Stalin had a akin plan as his teacher Lenin had 2 decades earlier. The way to the triumph of Bolshevism was to exsanguinate Western Europe in a long and cruel war. Hitler was to crush Poland with immense losses. possibly these losses – analysed hotly by russian intelligence were greater than expected. Remember: the attack on France was planned for autumn 1939. Meanwhile, the fighting in Poland consumed fuel, lubricants and ammunition, and the Wehrmacht device park was decimated. The Polish army – although underinvested and frequently anachronistic technically proved to be a much tougher opponent than Hitler's staff assumed – says Andrzej Pilipiuk, writer, journalist.
Dear Sir Andrew, any say that on 17 September 1939 the Red Army "entered Poland". Others say that the Red Army attacked Poland or attacked us. However, I get the impression that the vast majority has no quarrel. What's your opinion?
I'd say otherwise. The Red Army neither entered Poland nor attacked Poland on its own, but "saved" Hitler, whose concept of lightning war did not go as planned. In my opinion, if Stalin had not thrown Hitler a lifeline, the German attack on Poland would have ended differently. We most likely wouldn't have won this war, but in my opinion, the odds of a tie were definitely there.
The Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact itself and the resulting 17 September 1939 should be considered in a broader context: The Germans pushed forward during the September campaign, but suffered tremendous losses. To this day, we do not know how many Germans died in September 1939. This data has been classified. There are estimates that say even 120,000 Germans killed. The Polish defence strengthened and continued mobilization in the Kresach, which would give the Polish army fresh recruits, and thus fresh opportunities.
In addition, all week of the drag of the German operation against Poland brought us closer to the Polish rainy autumn. German tanks would be stuck in the mud, another German machines would run out of fuel, and it could truly end differently. But it came September 17th... The Red Army attacked Poland. Our fighting spirit and our homeland's defence were completely broken. The Russian attack yet buried our chances not of victory, but of a strong tie in confrontation with Germany. He besides partially protected them from further losses.
Prior to the 2022 planet Football Championship, 1 of the journalists wrote that the key word in the past of Polish football is ‘if’... “If it had not rained before the semi-finals from Germany in 1974...”, “If Błaszczykowski had scored a punishment against Portugal for Euro 2016...”, "If it weren't for the pole, if it wasn't for the bar..." etc. The word "if" is besides crucial in the context of September 1939. ‘If Poland had announced the mobilisation at least two-three days earlier...’, ‘If General Kutruba's counteroffensive had moved a fewer hours earlier...’, “If our expected allies hadn’t betrayed us...”, “If...”, “If...”, “If...”. However, the facts are that in September 1939 we suffered a complete defeat and that if not changed...
But it can aid us learn lessons for the future. That's why sometimes it's worth a small "seek". Let us consider what would happen if the Germans received a dense beating from Poland in September 1939? Would Stalin have made a deal with Hitler then? As I said earlier – Stalin began the operation to rescue his ally on September 17. Stalin may have come to the conclusion that he had already waited for his own and, in principle, Red Army soldiers could enter Poland as “liberators”.
I wonder if Stalin's first plan was to join the war even later...
Later? What makes you think that, Mr. Andrew?
Stalin had a akin plan as his teacher Lenin had 2 decades earlier. The way to the triumph of Bolshevism was to exsanguinate Western Europe in a long and cruel war. Hitler was to crush Poland with immense losses. possibly these losses – analysed hotly by russian intelligence were greater than expected. Remember: the attack on France was planned for autumn 1939. Meanwhile, the fighting in Poland consumed fuel, lubricants and ammunition, and the Wehrmacht device park was decimated. The Polish army – although underinvested and frequently anachronistic technically proved to be a much tougher opponent than Hitler's staff assumed. What if we set up another defensive perimeter based on the Bug River?
Let us now examine the another side. The USSR planned to conquer the full continent. This is what human resources and resources were needed. The defeat of Poland with the hands of the Nazis saved both.
The Polish defence towards the east paralyzed the chief commander's order not to defy the entering Red Army. Consider what would happen if we tried to resist. In today's Belarus there are fortifications from the 1930s. The alleged “Piłsudski Line”. It may not have been as extended as the Marencheima Line in Finland, but until present bunkers were preserved to halt russian tanks. These areas were actually given distant without a fight. If we had a strong defence there, the Soviets would have suffered far greater losses. Eventually, they would most likely break through, but Polish soldiers would send many of them to the ground. But it didn't.
