The occupied territories of the USSR and Poland these events. USSR invasion of Poland

How relations between the two countries developed in 1918-1939, between the First and Second World Wars.
A rally in support of the Red Army during the Soviet-Polish War. Gdansk, 1920.

Part 1. Eternal competitors

Relations between Russia and Poland have never been simple. For centuries, both states waged fierce competition for control over the territories of modern Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine.
The ambitions of the Poles extended all the way to Smolensk, which for some time was under their rule. The peak of the advantage of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was the beginning of the 17th century, when, with its direct participation, the question of the existence of Russia as an independent state arose.
The revenge of the Russian Empire took place two centuries later, when Poland was erased from the political map of the world, and most of its territory, including Warsaw, came under the rule of the Russian monarch.
Living together was not calm - Poland was periodically shaken by powerful anti-Russian uprisings, which were brutally suppressed by the Russian army.
It is not surprising that at the beginning of the 20th century, the Kingdom of Poland was one of those parts of the Russian Empire where revolutionary sentiments were particularly strong.

Part 2. “I rode the red tram of socialism to the Independence stop, but I got off at it”

The “divorce” of Russia and Poland began before the fall of the Romanov dynasty. During the First World War, Polish territory was occupied by German troops.
The independence of Poland was recognized by a decree of the Bolshevik Council of People's Commissars on December 10, 1917.
Poland gained actual independence in November 1918, after Germany's defeat in the war. While German troops were leaving the occupied territories, the question of who would have power was being decided. Józef Pilsudski became the “Head of the Polish State”.
There were two currents in the Polish struggle for independence - socialist and nationalistic. Pilsudski found himself, so to speak, at a crossroads - a former activist of the Polish Socialist Party, having come to power, he told yesterday’s comrades: “Comrades, I rode the red tram of socialism to the Independence stop, but I got off at it. You can go to the final stop if you succeed, but now let’s switch to “You”.

Jozef Pilsudski.

Part 3. Collision is inevitable

It is no coincidence that New Poland proclaimed itself the “Second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth”. Pilsudski and his like-minded people set the task of restoring the state within the borders of 1772. This made conflicts with neighbors in the east inevitable. The Poles laid claim to the territories of Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania, which were previously part of the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires.
But the Bolsheviks, acting within the framework of the concept of “world revolution,” intended to move westward, freeing the proletariat from the chains of landowners and capitalists. After Soviet Russia declared the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany invalid in November 1918, the movement of the Red Army into territories previously occupied by the Germans began.
“Confined within sixteenth-century borders, cut off from the Black and Baltic Seas, and deprived of the land and mineral wealth of the South and Southeast, Russia could easily have become a second-rate power, unable to seriously threaten Poland's newfound independence. Poland, as the largest and strongest of the new states, could easily secure for itself a sphere of influence that would extend from Finland to the Caucasus Mountains,” said Jozef Pilsudski, in turn.
A clash between the two states became inevitable.

Part 4. War and Peace

It must be understood that within the framework of the “world revolution,” the Bolsheviks viewed their movement to the west not as the seizure of new territories, but as the liberation of workers and peasants.
We should not forget that there were many Polish socialists in Soviet Russia, the most famous of whom was the head of the Cheka, Felix Dzerzhinsky.
The parties were guided by completely different principles, but this did not make the conflict any less “hot.”
The Soviet-Polish war of 1919-1921 was fierce. The situation changed like in a kaleidoscope. In August 1919, the Poles occupied Minsk, and in May 1920 they entered Kyiv. However, this was followed by a large-scale offensive by the Red Army, during which the Poles were not only thrown back, but also Soviet troops entered Polish territory.
However, the Red Army under the command of Mikhail Tukhachevsky suffered a crushing defeat on the outskirts of Warsaw in August 1920, which went down in Polish history as the “Miracle on the Vistula”.

