Since [barbos] has me on ignore, someone feel free to quote the following post for him:
Earlier, Barbos told two lies about Poland I’d like to address. Being of direct Polish descent on both sides of my family, I don’t propose to be lectured on Polish history.
He said that Stalin didn’t “invade” western Poland in 1939, but took back what was Russia’s!
He also said that Poland invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968.
It’s true that in 1914, Poland was part of Czarist Russia, as was Ukraine, the Baltic states and even Finland. And … so what? After that war, Poland, the Baltic states and Finland all became independent nations.
What actually happened in 1939 is that the two bloodthirsty tyrants, Stalin and Hitler, made a deal not to attack each other and to carve up Poland between them, while Stalin would have a free hand to annex the Baltic states and Finland. He did the former but got his ass handed to him by Finland after attacking that nation, a fact that encouraged Hitler to later invade the Soviet Union because he judged its army to be inept.
The deeper issue of course is that you go back far enough in time, you find huge border fluctuations, especially in Central and East Europe. With his statement about Stalin “taking back” what was rightfully Russia’s, Barbos almost seems to be implying that even now Poland rightfully belongs to Russia! This would be in perfect lockstep with the delusions of Putin, who thinks Ukraine rightfully belongs to Russia and probably thinks the same about the Baltic states and Finland!
But if we go back to the map of Europe in the year 1200, listing sovereign nations of that time, we find Kiev (Kyiv) listed, but no sign of Russia anywhere, not even Muscovy!
If we go to Europe in 1400 and then again in 1600, we find that a huge swath of land in Eastern-central Europe, extending deep into present-day Russia, belonged to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth! Does that mean that present day Poland and Lithuania have a right to reclaim Russian land all the way up to the gates of Moscow?
In fact, by the sort of idiotic reasoning, the world should notify Italy that the Roman Empire has been restored and now belongs to them.
As to Poland allegedly invading Czechoslovakia, Poland was under the thumb of the Soviets whom they detested and had been coerced into joining the Warsaw Pact by Soviet Russia through Poland’s Soviet puppet government. All of Eastern Europe had been essentially given to Stalin at Yalta in 1945. Stalin promised free elections in those states and then reneged on his promise. I should note too that the Soviets kept the Western part of Poland that they stole in 1939, with Poland being compensated with German lands to the West. Poland thus was forced to participate in the rape of Czechoslovakia in 1968 and as we see from subsequent history, it tossed out the Russians and the Reds as soon as possible, beginning with the Solidarity revolts and culminating with the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
