(Photo: Pixabay)
Here, of course, different historical visions and mental maps collide, including on such basic issues as what history actually is. It became evident that there are still many people on all political and ideological sides who honestly and naively believe that world history is simply a great race for justice and a decent fight for the good of humanity.
Of course, this confused perspective has very little in common with reality. Polish school students learn in their history lessons about centuries of agrarian dualism east and west of the Elbe (capitalism in the west, serfdom in the east) and this shapes the way we perceive the external world and Poland’s place within it.
The geographic space of Poland is defined by the way it is “squeezed” between East and West. Of the two poles of influence in the East, one – imperial Russia – is powerful but poor. Although relatively weak in terms of civilizational prowess, Russia remains a dangerous and disturbing neighbor for the countries of the European East. The second – the Orient as an Eastern ‘Other’: Asian, very distant and somewhat exotic, like fairy tales or legends passed down generations.
This is Europe, but not entirely “maritime” – capitalist, western, Latin – because Islamic, Tatar, Orthodox, or Asian influences infiltrated its perimeter and were always strong enough to disturb any purely European feature. Unlike those European countries on the Atlantic, with its life-giving communication, capital and social dynamics.
On the one hand, the borders of this “in-between” area are marked by the shores of the Gulf of Finland, the Dnieper and the Black Sea, and in the west and south they are, interestingly, marked by the former borders of the Roman empire – the Danube and the Balkan influences of Byzantium and the Ottoman Empire – they were culturally and civilizationally separate. Beyond the Dnieper, in drainage basins of the Volga and the Don, Moscow has been in control for several hundred years. The civilizational durability of this border is surprising. As Jan Sowa writes in the “Phantom Body of the King” (2011), in the 20th century, the western border of the Soviet sphere of influence after controlling the political organisms of the Baltic-Black Sea bridge and the rest of Central and Eastern Europe stood almost exactly where in the 9th century the borders of the Frankish Empire of Charlemagne were, and 500 years earlier the limes of the Roman empire, based on the Elbe.
The development of the phenomenon of the division of Europe into two civilisation systems on the Elbe coincided with the decline of the significance of the trade empire of Constantinople acquired by the Ottomans and the breaking of the trading system of former Eurasia. This strengthened an ever-poor and unconnected Moscow, which greatly benefited from the fall of the city on the Bosporus. Especially with regard to Poland, and especially during the times when Russia had overrun the Black Sea and the Smoleńsk Gate herself, and when from the 18th century onwards even the Ottoman Empire was unable to mitigate Russian aspirations in the south. Poland suddenly found itself in a crush zone between the growing maritime Europe which derived strength from its location in the Rimland of the Atlantic, and Moscow – traditionally weak economically, but politically very strong.
In the 16th century, as a result of the launch of the trans-Atlantic communications, the line of duality separated the areas in Europe where the secondary servitude of the peasants appeared from those where agricultural work remained free, thus determining the phenomenon of dualism of the continent’s economic and social development. This demarcation line apparently divided civilization to the east and west, where in the east there were no traces of material (non-spiritual, because this heritage occurs strongly on our bridge) Roman heritage. If the areas east of the Dnieper deserve to be called peripheries or dependent areas, then their gravitational center, i.e. the geopolitical core area towards which political, economic and social integration took place – was Russia, which until the 20th century was completely separate from the West, capitalism or the world ocean economy. These areas east of the Dnieper were never subject to the gravitational pull of Western Europe, although Poland – in the fifteenth, sixteenth and even in the seventeenth century – aspired to act as a conduit for such a change in the flow of influences.
(Photo: Pixabay)
The described area east of the Elbe is located between strongly interacting outer core areas: a ‘maritime’ Europe – serving the sea with social and economic development resulting from the Atlantic – and an area of socially and economically backward, though strong politically, Russia’s land empire. From the great geographical discoveries, the area “in between” gradually became (in reality and, equally important, in the perception of both those in the West and those in the East) – according to Jan Sowa – a zone of certain underdevelopment, incompleteness, non-selfhood, non-subjectivity, incomplete shaping, inferiority. And even from the perspective of the development of a “maritime” Europe – socio-cultural immaturity, which is of great importance for the status game, which is the core software in politics.
