I think it's fair to consider Poland the birthplace of the modern computer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bomba_(cryptography)
Maybe not a global superpower, but it is very easy to me to imagine a Poland not destroyed by Nazi then communist rule being an innovation center of the world.
But communist solved most of the problems that prewar Poland would have problem of solving. Yeah Polish tech was amazing especially if you consider the resources
Soviets exterminated scientist, priests, doctors and officers - the very people who could fight back. They integrated poor and weak. Their idea was to melt the remaining people into one nation. This is a form of ethnic cleansing.
Both Nazi and Soviets had the same goal - to take over the world by killing the people they didn't like and integrating people they needed. They just had difference of opinion in show to achieve their goals. Fortunately they didn't succeed, unfortunately it still resulted in millions killed by both sides.
So did the Nazis, in higher quantities too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligenzaktion
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pac... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Poland
Oh now I get it.. Poles and other eastern European nations should be thankful to Russians for killing millions of them and enslaving the rest instead of just exterminating everyone. Got it.
The Soviets killed millions - there is no way to deny it. Holodomor alone resulted in 3-5 mln deaths. At least one million were murdered in Russia alone. In total, up to 60 mln people are estimated to have died at the hands of the Soviets. Millions more were forced out of their homes, raped and maimed.
There is only one difference between Germans and Japanese on the one hand and Russians on the other. Germans and Japanese admitted to these atrocities and apologized for them. Since the end of WW2, they have not attacked anyone else.
Russians, on the other hand, are still trying to whitewash the crimes committed by the Soviets, and they keep invading other countries. We can only hope they will either grow up and join the civilized world this century or the Russian Federation collapses.
Poland didn't need Stalin and his murderers. Soviet Union, and mostly Russia is responsible for millions of deaths before, during and after the wars. Even 80+ years later Russians still think that killing people is a way to save them just look at what's going on in Ukraine.
Just because Soviets pushed back Germans doesn't absolve them from all the crimes they committed. Not to mention that they cooperated with Nazi before 1941. They even widened their economic cooperation in January 1941. They didn't care that Poles were being exterminated in the Nazi occupied parts. Why would they- they were doing their part to exterminate them.
As far as Allied country that did not commit horrific war crimes:
- France
- Poland
- Czechoslovakia
- Belgium
- Luxembourg
- Netherlands
- Norway
- Greece
- Yugoslavia
- Ethiopia
- Philippines
- Canada
- Australia
- New Zealand
- India
- South Africa
- Brazil
- Mexico
- Mongolia
"The first machine was built by the Poles and was a hand operated multiple enigma machine."
There were polish contributors to the general idea of computation. But computation is not the same thing as modern computer. No serious person can view the bomba as a 'modern computer'. It took the discovery of the transistor to give birth to the modern computer.
> but it is very easy to me to imagine a Poland not destroyed by Nazi then communist rule being an innovation center of the world.
Poland doesn't that the population, resources, etc for that. Whatever great innovators poland would have possibly had in your alternate universe would have been siphoned off by germany, russia, britain, france, US, etc. There is a reason why so many renowned poles pre-ww2 made their contributions outside of poland.
It’s not a stretch to think that Poland would be on equal terms with Spain or Italy had these things not occurred. But of course then you have to dig into the history of colonialism, of which Poland was a colonized state and not a colonizing one, and places like the UK, France, or Germany don’t like considering the fact that abundant resources from colonies might have played a role in their industrialization.
To be fair the country become entirely dysfunctional (mainly due to internal reasons) long before it was dismembered. By the 1700s while technically retaining most of its territory it basically became just a "playground" for Russia, Swedish and German armies to fight each other in... and the country's elite had very little interest or desire to prevent that (or rather it was a very low priority for them and their weren't willing to sacrifice their economic and political status for it).
> Italy
I'm not sure Italy had many advantages in that regard. It was already dismembered to begin with and for several hundreds of years it was just a prize for major European powers to fight over (in many ways it was in even worse position than Poland). On the other hand even at its peak Poland was extremely economically and socially underdeveloped compared to most of Italy which seems like a much bigger reason.
> Germany > resources from colonies might have played a role in their industrialization.
I'm not sure that's true in this case. Yes Germans were doing a lot of "colonizing" in Eastern Europe but I'm not sure German states in Germany "proper" necessarily benefited that much from it. And to be fair historically Poland only has itself to "blame" for being outmatched by a minor state like Prussia which began as a Polish vassal but somehow managed to turn itself into a global(ish) superpower over a few centuries.
Well same applies to pretty much all of Central/Eastern Europe, and my point is that events prior to the 1900s didn't necessarily have a huge impact on the current situation (look at Finland). It's not like the Russian Empire in the 1800s was particularly more oppressive towards the overwhelming majority of the population or mismanaged the country to higher degree than the Polish nobility that preceded them (of course only in relative terms).
Napoleon winning/not losing as bad might have changed significantly everything but Poland's problems in the 1600s and the 1700s were primarily caused by internal issues.
Being independent alone is often not enough (e.g Portugal/Spain were left completely behind the rest of Western Europe economically and even socially until the mid to late 20th century).
The Russian Empire literally tried to eradicate the Polish language.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russification#Lithuania_and_Po...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Polish_sentiment#Before_t...
You don't seem to know much of what you're talking about, so like I said, I'm not interested in having this conversation.
Well, yes.. Since Poland/Lithuania wasn't an independent state anymore and Poland lost most of its autonomy after the uprising in 1830 and 63 I would agree it was not only in large part but almost entirely due to foreign actors.
> The Russian Empire literally tried to eradicate the Polish language.
As I said, in relative terms. The Russian Empire was of course highly oppressive and put in a lot of effort suppressing the local Polish landholders/nobility because they were the biggest political threat. Peasants (i.e. the overwhelming majority of the population) were one of the main beneficiaries of this, getting to buyout their land at a significant discount if not outright for free.
By the 1900s in Congress Poland over 60% of land was owned by peasants and small landholders, I find it hard to believe that would have happened without foreign intervention so it's not like it was entirely black and white.
> You don't seem to know much of what you're talking about
Not sure about that, you do seem to lack nuance to a rather severe degree, though
Its enough to go the wiki (both about the computer and the inventor) to see that the situation was not that clear. The performance was greatly overstated, it depended on the import of the component from the west etc.
Moreover the guy was cooperating with the Polish version of the FBI so it's not like it was a story of lonely genius vs the governament....