LWDT IX: Discussing the Left From All Engels

[Salus Maior]

It's hard to be collaborationist with people who want to exterminate you.

It's kind of like saying that Jews were collaborators.

saying that jews were nazi collaborators would be a big brained take.

About as big-brained as saying Poles were collaborators.

[Fahran]

saying that jews were nazi collaborators would be a big brained take.

About as big-brained as saying Poles were collaborators.

Some Poles were collaborators no doubt. I'm skeptical of anyone saying that the Poles on the whole or legitimate Polish institutions collaborated in any meaningful with the Nazi Regime given that the Polish Resistance was pretty robust and participated in a number of bloody uprisings, which the Soviets allowed to be crushed, as well as other means of thwarting the occupiers. Really, it sounds like a tankie justification for the bloody and violent aftermath of World War II where the USSR occupied Poland for half a century.

[Shanghai industrial complex]

About as big-brained as saying Poles were collaborators.

Some Poles were collaborators no doubt. I'm skeptical of anyone saying that the Poles on the whole or legitimate Polish institutions collaborated in any meaningful with the Nazi Regime given that the Polish Resistance was pretty robust and participated in a number of bloody uprisings, which the Soviets allowed to be crushed, as well as other means of thwarting the occupiers. Really, it sounds like a tankie justification for the bloody and violent aftermath of World War II where the USSR occupied Poland for half a century.

Poland was not a country until 1918. It has been divided by Prussia, Austria and Russia for more than 100 years. There are also many Germanic, Ukrainian and Belarusian people in the population.It would be understandable if there were poles who were not loyal to Poland and chose to cooperate with the aggressors.Because its history is too short and its cohesion is very low. If you look at the map, most of Poland's territory before World War II was the important area of Germany and Russia.

[The East Marches II]

It is very low effort for regimes to permit free speech when the ideological system underpinning them is stable and relatively uncontested. It is not surprising that liberal capitalism is taking this authoritarian turn as more and more people become dissatisfied with the system. The inability of a system to allow defection from its values is a symptom of a system in crisis, that is not able to (re)produce a populace with the shared principles and identity that normally make defection a rare choice. Extremists need to be silenced because they are saying things that speak to people's dissatisfaction and the system is not willing or able to suitably redress those dissatisfactions.

Of course not, just look at our fine poster above. He still lectures us but throw reality at him and watch him flee. They know deep down it's an indefensible position or it would cause too much psychological pain to acknowledge. One can see the pattern writ large with various posters who fled in the aftermath of 2016. Or as I prefer, as shown by the need for Twitter to prevent comments. That's how you know they are worried. They turned the vast majority of the internet into a wall garden overnight. They are very strong indeed.

[Auze]

Some Poles were collaborators no doubt. I'm skeptical of anyone saying that the Poles on the whole or legitimate Polish institutions collaborated in any meaningful with the Nazi Regime given that the Polish Resistance was pretty robust and participated in a number of bloody uprisings, which the Soviets allowed to be crushed, as well as other means of thwarting the occupiers. Really, it sounds like a tankie justification for the bloody and violent aftermath of World War II where the USSR occupied Poland for half a century.

Poland was not a country until 1918. It has been divided by Prussia, Austria and Russia for more than 100 years.

And it was a country for 700 years before that (and even had similar borders).

[Salus Maior]

Some Poles were collaborators no doubt. I'm skeptical of anyone saying that the Poles on the whole or legitimate Polish institutions collaborated in any meaningful with the Nazi Regime given that the Polish Resistance was pretty robust and participated in a number of bloody uprisings, which the Soviets allowed to be crushed, as well as other means of thwarting the occupiers. Really, it sounds like a tankie justification for the bloody and violent aftermath of World War II where the USSR occupied Poland for half a century.

Poland was not a country until 1918. It has been divided by Prussia, Austria and Russia for more than 100 years. There are also many Germanic, Ukrainian and Belarusian people in the population.It would be understandable if there were poles who were not loyal to Poland and chose to cooperate with the aggressors.Because its history is too short and its cohesion is very low. If you look at the map, most of Poland's territory before World War II was the important area of Germany and Russia.

If they're Germans, Ukies, and Belarussians then they wouldn't be Polish. They would be German, Ukie, and Belarussian collaborators.

[Washington Resistance Army]

About as big-brained as saying Poles were collaborators.

