Why Is There a Difference Between Removing Confederate and Soviet War Memorials?

[Dubayoo]

http://www.newsweek.com/poland-plans-removal-500-soviet-monuments-442661

 

Apparently, the Polish government passed a law a while back that gets rid of Soviet war memorials from WW2.  Critics are arguing the Polish people should be more grateful from the Soviets opposing the Nazis, but in reality, the Soviets oppressed the Polish people and they did so for a much longer time period than the Nazis after WW2 ended.  

 

Those critics seem to just be playing favorites with the removal of symbolically oppressive monuments.  

[Smith]

The only critics seem to be Russia. Seems like Poland wants to remove them

[Dubayoo]

You can read in the comments here that there are plenty of non-Russians who are outraged as well: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/24/polish-push-to-remove-soviet-monuments-from-public-display

 

It's really bizarre because those critics are critical of the Russians just as much.  

[Smith]

I think you're probably better off not getting too invested in stuff like news/youtube comments. They are cesspools

[Dubayoo]

What other critics do you have in mind in seeing they're predominantly Russian?

[Shiho Nishizumi]

Critics conveniently forget that the Soviet government had sorted out a deal with Germany to divide Poland in 1939.

 

Poland doesn't need monuments to honor foreign soldiers (at least, monuments built by foreigners, not themselves). They need monuments to honor Polish soldiers, particularly those massacred at Katyn.

Edited June 23, 2017 by Shiho Nishizumi

[Lelouch Vi Britannia]

As a half-polish person with many polish family members I can see why many Poles would be apposed to this.

 

The Soviets did divide the country in half with the Germans.

Oppressed the Polish when the Soviets took over.

Disallowed the Polish from becoming a country when the war was over.

 

And many Polish people HATED the fact they were occupied. The Poles would rather fend for themselves then have someone else help them if it meant they would be occupied.

The Soviets were almost the same as the Germans to them.

[----]

As a fully Polish person (born, raised, and living in Poland), I find this monument removal to be absurd and revisionist. Of course the Soviets committed evils against my people (nobody should ever deny this). However, all of my relatives and ancestors (grandparents, parents, etc.) that lived through the war (and survived), while being staunchly anti-socialist (we hated/hate the PRL) always acknowledged that the Soviets, when compared to the Germans, were a liberation. We still celebrate the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by the Soviet Army. Poland should honour its liberators, no matter what followed afterwards. Were it not for the Soviets, the Germans would have fulfilled their vision of killing, enslaving, or (in very rare cases), Germanising ‚subhuman’ Poles out of existence. The Soviets, while incredibly brutal, were not following an extermination against the Poles as a people/nation. Furthermore, after 1956 (end of Stalinism in Poland), the level of oppression was nothing compared to that under the Germans. Poland from 1956-1989 certainly wasn’t free ( fully sovereign, but is it now sovereign under the EU?) of course, but it was hardly the kind of occupation when the actual Polish language was replaced by another (German during the war) or when everyone was the potentially exterminated genetic ‚filth’/slave labourer of the foreign occupant. One should not overlook Soviet crimes (KatyÅ„, wywózki, etc.), but all must be placed into perspective. 

 

The monument controversy is simply a way for a government with little forward vision to re-ignite national fervour when certain policies fail/suffer from unpopularity. Or, in the case of the previous government (pre-2015) the removal of Soviet monuments served only to deepen the Polish-Russian divisions in the name of pro-Western (pro-EU) policies and integration (removal of the past).

Edited June 24, 2017 by Klemens Hawicki

[Dubayoo]

As a fully Polish person (born, raised, and living in Poland), I find this monument removal to be absurd and revisionist. Of course the Soviets committed evils against my people (nobody should ever deny this). However, all of my relatives and ancestors (grandparents, parents, etc.) that lived through the war (and survived), while being staunchly anti-socialist (we hated/hate the PRL) always acknowledged that the Soviets, when compared to the Germans, were a liberation. We still celebrate the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by the Soviet Army. Poland should honour its liberators, no matter what followed afterwards. Were it not for the Soviets, the Germans would have fulfilled their vision of killing, enslaving, or (in very rare cases), Germanising ‚subhuman’ Poles out of existence. The Soviets, while incredibly brutal, were not following an extermination against the Poles as a people/nation. Furthermore, after 1956 (end of Stalinism in Poland), the level of oppression was nothing compared to that under the Germans. Poland from 1956-1989 certainly wasn’t free ( fully sovereign, but is it now sovereign under the EU?) of course, but it was hardly the kind of occupation when the actual Polish language was replaced by another (German during the war) or when everyone was the potentially exterminated genetic ‚filth’/slave labourer of the foreign occupant. One should not overlook Soviet crimes (KatyÅ„, wywózki, etc.), but all must be placed into perspective. 

 

The monument controversy is simply a way for a government with little forward vision to re-ignite national fervour when certain policies fail/suffer from unpopularity. Or, in the case of the previous government (pre-2015) the removal of Soviet monuments served only to deepen the Polish-Russian divisions in the name of pro-Western (pro-EU) policies and integration (removal of the past).

 

I don't really buy that because the EU doesn't have many if any qualms with recognizing what the USSR did in the past.  If anything, it would expect us to recognize how the USSR purged fascism from its identity so the EU became the supposedly positive institution it is today, especially due to how relations with Russia have deteriorated since the fall of the Soviet Union.  Poland, if anything, is concerned about EU dominance these days in light of its insistence that Poland takes on its fair share of Muslim migrants which it's staunchly opposed against.

 

On top of that, the cold relations between Poland and Russia seem irrational these days. Poland and Russia are both culturally conservative countries, they're both concerned about terrorism, they're both opposed to taking in Muslim migrants, and they're both staunchly in favor of free markets.  The events which have transpired from Poland supporting Chechen rebels to the Polish government plane crash to Poland calling for support against Russia in Ukraine don't seem to be well thought out.  Poland and Russia should be much friendlier than they are today, so the removal of the monuments should be appreciated as moving past a bygone era.  Russia today is not the communist country it was before.

 

In any case, the Soviets treated the Polish government as counter-revolutionary rebels, and mass murdered or deported to gulags its captured prisoners of war. Afterwards, it engaged in Russification which involved the arresting, killing, and deporting of hundreds of thousands more Polish people before the Nazis attacked.  When they returned, they continued this process which dismantled Poland's social fabric, politically alienated the native population, and removed people from their homeland in the east.  

 

Obviously, the Nazis were terrible in the short-run in killing millions and attempting to destroy Polish society within a few years, but the Soviets had long-term impacts.  Stalinism's influence carried on for another 10 years after WW2 ended, and after that, the country still wasn't entitled to practice its culture in peace since everything had to conform to Soviet standards or else endure further oppression.  The removal of the monuments shows how just because someone liberates others from a more intense evil in the moment doesn't entitle someone to commit atrocities against others over time.