Partition of Poland by the USSR 1939. USSR invasion of Poland
The Polish campaign of the Red Army in 1939 has acquired an incredible number of interpretations and gossip. The invasion of Poland was declared both as the beginning of a world war jointly with Germany and as a stab in the back of Poland. Meanwhile, if we consider the events of September 1939 without anger or partiality, a very clear logic is revealed in the actions of the Soviet state.
Relations between the Soviet state and Poland were not cloudless from the very beginning. During the Civil War, newly independent Poland laid claim not only to its own territories, but also to Ukraine and Belarus. The fragile peace of the 1930s did not bring friendly relations. On the one hand, the USSR was preparing for a worldwide revolution, on the other, Poland had huge ambitions in the international arena. Warsaw had far-reaching plans to expand its own territory, and in addition, it was afraid of both the USSR and Germany. Polish underground organizations fought against German Freikorps in Silesia and Poznan, and Pilsudski recaptured Vilna from Lithuania with armed force.
The coldness in relations between the USSR and Poland developed into open hostility after the Nazis came to power in Germany. Warsaw reacted surprisingly calmly to the changes at its neighbor, believing that Hitler did not pose a real threat. On the contrary, they planned to use the Reich to implement their own geopolitical projects.
The year 1938 was decisive for Europe's turn towards big war. The history of the Munich Agreement is well known and does not bring honor to its participants. Hitler presented an ultimatum to Czechoslovakia, demanding the transfer to Germany of the Sudetenland on the German-Polish border. The USSR was ready to defend Czechoslovakia even alone, but did not have a common border with Germany. A corridor was needed through which Soviet troops could enter Czechoslovakia. However, Poland flatly refused to allow Soviet troops through its territory.
During the Nazi takeover of Czechoslovakia, Warsaw successfully made its own acquisition by annexing the small Cieszyn region (805 sq. km, 227 thousand inhabitants). However, now clouds were gathering over Poland itself.
Hitler created a state that was very dangerous for its neighbors, but its strength was precisely its weakness. The fact is that the exceptionally rapid growth of Germany’s military machine threatened to undermine its own economy. The Reich needed to continuously absorb other states and cover the costs of its military construction at someone else's expense, otherwise it was under the threat of complete collapse. The Third Reich, despite all its external monumentality, was a cyclopean financial pyramid needed to serve its own army. Only war could save the Nazi regime.
We are clearing the battlefield
In the case of Poland, the reason for the claims was the Polish corridor, which separated Germany proper from East Prussia. Communication with the exclave was maintained only by sea. In addition, the Germans wanted to reconsider in their favor the status of the city and the Baltic port of Danzig with its German population and the status of a “free city” under the patronage of the League of Nations.
Warsaw, of course, was not pleased with such a rapid disintegration of the established tandem. However, the Polish government counted on a successful diplomatic resolution of the conflict, and if it failed, then on a military victory. At the same time, Poland confidently torpedoed Britain’s attempt to form a united front against the Nazis, including England itself, France, Poland and the USSR. The Polish Foreign Ministry stated that they refused to sign any document jointly with the USSR, and the Kremlin, on the contrary, announced that they would not enter into any alliances aimed at protecting Poland without its consent. During a conversation with People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs Litvinov, the Polish ambassador announced that Poland would turn to the USSR for help “when necessary.”
However, the Soviet Union intended to secure its interests in Eastern Europe. There was no doubt in Moscow that a big war was brewing. However, the USSR had a very vulnerable position in this conflict. The key centers of the Soviet state were too close to the border. Leningrad was under attack from two sides at once: from Finland and Estonia, Minsk and Kyiv were dangerously close to the Polish borders. Of course, we were not talking about concerns directly from Estonia or Poland. However, the Soviet Union believed that they could be successfully used as a springboard for an attack on the USSR by a third force (and by 1939 it was quite obvious what this force was). Stalin and his entourage were well aware that the country would have to fight Germany, and would like to obtain the most advantageous positions before the inevitable clash.
Of course, a much better choice would have been to join forces with the Western powers against Hitler. This option, however, was firmly blocked by Poland's decisive refusal of any contacts. True, there was one more obvious option: an agreement with France and Britain, bypassing Poland. The Anglo-French delegation flew to the Soviet Union for negotiations...
...and it quickly became clear that the allies had nothing to offer Moscow. Stalin and Molotov were primarily interested in the question of what plan of joint action could be proposed by the British and French, both regarding joint actions and in relation to Polish question. Stalin feared (and quite rightly so) that the USSR might be left alone in the face of the Nazis. Therefore, the Soviet Union took a controversial move - an agreement with Hitler. On August 23, a non-aggression pact was concluded between the USSR and Germany, which determined the areas of interests in Europe.
As part of the famous Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the USSR planned to gain time and secure a foothold in Eastern Europe. Therefore, the Soviets expressed an essential condition - the transfer of the eastern part of Poland, also known as western Ukraine and Belarus, to the sphere of interests of the USSR.
The dismemberment of Russia lies at the heart of Polish policy in the East... The main goal is the weakening and defeat of Russia."
Meanwhile, reality was radically different from the plans of the commander-in-chief of the Polish army, Marshal Rydz-Smigly. The Germans left only weak barriers against England and France, while they themselves attacked Poland with their main forces from several sides. The Wehrmacht was indeed the leading army of its time, the Germans also outnumbered the Poles, so that within a short time the main forces of the Polish army were surrounded west of Warsaw. Already after the first week of the war, the Polish army began to retreat chaotically in all sectors, and part of the forces were surrounded. On September 5, the government left Warsaw towards the border. The main command left for Brest and lost contact with for the most part troops. After the 10th, centralized control of the Polish army simply did not exist. On September 16, the Germans reached Bialystok, Brest and Lvov.
At this moment the Red Army entered Poland. The thesis about a stab in the back of fighting Poland does not stand up to the slightest criticism: no “back” no longer existed. Actually, only the fact of advancing towards the Red Army stopped the German maneuvers. At the same time, the parties did not have any plans for joint actions, and no joint operations were carried out. The Red Army soldiers occupied the territory, disarming Polish units that came their way. On the night of September 17, the Polish Ambassador in Moscow was handed a note with approximately the same content. If we leave aside the rhetoric, we can only admit the fact: the only alternative to the invasion of the Red Army was the seizure of the eastern territories of Poland by Hitler. The Polish army did not offer organized resistance. Accordingly, the only party whose interests were actually infringed was the Third Reich. The modern public, worried about the treachery of the Soviets, should not forget that in fact Poland could no longer act as a separate party; it did not have the strength to do so.
It should be noted that the entry of the Red Army into Poland was accompanied by great disorder. Poles' resistance was sporadic. However, confusion and a large number of Non-combat losses accompanied this march. During the storming of Grodno, 57 Red Army soldiers died. In total, the Red Army lost, according to various sources, from 737 to 1,475 people killed and took 240 thousand prisoners.
The German government immediately stopped the advance of its troops. A few days later, the demarcation line was determined. At the same time, a crisis arose in the Lviv region. Soviet troops clashed with German troops, and on both sides there was damaged equipment and casualties.
On September 22, the 29th Tank Brigade of the Red Army entered Brest, occupied by the Germans. At that time, without much success, they stormed the fortress, which had not yet become “the one.” The piquancy of the moment was that the Germans handed over Brest and the fortress to the Red Army right along with the Polish garrison entrenched inside.
Interestingly, the USSR could have advanced even deeper into Poland, but Stalin and Molotov chose not to do this.
Ultimately, the Soviet Union acquired a territory of 196 thousand square meters. km. (half the territory of Poland) with a population of up to 13 million people. On September 29, the Polish campaign of the Red Army actually ended.
Then the question arose about the fate of the prisoners. In total, counting both military and civilians, the Red Army and the NKVD detained up to 400 thousand people. Some (mostly officers and police) were subsequently executed. Most of those captured were either sent home or sent through third countries to the West, after which they formed the “Anders Army” as part of the Western coalition. Soviet power was established on the territory of western Belarus and Ukraine.
The Western allies reacted to the events in Poland without any enthusiasm. However, no one cursed the USSR or branded it an aggressor. Winston Churchill, with his characteristic rationalism, stated:
- Russia pursues a cold policy of its own interests. We would prefer that the Russian armies stand in their present positions as friends and allies of Poland, and not as invaders. But to protect Russia from the Nazi threat, it was clearly necessary for the Russian armies to stand on this line.
What did the Soviet Union really gain? The Reich was not the most honorable negotiating partner, but the war would have started in any case - with or without a pact. As a result of the intervention in Poland, the USSR received a vast forefield for a future war. In 1941, the Germans passed it quickly - but what would have happened if they had started 200–250 kilometers to the east? Then, probably, Moscow would have remained behind the Germans’ rear.
Illustration copyright Getty Image caption
On September 1, 1939, Hitler attacked Poland. 17 days later, at 6 am, the Red Army in large forces (21 rifle and 13 cavalry divisions, 16 tank and 2 motorized brigades, a total of 618 thousand people and 4,733 tanks) crossed the Soviet-Polish border from Polotsk to Kamenets-Podolsk.
In the USSR the operation was called a “liberation campaign”; in modern Russia it is neutrally called the “Polish campaign”. Some historians consider September 17 the date of the actual entry of the Soviet Union into the Second world war.
Spawn of the Pact
The fate of Poland was decided on August 23 in Moscow, when the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was signed.
For “calm confidence in the East” (the expression of Vyacheslav Molotov) and supplies of raw materials and bread, Berlin recognized half of Poland, Estonia, Latvia (Stalin later exchanged Lithuania from Hitler for part of the Polish territory owed to the USSR), Finland and Bessarabia as a “zone of Soviet interests.”
They did not ask for the opinions of the listed countries, as well as other world players.
Great and not-so-great powers constantly divided up foreign lands, openly and secretly, bilaterally and at international conferences. For Poland, the German-Russian partition of 1939 was the fourth.
The world has changed quite a lot since then. The geopolitical game continues, but it is impossible to imagine that two powerful states or blocs would cynically decide the fate of third countries behind their backs.
Has Poland gone bankrupt?
Justifying the violation of the Soviet-Polish non-aggression treaty of July 25, 1932 (in 1937 its validity was extended until 1945), Soviet side claimed that the Polish state had virtually ceased to exist.
“The German-Polish war clearly showed the internal bankruptcy of the Polish state. Thus, the agreements concluded between the USSR and Poland were terminated,” said the note handed to the Polish Ambassador Waclaw Grzybowski, summoned to the NKID on September 17, by Deputy People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs Vladimir Potemkin.
