Through a Stalinist lens An interview with Ernest Wyciszkiewicz

By Dilip -
The conflict that flared up between Russia and Poland at the end of 2019 signalled a new level of aggression in Russian historical propaganda. Not only that: Poland has become the chief enemy. Seventy-five years after the end of WWII, Russia’s commemorative agenda is both geopolitical and domestic.

New Eastern Europe: On December 20th 2019 Vladimir Putin delivered a speech where he blamed Poland for the outbreak of the Second World War. These remarks caused outrage in Poland. The ministry of foreign affairs issued a statement in which it blamed the Russian leader for undermining joint efforts to find a way to truth and reconciliation in Polish-Russian relations. As director of the Polish-Russian Centre for Dialogue and Understanding in Warsaw, what was your institution’s response? 

Ernest Wyciszkiewicz: First let me start by saying that I was not outraged because what took place in December 2019 was actually nothing new. In the past ten years Poland has often been under historical pressure from Russia. Periods of peaceful coexistence were rare and were quickly followed by stormy exchanges. So we have been there before. Yet, what we have been witnessing since Putin’s infamous comments in December is a new level of aggression in Russian historical propaganda, as well as the fact that Poland was specifically chosen as enemy number one in this domain.
What was more surprising for me was the level of Putin’s direct involvement. First, there was a part of Putin’s speech during the December 19th press conference dedicated to the topic. This was followed the next day by an unprecedented, hour-long lecture during an informal meeting of leaders of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) held in St Petersburg. I watched it and saw the stunned faces of CIS country leaders – they had no clue what was going on. Then there was a meeting between Putin and high level military officials, when the topic was raised again, as it was the next day at a meeting with business leaders. 

Each time, Putin specifically chose history as the major topic and Poland as enemy number one. This was unprecedented. However, when it comes to efforts to whitewash the Soviet past, there were earlier activities to which we can also refer. challenges, to legitimise his goals with a ‘rally around the leader’ effect....
https://www.eurozine.com/through-a-stalinist-lens/

see also
Book review: Midnight in the Century by Victor Serge – life in the Stalinist Soviet Union
100 years of the outbreak of the Russian Revolution March 8 (February 23)
Anil Nauriya - Indian Struggles in 1917 : On the eve of the Russian Revolution
State memory: 1917 and Russian memory politics
Robert Fisk: In the cases of two separate holocausts, Israel and Poland find it difficult to acknowledge the facts of history / Andre Liebich: On the Polish Holocaust law debate
The knights of Bushido : a history of Japanese war crimes during World War II (1958)
Mar 8, 1917: February Revolution begins in Russia
The Republic of Silence – Jean-Paul Sartre on The Aftermath of War and Occupation (1944)
HITLER'S WORLD
A Hunger Artist - by Franz Kafka (1922)
The Almond Trees by Albert Camus
How the UK Security Services neutralised the country’s leading liberal newspaper
Book review - Svetlana Alexievich: Second hand time // Imagine the tragedy of abandoning Communism without knowing how to live with capitalism
Madhavan Palat: Utopia and Dystopia in Revolutionary Russia
The Bolshevik Heritage. By Dilip Simeon
The Bolsheviks Come to Power in Petrograd: Centennial Reflections
Why Leninism and Bolshevism Are Not the Same
A Hundred Years After October Revolution, Rethinking the Origins of Stalinism
The Soviet Retreat From the Emancipative Ideas of 1917
My correct views on everything



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