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Posted
30 minutes ago, mkenny said:

When I visited the Sikorski Museum in London a while back I was given an elderly Polish lady as a guide. She told me of her time in Poland in WW2. She hated both Germans and Russians with a passion but explained that whilst capture by the Germans meant certain death when she was in Soviet custody she was treated badly but received a small weekly wage and  was eventually released. 

Sometimes it is better to be eaten by a Tiger rather than a Lion.

Tens of thousands killed and hundreds of thousands deported may not agree with certain 'old Polish lady. Plenty of people were escaping Soviet occupation zone for the German one too, so ones mileage might have varied.

While many can find it hard to believe, there were far worse potential WW2 outcomes on the table for Poland.

The discussion about origins of WW2 become largely moot if one does not acknowledge that Stalin's goal was conquest of Europe and the triumph of world communism, not bits and pieces in Central/Eastern Europe and the Balkans and not even Germany itself. Up until 22 June 1941 WW2 was progressing exactly as Stalin wished it would, maybe with the exception of the fall of France - to be precise not the fall itself, but how quickly it happened. Germany bogged down in positional warfare for a year or more would be even more to his liking.

Stalin's offers of 'alliance' with Poland were never genuine and were never expected to come to fruition, especially that they were delivered in an intentionally insulting manner - you see, Poland never received such an offer, Stalin was discussing Poland not with Warsaw, but with Paris and London, which unfortunately took the bait. 

Btw. the abovementioned Sikorski who you mentioned is one of the darker characters of Polish WW2 history:

 

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Posted
1 hour ago, urbanoid said:

Communist parties all across the West have been supported AND directed from Moscow, they were literally Soviet agents. 

Interestingly, in Poland before 1939 USSR itself was seen as, let's say, agent of specific ethnic group....

412px-Lapy_zydowskie.jpeg

 

Posted
3 minutes ago, urbanoid said:

 

Stalin's offers of 'alliance' with Poland were never genuine and were never expected to come to fruition, especially that they were delivered in an intentionally insulting manner - you see, Poland never received such an offer, Stalin was discussing Poland not with Warsaw, but with Paris and London, which unfortunately took the bait. 

The British agreement with Poland was a means to an end. Poland as such was never the central issues. Stopping German expansion was and it was recognised that Poland was going to be next on Hitler's list and there was nothing practical the UK could do to stop it. It was accepted that Poland would be defeated. The British crafted the deal with Poland very carefully and it was meant to  deliver what was important to Britain and NOT Poland. For example the only guarantee Poland got was the  survival of the Polish state at the conclusion of any conflict WITH GERMANY. There was no agreement  about help if The Soviets invaded.

Yes Poland was treated badly by all the major powers but that was the way it was. Poland had to try and make the best deal it could (i.e. the least destructive one) and she chose badly. Though she did  survive the war as a nation state the damage done by German occupation was much worse than it would have been if they entered an Alliance with The Soviets. In hindsight Poland backed the wrong horse. 

Posted
1 hour ago, mkenny said:

When I visited the Sikorski Museum in London a while back I was given an elderly Polish lady as a guide. She told me of her time in Poland in WW2. She hated both Germans and Russians with a passion but explained that whilst capture by the Germans meant certain death when she was in Soviet custody she was treated badly but received a small weekly wage and  was eventually released. 

Sometimes it is better to be eaten by a Tiger rather than a Lion.

Perhaps, but the better answer is to have anti Tiger/lion weapons.

Posted
Just now, Roman Alymov said:

Interestingly, in Poland before 1939 USSR itself was seen as, let's say, agent of specific ethnic group....

412px-Lapy_zydowskie.jpeg

 

This is from the Polish-Bolshevik war and is not surprising in the least, given how heavily Jewish were the top echelons of communist movement in Russia at the time and the overall Jewish enthusiasm for the revolution. 

