Jan Gottlieb Bloch: Polish cosmopolitism versus Jewish universalism Ela Bauer*
Department of Communication and Film, Seminar Ha-Kibbutzim College, Tel Aviv, Israel (Received May 2009; final version received February 2010)
In various fields of research Jan Gottlieb Bloch (1836- 1902) is mostly described as a Polish industrialist, a banker, a railroad tycoon - sometimes he is even referred to as the 'King of the Railways' - and in the final decade of his life, a peace activist and the author of the 'Bible of Pacifism', his multi-volume work entitled „The Future of War in its Economic, Technical and Political Aspects". Indeed the term cosmopolitanism does not appear in Bloch's writings, yet Bloch made important contributions to the
development of this concept. A close look and Bloch's writing and activities in the second half of the nineteenth century demonstrates the dual influence of nationalist aspirations and international cosmopolitanism on his thinking. Before the 1895, when Bloch was a banker and railroad tycoon, these influences were particularly strong. However, in the last years of his life, when Bloch was heavily engaged in anti-war activities, the balance between nationalist aspirations and international cosmopolitan- ism shifted. This paper will examine the tensions between these two influences on his doctrine and life.
Keywords: Jewish; Cosmopolitanism; Jan Gottlieb Bloch; peace agreements; Polish Jews; Hague Peace Conference; trains; Eastern Europe
At the turn of the twenty-first century, it has become rather the fashion to analyse international peace agreements through an economic prism. The journalist Thomas L. Friedman argues in two of his books - The Lexus and the Olive Tree and The World is Flat(1) - that countries that are part of the production chain of global corporations do not fight each other out of fear that they may risk their place in the global supply chains and their economic achievements(2). Friedman highlights the connection between the global capitalist economy and the desire for world peace as a phenomenon that characterises the globalisation process of the twenty-first century. But this connection did not emerge solely as a result of developments in recent times. Even at the end of the nineteenth century, Jan Gottlieb Bloch, in his multi-volume book, The Future of War in its Economic, Technical and Political Aspects, analysed war and peace from economic perspectives. On the basis of the vast economic and statistical data he gathered, Bloch concluded that the global arms race had to be stopped and that nations must start working on peaceful methods for resolving conflicts. Bloch hoped his findings would convince decision-makers, primarily military men, that war does not make sense. His arguments were not based on concepts of morality or justice, but rather on economic considerations that meshed well with capitalist principles.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, Bloch and his anti-war agenda captured the attention of journalists and other intellectuals in Europe and North America. Shortly after his death in 1902, the New York Times described him as a Polish Jew, a pedlar who was
able to push himself out of poverty and become a successful banker, builder and administrator of railways(3). Despite the fame he achieved at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, Bloch has been largely excluded from the Polish, Russian, European and even the international collective memories in the yearssince, as this excerpt from an article written in 2008 attests:
Ivan Bliokh? Never heard of him? . . . Perhaps the German version of his name Johann von Bloch means something to you? Still does not ring a bell? This is no shock for you are in the best of company. ...If one takes English, Germans, Italian and French representative of Western Europe the chances of Bliokh, of Bloch, being embedded in Europe's memory do not look good(4). In an article dating back to 1957 Bloch was described as a 'neglected prophet'(5). Polish encyclopaedias compiled after the Second World War contain no entries under his name(6). And a recent Polish publication notes:
Jan Bloch 'disappeared' almost completely from the public mind. This fact is somewhat astounding, considering that he was a man of so many interests, involved in so many diverse fields of activity, a truly Renaissance type of personality such as people are usually described. His career is reminiscent of the widely acclaimed patterns followed by American men of success. In the United States, he would have probably become the subject of a Hollywood hit, as he went the route 'from shoe-shine boy to President', or more preciselyfrom pageboy in a bank outlet to financial magnate and first Polish candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize. How many such shining heroes have we had in the first Poland? And yet he has become practically forgotten (7). In various fields of research - such as the economies of Russia and Poland, the history of Russian and Polish railways, the development of the Polish bourgeois, Polish Jewry and in peace and war research - Bloch does, in fact, receive more than a few references. But outside the academic world, he is virtually unknown.
The books and other references that mention Bloch usually provide a short biographical sketch basically saying the following: Jan Bloch was a Polish industrialist, a banker, a railroad tycoon - sometimes referred to as the 'King of the Railways' - who, in the final decade of his life, became a peace activist and the author of the so-called 'Bible of Pacifism,' his multi-volume work entitled The Future of War in its Economic, Technical and Political Aspects.(8)
Throughout his life Bloch was engaged in diverse activities. While researchers who have studied his work are well aware of this, most have refrained from drawing connections between his early and later activities.(9) The few who have tried to explain his motives, and in particular, his involvement in anti-war activities, do not mention cosmopolitanism as a factor. Ryszard Kolodziejczyk, his biographer, argues that the main impetus behind Bloch's activities, including his involvement in the anti-war movement, was personal, namely, the desire to gain recognition in Polish and non-Polish intellectual circles(10).
