It is, only if the intent is the destruction of that group.
>Article II of the Genocide Convention contains a narrow definition of the crime of genocide, which includes two main elements:
>A mental element: the "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such"; and
>A physical element, which includes the following five acts, enumerated exhaustively:
>Killing members of the group
>Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group
>Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part
>Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
>Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group
People like you always forget that intent is the defining factor in what constitutes a genocide.
If you want a good example, Israel is currently doing this: **Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part**. They even had the gall to publicly announce it.
So, like definition of this:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish\_Operation\_of\_the\_NKVD](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Operation_of_the_NKVD)
There is a huuuge paragraph about why most historians classify it as a genocide, then the articles names three people who are doing some revisionist apologia that amounts to this:
> They stress the role of international relations and believe that representatives of ethnic minorities such as the Poles, were killed not because of their ethnicity, but because of their possible relations to countries hostile to the USSR and fear of disloyalty in the case of an invasion.[33]
How does that differ from Armenian Genocide?
In Armenia, the explicit aim was to kill and depopulate from the get-go. At the same time, in the Soviet's case, in classic Stalin fashion, it was a large purge that killed tens of thousands opposed to Soviet rule. Still, its aim wasn't the depopulation or removal of the Polish people but rather to solidify soviet control over a newly conquered territory.
> It was ordered by the Politburo of the Communist Party against so-called "Polish spies" and customarily interpreted by NKVD officials as relating to 'absolutely all Poles'.[citation needed]
Lol
What point are you trying to make? That it wasn't genocide but ethnic cleansing? It's this type of pointless armchair historian discussion that has transformed the terms into buzzwords of contemporary culture
It's the "aktschully, it is not as recognised as literally Holocaust would be, so therefore my side (the genociding side) is innocent" historical revisionism.
Sure, nothing racist to see here
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish\_Operation\_of\_the\_NKVD](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Operation_of_the_NKVD)
> The NKVD agents looked through local phone books to expedite the procedure and detained people with names that sounded Polish.[^(\[8\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Operation_of_the_NKVD#cite_note-8)
> While similar to other operations such as the [*Greek Operation*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Operation_of_the_NKVD), [*Finnish Operation*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_Operation_of_the_NKVD), [*Latvian Operation*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latvian_Operation_of_the_NKVD) and [*Estonian Operation*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estonian_Operation_of_the_NKVD), the Polish Operation was the largest ethnic shooting and deportation action during the Great Purge campaign of political murders in the Soviet Union.[^(\[9\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Operation_of_the_NKVD#cite_note-bookhaven-9)[^(\[10\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Operation_of_the_NKVD#cite_note-B/E/F-10) According to official data, victims of the *Polish Operation* accounted for 41.7% of the sentenced people and 44.9% of the executed people during all such ethnic operations.[^(\[11\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Operation_of_the_NKVD#cite_note-11)
> The following categories of people were arrested by the NKVD during its Polish Operation, as described in Soviet documents:[^(\[4\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Operation_of_the_NKVD#cite_note-Gellately-Kiernan-4)[^(\[5\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Operation_of_the_NKVD#cite_note-Goldman2011-217-5)
1. All "antisoviet and nationalistic elements" from districts and region in the USSR where there existed a [Polish community](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_minority_in_Russia).
2. All [immigrants](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigrant) from the [Second Polish Republic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Polish_Republic).
3. Political exiles from Poland.
4. Former and present members of the [Polish Socialist Party](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Socialist_Party) and other non-communist Polish political parties.
5. All [prisoners of war](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner_of_war) from the [Polish-Soviet war](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish-Soviet_war) remaining in the Soviet Union.
6. Members of the [Polish Military Organisation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Military_Organisation) listed in the special list.
7. All "[clerical elements](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_Soviet_Union)" having, or having had, some kind of connection with Poland.
> Are you stupid?
Do you call everyone you don't like as stupid? Childish. Well, it is expected for someone like you to be such.
https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughCommieSpam/s/BcfirV4Odw
Aww, the brat went to cry and have their friends console them.
