Soviet gains in Poland

[Horst_Helios]

it might not be legit

Who cares? Claimes are based on national priorities and not on international law. They certainly had more rights on those territories than on Baltic States. nevertheless in game Soviets have claimes on Baltic States but don't have these on west Belorussia and west Ukraine.

 

[Panzergruppe]

Who cares? Claimes are based on national priorities and not on international law.

We separate "claims" from "cores" here, USSR would definitively have claims on the Polish territory they conquered, but not cores.

 

[Horst_Helios]

We separate "claims" from "cores" here, USSR would definitively have claims on the Polish territory they conquered, but not cores.

well, then USSR should have claims on all territory gained after molotov-ribbentrop pact instead of cores on Baltic States and Moldova.

 

[Panzergruppe]

well, then USSR should have claims on all territory gained after molotov-ribbentrop pact instead of cores on Baltic States and Moldova.

I concur.

 

[am300307]

Personally i think the USSR/Germany should have claims on the world so they dont release any useless puppets. Is there anyway to turn off releasing puppets no matter what? And if yes, is there any way to prevent the AI from having a single division in every conquered province.

 

[LiamRiordan]

Personally i think the USSR/Germany should have claims on the world so they dont release any useless puppets. Is there anyway to turn off releasing puppets no matter what? And if yes, is there any way to prevent the AI from having a single division in every conquered province.

Play the game without using 'norevolt' and conquer the world, the partisan effect is a total nightmare on TC and random uprisings that are far from the front and local airforces can be annoying as hell.

The reason that continent spanning empires are very hard to maintain is that there is so much land to police, its extremely hard unless you've got the local population under your thumb or sympathetic.

 

[Ferrim]

I use to mod this so that SU gets Eastern Poland as non-cores, a few days later an event fires that reduces their partisan activity to 0% then increase it to 10%. This way they will have partisans but far less than if it was a normal SU non-core. Remaining non-core also simulates the difficulty in estalishing the Soviet form of government in these territories.

Then I edit the "Great Patrotic War" event so that it gives the SU cores there. I use Stalin calling the whole Soviet people to resist and the first German attrocities as the reason.

I use a similar arrangement for the southern provinces of Finland, Moldova and the Baltic States, although the latter maybe shouldn't ever become cores.

 

[Sarmatian]

Do you have a source for those claims? Also keep in mind that the USSR repressed the jews at least as much as Poland, probably more in fact.

David Glantz, "When Titans Clashed". There were other that I can't remember from the top of my head. Extent of jew repression in Soviet Union is debatable. There are many instances where particularly jewish populations pressed for joining Soviet Union. No doubt sporadic cases of repression existed but it is hard to argue that institutionalized repression existed when Cherniakovsky, a jew, became the youngest front commander in the history of the Soviet Union for example.

Those discussions are irrelevant for the topic at hand because it deals with that happened after territories became a part of USSR. Suffice to say that eastern Poland was a part of the Russian Empire before, it's population, jews included, wasn't predominantly Polish and would be more willing to be a part of the USSR than Poland, same goes for Bessarabia. If we use the general acceptance of the population to new (in this case soviet) rule it would make much more sense to give USSR cores on eastern Poland than on Baltic states.

 

[Sakkura]

That it was a part of the Russian Empire is irrelevant. The demographics are important, but you seem to forget the over 5 million Poles who lived in the area, and the similar number of Ukrainians (some of whom actively sided with the Germans after Barbarossa).

 

[Sarmatian]

That it was a part of the Russian Empire is irrelevant. The demographics are important, but you seem to forget the over 5 million Poles who lived in the area, and the similar number of Ukrainians (some of whom actively sided with the Germans after Barbarossa).

No, I don't but according to your numbers, they made about 1/3 of the population, less than Ukrainians, Belorussians, Jews etc... who certainly would prefer USSR to Poland. Yes, I know some Ukrainians, mostly Catholics, sided with the Germans but there were also communist Poles. Let's not forget that more Poles fought within the Red Army than within western armies.

