Polish-Soviet War
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The Polish-Soviet War (February 1919 – March 1921) was an armed conflict between Soviet Russia and the Second Polish Republic, two nascent states in post-World War I Europe. The war was a result of conflicting expansionist attempts — by Poland, whose statehood had just been re-established following the Partitions of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the late 18th century, to secure territories which she had lost at the time of partitions or earlier — and by the Soviets, who aimed at control of the same territories, which had been part of Imperial Russia until the turbulent events of the Great War. Both states claimed victory in the war: the Poles claimed a successful defense of their state, while the Soviets claimed a repulse of the Polish eastward invasion of Ukraine and Belarus viewed by them as a part of foreign interventions in the Russian Civil War.
The frontiers between Poland and Soviet Russia had not been defined in the Treaty of Versailles and were further rendered chaotic by the Russian Revolution of 1917, crumbling of the Russian, German and Austrian empires, the Russian Civil War, Central Powers' withdrawal from the eastern front, and the attempts of Ukraine and Belarus to establish their independence. Poland's Chief of State,Józef Pilsudski, Polish revolutionary and statesman, the first chief of state (1918–22) of the newly independent Poland established in November 1918. ([Józef Pilsudski] in Encyclopedia Britannica)
Released in Nov., 1918, [Pilsudski] returned to Warsaw, assumed command of the Polish armies, and proclaimed an independent Polish republic, which he headed. ([Pisudski, Joseph] in Columbia Encyclopedia) Józef Piłsudski, realized the expediency of using the moment to expand the Polish borders as much to the east as feasible"The newly found Polish state cared much more about the expansion of its borders to the east and south-east ("between the seas") that about helping the agonizing state of which Petlura was a de-facto dictator. ("A Belated Idealist." Zerkalo Nedeli (Mirror Weekly), May 22-28, 2004. Available online [in Russian] and [in Ukrainian].)
Piłsudski is quoted to have said: "After the Polish indepence we will see about Poland's size". (ibid) followed by creation a Polish-led federation with other states in the rest of East-Central Europe as a bulwark against the potential reemergence of both German and Russian imperialism. On the other hand, Lenin saw Poland as the bridge that the Red Army would have to cross in order to assist other communist movements and help conduct other European revolutions.[THE REBIRTH OF POLAND]. University of Kansas, lecture notes by professor Anna M. Cienciala, 2004. Last accessed on 2 June 2006.
By 1919, the Polish forces had taken control over much of Western Ukraine, having won the conflict with West Ukrainian National Republic that tried to create a Ukrainian state on territories to which both Poles and the Ukrainians laid claim. Meanwhile, the Bolsheviks began to gain the upper hand in the Russian Civil War and to advance westward towards the disputed territories and by the end of 1919 a clear front had formed. Border skirmishes then escalated into open warfare following Piłsudski's major incursion further east into Ukraine (April 1920). He was met by a nearly simultaneous Red Army counterattack, initially very successful. The Soviet operation threw the Polish forces back westward all the way to the Polish capital, Warsaw. Meanwhile, western fears of Soviet troops arriving at the German frontiers increased the interest of Western powers in the war. In midsummer, the fall of Warsaw seemed certain but in mid-August the tide had turned again as the Polish forces achieved an unexpected and decisive victory at the Battle of Warsaw. In the wake of the Polish advance eastward, Soviets sued for peace and the war ended with a ceasefire in October 1920. A formal peace treaty, the Peace of Riga, was signed on 18 March, 1921, dividing the disputed territories between Poland and Soviet Russia. Thus, this 1919-1920 war has largely determined the Soviet-Polish border for the period between the World Wars.
- 1 Names and dates of the war
- 2 Prelude to the war
- 3 The Campaign
- 3.1 1919
- 3.1.1 Chaos in Eastern Europe
- 3.1.2 An avalanche starts: First Polish-Soviet conflicts
- 3.1.3 Diplomatic Front, Part 1: The alliances
- 3.2 1920
- 3.2.1 Opposing forces
- 3.2.2 The tide turns: Operation Kiev
- 3.2.3 String of Soviet victories
- 3.2.4 Diplomatic Front, Part 2: The political games
- 3.2.5 The tide turns: Miracle at the Vistula
- 3.2.6 End of the war
- 4 Aftermath
- 5 Controversies
- 6 List of battles
- 7 External links
- 8 References
- 9 Further reading
Names and dates of the war
The war is referred to by several names. "Polish-Soviet War" may be the most common, but is potentially confusing since "Soviet" is usually thought of as relating to the Soviet Union, which (by contrast with "Soviet Russia") did not officially come into being until December 1922. Alternative names include "Russo-Polish WarSee for instance [Russo-Polish War] in Encyclopædia Britannica...military conflict between Soviet Russia and Poland, which sought to seize Ukraine... Although there had been hostilities between the two countries during 1919, the conflict began when the Polish head of state Józef Pilsudski formed an alliance with the Ukrainian nationalist leader Symon Petlura (April 21, 1920) and their combined forces began to overrun Ukraine, occupying Kiev on May 7. [or Polish-Russian War] of 1919-20/21" (to distinguish it from earlier Polish-Russian wars) and "Polish-Bolshevik War." This second term (or just "Bolshevik War" (Polish: Wojna bolszewicka)) is most common in Polish sources. In some Polish sources it has also come down as the "War of 1920" (Polish: Wojna 1920 roku), while Soviet historians often either called it the "War against White Poland" or considered it a part of the Allied Intervention in the Russian Civil War or of the Civil War itself.
A second controversy revolves around the starting date of the war. For example, Encyclopedia Britannica considers the Polish thrust into Ukraine as the starting point of the war., while some historians - like Norman DaviesDavies, Norman, White Eagle, Red Star: the Polish-Soviet War, 1919-20, Pimlico, 2003, ISBN 0712606947. (First edition: New York, St. Martin's Press, inc., 1972.) - give the year 1919 as the starting year of the war. Finally, the ending dates are given as either 1920 or 1921; this confusion stems from the fact that while the ceasefire was put in force in fall 1920, the official treaty ending the war was signed months later, in 1921.
While the events of 1919 can be described as a border conflict and only in early 1920 did both sides realize that they were in fact engaged in an all-out war, the conflicts that took place in 1919 are closely related to the war that began in earnest a year later. In the end, the events of 1920 were only a logical, though unforseen, consequence of the 1919 prelude.
In 1919, with the end of the First World War, the map of Central and Eastern Europe had drastically changed. As Germany's defeat rendered its plans for the creation of the Mitteleuropa puppet states obsolete, and as Russia sank into the depths of the Russian Civil War, many nations of that region saw a chance for real independence and were not prepared to easily relinquish this rare opportunity.
At the same time, the Russians saw these territories as rebellious Russian provinces, vital for Russian security, but were unable to react swiftly, as, weakened by the World War, their Empire collapsed into the Revolution and Civil War that raged there from 1917.
Meanwhile, with the success of the Greater Poland Uprising in 1918, Poland had reestablished its statehood for the first time since the 1795 partition which brought 123 years of Poland being ruled by its three imperial neighbors. The country reborn as a Second Polish Republic proceeded to carve out its borders from the territories of its former partitioners, Russia, Germany and Austria-Hungary.
