Hey Comrades, Hungary has just been punished by the EU (by withholding funds) just after Orban won the elections in supermajority. While he undoubtedly is an ultranationalist, anticommunist, homophobic, transphobic, racist far right crackpot, i think we should very critically support him against the EU, since hes the only EU leader that is neutral in the Ukraine War, open to having good relations with Russia and criticizes Zelenski for what he is, a neonazi. What do you think comrades? Should we offer very critical support to Orban or not?
No.
Nah, USA just basically decreed the fall of EU in last month, and EU reluctantly but still agreed. Orban or not, it’s doomed anyway if it don’t stop being US comprador.
Hey! You are the legendary PolandIsAStateOfMind! Glad to see you here on Lemmygrad! I know some polish friends but they say communism in Poland was bad. They basically say “no food, brutal repression”. How should i respond to that?
you should respond by “you weren’t there, and your parents were little shits while the system was at its last legs. you don’t know jack, so stfu”
the entire history of poland as we poles are taught at school is fake, from head to toe. even in the darkest hours of the 80s, no one was going around starving in PRL. as for repression, it depends how you look at it. it wasn’t particularily brutal considering how other states, even western ones, handle violent protests nowadays. or you could claim it wasnt brutal enough, and the then-ruling elites caved over and sold out our country at the round table because they had no plans beyond saving their own ass. PRL should have been reformed, not dismantled.
I mean they were there though. One of them is on old lady, shes in her almost 70s now so she lived through the late 70s and 80s. She says a friend of hers was arrested and tortured by the police for “being against the communists”. Now idk what that means. She also claims the soviets stole everything Poland produced, which sounds like bs to me. What are your thoughts on this?
my old lady is the same, bragging all about how bad communism was and how pis is good. shes also a big believer and tends to annoy her neighbors way too much with her moods and preaching. your typical polish babcia.
in her youth she was married to a cop (milicjant), and despite many slip ups like making jokes of local officials, she never lost her position as a office clerc. did she live in luxury? not really, she had a hard life from childhood and survived the nazi occupation, and i am not going to delude anyone that PRL was at any point some utopia, but she didnt exactly suffer and made do like most people who weren’t against the government. and i assure it was a more stable life than now, where she needs to be supported by her family to buy coal and food. she wont deny that at least, but she will eventually go back to ranting about bad russians again.
can’t say anything about tortures. i don’t know anyone who experienced them, beyond interrogations which were common at the time.
soviets “stealing” from poland, well again you have to keep in mind a lot of our history is heavily, and i mean heavily propagandized so dont believe what you read or hear. even if they were “stealing” resources, keep in mind that they rebuilt the nation and we were in a trade block after all - and the entire block had it hard.
one of my more controversial opinions, even in the leftist space, is that i am not that fond of USSR when it comes to the relations with PRL. i recognize their leader position and nature of being such a nation (a leader needs sometimes to step in hard and intervene to steer the course) but in my opinion they didn’t want us to become too influential. for example, we had a nuclear program going on but the mind behind it “suddenly” died in a car crash, and for some reason no one continued it. just like most of our history that is actually interesting, its largely fallen to obscurity. our politics were also pegged to whatever was happening in the kremlin (cough khruschev/destalinization/gomulka - how convinient), with few exceptions. my dream version of PRL would be a confidently socialist state, but just like TItos Yugoslavia outside the iron courtain. although i would have not been opposed with tight cooperation with the soviet bloc, unlike our southern non-alligned friend. unfortunately, we just werent in a position to pull that off after ww2, and after the fall of 1989 both the PZPR and solidarnosc scum sold us out to the west, bringing forth the horrors of the 90s and balcerowicz’s shock therapy. i am not sure how this community looks at the rare breed such as titoists but thats just where i stand.
Oh no thank god, the old polish lady i know hates PiS, shes a proEU liberal, which sucks but its a bit less bad i guess. Shes catholic but not too much (for polish standards, for spanish standards, where i live, shes a nun ahahaha). She was from a former small-middle bourgeois family. An uncle of hers owned several companies in Australia and in fact illegally left PRL in the 1950s to continue his bourgeois life in Australia. She claims they were watched closely by the police for their family history. She also claims she wanted to study medicine at university but wasnt allowed again for her family history. She worked as a worker in a butter factory, which she says was very mismanaged, with most people spending half of their workday doing nothing. After PRL fell her living standards went up a lot, mainly because her son became a successful scientist working in the west.
In regards to titoism, i think he was revisionist (he sabotaged Cominform, was too friendly with the west and his economic policies were trash and led to the tragic demise of SFRY). However, i still believe that revisionist socialist states are better than capitalist states and thus one should have friendly relations with them and try to steer them back on the right track with aid and diplomacy. I agree that Warsaw Pact had a lot of control on certain member states. I think it should followed a Romania or Hungary like model, allowing freedom of policies as long as it isnt restoring capitalism or allying with the west. I think the problems PRL faced were due to its incompetent leaders. From what ive read, its seems that everyone after Boleslaw Bierut was either an opportunist revisionist or an incompetent. I also heard that after Bierut was deposed agriculture was decollectivized, which didnt help the production of food. Is this true? Do you agree with this?
