When someone tells you that the 80's protests in communist Poland were inspired by the US, pro-capitalist or any other similar bullshit, just have a look at this 1980 list of 21 Interfactory Strike Committee postulates.
The fallacy here is that there was any such thing as "the West". Each country had different policy towards Eastern Bloc, and within each of these countries there were countless movements that either supported or condemned the anti-Soviet movements. For example in France you had organisations that both supported Solidarity (Polish independent trade union), and also die-hard communists (L'Humanite) that would approve of any Soviet decision, regardless of how stupid it was.
@kravietz All models are wrong, some are useful.
"The West" ~= NATO block nations + Japan and a few others, but really, the US hegemony, and specific to the period, the Reagan White House and GOP, with some input from Thatcherite UK.
I understand that but in "the West" you had political pluralism which meant you could have *at the same time* both people condemning human rights abuse in communist Poland and useful idiots marching against NATO and for unilateral disarmament.
In case of Eastern Bloc it was all simple - if there was decision from Moscow we now support Palestine Liberation Organisation, we all marched in support of PLO. When Moscow decided we no longer like PLO, we marched against.
@kravietz And yet you also had unitary executives, meaning that even in pluralistic societies striven by discord and dissent, actual power was manifested by a single party or individual. At worst, by a coalition government.
Neither the US nor UK operated under coalitions at the time.
Trust me, I get nuance. It really has little place here.
The Western ideologues-in-power loved Solidarność and did so regardless of how opposed its campaign and policies were to their own domestic platforms, so long as it caused pain to the USSR. THAT WAS THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERED.
(Rather frighteningly akin to how the GOP has fallen completely for Trump despite his refutation of much of what the party had nominally supported.)
As someone who was at that time living on the other side of the Iron Curtain I didn't really care about the motivation of the people in the West who sent me the humanitarian parcels, or more generally who supported Solidarność. We didn't really care about their *internal* politics and whatnot. The support itself did matter.
> it caused pain to the USSR
I'm not quite sure how sending a humanitarian parcel to someone stripped of basic food and medicines (due to "temporary difficulties in real socialism") could have "caused pain to the USSR" 🤔
> But they Were Not In Charge
And thank God, because if say instead of Reagan it was Bernie Sanders who was in charge - after his enthusiastic trips to USSR - I would now probably still living in communist Poland earning $20 per month.
The latter case ("against PLO") is invented for the sake of exemplification as Moscow created and then consistently supported PLO. Abu Nidal actually had an office in Warsaw from where he operated through all 80's.
Also in France you had Jean-Paul Sartre who was diehard Stalin supporter until I think late 60's!
In Germany you had Rote Arme Fraktion (RAF) and their left-wing supporters who received direct support from Stasi and spent plenty of time hiding in Eastern Bloc after especially bloody attacks.
@kravietz None of whom were effectual power-brokers or policy-makers on the geopolitical scene. They were bit players.
Keep your eye on the ball.
@kravietz NB: Not that I defend Reagan or Thatcher. It's simply that "the West" circa 1982 was defined by them.
> policy-makers
Here's the difference: in the West you didn't need to be a "policy maker" to make difference.
I remember in especially grim period of 80's my family was receiving humanitarian support parcels from Austria (or was it Germany?) with stuff like sweets, toys and clothes that looked from another universe.
@kravietz Independent small-scale action was possible, yes.
People were protesting in the streets, bombing buildings (and occasionally people), and of course, making full use of the Free Press.
But they Were Not In Charge.
This is the 3rd or 4th time I've attempted to make that point. It's on you to sort out what I'm trying to say here.
From less exciting examples: in 1920's British socialist dockers were able to block arms shipments to Poland, which was then fighting against Soviet invasion. In the UK they *could* do it. In USSR any such action would take them straight to GULag or mass grave.
@kravietz To be completely fair, anything that was anti-Soviet, regardless of how otherwise socialist it might have been, would have had Western support.