It also does not apply to Russia or other societies – Persians, Turks or Chinese, who feel autonomous in “their” world, a core area capable of formulating their own policies and creating their own civilizational influence.
You can see in the Nobel discussion how strong the discourse of “catching up” still is in Poland. We are, as a society, in the phase of “sitting astride” a thin mental border between the feeling that Poland and its space is a separate core area, and the feeling that this area is not and will not be and that it is better to accept the status of subordination, in return receiving the modernisation package. This mechanism explains well the tensions on the Polish political scene after 1989.
Developmental dualism consists in a clear fracture of the continent more or less along the Elbe. Capitalist economy developed in the West, a growing monarchy and absolutism consolidating in a piston-like move the organizational effort. In the east, a serf-based economy with a weak central authority did not organize space to the extent that this space requires in order to realise organic opportunities, and to meet the requirements of constant competition with external forces. It is equally important to note that, inexorably with the increase of their own power, growing external powers in time want to organize the space of others.
In this example, by the way, one can see the apparent appearance of Poland’s choice between a “Piast” and its alternative “Jagiellonian” foreign policy. A “Piast policy” would (in a simplification) be based on the economy of the West, an attempt to catch up with the theory of convergence of that West. On the other hand, the “Jagiellonian” policy is an attempt to deal with the issue of constant threat from the East, together with the requirement of having buffer zones and Poland’s ambitions to organize civilisation by Poland and Poles in the east, as in the past.
The distinction between Polish “Piast” and “Jagiellonian” approaches is also apparent for another reason – especially today. It’s about the working of various powers in geographical space. Although after the Second World War, the borders of Poland were shifted to the west, based on the Oder and the Neisse to the west, the Carpathians to the south and the Baltic to the north, its space is still the keystone of the entire land area between Europe and Eurasia.
Never will the leadership in Warsaw have the comfort of a passive attitude towards Eastern policy in the former buffer areas, at the Moldavian Gate or on the shores of the Black Sea, counting on the possibility of peaceful consolidation under the “Piast policy” within the new and very convenient “Piast” borders. Simply, the core area of the Poland is, of course, on the Wisła and the Warta rivers, but it is not able to consolidate within the “Piast” sphere if Poland has no influence in the buffer areas between Moscow and Warsaw, thus mitigating the military and political projection of power Moscow is constantly approaching the Polish core area. This is because Russian political (not to mention military) influence, immediately and directly affects the consolidation and internal capabilities of the Polish state.
Both political and economic. Threatened by Russia, we must attract external powers to guarantee our security, which always costs something politically and financially, and spend money on a broadly understood modernisation of geographic space. In addition, there are always worries about the sustainability of efforts to modernise and consolidate, which probably do not making optimal economic, infrastructure or investment decisions. Thus, the “Piast” policy does not eliminate the “Jagiellonian” and vice versa. They are mutually reinforcing.
Poland, due to its unique geographical location, simultaneously carried out its own imperial project in the eastern buffer areas of its own land empire. This led to the quasi-colonial or imperial project, the traces of which – let’s not be afraid to put it in that way – remain quite characteristic in Polish political culture, literature and art, with a simultaneous rupture resulting from the dualism and weakness of the economic and civilisational construct of the Baltic-Black Sea bridge, of which Poland was once proud. This explains the unstoppable desire to tie in culture and civilisation with “maritime” Europe and the Western civilisational construct.
The fall of the former Polish empire can in this sense be regarded as a defeat in the rivalry with the imperialism of Russia, Prussia and Austria, and the fight was fought for the control of the areas in the disputed sphere of influence – in the areas called the Borderlands (Kresy) in Polish culture, in which Poland played the role of a civilising power. At the same time, it experienced, in contrast to England and France, the other side of the imperial attitude, i.e. subordination and partitions – like the political organisms located in Africa, Asia or South America.
