NATO return to Cold War force structure

[seahawk]

11 hours ago, Roman Alymov said:

Not sure it if is related to Cold War legacy or just some natural devide, but seems like DDR is still present on electoral map

And strangely the East are voting for right-wing parties, not the decadent West.

[Perun]

26 minutes ago, Martineleca said:

Basically the population of the north-east European plain was moved ~200km to the west, while the US never seemed overly interested in Poland retaining its eastern lands during the various summits, the UK was honour bound to protect their territorial integrity. With the suppression of news of the Katyn massacre and other crimes it was made clear to the Polish goverment in exile that they would not be getting their country back, was there any opposition in the wider British public to this abandonement of a loyal ally?

UK was against Polish return to ancient western tertitory

[Stuart Galbraith]

1 hour ago, Martineleca said:

Basically the population of the north-east European plain was moved ~200km to the west, while the US never seemed overly interested in Poland retaining its eastern lands during the various summits, the UK was honour bound to protect their territorial integrity. With the suppression of news of the Katyn massacre and other crimes it was made clear to the Polish goverment in exile that they would not be getting their country back, was there any opposition in the wider British public to this abandonement of a loyal ally?

The war in the far east was still on when this started I think. Quite a lot to focus minds there, particularly remembering how miserably the POW's were treated, which was well known by 1944.

I think the closest you can get to anyone having misgivings about abandoning Poland is Churchill drafting 'Operation Unthinkable'. Which was probably his way of protecting his historical legacy by demonstrating that without American support, it was a non starter.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Unthinkable

[Stuart Galbraith]

38 minutes ago, Perun said:

UK was against Polish return to ancient western tertitory

Have you got a source for that?

[Perun]

5 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Have you got a source for that?

On Poland’s borders, Churchill says he has always favored a westward shift but not more than the Poles can handle: “It would be a great pity to stuff the Polish goose so full of German food it dies of indigestion.”

https://lithub.com/day-four-at-yalta-the-conference-that-shaped-the-world-the-polish-problem/

 

This is online source, my main source is from the book which I have to find in my home libray

[seahawk]

19 minutes ago, ink said:

I don't think this is a very accurate picture of who is voting for the far right in Germany... But even if it were so, it is merely a reflection of how much the West shafted the East during reunification. A model that was then exported to Easten Europe and Germany (West Germany) grew enormously fat (like that Polish goose) on the back of that EU expansion.

Absolutely correct. it is a direct result of the colonization of Eastern Germany after the wall came down. The East was badly shafted in economic terms, the individual achievements of the people were thrown into the dumpster and everything from the East was bad. The East German worked hard to make the West richer and are still not being heard by the government. It would have been better to keep the GDR.

[Perun]

31 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Ta.

???

[Stuart Galbraith]

Thanks alot.

 

[Perun]

12 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Thanks alot.

 

For what

[urbanoid]

7 hours ago, Perun said:

Interesting maps, thanks.

I can see the connection. Western part was mainly populated after 2nd ww so peoples have much more symphaty for the leftist party

Um... no. 'Social' electorate a.k.a. 'working class' in Poland generally votes for the populist/eurosceptic (or maybe 'eurorealist', as they don't want Polexit) right (Law and Justice), though not the far-right (also far-right economically), which is Confederation ('muh free market, state is evil and only makes things worse').

When I said 'liberal' I meant the world view and to a certain extent economy. As far as world view is concerned our current New Left is ultra-liberal/progressive and despite the social program, working class generally doesn't vote for them, it's more of a party for the 'enjoyers of faggotry and soy latte', so mostly concentrated in big cities.

So the West + big cities votes center/liberal/left, the East votes for 'populist right', which wants both social programs AND is conservative on social issues as well (church good, abortion bad).

[TrustMe]

4 hours ago, Perun said:

For what

"Ta" is English slang  for "Thanks a lot" or non-slang "Thankyou".

[Perun]

22 minutes ago, TrustMe said:

"Ta" is English slang  for "Thanks a lot" or non-slang "Thankyou".

Thanks 🙂

[TrustMe]

Ta     

[Martineleca]

8 hours ago, seahawk said:

Absolutely correct. it is a direct result of the colonization of Eastern Germany after the wall came down. The East was badly shafted in economic terms, the individual achievements of the people were thrown into the dumpster and everything from the East was bad.

The GDR survived the last half decade of its miserable existence solely on credit transfers from West Germany and genuine fear that Soviet forces would move in to crush them if the regime lost control, my country was much the same. And what "achievements" are you talking about exactly, the Wartburg 353 perhaps, is that why foreign dignitaries were forbidden from traveling around the country with their Opels, Mercedes and BMWs, so the locals can't see how good they have it?

Edited June 11 by Martineleca

[Stuart Galbraith]

I rather liked the Trabant. I mean, I wouldnt suggest it was world beating, but it lad a strange charm, when it emerged from its cloud of blue smoke anyway...

 

[Martineleca]

3 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

I rather liked the Trabant. I mean, I wouldnt suggest it was world beating, but it lad a strange charm, when it emerged from its cloud of blue smoke anyway...

When my father was in high school a neighbor who drove a truck internationally smuggled all sorts magazines from the West and let some of the kids look at them, coming across a 1978 issue of British CAR magazine was quite an experience for him. It had a comparison test of the then brand new Vauxhall/Opel Senator against the Jaguar XJ6, Mercedes W116 and BMW E23, with features like AC and fuel injection pushing them to around 200hp these mass-market machines were far superior to the GAZ-24 that was the best the Eastern bloc had to offer, also the Volga was super exclusive available only to select party, industrial and military functionaries... 

