1 Letter to Seweryn Smarzewski, dated Mar. 6, 1849, and printed in Ludwik Dfbicki, Portrety i sylwetki z dziewietnastego stulecia, Series II, Vol. II (Krakow, 1907), p. 151. Debicki published extensive extracts here from an interesting correspondence carried on from December, 1848, to March, 1849, between Rzewuski and Smarzewski, then a deputy in the central Austrian parliament and later in the Galician diet. One of the main subjects discussed is the village commune.

2 See my article “The Contribution of Leon Rzewuski to the Socialist Movement in 1848,” Annali dell'Istituto Giangiacomo Feltrinelli (Milan), III (1960), 562-81, for bibliographical data on Rzewuski. I am much indebted to the Canada Council for awarding me a grant-in-aid in 1959 for research on Rzewuski's life and political ideas.

3 Toward the Jews Rzewuski's attitude was somewhat ambivalent. He was opposed to granting civic equality to the Orthodox Jews, regarding them as a separate nationality who should enjoy their own laws and self-government alongside the non-Jewish population. See letter to Smarzewski, dated Feb. 13, 1849, in Dębicki, op. cit., p. 148; Czas (Krakow), Dec. 10, 1849, Jan. 3 and 22, 1850. Behind the reluctance at this time of the Krakow town council, supported by Czas and Rzewuski, to permit the Jews to acquire citizen rights in Krakow proper and the wish to keep them within the confines of the Jewish quarter of Kazimierz, we may in fact detect the fear of the non-Jewish petite bourgeoisie of Jewish competition and the alarm of the wealthier citizenry at the possible influx of a large number of persons on a lower cultural level. See Waleryan, Kalinka, Galicja i Kraków pod panowaniem austryackiem (Krakow, 1898), pp. 443–46 Google Scholar; Bałaban, Majer, Dzieje żydów w Galicyi i w rzeczypospolitej krakowskiej 1772-1868 (Lwow, n.d.), pp. 180–81.Google Scholar

4 The fullest treatment of such theories is to be found in Erazm Kostołowski, Studia nad kwestiq włościańską. w latach 1846-1864, ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem literatury politycznej (Lwow, 1938), Chap. 4.

5 For discussion of the commune among the membership of the Democratic Society, see Czesław Leśniewski, “Gmina w Polsce odrodzonej wedtug projektów Towarzystwa Demokratycznego Polskiego z lat 1840-1841,” in Studia historyczne ku czci Stanislawa Kutrzeby, II (1938), 483-516. The society's executive committee (Centralizacja) declared (p. 487): “By communes we understand … the bottom rungs in the administrative division of the country. Their organization is of prime importance in a democracy; it is the organization of the people itself, of this hitherto apathetic mass, which must henceforth be the source of the national movement.“

6 In addition to native Polish inspiration and the undoubted influence of French Utopian socialism, Rzewuski's writings show that he also drew on the works of Western writers on the commune: in particular, Sismondi's historical account of the medieval Italian city republics, Tocqueville's description of the workings of the New England township, and Haxthausen's investigations of the Russian obshchina. His own firsthand observations of the commune as it functioned in France and in his own country and of English municipal self-government were also important in the development of his views on the subject.

7 Cf. letter to Smarzewski, dated Dec. 21, 1848, in Debicki, op. cit., p. 136: “The genius of our nation is communalist [gminowładny].“

8 Postęp (Lwow), No. 19 (May 30), No. 54 (Aug. 29), 1848.

9 Letter to Adam Potocki, dated Sept. 11, 1848, and printed in Stefan Kieniewicz, “Do charakterystyki Leona Rzewuskiego (1841-1848),” Roczniki historyczne (Poznan), XVII (1948), No. 2, p. 424.

