User talk:EugeneK

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[edit] Polish-Soviet War

You mentioned that Polish victory of Polish-Soviet war is commonly disputed. Would you comment on this ? Thanks. --Wojsyl (talk) 18:06, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

The dispute about the claim of Polish victory is obvious even from the discussion about the wiki page. Basically, Poland failed to establish a Polish-dominated mega-state in Europe and was repelled from Kiev and most of the Ukraine and Byelorussia. However, it was able to garb parts of Ukraine, Lithuania and Byelorussia, as well as to preserve its own independence. Bolsheviks were able to withstand the Polish offensive and preserve their state (remember, the conflict coincided with a civil war and a massive multi-national assault on the Bolshevik regime) and to get control of most of the Ukraine and Byelorussia. By the end of the war both countries seemingly expanded their influence at the expense of the tird nations.
Moreover, Polish losses, as mentioned on the page, by far exceeded those of the Bolsheviks, while, probably, not even including the losses of pro-Polish Ukrainians. The claims of moral victory (“little Poland stood up to big Russia”) are also questionable, because the Russia at the time was essentially a non-existent state, tied up in multiple conflicts, with an irregular army (parts of which shifted alliances in battles) led by amateur commanders, and with no regular industry or lines of supplies. It faced an army led by skilled professionals and assisted by major powers of the time. Not surprisingly, Russian communists always portrait the Polish conflict as a great success. Since of the two major warring parties both claimed the victory, the statement that Polish victory is commonly disputed sounds like a simple fact.
PS You are welcome to move the discussion of my comments to my page. This would ensure that I read it in a timely manner.

Firstly, I need to state that my view may be somewhat biased (the Polish way). Anyway, stating that Polish victory in this war is disputed is quite shocking to me. As far as I understand it, the Bolsheviks attacked Poles in the beginning of 1919 but then in the course of war most of their armies were annihilated in the Battle of Warsaw and the remaining two armies retreated. I understand that this may be the question of Russian national pride, but usually the retreating army is the one that was defeated. This war was silently ignored in the official history of Poland in the times when Poland was under Soviet domination after WW2. To me this is clearly the sign the Soviets attempted to hide their defeat. --Wojsyl (talk) 20:07, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Similarly to the Polish propaganda, Soviet historians always view the Polish assault into Lithuania, Ukraine and Byelorussia as the beginning of the war, while ignoring the earlier minor skirmishes of Bolsheviks with ethnic Poles (even the original wiki page claims that those were spontaneous and did not include regular units). Soviet historians maintained that their country (the leftovers of the Russian Empire under the Bolshevik rule), which was severely weakened by the civil war and foreign intervention, was attacked by the Polish “capitalists” and nationalists, who crossed the boundaries of their ethnic state and also brought a few puppets of Ukrainian origin with them. The international (not just Russian) Red Army, which included Ukrainians and communist “good” Poles (who were the commanders of that army), drove the “bad” Poles farther west than the original border suggested in the pre-war negotiations. Ukraine and Byelorussia were partially liberated and made independent, but then, with a few other newly independent territories, chose to form a union known as the USSR. The army that retreats after a battle is generally believed to have lost the battle. A country that retreats and looses its territory and wealth may be considered a looser in the war. Both armies have retreated and advanced, at least locally, several times, including a Polish retreat up to its capital (Poles won the battle of Warsaw, not the battle of Moscow or St.Petersburg). Both suffered great losses (although the Polish losses were much greater. In fact, the claim that the Red Army was lost in that war does not add up: both armies started with equal numbers on that front, Russian had huge resources of manpower elsewhere, Poles suffered greater losses – who ended up with more soldiers left?). Both were tired (although the Bolsheviks still retained enough force to re-conquer the bulk of the Russian Empire and repel other invaders). Neither lost territory at the end (although by going for the war Poland lost a chance to get a bigger piece of the contested land). Neither gained fully what it wanted. Neither was willing to pursue the war any further. Isn’t it a classical stalemate, regardless of what any propaganda calls it?

