276 REWOLUCJA
departures which incensed the Tsar, and led to the dissolution. The third Duma
assembled later that year under the shadow of reaction. The new Premier, Pyotr
Stolypin, combined a talent for administrative reform with a heavy hand for dis-
sidents. He arbitrarily changed the suffrage to the disadvantage of all minority
groups, and vigorously attacked the disloyalty of separatist movements. The
joint Polish-Lithuanian — Byelorussian Circle possessed only II members.
Dmowski was driven to rethink his strategy. He supported the Anglo-Russian
Entente, and started out on a 'Neo-Slavic' tack, which presupposed the common
interest of Poles and Russians in the coming struggle with Germany. Yet his
immediate plans were constantly frustrated. His tone grew markedly more stri-
dent. His defeat at the election of 1912 for the fourth Duma was engineered by
the Jews and socialists of his Warsaw constituency. It marked the bankruptcy of
a programme which had linked extreme nationalist rhetoric to tactics that
brought no visible progress towards autonomy. Long before the dissolution of
the fourth Duma at the outbreak of war, Dmowski's conciliatory policy was no
less discredited than Piisudski's revolutionary one.^4
In the course of the crisis, all strands of the Polish national movement were
rent by feuds and schisms. In almost all those areas where the National
Democrats gained mass support, the non-Polish elements of the population
were antagonized. The National Workers' League (NZR) came to control one-
third of the working class. Its leaders formed bojowki on the PPS model, and
used them to contest the influence of left-wing parties in factories and unions. In
Lodz, the National Democrats' Gazeta Polska openly urged the use of force to
suppress 'socialist anarchy'. Dmowski's enemies believed that he had reached an
agreement with the Tsarist government, in which the future autonomy of
Poland would be traded for present co-operation in suppressing the PPS.
Political, sectarian murders were running at forty or fifty per week. The
National Democrats were specially responsible for the new antipathies which
developed between Poles and Jews. Dmowski's virulent intolerance was
brought to the surface. The socialists were left to make despairing appeals for
inter-communal fraternity:Comrades!
The understanding and the solidarity of the workers, without regard to the divisions
among them or to the differences of origin and religion, are the best instruments for
ensuring the victory of our cause and for liberating the working masses from all forms of
coercion.
The Tsarist government is well aware of this, and tries to dissipate our unity by incit-
ing racial and religious hatreds. Wherever it has succeeded, as in Kishinev or in Baku,
where Christians have attacked Jews, and Tartars have massacred Armenians, it is
excited by the smell of blood, and feels stronger... This same frightful tactic has been
applied in Poland for a long time. But our proletariat is too experienced to fall for such
a trick, and is strong enough to prevent assaults on its various social components.
However, the government's policy is also supported by all those for whom the class
struggle is a permanent affront... Catholic priests, Jesuits, and National Democrats are