How to Mobilize the Polish Nation

2018 ◽  
pp. 33-58
Author(s):  
Jochen Böhler
Keyword(s):  
Central Europe ◽  
The Political ◽  
Great War ◽  
Armed Struggle ◽  
Polish Society ◽  
Chain Of Command ◽  
Political Left ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Great War ◽  
Organic Change

Chapter 2 highlights the fragmentation within Polish society in partition times, during the Great War, and in its after-battles. While the political left prior to 1914 prepared for armed struggle, the right preferred a tactic of “organic change.” During the Great War, genuine Polish military formations became the incarnation of Polish independence. But they formed on opposing sides of the frontline, and were, in terms of numbers, insignificant, while most Polish soldiers served as cannon fodder in the ranks of the imperial armies. Following independence in late 1918, most peasants—80 percent of the Polish-speaking population in Central Europe—mistrusted the “national project” and did not follow the call to arms voluntarily. The Polish Army from the start had to struggle with a serious shortage of soldiers, armament, and provisions. A functioning united national army and chain of command needed years to materialize.

Violence and Crimes Beyond the Battlefields

2018 ◽  
pp. 146-186
Author(s):  
Jochen Böhler
Keyword(s):  
Central Europe ◽  
State Policy ◽  
Great War ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
Border Conflicts ◽  
The Great War

Chapter 4 reminds the reader that the described conflicts were fought out on territories which had been already heavily affected by the casualties and destructions of the Great War. Postwar Central Europe witnessed epidemics, famine, and a massive refugee crisis. Between 1918 and 1921, Poland’s population was fighting for mere survival. In the meantime, it was menaced by the very men who were meant to protect it: its soldiers. The Polish Army was built from scratch. Desertion, insubordination, and rebellion of whole units was the order of the day. Bands of marauding soldiers harassed the civil population, killing hundreds of Jews. While the border conflicts were state policy put into practice, this wave of paramilitary violence beyond the battlefields was a mixture of cynical pragmatism (shortage of supply), opportunity (possession of arms), and mentality (a sense of superiority of “elite” units towards “ethnic aliens” in general, and Jews in particular).

Introduction

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Jochen Böhler
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
The Political ◽  
Second Republic ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Civilian Population ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Political Factions ◽  
The Great War ◽  
Military Units

In Central Europe, 1918 marked not only the demise of the German, Austrian, and Russian Empires, but also the rise of a multitude of nation states. Poland, re-erected after 123 years of partition, was at the center of events, independence having been the dream of its elites since the nineteenth century. But the formation of the Polish Second Republic was not the result of a united effort of the whole Polish nation, its political leaders, and military units—first and foremost the legendary “Legions”—during and after the Great War. In reality, in late 1918, there was no united Polish nation, leadership, or army to speak of. The rural masses did not take up the call to arms, the political factions were at war with one another, and the country was on the brink of a domestic war, while marauding soldiers killed Jews and harassed the whole civilian population.

Fighting for the Empire

2019 ◽  
pp. 16-42
Author(s):  
Dónal Hassett
Keyword(s):  
Military Service ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
The Political ◽  
Great War ◽  
Colonial History ◽  
Key Concepts ◽  
History Of ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Great War ◽  
First World

This chapter explores the history of military service in Algeria and across the colonial world before and during the Great War. It introduces the reader to key concepts from the fields of colonial history and First World War studies that are crucial to understanding the political legacies of the entanglement of the colonies and, especially, Algeria with the Great War. Taking a comparative approach, it explains the range of legal categories that underpinned colonial rule within the different empires and considers how the rights and responsibilities they implied were connected to and altered by military service. The chapter also examines the variety of attitudes toward the use of colonial soldiers in the different imperial polities and asks how these influenced the expectations of post-war reform in the colonies.

Low-Income Housing in Crisis

2021 ◽  
pp. 20-57
Author(s):  
Benjamin Holtzman
Keyword(s):  
Real Estate ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Real Estate Market ◽  
Urban Neighborhoods ◽  
The Political ◽  
Self Help ◽  
Political Left ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The Right ◽  
Low Income Housing

During the late 1960s and 1970s, extensive disinvestment and an eviscerated real estate market led landlords of low-income housing to walk away from their real estate holdings, leaving thousands of buildings unoccupied and often city-owned due to nonpayment of taxes. In response, Latinx, African American, and some white residents protested the blight these buildings brought to their neighborhoods by directly occupying and seeking ownership of abandoned buildings through a process they called urban homesteading. Activists framed homesteading as a self-help initiative, often emphasizing their own ingenuity over state resources as the key to solving the problems of low-income urban neighborhoods. Such framing was understandable given the unstable economic terrain of the 1970s and won activists support not just from the political left, but also the right. But it also positioned homesteading as demonstrating the superiority of private-citizen and private sector–led revitalization in ways that left homesteading projects vulnerable as it became clear how necessary government resources would be to their success.

