Unequal Friendship

Front matter

POLISH STUDIES - TRANSDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVES 20

Antoni Maczak

Unequal Friendship

Chapter 1: The Clientele as the “Pornography of Politics"

I. In Search of Words... ert tet AE ir Tate ds 20

2;. Pormal/Informal 15:45: n A he RD REN 28

2... Proposed Defin tions i sere ter Ee ERO RR ER ERU RAUS 39

I IwoLégends:. ee esoneeteetenten emen ient aereis 89 á: :Plutarch-MarlIus 2e ett rt n Re eet bes 94 1. The Royal Court: “The Sun and its Refl cted Rays"... 102 2. The Astronomer as Courtier ....c.c.ccccccsssssssssesesesesesesesesesececscseseneneeeeeeeesees 105 3. “Merrie Olde England" and its Court... 110 a. To Like as Much as One's Interests Command 1. -Southand North ossis ense didt ot eetohitidetien 198 a. Selling Vegetables in the South... sees 198 A: Sicily, cosa scatet teda tiere elt lo b epa been 212 a. Don Calò and Don Genco: “Honey wouldn't melt in their nnd d —— ——— 219 7. “And thou shalt take no gift [...] |... 232 a. “Besen-, Fakten - und Aktenrein”

4. Chicago: Mayor Richard J. Daley and the “Democratic Political Machine". tatu sdee nieto eerie Ula reed 287

Chapter 9: The USSR: Lenin, Stalin and Collective Leadership .... 299

3. Clienteles in the Era of “Collective Leadership" o.oo 309 4. "Anatomy of a Spectre" c. cod deer esiti eret ge a. Sweaters for the Arctic

6. Decolonization and the Myth of Modernization a. Falcons and Camels sinismena ttes 363

2. Clientelism as the Highest Stage of Imperialism... sees 376

Chapter 13: Sketches of the Present Day: Clienteles after

Introduction

Patronage is the outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace, and that is Power.

Benjamin Disraeli!

I am afraid certain things will go on in the world for ever, whether we profit by them or not. And if I grant that patronage is sometimes a public evil, you must allow that it is often a private benefit.

Maria Edgeworth?

The reader deserves a few words of explanation regarding the content and form of this book. It is a work based on certain assumptions: that issues of power are comparable in time and space; that it is worth addressing the past and present with a common set of questions; that - more often than we would like to admit - we are held captive by a certain accepted language and a certain terminology; and that it is our task as scholars to tear down barriers that divide the academic disciplines. In part for these reasons, I did not - for the Polish version of this text - translate some of the quotes taken from foreign-language (mainly Anglo-American, but also German and French) academic literature and other sources.’ I am aware that this choice might make reading my text more difficult and that it might encourage readers to skim over the foreign-language texts, but the fact is that, in this book, semantics play a large role as early as the fi st chapter; I will often analyze the meaning of words and will draw conclusions on the basis of terminology. In keeping foreign-language texts in their original, though I might open myself up to criticism that I have - perhaps unconsciously - catered to globalism, I can say with confide ce that I do not feel guilty of snobbism.

I might also add that, when dealing with such a large subject, I feel a certain humility; I am aware that, given the subject's complexity and its great number of

1 Simpson 1988. Simpson also chose to use Disraeli's quote as a motto. Edgeworth 1814, vol. 1, 163.

3 Translator’s note: For the English version, I have continued Professor Maczak’s policy in this regard. Of course I have translated all Polish text into English, but where Professor Maczak kept, for example, German and French texts in the original, I have done the same. That having been said, in those few instances where a Polish word is, for all practical purposes, untranslatable into English, I have kept that word in the Polish and attached an explanation to its fi st appearance.

culturally conditioned aspects, my conclusions in certain areas must remain little more than hypotheses. I am also aware that more than one chapter might become a specialist's treasure trove, and for this reason I dare not write that these issues are too complex to leave to specialists.‘

1. On This Subject and its Fate

Elie Barnavi?

