Kiev Is Burning

[Stuart Galbraith]

30 minutes ago, urbanoid said:

To an extent that after the war Stalin needed quite a lot of actual Soviets brought on the armor of Soviet tanks to fill in positions in the state administration, army and secret services. 

Given that local communists considered themselves loyal to the Soviet Union, not Poland, tolerating their activities was pretty much out of the question. Not that extreme nationalists were particularly tolerated either.

IIRC the interwar Poland redistributed more land to the peasants than the communists after 1945, there really was no reason to look to the communists for 'salvation', even less so after USSR started killing Poles for being Poles (that included Polish communists who fled to USSR).

I was interested to read a story the other day that said that the first car built in Poland after the war had been recovered from Finland. The interesting thing is the first owner of it was Marshall Rokosovsky, whom was fulfilling the role of Polish defence minister at the time. For obvious reasons...

[Roman Alymov]

13 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

I was interested to read a story the other day that said that the first car built in Poland after the war had been recovered from Finland. The interesting thing is the first owner of it was Marshall Rokosovsky, whom was fulfilling the role of Polish defence minister at the time. For obvious reasons...

I hope you understand the fact Konstanty Rokossowski was ethnic Pole from aristocratic family. Curiously, in his personal Communist Party candidate card dated 1920 he, for unknown reasins, have put Warsaw as place of birth (while in fact he was born in Velikiye Luki). 

   What we know is he was undistinguishable from "Polish Pole" by natives:

"On August 8 (21), 1914, the advanced detachments of the Kargopol cavalry regiment discovered enemy cavalry units near the town of Nowe Miasto nad Pilitzon in the Ravsky district of the Petrokov province of the Warsaw Governorate-General. A volunteer of private rank Rokossovsky in civilian clothes went to the city, where he talked with the residents and managed to find out that it was occupied by a German cavalry regiment. The information was confirmed, and Konstantin Rokossovsky was awarded the St. George Cross of the IV degree No. 9841."

[alejandro_]

Ukraine and Russia exchanged bodies according to the formula 563 for 37

https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/7295396?from=top_main_5

Yes, Russia is advancing but that ratio is very high...
 

[Roman Alymov]

55 minutes ago, urbanoid said:

To an extent that after the war Stalin needed quite a lot of actual Soviets brought on the armor of Soviet tanks to fill in positions in the state administration, army and secret services. 

    Nothing strange here, Poland isbig enough to require tens of thousands (or even more) qualified people to run, it is strange to expect local Communusts/Socialists were able to provide such number after losses of, first, pre-war Poland regime and then Nazi occupation.  For obvious reasons, people from previous administrations were unfit for the jobs, so what is left?

59 minutes ago, urbanoid said:

Given that local communists considered themselves loyal to the Soviet Union, not Poland, tolerating their activities was pretty much out of the question. Not that extreme nationalists were particularly tolerated either.

No idea whom they were loyal to (interesting to compare it to British workers we have discussed yesterday in another thread). 

1 hour ago, urbanoid said:

IIRC the interwar Poland redistributed more land to the peasants than the communists after 1945,

How much of this land was granted in Kresy Wschodnie? ( for our non-Slavic mwmbers - "Eastern regions", the Polish name of the territories of present-day Ukraine (part of Galicia, western Ukraine), Belarus (Western Belarus) and Lithuania) 

"In December 1920, a special decree was issued on the colonization of lands with the Ukrainian population in the eastern territories of Poland — "Kresov Vshodnih" (Western Ukraine, Western Belarus, Eastern Lithuania), by Polish military settlers. In 1924, the Polish parliament adopted a special so-called Kresy Law, according to which bilingual schooling was introduced in order to assimilate the local population in Western Ukraine and Western Belarus.

On the basis of this law, during the period 1920-1928, 260,000 hectares of land were transferred to Polish settlers, former military, in Volhynia and Polesie, to which more than 20,000 settlers arrived from central Poland. The former military were supposed to guard the so-called "Polishness" and become a stronghold of Polish colonization in territories with a predominant Ukrainian population.

......   During the implementation of the law on land division in the territory of the "Kresov Vshodnih" (Western Ukraine, Western Belarus, Eastern Lithuania), 60 thousand Polish civilian settlers also arrived." (Восточные кресы — Википедия)

1 hour ago, urbanoid said:

......even less so after USSR started killing Poles for being Poles (that included Polish communists who fled to USSR).