Poland, however, was not alone in its newfound opportunities and troubles. Soon, virtually all of the newly independent neighbours began fighting over borders: Romania fought with Hungary over Transylvania, Yugoslavia with Italy over Rijeka, Poland with Czechoslovakia over Tesin (Cieszyn), with Germany over Poznań and with Ukrainians over Eastern Galicia. Ukrainians, Belarusians, Lithuanians, Estonians and Latvians fought against themselves and against the Russians, who were just as divided. Spreading communist influences also added to this mix, resulting in communists revolutions in Munich, Berlin, Budapest and Košice. Winston Churchill commented on this situation: The war of giants has ended, the wars of the pygmies beginAdrian Hyde-Price, Germany and European Order, Manchester University Press, 2001, ISBN 0719054281 [link]. He was mostly correct; all of those engagements – with the sole exception of the Polish-Soviet war – would be shortlived border conflicts, insignificant in the greater scheme of things.
The Polish-Soviet war have likely happened more by accident than by design. It is unlikely that anyone in Soviet Russia or in the new Second Republic of Poland would have deliberately planned a major foreign war. Poland, its territory a major frontline of the First World War, was unstable politically and having just won a difficult conflict with Ukrainians for Eastern Galicia was already engaged in new conflicts with Germany (the Silesian Uprisings) and with Czechoslovakia, while the attention and policies of revolutionary Russia were predominantly directed at dealing with counter-revolution and with intervention by the western powers. While the first clashes between Polish and Soviet forces occurred in February 1919, it would be almost a year before both sides fully realised that they were engaged in an all-out war.
All began to change in late 1919, when Vladimir Lenin, leader of Russia's new communist government, inspired by the Red Army's civil-war victories over White Russian anticommunist forces and their western allies on Russian territory started to see the future of the revolution with the greater optimism. The Bolsheviks, although they stil had lots of internal problems, acted on a conviction([Disputed statementdisputed]—see [proletariat in all nations, and that the withering away of national states would eventually bring about a worldwide communist community. One of the arguments for the inevitability of the coming war with Poland laid in the Bolsheviks’ avowed intent to link their revolution in Russia with an expected revolution in Germany. Poland, due to its geographical location, was the bridge that the Red Army would have to cross in order to link the two revolutions and to assist other communist movements in Western Europe. As Lenin himself remarked, "That was the time when everyone in Germany, including the darkest reactionaries and monarchists, declared that the Bolsheviks would be their salvation."[[Citing sources citation needed]] The Bolshevik government claimed to support the "self-determination" of all the non-Russian peoples of the former Russian Empire. However, they meant self-determination by workers and peasants led by native communists sent in from Moscow. Lenin’s aim was to infiltrate the borderlands, set up communist governments there as well as in Poland, and reach Germany where he expected a socialist revolution to break out. He also expected revolutions elsewhere, including Italy, but the German revolution was most important to him for he believed that Soviet Russia could not survive without the support of a socialist Germany and the help of its industrial know-how to modernize Russia. By 1918 the Soviets managed to take over most of Ukraine, driving out the Ukrainian government from Kiev, and they also set up a "Lithuanian-Belorussian Republic" (Litbel) in early 1919, with its government in Vilnius. It was run by native communists sent there by Moscow and supported by Red Army units. This government made itself very unpopular due to confiscation of food and goods for the army, as well as terror. It was however not until the Soviet victories in the first half of 1920 that some of the Soviet leaders would see the war as the real opportunity to spread the revolution westwards. Ronald Grigor Sun, The Soviet Experiment: Russia, the USSR, and the Successor States, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0195081056, [Google Print, p.106]
In the meantime, Polish politics were under the strong influence of Piłsudski and his vision of a Polish-led "Międzymorze Federation" comprised of an expanded Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine and other Central and East European countries now emerging out of crumbling empires after the First World WarZbigniew Brzezinski in his introduction to Waclaw Jedrzejewicz’s “Pilsudski A Life For Poland” wrote: Pilsudski’s vision of Poland, paradoxically, was never attained. He contributed immensely to the creation of a modern Polish state, to the preservation of Poland from the Soviet invasion, yet he failed to create the kind of multinational commonwealth, based on principles of social justice and ethnic tolerance, to which he aspired in his youth. One may wonder how relevant was his image of such a Poland in the age of nationalism.... Quoted from [this website].. The new union was to be a counterweight to any potential imperialist intentions on the part of Russia or Germany. However, Piłsudski's vision was opposed not only by foreign nationalist and imperialist politics[Marshal Jozef Pilsudski. Messiah and Central European Federalist]. Polonica.net article by Patryk Dole but even in reborn Poland he was opposed by Roman Dmowski, who prevailed with his view of a smaller, ethnically purer Poland, where all minorities would be Polonized.Manfred F. Boemeke, Gerald D. Feldman, Elisabeth Glaser, The Treaty of Versailles: A Reassessment After 75 Years, Cambridge University Press, 1998, ISBN 0521621321, [Google Print, p.314]Roman Dmowski have been quoted saying: "Wherever we can multiply our forces and our civilizational efforts, absorbing other elements, no law can prohibit us from doing so, as such actions are our duty."
In 1918 the German Army in the east, under the command of Max Hoffmann, began to retreat westwards. The areas abandoned by the Central Powers became a field of conflict among local governments created by Germany, other local governments that independently sprang up after the German withdrawal, and the Bolsheviks, who hoped to incorporate those areas into Soviet Russia. Many of those groups were fragmented, merged, divided, formed short alliances with others, and almost constantly fought. Almost all of Eastern Europe was in chaos.
On November 18, 1918, Vladimir Lenin issued orders to the Western Army of the Red Army to begin movement westwards that would follow the withdrawing German troops of Oberkommando Ostfront (Ober-Ost). The basic aim of the operation was to drive through eastern and central Europe, institute Soviet governments in the newly independent countries of that region and support communist revolutions in Germany and Austria-Hungary. At the start of 1919, fighting broke out almost by accident and without any orders from the respective governments, when self-organized Polish military units in Vilnius (Wilno) clashed with Bolshevik forces of Litbel, each trying to secure the territories for its own incipient government. Eventually the more organized Soviet forces quelled most of the resistance and drove the remaining Polish forces west. On 5 January 1919, the Red Army entered Minsk almost unopposed, thus putting an end to the short-lived Belarusian People's Republic. At the same time, more and more self-defense units, mostly led by Poles, sprang up across western Belarus and Lithuania (Lithuanian and Belarusian Self-Defence)Łukowski, Grzegorz and Rafal E. Stolarski, Walka o Wilno. Z dziejow Samoobrony Litwy i Bialorusi, 1918-1919 (Fight for Wilno. From the history of the Self-Defence of Lithuania and Belarus, 1918-1919), Adiutor, 1994, ISBN 8390008505. A series of local skirmishes ensued between them and pro-Bolshevik groups operating in the area. The newly organized Polish Army began sending the first of their units east to assist the self-defense forces, while the Russians sent their own units west. Open conflict seemed inevitable.
In the spring of 1919, Soviet conscription produced a Red Army of 2,300,000. However, few of these were sent west that year, as the majority of Red Army forces were engaged against the Russian White movement. In September 1919, the Polish army had 540,000 men under arms, 230,000 of these on the Soviet front.
At the same time the Polish forces had been advancing eastwards. By 14 February, the Poles had secured positions along the line of Kobryn, Pruzhany, rivers Zalewianka and Neman. Around 14 February, the first organised Polish units made contact with the advance units of the Red Army, and a border frontline slowly began to form from Lithuania, through Belarus to Ukraine.
