No liberum veto in Poland

What would've happened if Poland's government hadn't been so susceptible to the liberum veto (any member of the Sejm could erase everything that a Sejm, or parliament, had done simply by saying "I freely forbid this")? Historians cite this liberum veto as a major reason why Poland was partitioned between Russia, Austria-Hungary, and Prussia/Germany in the 18th century.
 
I think it is a safe bet to say Poland-Lithuania survives in one form or another. Liberum veto was a deadly weapon in hands of not only Polish magnates or noblemen, but also foreign powers - it was enough to bribe just a single member of the Sejm to paralyze all of its actions.
Of course it does not mean PLC becomes suddenly superpower, land of happiness, equality and freedom. Hardly. But the Sejm actually capable of making quick decisions, instead of wasting time for convincing all its members, is certainly a good thing for the PLC - with some exceptions, for sure. To make it even better I would remove "instructions of sejmiks" - every noblemen elected to the Sejm on sejmik (lit. Little sejm - a kind of local congress in a voivodship) had to swear to obbey those instructions of his sejmik to the letter, even if he personally changed his mind or circumstances changed. In other words, in some cases he couldn't fully follow his judgement.
 
Corollary: The Russian Pale of Settlement isn't quite as big (if it exists at all), and some of my ancestors might have stayed over in that part of the world instead of coming to America in the early 20th century. The Tsarist government was pretty antisemitic, and both Russia and Prussia/Germany were anti-Polish. Austria Hungary was apparently a little bit better but they wanted to keep their empire together.

Because Poland-Lithuania stays independent in some form, this affects emigration patterns to the New World. Fewer eastern European immigrants, and fewer Jews leaving for the Levant, maybe. Perhaps people are happier in Poland than in OTL, but there might still be serfdom. However, Poland isn't immune to the outside world, and so we might see serf emancipation by the late 19th century at the latest.

Also, Germany is slower to evolve and strengthen because of a strong country other than Russia on its eastern flank. Russia will of course be strong anyhow (it has a ton of territory and sparsely populated expansion room, so Russia or some other big state to the east seems pretty likely). My guess is that Russia and Poland would fight some wars against each other by the early 20th century at the latest, and there might even have been Polish designs to keep Germany divided or weak. Anyone up for a Polish/French/Italian partition of Germany? (other than mid-20th-century, which is a bit too close to OTL*, anyhow).

*Ok, Russia, France, England, and America, whatever. But that was a different grouping, more Western-democratic-socialist in nature, and thus led to a different dynamic. Poland/France/Italy in the 19th century (or Poland/France/Ottoman Turkey or Poland/France/Austria for that matter) would've been more monarchic or authoritarian, I suppose (France had some pretty wild swings of political structure in the 19th century, though).
 

Maur

Banned
What would've happened if Poland's government hadn't been so susceptible to the liberum veto (any member of the Sejm could erase everything that a Sejm, or parliament, had done simply by saying "I freely forbid this")? Historians cite this liberum veto as a major reason why Poland was partitioned between Russia, Austria-Hungary, and Prussia/Germany in the 18th century.
I am unaware of any historians that treat it as anything more than a symptom/tool. LV lasted less than 100 years, and its use effectively ended in 1760s with confederated Diets. The ability to confederate is IIRC as old, so the means were there even earlier, the will wasn't.
 
Top