Poles like Rokossowski, commander of 1st and then 2nd Belorussian Front?

[Stuart Galbraith]

21 minutes ago, Roman Alymov said:

I hope you understand the fact Konstanty Rokossowski was ethnic Pole from aristocratic family. Curiously, in his personal Communist Party candidate card dated 1920 he, for unknown reasins, have put Warsaw as place of birth (while in fact he was born in Velikiye Luki). 

   What we know is he was undistinguishable from "Polish Pole" by natives:

"On August 8 (21), 1914, the advanced detachments of the Kargopol cavalry regiment discovered enemy cavalry units near the town of Nowe Miasto nad Pilitzon in the Ravsky district of the Petrokov province of the Warsaw Governorate-General. A volunteer of private rank Rokossovsky in civilian clothes went to the city, where he talked with the residents and managed to find out that it was occupied by a German cavalry regiment. The information was confirmed, and Konstantin Rokossovsky was awarded the St. George Cross of the IV degree No. 9841."

Oh I see, so he was made a Marshall of the Soviet Union for being a loyal Pole! How silly of me. And here is me thinking Stalin did it to repress Poland and make an armed forces loyal to Stalin.

 

[Roman Alymov]

14 minutes ago, alejandro_ said:

Ukraine and Russia exchanged bodies according to the formula 563 for 37

https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/7295396?from=top_main_5

Yes, Russia is advancing but that ratio is very high...
 

Reportedly, about 60 of this corpses are pro-Ukrainias who were killed by Patriot missile strike on Il-76 when they were transported for prisoners exchange.

[Roman Alymov]

1 minute ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Oh I see, so he was made a Marshall of the Soviet Union for being a loyal Pole! How silly of me. And here is me thinking Stalin did it to repress Poland and make an armed forces loyal to Stalin.

He became Marshall of the Soviet Union for his role in "Bagration", in summer of 1944.

[urbanoid]

11 minutes ago, Roman Alymov said:

    Nothing strange here, Poland isbig enough to require tens of thousands (or even more) qualified people to run, it is strange to expect local Communusts/Socialists were able to provide such number after losses of, first, pre-war Poland regime and then Nazi occupation.  For obvious reasons, people from previous administrations were unfit for the jobs, so what is left?

No idea whom they were loyal to (interesting to compare it to British workers we have discussed yesterday in another thread). 

How much of this land was granted in Kresy Wschodnie? ( for our non-Slavic mwmbers - "Eastern regions", the Polish name of the territories of present-day Ukraine (part of Galicia, western Ukraine), Belarus (Western Belarus) and Lithuania) 

"In December 1920, a special decree was issued on the colonization of lands with the Ukrainian population in the eastern territories of Poland — "Kresov Vshodnih" (Western Ukraine, Western Belarus, Eastern Lithuania), by Polish military settlers. In 1924, the Polish parliament adopted a special so-called Kresy Law, according to which bilingual schooling was introduced in order to assimilate the local population in Western Ukraine and Western Belarus.

On the basis of this law, during the period 1920-1928, 260,000 hectares of land were transferred to Polish settlers, former military, in Volhynia and Polesie, to which more than 20,000 settlers arrived from central Poland. The former military were supposed to guard the so-called "Polishness" and become a stronghold of Polish colonization in territories with a predominant Ukrainian population.

......   During the implementation of the law on land division in the territory of the "Kresov Vshodnih" (Western Ukraine, Western Belarus, Eastern Lithuania), 60 thousand Polish civilian settlers also arrived." (Восточные кресы — Википедия)

Poles like Rokossowski, commander of 1st and then 2nd Belorussian Front?

Plenty of them were killed by USSR even before the war, during NKVD's Polish operation, which I mentioned as the last point.

Come on, even Stalin remarked that introducing communism to Poland would be like fitting a saddle onto a cow. It was the only Soviet bloc country where the communists didn't feel comfortable enough for either mass collectivisation or persecuting the church too much.

In both Eastern and Western parts the reform was a bit slower, but even by 1925 the progress has been substantial:

Share of arable land in the hands of big landowners:

No, definitely not Poles like Rokossovsky, who was a senior commander by then. He still barely avoided being purged, but that was part of a different event, not NKVD's Polish Operation in which 100k+ were killed, including several thousand communists who fled to USSR.