In early March 1919, Polish units started an offensive, crossing the Neman River, taking Pinsk and reaching the outskirts of Lida. Both the Russian and Polish advances began around the same time in April, resulting in increasing numbers of troops being brought into the area. That month the Bolsheviks captured Grodno and Vilnius, but were pushed out by a Polish counteroffensive. The newly-formed Polish Army had proven to be a far more difficult opponent than the Russians had assumed. Unable to accomplish their objectives and facing strengthening offensives from the White forces, the Red Army withdrew from their positions and reorganized. Soon the Polish-Soviet War would begin in earnest.
Polish forces recaptured Vilnius on April 19, driving the Litbel government from their proclaimed capital, and steadily continued advancing east. On 28 August, Polish forces for the first time used tanks and after heavy fighting captured the town of Babruysk near the Berezina River. By 2 October, Polish forces reached the Daugava river and secured the region from Desna to Daugavpils (Dyneburg).
Until early 1920, the Polish offensive was quite successful. Sporadic battles erupted between Polish forces and the Red Army, but the latter was preoccupied with the Russian Civil War against the White Russian counter-revolutionary forces and were slowly but steadily retreating on the entire western frontline, from Latvia in the north to Ukraine in the south.
At the same time, the Russian civil war raged on. In early summer 1919, the White movement gained the initiative, and its forces under the command of Anton Denikin were marching on Moscow. Piłsudski viewed the Bolsheviks as less dangerous for Poland than their Russian-civil-war contendersPeter Kenez, A History of the Soviet Union from the Beginning to the End, Cambridge University Press, 1999, ISBN 0521311985, [Google Print, p.37], as the White Russians were not willing to accept Poland's independence, while the Bolsheviks did proclaim the Partitions of Poland null and void. As such, by his refusal to join the attack on Lenin's struggling government, ignoring the strong pressure from the Entente, Piłsudski had likely saved the Bolshevik government in Summer-Fall 1919. He later wrote that in case of a White victory Poland could get in the east only the "ethnic border" at best (the Curzon line).()() Oleksa Pidlutskyi, Postati XX stolittia, (Figures of the 20th century), Kiev, 2004, ISBN 9668290011, LCCN [20-04440333]. Chapter "Józef Piłsudski: The Chief who Created Himself a State" reprinted in Zerkalo Nedeli (the Mirror Weekly), Kiev, February 3 - 9, 2001, [in Russian] and [in Ukrainian]. At the same time Lenin offered Poles territories of Minsk, Zhytomyr, Khmelnytskyi, in what was described as mini "Brest", and Polish military leader Kazimierz Sosnkowski wrote that the territorial proposals of Bolsheviks were much better then what the Poles wanted to achieve[link].
The main Polish diplomatic success was the signing of an agreement with the exiled Ukrainian nationalist leader Symon Petlura who formally represented the defunct Ukrainian People's Republic by then de-facto defeated by Bolsheviks. Petlura, along with some Ukrainian forces that fled with him to Poland, found asylum there. By concluding an agreement with Piłsudski, Petlura accepted the Polish territorial gains in Western Ukraine and the future Polish-Ukrainian border along the Zbruch River. In exchange, he was promised Polish military assistance in reinstalling his government in Kiev, where he would again assume the authority of the already twice-unsuccessful Ukrainian People's Republic. Following the formal restoration of Ukrainian independence, the Ukrainian republic was then supposed to join the Polish-led "Międzymorze" federation of East-Central European states, as Piłsudski wanted Ukraine to be a buffer between Poland and Russia. rather than seeing Ukraine again dominated by Russia right at the Polish border. For Piłsudski, this alliance was an important step towards Międzmorze, at the same time securing part of the Polish eastward border and laying a foundation for a Ukrainian buffer state between Poland and Russia. For Petlura, this was the yet another chance to preserve the statehood and, at least, the formal idependence of the Ukrainian heartlands, even accepting the loss of Western Ukrainian lands to Poland."In September 1919 the armies of the Ukrainian Directory in Podolia found themselves in the "death triangle". They were squeezed between the Red Russians of Lenin and Trotsky in the north-east, White Russians of Denikin in south-east and the Poles in the West. Death were looking into their eyes. And not only to the people but to the nacent Ukrainian state. Therefore, the chief ataman Petlura had no choice but to accept the union offered by Pilsudski, or, as an alternative, to capitulate to the Bolsheviks, as Volodymyr Vinnychenko or Mykhailo Hrushevsky did at the time or in a year or two. The decision was very hurtful. The Polish Szlachta was a historic enemy of the Ukrainian people. A fresh wound was bleeding, the Western Ukrainian People's Republic, as the Pilsudchiks were suppressing the East Galicians at that very moment. However, Petlura agreed to peace and the union, accepting the Ukrainian-Polish border, the future Soviet-Polish one. It's also noteworthy that Pilsudski also obtained less territories than offered to him by Lenin, and, in addition, the war with immense Russia. The Dnieper Ukrainians than were abandoning their brothers, the Galicia Ukrainians, to their fate. However, Petlura wanted to use his last chance to preserve the statehood - in the union with the Poles. Attempted, however, without luck.".
Bolshevik commanders in the Red Army's coming offensive would include Mikhail Tukhachevsky (new commander of the Western Front), Leon Trotsky, the future Soviet ruler Joseph Stalin, and the future founder of the Cheka secret police, Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky.
The Polish Army was made up of soldiers who had formerly served in the various partitioning empires, supported by inexperienced volunteers (including 20,000 Americans) and recruits. Boris Savinkov was at the head of an army of 20,000 to 30,000 largely Russian POWs, and accompanied by Dmitry Merezhkovsky and Zinaida Gippius Logistics were very bad, relying on whatever equipment was left over from World War I and could be captured. The Polish Army employed guns made in five countries, and rifles manufactured in six, each using different ammunition. The Polish forces grew from approximately 100,000 in 1918 to over 500,000 in early 1920. On 20 August, 1920, the Polish army had reached the total strength of 737,000, so there was rough numerical parity between the two armies - 950,000 on the Soviet side. Although Soviet Russia had reserves totaling 4 million soldiers, due to shortage of arms they were not at the front as Russia could only produce 100,000 rifles per month.
From March 1919 Polish intelligence was aware that the Soviets had prepared for a new offensive and the Polish High Command decided to launch their own offensive before their opponents. The plan for Operation Kiev was to beat the Red Army on Poland's southern flank and install a Polish-friendly Petlura government in Ukraine.
Until April, the Polish forces had been slowly but steadily advancing eastward. The new Latvian government requested Polish help in capturing Daugavpils. This assistance was granted, the city fell after heavy fighting in January and was handed over to the Latvians, who viewed the Poles as liberators[[Citing sources citation needed]]. By March, Polish forces had driven a wedge between Soviet forces to the north (Byelorussia) and south (Ukraine).
