Although we are planning to go through the Cold War chronologically, some events will be covered separately, outside of the main series. So, if you don't see a particular event covered within the main series, expect it to be talked about as part of our special episodes. Don't hesitate to remind us about those - we are researching everything thoroughly, but there are too many countries and events so something might fall through the cracks.
More please. And 1 advice for you please use polish letters. Ł / ł - it's pronounced like "w" in english "wow", it should be in surname Gomułka and in name Bolesław (Bierut). Ó / ó = U / u ą = oł ę = eł Ch / ch = H / h (c is muted) Ć / ć Ź / ź (also in Dź / dź) Ż / ż (same pronounciation have Rz / rz) and Dż / dż (also Drz / drz). ń Ś / ś Watch out for words with i after consonants, it softens previous letter - eg. zi is soften ź, it also can be described as something between z and ź. Similarly ci, dzi, si, ni. The last thing - cz, sz. This is pronounced like german tsch (cz) and sch (sz).
The Cold War are you going to cover famous people during the Cold War? Like Seweryn Bialer? He was a former member of the communist party in Poland who defected to America after his dissolution with the system he was under. He became a famous teacher and political scientist about the Soviets style of government, it would be interesting to see your take on him.
First of all, I liked the video but you REALLY goofed up about the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and the phrasing of Germany's aggression in 1939. See my standalone comment about citing your sources where I go into much more detail and I don't claim to be an expert but this is why citation is so important... but in short: There was no partitioning mentioned in the secret protocols of the MR-pact. It divided spheres of influence within which if invaded by Nazi Germany, Poland could retreat into and negotiate a peace treaty. Then the USSR would have a buffer state hostile to Nazi Germany. The whole "MR-pact was partitioning Poland"-narrative is probably from Cold War propaganda trying to cover up the Allies' (including Poland's) partitioning of peaceful Czechoslovakia. Secondly, the Polish government fled to Romania, a neutral party and was subsequently interned. You can't run a government from prison, and so the Polish state ceased to exist. You can't invade a state that doesn't exist. The Nazis declared all treaties with Poland null and void, and if not met by the Soviets would have rolled up right to their border and would have installed a fascist puppet state. This could not be allowed by the Soviets, or anyone else in a similar situation, so they renegotiated new spheres of interest and liberated formerly polish-occupied territory in western Byelorussia and western Ukraine, regions they had conquered in the Polish-Soviet war whose populations were hardly Polish, which among other countries the UK recognized as rightful claims. There's numerous evidence for that the Soviets were not seen as belligerents, among others: the Polish Supreme Commander Rydz-Smigly ordered Polish soldiers not to fight the Soviets, though he ordered Polish forces to continue to fight the Germans, several governments foremost the Romanian government and even the Polish president himself admitting Poland had no government any longer, there were no war declarations on the USSR by any party including Romania and France who both had mutual defense treaties with Poland. Every country agreed that the USSR was a neutral party. There were no declarations of war or sanctions on the USSR, but there was on Germany. Compare with the Finnish Winter War, where the USSR did indeed get sanctioned. And hell, Poland was basically fascist at the time. They sent opposition members to prison, were authoritarian and militaristic... and even conspired with Germany to invade the USSR!
@@JoneshSwe OK Putinboy "The whole "MR-pact was partitioning Poland"-narrative is probably from Cold War propaganda trying to cover up the Allies" The Soviet Union devoured Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Romania, anschlused half of Poland. Disbanded Belarusian country (yes they had one in 1920 until well Soviets came to well kill them all), destroyed Ukrainian ambitions to have a country. The Soviet Union also created shitholes we know today like Transnistria and Moldavia. And all of this with dozens of thousands sent to Siberia or killed at the spot. And well despite all this visible evidence that proves the Eastern Europe was effectively dividing into two parts and shared between Stalin and his best friend Hitler with whom he had a military parade in Bresc in Poland (something that I assume you would never mention) you dare to claim Russia did nothing wrong and it was all Poland’s fault? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German-Soviet_military_parade_in_Brest-Litovsk Ok seems reasonable. Just like everything else is in Russia. You can go away in peace Putinboy.
Why wasn't Poland considered a Soviet Socialist Republic? Ukraine, Georgia, and Estonia were considered Soviet Socialist Republics! Also, what about Czechoslovakia? Hungry? Why aren't these countries considered Soviet Socialist Republics? BTW, I'll be happy to celebrate Ukraine's independence on August 24th!
Unfortunately you didn't say anything about massacre of Polish Underground Army. Thousands of Polish soldiers of Home Army (AK/WIN) and National Armed Forces (NSZ/NZW) were tortured and murdered in communist arrests or killed in fight at forest hideouts
@@alessiodelcastillo1613 Katyń Massacre happened during WWII. It targeted dozens of thousands of Polish soldiers, POWs captured by Soviets in September and October 1939 - not AK that didn't exist at that time. @Templar_GP mentioned events that happened after the war. In fact, AK's fight force wasn't broken after the Warsaw Uprising (only 20-30k AK soldiers participated in this event, comparing to an estimated 400k AK army). The uprising was only part of much bigger Operation Tempest aiming to liberate cities and regions before the Red Army. The aim was to show the strength of Polish underground movement and prevent USSR from Sovietization of Poland. On the contrary, it allowed NKVD to recognize the leaders of the movement and imprison dozens of thousands of AK soldiers.
Honestly, I can't complain. You did this topic justice in a nice balanced way. Congrats. Ah, and once again after watching your video, I fell a need for a long session of Chopin's music.
@@allan7380 Man, I'm Polish you can't get more anti-communist than that. But the objective truth is that aside from terror, communist managed to rebuild the most devastated country of WWII in a very short time period without outside help.
@@allan7380 Although I can't see where either the video or Kamil Szadkowski got "misty". The video talked about reconstruction but also mentioned the serious flaws with the strategies that were used, and the political oppression by the Soviets and the Soviet-backed regime. They were the same as in basically all Eastern-bloc countries, including Czechoslovakia and East Germany - for the economy: nationalisation, land reform first and collectivisation later, emphasis on heavy industry at the cost of consumer products and services, and planned economy - a pattern that is evident everywhere in the Soviet bloc and mirrors the development in the Soviet Union in the 20s and 30s. All with similar results that the video didn't ignore - low agricultural production and resistance, industrialisation but stalling living conditions, and the suppression of democracy. OTOH, it's also true that Poland did see a lot of progress - I mean, it's really hard to _not_ improve upon what was left after the war. The level at which this happened was quite low, esp. compared to Western Europe, so no-one's giving the USSR too much credit, but it's also a fact of what happened back then.
I remember once reading a book of "The Most Popular Jokes From Around the World" published in the 1960s. Now mind you it was published by an American diplomat so it should be taken with a grain of salt, but this is one of the jokes listed in this book as being popular in Poland at the time: A bedraggled and gaunt looking man is walking on a country road in Poland when he comes across an old lamp half buried in the dirt. He cleans the lamp and out comes a mighty genie which says to him, "To earn my freedom I shall grant you three wishes! Name your hearts desire and it shall be done!' The man looks to the genie and says, "For my first wish, I wish for the Chinese Red Army to march straight to our eastern border...and then to turn around and immediately go home the way they came." The genie shrugs and snaps his fingers. "Your first wish has been granted! Speak! What is your second wish?" The man looks at the genie and says, "for my second wish, I wish for the Chinese Red Army to again march straight to our eastern border and then to turn around and immediately go home the way they came." The genie raises an eyebrow but snaps his fingers anyway. "Your second wish has been granted! Now tell me! What is your third and final wish?" The man looks at the genie and says, "for my third and final wish, I wish for the Chinese Red Army to once again march straight to our eastern border and then to turn around and immediately go home the way they came." The genie's very confused but again snaps fingers. "Your final wish has been granted and now I am free! But before I go, I must ask: why did you wish for the same thing three times?" The Polish man looks the genie in the eye and says, "Because in order for the Chinese Red Army to come straight to our eastern border and go back to China three times, they will have to invade Russia at least six times."
The most tragic was the fate of the resistance movement. People who for 6 years fought for Poland's freedom suddenly became "traitors" and "Bandits". An amnesty was announced for them, after which those who reported themselves were killed. "Amnesty is for bandits, we are Polish Army! "- Hieronim Dekutowski ps. "Dam"
@@noobster4779 And Germans who provided intel for allies were traitors and enemies of their own homeland by definition. What could be worse than betraying your country? Its pretty dumb to judge history that way.
@@noobster4779 By your definition groups like: ISIS, Afgan Mujahedin, Viet Kong, Hamas, Yugoslavian, or Italian Partisans were just that: mearly bandits. Well if bandits can create countries like USA or Ireland, then ok.
*“I see a beautiful cities and a brilliant people rising from this abyss. I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy. I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants, generations hence. It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.” Poland 4ever*
Andrzej Abramczyk Too bad the granddaughter of Polish “refugees” who is the CEO of RUclips is now in the USA, censoring Americans and helping to enable the most ridiculous election theft ever seen.
Oddly the massacre of tens of thousands of Poles by the Soviets at Katyn is never mentioned.... nor was the deportations and other crimes during the first Soviet occupation. Glossed over Polish culpability in the atrocities committed in the expulsion of the Germans, which was brutal and often genocidal in nature.
Really good video, as I am from Poland I am happy that you made this one and it quite accurately covered this topic. Thanks ☺️ and keep on doing good job with those vids 👍
I'm glad Poland finally got independence after the Cold War. It's infuriating to think how badly Poland was treated by the Germans and the Russians and that we Americans couldn't do more to stop it happening. I'm glad that now we are on the same side and there will be literal hell to pay if anyone tries that again.
@@laurelrunlaurelrun there was more the allies(specifically Britain and France) could do, and while America had the more powerful say in the peace conferences and if all of the allies "walneli w stol i powiedzieli NIE" or translated from Polish as 'banged their fist on the table and said NO' then the soviets would have had to step down from Poland and potentially Czechoslovakia and Romania, completely reshaping the Eastern bloc as we know it.
