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Posts by Bobko  

Joined: 13 Mar 2017 / Male ♂ 		Last Post: 6 mins ago
Threads: Total: 28 / Live: 24 / Archived: 4
Posts: Total: 2555 / Live: 2479 / Archived: 76 		From: New York
Speaks Polish?: A
Interests: reading, camping

Displayed posts: 2503 / page 82 of 84
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Bobko   
3 May 2019
History / Heritage of partitions still present in Poland [107]

The fact that Russian lands are better developed than Austro-Hungarian ones is certainly puzzling.

Completely off-topic, but the part of China that experienced the greatest growth '79 to roughly '00 was the former Russian, and then Japanese-occupied Manchuria. Similarly, Korea turned into the Tiger it is today, in large part due to 40 years of Japanese occupation, however unpleasant it is to admit to modern day Koreans.
Bobko   
3 May 2019
History / Polish attitudes towards ex-Soviet republics joining NATO [116]

Unfortunately, Ukraine missed an important moment in history when Russia was weak

Damn, that sentence is straight from Putin's speechwriter, if you just substitute the word "Ukraine" for "Poland and the Baltics", and "missed" for "used". Props for calling it like it is.

Russian officials always reference informal agreements between Gorbachev and Bush Sr. regarding no further enlargement of NATO to the East following the fall of the Wall. The admittance of former Eastern Bloc countries is thus interpreted as the West exploiting Russia's temporary weakness.

This Russian line of thinking is usually dismissed out of hand by Washington and Brussels as nothing other than Moscow's paranoia. Thus, the official Western line for why NATO didn't just close shop following German reunification (like the Warsaw Pact did), is not because it is inherently an anti-Russian alliance, but because the organization's mandate had transformed with the times to be able to answer to new challenges. This is probably how... even though NATO did not take part in a single military operation throughout the entire duration of the Cold War, it has since 1991 intervened in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Libya. New mandate. New realities.
Bobko   
2 May 2019
History / Polish attitudes towards ex-Soviet republics joining NATO [116]

Do you suggest a disintegration of Russia might take place?

Sorry, no, but I see how what I wrote is confusing (mind you, a lot of Ukrainians do think Russia will fall apart any day now). I just wanted to use the collapse of the Iron Curtain, and the disintegration of the USSR as spectacular illustrations from recent history of how it's dangerous to dismiss certain hypotheticals as totally unlikely. Ukraine and Georgia joining NATO is just such a hypothetical - seemingly impossible, but given past volatility not improbable.

To Ukrainian minds it's pretty preposterous to say that they have to wait decades more before being allowed into the club. Poland joined NATO in 1999, and the EU in 2004. Being 20 years behind Poland is a fair enough number to Ukrainians, I think, though they would have liked things to happen even faster of course. If they were told they were going to be 50 years behind Poland, that would certainly be very hard for them to swallow. One of the tropes you hear most often from politicians and laymen that lament the current state of affairs on UKR tv is - "in 1991 Ukraine had 50 million people, a territory larger than France, and an economy larger than Poland's". That is, it's immensely embarrassing to Ukrainians how Poland has leapfrogged them in development and now plays a much weightier role in Europe. If they need to wait 50 years, they just might do an Erdogan and go back to Russia/China.

Ukrainian politicians talk every single day about how they are the "Shield on Europe's Eastern Frontier", "the only thing between Europe and the Horde", and all sorts of other points about how the Euro-Atlantic community basically owes Ukraine a big one for doing all the heavy lifting in combating Russian malign influence. They definitely expect to be let into NATO soon, not decades from now. When and if the realization that that is not happening sinks in, there'll be a nasty, nasty backlash.
Bobko   
2 May 2019
History / Polish attitudes towards ex-Soviet republics joining NATO [116]

Ukrainian membership won`t take place within decades

Ouch! Don't tell any Ukrainians this. The outgoing president, Petro Poroshenko, had been promising NATO and EU membership by 2024. (pravda.com.ua/news/2019/02/3/7205633/)

I agree with you, Pawian, that membership is a very distant prospect. First and foremost, because of the unresolved territorial conflicts in both countries (Donbas, Crimea; Abkhazia, South Ossetia). Admitting these countries while the conflicts remain unresolved means putting NATO on a collision course with Russia. This is totally unpalatable for the French and Germans. However, there may be some appetite for this in the States, the Baltics, and Poland.