And 1 more aspect: the betrayal of our allies, England and France. It's not just about not giving us military support. It is primarily about the demoralization of Polish troops resulting from the betrayal. For depriming and taking hope from a Polish soldier. Imagine this: Polish soldier fights Germany, resists, inflicts large losses on Nazis, defends Polish cities, Polish women, Polish children and waits for the action of allies. Allies leave us. The defence continues, and unexpectedly the Soviets stab us in the back... De facto They're killing us...
After September 17th, only those who truly were fighting at it were fighting. Most of them may not even have believed in triumph anymore, but at least they wanted to fulfill their oath and sale their skin dearly.
For example, Fortress Modlin, which my grandpa defended, among others, 11 days – until 28 September. We are talking about the Tsaric fortress which the Russian staff in 1904 considered obsolete. We made her an impenetrable bastion. German assaults were repulsed. I said it was due to the fact that there was no point in fighting anymore.
Let me go back to the first question: why is it that no 1 cares present on September 17, 1939? I ask due to the fact that all year on 1 September we are faced with large celebrations at Westerplatte, Wieluń and many another Polish towns. What is September 17? Practically nothing, but a fewer references in the media...
For a very, very long period, this date – September 17, 1939 – in our history, in our collective memory and consciousness did not be at all. For 45 years after the Second planet War, mentioning the USSR's attack on Poland was asking for trouble, and this is serious trouble.
Secondly: the beasts of the Germans besides committed in September 1939, as if they had completely covered the issue of the Soviets' "entry".
My generation of people born in the 1970s was a generation that no longer remembered Polish endings. The “entry” of the Red Army fundamentally “split” what happened to the russian Union after 1945. If individual had an ending household traditions, it is known – he knew, while a immense number of kids did not know it.
When I was most likely in sixth, or seventh grade, there was a fama that specified a harsh teacher from Polish, whom we did not like very much, was born in Vilnius. A classmate commented: “Yes! She is from the russian Union, and they most likely sent her to torment us.” possibly 2 people replied at the time that since this teacher is so old and was born in Vilnius, it was most likely pre-war Polish Vilnius... It was a large surprise erstwhile the phrase "pre-war Polish Vilnius" came out...
I'll say more: among the children of my yearbook aged 12-13, there was small awareness of the existence behind Bug of specified nations as Ukrainians or Belarusians. There was the USSR – or “Russian”. Russia.
Let me put it this way: if the commune had lasted 10 more years, the covering of the Kres memory would have been even stronger. However, I repeat: my generation lived with very small awareness that Poland erstwhile reached far further east, that very interesting things were happening there, that there were serious Polish scientific, cultural and so on. Lviv, Vilnius and another Polish end cities did not be in our consciousness. About specified events as Grodna's defence against the Soviets, fewer people knew, what was more, were subjects that were not discussed in conversations with children.
I am talking about all this in order to explain why in my opinion the "entry" of the Red Army to Poland on September 17, 1939 is not treated in the same way as the entry of Germans. The Red Army, I repeat, took over the land that then fell out of Poland anyway. Earths which my generation did not treat in terms of "it was ours."
In the 1980s, fewer people spoke about these matters. For example, my father told me any things with an open text, but only in private eyes and requiring full discretion. I knew a thing or 2 – but I did not pass this cognition on to my colleagues. Although I had a friend I first heard about Katyn.
When people talk about planet War II, the emphasis is primarily on German crimes. I get the impression that russian crimes are overlooked, and they were possibly not as bloody as German, but equally devastating Polish "national tissue" ...
First and basic issue: Wehrmacht from the first days to terrorize Poles murdered civilians. They were killed almost all step of the way. Prisoners were besides murdered. 10 years ago, IPN organized an exhibition on the war crimes of the Wehrmacht in September 1939. According to estimates presented in this exhibition, about 40,000 Poles who were taken into Nazi captivity were immediately murdered by the Germans. The cities were besides bombed. The raids alone consumed lives of about 250,000 people. That memory, that fear's memory is inactive there.