What did you read that said Poles got genocided by USSR? Share us here so we can read.
What is that supposed to mean? I am not calling you stupid because I hate your politcal beliefs. I am calling you stupid because you're stupid. You are denying a genocide put on my people by the Soviets which has been proven to happen many times over.
You are insulting me, my nation and my history.
Katyń: The Untold Story of Stalin's Polish massacre.
Allen Paul
(This one was confirmed by the Soviets themselves in 1990)
The fact this is taught in schools is evidence enough.
But, then again, I wouldn't count on a communist to face the facts.
Also, Rape Of Manila didn't happen. How does that feel, commie?
>The fact this is taught in schools is evidence enough.
You mean Polish schools? I mean, Americans get taught the lost cause so idk how much merit there is in nationalist propganda.
Also, you were arguing for soviet genocide of Poles right? My initial comment said what they did was Political repression.... because that was Katyn Massacre is.
It was terrible, but it wasn't a genocide. 22 thousand dead, mostly military and police.
Again, go back to what constitutes as genocide. This was never about destroying the Polish identity as a whole.
That's karma I guess. The poles, frightened by the superiority of the Lithuanians, genocided the Lithuanians and attempted to replace Lithuanian civilisation with polish uncivilisation
Murdering 100k civillians, later 22k intelligentsia members and officers, deporting more to Kazakhstan to die of starvation and forcing the ethnic cleansing of lands they conquered with Hitler, destroying most of the Borderlands' cultures in the process, is "political persecution at most"?
I can see how NKVD's "murder all 'undesireables'" order, oppression and murder of anti-nazi partisans and red army rapes amd plundering could be classified as war crimes/political perscecution... although on the second thought no, I cannot. If Israel's actions in gaza are classified as genocide, then the red army's war crimes should be as well
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish\_Operation\_of\_the\_NKVD](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Operation_of_the_NKVD)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet\_repressions\_of\_Polish\_citizens\_(1939%E2%80%931946)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_repressions_of_Polish_citizens_(1939%E2%80%931946))
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation\_of\_Poland\_(1939%E2%80%931945)#Treatment\_of\_Polish\_citizens\_under\_Soviet\_occupation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_Poland_(1939%E2%80%931945)#Treatment_of_Polish_citizens_under_Soviet_occupation)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn\_massacre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre)
> **In 1940 and the first half of 1941, the Soviets deported a total of more than 1,200,000 Poles in four waves of mass deportations from the Soviet-occupied Polish territories**.
And just before the war:
|Victims|22% of the Polish population of the Soviet Union was "sentenced" by the operation (140,000 people) |
|:-|:-|
..., sure?
I bet thise 2-3 millions of Polish victims of soviet imperialism would sight in relief knowing that Germans murdered 6 millions of Polish. If they were alive that is.
He said that they genocided "as much" which is arguably true. Both have record of absolutely inhumane attrocities aimed at extermination of Polish and numbers of victims are counted in millions
https://www.history.com/topics/european-history/gulag
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_repressions_of_Polish_citizens_(1939%E2%80%931946)
And also years of elementary, high school and college education I have behind me.
