[CleanedStar]

If technically Poland was under Soviet occupation, then technically Italy was under US occupation.

There's much more of a case for Italy being a US satellite state than Poland being and independent state under foreign occupation. There was no independent Poland in the century before World War I. Only the two decades of upheaval between World War I and II allowed for some Polish independence.

US troops occupied Italy and are still in Italy today. Not that those who ran the US economy disapproved of what Mussolini had been doing. As Fortune magazine memorably said in 1934: "The wops are unwopping themselves". Plenty of US investor money went to Italy, and Mussolini even had some support in US liberal circles. Then World War II happens. Northern Italy, which the fascists had to work to keep down, mostly liberated itself in the days and weeks before Allied troops even arrived there. Then in 1948 the US very openly rigged elections so the Christian Democrats would win. Gladio was set up as a secret government in case the left was voted to power. As late as 1976, Italian voters voted 34.4% for the communists, 9.6% for the socialists (who still had the hammer and sickle emblem), 1.5% for the ultra-left Proletarian Democracy etc. Secret P2 lodges pulled strings at high levels, strategia della tensione was put into effect with bombings by the far right blamed on the left, with leads back to the highest levels of government. US intelligence had a massive involvement in Italy. It was no less a "satellite state" than any eastern European country.

Hungary was called a satellite state of the USSR even though it had had an independent communist revolution after World War I, put down by foreign intervention. Hungary was independent of the USSR until 1956, when the right took over and announced its desire to join NATO. England and France were invading Egypt around this time.

[ajuc]

USSR/Russian troops entered Poland in 1939 and left in 1992. After WW2 it was decided at Yalta that Poland will be communist country no matter what Poles want, there were falsified elections, till early fifties there were partisans fighting against new government in less populated areas. People that had the misfortune of fighting Germans in right-wing instead of left-wing partisan groups during WW2 were mass-murdered in tousands (some left-wing groups members too just in case). Political parties other than communist PZPR and pre-war socialist PPS were outlawed (PPS was outlawed a few years later too). There was censorship.

Between 1945 and 1989 if you asked Poles whether they want to be occupied by USA instead of being "independent Warsaw Pact member" 90% or more would instantly agree.

Say what you want, but for most Poles Kukliński did good.