Besançon, Ms. 2834

POLAND: A STUDY OF HISTORY AND POLITICS

[Considerations on the Life and Death of Nationalities]

PART ONE: PRINCIPLES

I.—History and Nationality.

The Polish Question.—History understood as a legal inquiry: necessity, in order to write history and judge a nation, of positing some principles.—Doctrine of immanence: that the political organism is the product of social spontaneity, and that where that spontaneity is lacking, the State becoming powerless and impossible, the nationality remains non-existent.—Exhaustion of the spontaneity in nations: Jews, Greeks, Romans and Italians.—Divisions of the history of Poland: conclusion unfavorable to the demands of the Poles.

II.—The State.

Transition: that the idea of a spontaneity in the nation leads to that of a real and concrete existence of the State.—Idealist and realist theories of the State: principle of collectivity.—Politics, subjective, artificial and immoral as it is in the first case, becomes objective, legal and scientific.—Application to history: critique of Jacobinism.—New conclusion against the Poles.

III.—Political Geography.

Seat [siege] of the State.—Errors spread regarding this subject.—Theory of basins and crests; principle of natural frontiers; law of the agglomeration and dismemberment. Application to Poland.

IV.—Political Ethnography.

Difficulties and prejudices.—Principle of the indigénat, otherwise known as the principle of nationality: the nation defines itself in politics by territory.—Examination and refutation of pan-slavism.—Principle of autonomy, corollary of the principle of nationality.—Glimpse of Polish character.

V.—Political Organogeny.

Two eras in the formation of societies, the organic or political era and the metamorphic or economic era.—Principle of the separation of powers: spirit and aim of that separation. [ ] of direction in the State.—Politico-realist deduction from the idea of right.—Sufficiency of the political organism for the fullness of social life: singular position of royalty; backwardness and incapacity of the masses; doctrinaire scales.—The era of constitutions.—Observations on Poland.

VI.—Social Metamorphosis.

Influence of political organization on the condition and supports of the citizens.—opposition of Society and State; subordination of the latter; progress of civil and economic liberty; proportional reduction of governmental functions.—Difficulty encountered by the development of public liberties in the natural inequality of subjects and races: question of slavery.—How the collective reason overcomes that obstacle; Theory of the right of persons; principle of equality before the law; application of that principle to the exchange of products and services. Moral, political and economic transformation.—Observation on Poland.

VII.—Guarantism.—Theory of Property.—Primitive liberty and equality raised to the second [power]. Extinction of political […] in the […]; end of conquest, annexation and dominion. Universal Federation.