However, a closer look at Bloch's writing and activities in the second half of the nineteenth century demonstrates the dual influence of nationalist aspirations and international cosmopolitanism on his thinking. Before the 1893, when Bloch was a banker and railroad tycoon but had not yet become the 'father' of the pacifist movement, these influences were equally strong. But in the last years of his life, when Bloch was heavily engaged in anti-war activities, the balance between nationalist aspirations and international cosmopolitanism shifted. This paper will examine the relative contributions of these two influences on his doctrine over time.
Bloch was born on 24 June 1836, to a Jewish family in Radom, in central Poland. He was the seventh of nine children born to Selim and Fryderyka Bloch. His father was a small textile manufacturer(11). In 1850, at the age of 14, Bloch moved to Warsaw and took up a job in the banking business of the Toeplitz family." A year later, he joined the Reformed Calvinist Church. It is not known what his motives for converting were, apart from the general supposition that this might have helped advance his career. In 1856, at the age of 20, he converted yet again to Catholicism. In 1856, Bloch left the Kingdom of Poland and moved to St Petersburg, where he lived from 1856 to 1864. Shortly after arriving at the capital of the Russian Empire, Bloch obtained the concession to build a section of the Warsaw-Petersburg rail line. This was the first of many railway projects Bloch was to become involved in. It is not clear how such a young person was able to obtain this concession, aside from the fact that he happened to be in the right place at the right time. Back in 1838, Tsar Nicholas I decided to construct the first railway line from St Petersburg to Tsarskoye Selo (25 km). After the Crimean War, the Russian government took massive loans from Western European banks in order to industrialise and modernise the empire. Railway construction played a key role in this process. At the beginning of the 1860s, the Russian government began to award concessions to private entrepreneurs. Bloch was among a group of railway advocates who understood the gains to be made from the tsar's policy of allowing private concessionaires to build the railways lines of the Russian Empire. Among these railway advocates were entrepreneurs who entered the field after making their fortunes elsewhere, as well as young entrepreneurs who made their fortunes in railway projects. Bloch belonged to the latter group. In his biography of Bloch, Ryszard Kołodziejczyk writes that the young entrepreneur was initially helped by Nicholas Skvorcov, a Russian merchant and industrialist, who split his time between Warsaw and the Kingdom. However, Bloch could not have succeeded without his inborn talent, hard work and good organisation(13). Bronisława Garncarska (Bina Kadary), in her research on Bloch's involvement in building the railway line of Łódź, wrote that from the start, he understood the new economic reality, judging from his willingness to invest in new technologies and from the way he used the business connections he made while working at the Toeplitz bank in Warsaw. The fact that shortly after his arrival in St. Petersburg he was willing to risk investing in a windmill that worked on steam and to supply materials to those building part of the railway line to St Petersburg was what eventually helped him make acquaintances in the tzar's court(14). Bloch's willingness to take a chance on railways not only enabled him to begin accumulating capital, but it also earned him the title of the 'King of the Railways.' In the final decades of the nineteenth century, Bloch acquired concessions for the Brześć-Kiev, Brześć-Grajewo and Dęblin-Dąbrowa lines. He integrated three railway lines in the south-westem territories of the
Empire and established the South-Westem Railways Company, which he managed. The construction of these railway lines and their skilful management marginalised the Vistula railway line. The South-Western Railways Company employed Sergey Witte, whowas to become the Russian Minister of Finance and later the Prime Minister(15). In 1876, Bloch became the Chairman of the Committee of Representatives of Railroads of the
Empire and the Kingdom of Poland and a member of the National Committee for Controlling Railroads' Income and Expenditure.
In the 1865, when he was in his twenties, Bloch returned to Warsaw. With the capital he had accumulated in St. Petersburg, he opened a small bank that served small businesses. The bank, along with his marriage to the niece of Leopold Kronenberg," appeared to be his ticket into the financial circles of Warsaw(17). He was also the co-founder of a merchant bank, sat on the board of directors of the Bank of Poland, and served as chairman of the Trade Association and president of the Warsaw Stock Exchange. Bloch's big break came in 1865 when he obtained the concession for the Łódź railway line - a short section (27.5 km) which was to connect the rapidly growing textile industry centre of Łódź with the Warsaw-Vienna railway line. The company, in which Bloch was the main shareholder, constructed the line in just three months. The quality of the work was far from perfect, but the quick construction brought Bloch considerable profits, and he became a well-known figure, operating in assorted economic fields. He also participated in the establishment of Warszawskie Towarzystwo Ubezpieczeń (Warsaw Insurance Association), although he subsequently withdrew from its activities. In 1873, he became the chairman of the Warsaw Stock Exchange Committee (a role he filled for 12 years). In 1879, he became a senior member of the Merchants Assembly in Warsaw. He was also a member of the management of the Credit Association of the Capital City of Warsaw.
