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>We had no mass murders here. There were some deaths during workers' protests. At least 40 people were killed during martial law, and over 10000 interned. Doze

>We had no mass murders here. There were some deaths during workers' protests. At least 40 people were killed during martial law, and over 10000 interned. Dozens of people were murdered by security forces in the previous years too. Reducing that to "some deaths" just feels tone-deaf. >The public infrastructure (roads, trains, hospitals, schools, etc.) improved so much that comparison with the state before war would be a joke. It would be surprising if absolutely nothing improved for over 40 years. But in the end, economy and infrastructure was a joke when compared to Western block. When looking at it it's hard to classify infrastructure development during PRL as success, really. >(arguably the '81 was done to avoid such an intervention) This is widely disputed, and most people who promoted this view were themselves involved in introducing martial law, so... >History is not black and white. "Communism is bad and makes people do bad things" is very wrong way to look at it. It certainly isn't black and white, but whitewashing totalitarian regime because they didn't kill enough people to classify as mass killing isn't solution either.

klibertp 6y ago
> At least 40 people were killed during martial law, and over 10000 interned. Dozens of people were murdered by security forces in the previous years too. Reducing that to "some deaths" just feels tone-deaf. Look, the state killing off its people is always bad, yes. What's tone-deaf, though, is equaling dozens of deaths, or even hundreds of deaths, with this (China): > Estimates of the death toll in Cultural Revolution, including civilians and Red Guards, vary greatly, ranging from hundreds of thousands to 20 million. This (Ukraine/Soviet Union): > By the end of 1933, millions of people had starved to death or otherwise died unnaturally in the Soviet republics. Total population loss (including stillbirth) across the union is estimated at 6–7 million. This (Cambodia): > According to a 2001 academic source, the most widely accepted estimates of excess deaths under the Khmer Rouge range from 1.5 million to 2 million, although figures as low as 1 million and as high as 3 million have been cited; conventionally accepted estimates of executions range from 500,000 to 1 million, "a third to one half of excess mortality during the period". and so on, and on, and on. > This is widely disputed, Which is why I wrote "arguably". > whitewashing totalitarian regime because they didn't kill enough people to classify as mass killing isn't solution either I'm not whitewashing anything. I'm saying that, as far as authoritarian regimes this side of the Iron Courtain go, PRL was relatively peaceful, killed off relatively small amount of people, and - on the other hand - improved living conditions of a relatively large percentage of the population. As I said many times at this point: when the power goes unchecked, it will be abused. It was also true in the PRL. But there is a spectrum of how bad it gets, and on that spectrum Poland was possibly one of the easiests places to live in the whole Eastern Bloc. Ignoring this is not "being true to historical facts", it's just blatantly pushing an agenda.

klibertp 6y ago

> At least 40 people were killed during martial law, and over 10000 interned. Dozens of people were murdered by security forces in the previous years too. Reducing that to "some deaths" just feels tone-deaf. Look, the state killing off its people is always bad, yes. What's tone-deaf, though, is equaling dozens of deaths, or even hundreds of deaths, with this (China): > Estimates of the death toll in Cultural Revolution, including civilians and Red Guards, vary greatly, ranging from hundreds of thousands to 20 million. This (Ukraine/Soviet Union): > By the end of 1933, millions of people had starved to death or otherwise died unnaturally in the Soviet republics. Total population loss (including stillbirth) across the union is estimated at 6–7 million. This (Cambodia): > According to a 2001 academic source, the most widely accepted estimates of excess deaths under the Khmer Rouge range from 1.5 million to 2 million, although figures as low as 1 million and as high as 3 million have been cited; conventionally accepted estimates of executions range from 500,000 to 1 million, "a third to one half of excess mortality during the period". and so on, and on, and on. > This is widely disputed, Which is why I wrote "arguably". > whitewashing totalitarian regime because they didn't kill enough people to classify as mass killing isn't solution either I'm not whitewashing anything. I'm saying that, as far as authoritarian regimes this side of the Iron Courtain go, PRL was relatively peaceful, killed off relatively small amount of people, and - on the other hand - improved living conditions of a relatively large percentage of the population. As I said many times at this point: when the power goes unchecked, it will be abused. It was also true in the PRL. But there is a spectrum of how bad it gets, and on that spectrum Poland was possibly one of the easiests places to live in the whole Eastern Bloc. Ignoring this is not "being true to historical facts", it's just blatantly pushing an agenda.