“The sovereignty of the state exists as long as the soldiers of the regular army fight. Napoleon entered Moscow, but as long as Kutuzov’s army existed, they believed that Russia existed. Where did the Slavic solidarity go?” - Grzybowski answered.
The Soviet authorities wanted to arrest Grzybowski and his employees. The Polish diplomats were saved by the German ambassador Werner von Schulenburg, who reminded the new allies about the Geneva Convention.
The Wehrmacht's attack was truly terrible. However, the Polish army, cut by tank wedges, imposed on the enemy the battle on Bzura that lasted from September 9 to 22, which even the Voelkischer Beobachter recognized as “fierce.”
We are expanding the front of socialist construction, this is beneficial for humanity, because the Lithuanians, Western Belarusians, and Bessarabians consider themselves happy, whom we delivered from the oppression of landowners, capitalists, police officers and all other bastards from Joseph Stalin’s speech at a meeting in the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on September 9 1940
The attempt to encircle and cut off the aggressor troops that had broken through from Germany was unsuccessful, but the Polish forces retreated beyond the Vistula and began to regroup for a counterattack. In particular, 980 tanks remained at their disposal.
The defense of Westerplatte, Hel and Gdynia aroused the admiration of the whole world.
Making fun of the “military backwardness” and “gentry arrogance” of the Poles, Soviet propaganda picked up Goebbels's fiction that Polish lancers allegedly rushed at German tanks on horseback, helplessly pounding their sabers on the armor.
In fact, the Poles did not engage in such nonsense, and the corresponding film, made by the German Ministry of Propaganda, was subsequently proven to be a fake. But the Polish cavalry seriously disturbed the German infantry.
The Polish garrison of the Brest Fortress, led by General Konstantin Plisovsky, repulsed all attacks, and German artillery was stuck near Warsaw. Soviet heavy guns helped, shelling the citadel for two days. Then took place joint parade, which on the German side was hosted by Heinz Guderian, who soon became too well known to the Soviet people, and on the Soviet side by brigade commander Semyon Krivoshein.
Surrounded Warsaw capitulated only on September 26, and resistance finally ceased on October 6.
According to military analysts, Poland was doomed, but could fight for a long time.
Diplomatic games
Illustration copyright GettyAlready on September 3, Hitler began to urge Moscow to act as soon as possible - because the war was not unfolding quite as he wanted, but, most importantly, to induce Britain and France to recognize the USSR as the aggressor and declare war on it along with Germany.
The Kremlin, understanding these calculations, was in no hurry.
On September 10, Schulenburg reported to Berlin: “At yesterday’s meeting, I got the impression that Molotov promised a little more than can be expected from the Red Army.”
According to historian Igor Bunich, diplomatic correspondence every day more and more resembled conversations on a thieves' "raspberry": if you don't go to work, you'll be left without a share!
The Red Army began to move two days after Ribbentrop, in his next message, transparently hinted at the possibility of creating an OUN state in western Ukraine.
If Russian intervention is not initiated, the question will inevitably arise as to whether a political vacuum will be created in the area lying east of the German zone of influence. In eastern Poland, conditions may arise for the formation of new states from Ribbentrop's telegram to Molotov dated September 15, 1939.
"The question whether it is desirable in mutual interests to maintain an independent Polish State, and what the boundaries of this state will be, can only be finally clarified in the course of further political development", said paragraph 2 of the secret protocol.
At first, Hitler was inclined to the idea of preserving Poland in a reduced form, cutting it off from the west and east. The Nazi Fuehrer hoped that Britain and France would accept this compromise and end the war.
Moscow did not want to give him a chance to escape the trap.
On September 25, Schulenburg reported to Berlin: “Stalin considers it a mistake to leave an independent Polish state.”
By that time, London officially declared: the only possible condition for peace is the withdrawal of German troops to the positions they occupied before September 1; no microscopic quasi-states will save the situation.
Divided without a trace
As a result, during Ribbentrop's second visit to Moscow on September 27-28, Poland was divided completely.
The signed document already talked about “friendship” between the USSR and Germany.
In a telegram to Hitler in response to congratulations on his own 60th birthday in December 1939, Stalin repeated and strengthened this thesis: “The friendship of the peoples of Germany and the Soviet Union, sealed by blood, has every reason to be long-lasting and strong.”
The agreement of September 28 was accompanied by new secret protocols, the main one of which stated that the contracting parties would not allow “any Polish agitation” in the territories they controlled. The corresponding map was signed not by Molotov, but by Stalin himself, and his 58-centimeter stroke, starting in Western Belarus, crossed Ukraine and entered Romania.
At the banquet in the Kremlin, according to Gustav Hilger, adviser to the German embassy, 22 toasts were raised. Further, Hilger, according to him, lost count because he drank at the same rate.
Stalin honored all the guests, including the SS man Schulze, who stood behind Ribbentrop’s chair. The adjutant was not supposed to drink in such a company, but the owner personally handed him a glass, proposed a toast “to the youngest of those present,” said that a black uniform with silver stripes probably suited him, and demanded that Schulze promise to come to Soviet again. Union, and certainly in uniform. Schulze gave his word and kept it on June 22, 1941.
Unconvincing arguments
Official Soviet history offered four main explanations, or rather, justifications for the actions of the USSR in August-September 1939:
a) the pact made it possible to delay the war (obviously, it is implied that otherwise the Germans, having captured Poland, would immediately march on Moscow without stopping);
b) the border moved 150-200 km to the west, which played an important role in repelling future aggression;
c) the USSR took under the protection of half-brothers Ukrainians and Belarusians, saving them from Nazi occupation;
d) the pact prevented an “anti-Soviet conspiracy” between Germany and the West.
The first two points arose in hindsight. Until June 22, 1941, Stalin and his circle did not say anything like this. They did not consider the USSR as a weak defending party and did not intend to fight on their territory, be it “old” or newly acquired.
The hypothesis of a German attack on the USSR already in the fall of 1939 looks frivolous.
For aggression against Poland, the Germans were able to assemble 62 divisions, of which about 20 were undertrained and understaffed, 2,000 aircraft and 2,800 tanks, over 80% of which were light tankettes. At the same time, Kliment Voroshilov, during negotiations with the British and French military delegations in May 1939, said that Moscow was able to field 136 divisions, 9-10 thousand tanks, 5 thousand aircraft.
On the previous border we had powerful fortified areas, and the direct enemy at that time was only Poland, which alone would not have dared to attack us, and if it had colluded with Germany, it would not have been difficult to establish the exit of German troops to our border. Then we would have time to mobilize and deploy. Now we are face to face with Germany, which can secretly concentrate its troops for an attack from the speech of the chief of staff of the Belarusian Military District Maxim Purkaev at the meeting command staff district in October 1939
Pushing the border west in the summer of 1941 did not help the Soviet Union, because the Germans occupied this territory in the first days of the war. Moreover: thanks to the pact, Germany advanced east by an average of 300 km, and most importantly, acquired common border with the USSR, without which an attack, especially a sudden one, would have been completely impossible.
A “crusade against the USSR” may have seemed plausible to Stalin, whose worldview was shaped by the Marxist doctrine of class struggle as the main driving force of history, and also suspicious by nature.
However, not a single attempt by London and Paris to conclude an alliance with Hitler is known. Chamberlain's “appeasement” was not intended to “direct German aggression to the East,” but to encourage the Nazi leader to abandon aggression altogether.
The thesis of protecting Ukrainians and Belarusians was officially presented by the Soviet side in September 1939 as the main reason.
Hitler, through Schulenburg, expressed his strong disagreement with such an “anti-German formulation.”
“The Soviet government, unfortunately, does not see any other pretext to justify its current intervention abroad. We ask, taking into account the difficult situation for the Soviet government, not to allow such trifles to stand in our way,” Molotov said in response to the German Ambassador
In fact, the argument could be considered flawless if Soviet authorities in pursuance of the secret order of the NKVD No. 001223 of October 11, 1939, in a territory with a population of 13.4 million, 107 thousand were not arrested and 391 thousand people were not administratively deported. About ten thousand died during the deportation and settlement.
High-ranking security officer Pavel Sudoplatov, who arrived in Lviv immediately after its occupation by the Red Army, wrote in his memoirs: “The atmosphere was strikingly different from the state of affairs in the Soviet part of Ukraine. The Western capitalist way of life flourished, wholesale and retail trade were in the hands of private traders, who would soon liquidate."
Special scores
In the first two weeks of the war, the Soviet press devoted short news reports to it under neutral headlines, as if they were talking about distant and insignificant events.
On September 14, in order to prepare information for the invasion, Pravda published a large article devoted mainly to the oppression of national minorities in Poland (as if the arrival of the Nazis promised them better times), and containing the statement: “That’s why no one wants to fight for such a state.”
Subsequently, the misfortune that befell Poland was commented on with undisguised gloating.
Speaking at the session Supreme Council On October 31, Molotov rejoiced that “nothing remained of this ugly brainchild of the Treaty of Versailles.”
Both in the open press and in confidential documents, the neighboring country was called either " former Poland", or, in the Nazi way, "Governor General".
Newspapers printed cartoons depicting a border post being knocked down by a Red Army boot, and a sad teacher announcing to the class: “This, children, is where we finish our study of the history of the Polish state.”
Through the corpse of white Poland lies the path to world fire. On bayonets we will bring happiness and peace to working humanity Mikhail Tukhachevsky, 1920
When the Polish government in exile led by Wladyslaw Sikorski was created in Paris on October 14, Pravda responded not with information or analytical material, and in a feuilleton: “The territory of the new government consists of six rooms, a bathroom and a toilet. In comparison with this territory, Monaco looks like a boundless empire.”
Stalin had special scores to settle with Poland.
During the failed Soviet Russia During the Polish War of 1920, he was a member of the Revolutionary Military Council (political commissar) of the Southwestern Front.
The neighboring country in the USSR was called nothing less than “lord's Poland” and was always blamed for everything.
As follows from the decree signed by Stalin and Molotov on January 22, 1933 on the fight against the migration of peasants to the cities, people, it turns out, did this not trying to escape the Holodomor, but being incited by “Polish agents.”
Until the mid-1930s, Soviet military plans considered Poland as the main enemy. Mikhail Tukhachevsky, who at one time was also among the beaten commanders, according to the recollections of witnesses, simply lost his composure when the conversation turned to Poland.
