Stage three: overcoming the acute turmoil (1611-1613, 1918-1920/21, late 1990s) The "hard times" of the 17th century turned directly into Swedish and Polish intervention, Sigismund III stopped hiding his plans for conquest, having lost faith in the possibility of planting in Moscow " legitimate"

Soviet-Polish war(Polish wojna polsko-bolszewicka (wojna polsko-rosyjska) , Ukrainian Polish-Radyansk War) - an armed conflict between Poland and Soviet Russia, Soviet Belarus, Soviet Ukraine on the territory of the collapsed Russian Empire - Russia, Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine in 1919-1921 during the Russian Civil War. In modern Polish historiography, it is called the "Polish-Bolshevik War". The troops of the Ukrainian People's Republic and the West Ukrainian People's Republic also took part in the conflict; in the first phase of the war they acted against Poland, then units of the UNR supported the Polish troops.

background

The main territories for the possession of which the war was fought, until the middle of the XIV century, were various ancient Russian principalities. After a period of internecine wars and the Tatar-Mongol invasion in 1240, they became objects of the expansion of Lithuania and Poland. In the first half of the 14th century, Kyiv, the Dnieper region, the interfluve of the Pripyat and the Western Dvina became part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and in 1352 the lands of the Galicia-Volyn principality were divided between Poland and Lithuania. In 1569, according to the Union of Lublin between Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, some Ukrainian lands, which had previously been part of the latter, come under the authority of the Polish crown. In - years, as a result of the three divisions of the Commonwealth, part of the land (Western Belarus and most of Western Ukraine) passes under the authority of the Russian crown, Galician territories fall into the Austrian monarchy.

The goals of the participants in the conflict

The main goal of the leadership of Poland, led by Jozef Pilsudski, was the restoration of Poland within the historical borders of the Commonwealth, with the establishment of control over Belarus, Ukraine (including Donbass) and Lithuania and geopolitical dominance in Eastern Europe:

On the Soviet side, the establishment of control over the western provinces of the former Russian Empire (Ukraine and Belarus) and their Sovietization were considered as a minimum program, and the Sovietization of Poland, followed by Germany and the transition to a world revolution, as a maximum program. The Soviet leadership considered the war against Poland part of the struggle against the entire Versailles international system that existed at that time.

The course of the war

The situation in Eastern Europe at the end of 1918

Poland in 1918-1922

According to the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty of March 3, 1918, the western border of Soviet Russia was established along the line Riga - Dvinsk - Druya ​​- Drysvyaty - Mikhalishki - Dzevilishki - Dokudova - r. Neman - r. Zelvinka - Pruzhany - Vidoml.

On January 1, 1919, the Byelorussian SSR was proclaimed. On the same day, Polish units took control of Vilnius, but on January 6, the city was recaptured by units of the Red Army. On February 16, the authorities of the Byelorussian SSR proposed to the Polish government to determine the borders, but Warsaw ignored this proposal. On February 27, after Lithuania was included in the Byelorussian SSR, it was renamed the Lithuanian-Belarusian SSR (Republic of Litbel).

Poland could not provide significant assistance to the KZVO detachments, since part of the Polish troops was drawn into the border conflict with Czechoslovakia and was preparing for a possible conflict with Germany over Silesia. , and German troops were still in the western regions of Poland. Only after the intervention of the Entente on February 5 was an agreement signed that the Germans would let the Poles go east. As a result, on February 4, Polish troops occupied Kovel, on February 9 they entered Brest, on February 19 they entered Bialystok, abandoned by the Germans. At the same time, Polish troops moving east liquidated the administration of the Ukrainian People's Republic in the Kholm region, in Zhabinka, Kobrin and Vladimir-Volynsky.

On February 9 - 14, 1919, German troops let the Polish units pass to the line of the river. Neman (to Skidel) - Zelvyanka river - river. Ruzhanka - Pruzhany - Kobrin. Soon units of the Western Front of the Red Army approached from the other side. Thus, a Polish-Soviet front was formed on the territory of Lithuania and Belarus. Although by February 1919 the Polish army nominally numbered more than 150 thousand people, the Poles at first had very insignificant forces in Belarus and Ukraine - 12 infantry battalions, 12 cavalry squadrons and three artillery batteries - only about 8 thousand people, the rest of the units were located on borders with Germany and Czechoslovakia or were in the process of formation. The size of the Soviet Western Army is estimated at 45 thousand people, however, after the occupation of Belarus, the most combat-ready units were transferred to other areas where the position of the Red Army was extremely difficult. On February 19, the Western Army was transformed into the Western Front under the command of Dmitry Nadezhny.

To prepare for an offensive to the east, the Polish troops in Belarus, which received reinforcements, were divided into three parts: the Polesie group was commanded by General Antony Listovsky, the Volyn group - by General Edward Rydz-Smigly, the Lithuanian-Belarusian division of General Vatslav Ivashkevich-Rudoshansky was on the Shitno-Skidel line . To the south of them were units of Generals Juliusz Rummel and Tadeusz Rozwadowski.

The offensive of the Polish troops in Belarus

At the end of February, Polish troops crossed the Neman and launched an offensive in Belarus (since February 3, it was in the federation with the RSFSR). On February 28, units of General Ivashkevich attacked the Soviet troops along the Shchara River and occupied Slonim on March 1, and Pinsk was taken by Listovsky on March 2. The task of both groups was to prevent the concentration of Soviet troops along the Lida-Baranovichi-Luninets line and to prepare for the occupation of Grodno after the withdrawal of German troops from there. Soon Ivashkevich was replaced by Stanislav Sheptytsky.

Jozef Pilsudski in Minsk. 1919

On April 17-19, the Poles occupied Lida, Novogrudok and Baranovichi, and on April 19, the Polish cavalry entered Vilna. Two days later, Jozef Pilsudski arrived there, who addressed the Lithuanian people, in which he proposed that Lithuania return to the union of the times of the Commonwealth.

Meanwhile, Polish troops in Belarus under the command of Stanislav Sheptytsky continued to move east, receiving reinforcements from Poland - on April 28, the Poles occupied the city of Grodno, abandoned by the Germans. In May-July, the Polish units were replenished with the 70,000-strong army of Józef Haller, transported from France. At the same time, Western Ukraine passes under the control of the Poles - on June 25, 1919, the Council of Foreign Ministers of Great Britain, France, the USA, and Italy authorizes Poland to occupy Eastern Galicia up to the river. Zbruch. By July 17, eastern Galicia was completely occupied by the Polish army, the administration of the West Ukrainian People's Republic (ZUNR) was liquidated.

The offensive of the Polish troops in Belarus continued - on July 4 Molodechno was occupied, and on July 25 Slutsk passed under Polish control. The commander of the Soviet Western Front, Dmitry Nadezhny, was removed from his post on July 22, and Vladimir Gittis was appointed in his place. However, the Soviet troops in Belarus did not receive significant reinforcements, since the Soviet General Staff sent all the reserves to the southern direction against Anton Denikin's Volunteer Army, which launched an offensive against Moscow in July.

Front in December 1919

Meanwhile, in August, the Polish troops again went on the offensive, the main goal of which was Minsk. After a six-hour battle on August 9, Polish troops captured the Belarusian capital, and on August 29, despite the stubborn resistance of the Red Army, Bobruisk was taken by the Poles. In October, units of the Red Army launched a counterattack on the city, but were defeated. After that, the hostilities subsided until the beginning of the next year: the parties concluded a truce. This was due to the reluctance of the Entente countries and Anton Denikin to support plans for further Polish expansion. A long negotiation process began.

Diplomatic struggle

As mentioned above, the successes of the Polish troops in Belarus were largely due to the fact that the leadership of the Red Army sent the main forces to defend the southern direction from the advancing troops of Anton Denikin. Denikin, like the White movement as a whole, recognized the independence of Poland, but was opposed to Polish claims to lands east of the Bug, believing that they should be part of a single and indivisible Russia.

The position of the Entente on this issue coincided with Denikin's - in December the Declaration on the eastern border of Poland (see Curzon Line), coinciding with the line of ethnographic predominance of the Poles, was announced. At the same time, the Entente demanded that Pilsudski provide military assistance to Denikin's troops and resume the offensive in Belarus. However, at that time, the Polish troops were located much east of the Curzon line and the Pilsudski government did not intend to leave the occupied territories. After many months of negotiations in Taganrog between Denikin and Pilsudski's representative, General Alexander Karnitsky, ended in vain, Polish-Soviet negotiations began.

In Mikashevichi, a conversation took place between Julian Markhlevsky and Ignacy Berner. The release of political prisoners was supposed - a list was compiled of 1574 Poles imprisoned in the RSFSR, and 307 communists in Polish prisons. The Bolsheviks demanded a plebiscite in Belarus among the local population on the issue of state structure and territorial affiliation. The Poles, in turn, demanded the transfer of Dvinsk to Latvia and the cessation of hostilities against the UNR Petliura, with which they had entered into an alliance by this time.

Although the negotiations ended inconclusively, the break in hostilities allowed Pilsudski to suppress the pro-Soviet opposition, and the Red Army to transfer reserves to the Belarusian direction and develop an offensive plan.

Polish offensive in Ukraine

After the failure of the peace talks, hostilities resumed. In the first days of January 1920, the troops of Edward Rydz-Smigly took Dvinsk with an unexpected blow and then handed over the city to the Latvian authorities. On March 6, Polish troops launched an offensive in Belarus, capturing Mozyr and Kalinkovichi. Four attempts by the Red Army to recapture Mozyr were unsuccessful, and the offensive of the Red Army in Ukraine also ended in failure. The commander of the Western Front, Vladimir Gittis, was removed from his post, 27-year-old Mikhail Tukhachevsky, who had previously shown himself during the battles against the troops of Kolchak and Denikin, was appointed in his place. Also, for better command and control of the troops, the southern part of the Western Front was transformed into the Southwestern Front, with Alexander Yegorov appointed commander of the troops.