While many Jews remained loyal to Poland during the war, quite a lot of them enthusiastically collaborated with the Soviets after Sep 17 1939. When in the occupied Warsaw the Home Army wanted to establish some basic cooperation with the Jewish forces in the ghetto (like supplying them with weapons they needed), words like that were spoken during a high level meeting of the Jewish Combat Organization:

'Dear comrades! In the event of a conflict between Poland and the Soviet Union, we will do everything in our power to undermine Poland's fighting potential. Our place is in the ranks of the Red Army and we will do everything to help it win. October 1917 taught us that many of our friends will be our bloody enemies at the decisive moment in the battle for power over the workers.'

ŻOB briefing, Hersz Berlinski's speech on the agreement with the Home Army.

Ghetto was on the brink of destruction and a fanatical communist retard was mumbling something about 1917.

OTOH people from Jewish Military Union (connected to the prewar Betar/Beitar, which was basically a proto-Likud) were closely cooperating with the Home Army and wanted as little to do with those vile communist creatures as possible. 

 

 

Posted
32 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

My Grandfather chose to stay with the Germans rather than be liberated by the Soviets. So did most of the other British Pows.

To be fair, where you were from and who captured you would have a huge influence on whether you wanted to be captured by lions or tigers. My take away is that the Germans and Soviets were both inhuman assholes to be captured by, depending somewhat on race. Western European/American soldiers captured by Germans had a relatively easy time of it. Most everyone else was fucked if they were captured by either.

Posted
6 minutes ago, mkenny said:

The British agreement with Poland was a means to an end. Poland as such was never the central issues. Stopping German expansion was and it was recognised that Poland was going to be next on Hitler's list and there was nothing practical the UK could do to stop it. It was accepted that Poland would be defeated. The British crafted the deal with Poland very carefully and it was meant to  deliver what was important to Britain and NOT Poland. For example the only guarantee Poland got was the  survival of the Polish state at the conclusion of any conflict WITH GERMANY. There was no agreement  about help if The Soviets invaded.

Yes Poland was treated badly by all the major powers but that was the way it was. Poland had to try and make the best deal it could (i.e. the least destructive one) and she chose badly. Though she did  survive the war as a nation state the damage done by German occupation was much worse than it would have been if they entered an Alliance with The Soviets. In hindsight Poland backed the wrong horse. 

Yes, it was absolutely clear to the Polish government, I already said that before.

Poland absolutely backed the correct horse, in the end the state survived, became monoethnic (always a silver lining) and Stalin didn't manage to conquer Europe, just a part of it, with the rest being backed by the American might, which in the end outlasted the Soviet empire.

Posted
33 minutes ago, urbanoid said:

Poland absolutely backed the correct horse, in the end the state survived, 

Poland survived because Stalin gave it eastern Germany.  Stalin and not Churchill. 

Posted
18 minutes ago, urbanoid said:

This is from the Polish-Bolshevik war and is not surprising in the least, given how heavily Jewish were the top echelons of communist movement in Russia at the time and the overall Jewish enthusiasm for the revolution. 

  First, exactly the people who fought for newly created Poland in "Polish-Bolshevik war" became the backbone of that Poland that ended in 1939 (and, quite possibly, they were the majority of those who were fleing "Soviet occupation zone" - for good reasons as staying under USSR was not promising them anything good, especially taking into consideration this territory was populated by another ethnic groups that viewed this Poles as traditional enemies).

   Second, it is strange to accuse Jews of "enthusiasm for the revolution" as ethnic Poles (even Polish nobiles) were also "enthusiastic for the revolution". Feliks Dzierżyński was not Jew but Polish nobility, even got coat of arms

150px-Sulima_herb.svg.png

   Poles were heavily represented in USSR elite of 1930th - see another Polish nobile,  Zygmunt Lewoniewski who was "Stalin's favorite pilot" despite of his brother, Józef Lewoniewski, serving as officer and pilot in burgeouis Poland.