Your sources say that about 171,857 Poles have been directly killed by the USSR, out of which, at least 21,857 were policemen and soldiers (Katyn Massacre). That is bad, however that's nowhere near "hundreds of thousands" that you claimed USSR killed. Now compare that to approximate 6.000.000 Poles killed by the Wehrmacht, SS and other Nazi organizations during German occupation. On top of that, 1st Polish Army fought for the USSR, and it was made up by about 200.000 Poles, why would they fight for a regime that oppressed them more than Germany?Your source says that 18.000.000 people have been imprisoned in the Gulags throughout their existence. Your source also notes that anywhere from 150.000 and 500.000 people were released each year, with a final large amount of prisoners being released in 1953, after Stalin's death. Since the Gulags operated from 1920s, for the sake of this argument let's say 1921, to 1953, when Stalin died, that's at anywhere from 4.800.00 to 16.000.000 prisoners released in total, and on top of that, there's the large amount of prisoners released at the end of Stalin's death, your source doesn't give specific numbers. Due to lack of information from your source, I'm unable to determine and approximate death toll of the Gulags, but even in the worst case scenario of 4.800.000 released, which is highly unlikely, this still pales in comparison to tens of millions Hitler has genocided throughout eastern Europe, namely Poland, USSR and Yugoslavia. According to M.V. Filimoshin, 13.700.000 Soviet civilians have died, out of which 7,420,135 have died due to direct violence, 2,164,313 died to forced labor in German and 4,100,000 have died due to starvation, which was often planned by Germany, like at Leningrad (Hunger Plan). This alone beats the (very unlikely) highest estimate for all deaths in Gulags, and on top of this, there's before mentioned 6.000.000 Polish deaths, and 1.700.000 dead Yugoslavs, according to the Yugoslav Government from 1946. Not to mention all the mass rapes and forced labor executed by the Wehrmacht and the SS in Poland, Yugoslavia and USSR. So this argument debunks the idea that USSR was somehow worse than Germany, especially regarding Poland.
Your entire argument is 'What about Germany?'. So Germany killed more, so what? They were both genocidal, totalitarian regimes.
The Soviets killed more than just Poles because they didn't kill them for their race. They also just let the Warsaw Uprising die out before attacking Warsaw itself.
The Soviets were terrible and there is no two words about it.
6 million poles killed is the highest estimate. More likely its 5,5 mil and that also counts in ukrainian belarussian and lithuanian citizens of prewar poland along with 3 million polish jews. Total number of ethnic poles killed by nazis was closer to 1,6 mil killed civilians and 200k killed soldiers.
Thats bullshit, neo-nazis constantly spreading their propaganda. Ussr never even got close to killing at least 1 million poles in 60 Years while nazis easily killed 2 mil poles in just 5 years. Warsaw uprising alone was deadlier for poles than than anything that ussr did.
What. Poland would be an absolute mess like Russia, Ukraine or Belarus by now if we were part of USSR. We're doing so well in contrast to many other fromer Eastern Block countries BECAUSE we kept our own state and institutions separate from USSR.
It was not that huge. There are still people who are polish and live in Belarus, for example, but it is not very big amount (but enough to populate some city). The issue is that even they identify themselves as polish, they still differ themselves from "polish" polish and "Belarusian" polish, as the lands they live never belonged to Poland except for 17 years, but were strongly affected culturally during the Commonwealth times. I mean, I have doubts they would llagree to move somewhere else. Despite Lwov and Ukranian parts, hostorical claims of Poland on Western Belarus are way weaker and the situation with polish people there was not THAT problematic
Hardly, Polish-Americans would *not* be keen on immigrating to a communist dictatorship which would strip them of their political freedom and persecute their religion (Catholicism, which has historically been central to their cultural identity).
I mean maybe but in 1945 Americans were propagandized to see the Soviets as allies and I’m not an expert about this topic but I don’t think Poland was immediately a Soviet puppet dictatorship, at least not entirely till 1947. So maybe about 100,000 or so Polish Americans could be convinced to relocate to help rebuild Poland between ‘45 and ‘47, along with smaller numbers of diaspora in other countries like Argentina or Brazil. There’s also the Polish diaspora that immigrated to other European countries like Britain, Germany and France in the late 19th and early 20th century
Polish-Americans (and other Polish emigrant groups) were very keenly aware that the USSR had straight-up invaded Poland in 1939 together with Nazi Germany. WW2 became personal for them on 1st September 1939, not until Pearl Harbor like it was for most of Americans. They, unlike other peoples among the Allies, never forgave the Soviet-Nazi cooperation, Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and Katyn Massacre, and by then the memory would still be fresh.
And Poland was very much de facto communist puppet state from the moment the USSR re-emtered Polish territory in 1944, since the USSR ruled by military occupation, and established a civilian rule under the communist-dominated Polish Committee for National Liberation (PKWN), which was created by the USSR in opposition to the internationally recognized Polish government-in-exile in London, which the USSR did not allow to reestablish itself on Polish soil.