The alignment of forces on the Soviet-Polish front by May 1920 was as follows:

On the southern sector of the front - from the Dnieper to Pripyat:

Polish Army:

• 6th Army of General Vaclav Ivashkevich
• 2nd Army of General Antony Listovsky
• 3rd Army of General Edward Rydz-Smigly

A total of 30.4 thousand bayonets and 4.9 thousand sabers.

• 12th army of Sergei Mezheninov
• 14th Army of Ieronim Uborevich

A total of 13.4 thousand bayonets and 2.3 thousand sabers.

On the northern sector of the front - between Pripyat and the Western Dvina:

Polish Army

• 4th Army (Polesie and Berezina region) of General Stanislav Sheptytsky
• Operational group of General Leonard Skersky (Borisov region)
• 1st Army (Dvina area) of General Stefan Mayevsky
• Reserve Army of General Kazimierz Sosnkowski

A total of 60.1 thousand bayonets and 7 thousand sabers.

• 15th Army of August Cork
• 16th Army of Nikolai Sollogub

A total of 66.4 thousand bayonets and 4.4 thousand sabers.

Thus, in Belarus, the forces were approximately equal, and in Ukraine, the Poles had an almost threefold numerical superiority, which the Polish command decided to use to the maximum, transferring additional troops to this direction with a total force of 10 thousand bayonets and 1 thousand cavalry. In addition, the actions of the Poles, in accordance with the agreement, were supported by the troops of Petliura, who at that time numbered about 15 thousand people.

Polish-Ukrainian troops enter Kyiv. Khreschatyk, 1920

On April 25, 1920, Polish troops attacked the positions of the Red Army along the entire length of the Ukrainian border, and by April 28 they occupied the Chernobyl-Kozyatin-Vinnitsa-Romanian border line. Sergey Mezheninov, not risking engaging in battle, withdrew the troops of the 12th Army, whose units were scattered at a great distance from each other, lost unified control and needed to be regrouped. These days, the Poles captured more than 25,000 Red Army soldiers, captured 2 armored trains, 120 guns and 418 machine guns.

The offensive of the Red Army in the spring and summer of 1920

Tukhachevsky decided to take advantage of the diversion of part of the Polish army from the Belarusian direction and on May 14 launched an offensive against the positions of the Poles with the forces of 12 infantry divisions. Despite the initial success, by May 27 the offensive of the Soviet troops bogged down, and on June 1 the 4th and units of the 1st Polish armies launched a counteroffensive against the 15th Soviet army and by June 8 inflicted a heavy defeat on it (the army lost in killed, wounded and captured more than 12 thousand fighters).

On the Southwestern Front, the situation was turned in favor of the Soviets with the commissioning of the 1st Cavalry Army of Semyon Budyonny, transferred from the Caucasus (16.7 thousand sabers, 48 ​​guns, 6 armored trains and 12 aircraft). She left Maikop on April 3rd, defeated the detachments of Nestor Makhno in Gulyaipole, and crossed the Dnieper north of Yekaterinoslav (May 6th). On May 26, after the concentration of all units in Uman, the 1st Cavalry attacked Kazatin, and on June 5, Budyonny, having found a weak spot in the Polish defense, broke through the front near Samogorodok and went to the rear of the Polish units, advancing on Berdichev and Zhitomir. On June 10, the 3rd Polish Army of Rydz-Smigly, fearing encirclement, left Kyiv and moved to the Mazovia region. Two days later, the 1st Cavalry Army entered Kyiv. Attempts by Yegorov's small troops to prevent the retreat of the 3rd Army ended in failure. The Polish troops, having regrouped, tried to launch a counteroffensive: on July 1, the troops of General Leon Berbetsky attacked the front of the 1st Cavalry Army near Rovno. This offensive was not supported by adjacent Polish units and Berbetsky's troops were driven back. Polish troops made several more attempts to capture the city, but on July 10 it finally came under the control of the Red Army.

To the west!

To the West, workers and peasants!
Against the bourgeoisie and landowners,
for the international revolution,
for the freedom of all peoples!
Fighters of the workers' revolution!
Set your eyes on the West.
The fate of the world revolution is being decided in the West.
Through the corpse of white Poland lies the path to the world conflagration.
On bayonets we will carry happiness
and peace to working humanity.
To the west!
To decisive battles, to resounding victories!
…

At dawn on July 4, the Western Front of Mikhail Tukhachevsky again went on the offensive. The main blow was delivered on the right, northern flank, on which an almost twofold superiority in people and weapons was achieved. The idea of ​​the operation was to bypass the Polish units of Guy's cavalry corps and push the Polish Belorussian front to the Lithuanian border. This tactic was successful: on July 5, the 1st and 4th Polish armies began to quickly retreat in the direction of Lida, and, unable to gain a foothold on the old line of German trenches, retreated to the Bug at the end of July. In a short period of time, the Red Army advanced more than 600 km: on July 10, the Poles left Bobruisk, on July 11 - Minsk, on July 14, units of the Red Army took Vilna. On July 26, in the Bialystok region, the Red Army crossed directly into Polish territory, and on August 1, despite Pilsudski's orders, Brest was surrendered to Soviet troops almost without resistance.

On July 23, in Smolensk, the Bolsheviks formed the Provisional Revolutionary Committee of Poland (Polrevkom), which was supposed to assume full power after the capture of Warsaw and the overthrow of Pilsudski. The Bolsheviks officially announced this on August 1 in Bialystok, where Polrevkom was located. . The committee was headed by Julian Markhlevsky. On the same day, August 1, the Polrevkom announced the "Appeal to the Polish working people of cities and villages", written by Dzerzhinsky. The “Appeal” announced the creation of the Polish Republic of Soviets, the nationalization of lands, the separation of church and state, and also called on the workers to drive away the capitalists and landowners, occupy factories and factories, create revolutionary committees as government bodies (65 such revolutionary committees were formed) . The Committee called on the soldiers of the Polish Army to revolt against Piłsudski and go over to the side of the Polish Republic of Soviets. The Polrevkom also began to form the Polish Red Army (under the command of Roman Longva), but did not achieve any success in this.

Polish trenches near Milosna, August 1920

The position of Poland by the beginning of August became critical - not only because of the rapid retreat in Belarus, but also because of the worsening international position of the country. Great Britain actually ceased to provide military and economic assistance to Poland, Germany and Czechoslovakia closed the borders with Poland, and Danzig remained the only point for the delivery of goods to the republic. With the approach of the Red Army troops to Warsaw, the evacuation of foreign diplomatic missions began from there.

Front in August 1920.

Meanwhile, the position of the Polish troops worsened not only in the Belarusian, but also in the Ukrainian direction, where the Southwestern Front again went on the offensive under the command of Alexander Yegorov (with Stalin as a member of the Revolutionary Military Council). The main goal of the front was the capture of Lviv, which was defended by three infantry divisions of the 6th Polish Army and the Ukrainian army under the command of Mikhailo Omelyanovich-Pavlenko. On July 9, the 14th Army of the Red Army took Proskurov (Khmelnitsky), and on July 12 captured Kamenetz-Podolsky by storm. On July 25, the Southwestern Front launched the Lvov offensive operation, but failed to capture Lvov.

Warsaw battle

On August 12, the troops of the Western Front of Mikhail Tukhachevsky went on the offensive, the purpose of which was to capture Warsaw.

Composition of the Western Front:

• Guy Guy's 3rd Cavalry Corps
• 4th Army of Alexander Shuvaev
• 15th Army of August Cork
• 3rd Army of Vladimir Lazarevich
• 16th Army of Nikolai Sollogub
• Mozyr group of Tikhon Khvesin

Two fronts of the Red Army were opposed by three Polish ones: Northern front of General Józef Haller

• 5th Army of General Vladislav Sikorsky
• 1st Army of General Frantisek Latinik
• 2nd Army of General Boleslav Roja

Central Front of General Edward Rydz-Smigly:

• 4th Army of General Leonard Skersky
• 3rd Army of General Zygmunt Zelinsky

Southern Front of General Vaclav Ivashkevich:

• 6th Army of General Vladislav Yendzheyevsky
• Army of the UNR General Mikhailo Omelyanovich-Pavlenko

The total number of personnel differs in all sources. We can only say with certainty that the forces were approximately equal and did not exceed 200 thousand people on each side.

The plan of Mikhail Tukhachevsky provided for the crossing of the Vistula in the lower reaches and the attack on Warsaw from the west. According to some assumptions made, the purpose of "deviating" the direction of the Soviet troops' attack to the north was to get to the German border as soon as possible, which should have accelerated the establishment of Soviet power in this country. On August 13, two rifle divisions of the Red Army struck near Radimin (23 km from Warsaw) and captured the city. Then one of them moved to Prague, and the second turned right - to Neporent and Jablonna. Polish forces retreated to the second line of defense.

The Polish counter-offensive plan provided for the concentration of large forces on the Vepsh River and a surprise attack from the southeast into the rear of the troops of the Western Front. To do this, two shock groups were formed from the two armies of the Central Front, General Edward Rydz-Smigly. However, order 8358 / III on a counterattack near Vepshem with a detailed map fell into the hands of the Red Army, but the Soviet command considered the document found to be disinformation, the purpose of which was to disrupt the Red Army's offensive on Warsaw. On the same day, Polish radio intelligence intercepted the order for the 16th Army to attack Warsaw on August 14th. To get ahead of the Reds, on the orders of Józef Haller, the 5th Army of Vladislav Sikorsky, defending Modlin, from the area of ​​​​the Wkra River hit the stretched front of Tukhachevsky at the junction of the 3rd and 15th armies and broke through it. On the night of August 15, two reserve Polish divisions attacked the Soviet troops near Radimin from the rear. Soon the city was taken.