 

[alejandro_]

58 minutes ago, urbanoid said:

No, definitely not Poles like Rokossovsky, who was a senior commander by then. He still barely avoided being purged, but that was part of a different event, not NKVD's Polish Operation in which 100k+ were killed, including several thousand communists who fled to USSR.

 

Off topic but Boris Sokolov has an excellent biography available in English.

[Yama]

1 hour ago, Roman Alymov said:

   Poles like Rokossowski, commander of 1st and then 2nd Belorussian Front?

Maybe he was just lucky? Finns in SU were very harshly purged, to the extent of blatant genocide - IIRC like 60% of adult population, but that still left people like O. Kuusinen, whom one could always single out that hey, he was alive and achieved high position in USSR, so where's the purge??

[urbanoid]

'If it wasn't for Biden and his WEAK support, we would have had a greatest offensive in the history of offensives!'

 

 

 

[Der Zeitgeist]

42 minutes ago, urbanoid said:

'If it wasn't for Biden and his WEAK support, we would have had a greatest offensive in the history of offensives!'

 

This might just be crazy enough to work. 😄 For all we know, Zelensky could already be negotiating a discount on surplus Tomahawks. "Put TLAM in Kiev and let the Germans pay for it." 😁

Edited November 8, 2024 by Der Zeitgeist

[urbanoid]

3 minutes ago, Der Zeitgeist said:

This might just be crazy enough to work. 😄 For all we know, Zelensky might already be negotiating a discount on surplus Tomahawks. "Put TLAM in Kiev and let the Germans pay for it." 😁

'Thanks to me, Ukraine is now able to hit Moscow with our GREAT Tomahawk missiles! Did Crooked Biden and Loony Kamala WHO STOLE THE 2020 ELECTION ever thought about sending our GREAT Tomahawks to Ukraine? NO! They were fearing escalation because they are WEAK! LAME DUCKS! Not only did I send our GREAT Tomahawk missiles, I made the Germans pay for it! We've all had ENOUGH of Germany cheating on NATO, paying for Russian gas and expecting us to pay for their defense, LET THEM PAY NOW!'

[Roman Alymov]

1 hour ago, urbanoid said:

Plenty of them were killed by USSR even before the war, during NKVD's Polish operation, which I mentioned as the last point.

Not sure about "killed" since while osadnicy (this retired military settlers) were considered criminal group in USSR (in line with nobiles, merciants, priests, kulaks etc.) they were normally not killed, but deported (as by Rus Wiki number, about 138 000  osadniks were deported before Feb 1940 (probably, the number includes family members). later, they became the backbone of Armia Andersa.

5 hours ago, urbanoid said:

Come on, even Stalin remarked that introducing communism to Poland would be like fitting a saddle onto a cow. It was the only Soviet bloc country where the communists didn't feel comfortable enough for either mass collectivisation or persecuting the church too much.

Not sure if Stalin have ever said that (taking into account number of ethnic Poles in Russian Revolution movement around him during his early years)  - are you sure you are not mixing it with famous quote from Kuprin (white officer who later became famous writer) about how good independence is for Estonia? Anyway, Communists were sometimes quite flexible (see Patriarchy of Orthodox Church restored by Stalin  - after centuries of state control since Peter I The Tsar). After WWII was over and USSR became respected superpower, not some sort of paria state as it was in 1920th, there was no need for crushing Church in Poland or establishing collective farms (especially as it is hard to compare lands in Poland with productive regions of USSR south - even above mentioned osadnicy mostly turned de-facto bankrupt by late 1930th). I doubt anybody (except, may be, Chinese - but they will not tell) have produced any scientific survey on comparative performance of economic models of Socialist Block countries....

[Roman Alymov]

On 11/4/2024 at 8:30 PM, Josh said:

  Remember when there was a Black Sea fleet?

Black Sea fleet is still there -and still not allowed to do anything useful except launching cruise missiles few times a year. Below is the teft from   https://t.me/SeaPower/4018   explaining the reasons of it (and highlighting some general flaws of moderm Russian military doctrine)

"Status projection", cruise missiles and the General Staff.

