The demise of Poland 1600-1795

One of Many Historical Precedents the Global Elite Prefer You Ignore

...In little more than 100 years, Poland experienced the transformation from a strong, respected State, instrumental in 1683 for saving Vienna from Turkish occupation, to become mere provinces within three despotic empires. Poland had been relatively prosperous, tolerant and progressive, but witnessed the evaporation of this way of life in the wake of events their own leaders perpetrated. What forces and trends within that country proved detrimental, and what lessons can modern societies learn from Polish mistakes made during this period of history?...

And on a related note:

The old pre-1795 Poland - a feudal republic with an elective king- is a converse example; it illustrates how before the advent of the modern state the position of the Jews was socially most important, and their internal autonomy greatest, under a regime which was completely retarded to the point of utter degeneracy…. This process was accompanied by a debasement in the position of the Polish peasants (who had been free in the early Middle Ages) to the point of utter serfdom, hardly distinguishable from outright slavery and certainly the worst in Europe. The desire of noblemen in neighboring countries to enjoy the power of the Polish pan over his peasants (including the power of life and death without any right of appeal) was instrumental in the territorial expansion of Poland. The situation in the ‘eastern’ lands of Poland (Byelorussia and the Ukraine) - colonized and settled by newly enserfed peasants - was worst of all… Therefore Poland was the only big country in western Christendom from which the Jews were never expelled. A new middle class could not arise out of the utterly enslaved peasantry; and the old bourgeoisie was geographically limited and commercially weak, and therefore powerless…1