On August 16, Marshal Pilsudski launched the planned counterattack. The information received by radio intelligence about the weakness of the Mozyr group played a role. Having concentrated more than a double superiority against it (47.5 thousand fighters against 21 thousand), the Polish troops (the first strike group under the command of Pilsudski himself) broke through the front and defeated the southern wing of the 16th army of Nikolai Sollogub. At the same time, there was an attack on Vlodava by the forces of the 3rd Infantry Division of the Legions, and also, with the support of tanks, on Minsk-Mazovetsky. This created a threat of encirclement of all Red Army troops in the Warsaw area.

"Battle of Komarov". Hood. Jerzy Kossak

Considering the critical situation on the Western Front, on August 14, Commander-in-Chief Kamenev ordered that the 12th and 1st Cavalry Armies be transferred to the Western Front in order to significantly strengthen it. However, the leadership of the Southwestern Front, which was besieging Lvov, ignored this order.

In the summer of 1920, Stalin, sent to the Polish front, encouraged Budyonny to fail to comply with the orders of the command to transfer the 1st Cavalry Army from near Lvov to the Warsaw direction, which, according to some historians, had fatal consequences for the Red Army campaign. Tucker Robert Stalin. Path to power. page 16

Only on August 20, after a sharp demand from the central leadership, did the 1st Cavalry Army begin to move north. By the time the 1st Cavalry Army began to act from near Lvov, the troops of the Western Front had already begun an unorganized retreat to the east. On August 19, the Poles occupied Brest, on August 23 - Bialystok. On the same day, the 4th Army and the 3rd Cavalry Corps of Guy Guy and two divisions from the 15th Army (about 40 thousand people in total) crossed the German border and were interned. At the end of August, through Sokal, the 1st Cavalry Army struck in the direction of Zamostye and Grubeshov, in order to then, through Lublin, reach the rear of the Polish attack group advancing to the north. However, the Poles advanced towards the 1st Cavalry Reserves of the General Staff. On August 31, 1920, the largest equestrian battle after 1813 took place near Komarov. The 1st Cavalry Army of Budyonny entered the battle with the 1st Polish division of Rummel's cavalry. Despite the superiority in numbers (7,000 sabers against 2,000 sabers), Budyonny's army, exhausted in the battles for Lvov, was defeated, losing more than 4,000 people killed. Rummel's losses amounted to about 500 fighters. The army of Budyonny, and behind it the troops of the Southwestern Front, were forced to retreat from Lvov and go on the defensive.

Polish soldiers demonstrate the banners of the Red Army, captured in the battle of Warsaw

As a result of the defeat near Warsaw, the Soviet troops of the Western Front suffered heavy losses. According to some estimates, during the Battle of Warsaw, 25,000 Red Army soldiers were killed, 60,000 were captured by the Polish, 40,000 were interned by the Germans. Several thousand people went missing. The front also lost a large amount of artillery and equipment. Polish losses are estimated at 15,000 killed and missing and 22,000 wounded.

Fighting in Belarus

After the retreat from Poland, Tukhachevsky entrenched himself on the line of the Neman - Shchara - Svisloch rivers, while using the German fortifications left from the First World War as a second line of defense. The Western Front received large reinforcements from the rear areas, and 30 thousand people from among the internees in East Prussia returned to its composition. Gradually, Tukhachevsky was able to almost completely restore the combat strength of the front: on September 1, he had 73 thousand soldiers and 220 guns. By order of Kamenev, Tukhachevsky was preparing a new offensive.

The Poles were also preparing for the offensive. The attack on Grodno and Volkovysk was supposed to tie up the main forces of the Red Army and enable the 2nd Army through the territory of Lithuania to reach the deep rear of the advanced units of the Red Army holding defenses on the Neman. On September 12, Tukhachevsky ordered an attack on Vlodava and Brest by the southern flank of the Western Front, including the 4th and 12th armies. Since the order was intercepted and deciphered by Polish radio intelligence, on the same day the Poles launched a preemptive strike, broke through the defenses of the 12th Army and took Kovel. This disrupted the general offensive of the Red Army troops and endangered the encirclement of the southern grouping of the Western Front and forced the 4th, 12th and 14th armies to withdraw to the east.

The defense of the Western Front on the Neman was held by three armies: the 3rd of Vladimir Lazarevich, the 15th of August Kork and the 16th of Nikolai Sollogub (a total of about 100 thousand fighters, about 250 guns). They were opposed by the Polish grouping of Jozef Pilsudski: the 2nd Army of General Edward Rydz-Smigly, the 4th Army of General Leonard Skersky, the reserve of the commander-in-chief (about 100 thousand soldiers in total).

On September 20, 1920, a bloody battle for Grodno began. At first, the Poles were successful, but on September 22, Tukhachevsky's troops pulled up reserves and restored the situation. Meanwhile, Polish troops invaded Lithuania and moved to Druskenniki (Druskininkai). Having captured the bridge over the Neman, the Poles went to the flank of the Western Front. September 25, unable to stop the advance of the Poles, Tukhachevsky orders the withdrawal of troops to the east. On the night of September 26, the Poles occupied Grodno, and soon crossed the Neman south of the city. The 3rd Army of Lazarevich, retreating to the east, was unable to restore the front and retreated to the Lida region with heavy losses. On September 28, however, the Soviet troops were unable to capture the city already occupied by the enemy and were soon defeated (most of the personnel were captured).

Pilsudski intended to build on success, encircle and destroy the remaining troops of the Western Front near Novogrudok. However, the Polish units, weakened in battles, could not fulfill this order, and the troops of the Red Army were able to regroup and organize defense.

During the Neman battle, Polish troops captured 40 thousand prisoners, 140 guns, a large number of horses and ammunition. The fighting in Belarus continued until the signing of a peace treaty in Riga. On October 12, the Poles re-entered Minsk and Molodechno.

Terror against the civilian population

During the war, the troops of both countries carried out executions of the civilian population, while the Polish troops carried out ethnic cleansing, the object of which was mainly Jews. The leadership of both the Red Army and the Polish Army initiated official investigations on the results of such actions and tried to prevent them.

The first documented use of weapons against non-combatants was the execution by the Poles of the mission of the Russian Red Cross on January 2, 1919, this act was most likely committed by the Polish Self-Defense units, since the regular Polish army had not yet left Poland. In March 1919, after the occupation of Pinsk by the Polish army, the Polish commandant ordered the execution of 40 Jews who had gathered for prayer, who were mistaken for a meeting of Bolsheviks. Part of the hospital staff was also shot. . In April of the same year, the capture of Vilnius by the Poles was accompanied by massacres of captured Red Army soldiers, Jews and people who sympathized with the Soviet regime. The offensive of the Polish troops in Ukraine in the spring of 1920 was accompanied by Jewish pogroms and mass executions: in the city of Rivne, the Poles shot more than 3 thousand civilians, about 4 thousand Jews were killed in the town of Tetiev, for resistance during the requisitions of food, the villages of Ivanovtsy, Kucha, Sobachy were completely burned, Yablunovka, Novaya Greblya, Melnichi, Kirillovka and others, their inhabitants were shot. Polish historians question these data; according to the Concise Jewish Encyclopedia, the massacre in Tetiev was committed not by the Poles, but by the Ukrainians - a detachment of ataman Kurovsky (Petliurist, former Red commander) on March 24, 1920. The representative of the Polish Civil Administration of the Eastern Lands (the Polish administration in the occupied territories) M. Kossakovsky testified that the Polish military killed people only because they "looked like Bolsheviks."

A special place in the terror against the civilian population is occupied by the activities of the Belarusian units of the "ataman" Stanislav Balakhovich, at first subordinate to the Polish command, but after the truce they acted independently. The Polish military prosecutor, Colonel Lisovsky, who investigated complaints about the actions of the Balakhovites, described the activities of the Balakhovich division as follows:

... Balakhovich's army is a gang of robbers that transports looted gold. To occupy a city, an army is sent, whose soldiers rob and kill. And only after numerous pogroms, two days later, Balakhovich arrives with his headquarters. After the robbery, the drinking begins. ... As for Balakhovich, he allows looting, otherwise they would refuse to move forward ... every officer who joins Balakhovich's army pours mud on himself that nothing can wash off.

An investigation conducted by Colonel Lisovsky, in particular, found that in Turov alone 70 Jewish girls aged 12 to 15 were raped by Balakhovites.

An excerpt from the testimony of H. Gdansky and M. Blumenkrank to the investigation, given in the book of the Polish researcher Marek Kabanovsky "General Stanislav Bulak-Balakhovich" (Warsaw, 1993):

[…] On the way there we met a Balakhovite captain. He asked:
- Who are you leading?
- Jews...
- Shoot them.
There was another Jew with us - Marshalkovich.
The guards ordered to pull down their underpants and lick each other's asses. Then they also forced us to urinate in each other's mouths and do other abominations ... And the men were gathered around and ordered to watch all this ... They forced us to have sexual intercourse with a heifer. They raped us and slandered our faces ...
Blumenkrank could not bear the bullying and asked to be shot. Marshalkovich is still sick after suffering bullying.

A. Naidich, a resident of Mozyr, described the events in the capital of the BPR, Mozyr, after the capture of the city by the Balakhovites (GA RF. F. 1339. Op. 1. D. 459. L. 2-3.):

At 5 o'clock. In the evening, the Balakhovites entered the city. The peasant population joyfully greeted the Balakhovites, but the Jews hid in their apartments. Now a pogrom began with mass rapes, beatings, bullying and murders. The officers participated in the pogrom along with the soldiers. An insignificant part of the Russian population robbed the shops opened by the Balakhovites. All night through the city there were soul-rending cries ... "

The report of the commission on registration of the victims of Balakhovich's raid in the Mozyr district stated that

Girls from 12 years old, women 80 years old, women with 8 months of pregnancy ... were subjected to violence, and violence was committed from 15 to 20 times. Although the formed local commission for examination and assistance was promised complete preservation of medical secrecy, the number of those seeking help reaches only about 300 women, most of whom are ill with venereal diseases or become pregnant ...