The historian's fear of the anachronism! The subject of this book is the result of research I have conducted over many years on modern Europe, but it is also the result of my refl ctions on the contemporary world around us. Patrons and clients have intrigued me as a research topic for such a long time that it is difficult for me to admit how long.* I have a personal relationship with these issues. Back when the idea occurred to me to take up such work, it was difficult to fi d one of the subject's key words - "client" - in the historian's (not just the Polish historian’s) lexicon. Today the situation is different, a fact which deprives my subject of originality but gives me the satisfaction of active participation in a project of interest to others, just as - I might add - it gives a scholar hope for reciprocity: will historical works someday be read, for instance, by anthropologists?’

4 A fragment from the introduction to my favorite book by Edmund Leach (Leach, 1982) is appropriate here: *Nor is my book addressed to professional colleagues, most of whom are likely to be contemptuous of the style of writing which it advocates and which they may well denounce as egocentric, unscientific, escapist, lacking in coherence, political commitment, and so on”

6 Ican justify the arduous process by which this book has emerged by citing the words of William Cecil Lord Burghley, the secretary to Queen Elizabeth I: “Your Lordship must pardon my evil scribbling for I am called so often from it as at every X lines Iam forced to break off? For this quote, see Beckinsale 1967, 19.

7 Ths is not just a matter of barriers between disciplines, but also a lack of foreign language skills, which is how I explain the absence of German works in the English and French literature on the subject, including works by Peter Mühlmann and Roberto J. Llaryora and the multi-lingual collection Klientelsysteme 1988. The existence of online catalogues to the great libraries of the world makes it difficult to argue that a lack of access is the problem.

Ihave examined this topic alongside one of my earlier academic hobbies, namely the history of travel in Europe in modern times. Both subjects have given me great satisfaction, which fi ds expression in the form of this book: I write in the fi st person and I do not hesitate to include in this text personal observations and comments. In this regard I hope I can count on the reader's approval.

Both of these thematic threads have convinced me that comparative concepts - both in space and in time - are indispensable. However, my reading of synthetic and theoretical works on patronage has not been very satisfying; generally speaking, discussion of the issues presented here lacks a colorful and diverse cultural context. Thus I developed the idea to write a sweeping book that would allow me to tie several issues together in a single volume, in which I would not have to avoid polemics, and which I could write without fear of raising untidy issues or asking questions which I might not be able to answer. I wanted to refer to phenomena that are culturally distant from me, fully aware though I was that certain aspects of these topics would have to remain beyond the horizon, and that, with regard to many other issues, my views and comments would be derivative, based on arguments presented by others in monographs.

Sometimes, and perhaps unexpectedly for the reader, I will cross over from a discussion of various and broad historical issues to Polish issues in particular. Such a move is not so much a return to terrain that is familiar to me as it is a refl ction of the fact that - primo - clientelistic systems played a particularly important role in the old Polish Rzeczpospolita*, and that in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries they defi ed its system of governance? and united it internally. Secundo, in the second half of the twentieth century, indeed still today, we Poles live in a system that one might call diachronic, in which various (traditional and modern) clientelistic systems co-exist and play an enormous role in how our society functions. At the same time, informal systems of power are particularly well developed. All

8 Translator’s note: The term Rzeczpospolita refers to what is also called the Polish First Republic, or Commonwealth, 1569-1795. I will use the term Rzeczpospolita throughout this English translation.

9 "Translator's note: Professor Maczak's broad use in this book of the Polish term władza presents a problem, one to which he himself refers below, in the introductory section to Chapter 1. Władza has at least two meanings in English, namely “power” and “authority" which would indicate that system władzy means "system of power" or “system of authority," both of which are, admittedly, a bit awkward in English. Other translations are also possible, including “system of rule,” "system of governance,’ and in certain contexts even "regime? Th oughout this translation, I avail myself of all these possibilities, the goal being to strike a balance between readability and precision.

of which explains why I draw comparisons over time and space that are broader than is normally accepted in our historical literature.