Some Poles were collaborators no doubt. I'm skeptical of anyone saying that the Poles on the whole or legitimate Polish institutions collaborated in any meaningful with the Nazi Regime given that the Polish Resistance was pretty robust and participated in a number of bloody uprisings, which the Soviets allowed to be crushed, as well as other means of thwarting the occupiers. Really, it sounds like a tankie justification for the bloody and violent aftermath of World War II where the USSR occupied Poland for half a century.

iirc there's a Polish historian who estimated about 5% of the population living in the General Government collab'd with the Germans. Poland really wasn't much different from other nations in eastern Europe honestly in that regard.

[Shanghai industrial complex]

Poland was not a country until 1918. It has been divided by Prussia, Austria and Russia for more than 100 years.

And it was a country for 700 years before that (and even had similar borders).

Before that, there was no nation-state in Europe.There is no national cohesion at all.In 1918, many people in West Prussia, Posen Province, part of East Prussia and part of Upper Silesia had been germanized and no longer spoke polish

[Novus America]

And it was a country for 700 years before that (and even had similar borders).

Before that, there was no nation-state in Europe.There is no national cohesion at all.In 1918, many people in West Prussia, Posen Province, part of East Prussia and part of Upper Silesia had been germanized and no longer spoke polish

Although the modern enlightenment concept was not fully developed the beginnings of national identity goes back to the 1600s or before. Sure Poland in 1939 had various ethnic minorities, but 69% were ethnic Poles.
But yes several of the members of the ethnic minorities did collaborate with the Nazis.

[Jack Thomas Lang]

I don't really see the controversy in saying Poles collaborated with the Nazis. So did Russians and other Slavs/Balts/etc. slated for extermination.

It's just a sad fact of WW2 that there were traitors. That being said, can't help but feel a little bit pity for Vlasov.

[Novus America]

I don't really see the controversy in saying Poles collaborated with the Nazis. So did Russians and other Slavs/Balts/etc. slated for extermination.

It's just a sad fact of the WW2 that there were traitors. That being said, can't help but feel a little bit pity for Vlasov.

Because the issue is false equivalency. Some Poles did, but relatively few compared to most other places. And it is still completely wrong to portray the death camps as Polish.

[Salus Maior]

I don't really see the controversy in saying Poles collaborated with the Nazis. So did Russians and other Slavs/Balts/etc. slated for extermination.

It's just a sad fact of WW2 that there were traitors. That being said, can't help but feel a little bit pity for Vlasov.

Poles today might find that a sensitive subject; considering they were targets of extermination by the Nazis it would likely disgust them for it to be implied that they worked with them.

[Jack Thomas Lang]

Because the issue is false equivalency. Some Poles did, but relatively few compared to most other places. And it is still completely wrong to portray the death camps as Polish.

I don't think anyone does? Usually when people say "Polish concentration camps" they're referring to the geographical area. Such a mixup inevitable when the nation and nationality are the same tbh.

[Salus Maior]

Because the issue is false equivalency. Some Poles did, but relatively few compared to most other places. And it is still completely wrong to portray the death camps as Polish.

I don't think anyone does? Usually when people say "Polish concentration camps" they're referring to the geographical area. It's inevitable when the nation and nationality are the same.

They're German extermination camps. Easy to say. They built them in a country they raped. There's nothing Polish about them.

[Novus America]

Because the issue is false equivalency. Some Poles did, but relatively few compared to most other places. And it is still completely wrong to portray the death camps as Polish.

I don't think anyone does? Usually when people say "Polish concentration camps" they're referring to the geographical area. Such a mixup inevitable when the nation and nationality are the same tbh.

But that is why the term should not be used. Because the term is misleading and confusing. They were Nazi death camps and had nothing to do with the Polish beyond the facts that the victims were often Polish.

[Jack Thomas Lang]

But that is why the term should not be used. Because the term is misleading and confusing. They were Nazi death camps and had nothing to do with the Polish beyond the facts that the victims were often Polish.

They're German extermination camps. Easy to say. They built them in a country they raped. There's nothing Polish about them.

Fair enough.

[Fahran]

Poland was not a country until 1918. It has been divided by Prussia, Austria and Russia for more than 100 years.

The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was a major polity in Eastern Europe for centuries prior to the partition, had moments of independence, autonomy, and nationalistic fervor beginning in the nineteenth century, and managed to achieve independence in 1918 in a war that galvanized the Polish population under Pilsudski against the USSR.