And now look at the another side... We may be little aware of the crimes committed by the Soviets due to the fact that they usually acted more discreetly. There were no massive bombings. They seldom killed prisoners in front of people. They were taking them to camps. They made arrests according to a letter of inquiry. They were taking people to the camps. People were disappearing, and there was no telling what happened to them. Murdered quietly and far away.
How many Poles exported by the Soviets into the USSR actually returned to their homeland? This is 1 of those questions we'll never know the answers to. possibly if there were adequate of them, they'd bring with them a sense of what was going on in the Borderlands after September 17, 1939...
Meanwhile, those released from the camps who left the USSR with the Army of Anders after the war remained mostly on emigration. Those who returned to PRL were afraid to speak. Fired after Stalin's death, they mostly remained in the USSR. A immense part remained in the Asian part of the USSR. If they returned to their native surroundings – it was already the territories of the Belarusian and Ukrainian russian republic.
Those displaced from the ends to the earth besides preferred to stay silent. 45 years of silence has done its job. The generation, which is simply a possible retention medium, died without giving their experience. Let us besides remember the decimation of our elites by both totalitarianisms. The peasants and the workers are little likely to choice up a pen, little likely to evidence memories...
Of course, individual here will say that there are relations from Kresów from that time, that many Poles surviving in the Kresach before the war managed to relocate to Poland, that these people transferred any knowledge, any traditions, etc. It is true, which does not change the fact that crucial witnesses, either she was taken inside the USSR, or murdered by OUN-UPA flags and never returned to her homeland.
Such memories were not printed in the PRL. And the testimonies that functioned in literary circulation and in public circulation among emigrations in the West have penetrated the iron curtain to a very limited extent. In Poland, as a substance of fact, specified memoirs began to appear only after 1990. I remember throwing myself at them. It was typically anti-communist literature, and I was interested. Unfortunately, I don't think anyone from my advanced school friends would be curious in this case. I don't think anyone was curious in that at the time. These 45 years of sitting in an ideological freezer brought the effect that the communists yet wanted in this substance – to dispel Poles from the collective memory of the awareness of Polish pre-war Kresów, and to suppress 17 September 1939 and russian crimes in Poles.
The operation of killing Polish memory continues to this day. It is led by Russians, for example, who say that on September 17, 1939 the russian Union began an operation to defend the Russian population in Ukraine, in Belarus from Germany, who went east and wanted to execution them.
Polish memory can kill even as neutral discipline as ethnography. I erstwhile had a three-volume album about Polish folk costume in my hand. large thing. Wonderful illustrations. But in it were outfits from Pomerania or Silesia, and in the east – the Bug line and the end. Polish folk costumes from Kresów were completely omitted. And after all, they are worn by our folk ensembles operating there, sometimes they can besides be seen at celebrations organized by the Polish Republic in the USA and ...Brazil.
Ad meriutum.
Given the Germans and their plans, of course they wanted to do so, only in a somewhat more distant perspective. Just read “Mein Kampf”. There is simply a direct mention to areas in the east that will supply the German with a surviving space. Hitler preached a number of things with an open text.
In September 1939 alone, of course, there was no specified risk, due to the fact that Hitler had to beat western and central Poland first to get there, and here he was at most "average". Besides, if the russian Union truly wanted to defend these people, then it was adequate to give Poland assistance in opposing Hitler, or to open the border and accept those fleeing from Germany.
In my opinion, modern Russian propaganda does not actually translate into Poland. There are, of course, fewer centres that capture it and effort to pass it on, but it concerns more current, civilizational and not historical issues. The Russian historical propaganda, in my opinion, comes to Poland or to people who are aware of it automatically, or to a wall of indifference from people who are not curious in history. Alternatively, Russian propaganda is fascinated by a fistful of knuckleheads and fatherophobes who will not waste any chance to spit on Poland.
Only, are there a fewer of these “fools”? I would argue here, Mr. Andrew. People repeating slogans that the russian Union, Russians, liberated us from the German business are truly many and besides any of them sit on parliamentary benches...
Mr. Editor: there is no denying that the Russians actually liberated us from German occupation. Only that they had made it easier for Hitler to gain power and conquer Poland. The way I see it, 2 bandits got into a fight over the loot and 1 mob chased the other...