On April 24, Poland began its main offensive, Operation Kiev, whose stated goal was the creation of independent Ukraine that would become part of Piłsudski's project of a "Międzymorze" Federation. Poland was assisted by the small force of the exiled Symon Petlura, nominally representing the Ukrainian People's Republic. On April 26th, in his "Call to the People of Ukraine", Piłsudski assured that "the Polish army would only stay as long as necessary until a legal Ukrainian government took control over its own territory".[[Citing sources citation needed]] Despite this, many Ukrainians were just as anti-Polish as anti-Bolshevik, and resented Polish advance , which many viewed just as a variety of new occupation,Tadeusz Machalski, then a captain, (the future military attache to Ankara) wrote in his diary: "Ukrainian people, who saw in their capital an alien general with the Polish army, instead of Petlura leading his own army, didn't view it as the act of liberation but as a variety of a new occupation. Therefore, the Ukrainians, instead of enthusiasm and joy, watched in gloomy silence and instead of rallying to arms to defend the freedom remained the passive speactators". Quoted from: "Figures of the 20th century. Józef Piłsudski: the Chief who Created a State for Himself," Zerkalo Nedeli (the Mirror Weekly), Feb. 3-9, 2001, available online [in Russian] and [in Ukrainian]. an armed Polish intervention into central Ukraine following the Polish-Ukrainian War, in which the short-lived Western Ukrainian People's Republic was defeated and absorbed by Poland "[I]n practice, [Pilsudski] was engaged in a process of conquest that was bitterly resisted by Lithuanians and Ukrainians (except the latter's defeat by the Bolsheviks left them with no one else to turn but Pilsudski)."
The Polish 3rd Army easily won border clashes with the Red Army in Ukraine. However, the Reds simply withdrew with minimal losses and the combined Polish-Ukrainian forces entered the abandoned Kiev on May 7, encountering only token resistance.
The Polish military thrust was soon met with Red Army counterattacks. Polish forces in the area, preparing for an offensive towards Žlobin, managed to push the Soviets back, but were unable to start their own planned offensive. In the north, Polish forces had fared much worse. The Polish 1st Army was defeated and forced to retreat, pursued by the Russian 15th Army which recaptured territories between the Western Dvina and Berezina rivers. Polish forces attempted to take advantage of the exposed flanks of the attackers but the enveloping forces failed to stop the Soviet advance. At the end of May, the front had stabilised near the small river Auta, and Soviet forces began preparing for the next push.
On May 24 1920, the Polish forces in the south were engaged for the first time by Semyon Budionny's famous 1st Cavalry Army (Konarmia). Repeated attacks by Budionny's Cossack cavalry broke the Polish-Ukrainian front on June 5. The Soviets then deployed mobile cavalry units to disrupt the Polish rearguard, targeting communications and logistics. By June 10, Polish armies were in retreat along the entire front. On June 13, the Polish army along with the Petlura's Ukrainian troops abandoned Kiev to the Red Army.
The commander of the Polish 3rd Army in Ukraine, General Edward Rydz-Śmigły, decided to break through toward the northwest. Polish forces in Ukraine managed to withdraw in orderly fashion and relatively unscathed, but were unable to support Poland's northern front and reinforce the defenses at the Auta River for the decisive battle that was soon to take place there.
Due to insufficient forces, Poland's 200-mile-long front was manned by a thin line of 120,000 troops backed by some 460 artillery pieces with no strategic reserves. This approach to holding ground harked back to Great War practice of "establishing a fortified line of defense." It had shown some merit on a Western Front saturated with troops, machine guns and artillery. Poland's eastern front, however, was weakly manned, supported with inadequate artillery, and had almost no fortifications.
Against the Polish line the Red Army gathered their Northwest Front led by the young General Mikhail Tukhachevski. Their numbers exceeded 108,000 infantry and 11,000 cavalry, supported by 722 artillery pieces and 2,913 machine guns. The Russians at some crucial places outnumbered the Poles four-to-one.
Tukhachevski launched his offensive July 4, along the axis Smolensk-Brest-Litovsk, crossing the Auta and Berezina. The northern 3rd Cavalry Corps of Gayk Bzhishkyan (Gay Dmitrievich Gay, Gaj-Chan) was to envelope Polish forces from the north, moving near the Lithuanian and Prussian border (both of these belonging to nations hostile to Poland). 4th, 15th and 3rd Armies were to push decisively west, supported from the south by the 16th Army and Grupa Mozyrska. For three days the outcome of the battle hung in the balance, but the Russians' numerical superiority finally became apparent. Due to the stubborn defense by Polish units, Tukhachevski's plan to break through the front and push the defenders southwest into the Pinsk Marshes failed, but from July 7, the Polish forces were in full retreat along the entire front.
Polish resistance was offered again on a line of "German trenches," a heavily fortified line of World War I field fortifications that presented a unique opportunity to stem the Russian offensive. Once again, however, the Polish troops were insufficient in number. Soviet forces selected a weakly defended part of the front and broke through. Gej-Chan forces, supported by Lithuanian forces, captured Wilno on 14 July, forcing the Poles to retreat again. In the south, in Galicia, General Semyon Budionny's cavalry advanced far into the Polish rear, capturing Brodno and approaching Lwów and Zamość. In early July, it became clear to the Poles that the Russians' objectives were not limited to pushing their borders westwards. Poland's very independence was at stake.#redirect
The Russian forces relentlessly moved forward at the remarkable rate of 20 miles a day. Grodno in Belarus fell on 19 July, Brest-Litovsk fell on 1 August, Polish attempts to defend the Bug River line with 4th Army and Grupa Poleska units stopped the advance of the Red Army for only one week. After crossing the Narew River on 2 August, the units of the Russian Northwest Front were only 60 miles from Warsaw. The Brest-Litovsk fortress which was to be the headquarters of the planned Polish counteroffensive fell to the 16th Army in the first attack. The Russian Southwest Front had pushed Polish forces out of Ukraine and was closing on Zamość and Lwów, the largest city in southeastern Poland and an important industrial center, defended by the Polish 6th Army. The way to the Polish capital lay open. Polish Galicia's Lviv (Lwów) was soon besieged, and five Russian armies were approaching Warsaw. Polish politicians tried to secure peace with Moscow on any conditions but Bolsheviks refused[link].
Polish forces in Galicia near Lviv launched a successful counteroffensive to slow the Soviets down. This had put a stop to the retreat of Polish forces on the southern front, but the worsening situation near the Polish capital of Warsaw prevented the Poles from continuing that southern counteroffensive and pushing east. After the Soviets captured Brest, the Polish offensive in the south was put on hold and all available forces moved north to take part in the coming battle for Warsaw.
Meawhile, the Soviet leadership confidence soared.At a closed meeting of the 9th Conference of the Russian Communist Party on September 22, 1920, Lenin said: "We confronted the question: whether [...] to take advantage of the enthusiasm in our army and the advantage which we enjoyed to sovietize Poland... the defensive war against imperialism was over, we won it... We could and should take advantage of the military situation to begin an offensive war... we should poke about with bayonets to see whether the socialist revolution of the proletariat had not ripened in Poland... that somewhere near Warsaw lies not [only] the center of the Polish bourgeois government and the republic of capital, but the center of the whole contemporary system of international imperialism, and that circumstances enabled us to shake that system, and to conduct politics not in Poland but in Germany and England. In this manner, in Germany and England we created a completely new zone of proletarian revolution against global imperialism... By destroying the Polish army we are destroying the Versailles Treaty on which nowadays the entire system of international relations is based.....Had Poland become Soviet....the Versailles Treaty ...and with it the whole international system arising from the victories over Germany, would have been destroyed."
