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Ukraine and the Russian invasion, 2022-24

David Clapson said:
I posted that here days ago and have been trying to keep up with newly translated extracts as they appear. The Washington Post has a bit saying a prisoner's fingers and genitals were cut off. Have you seen that anywhere?
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I'm assuming it's the same story from which video emerged (which I have carefully not viewed) where Russian soldiers emasculated a Ukrainian POW before murdering him.
 
co-op said:
Thanks for stating the mostly pretty obvious. My point isn't really altered; the USSR didn't really in any meaningful sense "carve up Poland" (your words). It grabbed a load of land off Poland that Poland had itself grabbed at gun point a couple of decades earlier. Land that had, at best, a small minority of population that were "Polish" - many of whom were large landowners who were little better than colonial-plantation overlords of other nationalities. Unsurprisingly they were not popular with the majority populations or the USSR. I'm not sure how stating that makes me a Stalin apologist.
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Because you're making excuses for the bastard. Pretty obvious.
 
co-op said:
Thanks for stating the mostly pretty obvious. My point isn't really altered; the USSR didn't really in any meaningful sense "carve up Poland" (your words). It grabbed a load of land off Poland that Poland had itself grabbed at gun point a couple of decades earlier. Land that had, at best, a small minority of population that were "Polish" - many of whom were large landowners who were little better than colonial-plantation overlords of other nationalities. Unsurprisingly they were not popular with the majority populations or the USSR. I'm not sure how stating that makes me a Stalin apologist.
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Those parts of Poland inhabited by Germans weren't really Polish either. Hitler did everyone a favour by invading, really.


Doesn't quite sound right, does it?
 


I don’t fully understand everything here and haven't listened to it all but in this BBC podcast it talks about the 'Tradition' festival that Dugin and his daughter were at, organised by a 'non governmental Patriotic counter-culture' organisation.
 
co-op said:
No it really isn't.
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Your logic seems to be that, since parts of Treaty of Riga Poland were part of Poland only by virtue of "imperialist war", they were legitimately Stalin's for the taking.

But there is no part of Poland that hasn't at some time been lost and regained due to imperialist wars, to the extent that it did not exist at the start of WW1. So there is no part of modern Poland to which your logic would clearly not apply.

It is true that some territory that formed part of Poland from 1921 was not ethnically Polish (even if a historical-nationalist case could be made). But there's also significant territory incorporated into the USSR by Stalin that was, and that would qualify as Polish under the doctrine of self-determination.

On the other side, none of the territory was ethnically Russian or the rightful property of the Soviet Union under anything other than the logic of Russian imperialism.
 
ska invita said:
Where are the historic Polish people to be found on a map? Can you define the area please
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West of the Curzon Line was generally accepted as clear Polish majority. Do you really think places like Lvov were part of Poland? Do you think Poland would be justified in invading to reclaim them?
 
Raheem said:
Your logic seems to be that, since parts of Treaty of Riga Poland were part of Poland only by virtue of "imperialist war", they were legitimately Stalin's for the taking.
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No that's literally your logic - and Kevbad the Bad 's. I don't agree and said so so there was no confusion, I'm sorry you didn't understand that. I queried the idea that "Poland" was meaningfully invaded by the USSR in 1940.


But anyway this is a massive derail and completely irrelevant to the current war. If you want to go on with it, start another thread why not?
 
Raheem said:
Your logic seems to be that, since parts of Treaty of Riga Poland were part of Poland only by virtue of "imperialist war", they were legitimately Stalin's for the taking.

But there is no part of Poland that hasn't at some time been lost and regained due to imperialist wars, to the extent that it did not exist at the start of WW1. So there is no part of modern Poland to which your logic would clearly not apply.

It is true that some territory that formed part of Poland from 1921 was not ethnically Polish (even if a historical-nationalist case could be made). But there's also significant territory incorporated into the USSR by Stalin that was, and that would qualify as Polish under the doctrine of self-determination.