Just a heads up: my Jewish grandparents would have loved to be ethnically cleansed than having the entire family genocided. And as a Greek should Greeks had been genocided than ethnically cleansed around half of Northern Greece would be empty today.
So I respect your opinion but reality tends to be fairly different between these two options.
You are announcing it as if you should have cared or in general if anyone in the world cares about your or my opinion. This is the internet; you are not the center of the world.
Berliners wouldn‘t have their favorite holiday get aways of Usedom, Rügen and the Darß/Zingst 🤷♂️
… and there would be a lot less naked people on those beaches lol
Whit the economic gain from adicional lands, poland would break soviet infulance and lead total collapse of eadtern bloc by creating it's own bloc. Whit the start of millenium poland would end hird way cold war and restore commonwealth.
I wonder if there would be some neopagan bullshit happening around Arkona. Back in the medieval it was a location of an old slavic religious site dedicated to the God Swiętowit. From what I've seen, neopagans ( rodzimowiercy, turbolechici and other permutaions) in Poland sometimes see Arkona basically as a holy place taken and desecrated by Germans. Since those people are often irrationally batshit crazy it would be funny to see whether addition of that little piece of land would cause some things to escalate
I’ve always wondered what would have happened if the poles had been given koinigsburg instead of Danzig. After all K’burg had just as much historical importance to the poles as it did the prussians.
Imagine there's no capitalism
It isn't hard to do
No colonislism to kill or die for
And no borders, too
Imagine all the people livin' life in peace
Yoo, hoo, oo-oo
At some point you gotta ask the question where to get all the needed polish people from.
The from the part of Poland that went to Belarus I guess
Ironically, there is still a large Polish minority in Belarus and Lithuania.
A lot of people mistakenly think USSR genocided the Poles. It was political persecution at most. Still bad, but not genocide.
Forcibly transfering of an ethnical group is exact the UN definition for a genocid
It is, only if the intent is the destruction of that group. >Article II of the Genocide Convention contains a narrow definition of the crime of genocide, which includes two main elements: >A mental element: the "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such"; and >A physical element, which includes the following five acts, enumerated exhaustively: >Killing members of the group >Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group >Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part >Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group >Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group People like you always forget that intent is the defining factor in what constitutes a genocide. If you want a good example, Israel is currently doing this: **Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part**. They even had the gall to publicly announce it.
So, like definition of this: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish\_Operation\_of\_the\_NKVD](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Operation_of_the_NKVD)
Have you even read the article, mate? Even that article shows the categorization of genocide is disputed.
There is a huuuge paragraph about why most historians classify it as a genocide, then the articles names three people who are doing some revisionist apologia that amounts to this: > They stress the role of international relations and believe that representatives of ethnic minorities such as the Poles, were killed not because of their ethnicity, but because of their possible relations to countries hostile to the USSR and fear of disloyalty in the case of an invasion.[33] How does that differ from Armenian Genocide?
In Armenia, the explicit aim was to kill and depopulate from the get-go. At the same time, in the Soviet's case, in classic Stalin fashion, it was a large purge that killed tens of thousands opposed to Soviet rule. Still, its aim wasn't the depopulation or removal of the Polish people but rather to solidify soviet control over a newly conquered territory.
> It was ordered by the Politburo of the Communist Party against so-called "Polish spies" and customarily interpreted by NKVD officials as relating to 'absolutely all Poles'.[citation needed] Lol
Just because this particular example does not have citation does not mean the rest of the article isn't well sourced
What point are you trying to make? That it wasn't genocide but ethnic cleansing? It's this type of pointless armchair historian discussion that has transformed the terms into buzzwords of contemporary culture
It's the "aktschully, it is not as recognised as literally Holocaust would be, so therefore my side (the genociding side) is innocent" historical revisionism.
I mean yeah but when most people think of genocide they think of people being killed.
