#rekt

Communism is trash and prone to fail, that much is true. But Liberal Capitalism is a prevailing cancer that attacks the nervous system of humanity making it unable to fight back (consumerism and suppression of any alternative to the status-quo via social engineering and socio-politics) and then turns it into a rotting husk (turning nation-states into economic zones with no identities/ethnicities other than one that serves the "global" economy).

Also pay no attention to the fact that it's just a ploy to make VERY rich Western European and North American countries even richer. Think a minute about the hilarious situation of calling Liberal Capitalism (or Neoliberalism, if you will) an ideology that improves the lives of the global poor when all these European and North American nations that follow these ideologies import all the best talents from the poorer parts of the globe through a mechanism (freedom of labour) which only works if all these "Third World" countries are poor and kept poor. Why would scientists from some ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ stay there when they can live in a """developed""" Western European ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ but with more money.

Not to mention that Liberal Capitalism and Communism are one and the same type of disastrous relativist/universalist ideologies born of the Enlightenment Era and which carry concepts of a pre-1800s world into the 2000s where the game has changed immensely.

Back then the talk was about "Freedom" and "Liberty" from evil Monarchs, Emperors, Barons and the like. What is this talk about individual rights in Europe/North America or whatever nowadays? These are the standard everywhere. We are as free as can be. We don't need more liberalization. How the ♥♥♥♥ do modern day Liberals equate the *historic* struggle and liberation from oppressive rulers of old to the """liberalism""" of letting Arabs and Africans colonize countries in Europe where they do not belong just so that the company that imports them can make a bigger profit than it already does (often times the company in question not even based in the country it operates - in effect just extracting capital from a host nation).

As bad as Communism was is and will always be Liberalism and Capitalism need to either *significantly* reform themselves or be taken to the back of the shed once and for all and be put down.

Also, you know, Communism is quite thoroughly dead and gone with just a few ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ clamoring for class-war here and there. So, maybe all y'all should take a moment to step back and look at the world a bit and notice that most of today's problems are popping up in a situation where Liberal Capitalism has spread and installed itself in almost every corner of the world.

Also, imagine taking a Communist seriously when he calls someone a Nazi, omegalul

Originally posted by Scotty Rotten:

Communism is trash and prone to fail, that much is true.

Agreed.

Originally posted by Scotty Rotten:

But Liberal Capitalism is a prevailing cancer that attacks the nervous system of humanity making it unable to fight back (consumerism and suppression of any alternative to the status-quo via social engineering and socio-politics) and then turns it into a rotting husk (turning nation-states into economic zones with no identities/ethnicities other than one that serves the "global" economy).

The problem is that this is quite simple to refute.

For starters, you have to ask: who is better at fighting back?

Communists?

Ask Gazprom and PRC how that's gone.

Fascists?

Not many of those around since Borghese went the way of the Dodo.

Islamists and other theocrats?

The best thing that can be said of them is that they have a sense of discipline and identity. But that's undercut when you realize how they are literally pre-medieval and that sense of identity and discipline tends to splinter over the grab for personal and clan power or dogmatic conflict. Saudi Arabia hasn't changed much since 1744, and Iran- perhaps the most advanced Islamist theocracy around- has been in economic downturn and cracking.

So now let's talk about "turning nation-states into economic zones with no identities/ethnicties."

The problem with this is while that may be the deranged wish of some ♥♥♥♥ Davaoastie somewhere, it doesn't come to fruition for multiple reasons and attempts to insist it will come at heavy cost.

For several reason.

Firstly: Because nation-states were already economic zones. That's kind of part of what a *state* is. The Dutch didn't blockade Antwerp for over a century because they were afraid of Catholicism because that dispute happened earlier; they were P-ssed that it was a competitor with the likes of Amsterdam. Which was not mutually exclusive with national concerns of Spanish royal oppression and religious issues.

Which brings me to

Second: People aren't purely ethnic or national beings for the same reason they're not purely economic ones. And attempts to pretend otherwise run into reality when you see things like the "Buy American" campaigns.


