No world war 2 could Poland absorb the eastern slavs

Say no world war 2

How successfully could Poland assimilate the eastern Slavs

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The Eastern Slavs have made it this long under the rule of other nations, Poland will just be another chapter in the book until self determination kicks off.
 
Give Poland thirty years of economic boom which will bring - eventually - minorities to the cities, uprooting them from traditional communities, combined with buying out Ukrainian- and Belarusian-held lands and giving them to Polish landowners. Creating new industrial areas in the region would be imo especially useful in that regard.
 
belarussian areas i can see being highly polonised by the 21st century because their form of nationalism seems much less strong and any remnant eastern belarus will most probably remain part of russia.

ukraine will be most resistant but urban centres were polish anyway making it easier.

The worst i can see is some sort of "the troubles" analogue with a soviet backed insurgency of ukrainians, but no polish government will be willing to give away any of krecy and the rebels will probably lose much support in the 1990s when ukraine becomes independant and impoverished.

jewish populations (especially rural) will also likely side with polish majority over the eastern slavic minorities and were a highly important part of buisness, (eg: majority of Wilno buisnesses were jewish owned) and they will probably add a further pressure on eastern slavs to assimilate.
 
jewish populations (especially rural) will also likely side with polish majority over the eastern slavic minorities and were a highly important part of buisness, (eg: majority of Wilno buisnesses were jewish owned) and they will probably add a further pressure on eastern slavs to assimilate.
Given the Jews were heavily ostracized in interwar Poland and largely Yiddish speaking, wouldn't they be more likely remain aloof of the whole thing or side with the eastern Slavs .
 
Given the Jews were heavily ostracized in interwar Poland and largely Yiddish speaking, wouldn't they be more likely remain aloof of the whole thing or side with the eastern Slavs .

Depends on the precise Jews. Some Jews were assimilationists, others were Zionists, others were Communists (and thus sympathetic to Moscow), and still others (the most orthodox) just wanted to keep their heads down.

Depending on how exactly Poland develops, I think Zionism and emigration will eventually become the most popular positions among Yiddishist Jews while those who support assimilation will simply teach their children Polish and become Jewish Poles. Whether that would satisfy the National Democrats and their ilk...

I wonder if Poland can’t try some kind of resettlement scheme, forcibly transporting Ukrainians to western Poland. IOTL, the Communists did that, and it seemed to be effective at pacifying the southeastern part of the country (in the ‘make a desert’ sense).
 

BigBlueBox

Banned
belarussian areas i can see being highly polonised by the 21st century because their form of nationalism seems much less strong and any remnant eastern belarus will most probably remain part of russia.

ukraine will be most resistant but urban centres were polish anyway making it easier.

The worst i can see is some sort of "the troubles" analogue with a soviet backed insurgency of ukrainians, but no polish government will be willing to give away any of krecy and the rebels will probably lose much support in the 1990s when ukraine becomes independant and impoverished.
I think a UPA insurgency with no connection to Moscow is more likely. Without World War 2, news about the famine in the Ukrainian SSR is going to be pretty widespread. That will likely turn the Ukrainians in Poland against the Soviet Union.
 
Lvov and Vilnius being Polish is correct
The cities themselves sure, the entire districts around them being Polish is a fantasy. It's like someone took the census from the urban areas and arbitrarily applied it to all the voivodeships they were in. The idea that there was some contiguous polish corridor all the way to Kaunaus (or hell even to the outskirts of Minsk) is ridiculous.
 
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The cities themselves sure, the entire districts around them being Polish is a fantasy. It's like someone took the census from the urban areas and arbitrarily applied it to all the voivodeships they were in. The idea that there was some contiguous polish corridor all the way to Kaunaus (or hell even to the outskirts of Minsk) is ridiculous.

