Causes of the Polish–Soviet War

The prehistory

The territory, where this conflict broke out, was a part of the medieval Kievan Rus, and after the disintegration of this united Russian state (in the middle of 12th. century) belonged to the Russian princedoms of Galich, Volhynia, Kiev, Polotsk, Lutsk, Terebovl, Turov-Pinsk etc. The majority of these principalities have been ruined during the Tatar-Mongol invasion in the middle of 13th. century. Some territories in Dniepr region and Black Sea Coast for long years lost Russian settled population and became so-called "Wild Steppe" (i.e., territory of the princedom of Pereyaslavl). After the Tatar-Mongol invasion these territories become object of expansion of the Polish kingdom and the Lithuanian princedom. For example, in first half of 14th century Kiev, Dniepr region, also the region between the rivers Pripyats and West Dvinas are captured by Lithuania, and in 1352 the Galich-Volyn princedom was divided by Poland and Lithuania. In 1569, according to Lublin Union, the majority of the Russian territories possessed by Lithuania, passed to the Polish crown. The Serfdom and Catholicism extended in these territories. The local aristocracy incorporated into Polish aristocracy. Cultural, language and religious break between the supreme and lowest layers of a society arose. The combination of social, language, religious and cultural oppression leads to destructive popular uprisings of the middle of 17th century, which the Polish-Lithuanian state could not recover from [Sergey Solovyov, "History of Russia from the Earliest Times", vol.3-5, ISBN 5-17-002142-9] . In many territories incorporated into Russian empire in 1772-1995, the domination of the Polish aristocracy was kept, in the territories incorporated into Austro-Hungarian empire, the domination of the Polish aristocracy has been added with active planting of German language and culture. During the First World War Austro-Hungarian authorities undertake reprisals against Russia-oriented people of the Western Ukraine and the Polish left-nationalist movement led by Piłsudski got the support of the Central powers for struggle against Russia. After the beginning of the revolution in Russia, the Polish forces restored independence of Poland and decided to annex all territories that were parts of the Polish-Lithuanian state in 1569-1772.

The situation

In the aftermath of World War I, the map of Central and Eastern Europe had drastically changed.Thomas Grant Fraser, Seamus Dunn, Otto von Habsburg, "Europe and Ethnicity: the First World War and contemporary ethnic conflict", Routledge, 1996, ISBN 0-415-11995-2, [http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN0415119960&id=WI2WIiR2FjgC&pg=PA2&lpg=PA2&dq=%22First+World+War%22+independence+change+map&sig=cQfWPmNPlCDX9OSsjTduuXFWjGs Google Print, p.2] ] The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (March 3, 1918), by which Russia had lost to Imperial Germany all the European lands that Russia had seized in the previous two centuries, was repudiated by the Bolshevik government in November 1918, following armistice, the surrender of Germany and her allies, and the end of World War I. Germany, however, had not been keen to see Russia grow strong again and--exploiting her control of those territories, had quickly granted limited independence as buffer states to Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Belarus and Ukraine. As Germany's defeat rendered her plans for the creation of those Mitteleuropa puppet states obsolete, and as Russia sank into the depths of the Russian Civil War, the newly emergent countries saw a chance for real independence and were not prepared to easily relinquish this rare gift of fate. At the same time, Russia saw these territories as rebellious Russian provinces but was unable to react swiftly, as it was weakened and in the process of transforming herself into the Soviet Union through the Russian Revolution and Russian Civil War that had begun in 1917.

With the success of the Greater Poland Uprising in 1918, Poland had re-established its statehood for the first time since the 1795 partition and seen the end of a 123 years of rule by three imperial neighbors: Russia, Germany, and Austria-Hungary. The country, reborn as a Second Polish Republic, proceeded to carve out its borders from the territories of its former partitioners. The Western Powers, in delineating the new European borders after the Treaty of Versailles, had done so in a way unfavorable to Poland. Germany had decided to retain many of her eastern gains to recompense herself for expected losses in the west. Poland's western borders cut her off from the coal-basin and industrial regions of Silesia, leading to the Silesian Uprisings of 1919-1921. The eastern Curzon line left millions of Poles, living east of the Western Bug River, stranded inside Russia's borders.

Poland was not alone in its newfound opportunities and troubles. 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 Cieszyn Silesia, with Germany over Poznań and with Ukrainians over Eastern Galicia (Galician War). Ukrainians, Belarusians, Lithuanians, Estonians and Latvians fought against themselves and against the Russians, who were just as divided.Davies, Norman, "White Eagle, Red Star: the Polish-Soviet War, 1919–20", Pimlico, 2003, ISBN 0-7126-0694-7. (First edition: New York, St. Martin's Press, inc., 1972.) Page 21.] Spreading communist influences resulted in communist revolutions in Munich, Berlin, Budapest and Prešov. Winston Churchill commented: "The war of giants has ended, the wars of the pygmies begin."Adrian Hyde-Price, "Germany and European Order", Manchester University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-7190-5428-1 [http://books.google.com/books?id=M-2Obqk-VZUC&pg=PA75&lpg=PA75&sig=DUUDt60sddDtfNR-_h3dt41z5x4 Google Print, p.75] ] All of those engagements – with the sole exception of the Polish-Soviet war – would be shortlived border conflicts.