Repressions against the leadership of the Polish Communist Party living in Moscow in 1937-1938 were common practice, but the fact that it was declared “sabotage” as such and dissolved by decision of the Comintern is a unique fact.
The NKVD also discovered in the USSR the “Polish Military Organization”, allegedly created back in 1914 by Pilsudski personally. She was accused of something that the Bolsheviks themselves took credit for: the disintegration of the Russian army during the First World War.
During the “Polish operation”, carried out under Yezhov’s secret order No. 00485, 143,810 people were arrested, 139,835 of them were convicted and 111,091 were executed - every sixth of the ethnic Poles living in the USSR.
In terms of the number of victims, even the Katyn massacre pales in comparison to these tragedies, although it was she who became known to the whole world.
Easy walk
Before the start of the operation, Soviet troops were consolidated into two fronts: Ukrainian under the command of the future People's Commissar of Defense Semyon Timoshenko and Belarusian under General Mikhail Kovalev.
The 180-degree turn occurred so quickly that many Red Army soldiers and commanders thought they were going to fight the Nazis. The Poles also did not immediately understand that this was not help.
Another incident occurred: the political commissars explained to the fighters that they had to “beat the gentlemen,” but the attitude had to be urgently changed: it turned out that in the neighboring country everyone is a gentleman.
The head of the Polish state, Edward Rydz-Śmigly, realizing the impossibility of a war on two fronts, ordered the troops not to resist the Red Army, but to be interned in Romania.
Some commanders did not receive the order or ignored it. The battles took place near Grodno, Shatsk and Oran.
On September 24, near Przemysl, the lancers of General Wladyslaw Anders defeated two Soviet infantry regiments with a surprise attack. Tymoshenko had to move tanks to prevent the Poles from breaking into Soviet territory.
But for the most part, the “liberation campaign,” which officially ended on September 30, was a cakewalk for the Red Army.
The territorial acquisitions of 1939–1940 resulted in a major political loss and international isolation for the USSR. The “bridgeheads” occupied with Hitler’s consent did not strengthen the country’s defense capability at all, since this was not what Vladimir Beshanov was intended for,
historian
The winners captured about 240 thousand prisoners, 300 combat aircraft, a lot of equipment and military equipment. Created at the beginning of the Finnish war, the “armed forces of democratic Finland”, without thinking twice, dressed in captured uniforms from warehouses in Bialystok, disputing Polish symbols from them.
The declared losses amounted to 737 killed and 1,862 wounded (according to updated data from the website “Russia and the USSR in the Wars of the 20th Century” - 1,475 dead and 3,858 wounded and sick).
In a holiday order on November 7, 1939, People's Commissar of Defense Kliment Voroshilov argued that “the Polish state at the very first military clash scattered like an old rotten cart.”
“Just think how many years tsarism fought to annex Lvov, and our troops took this territory in seven days!” - Lazar Kaganovich triumphed at a meeting of the party activists of the People's Commissariat of Railways on October 4.
To be fair, it should be noted that there was a person in the Soviet leadership who tried to at least partially cool the euphoria.
“We were terribly damaged by the Polish campaign, it spoiled us. Our army did not immediately understand that the war in Poland was a military promenade, not a war,” Joseph Stalin said at a meeting of senior command staff on April 17, 1940.
However, in general, the “liberation campaign” was perceived as a model for any future war, which the USSR would start when it wanted and finish victoriously and easily.
Many participants in the Great Patriotic War noted the enormous harm caused by the sabotage sentiments of the army and society.
Historian Mark Solonin called August-September 1939 the finest hour of Stalin's diplomacy. From the point of view of immediate goals, this was the case: without officially entering the world war, and with little loss of life, the Kremlin achieved everything it wanted.
However, just two years later, the decisions taken then almost turned into death for the country.
The German ambassador in Moscow, von Schulenburg, was not surprised when at 2 a.m. on September 17, 1939, he was summoned to the Kremlin personally to see Stalin. Such calls at night were common to the working style of Stalin and his circle. Moreover, the German ambassador went to the Kremlin with the hope that he would finally receive from Stalin a concrete answer, which he and his government had been waiting for fortnight: when will the Red Army, in accordance with by prior agreement will enter Poland and, together with the Wehrmacht, will finally “solve the Polish problem.” After all, German troops are successfully advancing to the East, they have already reached the outskirts of Warsaw and crossed the agreed line separating the “state interests of the USSR and Germany” in Poland along the Narew-Vistula-San rivers.
Stalin and Molotov and Voroshilov, who were present in his office, greeted the ambassador very kindly. He was told that today at 6 o'clock in the morning Soviet troops would cross the border with Poland along its entire length from Polotsk to Kamenets-Podolsky. The ambassador received this long-awaited news with satisfaction. He was further informed that the Soviet representatives included in the mixed military commission would arrive tomorrow or the day after tomorrow in Bialystok. Stalin proposed that, in order to avoid incidents, German planes from today should not fly eastward on the Bialystok-Brest-Litovsk-Lvov line. He also said that the corresponding note would be presented to the Polish ambassador that night.
Indeed, a few hours later, the Polish Ambassador V. Grzhibowski was summoned to the Deputy People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs of the USSR V.P. Potemkin, who handed him a note signed by V.M. Molotov. It stated the following. The Polish-German war revealed the internal failure of the Polish state. Poland lost all industrial areas and cultural centers. Warsaw as the capital of the country no longer exists. The Polish government has collapsed and shows no signs of life. This means that the Polish state ceased to exist. In view of this, Poland turned into a convenient field for all sorts of contingencies that threatened the Soviet Union. In addition, the Soviet government cannot be indifferent to the fate of half-blooded Ukrainians and Belarusians living in Poland. It was further stated that the Red Army had received orders to cross the border and take protection of the population of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus. At the same time, as stated in the note, the Soviet government intends to “rescue Polish people from the ill-fated war into which he was plunged by his unreasonable leaders, and give him the opportunity to live a peaceful life."
The Polish ambassador could not help but notice that the note contained a number of inaccuracies and overexposures, and did not accept it. In response to the corresponding protest from the ambassador, Potemkin said: “If there is no Polish government, then there are no Polish diplomats and there is no non-aggression pact” concluded between the USSR and Poland back in July 1932.
Thus, on the morning of September 17, 1939, the Red Army began to operate on the territory of Poland in combat cooperation with the Hitlerite Wehrmacht.
More than half a century has passed since then. It seemed that there was enough time to explore these complex and contradictory pages in the history of Soviet-Polish relations as fully as possible. But, unfortunately, neither our nor Polish official historiography, until recent years, renounced the ossified stereotypes that were formed during the period of Stalinism. The Soviet military action in Poland on September 17, 1939 was presented only as the liberation of Western Ukrainians and Western Belarusians. Soviet and Polish historians, unfortunately, left aside the question that this was achieved as a result of preliminary Soviet-German secret agreements and combat interaction between Soviet and German troops on Polish territory.
What led our army to such an unnatural action? What events preceded it, what political nature were the actions of the Polish government and the Soviet leadership led by Stalin in those tragic days?
Of course, when answering these difficult questions, one cannot ignore the fact that Russian-Polish relations have developed very complexly over the centuries. Wars with varying degrees of success were commonplace in relations between our countries. After a series of successful wars with Russia in the 16th - 17th centuries. in the next century, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth found itself in a state of deep decline, which its strengthened and therefore restless neighbors - Prussia, Austria and Russia - did not fail to take advantage of. In the second half of the 18th and early 19th centuries. they divided the territory of the Polish state three times. It seemed that the end had come for Poland (finis Polonie). But in 1918 it was nevertheless revived. Moreover, its reactionary circles launched a war against young Soviet Russia.
In the 20-30s, Soviet-Polish relations were also not stable - old prejudices and stereotypes still had an effect. However, in 1932, a non-aggression pact was signed between the USSR and Poland, which recognized that the 1921 peace treaty still remained the basis of their mutual relations and obligations. The parties refused war as a weapon national policy, pledged to refrain from aggressive actions or attacks on each other, alone or in conjunction with other powers. Such actions were recognized as “any act of violence that violates the integrity and inviolability of the territory or political independence of the other party.”
On September 23, 1938, the Soviet government was forced to issue a warning to the Polish government in connection with Poland's preparation of an act of aggression against Czechoslovakia. On the same day, Moscow received the following response: “1. Measures taken in connection with the defense of the Polish state depend solely on the government of the Polish Republic, which is not obliged to give explanations to anyone. 2. The Government of the Polish Republic knows exactly the texts of the agreements that it has concluded.”
At the same time, at the end of 1938, both governments recognized that the basis for peaceful relations between their countries was the non-aggression treaty of 1932, extended until 1945. An agreement was reached to expand trade relations and eliminate border incidents that had arisen. Despite its hostile attitude towards the Soviet Union, the Polish government still rejected Germany's offer to join the Anti-Comintern Pact on November 25, 1936.
At the beginning of 1939, Hitler once again made an attempt to involve Poland in his planned “crusade” against the Soviet Union. On January 5, 1939, Polish Foreign Minister I. Beck was received by Hitler in Berchtesgaden with great fanfare. Beck was told that there was “unity of interests of Germany and Poland in relation to the Soviet Union.”
Germany is interested in a strong Poland, because, as Hitler said, every Polish division used against the USSR means saving one German division. But an agreement on an anti-Soviet basis, both in Berchtesgaden and later in Warsaw, was not reached. Hitler was only told that Poland agreed to remove Danzig from the jurisdiction of the League of Nations and transfer it under joint German-Polish control. Beck did not agree to participate in any anti-Soviet action.
The need for a significant improvement in Soviet-Polish relations became especially urgent in the spring of 1939. In April, as it later became known, Hitler decided on a military method to satisfy his aggressive intentions towards Poland. The Polish government at that time was generally satisfied with Soviet-Polish relations. Thus, I. Beck informed the Polish ambassador in Paris on May 13, 1939 that Potemkin’s recent negotiations in Warsaw indicate the Soviet government’s understanding of Poland’s point of view on the nature of Soviet-Polish relations. Beck noted with satisfaction Potemkin's assurance that in the event of a Polish-German armed conflict, the Soviet Union would maintain a “benevolent position” towards Poland.
But in this fatal year for Poland, the position of its ruling circles towards the Soviet Union was not only clearly inconsistent, but also unkind to neighbors. This was especially evident during the Anglo-French-Soviet military negotiations, when Poland categorically opposed the possibility of Soviet troops passing through its territory in the event of German aggression. As is known, this position was one of the reasons for the breakdown of trilateral negotiations. The Soviet-German agreements then signed in August - September 1939 had a direct bearing on the fate of the Polish state. They noted that the border of the spheres of interest of Germany and the USSR would approximately run along the line of the Narev-Vistula-San rivers. And the question of the existence of an independent Polish state will be resolved by both governments through friendly mutual consent.