In October 1920, at the cost of heavy losses, the Poles reoccupied Minsk. But by this time the forces of the parties were exhausted. A truce was concluded, which in March 1921 was transformed into the Riga Peace Treaty.
According to it, the territories of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus were transferred to Poland. The Soviet side agreed to return to Poland military trophies, all scientific and cultural values taken from the territory of Poland starting from January 1, 1772, and also undertook to pay Poland 30 million gold rubles within a year for Poland’s contribution to the economic life of the Russian Empire and transfer property to the Polish side in the amount of 18 million gold rubles.
Poland, in turn, recognized the sovereignty of the Ukrainian and Byelorussian SSR (to which Minsk was returned). The parties agreed not to engage in hostile activities towards each other.

Part 5. “Curzon Line”, or Polish Debt

The Soviet-Polish war, objectively speaking, ended in the defeat of the Bolsheviks. But we must keep in mind that Soviet Russia was waging a “war on two fronts,” continuing the fight against the whites in the south of the country. In addition, the Polish authorities relied on the support of Great Britain and France, who considered Warsaw as a counterweight to the Bolsheviks.
At the same time, Poland also did not achieve all the territorial acquisitions it sought.
It is impossible not to mention such an important point as the “Curzon Line”. In December 1919, the Entente Supreme Council recommended the line along which Poland's eastern border should run. The line basically corresponds to the ethnographic principle: to the west of it there were lands with a predominance of the Polish population, to the east - territories with a predominance of non-Polish (Lithuanian, Belarusian, Ukrainian) populations.
In December 1919, Warsaw simply ignored this line, but when in the summer of 1920 the Red Army began to approach the capital of Poland, the country's authorities agreed to recognize it. British Foreign Minister Lord Curzon, in a note sent to the government of the RSFSR, demanded that the Red Army units be stopped on this line. Thanks to this note, the border proposed by the Entente began to be called the “Curzon Line”. The Soviet government did not accept Lord Curzon’s demand, and the subsequent new turn in the war led to the fact that the Polish border under the Treaty of Riga passed significantly east of the “Curzon Line”. This is important to remember for understanding subsequent events.

British Foreign Secretary 1919–1924 George Curzon.

Part 6. Peaceful life on a powder keg

The peace treaty of 1921 did not bring real peace. Skirmishes on the border occurred constantly, periodically resulting in serious battles. This was explained both by the fact that the border was not demarcated and by the fact that an impressive number of White emigrants were concentrated on Polish territory, whom Polish intelligence actively used in its operations.
And the status of the Soviet state in the international arena was uncertain. In the West, the positions of those who believed it was necessary to overthrow the power of the Bolsheviks through military intervention were strong.
The Soviet intelligence services also did not sit idle. The Main Political Directorate (GPU) under the NKVD, which replaced the Cheka, carried out operations against the leading White émigré groups.
At the same time, Moscow tried to improve relations with Warsaw. Attempts were made to interest the Poles in cultural and economic ties, but little success was achieved in this matter.
However, by 1924, Poland nevertheless expelled the most active part of the representatives of the Russian emigration and white military formations from its territory. Work was carried out to demarcate the border.
Józef Piłsudski transferred power to an elected president in 1922. However, four years later, in conditions of political and economic crisis, Pilsudski carried out a coup d'état. An authoritarian regime was established in Poland, under which Ignacy Moscicki formally became president, but Pilsudski himself remained the real leader.
The situation in relations between the two countries remained explosive. On June 7, 1927, at the train station in Warsaw, White emigrant Boris Koverda shot and killed USSR Plenipotentiary Pyotr Voikov. Attacks on Soviet diplomats and the premises of diplomatic missions continued after this outrageous incident.
Soviet diplomats working in Poland reported to Moscow about the threat of a military invasion from Warsaw. The fears were not in vain - at that time in continental Europe, perhaps only France had a stronger army.

The funeral procession carries the coffin with the body of the Soviet ambassador to Poland Pyotr Voikov, who was killed in Warsaw.