On the Soviet side, Budyonny's army acquired the glory of the main pogrom force. Particularly large-scale pogroms were carried out by the Budyonnovists in Baranovka, Chudnov and Rogachev. In particular, from September 18 to September 22, the 6th Cavalry Division of this army committed more than 30 pogroms; in the town of Lyubar on September 29, during a pogrom, 60 people were killed by the fighters of the division; At the same time, “women were shamelessly raped in front of everyone, and the girls, like slaves, were dragged away by bandits to their wagons.” In Vakhnovka on October 3, 20 people were killed, many were injured and raped, 18 houses were burned. After the commissioner of the 6th division G. G. Shepelev was killed on September 28 while trying to stop the pogrom in the town of Polonnoe, the division was disbanded, and two brigade commanders and several hundred ordinary soldiers were put on trial and 157 were shot.

The Polish officers taken prisoner by the Red Army were shot on the spot, unconditionally, as were the Bolshevik commissars taken prisoner by the Poles.

The fate of prisoners of war

Captured Red Army soldiers in the Tucholsky camp

Until now, there is no exact data on the fate of Polish and Soviet prisoners of war. According to Russian sources, about 80,000 Red Army soldiers out of 200,000 who fell into Polish captivity died from starvation, disease, torture, bullying and executions.

Polish sources give figures of 85 thousand prisoners (at least that many people were in Polish camps by the time the war ended), of which about 20 thousand died. They were kept in the camps left after the First World War - Strzalkow (the largest), Dombier, Pikulice, Wadowice and Tucholsky concentration camp. Under the 1921 agreement on the exchange of prisoners (an addition to the Riga Peace Treaty), 65,000 captured fighters of the Red Army returned to Russia. If the information about 200 thousand taken prisoner and the death of 80 thousand of them is correct, then the fate of about 60 thousand more people is unclear.

Mortality in Polish camps reached 20% of the number of prisoners, mainly the cause of death was epidemics, which, in conditions of poor nutrition, overcrowding and lack of medical care, quickly spread and had a high mortality rate. This is how a member of the International Committee of the Red Cross described the camp in Brest:

From the guardrooms, as well as from the former stables in which the prisoners of war are housed, a sickening smell emanates. Prisoners chilly huddle around a makeshift stove, where several logs are burning - the only way to heat. At night, hiding from the first cold, they fit in close rows in groups of 300 people in poorly lit and poorly ventilated barracks, on boards, without mattresses and blankets. The prisoners are mostly dressed in rags ... because of the overcrowding of the premises, not suitable for habitation; joint close living of healthy prisoners of war and infectious patients, many of whom immediately died; malnutrition, as evidenced by numerous cases of malnutrition; edema, hunger during the three months of stay in Brest - the camp in Brest-Litovsk was a real necropolis.

In the prisoner of war camp in Strzalkow, among other things, there were numerous abuses of prisoners, for which the commandant of the camp, Lieutenant Malinovsky, was later put on trial.

Of the 60,000 Polish prisoners of war, 27,598 people returned to Poland after the end of the war, and about 2,000 remained in the RSFSR. The fate of the remaining 32 thousand is unclear.

The role of the "great powers" in the conflict

The Soviet-Polish war took place simultaneously with the intervention in Russia of the Entente countries, which actively supported Poland from the moment it was recreated as an independent state. In this regard, Poland's war against Russia was seen by the "great powers" as part of the struggle against the Bolshevik government.

The Polish "Blue Army" was so named because of the blue French uniforms they wear.

However, the views of the Entente countries regarding the possible strengthening of Poland as a result of the conflict differed greatly - the United States and France advocated all-round assistance to the Pilsudski government and took part in the creation of the Polish army, while Great Britain tended to limited assistance to Poland, and then to political neutrality in this conflict. The participation of the Entente countries concerned the economic, military and diplomatic support of Poland.

From February to August 1919, Poland received 260,000 tons of food from the United States worth $51 million. In 1919, only from the US military warehouses in Europe, Poland received military property worth 60 million dollars, in 1920 - 100 million dollars. In the spring of 1920, England, France and the United States supplied Poland with 1,494 guns, 2,800 machine guns, about 700 aircraft, and 10 million shells. The US military fought along with the Poles - the Kosciuszko squadron, which operated against the Budyonny army, was made up of US pilots, commanded by US Colonel Fontlera. In July 1919, a 70,000-strong army arrived in Poland, created in France mainly from emigrants of Polish origin from France and the USA. French participation in the conflict was also expressed in the activities of hundreds of French officers, led by General Maxime Weygand, who arrived in 1920 to train Polish troops and assist the Polish General Staff. French officers in Poland included Charles de Gaulle.

American pilots of the squadron. Kosciuszko M.Cooper and S. Fontleroy

Britain's position was more reserved. The Curzon Line, proposed by the British minister as the eastern border of Poland in December 1919, assumed the establishment of a border to the west of the front line at that time and the withdrawal of Polish troops. Six months later, when the situation changed, Curzon again proposed fixing the border along this line, otherwise the Entente countries pledged to support Poland "with all the means at their disposal",. Thus, throughout the entire war, Great Britain advocated a compromise option for dividing the disputed territories (along the eastern border of the Poles).

However, even in the conditions of the critical martial law of Poland, Great Britain did not provide it with any military support. In August 1920, a conference of trade unions and labor voted for a general strike if the government continued to support Poland and tried to intervene in the conflict, further shipment of ammunition to Poland was simply sabotaged. At the same time, the International Trade Union Federation in Amsterdam instructed its members to increase the embargo on ammunition destined for Poland. Only France and the United States continued to provide assistance to the Poles, but Germany and Czechoslovakia, with which Poland managed to enter into border conflicts over disputed territories, at the end of July 1920 banned the transit of weapons and ammunition for Poland through their territory.

The reduction in assistance from the Entente countries played a significant role in the fact that after the victory near Warsaw, the Poles were unable to build on their success and defeat the Soviet troops of the Western Front. A change in the British diplomatic position (influenced by the trade unions, in turn secretly financed by the Soviet government), hastened the peace treaty in Riga.

The results of the war

Polish-Soviet border after the war

Belarusian caricature of the division of Belarus between Russia and Poland: “Down with the shameful division of Riga! Long live free, indivisible, people's Belarus!”

None of the parties during the war achieved their goals: Belarus and Ukraine were divided between Poland and the republics that joined the Soviet Union in 1922. The territory of Lithuania was divided between Poland and the independent state of Lithuania. The RSFSR, for its part, recognized the independence of Poland and the legitimacy of the Pilsudski government, temporarily abandoned the plans for a "world revolution" and the elimination of the Versailles system. Despite the signing of a peace treaty, relations between the two countries remained tense for the next twenty years, which ultimately led to the participation of the USSR in the partition of Poland in 1939.

Disagreements between the Entente countries that arose in 1920 on the issue of military and financial support for Poland led to a gradual cessation of support by these countries for the White movement and anti-Bolshevik forces in general, followed by international recognition of the Soviet Union.

see also

• Polish citizens in Soviet captivity (1919 - 1923)
• Tuchol (concentration camp) - Polish POW camp

Notes

Literature

• Raisky N. S. The Polish-Soviet War of 1919-1920 and the fate of prisoners of war, internees, hostages and refugees. - M., 1999. ISBN 0-7734-7917-1
• "FROM WAR 1914 TO WAR 1939" (on the example of Poland). "Russian binding", http://www.pereplet.ru/history/suvorov/suv_polsh.htm
• Solovyov S. M. "History of Russia since ancient times", M., 2001, ISBN 5-17-002142-9

The offensive of the Polish troops on Kyiv began the Soviet-Polish war, which ended in the autumn of the same year with the establishment of the border of Poland east of the city of Vilna (now Vilnius, Lithuania).

The Polish leader Jozef Pilsudski, who in November 1918 announced the creation of the state and proclaimed himself its "chief", counted on the restoration of Poland within the borders of 1772 (that is, before its so-called "first partition").

From the autumn of 1918 to the spring of 1920, the RSFSR repeatedly offered Poland to establish diplomatic relations and a reasonable border, but Poland refused under various pretexts. During the same period, Polish and Soviet troops, moving towards them, occupied the western provinces of the former Russian Empire.

All Galicia and Volhynia. Lithuanian and Belarusian cities, including Vilna and Minsk, changed hands several times.

By April 1920, two theaters of operations had developed, separated by the Pripyat swamps. In Belarus, the Western Front of the Red Army (about 90 thousand bayonets and sabers, more than one and a half thousand machine guns, more than 400 guns) had in front of it about 80 thousand Polish bayonets and sabers, two thousand machine guns, more than 500 guns; in Ukraine, the Southwestern Front of the Red Army (15.5 thousand bayonets and sabers, 1200 machine guns, more than 200 guns) - 65 thousand Polish bayonets and sabers (almost two thousand machine guns, more than 500 guns).

On May 14, the Western Front (commanded by Mikhail Tukhachevsky) launched a poorly prepared attack on Vilna and further on Warsaw, which forced the enemy to regroup. On May 26, the Southwestern Front (Alexander Yegorov), reinforced by the 1st Cavalry Army transferred from the Caucasus, went on the counteroffensive. On June 12, Kyiv was recaptured, and the attack on Lvov began. A month later, the troops of the Western Front were able to take Minsk and Vilna. Polish troops retreated to Warsaw.

On July 11, the British Minister of Foreign Affairs, Lord George Curzon, with a note to People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs Georgy Chicherin, proposed to stop the advance of the Red Army on the Grodno-Brest line, west of Rava-Russkaya, east of Przemysl (the "Curzon line", approximately corresponding to the borders of the settlement of ethnic Poles and practically coinciding with the modern eastern border of Poland). The RSFSR rejected the British mediation, insisting on direct negotiations with Poland.

