"What are you going to do" was a phrase you could hear in Poland as well in 90ties and early 2000th. What differentiated PL w/ UA in my opinion is 2 things:

1. Lack of oligarchy - which in fact was not obvious outcome and little bit of luck on our part and little bit of cultural zeitgeist of 90ties and 00ths. 2. No east-west dithering - PL knew right away to which economic and cultural sphere wanted to belong

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foobarian 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> 2. No east-west dithering - PL knew right away to which economic and cultural sphere wanted to belong

I wonder how much the Catholic vs. Orthodox background affected things there

	▲	rembal an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Not much I think. I had long discussions about it with my Ukrainian friends: we came to the conclusion that it was mostly the fact that Ukraine was part of the USSR (much harder crackdowns on opposition, actually including the church) - and that also built stronger ties with Russia. A lot of people forget that USSR really was a multicultural empire: you had families where in the 90s siblings abruptly woke up in different countries: Russia, Belarus, Ukraine. Post-2022 some of those families stopped talking to each other, the propaganda is stronger than the family ties. Before the situation got clarified by falling bombs, the east/west choice was much harder.
	▲	inglor_cz an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		It certainly helps if you don't have a massive minority speaking Russian.

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pjc50 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Lack of oligarchy is starting to look like an absolutely critical ingredient, and it's lucky that Poland escaped from the PiS trying to turn it into an oligarchy.