Having stated that Poland should pay the 'liberators' (i.e. Moscow) USD 750 billion for reconstruction after World War II, the head of the Russian legislature began a razor's edge campaign. He either has a poor knowledge of the past or is deliberately manipulating the facts in an attack of impotent anger against Warsaw for its assistance to Ukraine. Vyacheslav Volodin believes that Poland allegedly exists only because of Russia, and he also criticized the Poles for demolishing monuments to Soviet soldiers, closing Russian schools, and allegedly 'stealing Russian property.'
However, a serious flaw crept into Volodin's public rhetoric. While making claims against Warsaw, he said that the 'Soviet people' spent those 'reconstruction' billions, without thinking about what this artificial 'community' has to do with Russia.
But this is just a trifle. Because if we are to revise the consequences of World War II (and why only it?), Poland can bill Russia for much more. Starting with the fact that it was the Russian Empire that was directly involved in the three partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1772, 1793, and 1795. That is, it actually destroyed the independent Polish state. At the same time, I would add that it was Russian soldiers under the leadership of the 'hero' Alexander Suvorov who brutally suppressed any attempts at resistance, including the uprising of Tadeusz Kościuszko.
“If we are to revise the consequences of World War II (and why only it?), Poland can bill Russia for much more. Starting with the fact that it was the Russian Empire that was directly involved in the three partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1772, 1793, and 1795.”
It was as a result of these divisions that Russia first 'acquired' eastern Belarus and a piece of Latvia, then the Ukrainian Kyiv region, Volyn, Podillia, Bratslav, and eventually all Belarusian lands, Lithuania, Kurland, and Western Volyn.
The Polish state recovered from this 'liberation mission' for a long time, until the Second Polish Republic was established in 1918 (the Kingdom of Poland of 1815 was probably more of a quasi-entity) as a result of the collapse of Tsarist Russia. But even then, the successors of the empire did not give up trying to 'restore historical justice').
If Volodin wants such 'justice,' the Poles can remind him of Katyn, when, according to historically recorded decisions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the NKVD shot more than 20,000 Polish officers, including the best representatives of the national intelligentsia mobilized into the army.
“If Volodin wants such 'justice,' the Poles can remind him of Katyn, when, according to historically recorded decisions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the NKVD shot more than 20,000 Polish officers, including the best representatives of the national intelligentsia mobilized into the army.”
The horror of Katyn echoed no less tragically on April 10, 2010, when almost the entire elite of the modern Republic of Poland, led by President Lech Kaczyński, died in a 'man-made' disaster near Smolensk.
I understand that Volodin, the 'historian,' intended to kill two birds with one stone: to take out his anger at Poland's nationalization of Russian property, and at the same time to play on the feelings of the Germans, to whom Warsaw allegedly also has 'reparations' claims, because Warsaw has recently made an official decision to rename 'Russian' Kaliningrad Królewiec. However, the speaker of the Russian State Duma's bet on Berlin also turned out to be indecently lame. After all, to be frank, while mentioning World War II, Volodin is shy about who was directly involved in its outbreak. That the greatest massacre of the last century was the result of a conspiracy between two tyrants, the Nazi Hitler and Bolshevik Stalin. And that after the signing of the secret Molotov-Ribbentrop protocols, it was the USSR that stabbed Poland in the back when its army put up fierce resistance to the Nazis at Westerplatte near Gdansk, 'reuniting' western Ukraine. It had all the attributes of Bolshevik 'liberation' - the deportation of almost 20 percent of the population of Galicia, trials of nationally active intellectuals, executions, and the liquidation of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. Not to mention the mass genocidal extermination in prisons after the German invasion began - in Lviv, Salina, Drohobych, Sambir, Chortkiv, Demianiv Laz…
“Mentioning World War II, Volodin is shy about who was directly involved in its outbreak. That the greatest massacre of the last century was the result of a conspiracy between two tyrants, Nazi Hitler and Bolshevik Stalin.”
In general, the statements by Volodin, Medvedev, and Putin himself about the 'injustice' of the post-World War II borders, about the 'gifts' that Russia 'unjustifiably' gave to its neighbors, give the impression that Moscow hoped in vain for Yalta 3, with the return of the world to the principle of zones of influence. The failure of Putin's aggression in Ukraine and the inevitability of Moscow's military defeat put a bold cross on these hopes.
The world has become different. And, as last week's G7 summit showed, Moscow is no longer needed in it. A kind of useless swamp reserve with nuclear weapons that can only be flaunted like a gangster flaunting a shiv. But there is a solution for that, too.
About the author. Ihor Hulyk, journalist, editor-in-chief of the Espreso website.
The editors don't always share the opinions expressed by the authors of the blogs.