The offensive in divergent directions to Warsaw and Lvov was continued, despite the objections of People's Commissar for Military Affairs Lev Trotsky and a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Southwestern Front, Joseph Stalin.

As the Soviet troops approached the Vistula, the resistance of the Polish troops increased. Commander-in-Chief of the Red Army Sergei Kamenev ordered the 1st Cavalry Army and part of the forces of the Southwestern Front to be transferred to the Western Front, but this was never done. The 1st Cavalry Army continued to fight for Lvov until August 19th.

In the Warsaw direction, the enemy had about 69 thousand bayonets and sabers, and the Western Front - 95 thousand. However, the main forces of the front advanced around Warsaw from the north, and only the Mozyr infantry group of 6 thousand bayonets remained south of the city. Against it, the enemy concentrated strike forces of 38 thousand bayonets and sabers, which, under the personal command of Pilsudski, launched a counteroffensive on August 16, quickly broke through the weak battle formations of the Mozyr group and began to move to the northeast. By August 20, having occupied Brest, Polish troops engulfed the main forces of the Western Front from the south, completely disrupting its rear and railway communications.

The result of the "miracle on the Vistula" (by analogy with the "miracle on the Marne" in September 1914) was the complete defeat of the Western Front, which lost 66,000 people captured and 25,000 killed and wounded. Nearly 50,000 more retreated to East Prussia, where they were interned. In August-October, Polish troops captured Bialystok, Lida, Volkovysk and Baranovichi, as well as Kovel, Lutsk, Rivne and Tarnopol.

The Poles, however, were unable to build on their success and went on the defensive at the achieved lines. At the end of August, active hostilities on the Soviet-Polish front ceased. The war took on a positional character.

On August 17, Soviet-Polish negotiations began in Minsk, which were then transferred to Riga. On October 18, an armistice agreement came into force, and on March 18, 1921, the Riga Peace Treaty was signed. The border of Poland was drawn much to the east of the Curzon Line, almost strictly from north to south along the meridian of Pskov. Vilna remained to the west of the border, Minsk - to the east.

Poland received 30 million rubles in gold, 300 locomotives, 435 passenger cars and more than 8,000 freight cars.

The losses of the Soviet troops amounted to 232 thousand people, including irretrievable - 130 thousand people (killed, missing, captured and interned). According to various sources, from 45 to 60 thousand Soviet prisoners died in Polish captivity.

The Polish army lost over 180 thousand people, including about 40 thousand people killed, over 51 thousand people captured and missing.

In the fall of 2014, the Russian Military Historical Society began raising funds to install a monument (cross) to the Red Army soldiers who died in captivity in Krakow at the Rakovitsky cemetery, but the Polish authorities rejected this initiative.

(Additional

#war #1920 #history #RSFSR

Causes of the conflict

The Polish state, formed in November 1918, from the very beginning began to pursue an aggressive policy towards its eastern neighbor - Russia. On November 16, the Head of the Polish state, Jozef Pilsudski, notified all countries, except for the RSFSR, of the creation of an independent Polish state. But, despite ignoring Soviet Russia, nevertheless, in December 1918, the Soviet government announced its readiness to establish diplomatic relations with Poland. She turned down the offer. Moreover, on January 2, 1919, the Poles shot down the mission of the Russian Red Cross, which caused an aggravation of relations between the two states. Poland was proclaimed an independent state within the borders of the Commonwealth in 1772 (the year of the first partition of Poland - M.P.). This involved a radical revision of its borders, including with Russia. The border between Poland and Russia was the subject of discussion at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. The eastern border of Poland was defined in ethnic boundaries between Poles on the one hand, and Ukrainians and Belarusians on the other. It was established at the suggestion of the British Foreign Secretary Lord Curzon and was called the "Curzon Line". On January 28, 1920, the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs once again turned to Poland with a peace proposal based on the recognition of its independence and sovereignty. At the same time, serious territorial concessions were made to Poland. The border was supposed to run from 50 to 80 km east of the Curzon Line, that is, Soviet Russia was ready to cede significant territories. Lenin noted on this occasion: “When in January (1920 - M.P.) we offered Poland peace, which was extremely beneficial for her, very unprofitable for us, the diplomats of all countries understood this in their own way:“ the Bolsheviks - so they are unreasonably weak ”(Lenin V.I. T. 41. S. 281). In mid-February 1920, Pilsudski announced that he was ready to start negotiations with Russia if she recognized the borders of Poland within the 1772 Commonwealth.

This approach was unacceptable for Russia. The Polish ruling elite put forward the national slogan of creating "Great Poland" "from sea to sea" - from the Baltic to the Black. This nationalist project could only be realized at the expense of Russia. Pilsudski raised the issue of revising the border between Poland and Soviet Russia, that is, it was about tearing away the historical territories of Russia and their annexation to Poland. On the Polish side, as preconditions for negotiations, they demanded that the Soviet side withdraw Soviet troops from all territories that were part of the Commonwealth before the first partition of Poland. They were supposed to be occupied by Polish troops. On March 6, the Soviet government offered peace to Poland for the third time since the beginning of 1920. On March 27, 1920, Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs S. Patek announced his readiness to start peace negotiations. The place of negotiations was the city of Borisov, which was located in the area of ​​hostilities and was occupied by Polish troops. The Polish side offered to declare a truce only in the Borisov region, which allowed it to conduct military operations on the territory of Ukraine.

The Soviet side offered to declare a general truce for the period of negotiations and choose any place for negotiations far from the front line. Poland did not accept these proposals. The last time a Soviet offer of peace was sent to Poland was on February 2, 1920, and on April 7 it was refused to conduct any negotiations with the Soviets. All attempts by the Soviet government to establish peaceful relations and resolve disputed issues through negotiations ended in failure.

As noted by L.D. Trotsky, we "wanted with all our might to avoid this war." Thus, among the main reasons for the Soviet-Polish war of 1920, one should mention the desire of Poland to seize the territory of Russia, as well as the policy of the Entente, which encouraged the attack of Poland on Soviet Russia in order to overthrow the power of the Bolsheviks.

Beginning and course of the war

France, England, the United States helped Poland create a strong army.

In particular, the United States provided her with $50 million in 1920. Assistance with advisers and instructors was provided by France and England. Ferdinand Foch in January 1920 set the task of the French mission in Warsaw: "to prepare the strongest army possible in the shortest possible time." In France, under the command of General Haller, a Polish army was created, consisting of two corps. In 1919 she was transferred to Poland. These states provided Poland with enormous military and economic assistance. In the spring of 1920, they supplied her with 1494 guns, 2800 machine guns, 385.5 thousand rifles, 42 thousand revolvers, about 700 aircraft, 200 armored vehicles, 800 trucks, 576 million cartridges, 10 million shells, 4.5 thousand wagons, 3 million pieces of equipment, 4 million pairs of shoes, communications and medicines.

With the help of the above countries, by the spring of 1920, Poland managed to create a strong and well-equipped army of about 740 thousand people. By April 1920, the Polish armed forces on the Eastern Front consisted of six armies, the combat strength of which was determined at 148.4 thousand soldiers and. They were armed with 4157 machine guns, 302 mortars, 894 artillery pieces, 49 armored vehicles and 51 aircraft. On the Soviet side, they were opposed by two fronts: the Western (commander V.M. Gittis, member of the Revolutionary Military Council I.S. Unshlikht), deployed on the territory of Belarus, and the South-Western (commander A.I. Egorov, member of the Revolutionary Military Council R.I. Berzin ), located on the territory of Ukraine. Both fronts had two armies. On the whole, on the Soviet-Polish front, Polish troops slightly outnumbered Soviet troops. However, in Ukraine, where the Polish command planned to strike the main blow, he managed to create superiority in fighters by 3.3 times, machine guns by 1.6 times, guns and mortars by 2.5 times. The plan of the Polish command, approved by the Entente, provided for the defeat of the 12th and 14th Soviet armies at the first stage of hostilities, they began to retreat. However, it was not possible to defeat them, as the Polish command intended.

The Polish army was supported by Polish nationalists. On April 21, 1920, a secret "political convention" was signed between Pilsudski and Petliura, one of the leaders of the Central Ukrainian Rada. Petliurists for the recognition of their "government" gave Poland 100 thousand square meters. km. Ukrainian territory with a population of 5 million people. In Ukraine, there was no strong resistance to Pilsudski. And this despite the fact that the Poles took out industrial equipment, robbed the population; punitive detachments burned villages, shot men and women. In the city of Rovno, the Poles shot more than 3 thousand civilians. The villages of Ivantsy, Kucha, Yablukovka, Sobachy, Kirillovka and others were completely burned down for the refusal of the population to give food to the occupiers. The inhabitants of these villages were machine-gunned. In the town of Tetievo, 4,000 people were slaughtered during a Jewish pogrom. Troops of the 12th Army left Kyiv on May 6, where Polish troops entered. A few days later, the Polish General E. Ryndz - Smigly received a parade of allied troops on Khreshchatyk. Polish troops also occupied a significant part of the territory of Belarus with the city of Minsk.

By mid-May 1920, almost all of Right-Bank Ukraine was under the control of Polish troops. By the same time, the front in Ukraine had stabilized. The Soviet 12th and 14th armies suffered heavy losses, but were not defeated. Strategic goals, that is, the defeat of the troops of the Southwestern Front, Pilsudski failed to realize. As he himself admitted on May 15, "we hit the air with our fist - we traveled a long distance, but we did not destroy the enemy's manpower." The start of a broad Polish offensive in Ukraine and the capture of Kyiv led to significant changes in the strategy of Soviet Russia. The Polish front became the main one for Moscow, and the war with Poland became the “central task”. On May 23, the theses of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) "The Polish Front and Our Tasks" were published, in which the country was called upon to fight pan-pan Poland. As early as April 30, that is, a week before this document, the appeal of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars "To all workers, peasants and honest citizens of Russia" was published.