As you can see, it is said clearly and unambiguously: the USSR and Germany have arrogated to themselves the right to decide the fate of Poland.
The pre-war Republic of Poland was a large European state. Its territory was 389 thousand square meters. km with a population of almost 35 million people, of which about 69% were Poles. The Polish people, who were the first in Europe to be subjected to armed aggression on September 1, 1939 Hitler's Germany and, having not received the promised support from his Western allies, was forced to fight alone and, as the English historian J. Fuller said, “courageously to the point of quixotism,” to fight for his freedom and independence, found himself in special difficult situation. The Polish state faced the danger of a new partition.
What was the position of the Soviet Union in these tragic days for the Polish people?
As noted above, the Polish voivodships located east of the line of the Narew - Vistula - San rivers, in accordance with the secret protocol of August 23, were included in the sphere of interests of the USSR, which, naturally, presupposed the entry of Soviet troops into this territory. The date of entry of these troops was determined by the Soviet side. But the German side was interested in joint actions with the troops of the Red Army from the very beginning of the war against Poland. In this regard, here is one fact to think about.
At the end of August 1939, information leaked to the Western press that, due to the escalating German-Polish conflict, Soviet troops were moving away from the border with Poland. This message caused concern in Berlin, and on August 27, a telegram with the following content was urgently sent to Schulenburg: “Within the framework of the concluded agreement on the exchange of notes, carefully find out whether Soviet troops are really being withdrawn from the Polish border. Is it possible to return them so that they tie up Polish forces in the East as much as possible?” .
Schulenburg at the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs of the USSR found out everything and said that a reassuring statement would soon be published that Soviet troops were not going to leave the border with Poland. Indeed, refuting the report of foreign newspapers about the withdrawal of 200-300 thousand troops from its western borders, the Soviet government officially announced on August 30, 1939 that, on the contrary, “in view of the aggravation of the situation in the eastern regions of Europe and in view of the possibility of any surprises, the Soviet government the command decided to strengthen numerical composition garrisons of the western borders of the USSR".
A few days after the start of the war, the dismissal of Red Army soldiers, whose service life had expired by that time, was delayed, and on September 6, the hidden mobilization of those liable for military service began, allegedly for the next maneuvers. The departments of the Ukrainian and Belorussian fronts were formed, the troops of seven military districts were put on combat readiness.
Now, after reading the German documents, the true meaning of the Soviet statement becomes clear. Hitler could be calm: Stalin would carry out his proposal to pin down Polish forces in the east in order to facilitate the actions of the Wehrmacht in the west. At the same time, Stalin was in no hurry to send troops into Polish territory. Why?
Firstly, he wanted to psychologically prepare the Soviet people to accept this unexpected act in the right spirit. To justify their intentions towards Poland, the USSR leadership resorted to various manipulations. Since the beginning of the war, the exchange of telegrams between Berlin and the German embassy in Moscow became extremely intense. Schulenburg reported to Berlin that on September 5 Molotov had summoned him and assured him that at a certain time the Soviet government would “begin concrete action,” but that time had not yet arrived. The ambassador was further told that the Soviet government accepted that “in the course of operations, one side or both sides will be forced to temporarily cross the line of the spheres of interest of both sides, but these cases will not interfere with the exact implementation of the adopted plan.”
Molotov's answer did not satisfy Ribbentrop, and Schulenburg, on his instructions, constantly reminded of Berlin's desire: the Soviet government must quickly resolve the issue of sending its troops into Poland. Molotov explained that it expected further advance of the Wehrmacht and then would be able to explain to its people that, due to the German threat, the USSR was forced to come to the aid of Western Ukrainians and Belarusians. Such a justification, Molotov continued, would calm the people, and the Soviet Union would not appear in their eyes as an aggressor.
Secondly, one of the justifications for the rapid entry of Soviet troops into Poland, according to Molotov, could be the fact of the capture of the capital of Poland, Warsaw, by German troops. That is why, as soon as the advanced units of the Wehrmacht reached the outskirts of this city, the Soviet People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs hastened on September 9 to send the following telephone message to Schulenburg: “I have received your message that German troops have entered Warsaw. Please convey my congratulations and greetings to the Government of the German Empire. Molotov". Although, as we now know, heroic Warsaw was forced to capitulate only on September 27, 1939.
Ribbentrop's telegram to Schulenburg on September 9 again emphasized that the delay in the advance of Soviet troops would, of course, not prevent the implementation general plan military operations in Poland. However, the German Foreign Minister asked to convey to Molotov that the Wehrmacht would destroy the Polish army everywhere. Currently, it is already close to a state of defeat. In the current situation, it is extremely important for the German leadership to know Moscow's military intentions.
A few days later, on September 14, Schulenburg sent the following telegram to Berlin: Molotov reported that “for the political cover of the Soviet action (the defeat of Poland and the protection of Russian minorities) it would be extremely important not to begin to act before the fall of administrative center Poland - Warsaw. Molotov therefore asks that he be told as precisely as possible when he can count on the capture of Warsaw.”
And thirdly, one cannot ignore the fact that there was a real danger of Western powers interfering in these events. Thus, on August 24, when the Soviet Union and Germany agreed to partition Poland (although no one knew it that day), Chamberlain and Halifax publicly declared that England would fight for Poland. The next day, British Foreign Minister Halifax and the Polish Ambassador in London E. Rachinsky signed a pact establishing that the parties would provide assistance to each other in the event of an attack by a third country. Stalin and Molotov could not help but understand the consequences of the participation of the Soviet Union in the German-Polish conflict on the side of Germany. Therefore, the Soviet leadership needed to wait until the situation in Poland was finally clarified.
The question arises: did the political and military leadership of Germany, except Hitler and Ribbentrop, know about Stalin’s intention to send troops to Poland and when this was supposed to happen? This is how the Chief of the General Staff answers this question ground forces General F. Halder. In his diary dated August 31, 1939, he wrote: “Russia is making certain troop transfers (state of alert alert!). It is possible that the Russians will come forward if our troops advance successfully.” The entry dated September 7 states: “The Russians will speak out.” Two days later, a new entry: “Increased Russian activity is expected in the coming days.” In an entry dated September 12, Halder reports that in a conversation between Commander-in-Chief General Brauchitsch and Hitler, the opinion was expressed that “the Russians obviously do not want to act. [They] want to take over Ukraine (to keep the French from interfering). [The Russians] believe that the Poles will agree to make peace."
Finally, on September 17, Halder noted that at 2 o’clock a message was received: “The Russians have moved their armies across the border of Poland,” and at 7 o’clock German troops received an order to “stop on the line Skole - Lvov - Vladimir-Volynsky - Brest - Bialystok.”
Thus, the high command of the German army accepted the possibility of Soviet troops entering Poland, but did not know its timing. As for the commanders of the advanced units of the active army, they were completely unoriented in the general situation and planned their actions to the depth of the border with the Soviet Union.
Stalin and Molotov feared that due to the rapid advance of German troops, Poland would capitulate even before the Red Army entered its territory. Thus, the Soviet Union might be late in its participation in the partition of Poland. These fears became especially acute after the German Information Bureau on September 9 broadcast a statement from the Wehrmacht Commander-in-Chief, General Brauchitsch, that fighting in Poland was no longer necessary. With such a development of events, a German-Polish truce may occur, after which the Soviet Union will not be able to start a “new war”. However, three days later, Ribbentrop sent a reassuring telegram to Moscow: the German command did not raise the question of a truce with Poland.
To carry out the operation, the Soviet command created a fairly large group of troops - 54 rifle and 13 cavalry divisions, 18 tank brigades and 11 artillery regiments of the reserve of the High Command. On two fronts there were more than 600 thousand people, about 4 thousand tanks, more than 5,500 guns and more than 2 thousand aircraft.
What tasks were the troops supposed to solve during the action in Poland? Commander of the Ukrainian Front, Army Commander 1st Rank S.K. Tymoshenko noted in his order that “the Polish government of landowners and generals dragged the peoples of Poland into an adventuristic war.” About the same thing was said in the order of the commander of the troops of the Belorussian Front, Army Commander of the 2nd Rank M.P. Kovaleva. They called on the population to turn “their weapons against the landowners and capitalists,” but they said nothing about the fate of the western regions of Ukraine and Belarus. This is apparently explained by the fact that after the Riga Peace Treaty of 1921, the Soviet government never raised the question of the need to reunite the western regions of Ukraine and Belarus, respectively, with Soviet Ukraine and Belarus.
But in subsequent documents such a task of the troops was noted as the salvation of the Ukrainian and Belarusian peoples, over whom the threat of conquest by enemies hung, and the liberation mission was emphasized Soviet soldiers. True, the Soviet command did not yet have a clear idea of the possible behavior of the Polish command, and therefore the Soviet troops had to be prepared for all sorts of surprises. Nevertheless, they were ordered to avoid bombing populated areas and not to allow any requisitions or unauthorized procurement of food and fodder in occupied areas.
On September 9, Molotov, judging by the text of Schulenburg’s telegram to Berlin, gave (for the future Soviet-German communiqué) the following motivation for the Soviet Union’s intervention in Polish affairs: “Poland is falling apart, and as a result of this, the Soviet Union must come to the aid of the Ukrainians and Belarusians, who Germany is “threatened.” Schulenburg interpreted this statement by Molotov as a justification of the Soviet leader to his people for the invasion of Poland. Pravda on September 14 published an article “On the internal causes of Poland’s military defeat,” which stated, in particular, that oppression and inequality of national minorities became the source of the weakness of the Polish state and the internal cause of its defeat. Particular attention was paid to the powerless situation of 11 million Ukrainians and Belarusians.
