Mike Krupa is a Canadian of Polish heritage living in Poland. He did a great interview with Doug MacGregor last week and I was honored that he thought me worthy of a similar virtual sit down and chin wag. The video is not yet posted in a form that you can watch it on this site. However, if you click on the link below you can watch it on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRwWORZK1TM
One of the points we discussed is the curious and, at times, bizarre behavior of Poland with respect to Ukraine, Russia and Germany. Poland, in my view, is still suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as a consequence of what happened to the country and its people in World War II. The key Polish leaders and many of its people are unable to forgive, forget and move on. Why do I say that?
Poland, for example, continues to press Germany to pay reparations.
Poland is demanding Germany pay $1.3 trillion in reparations for atrocities committed during the Nazi occupation of the country.
Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau sent an official note to Germany’s Foreign Ministry on Monday requesting the payment. Last month, Poland’s ruling nationalist party declared Germany owed their eastern neighbor approximately $1.26 trillion.
https://nypost.com/2022/10/03/poland-demands-1-3t-in-reparations-from-germany-for-wwii-atrocities/
The Germans reply, at least in private, is Keineswegs, verdammt noch mal (i.e., NO WAY IN HELL!) The official German position is very legal and very firm:
Germany claims all compensation to nations on the eastern front was paid in the immediate years after the war. While under rule by the Soviet Union in 1953, Poland’s leaders signed a deal with Germany that relinquished all claims of reparations from the war. . . .
After the war, Poland was given 40,000 square miles of Eastern Germany, according to the Wall Street Journal. Moreover, approximately 10 million ethnic Germans were forced to relocate by Polish authorities.
https://nypost.com/2022/10/03/poland-demands-1-3t-in-reparations-from-germany-for-wwii-atrocities/
This sort of shatters the notion that the NATO alliance is solid. Raises a question about whether Germany would come to Poland’s aid in the event that Russia bombed Ukrainian training bases in Poland.
The Poles also are still very pissed at the Russians, blaming them for what the Soviet Union did. A particularly festering wound is the murder of more than 20,000 Polish officers, academics and political leaders in the Katyn Forest. NKVD Chief Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria was the guy who recommended the slaughter:
On 5 March 1940, Lavrentiy Beria gave Molotov, along with Anastas Mikoyan, Kliment Voroshilov and Stalin, a note proposing the execution of 25,700 Polish anti-Soviet officers in what has become known as the Katyn massacre.[47]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vyacheslav_Molotov
The Poles also still fume over the Soviet Union decision to let the Nazis crush the Polish uprising in 1944 rather than send their forces to the rescue. The Soviets wanted a buffer state that they controlled and made sure that they installed a Polish government compatible with the Soviet Union. It does not matter that the current Russian leadership had nothing to do with the Soviet policies. In fact, it is Putin’s Russia who finally apologized for the heinous crime in Katyn:
In a symbolic admission of guilt, Russia’s parliament has declared that Joseph Stalin ordered his secret police to execute 22,000 Polish army officers and civilians in 1940, in one of the greatest mass murders of the 20th century.
Today’s acknowledgment of Stalin’s personal culpability over the Katyn massacre comes amid a cautious thaw between Moscow and Warsaw, whose recent relations have been thorny at best. It was also seen as a sign that Russia may finally be ready for muted self-scrutiny over its totalitarian past.
Mikhail Gorbachev admitted in 1990 that the NKVD was to blame for the massacre, after a half-century of the Soviets blaming it on Nazi troops. However, there has never been a formal statement which implicates the Soviet leadership in such explicit terms.
Officials in Warsaw greeted the declaration positively. “It is a good step, an important sign,” Poland’s speaker of parliament, Grzegorz Schetyna, told reporters. It would ensure a “better atmosphere” for Russian president Dmitry Medvedev’s visit to Warsaw next week, he added.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/nov/26/russian-parliament-guilt-katyn-massacre
The real curiosity is why Poland embraces a regime in Ukraine that celebrates Stepan Bandera as a national hero, when it was the Bandera crew that massacred more Poles than the Soviets did at Katyn:
Between 1943 and 1945, Ukrainian nationalists attacked 99 Polish towns and villages in Wolyn, a Nazi-occupied region of Poland and is now part of Ukraine, and massacred thousands of Poles. It is estimated that around 100,000 Poles died at the hands of Ukrainian nationalists.
https://justiceforpolishvictims.org/polish-experience/the-wolyn-massacre-77-years-ago-around-100000-poles-were-slaughtered-with-utmost-cruelty-by-ukrainian-nationalists/
And here we are; Poland is in bed with modern day Ukrainian Nazis whose grandfathers murdered 100,000 Poles. Poland apparently has opted for amnesia when it comes to supporting the Zelensky regime in Ukraine.
We have a front row seat to history. In the coming weeks, Poland is likely to be inundated with a flood of Ukrainian refugees. I suspect that Polish enthusiasm for the war in Ukraine will take a hit. The critical question — will Poland’s resolve to back the war in Ukraine remain unchanged?
Another great interview. Estimates of refugee numbers fleeing Ukraine this winter range between 2 and 5 million, which will depopulate Western Ukraine and make it more manageable for the Russians. In Austria, 70% of Ukrainian refugees self-identify as upper middle class or better. So far, the only people to get out and escape conscription belong to privileged classes. Of 450 parliamentarians, only 90 remain. Those who have profited most from Maiden will flee, just as the Russian 5th Column has /is.
BTW, I am actively promoting Larry here:
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https://open.substack.com/pub/julianmacfarlane/p/santas-gift-to-putin-victory?
I thank you for another excellent article.
You are stunningly well-informed, and you can write!
Thank you very much, Sir.
It’s really good to see another Nigerian here on Larry Johnson’s blog. It shows that there are quite a number of us who’re not suck ups to the US and actually care about the truth. And yes, Larry can write!
Have been reading LJ write up since july am always eager to read a new article every morning Larry J keep it up.
The people that were resettled in those “German” lands were poles forced to move from polish territories given to Belarus and Ukraine (among others) ratified by the Potsdam Conference
Just a few seconds in the Web…
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_Poles_by_Germany
Not many of those survived the war. Many ended up in concentration camps (my grandfather) or were sent as slave labor to Germany (my grandmother). In many of the “liberated” areas there never were any poles there historically. Most people in my town spoke Ukrainian at home and Polish officially. In my family everyone (all 4 grandparents) came to west Poland from the east. My grandfather after surviving Auschwitz tried to find his family in Ukraine but the village was erased by Bandera. But believe whatever you want.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_population_transfers_(1944%E2%80%931946)
I think you fact-checked the wrong expulsion. He indirectly referred to the Germans expelled from former German territory granted to Poland by the Poles resettled from former Polish territory taken by the USSR.
I’m normally loathe to cite Wikipedia, but since that’s your source du jour …
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_and_expulsion_of_Germans_(1944–1950)
You can look for more on the topic in tomes like “Nemesis at Potsdam” by Alfred de Zayas and other somewhat scholarly studies.
Many of the people who were moved into the former “German” (the quotations are apt as those lands had been previously inhabited by Slavic tribes including the Upper and Lower Sorbs [sic] (who are still extant)) were Carpatho-Rusyns who were forcibly and violently removed from the Carpathians as a result of the Akcja Visla which was presided over by General Wojciech Jaruzelski. This outrage was a direct response to the Ukrainian guerilla war waged by the U.S. supported Banderites against the Polish countryside well into the 1950’s. The Banderites were using Rusyn villages for supply while they hid in the mountains. They stole Rusyn food and other supplies, raped the women and forced men to accompany them on their vicious raids. The choice was come along or see your women dismembered alive in front of your very eyes. It was a common for both the Ukrainians and Poles to behave in this manner, but there were no Ukrainian women around. Rusyn men are the best shots around. They never hit what they are not aiming at, but when the Poles caught the Ukrainians they found Rusyns among them and executed them and their entire villages. Hundreds of thousands of Carpatho-Rusyns were dispossessed, their villages and churches burned with many murdered and they were sent en masse both east into the Soviet Union and west to the “German” lands, with the Poles hoping to Polonicize them. The Ukrainians in the Soviet Union were unkind. Although they pretend to claim Rusyns as their own, in reality they piss on them. As a Carpatho-Rusyn I mostly blame the Banderites, but, although Poland has been allowing some Rusyns to return to the sites of their villages I am not aware of the issuance of a formal apology and offer of restitution.