Ask them when they were born. There was enough food, even when their naive parents crashed entire economy in the 80’s protesting the minuscule price rises as part of the solidarność (weirdly coincidentally considering the sanctions and the fact solidarnosc was funded by CIA money). Brutal repression? One strike in pre war Poland killed more people than entire Martial law in 80’s. Those brutal repression are fairy tales spun by the people like one professor i knew, rabid anticommunist who was “brutally repressed” by 1 hour waiting and 5 minutes hearing by militia in 1981. The further in time from the events, the brutality and amount of “repressions” rise. The same with previous ones. When you dig not even that deep there’s always some provocation underneath. Go even further to “stalinism” and you will found “cursed soldiers”, at best common criminals and at worst nazi collaborator pogromists. Since 1989 in Poland media present nearly uniform message about PRL, containing of half of more or less bend truth and half complete lies and slander.
Experiment, ask them to go to a bookstore (could be internet one) and tell them to find any communist book. Not succdem and liberal shit which those rightwingers usually call “left” or “socialist”. Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Luxemburg. Even revisionis ones. Or modern (except polish, there are no modern polish marxist books). Anything. They will find absolutely none.
Well a very sweet old lady i know was born in the 1950s. She says only “communist party bootlickers” (whatever that means) could study at university. If you were not in the party university was closed doors for you, she claims. She also claims that a friend of hers was arrested and tortured by the police for weeks for “being against the communists” (again, i dont know what that means). She also said there was no food and you had to buy everything on the black market. If you thought it yes, shes a liberal and quite anticommunist. I think this is because after PRL collapsed her standards of living went up significantly (from low income to middle income) thanks to her son being a successful scientist working in the west.
And yes, its 100% true that communism doesnt exist at all in modern day Poland. When my mom went to Poland with these friends a few years ago (my mom knows im a communist, shes left wing too) she thought “hey, ill buy my son some communist T shirt or something. Here its the former east bloc so they must sell them”. She found absolutely nothing, and when she asked for “communist merchandising/memorabilia” in the shops they looked at her like she was crazy or something. Definetely true what you said.
Well a very sweet old lady i know was born in the 1950s.
Unfortunately not only young people are like that. Most likely she was invested in solidarność or at least strongly supported it in the 80’s and when that proven to be traitorous scam which caused incredible tragedy of capitalism restitution she just went into denial and refuse to admit she was wrong. I know tons upon tons of people like that. Also from the contex i get she do not live in Poland? Emmigrants are mixed bunch, but often either they simply lie because they weren’t even part of those events (and the polonia groups in let’s say Germany or USA is very anticommunist gusano bunch). I mean solidarnosc is still our biggest labour union despite being anti-union and scabbing strikes of other unions. That is some serious mental baggage. Also religion. Catholicism in Poland was always crazily anticommunist and more than ever after 1989, so religious people are truly lost case here.
If you were not in the party university was closed doors for you, she claims.
False.
She also claims that a friend of hers was arrested and tortured by the police for weeks for “being against the communists” (again, i dont know what that means).
Suuure, friend of friend of frien who hear something… more like one hour waiting at the police station got “slightly” heroised in the gossip. Very characteristic for Poland is fact that the amount of “anticommunist combatants” rise quickly the further from socialism we are.
She also claims that a friend of hers was arrested and tortured by the police for weeks for “being against the communists” (again, i dont know what that means).
There was problem in the 80’s where 10 millions of solidarnosc members striked for months causing entire economy to a crashing crisis, especially that westerners after being more open in the 70’s imposed sanctions in the 80’s - very unfortunate for people like Gierek who thought to be the next Tito and tied some of our economy to western trade. But again, i remember those times and i was never hungry, and i was never buying anything on black market, though that sadly existed, mostly because just as Lenin warned, peasants were just petty bourgeoisie while workers were socialists, and they were always coddled by state and allowed to cheat the system. There were food stamps in the crisis for a time (not permanently) and you had to stand in queue in shop for sometimes quite a long time, but “no food” is just a propaganda lie. If there was “no food” there would be famine and population drop and we had a demograpic height in the 80’s.
If you thought it yes, shes a liberal and quite anticommunist. I think this is because after PRL collapsed her standards of living went up significantly (from low income to middle income) thanks to her son being a successful scientist working in the west.
Ah yes, that explains everything. Poland was and still is severely braindrained since the 1989. As you can see immediately turning people liar and gusano, and creating a desperate need of validation. Same with the new bourgeoisie. The transformation went good for them, especially the ones who plundered the state property. Success for the few, suffering for millions, as usual in capitalism.
She found absolutely nothing, and when she asked for “communist merchandising/memorabilia” in the shops they looked at her like she was crazy or something.
