Get the Ricochet app
Ricochet will work fine in a browser on your mobile devices, but for the best experience please download our app.
The reason I chose to highlight Putin's history lecture with Tucker Carlson involving Poland is because there is more to the history of WWII. The secret agreement for both the Soviet and German invasion of Poland was not the end of the brutal occupation of Poland by the Soviet Union after the end of WWII.
The occupation of Poland is living history. It is not forgotten by the Polish people that are still alive, as some of us were alive during this time. The last of the Soviet Union troops in Poland left in 1993.
The persecution of AK (former Polish Home Army) members was only one aspect of the reign of Stalinist terror in postwar Poland. In the period from 1944 to 1956, at least 300,000 Polish civilians were arrested. Some sources claim that up to two million were arrested. Approximately 6,000 death sentences were issued, and the majority of them were carried out. It is probable that more than 20,000 people died in communist prisons. including those executed "in the majesty of the law", such as Witold Pilecki, a hero of Auschwitz. A further six million Polish citizens (i.e., one out of every three adult Poles) were classified as suspected members of a 'reactionary or criminal element' and subjected to investigation by state agencies. During the Polish October of 1956, a political amnesty freed 35,000 former AK soldiers from prisons. But some partisans remained in service, unwilling or simply unable to rejoin the civilian community. The cursed soldier Stanisław Marchewka "Ryba" ("The Fish") was killed in 1957, and the last AK partisan, Józef Franczak "Lalek" ("Doller"), was killed in 1963 — almost two decades after the Second World War ended. In 1967, long after the abolition of Stalinist terror, Adam Boryczka, the last member of the elite British-trained Cichociemny ("The Silent and Hidden") intelligence and support group, was finally released from prison. Until the end of the People's Republic of Poland. Former AK soldiers were under constant investigation by the secret police. It was only in 1989, after the fall of communism, that the convictions of AK soldiers were finally declared invalid and annulled by Polish law. - from Wikipedia
The NKVD and the UB (Polish Security Force) that was supervised by the NKVD were no better than the Nazi Gestapo of WWII.
Russians are not liberators. They are occupiers. The Katyn Forest Massacres in WWII was not the end of Soviet-Russian atrocities involving Poland. Putin is a clever historian, and most of his reflections on history are for home consumption. If he is believed outside of Russia that's useful as well. The danger comes when history is rationalized, and it contains the lies that drive military actions.
I start to wonder about those citizens in our own country who don't know much about history. How can you forget the German bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1776, that started the American Civil War against France that didn't end until 1916.
Discussion (24)
CHARTER MEMBER
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
The reason Russians are so perplexed by the attitudes of their neighbors toward Russia is because they don't know their own history.
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
Technically they might know their history...a version of their history. As Putin points out their history is important and more so to the Russian culture. The survival and continually increasing strength of the Rus people is an amazing story. As with any history it can be used for current political purposes and Putin appears to be a master of that useful craft. I watched the Tucker Carlson interview with great interest.
As Putin points out there is a 1,000 year history of the inclusion of Ukrainian territory within the Russian Empire. Ukrainian history is closely tied to Russia and the peoples are closely intertwined culturally, linguistically, and genetically. He points out the special relationship between Russian and Serbia. Also implicit in his history lesson is the close ties with Lithuania and Poland. These last two nations have much to be nervous about. Especially Poland as Putin points out the many times Poland had mistreated the Russian people and nation (in his very slanted version of history).
Americans also have to be careful on how history is used to politically control us. The whole object of the 1619 Project was to shame Americans to politically behave a certain way. The current narratives on reparations focuses on a very specific and shameful part of American history. Typically there is much truth in the version but tends to overemphasize one area...slavery...from the rest of the American story.
Overall the Putin interview should be instructive on several levels for the American viewing audience. One is to understand the current Russian leadership view of what they are doing. Another is how does America respond to such aggression. Finally we should recognize how history can be used and misused.
CHARTER MEMBER
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
Oh, they know some of it, maybe, but they've been told for over 100 years now that everyone else is out to get them.
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
You don't know much about history, Doug. You seem to start around 1939.
Maybe you want to study the 300-odd years before that, to understand the historic context of Russo-Polish relations. Maybe start around 1600, when the vicious Poles took advantage of a double-whammy suffered by the Russians, a dynastic crisis and famine, by invading.
The Poles were about to put a Pole on the Russian throne, and the Russians were going along with it, but being Catholic, the Poles insisted that the Russians convert. This was too much, so the Russians rebelled.
I don't think that the Russians forget those who invaded them from the west -- the Poles, and the Swedes, and the French, and the Germans.
So it turns out that the Poles are pretty awful, too. Just like everyone else. But they became weak, and suffered the natural consequences.
By the way, much of what used to be Poland is now western Ukraine. Much of what used to be eastern Germany is now western Poland. But I don't hear you bitching about the Poles (and Russians) having ethnically cleansed about 10 million Germans.
Putin's historical understanding dwarfs yours. You pick and choose only the snippets of recent history that support your Neocon virtue signaling and foolishness.
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
“The future is certain; it is only the past that is unpredictable” - Russian joke
You're seeing five of 24 comments. Sign in, or join for just $5 per month, to read them all and add your own.