Poland, especially the eastern part (an equivalent of the US South) has a history of pogroms, no doubt, but the prevailing mentality is "catching up with the West" rather than "leading the world."
That was the case even under the Soviet rule, which created an amusing paradox in the official media. On the one hand, the Soviet-style socialism was supposed to be the vanguard of history, but the news were full of stories how the east is catching up with the west. A typical narrative in this genre would be something of this sort "The National Enterprise of X has released a new product Y based totally on the domestically developed technology. The Y is not any worse in quality than similar western products, and in some respects even better."
As far as I can tell, official claims to superiority and "world leadership" were thoroughly ridiculed in the informal culture. What is more, Poles had the annoying habit of sucking up to foreigners by treating them like visiting dignitaries (which, interestingly, coexisted with racist attitudes) and expressing vivid interest in anything foreign.
One of the biggest culture shocks I experienced when I got off the boat was the discovery that Americans tend to be navel gazing people who do not give a shit about any other culture or people.
Wojtek