At this point it is appropriate to clarify why I will overlook two spheres of historical research in which the word “patron” is used probably the most often: the Catholic Church and the world of artistic patronage. In both of these two spheres we talk of patrons but not of clients, even though - in the Church and in many areas of artistic patronage - the question of service in return for support from a powerful or wealthy protector is prominent.” In any case, the social organization of the Church in its historical development, particularly the Roman Curia, is a subject in and of itself, one that has been thoroughly worked through by academics in terms of the topic of interest to me here, above all with regard to the Renaissance and Baroque periods, and particularly in the context of canon law." The situation is similar in the case of cultural patronage, though there are certain differences. When a patron orders an art work, the client - in the colloquial sense of the term - is the buyer; at the same time, the artist can be dependent on fulfilling orders placed by the patron, and as such (as someone “who knows what his lord wants") and in this (as it turns out) evangelical sense, he is not a servant but a client.” But it is above all the case that the clergyman, scholar, writer and artist have always lived in a broader environment, one that in the past was the court/manorial environment. To be sure, the battle over a creator's freedom, even personal freedom, and the creator's struggle for recognition and promotion within the social hierarchy, are constant elements in the history of culture; their signifi ance in the formation of elites has been huge. But they involve a subject that is rather distant from the discussion of power, which is the subject of this book. And perhaps most importantly, they go beyond this author's competence.

A few other notes: I will refer in this work to themes contained in an earlier book of mine, Klientela. Nieformalne systemy wladzy w Polsce i Europie XVI- XVIII w. (The Clientele: Informal Governing Systems in Poland and Europe from the Sixteenth through the Eighteenth Centuries), but I will do so through an expanded set of questions and a broader scope of research. At the same time I will try to avoid repetition.’ In this light, the two works together make up a whole. I will

10 A rare but important exception is the thorough prosopographic monograph on the Cathedral chapter (Domkapitel) in Speyer: Fouquet 1987.

11 See Reinhard 1972; Ago 1990.

12 See the below section “Christ and Aristotle”

13 Thus, I do not include in this book chapters, for example, on Spain and Italy. See Maczak (1994) 2000, chapters “Hiszpania: criados i bandos” and "Wlochy: patronat also draw from experiences gained through my writing of an earlier book devoted to a different topic altogether, namely travel in European history (Zycie codzienne w podrózach, published in English as Travel in Early Modern Europe). At various junctures of the current book I will insert what amount to informational "interludes,” in which I direct the reader's attention to particular and important cases (I do so knowing that they might temporarily distract the reader from the main topic at hand); each “interlude” will be blocked off from the main text, and each will have its own title.'^ Such an approach might give the impression that these interludes are like the anecdotes that appeared in Travel in Early Modern Europe, but the fact is that the content here is more serious. Systems of “unequal friendship" function in highly diverse cultural contexts, and in these contexts they play a diverse set of roles that are correspondingly colorful. Godfather, compadre, and fi ally (in Polish) kum, provide a common denominator, but these phenomena are highly diverse. Analyzing these matters, I was not always able to devote adequate attention to broader civilizational issues, and my interludes are thus intended to address topics that illustrate distinctly and expressively this book's theses; often they are, I admit, somewhat peculiar (as indicated by some of their titles), but - within the framework of the subject of this book - such peculiarities are in fact the rule.

2. An Author's Debts

This project has followed me (or I have followed it) around for several years and, under its spell, I have talked about it with almost everybody who had the patience to listen or the interest to discuss it.

Mario Biagioli^ I could easily adopt as my own the above words by this author of a fascinating book on Galileo. Over the course of my research I made many friends, both academic and personal, whom I value greatly. It is fitting to mention these individuals, w krajobrazie miejskim” But it is proper to return to the subject of corruption and give a new interpretation to the document written by "Anonym 1598" (See, for example, the section below entitled "Liberty and the Raison d'état: ‘Anonym’ on the Rzeczpospolita").

14 The fi st such “interlude” appears in Chapter 1 under the title “Sir Walter and the Eroticism of the Clientele”

15 Biagioli 1993. Professor Larry Wolff, a friend for many reasons, sent me a copy of Biagoli's book, which no doubt would have escaped my attention.

though writing acknowledgments is neither an easy nor small task, and it is one that is broadly neglected in Poland. Renaissance and Baroque authors increasingly resorted to elaborate rhetoric bearing witness to their patron's generosity and proclaiming his greatness.” Today, British and American authors make a ritual out of acknowledgments; they give thanks for fi ancial support and other support provided by host institutions. But on the European continent a long list of names of colleagues and fi st readers would be viewed as a sign of snobbery; names of supporting institutions are tossed onto a book's title and publication pages. In this schizophrenic situation, feeling these pressures of custom (Iam free only of the sins of youth), I will try simply to be myself.

