Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Mom and the Warsaw Pact

I’m interested in people’s memories of communism, even, or especially, if they never lived in a communist state. One poignant memory I have is arguing with a friend in the eighth grade about Communist Poland. I remember my friend saying that if NATO forces attacked the Eastern Bloc, Polish forces could not possibly resist them. They hated communism, and hated their former enemies, the Russians. My position was the opposite: Poland was a member of the Warsaw Pact and would help the Russians to resist the invasion. The issue was clear-cut to me: the Polish were communists, just like the Russians. They would defend one another from what they perceived to be Western imperialism.

Solidarity Union

As the argument dragged on, I asked my mother to resolve it for us. Wasn’t it true, I said, that Polish armed forced would defend their Warsaw Pact friends? She agreed, as I knew she would, putting the argument to an end. She settled the matter by telling us that the Polish loved their country and their system, communism, as much as we loved our country and political system, democracy.

This certitude on her part and mine stays with me. It was inspired by the moral relativism of Margaret Meade, liberalism, and the 1960s. When Poland defected from the Warsaw Pact, when its citizens fled the country and condemned their former rules, I was dumbfounded.

As it turned out, the Polish hated Communist Russia. Now perhaps Polish troops would have fought an invasion out of blind military obedience. Even so, they didn’t love Communism and never had. I don’t say that conservatives understood the world better than liberals did. I do say that the memory of this discussion leaves me humble: the world is unknowable.


  1. This is interesting. I have memories of my Polish Grandma constantly lighting candles and saying prayers for our poor relatives in Poland who were suffering under Communism. I even remember her once breaking into tears at the dinner table during grace because she was asking God's help to save Poland. I guess I would have sided with your friend based on that. Why do you think your Mom thought otherwise?

  2. Wow. That's a really interesting memory!

    I think in part she was reacting to the kind of moral absolutism that said our side must be right, because it was--well--our side. To be fair to her, she had lived in S. Rhodesia, where insurgents naturally saw Communism as part of the antidote to rascist European colonizers.