Communist era 'newspeak' appeals the most to Poland PiS supporters (what a surprise)

An act of treason!
Prove to me his intention were in good faith as you believe it to be so based on his background and deeds. Simply repeating the story invented for the purpose of peaceful transition of power show a lack of reasoning on your part.

I do not have to prove a damn thing - do your own research or better still talk to some Polish people (shock horror.. oh look, he is talking to the natives)

it is common sense, if he had let the Russians in it would have been carnage but you would have been OK.
He did not resign as the next person who took over would have let the Ruskies in and all hell would have been unleashed

I feel that you regret this somehow as you were rather hoping to bathe in a sort of vicarious martyr status safe in the knowledge that you would

have been safe.

I do not pretend to be his fan at all, however my opinion stands, he could not have done much else, whereas your family clearly buggered off at the first sign of trouble

who is the coward?

the guy with the weight of the world on his shoulders knowing he is damned no matter what he does or the family that p!ss off at the first sign that things are looking a bit

scary?

Common sense my foot! You did not live through it, I did!
This traitor never stuck his neck out in his entire lifetime; he was always faithfully carrying out the orders given to him. 20 years on since the transition of power we can move on past those events but the least we can do now is to start talking about those events honestly (i nie owijać gówna w bawełnę). No one seeks revenge anymore there’s no immediate danger of lynch mobs chasing the traitors calling for public execution. No danger of country falling into chaos. No need to give them a way out and guarantee their personal safety once they step down. What’s done is done! Everyone accepts it. This myth was invented to simply calm everyone down and move on, proceed with the transition of power as quickly as possible as that was the main objective on everyone’s mind back then.

so hang on a moment, you are saying that you lived in Poland during Martial Law... please feel free to expand on this..

It would appear so, while the declaration of martial law is but a historical footage for most of you on this forum there are some who remember it like it was yesterday, Pawian, Dariusz and perhaps few others. What can I say watching it live was memorable to say the least and made quite an impression on a kid of my age, what followed left an even greater impression.

I remember the curfew (godzina policyjna) and how we ingored it for the most part (living in a small place)

Sir, in that case, I wish to issue an apology to you
If your family and you were residing in Poland during Martial Law, I wish to retract my statement about bailing at the first sign of trouble

and apologise

My comment about General J still stands, poor bastard, he could have not done much else in the circumstances

the main reason why current propaganda does so well, is complete ignorance of people like you
Jaruzelski WAS BEGGING russians for intervention! They refused, as at this time soviet empire was already in huge crisis. he was the one who was doing everything to keep status quo - classic example of hardliner who would rather kill other Poles, than loosing face and his leader's chair.

I can uderstand delaph who is foreigner and knows sh!t about Poland (clearly), but when I read such BS from a Pole, I start to boil.

and article from OP is just ridiculous. Hahahahaha
I would rather vote for Pis than PO - simply, theft, corruption, links with mafia, and OBVIOUS actions against Polish interest clearly show that those guys are simply corrupted puppets. Also creative accounting in my eyes is equal treason - it undermines states stability and ability to defend itself.

After 4,5 years of their governance - debt of Poland has been doubled - and thats only official data, not accounting debt of health care agencies and hospitals, 'gmina's, and other agencies. Very rough estimations are from 200 to 250% od Poland's GDP!!!!!! not sweet '55%' that government is so proud of.

Are any political parties in Poland in support of getting rid of that ridiculous law that fines people for saying something negative about the Bible and other religious things?

" They refused, as at this time soviet empire was already in huge crisis"
There are more than a few Czech army officers who disagree with you, but what would they know, they were only part of the planed invasion force.

BTW, love your hilarious comments about the Polish economy. Was your source Radio Maryja by any chance?

No need to do so, no one wants to reveal too much information about themselves on an open forum, you simply did not know but I do have that much more respect for you by doing so.


I would still like to hear one good reason for this belief of yours. There’s nothing in his past that would indicate his independent thought, his willingness to put the wellbeing of the country ahead of his own ambitions and eagerness to please his masters. Perhaps I’m biased in my opinion of the man but feel free to convince me otherwise. What makes you think he’s capable of any kind of sacrifice, be it damn if you will or damn if you don’t given his past? There’s a time in everyone’s life when one has to make a stand but declaring the martial law on his own people was no more than satisfying his masters at Kremlin hoping to bring the nation back to the status quo without having to deal with the cost or consequences such action might bring. The gamble they took by letting their boy doing their dirty deed simply did not pay off, end of story.

