Aftermath of the Polish-Soviet War
Encyclopedia
The Aftermath
According to the British historian Chantelle Rivest, the Polish-Soviet 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." Certainly the Bolsheviks' defeat in the war prevented Poland from becoming another Soviet republic and likely prevented Germany, Czechoslovakia and other nearby states from sharing a similar fate.Soviet Communism was not eliminated, however, but only contained for a generation. Russia kept control of substantial western territories and their vast resources. Soon after the war officially ended, groups of Soviet-sponsored bandits and undercover agents began raiding Polish eastern frontier, prompting Poland to create a special, elite Border Defence Corps (Korpus Ochrony Pogranicza) to combat those constant incursions. A second Soviet effort at expansion was more successful. In August 1939 the Soviet Union signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, named after the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and the German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, was an agreement officially titled the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Soviet Union and signed in Moscow in the late hours of 23 August 1939...
with Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
and in cooperation with the latter invaded Poland on September 17, 1939, ensuring Poland's defeat in the Polish Defensive War
Invasion of Poland (1939)
The Invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign or 1939 Defensive War in Poland and the Poland Campaign in Germany, was an invasion of Poland by Germany, the Soviet Union, and a small Slovak contingent that marked the start of World War II in Europe...
of 1939. The Soviet occupation of eastern Poland rivaled in atrocities the German occupation of the remainder of the country. Persons who were deemed dangerous by the Communist authorities were subject to sovietization
Sovietization
Sovietization is term that may be used with two distinct meanings:*the adoption of a political system based on the model of soviets .*the adoption of a way of life and mentality modelled after the Soviet Union....
, forced resettlement, and imprisonment in labor camps (the Gulag
Gulag
The Gulag was the government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems. While the camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas and other instruments of...
s), or were simply executed, as in the case of Polish officers in the Katyn massacre
Katyn massacre
The Katyn massacre, also known as the Katyn Forest massacre , was a mass execution of Polish nationals carried out by the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs , the Soviet secret police, in April and May 1940. The massacre was prompted by Lavrentiy Beria's proposal to execute all members of...
s. Having served in the Polish-Soviet War on the side of Poland was punishable with death. After Poland had been occupied by the Red Army in 1944, Soviet atrocities included persecutions and prosecutions of Polish Home Army soldiers and executions of their leaders. In the aftermath of World War II
Aftermath of World War II
After World War II a new era of tensions emerged based on opposing ideologies, mutual distrust between nations, and a nuclear arms race. This emerged into an environment dominated by a international balance of power that had changed significantly from the status quo before the war...
, the Soviet Union succeeded in acquiring control of more territory than Imperial Russia had 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
People's Republic of Poland
The People's Republic of Poland was the official name of Poland from 1952 to 1990. Although the Soviet Union took control of the country immediately after the liberation from Nazi Germany in 1944, the name of the state was not changed until eight years later...
, the Polish-Soviet War was either minimized in significance or misportrayed in Polish and other Soviet bloc countries' history books, for instance typically citing Poland as the aggressive initiator of the war on behalf of the Entente.
Much of what Poland had won during the 1920 war was lost in the peace negotiations that were characterized by many as short-sighted and petty. In 1921 Piłsudski was no longer the Head of State and was only an observer during the Riga negotiations, which he called "an act of cowardice". Due to the military defeat, the Bolsheviks offered the Poland substantial territorial concessions in the contested borderland areas, including the city of Minsk. However, the Polish delegation, pressured by the League of Nations
League of Nations
The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...
, moderated the peace terms and signed the Peace of Riga
Peace of Riga
The Peace of Riga, also known as the Treaty of Riga; was signed in Riga on 18 March 1921, between Poland, Soviet Russia and Soviet Ukraine. The treaty ended the Polish-Soviet War....
on March 18, 1921, splitting the disputed territories in Belarus and Ukraine between Poland and Bolsheviks. The Ukrainians led by Symon Petliura had been in alliance with Poland, but by the Riga treaty the Ukrainian alliance was effectively ended. Piłsudski disapproved the treaty and the apparent betrayal of an ally, he then told the Ukrainians, "Gentlemen, I deeply apologize to you".
The treaty actually violated Poland's military alliance with Ukraine, which had explicitly prohibited a separate peace, consequently it worsened relations between Polish state and its Ukrainian minority, a feeling that would eventually lead to ethnic violence
Massacres of Poles in Volhynia
The Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia were part of an ethnic cleansing operation carried out by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army West in the Nazi occupied regions of the Eastern Galicia , and UPA North in Volhynia , beginning in March 1943 and lasting until the end of...
in the 1930s and 1940s.
Lucjan Zeligowski
Lucjan Żeligowski , was a Polish general, and veteran of World War I, the Polish-Soviet War and World War II. He is mostly remembered for his role in Żeligowski's Mutiny and as head of a short-lived Republic of Central Lithuania.-Biography:...