There are also many Germanic, Ukrainian and Belarusian people in the population. It would be understandable if there were poles who were not loyal to Poland and chose to cooperate with the aggressors.

We don't really have a lot of evidence suggesting that Polish elites were overly eager to collaborate especially given that the Nazis confiscated a bunch of large estates and handed them out to military officers, that the government fled into exile, and that resistance was ubiquitous and sustained throughout many segments of society. That massacres of social, cultural, and military elites were necessary to establish control over the country should be telling enough.

Because its history is too short and its cohesion is very low. If you look at the map, most of Poland's territory before World War II was the important area of Germany and Russia.

That ignores the broader picture and the fact that Poland fought against both Germany and the USSR without a remarkable degree of ferocity despite being at a disadvantage. They gave Trotsky a bloody nose and forced the Nazis and Soviets to fight for at least two weeks to subdue them.

[Shanghai industrial complex]

Poland was not a country until 1918. It has been divided by Prussia, Austria and Russia for more than 100 years.

The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was a major polity in Eastern Europe for centuries prior to the partition, had moments of independence, autonomy, and nationalistic fervor beginning in the nineteenth century, and managed to achieve independence in 1918 in a war that galvanized the Polish population under Pilsudski against the USSR.

There are also many Germanic, Ukrainian and Belarusian people in the population. It would be understandable if there were poles who were not loyal to Poland and chose to cooperate with the aggressors.

We don't really have a lot of evidence suggesting that Polish elites were overly eager to collaborate especially given that the Nazis confiscated a bunch of large estates and handed them out to military officers, that the government fled into exile, and that resistance was ubiquitous and sustained throughout many segments of society. That massacres of social, cultural, and military elites were necessary to establish control over the country should be telling enough.

Because its history is too short and its cohesion is very low. If you look at the map, most of Poland's territory before World War II was the important area of Germany and Russia.

That ignores the broader picture and the fact that Poland fought against both Germany and the USSR without a remarkable degree of ferocity despite being at a disadvantage. They gave Trotsky a bloody nose and forced the Nazis and Soviets to fight for at least two weeks to subdue them.

I have no intention of denying the courage and determination of the poles to resist. And the Nazis organized the slaughter of Jews, Slavs and Gypsies in Poland.What I want to say is that in the border area of Poland, far away from the core area, poles are not the majority.In Silesia, the local Germans and poles even had armed struggle.In Danzig, the German population is more than 90%.What I want to say is that Poland has little appeal to these areas.
Poland has 1 million troops, but they are all deployed in the border areas and did not complete the mobilization when the war started.They didn't lack courage, but they were hurt by backward tactics and lack of strategic depth. The Nazis suffered only 36000 casualties.Of course, at least they kept fighting for more than a month. Unlike France.

[Mirjt]

Do you think recent events (as horrible as many of them are) will result in a surge of leftism and lead to movements and cultural attitudes that help the left? or do you think that it will end up hurting leftist causes?

[Dumb Ideologies]

Do you think recent events (as horrible as many of them are) will result in a surge of leftism and lead to movements and cultural attitudes that help the left? or do you think that it will end up hurting leftist causes?

There isn't substantial anticapitalist content to the movement, the looting was just looting. Liberals are trying fairly successfully to use it to sanctify milquetoast progressivism and bash police without addressing the local and regional inequalities that make certain black-majority areas hotbeds for poverty and therefore low-level crime. Not to say that the police aren't a problem in America, but the analysis stops before it fundamentally questions the economic system. It seems likely it will help the democrats win the next election, and that there will be some police reforms and other temporary gains because of this, but it looks likely to primarily be of benefit to liberals. They could drain the energy even from a nuclear reactor in meltdown, bless them, this is what they're for.

[Jack Thomas Lang]

Do you think recent events (as horrible as many of them are) will result in a surge of leftism and lead to movements and cultural attitudes that help the left? or do you think that it will end up hurting leftist causes?

God I hope not. Much of the current left consists of preening, prancing youth who larp at revolution. The sort who cry "fuck capitalism!" but the most they'll do is whine at companies to increase diversity so they can consoom their shit with an almost clean conscience. I can't speak for other places, but here in the West we're stuck with online activists and protesters.

