Modern myths and legends about communist past in Poland

Whatever system will exist in the future, I only hope it will not resemble the Matrix. Even Brezhnev"s communism or early capitalism are better than that.

Communism is inevitable when robots are the only ones employed. 15 bucks per hour and guaranteed income are the first steps toward it.

I think it is not technically possible.

it's not self-inflicted - it's Gazeta Wyborcza inflicted or at least TVN-inflicted

I REALLY REALLY REALLY think what you are calling socialism in the US has not much if at all to do with the socialism/communism of the european past. Demanding a social security plan for all is NOT communism! :)

Another point is that it is mainly only strong in those regions where they can still nurture such idealism because they never experienced the dreary reality of it. Like in West Germany too...


It wouldn't be communism...because the robots would still belong to a handfull of people....but the now unemployed plebs has to be fed somehow or else they will be burn the robots and hang their owners.

So the consequence could truly be a kind of free money for all...dunno...*shrugs*

Robots aren't creative and not capable to develop science and culture at least.

I think already now there could some doubts about the speed and power of computers and computer processors and subsequently automation and robotization. When they claim a modern Intel or AMD processor contains 1 billion of diverse components including transistors, and all this diverse billion of components perfectly work together for decades and almost never fail... And these processors are created by burning a silicon templates with the lasers or acid (!!!)... And they are even mass produced and cost around 100$ each...

Very serious doubts start to possess a person with a scientific type of thinking... More looks like some mystification to me.

I am not calling anything. They, the brainless useful idiots do. THEY want socialism.
We already have communism light when two companies control what 90% of the useful idiots know and "think" - the first step toward the total 1984-style mental enslavement.

If you want to quibble about who owns what, it will be a waste of time. Today's version of communism will be more subtle. Just as with suppression of free speech. Yesterday's gulags are now shunning and unemployment for saying wrong things. Just as effective and you, Euros, are leading the process with one critical extra element - criminal charges and prison for unapproved speech. Canada, a Euro type tumor, is the same way with their pronouns and the "Holocaust deniers".

I wonder how old are you and what do you personally remember about life in GDR? Or your interest is purely nominal and historical?

Well...you can say I have been socialized during the last decade of the GDR....during that time I developed my political consciousness in East-Berlin with the consequence to made a dash out of there the moment I could (with 18 years old)...I observed the break down of the wall a short time later in West-Berlin...watching the Trabis coming down the Ku-Damm....

I remember alot, it was probably the most memorable time of my life! :)

In this case you are mature enough, what is surprisingly...

Why "surprisingly" ?

Not really dangerous, but stupid and thus funny cause they are trying to do such things in the era of the Internet. Besides, if Soviets failed with their lies despite their giant propaganda machine, why should PiS be successful? It is impossible, of course.


You are mistaken. Leading guys, Jaruzelski and Kiszczak, WERE prosecuted for martial law and resulting deaths. That they were treated leniently by the courts is another matter.


Yes, justice like you advised initially: shoot/hang/execute. Those are Soviet methods of dealing with their political opponents. Many times was it said about you: you can take Ironside from PRL, but you can`t take PRL out of Ironside. You are imbibed with Sovietism.

And because you are twisting things now, I must call you a liar and manipulator, too, just like gumishu before.


You mention anti PiS media. OK. Shall I enumerate your pro PiS lying rightist media which are repulsive to me?

HA!

One more explanation - which directly announces another myth .

It seems nobody pays attention to the fact that Poland was the first communist country in which communists decided to talk with the opposition. The Round Table debates lasted from February to April 1989. The preparations had started in autumn 1988.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Round_Table_Agreement

At that time East German authorities were still shooting at all who tried to escape to the West through the border.

The last person to be shot and killed while trying to cross the border was Chris Gueffroy on 6 February 1989, while the final person to die in an escape attempt was Winfried Freudenberg who was killed when his homemade natural gas-filled balloon crashed on 8 March 1989. The fall of the communist government in neighboring Poland's 1989 Polish legislative election in June played a role in the fall of the Berlin Wall.

That is why German communists like Krenz were sentenced for Berlin Wall deaths because they had the intention to contribute to them till the very end of communism. .

With Polish communists it was different. It is easy to guess why Polish communists were treated leniently later on - they were the first to deliberately share power with the opposition, while in other countries the regimes had to be abolished by revolts of angry mobs.

Where is the myth in it? Rightist media and ideologists, also PiS` ones, suggest the Round Table talks were in fact the collusion of the mild opposition and communists who agreed to dismantle the system in a peaceful way and then share the profits from acquiring state enterprises.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Round_Table_Agreement#Criticism

According to Gwiazda, who himself did not take part in the negotiations, the Soviets "carefully selected a group of opposition activists, who passed on as representatives of the whole [Polish] society, and made a deal with them".

I think the average age of people on this forum is not too high.

Exactly. Most of us are 25-36. Maximum 37, no more.

What were the standards of living in the Socialist Yugoslavia? How they compared to Socialist Poland, GDR or USSR?

Yes, you are defending Soviets', you're an apologist for their regime and you dare to hand out labels here? Get real scum, nobody cares for your lies.

