70th anniversary of 1943 Wołyń/Volhynia and Eastern Galicia Massacre - controvercies

@GefreiterKania, of course the last leader of the Soviet Union wasn't another Stalin or it could end in a terrible mess. But Bobko sounds almost as we should be grateful and thank RuSSians on our knees that they didn't bathe us in blood this time... 🤨

No. Shot.

@Novichok, that means you deserve to be shot.

This is the most dishonest way to debate.

That backpedaling BS - "sounds almost as" - reveals that even you don't believe the crap you write.

...but it sure was fun to post it anyway, almost stupid broad...

Where did this old Pawian go? Message is from Aug. 6, 2013.

The Israelis burned Gaza to the ground for much less, and their "horror" only lasted a single afternoon. Poland - in the end - only killed a very small fraction of what was done to them in retaliation.

Christian vs Jewish culture, perhaps. Christ among Nations, and all that.

I do believe what I write and I mean every word, you entirely stupid moron. Bobko has no problem with glorifying a state that enslaved my country for almost a half a century with Stalin being entirely dead during this time.

Yes, that's precisely why I glorify it - because it satellited Poland.

The reason some people in Russia, and other CIS states miss the Soviet Union:

1) It was a great country, respected around the world. You could be proud of your passport, and you felt protected by your state.

2) Everyone lived together, and nobody cared who was Russian, who was Azeri, who was Armenian and so on. People married between nationalities, and were friendly with each other regardless of origin. Nationalism was considered a dirty word.

3) The state took care of the sick, and provided everyone with a top notch education - even if they weren't necessarily suited to it.

4) We thought of ourselves as the good guys, defenders of places like Cuba, Vietnam, Angola, Ethiopia and so on. We fought Apartheid, and colonial exploitation.

5) We made huge strides in science, which benefited all of humanity.

6) The old and the weak did not have to worry that they would end up on the street.

Only turbo patriots with sh*t for brains would be proud of our country, because we kept places like Hungary and the Czech Republic "under our thumb". Most normal people viewed citizens of these countries as brotherly peoples, no worse than ourselves.

Was the system headed towards a dead end? Absolutely.

But we didn't have to tear it down to its foundation to change things. We should have done what China did. Many millions of people were terribly hurt by the collapse, and they are either no longer around or have never recovered.

Being proud has nothing to do with "enslaving Poland".

Why absolutely? You only count a few very rosy advantages....


I don't know about Poland, but eastern Germany's old men squad would had been nothing without Moscow's thumb....it wasn't for luck that they all fell down as said thumb got weaker and vanished.

But yes....it could had ended alot worse, as in Peking on their monster-place...whatsitsname?

@Bobko
So if another country then Russia had same goals as you listed. Committed atrocities on Russians in name of good. You would be fine with that? I wouldn't

@Bobko, you wouldn't even have to be "proud" of it. It's enough that you don't have a problem with it. It's clearly not enough of a problem for you if it doesn't stop you from glorifying the Soviet Union.


It wasn't a "great" country if it enslaved others :(


Respected or feared?

It wasn't respected in Poland. It was feared and despised.


And at the same time you colonised others yourselves.

You see, Bobko, that's why you won't understand each other with Poles, Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Esthonians, etc. Because majority of RuSSians seem to be still wearing those rose-tinted glasses when looking at the Soviet Union (or they simply don't care about what the Soviet Union did to others, which is even worse).

you are such a gullible fellow. Is that because you want to believe it? First of all, there are no Polish fascists. There are Polish commies and there is jon English commie.
---

It was the same in Poland and I'm guessing in any other Soviet Union's satellite state. They were called "satellite states" for a reason...


You mean Tiananmen Square massacre?

My dad always said that economically it was always going to fall. And the lack of unemployment meant that work ethics suffered somewhat (to put it mildly).

I remember an incident vaguely but it is a good example of this lack of work ethics. We went to Bulgaria for our summer holidays... 1988, not long before the fall of the eastern bloc. When we were crossing the Soviet border my Dad talked to a Soviet customs officer and they joked, laughed and seemed to like each other. On our way back, it was quite late, we waited in the car queue and my Dad noticed that it was Grischa - the same celnik - on duty again, so he grabbed a big bottle of Slanchev Bryag brandy (it was all the rage back then) and he went to drink with his buddy. Upon entering the room he noticed that Grischa was alone there and wanted to just leave him the bottle, but Grischa said "don't worry about it, they'll wait", stopped working (it meant all the cars had to wait) and drank with my Dad for about half-an-hour... maybe 45 minutes. My Dad came back to the car (walking in not exactly a straight line) laughing, thinking it was the funniest thing in the world. My Mum wasn't as amused (also because she had to drive). Imagine if such thing happened in Poland today - the guy would be fired on the spot and if the newspapers found out it would be a huge scandal. As much as I can remember it was similar in many workplaces - people having a drink now and then and generally giving much less f*ck about everything. Untenable in the long run.


It was hardly Confederate States of America and Poland being the blacks was it? Sometimes people throw the word "slaves" and "enslavement" far too easily. It was definitely not enslavement for ordinary people, especially compared to the Nazi occupation.

@GefreiterKania, people don't throw that word "far too easily" - it simply has more than one meaning - not just the literal one (keeping a person as your slave):

collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/enslave

"2. To enslave a person or society means to trap them in a situation from which they cannot escape."

Yes...that....thanks!

The atrocities were not committed in the name of any good. If we leave aside the Soviet Union, and refocus on Poland - Katyn was not done for any "good".