In addition, the partitions took place in the 19th century at a time that was critical for the progress of civilisation, when the modern nation and its cultural awareness as well as responsibility for its own space were shaped in the situation of imperial-colonial subordination to foreign powers. This applied even more strongly to the social elites of the Polish Republic, and this left its mark not only on the communication or integration of its space, but also on the functioning of state institutions and the “establishment” of the newly reborn state.
Poland was considered an arrivist in international relations (in the always existing international hierarchy), after 1918 numerous epithets were thrown about its “seasonality” or its being “a bastard of Versailles”. And again in the period after 1989, when Poland was lowly perceived in the hierarchy of international order (largely due to poor software), as when French President Jacques Chirac was not afraid to say in public that Poland and others had “missed a good opportunity to keep quiet” during the dispute over the goals of the US war in Iraq in the early 21st century.
The place taken by the former Polish State as a result of dualism turned out to be fatal in the long run.
The emergence of the pan-European capitalist economy was a new phenomenon after the age of great geographical discoveries, and over time it has become global
China wants to change this system by building its own imperial system with its own supply chain (Belt and Road Initiative) across and around Eurasia. So the scale of the challenge for a current system and the order known for 500 years is acute.
Modern Shanghai (photo: Pixabay)
The system has a hierarchical structure, divided into core, semi-periphery and periphery.
It was easy to relocate between the semi-periphery and the periphery as can be seen after the Netherlands relocated cereal production to the Baltic-Black Sea Intermarium to the then-peripheral area of the emerging ‘world economy’. Or when the US has relocated to China in the past few decades, the production of everyday items, which has reduced the cost of maintaining the middle class in the US. It turned out to be possible, in both cases, because relations in the periphery of both the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and 20th-century China were not free-market or capitalist in the classical sense of the word. Forced employment was written into the law, making work easily available and cheap.
Generally, the system undergoes a constant process of capital allocation in the economic chain towards cheap work or new broadly understood “resources” and “business opportunities”. Seen from a historical perspective, it is very convenient for the powers that control the World Ocean, its power and geopolitical advantage. It can be used as a per convenience or geostrategic need in the event of a strong will of the core system to put pressure on “disobedients” in the system. Since the beginning of 2018, such behavior has been visible in US policy towards China, aimed specifically at the Chinese global supply chain – to weaken the foundations of China’s modern industries and block the critical strategic flows that we have been writing about at Strategy&Future.
Relations between capital having a strong influence on political power can be symbiotic in weaker state organisms. The privileged in the system are constantly looking for the best operating conditions, relocating financially to those places where investments give the best rates of return. In this arrangement, the system of competing countries is an excellent field for capital action, because thanks to the political hierarchy resulting from the status hierarchy, through “influences” you can create the right conditions for capital action or position your status as an intermediary or trader.
As part of the New Silk Road, Beijing wants to create a new system and then transform it into an empire with itself at the centre. Over time, Beijing may want to expand its zone of direct political control necessary for the empire. This would mean China’s dominance in the current system and a “hostile takeover” of the world economy from the US.
In the freely moving World Ocean communication system that has existed since Columbus, competition encouraged the use of comparative advantages. Thus, it creates the conditions for the geographical specialisation of production – Scandinavia as a metal and metallurgical base, Poland – grain and dairy products, Hungary – cattle, and China simple production of everyday articles for the western middle class.
In the case of the agrarian empire of Poland, the political system additionally regulated the supply and demand for farm work, and decided to petrify and limit trade relations in cities, which resulted in a lack of social mobility and a poor monetisation of human relations and the economy. In the sixteenth century, only three Polish cities had trade contacts with a range of about 3000 kilometers – Poznań, Kraków and Lwów. Essential in long-distance trade (before the era of bank transfers!), the institution of the promissory note in practical use on the Wisła appeared only in the eighteenth century, and the credit institution was in its infancy.
The first real banks appeared only in the nineteenth century. As befits the colonial condition of Poland’s space – this was, of course, based on foreign capital, which reaped profits on the “work” of the country.