In the 1870s, Bloch began his scientific research activities. His first project was The Impact of Railways on the Economic Condition of Russia (written in Russian and published in 1878). It was five volumes long and full of statistical data meant to show how railways influenced Russia's economic development. The book was awarded first prize at the Geographical Congress in Paris. It was later supplemented with a special volume on Polish railways, which was translated into Polish and French. As a tribute to the value of his work, Bloch was appointed State Counsellor and raised to the nobility, receiving the coat of arms of Ogończyk Odmienny.
Other studies by Bloch also focused on the financial and economic aspects of the Russian Empire and the Kingdom of Poland. These books were translated into French, German and Polish(18). His writings on economic issues underscore Bloch's uniqueness: not only was he an advocate and a doer, but also a theoretician who devised his own economic theories and criticised those of others. What began as a part-time activity soon became the focus of most of his energies(19).
In order to obtain all the statistical data necessary for his studies, Bloch opened a bureau of statistics in Warsaw, which was the first such bureau in all of Poland. It seems he was among the first in his field to comprehend the value of statistical material for science and other types of research. The bureau was able to collect data that in some cases even the Russian government did not have(20). The statistics bureau that Bloch established operated from the mid-1888 to the 1890s, employing a mix of Jewish intellectuals and Polish journalists who collected the material and statisticians who processed the data. One of the journalists working at the bureau was Bolesław Prus (Aleksander Głowacki) (1847-1912), who was considered one of the leading Polish journalists in the second half of the nineteenth century. He was one of the few members of the Polish press who wrote favourably about Bloch. Indeed, most members of the Polish press in the last decades of the nineteenth century were critical of Bloch and his involvement in the daily life of Warsaw." In some of his columns, Prus wrote about his work in the bureau of statistics
established by Bloch(22).
Some of the data collected in the bureau of statistics was eventually used in a study devoted to the economic role of Jews in the Russian Empire. Despite Bloch's conversion to Christianity, he did not disconnect himself from Jewish society or the local Jewish community in Warsaw. In 1886, in his capacity as chairman of the Warsaw Stock Exchange, Bloch drafted, together with other progressive Jewish members of the stock exchange, a memorandum that eventually led the tsar to cancel plans to restore discriminatory legislation. In order to support his interventions on behalf of the Jews, Bloch made use of statistical and economic research initially commissioned for his industrial undertakings. In 1884, he directed his research staff to investigate the extent to which Jews had become integrated into imperial economic life. The material compiled as part of this project was published in five volumes in 1891 under the title The Economic and Social History of Russo-Polish Jewry in the Late Imperial Period. This work did not survive, however, as almost the entire edition was lost in a fire and never reprinted(23).
The second research project, in which he made use of different statistical data, was the one that made Bloch famous in Europe and made his name synonymous with peace movements both inside and outside the Russian Empire. The Future of War in its Economic, Technical and Political Aspects, a book he worked on for many years, was published in 1899 in Russian and Polish and later translated into different languages including English, German and French. Several chapters were first published in 1893 and 1894 in the Polish periodical Biblioteka Warszawska, considered a major platform for Polish philosophy and intellectual discussions(24).
The main argument of the book was that future wars would be total wars, and therefore, the European and universal arms race must be stopped and governments and nations must start working on peaceful methods for resolving conflicts. Bloch participated in the first Hague Peace Conference in the summer of 1899. In fact, many scholars depicted him as the spiritus movens of the Hague conference(25).
Following the Hague conference, Bloch began to promote the idea of establishing the Museum of War and Peace in Luceme, Switzerland. He believed that through a museum he would be able to spread his message to a wider and more varied audience than merely the elite class. He did not live to see the opening of the first Museum of War and Peace established, however, since the museum opened in June 1902, and he died in January 1902(26). At the beginning of the twentieth century, Bloch was nominated for the first Nobel Peace Prize.
Although the term 'cosmopolitanism' does not appear in Bloch's writing, he made important contributions to the development of this concept. In some cases, these contributions were not well accepted in his local environment. Bloch's involvement in railway construction in Russia and Poland is an example of how his activities served both national (Russian and Polish) interests and cosmopolitan interests. Indeed, the railroads had a significant impact on the economic development in Poland and Russia, but their effects were also felt beyond.
