Poland in ruin or flourishing?

Kopacz and her PO flunkies and GW flatterers are having a field day debunking PiS claims that Poland is in ruin and showing images of glittery buildings and modern industrial facilities. Duda was booed when he spoke of hungry children. In actuality, both sides are right. Even 3rd world countries have high-end shopping streets and other showcases which they like to show to tourists. But in Poland only a minortiy have fully benefited from the transition. The beneficiaries look their noses down at them, at Polska B, the honestly unemployed (not dole cheats!) and other disadvanatged fellow-citizens. Duda and PiS represent the entire nation, not just the financial and industrial cliques, media monopolists and other elitists who constitute the PO's main constituency.

Reading my local news today the said that unemployment in our region (Mainly rural) was below the 20% mark for the first time in many years,

Have also noticed more and more new combine harvesters and tractors

not sure if the above means much overall,

Yes, it's a very positive campaign. The PiS claims have been well and truly shown to be false.


As he should have been. The problem in Poland is parental neglect rather than poverty. Unfortunately, the authorities seem very reluctant to step in to remove a child from obviously pathological families.


But these are not just in capital cities, but the whole country.


Only a minority?

You're telling me that the majority is worse off now than they were in 1988?


Would that be the same people that benefited from being the children of the nomeklatura, like Duda?

Anyone can present plenty of examples to support either theory. But anyone saying the "average" standard of living hasn't improved is either lying or disconnected from reality. EU investments in particular are doing wonders for Poland.

Polonius, do you live in Poland? It's just that I don't recognise the country you describe. I live in what you are happy to describe at Polska B (I hate that term) and I have seen rising living standards year on year for at least a decade.

No surprise there. I wonder if PIS will ever learn not to tell blatant whoppers. Probably not, especially looking at their supporters.


You mean such as those people who were able to use their connections from commie times to purchase large properties for themselves from the Polish state at knock-down prices very shortly after communism ended?


Both of those groups vote PIS.

Any proof of this? BTW why is it we've never heard you say "children of the nomeklatura like Michnik." Michnik enjoyed all the perks and privileges of the PRL elite but actually came form a communist crime family. At least Duda's father-in-law is "żydo-anytkomuna" who spent time in a PRL lock-up.

I didn't realise that being locked up for one's political beliefs was considered to be perks and privileges. Surely avoiding being locked up would be perks and privileges, wouldn't it? Now, which political leader can we think of who somehow avoided being locked up?

Poland really would be a ruin if being locked up was considered to be perks and privileges!

Roger's view is fair and balanced and also reflects my own perception of how Poland has evolved. I remember in the early nineties that you could still find horse driven carts in the countryside, now they have almost disappeared. Polonius, what do you expect? I think that for a country that has disappeared of the world map for over 100 years, that suffered a devastating war and then 50 years of communism, Poland's progress has been astounding, and that should make all Poles, whether living in Poland or elsewhere proud. You are obviously an educated and intelligent person, maybe it is your US background and its avid consumerism (everything immediately!) which is preventing you to see the reality?

Did you see what happened in Nowa Sol? Szydło scored a massive own goal by holding a press conference in a ruined factory there - the only problem is that the mayor turned round and showed the media a huge amount of shiny new investments that far outweighed one ruined factory.


Plenty, given how university appointments worked in the PRL.

Obviously things have improved overall since 1988. The point is whether the improvement has been equitably (I didn't say "equally") distributed. Poland now has a caste of overprivileged and everybody else. That is the issue Duda and PiS are addressing.

Really? Is that why it now has hundreds of modern shopping centres in more than 80 cities? Is that why the average gross wage has quadrupled since 1997?

Maybe you have a point.

What has always struck me is how divided the Polish vote is geographically, ie the Eastern part voting PiS and the Western part voting PO. I initially thought that this might be linked to a difference in the origin of the population with proximity to Russia on one side (less developed) and to Germany on the other (more developed). That doesn' t withstand deeper analysis because we all know that Western Poland was repopulated with people coming from the old eastern territories.

I think the split comes from inappropriate/late policy decisions by the successive Polish government in the 1990's/early 2000s, and especially the lack of focus on infrastructure issues. Motorway links between the East to the West were not built at the time when Western firms were making decisions about the location of their Polish factories. As a result most factories were located in the Western part which was already connected to the Western European markets via a preexisting network of motorways. The East West network now exists, at least partially, but it was built far too late when most investment decisions were already made. Show that also in politics time is of the essence..

You have to also remember that the vast majority if the millions of young Poles who have left Poland left 'Polska B', meaning that PO lost millions of votes in those regions.

Differences in Poland are huge not only from one region to another but also within same region. This can be seen also in places like Warsaw. Some are very rich (I know a "lot" of people who have 5 (even 6) digit salaries) but others are very very poor. I have to travel alot through Warsaw for work and often I go through areas that look like other planets to me in comparison with where I live. Of course, things have improved, there are shopping centers (there are shopping centers even in very poor countries, so no reference) and besides a lot of people can buy only because they have credits (not to mention those "galerianka girls" who sell their bodies in shoping centers' toilets in order to buy leather bags, perfume or designers' jeans (a movie was made about topic) but nevertheless, a big majority of Poles (including in big cities) are still in big poverty. A lot of areas in Praga North, Wola, even in Bemowo are quite desperate. When I go to Poland B, I am very often very shocked.