It was in Munich where I conducted early work on the issue of clientelism, thanks to a fellowship from the Historisches Kolleg, and at this stage of my work the friendly interest shown by the prominent scholar of ancient history, Professor Christian Maier, was of the greatest importance; in his research, particularly on Rome in the late Republic, he devoted a great deal of attention to patron-client issues. My fi st discussion with him, which took place in Toruń’s town hall in 1981, strengthened me in my belief that such research was purposeful. A conference that I was able to organize within the framework of the Historisches Kolleg in October 1984 represented the fi st opportunity for an exchange of opinions from historians-modernists and medievalists on clientelism in Europe. For me, this conference confi med the signifi ance of the subject; it brought together an international circle of historians who approached clientelism from various angles and with their own distinct research experiences." I collected material on Mediterranean and non-European areas while lecturing at Notre Dame (Indiana, 1988/1989) and McGill University (Montreal, 1991). After that I continued work abroad under scholarships at Potsdam and Berlin and (with kind invitations from professors Jan Peters and Winfried Eberhard) in Leipzig (1994/1995). Without access to the libraries in Berlin and Leipzig I would not have been able to adequately research this topic. In 1998 I received two grants that were extremely important to me, one of which was from the Komitet Badań Naukowych (Committee for Scientific Research), which supported me in my continued research in libraries abroad. The second one, a professor's grant from the Fundacja na Rzecz Nauki Polskiej (Foundation for Polish Science), involved a different research subject, but over the course of all of my work it has been difficult to distinguish between

16 See Merlin 1993. 17 Klientelsysteme 1988.

one library search and another. Thanks to the Fundacja, I was able to extend my work in libraries abroad, to purchase books, and to support the research of my colleagues.

While writing this book-essay, I began to doubt whether I should be prowling through territory that had been carefully and competently cultivated by other scholars, but I could not stop myself from investigating how the social systems of interest to me function in other civilizations. I have succeeded in infecting several people with this subject, but I do not feel guilty. I would feel differently if I had bored anyone with the subject.

Chapter 1: The Clientele as the “Pornography of Politics”: Words and Their Meaning

Patronage is the pornography of politics, enticing to some, repulsive to others, justified as inevitable, condemned as immoral, a practice seldom considered a fit subject for polite discussion.

Jeffrey Simpson'?

Ths book could well have been entitled “The Pornography of Politics.” Simpson, a Canadian political scientist, highlighted the particular attitude that scholars have held toward patronage-clientele phenomena, their fascination with such phenomena, along with their timidity, which has only recently been overcome.” He stated that while some scholars accept clientelism as an inevitable phenomenon, others condemn it as immoral; earlier it was improper to write about this subject or, at any rate, to focus on it (just as in the case of pornography).” The experiences of the twentieth century on the one hand, and the development and integration of the social sciences on the other, turned our attention toward topics that reached well beyond traditional textbook schemes. Before that, the legitimization of power, understood as the right to exercise such power, had aroused doubts only during periods of severe political crisis or revolution. Today, we see more clearly the intricacy and ambiguity of the notion of power. I draw a distinction between this notion’s ambiguity and its multiple meanings, because while in some countries it is the product of the experience with resistance against Communism (especially “Real Socialism”), in others countries where citizens were spared this experience and where the law meant (and still means) simply the law, the confli t between

19 That this timidity is fading can be confi med; unfortunately I am not able to make use of the most recent work on the subject: Clientelism, Interests, and Democratic Representation. The European Experience in Historical and Comparative Perspective, ed. S. Piattoni (Cambridge, UK: 2001).