In the nineteenth century railways represented modernity. They altered conceptions of time, making long distance shorter. The railway carriages, as well as train stations, were new public spaces. Railway lines served as bridges between distant places(27). The railways extending from Eastern Europe to Western Europe provided new possibilities for mobility (for Jews and non-Jews)(28). Bloch was aware of the fact that the impact of railways was both national and multinational, and that trains helped close the distance between far-flung individuals and nations, spreading ideas and narrowing both geographic and ideological gaps. In his book on the influence of railways on the Russian economy, Bloch had taken note of the possibilities that trains could provide by enhancing the mobility of individuals and making it easier for them to become citizens of the world or of Europe(29). Trains also made an important contribution to the Europeanisation of Polish and Russian life (Jewish and non-Jewish alike) as well as to the development of the individual economies of Poland and Russia. Bloch's understanding of this is evident in his decision to partake in the construction of the line that connected Łódź with other Polish, Russian and European cities. Throughout the nineteenth century, Łódź was the most important Polish textile centre. Although it is located only 100 kilometres west of Warsaw, until 1865, the city did not have its own train line. This took a toll on its textile industry's ability to compete with textile industries in other countries(30). Although the methods Bloch used to obtain the concession to build this train line, the quality of the work he did, and the working conditions of his employees are not the scope of this paper, it is important to note that these issues drew strong criticism(31). The train line to Łódź was launched in November 1865, to great fanfare. When the first car entered Łódź train station, it was the first time many of the bystanders gathered had seen a train. The image of the train, which had become a symbol of the big world, entering the station lit the imaginations of many young people who lived in the area. As one of them wrote: 'Thanks to the train, all the roads from Łódź now lead to the big world. Because of the train, Łódź was no longer considered a province disconnected from the rest of the world"(32). In this respect, Bloch's capitalist activities not only contributed to the development of the Polish national economy but also had an important impact on the Europeanisation of Polish life. Still, the clash between local and world interests was part of daily life in the Russian Empire, its traces evident in various aspects of life. In the final decades of the nineteenth century, other developments in the textile industry of Łódź demonstrated the ways in which Russian politics and the Polish economy damaged the sense that Łódź was part of the big world. In order to protect local Russian industry, in 1889 the Russian government raised taxes on cotton imported from other parts of Europe and North America. As a result, industrialists in Łódź could not import American cotton, although it was less expensive. The textile industry in Łódź, as a result, could only use Russian cotton(33). This is one example of the way in which the clash between local and world interests was part of daily life in the Russian Empire and Poland.
Bloch's involvement in railways provided him with first-hand knowledge of the power of trains to change the status of both individuals and nations at the end of the nineteenth century. As previously noted, his first studies dealt with the effect of trains on the development of Russia and Poland. Yet even in his later studies on the effects of war and peace, he made reference to the role of trains in national and international systems during wartime(34).
Indeed one can argue that any railroad baron of this era who was active in Europe and in other geographic areas also contributed to the process of changing the world of individuals as Bloch did. Nevertheless, there is a difference between Bloch and other railroad barons who acted in his time. Bloch's involvement in this field was versatile: he constructed railroads and wrote about the influence of trains and railroads on the Russian and the Polish nations. In addition, there is a difference between a railroad baron active in Eastern Europe such as Bloch, and those railroad barons who were involved in building railroads in Western Europe and North America. In East European areas trains had much more of an effect on the ways that the lives of various individuals changed. The trains and railroads in Eastern Europe altered the geographic and existential perspectives of individuals, while in North America, for example, this influence was less significant, since many of the people there had already acquired migration experiences.
Hence with regard to Bloch, his involvement in building railroads and trains demonstrates his cosmopolitan thinking, which was part of his capitalist beliefs. National ideology and cosmopolitan thinking go hand-in-hand with his involvement in constructing railways and in his writings on the influence of trains on the national economy. But in other instances, such as Bloch's involvement in Polish society, these tendencies clashed.
Bloch's activities drew criticism in some of the elite Polish circles of Warsaw. One reason for this was that he did not support Polish resistance to Russian authority. Bloch had not been in Warsaw during the 1863 rebellion and avoided aligning himself with either side. In this way, he differed from other Polish entrepreneurs, in particular his great economic and personal rival, Leopold Kronenberg. Both Bloch and Kronenberg were Jews who converted to Christianity. Kronenberg came from an affluent Jewish family, whereas Bloch, who was younger than Kronenberg, had just begun to make his fortune and came from a more modest background. Ryszard Kołodziejczyk, Bloch's biographer, argues that the conflict between Bloch and Kronenberg was a clash between two different capitalist approaches. Kronenberg represented the old, establishment bourgeois, while Bloch represented the new bourgeois whose members believed in market forces based on free competition(35). To make matters worse, Kronenberg conducted an extensive public campaign against Bloch. The animosity between them went beyond business competition. It reflected two unique approaches to Polish patriotism. It was also a clash between two political approaches that were part of the Polish political discourse - the old one based on heroic romanticism and the new one that opposed romanticism and did not reject cooperation with the Russian authorities(36).