Michal Krupa has been doing great work in setting the record straight on Polish history. He wrote an excellent article in Chronicles Magazine some time ago on Gen. Jaruzelski and his role in Poland in the 80’s. Jaruzelski was in fact something of a Polish patriot who, likely, saved Poland from invasion, which might have led to the death of thousands of Poles, by cracking down on Solidarity when he did. This was an unpleasant act, to say the least, but when I lived in Poland in ’89-’90 most Poles, at least begrudgingly, admitted this, including a friend whose best friend was among the hundreds killed when the crackdown on street protests took place.
I expect continued very good work from Mr. Krupa in the future.
Those were old Rus lands given back to the Ukrainians and Belorussians.
The Poles took them in the Soviet-Polish war of 1919-21 as a result of the breakup of the Russian Empire. The Poles were historically the colonizers there.
BTW, the treatment of the Russian POWs by Poland during that war was atrocious.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camps_for_Russian_prisoners_and_internees_in_Poland_(1919%E2%80%931924)#:~:text=6%20Further%20reading-,Background,few%20resources%20to%20construct%20them.
Sort of balances out the Katyn affair in the grand scheme of things.
The Polish govt seems to have drifted far from the Polish people.
A Telegram channel reports a poll asking “Which of these do you think is our worst neighbour?” Not scientific to be sure, but the answers surprised me…
RU: 13.5%
BY: 1.7%
DE: 22.5%
UA: 62.2%
t.me/mikhail_onufrienko/2399 (via @rembixpolitix)
When the biblical scale exodus from Ukraine begins in the the coming weeks and months, one can expect scientific polls to converge on similar results. Especially as economies deteriorate. Yves Smith thinks Poland is headed fro economic collapse with or without the flood of Ukrainians.
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2022/11/polands-coming-economic-collapse-a-story-in-8-tweets.html
As the next few months grind on, I’d wager Poland won’t be the only European country going down so Ukrainians are in for some unpleasant reality checks wherever they go.
People often forget that Poles were encouraged by the UK to murder german people who lived in some polish regions after WW1. The did it and the german government, which was lead by A. Hitler has warned them officially several times, that they will “do something about it”, should that “genocide ” go on. There is still a lot evidence around that supports this behavior of Poles against German minorities that is not officially included into todays rewriting of that history.
Poles are still useful idiots for the west as they were back then. They maybe lack some complex not being taken seriously on the international arena for my understanding?! They infact are pretty unimportant internationally. They seem very much to like to suck-up to bigger countries and not carying about consequences. Their political elite is as corrupt as they were back under Soviet influence. Back then it wasn’t so much money but rather connections to the right people. Today it is all about money. They also have a very corrupt police force, as I experienced myself once on a short trip to Warshaw. I was harassed and blackmailed into paying fines in cash to avoid prison for just being there as a tourist. I guess that happens also in different parts of the world too. Tourists were singled out pretty openly and had to endure that behavior.
The reason for the Polish government to extort money from Germany is simple. Like many other western counties Poland too has a debt problem. They spend more what they get back in form of taxes. This is nothing but an easy way out, by simply demanding money for reparations again, by publicly opening that old wound and using it by harassing Germany until they maybe give in. Same did Greece a few years back. They almost went bankrupt over 300 billion in debt. That was exactly what they demanded from Germany, reparations around 300 billion.
There are of course other reasons too. Germany has too much power inside the EU. Poland doesn’t like it, Hungary too. It is their way to make things complicated. EU basically redistributes money in exchange for their members sovereignty. Some countries like to receive that money but they not like to have their policies dictated by others. Well, who would have thought that would be a success …
while it’s true that ” Russia’s parliament has declared that Joseph Stalin ordered his secret police to execute 22,000 Polish army officers and civilians in 1940″ that doesn’t mean that it actually happened .
the Soviets certainly executed some Polish officers but those found at Katyn had been shot with 7.65 ammunition made in Germany after 1933.
Bit of a puzzle , isn’t it ?
Ah, yes it does.
7.65 ammo?
Were the Polish army officers killed one by one using pistols?
Funny that the puzzle is discussed as a perfect dichotomy.
Either Reich’s story was perfectly truthful and only Soviets tried to fake it for propaganda sake.
Or the opposite, it was Soviet Union telling the absolute and full truth, while Reich was lying an planting.
However, what if BOTH sides knew the story would be used for propaganda and can not be saeen as impartial academic research? What if both parties felt compelled to “sugar” and “spin” what actually happenned and so the puzzle has pieces sticking out of both “perfect Soviets” and “perfect Reich” interpretations?
Small gun related note. 7.63×25mm Mauser was basis for 7.62×25mm Tokarev, with the second one being “hotter”. Guns made for 7.62×25mm were used with 7.63×25mm in lack of proper ammo. 7.65×25mm Borchardt was base for 7.63×25mm Mauser, but I doubt it was produced in 1933. Non of this solves the puzzle, though.
7.65mm = .32 ACP = round fired by little pocket pistols, like the German Walther PPK that was carried as a side arm by some German officers. However also used in numerous small, cheap handgun models throughout Europe. It is a weak round and generally considered underpowered by US standards (and by me).
The 7.63 Mauser is a different round all together and was fired from the “broom handled” Mauser pistol, which was outdated even by WW1. This is a high velocity round. I don’t know why some sources say it is less powerful than the 7.62 Tokarev round (below). It isn’t.
The 7.62 Tokarev Russian round is very similar to the 7.63 Mauser and was used in The standard military issue Soviet Tokarev pistols and Soviet submachine guns. So similar it is interchangeable. Having owned two Tokarev pistols at different times and the ammunition not being common in the US during some of those times, I shot what ammo I could find in gun stores. Mauser ammo works fine in Tokarevs and produces a similar high velocity with a similar bullet weight. I really liked my Tokarevs. They are ugly, low capacity by today’s standards and not totally ergonomic, but they are accurate and very reliable and simple. They have a relatively thin profile, which makes them a little more concealable for a full-sized pistol. The high velocity bullet can punch through all but the highest rated soft body armor effectively.
It just means the Soviets wanted to hide their involvement so used German weapons. It has been well documented that the Soviets did those killings, and even admitted to it decades later. This was known during the war and the Polish prime minister in exile began rocking boats about calling the Soviets our ally. He died in an odd plane crash at the British base at Gibraltar.
I produced a short video about this last year: “Poland Lost World War II”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOgNHBa_ZPM
World War II began to defend Poland from foreign invaders. Millions of Poles perished as their nation was devastated during the war, yet it remained under foreign rule. Official history suggests that the United States and Britain had no choice but to cede Poland to the Soviets. This is false since the Germans were anxious for peace with the West and had offered to withdraw to 1914 German borders several times. A peace treaty could have been signed with Germany, which may have included the exile of Nazi leaders, perhaps after a military coup. A conditional surrender agreement was never pursued leaving Europe was much worse off after the war.
It is quite conceivable that anti-communist and anti-Stalinist sources would want to just pin this crime on the Soviet Union. After all, the moment the war ended the Nazis were immediately put to work by the west to destroy Communism. Therefore, I think it is useful to keep an open mind concerning Western Imperialist distortions of Soviet history especially given that we see how distortions happen in real time these days before our very eyes.
A very valid point.
In a war people get killed one way or another. But soldiers deserve soldiers not civilians. Atrocities happen on all sides. But when atrocities are part of an ideology that is something totally different. But still, we all weren’t there. We must rely on history. But we all know very well that the truth is the first victim of a war.
The poles already got money from Germany after fall of communism. I remember my grandmother got money sometime in the 90ies for 4 years of slave labor during the war sometime in the 90ies
…..and the Belarusians did not? Seems to be some serious reckoning due before long.