Is specified a thing called “liberation”? Since I remember in Poland there is simply a discussion about whether after 1945 we had a fresh occupation, or after the war Poland was an independent country...
I will say something controversial: from the point of view of Poles, however, it was better under russian knut than behind Nazi wires. Given the rate of biological demolition of Poles, we would not have survived another 5 years of Nazi occupation.
There are testimonies from 1942 and 1943. Although they had already finished their business with the Jews, they continued to grow and streamline the installations of death camps in Treblinka, Bełżec and Brzezinka (Auschwitz-Birkenau). Why did they do this erstwhile the “final solution to the judaic question” had already been done? In my opinion, they were simply preparing for the next stage: mass extermination of larger numbers of Poles.
The question of KL Warschau is discussed. Were the tunnels under the train station West Warsaw were monstrous gas chambers? investigation makes it very hard that, despite social protests and ongoing investigations, these facilities were mostly intentionally destroyed in the early 1990s. Photographs of post-German fans, waste gas, etc.
In my opinion, it was built. The question is whether it was utilized and on what scale. There were traces of Prussian blue on the concrete – a product of cyclone-B decay. Ergo: Germany, after suppressing the Warsaw ghetto uprising, built gas chambers in the capital itself. Huge. It was possible to enter them immediately after respective carriages. Given the time erstwhile these installations were created, they were no longer intended for Jews. They were prepared to deal with us.
The final solution to the Polish issue would have been if Hitler had continued to win. When? possibly 1945, 1947, 1949. After all, the fact that we were "liberated" by the Soviets, that it was yet a rescue for us. The Russians are in. They robbed, raped, murdered a little, locked people into prisons and camps – but the gas chambers stopped functioning, the crematoria stopped. It is estimated that around 200 1000 Poles were killed from russian hands in 1944-49. It's a immense number, but it's much lower than Hitler!
Another thing is that there just wasn't another future then. The Allies couldn't and wouldn't aid us. And even if they wanted to be besides weak, besides stupid and besides far away...
I understand, due to the fact that you disagree with Joseph Mackiewicz's celebrated words: “I do not agree that Germany is the top enemy. The Bolsheviks are bigger due to the fact that they are more dangerous to any nation. From a simple expression that no Pole can be German at the same time, as these concepts exclude each other. But any Pole can be a Communist at the same time. For these concepts, frequently unfortunately, even rhyme well. We fake reality, sometimes putting an equation mark between German and russian occupation. German makes us heroes, russian makes us g***. The Germans shoot at us and the Soviets take us with their bare hands. We shoot the Germans, and the Soviets crawl in. So this is not an analogy but an inverse”.
Let me put it this way: I agree partially. quite a few people have been demoralized, bullied. We know what they wrote after the war of Brzechwa and Tuwi. We know the Stalinist poems of Szymborska. The late released biography of Zbigniew Nienacki clearly shows how horrible the bastard this man was in his youth!
On the another hand, it wasn't that bad! A mass of Poles managed to defy ideological brainwashing. The effort to turn us into a russian prayer, in my opinion, failed. After all, sometimes even our “local communists” could become a perch, sometimes they showed a Russian fig, sometimes even taking that hand out of their pocket.
Of course, we did not have the chance to get specified a level of freedom as Yugoslavia, but Poland was the only country of the RPG, where no collectivisation of agriculture was carried out. Now the question arises whether it was not carried out, due to the fact that our communists did not like this plan, or did not carry it out due to the fact that they were afraid of Polish peasants? Or possibly the Polish peasants were afraid of the Russians and they were the ones who banned it? It is hard at this point to conviction without access to secret minutes of KC meetings.
Second thing: the Reds attempted to turn Scoutry into a copy of russian pioneers from the Scout movement – but after Stalin's death, most of the changes were withdrawn and Boy Scout crosses returned to uniforms. Let us besides remember: in Poland, membership of youth organisations was voluntary. EVERYONE had to belong in the USSR and GDR.
Poland was the only country of the RPPG in which the Catholic university survived. Although young people were discouraged from this form of education, the diplomas of the Catholic University of Lublin were honoured by the authorities.
In my opinion, despite all this russian occupation, we have not been able to last as a nation, as a society, as conscious individuals. Yes, socialists were discouraged, the cooperative movement survived as a pre-war caricature, yet we were able to push our elbows and gain more freedom than the russian bloc in force in another countries.