  So, as we see, it is strange for Poles of that time to accuse Jews of supporting Revolution in Russia (especially taking into account Poland only became independent because of this revolution)

35 minutes ago, urbanoid said:

While many Jews remained loyal to Poland during the war, quite a lot of them enthusiastically collaborated with the Soviets after Sep 17 1939.

 Jews are traditionally accused of many things, but i have never heard Jews being accused of stupidity and lack of rational behaviour. May be, something was wrong with newly created independent Poland that made "a lot" of local Jews, citizens of it, to dislike it so much as you describe?

Posted
2 minutes ago, mkenny said:

Poland survived because Stalin gave it eastern Germany.  Stalin and not Churchill. 

Yes, for his own goals and only after taking a lot more land in the East, which ultimately ended beneficial for us too. 

And if Poland surrendered (that was the nature of the 'alliance' with the Soviets) to Stalin before the war it would have likely become a Soviet republic, like the Baltic states which did so. And maybe you'd end up with fully communist Germany as well, not to mention a lot more Europe that he got in 1944/1945, maybe even all, or almost all of it.

Postwar occupation was far lighter than the 1939-41 genocidal one, even more so after 1956. There was no possibility of conquering the rest of Europe either, not with the Americans and nuclear weapons in the game, which was also the basis for a good thing (crumbling of the Soviet bloc and the USSR itself) that happened later. 

Posted (edited)
25 minutes ago, Roman Alymov said:

  First, exactly the people who fought for newly created Poland in "Polish-Bolshevik war" became the backbone of that Poland that ended in 1939 (and, quite possibly, they were the majority of those who were fleing "Soviet occupation zone" - for good reasons as staying under USSR was not promising them anything good, especially taking into consideration this territory was populated by another ethnic groups that viewed this Poles as traditional enemies).

   Second, it is strange to accuse Jews of "enthusiasm for the revolution" as ethnic Poles (even Polish nobiles) were also "enthusiastic for the revolution". Feliks Dzierżyński was not Jew but Polish nobility, even got coat of arms

150px-Sulima_herb.svg.png

   Poles were heavily represented in USSR elite of 1930th - see another Polish nobile,  Zygmunt Lewoniewski who was "Stalin's favorite pilot" despite of his brother, Józef Lewoniewski, serving as officer and pilot in burgeouis Poland.

  So, as we see, it is strange for Poles of that time to accuse Jews of supporting Revolution in Russia (especially taking into account Poland only became independent because of this revolution)

 Jews are traditionally accused of many things, but i have never heard Jews being accused of stupidity and lack of rational behaviour. May be, something was wrong with newly created independent Poland that made "a lot" of local Jews, citizens of it, to dislike it so much as you describe?

There's a theory that Dzierżyński was basically a mole, among other things he stopped the planned assassination of Piłsudski (twice), was rather lenient toward ethnic Poles, even letting many of them escape from Soviet Russia to Poland. You're talking about the man that fanatically hated the Russians, much like a lot of early Soviet leadership, largely Jewish.

Quote

...

Feliks Edmundowicz is widely considered by Poles to be a traitor, murderer and psychopath. Some even question his Polish ethnicity. And yet we are still talking about a man who, in middle school, had the courage to slap a Russian teacher for calling the Polish language "dog language". So it is worth asking: to what extent did Dzierżyński feel Polish? To what extent did he treat the terror he unleashed in Russia as revenge on the oppressors of his own nation? Did he make any inexplicable pro-Polish gestures while leading the security service?