The Polish-Soviet war likely happened more by accident than design, as it is unlikely that anyone in Soviet Russia or in the new Second Republic of Poland would have deliberately planned a major foreign war.Davies, Norman, "White Eagle, Red Star: the Polish-Soviet War, 1919–20", Pimlico, 2003, ISBN 0-7126-0694-7. (First edition: New York, St. Martin's Press, inc., 1972.) Page 22] Norman Davies, "God's Playground. Vol. 2: 1795 to the Present". Columbia University Press, 2005 [1982] . ISBN 0-231-12819-3. [http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN0231128193&id=EBpghdZeIwAC&pg=PA292&lpg=PA292&dq=Red+Army+700000+1920&sig=rNCo_p1U8PTiLAkJg9fL4vSMk7w Google Print, p.292] ] Poland, its territory a major frontline of the First World War, was unstable politically; it had just won the difficult conflict with the West Ukrainian National Republic and was already engaged in new conflicts with Germany (the Silesian Uprisings) and with Czechoslovakia. Polish government was just beginning to organise and had little if any control over various border areas. Six currencies affected by various (and rising rapidly) inflation rates were in circulation. Economy was in shambles, some areas were experiencing food shortages, crime was high and a threat of an armed coup d'etat by some factions was serious.

The situation in Russia was similar. The attention of revolutionary Russia, meanwhile, was predominantly directed at thwarting counter-revolution and intervention by the western powers. Bolshevik Russia had barely survived its second winter of blockade and mass starvation and was in the middle of a bloody civil war. Lenin could claim control over only part of central Russia, encircled on all sides by powerful internal and external enemies who denied the Bolsheviks access to the outside world. Even had the Bolshevik leaders wanted to attack their western neighbors, they would have been physically incapable of doing so. While the first clashes between Polish and Soviet forces occurred in February 1919, it would be almost a year before both sides realised that they were engaged in a full war.

Piłsudski's motives

Polish politics was under the strong influence of the statesman Józef Piłsudski, who envisioned a federation (the "Federation of Międzymorze"), a Polish-led federation comprising Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine and other Central and East European countries now emerging out of the crumbling empires after the First World War. The new union would have had borders similar to those of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 15th–18th centuries; and it was to be a counterweight to, and restraint upon, any imperialist intentions of Russia or Germany. To this end, Polish forces set out to secure vast territories in the east. However Piłsudski's federation plan was opposed by another influential Polish politician, Roman Dmowski, who favoured creating a larger, national Polish state.

It is also imperative to understand that Poland had never any intention of joining the Western intervention in the Russian Civil War or conquering Russia, as it has done once in the 17th century during the Dimitriads. On the contrary, after the White Russians refused to recognise Polish independence, Polish forces acting on orders from Piłsudski delayed or stopped their offensives several times, reliving pressure from Bolshevic forces and thus substantially contributing to White Russian defeat.

Lenin's motives

In late 1919 the leader of Russia's new communist government, Vladimir Lenin, was inspired by the Red Army's civil-war victories over White Russian anti-communist forces and their western allies, and began to see the future of the revolution with greater optimism. The Bolsheviks acted on a conviction that historical processes would soon lead to rule of the proletariat in all nations, and that the withering away of national states would eventually bring about a worldwide communist community. Lenin felt increasingly confident that the Revolution would survive and would soon sweep triumphant over Europe and the rest of the world. The main impetus to the coming war with Poland lay in the Bolsheviks’ avowed intent to link their Revolution in Russia with an expected revolution in Germany. Lenin saw Poland as 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. This course was explicit in early Bolshevik ideology, and was necessary if the Soviet experiment in Russia was to be brought into line with Marxist doctrine. It was not, however, until the Soviet successes in mid-1920 that this idea became for a short time dominant in Bolshevik policies.

Germany in 1918-1920 seethed with social discontent and political chaos. In the eighteen months since the Kaiser's abdication, it had seen a communist revolution, two local soviet republics (e.g. the Bavarian Soviet Republic), three reactionary putsches, at least four general strikes, and five chancellors. In July 1920 the Weimar Constitution had been in force for only twelve months, and the humiliating Peace of Versailles for only six. The central government was beset by separatism, by close scrutiny from the Allied powers, and by constant war in the streets between the Spartacist League's and Communist Party of Germany armed workers’ detachments and the right-wing Freikorps. The westward advance of the Red Army threatened to destroy the Versailles system and thus, whatever the other consequences, to free Germany from the humiliating restraints placed upon her. Many Germans thought that another revolutionary rising was a necessary prelude to Germany’s escape from the grip of the victorious western Entente. As Lenin himself remarked, "That was the time when everyone in Germany, including the blackest reactionaries and monarchists, declared that the Bolsheviks would be their salvation."

In April 1920 Lenin would complete writing "The Infantile Disease of "Leftism" in Communism", meant to guide the Revolution through the few remaining months before its final stages. As his mood became expansive, he became overconfident, even messianic, and was less and less likely to resist a drift toward more serious war with Poland. According to a theory prevalent among Lenin's adherents, the Revolution in Russia would perish unless joined to revolutions in Lithuania, Poland and, most essentially, Germany. The debate in Russia was not as to whether the Polish bridge should be crossed, but how and when. Lenin formulated a new doctrine of "revolution from outside." The Soviet offensive into Poland would be an opportunity "to probe Europe with the bayonets of the Red Army." 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, "Red Victory: a History of the Russian Civil War".]

The political purpose of the Red Army's advance was not to conquer Europe directly. The Red Army of 1920 could hardly be sent with 36 divisions to do what the Tsarist army of 1914-17 had failed to achieve with 150. Its purpose was to provoke social change and revolution. When the main Soviet offensive began in April 1920, the Red Army's commanders and soldiers were told, and probably believed, that if only they could reach Warsaw and defeat Poland, the "oppressed masses of the proletariat" would rise almost worldwide and begin the final struggle to create a "workers' paradise." In the words of General Tukhachevski: "To the West! Over the corpse of White Poland lies the road to world-wide conflagration. March on Vilno, Minsk, Warsaw!". [Mikhail Tukhachevski, order of the day, July 2, 1920.]

References

See Polish-Soviet War#Notes