By the order of the Soviet Communist Party, a Polish puppet government, the Tymczasowy Komitet Rewolucyjny Polski, TKRP (English: Provisional Polish Revolutionary Committee or Revcom), had been formed on 28 July in Białystok to organise administration of the Polish territories captured by the Red Army. The TKRP had very little support from the Polish population and recruited its supporters mostly from the ranks of Jews. In addition, political intrigues between Soviet commanders grew in the face of their more and more certain victory. Eventually the lack of cooperation between the top commanders would cost them dearly in the upcoming decisive battle of Warsaw.
The threatened general strike was for Lloyd George a convenient excuse for backing out of his commitments. On August 6, 1920, the British Labour Party published a pamphlet stating that British workers would never take part in the war as Poland's allies, and labour unions blocked supplies to the British expeditionary force assisting Russian Whites in Arkhangelsk. French Socialists, in their newspaper L'Humanité, declared: "Not a man, not a sou, not a shell for reactionary and capitalist Poland. Long live the Russian Revolution! Long live the Workmen's International!" Poland suffered setbacks due to sabotage and delays in deliveries of war supplies, when workers in Austria, Czechoslovakia and Germany refused to transit such materials to Poland.
Lithuania's stance was mostly anti-Polish and the country eventually joined the Soviet side in the war against Poland in July 1919. Lithuania's decision was dictated by a desire to incorporate the city of Wilno (in Lithuanian, Vilnius) and the nearby areas into Lithuania and to a smaller extent by Soviet diplomatic pressure backed by the threat of the Red Army stationed on Lithuania's borders.
Polish allies were few. France, continuing her policy of countering Bolshevism, now that the Whites in Russia proper had been almost completely defeated, sent in 1919 a 400-strong small advisory group to Poland's aid. This group was comprised mostly of French officers, although it also included a few British advisers led by Lieutenant General Sir Adrian Carton De Wiart. The French effort was vital to improving the organization and logistics of the Polish Army, which until 1919 had used diverse manuals, organizational structures and equipment, mostly drawn from the armies of Poland's former partitioners. The French officers included a future President of France, Charles de Gaulle, who during that war won Poland's highest military decoration, the Virtuti Militari. In addition to the Allied advisors, France also facilitated in 1919 the transit to Poland from France of the "Blue Army": a force of troops, mostly of Polish origin plus some international volunteers, formerly under French command in World War I. The army was commanded by the Polish general, Józef Haller. Hungary offered to send a 30,000 cavalry corps to Poland's aid, but the Czechoslovakian government refused to allow them through; some trains with weapon supplies from Hungary did however arrive in Poland.
In mid-1920, the Allied Mission was expanded by some new advisers (the Interallied Mission to Poland). They included the French diplomat, Jean Jules Jusserand; Maxime Weygand, chief of staff to Marshal Ferdinand Foch, Supreme Commander of the victorious Entente; and the British diplomat, Lord Edgar Vincent D'Abernon. The newest members of the mission achieved little; indeed, the crucial Battle of Warsaw was fought and won by the Poles before the mission could return and make its report. Subsequently, for many years, the myth persisted that it was the timely arrival of Allied forces that had saved Poland, a myth in which Weygand occupied the central role.
Eventually, on the 21st of February, 1921, France and Poland entered into a formal military alliance, which became an important factor during the subsequent Soviet-Polish negotiations.
On August 10, 1920, Russian Cossack units under the command of Gay Dimitrievich Gay crossed the Vistula river, planning to take Warsaw from the west while the main attack came from the east. On August 13, an initial Russian attack was repulsed. The Polish 1st Army resisted a direct assault on Warsaw as well as stopping the assault at Radzymin.
The Soviet commander-in-chief, Tukhachevski, feeling certain that all was going according to his plan, was actually falling into the trap set by Piłsudski. The Russian advance across the Vistula River in the north was advancing into an operational vacuum, as there were no sizable Polish forces in the area. On the other hand, south of Warsaw, where the fate of the war was about to be decided, Tukhachevski had left only token forces to guard the vital link between the Russian northwest and southwest fronts. Another factor that influenced the outcome of the war was the effective neutralization of Budionny's 1st Cavalry Army, much feared by Piłsudski and other Polish commanders, in the battles around Lwów. The Soviet High Command, at Tukhachevski's insistence, had ordered the 1st Cavalry Army to march north toward Warsaw and Lublin, but Budionny disobeyed the order due to a grudge between Tukhachevski and Yegorov, commander of the southwest front. Additionally, the political games of Joseph Stalin, chief political commissar of the Southwest Front, decisively influenced the disobedience of Yegorov and BudionnyStalin: The Man and His Era, Beacon Press, 1987, ISBN 080707005X, [Google Print, p.189]. Stalin, seeking a personal triumph, was focused on capturing Lwów—far to the southeast of Warsaw—besieged by Bolshevik forces but still resisting their assaults.
The Polish 5th Army under General Władysław Sikorski counterattacked August 14 from the area of the Modlin fortress, crossing the Wkra River. It faced the combined forces of the numerically and materially superior Soviet 3rd and 15th Armies. In one day the Soviet advance toward Warsaw and Modlin had been halted and soon turned into retreat. Sikorski's 5th Army pushed the exhausted Soviet formations away from Warsaw in a lightning operation. Polish forces advanced at a speed of thirty kilometers a day, soon destroying any Soviet hopes for completing their enveloping maneuver in the north. By August 16, the Polish counteroffensive had been fully joined by Marshal Piłsudski's "Reserve Army." Precisely executing his plan, the Polish force, advancing from the south, found a huge gap between the Russian fronts and exploited the weakness of the Soviet "Mozyr Group" that was supposed to protect the weak link between the Soviet fronts. The Poles continued their northward offensive with two armies following and destroying the surprised enemy. They reached the rear of Tukhachevski's forces, the majority of which were encircled by August 18. Only that same day did Tukhachevski, at his Minsk headquarters 300 miles east of Warsaw, become fully aware of the proportions of the Soviet defeat and ordered the remnants of his forces to retreat and regroup. He hoped to straighten his front line, halt the Polish attack, and regain the initiative, but the orders either arrived too late or failed to arrive at all.
The Soviet armies in the center of the front fell into chaos. Tukhachevski ordered a general retreat toward the Bug River, but by then he had lost contact with most of his forces near Warsaw, and all the Bolshevik plans had been thrown into disarray by communication failures.
The Bolshevik armies retreated in a disorganised fashion, entire divisions panicking and disintegrating. The Red Army's defeat was so great and so unexpected that, at the instigation of Piłsudski's detractors, the Battle of Warsaw is often referred to in Poland as the "Miracle at the Vistula." Current investigation in Poland concluded that the "Miracle at the Vistula" was caused by a big net of Polish spies within the Red Army. Piłsudski knew about all the moves by the Red Army while the Soviets were left in the dark.
On August 17, the advance of Budionny's Cavalry Army toward Lwów was halted at the Battle of Zadwórze, where a small Polish force sacrificed itself to prevent Soviet cavalry from seizing Lwów and stopping vital Polish reinforcements from moving toward Warsaw. Moving through weakly defended areas, Budionny's cavalry reached the city of Zamość on 29 August and attempted to take it in the battle of Zamość; however, he soon had to face increasing number of Polish units diverted from the successful Warsaw counteroffensive. On August 31, Budionny's cavalry finally broke off its siege of Lwów and attempted to come to the aid of Russian forces retreating from Warsaw. The Russian forces were intercepted and defeated by Polish cavalry at the Battle of Komarów near Zamość, the greatest cavalry battle since 1813 and one of the last cavalry battles in history. Although Budionny's Army managed to avoid encirclement, morale had plummeted. The remains of Budionny's 1st Cavalry Army retreated towards Volodymyr-Volynskyi on 6 September and was defeated shortly thereafter at the Battle of Hrubieszów.