Do a little research for Greece. Germany forced a loan from Greece, created a fake currency and burned entire villages. Greece lost 10% of its people also. Should Germany not pay for this? The debt is more than 300B.
Poles are portrayed as the worst Russophobes, and at the same time there is an excellent site that is not Russophobic. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.
https://myslpolska.info/
The polish hatred for Russia is much more than their hatred for Ukraine and Germany ,so I guess that they want to finish ( at least in their mind ) , their largest enemy before they turn on the second and third largest – The fact that their enemies won’t stay still while they work their way down the list on an ascending basis doesn’t seem to feature in the polish planning
Thier hate for Russia stems from Catholicism. Catholic Slavs are willing to prove themselves by going to crusade against Ortodox Christianity. You have similar thing in Western Balkan.
Well, I am Polish and I can witness that there is no intrinsic hatred toward Russia between ordinary Polish people. And the thing about religion – this is the same Christianity. Me myself, am married to a Russian. We married in a Catholic church without any problems, because the official position of the church is just like ours – it is the same religion.
In any country, there are some brainwashed people, but ordinary Poles rather consider Russians being brother Slavic nation.
I’m from Yugoslavia. There was no hatred between ordinary people too, and we were not just Slavic brothers but literal ones. You know what happened.
It’s the same Christianity, although believers have been killing each other in the name of the God for centuries, including today. In the last few days Ukrainians have been raiding churches of Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate. Up until recently I did not know how many flavors of Christianity are in Ukraine alone. Being in the wrong one can get one tortured and killed. In addition to that, they are also brothers, with family members fighting on opposite sides.
If brainwashed people lead ordinary ones in the name of the USA/NATO/religion/whatever, there will only be more blood. Sadly, Poland is being set up for something that does not look good. Of course that’s just my personal opinion, and it probably doesn’t align with official position of any church.
Is this legit?
https://t.me/no_one_is_forgotten/12317
Poland should look at the history of other European countries. Isn’t it always the same? Jumping from poor victim to bad aggressor all the time? Germany was attacked from the French for 200 years. Louis 16 to Napoleon. Italy was attacked from France. Serbia attacks Bulgaria, Italy attacks France under Mussolini. Go on, study not your history, but the history of your neighbour, and it will mirror yours.
Europe was a battlefield of insane dictators. Even the Turks could find alliance with the French, but it was a polish general who defeated the Turks.
So, dear polish readers, yes, the Germans did much wrong to you. But this was the destiny of all Europe to bring war to its neighbors. See Roman history? Caesar? Carthage? Vae Victis? Just read history.
You should read Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t claim that Germany can be excused because others did the same. I know the book. And it is clear to me as a former grenadier that civilians are the worst bitten by war. But see the whole history. Between 1618 and 1648 30 percent of the population was dead. There is a pattern in history. People get murderous. Counting the million dead will never justify anything.
Counting the million dead only serves to justify the next round of mutual killings.
Europe a nest of vipers?
I hope not. All Europeans have to learn that.
Well, if you’re asking me to hamg my hat on Snyder’s writings, then I think we should all start here: https://www.nybooks.com/online/2010/02/24/a-fascist-hero-in-democratic-kiev/
‘A Fascist Hero in Democratic Kiev’ Timothy Snyder
It is no wonder. Bandera aimed to make of Ukraine a one-party fascist dictatorship without national minorities.
No Dawes Plan of 1924 … no Germany …
No Marshall Plan of 1948 … no Germany …
No Good Neighbourship and Friendly Cooperation Treaty of 1991 (with Poland !) … no Germany …
There is no such a thing as “destiny” in history. Only facts, decisions taken by a few individuals … Can you imagine a very rich Poland enjoying the benefits of the Marshall plan instead of Germany … ? Or a Germany under a Morgenthau-Plan or even worse? Who would be having the say in Europe today …?
That young Polish lady in the photo … wearing her best shoes before being murdered. And the other victims (R.I.P.)
Germany is a occupied country. It was not destroyed after the defeat, but also not left free. Official reason was, that otherwise Stalin would have come. But since 1989, the Soviet Union left Germany, whereas the US troops are still in.
Germany is defenceless. The German army is useless.
Well, see my next post. Do you think a Europe without USA dominance would be peaceful?
Can you imagine … a Germany under a Morgenthau-Plan ?
Yes, I can. Is it so hard? Just look at Germany now. The influx of African males, as envisioned in the Morgenthau Plan, has taken place in 2015 under Merkel. In 2022 under Scholtz we have massive de-industrialization phase going on, with major companies quitting because of energy costs. So what else do you want to imagine? Poor agricultural provinces as envisioned? We might get there too, particularly with diesel shortages this winter and astronomic prices of fertilizers.
It’s important to understand history, but at the same time we should remember that getting stuck in the past is a form of mental retardation. A forward thinking man will focus on the problems of the future.
Agreed. How many German taxpayers today are responsible for what happened to Poland long ago? None!
A forward thinking man will focus on the problems of the future. — Randolorian
Agreed.
One seemingly broad consensus emerging in online free speech forums is that, because of uni-party political and media domination, American politics and electoral process is foreclosed to ordinary citizens. That the ballot box and jury box are failing us and all that remains is the cartridge box.
But the entire intelligence, police and military weight of the USG is focused on just such a reaction by patriots willing to fight for their rights and just governance. Considering the USG’s immediately past interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Ukraine… not to mention COVID-19, what should we expect?
We cannot ignore electoral politics, but neither can we play by their rules. Unless we desire a bloodbath, in which will force the emergence of the most ruthless leaders on both sides, we need an explicitly non-violent political movement which exercises its electoral power on a singular goal — the re-establishment of just governance by ending uni-party political dominance.
What is the essence of consent?
How does an election confer legitimacy upon a government?
To whom do our elections belong?
Original: Unless we desire a bloodbath, in which will force the emergence of the most ruthless leaders on both sides, we need an explicitly non-violent political movement which exercises its electoral power on a singular goal — the re-establishment of just governance by ending uni-party political dominance.
Edited: Unless we desire a politically senseless bloodbath, which will force the emergence of the most ruthless leaders on both sides, we need an explicitly non-violent political movement which exercises its electoral power on a singular goal — re-establishment of just governance by ending uni-party political dominance.
Note: One of the main problems patriots face in communicating is eavesdropping. One must assume that every form of digital communications is compromised (and that some free speech websites are honeypots). Yet, mass political communication is an absolute necessity. At the mass participation level, any movement which opposes the current political status quo must be both explicitly political and non-violent to attract the supporters necessary to overwhelm the political system which normally captivates voters.
One strategy is to establish, specifically, a non-violent populist movement to politically support patriots which does not focus directly on candidates for office, but rather on ending the Democratic and Republican parties stranglehold on political participation.
If the focus is on campaign funding and electoral consent, rather than political personalities, it might be possible to use this novel approach as an electoral battering ram against both individual candidates as well as their parties. The point is to use their generous political donations and benefactors against Democratic and Republican candidates.
As a practical matter, please refer to the state of Nevada ballot which includes a None of the Above choice which makes it possible for a voter to reject all candidates for an elected office. Politically and practically speaking, electoral consent from which the political legitimacy of the government is inferred, must be made explicit as a counter-balance to elite domination over the political parties and mainstream media.
Above, Randolorian says A forward thinking man will focus on the problems of the future. The number of substantive replies is telling.
We have met the enemy, and he is us.
And just to add to my last comment: The eternal wars among the European countries lead to the Idea, that only one strong occupier can give peace to the continent. And now you may understand what the USA thinks about itself towards Europe. The USA brings peace to Europe, because without them, the Europeans would start war amongst them again.
Judge yourself if the Europeans really would do it.
And of course, the Romans thoughts the same. Pax Romana. Now pax Americana.
Yes. And, yes, I do think the Europeans really would engage in perennial war among themselves without the US’ constant presence. Our “neocons” used to openly speak of the Pax Americana. It was the foundation of US foreign policy, especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union. For some reason, one doesn’t hear the phrase openly uttered any longer (at least I do not), but I’m sure it’s still a driving concept.