10 Letter to Smarzewski, dated Dec.21, 1848, in Dębicki, op. cit., p.136.

11 Zarys projektu gminnej (Krakow, 1848). It was reprinted in December in Tygodnik rolniczo-przemysłowy (Lwow), Nos. 50, 51/52, where Rzewuski had published over the previous two years a number of articles on agricultural economics. For a criticism of the pamphlet from a conservative source, see Przegląd Poznański, VIII (1849), 722-23. Anarchy, the writer claims, would ensue if Rzewuski's proposals were put into effect.

12 Zarys …, pp. 15-16.

13 Dębicki, op. cit., p. 137 (letter dated Dec. 21, 1848).

14 Ibid., pp. 146-48 (letter dated Feb. 13, 1849).

15 Ibid, pp. 143-44 (letter dated Feb. 12, 1849).

16 O dąinościach reorganizacyjnych w spółeczeństwie (Krakow, Mar., 1849); Essai sur le principe de la souveraineté (Paris, May, 1849); De la représentation suite a I'écrit sur la souveraineté (Paris, May, 1849); ÉStude sur l’organisation de la société politique (Paris, 1849). The Polish pamphlet was published anonymously, the ones in French under Rzewuski's initials: L.A.R.

17 Étude sur l’organisation …, p. 13. Cf. Rzewuski's comments on the “socialism” of the French publicist £mile de Girardin in Czas: Dodatek miesieczny, May, 1856, p. 320. Girardin was clearly an important influence on the evolution of Rzewuski's ideas. For Girardin's political ideas, see Maurice Reclus, Émile de Girardin: Le Créateur de la presse moderne (Paris, 1934), pp. 130-32, 198-203. Many other French liberal thinkers had also stressed the importance of communal self-government in the French administrative system —clearly a further source for Rzewuski's own ideas on the commune.

18 O dążnościach …, pp. 11-13. The reactionary Przegląd Poznański, VIII, 725, reviewing the pamphlet, comments: “As we see, this is communism, only not the wild, gutter variety… but moderated, serious, entrusting its fate to scholarship and the power of persuasion.“ Cf., however, another conservative critic, Count Leon Skorupka, Ekonomia polityczna i socyalizm (Krakow, 1851), p. 31, who describes doctrines such as Rzewuski was expounding as “pseudo-socialism” aiming at only minor reforms instead of fundamental changes in the existing order.

19 Étude sur l'organisation …, pp. 15-16, 19-20, and 22.

20 O dążnościach … , p. 10. Cf. Essai sur le principe … , p. 22, where Rzewuski describes Jesus as not only a savior of souls but also as “le plus grand reformateur politique, ouvrant la carriere de la liberté par l'asservissement de la violence.“

21 Essai sur le principe …, pp. 18 and 24.

22 Etude sur I'organisation …, pp. 13-14, 22-23, 26-31, and 37-72. See also De la représentation…, passim; Pismo Leona Rzewuskiego, Bibliothèque Polonaise (Paris), Ms. 511, no. 37.

23 T h e traditional conservatism of his youth is quite a different thing. Despite contacts which Rzewuski is known to have had at that time with Lamennais, which may have borne fruit later, what we find at this early date seems to be mainly an unreasoning hatred of the “idéologic révolutionnaire,” introduced from France and Germany, and an unthinking idealization of the patriarchal relations said to exist in the Polish countryside between landowners and their peasants. See, for example, “Wspomnienia i fragmenta o wypadkach w Polsce w r. 1830 i 1831 spisane w r. 1832 przez oficera głównego sztabu [i.e., L. Rzewuski], przejrzane w r. 1839,” Zakład dokumentacji Instytutu Historii PAN w Krakowie, Mss. Varia, no. 25; Biblioteka PAN, Oddział Kraków, Ms. no. 2408, Rzewuski to General Skrzynecki, Jan. 22 and J u n e 1, 1832.

24 Dęjbicki, Ludwik, Z historyi XIX wieku (Krakow, 1903), pp. 144–45 Google Scholar. See also his Adam Potocki (Krakow, 1872).

