Thats why we never move forward. We are stuck in this hateful medieval mindstate. We accept corruption. Cover up our own faults. Gloss over the blatant reality of our backwardness. And tear each other down when any of us speaks the truth. To the cross goes a truth sayer in his own country. If Jesus returned and went to Poland today we would crucify him in a second. Such is our hypocrisy and pathetic nature. The best of us leave Poland: Chopin, Marie Skłodowska. Only the trash remains....
You only emphasize the negatives. you can consider the revolution against communism as a successful polonization.. since poland started it and the other eastern block countries followed... (not to forget that there were previous attempts in other countries), maybe germany would still be divided without the courage of the polish people...
also Poland serves a great example in economics of shifting from communism to open market as it has done it in a very successful way while other countries are still suffering, polish economy has been growing and has been stable for years... and the people and the young generations are opening up more and getting more educated.
Au contraire, Poland openly defied the Soviets and sent plasma and medical supplies to Hungarian revolutionaries in a train guarded by Polish soldiers across Czechoslovak territory and in spite of the Czech regime's objections.
That's very interesting - I didn't know they did that!
Czech Republic is much stronger than we are. Even Slovaks come to Poland for cheap beer.
Uh...the Czech Republic most certainly isn't stronger than Poland. Neither is Slovakia.
Bratislava and Warsaw are comparable, but Poland has nothing comparable to the crushing poverty of Eastern Slovakia. The Czech Republic is badly governed and has been for years - the only thing that keeps it richer (just) than Poland was the success of collective farming there. If Poland had done the same thing, the country would be far richer these days.
Maybe richer economically but not in spirit. Czechs passively accepted Nazi rule and after the war -- Stalinism and official atheisation. Poles risked fines, job loss and jail to resist whoelsale collectivisation, and farmwives would lie in the road to prevent bulldozers and lorries trying to build kolkhozes. As a result, Poland's agriculture was the least collectivised attesting to the Polish peasant's great attachment to the soil. And those tiny private plots outproduced the big fancy state farms and collective farms because pżrivate smallholders knew how to farm. The state farms were like enterprises, people worked 8 horus and quit. But farms don't run that way, livestock must be tended, milked, cleaned and fed at different times, roofs leak, things break down.. I visited both big state farms (PGR) and smaller collective farms (spółdzielnia produkcja) -- they all had offices full or clerks and PZPR overseers, filing cabinets, typerwiters and piles of forms, but were weak in the yield department. Overhead ate up most of the theoretical advantages of pooled resources and collective effort.
Polonius, was the PGR concept a total failure, or did it work with any particular kind of farming?
The Polish resistance to collectivisation was quite commendable, but it seems that huge problems were caused later by people subdividing already relatively small plots (<10ha) among family members. I was reading something a while ago about the rise of "Rural Solidarność" - and how many of their members were living in poverty because their holdings were just too small.
But for what it's worth, I really don't perceive the Czech Republic or Slovakia to be richer than Poland. There's two fantastic examples that I'm aware of - Kudowa-Zdrój/Nachod and Cieszyn/Cesky Tesin. The Polish side in both cases is far, far, far nicer than the Czech. In Cieszyn for example - the Polish side is full of life every day of the week, while the Czech side is economically dead and seems to exist only on selling non-vodka products to Poles. Same story in Kudowa - which is a very nice place, but the Czech side is terrible.
I'm no agricultural expert however commie-era statistics have always been suspect. Under Gierek, statistics were selected and moulded in such a way to make Poland the world's 10th largest economic power. Presumably some PGRs were more successful than others but on balance they couldn't compete wtih smallholder production. Employees ripped the company off, saying if it's state property that means it belongs to us. Tools, fertiliser, tyres, batteries and other hard-to-buy items mysteriously disappeared. Why not google PGR.
What does "slavic" have to do with Hungary, Estonia and Lithuania?
Oh, ya nothing....
Russia the most uncivilized place on earth next to North Korea.
Russia is more mongoloid than European.
If that is "slavic" to you than I'd rather be in "decadent" Paris, thank you very much.
No, Poland is just a generic, crappy eastern European blob of nothingness.
Our national ego makes us look like clowns.
The only way to move forward is to realize this, and learn the reality of the situation: we can be as good as Germany and France but only if we evolve the way they did out of medieval barbarism and towards science and logic.
Zyklon-B was pure science and logic. It produced higher output at a lower pricey than using exhaust fumes for extermination. The latter was a waste of precious fuel that could be better used to power tanks, APCs and troop trucks. Also, first structurally weakening buildings in Warsaw with flame-throwers enabled one to use that much less dynamite to blow them up. Simple economic logic.
No wonder Lithuania hates us: we could only make them more impoverished.
ehhh..they hate us,cus they saw Poland as a threat to their culture.Poland totally polonized GDL without even trying,to the point that Lithuanian language almost disappeared and had to be reinvented.GDL was inferior in every aspect of military,social and economic life.total polonization of ruthenia and lithuania was just matter of time,but was halted by russia and rzeczpospolitas internal weakness.
The only way to move forward is to realize this, and learn the reality of the situation: we can be as good as Germany and France but only if we evolve the way they did out of medieval barbarism and towards science and logic.
There is probably more than one PF-er who wouldn't mind using it on a troll like you! PF is supposed to be a discussion forum, not a provocation platform!
ok so to answer this question is simple.Poland has never had any polonization policy towards people they ruled.germans always resettled people,destroyed or forcefully germanized (prussia,polabia,pommerania ,silezia.ect) Poland never cared of polonization of areas its controlled. didnt even tried to convert them into Catholicism.
Instead we have medieval catholic superstition, hatred and barbarism
not sure ,you even understand what you blabbing about.one might criticize Catholicism on many levels but as a culture input into nation its like a nuke bomb.
architecture,art,customs,traditions related to Catholicism is massive. you say poland has no culture instead has catolicizm and therefore should go into science...got lost here
YES, catholicism is a culture...a culture from ITALY.
Have you ever been to Rodom?
Do you know who built that?
Italians......
So we don't have our own culture.
Regarding you (lack of) knowledge of history, Poland sent Catholic crusaders to the Baltics to convert the pagan peoples there. Poland was always just a German lap dog, but it was a Cathoic dog, nevertheless.
Regarding forced Polonization, your boy Piłsudski closed over 266 Lithuanian schools in the 1930's.
Then they forcefully settled Poles in Lithuania....
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osadnik
Dispute that Mr. History Professor Who Isn't Even Polish.
Poland never cared of polonization of areas its controlled. didnt even tried to convert them into Catholicism.
Hahahaa. Good try Gregy, but the reality was that Poland very much did care about it in the II RP.
i actually doubt hes polish.he lack basic history knowledge,probably pretend to be polish so he can insult us
It's just that Levi guy again. He has a ridiculous amount of trolls on here who either love or hate Poland. There's some very obvious linguistical mistakes that he makes that aren't characteristic of Polish native speakers.
bigfood, it's time for you to go back to cherishing the glorified blog (huffposts, reddit and such). You let yourself go loose, but your arguments are very weak to sound and non-progressive minds. Poland will never be progressive and will always treat folks like you with non-respect unless you stop your nonsense social justice/injustice games.
I'm not a leftist. Actually, quite the opposite. Catholicism is leftist - look at your pope (papal infallibility) who praises gays, and bashes capitalism. I think your guy Francis gets his ideas from Huffington Post. But if you ARE a real Catholic you have to obey what he says..... Either way, you are straying from the premise.