Raw materials, wood, and amber were exported from Poland, and processed “luxury” and craft goods were produced in “maritime” Europe. Importantly, even this structurally subordinated exchange took place under conditions dictated by Western merchants. Price was dictated in the port city of Gdańsk, but de facto production volume was controlled in advance by credit and buying, and it was practically impossible to obtain independent trade credit in Poland.
What’s more, some of the Polish elite saw their interests in an alliance with a foreign economic or political force rather than with the Polish king or other groups of Polish society, after all connected organically – one could say “biologically” – with the requirements of service and functioning in the real space of their state. Serfdom, cashless turnover, demonetisation as well as unstoppable and low internal demand caused a regression of cities, and with time also low efficiency in farms, plunged Poland in relation to powerful and reforming neighbours. The country has integrated into the capitalist world system as a peripheral agrarian empire with a huge territory, used extensively.
The mercantilism used by Western countries in the modern era was supposed to protect their own production and market, and only liberal countries, whose production is competitive or dominating on world markets, could afford economic liberalism. The former Polish State did not even have in its hands such key “leverages” of the state’s trade policy as the real ability to establish laws protecting and strengthening the state, the international merchant and financial network, entry points to foreign markets bypassing networks of monopolistic contractual links of external buyers who want to turn to master the communication lines of the fruits of work and human interaction in our space.
A certain paradox is that Poland was too close to the powerful centers of economic and cultural gravity to be beyond their reach and influence, and it was too weak to develop a form of its own system that would effectively resist the temptations of neighboring powers. At the same time, it was strong enough to resist total and open domination. The severity of failure in the field of economic competition turned out for Poles to be directly proportional to the past power, ambition and aspirations of the Commonwealth.
At this point it is worth referring to the dispute between supporters of the thesis that Poland “will catch up” and those who believe that it “will not catch up”. The former believe that Poland has its best period in a thousand years of history. That it has been growing the fastest in Europe economically since 1989 and was the only one on the continent to avoid recession during the crisis years of 2008–2009. As a result, in 2013 Poland was to achieve a level of income, quality of life and well-being “never before experienced”, having probably achieved “the highest level of income compared to the West since 1500, that is, since the phenomenon of dualism”. According to OECD and European Commission projection, Polish GDP will reach 80 percent of the GDP of the old Union by 2030, and the richest region (województwo mazowieckie) already by 2010 exceeded the average GDP of the 27 EU countries at a figure of 103 percent. In the modern era, the Polish Republic never had good roads. In 1939, only 7 percent of them were modern, concrete or asphalt, suitable for cars. This compared to 100% in Denmark, 90% in France, 70% in Germany and in Czechoslovakia, was very poor. Thanks to the European Union and EU funds, great infrastructure development is underway in Poland, thus increasing the potential for convergence with the rest of the EU and development-friendly social mobility.
The latter, in turn, believe that Poland was flooded with western capital after 1989, dominating many of the most profitable industries, such as banking, big trade, and advanced industry. On the one hand, this brought a rapid inflow of capital (which was very lacking at the time), a higher organisational culture, and technical progress, but on the other, it took away local control over many key areas of the economy and created a mechanism of neocolonial rent, i.e. capital drainage in recent years reaching 5 percent of GDP and nearly PLN 100 billion a year.
What is the state of the nation in the context of these conflicting opinions?
Central and Eastern Europe is home to 20 percent of the European Union population, but only 7.4 percent of its GDP (using data for 2017). Poland and Romania have the largest populations among the countries of the region, with Poland alone providing 30 percent of all of Central and Eastern Europe’s GDP. Together with Romania, it constitutes more than half of the population of this area. Poland has the largest economy among new EU members and the sixth largest in the EU in terms of purchasing power parity. To illustrate the scale – it is about 1 percent of global GDP. The area of Central and Eastern Europe, however, invariably competes on the world market with cheap and qualified workforce, mainly as a subcontractor for Germany due to its geographical proximity and high-quality low-cost human capital. There is a higher percentage of people with higher education in Poland than in Germany, but the labour costs are definitely lower. In 2017, the monthly minimum wage in Germany was EUR 1,498, while in Poland it was only EUR 473. Which is still a large amount compared to many other countries in the region, where the minimum wage is even less. In 2016, the average salary in Germany was three times higher than in Poland, and the cost of labor four times higher than in Poland, although productivity in Poland increasing, whilst in France, for example, it is decreasing.