Lord of life and death

Father Roman Dzwonkowski, a distinguished researcher of the fate of the Church in the Soviet Union, had the opportunity to hear an extraordinary account of Dzerzhinsky's unconventional behavior. The story was told to him by Father Piotr Pupin, a parish priest from Rubiezhów, a town located just beyond the pre-war Polish-Soviet border. "Father Pupin told me that when he came to Poland in the 1950s for his mother's funeral and celebrated Mass in the cathedral in Białystok, an elderly priest approached him in the sacristy and asked him if he was from the USSR. When he confirmed, the priest said: 'And I pray for Dzerzhinsky every day, because he saved my life. When I was in prison in Petrograd with a group of 40 priests, waiting for death, because at that time there were mass executions - one evening Dzerzhinsky came and said: Wychoditie czornyje kruki. And he freed us.'" Could it be that "Bloody Felek" remembered that in his youth he wanted to become a priest?

There is also a well-known account by Wanda Bogusławska-Dramińska about how Dzierżyński saved her uncle from being shot. She writes: "When Dzierżyński was carrying out the decimation of prisoners, my uncle had to be the tenth one. Perhaps his facial features were not Russian enough, but Dzierżyński asked: - Where are you from? - And I am from Poland, a mathematician. - Well, if you are a mathematician, go there, here to the left, here to the right, there is a long corridor, then a door and go out, and go! And the exit turned out to be freedom."

The case of Dzerzhinsky showing clemency to Polish prisoners was also described by Bogdan Jaxa-Ronikier in his book "Dzerzhinsky, the Red Executioner" published in 1933. Jaxa-Ronikier himself was supposedly among the people personally saved by the head of the Cheka. The founder of the Soviet security service recognized him as a man with whom he had once been in prison (Jaxa-Ronikier, a representative of the social elite, ended up behind bars... for murdering his brother-in-law). Dzerzhinsky was supposed to have told him the story of his life, explaining, among other things, his desire for revenge on the Russians. However, Jaxa-Ronikier's interestingly written account is widely considered to be literary fiction.

Although Jaxa-Ronikier can easily be dismissed as a criminal and a fantasist, Dzierżyński also helped unquestionable Polish patriots. In 1918, Bolesław Wieniawa-Długoszowski (then a member of POW, later one of the most famous collaborators of Marshal Piłsudski, nominated for the position of President of the Republic of Poland in 1939) was arrested in Moscow by the Cheka and imprisoned in the Lubianka prison. He was quickly released, thanks to Dzierżyński's direct intervention. Jadwiga Sosnkowska, the wife of the later commander-in-chief in World War II, recalls that her mother often went to Dzierżyński's office in 1918 in his office in the Lubianka, where she indicated people who should be released from prison. He always complied with the request.

Pilsudski's cousin

Among the people whose lives were probably saved by "Bloody Felek" was also... Józef Piłsudski. In 1923, Mieczysław Łoganowski, the resident of the Soviet civilian secret service in Warsaw, devised a plan to murder the Marshal. A group of communist saboteurs, posing as National Democrat students, were to attack the poorly protected villa Milusin in Sulejówek, where Piłsudski lived with his family. As Tadeusz Płużański wrote: "What goals, apart from the most important one - getting rid of the leader of the Polish state - did the Soviets want to achieve? Well, they rightly expected an outbreak of riots and even civil war. (...) The supporters of the executed Marshal would take revenge. Let us recall that the first president of the Second Polish Republic, Gabriel Narutowicz, had recently been killed and the socio-political situation was very critical. Taking advantage of these moods, the communists intended to incite the desired revolution. Łoganowski's plan was fervently supported by one from the traitors from the Provisional Revolutionary Committee of Poland – Józef Unszlicht. However, it was not carried out, because it was strongly opposed by... the headquarters in Moscow in the person of Felix Dzerzhinsky, Łoganovsky's superior. Bloody Felek decided that in the fight against lordly Poland, agitation and sabotage would be enough".