20 The works of Giuseppe Gelasso, a famous historian and Neapolitan politician, provide an interesting example of this timidity. In a short chapter on systems of power entitled “Burocrazia e clientelismo,” I found nothing of interest to me on this topic! See G. Galasso, Potere e istituzioni in Italia. Dalla caduta dell’ Impero romano ad oggi (Torino 1974), 206-209. Th s fact is astonishing for an Italian from Mezzogiorno.

public opinion and the apparatus of justice sometimes makes societies aware that they are under the control of parallel illegal and half-legal systems of power.?! However, this is not what I am talking about here, and what I want particularly to point out is that informal systems of power do not necessarily imply the criminal sphere. On the contrary: going back as far as ancient history, the division between private and public spheres has been neither clear nor dichotomous. Th s fact is true even today.? It is similar in the case of power. Broadly understood, power is sometimes described as:

a social relationship between two individuals or two social groups based on the fact that one party, in a way that is sustained and authorized, is able to force another party to act in a particular way and has the means to supervise this procedure.”

There are many similar defin tions, and it is not my intention to either choose from among them or offer my own." I prefer to show how complicated things get when we invoke different languages. For example, in English we do not have a precisely equivalent term for władza, which in Polish has many meanings, including “power” and "authority" While Webster's dictionary defi es "power" as, among other things, a “capacity to control and to impose one's will,” it defi es "authority" as the “power, legal right to command and to enforce obedience.” It goes without saying that these problems are too complex and important to be considered solely by linguists, especially given the fact that other terms - such as “influence” (wplyw) and “force” (sila) - also come into play. “Force” is not “power exercised” because:

21 Kefauver 1951. The Senate committee headed in 1950-1951 by Senator Estes Kefauver served a crucial role, having investigated the forms and scope of organized crime. Similar parliamentary and judicial organs, set up ad hoc, have revealed over and over again the effect of their investigations in Italy, but the results of their work did not inspire optimism. It is signifi ant that the countries involved were Italy, the U.S and Germany (see the following footnote), which are countries with deep legal traditions.

22 See remarks below by the German political scientist, Wilhelm Hennis. Regarding the public-private issue, an open legal confli t broke out in the mid-1970s in connection with the taping of conversations in the White House related to President Richard Nixon and the Watergate scandal.

24 An in-depth, though not always critical, overview is provided by Lemieux 1977, chapter entitled “La notion de patronage.”

25 Webster Universal Dictionary (New York: 1970), 1101, 98.

the essential difference between power and force is simply that in a power relationship one party obtains another's compliance, while in a situation involving force, one's objectives must be achieved, if at all, in the face of the other's noncompliance.”

Th s suggests that, by “power,” Bachrach and Baratz mean that power is exercised with the consent of subordinates, or at least without their objection - that is, without the use of force." “Influence” is defi ed much like “power,” the only difference being that the aim is achieved without the application of sanctions. The authors also discuss the term “manipulation” (manipulacja), a hackneyed word in the modern Polish political discourse, one that is used when person (or group) A - one which is influential - conceals the essence and source of its demands on person (or group) B. A complete success ensues when B remains unconscious of the fact that it is the object of the action.? Manipulation is a matter of “force,” and not "power? Typically, another term, namely "authority," is extensively discussed.” I would argue that Bierstadt's simple distinction is relevant here: “influence is persuasive, power is coercive,” but "authority" — in light of its Latin tradition — constitutes institutional power.? In my opinion, “influence” suits the power of a patron (and thus of clientelism), even though the term can be strictly rendered in Polish neither as wpływ nor wpływy.”

An old French word, crédit, very often used in Bourbon court circles, was closely related in meaning and described an intermediary, a person with connections and influence who was capable of dealing with the task entrusted to him.

26 Bachrach and Baratz 1970 (chapter 2), 17 ff. (block quote from p. 27): "Key Concepts: Power, Authority, Influence, Force" I take this topic, as depicted by these authors, as a starting point for my refl ctions, since they take into account relations in Thi d-World countries, which will be discussed later in this book. Below, see also my comments on the ancient auctoritas; Syme 1964, 157 (and the index).

27 By the way, an intermediary in a patronage pyramid - that is a "broker" - is often defi ed as a “power broker,” especially when it comes to political patronage.

