Poland Fights Back Against 'The End of the World' - My Latest ‘Hot Type’ Column in Byline

My weekly Hot Type column in Byline Supplement shows how Poland is fighting back against Russian aggression, because - like a century ago - it doesn't 'want to sell its soul to the devil'...

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“Defending yourself against Russia is like outrunning a bear. You don't have to be faster than the bear, you just have to be faster than your slowest friend.”—Keir Giles

In Saturday’s Hot Type column for Byline Supplement, I turn the focus to Poland for both inspiration and as an example of the possibilities.

Hot Type: Poland Fights Back Against 'The End of the World'

I am indebted to my sources — Marci Shore, Keir Giles, and the Polish military experts they connected me to — as well as the bravery of Poland’s leaders, particularly foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski, who Shore says is the right man at the right time.

Thank you as always to everyone who supports my work here and at Byline. I believe the work of independent investigative reporters exposing the transnational crime wave has revealed the failing of corporate media in stark contrast.

If you are not yet a member of Byline, I urge you to become one or to take advantage of unlocking a free report. In the meantime, I am authorized to send a copy of my reports upon request to bettedangerous/gmail.

Below is an excerpt from today’s Hot Type:

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Hot Type: Poland Fights Back Against 'The End of the World'

Heidi Siegmund Cuda reports on Poland's renewed determination to defend itself from Russian aggression on both the virtual and actual battlefield

Early in Timothy Snyder’s Bloodlands, he explained how Ukrainians who were being starved in 1930 by Stalin under ‘collectivization’ voted with their feet by walking to Poland.

“Whole villages followed their example, taking up church banners, or crosses, or sometimes just black flags tied to sticks, and marching westward toward the border. Thousands of them reached Poland, where knowledge of famine conditions in the Soviet Union spread,” wrote Snyder, a Yale professor who also authored On Tyranny and On Freedom.

He explained how “Polish border guards patiently interviewed the refugees, gaining knowledge of the course and the failure of collectivization.”In return, Poland dispatched spies in the other direction and began engaging in anti-Soviet propaganda.

“Their propaganda posters called Stalin a ‘Hunger Tsar’ who exported grain while starving his own people. In March 1930, politburo members feared that ‘the Polish government might intervene.’”

Snyder documented how a Polish father living in Ukraine explained to his son why the family would not join the collective farm:

“I do not want to sell my soul to the devil.”

A century later, Poland still doesn’t want to sell its soul to the devil.

As Russia attacks dozens of countries through funding fake populist movements and planting puppets to destroy democracies worldwide, Poland’s leaders are fighting back.

In January, Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski told a Russian delegation at the Organization for Security and Cooperation:

“Russia respects neither borders nor human rights. There are no free media in Russia, there are no honest elections, and there are more political prisoners than in the Soviet Union under Leonid Brezhnev…When the Soviet Union collapsed, we encouraged Russia to become a normal democratic nation state. But they failed. It proved too difficult to emerge from their own political culture. Russia’s rulers chose the path of an aggressive, repressive kleptocracy.

“My message to the Russian delegation is the following: we are not taken in by your lies; we know what you are doing — you are trying to rebuild the Russian empire, and we will not let you. We will resist you every inch of the way. You are successful in destroying Ukraine, but you are also destroying the future of your own country. Until you stop this brutal war, you should not be here.”

As Russia’s War On Everybody author Keir Giles told Byline Supplement: “The time for diplomatic niceties and mealy mouthed politeness when dealing with Russia has long passed, and describing the problem as it is rather than a rather than as an abstract, theoretical problem of international relations, is the only way to fully understand the magnitude of the threat that faces Europe and the efforts that need to be done to in order to withstand it.”

He explained that Poland’s response, which includes crash rearmament and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk accusing Russia of planning global acts of airline terror, is born out of lived experience.

“We shouldn't be surprised that it is the countries closest to Russia which are showing the most urgency in preparing themselves to deter Moscow or to survive the impact if deterrence fails,” Giles told Byline Supplement.

He said Western Europe may want to look at a map and recall that the earth “is not, in fact, flat” and consider that Russia can launch missiles from the Arctic or the North Atlantic, reaching the whole of Europe without warning.

Giles, a leading Russia expert at Chatham House, who also wrote Who Will Defend Europe: An Awakened Russia and a Sleeping Continent, said Poland is leading by example.

“Poland shows that for all the reluctance of Western European countries to overhaul their spending plans, in particular the UK, because they think this is not feasible with their current fiscal predicament, it is nevertheless possible, if the understanding of the threat is sufficiently developed,” he explained. “Other countries believe that their economies are too delicate to risk the changes that are needed. But this overlooks the fact that if the changes are not made, the economies may be sunk altogether. The head of NATO has finally stated in clear terms that the billions that need to be spent on defense are as nothing compared to the trillions that it will cost if deterrence fails.”

Poland, which has doubled its defense budget, is sending a message to Russia to look elsewhere as it engages in what Giles calls nuclear willy waving.

“Russia would prefer a soft target,” he said. “And as a result, deterrence by denial simply consists of making yourself a sufficiently hard target that the return on investment by Russia is not worth the resources and the damage that would be incurred in mounting an attack. What this means is that Russia may look to those countries that have not prepared themselves, because defending yourself against Russia is like outrunning a bear. You don't have to be faster than the bear, you just have to be faster than your slowest friend.”

Poland Knows

When Yale professor of intellectual history Marci Shore returned to Europe after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, she was first in Vienna, and then in Krakow.

“The difference was very palpable,” Shore told Byline Supplement. “In Vienna everyone knew there was a European land war going on not so far away, and in fact in a place that was once part of Austria. But it was definitely a foreign war. That wasn't the case in Poland: in Poland you could sense immediately that the Poles understood that this was also their war, and could cross their border at any moment.”

Shore, who wrote about the Maidan revolution in her book, The Ukrainian Night, also specializes in the history of Poland, and often cites Polish poets in her work…

… including, Czeław Miłosz, a Nobel Prize winner for literature, who wrote A Song on the End of the World.

On the day the world ends
A bee circles a clover,
A fisherman mends a glimmering net.
Happy porpoises jump in the sea,
By the rainspout young sparrows are playing
And the snake is gold-skinned as it should always be.

On the day the world ends
Women walk through the fields under their umbrellas,
A drunkard grows sleepy at the edge of a lawn,
Vegetable peddlers shout in the street
And a yellow-sailed boat comes nearer the island,
The voice of a violin lasts in the air
And leads into a starry night.

And those who expected lightning and thunder
Are disappointed.
And those who expected signs and archangels' trumps
Do not believe it is happening now.
As long as the sun and the moon are above,
As long as the bumblebee visits a rose,
As long as rosy infants are born
No one believes it is happening now.

Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet
Yet is not a prophet, for he's much too busy,
Repeats while he binds his tomatoes:
No other end of the world will there be,
No other end of the world will there be.

Poland is doing what it can to ensure life goes on.

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The above is an excerpt from my Hot Type column. As always, I ask those who can afford to support a small global team of investigative reporters to please take out a subscription to Byline Supplement.

I also understand that if you are not able to do so at this moment, the good chaps at Byline allow me to send the column to Bette members upon request, as I noted above. Just zip a request to bettedangerous/gmail. New members will also find they are invited to unlock one report at the Byline site.

To my Bette members who support both publications, please forward the column to your allies.

I am glad you are here.

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Related:

AUGENBLICK: ‘We’re Tough, Too’

Audio: A Long Screwdriver and Nuclear Willy Waving — A Q&A with Keir Giles in a Northamptonshire Pub

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