@@laurelrunlaurelrun But the truth is the allies were never really interested in the good of the people, they just wanted to keep a balance of power and in the east, Poland was that key component to the balance. The Americans, seeing the others didn't really care anymore now the Nazis were gone, well what could they do, they were still busy with Japan and it wasn't their conflict in the first place. Now, after 4 decades of communism, the Poles(I speak for most of us) despise any remnant of communist/socialist ideology and generally, you could say we(the Poles) may forgive, but not necessarily forget our allies(UK and France, America had no diplomatic obligations to Poland) betrayed us and left us to the Stalinist regime our people had to endure. The relationship between Poland and the allies, if put in a tv series, would be equally as good as Game of Thrones, all of Poland's history actually XD.
I always wanted to know how and why "sovietization" (of eastern europe) happened, now with this episode I am hopeful of getting the answers. Thank you. K&G and CW.
There commonwealth with lithuana that invaded russia and conquered eastern europe they say its the best he's thinking what's hitler doing that's like 17th century and old kaliningrad
It's sad and terrible that the Soviets let those young men and women die at the hands of the Germans in Warsaw. Then they oppressed the Poles for 4 decades. Praying for you!
they had their own state, government, borders and culture. there was a puppet government, yes, but no more puppet than Poland today is an EU puppet. And only soviet could liberate Poland. If they would fail than there was not American army in Europe either. So have more respect. Without Soviet soldiers there would not such thing as Poland today.
The fucking Russians helped Germany invade Poland and helped Germany skirt the treaty of Versailles with war material, secret training bases, men, and more. Then the Russians put half of Europe under completely communist controlled governments where they predicted to slaughter all those that opposed them. The NKVD was just as bad as the Gestapo and the puppet governments were nowhere near self-determination
Western Byelorussia and Western Ukraine was liberated from Polish imperialism, that it was that means in that context. It is what is usually said when a region is liberated from imperialistic occupation.
@@bradenatkinson6401 why USSR would have want supporting snd protecting you if Poland was fashist state also. You were not so terrible as the Germans in the end, but who can know the end in advance? You didn't respect the other people's rights and freedoms and only reason why you wanted freedom for themselves so you could join NATO and begin war against USSR. Being under communism for 40 years had positive effect on you. You have no desire for enslaved other people anymore so Stalin was like Moise for your people.
Very nice video. But you failed to mention one thing. Unlike other Eastern European countries, Poland was an Ally from day one. Franklin D. Roosevelt betrayed Poland and sold it to Stalin in exchange of what he considered world peace. Try to ask the Poles what they think of Roosevelt.
Damn, this video was comprehensive and very well made. I feel like the most important topics were covered and there is not much missing in such a short piece. Congrats!
Poland sure went through a lot not just during WWII but also in the Cold War. Communism did this country no favors whatsoever. Only after it left did Poland recover enough. Or at least that's what I think. My compliments to all those who made this video a reality.
I wonder if their cousins 😆. Love those channels. Like others have said, see much potential. Need more stock images, videos (minus audio to hear narrator), & maps. Love maps. If I watch 2x more videos & is just as enjoyable I'll subscribed or else I'll occasionally watch videos when recommended. 😊.
@@lumpygasinavacuum8449 The Nazis conducted the Holocaust against Polish people in addition to Jewish people in those occupied territories. The best the Poles would get under the horrors of Nazi rule was slavery.
Hey, remember that time the Soviet "liberators" invaded Poland in 1939 and shot over 20,000 Polish POWs while trying to pin it on the Germans? Pepperidge Farm remembers.
@mr_ anheuser lol where did I say anything about people denying Soviet warcrimes? I just like shitting on that hellish regime and that monster Stalin whenever able. Though I will say, the Poles had survived multiple occupations as an ethnicity over the centuries.
@mr_ anheuser "Liberated" Because the victims at Auschwitz being raped by the Red Army accounts for liberation. Poland never saw freedom until the Soviet Union fell
@mr_ anheuser We're not talking about America ffs. Yes America committed war crimes, but compared to the Soviet's war crimes and the Nazis theirs were minimal. “On the afternoon, we arrived to the village of Golab, near to Radom. What happened there was difficult to imagine. When we entered to the first house it gave us goosebumps. On the floor an 8 years old girl with the clothes dragged and clearly raped in group lied, as Red Army heroes used to do. Her legs were partially tripped from its place. On the bed, there were an old men sticked with a bayonet, and in front of there, in the corner, a scared 30-35 years old women was observing (…). I went out the house because the smell of the blood and which I saw there caused vomits to me. In a corner of the house I saw a men sticked in a fence, the husband of the women still was alive. Alongside there was an elderly-aged women with the head destroyed.“ -Pawel Lukasz Kolecki
@mr_ anheuser You're acting like the Red Army was the liberation hero for Europe? The fuck. The Red Army may have defeated the Nazi's, but they were in no way better. Also did you just try and justify rape? You're a monster. www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/1382565/Red-Army-troops-raped-even-Russian-women-as-they-freed-them-from-camps.html The Red Army pillaged, raped, abused, tortured, and mudered just as much as the Nazi's had. They deported Pols, Czechs, POWS, innocent Berliners, Estonians, Latvians to Gulag slave labor camps in Siberia where they were worked to death. Just because the Nazi's murdered millions, does not excuse the Soviet Union from murdering millions either. I wasn't merely talking about Auschwitz, I was talking about Nazi concentration camps as a whole. It may not have been in Auschwitz alone that rape occurred but in other camps that the Russians "liberated" Please stop talking out of your ass because by saying the Soviet Union singlehandedly beat the Nazi's, you're disgracing the thousands of Americans, Brits, Indians, Australians, Canadians, Pols, and French people who died during the D-Day invasion + the race for Berlin. The Soviets may have been the most powerful factor in the Reich's fall, but were not the only one. www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/25/i-will-never-be-free-of-it-auschwitz-survivor-recalls-horror-75-years-on If the Red Army were such heroes than why were the Jews and other victims fleeing the Red Army when they were being "liberated"
Great video, congrats. As an Pole i must thank you for informing people about this herrible period in Poland :) P. S. I think I spotted little mistake on 4:29, you said `Leopold Okulski` but should be `Leopold Okulicki` :)
@@JoneshSwe Exactly, it should be "invaded and occupied half of Europe together" not just Poland. Narrowing down Soviet crimes to only Poland is an offensive discrimination of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Moldovia and other countries violently occupied and repressed by Russia. I will just leave this link here. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_crimes
@@rezkez5334 it is called framing. This video is about Poland. When you write any piece of work regarding history you need a subject, a timeframe and theme. I could guess they end up talking about it on a later video.
@vikedude 123 Actually I was referring to after the split Germany/USSR invasion in which Operation Barbarossa took effect and Germany pushed the Soviets completely out of as well as occupied all of Poland. Thus the Soviets had to "liberate" Poland and the other eastern countries from Germany only to be forced as puppet states.
@@tariqnasneed3857 Lol. You have basic problems with geography Mr uneducated muslim. Poland had not border with NATO mamber countey .. only witch east germany and czechoslovakia....both countries had huge armies amd Oland had 3 rd bigest army in whole fucking Europe. During dold war. ... in late 50s 60’s amd early 70’s Poland had one of the bigest military speeds bigest military budgets in top 5 in whole world. Please don’t try to teach me aboutPoland. You have zero clue about Poland.
@@zepter00 1. I'm from North Ireland and am Protestant, not Muslim. 2. That's irrelevant, if East Germany was conquered by NATO the war would move into Poland. It was the second layer of the Iron Curtain before NATO entered the Soviet Union. 3. Which completely served the interests of the USSR, not Poland.
Yes! I'm not alone! Please like my comment back, it's... somewhere on it's own, that is, not in a thread. I've been posting on every video so far asking for this and just made a huuuuuge reply but it doesn't seem to have gotten through (yet, it might need to be approved) so I did a test reply that seemed to come out fine.
USSR surely wasn't about freedom, but it sure was against the system of bankers and money, the world we live in today. This is the reason why USSR was hated that much.
@@command_unit7792 sure, but they did talk about the Soviet invasion, and the massacre was meant to make Poland weaker and more pliable. I feel mentioning it was called for.
@@FlymanMS no it is not. It is crystal clear that the Katyn massacre was conducted by soviets. Only one who blame Germans was the soviet propaganda. The are tons of evidences that it was done by soviets. Just check wikipedia article and it's references en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre .
Very interesting stuff, I'm so glad you went into detail on the economic conditions and the presence of worker-owned, that is to say socialist, cooperatives, of which I was not actually aware of the presence of in any Soviet Marxist-Leninist states. Looking forward to more 😄
Nice video except for using the word "liberation" while it was just a different occupation. Also you failed to mention there was actual civil war in Poland between 1944 and 1948 where pro-independence and pro-west underground fought against the communists, with 50k - 100k casualties and with the last active freedom fighter killed as late as 1963.
Well hell yeah lets save a country and its people from future extinction. Give them their own government and sovereignty back. But lets not call us liberators. Nice
@@vkplayz2180 You want me to explain to you why it is wrong to invade a country TWICE within 5 years? To deport its population and conduct ethnic cleansing? To send hundreds of thousands to certain death? To install a puppet government and secret state police who murder or imprison those who oppose them and want actual independence? Why it is wrong to kill people who fought hard for their country in a war unlike any other before, and who, after that war had finished, got labelled as criminals and enemies of the nation? Or why it is wrong to literally occupy a country by establishing military bases on their territory, by staffing their public offices, their army, their factories with your own men who are incompetent but still have the last word in decision making? To impose a political and economic system where a person is reduced to nothing? A system that meant the entire nation was robbed of their posessions and savings and reduced to a colony that had to support the invader with their economy, products, science and military? Or maybe it was wrong because within those 45 years several nations including Poland were degraded so much that they literally became third world countries? That and more was wrong about it, so don't tell me Soviet occupation was liberation.
VladderGraf 1. The degraded USSR was able to destroy Germany. This fact you can not deny. While prosperous Poland remained an agrarian state. 2. Now you do not have Soviet influence, but you have American. You do not protest against it. The struggle for Polish independence does not include the struggle against Western influence on Poland for some reason. This fact makes you two-faced.
Shame of no mention about how the catholic church was allowed to stay, in exchange for constantly snitching on the general population, including violating the secrecy of confessions many times over.
theres a small mistake in the video, at 5:07 The second question was : "Do you want consolidation, in the future constitution of the economic system founded on agricultural reform and the nationalisation of basic national industries, including the preservation of the statutory rights of private enterprise?". It didn't imply a full-blown socialism, but state capitalism.
