The war in Europe!
Will the Russian war result in new genocides?
by Zbigniew Wojcik, Ph.D.
Secrets of the wars in Central Europe.
The political map of the world has changed drastically by the collapse of the Soviet Bloc. Today people know a lot about the battles during WWI that took place in Western Europe. Much less visible are the war struggles that took place in Central Europe, specifically on the territory of Poland. See e.g. A. Chwalba „The People of Poland War 1914-1918” [1]. Historians, intelligence officers, and politicians did not pay attention to these areas of human habitats, which was a terrible mistake that had led to a much more terrible WWII. An example is a bad decision made by the Prime Minister of the UK, N. Chamberlain, to let Hitler expand into the center of Europe, Sudetenland, and then soon after, encouraged Hitler and Stalin to attack and take over Poland. Thus, the terrible WWII erupted.
Why has all this happened? What can be done to stop massive human suffering starting in Europe and then spreading throughout the world? What are the roots of the geopolitical map leading to the world wars? Can the roots that grow world wars be cut off once and for all to stop the evil growths? Was anything done already? Could WWIII erupt, and if so, how the nuclear Armageddon of the world could be prevented?
Germany always needs more territory and could go only east, while Russia or the Soviet Union desired new technologies for what they had to go West. These two very big powers of the XX century created the crumple zone between them on the territory of Poland. The population living in the crumple zone repeatedly suffered more than people in any other part of the world in the XX century because of numerous wars, such as WWI, WWII, and the Cold War. The military fronts were coming forth and back there multiple times through each inch of the Polish soil. Historically, these two European imperia were making “friends” with each other to easily win a war against Poland, but then each of the two needed much more and were going into a terrible war against each other, which was expanding into world wars. Only a much greater power, the United States of America, that could control this crumple zone, is capable to separate Germany from Russia and prevent the next world war. This idea is expanded in detail by Wojcik [4].
History repeats itself, including the history of evil struggles. The right approach to prevent mass human suffering in the West is to popularize the history of the key territories of Poland where the war atrocities were most intensive and massive. Poland historically happened to be the most influential on the peace in the world. WWII would not start so easily had Chamberlain been willing to take into consideration facts of the WWI struggles on the Polish territories.
Preventing unexpected bloodsheds and war atrocities
During peace, people are unaware of the atrocities of military struggles. A war brings unexpected bloodshed. An example is a political situation in L’viv close to the end of WWI when the Austrian army was very weak and could not control the city[2]. Ukrainians took the city swiftly by a military and political coup. Then Poles responded by an immediate counter-attack causing Ukrainians to retreat. Jewish minority was also involved in the struggles. The point is, that two subsequent military uprisings could be avoided by proper diplomacy and preventive measures. The war does not facilitate talks for peace. The task to properly evaluate political consequences of forthcoming events should be rather given to intelligence officers who would be capable to relate two or more facts together such as a weakening control by the side losing the war, and the possibility of ethnic uprisings. Then, talks to organize voting could be the right approach, not the military coup or the uprising. The book by Markowski: “Lwow or L’viv: Two Uprisings in 1918” is excellent for education [2].
The evidence with Chamberlain and Hitler shows that the politicians frequently take no responsibility for their lack of ability to learn from historical facts nor for their acts. People are the victims and the only defense of citizens in a democracy is voting. People need honest and not politically biased knowledge, access to full information, and understanding of the consequences if they will not vote for the loyal, smart, honest, and not corrupt politicians. The book by Damian Markowski „Lwów or L’viv. Two Uprisings in 1918” [2], is precious by teaching people that war instead of democratic voting may easily lead to even more than one military uprising, and the way to prevent bloodshed is to vote for the right politicians. People should be much less interested in fake news but instead in good, based on facts, historical information.