Tukhachevski managed to reorganize the eastward-retreating forces and in September established a new defensive line running from the Polish-Lithuanian border to the north to the area of Polesie, with the central point in the city of Grodno in Belarus. In order to break this line, the Polish Army had to fight the Battle of the Niemen River. Polish forces crossed the Niemen River and outflanked the Bolshevik forces, which were forced to retreat again. Polish forces continued to advance east on all fronts, repeating their successes from the previous year. After the early October Battle of the Szczara River, the Polish Army had reached the Ternopil-Dubno-Minsk-Drisa line.
According to the British historian A.J.P. Taylor, the Polish-Bolshevik War "largely determined the course of European history for the next twenty years or more. […] Unavowedly and almost unconsciously, Soviet leaders abandoned the cause of international revolution." It would be twenty years before the Bolsheviks would send their armies abroad to 'make revolution'. The Bolsheviks' defeat in the war prevented Poland from becoming another Soviet republic and possibly spared Germany, Czechoslovakia and other nearby states from a similar fateAleksander Gella, Development of Class Structure in Eastern Europe: Poland and Her Southern Neighbors, SUNY Press, 1988, ISBN 0887068332, [Google Print, p.23].
Much of what Piłsudski had won during the 1920 war was lost in the ensuing peace negotiations. Due to their disastrous military defeat, the Bolsheviks offered the Polish peace delegation substantial territorial concessions in the contested borderland areas. However, Polish resources were exhausted, Polish public opinion divided, the Polish government was pressured by the League of Nations, and most vitally, the negotiations were controlled by Dmowski's National Democrats: Piłsudski might have controlled the military, but parliament (Sejm) was controlled by Dmowski, and the peace negotiations fell into the political realm. National Democrats, like Stanisław Grabski, who earlier resigned his post to protest the Polish-Ukrainian alliance and now wielded much influence over the Polish negotiators, cared little for Międzymorze or the Ukrainians, and wanted only the territory which they viewed as 'ethnically or historically Polish', and possible to polonize. To many observers it seemed as though the Polish side was conducting the Riga talks as if Poland had not won but lost the war; Adolf Joffe, the Russian chief negotiator, was pleased to gain territories for Moscow that were controlled by Polish forces. The Peace of Riga was signed on March 18, 1921, splitting the disputed territories in Belarus and Ukraine between Poland and Russia.Snyder, op cit, [Google Print, p.140]
The treaty, which Piłsudski called an act of cowardiceNorman Davies, God's Playground. Vol. 2: 1795 to the Present. Columbia University Press. 1982. ISBN 0231053525. [Google Print, p.399]), and for which he apologized to the Ukrainians, actually violated the terms of Poland's military alliance with Ukraine, which had explicitly prohibited a separate peace[[Citing sources citation needed]]; Poland's allies suddenly found themselves interned. It worsened relations between Poland and her Ukrainian minority, who felt that Ukraine had been betrayed by her Polish ally — a feeling that grew stronger due to the assimilationist policies of nationalist interwar Poland towards its minorities that to a large degree inspired the growing tensions and eventual violence against Poles in the 1930s and 1940s.[[Citing sources citation needed]]
The Polish military successes in the autumn of 1920 allowed Poland to capture the Wilno (Vilnius) region, where a Polish-dominated Governance Committee of Central Lithuania (Komisja Rządząca Litwy Środkowej) was formed. A plebiscite was conducted, and the Wilno Sejm voted on February 20, 1922, for incorporation into Poland. This worsened Polish-Lithuanian relations for decades to come. Repercussions of this continue (to a diminishing extent) to affect relations between the two countries.
The outcome of the Polish-Soviet War, while welcomed by some Polish politicians such as the National Democrat leader Roman Dmowski — who favored a relatively small, ethnically homogeneous state — was a death blow to Piłsudski's dream of reviving the multicultural Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the form of a "Międzymorze Federation." A National Democrat Sejm deputy, Stanisław Stroński, coined the phrase, "Miracle at the Wisła" (Polish: "Cud nad Wisłą"), to underline his disapproval of Piłsudski's "Ukrainian adventure." Stroński's phrase was adopted with approval by some patriotically- or piously-minded Poles unaware of Stroński's ironic intent.
Military strategy in the Polish-Soviet War influenced Charles de Gaulle, then an instructor with the Polish Army who fought in several of the battles. He and Władysław Sikorski were the only military officers who, based on their experiences of this war, correctly predicted how the next one would be fought. Although they failed in the interbellum to convince their respective militaries to heed those lessons, early in World War II they rose to command of their armed forces in exile. The Polish-Soviet War also influenced Polish military doctrine, which for the next 20 years would place emphasis on the mobility of elite cavalry units.
Among the technical advances associated with the Polish-Soviet War was one that would, two decades later, affect the course of World War II. Poland's Marshal Piłsudski and his staff enjoyed a vast advantage from their military intelligence decrypting ("breaking") Red Army radio messages. These were encrypted in primitive ciphers and codes, and often involved incredible breaches of security by Soviet cipher clerks. The Polish cryptologists and commanders were thus regularly able to look over the shoulders of the Soviet commanders, including Mikhail Tukhachevski, and their superior, Leon Trotsky.() Ścieżyński, Mieczysław, [Colonel of the (Polish) General Staff], Radjotelegrafja jako źrodło wiadomości o nieprzyjacielu (Radiotelegraphy as a Source of Intelligence on the Enemy), Przemyśl, [Printing and Binding Establishment of (Military) Corps District No. X HQ], 1928, 49 pp. () Paweł Wroński, "Sensacyjne odkrycie: Nie było cudu nad Wisłą" ("A Remarkable Discovery: There Was No Miracle at the Vistula"), Gazeta Wyborcza, [online]. Jan Bury, POLISH CODEBREAKING DURING THE RUSSO-POLISH WAR OF 1919-1920, [online]
In the aftermath of the Second World War, the Soviet Union acquired direct or indirect control of more territory than had Imperial Russia and partly fulfilled Lenin's original dream of bringing communist revolution to Germany.