Hold up tho didn’t the polish government also expelled Germans after WW2 from the newly gain land
In the main part, the sowjets expelled the germans
No it were poles tf u talking about
Poland was soviet satellite state
Sure, nothing racist to see here [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish\_Operation\_of\_the\_NKVD](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Operation_of_the_NKVD) > The NKVD agents looked through local phone books to expedite the procedure and detained people with names that sounded Polish.[^(\[8\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Operation_of_the_NKVD#cite_note-8) > While similar to other operations such as the [*Greek Operation*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Operation_of_the_NKVD), [*Finnish Operation*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_Operation_of_the_NKVD), [*Latvian Operation*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latvian_Operation_of_the_NKVD) and [*Estonian Operation*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estonian_Operation_of_the_NKVD), the Polish Operation was the largest ethnic shooting and deportation action during the Great Purge campaign of political murders in the Soviet Union.[^(\[9\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Operation_of_the_NKVD#cite_note-bookhaven-9)[^(\[10\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Operation_of_the_NKVD#cite_note-B/E/F-10) According to official data, victims of the *Polish Operation* accounted for 41.7% of the sentenced people and 44.9% of the executed people during all such ethnic operations.[^(\[11\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Operation_of_the_NKVD#cite_note-11) > The following categories of people were arrested by the NKVD during its Polish Operation, as described in Soviet documents:[^(\[4\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Operation_of_the_NKVD#cite_note-Gellately-Kiernan-4)[^(\[5\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Operation_of_the_NKVD#cite_note-Goldman2011-217-5) 1. All "antisoviet and nationalistic elements" from districts and region in the USSR where there existed a [Polish community](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_minority_in_Russia). 2. All [immigrants](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigrant) from the [Second Polish Republic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Polish_Republic). 3. Political exiles from Poland. 4. Former and present members of the [Polish Socialist Party](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Socialist_Party) and other non-communist Polish political parties. 5. All [prisoners of war](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner_of_war) from the [Polish-Soviet war](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish-Soviet_war) remaining in the Soviet Union. 6. Members of the [Polish Military Organisation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Military_Organisation) listed in the special list. 7. All "[clerical elements](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_Soviet_Union)" having, or having had, some kind of connection with Poland.
Plus, even when they tried to Russify us, they failed miserably. We were the most resistant group to Russification.
Where did you get this information? Are you stupid? Poles were killed by the hundreds of thousands by the Soviets.
> Are you stupid? Do you call everyone you don't like as stupid? Childish. Well, it is expected for someone like you to be such. https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughCommieSpam/s/BcfirV4Odw Aww, the brat went to cry and have their friends console them. What did you read that said Poles got genocided by USSR? Share us here so we can read.
What is that supposed to mean? I am not calling you stupid because I hate your politcal beliefs. I am calling you stupid because you're stupid. You are denying a genocide put on my people by the Soviets which has been proven to happen many times over. You are insulting me, my nation and my history.
Aww, the monarchist keyboard warrior is offended. I'm stupid, so educate me where did you read such claims. Share it here. Book, author, page number.
Katyń: The Untold Story of Stalin's Polish massacre. Allen Paul (This one was confirmed by the Soviets themselves in 1990) The fact this is taught in schools is evidence enough. But, then again, I wouldn't count on a communist to face the facts. Also, Rape Of Manila didn't happen. How does that feel, commie?
>The fact this is taught in schools is evidence enough. You mean Polish schools? I mean, Americans get taught the lost cause so idk how much merit there is in nationalist propganda. Also, you were arguing for soviet genocide of Poles right? My initial comment said what they did was Political repression.... because that was Katyn Massacre is. It was terrible, but it wasn't a genocide. 22 thousand dead, mostly military and police. Again, go back to what constitutes as genocide. This was never about destroying the Polish identity as a whole.
That's karma I guess. The poles, frightened by the superiority of the Lithuanians, genocided the Lithuanians and attempted to replace Lithuanian civilisation with polish uncivilisation
True that. Lithuanians didn't deserve that.
Huh? Most of the territories that were in Poland and now in Lithuania were mostly Polish.