Part 7. Warsaw is betting on Hitler

But in the early 1930s the situation began to change and relations improved.
Firstly, it became obvious that the Bolsheviks in the Soviet Union not only confidently gained a foothold in power, but were also successfully developing the economy and military potential of the state. Secondly, despite periodic crises, Western countries came to terms with the existence of the USSR, which gradually fit into the system of international relations. Under these conditions, Poland became interested in good neighborly relations with Moscow.
On June 15, 1931, the USSR and Poland concluded a Treaty of Friendship and Trade Cooperation, and on January 25, 1932 they signed a Non-Aggression Treaty.
But the improvement was short-lived. In 1933, the Nazis came to power in Germany, and Poland soon made a sharp turn, reorienting itself from London and Paris to Berlin.
The Soviet Union, alarmed by Hitler's rise to power, probed the waters in Warsaw with a view to concluding an anti-Nazi treaty, but was refused.
On January 26, 1934, Poland and Germany signed a Non-Aggression Pact for a period of 10 years. On November 4, 1935, they signed an Agreement on Economic Cooperation.
The entire European security system, built by London and Paris after the First World War, collapsed. Poland entered into a close alliance with a state that did not hide its aggressive plans.
Moscow also did not expect anything good from this union. The Soviet leaders, of course, knew Hitler’s work, so they had an idea of where Germany intended to go in search of a new “living space.”
In Poland, Goebbels and Goering were received on a grand scale, counting on the fact that Warsaw would “share a share” in Hitler’s future conquests.

Part 8. Munich agreement: a piece of the pie for Poland

Some may probably think that this is a thickening of colors. But Winston Churchill put it even harsher, comparing Poland to a hyena.
This happened several years later, after Poland received its “piece of the pie” as a result of the Munich Agreement. While Nazi Germany occupied the Sudetenland and then the entire remaining territory of the Czech Republic and Moravia, Poland occupied the Cieszyn region of destroyed Czechoslovakia.
In September 1938, when the Munich Agreement had not yet been concluded, the Soviet Union, which had concentrated troops on the border with Poland, expressed its readiness to come to the aid of Czechoslovakia, thus fulfilling the provisions of the previously concluded agreement.
In response to this, the Polish government announced that it would not allow Red Army units through its territory, and if Moscow nevertheless tried to send troops, the Polish authorities would immediately declare war on the Soviet Union.
On September 23, 1938, Moscow warned Warsaw that if the latter attempted to occupy part of Czechoslovakia, the non-aggression treaty would be annulled.
But on September 30, 1938, the Munich Agreement was signed, Czechoslovakia surrendered without a fight, and Poland received the Cieszyn region.
The USSR did not break the Non-Aggression Pact with Poland - after the actual surrender of Czechoslovakia, this no longer made sense.
But the Soviet government realized that in the current conditions there was practically no chance of creating an anti-Hitler coalition in Europe, and it was necessary to act, thinking only about their own interests. In Warsaw they celebrated and made new grandiose plans.
The Polish envoy to Iran, J. Karsho-Sedlevsky, in a conversation with a German diplomat in December 1938, states: “The political prospects for the European East are clear. In a few years, Germany will be at war with the Soviet Union, and Poland will support Germany, voluntarily or forcedly, in this war. It is better for Poland to definitely take the side of Germany before the conflict, since Poland’s territorial interests in the west and Poland’s political goals in the east, especially in Ukraine, can only be ensured through a previously reached Polish-German agreement.”
From the report of the 2nd department (intelligence department) of the main headquarters of the Polish Army in December 1938: “The dismemberment of Russia lies at the basis of Polish policy in the East... Therefore, our possible position will be reduced to the following formula: who will take part in the division. Poland must not remain passive at this remarkable historical moment. The task is to prepare well in advance physically and spiritually... The main goal is the weakening and defeat of Russia.”
In January 1939, Polish Foreign Minister Jozef Beck, in a conversation with German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, said: “Poland lays claim to Soviet Ukraine and access to the Black Sea.”

