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The Journal of Libertarian Studies, Vol. V, No. 3 (Summer 1981)

Liberal Traditions
in Polish Political Thought

by Rett R. Ludwikowski

Institute of Political Science
Jagiellonian University, Cracow

In the beginning of the nineteenth century the terms “liberal” and “liberal-
ism” were already well-known and popular in Eastern Europe. It is easy to
comprehend that, with the nation divided by invading neighbors and with-
out its own state, catchwords like “freedom,” “tolerance,” and “independ-
ence” had to be especially attractive. Everybody who wrote or spoke about
progress, abolishment of absolutism, or self-determination of nations was
recognized as liberal. The process of crystallization of the liberal framework
was far from complete. In the first ranks of liberals were people of various
ideas, for example the Russian Tsar Alexander the First, and Prince
Ksawery Drucki Lubecki, who was very servile to Moscow but nevertheless
supported the development of big industry in Poland. Prince Adam Czar-
toryski was the Tsar’s friend, but a great Polish patriot as well and later the
leader of the conservative camp of exiles in France. Liberalism was a term
which everyone seemed to understand yet no one tried to explain in a more
precise way.

It was in the circle of Polish economists that the notion of liberalism was
first interpreted distinctly. In the first twenty years of the nineteenth century
they presented the ideological skeleton of liberalism which made possible a
more definite portrayal of the entire phenomenon. In the works of D. Kry-
sifiski, W. Surowiecki, or S. Wegrzecki we can find the main attributes of
“the liberal spirit”: tolerance, an attachment to progress, a prospective atti-
tude, freedom of action, particularly liberties in competition and a free
hand in economic endeavors, and an inclination to a mechanical conception
of society. In the situation of the Polish nation, the idea of tolerance, expli-
cated later as the principle of religious freedom, took first rank. Catholi-
cism, though suppressed in the Russian and Prussian parts of the divided
country, was the religion of the great majority of Poles; it unified the nation
and was worthy of protection. On the other hand, Catholicism supported a
conservative idea of society and demanded priority for its church. These
claims led to collisions with non-Catholic minorities and was unfavorable to

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256 THE JOURNAL OF LIBERTARIAN STUDIES Summer

the interests of the nation. The idea of tolerance or a full freedom of faith
was of the highest importance in these conditions. The liberals who
supported this principle emphasized that in Poland, where even in the times
of the Inquisition religious executions were unknown, the idea of tolerance
should be treated as an absolute principle.

The liberals tried to argue that Poles should not only discuss the past of
their powerful country, but ought to look into the future and seek ways of
progressive change. The development of industry was considered the only
way to enrichment and internal reinforcement of the nation. The radicals
showed that economic development was conditioned by economic liberties,
while the moderates agreed with free competition inside the Polish prov-
inces but emphasized that free trade and open gates for foreign capital
might hamper the development of local initiatives. Limited laissez faire
seemed to be the best policy in these conditions.

The liberals decidedly rejected the conservative idea of “the society as
organism,” giving priority to the mechanical conception. W. Surowiecki
wrote that “a society is like a machine, in which the turn of one wheel
spreading on the other caused the common motion. One person moves
another with his action, one class gives a motion to all surrounding
classes.”! It was a distinctly different view from the organic idea of society,
but different also from the typical individualistic conceptions of “society as
aggregate.” This atomistic vision, popular in the circle of English Bentham-
ites was too abstract for Polish liberals. They realized that in the situation
of a nation fighting for independence, the slogans of “solidarity” could not
be rejected. The “atomistic society” was not able to win in the political
struggle.

At the end of 1815, Tsar Alexander confirmed the constitution of the
Kingdom of Poland, which was part of the Great Russian Empire. The con-
stitution was recognized as the most liberal in the world. Poles particularly
expected that the organization of the legislature, consisting of two cham-
bers, would enable them to participate in political power. The Tsar, being
the Polish King, had the initiative and the right of veto on the decisions of
the legislature. Both chambers could discuss governmental drafts and the
reports on the situation of the country, while the lower chamber could
require explanations from the ministers and lay before the Senate reports on
the officials’ activity. The publicity for the debates was to open the possibil-
ity of public control of the observance of law.