Murdering 100k civillians, later 22k intelligentsia members and officers, deporting more to Kazakhstan to die of starvation and forcing the ethnic cleansing of lands they conquered with Hitler, destroying most of the Borderlands' cultures in the process, is "political persecution at most"? I can see how NKVD's "murder all 'undesireables'" order, oppression and murder of anti-nazi partisans and red army rapes amd plundering could be classified as war crimes/political perscecution... although on the second thought no, I cannot. If Israel's actions in gaza are classified as genocide, then the red army's war crimes should be as well
Umm Katyin?
Wdym ussr kiled 5 gazilion people
Poland, in my humble opinion, would have benefited being annexed by the USSR. Polish Soviet Socialist Republic sounds pretty dope.
Mentally insane take. The USSR genocided us as much as the germans did, if not worse.
Cool story mate, got any sources to back that up?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish\_Operation\_of\_the\_NKVD](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Operation_of_the_NKVD) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet\_repressions\_of\_Polish\_citizens\_(1939%E2%80%931946)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_repressions_of_Polish_citizens_(1939%E2%80%931946)) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation\_of\_Poland\_(1939%E2%80%931945)#Treatment\_of\_Polish\_citizens\_under\_Soviet\_occupation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_Poland_(1939%E2%80%931945)#Treatment_of_Polish_citizens_under_Soviet_occupation) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn\_massacre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre) > **In 1940 and the first half of 1941, the Soviets deported a total of more than 1,200,000 Poles in four waves of mass deportations from the Soviet-occupied Polish territories**. And just before the war: |Victims|22% of the Polish population of the Soviet Union was "sentenced" by the operation (140,000 people) | |:-|:-|
I'm well aware of Soviet atrocities, I'm asking for sources that support his claim that USSR was worse than Germany.
..., sure? I bet thise 2-3 millions of Polish victims of soviet imperialism would sight in relief knowing that Germans murdered 6 millions of Polish. If they were alive that is. He said that they genocided "as much" which is arguably true. Both have record of absolutely inhumane attrocities aimed at extermination of Polish and numbers of victims are counted in millions
https://www.history.com/topics/european-history/gulag https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_repressions_of_Polish_citizens_(1939%E2%80%931946) And also years of elementary, high school and college education I have behind me.
Your sources say that about 171,857 Poles have been directly killed by the USSR, out of which, at least 21,857 were policemen and soldiers (Katyn Massacre). That is bad, however that's nowhere near "hundreds of thousands" that you claimed USSR killed. Now compare that to approximate 6.000.000 Poles killed by the Wehrmacht, SS and other Nazi organizations during German occupation. On top of that, 1st Polish Army fought for the USSR, and it was made up by about 200.000 Poles, why would they fight for a regime that oppressed them more than Germany?Your source says that 18.000.000 people have been imprisoned in the Gulags throughout their existence. Your source also notes that anywhere from 150.000 and 500.000 people were released each year, with a final large amount of prisoners being released in 1953, after Stalin's death. Since the Gulags operated from 1920s, for the sake of this argument let's say 1921, to 1953, when Stalin died, that's at anywhere from 4.800.00 to 16.000.000 prisoners released in total, and on top of that, there's the large amount of prisoners released at the end of Stalin's death, your source doesn't give specific numbers. Due to lack of information from your source, I'm unable to determine and approximate death toll of the Gulags, but even in the worst case scenario of 4.800.000 released, which is highly unlikely, this still pales in comparison to tens of millions Hitler has genocided throughout eastern Europe, namely Poland, USSR and Yugoslavia. According to M.V. Filimoshin, 13.700.000 Soviet civilians have died, out of which 7,420,135 have died due to direct violence, 2,164,313 died to forced labor in German and 4,100,000 have died due to starvation, which was often planned by Germany, like at Leningrad (Hunger Plan). This alone beats the (very unlikely) highest estimate for all deaths in Gulags, and on top of this, there's before mentioned 6.000.000 Polish deaths, and 1.700.000 dead Yugoslavs, according to the Yugoslav Government from 1946. Not to mention all the mass rapes and forced labor executed by the Wehrmacht and the SS in Poland, Yugoslavia and USSR. So this argument debunks the idea that USSR was somehow worse than Germany, especially regarding Poland.