The Soviets hardly considered this war as a separate conflict, but rather a part of the civil war that engulfed the former multinational Russian Empire, of which Poland was only a part. The avoidance of the topic by later Polish communists is very understandable, as the war buried the hopes to form a Greater Poland, and most of the Poles fought against their future communist masters. Similarly silently ignored in the Soviet states were all the successful Russian and Soviet wars that “liberated” many of its neighbors (e.g. Caucasus, the Baltic states) against their will.

I can understand that this conflict, being the last chance for Poland to restore its medieval greatness, is a touchy topic for Poles and a hot topic for Polish propaganda, especially at the time when the relationship with its eastern neighbors are at the all-time low. I also understand that the original article was written by Polish patriots who obviously stressed every Polish success and hushed down every setback. But I would like to reiterate that it is a simple statement of the fact that Polish victory in the war is commonly disputed, at least by the people who are aware of a non-Polish viewpoint.

The statement that only the Russians dispute Polish victory is a very misleading one, and you could easily find non-Russians (including yours truly) who are uneasy about an obviously polo-centric nature of the article. If we are to contribute to an international encyclopedia, we have to maintain some objectivity. Please, reverse the statement to “commonly disputed” or, if you prefer to be more objective “stalemate.”


Talking about non-Russians questioning Polish victory: "Perhaps the result should be described as unconclusive?" is a suggestion apparently added to the discussion by the Polish author of the original page.

Thanks for discussing this with me. I'm not convinced and will probably continue the discussion on Talk:Polish-Soviet War page. I have reverted my edit as you can see. I'm not sure if "unconclusive" is the best way out either. Both Polish and Russian propaganda claimed the victory. It's hard to judge as long as we are not able to determine the initial goals of each side, and I believe these changed in course of the war. Neither side attained the initial objectives (other than officially claimed "selfdefence"), neither was completely defeated. Both were weak and heavily involved at other theatres in the same time. --Wojsyl (talk) 20:04, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] UA/RU get-togethers at Wikipedia

Hi, again! You might be interested to check out the current WP portals for these countries.

Ukraine portal is located at Wikipedia:Wikiportal/Ukraine. Also, take a note at two notice boards which are parts of the portal:

In similar fashion the Russia Portal (Wikipedia:Wikiportal/Russia) and its similar boards at

are worth to be added to your watchlist. Adding all four is probably a good idea. Feel free to contact me for any reason.

Also, please don't forget to sign your entries at talk pages by placing four tildes in the end like this: ~~~~. I will copy the discussion above from your talk page to talk:Polish-Soviet War. Пока! --Irpen 01:47, August 28, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Tukhachevsky’s statements

Well, I do not know much of Tukhachevsky, but AFAIK he was partially blaming Stalin, who politically influenced his choice of Soviet commanders for the failure in Polish-Soviet war. He openly criticized Stalin in the 1920-s, later probably kept silent but the animosy continued, eventually he was arrested, tortured and killed on Stalin's order in 1937. His lectures that I'm referring to were given in February 1923 in Red Army Military Academy in Moscow and published at the end of 1923. This was still before Lenin's death, but Lenin was already seriously disabled in 1923. I don't think that Stalin was that powerful at that time as he was in 1930-s, certainly he was fighting for power then and had more strategic enemies, like Trotsky, until 1929, when Trotsky was deported. This IMHO actually adds even more credibitly to Tukhachevsky’s statements, wouldn't you think so ? --Wojsyl (talk) 18:18, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