In a few years, however, vague expressions in the constitution opened
the gates for circumventing its principles and for struggles between the
representatives and the government. This quickened the process of forming
a parliamentary opposition, which decided to defend the principle of rigor-
ous observance of the liberties and rights warranted by the constitution.
They were called “The Benjamites,” from the name of the famous French
liberal, Benjamin Constant, whose political doctrines they fully approved.?


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1981 POLISH POLITICAL THOUGHT 257

The liberalism of the Benjamites was confined to the political sphere, in
which they upheld the ideas of representative government. As wealthy coun-
try gentlemen they were not interested in economic and social change. In
their naivety they assumed that Russia was a legally governed country, and
the Tsar a genuine liberal and defender of the law. They did not compre-
hend that the Polish situation was quite different from that in France and
that therefore the realization of Constant’s ideas was very difficult. Liberal-
ism had no support among the large bourgeoisie, and the absolutism of the
Tsar’s administration, masked by liberal labels, could not be compared with
the governmental power of post-revolutionary France. The doctrinaire
attempts of Benjamites were suppressed quickly, and absolutism was openly
declared as the ruling system in all Polish provinces.

The experiences of the Polish legislative opposition proved that liberal-
ism not only had formidable enemies in this part of Europe but also lacked
sufficient groundwork for its development. Even the emphatic adherents of
this current of ideas did not see any chance for creating an independent lib-
eral political movement. In this situation, popular liberal slogans began to
penetrate neighboring ideological trends, as was typical under Polish condi-
tions. Middle-of-the-road organizations and coteries with a consevative-
liberal profile appeared. Conservatism, which formed its shape in the fire of
dispute with reaction on the right-wing and socialism on the left, was
inclined to compromise terms with liberalism. “True” conservatism, as
opposed to reaction, acted on the assumptions of Edmund Burke’s evolu-
tionary conservatism. It borrowed the concept of progress, accepting, but
never initiating, unavoidable changes. Progress, understood as a gradual
improvement of the conditions of life, was incorporated in an organismic
theory of society; and the life of this social organism remained unthreatened
only by slowly emerging and unplanned regulations. This kind of progress,
rather than posing a threat to conservatism, was used to illustrate
“conservative wisdom.” This concept of progress— “the only admissible”
one to conservatives —became not a “sensu stricto” assumption, but a
reflection of typical conservative compromise. It should not be equated
with opportunism, but rather with the search for the Aristotelian “golden
mean.”

The conservative compromise expressed itself typically in a complex of
landowners’ propositions on how to solve the problem of peasants’ reform,
this being the crucial problem of the time. The reform was seriously dis-
cussed and, in spite of the elaborate phraseology used in the discussion, the
main impulses were landowners’ fears of an agrarian revolution and of
socialism. This may easily be found in the writings of the leading conserva-
tive theoreticians.

Conservative anti-revolutionism acted finally upon the conception of an
organism-like society and was on this point quite contrary to liberal
assumptions. According to this idea, an individual was confronted with a


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258 THE JOURNAL OF LIBERTARIAN STUDIES Summer

set of conditions determined by the forces laying the foundations for histor-
ical development. These forces can be neither fully understood nor
changed. In the organism-like society with a hierarchical structure, individ-
uals are so interdependent on each other that they must keep to the principle
of mutual solidarity. At the same time the social order and stability of hier-
archy can be maintained only by a strong power. For society to be a contin-
uing formation comprising entire generations, it must be governed by a
strong power and, through that power, be protected against fall and decay.

These principles were morally sanctioned by the Catholic Church. There
were mutual dependencies between the Church and conservatism. The land-
owners were convinced of the Catholic character and traditions of the
nation and only the most progressive admitted the justness of the tolerance
principle. This attitude was deepened by the fact that the Church supported
conservative ideology with its own authority, providing moral sanction to
its dogmas, and was concerned that divine justice be carried out through the
conservative program. Thus the Church, which was naturally conservative,
was provided care and protection by the conservatives. In contrast with pre-
viously mentioned liberal assumptions, only the Catholic Church partici-
pated in steering the society.