How really rotten and broke their empire really was we’ve seen a decade later when the whole house of cards collapsed without a struggle and they were impotent to do anything about it. So what makes you think that Russians were so powerful a decade earlier that they would risk so much by stepping in when in reality the image they projected to the rest of the world was far from the reality they faced? Don’t you think that the elite at Kremlin were not aware of that?

no, it is very simple math

Polands GDP is about 1,5 trillion zł

official current public debt - 840 bln

Basically vast majority of gminas are in debt - the limit for them is 60% of their year's income, and you can easily check how much it is - I did. Hard numbers is something that convinces me, idiotic remarks about radio maryja do not.

I am not Polish. your stinging retort encouraged me to venture onto Wikipedia and there are very strong arguments for your case

my opinions about General Jazzy J come from conversations with Polish friends
furthermore, with the greatest of respect I would be very cautious about Russian press releases (look at Katyn)

''Historical evidence released under Russian President Boris Yeltsin has been brought to light indicating that the Soviet Union did not plan to invade Poland. In fact, Jaruzelski actually tried to persuade the Soviets to invade Poland in order to support martial law, only to be sternly turned down''

I would not trust Yeltsin as far as I could throw the obese drunken buffoon

''Additionally, there are numerous confirmations from Czech army officers of the time speaking of Operation Krkonoše, plan of armed invasion of Poland, because of which many units of the Czechoslovak People's Army were stationed on highest alert, ready for deployment within hours.[14]''

why would Czech army officers lie?
Russians love intrigue so Yeltsin making mischief would have been too tempting to resist

the truth probably lies somewhere in between

in this case - I'm sorry
you have full right to be unaware of Polish history (no sarcasm, really), especially that you are being constantly disinformed.

There is one thing that must be said. You said that your base your opinion on what your (Polish) friends told you. Problem is - they mostly dont know anything beyond what they heard on TV repeated 3000 times. Poles ARE NOT so educated as they say. Only 1 million people reads press - and that also includes magazines about celebrities and other worthless pulp. Scentific research shows that about 80% Poles DOES NOT EVEN UNDERSTAND TV NEWS. This is 'functional illiteracy' at massive level. Poles have great opinion about themselves, but facts are, we - as society - are very very poorly educated, easy to manipulate.

TV is NOT source of knowlege - average individual IS NOT able to gain knowledge from wathing TV - there is too much information shuffled in short timespan. TV has HUGE influence on one's emotions (trough music and imaginery), but does not give you anything valuable. 14 mln Poles watch tv and only one million reads. Go figure how it impacts or economy and politics.

check actual numbers - how books are selling - you know that book thats sells in 50.000 prints is MASSIVE hit in Poland?

my own limited knowledge of how Poland seems to function is that the Czechs generally speaking do not like the Poles too much. I used to work for a firm with an HQ in the Czech Republic and all my Czech co workers really disliked the Poles

why would Czech officers lie to support Jaruzelski? surely it would be better for them to keep quiet and discredit Poland?

this is going from memory and I am far too lazy to check but I remember that the year before, the Russians conducted a massive military exercise in Poland which

was a very unsubtle demonstration of what Poland might expect unless they were very careful

as for Yeltsin, he was a real typical Russian buffoon, he sang, he laughed, he cried, he danced, he drank
he was a real Russian and as a result, like all Russians loved scandal and intrigue

Operation Krknose happened a year earlier
zpravy.ihned.cz/cesko/c1-54229050-zapomenuta-operace-krkonose-1980-ceskoslovenske-divize-vyjely-na-polsko

I have no idea if Czech troops were on alert in the later part of 1981

that's pretty sad. Ever since I left the country, I always had the impression that people in Poland were in general much more educated than people here. I guess things change.

well, those are just plans. There were plans for everything, every big city was built and planned with nuclear war in mind - if you look at city plans, how commie blocks were build and placed - it was all about dispersing nuclear shockwave - this show how silly those people were. But from planning to actually doing anything there is long, long way.

Chechoslovakian army was no match for Polish one - so thiose plans are plain ridiculous. Actually, an idea of Chech army performing any military actions is funny by itself ;D

I was studying Medicine in Wroclaw during this time. I can tell you this much. The predominant opinion of the Polish students that I hung out with and their parents was that the General had no other choice. They all agreed that the alternative scenerios were not attractive ones.