Hahaha that must have been funny. You will find nothing just in shops. You can sometimes buy old books printed before 1989 and some antiques but if you want something new you must order it from abroad (aliexpress have tons of communist memorabilia). The same about books, since 1989 there were basically 4 communist books printed in Poland (Marx Capital - but only 1st book, Marx 18 brumaire, Manifesto, Xi Jinping Governance of China - also only first book and it isn’t really a communist book - all in small amounts), so you have to get english books from abroad which is very expensive or use digital versions. And the language barrier to properly understand the text in case of books not in your language is still much higher especially in case of not being pulp novels but something like Capital.
She lives in Poland, however she often stays here in Spain (where i live) for months because her son, who is a successful investigative scientist, lives and works here (which is how i know her). I dont think she was involved directly with Solidarnosc, although it is possible that she supported it. For more context, she was from a former small-middle bourgeois family. An uncle of hers owned several companies in Australia and in fact illegally left PRL in the 1950s to continue his bourgeois life in Australia. She claims they were watched closely by the police for their family history. She also claims she wanted to study medicine at university but wasnt allowed again for her family history. She worked as a worker in a butter factory, which she says was very mismanaged, with most people spending half of their workday doing nothing. Also idk if geography correlates with politics in Poland, but in case it does shes from a small village near Poznan.
I dont think this was a friend of a friend though. She detailed her friend telling her he had been handcuffed and restrained in uncomfortable positions for many hours. Also sleep deprivation, threats and repetitive interrogations at random hours of the night. Although again im not sure how reliable any of this information is since another time she told me that “in PRL, if you made an anticommunist joke you would be disappeared to Siberia” xD.
How old are you? Did you live through PRL? Id love to hear a first hand account of PRL from a communist!
An uncle of hers owned several companies in Australia and in fact illegally left PRL in the 1950s to continue his bourgeois life in Australia. She claims they were watched closely by the police for their family history.
In that case this is actually possible, though not necessary, families of gusanos were often used by foreign agencies, but there were quite many of them so probably that uncle really did something along those lines?
She also claims she wanted to study medicine at university but wasnt allowed again for her family history
Honestly no idea, never heard about such things explicitly. If her family was bourgeoisie it could be the reason since universities did enforced positive discrimination - so called “points for origin”, where candidates from peasants and workers, and also those from remote backward places had easier to enter the university and those from intelligence and bourgeoisie had it harder (and that worked since PRL had huge achievements in education). Or maybe she just did not passed because very mundane reasons and now blame it on socialism, i know a lot of those people too. Who knows now.
She worked as a worker in a butter factory, which she says was very mismanaged, with most people spending half of their workday doing nothing.
This did happen because full employnment policy although half day is great exaggeration unless strikes halted supply. Still better than giving one worker the labour of three to do. And it was not mismanagement, anyone who says that do not have any knowledge about mass worker management. They either operate under capitalist mindset of exploitation (or maybe are fash expecting state to form mobile labour batalions… for what exactly?).
Although again im not sure how reliable any of this information is since another time she told me that “in PRL, if you made an anticommunist joke you would be disappeared to Siberia”
Probably this reliable, meaning zero. I could read few articles too and give a very detailed record of how i was arrrested by police for telling joke about wałęsa. Oh, but at least one homeless guy was arrested in Poland for lese majeste of president Kaczyński.
Did you live through PRL?
I was stupid and ignorant teenager when the PRL was destroyed. As Parenti said: i never appreciated what i had.
No. That is simply siding with one fascist to defeat another one. Either way, there is still a fascist left. Best to get rid of them both.
Yeah but if you break them apart theyll still be weak. In WW2 the USSR allied with the fascist west to defeat the more fascist Axis. That was the right choice, rather than fighting both at the same time. Orban by himself is no threat, but together with the US and EU he is. I think we should very critically support him, its a great chance to break apart the EU. Divide and conquer.
That was largely because the USSR simply could.not have fought everyone. That was out of necessity. It is not necessary here. Fascism is only just beginning to resurface and so it is still weak. Perhaps a decade from now we might have to, if fascism continues its rise, but it should be a last resort.
No. He’s a piece of shit. But we should be happy that there is an increase in division and infighting within the imperialist camp.
For the same reason you should hope that whatever happens in US elections it increases political polarization and instability.
All delegitimization of liberal bourgeois institutions is good.
Damn what happened to that democracy. I guess as long as their guy wins it’s democratic but as soon as someone that does not 100% suck EU, US cock democracy no longer matters.
Literally. As much as Orban is a filofascist, the hungarians overwhelmingly voted for him. So according to the liberal principles of “democracy”, they should respect that. Yet they immediately announce punishment for the hungarian people. They dont practise what they preach, pure hipocrisy.
Besides, Orban isnt even antiEU, hes proNATO for fucks sake. All of this is just because he deviated from the US/EU line on the Ukraine War by being neutral and criticising Ukraine for oppressing the hungarian minority. Then they talk about “communist totalitarianism” LOL