It revealed the aggressive nature of the war, and again confirmed the independence and sovereignty of Poland. There was a mass mobilization in the country. By November 1920, 500 thousand people were mobilized. Komsomol and party mobilizations were also carried out: 25,000 communists and 12,000 Komsomol members were mobilized. By the end of 1920, the strength of the Red Army reached 5.5 million people. The Soviet-Polish war and the seizure of the historical territories of Russia during it led to a certain national unity in the country split by the civil war. Former officers and generals of the tsarist army, who had previously not sympathized with the Bolsheviks, now declared their support. Famous generals of the Russian army A.A. Brusilov, A.M. Zaionchkovsky and A.A. Polivanov May 30, 1920 appealed to "all former officers, wherever they are" with a call to side with the Red Army. Quite a few have come to the conclusion that the Red Army is now being transformed from a Bolshevik army into a national, state army, that the Bolsheviks are defending the interests of Russia. Following this appeal, on June 2, 1920, a decree of the Council of People's Commissars "On the release from responsibility of all White Guards who will help in the war with Poland and Wrangel" was issued.

Counteroffensive of the Red Army

After the capture of Kyiv, according to Trotsky, "the country was shaken up." Thanks to mobilization measures, the preconditions for a counteroffensive of the Red Army were created. On April 28, 1920, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) discussed the plan of the counteroffensive. The main blow was planned in Belarus, north of Polesie. The troops of the Western Front received significant reinforcements. From March 10 to June 1, 1920, the front received more than 40 thousand replenishment people. The number of horses increased from 25 thousand to 35. On April 29, M.N. became the commander of the Western Front. Tukhachevsky, who replaced Gittis. At the same time (May 26), Stalin was appointed a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Southwestern Front, F.E. Dzerzhinsky. The offensive of the Western Front began on the morning of May 14 (15th Army - Commander A.I. Kork) in the Vitebsk region. Here it was possible to create a preponderance of forces over the Poles, both in manpower and in weapons. The defense of the first Polish division was broken. Already on the first day of the offensive, Soviet troops advanced 6-20 km. The 43rd regiment of the 5th rifle division under the command of V.I. Chuikov. The troops of the Western Front advanced westward up to 100-130 km.

However, the enemy, having pulled up reserves, managed to push our troops back 60-100 km. But this was done to a large extent by moving troops from Ukraine, where the Poles had weakened their positions. The May offensive of the Soviet troops in Belarus forced them to use up a significant part of their reserves. This made it easier for the troops of the southwestern front to go over to the offensive. In May 1920, the Southwestern Front received a reinforcement of 41 thousand people. The first Cavalry Army was transferred from the North Caucasus to the Southwestern Front. Its commander was S.M. Budyonny; members of the RVS - K.E. Voroshilov and E.A. Shchadenko. Cavalry made a 1000-kilometer campaign on horseback. During the campaign, she defeated many insurgent and anti-Soviet detachments operating in the rear of the troops of the Southwestern Front. On May 25, the cavalry concentrated in the Uman region (18 thousand sabers). It significantly strengthened the offensive capabilities of the Southwestern Front. May 12-15 at the front headquarters in Kharkov with the participation of Commander-in-Chief S.S. Kamenev developed a plan for the counteroffensive of the front. On the eve of the offensive, the balance of forces looked like this: the Polish troops consisted of 78 thousand bayonets and cavalry; The Southwestern Front had 46,000 infantry and cavalry. But he seriously outnumbered the enemy in cavalry. In early June, the first cavalry went on the offensive. On June 7, the 4th Cavalry Division captured Zhitomir, freeing 7,000 Red Army soldiers from captivity, who immediately entered service. Pilsudski's headquarters were nearly captured here. On June 8, they took the city of Berdichev. The Polish front in Ukraine was split into two parts. June 12 was liberated Kyiv, June 30 - Exactly.

During the liberation of these cities, the 25th Chapaev division and the cavalry brigade of Kotovsky especially distinguished themselves. The Soviet offensive in Belarus developed successfully. At dawn on July 4, the troops of the Western Front went on the offensive. Already on the first day of the offensive, the right wing of the front advanced 15-20 km. However, it was not possible to surround and completely destroy the 1st Polish army opposing him. The 16th army advanced on Minsk, and on July 11 it was liberated, on July 19 - Baranovichi was liberated. To save Poland from complete defeat, on July 11, 1920, British Foreign Secretary Curzon addressed the Soviet government with a Note, which proposed conditions for ending the war and concluding a truce. This note was called "Curzon's ultimatum" in our country. It contained the following proposals: the Polish army retreats to the line outlined in 1919 at the Paris Peace Conference (the "Curzon Line"). Soviet troops stop 50 km away. east of this line; the final decision on the border between Poland and Russia was to take place at an international conference in London; if the offensive of the Soviet troops continues, the Entente will support Poland. In addition, it was proposed to conclude a truce with Wrangel. In those conditions, this meant the annexation of Crimea from Russia. Moscow was given 7 days to respond and it was reported that Poland agreed to these conditions. Curzon's note was discussed by the Soviet government on July 13-16. There was no unity on this issue. G.V. Chicherin, L.B. Kamenev, L.D. Trotsky believed that the terms of the truce were favorable for the Soviet side, so they could agree to negotiations and, taking into account our conditions, conclude a truce with Poland. Given the way events unfolded in the future, this approach was very promising for Russia. However, the point of view prevailed, according to which it was believed that Poland was weak and a strong blow would lead to its final defeat, and after it the collapse of the entire Versailles system, which did not take into account Soviet interests, could also occur. This position was based on an erroneous assessment of the successes of the Red Army and the perception that Poland was on the verge of defeat. AT

As a result, on July 16, at the Plenum of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), Curzon's note was rejected and a decision was made on a further offensive against Poland. Already after 2.5 months in September 1920, at the IX All-Russian Conference of the RCP (b), Lenin was forced to admit the fallacy of such a decision. Meanwhile, against the backdrop of the victories of the Red Army in Ukraine and Belarus, there was a growing conviction that this war could turn into a revolutionary war. The leadership of Soviet Russia planned that the entry of the Red Army into the territory of Poland and the defeat of Pilsudski here could be the beginning of the transformation of pan-bourgeois Poland into a Soviet Republic, headed by Polish workers and peasants. On July 30, the Polish Revolutionary Committee (Polrevkom) was created in Bialystok, which included the Bolsheviks of Polish origin Julian Markhlevsky (Chairman), Felix Dzerzhinsky, Felix Kohn, Edvard Pruchniak and Jozef Unshlikht. 1 million rubles were allocated for its activities. The task of the Polrevkom was to prepare the revolution in Poland. In late July - early August 1920, the Red Army entered the territory of ethnic Poland.

Disaster of the Red Army on the Vistula

On August 10, 1920, the commander of the Western Front, M.N. Tukhachevsky signed a directive to cross the Vistula and capture Warsaw. It said: “Fighters of the workers' revolution. Set your eyes to the West. The problems of the world revolution are being solved in the West. Through the corpse of white Poland lies the path to the world conflagration. On bayonets we will bring happiness and peace to working mankind. To the west! To decisive battles, to resounding victories! The troops of the front numbered more than 100 thousand bayonets and sabers, somewhat inferior to the enemy in numbers. In the Warsaw and Novogeorgievsk directions, it was possible to create a preponderance of forces over the Poles, of which there were about 69 thousand bayonets and sabers, and the Soviet troops (4, 15, 3 and 16 armies) - 95.1 thousand. However, in the Ivangorod direction, where Pilsudski was preparing a counterattack , the number of troops was: 38 thousand bayonets and sabers from the Poles and 6.1 thousand from the soldiers of the Red Army. The main forces of the Polish troops were withdrawn beyond the Vistula for regrouping. They've got a fresh addition. The Soviet units that came out to the Vistula, on the contrary, were extremely tired and small in number. During the fighting, they suffered heavy losses, the rear units fell behind by 200 - 400 km, in connection with which the supply of ammunition and food was disrupted. The troops did not receive reinforcements.

In some divisions, there were no more than 500 fighters. Many regiments turned into companies. In addition, between the two Soviet fronts, the Southwestern, whose main forces were fighting for the city of Lvov, and the Western, which was supposed to force the Vistula and take Warsaw, a gap of 200-250 km was formed, which did not allow them to quickly interact with each other . In addition, the 1st Cavalry Army transferred from the Southwestern Front to the Western Front, at the time of the decisive battles for Warsaw, was far from the main battlefield and did not provide the necessary assistance. The hopes of the Bolsheviks for support from the Polish workers and the poorest peasants did not come true. If the Bolsheviks said that the Red Army was going to Poland to liberate the workers and peasants from exploitation, then Pilsudski said that the Russians were going to enslave again, they were again trying to eliminate the Polish statehood. He managed to give the war, at the stage when the Red Army was on the territory of Poland, a national liberation character and unite the Poles. The Polish workers and peasants did not support the Red Army. At the IX All-Russian Conference of the RCP(b) (October 1920), a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the 15th Army of the Western Front, D. Poluyan, said: “In the Polish army, the national idea solders both the bourgeois, and the peasant, and the worker, and this has to be observed everywhere.” The entry of the Red Army into Poland frightened the West, the Entente countries, as they believed that in the event of a socialist revolution and the beginning of Sovietization in this country, a chain reaction would begin and other European countries would be influenced by Soviet Russia, and this would lead to the destruction of the Versailles system.