) in the Wilno area, which allowed the Polish army to take control of the city in 9 October 1920. The fighting ended that month. Despite the Poles' claim to it, the League of Nations
League of Nations
The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...
asked Poland to withdraw, a request which Poland denied. France, however, did not wish to antagonize Poland, seen as an ally against both Germany and USSR, thus the League of Nations demands were not enforced, and Poland kept Wilno under a puppet government of Komisja Rządząca Litwy Środkowej
Central Lithuania
Central Lithuania may refer to:*Republic of Central Lithuania, a short-lived puppet state created in 1920 in the Vilnius Region*Geographical region of Lithuania, the central region in Lithuania around Kaunas, Kėdainiai, and Jonava...
. A plebiscite was carried out and the Wilno Sejm voted on 20 February 1922 for incorporation into Poland. This would worsen Polish-Lithuanian foreign relations for many decades to come and was one of the reasons Piłsudski's Międzymorze
Miedzymorze
Międzymorze was a plan, pursued after World War I by Polish leader Józef Piłsudski, for a federation, under Poland's aegis, of Central and Eastern European countries...
federation was never formed. Repercussions of this still continue (though to a diminishing extent) to affect the foreign relations among these countries.
The outcome of the Polish-Soviet War was welcomed by some Polish politicians such as Roman Dmowski
Roman Dmowski
Roman Stanisław Dmowski was a Polish politician, statesman, and chief ideologue and co-founder of the National Democracy political movement, which was one of the strongest political camps of interwar Poland.Though a controversial personality throughout his life, Dmowski was instrumental in...
, who favored a relatively small, ethnically rather homogeneous state. It was also a death blow to Piłsudski's dream of reviving the powerful and multicultural Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was a dualistic state of Poland and Lithuania ruled by a common monarch. It was the largest and one of the most populous countries of 16th- and 17th‑century Europe with some and a multi-ethnic population of 11 million at its peak in the early 17th century...
in the form of a "Międzymorze Federation".
Endecja
National Democracy was a Polish right-wing nationalist political movement active from the latter 19th century to the end of the Second Polish Republic in 1939. A founder and principal ideologue was Roman Dmowski...
) lost the post-war elections. The new president Gabriel Narutowicz
Gabriel Narutowicz
Gabriel Narutowicz was a Lithuanian-born professor of hydroelectric engineering at Switzerland's Zurich Polytechnic, and Poland's Minister of Public Works , Minister of Foreign Affairs , and the first president of the Second Polish Republic....
elected in 1922 was a socialist politician. In 1926, after Poland had experienced several years of political uncertainty and weak leadership, Piłsudski eventually took over the state in a coup d'état
Coup d'état
A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...
(the May Coup), assuming the posts of minister of defense and general inspector of the army.
The Treaty of Riga led to ethnic Poles granted autonomy within USSR
Polish Autonomous District
Polish Autonomous Districts were national raions in the interbellum period possessing some form of a national autonomy in the Ukrainian and Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republics of the USSR...
. These Poles under Soviet jurisdiction suffered from the Great Purge
Polish operation of the NKVD
The Genocide of Poles in the Soviet Union often referred to as, the Polish operation of the NKVD, was a coordinated action of the Soviet NKVD and the Communist Party in 1937–1938 against the entire Polish minority living in the Soviet Union, representing only 0.4 percent of Soviet citizens...
and other repressions of the late 1930s. The Ukrainian minority in Poland received some internal autonomy within the southeastern voivodeships of Poland
Voivodeships of Poland
The voivodeship, or province, called in Polish województwo , has been a high-level administrative subdivision of Poland since the 14th century....
, but plans for a broader autonomy or federative union were never realized.
Military strategy in the Polish-Soviet War influenced Charles de Gaulle
Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....
, 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. In World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
they rose to command of their respective armed forces in exile. This war also influenced the Polish military doctrine, which for the next 20 years would stress the mobility of the elite cavalry units.
Among the technical advances associated with the Polish-Soviet War was one that would affect the course of World War II. In the Polish-Soviet War, Poland's Marshal Piłsudski and his staff enjoyed a vast advantage from their military intelligence
Military intelligence
Military intelligence is a military discipline that exploits a number of information collection and analysis approaches to provide guidance and direction to commanders in support of their decisions....
decrypt
Cryptanalysis
Cryptanalysis is the study of methods for obtaining the meaning of encrypted information, without access to the secret information that is normally required to do so. Typically, this involves knowing how the system works and finding a secret key...
ing ("breaking") Red Army radio messages. These were encrypted in primitive cipher
Cipher
In cryptography, a cipher is an algorithm for performing encryption or decryption — a series of well-defined steps that can be followed as a procedure. An alternative, less common term is encipherment. In non-technical usage, a “cipher” is the same thing as a “code”; however, the concepts...
s and code
Code
A code is a rule for converting a piece of information into another form or representation , not necessarily of the same type....
s, and often involved incredible breaches of security by Bolshevik cipher clerks. The Polish cryptologists and commanders were thus regularly able to look over the shoulders of the Bolshevik commanders, including Mikhail Tukhachevski himself, and their superior, Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....