@@dragonsword7370 No, it was formulated vaguely specifically to fool as many people as they could so communists could later say that most of Poland want's to be socialist, but referendum and elections was falsified massively
Major factor that you omitted entirely, is the low level anti-communist uprising that took place in Poland all the way up to...1962! There were well-organized guerrilla units from the former AK and NSZ that were fighting an armed uprising against the communist, the so called Coursed Soldiers (Żołnierze Wykleci), although they were not a match for the NKVD units nor Polish-colabo KBW (Internal Security Corps) but they were a major nuisance for a long time, attacking prisons in order to free the political prisoners, disrupting communication and carrying-out the death sentences against the high-level communists and their colabos. Otherwise pretty good job, Bro! :)
Saying "liberated" associated to soviets/russians is an insult to the nations who were occupied by those regimes. Poles were not saints, but they got hit hard in WW2. Greetings from Ukraine.
Please stop referring to the NKVD as the Soviet "Secret" police. They weren't secret in the least. The acronym stands for Narodnyy Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del, "People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs." They had and wore uniforms, ranks, and deployed about 40 divisions as troops in the war. No one in the Soviet Union referred to them or thought of them as "secret" police.
5:05 The second question in this referendum was not as overwhelming as it says in this video. It sounded like this: "Do you want to consolidate in the future Constitution the economic system introduced by the land reform and nationalization of the basic branches of the national economy, while maintaining the statutory rights of private initiative?" It itself contradicts some more advanced socialism and gives some freedom to small businesses, and maybe even large ones, because what is the basic branch of the national economy is an issue that can be broadly understood and not at all socialism, but state behavior of such things like health care or education that are state-owned until today in European countries. Despite such a gently bent on question, the overwhelming majority was against such a reform.
Poor Poland was forced to live civilly and not attack its neighbors, what a misfortune. In reality, Poland is a completely inadequate country, it needs external supervision - for the benefit of all of Europe.
U should have mentioned the pogroms after the war. Also it would have been beneficial to hear from the differences between Osobka-Morawski and Kyrankiewicz (within the social democratic movement, before they were enveloped by the leninists). In general these are very good videos.
At least this one was simpler than the one I watched about Ukraine. It definitely wasn't easier, just simpler. You talked slower and I didn't have to rewind as much. Plus I think you pronounced everything correctly except for Lublin. There was one head of Ukraine whose name you pronounced one way to begin with and then you changed the way you pronounced it. I got lost because there were two people whose names seemed very close to each other. But it was better than not knowing anything. I still learned stuff. Also it may be because this one only goes up to a certain time and then stops. Nothing since 1979 is mentioned. It's possible that the one on Ukraine starts after the USSR falls apart and goes forward from there. The one about Poland after the USSR seems like everything went fantastically as soon as the communists stop being in charge. And yet I know I read or watched something recently that said there is no way that was true, and it was just as wrenching in Poland to change systems as it was in Russia as described by someone I know who lived there. Nevertheless, I don't know anybody in my life who knows anything about any of this stuff so it's helpful for you to put it up there. My alternative is reading articles in Wikipedia which I think would put me to sleep. Now where did I see that thing about the economic shock therapy that Poland went through, switching from planned economy to free-market economy? Being born and living my entire life in the US, it didn't occur to me until this year that there is a difference between free market economy and democracy and free speech. Three separate things that we always had all three of and they didn't know that they would separate things. I guess I should think Ukraine. And at least one guy in Russia who no longer lives there because of Russia's tendency towards tyranny? Dictators? Authoritarian government? Probably all of those. In fact, how is it that some countries can transition from Kings and czars and feudalism into democracy and some can try and just seem to keep reverting?
When the Bolsheviks took over Russia they wanted to spread the revolution to as many people as possible so they kept and even expanded the tsarist borders, while for example when Atatürk salvaged the Ottoman Empire he gave up a lot of territory to focus on Turkey with positive results. A lot of Stalin's resources went into extreme repression of various ethnic groups and economic classes in the fear of being overthrown. Some food for thought
0:50 Is it really so hard to get Finland's correct historical borders right? I mean, just Google a map of 1939. It's really not that hard, yet countless "history" videos seem to repeat the same mistake of using 1947 borders, which are drastically different.
>among the most justified conflicts in history Suuure... Yet the Soviets cooperating with the Germans, it's Germans not Nazis, is completely ignored. And the triple betrayal of Poland by the French and British
Polish Army Marshal and Polish Defence Minister until 1956 was a Soviet (Russian) Marshal Rokossovsky, and so was the dependency of Polish policy on the USSR. Poland even had to pay the USSR (in goods: coal, steel, uranium, etc) as reparations after WW2. USSR confiscated most of the factory machinery left by the Germans in 1945.
so glad you covered this yeah this always something hard to except as even when Poland was liberated from one dictator they were replaced with another one keep up the good work.
So sad what happened to Poland, among other nations in Europe and the world during the last bloody century. Ironically Poland is one of the most right-wing and religious places in Europe today; you get pushed too far one way and you push back the other way. Everyone here in America seems to want to visit Poland to see the concentration camps, but I honestly just want to experience the culture, beautiful landscape, and the people of that rich nation. They're very lucky to have such a lovely country and I hope it experiences a long period of peace to avenge the horrible suffering of the last centuries.
I know that I am 5 years late to the party... I have never actually asked myself how Sovietization happened in fellow neighbor countries. Political parties in one United Front, Soviet Advisors, Expulsions of Germans, Rule of One Party, it sounds all too painfully familiar... It looks like the playbook was the same for the whole "Russian Sphere of Influence". I do understand why Polish are arming like crazy in these difficult times. Regards from Czech Republic...
Poland was the only eastern European soviet block country that never cooperated with the nazis. Austria and Czechs just gave without a fight and the rest have joined the nazis.
A little bit one sided and subjective video, Poland, like in 1939, fell victim of international politics in a much bigger game. I think this video really needs much more historic context regarding polish-soviet-german-western interactions 1919-1939. Things like: 1. Curzon line (which poland ignored and went full offensive on Soviet Union (in turmoil of civil war at this point) 2. Poland's offence on Kiev, and demands of full annexation of Ukraine and partial of Belarus and Lithuania 3. 100 000 confirmed dead prisoners of war only in just in 1920 (not war causalities, and confirmed number by all parties involved, though soviet claimed 200 000) 4. Massive represions of non-polish minorities between 1921 and 1937, leading to over 2 million refugees fleeing to soviet Ukraine and Belarus (regardless of those being in full state golodomor). 5. Polish annexation of Czechoslovakia regions in 1938 6. Polish-German non-aggression pact, which included Polish rights over western Ukraine and Belarus. Poland was victim in WW2 and its aftermath, but they were much more than a victim, Poland was an active political player with a lots of ambitions, and they lost the game. England and France did not even attempt to save them in WW2, and used Polish situation as political exchange coin after ww2
Name one non-soviet/russian historian confirming 100 000 murdered pow by Poles. Please share your wisdom and point just one documented case. Honestly there are no evidence for this purely propagandist and dishonest claims. FYI after ww1 and post war conflicts health condition, feeding and hygiene were so low that even in regular Polish army hundreds of thousands fell victim of diseases such as spanish flu. Also, could you imagine? not all or even minority of soviet pow in poland decided to return to soviet paradise and simply stayed in my country. Of course there is soviet/nazi traditional propaganda lies about Poland being the cause for all the suffering of russian and german people and atrocities in my part of the world. I consider Your comment to be classical example od this. As far as for mr Curzon it is funny how much you soviets pay respect to this gentleman whose lines on map still divide nations from calcuta to Warsaw on non scientific base and any legal basis. For your points 4 and 6 any evidence for this except for perhaps articles in Pravda in the deepest stalinism?
@@maciej5640 1. Curzon line was proposed by British Foreign Secretary George Curzon, and it was done before Soviets really consolidated. 2. Poland retreated due to Soviet counteroffensive, which really ended in the battle of Warsaw, there Soviets were defeated. Ukrainian People's Republic never was a real thing, and the treaty of Warsaw was just a formality. 3. Wikipedia is the best source, totally agree. 4. So, in the annexed region, a politician from the invading country and government is being killed by some terrorists. Lets move this 50 000 civilians out of their homes. 5. Czechoslovakia also in the end agreed to cede land to Germany too. How is that different? Yes, Poland had historic reasons, but again, their reasoning was based on the borders of 18th fkin century. 6. Exactly.
@@evgenyterekhin9030 Excuse me but putting an equal sign between Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union and Poland is just beyond any stupidity. "So you can whitewash Polish history, covering up behind the millions of dead, mostly Jewish (no Poles)" I am sorry but these people were Polish citizens that lived there for centuries because just for your information Poland was one of the most tolerant countries in Europe and during its peak of power invented the first constitution in Europe just after the USA. Are you going to tell me you can nuke an American city and suddenly all other but native Americans do not count as American losses? Are you nuts?! Poland lost a lot of people that spoke polish, felt polish, and were part of Poland just happened to be of a different religion. You know what, I think you are a Putin's troll. You know why? Because you mentioned this Czechoslovakia thing. Only fukin Russian trolls ever mention it. I mean cmon Poland took one goddamn village. Big deal. There was a dispute between both countries since they appeared on the map. Both were pulling the rope in their respective directions. Jesus. It is a too tiny thing to even matter. For normal people. For Putinbots it matters a lot as we can see. You know why you are a Putinbot? Because you said 200 thousand died. Ask any Russian "scientist" and he will tell 300 or even 400 thousand if you give enough vodka too him. You know why? Because Russians always lie. They lie until they are dead. Do you know Katyn bro? The same Katyn that is commemorated in Jersey so all dumb Russians like you could know who is the real friend of Poland and who is shitty Russia with no friends at all. You Russians tried to put the blame on Germans for that. Twice! First in Chatyn then in Nuremberg. You know Holodomor bro? According to Russians it never happened! So get off Poland you jerk!
@@rezkez5334 Personnaly I know about Teschen because I'm an history student and because it's in Heart of Iron IV. But we can't deny that Poland was a military dictatorship before the war and a bit oppressive, although clearly far less than Germany and others.
Well by the end of WW2 the Soviets were occupying Poland. Kinda like what happened with the British and Soviets in Afghanistan. The British and Soviets agreed to leave after the war but only the British left and the Soviets stayed until they were forced out by NATO. And to be honest it's not like the allies could've gone to war again so soon after WW2.