In a telegram dated 15 September, however, Ribbentrop expressed displeasure at the assertion that the Soviet Union was protecting Ukrainians and Belarusians from the "German threat". Ribbentrop noted that such motivation "does not correspond to real German aspirations, which are limited exclusively by well-known German vital interests" and "contradicts the agreements reached in Moscow." At the same time, the German Foreign Minister proposed his own version of a joint communiqué, as stated in the telegram, “with the aim of politically justifying the action of the Soviet Army”: “In view of the complete collapse of the nationalities living in Poland, the imperial government and the government of the USSR considered it necessary to put an end to the politically and economically intolerant further the situation existing in Polish territories. They consider it their common responsibility to restore peace and order in these territories, which are of natural interest to them, and to regulate, from this point of view, natural boundaries and the creation of viable economic institutions.” Having familiarized himself with the version of the joint communiqué proposed by Ribbentrop, Molotov admitted that the Soviet version actually contained wording that was offensive to the Germans, but asked to take into account that the Soviet government found itself in a delicate situation. It, “unfortunately, did not see any other pretext, since until now the Soviet Union had not expressed concern about the situation of its national minorities in Poland and had to somehow justify its current intervention to the outside world.”
Molotov further stated that there was no need for a joint communiqué and that the Soviet government would justify its actions by the fact that the Polish state had collapsed and therefore all treaties concluded with it would be annulled. Since third powers may try to take advantage of the situation in Poland, the Soviet Union considers it its duty to intervene in order to protect its Ukrainian and Belarusian brothers and enable this unfortunate population to work in peace.
As a result of these agreements, on the night of September 17, the Soviet government formulated the above-mentioned note, which was handed to the Polish ambassador in Moscow. In this document, it is important to pay attention to the following points that were missing in previous Soviet and German versions of the communiqué. Firstly, the situation in Poland could pose a threat to the USSR; secondly, if until now the Soviet Union remained neutral in the German-Polish war, then at present, the communiqué said, the Soviet government can no longer be neutral about these facts; thirdly, it was recognized that half-blooded Ukrainians and Belarusians remained defenseless, but it was not indicated from whom they should be protected; and finally, fourthly, a new task for the Red Army was formulated: not only to take Ukrainians and Belarusians under protection, but also “to rescue the Polish people from the ill-fated war into which they were plunged by their foolish leaders, and give them the opportunity to live a peaceful life.”
So, in the early morning of September 17, 1939, both strategic groupings of Soviet troops crossed the Soviet-Polish border and launched operations on Polish soil, quickly moving west and not encountering resistance from Polish troops. As Professor V.M. testifies Berezhkov, who entered the territory of Poland as part of the Soviet troops on September 17, 1939, units of the Red Army received maps in advance indicating the line on which they should meet the Wehrmacht troops.
The appeal of the military councils of the fronts spoke of the need to protect the local population from gendarmes and besiegers, protect their property, and be loyal to Polish military personnel and government officials if they do not offer armed resistance to the Red Army. Aviation was prohibited from bombing populated areas. The troops were asked to respect and not cross the borders of Latvia, Lithuania and Romania. Soviet soldiers, moving west, provided assistance to the local population with food and medicine, helped establish local government, and create peasant committees.
The vast majority of units of the regular Polish army, including officer schools, laid down their arms. Soldiers of Ukrainian and Belarusian nationalities immediately went home. Many soldiers of Polish nationality returned to the territories occupied by the Germans to fight the invaders.
A significant part of the population both in German-occupied and unoccupied territory, not having complete information about the situation in the country and still counting on the help of the Western powers, perceived the Soviet action as a stab in the back of the Polish troops. However, in Eastern Poland, the local population, especially Belarusians and Ukrainians, as evidenced by numerous documents and eyewitness accounts, warmly welcomed their Soviet liberators. Rallies were held in many settlements, and Soviet soldiers were greeted with bread and salt. Rumors spread among the population that Soviet troops had entered Poland to fight against the Germans together with the Poles, Ukrainians and Belarusians. Of course, the Polish people did not know then about the secret Soviet-German agreement that decided their fate.
In operational-tactical terms, the entry of Soviet troops into Poland was unexpected for the Polish leadership. However, it did not declare a state of war with the Soviet Union, did not consider it possible to disperse its forces to fight on two fronts, and preferred to fight only against German troops. On the border with the USSR, which had a length of 1,400 km, according to Polish military historians, only 25 battalions were guarded, i.e. there was one battalion for 56 km of the so-called front.
The order of the supreme commander, Marshal E. Rydz-Smigly, read: “Do not engage in battles with the Soviets, resist only if they attempt to disarm our units that came into contact with Soviet troops. Continue to fight the Germans. The surrounded cities must fight. If Soviet troops approach, negotiate with them in order to achieve the withdrawal of our garrisons to Romania and Hungary."
General V. Stakhevich, who was the chief of staff of the Polish army in 1939, argued in 1979 that without the entry of the Red Army into Poland on September 17, 1939, Polish troops could still long time resist the Wehrmacht. Such a statement is based on an overly optimistic assessment of the situation in Poland at that time. By mid-September, the most numerous and combat-ready groups of Polish troops were, unfortunately, defeated. Confusion and chaos reigned in the country. Normal troop control was disrupted, and even without the entry of the Red Army, Poland would have been defeated. Analyzing this problem, it would be more important to examine the reasons why it was not possible to prevent German aggression against Poland, and not how many days the Poles would have held out if it had not been for the Soviet action on September 17.
How did the population of the Soviet Union react to the events in Poland? From Schulenburg's reports it is clear that the Soviet people were concerned about them. They anxiously expected that the Soviet Union might also be drawn into the war. Schulenburg's observations are generally fair, but somewhat one-sided. The Soviet people not only expressed concerns, but were also proud of their “valiant Red Army,” which took revenge on the Poles for defeats in 1920 and restored a fair border.
The then prevailing situation in the USSR was described in his memoirs by K. Simonov, who also, according to his admission, greeted the Soviet action “with a feeling of unconditional joy”: “One must imagine the atmosphere of all previous years, the Soviet-Polish war of 1920, the subsequent decades of tense relations with Poland, siege warfare, the resettlement of the Polish kulaks in the so-called eastern koresy (more correctly “kresy” - M.S.), attempts to colonize the Ukrainian and especially Belarusian population, White Guard gangs operating from Poland in the twenties, study Polish language among the military as the language of one of the most possible opponents, the processes of the Belarusian communists. In general, if we remember this whole atmosphere, then why wasn’t I then happy that we were going to liberate Western Ukraine and Western Belarus? We are moving towards that line of national demarcation, which once, in the twentieth year, was considered fair, from an ethnic point of view, even by such an enemy of our country as Lord Curzon, and which was remembered as the Curzon line, but from which we had to retreat then and agree to peace, which gave Western Ukraine and Belarus into the hands of Poland, due to military defeats, which were backed by limitless exhaustion of forces during the years of the World War and Civil War, devastation, the unfinished Wrangel, the upcoming Kronstadt and Antonovism - in general, the twentieth year.
What was happening seemed fair to me, and I sympathized with it.”
Official representatives and the press of Western countries, especially England and France, condemned the Soviet action. As the Commission of the Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR rightly determined, Hitler was preparing the ground for pitting the Soviet Union not only against Poland, but also against England and France, and “at times our country was on the verge of such a turn of events, especially after the entry of Red Army units to Western Belarus and Western Ukraine."
During the days of the entry of Soviet troops into Polish territory, relations between England and France and the Soviet Union really worsened. It can be argued that at a time when between Germany and Western countries there was a “hot” war; essentially a “psychological” war was waged between the Soviet Union and Western countries. True, soon after September 17, all British diplomatic missions were given an explanation that Great Britain not only did not intend to declare war on the Soviet Union, but, on the contrary, must remain on the best possible terms with it. The British press was also asked to stop all anti-Soviet propaganda.
The population of Germany did not know that the entry of the Red Army into Poland took place in accordance with a mutual preliminary agreement, so the event of September 17 alarmed the Germans, who feared a clash between the two armies. But they were amazed when war newsreels showed friendly meetings between soldiers and handshakes between officers of the German and Soviet armies.
The actions of the Red Army on Polish territory lasted 12 days. During this time, Soviet troops advanced 250-300 km and occupied a territory with a total area of over 190 thousand square meters. km “with a population of more than 12 million people, including more than 6 million Ukrainians and about 3 million Belarusians.”
Taking advantage of favorable conditions, German troops also advanced at a rapid pace, and after two weeks the fate of Poland was virtually sealed. By September 15, 1939, 340 thousand Polish soldiers and officers had accumulated in the region of Eastern Poland, that is, east of the Vistula-San line. Number of many military units was half the staff. These forces had 540 guns and mortars, 160 anti-tank guns and more than 70 tanks. In total, these forces amounted to approximately 7 infantry divisions, 2 cavalry brigades and a tank battalion.
In most directions, German troops, without waiting to meet Soviet troops at the agreed demarcation line, crossed it and advanced further east to 200 km. This happened, in particular, in the Brest region. Here, on September 17, 1939, the tank corps of General G. Guderian, breaking the resistance of the Polish defenders, took Brest, and only then the troops received an order not to cross the line of Suwalki, Augustow, Bialystok, Brest, Sokal, Lvov and Stryi.
Former boss operational department of the headquarters of the Belarusian Special Military District, General L.M. Sandalov incorrectly describes the events in the Brest region. Thus, he writes: “Divisional commander Chuikov, whose army was advancing to Brest, ordered the commander of the vanguard tank brigade S.M. Krivoshein to occupy Brest and force the German troops to retreat beyond the Bug. A meeting between Krivoshein and Guderian took place in Brest. An employee of the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs also took part in it. Our representatives demanded from German command immediately withdraw all German units beyond the demarcation line, and leave the military and civilian property prepared for evacuation from Brest to Germany in place. This demand was accepted." There was no need for such demands, since everything was agreed upon in advance.
Later, in connection with the above-mentioned exchange of the territories of Lithuania and the Lublin and part of the Warsaw voivodeships, another withdrawal of German troops was carried out. This movement towards the twice changing line of state interests in Poland was completed only on October 14, 1939.
While the German and Soviet armies were moving towards each other, clashes took place between them. So, on September 20, east of Lvov, German artillery knocked out several Soviet tanks moving in a column. On September 23, units of the German 10th tank division General Schaal mistakenly fought for several hours with a Soviet cavalry unit. As a result, according to some sources, 2 Soviet soldiers were killed and 23 wounded.
Units of the Red Army in a number of places fought with some Polish units, who were hiding in the forests in anticipation of clashes between German and Soviet troops. So, in the Lashka Murovane area, they encountered the remnants of General K. Sosnkovsky’s group, moving in the direction of Lvov. Some of them surrendered to Soviet troops, others, led by the commander, moved to Hungary. There were battles near Krasne with a group of troops of General V. Orlik-Rückerman.