Thus, while some liberal tendencies existed in Polish conservatism, they
should not be exaggerated. Conservatism remained the ideology of the rich
country gentlemen who accepted only a compromise with the bourgeoisie,
the weaker partner in this union. Such was the position of liberalism, trans-
mitting only its ideas, and not pretending to an independent political
position,

The special feature of the common policy appeared when conservatives
presented their program of so-called “organic work,” as opposed to the
socialists’ revolutionary program. “Organic work” was presented as the only
means by which the longed-for restoration of the state could be attained. It
was a program of progressive internal change, but it was criticized by the
left-wing currents for its dependence on the support, or at least on the tol-
eration, of the states occupying Poland. Politically, the program led to the
acceptance of the tri-loyalism principle, that is, loyalty to the three occupy-
ing powers: Prussia, Russia, and Austria-Hungary.

The forces of “organic work” had never been homogeneous, but it was
at the beginning of the 1870s that a distinct split became evident. The new
movement, attracting the young Warsaw intellectuals, separated emphatic-
ally from all conservative concepts of “organic work.” Developing under the
overwhelming influence of contemporary European trends, the new move-
ment was called “Warsaw Positivism.” It presented the idea of gradual
change improving the well-being of the nation, and rejected conservative
opportunism and the preservative idea of social structure. The young posi-
tivists’ forward-looking attitude was authentic in that they believed that
man was able to participate in the process of creating the surrounding


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1981 POLISH POLITICAL THOUGHT 259

reality and were truly engaged in the struggle for progress.? The conserva-
tives, being in accord with Burke’s principles, agreed “to change, not to lose
the chance for preservation.” They wanted all along to renovate “the
building” so as not to have to construct it from the beginning. The positiv-
ists wanted to improve the system not only because of the danger of col-
lapse, but also because they wished to live more and more comfortably.
They agreed to conserve “the foundations” in order to modify the front and
the structure of “the building.”

This view of the best conditions for progress was consistent with the
“formulas” of West European liberalism. In accordance with Mill and
Spencer, who were quoted most frequently, the best warrant was seen in the
best possible protection of freedom. The positivists discussed primarily
freedom of scientific research, complete freedom of opinion, and tolerance
for all ideas and intellectual movements. They repeated Mill’s thesis that
human genius was able to breathe only in the atmosphere of freedom.

The influence of the positivist movement was hampered at the end of the
century by new currents of political ideas. New players appeared in the
arena of political struggles. Nationalists, socialists, and peasant movements
were taking the places previously occupied by conservatives and liberals.
They presented more popular variants of independence programs, which
were important in this time of new struggles for a Polish state, and were at
last successful thanks to the events of the first world war.

There was no climate for the development of “the liberal spirit” in the
new Poland at the beginning of the interwar period. Prevailing opinion tried
to prove that the new and growing state required a strong centralized gov-
ernment. Only Cracow’s old conservative center raised once more the liberal
banner. It was out of the conservative club of Cracow that a new “neolib-
eral” economic society appeared. The main founder of this group was A.
Krzyzanowski, the famous Polish economist who already at the beginning
of the century predicted the serious economic recession of the Western
world.4 Up to the end of the thirties, the neoliberals tried to fight against
protectionism and attempts at State control of industries. They argued that
the government could not take an individual’s place in his economic endeav-
ors. Everyone had to look to himself for ways to prosperity. The state could
only help the able people to achieve success. However, in spite of the intel-
lectual significance of the neoliberal movement, its political role was not
very important.

There was also no atmosphere for liberalism in the period after World
War II. A current of ideas related to conservatism could not expect support
in a socialist country. Even research into these problems encountered some
difficulties. The socialist state eagerly covered the costs of and supported
studies on leftist currents of ideas, neglecting research into middle-of-the-
road and rightist ones. This situation not only caused considerable gaps of
knowledge and limited the general view of the whole range of ideological


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260 THE JOURNAL OF LIBERTARIAN STUDIES Summer

currents, but also deformed, in a significant manner, knowledge of past and
current leftist movements. It was also characteristic that this poor state of
knowledge did not conduce to an interest in social affairs, particularly in
student circles and in academia. When, in the fifties, studies on Polish lib-
eralism were taken up, it was clear that they could not succeed without
grinding out what liberalism really was. An infiltration of liberal ideas into
conservative ideology led to a very broad interpretation of the controversial
term. All the representatives of rightist and middle-of-the-road movements,
from reactionaries up to adherents of laissez faire, were called “liberals.”
All discussions of liberalism in this situation were necessarily dull and led to
no conclusions.