I didn't want to premeditate the result of the thread by opening with the above, disqualifying facts. This is because, you and I could be completely wrong. In 1985, very few would have predicted the collapse of the Iron Curtain and the disintegration of the USSR into 15 countries just 5 years into the future. Similar things can happen in the not so distant future. We live in an interesting world.
Bobko   
1 May 2019
History / Polish attitudes towards ex-Soviet republics joining NATO [116]

I spend a lot of time following the discourse inside Ukraine and Georgia regarding potential future NATO membership. There's a definite plurality in favor of membership in both countries (something like 50%+ in Ukraine, 70%+ in Georgia).

The United States, the three Baltic countries, and Poland have been the champions of Ukrainian/Georgian membership, while Germany and France are resolutely opposed.

To what extent is Poland's support for Ukrainian membership a product of PiS's hawkish foreign policy on Russia? Is this, in fact, a bipartisan position that won't change regardless of who is in office? Is there actual across-the-board support among the population?

If Ukraine joins the alliance, and is then later attacked by Russia - how do average Poles feel about the prospect of sending Polish soldiers to protect Ukrainian sovereignty?
Bobko   
27 Dec 2018
History / Would Poland be better off if it had lost in the Polish-Soviet War? [44]

Sorry to say, Pilsudski was not a huge fan of Jews either, and was only slightly less Nationalist than Dmowski.

To a great extent it was the noises that Pilsudski was making about building an Intermarum that provoked the Soviets to act on the scale they did.
Bobko   
27 Dec 2018
History / Would Poland be better off if it had lost in the Polish-Soviet War? [44]

at some points of 1919-1920 they controlled just a territories around Moscow and St-Petersburg and were on the verge of collapse.

In very early 1919 perhaps, but by the beginning of 1920 the Bolsheviks had defeated their enemies on practically all fronts.

The Whites had been crushed by the Reds in the South, and no longer presented a credible threat. The British, French, American and Czechoslovak forces of the "Allied Intervention" also gave up and started pulling out through the port of Vladivostok. Peace was made with Estonia and Lithuania. Central Asian separatist movements were crushed.

By the Spring of 1920 Poland had become the main focus of the Bolsheviks. They were able to put together a front consisting of more than 700,000 men and thousands of pieces of artillery.

Basically, I want to point out that this was a much closer call than you describe. Indeed, at one point Poland's fortunes in the war looked so bad that Pilsudski's government was teetering on the verge of collapse, as Roman Dmowski's opposition grew in power. They don't call it "The Miracle on the Vistula" because it was a miracle how the Soviets made it so far, but because it was a miracle Poland survived.
Bobko   
20 Dec 2018
History / Would Poland be better off if it had lost in the Polish-Soviet War? [44]

Goddammit.... My precious thread has become derailed... once again.

Folks! Distilled - the question boiled down to: "Would Poland be better off if it never gained independence in 1921?" Not whether or not Hitler would attack anyway, as suggested by Lyzko. Not whether or not Poland belongs to the West. Not even regarding the geographic origins of the Enlightenment, and so on and so forth. Bah!
Bobko   
13 Dec 2018
History / Would Poland be better off if it had lost in the Polish-Soviet War? [44]

no it wouldnt have, quit patrionizing the polish propaganda. theyre now west or euorope and esp in the 19th and eaely 20th century.