And thirdly: The Global Economy isn't a monolithic entity in which all are part of some mercantilist collective- or much less, a Fascist or Communist centrally planned economy- working towards the "Common Good."

I mean, FFS, even the actual mercantilist economies and to a lesser extent totalitarian command ones didn't work out that way in reality. Case in point: The South Sea Bubble.

People will pursue their own interests (both economic and otherwise) through the economy, trying to make it serve them. Indeed, they do this more aggressively than they serve the "global economy" as protectionist lobbying and just plain buying local or seeking to make a buck show. And from this anarchy of billions of greedy people pursuing what they view as their own enlightened or not-so-enlightened interests, the world economy emerges.

So the question is: what does a better job at preventing nation states from being hollowed out or turned into husks? What does a better job at fighting?

I haven't seen such a system, and while I am not God, All Knowing and All Wis,e I have seen and studied more than most.

Originally posted by Scotty Rotten:

Also pay no attention to the fact that it's just a ploy to make VERY rich Western European and North American countries even richer.

*YAWN.*

Of course a lot of very rich nations and their governments want to get even richer (aside from the off the cuff fringe who will speak of reparations to the Third World in a way that would be utterly unthinkable for a Sudanese politician talking about Chad). People, societies, and states- all other things being equal- like staying rich and getting richer.

The problem you run in to is again, how it tries to do that. How many people try and Use said riches. And furthermore: what alternatives do you have?

It's also at this point that I note that many of the great villains- both actual and alleged- of the anti-"liberal capitalist" parable such as Mobutu (who was as awful as can be imagined) who are maligned for selling their soul and national resources to greedy foreign nations and multinationals and stuff.....

...... do so while proclaiming to be Socialists or some other collectivist shindig, and actively stomp on the ability of their own people to even TRY to compete in the Bear Market that is most staple goods in African countries. In other words, it's ironic that many of the worst parables of capitalist exploitation in the developing world- at their heart- boil down to "These companies/governments/nations aren't allowing these people the ability to do what the likes of Milton Friedman advocates and say Free Market economies for me, Not for Thy."

"And even THAT'S still a far cry from the worst atrocities of other systems (O Hai Leopold II)."

Originally posted by Scotty Rotten:

Think a minute about the hilarious situation of calling Liberal Capitalism (or Neoliberalism, if you will) an ideology that improves the lives of the global poor when all these European and North American nations that follow these ideologies import all the best talents from the poorer parts of the globe through a mechanism (freedom of labour) which only works if all these "Third World" countries are poor and kept poor.

This is wrong on multiple levels. And the easiest way to do it is simple:

Take the measure of extreme poverty- using absolutely any measure or source you use- and compare its long term trending over the past 200 or 50 years. And see what your overall trendline gets.

It's telling that the most fervent anti-Capitalist, Anti-Liberal, and anti-"Neoliberal" critics are reduced to quibbling over whether extreme poverty- after an unprecedented-by-an-order-of-magnitude downward trend in extreme poverty- is left to quibble about whether or not there has been a slight-to-modest increase in extreme poverty over the last decade or two.

(While more often than not ignoring possible confounding factors like-say- the growth pains of the post-industrial age, the uptick in global terrorism or a renewal of major conflicts such as Rwandan Imperialism in the Eastern DR of Congo or the latest round of wars in the Middle East. This is nothing short of remarkable.

Now as for why trying to claim that the developed world can "import all the best talents from the "Third World" only if "all these...countries are poor and kept poor" and this means that it isn't improving the lives of the global poor and lbah blah...

It's ironic that this brand of anti-capitalist economic illiteracy ironically falls straight into the mosh pit of a fallacy one of the free market's leading prophets fell into. Namely, Adam Smith's failure to truly grasp the value of COMPARATIVE advantage (as opposed to ABSOLUTE advantage).

Firstly: Comparative advantage means that when a rational actor is making an economic choice, they don't need to be obsessed with having ALL THE ADVANTAGES from a given choice, only that the margin of advantages they get are more than what they get otherwise.