Believe it or not, the 1897 Russian census actually showed (by language) Lithuanians behind Jews, Russians, and Poles in the city of Kaunas:

  1. Jews 25,052 – 35%
  2. Russians 18,308 – 26%
  3. Poles 16,112 – 23%
  4. Lithuanians 4,092 – 6%
  5. Germans 3,340 – 4.5%
  6. Tatar 1,084 – 1.5%
  7. Other 2932 – 4%
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaunas#Demographics

Needless to say, the 1923 Lithuanian census presented a very different story:

  • Jews – 27,09 % (25 044);
  • Poles – 4,54 % (4 193);
  • Other – 2,39 % (2 212).
The differences were due in part to the fact that in eastern Europe, censuses tend to favor whatever nation is taking them. But they were also based on real changes in Kaunas' demographics: as more rural people moved to Lithuania's cities, the cities became more Lithuanian. (And of course some Lithuanians who had been Polonized or Russified found it helpful to reclassify themselves as Lithuanians once Lithuania won independence.) The same phenomenon happened in Ukraine: Kiev was a far more "Ukrainian" city in the 1920's than it had been in 1897, due to industrialization leading to an influx of Ukrainian-speaking peasants (though also due of course to the Bolsheviks' deliberate "Ukrainization" policy in the 1920's).
 
Believe it or not, the 1897 Russian census actually showed (by language) Lithuanians behind Jews, Russians, and Poles in the city of Kaunas:

  1. Jews 25,052 – 35%
  2. Russians 18,308 – 26%
  3. Poles 16,112 – 23%
  4. Lithuanians 4,092 – 6%
  5. Germans 3,340 – 4.5%
  6. Tatar 1,084 – 1.5%
  7. Other 2932 – 4%
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaunas#Demographics

Needless to say, the 1923 Lithuanian census presented a very different story:

  • Jews – 27,09 % (25 044);
  • Poles – 4,54 % (4 193);
  • Other – 2,39 % (2 212).
The differences were due in part to the fact that in eastern Europe, censuses tend to favor whatever nation is taking them. But they were also based on real changes in Kaunas' demographics: as more rural people moved to Lithuania's cities, the cities became more Lithuanian. (And of course some Lithuanians who had been Polonized or Russified found it helpful to reclassify themselves as Lithuanians once Lithuania won independence.) The same phenomenon happened in Ukraine: Kiev was a far more "Ukrainian" city in the 1920's than it had been in 1897, due to industrialization leading to an influx of Ukrainian-speaking peasants (though also due of course to the Bolsheviks' deliberate "Ukrainization" policy in the 1920's).
Applying 1897 or even 1923 census data to a 1931 map is, at the very least, very disingenuous, but at least you understand where the change is coming from. From 1923 to 1939, well over 50 thousand people moved to Kaunas from the Lithuanian countryside and the city's population nearly doubled.

Though, there's also one more important thing to note which explains why the city's demographics changed like that - simply enough, Poles and Russians repatriated to their homelands. In 1897, Lithuania was a part of the Russian Empire, while in 1923, it was already an independent state - most Russians living here moved back to Russia, while Poles, many of whom were aristocrats, fled from the anti-Polish attitude and because their manors were seized due to land reform.
 
Applying 1897 or even 1923 census data to a 1931 map is, at the very least, very disingenuous, but at least you understand where the change is coming from. From 1923 to 1939, well over 50 thousand people moved to Kaunas from the Lithuanian countryside and the city's population nearly doubled.

Though, there's also one more important thing to note which explains why the city's demographics changed like that - simply enough, Poles and Russians repatriated to their homelands. In 1897, Lithuania was a part of the Russian Empire, while in 1923, it was already an independent state - most Russians living here moved back to Russia, while Poles, many of whom were aristocrats, fled from the anti-Polish attitude and because their manors were seized due to land reform.
Didn't the Poles also have a bad tendency during this period to chock up Catholic Belarusian and Ukrainian populations as Polish? Or am I thinking of something else
 
I think a UPA insurgency with no connection to Moscow is more likely. Without World War 2, news about the famine in the Ukrainian SSR is going to be pretty widespread. That will likely turn the Ukrainians in Poland against the Soviet Union.


The problem is just how the ukrainian minority is meant to start a guerilla war without foreign shelter and supplies, they tried in 1930 but were crushed and the OUN were not able to form a real threat to polish authority.
 

Cook

Banned
Speaking polish as primary language, identifying as polish and with the polish state

I think the potential of people changing to Polish would be extremely low, and any clumsy attempts to force them would backfire. However, the potential for Ukranians to 'identify' with the Polish state would have continued to be high.
 
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