The thing you've described was the look of Poland through the feudal history, The things were looking all the way different in the 20' and 30'. If you write something about our history i'm more than sure that you know we were under German and Russian shoe for over 120 years? We had 20 years to restore our government, our industry and our economics. 20 years... Meanhwile two major winners of the great war were peeing under themselves in fear of Hitler. Poland made great job during entire conflict, we've solved enigma, we've breaken the resistance of germans during the fight for Monte Cassino, we've never formed waffen ss, and finally we had never surrendered. We as all nation, are stronger than anybody can even imagine. We had corrupted rulers through our history, we had problems with army, we had problems with economy, we had problems to come together as a nation, but when we did, nobody could stop us.
That's why i'm proud to be who i am, what makes us Poles is the fact that we can overcome anything. Germans couldn't even overcome their stupidity during the Barbarossa campaign, that's all.
Never underestimate other nation, and say that we deserved to be smashed. We did even more than we were capable of.