Why does Cold War media always leave out Poland?

[PolishMagnet]

I find that media, whether it is Alt History, history, or any other form, always hyperfixates on the fall of the Berlin Wall as the end of the communism in Eastern Europe and the end of the Cold War. Why?

Poland, starting in 1976, went through a wave of unrest. Strikes and anti-government action led to martial law under Jaruzelski from 1981 to 1983, and finally the round table talks and the first democratic elections in 1989. This was before the fall of the GDR and Berlin Wall.

And yet for all this hard work, East Germany gets all the focus. Poland is relegated to a footnote.

I recently saw this which made me think about it. Their PoD is a visit by Gorbachov to East Germany in 1989...but by then the democratic elections had already been scheduled in Poland, and everyone kind of knew communism was ending soon. My father, who served in the army around this time, says the same thing.

Why is Poland always forgotten in this context?

 

[Hippomotapus]

Fall of the Berlin Wall is more flashy
Plus Germany is "Western"

 

[Monk78]

I find that media, whether it is Alt History, history, or any other form, always hyperfixates on the fall of the Berlin Wall as the end of the communism in Eastern Europe and the end of the Cold War. Why?

Poland, starting in 1976, went through a wave of unrest. Strikes and anti-government action led to martial law under Jaruzelski from 1981 to 1983, and finally the round table talks and the first democratic elections in 1989. This was before the fall of the GDR and Berlin Wall.

And yet for all this hard work, East Germany gets all the focus. Poland is relegated to a footnote.

I recently saw this which made me think about it. Their PoD is a visit by Gorbachov to East Germany in 1989...but by then the democratic elections had already been scheduled in Poland, and everyone kind of knew communism was ending soon. My father, who served in the army around this time, says the same thing.

Why is Poland always forgotten in this context?

I posted something about that in my Cold War mini scenarios thread
Basically what if WP had to intervene to stamp out solidarity how would it turn out ?
But sorry you cannot compare it in significance with unification of Germany or fall of Berlin Wall as much as I love my polish brethren.

 

[PolishMagnet]

Fall of the Berlin Wall is more flashy
Plus Germany is "Western"

😢

I posted something about that in my Cold War mini scenarios thread
Basically what if WP had to intervene to stamp out solidarity how would it turn out ?
But sorry you cannot compare it in significance with unification of Germany or fall of Berlin Wall as much as I love my polish brethren.

Jaruzelski implemented martial law specifically because he feared Soviet intervention. Though I doubt the Soviets could pull such an invasion given the political climate of the late 80s.

In any case, I'm not saying Solidarity was more significant than German unification, I'm saying Poland was the end of the cold war.

 

[scourge]

There's an AH show on Netflix called 1983 about Poland

 

[Polish Eagle]

Reagan gave a cool speech at the Berlin wall, so it's poetic.

There is also a tendency, among certain people, to describe the fall of the Warsaw Pact and Soviet Union as entirely down to Soviet, and to a lesser extent, American decisions. The idea that the people of eastern Europe, or even Europe in general, have their own agency to effect change in their countries is something that a lot of people have a hard time grasping--which you can still see in modern discourse about "NATO expansion" and regarding Ukraine. Similarly, when discussing the historical legacy of, for example, Ronald Reagan himself, his conservative supporters credit him with out-spending the USSR and bankrupting them in an arms race, while his liberal detractors insist he had nothing to do with it and it was all Gorbachev's reforms--but curiously, neither side will emphasize Solidarity in Poland, or the civil disobedience of Lithuanians, Latvians, and Estonians--much less give any recognition to the Ukrainian SSR. The common "great power" narrative of the Cold War, like most "great power" narratives, doesn't give room for any of the oppressed peoples to do anything about their own oppression--it's either valiant knight Ronald Reagan slaying the bear, or the great statesman Gorbachev magnanimously granting a freedom that was never his to give.

For what it's worth, note that those discussions to which you refer don't generally do much to acknowledge the East Germans as actors in their own destiny either.

I recommend moving this thread to PolChat, since it's more about historiography than alternate history.

 

[Snaut]

Countries which keep a low profile get less attention. Before 1989 keeping a low profile was pretty much mandatory. The keyword here is the Breznhev Doctrine which may have been articulated under Brezhnev but it's not like Khrushchev or Stalin had much patience for any kind of disobedience among the USSR's puppets either. The occasions when conflict did occur were farther obscured to the west because they happened across the iron curtain. And it is the winners who write history.

