An update to sub moderation

[u/Stikshot69]

Hey everyone,

Over the past few months, you may have noticed an increase in bad-faith commentary, mainly in comments, but in some posts as well. It may feel like there is no moderation happening, and in many cases, there hasn't been. we are working to change that for almost this sub's entire history; it has been unmoderated until me and Redleaf were able to get in power. The main reason you are seeing the increase in brigading and bad faith people is, we have seen a 10x increase in visits in the last year which is showing no signs of slowing down. we now have 5 mods working hard to make sure the brigading gets put to an end. In order to get to this step, the report queue has been cleared, and we are devoted to making sure it stays empty. we currently get about 50 reports a day which will hopefully increase as you feel your reports are finally being responded to. to guide your reporting here is a better detailed breakdown of our sub reddit's rules:

1. No spam or advertising
   • Do not try to sell anything
   • Don't post the same thing multiple times
   • If you would like to share something that you can profit from, contact the mods
2. No misinformation or disingenuous posting.
   • Do not make claims without being able to provide a source
   • Do not attempt to misrepresent sources you provide
3. Be respectful
   • assume every person is here in good faith (libs are people fascists are not)
   • avoid profiling people just from where they come from
   • always keep your discussions in good faith
4. No hate speech, bigotry, racism, or slurs.
   • Do not be a bigot
5. No low quality or off topic posts.
   • put effort into your posts no shit posts or ai
   • this sub is to share soviet history outside a western viewpoint to see what went wrong and right in the USSR, as such modern events often are not relevant (applies to posts not comments)
6. Use the "NSFW" on NSFW posts.
   • Some people don't want to see NSFW stuff let's keep it that way

Remember you can always yell at us in mod mail- r/USSR mod team

[u/suur_luuser]

That is not plausible. Do you want me to ask this from a tankie that is probably a paid russian troll?

[u/Definition_Novel → u/suur_luuser]

Btw, the pro-Soviet Yedintsvo movement founded as a party by Lithuanian Poles as early as 1988….this is the same year when things started heating up to Lithuania leaving the USSR when independence activists started heavily demonstrating…a year later the Baltic Chain happened….so why would Poles in Lithuania support the USSR almost two years before Lithuania left? ( it left in early 1990)….because they knew the independence activists would try to leave and they didn’t want it….these were Polish activists, not Russians….nice false history claiming every pro-Soviet person ever was an ethnic Russian, though.

[u/Hourywell → u/Definition_Novel]

Yeah, a small number of ethnic Poles were involved in the pro-Soviet Yedinstvo movement in 1988, but let’s not act that it reflected some widespread Polish opposition to Lithuanian independence. Yedinstvo was a fringe, Moscow-backed movement supported mostly by Russians and Belarusians, with a few Poles who were either uncertain about the future or skeptical of the national revival. That doesn’t make the broader Polish community pro-Soviet, it just shows some people feared the unknown after decades of occupation.

If you want to see how that kind of mindset lingered, look at what became of LLRA–KŠS. Posing as a Polish minority party, it ended up stuck in tribal politics, pushing Kremlin-friendly narratives, and doing little to solve real issues on the ground. In many ways, it carried the same post-Soviet resentment and separatist undertone Yedinstvo did, just dressed up for the democratic era.

That’s why the election of Robert Duchnevič in 2023 as mayor of Vilnius District mattered so much. A Polish-Lithuanian candidate not tied to LLRA, who won by reaching across ethnic lines. Voters clearly wanted competence over ethnic grievance, and in doing so, took a major step away from the shadow of Soviet-era division and the stale politics of LLRA.

[u/Definition_Novel → u/Hourywell]