Therefore, the West has seriously stepped up assistance to Poland. Under such conditions, on August 13, 1920, the battle on the Vistula began. On the same day, after stubborn fighting, they managed to capture the city of Radzimin, located 23 km from Warsaw, the next day - two forts of the Modlin fortress. But this was the last success of the Soviet troops. The situation for the Soviet troops was further aggravated by the fact that on August 12 the Armed Forces of the South of Russia launched an offensive under the command of Baron Wrangel, who pulled back part of the Red Army forces destined for the Polish front. On August 16, Polish troops launched a counteroffensive and launched a strong flank attack between the Western (Warsaw) and Southwestern (Lvov) fronts. The enemy quickly broke through the weak front of the Mozyr Group of Forces of the Western Front and created a threat of encirclement of the Warsaw grouping of Soviet armies.

Therefore, the front commander Tukhachevsky ordered the retreat of the troops to the east, although a large part was surrounded. On August 18, Pilsudski, as the Head of the Polish state, addressed the population with an ominous appeal not to let a single Red Army soldier remaining in the encirclement leave Polish soil. As a result of the defeat near Warsaw, the troops of the Western Front suffered heavy losses. According to some estimates, 25,000 Red Army soldiers died during the Warsaw battle, more than 60,000 were captured, and 45,000 were interned by the Germans. Several thousand people went missing. The front also lost a large amount of artillery, small arms and property. Polish losses are estimated at 4,500 killed, 10,000 missing and 22,000 wounded. On August 25, 1920, the retreating Soviet troops ended up in the area of ​​the Russian-Polish border of the 18th century. However, it is necessary to pay attention to the fact that at that time in the West few people believed that Piłsudski could win. The Entente countries did not have confidence in him. This is evidenced by the fact that at a meeting of Lloyd George and French Prime Minister Milner, Warsaw was actually recommended to remove Pilsudski from the post of Commander-in-Chief. The Polish government offered this post to the French General Weygand, who refused, believing that in the specific conditions of this war a local commander should be in command. The authority of Piłsudski as a military leader was also low among the Polish military. It is no coincidence, therefore, that many said that either Providence or a Miracle could save Poland. And Churchill would call the Polish victory at Warsaw "The Miracle on the Vistula, with only a few changes, it was a repeat of the Miracle on the Marne." But the victory was won, and in the future they began to associate her with Jozef Pilsudski. During the battle on the Vistula, on August 17, a peaceful Soviet-Polish conference opened in Minsk. The Soviet delegation consisted of representatives of the RSFSR and the Ukrainian SSR. The interests of Belarus were represented by the Russian delegation. During the work of the conference hostilities between Poland and Russia did not stop. In order to undermine the negotiating positions of the Soviet delegation, the Polish troops stepped up their offensive, capturing new territories. On October 15-16, 1920, they occupied Minsk, and in the southwestern direction they were stopped by September 20 at the turn of the Ubort, Sluch, Litvin, Murafa rivers, that is, much east of the Curzon Line. Negotiations from Minsk were transferred to Riga. They started on October 5th. Poland did not stop hostilities this time either, capturing new territories and pushing the border more and more towards Russia. The armistice was signed on 12 October 1920 and came into effect at midnight on 18 October.

The final peace treaty between the RSFSR and the Ukrainian SSR, on the one hand, and the Polish Republic, on the other, was signed on March 18, 1921 in Riga. Under the treaty, Western Ukraine and Western Belarus were ceded to Poland. The state border ran much to the east of the Curzon Line. The captured territory was 200 thousand square meters. km., more than 13 million people lived on it. The financial and economic conditions of the agreement were also difficult for Russia. Russia released Poland from liability for the debts of the Russian Empire; Russia and Ukraine pledged to pay Poland 30 million rubles in gold as the Polish part of the gold reserves of the former Russian Empire and as recognition of Poland's secession from Russia. Poland also received 555 steam locomotives, 695 passenger cars, 16,959 freight cars, railway property along with stations. All this was estimated at 18 million 245 thousand rubles in gold in 1913 prices. Diplomatic relations were established between the parties. The state of war between states ceased from the moment the treaty entered into force. Despite the fact that the bloodshed was over, but the signed agreement did not lay the foundation for future good neighborly relations between Russia and Poland, on the contrary, it became the cause of a serious conflict between the two neighbors. "On the live" were divided Belarusian and Ukrainian lands. Eastern Galicia, against the will of the Ukrainian population, was transferred to Poland.

The great drama of this war was the fate of the prisoners of war of the Red Army in Polish captivity. It should be noted that there is no reliable data on the total number of Red Army soldiers who were in captivity and the number of dead and dead. Polish and Russian historians give different data. Polish historians Z. Karpus, D. Lepinska-Nalench, T. Nalench note that at the time of the cessation of hostilities in Poland there were about 110 thousand prisoners of the Red Army, of which 65,797 prisoners of war were sent to Russia after the end of the war. According to Polish data, the total number of deaths in the camps for various reasons amounted to 16-17 thousand people. According to the Russian historian G.M. Matveev, 157 thousand Red Army soldiers were in Polish captivity, of which 75,699 returned to their homeland. The fate of the remaining more than 80 thousand prisoners developed in different ways. According to his calculations, from hunger, disease, etc. could die in captivity from 25 to 28 thousand people, that is, approximately 18 percent of the Red Army soldiers who were actually captured. I.V. Mikhutina cites data on 130,000 Red Army prisoners of war, of whom 60,000 died in captivity in less than two years. M.I. Meltyukhov calls the number of prisoners of war in 1919-1920. 146 thousand people, of which 60 thousand died in captivity, and 75,699 returned to their homeland. Thus, in Russian historiography there is no generally accepted data on the number of Soviet prisoners of war who were in Polish captivity, as well as on the number of those who died in captivity. Polish captivity turned out to be a real nightmare for the Red Army. Inhuman conditions of detention put them on the brink of survival. The prisoners had extremely poor food, in fact, there was no medical care. The delegation of the American Christian Youth Union, which visited Poland in October 1920, testified in its report that Soviet prisoners were kept in premises unsuitable for habitation, with windows without glass and through cracks in the walls, without furniture and sleeping appliances, placed on the floor, without mattresses and blankets.

The report also emphasized that the prisoners were also taken away clothes and shoes, many were without clothes at all. As for the Polish prisoners of war in Soviet captivity, their situation was quite different. No one pursued a policy of destruction towards them. Moreover, they were considered victims of the Polish lords and capitalists, and in Soviet captivity they were looked upon as "class brothers". In 1919-1920. 41-42 thousand people were taken prisoner, of which 34,839 people were released to Poland. Approximately 3 thousand people expressed a desire to stay in Soviet Russia. Thus, the total loss was approximately 3-4 thousand, of which about 2 thousand were documented as having died in captivity.

Polynov M.F. USSR/Russia in local wars and
armed conflicts of the XX-XXI centuries. Tutorial. - St. Petersburg,
2017. - Publishing house Info-Da. – 162 p.

There are things that should not be forgotten...
The joint fascist-Soviet attack on Poland escalated into World War II. And if the aggression of the Nazis received a due assessment at the Nuremberg trials, then Soviet crimes against the Poles were hushed up and went unpunished. However, Soviet crimes came back to haunt the shame and bitterness of 1941.
And it is worth looking at the events of 1939 through the eyes of the Poles:

Original taken from vg_saveliev to the Polish campaign of the Red Army in 1939 through the eyes of the Poles.

We were not taught that way, of course. What is written below, we were not told.
I think that even today the Polish campaign is described as taking Belarusians and Ukrainians under the protection in the conditions of the collapse of the Polish state and the aggression of Nazi Germany.
But it was. Therefore, the Poles have a completely different view of what happened, starting from September 17, 1939.

It was four o'clock in the morning on September 17, 1939, when the Red Army began to implement Order No. 16634, which had been issued the day before by People's Commissar of Defense Marshal Kliment Voroshilov. The order was brief: "Begin the offensive at dawn on the 17th."
The Soviet troops, which consisted of six armies, formed two fronts - Belarusian and Ukrainian, and launched a massive attack on eastern Polish territories.
620 thousand soldiers, 4700 tanks and 3300 aircraft were thrown into the attack, that is, twice as many as the Wehrmacht had, which attacked Poland on the first of September.

Soviet soldiers drew attention to themselves with their appearance
One resident of the town of Disna, Vilna Voivodeship, described them as follows: “They were strange - short, bow-legged, ugly and terribly hungry. They had fancy hats on their heads and rag boots on their feet. There was another feature in the appearance and behavior of the soldiers that the locals noticed even more clearly: an animal hatred for everything that was associated with Poland. It was written on their faces and resounded in their conversations. It might seem that someone had been "stuffing" them with this hatred for a long time, and only now she was able to break free.

Soviet soldiers killed Polish prisoners, destroyed the civilian population, burned and robbed. The operational units of the NKVD followed the line units, whose task was to eliminate the "Polish enemy" in the rear of the Soviet front. They were entrusted with the task of taking control of the most important elements of the infrastructure of the Polish state in the territories occupied by the Red Army. They occupied the buildings of state institutions, banks, printing houses, newspaper editorial offices; confiscated securities, archives and cultural property; they arrested Poles on the basis of lists prepared in advance and current denunciations of their agents; they caught and copied employees of Polish services, parliamentarians, members of Polish parties and public organizations. Many were immediately killed, not even having a chance to get into Soviet prisons and camps, retaining at least a theoretical chance of survival.

Outlaw diplomats
The first victims of the Soviet attack were diplomats representing Poland on the territory of the Soviet Union. The Polish ambassador to Moscow, Vaclav Grzybowski, was urgently summoned to the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs at midnight from September 16 to 17, 1939, where Vyacheslav Molotov's deputy minister Vladimir Potemkin tried to hand him a Soviet note justifying the attack of the Red Army. Grzybowski refused to accept it, saying that the Soviet side had violated all international agreements. Potemkin replied that there was no longer a Polish state or Polish government, at the same time explaining to Grzybowski that Polish diplomats no longer had any official rank and would be treated as a group of Poles located in the Soviet Union, which local courts had the right to prosecute for illegal actions. Contrary to the provisions of the Geneva Convention, the Soviet leadership tried to prevent the evacuation of diplomats to Helsinki, and then arrest them. The requests of the Deputy Dean of the Diplomatic Corps, Ambassador of Italy Augusto Rosso to Vyacheslav Molotov, remained unanswered. As a result, the Ambassador of the Third Reich in Moscow, Friedrich-Werner von der Schulenburg, decided to save the Polish diplomats, who forced the Soviet leadership to give them permission to leave.