The war, like WWII, brings not only genocide of Jewish population. At the beginning of WWII, Germany made the total cleansing of Polish people of any standing: teachers, administrators, business owners, see [4]. The invading German army performed also numerous and massive cleansings of real and potential political opponents. An example is the massive killing of Polish patriots, officers, and administrators on Stalin’s order after invading Poland by the Soviets at the beginning of WWII. About 22,000 Polish officers belonging to the military elite and administrators were shot and buried near Katyn and Mednoje by the Soviet communists (NKWD). Witnesses were not allowed to testify the truth after WWII, see T. Wolsza, „Encounter With Katyn: The Wartime and Postwar Story of Poles Who Saw the Katyn Site in 1943” [3]. People should know the history to appreciate the power of democratic voting.
Coup d’état is always possible, after which, when successful, the country may be in a situation like under foreign occupation. Regular history classes do not teach how to behave to survive occupation despite purges, persecutions, and massacres. Even more, how to effectively fight the occupant without much exposing yourself and relatives to death? An example of reasonable resistance provides a book by Z. Wojcik [4].
The recommended literature both describes war and occupation atrocities for self-education to know about the threats of war, and also, depicts the sad reality of hostile occupation and the efficient fight against it with the aid of intelligent information and intelligence, which is not available from typical history courses. People are mostly involved in regular life, spending most of their time at work, with family and friends, unfortunately forgetting about self-education needed to understand the true history, the threats of war, and reasonable survival of hostile occupation. Enemies are extremely active, operating with enormous budgets, and so these threats are real and very common. Media are mostly fake, filled with propaganda, and do not provide a full and deep insight into political issues.
Underlining the importance of intelligence officers, historians, and journalists.
Can we educate prospective diplomats and intelligence officers to know and understand the history of the most atrocious places in the world and the motivations of leaders behind them? Knowing the book by A. Chwalba „The People of Poland War 1914-1918” [1] will lead to the development of much better strategies of keeping peace in the world. Readers after finishing the book will get the warning to be prepared well for informed voting during democratic elections.
People should learn from history rather than suffer from the war atrocities again. The role of historians and journalists is to make it possible. Intelligence communities and diplomacy officers should develop on the appreciation and understanding of the truly enormous role of analyzing history to prevent war atrocities from happening again. Worth mentioning is the achievement of the CIA during the Cold War assisting in the collapse of the Soviet Bloc about the time when the Soviet Union was preparing to attack the West. The nuclear war did not start, and the United States of America has won the Cold War peacefully. For details of successful intelligence struggles during the Cold War and the role of history seen by the people living in Poland, see the book authored by Z. Wojcik: Slaying the Soviet Beast…” [4]. Note, that the Cold War was also the world war.
After the Soviet Bloc collapsed and Poland become a part of NATO, Germany is formally no longer in the position to attack militarily the center of Europe from the west as in the XX century. But will Germany defend Poland when Russia will continue going west?
References
[1]. Andrzej Chwalba, „The People of Poland War 1914-1918”, Fundacja im. Janusza Kurtyki, 2021. https://www.amazon.com/People-Poland-War-Geschichte-Erinnerung/dp/363183845X
[2]. Damian Markowski „Lwów or L’viv. Two Uprisings in 1918”, Peter Lang, Fundacja im. Janusza Kurtyki, 2021. https://www.amazon.com/Lw%C3%B3w-Lviv-Uprisings-Studies-Politics-ebook/dp/B093CFBZ5N
[3]. Tadeusz Wolsza, „Encounter With Katyn: The Wartime and Postwar Story of Poles Who Saw the Katyn Site in 1943”, Carolina Academic Press, Durham 2018. https://cap-press.com/pdf/9781531015374.pdf https://www.amazon.com/Encounter-Katyn-Wartime-Postwar-Story/dp/1531015379
[4]. Zbigniew Wojcik, Author of “Slaying the Soviet Beast. A True Story about How the Cold War was Won. What Next”, Liberty Hill, 2019. https://www.amazon.com/Slaying-Soviet-Beast-Story-about/dp/1545667020
