50 NAROD
of the Decembrists which steeled the Sejm to dethrone the Tsar. That beautiful
slogan 'FOR YOUR FREEDOM AND OURS' was coined to express the
contention that revolution in Russia and independence for Poland were essential
to the overthrow of Tsarism. In 1863, Herzen was persuaded to praise the Poles,
and to canvass an alliance not only with the Russian 'Zemlya i Volya', but also
with the Italian and Hungarian exiles. All these contacts miscarried. Pushkin
bitterly denounced the Poles, whose 'selfish' adventures presented an excellent
pretext for strengthening autocracy in Russia. Mickiewicz likened Pushkin's
protests to the 'barking of a mad dog'. Herzen's journal Kolokol lost half its
supporters overnight. For those who had not known all along, most Russian rev-
olutionaries wanted to keep Russia intact for the Revolution, and regarded
Polish revolutionary nationalists as reactionaries and provocateurs. From 1863,
anti-Polish tendencies prevailed in Russia, among Slavophiles and revolutionar-
ies alike. In Poland, in the wake of the Risings, anti-Russian passions raged.
Mutual antipathies, cemented the growing conviction in both countries that
Polish and Russian cultures were incurably antagonistic. (See Chapter 2.)
The Polish-German alliance failed even earlier. In 1848, the Posnanian insur-
rectionists had appealed for support to the German Parliament at Frankfurt.
They were promptly told to cease their occupation of the 'ancient German
province of Posen'. There was to be no more sympathy from that quarter.
German Nationalism of the Bismarckian Era was obsessively self-centred, and
under Prussian auspices specifically hostile to Polish aims. (See Chapter 3.)
Relations with the Ukrainians, Byelorussians, and Lithuanians were no
better. Polish territorial claims to Lwow, Minsk, or Wilno, based on the
frontiers and traditions of the old Republic were no longer acceptable. All were
complicated by the arrival of militant Zionism. Thus it happened, that efforts
designed to double the pressure on Tsarism, actually diminished it. The author-
ities divided their various enemies one from the other and ruled with equanim-
ity.
The History of Polish Jewry provides an obvious case in point. In the course
of the nineteenth century, the civil disabilities of the Jews were matched by
mounting economic distress. A fivefold natural increase brought intolerable
pressures on the Pale of Settlement and on Galicia, until mass emigration
offered the only means of escape. For much of the century, the Polonization of
Jewish culture, and their assimilation into Polish society were advocated both
by Jewish reformers and by Polish liberals alike. Both in 1830-1 and in 1861—4,
Poles and Jews stood side by side in the Risings against Russian tyranny. But
from then on, attitudes hardened in both communities. Jewish nationalists of
the new generation saw Assimilation as a threat to their own aspirations, and
condemned co-operation with the Poles out of hand. In the Polish camp, the
rise of militant nationalists of Dmowski's persuasion, with their slogan
of 'Poland for the Poles' generated similar antipathies. Anti-Jewish themes
reappeared in Polish literature - in Michal Balucki's novel, W zydowskich
rekach (In Jewish Hands, 1885), for example. One can only conclude that it is