The Third World doesn't need to be poor and kept poor in order for its high skill, white collar professionals to be attracted to developed and free economies for the same reason that Amsterdam doesn't have to be a post-apocalyptic warzone in order to have many Dutch professors with longterm speaking engagements in Austria or New Zealand.

AND for the same reason that Namibia, South Africa, and Rwanda don't have to be Crystal Spire paradises in order to ATTRACT people from the likes of Mozambique, ZImbabwe, or the like.

In order to attract someone, the benefit of going rather than staying has to "merely" be better than what they'd get for staying.....plus whatever other factors in favor of staying (such as national sentiment, family attachment, or the like. And note: this can be NEGATIVE. For the same reason that someone marked out as being an enemy of the state will have more reasons to leave).

For better or worse, Western Europe and the US have most of those advantages. So they're attractive places to come... AT LEAST FOR A WHILE.

But they're not the ONLY attractive places. Either for all people or even for the "best and brightest." A Zimbabwean who wants the hell out of a totalitarian hell-state will gladly go to a flawed but authentic democratic republic like Namibia or "merely" a stable, not-that-corrupt dictatorship like Rwanda or Chad.

A lot of people want to accumulate knowledge or resources abroad and then come back "home" and either help their kin up...or rub it in their faces. Usually a bit of both. (See: Nehru, the "Last Englishman to govern India").

And a lot face prosecution at home and want to stay somewhere safe- or safeish- away from oppression. Case in point: Leo Szilard, Jose Marti, Sun Yat-Sen, or Alfred Hutchinson. Hell, it's worth noting that even Khomenei sheltered in France from the Shah before overthrowing the people who overthrew the Shah and imposing an even worse dictatorship.


Now take all those competing and overlapping drives- about economics, about education, about class, about liberty, about nationality, race, and so on- and start Venn Diagraming them to see what destination(s) would best suit a rational- or rationalish- actor to choose.

And you start to see.

That doesn't mean that the global poor aren't benefitting it. FAR FROM IT. Again, the decline in extreme global poverty is itself eloquent refutation of it. As has been the success of several countries- from Namibia to Thailand- at harnessing it.

The better questions are simple.

Firstly: What alternatives do you propose that would preform better? This is serious stuff, and I'd be open to hear. But it's easy (and to a point can be valuable) to point out the flaws with the system as is, but it's harder to constructively do better.

Secondly: The better question is asking why a given nation, state, corporation, or really ANYBODY has a right to expect the work or dedication of the "best and brightest" would stay in its borders to work for them.... mostly just "Because." Rather than having to make an appeal that could persuade people (and no, that doesn't just have to be holding out a thicker stack of money than Bill Gates). Why should a Cuban Doctor want to stay in Cuba if they are just going to be abused and given subpar training and even worse freedom? It takes a LOT to get people to up and abandon previous ties, bonds of community and so forth. But plenty of societies have no problems doing just that. So what can we do to help fix THAT so that people leaving Cuba would look forward to coming back to it?

Originally posted by Scotty Rotten:

Why would scientists from some ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ stay there when they can live in a """developed""" Western European ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ but with more money.

The fact that you're even ASKING this question showcases how ironically you're falling into the trap that you accuse 'Liberal Capitalism" of. Of viewing human actors as purely economic beings without ethnicity or nationality, or even kinship ties, ego, or so on.

To which a proper rebuttal involves quoting something like this:

Originally posted by Charles X of France (Allegedly):

"I would rather be a woodcutter than a king in the English style."

Now maybe that quote's authenticity is doubtful, but you can find similar sentiments, from "Aut Caesar Aut Nihil" (Either Caesar or Nothing) and a host of others.

Why would someone rather be a woodcutter than a "King in the English Style"?

Why would someone go to a Gulag as a scientific prisoner and political dissident rather than keeping their mouth shut and continuing to do the job they had with far greater perks?

Why would thousands of educated, Western, generally middle or upper class people (including a disproportionate number of certified medical personnel) choose to go to the boondocks North of Windhoek or to Northern Bengal in order to do things like lay pipes, hand out aid, and do many things that are often questionably effective?

