Inkless Wells

Paul Wells on all the latest out of Ottawa—along with the occasional post about jazz. Follow Paul on Twitter: @InklessPW
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Categories: Capital Read, Inkless Wells

Snubwatch: Where did the end of the Cold War begin?

by Paul Wells on Sunday, May 17, 2009 11:31pm - 12 Comments

A fuss in Poland about a European Union video clip commemorating the end of the Cold War. Poland is mentioned at the beginning — Jaruzelski announcing martial law in 1981 — and that’s pretty much the end of that. No clips of Solidarnosc, no Pope. When things really start to hop in 1989, it’s portrayed as basically a Berlin thing.

I’m not well placed to judge the merits of all this. My hunch is that in other Central and East European countries, people wonder why Poles think the miracle didn’t happen in their countries too. I only note the depth of the hurt feelings here over something that, to many of us, must seem trivial — it’s a Youtube, after all — and point out the obvious reason: because what happened 20 years ago was a miracle. And it amazed everyone who lived through it. And they’d hate to see anyone forget it or overlook it.

These occasional “Snubwatch” features are funny, of course, as we look around the world (or closer to home) for groups or people who fret and worry that somebody’s disrespecting them. But try to imagine you’ve been working for something fundamental all your life. And one day, almost without warning, it happens. And everything changes. And years later you’re not sure anyone even noticed. It would be a strange feeling.

Tags: Cold War, Poland, snubwatch

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http://taylor.typepad.com Chris Taylor

That’s easy.

The end of the Cold War began in 1988 after Gorbachev renounced the Brezhnev Doctrine, meaning the Soviet Union would no longer intervene militarily in the internal affairs of Eastern Bloc countries.

Without that major policy decision, no Eastern Bloc country could ever have freed itself from Communist government without the Red Army charging in to save the Revolution. Just as it did in 1956, 1968, etc.
Critical Reasoning

and point out the obvious reason: because what happened 20 years ago was a miracle

A very good point. We have lived through miracles, yet we fail to recognize them as miracles because we assume that the absence of calamnities is the norm, rather than the exception.
Mulletaur

I can sympathize with the Poles. Canada is often omitted from mention in media treatments of the First and Second World Wars, particularly in the United Kingdom. It’s as if our sacrifice doesn’t count. That is what the Poles feel like.
Gdanszczanka

Thank-You Paul for the article. Very few writers have an understanding of international affairs and fewer still of the importance of accuracy and truth in world-changing historical matters.
The Euorpean Union should do a video on the signifigance of the Polish people and their rejection of Communism 20-30 yesrs ago in the eventual creation of the European Union.
Jenn

But Berlin was the end of the miracle, wasn’t it? I mean, the Berlin Wall was the visual that gave no doubt to the reality that the Cold War was over. I’d feel pretty rotten if I were a Pole too, to discover that none of the hard work and mini-revolutions up to that one weekend filmfest counted at all.

And Mulletaur, while I feel the pain watching as American movies turn Canadian fighting units into American ones “for the sake of the story”, and while I’m proud of Canada’s role in both World Wars, I’m not sure that is quite on the same scale as this. It’s not like the U.S or U.K. weren’t in the wars, but I think you could pretty much say that about Germany until the very, very end.

Mulletaur

I am sorry to disagree, Jenn, but this is very, very wrong. We did way more than our share in the First World War. We lost a lot of men. The Second World War is no different. Canadians went to the United Kingdom to defend it against invasion (at their invitation), then we were among the first to hit the beaches and fight our way to Germany. It is totally on the same scale, even though we were not sandwiched between the Russians and the Germans during the Second World War like the Poles were. They fought bravely and didn’t take shit from anybody.

Just like in the Second World War, the Poles did the hard work for everybody else. Ask yourself why the Russians didn’t send in the tanks to quell the rebellion by Solidarity like they did in Hungary and in what was formerly Czechoslovakia. Answer : because the Poles would have kicked their sorry Russian asses. Lech Walesa was a great man, so was Wojciech Jaruzelski. Somehow they both convinced the Russians that invasion was a losing game. Nobody who knows the history of Warsaw during the Second World War could ever doubt this.

Jenn

Sorry, Mulletaur I seem to have misunderstood you. I know absolutely nothing about the Poles during the war and wasn’t commenting about that at all.

Mulletaur

Please don’t apologize, Jenn. I know you didn’t mean to cause offense. All I wanted to point out is that the Poles feel the way they do because of their history. They fought back against the Nazis and the Bolsheviks at great cost to themselves during the Second World War in ways that virtually no other nation in Europe did, and when they decided to resist Communism in the 1980′s, they did so with gusto and with little regard for the possible consequences to themselves. They are an heroic people. Neues Forum were Johnny-come-lately to Solidarność. It is just a matter of appreciating why the Poles feel slighted.

CAPS

Jaruzelski did what he did because he know that if he didn’t then the Russians would. I don’t know if that makes him great or even in the same league as Walesa.

http://carnewsandviews.com jwl

The Poles could also be sensitive to how damaging air-brushing history can be because they experienced it under the communists and don’t care to repeat it.

Poland, and Czech Republic, also seem to have mixed feelings about EU. I am sure they like the billions of $$$ that have flooded into the countries but they are a bit wary about the Brussels apparat making a majority of the laws for member nations.
Sisyphus

Sorry. It’s kinda like saying the French Revolution started in 1789.
It did. But it didn’t.
Change happens incrementally. Because every effort at change works toward the conditions that allow real change to take place.
1956 matters. 1968 matters. The zamizdat movement matters. The CIA/NGO effort matters.
The free union movement in Poland matters. But it also built on what came before.

Mulletaur

Just a reminder that it was the violent uprising of workers in Poznań in June 1956 which raised the expectations and aspirations of the Hungarians who revolted against Communist rule in Hungary later the same year.