Looking at the Chinese, I want to understand — what's wrong with us? On the one hand, for many years, when the navy was not at war with anyone, a significant part of the naval officers, especially those who have outgrown the position of commander of the ship, simply do not feel military, for them this is a job and a career, they are not warriors.
Hence Commander-in—Chief Korolev, who considers the Main Naval Parade the main task of the fleet for the year - and he really does not understand what is wrong here. Like everyone above him.
But the ongoing war was supposed to facilitate the beginning of the selection of soldiers. But that didn't happen.
It is worth focusing on two concepts that turn the naval power of the Russian state into a laughing stock, and on one organization, whose completely destructive influence also helps to keep the Navy on its knees — at huge costs in the past.
1. "Status projection". Americans have the term "force projection" - the ability to use military force at a given point in the world. The main means of such a projection are, of course, the navy and the Air Force. 
For Russia, the same Americans came up with another term - "status projection". If the Americans "deliver" force to different parts of the world, then Russia is the so-called "status", or more simply, in popular parlance, show-offs.
And they are right — this is what our country uses the navy for. 
Our ships are a means to demonstrate status, not to wage war. It is difficult to say whose "bright" head allowed this doctrine to crystallize in the brains of the "upper" leadership, but it happened. Now the cries about the incapacity of a particular project cause nothing but irritation — these ships should not be combat-ready, they should demonstrate greatness. 
In the case of the navy, this is the strategy of the political leadership. They, the leadership, do not understand what a naval war is, they cannot find out — there is no one from whom. 
They consciously build a status toy instead of a combat-ready fleet, because they do not understand that there are still some combat-ready fleets. There is simply nothing else in the cognitive distortion of those who hold power — on a conceptual level. 
The fact that at the beginning of the war in Ukraine, the fleet tried to blockade Ukrainian ship traffic but in Moscow it was considered an anomaly, from which they naturally left, and no one knows about Churchill's quote about the first line of defense on enemy bases and the second on their own. It is impossible to explain something to these people, such an attempt will be perceived as a threat to their dominance and punished.
All this does not work for a single task, the very existence of which is known "at the top", and which the fleet can "solve" - strikes on coastal targets with long-range cruise missiles.
2. Cruise missiles as the purpose of the Navy. Today, a cruise missile strike is the only thing the Navy can do in a real war. At the same time, it is obvious that even the "average scab" of the enemy cannot be defeated by them, and the war in Ukraine shows this — the huge consumption of missiles on the territory of Ukraine did not lead to the breakdown of its resistance.
Under the understanding of the fleet forces as a large group carrier of cruise missiles, there is a publicly voiced theory — its author is Fleet Admiral I.V. Kapitanets, and the channel has already written about his work (https://t.me/SeaPower/303 ). It is the perverted understanding of the fleet as a collective "Kalibr carrier" that limits the Navy's combat operations to missile strikes on the shore. And there is simply no other theory — and the flawed approaches of the current leadership to naval construction simply cannot be explained to this leadership, they lack the necessary conceptual apparatus. 
3. The third problem is the General Staff, an institution from the days when the army consisted of cavalry, artillery and infantry. And the General Staff can plan the war of such an army, for high-tech wars it is primitive as an institution, especially for the combat use of the fleet. But at the same time, it is the general staff who want to manage everything.
In the command chain built through the GS, it is impossible to reasonably assign a task to the fleet or the VKS. And we don't have any others. 
However, GS is a topic for a separate analysis.
And no matter how unpleasant it is to learn all these things, you have to understand that nothing will improve in the near future."

[urbanoid]

1 minute ago, Roman Alymov said:

Not sure about "killed" since while osadnicy (this retired military settlers) were considered criminal group in USSR (in line with nobiles, merciants, priests, kulaks etc.) they were normally not killed, but deported (as by Rus Wiki number, about 138 000  osadniks were deported before Feb 1940 (probably, the number includes family members). later, they became the backbone of Armia Andersa.

Not sure if Stalin have ever said that (taking into account number of ethnic Poles in Russian Revolution movement around him during his early years)  - are you sure you are not mixing it with famous quote from Kuprin (white officer who later became famous writer) about how good independence is for Estonia? Anyway, Communists were sometimes quite flexible (see Patriarchy of Orthodox Church restored by Stalin  - after centuries of state control since Peter I The Tsar). After WWII was over and USSR became respected superpower, not some sort of paria state as it was in 1920th, there was no need for crushing Church in Poland or establishing collective farms (especially as it is hard to compare lands in Poland with productive regions of USSR south - even above mentioned osadnicy mostly turned de-facto bankrupt by late 1930th). I doubt anybody (except, may be, Chinese - but they will not tell) have produced any scientific survey on comparative performance of economic models of Socialist Block countries....