Many reasons.

So maybe someone would return to a less developed country because THAT'S WHERE THEY'RE FROM. That's where their kin are. Because they want to help.

Or maybe they DON'T want to help, but they recognize that- having come to a developed economy for far better resources and material than they'd get at home- they can stay it and be a medium sized fish in an ocean or go elsewhere and be a KRAKEN compared to most everyone else? Don't underestimate how much that appeals to SOME people.

Or maybe they want to go back and show people how they made good. Show the parents so they're proud, show friends so they can get encouraged, show former bullies to humiliate them?

Heck, in the excellent "Dreamland" by Sam Quinones (about some of the dysfunctions of modern liberal capitalism and society in general) it talks a great deal about the podunk township of Xalisco. And how up and coming young men will go North like many other Mexicans, get into their specialist drug trade in Opioids, and come back rich and showing off brand new designer clothes and cars.

The Xalisco Boys are crooks, but they're also humans and motivated by a lot of drives shared by people with more moral fiber than they have.

TL:DR, there can be advantages to moving into a disadvantaged market, in the same way there can be advantages for moving into an advantaged one. And beyond that, people will also often act in ways beyond "What gibs me the bigger paycheck"?

In the same way that there are countless whitebread people from the developed world (like me) who went out. For human sentiment. To lay low after a scandal. For altruism. For the ability to buy stuff that isn't as tightly controlled as it would be. Out of a sense of compassion. Or maybe just a desire get disadvantaged people to preform freaky and unethical acts for money.

The long and short of it: You're not going to understand how things work if you don't understand that people don't just gravitate towards the highest paycheck. That's ONE factor.

Originally posted by Scotty Rotten:

Not to mention that Liberal Capitalism and Communism are one and the same type of disastrous relativist/universalist ideologies born of the Enlightenment Era and which carry concepts of a pre-1800s world into the 2000s where the game has changed immensely.

This is somewhat true, but again:

"Disasterous"? Let's see. One side has the Great Leap Forward that Mao had to cover up with a second catastrophe and the other side- at Worst- has a bunch of Indian Famines that were intensely criticized by the British public even at the time. Like it or not, Liberal Capitalism has been far more successful than before.

And sure, the world has changed immensely from the pre-1800's to the 2000s (in no small part, I'd add, because the world came to resemble said new ideas more closely). But does it still work? And what do you propose to do better?

Originally posted by Scotty Rotten:

Back then the talk was about "Freedom" and "Liberty" from evil Monarchs, Emperors, Barons and the like. What is this talk about individual rights in Europe/North America or whatever nowadays?

It's nowhere near as prominent as it should be, but some of us cantakerous people like myself are still shouting about it more, clinging to our guns and our old ideals.

Originally posted by Scotty Rotten:

These are the standard everywhere.

*KIM JONG UN HAS ENTERED THE CHAT.*

*YOU HAVE BEEN INVITED TO JOIN THE SERVER: ERITREA*

*DATE HOT BELARUSIAN WOMEN NEAR YOU.*

No, they aren't "the standard everywhere." Not even CLOSE. If I was really generous it's at least standard among the well connected and/or educated urbanites and suburbanites of the world (who are STILL a rather small portion of it) to at least be familiar with them. But that doesn't mean they are standard.

Indeed, the likes of Xi and co outright reject them, as we see with stuff like the "Liberal Internationa Order"/LIO strawman he likes to trot out. Among others.

The truth is, it's hard enough to convince people to keep up to the standard already obtained in places like the US, let alone to continue convincing people elsewhere. And it's remarkable that in spite of this we are getting better.

Originally posted by Scotty Rotten:

We are as free as can be.

I'll believe that when the last "Hate Speech" laws are struck from the books for being unnecessary in a free society, when Eritrea has closed ballot multiparty democracies, and when the North Korean people can vote for unificaion without one side fearing they are going to be sent to the Gulag so hard their grandchildren will feel it.

Originally posted by Scotty Rotten:

We don't need more liberalization.