And I may be mistaken on this next point but I believe no one realized stalin's plans for occupation until after the war. I guess the allies assumed or came to some agreement with stalin that they would leave Europe after the war but we both know how that turned out.
I totally agree for the first point .Europe actually was devastated by the war so they leave poland to avoid waging war with the soviets .thank you for your reply❤❤
@@abdoessam8634 Anytime! I love learning and talking about the Cold War. It's one of my favorite eras which sadly doesn't get much of an in depth discussion about what Europe was going through at the time here in Texas.
Edward Gierek is fondly remembered by my relatives for opening Poland toward Westernization and increasing standard of living during his term. Despite taking loans, they are grateful he did get them from Moscow. Today Poland is very different but the clash between people in more urban areas and especially western part voting for PO (liberal, libertarian) and eastern part especially more rural areas voting for PiS (conservative, populist) is very evident. It’s mostly only people living and working in cities that benefited from growth in last two decades.
Total chaos, no food, fresh water, health care, a lot of crimes etc. My grandma was expeled from Lwów with a newborn child. The jurney to the Silesia - abaut 500 km took them three months. There was no day that someone from the transport not died. They adopted the orphaned child (probably German) as thenksgiving. They also told me, that people lied a lot at registration abaut personality, both Germans and Poles for many reasons from political to just be younger (funy story of theirs Silesian neighbour). In many cases those "lost" souls could be fictional, so German accent in Polish sounds just like a minor speach disorder, they have no bigger problems to spell all that wird Polish sounds. In case of Germans just the sink of Gustlov took 10 000 victims...
@Rick Stuifzand Yes, Lwów as I heard was half Polish, 1/4 Jewish, 10-15% Ukrainian and some Germans and others. But that kind of situation was typical all over the central Europe. In fact it was even more complicated, so your nationality was in fact determined by yours religion, so: Catholics=Poles, Unionists=Ukrainians, Protestants=Germans and of course Jews=Jews ;) In case my grandparents, they ware Poles despite not so Polish surnames and the half of theirs not so distant family lived in Austria.
@@Dziki_z_Lasu Many Germans. Austrians where. are also catholics but havly secularized ,stop to refer them as protestants only .and the mumber of Poles murdered/killed by Gernmans where around 950 000 includng the western Ukrainian killers it would be 1050 000 and with stalinist deportations 1150 000 or 1200 000 polish non jewish people murdered killed by german and also sovet ocupaiers and west ucrainian rebeliants.
@@dpwXXIPolskaPolak It is difficult to understand you, but I was talking definitely about the pre war or 19th century in my 3yo comment. Those people were mostly staying within theirs religious groups accepting dominant language and having mixed marriages. Children from such a marriages, were already 100% Polish in case of Catholics. Why? It was theirs friends circle. If you are suggesting, by this list of victims of ww2, that my great-grandparent accepted "Volksliste", than I must disappoint you. He was fighting in Armia Krajowa for Poland. When you will stop copy-pasting and read anything about AK, you will find, that a lot of those courageous people had not Polish sounding surnames there, why? Because nazis expecialy brutally persecuted them, for not having a will to become a common bandit, or dieing in units for "racially uncertain". I also know, from tales, how my great grandfather was calling some rednecks, living in a God forsaken villages in a certain, extremely Patriotic now region. Those people extremely severely suffered that Germans took theirs cow, even if they didn't have a cow, or even a barn. They were heroically plundering houses left by victims in a nearby town, bravely fighting to the death among eachother for loots. The amount of support and friendliness, made keeping a resistance cell there nearly impossible. I am certain that it is not yours region, is it?
I can't wait for the Operation Condor video. Will love to see if the people here in the comment session will have the reaction after seeing USA's crimes against humanity in Latin America.
@@Metal_Enjoyer This is 100% not true. I'm Brazilian and there was never a real communist threat here. Even after the coup, when there where some communist guerrillas, they were so tiny and unsupported (not even the USSR really believed they would work) that they never stood a chance. Still, the USA backed up a military dictatorship that lasted for more than 20 years, with thousands being tortured and/or murdered by the government.
@Mstislaw AA claiming not be a friend but acting as traitors do is the same. You are in war with someone, and someone else takes time to invade your country unprovoked. Is using unfair games against you. So the Soviets, Germans and western powers are all guilty of treacherous conduct.
He acknowledged his respect for Great War already...formats can only be so much, as ultimately it's the research and content that matter. Also there's a talmudic saying "...“kinas sofrim tarbeh chachma..."(Bava Basra 21a) ="Envy of sages increases wisdom"
"The war against Hitler and the nazis was one of the most justifiable wars in history." Why is this war against this oppressor more important than one against another oppressor? Was your family personally affected here, whereas this was not the case with other wars?
5:13 I'm not saying the official results were accurate, but saying the Krakow must be indicative of the actual results is not sound. It's normal for a city's election results to be very different from the country as a whole. Also, your "actual results" are not the Krakow results you describe, so I wonder where you got them from.
@@noobster4779 there were no good guys in both world wars,the whole "the allies are the good guys" is propaganda made after the war to morally and legally justify the destruction left in their wake
Although we are planning to go through the Cold War chronologically, some events will be covered separately, outside of the main series. So, if you don't see a particular event covered within the main series, expect it to be talked about as part of our special episodes. Don't hesitate to remind us about those - we are researching everything thoroughly, but there are too many countries and events so something might fall through the cracks.
More please.
And 1 advice for you please use polish letters.
Ł / ł - it's pronounced like "w" in english "wow", it should be in surname Gomułka and in name Bolesław (Bierut).
Ó / ó = U / u
ą = oł
ę = eł
Ch / ch = H / h (c is muted)
Ć / ć
Ź / ź (also in Dź / dź)
Ż / ż (same pronounciation have Rz / rz) and Dż / dż (also Drz / drz).
ń
Ś / ś
Watch out for words with i after consonants, it softens previous letter - eg. zi is soften ź, it also can be described as something between z and ź. Similarly ci, dzi, si, ni.
The last thing - cz, sz. This is pronounced like german tsch (cz) and sch (sz).
I really like the split screen thing at 11:35 Please keep doing that for the old "square" videos
The Cold War are you going to cover famous people during the Cold War? Like Seweryn Bialer? He was a former member of the communist party in Poland who defected to America after his dissolution with the system he was under. He became a famous teacher and political scientist about the Soviets style of government, it would be interesting to see your take on him.
First of all, I liked the video but you REALLY goofed up about the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and the phrasing of Germany's aggression in 1939. See my standalone comment about citing your sources where I go into much more detail and I don't claim to be an expert but this is why citation is so important... but in short:
There was no partitioning mentioned in the secret protocols of the MR-pact. It divided spheres of influence within which if invaded by Nazi Germany, Poland could retreat into and negotiate a peace treaty. Then the USSR would have a buffer state hostile to Nazi Germany. The whole "MR-pact was partitioning Poland"-narrative is probably from Cold War propaganda trying to cover up the Allies' (including Poland's) partitioning of peaceful Czechoslovakia.
Secondly, the Polish government fled to Romania, a neutral party and was subsequently interned. You can't run a government from prison, and so the Polish state ceased to exist. You can't invade a state that doesn't exist. The Nazis declared all treaties with Poland null and void, and if not met by the Soviets would have rolled up right to their border and would have installed a fascist puppet state. This could not be allowed by the Soviets, or anyone else in a similar situation, so they renegotiated new spheres of interest and liberated formerly polish-occupied territory in western Byelorussia and western Ukraine, regions they had conquered in the Polish-Soviet war whose populations were hardly Polish, which among other countries the UK recognized as rightful claims.
There's numerous evidence for that the Soviets were not seen as belligerents, among others: the Polish Supreme Commander Rydz-Smigly ordered Polish soldiers not to fight the Soviets, though he ordered Polish forces to continue to fight the Germans, several governments foremost the Romanian government and even the Polish president himself admitting Poland had no government any longer, there were no war declarations on the USSR by any party including Romania and France who both had mutual defense treaties with Poland. Every country agreed that the USSR was a neutral party. There were no declarations of war or sanctions on the USSR, but there was on Germany. Compare with the Finnish Winter War, where the USSR did indeed get sanctioned.
And hell, Poland was basically fascist at the time. They sent opposition members to prison, were authoritarian and militaristic... and even conspired with Germany to invade the USSR!
@@JoneshSwe
OK Putinboy
"The whole "MR-pact was partitioning Poland"-narrative is probably from Cold War propaganda trying to cover up the Allies"
The Soviet Union devoured Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Romania, anschlused half of Poland. Disbanded Belarusian country (yes they had one in 1920 until well Soviets came to well kill them all), destroyed Ukrainian ambitions to have a country. The Soviet Union also created shitholes we know today like Transnistria and Moldavia. And all of this with dozens of thousands sent to Siberia or killed at the spot.
And well despite all this visible evidence that proves the Eastern Europe was effectively dividing into two parts and shared between Stalin and his best friend Hitler with whom he had a military parade in Bresc in Poland (something that I assume you would never mention) you dare to claim Russia did nothing wrong and it was all Poland’s fault?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German-Soviet_military_parade_in_Brest-Litovsk
Ok seems reasonable. Just like everything else is in Russia. You can go away in peace Putinboy.
Chopin was the only appropriate background music choise given this topic :)
Why wasn't Poland considered a Soviet Socialist Republic? Ukraine, Georgia, and Estonia were considered Soviet Socialist Republics! Also, what about Czechoslovakia? Hungry? Why aren't these countries considered Soviet Socialist Republics? BTW, I'll be happy to celebrate Ukraine's independence on August 24th!
No.
@@Namuchat Why's that?
I think it worked better than Sabaton's 40 to 1
How unlucky to be the nation stuck between Germany and Russia.
Wrong, Poland used to kick their butts in the past, but they never took advantage of their power.
Last time i checked it was between Belorussia and Germany
@@moriart13 Borders have changed since 1945 several times.
@@teekey1754 .
Yep they did, also you might want to take a guess who was having war in 1919 with western ukraine and Lithuania
@@moriart13 No need for guessing.