BTW: if you're further interested in learning how this "Soviet victory" really looked like, you might want to take a peek at 1920 Diary by Isaac Babel, who served in Soviet elite cavalry in the campaign. He obviously never published it during his lifetime. Instead he published another, "official" book about these events that obviously depicted the same story in a completely different way. Both books available in English translation. --Wojsyl (talk) 18:44, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Indeed, I was using a Polish translation. But now as I look at it the translation into "Poles started their offensive first and our retreat became inevitable" seems more accurate. I should have been more careful with this delicate subject. As I said in the talk page, I'm the one to blame for poor translation (and not the original Polish translator, who did a better job). Anyway, the Tukhachevsky argument in the talk page was ignored and didn't influence the final compromise in the article, so my lack of care in translation from Polish did no harm. --Wojsyl (talk) 19:48, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Now, looking for Russian language original text, I've found something else that confirms your view that Tukhachevsky was afraid of political leaders (Stalin ? or Trotsky ?): Поход на Варшаву стал одновременно «звездным часом» Тухачевского и его «черным днем» в Красной Армии, потерпевшей под руководством молодого командующего фронтом свое самое сокрушительное поражение в гражданской войне. Позднее, в 1923 году, Тухачевский пытался оправдаться в книге «Поход за Вислу», написанной на основе курса лекций в Военной академии РККА. Он признавал свою вину — войну проиграла стратегия, а не политика, военные, а не вожди революции. Попробуй полководец заявить иначе, и его карьера моментально бы закончилась. Не стал бы маршалом Тухачевский, но, как знать, может, миновала бы бывшего подпоручика-лейб-гвардейца горькая чаша унижения и гибели в 37-м. --Wojsyl (talk) 20:02, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Welcome back

...and hope you'll stay around this time. --Irpen 19:20, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Welcome back again. Your contributions to articles would be much welcome here. With some effort the topics around PSW can be slowly NPOVed but more interested editors are needed for that. Writing messages at talk pages and leaving, while useful, is usually not enough with the amount of personal attachment many have towards the coverage of this topic and the proliferation of the practice to use Polonophilic books to claim that the material is soursed.
PSW and KO went through much editing lately and I think they are somewhat better now, so it isn't hopeless. --Irpen 05:51, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

I wish I could share your optimism and enthusiasm to sideline my work and family in favor of correcting the mistakes and fabrications on Wiki.. Even if the articles are currently and, probably, temporarily changed, the old and POVed versions have already spread all over the Internet (e.g. http://www.answers.com/topic/polish-soviet-war or http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/enc3/polish-soviet_war). Even the Romanian Wiki version is untouched by the recent corrections. Unfortunately, my written Romanian is inadequate to edit it. It’s only out of extreme annoyance from misleading information in the featured articles that I still get involved in this process. Frankly, I am not even sure whether temporarily improving some of the related articles does any good, since it makes a false impression that the whole project is balanced and historically accurate. I wish you well though.--EugeneK 03:52, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Those mirrors will be updated with time if (the big if) enough editors with different background start editing PL/RU/UA conflict articles. I certainly can't do it on my own. I would not worry about other language wikipedias. Their impact, compared to en-wiki, is negligible. I suggest you edit, rather than simply write at talk and leave. Passive entries at talk are often ignored by opponents since they don't affect the articles' remianing to someone's one's liking. No one can ask you to sideline your family, though.
Also, if you want to make the visible point that the articles are one sided and have no time to engage into long edit conflicts with some POV pushers, there is always an option to POV-tag an article and explain the grivances at talk. No one can delete a well-explained tag that will warn the readers. Take a look at PSW and Kiev Offensive. Pity, the former got to mainpage exposure in its current shape but I managed to make some changes to it even while it was at the mainpage. Maybe it was too modest. NPOVing articles is doable but takes time which we have just as much.
Its not that Russian and Ukrainian editors are uninterested. It's just that there weren't many good books published on the war in Russian until lately and there is still not much interest. However, I will not be able to do much on my own. Please help if you can. Of course, if you can't, no grudges, I understand, but when you have little time to write at talks, pls edit the articles too. Otherwise, there is a good chance that nothing will happen after your talk page entries. --Irpen 04:39, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! (Ukrainian: З Новим Роком!, Russian: С Новым Годом!). I wish you in 2007 to be spared of the real life troubles so that you will continue to care about Wikipedia. We will all make it a better encyclopedia! I also wish things here run smoothly enough to have our involvement in Wikipedia space at minimum, so that we can spend more time at Main. --Irpen
Happy New Year! (Ukrainian: З Новим Роком!, Russian: С Новым Годом!). I wish you in 2007 to be spared of the real life troubles so that you will continue to care about Wikipedia. We will all make it a better encyclopedia! I also wish things here run smoothly enough to have our involvement in Wikipedia space at minimum, so that we can spend more time at Main. --Irpen