I tend to agree that GDW's idea that various large groups of the Polish military/people would be pro-NATO is a bit idealistic (and even downright silly in some cases). Some Polish people I've spoken to have found it insulting that it was thought that they would be so pro-Western that they would just 'jump ship' to NATO given any chance to.
I think the Polish peoples loyalties would not be so much NATO or the Soviet Union as much as it would be: -
1. Poland
2. the Catholic church
3. the Communist ideal
4. WarPac/WTO
I think for many of them, NATO and Russia would not even really enter the equation.
The argument for the Communist State.
Under communism, everyone was entitled to free medical care & education and everyone was given an equal chance to advance themselves within reason (there were no blocks to women becoming engineers for example, but they weren't going to be allowed to be fighter pilots although any peasant farm boy/girl could become a high-ranking research doctor or so on).
The flipside of this is that conformity was encouraged and even today, Polish people generally are still quite conservative and conformist (try being a male with long hair even in 2010, you'll be treated like you're a girl by many men both young and old). Polish women were and still are generally expected to get an education, meet their future husband at school/university, work for a few years, get married & have children - and you are expected to stay married for life.
I agree that various individuals and even groups will be pro-NATO, pro-Western, pro-WarPact, pro-isolationist or whatever and so on but one of the primary sources for propaganda seems to be ignored. Poland is Catholic, if the Pope made an appeal to the Polish people to support NATO, there would be people who would do it, even those who ardently supported the communist regime. The power of the church in Poland is typically underestimated in most game treatments.
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