I'm not saying Poland is the West, but that it protected the West from further communist encroachment by erecting a sort of cordon sanitaire on the USSR's western border. In the first years of the Soviet state worldwide revolution was the number one driving force. It was considered an accident that Communists had first triumphed in an agrarian and semi-feudal Russia, rather than the much more industrial Germany or GB (workers > peasants for Communists). From this, came the thinking that if a major industrial nation could not be flipped to join the communist international in the very nearest future, then the project of the Soviets in Russia was doomed. It was considered that the two systems (capitalism and communism) can not coexist, and one would have to defeat the other. This is present in Marx and Engels' writing, all the way through to Lenin and Trotsky, and then even young Stalin.
Bobko   
12 Dec 2018
History / Would Poland be better off if it had lost in the Polish-Soviet War? [44]

Not sure if you're trolling Jon, or are just an avowed socialist ;)

There's an argument out there, that Poland's victory in that war is what saved the West from Bolshevism (see: "Miracle on the Vistula"). Weimar Germany was in a very weak state, and was the true target of the Polish campaign. If Germany fell, France with its enormous communist electorate would have been the next target to flip.

The other argument is that the Bolsheviks didn't give up on the idea of exporting revolution all around the world up until Roosevelt and Churchill asked Stalin to stop, because... you know... it's not cool to try to overthrow the government of your allies. At that point, Stalin decided on the idea of first building "socialism in one country".
Bobko   
12 Dec 2018
History / Would Poland be better off if it had lost in the Polish-Soviet War? [44]

Big historical counterfactual I found myself thinking about while reading about the Nazi-led Siege of Warszawa (1939, not 1944).

Here's what I think:

Pros:
Germany may not have attacked in 1939, or at all, as the USSR would have be much closer to the German heartland, and stronger demographically and industrially.

Poland would have preserved an enormous part of its population (Jews and Poles), and might have had a population of 45-50 million people today.

Poland would probably still control the Western Ukraine, in addition to any territories it would have gained in the West. Logic here is that if Poland is already part of the USSR, there is no need to transfer territories internally to Belarus and Ukraine.

Though it would have still had to live under decades of Communist rule, Poland would likely still be an independent country right now, because even small constituent republics of the USSR like Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have gained independence since the failed social experiment collapsed.

Cons:

Poland would have likely still lost a great proportion of its population to famine, labor camps, elimination of political undesirables etc., just like Ukraine did. But still probably far fewer people would have died than under the German occupation.

Without the 20 year period of independence between the wars, Polish national consciousness might have been stamped out completely and would not survive to the present.

If the USSR had won the Polish-Soviet War, it likely would have continued rolling West until it reached the English Channel. We'd all be speaking Russian right now!

Finally, the Wehrmacht advanced over thousands of kilometers in the first year of Operation Barbarossa, before the Russians managed to finally stop them right at the doorstep of Moscow - so whether or not Poland was part of the USSR, it's very likely it would have been rolled over just the same, if Hitler had still decided to attack the USSR.
Bobko   
31 Jan 2018
History / What are Polish opinions regarding Felix Dzerzhinsky? [17]

he is known as Bloody Feliks which sums it all up

It seems that he was a more complex character, than the way he's been popularly remembered. I was surprised to read in his wiki biography, what Pilsudski wrote about him in his memoirs: "[He] distinguished himself as a student with delicacy and modesty. He was rather tall, thin and demure, making the impression of an ascetic with the face of an icon... Tormented or not, this is an issue history will clarify; in any case this person did not know how to lie."

In other places, he is described as a peculiar murderer, in that he wasn't driven by any of the usual impulses, i.e. lust for power, or banal cruelty/sadism. The consensus being that what defined him was his fanaticism. Now whether this makes much of a difference is a different question.

It's interesting to me that you say he is remembered in Poland as Bloody Felix, when in fact he spent very little time involved in Polish affairs, and for most of the duration of him being a member of the Soviet government Poland was an independent entity outside of his reach (remember, he died in 1926). I thought that the Polish people may have a sort of grudging respect for a former compatriot that had laid the foundations for one of the most powerful and feared intelligence agencies of the 20th century. On the other hand, another thing he is famous for is being a Great Russian chauvinist and an opponent of the right for self-determination for the varied peoples of the Russian Empire. Even Lenin once accused Dzerzhinsky of crass Great Russian chauvinism, to which Dzerzhinsky replied: "I can reproach him (Lenin) with standing at the point of view of the Polish, Ukrainian and other chauvinists."