Unfortunately, there is common misconception that pre ww2 Poland was a democratic country which didn't repress its not polish/catholic population and that ALL Poles hated Soviet Union and neither is true.

 

[Sakkura]

No, I don't but according to your numbers, they made about 1/3 of the population, less than Ukrainians, Belorussians, Jews etc... who certainly would prefer USSR to Poland. Yes, I know some Ukrainians, mostly Catholics, sided with the Germans but there were also communist Poles. Let's not forget that more Poles fought within the Red Army than within western armies.

Unfortunately, there is common misconception that pre ww2 Poland was a democratic country which didn't repress its not polish/catholic population and that ALL Poles hated Soviet Union and neither is true.

The total population wasn't 15 million+, so the over 5 million Poles constituted more than a third of the total population, and it would be impossible for both Ukrainians, Belarusians and Jews to outnumber the Poles. All the numbers I've seen make it clear that there were roughly similar numbers of Ukrainians and Poles, less Belarusians, even less Jews, plus a mixed bag of smaller minorities. The Poles were obviously generally not happy to be annexed into the USSR, but more importantly many of the Ukrainians weren't either. Since the annexation was against the wishes of a large part of the population - probably a majority - and not internationally recognized, I fail to see why the USSR should have cores on the entire area. Even more so in the case of the area they voluntarily handed over to Poland after WWII.

I wouldn't say ALL Poles hated the Soviet Union, but they had been at war with each other in the 1920s and surely most Poles would prefer to remain in Poland.

 

[Horst_Helios]

I wouldn't say ALL Poles hated the Soviet Union, but they had been at war with each other in the 1920s and surely most Poles would prefer to remain in Poland.

1. In what Poland they would prefer to remain in? There was no Poland at this point, only the General Government with ghettos and stuff.
2. What is this has to do with claims? AFAIK claims in DH don't represent any sentiments of population and have no effect on revolt chances.

 

[VI Imre]

I think it's the DH team's failure that they didn't really clearify what is a core and what is not, and if they did it's not consistant. For example Poland has cores on Proskurov and Kamenets-Podolsky which are part of the USSR at the start of the game, howver these provinces have in ~90% ukranian populace. On the other hand the province of Cluj is not core of Hungary just a claim, while the city of Cluj had ~80% of Hungarian populace previous to 1945 and the surrounding lands had about 30-50% Hungarian populace. Meanwhile Miercurea Ciuc is also a core of the Romanians dispate the fact the province has about 80-90% Hungarian populace up until nowadays. Same goes for the Polish lands, where the main populace was a Soviet mayor culture, and despite this fact these lands behave like if they were Polish populatied.

 

[Sakkura]

1. In what Poland they would prefer to remain in? There was no Poland at this point, only the General Government with ghettos and stuff.
2. What is this has to do with claims? AFAIK claims in DH don't represent any sentiments of population and have no effect on revolt chances.

1. What? There was the second Polish Republic. After it was carved up, it would be possible for its former citizens to wish for a return to a similar state.
2. And we're not talking about claims, we're talking about cores.

 

[Sarmatian]

The total population wasn't 15 million+, so the over 5 million Poles constituted more than a third of the total population, and it would be impossible for both Ukrainians, Belarusians and Jews to outnumber the Poles. All the numbers I've seen make it clear that there were roughly similar numbers of Ukrainians and Poles, less Belarusians, even less Jews, plus a mixed bag of smaller minorities. The Poles were obviously generally not happy to be annexed into the USSR, but more importantly many of the Ukrainians weren't either. Since the annexation was against the wishes of a large part of the population - probably a majority - and not internationally recognized, I fail to see why the USSR should have cores on the entire area. Even more so in the case of the area they voluntarily handed over to Poland after WWII.

I wouldn't say ALL Poles hated the Soviet Union, but they had been at war with each other in the 1920s and surely most Poles would prefer to remain in Poland.