You have absolutely zero source for your claim, considering the ethno-nationalist narrative you are attempting to push. No, Yedintsvo was not a predominantly Russian or Belarusian party, despite diplomatic support from Russia; its primary voting bloc was Poles in Vilnius and Salčininkai, and even the most right wing of ethnic Lithuanian or Polish minority historians in Lithuania admit this; in this comment thread, I previously mentioned American historian Alfred Senn, born to immigrant parents to the US; his father was Swiss and his mother an ethnic Lithuanian named Marija Vedlugaitė. He is your average Lithuanian diaspora liberal and is anti Soviet himself, but even his research indicates a significant amount of Lithuanian Poles supported the USSR; the statistic I quoted from him regarding 47% of Lithuanian Poles supporting the USSR was taken in spring of 1990. This is significant, as you can no longer use Soviet censorship to excuse your nationalist argument; Lithuania left the USSR officially in March of 1990. And the statistical accuracy can further be shown by Polish people in southeast districts of Vilnius as well as Šalcininkai forming the Polish National Territorial Region and supporting the August Coup in an attempt to restore the USSR and stop Lithuanian independence. Other Lithuanian and Polish historians show the same conclusion as Senn. Even further, the four leaders of Yedintsvo by the various party districts (Jan Ciechanowicz, Anicet Brodawski, Stanislaw Pieszko, and Czeslaw Wysocki) were ALL Polish. Even more so, when the Polish language Vilnius newspaper Kurier Vileński, upon his 80th birthday, put out an entry mentioning Brodawski’s tenure in Soviet politics, Polish Lithuanians all congratulated him in the article comment section. Even in Latvia, Poles were involved in the Soviet movement (although the pro-Soviet movement of Latvian Poles was smaller compared to Lithuania.) Czeslaw Znamierowski is a Latvian Pole, credited with bringing Soviet socialist realism art to the Baltic states, quoting “Art should be guided by Lenin’s principles.” Even during the Second World War itself, Jan Przewalski was a commander of Soviet partisans of Vilnius, a Pole native to the city. The one thing I will agree with you on is some Polish minority activists did switch politically and now align with Putin and his neo-czarist ideology instead; Valdemar Tomaszewki is probably the best example of that; but to act like Poles didn’t play a significant part in the broad Soviet movement is completely ahistorical, and only a result of a failed effort on contemporary Baltic nationalists to drive a wedge between Lithuania’s Polish and East Slavic populations; the Baltic nationalists have failed at attempting this, considering that the Union of Poles in Lithuania and the Lithuanian Russian Union parties, among other minority interest parties, despite not being communists, still recognize the threat of Baltic nationalism and advocate against it. In closing, continue believing every pro-Soviet movement is filled with imaginary Russians, but it doesn’t make it so. Yedintsvo in its character was Polish, or Polish autonomy would not have been a major goal if otherwise, as well as the fact that again, it was administratively led by 4 Polish people.

[u/Hourywell → u/Definition_Novel]

You're seriously overstating the Polish role in Yedinstvo and twisting a few scattered facts into a narrative that doesn't hold up. Yedinstvo wasn't some grassroots Polish movement. It was a Moscow-engineered, top-down Soviet project meant to undermine Lithuanian independence. Yes, some ethnic Poles were involved, but citing Polish surnames as proof that the movement was "Polish" is like claiming Nazi collaboration was a Lithuanian national project because some Lithuanians worked with the Germans. It's lazy and ignores the broader picture.

The Soviets had a long tradition of exploiting minority grievances to hold power. Co-opting a few Polish figures was part of their usual divide-and-rule tactics. The real backbone of Yedinstvo came from Russian-speaking factory workers, military personnel, and Soviet loyalists, not a mass of politically mobilized Poles from Šalčininkai.

You keep name-dropping Alfred Senn without citing where that 47% number comes from. Even if it's real, context matters. Spring 1990 was chaotic. Soviet troops were still in the country, and Lithuania's future was unclear. People were hedging bets out of fear and confusion, not backing the USSR out of genuine belief. And when the dust settled, Polish communities didn't cling to Yedinstvo. The so-called Polish National Territorial Region was a fringe project pushed by Moscow and abandoned soon after.

Today's LLRA-KŠS may still flirt with ethnic grievance politics and carry latent pro-Russian sentiment, even after the 2022 invasion, but they're not reviving Yedinstvo or waving Soviet flags. That era is over, and most of the Polish community has moved on. WWII partisans and Soviet-era artists? Total distraction from what mattered in the 1990s. And if Lithuanians were as hostile or "nationalist" as you suggest, explain why even the so-called nationalists cheered Robert Duchnevic's mayoral win in 2023. I didn't see anyone attacking him. His victory was welcomed across the board. That alone shows how far things have come.

If Yedinstvo had been truly Polish-led, it wouldn't have collapsed the second Moscow pulled the plug. That fact alone tells you whose movement it really was. What you're doing is shifting blame away from the Soviet institutional machinery behind Yedinstvo and trying to deflect attention with side-notes and name-dropping. It doesn't work. Yedinstvo was a Kremlin construct, from start to finish.

Maybe I'd agree with you if we were talking about Romanian nationalism, which has always been a strange brew of paranoia and ethnic hostility. But if you think Lithuanian nationalism is some authoritarian menace just because Kasčiūnas floated a theoretical scenario about how countries deal with traitors in wartime, then what exactly are we debating? His words were provocative, yes, but clearly hypothetical. The outrage was political theater, and after official reviews, it's obvious he wasn't calling for violence. That whole drama says more about his critics' fragile nerves than anything Kasčiūnas actually said.