At the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth century, some Polish intellectuals wrote about the connection between cosmopolitanism and Polish political ideas. At the end of the nineteenth century, the Enlightenment introduced European unification in many fields into Polish territories, but in the nineteenth century, new dilemmas arose. For example, there were debates over whether Polish society should adapt European culture or develop a unique Polish national cultural. There were also those who argued that these developments were not necessarily contradictory, on the grounds that true cosmopolitism is rooted in the love of one's own country and does not exclude the spirit of nationality(37). At the end of the nineteenth century, new Polish political thinking about cosmopolitanism and nationalism developed in Polish areas. New political organizations, such as the National Democracy movement, were founded, which advocated a new way of thinking.
In addition, at the end of the nineteenth century and even in earlier periods, Polish intellectuals, writers and leaders did not view war as something negative. They believed that European wars would help promote Polish national interests and help Polish society achieve the independence to which it aspired for so many years. At the end of the nineteenth century, many Poles believed that only a total European total war would help them gain the independence they dreamed about for more than a century(38). Bloch did not share this view. He felt that the Polish people, and in particular the residents of Warsaw, were not aware of the damage of war already in the beginning of the 1890s. According to Kołodziejczyk, this was what inspired him to write his book and to begin his anti-war activities(39).
It should be noted that the Poles were not the only Europeans contemplating the concept of war and how it could shape their national identity. At the end of the nineteenth century, the French, Germans, Italians and English shared many of the same views regarding the contribution of war to their national existence(40). But their political situation was different than that of the Poles. Therefore, when Bloch published his thesis that war as an instrument of national policy was an anachronism given economic, social and political conditions in Europe and other parts of the world - first in his Polish periodical and later in his book(41) and articles - his views were not viewed favourably by his Polish peers. Even before the publication of his book, Bloch was considered as an outsider in Polish society. Although he converted to Christianity, he never completely disconnected himself from the Jewish community in Warsaw. Many Poles did not approve of his connections with the tsarist court and the Russian authorities based in Warsaw. He was also shunned because of his tendency to voice his views even if these views were unpopular. The publication of his book and his pacifist activities only served to increase the antagonism against him in Polish society. It seems that Bloch was aware of the fact that his views on war might portray him as anti-nationalist (both specifically, regarding Poland, and in general). For this reason, in an article he wrote following the publication of his book and after the first Hague conference, Bloch explained why in the future war would not be confined to the national sphere:
The difference between the wars of the past and the future is not one of degree only; it is specific, an event of a wholly different order. This transformation is the outcome of a number of other changes in the conditions of political, social and industrial life, in the progress of applied science, in the facilities of inter-oceanic and inter-continental commerce, in the minute division of international labor and in the interdependence of all civilized peoples.42
Because of the views expressed in this and other written works, Bloch acquired a reputation as someone who did not take a favourable view of Polish national aspirations and his beliefs were not popular in the Polish street. His economic, rationalistic analysis of war did not go hand-in-hand with the commonly held Polish view that emphasized human sacrifice as the means of obtaining independence for the Polish people. His involvement in anti-war activities prevented him from supporting what were considered patriotic causes such as the 1863 uprising as well as joining the general consensus that a European war could benefit the Polish people. Bloch did not exclude himself completely from Polish society, though. At the end of the nineteenth century, he chose much broader ideology tendencies, with a European - and even global - orientation. He did not reject nationalism or Polish national aspirations; rather, he believed that acting within an international framework could benefit the national framework as well. When Bloch wrote about the impact of railways on the Russian Empire, Poland and the global environment, he did not make a distinction between national Polish and Russian interests on the one hand and international interests on the other. However, his involvement in anti-war activities forced him to make a choice. And so, at the end of the nineteenth century, Bloch chose to align himself with Europe and humanity rather than the Polish people. He believed that it was his task to warn humanity about the threat of socialism and anything else that threatened the existing order, and that this duty was more important than protecting Polish interests(43). This may explain why the Polish writer Henryk Sienkiewicz opposed Bloch's nomination to receive the first Nobel Prize(44).
In her essay Patriotism/Ed Cosmopolitanism, Martha Nussbaum wrote:
Emphasis on patriotic pride is both morally dangerous and ultimately, subversive of some of the worthy goals patriotism sets out to serve. These goals . . . would be better served by an ideal that is in any case more adequate to our situation in the contemporary world, namely the very old ideal of the cosmopolitan, the person whose primary allegiance is to the community of human beings in the entire world(45). It seems that when faced with the choice between Polish patriotism and cosmopolitanism, Bloch chose the latter, even though this was not considered a wise move in Warsaw towards the end of the nineteenth century.
Bloch's early economic activities on behalf of Poland and the Russian Empire worked on behalf of Jewish society. He was not the only Jewish convert to Christianity who maintained connections with the Jewish community; other converts provided financial support to Jewish institutions such as hospitals, orphanages and welfare institutions(46). Bloch employed many Jewish managers and workers in his various enterprises and was sensitive to their special religious and social needs. His Warsaw bank was also an important source of credit for the city's Jewish merchants.