That depends:

A: How do you define "liberalization"/

and

B: What do you think we DO need?

And as a final note: why don't we try and empower people to decide what they think they need, with some limits to avoid them from deciding they need to beat one of their number to death and steal their stuff (Ie Mob rule)?

Originally posted by Scotty Rotten:

How the ♥♥♥♥ do modern day Liberals equate the *historic* struggle and liberation from oppressive rulers of old to the """liberalism""" of letting Arabs and Africans colonize countries in Europe where they do not belong just so that the company that imports them can make a bigger profit than it already does (often times the company in question not even based in the country it operates - in effect just extracting capital from a host nation).

I've never been a fan of uncontrolled immigration and I certainly don't equate it.

That doesn't mean I think we need racial quotas like back in the old days of the US. But it does mean you need to A: Make and B: ENFORCE laws about citizenship, naturalization, and residency. Precisely so that you don't end up like Rom wondering WTH all these Vandals came from and why they won't go back to the Campus Vandalum like you want them to.

Which is also why I am still a nationalist and believe that attempts to pretend we are all JUST one world are dumb. Sure, we are One World. But we're also more than that and attempts to pretend otherwise are...well, I've already spoken about the problems with that. And while a bunch of people do come to these advanced nations in the hopes of assimilating- or at least permanently settling (Even if just to spoonge off), a bunch of them don't. They come over, do what they want, and then come back, like the Xalisco Boys mentioned above.

Which is why I am concerned about how to not just prevent the developed world from getting deluged by hordes of unassimilated people, but also asking what the best path is to help Arabs and Africans feel like they don't HAVE to jump on boats or run smuggling lines into central Germany.

Originally posted by Scotty Rotten:

As bad as Communism was is and will always be Liberalism and Capitalism need to either *significantly* reform themselves or be taken to the back of the shed once and for all and be put down.

Ok, but what do you propose?

Originally posted by Scotty Rotten:

Also, you know, Communism is quite thoroughly dead and gone with just a few ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ clamoring for class-war here and there.

It's a lot harder for me to really agree with that when you realize that is a few *million* ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. And who are often armed.

The Shining Path and Naxalites are still killing their way through India. The Pathet Lao are hunting down the grandchildren of people who helped either the French or us. FARC is pretending to have disarmed and gone legit when they are still engaging in low level skirmishes with the government and arming for advantage. And the PRC Is...well...at least an enabler of a lot of these clowns.

Originally posted by Scotty Rotten:

So, maybe all y'all should take a moment to step back and look at the world a bit and notice that most of today's problems are popping up in a situation where Liberal Capitalism has spread and installed itself in almost every corner of the world.

Yeah, I have. Believe me. The problem is: is that the problem of Liberal Capitalism? And if so to what degree, and what can be done about it?

Because last I checked, invasive foreign groups that accept the barest minimum of lipservice to national law and allegiance have kind of been a thing since Nebuchadnezzar had to wonder how to get these Elamite Hill Tribes off his lawn. That doesn't mean we should ignore these problems as if they're noting, but it does reiterate that a lot of these are far, far longer than we'd like to admit.

Let me say from the outset that I have a positive overall view of Poles and Poland. Like Belarusians, Poles are relatively nice and soft compared to many other European national personalities. It's really nice that Poland was totally on the Allied side of WW2, and many people today don't know that the Nazis massacred them in WW2.

Pilsudski (1867-1935) was not a Nazi, but nor did he act very much like a democrat or Republican.
- He led a coup against the elected Polish government
- He had the undemocratic Sanacja regime
- Ukrainian nationalists were put in concentration camps in large numbers
- Lots of Soviet POWs died in Polish hands after the 1920 Soviet-Polish war
- In addition, after Pilsudski, Poland had a very brief alliance with Germany and captured Czechoslovak land militarily with a population of over 227,000 Czechoslovaks in 1938.

@rakovsky Nice to meet you.