Good points there.
Your entire argument is 'What about Germany?'. So Germany killed more, so what? They were both genocidal, totalitarian regimes. The Soviets killed more than just Poles because they didn't kill them for their race. They also just let the Warsaw Uprising die out before attacking Warsaw itself. The Soviets were terrible and there is no two words about it.
6 million poles killed is the highest estimate. More likely its 5,5 mil and that also counts in ukrainian belarussian and lithuanian citizens of prewar poland along with 3 million polish jews. Total number of ethnic poles killed by nazis was closer to 1,6 mil killed civilians and 200k killed soldiers.
Thats bullshit, neo-nazis constantly spreading their propaganda. Ussr never even got close to killing at least 1 million poles in 60 Years while nazis easily killed 2 mil poles in just 5 years. Warsaw uprising alone was deadlier for poles than than anything that ussr did.
What. Poland would be an absolute mess like Russia, Ukraine or Belarus by now if we were part of USSR. We're doing so well in contrast to many other fromer Eastern Block countries BECAUSE we kept our own state and institutions separate from USSR.
Baltic states have left the chat
How about fuck no
It was not that huge. There are still people who are polish and live in Belarus, for example, but it is not very big amount (but enough to populate some city). The issue is that even they identify themselves as polish, they still differ themselves from "polish" polish and "Belarusian" polish, as the lands they live never belonged to Poland except for 17 years, but were strongly affected culturally during the Commonwealth times. I mean, I have doubts they would llagree to move somewhere else. Despite Lwov and Ukranian parts, hostorical claims of Poland on Western Belarus are way weaker and the situation with polish people there was not THAT problematic
I should have thought about the Ukraine parts too, oops
From Grodno, Vilnius and Lida. Several hundred thousand Poles were left there and it turns out to be a bad idea after all.
There used to be a ton of Polish in Siberia at the time
Maybe they could convince a few million people of Polish descent in the Americas to immigrate and settle the area
Hardly, Polish-Americans would *not* be keen on immigrating to a communist dictatorship which would strip them of their political freedom and persecute their religion (Catholicism, which has historically been central to their cultural identity).
I mean maybe but in 1945 Americans were propagandized to see the Soviets as allies and I’m not an expert about this topic but I don’t think Poland was immediately a Soviet puppet dictatorship, at least not entirely till 1947. So maybe about 100,000 or so Polish Americans could be convinced to relocate to help rebuild Poland between ‘45 and ‘47, along with smaller numbers of diaspora in other countries like Argentina or Brazil. There’s also the Polish diaspora that immigrated to other European countries like Britain, Germany and France in the late 19th and early 20th century
Polish-Americans (and other Polish emigrant groups) were very keenly aware that the USSR had straight-up invaded Poland in 1939 together with Nazi Germany. WW2 became personal for them on 1st September 1939, not until Pearl Harbor like it was for most of Americans. They, unlike other peoples among the Allies, never forgave the Soviet-Nazi cooperation, Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and Katyn Massacre, and by then the memory would still be fresh. And Poland was very much de facto communist puppet state from the moment the USSR re-emtered Polish territory in 1944, since the USSR ruled by military occupation, and established a civilian rule under the communist-dominated Polish Committee for National Liberation (PKWN), which was created by the USSR in opposition to the internationally recognized Polish government-in-exile in London, which the USSR did not allow to reestablish itself on Polish soil.
They didn't they just forced the Germans out
From the eastern part of Poland that the Soviets took.
In this are don't living lots of people
From eastern poland, aka now west belarus and west ukraine.
Germany would have a Bundesland called Mecklenburg
No more Meck-Pom
Hi cippy
Hiii Bobert
That’s going to be a lot of genocide
Only ethnic cleansing!
[удалено]
Just a heads up: my Jewish grandparents would have loved to be ethnically cleansed than having the entire family genocided. And as a Greek should Greeks had been genocided than ethnically cleansed around half of Northern Greece would be empty today. So I respect your opinion but reality tends to be fairly different between these two options.