Comrade Stalin's flanking maneuver

But in March 1939, a new turn occurred. Hitler put forward a proposal to Poland: to agree to the inclusion of the city of Danzig in Germany and to the creation of an extraterritorial corridor that would connect Germany with East Prussia. In exchange for the “Danzig Corridor,” Germany offered to extend the Treaty of Friendship for 25 years.
In Poland, however, they decided not to make concessions and rushed into the arms of their former allies - France and Great Britain. On March 28, 1939, Hitler broke the Non-Aggression Pact with Poland. On March 31, 1939, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain announced Anglo-French military guarantees for Poland in connection with the threat of aggression from Germany.
This is where Winston Churchill spoke: “And now, when all these advantages and all this help have been lost and discarded, England, leading France, offers to guarantee the integrity of Poland - the same Poland that just six months ago with the greed of a hyena took part in the robbery and destruction of the Czechoslovak state."
Throughout the spring and summer of 1939, the Soviet Union negotiated an anti-Hitler agreement with Great Britain and France. On the part of the Western powers, representatives of not the highest rank participated in the negotiations, and the impression was created that France and England were not very interested in the agreement.
The political configuration in Europe was such that the USSR could be left alone in the war against the Third Reich, which could begin in the coming months. But Moscow needed to buy time. On August 23, 1939, the Soviet Union was the last European power to reach an agreement with Hitler, signing the Non-Aggression Pact.

Part 10, final. Goodbye "hyena"

Did this give Germany a free hand regarding Poland? Yes and no. After all, the guarantors of its integrity were primarily France and Great Britain, and not the Soviet Union. And why on earth, given the entire history of relations since 1918, should Moscow, figuratively speaking, pull chestnuts out of the fire for Warsaw?
On September 1, 1939, Germany attacked Poland. France and Great Britain, having formally declared war on Berlin, did not lift a finger in order to save the Poles from defeat.
On the night of September 17, 1939, the Polish government, led by President Ignacy Moscicki, fled the country to Romania. At dawn on September 17, Soviet troops entered the territory of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus. They walked to the “Curzon Line” - the border designated by the Entente back in 1919. The operation was completed on September 29, 1939.
The Second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth virtually ceased to exist.

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 to a 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 the 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 most of the 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 casualties 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.

There are things you shouldn't forget...
The joint Nazi-Soviet attack on Poland escalated into World War II. And if the aggression of the Nazis received a proper assessment at the Nuremberg trials, then Soviet crimes against the Poles were hushed up and remained unpunished. However, Soviet crimes came back to haunt the shame and bitterness of 1941.
And it’s worth looking at the events of 1939 through the eyes of the Poles:

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

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

It was four o'clock in the morning on September 17, 1939, when the Red Army began to implement order No. 16634, which the People's Commissar of Defense Marshal Kliment Voroshilov had issued the day before. The order was brief: “Start the offensive at dawn on the 17th.”
Soviet troops, consisting of six armies, formed two fronts - Belarusian and Ukrainian - and launched a massive attack on eastern Polish territories.
620 thousand soldiers, 4,700 tanks and 3,300 aircraft were thrown into the attack, that is, twice as many as the Wehrmacht had, which attacked Poland on September 1st.

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

Soviet soldiers killed Polish prisoners, destroyed civilians, burned and robbed. Behind the linear units were the NKVD operational groups, whose task was to eliminate the “Polish enemy” in the rear of the Soviet front. They were entrusted with the task of taking control of the most important elements of the infrastructure of the Polish state in the territories occupied by the Red Army. They occupied buildings of government agencies, banks, printing houses, newspaper offices; securities, archives and cultural property were confiscated; arrested Poles on the basis of lists prepared in advance and current denunciations of their agents; employees of Polish services, parliamentarians, members of Polish parties and public organizations were caught and recorded. Many were killed immediately, without even having a chance to get into Soviet prisons and camps, maintaining at least a theoretical chance of survival.