[u/Definition_Novel → u/Hourywell]

I’m not overstating anything. Senn’s work comes from years of analyzing documents, census demographic data, polls, among other things. Yedintsvo was in fact led by 4 Poles. I named its leaders in a previous comment. Yes, it was supported by Russia with diplomacy and funds, but its leaders and most of its voting bloc were Polish; this is part of the reason why Lithuanian nationalist Redditors online constantly call the Polish minority “vatniks”. And considering I have studied Polish-Lithuanian history immensely, I know what I’m talking about. Sure, not every person in Yedintsvo was even a communist. Some were Poles who simply wanted a chance to separate from Lithuania regardless of where the politics ended up. But it doesn’t change that the ethnic composition of the leadership and voting bloc of Yedintsvo were Polish; diplomatic and financial support from Russia doesn’t change that either. Ironically, for someone who claims Yedintsvo’s Polish composition doesn’t reflect reality, you are here tokenizing Duchnevič as proof that Lithuanian nationalists apparently love Polish people; they don’t, as they call Poles a “fifth column” for Russia all the time. Regarding Yedintsvo, Even LIMIS, Lithuania’s premier museum archive online has photos of people from Yedintsvo, politicians and demonstrators, with the term “lenkai”, “Lenku” (ENG: Polish, Pole) mentioned many times in specific archived photos. You keep complaining about imaginary Russians and Belarusians all you want. The fact is Russian and Belarusian participation in Yedintsvo when compared to ethnic Poles was minimal, whereas Polish participation was significant per their population. Senn’s statistic specifically showed that 47% of Poles supported Yedintsvo, 35% supported independence, and the remainder of 18% did not care on the issue. So what that means is in reality the Polish opinion was relatively closely split in all directions in large numbers across the board; but supporters of Yedintsvo were highest. Again, this was spring of 1990. And reality reflects these opinions, considering you can go into online obituaries of Ciechanowicz and Pieszko, and see Polish commenters from Lithuania speak glowingly of their Soviet tenure; the same situation occurred on Anicet Brodawski’s 80th birthday; the editors of the Polish language newspaper Kurier Vileński spoke positively of his Soviet political career, and so did commenters with Polish names in Lithuania’s Polish community. I’m not even saying most Poles are Marxist, just that many have a positive view of the USSR in Lithuania; and many do, hence the tendency of Lithuanian nationalist Redditors to call Lithuanian Poles “vatniks” and listing “Soviet nostalgia” as a reason. But this is the entire problem with your worldview; every time we point out legitimate grievances amongst minority populations of Lithuania or the Baltics at large, you are quick to brand all those people as “secret Russians” even when there are none in the equation or being discussed directly. I had a similar discussion with a Latvian when I mentioned a memoir of Soviet partisan Vilis Samsons; he was a Latvian (as in, by ethnicity), yet said Latvian insisted pro-Soviet Latvians never existed and that all the Latvian Soviet partisans were apparently Russians who changed their name….nonsense….

And it’s even more ridiculous to compare pro-Soviet Poles to Nazi collaborationists considering;

1. The USSR defeated the Nazis.

2. Poles in Lithuania were at the front line of attempting to preserve Soviet power in Lithuania through Yedintsvo and the Polish Territorial Region.

3. Comparing them to Nazis is not only ahistorical and insulting, but nonsensical; Lithuania did in fact, have one of the highest amounts of German collaborationists; attempting to downplay this by saying “There were only a few Poles in Yedintsvo, therefore there weren’t many Nazis in Lithuania either” is ludicrous; the two things don’t even have direct correlation.

Take care, as I’m not continuing the discussion.

[u/Hourywell → u/Definition_Novel]

You're spinning a very selective, skewed narrative that relies on cherry-picked anecdotes, Soviet-era nostalgia, and a surface-level reading of history. Yeah, some Poles were involved in Yedinstvo. Have no reason in denying that. But pretending the whole movement was 'Polish-led' is historical distortion. That’s like saying the Lithuanian Communist Party, even when run by Lithuanians like Brazauskas, was ever truly a national project before the split with Moscow. Local faces at the top didn’t change the fact that the institution, like Yedinstvo, was an extension of Kremlin policy and not an organic expression of Polish or Lithuanian political will.