Heavy fighting broke out on September 20-21 with the Polish defenders of the city of Grodno. On the morning of September 20, Soviet tanks approached the city, but, encountering resistance, they were forced to retreat. As Pravda reported on September 25, “gangs” numbering about 3 thousand are stubbornly resisting in the city. Polish officers and gendarmes holed up in the fortress, church and barracks. Soviet artillery fired at these objects.
Soviet tanks were fired upon by Polish artillery on the approaches to Lvov. The German command hoped that the surrounded Polish garrison of Lvov under the command of General W. Langner would capitulate as soon as German troops approached the outskirts of the city. On September 18, the Germans presented the city garrison with an ultimatum to surrender. If he was not accepted, they threatened to destroy the city. But the commander of the garrison refused to capitulate and sent part of his forces to meet the division of General K. Sosnkovsky, which was making its way to help the city. On September 20 it became known that Sosnkovsky's division was defeated.
At this time, tank units of the Red Army were approaching the city from the east, and General Langner decided to surrender the city to the Soviet command. At a meeting with Soviet representatives, he said: “We continue to fight the Germans - in the city we fought with them for 10 days. They are Germans, enemies of all Slavs. You are Slavs."
History has preserved examples of the heroism of Polish soldiers during the defense of the Brest Fortress. When the German 19th Panzer Corps captured Brest in a swift rush from East Prussia on September 14, 1939, General Guderian did not imagine that the fortress would still resist. But that's exactly what happened. For several days she was defended by soldiers of General K. Plisovsky. The Germans suffered considerable losses. But on the night of September 16-17, the Poles left the fortress and went to the opposite bank of the Bug.
As eyewitnesses say, immediately after the Germans captured the fortress, funerals of many hundreds of those killed took place. Until the spring of 1941, there was a special commission here that sent the remains German soldiers to Germany .
For several days, fighting continued between Soviet and Polish units in the Vilna region. On September 30, the battle of the Polish infantry regiment with Soviet cavalrymen in the Kobrin area. It came to the use of grenades and bayonet fights. On the night of October 1, near Wlodawa, a Polish military unit collided with a Soviet tank column. 4 tanks were damaged. Clashes continued for two weeks in the Sarny area. A skirmish also occurred near Lublin. As reported by V.M. Molotov, during these battles, 773 Soviet soldiers were killed and 1,862 people were wounded. Soviet troops took more than 230 thousand Polish prisoners of war and internees.
The total losses of Polish troops in the war amounted to about 66 thousand killed, about 133 thousand wounded. IN German captivity it turned out to be about 350 thousand soldiers and officers
When the Red Army crossed the Soviet-Polish border on September 17, 1939, the bulk of armed forces The Second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth fought against the Wehrmacht in the west. However, the irretrievable losses of the Red Army (killed, died from wounds and missing) during the 2 weeks of fighting of the “liberation campaign” amounted, according to Soviet data, to almost one and a half thousand people. Who did Soviet soldiers encounter in the west? modern Belarus and Ukraine?
Difference in Point of View
On September 17, 1939, the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, with the forces of the Belarusian and Ukrainian fronts, deployed the day before on the basis of the border Belarusian Special and Kyiv Special Military Districts, invaded the territory of Poland. In Soviet historiography, this operation is usually called the “Liberation Campaign of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army,” and it is fundamentally separated from the German invasion of Poland, which began on September 1.
Moreover, both in Polish and Western historical literature the German and Soviet invasions are often considered parts of a single whole. The general name for the events of the autumn of 1939 in Poland is the term “September Campaign” (along with it, “Polish Campaign of 1939”, “Defensive War of 1939”, “Polish War of 1939” can be used). In English-language literature, the term “Invasion of Poland” is often used to unite German and Soviet operations. As often happens, views and opinions greatly influence the assessment of what happened in the past and even its name.
From the Polish point of view, there really was no fundamental difference between the attacks of Germany and the USSR. Both countries attacked without an official declaration of war. Both states also found suitable reasons for invasion. The Germans justified their aggression by the intransigence of Poland on the issue of the Danzig Corridor, the infringement of the rights of the German minority and, in the end, organized the Gleiwitz provocation, which allowed Hitler to declare a Polish attack on Germany.
One of the surviving Polish-built bunkers in Belarus
http://francis-maks.livejournal.com/47023.html
The USSR, in turn, justified the invasion by the collapse of the Polish government and state, which “showing no signs of life”, caring about "oppressed" in Poland “half-blooded Ukrainians and Belarusians abandoned to the mercy of fate” and even about the Polish people themselves, who "was cast" their "unreasonable leaders" V "ill-fated war"(as stated in the note handed to the Polish Ambassador in Moscow on the morning of September 17, 1939).
It should be remembered that "showing no signs of life" The Polish state, whose government at that time was not yet in exile, continued resistance on its soil. The Polish president, in particular, left the country only on the night of September 17-18, after the Red Army had crossed the border. However, even after complete occupation, Poland did not stop resisting. Its government did not capitulate, and its ground units, air force and navy fought on the fronts of World War II until its very end in Europe.
A very important caveat must be made here. Undoubtedly, responsibility for the outbreak of World War II lies with the military-political leadership of Germany. The Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact, signed on August 23, 1939, was one of many similar treaties signed between European states during the interwar period. And even the notorious additional protocol to it on the delimitation of spheres of interest was not something unique.
The division of the world into spheres of influence between the great powers by the first half of the 20th century was an established practice in international relations, dating back to the 15th century, when Spain and Portugal, having concluded the Treaty of Tordesillas, divided the entire planet along the “papal meridian”. Moreover, sometimes spheres of influence were established without any agreements, unilaterally. This is what the United States did, for example, with its “Monroe Doctrine,” according to which its sphere of interests defined both American continents.
Neither the Soviet-German treaty nor the secret protocol contained obligations on the part of the states that concluded it to start an aggressive war or participate in it. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact only to some extent freed Germany's hands, securing it from one of the flanks. But that’s why non-aggression treaties are concluded. The Soviet Union cannot bear any responsibility for the way in which Germany used the opportunities that arose as a result.
Let's use an appropriate analogy. In 1938, during the annexation of the Czechoslovak Sudetenland, Germany had a non-aggression pact with Poland. Moreover, Poland itself took part in the division of Czechoslovakia, sending troops into Cieszyn Silesia. Such actions, of course, do not look good on the Polish government. But all this in no way refutes the historical fact that it was Germany that initiated the division of Czechoslovakia and that it was she who was responsible for it.
But let's return to the September events of 1939.
In the famous speech of the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov on June 22, 1941, there are these words about the German attack on the USSR:
« This unheard of attack on our country is a treachery unparalleled in the history of civilized nations. The attack on our country was carried out despite the fact that a non-aggression treaty was concluded between the USSR and Germany...»
Unfortunately, such treachery was far from unprecedented in the history of civilized peoples. Treaties between states were violated with enviable regularity. For example, in the 19th century, in the Treaties of Paris and Berlin, European states guaranteed the territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire. But this did not prevent France from subsequently capturing Tunisia, Italy from Libya and the Dodecanese archipelago, and Austria-Hungary from Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The first articles of the Non-Aggression Pact between Poland and the Soviet Union, signed on July 25, 1932 and extended in 1934 until the end of 1945
In legal terms, the significant difference between the German attack and the “liberation campaign” of the Soviet Union was the following. At the beginning of 1939, Poland had signed non-aggression treaties with both the USSR and Germany. But on April 28, 1939, Hitler broke the agreement with Poland, using this demarche as leverage for pressure. The Soviet-Polish non-aggression pact in May 1934 was extended until 1945. And as of September 1939, it remained in force.
It is beyond the scope of this article to assess the expediency, legality, and, especially, the moral component of the Soviet invasion. Let us only note that, as Polish Ambassador to Great Britain Edward Raczynski noted in his communique dated September 17,
“The Soviet Union and Poland agreed to a definition of aggression, according to which an act of aggression is considered any invasion of the territory of one of the parties by armed military units of the other party. It was also agreed that none[emphasis added] considerations of a political, military, economic or other nature can in no case serve as a pretext or justification for an act of aggression.”
Defense plan in the east
While the composition of the Red Army forces that took part in the Polish campaign is fairly well described in Russian literature, the situation with the Polish units opposing them in the Eastern Kresy is murkier. Below we will consider the composition of the Polish units located on the eastern border in September 1939, and also (in the following articles) describe the nature of the combat operations of these formations when they came into contact with Red Army formations.
By September 1939, the bulk of the Polish armed forces were deployed against Germany and its satellite, Slovakia. Note that such a situation was not typical for the Polish army of the 1930s - most of the time since gaining independence, the Second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was preparing for war against the USSR.
Polish reinforced concrete dam on the river. Shara, designed to quickly flood an area. Minichi village, Lyakhovichi district, Brest region, Belarus
http://francis-maks.livejournal.com/48191.html
Until the beginning of 1939, the Soviet Union was regarded by the Poles as the most likely source of military danger. In the east, most of the military exercises were carried out and long-term fortifications were erected, many of which are still well preserved. The usual bunkers in the swampy lowlands of Polesie were supplemented by a system of hydraulic structures (dams and dams), which made it possible to quickly flood large areas and create obstacles for the advancing enemy. However, like the fortified areas located “opposite” of the much more famous “Stalin Line” in 1941, Polish fortifications on the eastern border in 1939 met the enemy with extremely weakened garrisons and were unable to have a significant impact on the course of hostilities.
The length of the Polish border with the USSR was 1,412 kilometers (for comparison, the Polish border with Germany was 1,912 kilometers long). In the event of a war with the USSR, the Poles planned to deploy five armies in the east of the country in the first line of defense (Vilno, Baranovichi, Polesie, Volyn and Podolia, a total of 18 infantry divisions, 8 cavalry brigades). Two more armies (“Lida” and “Lvov”, a total of 5 infantry divisions and 1 cavalry brigade) were supposed to be in the second line. The strategic reserve was to consist of 6 infantry divisions, 2 cavalry and 1 armored brigade, concentrated in the Brest-nad-Bug area. Deployment in accordance with these plans required the involvement of almost the entire Polish army - 29 out of 30 divisions available by March 1939, 11 out of 13 (two were missing!) cavalry brigades and a single armored brigade.
Only from the beginning of 1939, when Germany began to demonstrate determination to bring the Danzig Corridor issue to an end by any means, did the Poles, in addition to the East defense plan, begin to develop a West defense plan. They hastily transferred units to the western border, and mobilized in August. As a result, by the beginning of World War II, the most significant armed structure in the Eastern Kresy turned out to be the Border Protection Corps (KOP, Korpus Ochrony Pogranicza).