You put the number 37.1%, according to Polish census which may have been biased toward Poles as you have yourself said. I wouldn't be surprised if Catholic Ukrainians were lumped together with Poles. Anyway, that's sligthly more than a third and the rest almost two thirds (Ukrainians, Belarussians, Jews etc...) certainly were more sympathetic to USSR than to Poland. Most Poles certainly would prefer to remain in Poland, minus the communists, just like most Ukrainians, especially orthodox, would have preffered USSR.

In a kind of a total war, there is really no sense in looking international recognition. Should Germany lose cores on Austria as soon as the western allies declare war? Point being - those territories were part of Russian Empire, they were fully integrated in the Soviet Union, majority (almost two thirds) of the population welcomed USSR rule (even if it meant choosing the lesser of two evils) and it left more or less that way to this day. There weren't any major rebellions or resistance movements during ww2.

In-game, USSR needs help as it is and this would be a good gameplay feature and there is simply no real-life historical justification not to make it so. On the contrary, it would make sense.

 

[Sakkura]

You put the number 37.1%, according to Polish census which may have been biased toward Poles as you have yourself said. I wouldn't be surprised if Catholic Ukrainians were lumped together with Poles. Anyway, that's sligthly more than a third and the rest almost two thirds (Ukrainians, Belarussians, Jews etc...) certainly were more sympathetic to USSR than to Poland. Most Poles certainly would prefer to remain in Poland, minus the communists, just like most Ukrainians, especially orthodox, would have preffered USSR.

In a kind of a total war, there is really no sense in looking international recognition. Should Germany lose cores on Austria as soon as the western allies declare war? Point being - those territories were part of Russian Empire, they were fully integrated in the Soviet Union, majority (almost two thirds) of the population welcomed USSR rule (even if it meant choosing the lesser of two evils) and it left more or less that way to this day. There weren't any major rebellions or resistance movements during ww2.

In-game, USSR needs help as it is and this would be a good gameplay feature and there is simply no real-life historical justification not to make it so. On the contrary, it would make sense.

Those 37.1% don't include the Bialystok area that the USSR ceded to Poland after the war; this area was dominated by Poles, so the percentage is higher when you include it. This number is not from the Polish census, that was concerning the number of voivodships with a Polish majority. The 37.1% figure is from The Population of Poland from the US bureau of the census.

I don't understand this repeated claim that Ukrainians would have preferred to be in the USSR. Some fought on the German side against the Soviets, while others simply fought against all foreign regimes (well, at least after the fall of Poland, since it had had almost 20 years to establish control of the area). Even after the end of the war it took the Soviets years to finally destroy the Ukrainian insurgents.

 

[Horst_Helios]

And we're not talking about claims, we're talking about cores.

I didn't see. Then I agree with this. Not only because of this reasons, but also because for Soviets not having cores there is the way to make an AI to act according to history: to scatter their divisions instead of keeping them all at the border. Otherwise there will be no "disaster of 1941" in the game.

Oh, and by the way:

 

[Sarmatian]

Thank you for the map, case closed.

 

[Tankist/45]

Well the map shows it.

 

[falmesereb]

Those 37.1% don't include the Bialystok area that the USSR ceded to Poland after the war; this area was dominated by Poles, so the percentage is higher when you include it. This number is not from the Polish census, that was concerning the number of voivodships with a Polish majority. The 37.1% figure is from The Population of Poland from the US bureau of the census.

I don't understand this repeated claim that Ukrainians would have preferred to be in the USSR. Some fought on the German side against the Soviets, while others simply fought against all foreign regimes (well, at least after the fall of Poland, since it had had almost 20 years to establish control of the area). Even after the end of the war it took the Soviets years to finally destroy the Ukrainian insurgents.

I was under the impression that the Poles and the Ukrainians tried to secure independence for Ukraine in the 1920's... and nearly succeeded. I'm pretty sure that the Ukrainians did not like being starved to death in the 30's by stalin, so i really doubt the Ukrainians in East Poland wanted to be part of the Soviet Union..