Tbh, the West has always been fucked for revolutionaries. You won't find a single Lenin, Mao, Castro, etc. You just get book writers and worker-socialists, the latter are pretty much completely gone now.

[Benuty]

Do you think recent events (as horrible as many of them are) will result in a surge of leftism and lead to movements and cultural attitudes that help the left? or do you think that it will end up hurting leftist causes?

God I hope not. Much of the current left consists of preening, prancing youth who larp at revolution. The sort who cry "fuck capitalism!" but the most they'll do is whine at companies to increase diversity so they can consoom their shit with an almost clean conscience. I can't speak for other places, but here in the West we're stuck with online activists and protesters.

Tbh, the West has always been fucked for revolutionaries. You won't find a single Lenin, Mao, Castro, etc. You just get book writers and worker-socialists, the latter are pretty much completely gone now.

The west has always been fucked primarily because of the role governments have taken in ensuring just that. When Japan was literally about to elect a Maoist fanboy a hardcore nationalist gutted him in the stomach. Here we just covertly assassinate them or enact conspiracies to ensure communist or hardcore socialist victories in elections are dealt with (Operation Gladio) should they occur.

[Benuty]

Some Poles were collaborators no doubt. I'm skeptical of anyone saying that the Poles on the whole or legitimate Polish institutions collaborated in any meaningful with the Nazi Regime given that the Polish Resistance was pretty robust and participated in a number of bloody uprisings, which the Soviets allowed to be crushed, as well as other means of thwarting the occupiers. Really, it sounds like a tankie justification for the bloody and violent aftermath of World War II where the USSR occupied Poland for half a century.

iirc there's a Polish historian who estimated about 5% of the population living in the General Government collab'd with the Germans. Poland really wasn't much different from other nations in eastern Europe honestly in that regard.

The Polish (at least those left within Poland itself) didn't really seem to mind collaboration on the front of antisemitism. A lot of people think that just because the Soviets liberated the camps the killings stopped, but they didn't (at least in Soviet areas). Though the killings lacked the industrial scale the Germans were noted for it was still an effort to wipe a group of people out similar to the pogroms of old.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Jewi ... %80%931946

[Byeclase]

Yes, because this version is "very popular and tolerated", nazis=communists and The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, fascists monuments, groups protected by police and "antifa as terorrists" don't exist at all.

The Soviets were war criminals bud.

They treated the Poles and everyone else they conquered abysmally, exceeded only by the Nazis themselves which is saying something.

He talks 9/10 of the video about nazi crimes and says the Polish government in exile fled to Britain (not only), yet he doesn't address it sufficiently, it's an explanation on the surface; it also admits the Polish underground prosecuted innocents. I don't think the comment doesn't make much sense given how many sides were there, leaving aside that soviets were the ones who liberated Auschwitz. But let's not enter into the whataboutism of the other sides outside Poland like the Munich agreement and the Bengal famine.

In the video it says that soviets killed Polish Jews, names Katyn (as soviet crime) without addressing it, even less the concerns of Furr, and he thinks like most historians that Poland was invaded by the soviets. https://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/res ... oland.html

Then, I just see it as an appeal of authority... I don't accept it.

Historical revisionists such as Nazis and Marxist-Leninists should absolutely be jailed for propagating lies when the Holocaust and Katyn Massacre are objectively proven.

I don't deny it happened, nazis with the Holocaust do. The question is of who committed it. But not all MLs believe that, or even address it. Therefore I don't see how it makes sense to jail all MLs even in the case of Katyn being committed by them, it's not in the theory, on the other side, nazis say something more like "they didn't do it but they should have done it", they'd build the camps anyways, we wouldn't.

The same restrictions should be imposed on communists then as well, considering how messed up their regimes tend to be as well.

Marxist-Leninist speech has no value. I mean they deny Stalin's crimes, stand in solidarity with brutal left-wing regimes, some even support Kim Jong Un, and claim his repressive Nazi-style death camps are nothing more than "propaganda" from the west. Something tells me you won't be consistent on this though.

