> when Poland attacked the Soviet Union in the 1920s

Eh, it was more complicated than that. Basically a gradual build up from 1918 advancement of Polish forces from west and Soviet from east into the territories abandoned by German armies, then "border incidents" then regular army clashes, and eventually a full blown offensive by Poland and counteroffensive by Soviets.

I guess you can interpret it as Poland invading soviet russia (no soviet union yet btw, and Poland was supporting one of the 3 Ukrainian states that existed at the time).

But yeah Poland wasn't innocent anyway. For example it did the Putin's Crimean trick on Lithuania back in interwar. That was much more clear-cut.

> In any case, Eastern Europe is deeply plagued and poisoned by all of this past violence. No one is able to have a mea culpa moment, no one is able to admit their own guys were bloody murders often killing thousands of people like cattle. No one can admit their ancestors crap.

That's just false.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giedroyc_Doctrine

Poland did mea culpa after WW2. The whole thing is based on recognizing that Poland has been imperialist and did bad things and that it's in the end bad for Poland to continue trying to control these territories because it pushes us into conflict against Russia without the support of the other countries.

On the other hand admiting guilt and renouncing imperialism makes us clearly the lesser evil for the countries in between and gives us buffer zone in case Russia turns evil again (which we predicted, and which did happened).

It was the basis for Polish eastern foreign policy for last 37 years and still is (it's another question for how long it stays that way if far-right wins the next elections tho).

I highly recommend anybody interested in Eastern Europe after WW2 to read Giedroyc and Mieroszewski. They were visionaires. They predicted back in 1950s that USSR will fall and that the independent nationstates that will appear will have 2 choices - go back to chaotic ethnic wars or drop the territorial and historical disputes. And they developed the doctrine in 70s and slowly persuaded opposition in communist Poland so when Poland regained independence in 1989 - almost all the elites bought into it. It was a big bet and it worked very well for Poland.

Sadly nowadays half of Polish political scene starts to move away from that, but that's another subject. Mostly just unchecked far-right propaganda.

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tmp10423288442 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

In the case of Poland, though, the post-war situation had more to do with Stalin wanting to punish Poland for interfering in Ukraine, as well as put more distance between the core of the Soviet Union and Germany, by seizing Polish territory in the east to give to the Ukrainian SSR, but in exchange and to weaken Germany, most of Prussia in Germany was seized and given to Poland, with the attending population transfers. In any case, with the Warsaw Pact, any revanchist sentiments that may have remained in Poland weren't going to get off the ground.

	▲	ajuc 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Stalin forcibly moved millions of Poles and decreased Polish territory by 1/7th, that after hundreds of thousands of Poles were murdered by Ukrainians and 2 out of top 5 pre-WW2 Polish cities become Ukrainian/Lithuanian capitals. Poles behaved very responsibly after 1989. Let's remember Poland got independent in 1989 and Ukraine/Belarus/Lithuania in 1991. There was a window of a year or so in which Poland had already organised state and army and the eastern neighbors - didn't. It could have gone very wrong (think - Yugoslavia like) if not for the 30 years of internal discussions about the imperialism and future reconcilliation among Polish oppositional elites.

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epolanski 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

That doctrine is far more of a partially implemented wishful thinking than anything the polish society or foreign policy really pursued.

As a society we're nowhere near the Germans when it comes to amending our mistakes.

Most poles will blame Ukrainians for their WW2 acts, but barely recognize our own fails between ww1 and ww2.

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ajuc 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Giedroyć doctrine was pursued by all the governments since 1989, even if the society as a whole wasn't always entirely persuaded.

For one example Poland accepted all the borders around it after WW2 the instant any country appeared (it was usually the first or 2nd country in the world recognizing each of these countries as they appeared). And renounced any territorial disputes. That's despite the fact before the war Vilnius and Lviv were top 5 Polish cities with huge cultural impact, and despite the fact that Poland lost 1/7th of it's territory after WW2 (even including the territory we got on the west as "compensation"). I will admit we got better land in exchange for marches and forests. But millions of people who got forcibly relocated after WW2 could be much more unreasonable about it than they were.

I agree German society is more reasonable about it than Polish society, but when it comes to elites - it was the opposite for a long time. German eastern policy was much more imperial than Polish one at least till 2021. They tended to ignore EE countries issues over appeasing Russia, treating all the problematic stuff as "russophobia" and dealing with Russia over the heads of the smaller countries (Nord Stream 1 and 2 is just one example, there were also the issues of Russia hacking Estonian elections, blocking the gas deliveries against the contract on purpose to blackmail EE countries, etc.) Germany was ignoring these for the longest time.

Also - Germans waited with recognizing Polish post-WW2 borders and only did it when they were forced to - to get unification accepted. It was surprisingly realpolitik. Similarly - to this day Germany does not provide most Slavic minorities with minority rights despite Germans enjoying German city names, street names, education in these languages, etc in German-speaking Polish regions. It's very weird when you compare the treatment of minorities in practice with the sentiments of the population and the stereotypes about the countries.

So I wouldn't single out Germany as the most reasonable politically regarding EE. Their political instincts were till the last few years to deal with Russia and ignore the small countries.

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throw9383038 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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ajuc 3 hours ago | parent [-]

> They still promote genocide of slavic nations by mass migration from africa!

That's enough internet for today.

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