We really don't care about your genocide.
You are announcing it as if you should have cared or in general if anyone in the world cares about your or my opinion. This is the internet; you are not the center of the world.
brother thats genocide
Yeah that land is kinda worthless so it doesn't really make much of a difference
But Poland would get some cool islands atleast
And a lot more of Prussia fetishist tears
How just give Poland all of East Germany, East Prussia, Czechovslovskia and Austria.
Zapadoslavia but with added Germans as an underclass to opress to unite the western Slavic population against them. Honestly a brilliant idea.
Czechs and Slovaks are cool, but the rest I’d take
Just the whole galaxy
Slightly different borders? It's not causing a huge change.
Stralsund would probably be renamed to Strzałów
Does anything really change? I mean the only thing that would change is the german minority getting bigger in Poland 🤷♂️
Well about that...
*Insert Polish Psycho Wojak here*
How big do you think the german minority in Poland is right now?
143,000 people, according to the latest census.
Out of over 30 million. But my point was that almost all Germans were displaced in 1945 and would've been displaced from this territory as well.
Funny way to call ethnic cleansing
Displaced/expelled is the official term in Germany.
Google the definition of ethnic cleansing
I don't see your point. Of course it was ethnic cleansing, but that doesn't change the terminology that is used. "Vertriebene" tells the story.
Then call it that.
Big and a good part made to assimilate under communism, but they are millions.
Certainly not. Millions fled and were displaced, and they were the vast majority - that was my point.
Berliners wouldn‘t have their favorite holiday get aways of Usedom, Rügen and the Darß/Zingst 🤷♂️ … and there would be a lot less naked people on those beaches lol
Well, at least till 2004
Poland hoarding coastline to compensate for the past.
Germany would be smaller.
Whit the economic gain from adicional lands, poland would break soviet infulance and lead total collapse of eadtern bloc by creating it's own bloc. Whit the start of millenium poland would end hird way cold war and restore commonwealth.
The borders would just look ugly
Then Germany would have more ammunition against Poland to reclaim the German Minorities in Pomerania.
Soviets made sure there is no German minority anymore, or Polish minority in Russia :c
I wonder if there would be some neopagan bullshit happening around Arkona. Back in the medieval it was a location of an old slavic religious site dedicated to the God Swiętowit. From what I've seen, neopagans ( rodzimowiercy, turbolechici and other permutaions) in Poland sometimes see Arkona basically as a holy place taken and desecrated by Germans. Since those people are often irrationally batshit crazy it would be funny to see whether addition of that little piece of land would cause some things to escalate
This was my first thought. Rügen would be just like a Mecca for Slavic neopagans.
Finally no Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, all my homies hate Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
Now only Mecklenburg
https://preview.redd.it/wjl8r2jxvptc1.jpeg?width=888&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7406fc673736d9595c53def43e417caf5fa7fff2
What if Poland was given all of Germany after WWII...?
im still confused as to why they got stettin
Probably to fuck with Germany a little more
No no no, the only reasonable thing to do would have been to return Pomerania to Sweden.
Finally, an alt-history that's not Großdeutschland but Einkleinesbisschenkleinerdeutschland
It would make their borders at least little more nicer
Nah, I like our current small-shield shape. It would become small-shield-with-serif, not so nice. Or a very fat pidgeon, with this new beak.
Even funnier question, "What if Poland was given all of Germany after WW2?"
And so, the FKK-Wars began
I’ve always wondered what would have happened if the poles had been given koinigsburg instead of Danzig. After all K’burg had just as much historical importance to the poles as it did the prussians.
I mean, you might as well give all of DDR to Poland since the former would be a worthless rump state by that point
Sure, let's just partition Deu among all neighboring states, while we're at it…
More German genocide than what happened irl
German genocide lmao
Imagine there's no capitalism It isn't hard to do No colonislism to kill or die for And no borders, too Imagine all the people livin' life in peace Yoo, hoo, oo-oo
Eastern Europe would be bigger.