I'm opposed to Kim Jong Un, China and Cuba revisionist lies; and that can imply distortions of people who died. But I don't think they should be prosecuted like the nazis denying the Holocaust. Why?
Because those people come from a background which aims to push democracy and equality instead of hate, and because the section is inside the oppressed class and not the oppressors, the nazi leaders know (a lie that is repeated a thousand times becomes truth Goebbels said) what they're doing (Anne Frank's diary for example, they say they didn't had ballpens back then, but they had 'feather' pens). Fascist ideologies strengthen the bourgeoisie to the point there's no place for any worker rebellion, socdem or minority groups. Instead, the socdems in the USSR were handled for their own terrorism and not simply "because I don't like the view".
Nazism emerges as boom, as an emergence of the decomposition of the bourgeoisie when they're threatened; unlike all these (marxist) revisionists, and if you considered me (I know you do) I'd be equal to these ideological revisionists in their error of defending Cuba, NK, China, etc.
Yet, there are people who defend Churchill and his Bengal Famine (or ignore it) and I'm not going to treat them like fascists.

Also, you put a big tent on communism as a whole... Cuba, NK, USSR... but trots and leftcoms don't defend their legacy and those alleged crimes, do you consider them communists?

Also open Fascism let alone Nazism is not really a credible threat, the next threat will come under a different name and all. The issue in Hungary to the constitutional order there was not the actual open Fascists but a more mainstream movement and leader, that would not have been banned under such laws.

I think they still adopt it https://www.splcenter.org/hate-map

Again Orban and Hungary and Erdogan in Turkey did not achieve new authoritarian regimes via claiming to be Fascist, and are not in fact Fascist, but rather under new names and symbols and ideological differences with it.

So while we have Anti Fascist tunnel vision trying to ban a small extreme group we will completely miss the actual ideologies and movements that can and might triumph.

There are far-leftists who denounce ISIS and Erdogan as fascists. Orban takes fascist rethoric like Soros conspiracy theories but does farces and poses with Israel.

Being wrong isn’t a crime, nor is denying facts or spreading lies. At least not in much of the West, as far as I’m aware.

What about spreading ideological propaganda for harmful/extremist ideologies?

I consider being a traditionalist Catholic is extremist and harmful.

saying that jews were nazi collaborators would be a big brained take.

Not as a whole, but the Nazi state had Jewish people "mischlings" inside it. It just shows how a bourgeois farce they are again.

Of course not, just look at our fine poster above. He still lectures us but throw reality at him and watch him flee. They know deep down it's an indefensible position or it would cause too much psychological pain to acknowledge. One can see the pattern writ large with various posters who fled in the aftermath of 2016. Or as I prefer, as shown by the need for Twitter to prevent comments. That's how you know they are worried. They turned the vast majority of the internet into a wall garden overnight. They are very strong indeed.

I don't know if you're referring to Shangai or me.
Duvniask already pointed out an error of Bill Bland, in which he conflated as a general term the people in prison with different statuses of criminalization. I think this is the way of addressing it, now if I kept saying it's false without sources there'd be a problem and I'd turn to be like a nazi Holocaust revisionist. The Holocaust is vastly documented and the concerns of the historical revisionists are addressed, yet they keep doing it. I can't say the same for all of Grover Furr, there are denounces in how he thought Stalin was going to dissolve the state as speculation which aren't in line with his texts but that's a part. And if he's wrong it's ok to address it.

By the way I'm going out soon for other reasons, after explanations and sources there's a limit in which there's no room for reason because the class is at odds and the other side doesn't either want to see it, address it or doesn't mind lying and it's just a waste of time at that point.

Do you think recent events (as horrible as many of them are) will result in a surge of leftism and lead to movements and cultural attitudes that help the left? or do you think that it will end up hurting leftist causes?

God I hope not. Much of the current left consists of preening, prancing youth who larp at revolution. The sort who cry "fuck capitalism!" but the most they'll do is whine at companies to increase diversity so they can consoom their shit with an almost clean conscience. I can't speak for other places, but here in the West we're stuck with online activists and protesters.

Tbh, the West has always been fucked for revolutionaries. You won't find a single Lenin, Mao, Castro, etc. You just get book writers and worker-socialists, the latter are pretty much completely gone now.

Yes, these are reasons to leave. To read more and to act. I like your post.

[Fahran]

Do you think recent events (as horrible as many of them are) will result in a surge of leftism and lead to movements and cultural attitudes that help the left? or do you think that it will end up hurting leftist causes?

In the short-term, I believe this will energize leftists who will then be herded into the DNC. They'll then propose such absurd ideas that they're once more relegated to the obscure corners of the political spectrum beyond the Overton Window where they rightly belong and have rightly belonged since the 1970s.