Unfortunately you didn't say anything about massacre of Polish Underground Army. Thousands of Polish soldiers of Home Army (AK/WIN) and National Armed Forces (NSZ/NZW) were tortured and murdered in communist arrests or killed in fight at forest hideouts
Katyn Massacre
it's tragic how the Poles had to suffer from so many wars and mistreatment from their neighbors all throughout the 17th to 20th century
@@alessiodelcastillo1613 Katyń Massacre happened during WWII. It targeted dozens of thousands of Polish soldiers, POWs captured by Soviets in September and October 1939 - not AK that didn't exist at that time. @Templar_GP mentioned events that happened after the war. In fact, AK's fight force wasn't broken after the Warsaw Uprising (only 20-30k AK soldiers participated in this event, comparing to an estimated 400k AK army). The uprising was only part of much bigger Operation Tempest aiming to liberate cities and regions before the Red Army. The aim was to show the strength of Polish underground movement and prevent USSR from Sovietization of Poland. On the contrary, it allowed NKVD to recognize the leaders of the movement and imprison dozens of thousands of AK soldiers.
Marcin Leszczyński I was gonna say that
Much more white Russians died from communism then Poles
Honestly, I can't complain. You did this topic justice in a nice balanced way. Congrats. Ah, and once again after watching your video, I fell a need for a long session of Chopin's music.
Thank you!
@@TheColdWarTV Agreed - this was a much better balanced episode and renews hope for this series.
@@allan7380 Man, I'm Polish you can't get more anti-communist than that. But the objective truth is that aside from terror, communist managed to rebuild the most devastated country of WWII in a very short time period without outside help.
@@allan7380 Although I can't see where either the video or Kamil Szadkowski got "misty". The video talked about reconstruction but also mentioned the serious flaws with the strategies that were used, and the political oppression by the Soviets and the Soviet-backed regime. They were the same as in basically all Eastern-bloc countries, including Czechoslovakia and East Germany - for the economy: nationalisation, land reform first and collectivisation later, emphasis on heavy industry at the cost of consumer products and services, and planned economy - a pattern that is evident everywhere in the Soviet bloc and mirrors the development in the Soviet Union in the 20s and 30s. All with similar results that the video didn't ignore - low agricultural production and resistance, industrialisation but stalling living conditions, and the suppression of democracy.
OTOH, it's also true that Poland did see a lot of progress - I mean, it's really hard to _not_ improve upon what was left after the war. The level at which this happened was quite low, esp. compared to Western Europe, so no-one's giving the USSR too much credit, but it's also a fact of what happened back then.
Also rebuilding Warsaw and retaining it as the capital was truly a great feat of post-war Poland.
I remember once reading a book of "The Most Popular Jokes From Around the World" published in the 1960s. Now mind you it was published by an American diplomat so it should be taken with a grain of salt, but this is one of the jokes listed in this book as being popular in Poland at the time:
A bedraggled and gaunt looking man is walking on a country road in Poland when he comes across an old lamp half buried in the dirt. He cleans the lamp and out comes a mighty genie which says to him,
"To earn my freedom I shall grant you three wishes! Name your hearts desire and it shall be done!'
The man looks to the genie and says, "For my first wish, I wish for the Chinese Red Army to march straight to our eastern border...and then to turn around and immediately go home the way they came."
The genie shrugs and snaps his fingers. "Your first wish has been granted! Speak! What is your second wish?"
The man looks at the genie and says, "for my second wish, I wish for the Chinese Red Army to again march straight to our eastern border and then to turn around and immediately go home the way they came."
The genie raises an eyebrow but snaps his fingers anyway. "Your second wish has been granted! Now tell me! What is your third and final wish?"
The man looks at the genie and says, "for my third and final wish, I wish for the Chinese Red Army to once again march straight to our eastern border and then to turn around and immediately go home the way they came."
The genie's very confused but again snaps fingers. "Your final wish has been granted and now I am free! But before I go, I must ask: why did you wish for the same thing three times?"
The Polish man looks the genie in the eye and says, "Because in order for the Chinese Red Army to come straight to our eastern border and go back to China three times, they will have to invade Russia at least six times."
That was a good joke.
It is really sad that they are so willing to sell their soul just for revenge...
I don't get it
Soviets did that only twice in Poland in 1944/45.
@@sbevexlr848 To say that much of Poland had a burning hatred for the Soviet Union during the 1960s would be akin to saying napalm is a bit warm.
How do you make this video without this quote from Stalin: "Fitting communism onto Poland is like putting a saddle on a cow.”?
I am a Pole and I think it is degrading Poland, a bit like kurica ne ptica, Polsza ne zagranica
The most tragic was the fate of the resistance movement. People who for 6 years fought for Poland's freedom suddenly became "traitors" and
"Bandits". An amnesty was announced for them, after which those who reported themselves were killed.
"Amnesty is for bandits, we are Polish Army! "- Hieronim Dekutowski ps. "Dam"
@Danijel Mornarić and capitalism, they were kinda backstabbed by capitalist states who just used Poland as a trade value.
Well partisans were by definition bandits. That is a fact.
@@noobster4779 And Germans who provided intel for allies were traitors and enemies of their own homeland by definition. What could be worse than betraying your country? Its pretty dumb to judge history that way.
@@noobster4779 By your definition groups like: ISIS, Afgan Mujahedin, Viet Kong, Hamas, Yugoslavian, or Italian Partisans were just that: mearly bandits.
Well if bandits can create countries like USA or Ireland, then ok.
@Danijel Mornarić The Red scum tried it in Spain too.
Thank God Franco pushed them out and killed them with gusto.
I'm really glad there are more videos sharing the situation of Poland after the war.
*“I see a beautiful cities and a brilliant people rising from this abyss. I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy. I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants, generations hence. It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.” Poland 4ever*
Andrzej Abramczyk Too bad the granddaughter of Polish “refugees” who is the CEO of RUclips is now in the USA, censoring Americans and helping to enable the most ridiculous election theft ever seen.
Oddly the massacre of tens of thousands of Poles by the Soviets at Katyn is never mentioned.... nor was the deportations and other crimes during the first Soviet occupation. Glossed over Polish culpability in the atrocities committed in the expulsion of the Germans, which was brutal and often genocidal in nature.
@Rick Stuifzand WRONG! The first attempt at Sovietisation occurred during the first occupation. Nice try amateur.
Really good video, as I am from Poland I am happy that you made this one and it quite accurately covered this topic. Thanks ☺️ and keep on doing good job with those vids 👍
I'm glad Poland finally got independence after the Cold War. It's infuriating to think how badly Poland was treated by the Germans and the Russians and that we Americans couldn't do more to stop it happening. I'm glad that now we are on the same side and there will be literal hell to pay if anyone tries that again.
@@laurelrunlaurelrun there was more the allies(specifically Britain and France) could do, and while America had the more powerful say in the peace conferences and if all of the allies "walneli w stol i powiedzieli NIE" or translated from Polish as 'banged their fist on the table and said NO' then the soviets would have had to step down from Poland and potentially Czechoslovakia and Romania, completely reshaping the Eastern bloc as we know it.
@@laurelrunlaurelrun But the truth is the allies were never really interested in the good of the people, they just wanted to keep a balance of power and in the east, Poland was that key component to the balance. The Americans, seeing the others didn't really care anymore now the Nazis were gone, well what could they do, they were still busy with Japan and it wasn't their conflict in the first place. Now, after 4 decades of communism, the Poles(I speak for most of us) despise any remnant of communist/socialist ideology and generally, you could say we(the Poles) may forgive, but not necessarily forget our allies(UK and France, America had no diplomatic obligations to Poland) betrayed us and left us to the Stalinist regime our people had to endure. The relationship between Poland and the allies, if put in a tv series, would be equally as good as Game of Thrones, all of Poland's history actually XD.
I always wanted to know how and why "sovietization" (of eastern europe) happened, now with this episode I am hopeful of getting the answers. Thank you. K&G and CW.
Thanks for watching!
Quite easy tbh
Germany and the Soviets decided to divide Europe among themselves, and so they did in 1939.
Then Western betrayal happened
There commonwealth with lithuana that invaded russia and conquered eastern europe they say its the best he's thinking what's hitler doing that's like 17th century and old kaliningrad
It's sad and terrible that the Soviets let those young men and women die at the hands of the Germans in Warsaw. Then they oppressed the Poles for 4 decades.
Praying for you!
One wants cry listening to the Chopin's music.
>poland late 1944
>"liberated" by the Soviets
>oh is that what we're calling it
they had their own state, government, borders and culture. there was a puppet government, yes, but no more puppet than Poland today is an EU puppet. And only soviet could liberate Poland. If they would fail than there was not American army in Europe either. So have more respect. Without Soviet soldiers there would not such thing as Poland today.
The fucking Russians helped Germany invade Poland and helped Germany skirt the treaty of Versailles with war material, secret training bases, men, and more. Then the Russians put half of Europe under completely communist controlled governments where they predicted to slaughter all those that opposed them. The NKVD was just as bad as the Gestapo and the puppet governments were nowhere near self-determination
@@allan7380 He is a хуита russian, don't bother to reason with him.
Western Byelorussia and Western Ukraine was liberated from Polish imperialism, that it was that means in that context. It is what is usually said when a region is liberated from imperialistic occupation.
@@bradenatkinson6401 why USSR would have want supporting snd protecting you if Poland was fashist state also. You were not so terrible as the Germans in the end, but who can know the end in advance? You didn't respect the other people's rights and freedoms and only reason why you wanted freedom for themselves so you could join NATO and begin war against USSR. Being under communism for 40 years had positive effect on you. You have no desire for enslaved other people anymore so Stalin was like Moise for your people.
Very nice video. But you failed to mention one thing. Unlike other Eastern European countries, Poland was an Ally from day one. Franklin D. Roosevelt betrayed Poland and sold it to Stalin in exchange of what he considered world peace. Try to ask the Poles what they think of Roosevelt.
*"relocated"*
My Cossack relatives were also "relocated" like many Tsarist people.
Hello from a fellow descendant from cossacks. I'm from the Don. My family was too relocated, 6 feet underground and only my great grandpa survived
Long live Bolsheviks for that!
Cossack descendant communist here. Some members of my family were sent to Kazakhstan (where they still live) and some of them weren't.
Let me guess - somewhere in Siberia?
Damn, this video was comprehensive and very well made. I feel like the most important topics were covered and there is not much missing in such a short piece. Congrats!
I think in your videos you need more images/videos/maps showing things, less of just staring at the narrator.
Agreed. Too much time staring at him talking.
Agreed, a tad bit boring!