25 See, e.g., Czas, Sept. 21, 1850. Cf. Postąp, No. 26 (June 20), No. 49 (Aug. 17), 1848. According to Smarzewski, Aelam Potocki was at this time in almost complete agreement with Rzewuski's ideas on the commune (Dębicki, Portrety…, p. 138).

26 Leon, Rzewuski, Wykład początkowych pojęć teoryi produkcyi rolniczej (Krakow, 1851), pp. 28-29, 33–36, and 40Google Scholar. This 65-page booklet was originally published in Czas. Rzewuski cites Haxthausen's description of the Russian mir in support of his own scheme of cooperative peasant agriculture. Cf. his Wstęp do praktycznego wykładu teoryi produkcyi rolniczej (Krakow, 1850), p. 9.

27 Czas, Jan. 30, 1861.

28 The influence of Rzewuski on shaping this program has been pointed out by Kostołowski, op. cit., pp. 276-77. For the constitutional problems relating to the commune in Galicia as an administrative unit in the period after 1848, see Stanislaw, Kutrzeba, Historya ustroju Polski w zarysie, IV (Lwow, 1917), pp. 300–307 Google Scholar; Konstanty, Grzybowski, Galicja 1848-1914: Historia ustroju politycznego na tie historii ustroju Austrii (Krakow, Wroclaw, and Warsaw, 1959)Google Scholar, Part IV, Chap. 4.

29 Réformes autrichiennes: Questions électorates en 1866 (Paris, 1866). It was also published in Polish translation in Czas (1866), Nos. 26, 29-31. Electoral arrangements in the towns are hardly touched on in the pamphlet.

30 Stanisław Tarnowski, “O nowym pomyśle do ustawy wyborczej,” Przegląd Polski (Krakow), Oct., 1866, p p. 123-24. See also Ludwik Wodzicki, “Sprawa ustawy wyborczej w Galicji,” ibid., Dec, 1866.

31 Réformes autrichiennes, pp. 18, 20, and 22.

32 Ibid., pp. 21, 24, and 25; Leon Rzewuski, “O ustawie wyborczej,” Przegląd Polski, Nov., 1866, p p. 179-91. Describing a talk about his project with the famous French social scientist Frédéric Le Play, Rzewuski wrote to his friend Mann: “Pour les élections des députés provinciaux il voudrait le suffrage direct universel de tous les paysans chefs de famille dans l'arrondissement communal. Je vous laisse àpenser quelle serait notre position aux élections vis-à-vis d'une aussi écrasante majorité de paysans. Je devrai done expliquer comment les circonstances politiques doivent modifier profondement un système juste en théorie absolue“; letter dated Jan. 3, 1866, Papiery po Maurycym Mannie, Instytut Historii PAN w Krakowie, Mss. Varia, no. 25 (III).

33 Opinions et Croyances (Paris, 1869). A second edition, entitled Philosophic Catholique: Opinions et Croyances, was published in the same year with only minor changes. Although Rzewuski was certainly still sympathetic to the working class movement, I cannot agree with Emil Haecker, Historja socjalizmu w Galicji i na Śląsku Cieszyńskim, I (Krakow, 1933), 88-89, when he describes the book as “a synthesis of his socialist and religious convictions.“

34 See Bolesław Limanowski, Historia ruchu społecznego w XIX stuleciu (Lwow, 1890), p. 477.

35 This aspect of Herzen's thinking has been stressed by Martin Malia, Alexander Herzen and the Birth of Russian Socialism, 1812-1855 (Cambridge, Mass., 1961), pp. 404-5. With the conservative Slavophiles in Russia, too, Rzewuski had many points of affinity: peasantism and belief in the village commune, disbelief in the liberal version of democracy, and a view of property rights based on use.

36 Z. L. Dębicki, Leon hr. Rzewuski: Wspomnienie pośmiertne (Krakow, 1870), p. 21. See also the obituary by Paweł Popiel in Czas, Nov. 27, 1869.