I’m not a believer in the idea because I don’t think it is feasible even in the midterm, let alone the long run. Essentially, the US could enjoy the fantasy for a few years because we were the only country to emerge unscathed from WW2 and with our industrial and economic might in full swing. That said, I am sympathetic as to why foreign policy midwits would find it attractive. Ironically, US domestic short sightedness scuttled even the possibility of limited success regarding the establishment and maintenance of a “peaceful” global rule when we off-shored the industry that made us so strong, dumbed down our educational system, introduced and encouraged decadence and degeneracy as cultural norms and diluted our society with countless millions of third world immigrants. A government and media complex that constantly serves up obvious untruths to a supposedly free people further undermines US internal cohesion and, thus, its ability to righteously project its power around the world.
Additionally, there is all of the corruption and selfish interests that arise, like the military industrial complex, when that much money is being fed into a massive project with nebulous metrics for success.
Finally, there is the impossible paradox of willing a free world, while attempting centrally control the various societies and cultures of the world from Washington DC. It’s really fundamentally mission impossible even without all of the above outlined issues.
I love the US and think it is – or, more correctly, was and could be again – superior to any other country or way of life in the world. I think the US needs to clean its own house and make itself strong again. The best way to help the rest of the world is to be a shining example of how humans can live. Those with the will to be better would take what makes America great and adapt it to their own societies in a form that works for them. There would be no way to keep the example of the US hidden in this modern world.
It is absolutely not surprising that Poland’s leadership steers clear of anything more than a half-hearted concern over the Ukrainian UPA ethnic cleansing operation during the War. It would be impossible to shine too bright a light on that era without confronting the role of the US in sheltering a man identified by Timothy Snyder as the prime instigator of that genocidal atrocity throughout the cold war. Mykola Lebed, a Bandera associate who, unlike Bandera, was never held in custody by the Germans, was without a doubt the most important US intelligence asset related to Ukraine throughout the postwar period. There is simply no way Poland can highlight that atrocity without spotlighting the fact that the US protected a major war criminal connected to these events throughout his life. Inasmuch as Joe Biden has documented contacts with Ukrainians associated with Lebed’s network from early in his Senate career it becomes a truly uncomfortable can of worms for Poland’s leadership. The less said the less likely people will dig through the public record and declassified CIA files.
On thie polish website, they are talking about governement plans to get back territories lost to UK after World war 2.
https://dziennik-polityczny.com/2022/11/09/galas-partia-wojny-pis-nie-moze-dluzej-czekac-i-zaczyna-dzialac/
I was astonished last week. Polish governement was one of the most pushing to further military aid and war.
but when the rocket fell on polish territory, they were very reluctant.
”get back territories lost to UK”
They can have Birmingham anytime they want – with its 60 plus percent population all shouting ”ali’s snackbar”. The rest of the mungrels we don’t talk about.
sorry I meant Ukraine (UA)
But I understand what you mean.
In Germany they would say similar from Berlin for example
Would Poland be willing to cut a deal with Russia for western Ukraine? Poland knows what Russia wants… security. How bad does Poland want it? Enough to convince the Russians?
Poland …
is the next Transinistra is the next Kazakhstan is the next Yemen is the next Syria is the next Ukraine is the next Armenia is the next Libya is the next Myanmar is the next Philippines is the next Niger is the next Iraq is the next Sudan is the next Eritrea is the next Somalia is the next
Russia/Iran then
China 🇨🇳
I lived in Poland 20 years and can’t say I understand them much.
My daughters, who are Polish and spent almost all their lives in Poland, don’t understand them much either.
A couple of nuggets though. The Katyn experience was very much strengthened by the (excellently produced) “Katyn” film of 2007. I can’t say that this was Nato funded, but the timing was just before the west started to go wild with Russophobia, so convenient at least.
Sure Katyn was known about long before that, but it tended to be an intellectual thing with the main point being Katyn as an explanation of a lack of moral leadership in Poland post-war – they took away all our future leaders.
Then there is the whole PiS party thing which is very catholic, very traditional, very anti-communist and created and still heavily influenced by the remaining twin Kacynski. His brother Lech Kaczyński became was Poland President 2005-10 and died in a plane crash on his way to an official memorial visit to Katyn. In very bad weather conditions Russia warned the plane not to land but the pilot attempted to land anyway.
Of course this leaves a lot of unreasonable bitterness where many Poles blame Russia for the death of their President.
The PiS (law and justice) party is very divisive – indeed anti-communism (ie attacking the opposition for not being clean) is its main message. It has adopted Zelensky type attacks and take overs of the media leaving the oppositions largely voiceless, but as in say US or UK (brexit) all the more angry at that.
PiS are mostly sociopaths. They run the country mafia style. Poland never got democracy after they were released from Soviet sphere of influence. They all got bought off by the same global kabal like everyone else in the west.
Has anyone thought about the possibility of a non-invasion by Russian forces this winter?
The EU is already splintering within- to invade now and take more territory would strengthen the hawks in NATO. The end result is that Russia ends up with hostile neighbors and more territory to consolidate (more potential for future terrorist efforts).
Objectives are being achieved- demilitarization and partially, denazification. The Ukrainian military is already gone. It’s only NATO that’s keeping it on life support- the objective was to demilitarize Ukraine, not demilitarize NATO: to do that is a military task on another scale. Besides, the master- USA, is one ocean away!
The broader scale- conquering Ukraine- could also throw the formation of BRICS offhand….
If the attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure facilities continue, the resulting exodus of refugees to EU will further splinter the EU, while strengthening Russia. Of course, those same Ukrainian refugees might end up ‘nazi-fying’ EU.
Gaining the four oblasts – 80% of Ukrainian GDP and more control over the Black Sea is a significant gain. Saying in their annexation speech that it’s non-negotiable can be interpreted as “enough” if tensions subside.
Not attacking now- i.e. consolidating territories saves significant Russian and Ukrainian lives. Only a hardcore percentage of Ukrainians are anti-Russia, maybe the cold winter will wake them up. This is perhaps most consistent with my view of Russia’s internal logic of conducting this war.
Ukraine’s fight against Russia is not based on religion (teutonic knights), territorial conquest (napoleon/hitler)- its some mix of stupid ideology with Western Russophobia that has no logic whatsoever.
Logically, they should exhaust themselves and see the truth – there is no enemy in Russia, except in themselves.
Just thinking.
I’ve heard this too. But I’m thinking it could be more dangerous than trying to win right away. The longer this drags on, the weaker the West gets, and thus the more pressure there will be to push the button.
Agree. As I’ve been saying all along, in my humble opinion, Russia needs to stop screwing around and decisively end this before their enemies do something horrendous and/or maybe get lucky enough here and there to encourage further escalation by the US, Poles, etc.
If Russia thinks there will be a lasting peace negotiated just because Ukraine and the EU are cold and hungry, then they are very stupid. Their enemies would break treaties and be back at it again, with lessons learned, as soon as they warmed up and put a little meat back on their bones. Nope, the Ukrainian military must be annihilated, the Kiev regime killed off and replaced and Poland, by example of Ukraine’s fate, terrorized into passivity.
Sakabato said:
“Ukraine’s fight against Russia is not based on religion (teutonic knights), territorial conquest (napoleon/hitler)- its some mix of stupid ideology with Western Russophobia that has no logic whatsoever.”
Well, there is one more possible reason: remember Chuck #12? Swedes wanted something similar what the Hegemon is up to now — a quite evident “logic” behind the limiting any resistance to the coming new world order.
Russophobia (just rekindling the furnace of the good old cold war) and the west’s proxy war against Rus in Ukr was initiated under a grand plan to weaken Rus, further subjugate the EU and coordinate another series of color revolutions in the Rus’s sphere of influence; some say that even the coming collapse of EU financial system and their economies was included in this plan. Whether to surround China and curtail its global influence may not be as clear — commie China may even go along, as their social credit system and planned digital currency etc. may indicate already.
The goal?
First step in the WEF (Davos) plan for their version of Brave New World (AKA you own nothing and you’re happy; that is, after the “great reset.”
I would gladly entertain any valid argument to the contrary!