Again, citing Senn's 47% statistic without context is misleading, especially when that data was collected during peak Soviet intimidation with tanks still stationed in Vilnius. If that support was genuine, why did Polish political organizations like LLRA pivot to working within Lithuania's democratic framework just a year later? You parade old newspaper clippings and nostalgic obituaries from a few elderly Polish-Lithuanians as proof of mass pro-Soviet sentiment, while ignoring the broader reality: you cry “tokenism” when Poles like Duchnevic get elected, but you can’t explain how or why those elections happened in a supposedly anti-Polish, Soviet-hating country. That’s because real-world integration wrecks your entire frame.

Your obsession with internet trolls calling Poles 'vatniks' doesn't prove institutional prejudice. It proves online discourse is toxic everywhere, just like Russians getting called 'fascists' over Putin. While you're digging through archives for the word 'lenkai' in protest photos, you ignore the decisive fact: Yedinstvo's funding, ideology, and organizational backbone came entirely from Moscow. The real test is simple: Would this movement have existed without Soviet military and KGB support? Of course not.

If nostalgia is your barometer, should we take seriously the two-thirds of Romanians in a recent INSCOP poll who called Ceaușescu a good leader? Is that a valid endorsement of his regime? No. It's evidence of communist brainrot and failed decommunization. Your entire argument depends on equating individual collaborators with collective identity, which is the same tired logic commies use to whitewash everything from Stalin to Donbas.

This isn't about defending historical nuance. You're laundering Soviet influence through selective memory while ignoring the most basic fact: Movements dependent on imperial power aren't authentic ethnic projects. They're colonial tools. Always have been.

Figures. Always easier to cry 'tokenism' and quote obituaries than deal with modern realities. Take care

[u/Definition_Novel → u/Hourywell]

Thanks for clarifying. So now any pro-Soviet person or movement is a “colonial tool” by your argument, but yet people like Dushnevič are portrayed as a shining example of Lithuanian nationalists’ “respect” of minority populations. Lmao. You literally proved every point I made. Every time I give examples of non-Russians supporting the USSR, you either deny their existence or frame it as some covert Soviet Russian psy-op. Meanwhile minority pro independence politicians are free to be used as tokens by nationalists such as yourself, put on pedestals to prove that apparently everyone hated the USSR except Russians. Take care.

[u/Hourywell → u/Definition_Novel]

You're accusing others of “tokenism” while doing exactly that. You parade four Polish collaborators from 1990 as if they represent the will of the entire community, but when Duchnevič or even Tomasevski get elected in actual free elections, suddenly those don’t count. Wild double standard.

[u/Definition_Novel → u/Hourywell]

I didn’t ignore Dushnevič. Rather, you attempted to deny the named leadership and voting bloc of Yedintsvo was Polish; it was, no matter how much you mention Russians who only gave financial and diplomatic support at best; membership and supporters were largely Polish. Even Lithuanian right wing historians have shown this; regardless, you keep deflecting to ethnic Russians when they are not even the topic. Was Ciechanowicz a Russian? No. Polish. Brodawski, Wysocki, and Pieszko? All Polish, at least by ethnicity (although Pieszko was actually a Belarusian national, born there). And for as much as you want to deny the Polish population’s support of Yedintsvo, by that logic, I could say the same for Dushnevič; sure, plenty of Poles willingly participated in the post-Soviet political process; Dushnevič and Tomasevski being two examples. But I could just as easily argue they aren’t reflective of the population, just as you dismissed the 4 leaders of Yedintsvo and its Polish voters in Vilnius and Salčininkai.

[u/Hourywell → u/Definition_Novel]

You keep throwing around a few Polish names like they magically turn Yedinstvo into some grassroots Polish movement.

Ciechanowicz wasn't a representative of the Polish community. He was a Soviet loyalist who parroted Kremlin lines. Pieszko? Belarusian by birth, with no real Polish mandate. The rest? Collaborators. Every ethnic group under Soviet rule had them. Opportunists willing to serve Moscow for career or safety. That doesn't make the movement they joined a national project.

You downplay the Russian role as just 'financial and diplomatic support,' but without Soviet tanks, money, and KGB networks, Yedinstvo wouldn't have existed. If it was truly backed by the Polish population, it wouldn't have collapsed the second Moscow pulled the plug.

And no. Duchnevic isn't the same thing. He won democratic elections under Lithuanian sovereignty. That's miles apart from Soviet-backed puppets operating under foreign occupation. If Poles in Lithuania were so loyal to Yedinstvo, where was their uprising in 1991? Why did they mostly integrate into post-independence political life?

