Poland
Opinion discarded
@PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml, the only good Pole
There’s some more now and then, but polish speaking internet is mostly fash. While population is not mostly fash, and we do have trollfarms.
being on the mostly English side of the internet can lead to some weird preconceptions about whole peoples. I was joking about you being the only good Pole of course but unironically I’ve never interacted with someone outwardly identifying as Polish online who wasn’t absolutely batshit insane. Of course reactionary nationalists are more likely to outwardly identify themselves by their nation than others, so that probably skews things unfavorably, too. I’m also not on other social media often anymore. The same is all true for Turks, Brazilians and Germans in my experience, outside of lemmygrad.
It wasn’t even always over political issues. A small group of Germans I found myself interacting with online turned out to be cannibal fetishists and raving Islamophobes. Turkish calls for genociding Cyprus and Greece and that the Armenian genocide didn’t go far enough and on and on. Brazilians I’ve interacted with have all been Bolsonaro stans.
I’m sure there must be reasons for this. I suppose you have to be able to read and write in English to interact with the English side of the internet, and less-educated or poorer people may not be able to. You also have to want to interact with the English speaking internet… which I likely would not. Unless my mother tongue’s side was even worse lol. Plus the almighty algorithm pushes rage-bait irrespective of nationality almost everywhere you look, so. How does the communist presence compare to the fascists on the Polish speaking internet?
I guess it’s combination of the three factors.
First, only small % of people are really much online, stats show “oi millions upon millions are using the intenet” but most of them is just browsing few sites, shop online or something like that. The ones being much online are the ones that can’t find outlet or understanding in the real life. Like, for the most painful example, us ML’s living in the capitalist hellholes. Or really, the open shitty nazis because even in Poland “hitler wasn’t that bad” is still not something you would hear in real life. On the internet though, they congregate in places like 4 chan or reddit, because the news are travelling and if you’re into something you will find it sooner or later. That’s why you also get things like ancaps, cannibals and pedos in statistically impossible numbers.
Second is of course anonymity. Most of those guys wouldn’t really talk to their coworkers or random people that they have weird thoughts about cannibalism or if they want to genocide Greeks.
Third are the troll farms, as we seen on the famous US military base generating incredible movement on reddit, they do exist.
About Poland: communism is unfortunately completely and utterly demonized. Socialism is a dirty word. Most people like everywhere would support socialist policies, but they are literally psychically conditioned to react allergically to keywords like communism, socialism, marxism, class etc. The propaganda is nearly impregnable, even i eaten most of that shit until comrades at MTC and GZ pointed me to something better. For example, everyone, literally everyone here believe in the offical version of Katyn massacre, i did too, because it’s unfalsifable dogma and for the entire 34 years i never once heard or read in polish language something that would differ from the official version even in one letter.
The polish media hell, the constant bickering, the party war etc etc?
It’s all fucking false, a theatre, in what really do count entire media speaks with one voice.
What would you say is the reason for the propaganda going on there? Were people not satisfied with the Polish socialist government or is it that the bourgeoisie took over the media and decided to propagandize heavily to ensure they stay in power?
I often wonder about it myself.
The element of dissatisfaction with the socialist government was definitely very strong, the revisionists made many mistakes, starting with “destalinisation” and bureocratisation of state and party, though they did delivered what socialism promised. They made colossal mistake in the 60’s and 70’s though, the politics of opening to the west (stemming from typical lack of understanding of imperialism) made country vulnerable to western propaganda, and they used that opportunity hard, american and west Europe media flooded the country, presenting the petty bourgeoise and labour aristocracy life quality as the standard possible just by having capitalism. This proven incredibly pervasive, as after 89+reinforcing of the consumerism people still measure their wellbeing largely by the access to consumer goods. Second mistake was the economic closing, loans, etc.
In 1980 problems converged, and a rising cost of living* sparked massive strikes and manifestations, which were outwardly socialist in nature, but were in fact organized and hijacked by people ultimately serving the antisocialist factions like church and growing liberals with entire thing being sponsored by USA (it wasn’t even first time). This put a wrench in the economy cogs, worsening the crisis manyfold and also caused huge political crisis splintering the government into two factions. Then perestroika hit and opportunists get open signal from Moscow that they are free to do whatever they want.
89 transformation when looked from some distance have all characteristics of a coup, in which government (by then thoroughly purged from socialist elements) with opposition couped in fact the nation. We will probably never know what really and exactly happened back then and in the next few years, since the first thing they seized and subordinated was police and security services, and in the next years people threatening to disclose some details were (i’m sure completely coincidentally /s) been killed by mafia, committed suicide, died in car accidents etc. So what i wrote here is basically my observations, true marxist analysis will probably never be made, trots are producing some utter rubbish about it, which don’t make it easier.
Of course media been really the 4th power in this, as i wrote above off all the forces and their emanation in play, they seems to be the one which is, completely against the expectations, the most uniform force that clearly demonstrates that the issue is of course nothing else but the class, they have all the factionalism of various bourgeois interests and opinions, but nothing, in the entire spectrum, going against their class interests, if the case is even potentially concering the class issues, they speak with one voice.
*This is especially bitter irony, what officially sparked those protests were the cost of living rise comprable to those which we now have monthly. And nearly nobody is minding, nobody is protesting, not even if we take the destruction of the unions under consideration.
Thank you for the detailed response! It makes sense that the country’s dissatisfaction with the past government stems from these points and not only young people or the current ownership of the media, but it really makes me think why an understanding of imperialism as well as the reason behind consumer goods being so common in the west should be a fundamental part of socialist education as to not make people look to the west as something people would want to strive to be like.
And to fill in on the last point, I’ve also noticed the complete apathy to rising cost of living in my country. No one is protesting or doing anything about it. Most people aren’t politically engaged because they seem to feel it’s a headache with all the commotion that politics is associated with so they think just voting for a populist is enough and they wont boycott or go on strikes because it’s just more inconvenient than forcing a change. It seems as if the risk of the strikes or protests being getting broke is what is disincentivizes people to take action (although France would be a different case). The labour movement here seems completely dead when it should be on the rise. People being so indifferent about the state of their livelihood is a red flag to me (pun not intended) as it seems to symbolize the control that people now are living under.