And finally, a little detail about Ukr history:
What are these banderites so proud of? Here is a little sample —
Only for a strong stomach: (easy translation in most browsers)
Wolyn
Nothing to cheer about, JaKo
It is a sad, violent and morbid past- this OUN… nothing short of scum.
Yet, think of it this way- the slow boil of the SMO actually allowed many refugees to leave Ukraine- these are human lives saved regardless of where they went. If they are scum, the Europeans will see it themselves- none of Russia’s problem.
Saving Ukrainian lives is the most important thing in this US-NATO cooked war because attacking Russia is not something the Ukrainians cooked up themselves.
Rather, they allowed themselves to be manipulated because of their lack of a historical identity that went untethered when the USSR collapsed. That, combined with poor government and the economic malaise resulted in them being manipulated.
I think Russians of that age who remember the tragic times of the 90s are looking at Ukraine now, perhaps with some compassion and empathy- realizing that this is the fate of Russia had Putin and his team not stepped up in 2000.
Such an attitude is a far more healthy one than a “kill thy neighbor” approach. At least there’s a lower chance that the Russians become the demon they are slaying.
If they are scum, the Europeans will see it themselves
Your half-full cup overfloweth
Polish culture trades in “levels of hate”, they hate everyone, but in very different degrees. They hate Ukranians, that’s certified, but they don’t fear the Ukraine, since history has largely proven Ukranians are unable to damage Poland on their own. Germany is teeth less so the only ones Poles hate AND fear are the Russians. And given history, I say they’re right to do so, Russia has reshaped Poland so often it feels like something Czars do on their holidays.
When Poles discover the Ukraine is capable of making their lives difficult by other means than direct aggression they will have to carefully weight their hate for Russia against their hate for the Ukranians. That will be interesting.
When Poles … will have to carefully weight their hate for Russia against their hate for the Ukranians. That will be interesting. — Demóstenes
Agree, and… you say it so eloquently.
In 1914, neither Poland nor any other central European country existed. Central Europe is where the Russian, German, and Austro-Hungarian Empires met.
No settlement at the end of this conflict is going to resolve the issues that go back centuries. Essentially, people are still arguing about territorial divisions done by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Hapsburg Empire. Those were just continued into the 20th century. Ukrainian nationalism was seen in the Russian civil war, but primarily arose against the Poles between WWI and WWII. It only got transferred to the USSR after 1939.
The Poles haven’t forgotten though. The Polish government pretends to have forgotten but it’s an enemy of my enemy situation. There’s also the whole Intermarium concept that’s fairly popular these days in part of the Polish political elite. It appears to be popular in CIA and DoD too since there have been public comments on it. The idea goes back a long way and is generally popular with west Slavic nationalists. But the problem since it was first cooked up remains: who gets to lead the Intermarium?
Good relations between Poland and Ukraine will last only as long as the current conflict. If I were in the Kremlin, I’d happily give the “historical lands of Poland” back to the Poles. It would be putting a bomb in NATO’s lap.
Sounds like a lot of Europeans are so enamoured with their past that they can’t move forward and see possibilities.
Quite sad… A whole new world ahead and they’re talking about dead ruler’s wishes and past glories.
If I were in the Kremlin, I’d happily give the “historical lands of Poland” back to the Poles. It would be putting a bomb in NATO’s lap…
Poland is a US vassal state and does what it is being told. So the alleged Polish desire to return to “historical lands” in the east may well be a US ploy to push vassal to fight Russia on its own, while promissing NATO backing but staying away from actual fighting itself.
80 years and three generations after WWII Poles don’t harbor much sentiment or illusions to “historical lands” in the east. They are pretty happy with the German lands which Stalin gave them in the west, as compensation.
There is really nobody in Poland even considering exchanging these western lands for “historical lands” in the east. Thats why the claim of WWII reparations towards Germany sounds so bizzare since it would automatically re-open that issue as well.
It looks like someone is trying to wake up old demons of Polish-German confrontation. Curiously, both US vassals have suddenly felt compelled to announce plans to field “the strongest” army in Europe…
This is why Poland and the Baltic countries should have never become a part of NATO – in my humble opinion not because of Russia but because they are now a liability – rabid and out looking for a fight with the RF – they can only bring trouble to an alliance that cannot win a war against Russia. Imagine the embarrassment if Poland provokes something where NATO has to invoke article 5, knowing it cannot win and ultimately having not to invoke the article in question…
Nato will never call on Article 5 against Russia. Nato will rather fall apart at that moment. Not every country is that much suicidal like the others. Most of them know and understand that even together they have zero chance to defeat Russia. They all already recognized that they have nothing to stop a Russian missile attack, yet one ICBM alone. They think by stating that Nato is providing defensife and offensive weapons they are not part of that conflict says alot already. First, they are already part. Secondly, they are very frightened to openly admit that fact.
Nato started this war on Russia. They still slowly escalate by changing their clearly not working tactics by thinking they have some chance to find a weak spot in Russian defenses. This mess will go hot at some point by pure desperation on the part of Nato. They wanna be destroyed because they already are. USD and EURO are doomed anyway.
“Good relations between Poland and Ukraine will last only as long as the current conflict.”
https://www.mastersportal.com/articles/3033/support-to-study-in-poland-for-students-from-ukraine.html
Larry’s internet sucks. Constantly breaking up not just here but on most interviews he does. Only his: conclusion…it’s his internet connection.
Request: Discuss Pilsudski and his scheme known as Prometheism(SP?) which is presently called TERRORISM. Poland only became a country in 1918 so perhaps take the Treaty of Rapallo(1922) and the REIGN of one Tadeuz Brzezinski- last Polish amb to Germany and Soviet Union Before fleeing to GB 🙂
Offtopic
Was this “three axes”, M777 ?
https://t.me/Z4LPR/336
I know, should’ve feel a great deal of shadenfraude about enemy’s tech, but still…
Yep. Also, i’t old footage.
On mostly unrelated note: What is up with junk internet connections in USA?
Your interviews are always choppy and I can see the same issues with Macgregor.
I don’t know. It seems to happen with Zoom and Streamyard. Not with Skype.
I zoom with my cousin down in New Port Richey. At her house, I installed Ring cameras front, back and sides with ethernet cabling that also provides power for the cams. She has 400MB internet from Spectrum but when the 4 cams are sending their take to AWS, Zoom and FB chop. So, when we Zoom and /or Facebook video between New England (me at 1GB speeds outbound) and Florida (my cousin at 400MB speeds outbound), both of us with premier 8K webcams, she pulls the power from the hub that feeds the take from the cams outbound. Bada-Bing, no more freeze. But we’re pedestrians, Larry gotta have better facilities than we do. But our strategy works for us. Remarkable still that worldwide video still makes it out to us with a minimum of this.
Being an IT guy, I’m guessing the take from Larry is routing through Poland and then out to us if you’re experiencing skip. Not Ideal. But still, we here get 99.9 percent even with that. Martyanov, MacGregor, Saker and Sonar21 (Larry’s) vids come through without interruption here in Xfinity-Land. Manage bandwidth.
8k cameras? Why? That’s overkill.
> The real curiosity is why Poland embraces a regime in Ukraine that celebrates Stepan Bandera
1) because history made them much more anti-Russian than anti-Ukrainian. Ukraine is felt a secondary nuisance incapable unless boosted by Russia, while Russia itself is felt a primary challenge.
2) also, google “the saker, the PilBan syndrome”
—-
About the history… The interpretation of Polish atittude i feel plausible was this (i am repeating my earlier comment here):
1. Every nation as cohesive unity is created by a catastrophe. The catastrophe creates the myth of “lost golden age” which becomes the nation founding myth.
2. This, however, makes the nation forever and ever focused in the lands and events associated with the golden age, trying to “fix the history” and return into the golden age. This shared urge is the cohesion.
3. For Poland this event was the occupation of Moscow in the pinnacle of their might (as the Golden Age) and their subsequent degradation culminated in the Partition of Poland
4. Which made Poles as nation forever dead-set to redo that part of history and became owners of Moscow again
Katyn was a Gestapo false flag…
If you bother to watch Russian accounts of the war….