Łoganowski, however, did not give up and devised another plan to kill Marshal Piłsudski. This time, the assassination was to be exceptionally spectacular: "He prepared a powerful explosive charge to detonate it in the center of Warsaw. The date was set for May 3, 1923 - another anniversary of the adoption of the first modern constitution of modern Europe. The bomb was to explode at the moment when Marshal Piłsudski, together with an invited guest - Marshal of France Ferdinand Foch - were to unveil the monument to Prince Józef Poniatowski on the square in front of the Saxon Palace. The explosion was also to kill the commanders of the Polish Army and the highest state dignitaries. The victims would also include foreign notables and Warsaw residents (the May 3 holiday attracted crowds of people after regaining independence). This time, Moscow accepted the plan. At the last minute, however, the terrorist attack was stopped by a high-ranking Soviet official, who was supposedly afraid of the consequences. There is no doubt, however, that the action must have been stopped by someone in the Kremlin – Dzerzhinsky," Płużański points out.

In May 1926, the Polish Communist Party made a surprising ideological twist – it supported a coup d'état carried out by Piłsudski. It did so, even though Soviet diplomats had previously been conducting a promising dialogue with the National Democrats (described in Mariusz Wołos's book "About Piłsudski, Dmowski and the May Coup"). The KPP's support for Piłsudski's coup plotters was later considered the "May mistake" and became one of the proofs for Stalinist investigators of the deep penetration of the party by the Polish secret services. Did the "May mistake" happen because of Dzerzhinsky's machinations? The decision-makers in the Kremlin were convinced that Piłsudski was worth supporting because he would be a Polish Kerensky, a weak leader who would cause chaos that would enable a communist revolution in Poland. The head of the Soviet security service, who was perfectly versed in Polish affairs, somehow failed to shake them out of this erroneous thinking...

Perhaps Dzerzhinsky's behavior was influenced by the fact that Piłsudski was his... distant cousin. "Bloody Felek's" sister Aldona Bułhak lived in the Marshal's villa in Sulejówek, and later in the Belweder. Her son was Piłsudski's adjutant at the time. Feliks maintained correspondence with his sister (which can also be considered an excellent channel for potential secret contacts with the Marshal). He constantly assured her that he was guided by the same patriotic beliefs as in his youth: "If you saw how I live, if you looked into my eyes - you would understand, or rather feel - that I have remained the same as before" - he wrote to her in 1919.

The Sower of Chaos

In the Second Polish Republic, Dzerzhinsky was rightly perceived as a criminal. However, he was sometimes seen as... a Polish avenger. There was an anecdote about a meeting between "Bloody Felek" and Leon Wasilewski, a close associate of Piłsudski, during Polish-Bolshevik peace negotiations. The two had known each other since the 1905 revolution. Dzerzhinsky allegedly asked him what they were saying about him in Warsaw. "They say you're murdering thousands of people..." – Wasilewski replied unceremoniously. Dzerzhinsky corrected him: "But I don't murder people, I murder Russians!"

Ferdynand Antoni Ossendowski, a writer known for his anti-communism and a fugitive from Siberia, which was plunged into revolutionary chaos, portrayed the founder of the Soviet secret service in an interesting way. In his bestselling "Lenin" (a novel that caused the NKVD to dig up Ossendowski's grave in 1945 to check whether this "enemy of the Soviet Union" was really dead), Ossendowski included a scene in which Dzerzhinsky is close to... killing Lenin.

"Dzerzhinsky took a step forward and with a quick, predatory movement lowered his head.

– I have come... – he hissed – to remind you of our first conversation in the Tauride Palace on the day of the uprising... You promised to put me at the head of the Polish government, comrade...

- I have appointed Voroshilov - replied Lenin. - He must be a Russian, because Russia will be at war with Poland.

- Comrade... - Dzerzhinsky raised his voice, threatening with his eyes - comrade, you have said a word... You can lie to your ignorant peasants, to the mad workers, the rebellious and lazy, but not to me!... I know what I demand!... You do not understand what you are attempting! You do not know the Polish people! They are not Russians! The Poles love with their hearts every clod of earth, every tree, every brick of the church... They can quarrel and argue, but when it comes to the country, the worst will come to the bold man who attacks it!... Only I can deceive, delude, lull people's attention and fear! Only I! For my faithful service, for the sea of bloodshed, for the contempt and hatred surrounding my name, I demand this!