At the beginning of the 1880s, however, his efforts on behalf of Jewish Polish society intensified. After the pogroms of 1881, Bloch took the lead in opposing Russian government efforts to rescind the legal equality that Jews in the Congress Kingdom had received in 1862. In 1886, in his capacity as chairman of the Warsaw stock exchange, Bloch drafted a memorandum, together with other progressive Jewish members of the stock exchange, which eventually led the tsar to cancel plans to restore discriminatory legislation. In order to support his efforts on behalf of the Jews, Bloch made use of statistical and economic research initially commissioned to help support his industrial undertakings. In 1884, he instructed his research staff to investigate the extent to which Jews had become integrated into imperial economic life(48). At the end of the 1880s and beginning of the 1890s, Bloch provided financial support to Yitzhak Leybush Peretz's literary project - the Yidishe bibliotek organ. This was probably at the urging of his Jewish legal adviser Josef Kirszrot who served as a conduit between Bloch and the Warsaw Jewish community. It was Kirszrot who managed the statistical bureau and distributed Bloch's money among Jewish projects. It is known that prominent Jewish intellectuals, such as the journalist Nahum Sokolow and the writer Yitzhak Leybush Peretz, collected statistical data about the social and economic conditions of Jews in the Polish provinces. From their writings, it appears that those who collected the data were not aware of the consequences of this work, as Bloch and some of the statisticians who worked in the statistic bureau were(50).
In the 1893, apparently realizing he could not convince the Russian authorities that the Jews played a significant role in imperial economic life, Bloch began to expand the political and geographical sphere of his activities. Having concluded, it would seem, that the solution to the Jewish question did not lie in the Russian Empire, Bloch began showing interest in Baron de Hirsch's project in Argentina and the work of the Jewish Colonization Association(51). He financed the publication of a/book about Argentina in Yiddish that was meant to help those who chose to emigrate there? In addition, Bloch showed interest in the world Zionist' movement. During the Hague Conference, he met Theodor Herzl, the founder of the Zionist movement. Herzl had come to the conference in order to spread the ideology of a Jewish national homeland among the participants(53). Bloch and Herzl met several times during the Hague conference, where they discussed the Zionist movement and Jewish national aspirations. According to Herzl, Bloch raised no great objections to Zionism and even offered Herzl his help in arranging a meeting for him with the Russian tsar(54). Hence, at the first conference to set the foundations for international institutions, Bloch showed some support for Jewish national aspirations. Obviously, Bloch knew about the Zionist movement before his meeting with Herzl. When the first Congress of the Zionist movement convened in Basel in the summer of 1897, Prus covered the event in one of his weekly columns, expressing his support(55). Bloch' s legal adviser Josef Kirszrot was one of the first assimilated Jews in Warsaw to join the Zionist movement. So while Bloch was a Catholic for most of his adult life and did not practice Judaism, this apparently did not exclude him from Jewish society. His connections to Jewish society in Poland and beyond can be seen as part of the worldwide expansion of his activities. Indeed, in the process of expanding, as geographical boundaries lost significance, his involvement in Polish society could not continue. Having distances himself from Polish society and Polish patriotism, Bloch saw no problem in creating international institutions and supporting the Jewish national cause. Apparently, he did not perceive the Zionist movement as a threat to the cause of establishing international institutions and preventing war, as he did other movements, such as the Polish nationalist movement and the rise of Socialism.
After the First World War, different Jewish leaders and several Jewish historians argued that the new international institutions reflected ancient Jewish ideals. Perhaps Bloch also believed that the ancient Jewish ideals were the reason why the Jewish national movement did not challenge the establishment of international institutions and frameworks(57). In the last years of his life, Bloch wrote quite a bit about the South African war and the way the Transvaal War created new challenges for the British Empire despite its military capabilities(58). However, he wrote nearly nothing about revolutionary groups in the Russian Empire. He did write about the dangers of socialism and anarchist groups to humanity, but not necessarily in the Russian or Polish contexts.
His decision to act on behalf of the interests of all humanity is clear from his involvement in the first Hague conference, which took place in the summer of 1899. Many researchers in the field of peace and war agree that the famous manifesto of Nicholas II, written in August 1898, was based on the arguments laid out in Bloch' s book on the future of war. In addition, many argue that Bloch's book was one of the factors behind Nicholas II 's decision to convene a conference in August 1899 with representatives from 26 countries. The outcome of this first international conference were several conventions w on the peaceful settlement of international conflicts, on the rights and practices during land wars, and on the application of the provisions of the 1864 Geneva Convention to marine war, which prepared the groundwork for the next such meeting(59). Despite the fact that he was not a member of any official delegation, Bloch was active in the preparations for the conference and in the sessions, during which he delivered four papers. The establishment of an international court was an important step toward creating a world free of war and the first step to fulfilling Bloch's personal vision. Today, more than 100 years later, it is clear that the Hague conference was the first step taken by the European community and a significant part of humanity to create a system of international law as well as international, political and legal institutions(60).
