On origins,development of Cold War

[Robert Rojas]

Greetings to both citizen 'wm' and the community as a whole. Howdy 'wm'! Well sir, in respect to your posting of Saturday - November 10, 2018 - 8:33pm, old yours truly was pleasantly surprised to learn that Poland's Ministry of State Security was an institution that really kept a very low profile vis a vís the rank and file citizenry of your nation. It's either that OR your Ministry of State Security was SO professionally adept with its spy craft that it never drew any overt attention to itself. On the other hand, maybe your Ministry of State Security was far too preoccupied monitoring the clandestine activities of its "fraternal intelligence services" from neighboring East Germany, Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union than to be bothered with the political reliability of your nation's average JOE and JANE Kowalski. Oh, and by the way, I'm very sorry to hear that your protégé was cashiered from your Naval Service due to his father's alleged political affiliation. Incidentally, that phenomena is NOT unique to authoritarian societies. During the course of my years of employment, I have seen fellow employees eased out of assignments OR simply terminated based upon some trumped up pretext usually involving a "questionable" social or familial association that the company might perceive as a real OR potential public relations embarrassment. Finally, it is heartening to read that Poland's avantgarde communities were able to lampoon both your bureaucratic and conventional law enforcement organs without fear of reprisal. Needless to say, it is not terribly surprising that the apparatchiks of the Polish Communist Party and your Byzantine neighbors to the geographic EAST were still considered as untouchable sacred cows. Yes comrade, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS in every sense of the word! As with anything else in life, you WIN SOME and you LOSE SOME! Well, that's my latest two cents or kopecks worth on this continuing exercise into the junk heap of history - for now anyway. As always, I would like to bid you an especially copacetic day over in your corner of the ever enduing land of Poland.

Best Regards,
Uncle Bob

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Guys,

In about 1995 I met an old man in Romania named Nicolae Koslinski. His family was of Polish origin, but both his father and grandfather had been commanders of the Royal Romanian Navy. Koslinski himself was a junior naval officer in WWII and witnessed the sinking of the Soviet destroyer Moskva off Sevastopol in late June 1941 from the masthead of a Romanian "M" Class destroyer.

After WWII his privileged family history got him dismissed from the navy and he had to spend the entire Communist era as a school janitor!

Happily, after the fall of Ceausescu he got together with a naval contemporary of his, Raymond Stanescu, and wrote the history of the Royal Romanian Navy in WWII. If you are aiming for a complete library on the Eastern Front, its two volumes are a must.

See: https://www.bibliomania.ws/shop/bibliomania/78485.html

Cheers,

Sid.

[wm]

I suppose off Sevastopol could mean off Constanța.

People like Koslinski weren't bothered in Poland, they were able to serve and be promoted as the others.
Actually, even Jaruzelski came from quite ancient (14th century) noble family. But that right-wing group was impeccably anti-Soviet and that was a problem.
It was Polish leaders, generals, officers serving in the West, people who refused to return to communist Poland, who had to work as janitor, ushers, bartenders.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi wm,

Yup, you are right - off Constanta. The raid the Moskva was part of was launched from Sevastopol.

I find it difficult to believe that any surviving pre-war Polish officers and wartime Home Army leaders weren't professionally discriminated against in Communist Poland after WWII. I say "surviving" because the Katyn and related massacres by the Soviet Union killed many of them.

Some of the more privileged Poles in the west certainly did not prosper. I know of one Count of very ancient lineage who married a Birmingham second-hand market trader. He is long dead, but she still occasionally uses his title, so I won't name them here.

Cheers,

Sid.

[wm]

There were many pre-war and former Polish Armed Forces officers in the communist army. The Soviets and their supporters used the boiling frog strategy during their conquest of Poland, so the few first post-war years were outwardly quite normal and tolerant.
The boiling frog era ended in 1948 and was replaced by Stalinist purges lasting till Stalin's death, many of the officers were persecuted and some executed at that time. The Home Army, especially the Warsaw Uprising fighters were persecuted since 1945.

In 1956 the Warsaw Uprising ceased to be a tabu and its fighters rehabilitated, the famous movie Kanał (Sewer) was made, similarly, the Home Army was rehabilitated too. Many persecuted officers were reinstated. But still, its members were considered unreliable and sometimes encountered problems in their lives because of that. That basically ended about 1970.

A don't think any of the pre-war officers had to work as a janitor, at least post-1956, they mostly were employed as bureaucrats or better.

[wm]

On the other hand, maybe your Ministry of State Security was far too preoccupied monitoring the clandestine activities of its "fraternal intelligence services" from neighboring East Germany, Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union than to be bothered with the political reliability of your nation's average JOE and JANE Kowalski.

I suppose they monitored lots of things but the communists faced mostly economic and political problems. The ministry wouldn't be especially useful in solving them, and wouldn't be able to protect the communists from angry workers.
So they had to be careful not to rock the boat too much - the "boat" faced lots of economic problems, and the "crew" frequently was on edge because of that.

As to "untouchable sacred cows", people in the Eastern Bloc were just as free as Americans to criticize Nixon so it wasn't that bad.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi wm,

From where did they get these "many pre-war and former Polish Armed Forces officers in the communist army" after WWII?

The Polish officer corps suffered significant casualties in 1939. Most of it was captured by the Germans or Soviet Union. In the latter case tens of thousands were killed at Katyn and in related massacres. Most of those who escaped to the west in in 1939, or the survivors allowed out as part of the Anders Army by the USSR in 1941-42 never returned to Poland post-war. Those who joined the Home Army were also not welcomed by the Communists.

So, whilst it is entirely possible that some pre-war Polish officers entered the Communist army after WWII, I would very much question whether they amounted to "many".

Cheers,

Sid.

[wm]

There were 18,000 pre-war Polish officers in (about 130) German oflags at the end of the war. Some survived in the USSR. Many returned to Poland after the Polish Armed Forces in the West had been disbanded (about 40 percent).

The communists didn't really have a choice, the Nazis and the Soviets killed off Polish elites. Officers could be trained but time and educated people were needed. In 1945 Poland educated people were as rare as hen's teeth (some say 1 in 100 or worse).