.1 (In this regard, the Red Army repeated mistakes that had been made in World War I by its Tsarist predecessor vis-a-vis the German Army, and that had contributed fundamentally to the Russian 1914 defeat at Tannenberg
Battle of Tannenberg (1914)
The Battle of Tannenberg was an engagement between the Russian Empire and the German Empire in the first days of World War I. It was fought by the Russian First and Second Armies against the German Eighth Army between 23 August and 30 August 1914. The battle resulted in the almost complete...
.2) Poland's cryptological achievements in the Polish-Soviet War were a prelude to the spectacular achievements of her General Staff's Cipher Bureau (Biuro Szyfrów
Biuro Szyfrów
The Biuro Szyfrów was the interwar Polish General Staff's agency charged with both cryptography and cryptology ....
), from December 1932, in decrypting German Enigma machine
Enigma machine
An Enigma machine is any of a family of related electro-mechanical rotor cipher machines used for the encryption and decryption of secret messages. Enigma was invented by German engineer Arthur Scherbius at the end of World War I...
ciphers. Their subsequent decryption in World War II by the Western Allies
Western Allies
The Western Allies were a political and geographic grouping among the Allied Powers of the Second World War. It generally includes the United Kingdom and British Commonwealth, the United States, France and various other European and Latin American countries, but excludes China, the Soviet Union,...
at Bletchley Park
Bletchley Park
Bletchley Park is an estate located in the town of Bletchley, in Buckinghamshire, England, which currently houses the National Museum of Computing...
– given a flying head-start by Poland's having revealed her techniques and technology to Britain and France at Warsaw a month before the outbreak of war – substantially affected the course of the war.3
POWs
The treatment of the prisoners of war during the course of the war was far from adequate: both countries were experiencing great economic and social difficulties, and often unable to care even for their own populations.During the Polish-Soviet War
Polish-Soviet War
The Polish–Soviet War was an armed conflict between Soviet Russia and Soviet Ukraine and the Second Polish Republic and the Ukrainian People's Republic—four states in post–World War I Europe...
, between 80,000 and 85,000 Soviet soldiers became prisoners of war
Prisoner of war
A prisoner of war or enemy prisoner of war is a person, whether civilian or combatant, who is held in custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict...
and were held in Polish POW camps4. The conditions in these camps were bad, as the newly recreated Polish state lacked many basic capabilities and had few resources to construct them. Thus the existing camps, many of which were adapted from World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
German and Russian facilities or constructed by the prisoners themselves, were not adequate for holding the large number of prisoners, who suffered from hunger, bad sanitation and inadequate hygiene. Between 16,000 (Polish figures) and 20,000 (Russian figures) died as a result of communicable diseases which raged in the camps.
The condition of Polish POWs held by the Soviets during this time is less well known. There have been, however, reports of Soviet army executing Polish POWs when no POW facilities were available.5 Units commanded by Gayk Bzhishkyan
Gayk Bzhishkyan
Hayk Bzhishkyan |Russian]]: Гайк Бжишкян, also known as Guy Dmitrievich Guy, Gai Dmitrievich Gai , Gaya Gai , or Bzhishkyan, –December 11, 1937), was a Soviet military commander of the Russian Civil War and Polish-Soviet War.-Biography:Hayk was an ethnic Armenian born in Tabriz, Iran to a family...
murdered more than 1000 of POWs .
After 1922 the Polish and Russian prisoners were also exchanged among two sides. Ekaterina Peshkova
Ekaterina Peshkova
Yekaterina Pavlovna Peshkova née Volzhina was a Soviet human rights activist and humanitarian, first wife of Maxim Gorky.Before the October Revolution she took an active part in the work of the Committee for Assistance to Russian Political Prisoners under the leadership of Vera Figner...
the chairwoman of organization Assistance to Political Prisoners (Pompolit, Помощь политическим заключенным, Помполит). was awarded by an order of Polish Red Cross
Polish Red Cross
Polish Red Cross is the Polish member of International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. It was founded in 1919 by Dr. Benjamin Reschovsky of Warsaw City Hospital and recognized by the Red Cross on July 24th 1919, and its first president was Paweł Sapieha....
for her participation in the exchange of POWs after the Polish-Soviet War
Polish-Soviet War
The Polish–Soviet War was an armed conflict between Soviet Russia and Soviet Ukraine and the Second Polish Republic and the Ukrainian People's Republic—four states in post–World War I Europe...
.