All that's left
The territorial divisions of the Corps, an approximate Polish analogue of the more familiar border detachments for us, were regiments and brigades. In total, there were eight such units on the eastern border after the mobilization on August 30 (listed from north to south):
- regiment "Glubokoye"
- Regiment "Vileika"
- regiment “Snov” (indicated on the map below as “Baranovichi”),
- brigade "Polesie"
- "Sarny" regiment
- regiment "Rivne"
- Regiment "Podolia"
- Regiment "Chortkiv".
A group of non-commissioned officers of the 24th Sejny battalion of the Polish Border Guard Corps, guarding the border with Lithuania
wizajnyinfo.pl
Another regiment of the Corps, “Vilno,” was deployed on the Polish-Lithuanian border. Considering the geographical position of the Vilna Voivodeship, which was “stretched” in a narrow strip to the north relative to the main territory of what was then Poland, it was also in close proximity to the border with the Soviet Union.
KOP regiments and brigades had variable composition. In addition, since March 1939, individual units of the Corps were transferred from eastern border to the west. As a result, by the end of August 1939, the Vilno regiment consisted of four infantry battalions, the Glubokoe regiment and the Polesie brigade - of three, and the Snov regiment - of two. The Vileyka regiment and the Podillya regiment each included three infantry battalions and a cavalry squadron, the Sarny regiment included two infantry battalions, two special battalions and a cavalry squadron. Finally, the Chortkov regiment consisted of three infantry battalions and an engineering company.
The total strength of the headquarters (transferred from Warsaw to Pinsk at the beginning of the war), eight regiments and the KOP brigade on September 1, 1939 was about 20 thousand people. There were few career military personnel among them, since these were primarily “removed” to recruit new divisions. Basically, the border units were staffed by reservists, many of whom belonged to the ethnic minorities of the Second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, mainly Ukrainians, Belarusians, Jews and Germans.
The disposition of Polish, German, Slovak and Soviet troops at the beginning of World War II and the general course of the September 1939 campaign. In the eastern part, the areas of deployment of regiments and brigades of the Polish Border Guard Corps and the places of the most important battles between Polish and Soviet units are indicated
The personnel of the Polish border guard units located on the border with Germany and Slovakia were entirely used to staff the newly formed four infantry divisions (33rd, 35th, 36th and 38th) and three mountain brigades (1st, 2nd -th and 3rd).
In addition to the Border Guard Corps, in fighting against Soviet units in the first days of the Soviet invasion, units that arrived in the east to reorganize after heavy fighting with the Germans, as well as newly formed territorial divisions, were involved. Their total strength in Eastern Kresy on September 17 is estimated at 10 infantry divisions of incomplete strength. Subsequently, with the advance to the west, the number of Polish troops that the Red Army had to face increased: more and more Polish units were on the way, retreating before the Nazis.
According to data published by Grigory Fedorovich Krivosheev in the statistical study “Russia and the USSR in the wars of the 20th century: losses of the armed forces,” the irretrievable losses of the Belarusian and Ukrainian fronts during the “liberation campaign” amounted to 1,475 people. This figure includes 973 killed, 102 died from wounds, 76 died as a result of disasters and accidents, 22 died from disease and 302 missing. Sanitary losses The Red Army, according to the same source, amounted to 2002 people. Polish historians consider these figures to be greatly underestimated, citing figures of 2.5–6.5 thousand dead and 4–10 thousand wounded. For example, Professor Czeslaw Grzelak in his publication estimates Soviet losses at 2.5–3 thousand killed and 8–10 thousand wounded.
Patrol of the Polish Border Guard Corps at the modern Kolosovo station (Stolbtsovsky Minsk district region, Belarus)
Small, disorganized and weakened Polish units, of course, could not provide serious resistance to the numerous, fresh and well-equipped units of the Red Army. However, as can be seen from the above loss figures, the “liberation campaign” was by no means an easy walk.
The military clashes between units of the Border Guard Corps and the Polish Army with the Red Army in September 1939 will be discussed in the next article.
Literature:
To understand why the day of September 17, 1939 is significant for every Belarusian who loves his homeland, it is necessary to remember the circumstances of the appearance of the second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth on the map of Europe. As soon as this state appeared, the Polish dictator Jozef Pilsudski attacked Soviet Russia, devastated by civil war and intervention, seizing part of its territories in the east - Western Ukraine, Western Belarus, pieces of Lithuania.
Not limiting itself to seizures in the east and gifts from the Treaty of Versailles, Poland was also active in the west - in territories with a German population... Having organized unrest in Upper Silesia, the Poles occupied it too. Together with Katowice. Then Poland captured Galicia from Austria, and a little later, in the 1930s, added to its acquisitions pieces of Czechoslovakia, which it divided with the Nazis. All these “feats” were not difficult to accomplish, since Russia and Germany were defeated by their own revolutions, and Austria-Hungary, with the blessing of England, was dismembered by the victors.
On August 17, 1920, Soviet-Polish negotiations began in Minsk, and Pilsudski, secretly from the Sejm, prepared and carried out the seizure of another part of the Lithuanian territories. On October 9 of the same year, the troops of Pilsudski’s associate, General L. Zheligowski, found themselves within Lithuania (I especially note - non-Soviet) and, having captured Vilna and the Vilna region, proclaimed there “middle Lithuania,” which was immediately annexed to Poland.
All attempts by the League of Nations to return the lands occupied by Poland to Lithuania were unsuccessful. And even more so, the protest of the Soviet government, which at that time was seeking peace with Poland, turned out to be an empty phrase. The day before the signing of the Riga Peace Treaty, all Polish diplomatic missions abroad received characteristic instructions: “We should continue to support elements hostile to Soviet Russia, both Russian and Ukrainian, Belarusian and Caucasian. Our interests in the east do not end at the line of our borders... We are not indifferent to the fate of the lands of the historical Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, separated from us by the future Treaty of Riga.”
On March 18, 1921, the treaty was signed, and Poland became almost an empire, in which Poles made up only 65% of the total population. By the way, Poland at that time had one of the largest armies in Europe: 700 thousand people with 14 thousand officers. French army numbered 660 thousand people, and Germany, according to Treaty of Versailles, reduced its army to 100 thousand people. Now everyone had to take Poland into account, especially considering its close relations with France.
A few words about the “humanism” of the almost European Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. According to information from the 2nd (intelligence) department of the General Staff of the Polish Army, in February 1919 - October 1920. More than 146 thousand Red Army soldiers were captured. The fate of tens of thousands of these people is extremely tragic - they died from inhumane conditions in the concentration camps of the Pilsudski regime, which appeared in Europe much earlier than the Nazi ones. For example, one of the favorite pastimes of the Polish (the best in Europe) cavalrymen was to place captured Red Army soldiers all over the huge cavalry parade ground and learn how to “break to the waist” from all over the “heroic” shoulder, at full gallop of a man. The brave lords chopped down the unarmed and exhausted prisoners “on the fly, on the turn.” There were many parade grounds for “training” in the cavalry cabin. Just like the death camps. In Bialystok, Puław, Brest, Pikulica, Korosten, Zhytomyr, Aleksandrov, Łukow, Ostrovo Lomzhinski, Rombertow, Zduńska Wola, Torun, Dorogusk, Plock, Radom, Przemysl, Lviv, Friedrichowka, Zwiagel, Dąba, Strzałkowo, Tuchola, Baranovichi... Garrisons of brave cavalrymen stood in every town. Only in one of the Polish death camps - Tuchola - more than 22 thousand prisoners of war died from the most vile bullying, caning discipline, cold, hunger, and epidemics...
In relation to the occupied territories, Pilsudski pursued a strict policy of polonization. Orthodox churches were closed. Ukrainian and Belarusian schools and cultural organizations were persecuted. By the mid-1930s, 43% of Belarusians were illiterate, and there were not even two hundred Belarusian students in all of Poland. On June 17, 1934, by order of Pilsudski, in the Brest region, not far from the then border with the USSR, a new concentration camp, this time for political prisoners.
From the memorandum of the Bialystok voivode Ostaszewski to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Poland, entitled “Problems of strengthening the Polish ruling position in the Bialystok voivodeship”: “Sooner or later, the Belarusian population is subject to polonization. They represent a passive mass, without broad popular consciousness, without their own state traditions. Wanting to speed up this process, we must overcome the ancient Belarusian culture... In rural areas where the Belarusian population lives, it must, of course, be raised to the highest level material culture Poles. This is one of the fundamental conditions for Polish expansion... To put it briefly, our attitude towards Belarusians can be formulated as follows: we want one thing and persistently demand that it national minority I thought in Polish - don’t give anything in return and don’t do anything in a different direction.” If the need arises “to give this population something and to interest them in something,” this can only be done with the goal “so that they think in Polish and learn in Polish in the spirit of Polish statehood... It is necessary to make a decision so that any reserve lands or private parcellation of Polish estates took place subject to the transfer of lands into the hands of the Poles and, if possible, to Belarusian elements, then only those showing tendencies of Polishization. The proletarianizing Belarusian element moving from the village to the city is generally subject to faster assimilation there than in the village... The point is not to reduce land holdings Poles, because from the point of view of the country’s politics, those in whose hands the land are superior…” (GAOO GO, f.6195, op.1, d.28, l. 4, 16).
By 1939, all Belarusian schools were finally converted into Polish ones, and two-thirds of Orthodox churches were turned into churches. “Emerging crops,” as the Poles called the Belarusian and Ukrainian lands, were just an agricultural and raw material appendage of their country, and also served as a source of cannon fodder. Moreover, the brave lords planned to use it both in the East and in the West.
Considering itself a great power, the second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth dreamed not only of European, but also of African colonies! There wasn't enough "living space"! From the beginning of 1937, the Poles began to exaggerate the topic of their dissatisfaction with the state of affairs in resolving colonial issues. On April 18, 1938, all of Poland widely celebrated Colonies Day. All this was accompanied by mass demonstrations demanding the provision of overseas colonies to the great Polish nation. Solemn services were held in churches on this occasion.
The plans in Europe are eloquently evidenced by an excerpt from the minutes of meeting No. 25 of October 3, 1935 with the chief of the main staff of the Polish Army: “The rule is - we are developing the “East”, and after that we will try to solve the “West” within the framework of the “East” plan.” (Explanation: plan "East" is a plan for war with the USSR, plan "West" is a plan for waging war with Germany.).