It becomes apparent that Zhukov wanted to press on… but…. his armies had out run their
supply lines. It was either halt or be enfiladed by the Nazis…
Besides, the uprising was a Polish ploy to resurrect an independent polish state conveniently astride the fastest way to berlin.
So, the poles are pissed….
Now what????
INDY
“Putin is in power BECAUSE of the antics of the New York Bankers with the support of the Clintons. All the recorded phone calls I had exposing the various banks and their manipulation of markets were seized by the government despite the fact they were “work product” for my defense, and then they claimed they were all destroyed conveniently in the 911 attack in building 7 which was never hit by any plane. So the bankers wanted to take over Russia for all the hard-money assets — gold, oil, platinum, diamonds, etc. This is why the Clintons were supported by the bankers and the idea was with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, they would be able to take over Russia for all the wealth. The Clintons made student loans non-dischargeable in bankruptcy for the bankers. Then the bankers got the parents to co-sign, and suddenly they had their houses all exempt from bankruptcy. They could just wipe people out financially, including the entire families, and throw them out on the street. The speculation was that the Clintons allowed the bankers to scheme their take over of Russia, then NATO would move to the border with China and they would surround them. Yet, NATO claims it is defensive but always moves strategically in an offensive manner.”
“The Real Backdrop Nobody Will Discuss”
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/russia/the-real-backdrop-nobody-will-discuss/
videos, pictures and the real reasons why 911 as they are trying to take down Russia then China
Not to dispute what happened, but it would have been much the same in a GHWB second term.
Invoking Nato’s article 5 doesn’t oblige a member to anything but evaluate whether or not he wants to participate in a war against the aggressor. There’s no way, say, Turkey will send its 1M army to protect a bunch of rabid Latvians against Russia.
Poland certainly got screwed in all orifices 80 years ago. Russia, Germany and Ukraine all got to have their fun. And Poland’s “allies” preferred to stay home hoping they would all kill each other.
Maybe the Ukrainians would have been nicer to Poland if the catholic Poles hadn’t destroyed all the orthodox Ukrainian churches in the years before the war. So when the Soviet communists had killed off 20k+ Polish officers, bureaucrats etc. the Ukrainians got their opportunity to have some fun of their own.
There were no good guys in this area during ww2.
Larry,
” Raises a question about whether Germany would come to Poland’s aid in the event that Russia bombed Ukrainian training bases in Poland.”
I think you have answered this in the past, Germany has not the wherewithal to come to anyone’s aid. Even economically aiding Poland is unlikely (particularly politically given the reparations demand).
If Russia destroys Polish decision-making centers and declares a No Fly zone to prevent NATO insertion of (nuclear) Tomahawks (or equivalent), it is unclear what NATO could do – a few Dutch brigades driving across Germany to Poland? – other than threatening nuclear war from afar. I can’t see the Italian or French gov’ts (forget Turkey!) supporting a Polish Article 5 request in a meaningful way.
WRT the US/NATO and Poland Art. 5, I would pray for diplomacy and de-escalation while taking some token (easily reversed) actions. Perhaps if most of the (neocon) State Dept. comes down with long covid…..
“The key Polish leaders and many of its people are unable to forgive, forget and move on”
Maybe because they feel a strong support coming from D.C.?
According to some European insiders (not the leeches in Brussels…) the U.S. Deep State is letting Germany go/sink and bets all it has on Poland.
Have you noticed the 40bn contract to build nuclear reactors signed by Poland with Westinghouse…? Or the outrageous WWII claims you mentioned?
If I were Zelenski or members of his clique I would start to really worry because apparently the D.C. mafia is about to betray them to build a new anti-Russian spear in Poland.
Poles have a great deal of trouble dealing with their history and so do people from Western Ukraine. Victim nation status is part of the national psyche. Bad behaviour is excused in the service of a noble cause. As far as Volhynia , there were few if any survivors of that barbaric cruelty.
Poland’s alleged sympathy for Ukraine is mostly for show to impress the USA, rather than a show of solidarity with Ukrainian people.
With a new round of Ukrainian migrants, Polish tolerance will really be put to the test.
Katyn, 1940, OK, but the Armija Krajowa = AK=The HomeArmy, of Poland,
they started the Warsaw uprising, from August 1944, with only reason
to snatch Warsaw from the Red Army, who reach the River Wisla, after
the striking of ArméeGruppe Mitte, 300.000 casualties for them and the Red army needs then to re-group, and received logistics.
The Wisla is very breath river, hard to bridge, but Jaruselskijs forces tried , but failed, and even the Russians, but they had to meet heavy German Panzers on the Eastside, at the Prada, for many weeks. No help could be given.
So the uprising was a mistake, what took 10 x the Katyn killing (20.000/ 1940) victims, but responsible was AK, here about 200.00 Polish civilians, died, the city destroyed, and most historians confirms this, it was not Stalins problem. And how come that RAF never dropped a bomb over the Jewish Warsaw, rebellion, April 1943. First January 17, 1945,the Red Army could cross Wisla, north of the town. 1944, from December to January, 103 days, the Red army surrounded Budapest, with 80.000 casulties, like a Stalingrad.
“Poland apparently has opted for amnesia”
polacks are veritable experts at feigning amnesia and pretend their hands are clean as WW2 is concerned and are trying very hard and failing miserably to whitewash the truth of their history.
polacks did their own very credible imitation of nazism and even after the war had ended they kept murdering Jews for sport.
When concentration camps inmates were liberated and tried to return home in poland they were murdered by polacks that weren’t going to abandon their national sport just because a war had ended AND they weren’t willing to return the Jewish property they had stolen. Who cares about some more Jews murdered? Who’s going to notice? polacks put themselves at the very level of german nazis. Enjoy your status. Those you murdered had been your neighbors before the war. polack and nazi are synonymous.
Modern polacks are shoving dirt with their back legs and trying very hard to cover their filth.
No. It won’t happen. polack “amnesia” will be countered by memory. Eternal memory.
Yes, Russians treated polacks like dogs and let them die for their own convenience. How about a little justice, hey polacks?! Ooh! . . . What?! . . . When they do it to you, you don’t like it?! Ooooohhh . . . It was “unjust”, uh?!! Riiiiiiiiiiight . . . . . . . No. It wasn’t. You earned it!
Modern polacks only pretend the are not Jew-haters for show.
I don’t think neither poland nor germany have changed much in the last, at least, 100 years.
Their idiosyncrasy is the same it always was.
There is a phrase that put my hair on end the first time I read it, quite a long time ago: “germans will never forgive Jews for the Holocaust”
It is true. It seems to have been written in filth by something out of Hell. But it’s true.
And it goes for polacks, too.
eurabia will not know peace.
We may never know peace.
I would wish it different because there’s so much there that I deeply, deeply admire. Civilization.
But red in fang and claw.
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
We should ask ourselves how did we go from “the arsenal of democracy” to “the clowns of collectivism / leftoxenomorphism / nazism / communism”
How did we go from FBI to gestapo?
How did we go from having a semblance of an education system to assembly-line imprinting copy upon copy of a SJW NPC wojack that like the “hitler’s youth” used to do, is willing to rat on his parents to the state for wrongthink?
How did we get from America with her flag on the Moon to this current leftoxenomorph take over and attempt to re-establish a medieval Dark Ages feudal bullsh!tocracy that wants to last forever?
WTF are we doing?!!
OK. WTF are we NOT doing and why?
If American patriots decided to put and end to this cr@p and give a final solution to our leftoxenomorph problem it would be for leftoxenomorphs like trying to catch, football style, a large anvil thrown out of a plane at 5,000 feet. Good luuuuuuuck!!! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The bad guys in this whole bloody medieval charade are in Mordor on the Potomac, in Davos and in Brussels.
Locally, the leftoxenomorph Deep State and the whole unelected, usurper, illegitimate, fraudulent “government” and the whole of the leftoxenomorph swampy biosphere wherever it grows. And it’s growing.
Is there some conceptual basis for the culture?
Consider that democracy and republicanism originated in pantheistic cultures. Family as godhead. To the Ancients, monotheism equated with monoculture. One people, one rule, one god. For a tribe wandering in the desert alone, it’s useful model, but in larger tribal networks, tends toward a certain cultural megalomania.