That may be very true - I was a kid a this time, I only remember soldiers in trucks driving there and here, and my family was scared

The funniest thing is - there was really NO NEED AT ALL for martial laws. Most factories where workers were prostesting were closed, or even stopped protests before even martial laws was introduced. In whole Poland, only about 15 factories were actually still prostesting when martial law begun. Really. Whole impression of entire Poland 'on fire' was created by propaganda (but it was very real impression people had - as you said). In most cities - nothing really happened. Commies knew, that economical situation will be only worse, so they used possibility to scare people 'in advance' (kind of preemptive strike against society)

Absolutely - and these are the people from whom PiS drew their support, who were the most vulnerable to their totalitarian rhetoric. The educated elite didn't touch them with a bargepole.

We were scared also.... Initially. Then it became much looser - the curfews that is. I remember plenty of times returning to my apartment at midnight, 1, 2am passing soldiers on the street! No one bothered me. Maybe it was a Wroclaw thing. I don't know.

" Chechoslovakian army was no match for Polish one - so thiose plans are plain ridiculous. Actually, an idea of Chech army performing any military actions is funny by itself ;D"

Poland and Czechoslovakia had three conflicts: ytou won when you went in alongside the Nazis, you won when you went in alongside the Soviets, but when you tried it withouy help, you got your arses kicked.

You say that, but I have a teacher friend who has a colleague (also a teacher) whom is a staunch PiS supporter.

My mate says this woman regularly flunks her kids if they say anything bad about PiS. A bit disgraceful really, but there you go!

Seems that scared, reactionary people exist in the educated elite as well.

Really? The fact that society was breaking down, that there existed the very real and scary possibility of civil war (as any serious historian will tell you) and that the State was failing to function wasn't a good reason? Jaruzelski had no way of knowing that Moscow may have let Poland go - especially after the build up for forces for the "Soyuz 80" moves that were a thinly veiled threat towards Poland.


Indeed, and it proves my point - newspeak is very appealing for them. And again - it shows how conditioned they are by the Communists.


This is now commonly accepted as the reason - there was very little room to move on his part. He was clearly installed by the Soviets to sort the mess out in Poland - and from his point of view, it's very easy to see (after what happened to Kania) that he either sorted the problem out or they got someone else that could sort it out.


It wasn't just the Czechoslovak army that you had to worry about, but also the East Germans who were rather keen on beating Poland up. With the Soviet numerical advantage, I can't imagine that Poland would have lasted long, especially as the "will to fight" had gone at that point. Gomulka's threat of fighting was taken seriously - but Jaruzelski could never have used the same threat.


"Soyuz 80" - it made it painfully clear to Jaruzelski what he could expect. I'm not sure how else he was supposed to think - we know now that the Soviets wanted a Polish solution to a Polish problem, but how could Jaruzelski know that after the actions during 1980?


Yeah yeah, I know **** because I quote from Poles about Poland. Truth is, you and your ilk are classically conditioned - you just can't accept the painful truth.

on the contrary being accused of being Polish is one of the nicest things anyone has every said to me on PF :-)


the East Germans were such utter and complete toadies who had fallen for communism hook, line and sinker

in fact whilst the rest of Central Europe sort of played along with the military exercises, the East Germans used
to show the Russians up and were the finest troops in the Warsaw Pact

utterly fanatical they were

They really were a tinpot state - I can't remember the quote now, but in one book I have, it makes reference to how the Germans absolutely embraced Communism - and were even better at it than the Soviets.


Yup, and there were several (unreported at the time) diplomatic crisises between the PRL and DDR too.

I must dig up one of them for you - it's to do with territorial waters, and is very very interesting.

something like have the population of the DDR were informers and the other half worked for the Stasi or some other ridiculous statistic that I cannot be bothered to look up

I saw a TV program where if they suspected someone of being a spy they would follow them to a cafe, take a scent swab from the seat that had been sitting on and put it in a glass jar. that way they had your scent on record and could waft it under the nose of a tracker dog and then unleash the hounds on you at a later date to locate you

with a load of Soviet nutters to the East and a load of fanatical Huns to the West .... well you can draw your own conclusion

Sure, and that was the reason why they built the Berlin Wall and the deadly fortifications along the border to West Germany. To keep the fanatic communists in the country. Yeah, right...

the ones who were leaping over the wall were not necessarily the ones who were excelling in military manouevers