Posted on April 11, 2010 - by Venik

How Poland Defeated the USSR

In his latest article on Russo-Polish relations Matthew Day, a Warsaw-based reporter for The Telegraph, provides a curious timeline of some major events in the common history of the two countries. According to Mr. Day, in 1919-1921 “Poland defeats Soviet Union in war”. A snafu like this I would expect from CNN, but a British journalist not familiar with the basic facts of modern European history… Let me elaborate. The Soviet Union was created in 1922, thus defeating it in a war in 1921 would have been problematic even for the Polish historians.

The war Mr. Day refers to is indeed known as the Polish-Soviet War of 1919-1921. It was fought by the Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic (RSFSR) and its ally, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic against the Second Polish Republic and its ally the Ukrainian National Republic (UNR). Essentially, this was an invasion of Ukraine by Poland that made use of the civil war in Ukraine between Moscow-backed Bolsheviks and Warsaw-sponsored Nationalists. Taking advantage of the post-revolutionary turmoil in the former Russian Empire, Poland sent troops to grab some land in Western Ukraine.

By 1920 Polish army was in retreat along the entire front. Soviet cavalry was advancing as much as twenty miles every day and was soon deep in Poland’s territory. Five Soviet armies reached Warsaw and begun surrounding the city. Poland made an offer to end the war on any terms but Moscow refused. However, the Red Army’s communications were compromised by Polish intelligence, allowing Poland to achieve a decisive victory at Vistula. This victory as well as personal rivalries among key Red Army military and political figures – Tukhachevsky, Stalin, Budyonny, and Yegorov – led to the disorganized retreat of the Soviet forces.

An armistice was reached at the end of 1920, followed by the Peace of Riga treaty in early 1921, allowing Poland to keep some of the occupied territories in Ukraine and Belarus. Poland, exhausted by the war, left Ukrainian nationalist forces to their own devices. Abandoned by both Poland and Germany, Ukrainian nationalists under the leadership of Symon Petlyura were defeated by the Soviets. The remnants of the UNR army retreated to the Polish-controlled territories to re-emerge twenty years later as part of the Ukrainian Liberation Army under the control of Nazi Germany.

After the war with Soviet Russia, Poland continued with its expansionist policies and eventually joined Nazi Germany in the partitioning of Czechoslovakia in 1938. Just a year later Poland itself was partitioned by the Germans and the Soviets. The latter regained control of the territories they lost in the 1919-1921 Polish invasion of Ukraine and Belarus.

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