The Romans adopted a monotheistic sect as state religion around the time the Empire was solidifying out of the ashes of the Republic, as a way to resurrect a stable Roman state, from all the factional warfare. Basically the Big Guy Rules. Keeping the pantheism in the background, with the Trinity. The young god reborn in the spring, of the old sky god and earth mother.
The logical fallacy of monotheism is that a spiritual absolute would be the essence of sentience, from which we rise, not an ideal of wisdom and judgement, from which we fell. The light shining through the film, than the images on it.
Ideals are not absolutes. Consider if every faction were to assume their ideals were somehow universal and absolute, rather than cultural reflections of time and place?
So every movement to rise in the shadow of monotheism has come to see their ideologies as beyond question. Which pretty much describes European culture.
Not that other parts of the world are not similarly homicidal, but the whole tribe as god thing runs pretty deep.
Our grasp of reality is still fairly primitive. For one thing, I predict the current cosmology will eventually fail to explained ever further and older galaxies appearing to the JWST.
Andrey Ilyich Fursov – Director of the Center for Russian Studies at Moscow: The Poles and the British share first place in Russophobia. And because of that. But something else is important. The Poles lost to us in the “conflict between the Slavs” not by points, but by knockout. At the beginning of the 17th century, we expelled them from Moscow, in 1667 we returned Ukraine and Kiev, and at the end of the 18th century we annexed Poland (in the mid-19th century they were just dependent governorships of the Russian Empire). And the Poles, with their pride, cannot forgive the Russians who, unlike them, created a big, centralized government (autonomous Russia, the USSR) and no less big – modern European culture, equal to the western version of European culture, and Poland has always been, is and will be the periphery, the backyard – political and, above all, cultural, of the same Europe.
For those who want to know Russian thinking about the West: The EU had a fantastic opportunity to integrate Russia into the Common European House, as was always the will of Gorbachev and Putin himself. Unfortunately it never did for various reasons such as allegiance to the US and the international system based on rules rather than on UN international law. Russia has never even demanded the end of NATO in Europe. What was required was a European security architecture in a broader sense than NATO. But who wants to know Russian thinking about Europe after the failure of the European Common House, a concept of Gorbachev in the 90s:
https://srbin.info/svet/fursov-rusima-su-samo-srbi-braca-glavni-benefit-pobede-u-ukrajini-bice/
I haven’t seen the interview yet but Mike Kupra knows better than I do that Poland today or the Polish Govt today has nothing to do with the Govt that accepted German redress or even Poland before the law and justice party that was born in the century XXI and ruled Poland for the last 10 years. We cannot discuss several Polonias as if they were always the same. In Eastern Europe there is even a reality in 1990, when the dissolution of the USSR and another reality today. There is a reality before the 2008 crash and the Syrian refugee crisis that promoted much nationalism and another one today. Poland today is experiencing a very similar situation to Ukraine.
The far-right populist and nationalist political party in the Govt founded by the Kaczyński brothers which has already dismantled the rule of law in Poland – where there is no longer any separation of powers, justice is no longer autonomous from the Govt and hence the EU sanctions in recent years – in no way represents the heartbeat of the entire Polish people. Of course can always argue that they won the election and I think that’s true but voters vote for a number of reasons and after a very deep economic crisis there was a favorable climate to elect populist nationalists full of rage like Kaczyński. Who is still in charge of the party and commands the country. It is not the first time in European history, nor will it be the last. They also voted for Hitler. Warsaw in the 90’s must have been the most depressing city in Europe.
They are so crazy that they even declare “war” on Germany, the main responsible for their development in recent years. If Germany withdraws all the investment, namely industrial, that it made in Poland, poor people. Poland is a large country in eastern Europe, which, as a former Soviet satellite, benefits from a highly qualified and cheap labor force in Europe. Something always highly valued by foreign investment. That Poland managed to capture a lot with a series of tax benefits. Like, for example, the German auto factories. But not only. People like to think of many factors that contribute to the development of a nation but in reality nothing has contributed as much as the level of education. Just to give you an idea, the biggest difference between the richest Europe and the poorest Europe is that the latter, for a series of reasons such as dictatorships, entered the 21st century with the same level of education that the richest part left in the 19th century. . And the Soviets with many defects, like everyone else, had a good education system and a lot of schooling.
In addition, it was greatly helped by the US and was not plundered like Russia and Ukraine. The latter externally and internally. Kolomoisky, the oligarch of Dnipro Zelenssky’s political father even managed to steal a loan from the IMF. Jeffrei Sachs explains lending in Eastern Europe well. What went well and what went wrong. But only with the military investment that it has been making in recent years and now with the conflict in Ukraine, it broke economically. With record inflation and just yesterday said a youtuber who is preparing to leave Poland due to the social climate, with coal stored for two cities in winter. And of course he is receiving Millions for helping refugees.
Hatred of Russia goes back much further than WWII. Several centuries of wars and I agree that today he doesn’t know how to live in the present. Incidentally, the current US plan to balkanize Russia, recently presented in Prague with Walesa who says he has no money for vodka anymore – gone are the Nobel conferences – is Piłsudski’s. Another crazy nationalist who defeated the Red Army in the Polish-Soviet War right after WWI. Due to the inexperience of a Russian officer when all was lost for Poland. And hence the myth of Piłsudski’s nationalist heroism in Poland.
Anyone who reads his speeches at the time looks like Zelensky. “You have to help us because we are the last barrier against the red horde”. And apparently he must have also told the plan to Woodrow Wilson who also liked to say that Russia couldn’t be that big. Always natural resources. And the Kaczyński brothers at night in long underwear must have looked like two Piłsudskis. One not enough… Poland was the first to join NATO and the EU was bought many years ago by the US like other former Soviet satellites to play an anti-Russian role. Like Ukraine. The EU bears a lot of responsibility for not knowing how to manage the dissolution of the USSR. And let it create several barrels of gunpowder to explode when it comes in handy. In economic terms, no one benefits from the difficulties of another country. The problem is when the political factor or external interference crosses into a given economic block. Which is what happened in Europe at the end of the 20th century. Today we are only seeing the net result of these interferences! Europe needs to be autonomous to claim its role as a global player!
It is worth listening to Glenn Diesen and Richard Sakwa – from the University of Kent, today one of the leading specialists on Russia in the West – about everything that the EU has not done in the last 30 years to have today a Common European Home with Russia integrated into instead of this horrible conflict in Ukraine. With an economically much stronger EU and with a decisive role like never before as a global player in an International Order based on the UN Charter and international law. With laws in place of Washington or Davos rules.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUqXI-6shW4
An hour well spent watching this. Thank you Larry.
The post-Soviet Russian “revalations” about some 25,000 Poles killed by the Soviets associated with the Katyn massacre are far from airtight. There’s good evidence for around 3,000 killed at the Katyn site, but the other sites associated with the supposed 25,000+ killed by the Soviets have not had their association with a Soviet execution campaign verified. There was investigation of some “Katyn” sites in Ukraine by Polish forensic anthropologists which yielded evidence, ranging from the systematic arrangement of bodies to markings on bullet casings, that they occurred after the Soviets were driven from the area, and that they were the work of German SS units. There was actually some personally identifiable information on victims who had been attributed to the Katyn massacres, buried in the same mass graves as children. Massacring children was in the M.O. of the SS, not the NKVD. Additionally, the authenticity of the “Beria memo” is in doubt. Falsifying documents was an established technique of historical revision in service of power plays in the Soviet bureaucracy, dating all the way back to Stalin. The document falsifiers were highly skilled and possessed all the necessary materials – period stationery, stamps, typewriters and such – to produce convincing fakes. For most of Soviet history, authorization for document falsification was tightly controlled from the highest levels. But those controls broke down in the late Soviet era, and anyone with an axe to grind, enough Rubles, and the right connections could put the document falsifiers to work. There is some evidence, in the form of an anachronistic reference to “Ukraine” instead of “The Ukrainian SSR” in the supposed Beria memo of 1940, that it is a fake. There is a good case to be made that the “Beria memo” originated from political jockeying during the collapse of the Soviet Union. Putin fell for it and presenting it to the Poles suited his objective of trying to foster a rapprochement with Poland during the early 2000s.