28 Bachrach and Baratz 1970, 30.

29 See, for example, Laswell and Kaplan 1950; Bierstedt 1950; Friedrich 1958.

31 The German language makes room for other possibilities. Terms related to power/rule in Poland at the time of the partitions include: unter russischer Herrschaft; unter russischer Gewalt [nach der Unterdrückung des Aufstandes]; unter ósterreichischem Regime; unter der preußischen Gebietshoheit; unter preußischer Macht. These terms were used in Stanisław Jarkowski, “Die polnische Presse in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart,” Zeitungswissenschaft 12 (1937), issue 8, 505-612; quotations from pp. 538, 540, 541, 555, 566 (author's emphases - A.M.). Unfortunately, it was not specifi d if the terminology is the Warsaw author's or that of the editorial board of the German newspaper.

That having been said, crédit was an invaluable virtue of the patron, particularly if - as a broker - he had at his disposal connections, relations, “ears,” etc.” Such relations represented the essence of court life. In Poland there was an entire range of equivalents, mostly colloquial, such as mieć znajomości (to have connections), dojscie (to have/gain access), uklady (to have dealings with someone), chody (to have pull with somebody). Such examples are as plentifulas the number of Eskimo words for snow. A related, noble-sounding word in English is “trust”

The issue of vocabulary does not end here. Both the reader and I will have to battle with it until the last pages of this book.

1. In Search of Words

"Patron" and “client” are two words I have decided to use in this book's subtitle, and I will thus attempt to refrain from using them in chapter titles. Having said that, I shall explain my motives, since these words are at the center of this work. Few other terms are as ambiguous, and thus potentially misleading, as “patron” and “client,” even though the patron-client relationship, a “lop-sided friendship,” is one of the basic and most durable of all social relationships. The metaphor of the “lop-sided friendship" was introduced by a pioneer of research in this fi ld, the British scholar Julian Pitt-Rivers.? A “lop-sided friendship"? In a book title, such a phrase would sound bad. Well-considered metaphors can be useful, but we should return to basic vocabulary. The fi st term - client - is commonly associated with someone who purchases something at a store, and the other term - patron - is often associated with a guardian saint. But while in France le patron is - among other things - the boss, the master, the employer, the lord, the principal, or even the defense attorney,* “the patron" denotes a visitor, a regular customer, a "regular"? Th s simple switch in pronunciation from English into French, with no changes

32 Seealso Kettering 1993, 76. "Creditt" appears in an analogous, though characteristically republican context in A Relation of the State of Polonia and the United Provinces of that Crowne Anno 1598 (for more on this work by an anonymous author, see the section below entitled “Liberty and the Raison d'état: 'Anonym' on the Rzeczpospolita”): during elections, senators ^weigh no more than every common gentlemans, advauntaged onely so muche, as they have creditt, and authoritie to drawe their creatures, dependanttes, and well willers to theire partes" (A Relation of the State of Polonia, 52).

33 Pitt-Rivers 1972.

34 A “patron from the tribunal,” or a lawyer, also appears in Mickiewicz's ballad Pani Twardowska: The patron “turned into a mutt?

35 Orsimply a client, as in the warning: "Patrons leaving their belongings here do so at their own risk.” Cited in Bourne 1986, 3.

in spelling, results strangely in an entirely reverse meaning, as though it were a symbol ofthe abyssal depths of La Manche, separating the two civilizations. While searching databases that index essays and summaries of articles in the social sciences, one will mainly fi d, under the search term "client" items related to commercial services and - surprisingly to me - medical services. Many institutions are client-oriented, like department stores, dental offices and psychoanalytical practices, among which it is difficult to fi d the terms "patron" and “client” in their main, original meanings (below we will face similar problems with the terms fidéle and fidélité). At the same time, this is precisely the meaning assigned to "patron" and “client” when they appear in newspapers. Marek Karp once wrote in the Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza about the structure of power in Russia:

In Russia, to an extent greater than we imagine, there prevails a well-developed “patronage" system. The leader and local authorities - local both in terms of oblasti [provinces] and across entire republics - are simply empowered to direct opinions held by citizens

»37 and "their people:

But in terms of Poland, the same newspaper makes the following observations: