Free Republic

It is a cliché that if we do not study the past we are condemned to repeat it. Almost equally certain, however, is that if there are lessons to be learned from an historical episode, the political class will draw all the wrong ones — and often deliberately so. Far from viewing the past as a potential source of wisdom and insight, political regimes have a habit of employing history as an ideological weapon, to be distorted and manipulated in the service of present-day ambitions. That’s what Winston Churchill meant when he described the history of the Soviet Union as...

Anniversary of the 1920 Battle of Warsaw marked as Polish Army Day 15.08.2006 Today is Polish Army Day. It is observed on the anniversary of the victorious battle of 1920 against the Soviet army fought on the outskirts of Warsaw. President Lech Kaczynski laid wreaths at the monument to Marshal Jozef Pilsudski, the architect of that victory, and at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, where a ceremonial changing of the guard was held. A memorial to Polish soldiers who died in the peace and stabilizations missions has been unveiled in Warsaw. Since 1953 Polish troops have taken part in...

Fr. Ignacy Skorupka and numerous Polish soldiers died for Christian Poland and Europe in 1920. Our task is to preserve that heritage He died for Christian Europe On the occasion of blessing of the monument to Fr Ignacy Skorupka Bishop Stanislaw Wielgus In his last book entitled 'Memory and identity', most regrettable Holy Father John Paul II, reflecting again on the mystery of iniquity in the history of mankind and on the struggle between good and evil that was waged from the beginning of mankind, quoted the words, which the genial German poet Goethe put in the mouth of Mephistopheles...

Polish code breakers won the Polish Russian war It wasn’t a miracle, it was Polish intelligence. The victory of the Polish army over Soviet invaders in the summer of 1920 in one of the most important battles of the 20th century. Newly discovered evidence suggests that what came to be known as the miracle on the Vistula river, was no miracle at all. It was all down to Polish military intelligence. The miracle means a miraculous reversal of fortunes – the Russians had been winning the war until they suffered a crushing defeat at the gates of Warsaw. Apparently Poland...

Vol. 16 No. 2    THE GROWTH OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IN THE 1920S Randall G. Holcombe    The federal government has grown substantially in the 20th century. In 1913, just prior to World War I, federal government expenditures were 2.5 percent of gross national product and by 1990 they had risen to 22.5 percent of GNP. The relatively small size of the federal government before World War I shows that it exhibited minimal growth in the 19th century, in stark contrast with its tremendous growth in the 20th century. [1] Figure 1 shows real per capita federal expenditures...