Originally posted by rakovsky:

Let me say from the outset that I have a positive overall view of Poles and Poland. Like Belarusians, Poles are relatively nice and soft compared to many other European national personalities. It's really nice that Poland was totally on the Allied side of WW2, and many people today don't know that the Nazis massacred them in WW2.

Agreed there.

Originally posted by rakovsky:

Pilsudski (1867-1935) was not a Nazi, but nor did he act very much like a democrat or Republican.
- He led a coup against the elected Polish government
- He had the undemocratic Sanacja regime
- Ukrainian nationalists were put in concentration camps in large numbers
- Lots of Soviet POWs died in Polish hands after the 1920 Soviet-Polish war

I absolutely agree, and I do not seek to downplay or deny any of that. It is all true. One of the kernels of truth behind Yugoslavian Witch's narrative is that post-independence Poland was indeed one of the most aggressive and expansionist regimes to emerge in Central and Eastern Europe, and was more than guilty of its fair share of crimes against the peace and general war crimes.

Indeed, to the list you gave I'd also add things like Pilsudski's faux-mutiny and coup in Vilnius to seize the city from the Lithuanians on false pretexts.

The issue I have is that Poland's own acts of aggression, brutality, and racism are often used to try and hide the nature of Bolshevik actions and to argue "The Poles started the war!!!"

The issue is that the Poles are one of the very few post-Tsarist states where this looks even vaguely convincing, and even that falls apart under close scrutiny by observing things like the Bolsheviks' march Westwards in early 1919, attacking everyone they ran into. Perhaps the Poles would have attacked them even if they had given no provocation, I certainly can't put it past Pilsudski or even Dmowski. But that's ultimately a moot point, because Bolshevik decisions to attack even the most stalwartly neutral nations like Estonia and Latvia underlined how this would not go.

So Poland under Pilsudski and his heirs was an ethnonationalist, expansionist state that (especially after the mid 1920s) quickly morphed into a racist, authoritarian regime. But it was not a completely aggressive totalitarian dictatorship trying to start another World War.

Originally posted by rakovsky:

- In addition, after Pilsudski, Poland had a very brief alliance with Germany and captured Czechoslovak land militarily with a population of over 227,000 Czechoslovaks in 1938.

This is true, though to be honest I find it kind of hard to fault the Poles TOO MUCH in this, since the roots of that dispute went back to the immediate interwar period, when the Czechoslovaks and Poles agreed (under Western Allied mediation) to hold democratic votes to demarcate the area, only for the Czechoslovaks to take advantage of the Poles being distracted by wars with the Ukrainians and later Bolsheviks. They first claimed (falsely/fraudulently) that they area had been given to them for "safe-keeping" by the Allied Leadership, and when the local Polish garrisons were (understandably) suspicious and asked for confirmation, they got attacked and the territory seized.

That doesn't make what Poland did in 1939 GOOD, far from it, and two wrongs do not make a right, but it was- if you will- an attempt to steal what had already been stolen.

In any case, I have no interest in painting Poland in rosier colors than what it deserves. I believe that the record stands well enough on its own and am willing to field any critique or consideration on it. The Poles have much to be ashamed of in their past, much as they have a great deal to be proud of. My issue was Yugo Witch etc. al. going beyond that into outright blood libel.

It is nice writing to you, Turtle. I visited Poland pretty briefly in the 2000's and liked it - Warsaw, Gdansk, and a friend's farming family in the Lublin/Lukow region. I had a close elderly Polish exile/emigre friend and American professor, born in the 1920's, who had relatives who fought in the Polish-Soviet War, and he and I read liked reading an adventurous but realistic a Russian novel, Konarmija, written about that conflict.

I also read to him Polish internet academic articles on the topic. One of the articles talked about the ton of Soviet POWs who died in Polish hands after the 1920 war. As I recall, one of the Polish articles theorized that Stalin massacred the Polish officers in Katyn as revenge for so many Soviet POWs dying. My Polish friend replied that he believed that this theory was correct. For my part, I am skeptical of that theory, because Stalin killed so many people before WW2. It could work in some kind of "Karmic" sense, but Katyn is something that Stalin himself regretted because he needed Poles to help fight WW2.