Bloch's involvement in the Hague conference and his determination to work for the benefit of all humanity - and not only for Polish society or the Russian Empire exemplify what can be interpreted as cosmopolitan inclinations. As far as this study has been able to establish, Bloch himself did not use the term 'cosmopolitan thinking' in his writing. Nevertheless, he undoubtedly contributed to the creation of a new European cosmopolitan public sphere.
Indeed, one can wonder whether it is right to connect Bloch and the concept of cosmopolitanism or perhaps in Bloch' s case it is better to use terms such as internationalism or globalization. "Nevertheless the way in which the concept was understood in the nineteenth century or in previous eras was different from the way in which the concept is understood in our time. In addition, as some scholars have already indicated, there is more than one way to interpret the concept of cosmopolitanism. In this fabric of possibilities, cosmopolitanism can be viewed among other things as shaping a political project towards building transnational institutions and also as a political project for recognizing multiple identities(61). Thus, Bloch' s involvement in the Hague conference and his other engagements can integrate into the spectrum of cosmopolitanism.
It is difficult to determine from Bloch's writings what the major influences on him were. Some of his writings and activities, in particular those associated with his capitalist endeavours in Poland and the Russian Empire, reflect the influences of the Polish positivist philosophy. Perhaps it was through Polish positivism that Bloch became acquainted with Western liberalism, in particular the writings of the British philosophers John Stuart Mill arid Herbert Spencer(62). We do know that in 1848 John Stuart Mill, in his essay on political economy, wrote about the links between capitalism and cosmopolitism, and argued that capitalism was becoming more and more cosmopolitan(63). It is likely that Bloch was also familiar with German philosophy, having lived for short stretches in Germany and having taken some courses in German universities. This acquaintance surely had an impact on Bloch's understanding of the concept of cosmopolitanism. The cosmopolitan organizations with which Bloch was associated from the time of their establishment advocated cooperation between states and nations. It seems that Bloch owes his understanding of this concept to Immanuel Kant. It is not clear if Bloch read Kant, although echoes of the latter's famous essay Perpetual Peace emerge from Bloch's writing and activities. Kant's cosmopolitan community did not seek to eradicate states and nations. In fact, Kant wrote about an international federation of states, which would promote national and states' interests - among them peace. The Hague Conference in which Bloch took part can be seen as a realization of the ideas Kant proposed in Perpetual Peace. In this essay, Kant introduced his readers to the idea of a cosmopolitan federation of states, all of which had a mutual interest in guaranteeing worldwide peace(64). Bloch's understanding of international cosmopolitan organizations was based on the principles that Kant drew in his essay. So even though Bloch himself did not use the term "cosmopolitan thinking' in his works, his writing and activities had an impact on the development of these concepts. Bloch influenced the creation of a new cosmopolitan public sphere that was based on cooperation among states. As for the Jews, he believed that they would be able to find their place in this new cosmopolitan public sphere, not only as individuals but also as a nation. Bloch was able to introduce Eastern European Jews and non-Jews to a type of cosmopolitanism different from the one espoused by Karl Marx. Bloch called for a different kind of integration between modern Jewish-Polish identity and cosmopolitan, anti-revolutionary bourgeois. The conventional view of Eastern European cosmopolitanism, both Jewish and non-Jewish, is one of a revolutionary cause that expresses itself via political movements and literary tendencies - quite different from the View Bloch espoused. Hence, although Bloch did create a new cosmopolitan thinking that could inspire Jews and non-Jews alike, there was no continuation to his writing and thinking.
Notes
1. Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive Tree; Friedman, The World is Flat.
2. Friedman, The World is Flat, 521.
3. Mathews, "Is War is Possible?"
4. Sapper, "Overcoming War."
5. Rosengarten, "John Bloch - A Neglected Prophet," 28-9.
6. Kołodziejczyk, Jan Bloch (1836-1902), 26.
7, Żor, "Who Was Jan Bloch?" 16.
8. See for example van den Dungen and Wittner, "Peace History: An Introduction," 363-75.
9. See for example Dawson, "Preventing 'a great moral evil,"' 5-19.
10. Kołodziejczyk, Jan Bloch (1836-1902), 214.
11. Bloch's biography presented here is primarily based on Ryszard Kolodziejczyk's Jan Bloch (1836-1902) and on a recent book published by the Jan Bloch Society, founded in Warsaw in 1987: Żor, Figle historii.