Edited June 11 by Martineleca

[Roman Alymov]

53 minutes ago, Martineleca said:

.......were far superior to the GAZ-24 that was the best the Eastern bloc had to offer, also the Volga was super exclusive available only to select party, industrial and military functionaries... 

In USSR, GAZ-24 was expencive (about 10000 Soviet Rubles, 2x the price of Lada) but it was afardable for, for example, iron mines worker like my father-in-law was. It was not some sort of "only official car" (for example, all taxi cars were Gaz-24) . Yes it was very simple for its time, but it is reverse side of having user-maintainable and user-repairable car.

[Martineleca]

16 minutes ago, Roman Alymov said:

In USSR, GAZ-24 was expensive (about 10000 Soviet Rubles, 2x the price of Lada) but it was affordable for, for example, iron mines worker like my father-in-law was.

Here it was priced something like three times a Lada and five times the Moskvich my grandfather owned, even as an Air Force Colonel he couldn't buy a Volga, the waiting period was something like 20 years. It was more widespread in the Soviet Union and still were only talking about a few hundred thousand made during its entire multi-decade production run, in the meantime Western full-size models sold millions.

[Stuart Galbraith]

There was a documentary I watched last year (im damned if I can find it now) all on the Soviet car industry. The interesting thing was not what they did (Yes, ive actually seen a Moskvich, or at least what didnt rust away), than where it was going. In the late 1980's they had a massive effort to try and match the Western car industry, and at least in concept cars and styling, they were really getting close. all lost of course when the USSR fell.

Amusingly in the UK, by the late 1980's it was anticipated that we would perhaps see more imports from the USSR. I remember this advert on television from Norwich union, anticipating that possible development (and many of the other features, with the excusion of the changing driving position, would seem to have come true to some extent).

It still survives remarkably. Saw it once on a trade stand at a custom car show back in the 1980's. It would have needed to be 4x4 to deal with Soviet roads though...

 

[seahawk]

The problem is not that they would not have been able to built more or better cars, the leaders simply decided that no better cars or larger number would be built. In a planned economy consumer demand does not shape production, political decision does.

Interestingly the East German plants built by VW after the fall of the wall were well known for building the best quality cars with the lowest number of customer complaints. Today the plants of Skoda and Seat are doing better than the West German VW plants.

Edited June 12 by seahawk

[Martineleca]

3 hours ago, seahawk said:

The problem is not that they would not have been able to built more or better cars, the leaders simply decided that no better cars or larger number would be built. In a planned economy consumer demand does not shape production, political decision does.

Another problem is even if an effort to build more competitive cars was made, fuel quality was so low that no extra engine performance could be unlocked. This was also the case in parts of the third world that had access to nominally powerful Western cars, but in the Eastern bloc the octane figure of gasoline progressively declined throughout the 1980s to the point that unleaded 76 was known to actually be below 70 and motorists regularly blew their engines just trying to accelerate up to safe highway speeds. 

[Martineleca]

12 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Amusingly in the UK, by the late 1980's it was anticipated that we would perhaps see more imports from the USSR. 

I highly doubt any Soviet model would have been able to pass UK crash testing, even then few buyers would have opted for these terribly austere vehicles. There was an old East Euro car joke for production quality standards: The Germans test the insulation of their cars by leaving a cat inside for the night, if by the next morning the cat is dead from suffocation then the car is approved, the Russians use the same test only with different expectations, if by the next morning the cat is still in the car then it's sealed well enough...

[bojan]

Ladas sold in western Europe and Canada w/o issues. Moskvich sold here, they were quite rugged and reliable if somewhat underpowered. In the '80s they also cost only a bit more than Yugo, or ~3-4 -5 times less than (locally made) VW Golf 1 or Opel Cadet, and that has swayed a lot of people toward Moskvich.

Edited June 12 by bojan

[Martineleca]

9 hours ago, bojan said:

In the '80s they also cost only a bit more than Yugo, or ~3-4 -5 times less than (locally made) VW Golf 1 or Opel Cadet, and that has swayed a lot of people toward Moskvich.

This is one of the areas I can tip my hat to Yugoslavia, the strategy of playing both sides of the iron curtain not only directly led to access to Western consumer products that then had to be smuggled at great risk to Warsaw Pact countries, but also the establishment of a robust automotive industry. In the 1960s my country was set to receive a near-billion dollar investment boost from Renault to set up a huge car factory to supply Asian markets, it all fell apart when one of our merchant ships ran aground off the north African coast and revealed to be illegally carrying the equivalent of a few hundred thousand dollars of weaponry to the Algerians, great state craft that. 

Edited June 13 by Martineleca

[Stuart Galbraith]

10 hours ago, bojan said:

Ladas sold in western Europe and Canada w/o issues. Moskvich sold here, they were quite rugged and reliable if somewhat underpowered. In the '80s they also cost only a bit more than Yugo, or ~3-4 -5 times less than (locally made) VW Golf 1 or Opel Cadet, and that has swayed a lot of people toward Moskvich.

That isnt ENTIRELY accurate. They did not have a reputation here for being anything but cheap.

I vividly recall a sketch on 'Naked video' a Scottish comedy show that among other things delivered Rab C Nesbit to an unsuspecting world. Anyway, one sketch has a man telling the camera he used to be scared about the Russians invading Western Europe, but he wasnt afraid of that now. Then pan to wide shot, no, he wasnt scared not after he had bought this Lada.... boom tish. Which is pretty much how the public thought of them. It was like the Soviets had actually improved on Lucas electric, in the wrong direction.

Mind you, Skoda had a similarly poor reputation as well and they turned it around in 10 years, after the wall fell. The Russians might have done the same. But ultimately, they didnt.

Edited June 13 by Stuart Galbraith