It should be emphasized that this tendency was strengthened by attempts
to apply Lenin’s definition of liberalism to the Polish variant of this phe-
nomenon. According to this idea, liberalism was the attitude towards the
political and social problems of the nation assumed within the limits of the
compromise between the landed aristocracy and bourgeoisie. This defini-
tion might be correct where two equal partners —the great bourgeoisie and
the landowners — are fighting for their position. Such a compromise could
create conditions not only for the spread of liberal phraseology but also for
a fully developed liberal ideology. The situation in Poland, however, was
quite different. The bourgeoisie was not an equal partner; its position was
weaker. Weaker also, therefore, was the chance for liberalism to become
the official ideology of the “alliance” mentioned above. Conservatism
remained the predominant movement and trend of ideas in nineteenth-
century Poland. Although liberalism had its own representatives and infil-
trated neighboring currents, it had never gained primacy in Poland.

In the 1970’s the situation changed a little and the author of this article,
along with other scholars, tried again to prove that liberalism was not as
“guilty” as reaction or other variants of traditionalism, and that it deserved
particular attention. At the same time, the first marks of growing interest in’
rightist currents of ideas in general could be noticed, and this stimulated the
intention to “revisit” liberalism once more. After the publication of L.
Kasprzyk’s 1961 book, The Social and Political Ideas of H. Spencer, many
dissertations and doctoral theses devoted to the representatives of French
and English liberalism were prepared in Cracow’s university circle. Some of
them, such as the book of the author of this article — co-authored with J.
Wolenski—on Mill, and that of B. Sobolewska on the ideas of French
aristocratic liberals in the nineteenth century, were published at the end of
the seventies and beginning of the eighties. The Institute of Political
Science in the Jagiellonian University in Cracow also prepared the first
attempt in Poland to synthesize liberal ideas.® W. Sadurski engaged in
research on neoliberalism. In the late seventies he published many articles
and in 1980 a monograph devoted to this theme.

Utilizing an opportunity, the present author presented once more the


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1981 POLISH POLITICAL THOUGHT 261

problems of Polish liberals of the previous century. In 1976 he published his
Conservatism of the Kingdom of Poland, and four years later Essays on the
Galician Political Movement and Ideas: 1848-1892, both devoted to the
relations between Polish liberals and conservatives in the nineteenth cen-
tury. His other book, Polish Political Thought in the XIXth Century, show-
ing these problems on a broader background of other political trends, is in
press at this time.

However, many other studies undertaken in the last few years will not be
completed in the near future. Shortages of paper and the financial troubles
of Polish editors have already hampered the preparation and publication of
these studies. A paradoxical situation has appeared. Our research problem,
neglected and incorrectly presented in the post-war period, met at last the
great interest of readers and scientific centers. There also appeared groups
of scholars well prepared to undertake profound studies. The necessary re-
lations with foreign centers were established and many dissertations await-
ing print were prepared. The lack of publishing facilities, however, delays
the presentation of these studies to the Polish reader. The gap in research,
therefore, may not be filled, and adequate information on the history and
current filiations of one of the most significant trends of thought may be
lacking in Polish political culture for some time to come.

NOTES

1. W. Surowiecki, O upadku przemysiu i miast w Polsce (Warsaw, 1810), p. 31.

2. They were also called “The Kaliszans” from the name of the town where the main leaders
of the group—~ Wincenty and Bonawentura Niemojowki—resided.

3. The main representatives of this current were: A. Swigtochowski, B. Prus, P. Chmielow-
ski, J. Ochorowicz, K. Kraushar, W. Smolenski. They were centered around the Przeglad
Tygodniowy (The Weekly Review) and other positivistic journals like: Niwa, Ateneum,
Nowiny, and Prawda.

4. The other particularly active members of the society were: F. Zweig, A. Heydel, T. Lulek,
S. Wyrobisz, and S. Schmidt.

5. R. Ludwikowski and J. Wolenski, J. S. Mill (Warsaw, 1979); B. Sobolewska, Doktryna
polityczna liberalizmu arystokratycznego we Francji w latach 1814-1848 (Cracow, 1977).
In 1978 Maria Zmierczak published her Ideologia liberalna w II cesarstwie francuskim,
(Poznan).

6. M. Sobolewski and B. Sobolewska, Liberalism (Warsaw, 1978).