He straightened up, but his gaze never left Lenin's.

He breathed heavily and pressed his trembling face with his hand. At times it shrank so that it exposed his teeth and gums, as if he were screaming terribly, then again it parted its lips and narrowed its eyes in a terrible mask of laughter. (...)

Dzerzhinsky slapped the table with his hand and whispered:

- I demand! Do you hear, tempter, Tartar invader? I will leave here either with a document signed by you, or to announce that you are dead... Know that my people are everywhere here... If I want, I will order everyone in the Kremlin to be murdered... I demand!

He banged his fist on the table once more and fell silent.

Lenin extended his hand to the electric bell.

"Don't bother... the bell doesn't work," hissed Dzerzhinsky, sneering at the dictator. "Besides, my men are on guard in the Kremlin today..."

Lenin suddenly laughed. The yellow face became polite and cheerful.

"I wanted some paper!" he cried. "Just some paper, ha, ha!"

In the Second Polish Republic, few people cried over the fate of Tsarist Russia. Although many publications pointed to the "Asian barbarity" of the Bolsheviks and emphasized that they posed a threat to Poland and the entire human civilization, the fall of the Tsarist state was widely considered an act of historical justice. Could Poland have been reborn if the Russian Empire had not fallen? Before World War I, Russia developed economically as dynamically as contemporary China. Forecasts were made that, alongside the United States, it would be able to win the competition with the old colonial powers within half a century. Russia, with its huge army, was also one of the pillars of the anti-German coalition in World War I. If the revolution had not occurred, the Russian Empire would have been among those who would have dictated the terms of peace. Poland could then only have been reborn as a small vassal state subordinate to its large eastern neighbor. The fact that this did not happen was largely due to the fact that the former Russian Empire had been plunged into chaos by the Bolsheviks. The revolution and civil war turned the dynamically developing country into ruins, decimating the Russian intelligentsia, including specialists who could have boosted its industry. The mighty Russian army turned into a disorganized horde that was unable to cope even with the relatively weak forces of reborn Poland. It lost the ability to wage large offensive wars until the 1930s. This pogrom was also in a way the "merit" of Dzerzhinsky, whose mad terror struck the Russian elites, including the military. Dzerzhinsky could thus give the impression of an enemy agent. For example, when in 1918 he ordered the execution of the entire leadership of the military intelligence - experienced tsarist specialists who had gone over to the Bolsheviks.

Defeated by a security agent

If Dzerzhinsky really saw himself in the role of the Polish avenger and vanquisher of Moscow imperialism, he himself had ruined his own strategy by supporting Stalin in the Kremlin's "game of thrones". As Lavrentiy Beria explained to his son Sergo years later: Stalin seemed in the last years of Lenin's life the least dangerous candidate to take power after the leader of the revolution. Trotsky, Kamenev and Zinoviev saw him as a boring apparatchik who could be a compromise candidate for party leadership. He was to rule for a few years and then be replaced by someone more serious when one of the party factions won victory over the others.

Dzerzhinsky also cherished this illusion. Until in July 1926, a shock came. A file clearly indicating that Stalin was one of the most dangerous agents of the Okhrana (the Tsarist political police) in the Bolshevik party landed on his desk in a batch of documents sent successively to the headquarters from the Leningrad archives (the history of Stalin's work for the Okhrana and the history of his file was meticulously recreated by the American historian, former Gulag prisoner Roman Brackman in his book "The Secret Life of Joseph Stalin: A Hidden Life"). For almost a decade, this file lay in the archive among unimportant papers, because the officers who reviewed it did not recognize the name Iosif Dzhugashvili, Stalin's real name, which he used when he was registered as a secret collaborator by the Okhrana.