Righteousness or the right to drink? The debate on the ration book in Sweden and Finland during the 1950s

2001 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 359-370
Author(s):  
Matti Peltonen
Keyword(s):  
Control Policy ◽  
Alcohol Policy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Swedish Version ◽  
Alcohol Control ◽  
Political Left ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Right ◽  
Political Right

Sweden and Finland reviewed their alcohol control policies in the 1950s at more or less the same time. Sweden abolished its ration book system and lifted restrictions on the sale of medium strength beer, Finland in turn revised its mechanisms for controlling the purchase of alcohol, a version of the Bratt system. In Sweden, alcohol consumption increased sharply and the number of drunkenness offences doubled. In Finland, by contrast, nothing happened. Why? History provides one possible source of explanation. The Swedish version of the Bratt system was much stricter (with monthly rations allocated on the basis of social class and sex) and therefore there was greater pressure towards a liberalisation of alcohol policy than was the case in Finland. During the war and in the post-war years Finland had a strong labour movement, which was keen to underline and demonstrate that the working class were in every respect decent and upright people. The debate that was touched off by the General Strike in 1956 is particularly interesting. On the political right, workers were frequently portrayed as heavy drinkers; the political left worked hard to fend off this propaganda attack. In this kind of atmosphere it was impossible to seriously call for a liberalisation of alcohol control policy in Finland.

scholarly journals The French Socialists and Anticlericalism: The Position of Edouard Vaillant and the Parti Socialiste Revolutionnaire

1977 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-183 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jolyon Howorth
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Great War ◽  
Paris Commune ◽  
Socialist Movement ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Great War

Of all the political and ideological debates which confronted the French Socialist movement between the Paris Commune and the Great War, the problem of anticlericalism was one of the most complex. The concept of anticlericalism gives rise to a certain degree of confusion, partly because of the fact that it was a war-horse ridden jointly by the radical republicans and by the Socialists. The simplest definition of anticlericalism is that offered by the dictionary of Robert: “opposition à toute immixtion du clergé dans la politique”.

III. The Loyalist Association Movement of 1792–93 and British Public Opinion

1966 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-190 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald E. Ginter
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Late Spring ◽  
Careful Examination ◽  
The Political ◽  
Public Prosecution ◽  
Political Left ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Right ◽  
Political Scene

In November 1792 John Reeves, with the explicit approval and active sup-port of both the government and the Windhamite Whigs, and with the countenance of the duke of Portland and his friends, instituted a movement of loyalist associations which quickly spread throughout the country. The movement was founded in reaction to an enthusiastic resurgence of British radical activity which followed the defeat of the combined armies under the duke of Brunswick, and it rallied a now militant conservative sentiment in favour of detecting and suppressing by intimidation and public prosecution all allegedly seditious activities. This crisis in public opinion, which was at once the parent and the offspring of the loyalist association movement, was not the first to have occurred in 1792. An earlier crisis occurred in favour of the political left during the late spring of 1792 and was followed by a relatively mild reaction to the right. It seems clear that, during the earlier months of 1792 at least, there were considerable bodies of both conservative and liberal opinion of various shades in the country. But by the beginning of the following year the complexity and ferment of the political scene had become so great that it is not at all clear to what extent or how rapidly liberal opinion had been supplanted in the country by conservative sentiment. The purpose of this paper is to reassess the nature, effect and significance of the loyalist association movement by undertaking a more careful examination of the phraseology of many of its addresses and declarations as well as of the proceedings and circumstances peculiar to the meetings in which they were approved.

Partisans and Poets: The Political Work of American Poetry in the Great War

1998 ◽  
Vol 70 (2) ◽  
pp. 409
Author(s):  
Caren Irr ◽  
Mark W. Van Wienen
Keyword(s):  
American Poetry ◽  
The Political ◽  
Great War ◽  
Political Work ◽  
The Great War

scholarly journals Dialektyka „swój”–„obcy” w prawicowej filozofii politycznej 1789– –1945

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 29-54
Author(s):  
Adam Wielomski
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
The Political ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Liberal State ◽  
Political Left ◽  
The Right ◽  
Political Right ◽  
The 19Th Century

DIALECTICS ‘WE’–‘ALIENS’ IN RIGHT-WING POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 1789–1945 The aim of the author of this text is to polemicize with the stereotype according to which nationalism is a synonym of the “extreme right.” For this purpose the method of historical exemplification was used. Part I of this text is devoted to defining the concept of the “right” and to present the supporters of the French Revolution and other 19th-century revolutions, their idea of nationalism, the nation-state and sovereignty of the nation. This presentation shows that up to 1890 nationalism is located in the revolutionary left. The first nationalists are Jacobins. The counter-revolutionary right is opposed to nationalism. For this right, nationalism is combined with the idea of empowering nations to the rights of self-determination, which is closely connected with the idea of people’s sovereignty. This situation persists until 1870–1914, when the ideas of national sovereignty are implemented in the politics of the modern states. However, the liberal state does not meet the expectations of nationalists, because it neglects the interests of the nation as the highest value. That is the cause for them moving from the political left to the right part of the political scene, replacing the legitimist right. The latter is annihilated with the decline of aristocracy. In the 19th century, the left is nationalistic and xenophobic. We find clear racist sympathies on the left. The political right does not recognize the right of nations to self-determination, the idea of ethnic boundaries. It is cosmopolitan.

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