A THOUSAND YEARS OF HISTORY 13is notable for the fact that the Polish lands were not seriously involved in the
excitements besetting almost all the surrounding countries. It is a crucial date in
German History, and in the Marxist movement, but not, unfortunately, in
Poland. So to make it the starting-point of the Capitalist stage in Polish History
is slightly odd. 1917 is equally inappropriate. It is a notorious fact that the Great
October Revolution in Russia did not arouse much immediate response in
Poland, and that the Polish nation conspicuously resisted the attempts in
1919-20 to impose the Bolshevik system. In Poland, 1918 was an important date,
as was 1939 and 1945, but not 1917.^16
In Poland itself, the argument over periodization has lasted from the 1950s to
the present day. The starting-point was Professor Arnold's project presented at
Otwock:
- Epoch of the Primitive Community (to 5th Century AD)
- Epoch of Feudalism (5th Century AD - 1864)
A. Period of the emergence of feudal conditions (5th-10th centuries)
B. Period of early Feudalism (c. 1000-1138)
C. Period of feudal fragmentation (1138-1288/90)
D. Period of the unification of Polish lands, and of the creation of a national
Polish state (1288/1290-1370)
E. Period of transformation into a multinational state (1370-1492/1505)
F. Period of the final formation of the feudal serf-owning, multinational,
noble Republic (1492/1505-1572)
G. Period of the growth of the role of the magnatial oligarchy, and of its
decentralizing tendency (1573-1648)
H. Period of disintegration of the feudal serf-owning Republic (1648-1740)
I. Period of the beginnings of the capitalist system and of the fall of the
noble Republic (1740-95)
J. Period of national-liberation struggles and of the class struggle of the
Polish peasantry in conditions of developing Capitalism (1796-1864) - Epoch of Capitalism (1864-1944)
A. Period of pre-monopolistic Capitalism (1864—1900)
B. Period of increase of imperialist features (1900-18)
C. Period of the Great October Socialist Revolution as the source of Polish
Independence (1917/18)
D. Period of the bourgeois-squirearchical Polish Republic (1918-39)
E. Period of the Second World War (1939-45) - Epoch of Socialism (1944- )^17
Arnold's project pleased nobody. It displeased the Soviet guests at the conference
who, insisting on a closer correlation between the socio-economic 'base' and the
constitutional 'superstructure', wanted to place much greater emphasis on the
chief dates in the history of the state. But it also displeased his Polish colleagues.
They criticized his terminology which preferred 'epoch' and 'period' for the
more usual 'period' and 'sub-period'. They criticized his breakdown of the