However, before that, other, much more dramatic stories with the participation of Polish diplomats managed to happen in the USSR.
On September 30, the Polish consul in Kyiv, Jerzy Matusinsky, was summoned to the local branch of the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs. At midnight, accompanied by two of his drivers, he left the building of the Polish consulate and went missing. When the Polish diplomats who remained in Moscow learned about the disappearance of Matusinsky, they again turned to Augusto Rosso, who went to Molotov, who said that, most likely, the consul with the drivers fled to some neighboring country. Schulenburg failed to achieve anything either. In the summer of 1941, when the USSR began to release Poles from the camps, General Władysław Anders (Władysław Anders) began to form a Polish army on Soviet territory, and the former driver of the consul, Andrzej Orszyński, turned out to be in its ranks. According to his testimony given under oath to the Polish authorities, on that day all three were arrested by the NKVD and transported to the Lubyanka. Orshinsky was not shot only by a miracle. The Polish embassy in Moscow appealed to the Soviet authorities several more times about the missing consul Matusinsky, but the answer was the same: "We don't have him."

The repression also affected employees of other Polish diplomatic missions in the Soviet Union. The consulate in Leningrad was forbidden to transfer the building and the property in it to the next consul, and the NKVD forcibly expelled personnel from it. A rally of “protesting citizens” was organized near the consulate in Minsk, as a result of which demonstrators beat and robbed Polish diplomats. For the USSR, Poland, like international law, did not exist. What happened to representatives of the Polish state in September 1939 was a unique event in the history of world diplomacy.

Executed army
Already in the first days after the Red Army's invasion of Poland, war crimes began. First, they affected the Polish soldiers and officers. The orders of the Soviet troops abounded with appeals addressed to the Polish civilian population: they agitated to destroy the Polish military, portraying them as enemies. Ordinary conscription soldiers
whether to kill their officers. Such orders were given, for example, by the commander of the Ukrainian Front, Semyon Timoshenko. This war was fought against international law and all military conventions. Now even Polish historians cannot give an accurate assessment of the scale of the Soviet crimes of 1939. We learned about many cases of atrocities and brutal murders of the Polish military only after several decades thanks to the stories of witnesses of those events. So it was, for example, with the story of the commander of the Third Military Corps in Grodno, General Jozef Olshina-Vilchinsky.
On September 22, in the vicinity of the village of Sopotskin, his car was surrounded by Soviet soldiers with grenades and machine guns. The general and the people accompanying him were robbed, stripped, and shot almost immediately. The general's wife, who managed to survive, told many years later: “The husband was lying face down, his left leg was shot obliquely under the knee. Nearby lay the captain with his head cut open. The contents of his skull spilled onto the ground in a bloody mass. The view was terrible. I stepped closer, checked for a pulse, though I knew it was pointless. The body was still warm, but he was already dead. I started looking for some small thing, something for memory, but my husband’s pockets were empty, they even took away the Order of Military Valor and the icon with the image of the Mother of God, which I gave him on the first day of the war.

In the Polesye Voivodeship, the Soviet military shot an entire captured company of the battalion of the Sarny Border Protection Corps - 280 people. A brutal murder also took place in the Great Bridges of the Lviv province. Soviet soldiers drove the cadets of the local School of Police Officers to the square, listened to the report of the school commandant and shot all those present from machine guns placed around. No one survived. From one Polish detachment that fought in the vicinity of Vilnius and laid down their arms in exchange for a promise to let the soldiers go home, all the officers were withdrawn, who were immediately executed. The same thing happened in Grodno, taking which the Soviet troops killed about 300 Polish defenders of the city. On the night of September 26-27, Soviet detachments entered Nemiruvek in the Chelm region, where several dozen cadets spent the night. They were taken prisoner, tied with barbed wire and bombarded with grants. The policemen who defended Lviv were shot on the highway leading to Vinniki. Similar executions took place in Novogrudok, Ternopil, Volkovysk, Oshmyany, Svisloch, Molodechno, Khodorov, Zolochev, Stry. Separate and massacres of captured Polish soldiers were committed in hundreds of other cities in the eastern regions of Poland. The Soviet military also mocked the wounded. So it was, for example, during the battle near Vytychno, when several dozen wounded prisoners were placed in the building of the People's House in Vlodava and locked up there without any help. Two days later, almost all died from their wounds, their bodies were burned at the stake.
Polish prisoners of war under the escort of the Red Army after the Polish campaign in September 1939

Sometimes the Soviet military used deception, treacherously promising Polish soldiers freedom, and sometimes even pretending to be Polish allies in the war with Hitler. This happened, for example, on September 22 in Vinniki near Lvov. General Vladislav Langer, who led the defense of the city, signed with the Soviet commanders a protocol for the transfer of the city to the Red Army, according to which Polish officers were promised an unhindered exit in the direction of Romania and Hungary. The agreement was violated almost immediately: the officers were arrested and taken to a camp in Starobilsk. In the Zalishchiki region on the border with Romania, the Russians decorated tanks with Soviet and Polish flags to pose as allies, and then surround the Polish detachments, disarm and arrest the soldiers. They often took off their uniforms and shoes from the prisoners and let them go on without clothes, shooting at them with undisguised joy. In general, as the Moscow press reported, in September 1939, about 250 thousand Polish soldiers and officers fell into the hands of the Soviet army. For the latter, real hell began later. The denouement took place in the Katyn forest and the basements of the NKVD in Tver and Kharkov.

Red terror
Terror and killings of the civilian population took on a special scale in Grodno, where at least 300 people were killed, including scouts who took part in the defense of the city. Twelve-year-old Tadzik Yasinsky was tied to a tank by Soviet soldiers and then dragged along the pavement. Arrested civilians were shot at Dog Mountain. Witnesses of these events recall that piles of corpses lay in the center of the city. Among those arrested were, in particular, the director of the gymnasium Vaclav Myslicki, the director of the women's gymnasium Janina Nedzwiecka and the deputy of the Seimas Constanta Terlikovsky.
All of them soon died in Soviet prisons. The wounded had to hide from the Soviet soldiers, because if they were found, they would be immediately shot.
The Red Army soldiers especially actively poured out their hatred on the Polish intellectuals, landowners, officials and schoolchildren. In the village of Bolshie Eismonty in the Bialystok region, Kazimierz Bisping, a member of the Union of Landowners and Senator, was tortured, who later died in one of the Soviet camps. Arrest and torture also awaited the engineer Oskar Meishtovich, owner of the Rogoznitsa estate near Grodno, who was subsequently killed in a Minsk prison.
Soviet soldiers treated foresters and military settlers with particular cruelty. The command of the Ukrainian Front issued a 24-hour permission to the local Ukrainian population to "crack down on the Poles." The most brutal murder took place in the Grodno region, where not far from Skidel and Zhydomlya there were three garrisons inhabited by Pilsudski's former legionnaires. Several dozen people were brutally killed: their ears, tongues, noses were cut off, and their stomachs were torn open. Some were doused with oil and burned.
Terror and repression also fell upon the clergy. Priests were beaten, taken to camps, and often killed. In Antonovka, Sarny district, a priest was arrested right during the service; in Ternopil, Dominican monks were expelled from the monastery buildings, which were burned before their eyes. In the village of Zelva, Volkovysk district, a Catholic and Orthodox priest was arrested, and then they were brutally dealt with in the nearby forest.
From the first days of the entry of Soviet troops, the prisons of the cities and towns of Eastern Poland began to fill rapidly. The NKVD, which treated the captives with bestial cruelty, began to create their own makeshift prisons. Within just a few weeks, the number of prisoners had increased by at least six to seven times.

Crime against the Poles
In the era of the Polish People's Republic, they tried to convince the Poles that on September 17, 1939, there was a "peaceful" entry of Soviet troops to protect the Belarusian and Ukrainian population living on the eastern borders of the Polish Republic. Meanwhile, it was a brutal attack that violated the provisions of the 1921 Riga Treaty and the 1932 Polish-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact.
The Red Army, which entered Poland, did not reckon with international law. It was not only about the capture of the eastern Polish regions as part of the implementation of the provisions of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact signed on August 23, 1939. Having invaded Poland, the USSR began to put into practice a plan that had been born in the 1920s to exterminate the Poles. First, the liquidation was supposed to affect the "leading elements", which should be deprived of influence on the masses as soon as possible and neutralized. The masses, in turn, were planned to be resettled deep into the Soviet Union and turned into slaves of the empire. It was a real revenge for the fact that Poland in 1920 held back the onset of communism. Soviet aggression was an invasion of barbarians who killed prisoners and civilians, terrorized the civilian population, destroyed and defiled everything that they associated with Poland. The entire free world, for which the Soviet Union had always been a convenient ally in helping to defeat Hitler, did not want to know anything about this barbarism. And that is why Soviet crimes in Poland have not yet received condemnation and punishment!
Barbarian Invasion (Leszek Pietrzak, "Uwazam Rze", Poland)

It's kind of weird to read that, isn't it? Breaks the pattern. Makes you suspect that the Poles are blinded by their hatred of the Russians.
Because this is not at all like the liberation campaign of the Red Army, which we have always been told about.
Well, that's if you don't count the Poles as occupiers.
It is clear that punishing the occupiers is the right thing to do. And war is war. She is always cruel.

Maybe that's the whole point?
The Poles believe that this is their land. And the Russians - what are they.