Dzerzhinsky was shocked. The enemy serving Russian imperialism had penetrated to the very top of the party! Two days later, on July 20, 1926, Dzerzhinsky spoke at the party plenum. His long speech was a cry for help. He could not say directly what had happened, but he hinted at the internal enemy. The audience saw in this the paranoid propaganda rhetoric typical of the head of the secret service. They see, however, that "Iron Felix" is in a terrible mental state. Every now and then, Dzerzhinsky reaches for a glass of water standing on the podium, which is gradually refilled with liquid. Suddenly, he collapses violently. A heart attack. The summoned doctor administers an injection. However, the head of the secret police does not end up in the emergency room at the hospital. He is taken to his apartment, where he is allowed to die. Later, there are frauds in the medical records and in official announcements. Sometimes the cause of death is given as a heart attack, other times a stroke. Many people suspect poisoning.

On July 22, 1926, Felix Dzerzhinsky was buried with full honors under the Kremlin wall. The town of Kojadnov, located near the Dzerzhinsky manor, was renamed Dzerzhinsk in his honor. In 1932, it would be the capital of the Polish National Region named after Felix Dzerzhinsky, which was annihilated, along with a large part of the local Poles, during the genocidal "Polish operation" of the NKVD in 1937.

The fate of some members of the Dzierżyński family was also tragic. Feliks's older brother Stanisław was killed in 1917 on the family estate by Russian marauders. Supposedly, on Feliks's orders, the murderers were tracked down and killed without much ceremony. The other older brother, Kazimierz, was associated with the Home Army. He died with his wife during the German pacification of the family manor in 1943. Another brother, Władysław, was a colonel in the Polish Army and an outstanding neurologist. He was involved in the activities of the Home Army and was shot by the Germans in Zgierz in 1942 for this. Aldona Bułhak tried to save General Emil Fieldorf from death by intervening on his behalf with the Stalinist puppet authorities of the Polish People's Republic. To no avail. However, she managed to save her relative Władysław Siła-Nowicki, a WiN soldier and later a well-known lawyer and oppositionist, from death in a secret police prison.

Perhaps if Felix Dzerzhinsky had not discovered Stalin's files, had lived longer and retired, he would have become a victim of the NKVD's "Polish operation" in 1937. Perhaps, however, he would have put Stalin up against the wall and shot him as an "imperialist agent."

 https://historia.rp.pl/historia/art9599681-feliks-dzierzynski-czerwony-msciciel

Jews in the former Russian Empire (a significant chunk of which Poland has 'inherited' after independence) often had pro-communist attitudes on both sides of the border, but until 1939 communism triumphed on only one side of it. 

Edited to add more of the article

Edited by urbanoid
Posted
5 hours ago, Josh said:

 Moreover I suspect simply ending the war in Ukraine would be all the west needed to end most sanctions.

I doubt the West will drop sanctions if the war ends.

Posted
6 hours ago, mkenny said:

Poland survived because Stalin gave it eastern Germany.  Stalin and not Churchill. 

That seems rather more like someone buying you dinner after a rape. “Why aren’t you glad?!?”.

Posted
4 hours ago, glenn239 said:

I doubt the West will drop sanctions if the war ends.

I suspect if Russia accepts 2022 lines the west would fall all over itself accepting the new peace and shorting all over Ukraine. Because much like Russia, there is money to be made and peace is good for business.

Posted
2 minutes ago, Josh said:

That seems rather more like someone buying you dinner after a rape. “Why aren’t you glad?!?”.

Only if you see WW2 in isolation and not if you view it in the window of 1914-45. 

Posted (edited)
4 minutes ago, mkenny said:

Only if you see WW2 in isolation and not if you view it in the window of 1914-45. 

I will leave it up to native Poles to establish if I am miss characterizing events. I suspect they are not going to think that I am being overly dramatic.

Edited by Josh
Posted
15 minutes ago, Josh said:

I will leave it up to native Poles to establish if I am miss characterizing events. I suspect they are not going to think that I am being overly dramatic.

