AHC: Polish Revanchism after 1989

Polish Eagle

How can the 1990s/early-2000s produce a Poland that seriously pushes for the restoration of its 1939 eastern border? Perhaps even to the point of occupying the majority-Polish parts of Belarus or Lithuania? Or even Zaolzie?

Is there any window-of-opportunity (or, to paraphrase Pilsudski, "door" of opportunity) in the 1990s where Poland can push for this and get the international community's blessing?

EDIT: Bonus points if this combines with other former-Warsaw-Pact revanchism, like Romanian claims to Bessarabia, or Hungarian demands to revise Trianon, to produce a new "war of the pygmies."
 

BBadolato

Why would they? Pardon my ignorance, but after WW2 weren't the Polish basically basically given lands that they had lost or in some cases held for a tentative amount of time under the Piast dynasty such as Silesia which had broken away and then fragmented and a large chunk of Pomerania that was a part of the HRE and eventually Germany?
 

miketr

BBadolato said:
Why would they? Pardon my ignorance, but after WW2 weren't the Polish basically basically given lands that they had lost or in some cases held for a tentative amount of time under the Piast dynasty such as Silesia which had broken away and then fragmented and a large chunk of Pomerania that was a part of the HRE and eventually Germany?
Click to expand...

Post is about Eastern territories not more western territories.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curzon_Line

Michael
 

Zaius

Despite the deportations there remains a significant Polish minority (and in some areas even a majority) near Vilnius and the Lithuanian-Belorussian border. In OTL there were even talks of granting the region autonomy or even making it an "East Polish SSR" in about 1990 in order to appease the local Poles and punish Lithuania for seceding. If the Soviets collapse more slowly such an entity might be formed. If things go well the region jons Poland and autonomy is granted to the Lithuanian minority, or the area rejoins Lithuania as an autonomous region. The dystopian option for a "Zhirinovsky's Russian Empire" type timeline would be for it to turn into another Transinistria.
 

seraphim74

Borderline ASB. It would require a very quick rise of nationalism among Poles and some royal mess in former USSR. Lithuania is one thing, but Belarus and Ukraine would be much more serious adversary, not to mention permanent threat of Russian intervention - military or economic (like stopping oil and gas supply). So you need something to weaken all of those countries to the point of exhaustion.
In early 1990s Poland was also econolically too weak to fight any larger war, which would not be so popular among Poles anyway. Not to mention that Polish revanchism would awake the German one - if we're going back to 1939 borders, then...
And you need something to make public opinion in support of the Poles. Again, Poland on her own is too weak.
The only scenario I can imagine is full-scale, no-holds-barred civil war in former USSR - so devastating and terrible, that people in former eastern Poland are truely grateful when Polish Army enters "to protect Polish minority and whole civilian population" and later actually voluntarily vote for joining Poland.
 
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