I spent 10 minutes trying to come up with a witty take but there's too much going on here :agony-acid:

    • LeninWalksTheWorld [any]
      ·
      4 years ago

      even though it was terrible and they got hella CIA help. I have to say those Poles did a pretty amazing job organizing one big union and getting like all of society behind it. I read some anarchist papers coming out of Solidarność printing presses and stuff, and they were extolling just how amazing it was that the whole Polish working class was pulling together. Bakers were still making bread and handing it off to Solidarność truck drivers to deliver to the longshoremen, so that everyone could stay fed even though everyone was on strike. Of course that was all just to turn poland into the EU's fascist backwater so it loses some charm now.

      • RNAi [he/him]
        ·
        edit-2
        4 years ago

        I once met a dude with a socialist pfp whose parents were heavily involved in Solidarnosc and then deeply ashamed, but he also told me his grandparents were nobles. lol

        • LeninWalksTheWorld [any]
          ·
          4 years ago

          Well by a point in Polish history like a quarter of the country were nobles. They had a very democratic type of nobility, was pretty unique.

          • RNAi [he/him]
            ·
            4 years ago

            a very democratic type of nobility

            wut

            • LeninWalksTheWorld [any]
              ·
              edit-2
              4 years ago

              like all the nobles in the country got together in a big chamber and voted on stuff. The king was very very weak. Eventually just one noble could veto anything so literally nothing got done after a certain point. Poor people were kept out and serfs were still treated like shit but since the requirements to be considered a noble were so loose a lot of middle class merchant types snuck in too. Poland would later be one of the hotbeds of republican revolution during the Napoleonic wars.

              • RNAi [he/him]
                ·
                4 years ago

                Interesting, totally no idea about the Napoleon part.