The report of the 2nd Department of the Polish General Staff, dated December 1938, emphasized: “The dismemberment of Russia lies at the basis of Polish policy in the East... Therefore, our possible position will boil down to the following formula: who will take part in the division. Poland must not remain passive during this wonderful historical moment. The task is to prepare well in advance physically and spiritually... The main goal is the weakening and defeat of Russia” (Z dziejow stosunkow polsko-radzieckich. Studia i materialy. T.lll. Warszawa, 1968. S.262, 287).
The USSR could reasonably consider Poland the most hostile state of all with which it directly bordered. In the 1930s As part of military planning, the leadership of the Soviet Union proceeded from the fact that in the upcoming conflict the main enemy would be Poland in alliance with Germany. The fact is that back in 1932, in the event of a war against the USSR, Poland pledged to field 60 divisions. By the way, the apotheosis of the formation of Nazi Germany was the conclusion of the German-Polish Treaty of Friendship and Non-Aggression on January 26, 1934.
It is interesting that in 1939 the Poles began their mobilization before the Germans. Already on March 22, that is, six months (!) before the supposedly unexpected and treacherous attack of the Nazis, the start of the first partial and hidden mobilization (five formations) was announced in Poland in order to provide cover for the mobilization and concentration of the main forces of the Polish army! How successfully it went is evidenced, for example, by an entry in the diary of the Chief of the General Staff of the German Ground Forces, Halder, dated August 15: “Latest data on Poland: Mobilization in Poland will be completed on August 27. Consequently, we will fall behind the Poles with the end of mobilization. To complete the mobilization by the same date, we must start it on August 21. Then on August 27 our divisions of the 3rd and 4th lines will also be ready.”
On August 18, 1939, the Polish Ambassador in Paris J. Lukasevich, in a conversation with the French Foreign Minister J. Bonnet, bravely declared that “not the Germans, but the Poles will rush deep into Germany in the very first days of the war!” “...Clad in steel and armor, led by Rydz-Smigly, we will march to the Rhine...” - they sang in Warsaw... However, for some reason, just a few days later, in the very first days of September 1939, the courageous Polish The cavalrymen (the best in Europe) quickly got tired of hacking away at German tanks. And after they were finally convinced that they were “not made of plywood,” they handed over the land “from Mozha to Mozha” (from sea to sea) to the “true Aryans” in two days and two weeks.
The reason for such a long delay was that, thanks to general mobilization, the regiments formed from Belarusians (Baranovichi, Slonim, Lida, etc.), forced to be the first to take the mortal blow of German troops on the western borders of the Polish “Oichyzna”, did not immediately surrender. At this time, the brave Polish lancers increasingly shouted the famous “Panova, kill him!” instead of “Hurray!” This cheerful cry appeared immediately after the lordship became convinced that Germany, which had recently been reduced by the Western allies to complete poverty and economic collapse, had “so much iron” (for tanks) that the Germans would be able to drive it to Smolensk.
To prevent this from happening, on September 17, when the then Polish government, abandoning its people, simply fled, and the German army was approaching Brest and Lvov and stormed Warsaw, the campaign of the Red Army began, ending with joining Soviet state western Belarus and western Ukraine. D. Lloyd George wrote to the Polish ambassador in London in the fall of the same year that “...The USSR occupied territories that are not Polish and which were taken by force by Poland after the First World War...It would be an act of criminal madness to put the Russian advance on the same level as the advance Germany."
It is highly significant that at first a different border was planned, one that would run much further to the west - along the San and Vistula rivers - but by the will of the USSR this did not happen. American historian William Shirer wrote in 1959 about Stalin’s decision to abandon Polish territories proper: “Having learned well the lesson of centuries-old Russia, Stalin understood that the Polish people would never come to terms with the loss of their independence.”
Today's Polish historiography of those events is interesting for its scrupulousness - accuracy, even down to ascertaining the degree of courage of a particular lancer and the number of swings of his saber. Only all this petty detail does not answer one big and significant question: why did the lancers, so brave and desperate in 1919, surrender their very large state by European standards in 1939 in a couple of weeks? For example, they took Minsk in 1919 as easily as they gave up Warsaw in 1939.
The tired reference to a “stab in the back” and a “war on two fronts” is, to put it mildly, inappropriate. In 1919, this same war on two fronts did not prevent Poland from simultaneously seizing huge chunks of territory in both the East and the West. It’s just a fact: by September 1, 1939, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth had a mobilized army of 3.5 million. During the entire September period of hostilities, this army lost about 66,300 people killed (less than 2%) and... surrendered.
As for the “stab in the back”, as historian J. Gross notes in a monograph published in the USA by the publishing house Princeton University(1988), at the time when the Soviet army entered the land of Western Belarus and Ukraine, the Polish administration in these territories was completely disorganized as a result of the defeat of the Polish troops and the influx of refugees. In turn, local residents “armed themselves against the Poles and the Polish authorities. A large-scale civil war was prevented,” notes the American historian, “only thanks to the rapid entry of Soviet troops...”.
An example of the actions of the Poles themselves is the suppression of the uprising of the local population in Grodno and Skidel in September 1939 by Polish lancers, gendarmes and Ozonites (members of OZON, a union of Polish nationalist parties created in 1935).
The uprisings began on September 17, when Poland as a state no longer existed, and the Polish army was crushed by the Reich military machine. The President and government of Poland, who fled Warsaw literally in the very first days of the war, by the middle of the month ended up first in Romania, and from there they fled to Paris, then to London.
The Skidel workers rebelled as soon as they learned that the Red Army had crossed the border of the collapsed Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The rebels seized the post office and the police station, and the police were disarmed and sent home. They did the same with the soldiers who were in the military train at the Skidel railway station... A few hours later, Polish soldiers appeared in the city, reinforced by a company of Grodno gendarmes... Great atrocities began in the small town. The punitive forces immediately shot 30 people. They also shot those who simply turned up. Before being shot, they tortured them: some had their eyes gouged out, others had their tongues cut, and others had their fingers broken with rifle butts. The wounded member of the underground district committee of the KPZB, L. Pochimka, had his ears cut off, his eyes gouged out, and stars cut out on his chest and back.
Then they gathered up to two hundred people. Neither men nor women were distinguished. They drove to the Orthodox Church, forced them to lie face down, beat them on the heads with rifle butts, forced them to eat and kiss the ground, shouting at the same time: “The land is ours, Polish, you can’t live on it!” While some punishers mocked the Belarusians at the temple, others threw grenades and torches into the houses of USSR supporters. The neighbors were not allowed to extinguish the fire, they drove them away with shots. 19 houses burned down, in some women and children were burned alive. But this was not the end of the tragedy of the small town.
Towards evening, from those two hundred people who had lain all day near the temple, “the most active rebels” were selected and driven to the shore of Kotra to be shot. When the first five tortured people were snatched from the crowd of the doomed and stood up for execution, a wedge with a red star on its side appeared from behind the forest. It was a flying detachment led by Captain Chernyavsky - two armored cars and two tanks - that hurried to the rescue of the rebels in Skidel. They were loaded. The captain armed peasants from the surrounding villages with these weapons. With their help, Skidel was completely cleared of punitive forces.
Their Soviet report: “On the morning of September 19, from the tank battalions of the 100th and 2nd rifle divisions and armored companies of the reconnaissance battalion of the 2nd division, a motorized group of the 16th rifle corps was formed under the command of brigade commander Rozanov... At 7 o'clock on September 20, it was given the task of attacking Grodno.
Moving towards the city, a motorized group near Skidel encountered a Polish detachment (about 200 people) who were suppressing an anti-Polish uprising of the local population. 17 were killed in this punitive raid local residents, of which 2 were teenagers, 13 and 16 years old. Having turned around, the motorized group attacked the enemy in Skidel from both flanks. Hoping to stop the tanks, the Poles set the bridge on fire, but the Soviet tank crews directed their vehicles through the fire and managed to slip across the burning bridge, which collapsed after the tanks passed, to the other side of the Skidel River.”
A similar tragedy occurred in those September days in Grodno. In two days, about thirty people died from bullets, beatings and fire, including children, wounded and beaten - up to a hundred people. The agony of the Second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth for the residents of Grodno and Skidel turned into bloody massacres. Like a mortally wounded beast, the regime created by Pilsudski, leaving political life, made human sacrifices to its ambitions, taking revenge on people for its own failure and defeat in the war with Nazi Germany.
According to historian A.D. Markov, almost everywhere in the east of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth “Ukrainians, Belarusians and Jews organized rebel detachments... attacking Polish units retreating from the Germans... The non-Polish population turned Polish banners, tearing off their white stripes, into red ones, and covered them with flowers columns of the Red Army... indicated the places where the Poles hid weapons, participated in the neutralization of small Polish units "... This "non-Polish" population ranged from 67 to 90%!
Having entered the territory of the so-called “Krass vkhodnih” as liberators, Soviet troops avoided, where possible, clashes with Polish units. The chief of staff at the headquarters of the commander-in-chief of the Polish army, General V. Stakhevich, noted in a report: “ Soviet soldiers They don’t shoot at our people, they demonstrate their location in every possible way...” Deputy Chief of Staff General Yu. Yaklich wrote in his diary in those days: “The Bolsheviks crossed the border at dawn with tank and motorized units. Tanks are marching openly with white flags... Our army is disoriented. Some put up stubborn resistance, others let Soviet troops through. They bypass them and move on."
All Western researchers stated that the incidents during the entry of the Red Army units were of a local nature and did not take on a wide scale. It was also noted that the Soviet troops advanced deliberately slowly, giving the Polish units the opportunity to retreat to the Romanian border. Advancement to the south from Lvov was especially slow.
The Nazis, as the German ambassador in Bucharest Fabricius later admitted, “were furious that the Russians did not try to close the Romanian corridor to the Polish authorities and army as quickly as possible...”. Most of these same researchers come to the conclusion that the actions of the Soviet Union could not change anything; the defeat of Poland in the war with Germany was practically a fait accompli.
On September 22, 1939, the British and French General Staffs prepared a report qualifying the USSR’s actions towards Germany as “preemptive” and noting that they were taken only when the final defeat of Poland, with which history had played a cruel joke, became obvious. As the American historian B. Budurovich noted, in June 1936 Poland prevented the adoption of international sanctions against fascist Italy, which seized the territory of Abyssinia (Ethiopia) precisely because the latter, according to the Polish leader J. Beck, allegedly “ceased to exist as a state.” In September 1939, the second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth itself similarly fell apart “to the waist”, scattered “in all four directions,” as they say, “on the fly, on a bend.”
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