Myśli nowoczesnego Polaka (Thoughts of a Modern Pole), 1902.
Niemcy, Rosja a sprawa polska (Germany, Russia and the Polish Cause), 1908.
Upadek myśli konserwatywnej w Polsce (The Decline of Conservative Thought in Poland), 1914.
Polityka polska i odbudowanie państwa (Polish Politics and the Rebuilding of the State), 1925.
Quotes
"Wherever we can multiply our forces and our civilizational efforts, absorbing other elements, no law can prohibit us from doing so, as such actions are our duty."Further Information
Get more info on 'Roman Dmowski'.
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