Social degeneration has evidently been progressing. The question is, what would happen if the commune lasted another 10 years... Another question: what would happen if General Jaruzelski had as much honor as dirt behind his nails and utilized 1980 to free himself from business or “care” for older brothers? But here again we enter the fields of alternate history, and this is simply a subject for many another conversations...
Do you think that if not for this immense mass that the russian Union had – a mass of tanks, combat aircraft, rifles and yet people – the attack launched on September 17, 1939 would have been successful? Is Russian war tactics a mass in the name of which, even if a million soldiers die, the second million will go to the front?
Personally, I would not underestimate the russian and current Russian strategy. Yes, breaks in full disregard for soldiers’ lives and equipment losses have occurred. Fighting for the foothold of Rżewski was a human slaughterhouse. Nevertheless, let us look, for example, at Operation Bragation (22 June 1944 – 19 August 1944), we must honestly say: she was well prepared and performed very brilliantly. Although this operation was a bit of a copy of Bruslaw's breakthrough, a Czarski general from planet War I, the usage of good designs is besides a certain wisdom. Focusing a immense amount of artillery on a short long of front, breaking, going to the operating space, a very fast march forward – all of this was carried out truly brilliantly, not at the rhyme, in the sense – we release 10 million "gun meat" and wait for Germans to run out of bullets and missiles.
In 1944, the Soviets headed west to do up to 60 km a day. This is simply a stunning pace.
So it cannot be said that the Russians only won by mass, due to the fact that their staff had any elements of tactics on a reasonably advanced level, but they knew and could apply.
When we look at actions taken by the Russian army present in Ukraine, we see that they are utilizing mass, but this mass comes from "single-use" troops. They are made up of criminals, recruited Buryats, drug addicts, alcoholics, allyers, various people who went to the army to avoid going to prison, etc. In general, their lives are completely meaningless. For Russia, it is simply a way to dispose of “human garbage”. But next door there are more elite units, which are utilized more sparingly and wisely. This army rapidly learns to respond to Ukrainian innovative actions. The beginning of the alleged "specification" was a maneuver war. This is where the Ukrainians turned out to be better. They repulsed the attack on Kiev, managed to take back the Kharkivs. It's a tough position war now. In many episodes, minefields are spread out.
Looking at the war in Ukraine, we frequently make the mistake of seeing a small of what we would like to see. We see the Russians as primitive barbarians, who go with the sceptics on the rule of "us plural". In my opinion, that's underestimating a very dangerous opponent, and this 1 has not yet 1 ace up his sleeve...
There's 1 more thing we request to be aware of. In modern Russia, for many people to volunteer for the army, it's just a financial promotion. Recently, I heard an opinion on a Russian-speaking blog that erstwhile they go on a contract to the army, going to Ukraine, they get 2 million rubles for a good day, which equals about a year and a half of average Russian earnings. That's what we call an entry fee. After that, the chieftains get a monthly salary, which is besides higher than the average wage of an average Russian. Does it surprise anyone? For Putin, printing any amount of money is no problem. There are inactive compensations for dying in conflict for which somewhere in Siberia distant from civilization and moving water you can buy an apartment. specified apartments are frequently bought by widows of the Russians who died in Ukraine. In Moscow, the amounts these women received for the death of their husbands would surely not impress anyone, but in specified various Russian pipers it is already a circumstantial money. So it may be that there are people who are just willing to buy that money by assuming that they will hazard their lives erstwhile they come back, they will be set up for a while, and if they do not come back, they will improve their families.
It's a very interesting phenomenon. It seems to me that if you wanted to examine this subject more thoroughly, you would gotta read first of all what those who stayed there and what those who fled before the draft have contacts in Russia. And that would only give us a image of whether they inactive love Uncle Putin, or if they love him less, or if they don't love him at all, but if he gives money, they decide to go to Ukraine to kill the Ukrainians.
Or possibly they don't peculiarly love Putin, but they hatred the Ukrainians even more?
These can be very different causes, and it would actually be essential to review, make statistically, and it would only tell us something about Russian society, about their approach to war, about their attitude towards this own power.