It's quite hilarious imagining Lenin, a Russian, accusing Dzerzhinsky, a Pole, of being a Russian nationalist and getting "well you're a Polish nationalist" thrown back at him!
Bobko   
30 Jan 2018
History / What are Polish opinions regarding Felix Dzerzhinsky? [17]

Dzerzhinsky was the first head of the Soviet secret police, the Cheka, which is a forerunner of the KGB, and the modern FSB. He was also perhaps one of the highest ranking Poles in Soviet government, earning the nickname "Iron Felix" from his fellow revolutionaries. While skimming through his biography on Wiki I was surprised to learn that he attended the Wilno Gymnasium at the same time as Pilsudski. What two different Poles, what two different lives....
Bobko   
13 Nov 2017
News / Future of Polish-Ukrainian relations [669]

The other thing that chaps the ass of Russians is tearing down statues of the genocidal murderer Stalin.

That's not accurate, to say the least. You're most likely referring to Lenin statues. Most statues of Stalin were torn down in the late 1950s during Khruschev's de-Stalinization era. Those few that remained were all torn down, even in Russia, in those frenzied months in 1991 when the Soviet Union was collapsing. Now there's even a cute park in Moscow where you can go and look at all the old Stalin statues that were torn out of their foundations from squares all around the city.

Now Lenin is a completely different story. Still plenty of statues of him in Russia, Belarus, Moldova, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, and until recently in Ukraine. It's his statues that the Ukrainians have been tearing down with abandon. And truthfully, there are a lot of butt-hurt Russians who are pissed that the Ukrainians are disrespecting the Leader of the World Revolution.

That being said, there is a weird Stalin-worship revival in Putin's Russia during the last two years, and not all Russians are happy about this. Specifically the millions and millions who had relatives in their family perish during the Stalinist repressions. The Kremlin is trying to subvert his image as a national saviour who kept the country together in one piece, albeit through the use of brutal tactics, in the face of an existential threat, as a way of reminding Russians of the importance of keeping in-line as the country is involved now simultaneously in two wars (Ukraine and Syria) and chafing under Western sanctions. Outside of domestic purposes, Putin has been using Stalin to subtly troll Ukrainians by reminding them that a good third of their country is theirs because Stalin cut it off from Poland. Ukrainians only seem to remember the Holodomor, and prefer to imagine that Lviv simply materialized inside Ukraine on one fine day.
Bobko   
12 Nov 2017
News / Future of Polish-Ukrainian relations [669]

Looks like a shared hate for Russia isn't enough to keep Ukraine and Poland on friendly terms any longer.

After returning from a recent trip to Lviv, on Nov 2 Polish FM Witold Waszczykowski told TVP1 that "both countries have a different notion of reconciliation."

He went on to say in that interview that the Ukrainians are basically exploiting Poland, because they know how important they are for Poland's geopolitical security. In response, Waszczykowski announced that unless Ukraine changes it's behavior, official Poland will launch procedures with serious consequences, including banning certain Ukrainian officials entry into Poland.

The reaction in Ukrainian media has been howling. The general consensus seems to be that Poland has taken it's mask off, and is behaving like the magnates of old. Basically pany trying to punish the chlops for raising their heads. Some are talking about how Ukraine now has to fight old imperial masters on two fronts.

In the most recent days the Polish FM's office has actually begun rolling out those travel bans, and the first ban was against Vladimir Vyatrovich, head of the Ukranian National Institute of Historic Memory. This has obviously incensed the Ukrainians even more, making it very hard for their President to make amends with the Polish government without looking like Kaczynski's poodle. So the ****-slinging continued.

Now finally - yesterday, the Polish deputy FM Cichocki told the state broadcaster that Ukraine is pursuing a destructive path in its relations with Poland. He said the current issues in Polish-Ukrainian relations are old, and were raised by previous Sejms not just the current one. These issues include use of Soviet-era terms like Polish occupied territories in relation to certain parts of Western Ukraine, the non-return of property to Polish Roman Catholic churches, the rehabilitation and glorification of the UPA, and insufficient contrition over the question of Katyn. It's not really clear to me how he expects the Ukrainians to apologize for Katyn. Perhaps he misspoke and actually meant Volhyn.

newsweek.pl/polska/polityka/relacje-polska-ukraina-coraz-gorsze-stosunki-polsko-ukrainskie,artykuly,418731,1.html
Bobko   
10 Aug 2017
News / Will America send troops to fight a Russian invasion of Baltics and/or Poland? [283]

Except the rest of the world has dropped sanctions on Russia

If you are referring to U.S. sanctions, then these are mainly tied to the annexation of Crimea and alleged meddling in the 2016 US elections. There is no language there about removal of Russian troops from east Ukraine.