Poland sure went through a lot not just during WWII but also in the Cold War. Communism did this country no favors whatsoever. Only after it left did Poland recover enough. Or at least that's what I think. My compliments to all those who made this video a reality.
"Shock Theraphy", much?
Just found your channel and I see great potential in it. Reminds me of The Great War and World War Two channels.
I wonder if their cousins 😆. Love those channels. Like others have said, see much potential. Need more stock images, videos (minus audio to hear narrator), & maps. Love maps. If I watch 2x more videos & is just as enjoyable I'll subscribed or else I'll occasionally watch videos when recommended. 😊.
Same here, this is the new channel i needed in my life
"Communism fits Poland like a saddle fits a cow": -Stalin
and us and uk...fuck you traitors!!!
@Nathan Morrow The Nazis for sure.
Jerrys Kid why??
@Nathan Morrow The Nazis wanted to wipe out most Poles in Generalplan Ost so that makes it easy
@@lumpygasinavacuum8449 The Nazis conducted the Holocaust against Polish people in addition to Jewish people in those occupied territories. The best the Poles would get under the horrors of Nazi rule was slavery.
Hey, remember that time the Soviet "liberators" invaded Poland in 1939 and shot over 20,000 Polish POWs while trying to pin it on the Germans? Pepperidge Farm remembers.
@mr_ anheuser lol where did I say anything about people denying Soviet warcrimes? I just like shitting on that hellish regime and that monster Stalin whenever able. Though I will say, the Poles had survived multiple occupations as an ethnicity over the centuries.
@mr_ anheuser "Liberated"
Because the victims at Auschwitz being raped by the Red Army accounts for liberation.
Poland never saw freedom until the Soviet Union fell
@mr_ anheuser We're not talking about America ffs. Yes America committed war crimes, but compared to the Soviet's war crimes and the Nazis theirs were minimal.
“On the afternoon, we arrived to the village of Golab, near to Radom. What happened there was difficult to imagine. When we entered to the first house it gave us goosebumps. On the floor an 8 years old girl with the clothes dragged and clearly raped in group lied, as Red Army heroes used to do. Her legs were partially tripped from its place. On the bed, there were an old men sticked with a bayonet, and in front of there, in the corner, a scared 30-35 years old women was observing (…). I went out the house because the smell of the blood and which I saw there caused vomits to me. In a corner of the house I saw a men sticked in a fence, the husband of the women still was alive. Alongside there was an elderly-aged women with the head destroyed.“ -Pawel Lukasz Kolecki
@mr_ anheuser You're acting like the Red Army was the liberation hero for Europe? The fuck.
The Red Army may have defeated the Nazi's, but they were in no way better.
Also did you just try and justify rape? You're a monster.
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/1382565/Red-Army-troops-raped-even-Russian-women-as-they-freed-them-from-camps.html
The Red Army pillaged, raped, abused, tortured, and mudered just as much as the Nazi's had.
They deported Pols, Czechs, POWS, innocent Berliners, Estonians, Latvians to Gulag slave labor camps in Siberia where they were worked to death.
Just because the Nazi's murdered millions, does not excuse the Soviet Union from murdering millions either.
I wasn't merely talking about Auschwitz, I was talking about Nazi concentration camps as a whole. It may not have been in Auschwitz alone that rape occurred but in other camps that the Russians "liberated"
Please stop talking out of your ass because by saying the Soviet Union singlehandedly beat the Nazi's, you're disgracing the thousands of Americans, Brits, Indians, Australians, Canadians, Pols, and French people who died during the D-Day invasion + the race for Berlin. The Soviets may have been the most powerful factor in the Reich's fall, but were not the only one.
www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/25/i-will-never-be-free-of-it-auschwitz-survivor-recalls-horror-75-years-on
If the Red Army were such heroes than why were the Jews and other victims fleeing the Red Army when they were being "liberated"
@mr_ anheuser www.outono.net/elentir/2017/07/17/thats-how-the-liberation-of-poland-by-the-red-army-was-the-mass-rapes-of-girls-and-women/
Great video, congrats. As an Pole i must thank you for informing people about this herrible period in Poland :)
P. S. I think I spotted little mistake on 4:29, you said `Leopold Okulski` but should be `Leopold Okulicki` :)
Their biggest mistake IMHO was their false description of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and phrasing that the Nazis and the Soviets "invaded together".
@@JoneshSwe
Exactly, it should be "invaded and occupied half of Europe together" not just Poland. Narrowing down Soviet crimes to only Poland is an offensive discrimination of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Moldovia and other countries violently occupied and repressed by Russia.
I will just leave this link here.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_crimes
@@rezkez5334 it is called framing. This video is about Poland. When you write any piece of work regarding history you need a subject, a timeframe and theme. I could guess they end up talking about it on a later video.
@gvlfm78 They left Russia on their own and wanted nothing to do with the USSR. They had to be forced into it.
@@JoneshSwe But the description is correct my dear ignorant
Poland : "Thank you for liberating us!"
USSR : "You're welcome"
Poland : "So....can we have our country back?"
USSR : "What country?"
Poland : "...........oh"
@vikedude 123 Actually I was referring to after the split Germany/USSR invasion in which Operation Barbarossa took effect and Germany pushed the Soviets completely out of as well as occupied all of Poland. Thus the Soviets had to "liberate" Poland and the other eastern countries from Germany only to be forced as puppet states.
Alibaba Saluja Poles stil had own country, language, gevernmant and army...3 rd bigest Amy in
Europe during cold war.
@@zepter00
On paper, sure. In reality, it was a semi-colonial buffer state only allowed to exist as a meat shield for Russia incase of war with NATO.
@@tariqnasneed3857 Lol. You have basic problems with geography Mr uneducated muslim. Poland had not border with NATO mamber countey .. only witch east germany and czechoslovakia....both countries had huge armies amd
Oland had 3 rd bigest army in whole fucking Europe. During dold war. ... in late 50s 60’s amd early 70’s Poland had one of the bigest military speeds bigest military budgets in top 5 in whole world. Please don’t try to teach me aboutPoland. You have zero clue about Poland.
@@zepter00
1. I'm from North Ireland and am Protestant, not Muslim.
2. That's irrelevant, if East Germany was conquered by NATO the war would move into Poland. It was the second layer of the Iron Curtain before NATO entered the Soviet Union.
3. Which completely served the interests of the USSR, not Poland.
You should also have mentioned the anti-communist guerilla who kept fighting even into the 60s.
Can you please add the sources in the description in future videos.
Yes! I'm not alone! Please like my comment back, it's... somewhere on it's own, that is, not in a thread. I've been posting on every video so far asking for this and just made a huuuuuge reply but it doesn't seem to have gotten through (yet, it might need to be approved) so I did a test reply that seemed to come out fine.
I split up my reply in comments and it got through, I had only hit the character limit. You can see it now :)
Ah yes "liberation" a new word for occupation in modern times
USSR surely wasn't about freedom, but it sure was against the system of bankers and money, the world we live in today. This is the reason why USSR was hated that much.
Foolish commie
@@mikeylejan8849 i mean u Most likely wouldn't live if the red army didn't defeat Germany
@@rinyc9100 another form of opression from the soviets though, much lesser opression from Nazis by a small difference
@@rinyc9100 same if the russians would have overrun my country.
I think the Katyn massacre deserved at least a mention in this video.
That happened way before this
@@command_unit7792 sure, but they did talk about the Soviet invasion, and the massacre was meant to make Poland weaker and more pliable. I feel mentioning it was called for.
calm down polish boi ... it will have own video... :D :D :D go eat some pierogy .. :D :D :D
@@mephisto2872 It's a moot point who exactly did so he had a good reason to omit it.
@@FlymanMS no it is not. It is crystal clear that the Katyn massacre was conducted by soviets. Only one who blame Germans was the soviet propaganda. The are tons of evidences that it was done by soviets. Just check wikipedia article and it's references en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre .
Outstanding job. You have touched the depth of the problems of that time.
Thank you for watching :)
Very interesting stuff, I'm so glad you went into detail on the economic conditions and the presence of worker-owned, that is to say socialist, cooperatives, of which I was not actually aware of the presence of in any Soviet Marxist-Leninist states. Looking forward to more 😄
Stalin:poland you need some communism,here you go
Poland:ahhmm,papa stalin i am not feeling so good 😵
Stalin:I know 😈
Nice video except for using the word "liberation" while it was just a different occupation. Also you failed to mention there was actual civil war in Poland between 1944 and 1948 where pro-independence and pro-west underground fought against the communists, with 50k - 100k casualties and with the last active freedom fighter killed as late as 1963.
Well hell yeah lets save a country and its people from future extinction. Give them their own government and sovereignty back. But lets not call us liberators. Nice
@@vkplayz2180 Their own government and sovereignity. Man, time to read some history books. Get educated.
@@VladderGraf Okay so explain to me why you think it is wrong.
@@vkplayz2180 You want me to explain to you why it is wrong to invade a country TWICE within 5 years? To deport its population and conduct ethnic cleansing? To send hundreds of thousands to certain death? To install a puppet government and secret state police who murder or imprison those who oppose them and want actual independence? Why it is wrong to kill people who fought hard for their country in a war unlike any other before, and who, after that war had finished, got labelled as criminals and enemies of the nation? Or why it is wrong to literally occupy a country by establishing military bases on their territory, by staffing their public offices, their army, their factories with your own men who are incompetent but still have the last word in decision making? To impose a political and economic system where a person is reduced to nothing? A system that meant the entire nation was robbed of their posessions and savings and reduced to a colony that had to support the invader with their economy, products, science and military? Or maybe it was wrong because within those 45 years several nations including Poland were degraded so much that they literally became third world countries? That and more was wrong about it, so don't tell me Soviet occupation was liberation.
VladderGraf
1. The degraded USSR was able to destroy Germany. This fact you can not deny. While prosperous Poland remained an agrarian state.
2. Now you do not have Soviet influence, but you have American. You do not protest against it. The struggle for Polish independence does not include the struggle against Western influence on Poland for some reason. This fact makes you two-faced.
Truman and Stalin are staring at the photographer.
I LOVE that you added Chopin's music here :)
Shame of no mention about how the catholic church was allowed to stay, in exchange for constantly snitching on the general population, including violating the secrecy of confessions many times over.
Ah
A return to the medieval times
Great video. Can you do the same with Romania?
We will cover all of them.