I told my professor friend that I have a problem that Pilsudski was a dictator, and he replied, "So what?" And I said that the problem is that I agree with Democracy. Clearly some people, maybe not most, admire the idea of a "strong leader" figure for their own nation. Probably the main "strong leader" figure that comes to mind in American history is General/President Washington, with the two Bush presidents being "strong leader" figures to a lesser extent.

I was able to get the Soviet mission in the RUssian Civil War campaign to work on COOP mode, so we can play that one if you want. What time is best for you?

I don't have special negative feelings toward Pilsudski, since he wasn't a Nazi and since I like Polish people, and the 1930's was an era of European dictators. I visited some monument or gravesite for Pilsudski in Warsaw and there was a Polish military band. Probably there is too much veneration of Pilsudski by Poles, in that it's better to see his undemocratic sides as a disadvantage. Perhaps a more objective view on my part would be more hostile because of the Soviet POW issue.

================================

I'm not familiar enough with the details of the beginning of the Polish-Soviet war to say exactly how it began. A cursory review, and what I recall, was that Poland was occupying major territory outside of Poland in the area of the former Russian empire, like Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltic states. Meanwhile Poland was moving, westward, fighting nationalist movements there, like the UNR in Ukraine, whereas the Soviets were fighting those nationalist movements and the white army from the east. These two powers, Poland, and the Soviets, converged against each other.

English Wikipedia notes that in November 1918, Lenin made an order called Target Vistula that was meant to send Soviet forces westward, as far as to Vistula, but fighting did not begin with Poland at that point.

Russian Wikipedia notes:
((("On December 19, the Polish government ordered its troops to occupy the city of Vilna[16], on December 21, 1918, an Interim Commission for the Administration of the District of Central Lithuania was created[16]. On January 1, 1919, Polish units took control of Vilna. The first armed clash between units of the Red Army and Polish units took place on January 6, 1919, when the Polish garrison was driven out of Vilna[16]. On February 16, the authorities of the Byelorussian SSR proposed to the Polish government to define their borders, but Warsaw ignored this proposal.")))

Russian Wikipedia explains that in December 1918, Polish forces in Vilnius expected the Germans to hand Vilnius over to the Soviets, so the Polish forces there took the city over, disarming the Germans by force. However, the Germans continued to hold part of the city. In the beginning of January, the Germans evacuated Vilnius, and when they did, Communist detachments in the city emerged and fights began with the Polish forces in the city. The Soviets had the Workers' Council/Soviet building in the city, and the Polish forces stormed it successfully on January 1.

English Wikipedia makes it not clear who attacked first in the Polish-Soviet War, saying:
((("The first serious armed conflict of the war took place on February 14 (1919). While Soviet units retreated without a fight from the town of Mosty, fighting erupted near the towns of Maniewicze and Bereza Kartuska in Belarus. By late February the Bolshevik offensive had come to a halt, and it had become apparent that the Red Army would not break through the Polish lines with half-hearted attacks." ... In early March 1919, Polish units opened an offensive and forces under General Stanisław Szeptycki captured the cities of Słonim (March 2) and crossed the Neman River. Forces under General A. Listowski took Pinsk (March 5) and secured passages through Jasiolda river and Oginski Canal.)))
Reading between the lines, you might think that the fighting in February 14 was a Polish attack, because the Russians retreated, but that's not necessarily so.

Russian Wikipedia claims:
(((At the end of February, Polish troops crossed the Neman and launched an offensive on the territory of Soviet Belarus (since February 3, it was in the federation with the RSFSR) [18]. On February 28, units of General Ivashkevich attacked the troops of the Red Army along the Shchara River and occupied Slonim on March 1, and Pinsk was taken by Listovsky on March 2. Soon Ivashkevich was replaced by Stanislav Sheptytsky.)))

In my cursory reading, it sounds like the Polish Soviet War began with the January 1 Polish attack of the Soviet Council building in Vilnius, or with the Red Army driving Polish forces out of the city on January 6, 1919.