12. The Toeplitz family was one of the leading Jewish bourgeois families in Warsaw. Ryszard Kołodziejczyk wrote in his book that Bloch worked in the office of Henryk Toeplitz (1822-91), However, other researchers have written that Bloch worked for Henryk's grandfather, Szymon, who was a wealthy merchant. Henryk's father, Teoder, who was engaged with Jewish communal activities, was one of the first Jews in Polish areas to whom the tsar gave permission to purchase land. Henryk was a merchant manufacturer. Henryk Toeplitz, together with Leopold Kronenberg, Józef Natanson and Juliusz Wertheim, was the co-founder of the first commercial bank in Warsaw.
13. Kołodziejczyk, Jan Bloch (1836-1902), 15.
14. Bronislawa Garncarska [Bina Kadary], Fortuna kołem się toczy [Wheel of fortune]. This book is dedicated to Bloch and his involvement in building the Łódź railway line. Garncarska wrote about all of the terms of the concession, the involvement of Witte and other high-ranking clerks in the tsar's court at St Petersburg in this affair, and Bloch's connections with other business partners in that concession. However, it is important to note that Garncarska, who was one of the most significant scholars in the field of the economic history of Polish...
48. Minc, "Ve'eyno tsofiya 'al beit yisrael, Jan G. Bloch ve-ma'avak yehudei polin ve-rusiya neged aflaytam," 13-27. As I wrote before, the material compiled as part of the project was published in five volumes in 1891 under the title The Economic and Social History of Russo- Polish Jewry in the Late Imperial Period. However, the book did not survive to our times. Almost the entire edition was lost in a fire and it was never reprinted.
49. Of the involvement of Kirszrot in Jewish cultural life in Warsaw, we can learn from a letter from the Hebrew censor in Warsaw, Friedberg, to the Yiddish writer Yankev Dinezon dated 21 June 1892: Genazim, The Archive of Hebrew Writers Association, 7301/1/289.
50. One of them, Gershon Levin, a doctor and Yiddish writer who worked with the famous writer Yitzhak Leybush Peretz wrote: "The other Jewish students and I wgrkedyvith Peret;/@r_l_§lpch, who wanted to prove that the Jews in Poland are not idlers as the anti-Semitics'ar'gue but people who worked hard for their living. The data we collected was very interesting. We find out that young Jewish intellectuals could collect material and some times they added information that had no connection to the statistic itself." Gershon, Peretz a Bosel Zikhroynes, 31.
51. Sokolow, "The late M. Jean De Bloch." The Jewish Chronicle, January 24, 1902.
52. The writer of that book [Argentina] was Y.L. Peretz.
53. 23 May 1899. The Diaries of Theodor Herzl, 312.
54. 23 May 1899. The Diaries of Theodor Herzl, 315.
55. Kurier Codzienny no. 309. October, 1897.
56. Guterman, Perakim be-toledot yehua'ei polin be-et ha-hadashah, 289.
57. Engel, Mol har gash, chokri toltot yisrael le'nicha ha-shoah, 83.
58. See for example: a lecture that was given by Bloch in London on 24 June 1901 in Selected Articles of Jean de Bloch, http://www-cgsc.army.mi1/carl/resources/csi/Bloch/BLOCH.asp, "Some Lessons of the Transvaal War" The Contemporary Review, 77 (1900); "Why England should Stop the War," The North American Review, 170, no. 522 May (1900), "'Finanse i wojna," (Finances and War) Kurier Warszawski 2, no. 15 (2/ 15 December 1901) http://www.cgsc.edu/carl/resources/csi/Bloch/BLOCH.asp.
59. On the influence of Bloch on Nicholas II and Bloch's involvement at the Hague Peace Conference, see among others: van den Dungen, "From St. Petersburg to the Hague", 69-85; van den Dungen and Wittner, "Peace History: An Introduction"; Caron, "War and International Adjudication," 4-30; Schlichtmann, "Japan, Germany and the idea of the Hague Conference," 377-94.
60. Caron, "War and International Adjudication," 4.
61. Vertovec and Cohen, eds, Conceiving Cosmopolitanism, 1-4.
62. A good summary in English on Polish positivism can be found in Blejwas, Realism in Polish
Politics.
63. Mill, Principles of Political Economy.
64. Reiss, ed. Kant - Political Writings.
Notes on contributor
Ela Bauer is the Chair of the Department of Communication and Film in the Seminar Ha-Kibbutzim College in Tel Aviv. In addition, she teaches in the Jewish History Department at Haifa University and is the academic coordinator of the Posen Research Forum for Jewish European and Israeli Political thought at the Haifa University Faculty of Law. Her academic interests include the history and culture of Polish Jewry and history of the Jewish press. Her book Between Poles and Jews: The Development of Nahum Sokolow's Political Thought, was published by the Magnes Press in 2005. Her articles have been published in various periodicals in Hebrew, English and Polish.
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