After 1989 Poland continued to keep a low profile until quite recently. This was partly because the communist impoverishment combined with shock therapy economics meant starting from a very low point economically and therefore little agency. And partly because of the popularity of the concept of a neoliberal end of history according to which it was enough to obediently sign up to NATO and the EU, and do whatever western countries asked, and the result would be automatic utopia. This idea remains attractive in some circles even though history has been going very off-script since like 2008 or so which was quite a while ago now ... by the way, is 15 years ago still current politics?

As a result, the idea of Poland as an assertive and meaningful factor in European politics is something rather recent, and it appears that the world at large considers it an anomaly. Western public opinion seems to still need time to process the new reality properly. But once it sinks in I expect that anyone still interested in the cold war will be more likely to wonder what exactly was going on in the second-largest Warsaw Pact state, what the USSR had to do to keep it stable, and how serious a loss of control over it was/might have been for the USSR.

 

[mspence]

The Solidarity movement was one of the defining moments of the early 1980s; WI it had been more successful?
The US and the Soviets did use other Eastern European countries as middlemen in diplomatic negotiations.

 

[Albidoom]

Countries which keep a low profile get less attention. Before 1989 keeping a low profile was pretty much mandatory. The keyword here is the Breznhev Doctrine which may have been articulated under Brezhnev but it's not like Khrushchev or Stalin had much patience for any kind of disobedience among the USSR's puppets either. The occasions when conflict did occur were farther obscured to the west because they happened across the iron curtain. And it is the winners who write history.

After 1989 Poland continued to keep a low profile until quite recently. This was partly because the communist impoverishment combined with shock therapy economics meant starting from a very low point economically and therefore little agency. And partly because of the popularity of the concept of a neoliberal end of history according to which it was enough to obediently sign up to NATO and the EU, and do whatever western countries asked, and the result would be automatic utopia. This idea remains attractive in some circles even though history has been going very off-script since like 2008 or so which was quite a while ago now ... by the way, is 15 years ago still current politics?

As a result, the idea of Poland as an assertive and meaningful factor in European politics is something rather recent, and it appears that the world at large considers it an anomaly. Western public opinion seems to still need time to process the new reality properly. But once it sinks in I expect that anyone still interested in the cold war will be more likely to wonder what exactly was going on in the second-largest Warsaw Pact state, what the USSR had to do to keep it stable, and how serious a loss of control over it was/might have been for the USSR.

One one hand it is indeed odd that the biggest of the soviet puppet nations (~38 million in 1889, more than twice of East Germany) got so little attention but then again they might also have kept their profile low because they were such a large "prize" (apart from the large population they were a much desired buffer state on the Northern European plain) and as such the Polish government had good reasons to fear that the Soviet Union might be compelled to act if something were afoot.

 

[Snaut]

One one hand it is indeed odd that the biggest of the soviet puppet nations (~38 million in 1889, more than twice of East Germany) got so little attention but then again they might also have kept their profile low because they were such a large "prize" (apart from the large population they were a much desired buffer state on the Northern European plain) and as such the Polish government had good reasons to fear that the Soviet Union might be compelled to act if something were afoot.

Exactly. For example the 1981 military coup against the Party has since been excused by the need to forestall a direct Red Army intervention. It has been suggested that the USSR was unwilling to risk a second Afghanistan and might have been willing to tolerate quite a lot of unorthodoxy in Poland at the time (an underrated PoD), but after having made examples of Hungary and Czechoslovakia a Soviet threat of intervention would have been credible.

 

[HelloThere]

One issue with Poland is that it's history since 1945 (with the exception of 1979-1981) has been pretty boring - at first it was a pro-Soviet puppet state which then transformed into a western-style market economy with parliamentary democracy. Only recently has the country experienced deep political struggles which have found their ways into the international media.

Most sources on Poland are either in Polish or pretty outdated. For example you still have TLs on this site who deal with a Soviet invasion of Poland in 1981 - while we now know that such an invasion was a scare build up by Jaruzelski to legitimize his coup. Andropov even said that Poland could go it's own way as long as it didn't jeopardize the Soviet route to the GDR. On the other hand you had crazy political candidates like Stanislaw Tyminski who could've become President in 1990 (a kind of Polish Ross Perot), but you need to dig deep into Polish history to get a good POD.

So, to sum up: It's a lot of work. And most TLs don't want such an amount of work for a country which isn't theirs.

 

[boredviewer1234]

Why is Poland always forgotten in this context?

I've heard a similar question raised by a Russian with a keen interest in Soviet history and he had a theory of why it's ignored.