It seems to me that from the times of the Czarskis in Russia there has been a certain contempt for the Ukrainians – “malorusins”. Many Russians consider Ukrainian language to be a sound or dialect, a kind of corrupt Russian. Ukraine was seen as an artificial creation, a seasonal state, an area that was Russian and will shortly be Russian again.
In Ukraine alone, there were many Russian-speaking Ukrainians who knew the authoritative language poorly. There was besides a large group utilizing a alleged "survivor" bizarre dialect about Ukrainian words cores but with Russian endings and Russian grammar. These low cultural awareness groups, frequently heavy Bolshevised in the past, have become the base of separatists and are inactive the origin of many problems. Let us add spiritual issues. Ukrainian patriots thin towards Greek Catholic religion, for the regulation of Orthodox souls there is simply a conflict against the Moscow Patriarchate...
Returning to Russia: I talk Russian, read Russian books, looked at Russian websites, watched their films. I tried to catch on a small bit, but all second I realized that I don't know these people at all, and I frequently don't realize them completely.
I utilized to be friends with a Russian author – 1 can say from the top shelf – Andrei Bielan. It was a very interesting figure. At 1 time, bandits kidnapped his son. They wanted the ransom, but it didn't seem to work out, the boy was murdered. After that, the author broke down and in specified a state of tense and intellectual breakdown joined the Astrakhan Cossack troops.
Here are any words of explanation. About 20 years ago, in demoralized and corrupt Russia, it was built to rebuild paramilitary structures modeled after existing for the Tsarate. The Cossacks were not subject to military or militia – they had broad autonomy of action. specified organizations constituted a kind of a standing of law and even any justice. erstwhile the war with Georgia broke out in 2008, the Cossacks of Astrakhania would go to the Russian-occupied areas to build an administration. My erstwhile open text colleague was telling me that they went there to make certain the Russian army didn't commit war crimes. I have no reason not to believe him in this case. Those words fell into the tide of genuine honesty.
In the following years, unfortunately, I observed further advancement in the putinization of this man. After the business of Ukraine, Putin organized a large literary festival “Stars on Donbas” in Donetsk. It took about 2 weeks. respective 100 (!) Russian writers, artists and cultural activists were invited there, The event was hosted by local and Russian-speaking and separatist creators.
The Bielan, whose books were in circulation and a 4th of a million copies each, was 1 of the most crucial faces of this propaganda event. Then I decided it was time to end my relation with this man. I saw any traces of his actions online, at this point he's a hell of a putinist.
Sad: A man educated, intelligent, a man rather sensitive, painting paintings, writing books, curious in Western European art... What? A mirage of Russian miru someway turned him into specified a Russian fascist willing to support the execution of Ukrainians, ready to support the suicidal, mad policies of the Kremlin.
History shows that Poland was never defeated and conquered by 1 enemy. There must have always been an anti-Polish alliance and it was usually an alliance of east and west... Is this why we are facing a repeat of September 17, 1939? Do we should be ready to effort to carry out the 5th Partition of Poland?
For now, Germany and more broadly, Western Europe is dressing with rallies to end the war in Ukraine and returning to discontinued business with Russia. all day brings fresh evidence to support this thesis. The interests of Ukraine and the wider view of east Central Europe as usual will not include... As for the possible partition of Poland – our enemies are not stupid – they have surely learned from the partitions. The division of Poland is out of the question. Rather, they will effort to have the whole, vassalization, finladization – like what we experienced in PRL. They'll just make it smarter. The EU's propaganda is much more refined and cheerful than the reasonably apostasy and sacrilegious communist propaganda. Our complexes are inactive getting to us. We are inactive a much poorer society. inactive wins the story that enlightened societies of western Europe are better and smarter than us. We're healing from this complex, slowly... Can we make it before another disaster in history?
The question of who in this hand will colonize and vassalize Poland. Russia, in my opinion, has no strength or resources, Putin wants to swallow Ukraine and she is standing in his throat. He would like to occupy the Baltic republics – but alternatively he lacks the courage to mess with NATO. I think the new-old dividing line for Europe will run on the Bug.
For the time being, Germany has achieved large success – they have installed a government that has completely submitted to their interests. But I think this is just the first phase of a very long chess game. They'll sale Ukraine. If there's an chance and there's a buyer willing to sale us out, too.