Isn`t it funny how you continue lying and manipulating? :):) But it is typical of you - when you see you have lost a debate, you resort to lies. Apart from being a Kremlin troll, you are a mental and moral loser, told you many times. You can`t lose with dignity. So get lost, repulsive expat. :):)

Ha!

meh... kind of an irrelevant question, I don't trust communist record keeping about SB informants one bit more than I would trust old issues of Trybuna Ludu

and his biggest... accusers have very fish stuff in their past as well., so it's not something that I think is of vital importance one way or the other

the idea that SB was some kind of ruthlessly efficient organization is another myth: it wasn't run any better than anything else in the PRL,

FWIS I was just editing an article about one aspect of the PRL past that involved the SB (and which used SB records as partial sources) and the only conclusion possible was that it was a typical commie enterprise, staffed by an occasional competent person, a majority going through the motions and a large minority of nitwits (who might be in charge since promotions were not based on competence).

I'm very interested in the nuts and bolts of the PRL period, how people lived at ground level and how the system worked overall (as a system) but I'm mostly not interested in score keeping for modern policy...

yeah sure SB deceived itself with mass producing fake information - what they did though is rely on spoken word of trusted people - it's obvious because SB was just Kiszczak and 10 other honorable camarades - but sure everyone is entitled to his own opinion (also what Cenckiewicz states as his sources are a variety of documents not just SB archives) - everyone knows that communists never had any snitches because they didn't have to - the society was just loyal like that

Yes, but they considered themselves an elite in the forces nevertheless. E..g, they despised ordinary militiamen for their alleged stupidity. And militia/police hated SB, too.

But glasses in street soda machines were chained.

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Strange, not in Ukraine. It's first time I see something like this!

Pawain's post 163 hits the proverbial nail right on the head

It is obvious. People in communist Ukraine didn`t dare to take the glass home coz they were afraid of being reported by neighbours, family or simple passers - by who could have been informers and agents working for authorities. Or just amateur accidental informers.

In Poland it was different coz people were less afraid.

By the way, do you know the slang name for that street soda drink? Grużliczanka - TB infecting drink. :):) My parents forbade me to use those machines, we had a sparkling water device at home.

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You repeated it a few times recently and it struck me which Poland you are talking about.

Are you talking about communist Poland which ended in 1989? It is only 31 years so yes, it is possible you remember it with affection. :):)

Another Poland you could remember as it was and no longer is ended in 1939. 2020 minus 1939 equals 81 years. Also, we need to add a few years so that you could be old enough to have conscious recollections from your life. Let`s say about 10 years. So, it means you must have been born around 1930. That means you must be 90 years old today.

No, come on, you are much younger. :)

So, which ideal Poland from your memories do you dream about today?

The worst thing was the post war defacing of cities with Modernist architecture in the 60s-80s. It got worse and worse with time. Post-Modernist ones from now aren't much better.

Far from exclusive to Poland.

I have vivid recollections of pre-1939 Poland myself thanks to my grandad who talked a lot to me about life in Poland at that time, a life he lived either in Warsaw or in a small village 60 km from it. After I had complimented that knowledge with pictures of the time, I may pretty well say I can feel that time very well, almost as if I had lived in Poland before 1939. This is something I cannot say about the time before 1914, for example, although I can "feel" many elements of it. And this is an effect the living person's narrative can achieve, but books and pictures alone cannot. Personal narrative is stricken with emotions of a talking person and thus can bring you to the past so closely and intimately. Even an author of a good book cannot do it in this way. If you add photographs to such an account (and of course in the 1970s and 1980s you could see a lot of elements of the pre-war Poland still present in the countryside), you may convincingly immerse yourself in that time.

As an example, when I was watching a quiz show on TV some 15 years ago, one of the questions was: who was the prime minister of Poland for five times between 1918 and 1939, I instantly knew it was Kazimierz Bartel. And Bartel isn't a name like Wincenty Witos who is occasionally mentioned in public discourse even today. Another instance I may recall was when I went to watch the film "Ziemia Obiecana" by Andrzej Wajda and I immediately had the impression of having once been inside the world of Polish Jews shown there since my grandad often told stories about them and imitated the way they spoke in Polish and it was precisely how they talked Polish in that film.

So it is quite likely that Ptak can have reminiscences of Poland from before the year 1939.

Put simply modernist architecture is a rejection of ornamentation. It is often built out-sized in scale (the only way it can announce its self-importance) and in complete disregard to the traditional history and local culture of its surroundings.

It is foreign and devoid of humanity and that is why most people find it intrusive, jarring, insensitive and objectionable.

So with that background, by whom and for whom were such alien lifeless monstrosities built?

Here is a clue:

"[Although] There's no such thing as "Jewish" architecture...Fear of idolatry and transgressing the second commandment limited Jewish artistic activity for generations to the adornment of ritual objects."

jpost.com/Opinion/No-such-thing-as-Jewish-architecture-402192

Do your homework into the background of many modernist/post-modernist architects and you will find their work is very kosher. Do your homework into the background of the local and state government bureaucrats who continuously commissioned work from such architects (as well as the bankers who financed their projects) and you will see they have a lot in common with each other. It used to be called tribalism.