Katyn was done as a cold and hard calculation that if you remove the "head" of the Polish people - they would no longer be able to meaningfully resist. As it happened, it worked quite well. Without their officer corps and their political leaders, Poles became rudderless and malleable.

The reason it was done so? Because that's how it was done in Russia, and it also worked well. Because Poland was a smaller country, it was enough to remove 150,000. In the much larger Soviet Union the count ran into the millions. But the process was more or less the same.

People like Mao and Pol Pot learned from our methods, during this period.

Later, when mentally normal people came into power, Mao and Pol Pot type people began to despise us and eventually stopped working with us altogether. Why? Because repudiating Stalin's methods made those butchers look bad.

Mao hated Khrushchev and Brezhnev because they showed it was not necessary to be a cannibal to effect systemic change. He accused us of revisionism, and going back on the teachings of the "Great Stalin". His Cultural Revolution, was an absolute horror show and he could no longer point to Moscow and say - "that's how they do it too".

The good things I listed came after Stalin.

The only "good thing" about Stalin was him industrializing the country - but even that could have been done differently. Maybe also the surprising speed with which he ended the American atomic monopoly.

The bad things Stalin did:

1) Destroyed our creative and intellectual elite

2) Turned the country into a nation of snitches and emotionally stunted people.

3) Nearly lost us the war through his catastrophic mismanagement in the first months, and through his blind faith in Hitler. Also through killing our most capable military leaders.

4) Created famines through his economic illiteracy.

5) Finally - made us enemies out of people like you Poles and Romanians.

Has the agitation subsided enough so I can take voice hoping to be heard???? :):):)

Most of the time you're spot on, but here I have to object. Rudderless and malleable? So how do you explain mass strikes and the Solidarity movement (about 10 million members at its peak)? You dominated Poland by sheer military force. Sure, some people fell for the ideology but not many; Poles remained staunchly religious and collectivisation in the Polish countryside was pretty much a failure. Damn, look even at our "commies", most of them sent their kids for the First Communion and Confirmation and Jaruzelski himself - when there was a risk of Soviet intervention - led the army out of their barracks in battle order and told his Soviet comrades: "I too have soldiers, товарищи".

Rudderless and malleable my arse. :)


Bring it on! I have my score cards ready.

*grabs popcorn*

No, I will wait a little longer. Eat your popcorn to what Bobko writes. :):):)

Let's not forget the fact that Bolsheviks and all that ideology are the spawn of satan, your assessment is quite good.
---

indeed and then you have the likes of pawian acting up!

This is 40 years later. A new elite emerged, or was "regenerated" from the ashes of the old one. But in the aftermath of the war, Poles had truly been decapitated. Just like in many other places.

The religiosity and preservation of culture is no surprise - there was no goal to erase it. That was in the 1920s, and in Russia, and the Bolsheviks gave up on that quickly. By WW2, religion was if not encouraged, then easily tolerated. Stalin felt it helped the fighting spirit of the men. He also then reinstated many imperial era awards and even brought back many officers who earlier would have never been allowed to get near command. He started to speak to the people in the manner of Tolstoy. The names of Kutuzov and Suvorov were returned, and even the name of the war became the same as the Napoleonic one - "Великая Отечественная Война». Even Stalin understood that nobody wanted to die for ideas of Bolshevism.

It's also a testament to the fact that the autonomy of the "satellites" was not inconsiderable.

The same in the USSR, a new generation had grown up by 1989 - which did not know the meat grinder.

Still there are scars even to this day, and I think there will be for a long time. The culling of the elites has an echo effect through the generations.

Good. I just recalled that Polish PiS gov took part in celebrating Nazi collaborators some time ago.

So, if Poles and Polesses openly and shamelessly celebrate their murderers calling them heroes, why can`t Ukrainians do the same?????????????????

What kind of commie BS you are spewing? You are a moron.

Oh, definitely.

You know what they say: kill 50 best scientists, 50 best artists, 50 best doctors, engineers and army officers in any country and that country will never be the same.
Both Poland and the Soviet Union lost many more than 50, and we have no idea what they (or their children and grandchildren that they didn't have) might have achieved, I am not disputing that.

But the spirit of a nation is a thing extremely difficult to break in the long run. Look at Poland: partitions, quelled uprisings, patriots exiled or murdered, nazi genocide, 45 years of Soviet domination etc. - and look at Poland now, in 2024. Do we strike you as particularly tamed and malleable? Katyńs and Intelligenzaktionen can only work short term.


We already had this conversation, hadn't we? How likely do you think it is that I changed my mind? Not very likely, right?

Why do you only think about your mind??? Don`t be so self centred..... Others also have their minds. I see you are trying to prevent me from voicing my opinion which you know very well. To no avail! I will voice it again when I deem the time for it is appropriate. :):):)

By all means, do so! Everyone's looking forward to reading the mental acrobatics - the crowd is impatient, the judges are waiting. :)

That's a very encouraging thought.

However, if people stop making babies, no wars will be necessary to make us go the way of the dodo.

That's what I'm afraid of for Russia, that it may go extinct before it truly recovers what was lost through the terrible 20th century.

What acrobatics? There will be none. I will only reiterate my opinions from this thread: https://polishforums.com/history/poles-apologise-ukrainians-first-87958/

How simple!:):):)

But I see there is still to much unhealthy agitation here. I will wait.

@Pawi

.....interesting to re-read that again, I truly forgot about that!

You're gonna be a real Mahatma Gandhi if you apologize to Ukraine first, now.

Maybe more like the Christ.