Paraphrasing Lenin – they will even sale Putin a string on which to hang them.
Many alleged realists say that in 1939 Poland should have dealt with Hitler, or to deal with Stalin. Do you think it was possible to “get along” with any dictator?
Dealing with the Soviets wasn't an option. Stalin hated us for defeat in 1920. Carat planned a gradual russification of Poles. Nothing changed after his fall. Let us remind at least the “Polish action” of the NKVD. Of about 2 million Poles or Polish people surviving in the USSR, over 100 1000 were killed, and hundreds of thousands more were subjected to repression.
Dealing with the Nazis made no sense due to Fuhrer's progressive intellectual illness.
The destiny of Hungarians, Latvians or Ukrainians shows unequivocally that the Germans of allies pressed like lemons and exhibited into the wind. The Waffen-SS legions exhibited by these peoples were treated as the cheapest cannon meat on the front, and the ambitions of the leaders of these nations were completely irrelevant. Bandera and Stećko who sincerely wanted Ukraine's alliance with III The Reich and worked hard to implement this plan, with the first sign of insubordination they landed in concentration camps.
I will besides remind you: there is specified a beautiful verb in our language “to cheat”. It is much more common than a akin word: “to gypsies”.
What about the realists who say that we should work with Putin, because, for example, supporting Ukraine costs us besides much? What about people claiming that Poland should be like Hungary Viktor Orban, who get along and do business with all the “great world”?
Dealing with Putin makes as much sense as the thought of dealing with Hitler. ZERO. You can get along with individual who has even a trace of honor and there's a chance that he'll keep his commitments. Sometimes you gotta hazard trying to get along with a bastard who thinks wisely and can calculate profits and losses. In this case, these 2 circumstances do not occur.
Hungarians, as a consequence of territorial conflict and another historical events, give Ukraine and Ukrainians a very deep (and reciprocated) dislike. The 2 nations will simply not agree (and it is simply a pity) and the European Union has been fighting the “fascist” of Orban for years. It drives him to look for different unusual friends.
Irrespective of conflicts, unaccounted for damages and costs of independent endurance Ukraine is simply a state ration for us. I can imagine what would happen if the Putinists took Ukraine in 2022. The presence of Russian troops on the Bug line would be a creeping disaster for us. For many abroad companies, we would become a high-risk area. Investments would escape, production would decision elsewhere, capital would withdraw. Even if Russia had assured us that she would be looking for a feud with us we would have a plague of unemployment, a very advanced inflation, a tourist movement on the east wall would have died... Additionally, there would be an uncontrolled exodus of the population from Putinsk Ukraine.
Finally, let me ask about the voices of people who, after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, seem to say everything to prove that the Ukrainian state exists the same, or longer than the Polish state. I mean people saying that on 17 September 1939 the USSR did not attack Poland, but “Western Belarus and Western Ukraine”. I'm sorry, but what “Western Ukraine”? What “Western Belarus”? It was an attack on Poland! Why are they saying this? What do you think this is expected to do?
The designation of the east ends of Poland as the western part of another country shows the acceptance of completely different, foreign, non-Polish optics. That's what possibly individual who inactive has the point of mention in the USSR. possibly communist Minsk, Kiev and most likely MOSKWA.
In II Poland, there were 2 communist organizations under Stalin – the Communist organization of Western Ukraine and the little active KPZB – the Communist organization of Western Belarus. Both of them acted illegally, their members were tried by treason or espionage laws.
They were many organizations. Despite the name, many Polish communists and Jews were among them. During the period of the Polish People's Republic of Poland, many positions were cast, these people, sometimes having changed their names, entered the elite of the communist state. Their proverbial grandchildren “ministerial children” are inactive present in politics, science, media, culture. Apparently, under their grandparents they inherited not only zoological views but besides this warped “eastern” optics.
The second anticipation is simply a non-reflective reception not to be known, but even to the subconscious of the postwar form of borders. There are people for whom pre-war Polish endings are “from always” Belarus or “from always” Ukraine.
What's that expected to do? I don't think so. In any cases it is an expression of unreflexive folly and ignorance of history. For others, simply the language and cultural code elevated from party-ubec houses.
God bless the conversation.
Tomasz D. Kolanek