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Besides the issue of who attacked first, another issue is whether the Poles were the rightful holders of the territory where the war began. This second issue was the basic one that came to my focus when I thought about the beginning of the Soviet-Polish War. The overall arrangement of power in Poland was one where the Germans, Austrians, and Russian empires were strong powers keeping down Polish independence for over a century before WW1. However, in Poland's west and south, it was the Germans, Austrians, and Polish "Pans" (lords) who were oppressing Ukrainian and Belarusian peasants for about 600 years with feudal-like relationships. Until the mid-14th century or later, West Ukraine was East Slavic, like the Rus/Ruthenian principalities of Halich and Kyiv. Poles became the majority in urban Lviv in West Ukraine, but the largest population in general in West Ukraine was still Ukrainian.

In contrast, the Soviet forces were freeing Ukrainian and Belarusian lands from Polish domination. The Polish-Soviet wars following WW1 began with Polish forces in Vilnius, Belarus, Lviv, and Kyiv, not with Soviet forces in Warsaw or Krakow. Probably this idea of Soviet forces liberating Belarusian and Ukrainian lands from Polish domination is a main idea in Soviet readers' minds when they think about the Soviet wars with Poland after WW1 and for that matter in 1939, at the start of / soon before WW2.


My guess is that if you are coming at this second issue from a pro-Polish POV, you might respond with things like:
- Poles lived in Vilnius and West Ukraine for many centuries too
- Land can't be transferred legitimately by war
- Ukrainians didn't have it so bad under Poland
- Vilnius and West Ukraine are rightful Polish territory.
- Soviets were dictatorial
- Some Ukrainian nationalists like Petliura allied with Poland

Much of this second issue - East Slavic/Ukrainian claims to West Ukraine and the Polish responses that I listed above have long been debated between Ukrainians and Poles and go well beyond the scope of the Soviet-Polish conflict by itself. Ukrainians would say that they don't agree with the Soviet government, but that they believe that their land (West Ukraine) belongs to them.

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Fun fact:
Feliks Dzierżyński was Polish and didn't agree with the Soviet decision to fight Poland in the Soviet-Polish War. He believed that Poles were not going to agree with the Soviet side, although the Soviets' own interpretation of the war was that they were going to free Poland from capitalist rule. That is, the Soviets didn't see the war as a simple battle between Russia's government and Poland's, but between the workers' Soviet government and Poland's capitalist government. Before his death in 1926, Dzierżyński warned people about Stalin. He noted that Pilsudski began as a Democrat but became a dictator, and wrote that if the Soviet bureaucracy's growth wouldn't get put in check, then "We will have our own dictator, whatever red feathers he wears." (My quotation from memory.)

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Sometimes historical, political, military and political events have multiple layers that can be hard to put all together. One of them that comes to mind is Poland's Operation Vistula against the Lemkos and Ukrainians of southern Poland. My understanding is that the main purpose was to deal with the UPA (Ukrainian Insurgent Army) fighting Poland. The UPA had a fascist side it seems and killed tens of thousands of Poles. At times, the UPA was allied with the Nazis, but at times fought against them. In Ukraine, the UPA kept fighting the Soviets in 1945-1950, leading to the death of over 20,000 Soviet soldiers. In contrast, Poland's way to solve the issue of the insurgency was to deport the Ukrainian/Lemko population to other parts of Poland.

I am not really very happy with Operation Vistula because it is better if Ukrainians are living in their homeland, which includes what is today southern Poland. Further, it seems likely that there were friendly, Allied Ukrainian villages that got deported too, because of how expansive Operation Vistula was. So it seems that Operation Vistula probably deported way more people than it needed to. But on the other hand, I am not really very happy with tens of thousands of Poles having been massacred in WW2 or with a semi-fascist insurgency.

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Thanks for being nice, thoughtful, and reflective.

Got a notification from this thread which, apparently, I completely forgot about. Read a few lines - thought to myself - LIBERUL. Took the time to read a bit more and realized that there's more to this American than meets the eye.

Was nice reading up on this again. Hello commiefornian :)

down with the troons