Until 1989, while communists held power in a People's Republic of Poland, the Polish-Soviet War was either omitted from, or minimized in, Polish and other Soviet bloc countries' history books, or was presented so as to fit in with communist ideology.Marc Ferro, The Use and Abuse of History: Or How the Past Is Taught to Children, Routledge, 2004, ISBN 0415285925, [Google Print, p.262]
One of the most controversial issues, one that resurfaced in the 1990s, was the situation of Soviet prisoners of war in Poland as well as the internment even of those Ukrainians that fought on the Polish side. During this war between two countries experiencing great socioeconomic difficulties, and often unable to care for their own populations, the treatment of prisoners of war was far from adequate() Karpus, Zbigniew, Jeńcy i internowani rosyjscy i ukraińscy na terenie Polski w latach 1918-1924 (Russian and Ukrainian Prisoners of War and Internees in Poland, 1918-1924), Toruń 1997, ISBN 8371740204. [Polish table of contents online]. English translation available: Russian and Ukrainian Prisoners of War and Internees in Poland, 1918-1924, Wydawn. Adam Marszałek, 2001, ISBN 8371749562; () Karpus, Zbigniew, Alexandrowicz Stanisław, Waldemar Rezmer, Zwycięzcy za drutami. Jeńcy polscy w niewoli (1919-1922). Dokumenty i materiały (Victors Behind Barbed Wire: Polish Prisoners of War, 1919-1922: Documents and materials), Toruń, Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika w Toruniu, 1995, ISBN 8323106274., with tens of thousands on both sides, in Russian and Polish camps, dying during the rampaging post-World War I Spanish flu pandemic. A Polish internment camp in Tuchola was particularly notorious for the large number of Soviet POW's deaths,()''Nezavisimaya Gazeta, "[The tragedy of Polish captivity]", July 16, 1998. as the Red Cross mission sent to monitor the Russian prisoner's condition was murdered in Poland under the mysterious circumstances. There were also cases of the Soviet army executing Polish POWs, when no POW facilities were available..
Both sides raised charges of other violations of the laws of war mostly to sway the governments and public opinion in Entente countries whose help in the war was crucial for Poland.
The Polish side claimed that during the Soviet retreat from Berdychiv, Kiev and Zhytomyr mass hostage-taking of civilians occurred, with hostages forced to go with the Reds all the way to the rear of the front. (in Russian). Similar claims were made that returning to Berdychiv the Bolsheviks threw out the sick and wounded from the hospital "disregarding the lives and honor of the medical personnel" and that in general the Soviet advance into Ukraine was characterized by mass killing of civilians and the burning of entire villages, especially by Budyonny's cossacks, designed to instill a sense of fear in the Ukrainian population. Behind Polish lines, the Soviet forces destroyed railroads, hanged suspected enemies on the spot, and cut telegraph wires.‘Having burst through the front, Budyonny's cavalry would devastate the enemy's rear - burning, killing and looting as they went. These Red cavalrymen inspired an almost numbing sense of fear in their opponents [...] the very names Budyonny and Cossack terrified the Ukrainian population, and they moved into a state of nuetrality or even hostility toward Petliura and the Poles..."’
Some first hand accounts from participants may support the claim that such behavior was found on both sides. Particularly notorious were the accounts concerning the former officer of the Imperial Russian and Bolsheviks armies, Stanisław Bułak-Bałachowicz, who switched sides in the conflict and became the General in Poland. Although Bułak-Bałachowicz is claimed to be a national hero to Belarussians in Poland for protection against Bolshevik terror, and his refusal to kill peasants on orders from Soviets[link], witness accounts claim that he was known to behave like an absolute ruler of the territories controlled by his troops, even conducting public executions()[Станислав Никодимович Булак-Балахович] at modern Russian pro-White movement All-Russian military Union site. As one Polish officer wrote in a letter to his wife: "This is the person without ideology. The bandit and the murderer and his comrades - subordinates are just like that. They know no shame and are similar to barbarians... I witnessed throwing the cut-off heads of Bolsheviks under his feet... I drank with him all night long and in the morning he with his group and me with my regiment went to the fighting. The massacre of Bolsheviks was horrific". There is evidence that the bands of Cossack "Colonel" Vadim Yakovlev were similarly cruel. He was a Don Cossack Ukrainian and Bolshevik officer who also switched to the Polish side along with his band and allegedly was a bloody marauder of villages and towns in Ukraine, Belarus, and was responsible for several anti-Jewish pogroms.Rumor of atrocities. I walk into town. Indescribable terror and despair. They tell me all about it. Privately, indoors, they’re afraid the Poles may come back. Captain Yakovev’s Cossacks were here yesterday. A pogrom. The family of David Zyz, in people’s homes, a naked, barely breathing prophet of an old man, and old woman butchered, a child with fingers chopped off, many people still breathing, stench of blood, everything turned upside down, chaos, a mother sitting over her sobered son, an old woman lying twisted up like a pretzel, four people in one hovel, filth, blood under a black beard, just lying there in their blood.
Similar to the Polish side, the Soviet government raised complaints on every occasion in diplomatic notes addressed to the Entente. One note stated that during the Soviet advance the retreating Poles, disappointed by their military misfortunes, engaged in "vengeful vandalism", as in Borisov where the Poles, following their retreat, shelled the city with artillery from another bank of the Berezina River "killing hundreds of people and leaving thousands without shelter." Another joint diplomatic note issued by Soviet Ukraine and Soviet Russia to the Entente blamed the Poles for heavily damaging Kiev including its civilian and art objects, such as St. Volodymyr's Cathedral, a charge the Poles denied, admitting only to the Kiev bridges destruction, claimed necessary to slow the Red Army (the bridges survived multiple hostilities and conflicts prior to Polish occupation of Kiev). That particular note seems to be based on Leon Trotsky's telegraph, and Trotsky himself admitted parts of it were false[Postal Telegram No. 2886-a, footnote 1]. Last accessed on 30 May 2006.
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.Prelude to the war
Tomaszewski J. Kresy Wschodnie w polskiej mysli politycznej XIX i XX w.//Miedzy Polska etniczna a historyczna. Polska mysl polityczna XIX i XX wieku.—T.6.—Warszawa, 1988.—S.101. Cited through: Oleksandr Derhachov (editor), "Ukrainian Statehood in the Twentieth Century: Historical and Political Analysis", 1996, Kiev ISBN 966-543-040-8 Piłsudski, who specifically argued that "There can be no independent Poland without an independent Ukraine", really meant Ukraine being split from Russia rather than had any real concern for the fate of the Ukrainians.One moth before his death Pilsudski told his aide: "My life is lost. I failed to create the free from the Russians Ukraine"
<()() Oleksa Pidlutskyi, Postati XX stolittia, (Figures of the 20th century), Kiev, 2004, ISBN 9668290011, LCCN [20-04440333]. Chapter "Józef Piłsudski: The Chief who Created Himself a State" reprinted in Zerkalo Nedeli (the Mirror Weekly), Kiev, February 3 - 9, 2001, [in Russian] and [in Ukrainian]. He did not hesitate to use military force to expand the Polish borders to Galicia and Volhynia, crushing a Ukrainian attempt at self-determination in the disputed territories east of the Western Bug river, which contained a significant Polish minority, mainly in cities like Lwów (Lviv), but a Ukrainian majority in the countryside. Speaking of Poland's future frontiers, Piłsudski said: "All that we can gain in the west depends on the Entente — on the extent to which it may wish to squeeze Germany," while in the east "there are doors that open and close, and it depends on who forces them open and how far."MacMillan, Margaret, Paris 1919 : Six Months That Changed the World, Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2003, ISBN 0375760520, p.212" In the chaos to the east the Polish forces set out to expand there as much as it was feasible. On the other hand, Poland had no intention of joining the western intervention in the Russian Civil War or of conquering Russia itself.JOSEPH PILSUDSKI. Interview by Dymitr Merejkowsky, 1921. Translated fom the Russian by Harriet E Kennedy B.A. London & Edinburgh, Sampson Low, Marston & Co Ltd 1921. Piłsudski said: “Poland can have nothing to do with the restoration of old Russia. Anything rather than that – even Bolshevism”. Quoted from [this site].The Campaign
1919
Chaos in Eastern Europe
An avalanche starts: First Polish-Soviet conflicts
The first serious armed conflict of the war took place February 14, when fighting erupted near the towns of Maniewicze and Biaroza in Belarus. By late February the Soviet offensive had come to a halt. Both Polish and Soviet forces had also been engaging the Ukrainian forces, and unrest was growing in the territories of the Baltic countries (Estonian Liberation War, Latvian War of Liberation, Freedom wars of Lithuania). Further escalation of the conflict seemed inevitable. 
