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.