My take on Katyn is that the Soviets had a long-standing “wanted” list of Polish officials against whom they bore grievances, dating back to the Polish-Soviet war of 1919-1921. Those officials had the official status of internees when they fell into Soviet hands in 1939 and their ultimate status was subject to negotiation with the Polish Government in Exile, whom the Soviets still recognized as the legal Polish government until the PGIE declared war on the Soviet Union in December 1939. That declaration of war ended any prospect of negotiation with the PGIE over interned Poles and changed the status of the 3,000 or so “wanted” subjects to imprisoned officials of a hostile power. The PGIE’s declaration of war removed any inhibitions the Soviets had over dealing with the Katyn internees as hostile.
I will not discuss the massacre because it is not the massacre or only the Katyn massacre that determines Poland’s hatred of Russia. But you can be sure that there is no more maligned political leader in the world than Stalin! Exactly what you say. Because he was vilified by the West and the Soviets themselves starting from krushev by the party struggles. The USSR itself was always the victim of a disinformation campaign in the West like the one we are witnessing today in relation to the conflict in Ukraine. And don’t think that I want to defend the USSR, I’m just stating a fact!
Europe cannot trust a country like Poland that joined NATO first than the EU! Europe, largely due to external inference from the US, never knew how to deal with the dissolution of the USSR. Even Brezinski, a Pole who hated Russia, always said that it couldn’t be just NATO that determines Europe’s security. NATO, to continue to exist, must be subordinated to a European security architecture. Otherwise, it is equivalent to armies leading democracies politically. And the fact that the European security architecture is subordinated to NATO and US interests is what makes NATO today the biggest cancer in Europe. With this terrible war that at any moment could spread across the entire Continent like a WWIII or even a nuclear war. Merkl came today to say that the US boycotted the Minsk agreements. And that if he had continued in power in Germany he was working on a project to discuss the Minsk III agreements only between Europeans. Which would probably prevent this war!
https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1596194750620585984
“there is no more maligned political leader in the world than Stalin”
Perhaps you haven’t noticed the attacks on Donald Trump over the last 6 years.
I was talking about historic world leaders. And I wasn’t saying I’m just a fan of Stalin either. I was talking about the problems of myths. Not even 50% of what you read is true and they are no longer here to defend themselves. I never understood how FDR trusted the psychopath so much!
And he trusted Churchill so little. That today we celebrate as one of the greatest Western political leaders of all time?! Who was never more than a populist scammer very much in the BoJo genre.
Stalin is a persistently awkward historical subject because his record of political repression, brutal as it is, gets wrapped in mythology and some outright fabrications concerning massive crimes against humanity, the nature of Soviet prison camps, and such. The purges of the “Stalin Terror” were real, with a venal desire for absolute power a motivation and deadly towards those who were perceived to have crossed Stalin. But the actual death toll was far from the fantastical figures in the millions that have been tossed about. The notion that the gulags were simply places where prisoners were worked to death is another myth. The Soviets were faced with a chronic manpower shortage and throwing lives away that way was not in their interest. There are records of large numbers deported to the gulags but also records of large numbers released from them. One of the leading Soviet aeronautical engineers of the WWII era was sent to a gulag for “wrecking,” then allowed to ply his trade in a tightly controlled way within the gulag, and eventually released. The current-day recruiting practices of the Wagner PMC seem to echo the Soviet model of rehabilitation: confront the prisoner with a long, hope-killing prison sentence, then offer an early release for jumping through whatever hoops the powers that be have dreamed up for the prisoner. Also, the famine of the early 1930s, in which inept and heavy-handed policy played a large part, is shrouded by myths rooted in contemporary propaganda alleging genocide, spewing fabricated numbers, and recycling images from the Russian Civil War. But that propaganda became accepted as historical record for the simple reason of political convenience. When proper historical and demographic research methodology, taking into account the large amount of migration then occurring as a result of industrialization, is used, the number of excess deaths attributable to famine is something like 3.5 million distributed between the Ukrainian, Russian, and Kazakh SSRs. That is of an entirely different quality than the seven or more million purported to have taken place in the Ukrainian SSR alone as an argument for a genocide. And propagandists of various stripes love to toss around cooked-up Ukrainian famine death tolls and conflation of gulags with concentration camps, because what could be more damning than an unfavorable comparison with Hitler? And while we’re discussing famines brought about by government action, what do the Bengal famines say about British rule in India?
In my own experience as a recovering Leftist, my revulsion towards Stalin moderated as I grew further away from Leftist orthodoxy. My sense is that Stalin gets reviled on the Left as a means of finding a scapegoat for the excesses, up to and including some crimes against humanity, committed by the Bolsheviks in general, especially during the Russian Civil War. The persecution and terror directed against the Russian Orthodox faith is one example and suggests some ethnic hatred against Russians among leading Bolsheviks, foretold by Friedrich Engels’ reference to Russians as a “reactionary people.” I suspect that Stalin’s rise and consolidation of power was driven at least in part by Stalin having a better understanding of Russia and Russians than did his peers among the Bolsheviks. He was trained as an Orthodox priest. He referred to faith in his rallying of the Russians against the German invasion in 1941. There is every indicator that his religious revival was genuine in addition to serving its political purpose. He was always careful to refer to himself as “a Russian from Georgia.” He remains a very popular historical figure in Russia despite the Kruschev revelations and the ritual denunciations of Stalin in Russia’s post-Soviet “liberal” period. Ron Unz made the very cogent point about the more recent habit of vilifying regime-change targeted leaders based on fakes – Saddam Hussein, Milosevic, Qaddafi, Assad, Putin, and Xi – and what it says about the caution with which we should regard the records of historically vilified figures.
“There’s good evidence for around 3,000 killed at the Katyn site …”
The German press published the names of those killed at the site… all adult males, mostly -if not all- military…
To be sure, primary sources of the former Soviet Union -and any secondary source citing official archives- should be properly researched. If we find a list with all the names matching those published in Germany in 1943 we will have put an end to the controversy.
Human history is filled with evil and violence. No single nationality on this planet can claim full innocence. All have done something in their history which is spiteful and not pleasant to remember. What is needed is willingness to acknowledge past errors, apologize, forgive, move on, and learn to live as good neighbors with one another, keeping in mind the golden rule, that how others want to be treated is exactly the same as how we want to be treated. Sadly, many national leaders do not prioritize in building up wisdom in order to attain maturity. Instead they indulge their greed in order to attain personal wealth and prestige, knowing well that this only leads to the continuing cycle of hate and violence. Maybe one day in the future this can change, but I am not too optimistic.
1) let’s do some homework – it was not the German statelets/fiefdoms which dominated European landscape in the Middle Ages. It was The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
2) Germany/UK/France do NOT have any combat-capable army whatsoever – that applies to the US as well
3) if similar amount of refugees would flood the US (of whatever origin – Mexicans / Syrians/Iraqis/Vietnamese /Yemenis etc) – what would have happened in the city upon the hill?
Larry, I love your articles and interviews, but I think you need a faster internet. Your interviews break up too much and sometimes we miss much of what your are saying. The interviewers, like this one with Mike Krupa, never break up. Just some well-intended advice.
I post this link rather reluctantly because it is a disjointed series of tweets but the information and the comments are very important: the site is usually excellent but in this case it was not organized altho comments were moderated:
Bottom line is Poland is in serious trouble with budget deficits, etc but which country in the west is not in trouble, just a matter how big are the deficits!
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2022/11/polands-coming-economic-collapse-a-story-in-8-tweets.htmlost
Я русская из России. С огромным интересом прочитала статью и все комментарии через Яндекс-переводчик. Не могу сказать, что полностью согласна с высказанными мнениями. Но меня радует, что вы рассуждаете на эти темы и задаетесь правильными вопросами. Спасибо!
И еще: Россия на правильной стороне Истории, Россия на стороне Добра, Россия не сводит счеты, Россия не одержима ненавистью ни к кому, значит, победа будет за нами.