Diplomatic Front, Part 1: The alliances
"Figures of the 20th century. Józef Piłsudski: A Head of the State He Created for Himself," Zerkalo Nedeli (the Mirror Weekly), Feb. 3-9, 2001, available online [in Russian] and [in Ukrainian]. Yet both of them were opposed at home. Piłsudski faced stiff opposition from Dmowski's National Democrats who opposed Ukrainian independence. As many Ukrainians in general viewed a union with Poles with the great suspicion, especially in the view of historically difficult relationships between nations, this alliance received an especially dire reception from Galicia Ukrainians whose whose state has been defeated by Poland by July 1919 and was now to be incorporated into it, viewed Petliura alliance as their betrayal.Timothy Snyder, The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569-1999, Yale University Press, ISBN 030010586X[Google Books, p.139] So, despite from September the Poles and loyal to Petlura Ukrainians (mostly from the Dnieper region) fought together, by mid-1920, the Ukrainian Galician Army, the force of the Western Ukrainian state defeated by Poland, joined the Reds and fought the Poles on the Bolshevik's side.Peter Abbot. "[Ukrainian Armies 1914-55]", Chapter "[Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, 1917-21]", Osprey, 2004, ISBN 18417666821920
Opposing forces
By early 1920, the Soviet forces had been very successful against the White armies, defeating Denikin, and signed peace treaties with Latvia and Estonia. The Polish front became the most important war theater and the majority of Soviet resources and forces were diverted to it. In January 1920, the Red Army began concentrating a 700,000-strong force near the Berezina River and on Belarus. In the course of 1920, almost 800,000 Red Army personnel were sent to fight in the Polish war, of whom 402,000 went to the Western front and 355,000 to the armies of the South-West front in Galicia. The Soviets had at their disposal many military depots left by German armies withdrawing from eastern Europe in 1918-19, and modern French armaments captured in great numbers from the White Russians and the Allied expeditionary forces in the Russian Civil War. With the new forces, the Soviet High Command planned a new offensive in late April/May.The tide turns: Operation Kiev
As such, Ukrainians also actively fought the Polish invasion in the Ukrainian formations of the Red Army. On the other hand, some scholars stress the effects of the Soviet propaganda"The Bolsheviks had flooded the Ukraine, forcing Ataman Semyon Petlura (a Ukrainian bookkeeper turned national hero) to sign an alliance with Pilsudski, securing Lwow for Poland and possibly Pilsudski's envisioned federation. On 7 May the Polish army liberated Kiev in the intention of giving it to Petlura in a Polish-Ukrainian-Federation. On 5 June the Bolsheviks were back in Kiev. The major problem which prevented Pilsudski from securing Kiev and creating his federation was the unwillingness of the inhabitants of Ukraine, to rush to the aid of Petlura and his Ukrainian nationalist forces. Most Ukrainians had no idea what Bolshevism was and were easily manipulated by the Russians. Besides, many of the Ukrainian peasants were very simple people who still had memories of serfdom, which was imposed on them by the Polish Szlachta (Nobility). They believed Pilsudski to be another Polish Magnate, as from the 18th century. Thus, Petlura could not foster more than 30,000 troops.". Patryk Doyle, op cit. on encouraging the negative sentiments of Ukrainians towards the Polish operation, stemming from the long and often troubled history of relationship between the Ruthenians (Ukrainians) and Poles.String of Soviet victories
Diplomatic Front, Part 2: The political games
With the tide turning against Poland, Piłsudski's political power had been weakened, while his opponents, including Roman Dmowski, had risen to power. However, Piłsudski did manage to regain his influence, especially over the military, almost at the last possible moment - as the Soviet forces were approaching Warsaw and the Polish political scene began to unravel in panic, with the government of Leopold Skulski resigning in early June.
English translation quoted from Richard Pipes, RUSSIA UNDER THE BOLSHEVIK REGIME, New York, 1993, pp.181-182, with some stylistic modification in par 3, line 3, by A. M. Cienciala. This document was first published in a Russian historical periodical, Istoricheskii Arkhiv, vol. I, no. 1., Moscow,1992 and is cited through [THE REBIRTH OF POLAND]. University of Kansas, lecture notes by professor Anna M. Cienciala, 2004. Last accessed on 2 June 2006. It would be the Soviet Union's first penetration into Europe proper, the first attempt to export the Bolshevik Revolution by force. In a telegram, Lenin exclaimed: "We must direct all our attention to preparing and strengthening the Western Front. A new slogan must be announced: 'Prepare for war against Poland'."Lincoln, W. Bruce, Red Victory: a History of the Russian Civil War, Da Capo Press, 1999, ISBN 0306809095, p.405 Soviet communist theorist Nicholas Bukharin, writer for the newspaper Pravda, wished for the resources to carry the campaign beyond Warsaw "right up to London and Paris".Stephen F. Cohen, Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution: A Political Biography, 1888-1938, Oxford University Press, 1980. ISBN 0195026977, [Google Print, p. 101]. General's Tukhachevsky order of the day, 2 July 1920 read: "To the West! Over the corpse of White Poland lies the road to world-wide conflagration. March on Vilno, Minsk, Warsaw!" and "onward to Berlin over the corpse of Poland!" 
The tide turns: Miracle at the Vistula
Budionny's defeat
End of the war
The Bolsheviks sued for peace soon after the Battle of Warsaw, and the Poles, exhausted and constantly pressured by the Western governments and League of Nations, with the Polish army now controlling the majority of the disputed territories, were willing to negotiate. In September in Riga, the Soviets made two offers: on September 21st and 28th. The Polish delegation made a counteroffer on the 2nd of October. On the 5th, the Soviets offered amendments to the Polish offer. Poland accepted. The armistice between Poland on one side and Soviet Ukraine and Soviet Russia on the other was signed on the 12th and went into effect on the 18th of October. Long negotiations of the peace treaty ensued.Aftermath
Controversies
from Richard Watt, 1979. Bitter Glory: Poland and its fate 1918-1939. New York: Simon & Shuster. ISBN 0-671-22625-8 Ultimately, in the pacification of Ukraine that began during the Soviet counteroffensive in 1920 and which would not end until 1922, the Soviets would take 10,000s of Ukrainian lives. Courtois, Stephane; Werth, Nicolas; Panne, Jean-Louis; Paczkowki, Andrzej; Bartosek, Karel; Margolin, Jean-Louis (1999). The Black Book of Communism. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-07608-7
Isaac Babel, 1920 Diary, [p. 84], Yale, 2002, ISBN 0300093136List of battles
For a chronological list of important battles of the Polish-Soviet War, see List of battles of the Polish-Soviet War.External links
References
Further reading
Non-English
Polish
Russian
Polish-Soviet War
Causes • First year • Second year • Aftermath
Battles
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