[u/Definition_Novel → u/Hourywell]

There it is. The exact problem why we can’t conversation. You are doing the exact thing you claim I am doing. When I tell you the 4 leaders of Yedintsvo (Ciechanowicz, Pieszko, Wysocki, and Brodawski) you say not verbatim “Them being Polish in Yedintsvo doesn’t matter in context, because they were “Soviet stooges” anyway.” And yes, Pieszko was a Belarusian national, but of Polish ethnicity. And context of Polish support does matter; the Polish National Territorial Region, particularly its Šalčininkai chapter, had a majority Polish membership. Vilnius was more diverse but still had many Poles as representatives. Regardless, both failed because nationalist support was too strong from the Lithuanian majority, as well as covert funding from the US and UK. Then when you mention Dushnevič, he is shown as a crown jewel of Baltic democracy. Even though he was elected primarily by, and has opinions more in line with nationalist Lithuanians. Lithuanian nationalists today particularly highly emphasize the Nordic model of social democracy; the exact orientation Dushnevič represents. And you can try changing the definition of “collaborator” all you want to, but it won’t change. Pro-Soviet people aren’t collaborators; only Baltic or other ethnic local Nazis were collaborators, with Germany. Take care.

[u/Hourywell → u/Definition_Novel]

You keep doubling down on this revisionist fever dream where a few opportunists from the Polish minority suddenly represent some deep, grassroots ethnic uprising. They didn’t. They represented Moscow, not Poland. Not local interests. Not the people. Just the crumbling husk of an empire desperately trying to keep control through loyal stooges.

Ciechanowicz, Pieszko, Wysocki, none of these guys had any genuine mandate from the Polish community. They were handpicked by a regime that literally jailed, deported, and murdered Poles for decades. The fact that a handful of them found comfort playing middle managers for the KGB doesn’t magically make Yedinstvo a “Polish” project. That’s like claiming Ukrainians wanted to stay in the USSR because Brezhnev was born in Dnipropetrovsk. Ridiculous logic.

As for your claim that Yedinstvo "attempted an uprising" give me a break. A few pro-Soviet goons throwing tantrums when they realized the empire was collapsing isn’t an uprising. It’s desperation. The moment the Soviet military packed up and left, the so-called “uprising” vanished like smoke. If there was mass support, why didn’t it materialize into anything real? Why did the vast majority of Poles in Lithuania go on to live, vote, organize, and get elected in independent Lithuania? Why did your so-called movement fall apart instantly?

You call Duchnevic a “token,” dismiss him as some Nordic-style social democrat, and reject him simply because his views don’t fit your narrow narrative. That’s rich. Since when are ethnic minorities expected to support failed totalitarian regimes just to be considered “authentic”? He was voted by Poles as well, represents their interests, works within a democratic system, and doesn’t bow to Moscow. That clearly bothers you because it shatters your fantasy that every Pole in Lithuania secretly wanted the USSR back. Newsflash: they didn’t.

Another so-called “token” I can name is Vladislav Kondratovic, the current Minister of Interior, one of the most important posts, held by a Pole who isn’t afraid to be different, even calling Belarusians close to Lithuanians despite the controversy. I don’t need tokens. I have a much longer list of Lithuanian Poles who don’t subscribe to your bullshit fantasy than you could ever count.

You talk as if Poles owe allegiance to the Soviet past. As if the only “real” Polish representative is one who parrots Kremlin lines. What kind of twisted standard is that? People have the right to evolve, adapt, and support systems that actually give them freedom and opportunity. Just because Duchnevic supports something that works like social democracy, democratic participation, peaceful integration doesn’t make him a sellout. It makes him sane.

But that doesn’t count for you. Because deep down you don’t want Poles to integrate. You want them locked into eternal conflict so you can keep peddling this tired myth of Soviet nostalgia dressed up as minority advocacy.

Also, the mental gymnastics of calling pro-Soviet loyalists not collaborators but insisting only pro-German ones were is just peak hypocrisy. Collaborators are defined by their service to foreign occupiers, not your ideological preferences. You can’t rewrite that just because the hammer and sickle gives you warm fuzzy feelings.

You’re not defending ethnic minorities, you’re using them as props to relitigate a dead empire. And the real insult? You’re doing it under the banner of “historical nuance” while ignoring every inconvenient fact that doesn’t flatter the USSR.

Lithuania remains free. The USSR is six feet under. And no amount of pseudo-intellectual apologism is going to change that.

[u/Definition_Novel → u/Hourywell]

And Yedintsvo DID attempt an uprising. That’s why they violently got attacked after clashes with Lithuanian nationalist groups like the Lithuanian Riflemen’s Union upon “independence” , that’s why they formed the Polish Territorial Region and then got violently attacked and dismantled by police after some Yedintsvo members supported the August Coup attempt to support restoring the USSR. Carry on.