1. I'm talking about NKVD Polish Operation that took place before the war, which to me means before 1939.

2. Collectivization and much harsher oppression of the Church was a norm in all other Soviet Bloc states, that's what I'm making a comparison to, not USSR itself. Productivity has fuck all to do with it. I'm not saying there were no collective farms (PGR), but they were a drop in the bucket compared to individual farmers - they covered less than 20% of agrarian lands and employed 400k people - a bit more than 1% of the population.

The quote is being widely attributed to Stalin, I think Churchill said something similar. 

[Roman Alymov]

6 minutes ago, urbanoid said:

1. I'm talking about NKVD Polish Operation that took place before the war, which to me means before 1939.

 Soviet citizens of Polish origin who were victims of "Polish operation" (note it is not real name of operation) had nothing to do with osadniks.  Anyway NKVD was so disorganised by the chain of purges, that it became de-facto incapable of any reasonable activity. It is actually next to miracle USSR have survived WWII after what was done before war. Note the fate of Ezhov who have proposed "Polish operation" - he himself was executed in Feb, 1940.

10 minutes ago, urbanoid said:

2. Collectivization and much harsher oppression of the Church was a norm in all other Soviet Bloc states, that's what I'm making a comparison to, not USSR itself. . 

i am not compitent enough to tell about other Soviet Bloc states, but in USSR itself practicies were significantly different from time to time and from region to region. I do not see why Communists in Poland should be less flexible.

[Roman Alymov]

FPV vs. Leopard 1A5 with Kontact ERA https://t.me/milinfolive/134640?single

 

Video of Columbian UkrArmy soldier  - no idea what he is saying, but it is worse watching to see how weather is changing on the frontline https://t.me/anna_news/72766

[urbanoid]

4 minutes ago, Roman Alymov said:

 Soviet citizens of Polish origin who were victims of "Polish operation" (note it is not real name of operation) had nothing to do with osadniks.  Anyway NKVD was so disorganised by the chain of purges, that it became de-facto incapable of any reasonable activity. It is actually next to miracle USSR have survived WWII after what was done before war. Note the fate of Ezhov who have proposed "Polish operation" - he himself was executed in Feb, 1940.

i am not compitent enough to tell about other Soviet Bloc states, but in USSR itself practicies were significantly different from time to time and from region to region. I do not see why Communists in Poland should be less flexible.

And yet it was an NKVD Polish Operation or whatever you want to call in which 100k+ Poles in USSR were killed, generally for being Poles.

Here they were not different, they were downright 'liberal' when it came to both things since Stalin times, i.e. since the beginning. 

I can recall one of my lecturers from uni referring to a talk between a Polish and a Czech(oslovakian) diplomet, in which the latter said that as a nation we are deeply aristocratic, so we're not going to be able get along with the Soviets, while they (the Czechs) are more 'peasant(ish)'. Obviously that was not about roots, as most people in both countries had peasant roots, but about attitudes. 

[Roman Alymov]

Display of captured NATO armor in Samara https://t.me/milinfolive/134648

[Roman Alymov]

5 minutes ago, urbanoid said:

And yet it was an NKVD Polish Operation or whatever you want to call in which 100k+ Poles in USSR were killed, generally for being Poles.

    "Of this number, 36,768 people were convicted by special troika* in 3 months, September-November 1938. Of these, 20,147 Poles, 5,215 Belarusians, 4,991 Ukrainians, 3,235 Russians, 1,122 Jews, and 490 Germans. The cases of 3,995 people were re-transferred to the investigative authorities with the order to conduct an additional investigation. Only 40 people were acquitted." ( Польская операция НКВД — Википедия ) So leaving aside artificial Soviet division on Russians-Ukrainians-Belorussians, we see that even "Polish operation" was in fact not so "Polish" but also "Russian" (not surprising - since, as i have said earlier, NKVD by that time was hardly able to conduct any reasonable activity, and while it was obvious for newly appointed and untrained  investigators to look for Polish spies among ethnic Poles, even Polish communists, they were de0facto grabing random people).

* troika here is three-men comission acting as extrajudicial court.