I have worked beside a lot of Poles. Their universal view is that they should get to keep the eastern bit of Germany PLUS get back  the eastern part of 1939 Poland.  

Seems a reasonable  view!

Posted
9 hours ago, urbanoid said:

There's a theory that Dzierżyński was basically a mole, among other things he stopped the planned assassination of Piłsudski (twice), was rather lenient toward ethnic Poles, even letting many of them escape from Soviet Russia to Poland. 

  That is the strange theory since if it was slightest chance of proving it, proofs would have been paraded decades ago, creating major blow to Soviet official myth where "Iron Felix" was one of the "saints" or even "apostles". By the way stories of Dzierżyński being in fact kind person often coming to resque of innocent people caught in meatgrinder of revolution were part of this Soviet myth, so quite likely some of this people were ethnic Poles. 

9 hours ago, urbanoid said:

You're talking about the man that fanatically hated the Russians, much like a lot of early Soviet leadership, largely Jewish.

That was quite common among Revolutionary leadership, even ethnic Russians (who were relatively rare, like Lenin). Most Westerners do not understand USSR was founded with idea of soon-to-come global revolution, where Russians (and others) were to be used as cannon fodder/fuel to ignite this global revolution. That is why ethnic policy of USSR was so obviously anti Russian (current war in Ukraine is distant result of this policy). Ironically, some ethnicly non-Russian members of early USSR elite were warning about the dangers of this policy  - resulting in Lenin in his letter to Central Commetee (in abusive form) accusing Stalin and, surprise, Dzierżyński of "Russian chauvinism".

Posted
5 hours ago, mkenny said:

I have worked beside a lot of Poles. Their universal view is that they should get to keep the eastern bit of Germany PLUS get back  the eastern part of 1939 Poland.  

Seems a reasonable  view!

That doesn't chime with my experience of Polish opinion, which tends to be more in line with @urbanoid's sentiments (i.e. "no border changes please, we're fine with the way things are now).

Posted
11 hours ago, Josh said:

I suspect if Russia accepts 2022 lines the west would fall all over itself accepting the new peace and shorting all over Ukraine. 

Whereas I suspect that nothing short of the pre-2014 lines, war crimes trials and reparations would drop sanctions, and the West would re-impose said sanctions in a heartbeat afterwards.

Posted
5 hours ago, ink said:

That doesn't chime with my experience of Polish opinion, which tends to be more in line with @urbanoid's sentiments (i.e. "no border changes please, we're fine with the way things are now).

Absolutely, no sensible person in Poland wants any borders changed. Current international order suits Poland pretty much perfectly and nobody is going to do anything to upset it, glass houses and all that. Merely putting it on the agenda would be a political suicide for the individual politician and possibly his party too.

Kenny apparently met some low class brainrots, definitely not representative of the general population. 

Posted
1 minute ago, urbanoid said:

Kenny apparently met some low class brainrots,

I think Kenny works on Savushkina Street in St. Petersburg. 😎

These alleged territorial claims are intended to create distrust.

Posted
11 hours ago, mkenny said:

I have worked beside a lot of Poles. Their universal view is that they should get to keep the eastern bit of Germany PLUS get back  the eastern part of 1939 Poland.  

Seems a reasonable  view!

In Germany there is a growing desire to take back German territory from Poland. Poland needs to choose their friends wisely.

Posted
40 minutes ago, urbanoid said:

Absolutely, no sensible person in Poland wants any borders changed. Current international order suits Poland pretty much perfectly and nobody is going to do anything to upset it, glass houses and all that. Merely putting it on the agenda would be a political suicide for the individual politician and possibly his party too.

Kenny apparently met some low class brainrots, definitely not representative of the general population. 

I idly wondered if Russia fell, whether Poland would put in a claim for Kaliningrad. But then I figured, why would they want all those Russian messing up what is basically a monoethnic nation. One of the few benefits you got from WW2.

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