On the other side, none of the territory was ethnically Russian or the rightful property of the Soviet Union under anything other than the logic of Russian imperialism.
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Territory isn't ethnically anything. It's the population that's ethnic, not the land. if co-op knew as much about history as he likes to think he'd know the idea borders should march with ethnic populations is a) more recent than he thinks, and b) really restricted to er white populations as anyone looking at borders in eg Africa will immediately see.
 
Pickman's model said:
Territory isn't ethnically anything. It's the population that's ethnic, not the land. if co-op knew as much about history as he likes to think he'd know the idea borders should march with ethnic populations is a) more recent than he thinks, and b) really restricted to er white populations as anyone looking at borders in eg Africa will immediately see.
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:D
Yes it's terribly terribly complex, the idea that human languages, cultures and populations are not always neatly aligned into little boxes that fit abstract imperialist political demands. I really must go away and try and get my head around it.
 
co-op said:
West of the Curzon Line was generally accepted as clear Polish majority. Do you really think places like Lvov were part of Poland? Do you think Poland would be justified in invading to reclaim them?
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im saying the nation of 'poland' has always been a nation of smaller groups, just like Britain in fact, like almost all nations of any size in fact.
The historic Polish border has almost always included parts of what is now Belarus and Ukraine
 
ska invita said:
im saying the nation of 'poland' has always been a nation of smaller groups, just like Britain in fact, like almost all nations of any size in fact.
The historic Polish border has almost always included parts of what is now Belarus and Ukraine
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Jolly good, this looks like a Pickman's-esque statment of the bleeding obvious. I suppose you think there are physical limits to what constitutes "Poland" at some point though? Is it ok for "Poland" to include land and people seized at gunpoint? Does saying that western Ukraine doesn't look very much like "Poland" to me, make me a Stalinist?

Why do you think Ukraine and Poland went to war under the German occupation?
 
co-op said:
Jolly good, this looks like a Pickman's-esque statment of the bleeding obvious. I suppose you think there are physical limits to what constitutes "Poland" at some point though? Is it ok for "Poland" to include land and people seized at gunpoint? Does saying that western Ukraine doesn't look very much like "Poland" to me, make me a Stalinist?

Why do you think Ukraine and Poland went to war under the German occupation?
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This just looks like another co-op pile of wank.
co-op said:
:D
Yes it's terribly terribly complex, the idea that human languages, cultures and populations are not always neatly aligned into little boxes that fit abstract imperialist political demands. I really must go away and try and get my head around it.
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Like this one which signally misses the points I was making and shows you've not understood them at all.
 
co-op said:
West of the Curzon Line was generally accepted as clear Polish majority. Do you really think places like Lvov were part of Poland? Do you think Poland would be justified in invading to reclaim them?
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That's a rather poor argument, as Lviv (watch your spelling these days) itself was majority Polish. They were the ruling class over a predominantly Ukrainian countryside. But no, nothing justifies an invasion - and besides, the Soviets evicted all the Poles after the war. You're out on a dangerous limb that leads to "Annexing the Sudetenland was right and just".

The Poles, Ukrainians and Lithuanians are a squabbling family. They've always turned on each other when there's no external, existential threat; but there's a shared culture. They've all hated the Russians since the Second World War (and before), so they're all super friendly right now. If the Russian threat declines, just watch them go for each others' throats. My own family is full of all three nationalities, because they've more in common than not - that even transcends the religious boundary with the RC Poles. My grandmother could speak all 3 languages and always accepted Orthodoxy as a weird version of the RC church, as opposed to the existential enemy that is Protestantism. (That's without getting into the weird thing that is Ukrainian Catholicism - loyal to Rome, but with an Orthodox service)

Edit: Apologies for not reading right to the end of the thread and ed's post.
 
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editor said:
Please take all further debate on your hot take on what constitutes the Polish border to another thread as it's straying way off topic and proving disruptive to this thread about Ukraine and the Russian Invasion.
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I think you might want to address this post to the posters who keep resurrecting the topic rather than to me who has suggested that if anyone wants to take it up they should start another thread?
 
co-op said:
I think you might want to address this post to the posters who keep resurrecting the topic rather than to me who has suggested that if anyone wants to take it up they should start another thread?
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No, I'm quite happy with the point I made thanks.

Note to all: stop talking about Poland now please.
 
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