East Germany was lost as soon as the path to get to it was no longer guaranteed, likewise the Baltics also where going to be far more difficult to hold onto by nature of one of no longer being able to cut them off with Kaliningrad and Poland to corral them in. It's a quite logical approach that the soviet garrisons in East Germany if they tried to resist would be overwhelmed quite fast with the best way to get to East Germany cut off from them as well dealing with a disloyal population as well as possible world reaction.

The reason why he think's it's forgotten is a combination of the need for narrative for both the USSR and West and as inevitability/questions it raises.

The idea of East Germany being where the cold war was lost for the USSR is ''comforting'' for both, it was where the cold war was quite present in the minds of the public, it serves as a good excuse ie nationalism the collapse of the Berlin wall reunited Germany in the minds at least and Gorbachev accepted it gracious enough. Both the West and USSR have reasons to look at it that way.

However if you view Poland as where the USSR was lost then that means for decades of Soviet leaders and administration made the same mistake, that Gorbachev's efforts to keep communism going where doomed and the Soviet army/state/politicians ect all failed to notice something that cut their legs off. All their efforts to keep it going where wasted ect because of their blindness you can imagine why they prefer to not believe Poland was the reason.

Plus the year you've pointed out it began in 1976 a year after Vietnam reunified under a communist government, to accept the Soviet Union and it's clients where turning into ''zombie states'' ie keep together more by inertia for over a decade feels both a very bitter pill to swallow but also all the efforts to try and keep it going where failed. In the west though he thought it was guilt ie they for years ignored resistance and maybe could of helped but did not want to risk the status quo so it's a lot easier to imagine it ending at Berlin when Gorbachev granted permission than maybe some opportunities to help liberate East Europe where missed.

 

[Gillan1220]

There's an AH show on Netflix called 1983 about Poland

I was going to say that. Beat me to it.

In Season 1 of The Americans, Poland was also mentioned on the news background.

 

[PolishMagnet]

There's an AH show on Netflix called 1983 about Poland

I mean...it's also a Polish show...

The idea of East Germany being where the cold war was lost for the USSR is ''comforting'' for both, it was where the cold war was quite present in the minds of the public

That's probably the biggest reason, honestly. Berlin was the prevailing image a lot of people in the West had of the Iron Curtain, and the fall of the Berlin Wall definitely fits the preexisting mental model better.

 

[marathag]

And this Polish guy

 

[MFOM]

Wargame European escalation has a set of scenarios involving a mutiny of the Polish Army and Soviet attempts to put it down.

 

[MFOM]

you have to play the Soviets

 

[TDM]

Berlin is symbolic of the Iron curtain because it's where NATO and the WP most directly and publically* abutted each other, the fact that Germany was physically split is also symbolic, and you have stuff like check point charlie etc.

I agree Poland is often over looked, but if it helps Solidarity and Lech Wałęsa, where certainly well known names in the the UK in the 80's


*yes there were other borders, but they just didn't get the coverage or the concentration

 

[Alexniko]

I find that media, whether it is Alt History, history, or any other form, always hyperfixates on the fall of the Berlin Wall as the end of the communism in Eastern Europe and the end of the Cold War. Why?

Poland, starting in 1976, went through a wave of unrest. Strikes and anti-government action led to martial law under Jaruzelski from 1981 to 1983, and finally the round table talks and the first democratic elections in 1989. This was before the fall of the GDR and Berlin Wall.

And yet for all this hard work, East Germany gets all the focus. Poland is relegated to a footnote.

I recently saw this which made me think about it. Their PoD is a visit by Gorbachov to East Germany in 1989...but by then the democratic elections had already been scheduled in Poland, and everyone kind of knew communism was ending soon. My father, who served in the army around this time, says the same thing.

Why is Poland always forgotten in this context?

I (as a German) have never seen it that way.

To me the rise of Solidarność, the implementation of martial law, and the elections of June 1989 (in short, the fall of socialism in Poland) have allways appeared to be a watershed that heavily contributed to the overall fall of socialism in Eastern Europe.

Of course the developments in Poland (and Hungary for that matter) were not the cause but rather an early symptom of the socialist camp's demise. One could argue that they played an important role in Gorbachev's election to the post of General Secretary of the CPSU. However, if we look at the concrete situation on the ground and how things played out, I would boldly claim that the Berlin Wall would not have been opened in November of 1989 had Poland and Hungary been stable. Of course Perestroika and Glasnost had allready been corroding socialism in the whole CMEA for years, however without Solidarność the fall of socialism might well have taken longer – Gorbachev might also have been overthrown and Europe might still be divided at the Elbe.

 

[brunohusker]

I wouldn’t say they are left out, but they aren’t as well known as Germany. Even then though, Solidarity was heard of in the US, and you had a Polish pope against communism who was a figurehead for them.