@@TheColdWarTV thank you very much
theres a small mistake in the video, at 5:07 The second question was : "Do you want consolidation, in the future constitution of the economic system founded on agricultural reform and the nationalisation of basic national industries, including the preservation of the statutory rights of private enterprise?". It didn't imply a full-blown socialism, but state capitalism.
So similar to the chinese economy?
@@dragonsword7370 No, it was formulated vaguely specifically to fool as many people as they could so communists could later say that most of Poland want's to be socialist, but referendum and elections was falsified massively
Major factor that you omitted entirely, is the low level anti-communist uprising that took place in Poland all the way up to...1962! There were well-organized guerrilla units from the former AK and NSZ that were fighting an armed uprising against the communist, the so called Coursed Soldiers (Żołnierze Wykleci), although they were not a match for the NKVD units nor Polish-colabo KBW (Internal Security Corps) but they were a major nuisance for a long time, attacking prisons in order to free the political prisoners, disrupting communication and carrying-out the death sentences against the high-level communists and their colabos.
Otherwise pretty good job, Bro! :)
What you omitted entirely is that some of them were criminals who murdered and robbed people with cold blood.
@@Deus888
Communists, yes for sure were criminals. Brought on soviet tanks
Yes they were and still ARE.
Saying "liberated" associated to soviets/russians is an insult to the nations who were occupied by those regimes.
Poles were not saints, but they got hit hard in WW2.
Greetings from Ukraine.
Poland: we're free now!
USSR: Oh, I wouldn't say "free". More like "under new menagement".
Much better than genocidal maniacs
@@thequestioner5916 But he already said the Soviets
awesome quality man! good job
You've done Great job guys with explaining situation in Poland with such a short video. Don't care about some hate in the comments, just keep going!
I dig your cabinet radio.
Please stop referring to the NKVD as the Soviet "Secret" police. They weren't secret in the least. The acronym stands for Narodnyy Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del, "People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs." They had and wore uniforms, ranks, and deployed about 40 divisions as troops in the war. No one in the Soviet Union referred to them or thought of them as "secret" police.
@Rick Stuifzand Good luck on your reading comprehension program.
Love your videos both on your main channel and on this one,will you be making more videos on postwar germany aswell?
romantic Chopin in the background ;-)
however you repeatadly said Bierut like Bejrut - it is totally different pronunciation ;-)
Chopin ballade in G minor playing in the background of the video :)
5:05
The second question in this referendum was not as overwhelming as it says in this video.
It sounded like this:
"Do you want to consolidate in the future Constitution the economic system introduced by the land reform and nationalization of the basic branches of the national economy, while maintaining the statutory rights of private initiative?"
It itself contradicts some more advanced socialism and gives some freedom to small businesses, and maybe even large ones, because what is the basic branch of the national economy is an issue that can be broadly understood and not at all socialism, but state behavior of such things like health care or education that are state-owned until today in European countries.
Despite such a gently bent on question, the overwhelming majority was against such a reform.
The sovietization of poland was truly a mess.
I wanted to know what happened to those workers’ takeovers of industry though
Poor Poland was forced to live civilly and not attack its neighbors, what a misfortune.
In reality, Poland is a completely inadequate country, it needs external supervision - for the benefit of all of Europe.
@@MultiNike79 I think you got Poland mixed up with Russia
U should have mentioned the pogroms after the war. Also it would have been beneficial to hear from the differences between Osobka-Morawski and Kyrankiewicz (within the social democratic movement, before they were enveloped by the leninists). In general these are very good videos.
just found this channel, this is great
You need to go through the treaty of Versailles going into cold war
The cold war was created by this ridiculous treaty
Because what this caused created the conditions to create it
Poor Polish!!
really enjoying these videos
Good :-)
Nice Job Guys! Absolutely love it
Thanks!
Good work!
Poland is not yet lost! 🇵🇱
Jeszcze polska nie zginela
At least this one was simpler than the one I watched about Ukraine. It definitely wasn't easier, just simpler. You talked slower and I didn't have to rewind as much. Plus I think you pronounced everything correctly except for Lublin. There was one head of Ukraine whose name you pronounced one way to begin with and then you changed the way you pronounced it. I got lost because there were two people whose names seemed very close to each other. But it was better than not knowing anything. I still learned stuff. Also it may be because this one only goes up to a certain time and then stops. Nothing since 1979 is mentioned. It's possible that the one on Ukraine starts after the USSR falls apart and goes forward from there. The one about Poland after the USSR seems like everything went fantastically as soon as the communists stop being in charge. And yet I know I read or watched something recently that said there is no way that was true, and it was just as wrenching in Poland to change systems as it was in Russia as described by someone I know who lived there.
Nevertheless, I don't know anybody in my life who knows anything about any of this stuff so it's helpful for you to put it up there. My alternative is reading articles in Wikipedia which I think would put me to sleep.
Now where did I see that thing about the economic shock therapy that Poland went through, switching from planned economy to free-market economy? Being born and living my entire life in the US, it didn't occur to me until this year that there is a difference between free market economy and democracy and free speech. Three separate things that we always had all three of and they didn't know that they would separate things. I guess I should think Ukraine. And at least one guy in Russia who no longer lives there because of Russia's tendency towards tyranny? Dictators? Authoritarian government? Probably all of those.
In fact, how is it that some countries can transition from Kings and czars and feudalism into democracy and some can try and just seem to keep reverting?
When the Bolsheviks took over Russia they wanted to spread the revolution to as many people as possible so they kept and even expanded the tsarist borders, while for example when Atatürk salvaged the Ottoman Empire he gave up a lot of territory to focus on Turkey with positive results. A lot of Stalin's resources went into extreme repression of various ethnic groups and economic classes in the fear of being overthrown. Some food for thought
I like the muzic in the background
Chopin
0:50 Is it really so hard to get Finland's correct historical borders right? I mean, just Google a map of 1939. It's really not that hard, yet countless "history" videos seem to repeat the same mistake of using 1947 borders, which are drastically different.
Not that the map is correct in other areas. It looks afwul, honestly.
@@Vitalis94 They lack power of Eastory ;)
>among the most justified conflicts in history
Suuure... Yet the Soviets cooperating with the Germans, it's Germans not Nazis, is completely ignored.
And the triple betrayal of Poland by the French and British
It is kind of hard to manifest your expeditionary armies and move across europe to backside the germans when you have under a month of time.
Poor Poland
Always getting screwed over
Poland screwed France/England as they won against Russia with British/French help and did not stop and the Curzon line as promised.....
My dad said that Stalin was just another Hitler
Worse. Unlike Hitler, Stalin killed his own people.
Was your dad Hilter?
@@alexanderkreynin5257 Hitler killed his own people that were in opposition to him
@@camilasmithson5410 Stalin killed a lot more than members of opposition.
Is that Chopin playing in the background? If so that is commendably suitable.
No, it isn't. Sounds more like "heavy metal", doesn't it?
Well explained!!! bravo.
Polish Army Marshal and Polish Defence Minister until 1956 was a Soviet (Russian) Marshal Rokossovsky, and so was the dependency of Polish policy on the USSR. Poland even had to pay the USSR (in goods: coal, steel, uranium, etc) as reparations after WW2. USSR confiscated most of the factory machinery left by the Germans in 1945.
I like the choice of music, Chopin truly is a sadness and the soul of Poland.
@Assismus excuse me?
thx for the topic
hey buddy can you reverse your playlist as its going backwards
Could we discuss what happened at the Berlin Wall Crisis in 1960 or 1961? When the Russians tried to take over all of Germany
@mr_ anheuser my father was there that's why
so glad you covered this yeah this always something hard to except as even when Poland was liberated from one dictator they were replaced with another one keep up the good work.
So sad what happened to Poland, among other nations in Europe and the world during the last bloody century. Ironically Poland is one of the most right-wing and religious places in Europe today; you get pushed too far one way and you push back the other way. Everyone here in America seems to want to visit Poland to see the concentration camps, but I honestly just want to experience the culture, beautiful landscape, and the people of that rich nation. They're very lucky to have such a lovely country and I hope it experiences a long period of peace to avenge the horrible suffering of the last centuries.
You guys are amazing!
I know that I am 5 years late to the party... I have never actually asked myself how Sovietization happened in fellow neighbor countries. Political parties in one United Front, Soviet Advisors, Expulsions of Germans, Rule of One Party, it sounds all too painfully familiar... It looks like the playbook was the same for the whole "Russian Sphere of Influence". I do understand why Polish are arming like crazy in these difficult times. Regards from Czech Republic...
Why doesn't he provide any sources? I feel like everything he said will be on Wikipedia...
Poland was the only eastern European soviet block country that never cooperated with the nazis. Austria and Czechs just gave without a fight and the rest have joined the nazis.
This statement is a total historical fuck-up. Get back to your textbook!
Do a video about Romania and Moldova!
Poland really can't catch a break
I was expecting Indie to appear when I saw the channel name, but good content... subs
I guess times are coming that we'll be too afraid to open a fridge, because Indy might pop up even there... :)
I can hear the piano music from the movie pianist,forgot the name of the song
My brother’s dad grew up there.
A little bit one sided and subjective video, Poland, like in 1939, fell victim of international politics in a much bigger game. I think this video really needs much more historic context regarding polish-soviet-german-western interactions 1919-1939. Things like:
1. Curzon line (which poland ignored and went full offensive on Soviet Union (in turmoil of civil war at this point)
2. Poland's offence on Kiev, and demands of full annexation of Ukraine and partial of Belarus and Lithuania
3. 100 000 confirmed dead prisoners of war only in just in 1920 (not war causalities, and confirmed number by all parties involved, though soviet claimed 200 000)
4. Massive represions of non-polish minorities between 1921 and 1937, leading to over 2 million refugees fleeing to soviet Ukraine and Belarus (regardless of those being in full state golodomor).
5. Polish annexation of Czechoslovakia regions in 1938
6. Polish-German non-aggression pact, which included Polish rights over western Ukraine and Belarus.
Poland was victim in WW2 and its aftermath, but they were much more than a victim, Poland was an active political player with a lots of ambitions, and they lost the game. England and France did not even attempt to save them in WW2, and used Polish situation as political exchange coin after ww2
Name one non-soviet/russian historian confirming 100 000 murdered pow by Poles. Please share your wisdom and point just one documented case. Honestly there are no evidence for this purely propagandist and dishonest claims.