12 minutes ago, urbanoid said:

I can recall one of my lecturers from uni referring to a talk between a Polish and a Czech(oslovakian) diplomet, in which the latter said that as a nation we are deeply aristocratic, so we're not going to be able get along with the Soviets, while they (the Czechs) are more 'peasant(ish)'. Obviously that was not about roots, as most people in both countries had peasant roots, but about attitudes. 

Well, probably Polish aristocracy deserves a monument from Russians for their role in ruining prospects of XVI-XVII century Poland of becoming continental power bordering Sweeden, China and Japan - despite of having all the chances and, initially, more favorable positions. Problems with"geting along with the Soviets" is distant sideeffect of this heritage.

 

[urbanoid]

18 minutes ago, Roman Alymov said:

    "Of this number, 36,768 people were convicted by special troika* in 3 months, September-November 1938. Of these, 20,147 Poles, 5,215 Belarusians, 4,991 Ukrainians, 3,235 Russians, 1,122 Jews, and 490 Germans. The cases of 3,995 people were re-transferred to the investigative authorities with the order to conduct an additional investigation. Only 40 people were acquitted." ( Польская операция НКВД — Википедия ) So leaving aside artificial Soviet division on Russians-Ukrainians-Belorussians, we see that even "Polish operation" was in fact not so "Polish" but also "Russian" (not surprising - since, as i have said earlier, NKVD by that time was hardly able to conduct any reasonable activity, and while it was obvious for newly appointed and untrained  investigators to look for Polish spies among ethnic Poles, even Polish communists, they were de0facto grabing random people).

* troika here is three-men comission acting as extrajudicial court.

Well, probably Polish aristocracy deserves a monument from Russians for their role in ruining prospects of XVI-XVII century Poland of becoming continental power bordering Sweeden, China and Japan - despite of having all the chances and, initially, more favorable positions. Problems with"geting along with the Soviets" is distant sideeffect of this heritage.

 

1. Funny how you're only mentioning part of those murdered in the NKVD operation, ignoring the previous paragraph from the very same RU wiki page you posted the autotranslation from.

2. This is another matter altogether and a prospect you're talking about was never realistic. I don't think that an offer to the king to have his son (if he decided to become orthodox) become a tsar would lead to anything else than his son being murdered, given how things were "out there in the East".

 

And since wiki is the source:

Quote

The Polish Operation of the NKVD (Soviet security service) in 1937–1938 was an anti-Polish mass-ethnic cleansing operation of the NKVD carried out in the Soviet Union against Poles (labeled by the Soviets as "agents") during the period of the Great Purge. It was ordered by the Politburo of the Communist Party against so-called "Polish spies" and customarily interpreted by NKVD officials as relating to 'absolutely all Poles'.[citation needed] It resulted in the sentencing of 139,835 people, and summary executions of 111,091 Poles living in or near the Soviet Union.[4][5] The operation was implemented according to NKVD Order No. 00485 signed by Nikolai Yezhov.[6]

The majority of the shooting victims were ethnically Polish,[1] but not all, with some belonging to various minority groups from the Kresy macro-region, for instance, Ruthenians; these groups in the Soviet worldview had some element of Polish culture or heritage, and were therefore also "Polish".[7] The NKVD agents looked through local phone books to expedite the procedure and detained people with names that sounded Polish.[8]

While similar to other operations such as the Greek Operation, Finnish Operation, Latvian Operation and Estonian Operation, the Polish Operation was the largest ethnic shooting and deportation action during the Great Purge campaign of political murders in the Soviet Union.[9][10] According to official data, victims of the Polish Operation accounted for 41.7% of the sentenced people and 44.9% of the executed people during all such ethnic operations.[11]

Edited November 8, 2024 by urbanoid

[Roman Alymov]

Compilation of Lancets vs. SPG artillery attacks https://t.me/boris_rozhin/143724

[Roman Alymov]

BMP-2 and BTR in action in South Donbass, delivering assault teams and providing fire support https://t.me/milinfolive/134671 Note recognition "V"above anti-drone covers.

[Pavel Novak]

20 hours ago, glenn239 said:

The question stands.  Had the Poles accepted the Soviet proposal for an expeditionary force and mobilized in unison with the Czechs at Germany, what happens?

It would still be dependent on France and throug it on Britain. The USSR was not willing to go against Germany for Czechoslovakia without France and France was not willing to do anything without Britain who wanted peace at any cost.