From: lbs@tkmhp4.physik.uni-karlsruhe.de (Lech Borkowski)
Subject: Re: On Polish Anti-semitism
Reply-To: lbs@tkm.physik.uni-karlsruhe.de
Organization: University of Karlsruhe, Germany
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 07:41:55 GMT

In article <1992Oct13.210624.23480@Princeton.EDU> roger@astro.princeton.edu (Roger Lustig) writes:
>In article <92847@netnews.upenn.edu> kkniaz@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Krzysztof W. Kniaz) writes:
>>Ms. Dawidowicz was far too erudite a scholar not to know that the feuds 
>>between the nobility, royal and ducal powers were inherent to each and 
>>every European state, be it England, France or Germany and the reasons for 
>>Poland's decline and loss of independence (after eight centuries of 
>>existence - so much for the unability of governing herself) 
>
>You're telling me that Poland *didn't* have crises of governance all
							          ^^^
>the time, for the very reasons Dawidowicz gives (but you don't see fit
 ^^^^^^^^
>to quote)?

 Oh, I heard that before - that stereotype of Poles-idiots
who can't even govern themselves.  I know, Roger, we are a bunch of 
uncivilized folks who have to be controlled by other countries, because 
we are genetically unable to govern ourselves. 

 You are just repeating the excuses of Prussia, Russia and 
Austro-Hungary when they partitioned Poland. Oh, it is so moving,
those warm-hearted neighbors! They took care of the Poles unable
to decide for themselves and freed them of that burden. 

You could equally well claim that due to the inability of the Poles 
to govern themselves, the Nazi Germany decided to take care of 
the Polish territory by attacking it and exterminating its population. 
Similarly, the Soviet Union attacked from the East on 17 September  1939
"to protect the rights of minorities in Poland". 

 I think you are confused with the meaning of two things:

1) trying to govern a country using some democratic principles 
2) ruling a country despotically and having a strong army

 Poland made a serious attempt at a democratic system (point 1 above) 
at the time when elsewhere in Europe you had as undemocratic kingdoms 
(point 2 above) as you could only imagine.
 Of course, the ideal would be to have a democracy and a strong
army and a strong economy , but even today there are very few countries 
that can really say that (I am not talking about military blocks like 
NATO, I am talking about single countries, few of them can protect themselves
successfully without any help of others).

 It is interesting how the "blame the victim" approach
is used against the Polish state of the late 18th century. It is not
the aggressors who are condemned for the partitions of Poland, 
it is the "inability of the Poles to govern themselves".
 
>[...] 
>Well, we've seen what your eyes are worth, I'm afraid. Or perhaps
>its the tinted glasses -- in any case, your bleeding chunks of
>text have little to do with Dawidowicz's argument.

 What do you try to achieve by writing the passages like the three lines
above? Why do you insist on being arrogant and trying to insult
others? Seriously, what are you trying to achieve with your
"bleeding chunks of texts"? There are people with better manners
and better arguments than yours and they do not resort to insults.

>>Although I appreciate Ms. Dawidowicz's description of the Polish 
>>It worries me because if we agree that I and many of my colleagues, who 
>>feel little in common with the gentlemen mentioned above, have to be 
>>ashamed of what they wrote since all of us were "Poles", than I will start 
>
>Could you cite a passage where she says that?  Just because the government
>that commissioned such work was not a nice one makes these people
>no less Polish, nor does it make other Poles responsible for what
>they say.  Dawidowcz is explicit in her attribution of blame to the
>Communist Party and to Marxist historiography in general: the
>previous chapter (on the SU) makes this numbingly obvious.

 But you made an error earlier by referring to "Polish historians".
That phrase contains a sweeping generalization. Using it
without explaining that you deal with falsifications of history
sponsored by the Politburo is a mistake. It was easy to loose
your job in academia if you tried to openly say what you think.
Kolakowski, the philosopher, lost his job in exactly this way.
Others lost their jobs too. But not everyone had the courage
to oppose the regime openly. The regime used various mechanisms
of oppression against those speaking their minds openly.
And some people wanted to make careers in the Party by doing
exactly what the Politburo told them to do.
 
>thinking about subscribing to Aleksander Mazur's theories of "Jews" being 
>>responsible for the actions of some UB (secret police) bosses about 15 
>>years earlier.
>
>What *IS* this shit?  Dawidowicz nowhere espouses collective guilt as

 Stop insulting others, Roger. 

>a way of looking at these writers.  And insisting that it's wrong to
>call them "Poles" is as wrong as insisting that one not call David
>Duke and American, or Meir Kahane a Jew.  What are you afraid of?
>
>(Also, I've seen this threat before: "If you don't stop saying that,
>I'll start believing some really stupid things."  I'm not impressed.)
>
>>Seriously, both ideas are of course absurd to me: both groups of people 
>>did not represent the interests of any ethnic group, but solely those of 
>>the communist ideology which they represented, were totally loyal to, and 
>>tried to implement at any cost.
>
>But that ideology was represented by a national government, like it or
>not.  There's no point in pretending that Poland did not exist as
>a nation-on-the-map between 1945 and 1989; it had a unique governmental
>and political and socio-cultural situation, much of which was determined
>by CP bosses, to be sure, but much of which was determined by *Polish*
>Communists, who very much considered themselves Poles, and also by
>*non*-Communists.  

"...that ideology was represented by a national government, like it or not."
No, it was not a national government. Are you perhaps trying to say
that Politburo in your vocabulary means the same thing as        
national government? Apparently you are missing some historical 
education on the subject. The "national government" that started
the 45 year old dictatorship was as much national as Zwiazek
Patriotow Polskich (Union of Polish Patriots) brought in from
the Soviet Union by Stalin. So here we have a nation terrorized
by the communists, people tortured, killed, imprisoned, deported
to the concentration camps in the Soviet Union (until 1956) and
Roger Lustig says we had a "national government". You can 
ask my parents what they think of that "national government" 
and where they were before "returning" to Poland (in its new borders) 
in 1956 and were harassed by the communist authorities for several years
after 1956. 

 We had a *communist dictatorship*, not a national government.
There were *no* elections, unless you count the farce organized
periodically by the communists with "99.9% votes supporting"
their regime. And that regime was a bloody one, especially  from 1944 
to 1956.

 Let's try to understand something. First, Roger tells us that the Poles 
had crises of governance *all the time* and then he tells us
that we had a national government during the years 1944-1989.
Probably that bloody dictatorship was the first case in history
when the Poles could be "governed". 
 We shall be forever grateful to Stalin, NKVD, Beria, Molotov, Khrushchev,
Brezhnev, KGB and many many others who made it possible for Poland
to have a "national government" 8-)

>i *do* consider it right that anyone who considers himself a member of
>a people should take on some responsibility for righting wrongs done
>in the name of that people.  That goes for you and for me.

 Correct. 

>Roger


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