It is certainly shocking that, according to IMF data from 2016, in 20 years, as many as 20 million people, or about 5 percent of the population of the “in between” region that has historically been affected by the phenomenon of dualism, left for the West and only a small part of them returned. Such a state of affairs is combined with poor reproduction rates – an average of 1.58 per woman, and in Poland even less – 1.32. With generational substitutability of 2.1, it will be difficult to avoid the phenomenon of developmental decline in the long run, unless a demographic revolution takes place or there is more emigration from Ukraine, which is even more affected by its peripherality and its recent war-torn past. It is difficult to refrain from dreaming that the almost 18-20 million Poles living in exile would someday decide to return to their homeland, which would create the basis for their full fulfillment of life. As in the following Aliyah, or waves of return, much of the diaspora of Jews scattered around the world has returned to Israel, changing the space occupied by modern Israel in the last 70 years. Such a situation of return of emigration would affect Poland’s completely different potential in the future.
Almost all countries in the “in between” area depend on the German market, to which they export and theoretically losing several order components in this commercial chain threatens to collapse the entire system if a given development cycle of the German economy is over. This proves that Germany, however, has its economic version of Mitteleuropa. From the countries of the region only the Baltics export more to Scandinavia than to Germany. It seems that Germany is outsourcing part of the manufacturing process for their industry to our part of Europe. So if Germany loses economically to the US-China trade war or to review the world’s economic order, Poland will also lose.
This dictum heard from a Chinese who understands European affairs well illustrates Poland’s complex situation towards the European Union, which is becoming an area of Germany’s growing dominance in the context of the Chinese plans of the New Silk Road and possible revision of the global economic order.
We need, therefore, diversification and US help to be useful in recapitalising the economy, supplying cheap raw materials, accessing technological innovations and the American market. In this spirit, the Three Seas initiative was launched in 2017, although it is difficult to resist the impression that its real binder is the joint status of victims of dualism on the Elbe and the experience of dropping the guardianship of the Eastern Empire after 1991. Years of experience in relations with “maritime” Europe have caused the desire of this area to organise itself, because the old Union is exerting increasing integration pressure “under the interests” of its core area, which is met with instinctive contraction, despite huge differences of interest between individual members of the Three Seas. Such an initiative can also be instrumentally used by the Americans to balance Germany’s growing power on the continent, especially dangerous to US interests after Brexit, and to resist Russia’s revisionist policy advancing from deep inside Eurasia, and in the future also to counter China in Europe. Because of this, it’s convenient for Washington.
The entry of China into Europe by land masses from the east would pose a big problem for Germany, primarily because it creates the threat of Mitteleuropa abandoning the status of peripheral economy in German Europe in the production/supply/labour chain, but also because of the potential for loss of contracts in the region by German entities for Chinese. The ideal situation for Germany is unfortunately also the most pessimistic variant for us. This is a German-Chinese agreement regarding Poland (sometimes called the “Berlin consensus”), in which Poland does not create new logistics centres, does not use the generated turnover and remains the periphery/semi-periphery, through which trains pass from Germany to China and from China to Germany.
I remembered this moment when in October 2017 at a geopolitical conference organised in New York by George Friedman – Louis Gave told me sharply: “For 500 years, to achieve more serious success in life, the Pole must leave the country.”
It is high time to change it, as well as our incomprehensible shame for the civilisation project in the east and faith in the logic of history as a fight for good, in which Poland allegedly plays a leading role. The world doesn’t see it that way.
And we are part of this world.
Autor
Jacek Bartosiak
CEO and Founder of Strategy&Future, author of bestselling books.
Strategy&Future
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