alt Hacker News> when Poland attacked the Soviet Union in the 1920s
Eh, it was more complicated than that. Basically a gradual build up from 1918 advancement of Polish forces from west and Soviet from east into the territories abandoned by German armies, then "border incidents" then regular army clashes, and eventually a full blown offensive by Poland and counteroffensive by Soviets.
I guess you can interpret it as Poland invading soviet russia (no soviet union yet btw, and Poland was supporting one of the 3 Ukrainian states that existed at the time).
But yeah Poland wasn't innocent anyway. For example it did the Putin's Crimean trick on Lithuania back in interwar. That was much more clear-cut.
> In any case, Eastern Europe is deeply plagued and poisoned by all of this past violence. No one is able to have a mea culpa moment, no one is able to admit their own guys were bloody murders often killing thousands of people like cattle. No one can admit their ancestors crap.
That's just false.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giedroyc_Doctrine
Poland did mea culpa after WW2. The whole thing is based on recognizing that Poland has been imperialist and did bad things and that it's in the end bad for Poland to continue trying to control these territories because it pushes us into conflict against Russia without the support of the other countries.
On the other hand admiting guilt and renouncing imperialism makes us clearly the lesser evil for the countries in between and gives us buffer zone in case Russia turns evil again (which we predicted, and which did happened).
It was the basis for Polish eastern foreign policy for last 37 years and still is (it's another question for how long it stays that way if far-right wins the next elections tho).
I highly recommend anybody interested in Eastern Europe after WW2 to read Giedroyc and Mieroszewski. They were visionaires. They predicted back in 1950s that USSR will fall and that the independent nationstates that will appear will have 2 choices - go back to chaotic ethnic wars or drop the territorial and historical disputes. And they developed the doctrine in 70s and slowly persuaded opposition in communist Poland so when Poland regained independence in 1989 - almost all the elites bought into it. It was a big bet and it worked very well for Poland.
Sadly nowadays half of Polish political scene starts to move away from that, but that's another subject. Mostly just unchecked far-right propaganda.
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That doctrine is far more of a partially implemented wishful thinking than anything the polish society or foreign policy really pursued.
As a society we're nowhere near the Germans when it comes to amending our mistakes.
Most poles will blame Ukrainians for their WW2 acts, but barely recognize our own fails between ww1 and ww2.
In the case of Poland, though, the post-war situation had more to do with Stalin wanting to punish Poland for interfering in Ukraine, as well as put more distance between the core of the Soviet Union and Germany, by seizing Polish territory in the east to give to the Ukrainian SSR, but in exchange and to weaken Germany, most of Prussia in Germany was seized and given to Poland, with the attending population transfers. In any case, with the Warsaw Pact, any revanchist sentiments that may have remained in Poland weren't going to get off the ground.