The European sanctions package, on the other hand, is to a greater extent tied to the fulfillment of the different clauses of Minsk 2, but also doesn't mention removal of Russian troops, but rather things like allowing Ukraine to regain full control of the Russian-Ukrainian border in that part of the country.

So I'm not sure what your accusations are about. Looks like you're the only stupid one here. Read the news.
Bobko   
9 Aug 2017
News / Will America send troops to fight a Russian invasion of Baltics and/or Poland? [283]

which is why Ukrainians are killing Russian invading scum, legally and justifiably and are no threat to Poland.

Russia cannot defeat Ukraine.

Hate to rain on your parade Weg04, but it's kinda been the other way around. Your Ukrainian friends received an epic ass kicking from the Russians. Even more epic than the Georgians received. Ukrainians were being encircled and annihilated in strategic cauldrons with such regularity in the summer of 2014, that they needed Merkel and Hollande to hastily convene a mediation session that resulted in the humiliating Minsk Accords. If it wasn't for Mommy Merkel and Papa Hollande, the Donbass separatists would be in Kiev long ago.

Mind you, that epic ass kicking from the Russians was delivered in such a way that still no one is able to provide conclusive evidence of the presence of regular Russian military formations in east Ukraine. In other words, a few hundred Russians managed to wreck a Ukrainian army that is, on paper at least, many times the strength of Poland's.
Bobko   
5 Aug 2017
Life / Drugs in Warsaw [111]

Watch out for the Nigerians selling baby laxative outside clubs.
Bobko   
2 Aug 2017
News / Will America send troops to fight a Russian invasion of Baltics and/or Poland? [283]

A collection of knackered, 50 years old tanks (T-72) is no use on the battlefield.

Such an expert. By this measure the M1 Abrams is a useless rust bucket too, and if one is to take the analogy to airplanes then the B-52 Stratofortress shouldn't be flying at all (maiden flight 1952). Military equipment has modernization potential you know. The T-72B3 I listed (currently 600 T-72B tanks have been upgraded to that standard) is actually a very modern version of the T-72, which is in many ways superior to the newer (at least by nomenclature) T-90. Here's a link:

nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-t-72b3-the-lethal-russian-tank-ukraine-fears-most-16500

Deluded Russian fantasy (you are Russian of course), Russian combat forces number 170K.

I don't know where you are pulling this info out of. Cite me a single source that lists Russian combat forces at under even 200,000 and I will admit that I am a Russian troll.
Bobko   
2 Aug 2017
News / Will America send troops to fight a Russian invasion of Baltics and/or Poland? [283]

8I doubt Russia has 100K combat troops to take part in this exercise, as the vast majority are stationed around Ukraine.

I'm afraid that yours is the bullshit proclamation. Mind you, this quote was also from a NY Times article - they're not sloppy on the factchecking. In 1991 the Soviet Union had 63,900 tanks of all types in service and in storage. The present day figure for Russia is 2,700 in active service and 17,300 in storage (they are allowed no more than 20,000 under the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe). The 2,700 tanks in active service are all modern tanks, from T-72B, to T-72B3, T-90S, T90SM.

Regarding the 100,000 being an exaggeration I would also like to call bullshit. The Russian Armed Forces have around 1 million personnel total, with another 2.5 million in reserve. Out of the 1 million, around 450,000 belong to the Ground Forces (in America it would be called the Army), another 280,000 in the Air Force, 180,000 in the Navy and so on. Are you still sure in that Russia can't spare 100,000 men for these drills? The units involved in action in the Ukraine numbered in the hundreds, or low thousands, and it was still enough to crush the Ukrainian army and force Kiev to sign the humiliating Minsk Accords.