Pilsudski i Realia Geopolityki Polski

History has a way of making a huge impact on the future, even though it is a science of learning about the past. History has a way of repeating itself as well. The decisions of all statesmen have an impact on the people that have to live with the effects of those decisions. So the second reason, and the more important one, behind my writing about this issue, is simply that my family chose to leave Poland because it had lost the war and was not free for half a century after the fighting ceased. In most of the countries around the world in history class students learn that World War II lasted from 1939 to 1945. For Poland, the war lasted from 1939 to 1989. One battle ended in 1945, while the other battle continued until 1989. To sum up, the decisions of the Polish government after Piłsudski’s death brought about the country’s present situation. German Nazi occupation lasted five and a half years. Soviet Communist occupation lasted forty-four years. I have an extremely strong opinion about these two occupations; in comparison the latter was a lot worse than the former one. The reason is not only of the duration of the Soviet presence in Poland, but also the cruelty of the occupiers and – most importantly – the scars that this occupation had left in the minds of the Polish population. I see and feel these scars almost every day, while I live among my own in a country I left so long ago. During one of his lectures, dr Mirosław Natanek at the Jagiellonian University mentioned that what he dreads the most about Communist infiltration of Polish society, was what it did to the minds of the Polish people. To me, the German Nazi occupation was physical torture; the Soviet Communist occupation was emotional and psychological torment. My aim here is to prove that there was an alternative to the Polish government’s actions right before the Second World War. The key argument in my hypothesis is this: international relations are brutal, cruel, engulfed in cynicism, comprised of mutual suspicion, and almost always lack any emotional input. These types of relations are a game; one that Poland has not played very well in history. Poles, as an ethnic group, are ones of a romantic nature who generally wear their hearts on their sleeves. This fact is apparent and visible in the nation’s patriotic hymns, for example. Likewise, Poland’s leaders and politicians have added way too many emotions into many of their crucial decisions. Naiveté clearly resounds in a lot of their actions. A few years ago, I was watching a film about former Prime Minister Stanisław Mikołajczyk. I clearly remember the scene when he travels to Moscow and meets with Stalin. He asks the Soviet leader about the troops who disappeared and no one ever heard from them again. Stalin replied that perhaps they left the Soviet Union willingly and smiled. Mikołajczyk just smiled, shook his hand, and seemed to believe every word of the dictator. Once Mikołajczyk left and the door closed, Stalin turned to his foreign minister and stated: “That Mikołajczyk is a naïve man”. Henryk Batorski clearly stated in his book, that when engulfed in political strategy, one does not let sentiments win over everything else, but mainly takes care of his own interests first, and only handles other tasks when those tasks do not collide with these interests. One has to remain sober and not overestimate their own strength, like the Polish government in exile has done.History has a way of making a huge impact on the future, even though it is a science of learning about the past. History has a way of repeating itself as well. The decisions of all statesmen have an impact on the people that have to live with the effects of those decisions. So the second reason, and the more important one, behind my writing about this issue, is simply that my family chose to leave Poland because it had lost the war and was not free for half a century after the fighting ceased. In most of the countries around the world in history class students learn that World War II lasted from 1939 to 1945. For Poland, the war lasted from 1939 to 1989. One battle ended in 1945, while the other battle continued until 1989. To sum up, the decisions of the Polish government after Piłsudski’s death brought about the country’s present situation. German Nazi occupation lasted five and a half years. Soviet Communist occupation lasted forty-four years. I have an extremely strong opinion about these two occupations; in comparison the latter was a lot worse than the former one. The reason is not only of the duration of the Soviet presence in Poland, but also the cruelty of the occupiers and – most importantly – the scars that this occupation had left in the minds of the Polish population. I see and feel these scars almost every day, while I live among my own in a country I left so long ago. During one of his lectures, dr Mirosław Natanek at the Jagiellonian University mentioned that what he dreads the most about Communist infiltration of Polish society, was what it did to the minds of the Polish people. To me, the German Nazi occupation was physical torture; the Soviet Communist occupation was emotional and psychological torment. My aim here is to prove that there was an alternative to the Polish government’s actions right before the Second World War. The key argument in my hypothesis is this: international relations are brutal, cruel, engulfed in cynicism, comprised of mutual suspicion, and almost always lack any emotional input. These types of relations are a game; one that Poland has not played very well in history. Poles, as an ethnic group, are ones of a romantic nature who generally wear their hearts on their sleeves. This fact is apparent and visible in the nation’s patriotic hymns, for example. Likewise, Poland’s leaders and politicians have added way too many emotions into many of their crucial decisions. Naiveté clearly resounds in a lot of their actions. A few years ago, I was watching a film about former Prime Minister Stanisław Mikołajczyk. I clearly remember the scene when he travels to Moscow and meets with Stalin. He asks the Soviet leader about the troops who disappeared and no one ever heard from them again. Stalin replied that perhaps they left the Soviet Union willingly and smiled. Mikołajczyk just smiled, shook his hand, and seemed to believe every word of the dictator. Once Mikołajczyk left and the door closed, Stalin turned to his foreign minister and stated: “That Mikołajczyk is a naïve man”. Henryk Batorski clearly stated in his book, that when engulfed in political strategy, one does not let sentiments win over everything else, but mainly takes care of his own interests first, and only handles other tasks when those tasks do not collide with these interests. One has to remain sober and not overestimate their own strength, like the Polish government in exile has done