Despite the huge improvements, mainly thanks to EU, still a majority of poor in Poland.

Yes, but since Poles are also able to vote when abroad (at least in the general elections), that should have no impact on the overall outcome

As Long as Poland defend the Polish values and traditions and don't surrend to the decadent western europe political correctness dictatorship, it will flourish as one of the few prosperity oasis in a continent destroyed by the fear of say anything and offend a "minority".

Long life to Poland.

Come to my nearest town. You won't see any beggars, even on market day, and you won't see anyone dressed in rags or starving.

If you want to see poverty, go to, e.g. rural Virginia or Washington State.

@Roger: no need to wear rags and starve to be "poor". Europe is not Africa ... Believe me, a lot of people in Poland don't even make 2,000/month (for instance school teachers, shop assistants ....) and of course a lot don't have work. When I moved to my new flat, less than a year ago, as I meant to change my furniture and a lot of things, I helped some poor families from Praga North through charity and believe me, their situations are very bad and unfortunately there are a lot of them in similar or worse situations.

Although Poland is not a rich country, authorities should do something against poverty.

PS: I lived in the US, mostly in Georgia so I know but even if poverty is worse in the US than in Europe, it's not something to brag about.

@Harry: no, all those young guys who left Poland B = PiS (or SLD, maybe PSL) voters and not PO.

Roger has been living in Poland longer than you, I don't think he needs you to tell him things he is (and we are) already aware of


Good; so we now know that you are a good citizen and give to charity and to cancer research; many others, including I am sure on this forum, do the same without finding the need to broadcast it constantly


Maybe decide to go back to communism?

+1


complete and utter idiots.


Poland and her people who live, and come from here, not those silly Plastics, here have never had it so good.

You wanted capitalism, you got it. Deal with it.


It's funny how people living in Warsaw think that about Poland.

As the child of two dyed-in-the-wool stalinists, Michnik enjoyed the perks and privilege of the red bourgeosie in his childhood and teens living in a what was then regarded as a luxury flat. Prominent communists got to shop in special "yellow-curtain" shops which carried goods an ordinary Pole could only dream of. He palled around with other nomenklatura kids who were in the same boat. It was only at uni that he became a political dissident. Delph wrote that Duda was from a nomenklatura family, not that Duda was a communist. Nobody is saying Michnik is a stalinist but he did come from a family of stalinist criminals. Full stop!

Precisely Pol3, don't you think that it takes courage to take a path like he did, against his family, when his parents were members of PZPR? Especially that it happened in the sixties, 20 years before the regime would finally crack?

Youthful rebellion is nothing new. But the point is he was raised in red bourgeosie luxury. Now we're waitng for Delph to provide the Duda nomenklatura story. How many innocent Poles did his brother (if he's got one) send to their death the way Michnik's did?

I've spent most of the past 25 years in Poland and yeah, I'd say the improvements have been more equitable than not. Not perfect, but perfect is never going to happen. The great majority of the real have nots (versus chronic malcontents) are in dire straights because of various kinds of dysfunction and/or chronic passivity. For anyone with any gumption and free of crippling addiction it's possible to scrape up enough money for a ticket to western europe.

Duda and PiS are playing to the widespread subjective feeling among many Poles that they should be richer than they are. That is many Poles feel subjectively poor and nothing can talk them out of it.

Polonius hates anything modern and wants Poland to be mired in 1991 level poverty so he can pontificate and preach (as opposed to actually live in Poland).

I read an article in a Polish newspaper "If Poland isn't in ruins, where is it then?" There's been concern of late that because so many Poles, particularly younger ones, feel they have to leave the country and search for jobs on foreign shores, that perhaps President Duda had better get the ship of state sailing on course......OR ELSE!!

Point of order : Duda has no real power to do so. He has a mostly ceremonial position, and cannot enact any legislation without the Sejm and Senat agreeing to do so. He can veto legislation, but that's not likely to be productive.


The funniest thing about this is that Duda enjoyed a nomeklatura lifestyle, managed to get into a law course in the early 1990's (when you almost certainly needed personal connections to do so) and enjoyed other benefits. Yet he pretends to care about them - when he should be everything that they should hate. Hilarious to those with a brain.

With most individuals (including yourself Pol3?), such rebellion starts in their teens, ie pre University years and dwindles as the individual matures. On the contrary, in the case of Michnik, his Uni years appear to have been the starting point of a lifelong choice.. Not quite the same..

You still haven't produced any evidence of this. Why would Duda enjoy a nomenklatura lifestyle? Getting into law school after the regime was dumped was no great achievement. In fact, by then having PZPR ties would have been a liabiltiy. Michnik definitely did groew up in red bourgeosie lixury and we know why -- his parents and brother were communist criminals richly rewarded for their treason against native Poles.

He certainly did enjoy a nomeklatura lifestyle, as witnessed by his parents enjoying successful careers at the university.


What are you on about? Law school (until the reform of the system to abolish entry exams) was unbelievably corrupt - you needed connections to study law, especially in the early 90's! It's changing now, but back then, it was very much the domain of the connected and the corrupt.


Come on, 2 million people had PZPR ties. It would be impossible to punish (or "lustrate") the entire nomeklatura as the country would have collapsed.