FYI after ww1 and post war conflicts health condition, feeding and hygiene were so low that even in regular Polish army hundreds of thousands fell victim of diseases such as spanish flu. Also, could you imagine? not all or even minority of soviet pow in poland decided to return to soviet paradise and simply stayed in my country.
Of course there is soviet/nazi traditional propaganda lies about Poland being the cause for all the suffering of russian and german people and atrocities in my part of the world. I consider Your comment to be classical example od this.
As far as for mr Curzon it is funny how much you soviets pay respect to this gentleman whose lines on map still divide nations from calcuta to Warsaw on non scientific base and any legal basis.
For your points 4 and 6 any evidence for this except for perhaps articles in Pravda in the deepest stalinism?
@@maciej5640
1. Curzon line was proposed by British Foreign Secretary George Curzon, and it was done before Soviets really consolidated.
2. Poland retreated due to Soviet counteroffensive, which really ended in the battle of Warsaw, there Soviets were defeated. Ukrainian People's Republic never was a real thing, and the treaty of Warsaw was just a formality.
3. Wikipedia is the best source, totally agree.
4. So, in the annexed region, a politician from the invading country and government is being killed by some terrorists. Lets move this 50 000 civilians out of their homes.
5. Czechoslovakia also in the end agreed to cede land to Germany too. How is that different? Yes, Poland had historic reasons, but again, their reasoning was based on the borders of 18th fkin century.
6. Exactly.
@Charlie Bell Agree, I just wished a bigger picture, in the end, Poland was one of icons of Cold War.
@@evgenyterekhin9030
Excuse me but putting an equal sign between Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union and Poland is just beyond any stupidity.
"So you can whitewash Polish history, covering up behind the millions of dead, mostly Jewish (no Poles)"
I am sorry but these people were Polish citizens that lived there for centuries because just for your information Poland was one of the most tolerant countries in Europe and during its peak of power invented the first constitution in Europe just after the USA.
Are you going to tell me you can nuke an American city and suddenly all other but native Americans do not count as American losses? Are you nuts?! Poland lost a lot of people that spoke polish, felt polish, and were part of Poland just happened to be of a different religion.
You know what, I think you are a Putin's troll. You know why? Because you mentioned this Czechoslovakia thing. Only fukin Russian trolls ever mention it. I mean cmon Poland took one goddamn village. Big deal. There was a dispute between both countries since they appeared on the map. Both were pulling the rope in their respective directions. Jesus. It is a too tiny thing to even matter. For normal people. For Putinbots it matters a lot as we can see.
You know why you are a Putinbot? Because you said 200 thousand died. Ask any Russian "scientist" and he will tell 300 or even 400 thousand if you give enough vodka too him. You know why? Because Russians always lie. They lie until they are dead. Do you know Katyn bro? The same Katyn that is commemorated in Jersey so all dumb Russians like you could know who is the real friend of Poland and who is shitty Russia with no friends at all.
You Russians tried to put the blame on Germans for that. Twice! First in Chatyn then in Nuremberg. You know Holodomor bro? According to Russians it never happened!
So get off Poland you jerk!
@@rezkez5334 Personnaly I know about Teschen because I'm an history student and because it's in Heart of Iron IV. But we can't deny that Poland was a military dictatorship before the war and a bit oppressive, although clearly far less than Germany and others.
Oh i can answer this question, in the middle of a bombed out warsaw at the end of a red army gun
I want to why the allied countries left poland for this soviet occupation although the direct cause of ww2 is the invasion of poland?
Well by the end of WW2 the Soviets were occupying Poland. Kinda like what happened with the British and Soviets in Afghanistan. The British and Soviets agreed to leave after the war but only the British left and the Soviets stayed until they were forced out by NATO. And to be honest it's not like the allies could've gone to war again so soon after WW2.
And I may be mistaken on this next point but I believe no one realized stalin's plans for occupation until after the war. I guess the allies assumed or came to some agreement with stalin that they would leave Europe after the war but we both know how that turned out.
I totally agree for the first point .Europe actually was devastated by the war so they leave poland to avoid waging war with the soviets .thank you for your reply❤❤
@@abdoessam8634 Anytime! I love learning and talking about the Cold War. It's one of my favorite eras which sadly doesn't get much of an in depth discussion about what Europe was going through at the time here in Texas.
yes I love it also and I think it have an impact even here in my country egypt
Edward Gierek is fondly remembered by my relatives for opening Poland toward Westernization and increasing standard of living during his term. Despite taking loans, they are grateful he did get them from Moscow. Today Poland is very different but the clash between people in more urban areas and especially western part voting for PO (liberal, libertarian) and eastern part especially more rural areas voting for PiS (conservative, populist) is very evident. It’s mostly only people living and working in cities that benefited from growth in last two decades.
I got an ad for Adventure Communist while watching this
Almost 700 thousand people died during the expulsion of Germans and Poles. What happened during that time?
Total chaos, no food, fresh water, health care, a lot of crimes etc. My grandma was expeled from Lwów with a newborn child. The jurney to the Silesia - abaut 500 km took them three months. There was no day that someone from the transport not died. They adopted the orphaned child (probably German) as thenksgiving. They also told me, that people lied a lot at registration abaut personality, both Germans and Poles for many reasons from political to just be younger (funy story of theirs Silesian neighbour). In many cases those "lost" souls could be fictional, so German accent in Polish sounds just like a minor speach disorder, they have no bigger problems to spell all that wird Polish sounds. In case of Germans just the sink of Gustlov took 10 000 victims...
@Rick Stuifzand Yes, Lwów as I heard was half Polish, 1/4 Jewish, 10-15% Ukrainian and some Germans and others. But that kind of situation was typical all over the central Europe. In fact it was even more complicated, so your nationality was in fact determined by yours religion, so: Catholics=Poles, Unionists=Ukrainians, Protestants=Germans and of course Jews=Jews ;) In case my grandparents, they ware Poles despite not so Polish surnames and the half of theirs not so distant family lived in Austria.
@@Dziki_z_Lasu Many Germans.
Austrians where. are also catholics but havly secularized ,stop to refer them as protestants only .and the mumber of Poles murdered/killed by Gernmans where around 950 000 includng the western Ukrainian killers it would be 1050 000 and with stalinist deportations 1150 000 or 1200 000 polish non jewish people murdered killed by german and also sovet ocupaiers and west ucrainian rebeliants.
@@dpwXXIPolskaPolak It is difficult to understand you, but I was talking definitely about the pre war or 19th century in my 3yo comment. Those people were mostly staying within theirs religious groups accepting dominant language and having mixed marriages. Children from such a marriages, were already 100% Polish in case of Catholics. Why? It was theirs friends circle.
If you are suggesting, by this list of victims of ww2, that my great-grandparent accepted "Volksliste", than I must disappoint you. He was fighting in Armia Krajowa for Poland. When you will stop copy-pasting and read anything about AK, you will find, that a lot of those courageous people had not Polish sounding surnames there, why? Because nazis expecialy brutally persecuted them, for not having a will to become a common bandit, or dieing in units for "racially uncertain".
I also know, from tales, how my great grandfather was calling some rednecks, living in a God forsaken villages in a certain, extremely Patriotic now region. Those people extremely severely suffered that Germans took theirs cow, even if they didn't have a cow, or even a barn. They were heroically plundering houses left by victims in a nearby town, bravely fighting to the death among eachother for loots. The amount of support and friendliness, made keeping a resistance cell there nearly impossible. I am certain that it is not yours region, is it?
Thank You!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I can't wait for the Operation Condor video. Will love to see if the people here in the comment session will have the reaction after seeing USA's crimes against humanity in Latin America.
Don't know. I believe Pedro Barrientos still enjoys quiet life in Florida, USA, so...
It’s Latin America’s fault for being a s***thole country, America tried to free them from tyranny remember katyn
Gabriel Campanini they where saving them from far worse under communist rule
@@Metal_Enjoyer This is 100% not true. I'm Brazilian and there was never a real communist threat here. Even after the coup, when there where some communist guerrillas, they were so tiny and unsupported (not even the USSR really believed they would work) that they never stood a chance. Still, the USA backed up a military dictatorship that lasted for more than 20 years, with thousands being tortured and/or murdered by the government.
Gabriel Campanini any communist presence is a threat to lesser developed nations
Betrayal is the norm in human politics. From Sargon to now, intrigue is the most important thing.
@Mstislaw AA claiming not be a friend but acting as traitors do is the same. You are in war with someone, and someone else takes time to invade your country unprovoked. Is using unfair games against you. So the Soviets, Germans and western powers are all guilty of treacherous conduct.
Just a delicate correction. My homeland is really considered Central Europe, the "heart of Europe" and not Eastern Europe.
Why is this matters?
Like the video that was a little slow got kind of boring
It's the cold war.
I just found this but I feel like you copied the style of the Time Ghost channels.
He acknowledged his respect for Great War already...formats can only be so much, as ultimately it's the research and content that matter.
Also there's a talmudic saying "...“kinas sofrim tarbeh chachma..."(Bava Basra 21a)
="Envy of sages increases wisdom"
"The war against Hitler and the nazis was one of the most justifiable wars in history." Why is this war against this oppressor more important than one against another oppressor?
Was your family personally affected here, whereas this was not the case with other wars?
He said "one" of the most justifiable wars he didn't say the only justifiable one
Great video but man please include sources!!
Poland 1945: Yeah, we were liberated from the nazis.
Soviet union takes over.
Poland:...
who gives a shit about poland. europe was liberated from the nazis, that's all that matters, eternal glory to red red army! heroes
@@Contagious93812 They were nazis, because they feared your "liberation".
5:13 I'm not saying the official results were accurate, but saying the Krakow must be indicative of the actual results is not sound. It's normal for a city's election results to be very different from the country as a whole. Also, your "actual results" are not the Krakow results you describe, so I wonder where you got them from.
Lot of similarities I’m hearing to a modern country
Say it
No regrets
Poland got screwed by everyone
@@noobster4779 there were no good guys in both world wars,the whole "the allies are the good guys" is propaganda made after the war to morally and legally justify the destruction left in their wake
@@noobster4779 Nice lies
@@mojewjewjew4420 I think it's pretty fair to say the Nazis were bad
cubenerf They’re bad because they lost. There is no good or bad in war, only who wins
@@v4enthusiast541 I would say an attempted genocide of the Jews is objectively bad, but if you want to defend that, be my guest.
No mention of soviet polish war