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

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

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

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

In Polesie Voivodeship, Soviet soldiers shot an entire captured company of the Sarny Border Guard Corps battalion - 280 people. A brutal murder also occurred in Velyki Mosty, Lviv Voivodeship. Soviet soldiers herded the cadets of the local School of Police Officers to the square, listened to the report of the school commandant and shot everyone present from machine guns placed around. No one survived. From one Polish detachment that fought in the vicinity of Vilnius and laid down their arms in exchange for a promise to let the soldiers go home, all the officers were withdrawn and were immediately executed. The same thing happened in Grodno, taking which Soviet troops killed about 300 Polish defenders of the city. On the night of September 26-27, Soviet troops entered Nemiruwek, Chelm region, where several dozen cadets spent the night. They were captured, tied with barbed wire and bombarded with grants. The police who defended Lviv were shot on the highway leading to Vinniki. Similar executions took place in Novogrudok, Ternopil, Volkovysk, Oshmyany, Svisloch, Molodechno, Khodorov, Zolochev, Stryi. Individual and mass killings of Polish military prisoners were carried out in hundreds of other cities in the eastern regions of Poland. The Soviet military also abused the wounded. This happened, for example, during the battle of Wytyczno, when several dozen wounded prisoners were placed in the building of the People's House in Włodawa and locked there without providing any assistance. Two days later, almost everyone died from their wounds, their bodies were burned at the stake.
Polish prisoners of war under the escort of the Red Army after the Polish campaign in September 1939

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

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

Crime against Poles
During the era of the Polish People's Republic, they tried to convince the Poles that on September 17, 1939, there was a “peaceful” entry of Soviet troops to protect the Belarusian and Ukrainian population living on the eastern borders of the Polish Republic. However, it was a brutal attack that violated the provisions of the 1921 Treaty of Riga and the 1932 Polish-Soviet non-aggression pact.
The Red Army that entered Poland did not take into account international law. It was not only about the capture of the eastern Polish regions as part of the implementation of the provisions of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact signed on August 23, 1939. Having invaded Poland, the USSR began to implement the plan to exterminate the Poles, which originated in the 20s. First, the liquidation had to affect the “leading elements”, which should be deprived of influence on the masses and rendered harmless as quickly as possible. The masses, in turn, were planned to be resettled deep into the Soviet Union and turned into slaves of the empire. This was real revenge for the fact that Poland held back the advance of communism in 1920. Soviet aggression was an invasion of barbarians who killed prisoners and civilians, terrorized civilians, and destroyed and desecrated everything they associated with Poland. The entire free world, for which the Soviet Union had always been a convenient ally that helped defeat Hitler, did not want to know anything about this barbarity. And that is why Soviet crimes in Poland have not yet received condemnation and punishment!
Invasion of the Barbarians (Leszek Pietrzak, "Uwazam Rze", Poland)

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

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

When the Red Army crossed the Soviet-Polish border on September 17, 1939, the bulk of the armed forces of the Second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth were fighting 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 of 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 the 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, units that arrived in the east to reorganize after heavy battles with the Germans, as well as newly formed territorial divisions, were involved in combat operations against Soviet units in the first days of the Soviet invasion. 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 of 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 district, Minsk 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:

Paweł Piotr Wieczorkiewicz, Kampania 1939 roku, Krajowa Agencja Wydawnicza, Warszawa 2001
Rajmund Szubański, Plan operation "Wschód" Warsaw 1994
Dr Jerzy Prochwicz, Walki oddziałów KOP na obszarach północno-wschodniej Polski http://kamunikat.fontel.net/www/czasopisy/bzh/13/13art_prochwicz.htm
Toland, John. Adolf Gitler. Chapter “A disaster such as history has never known (August 24 – September 3, 1939)”
Krivosheev G.F. Russia and the USSR in the wars of the 20th century: losses of the armed forces. Statistical research. Liberation campaign in Western Ukraine and Western Belarus http://rus-sky.com/history/library/w/w04.htm#007
Newspaper PRAVDA, December 23, 1939 and December 25, 1939 http://www.histdoc.net/history/ru/stalin60.htm
Potemkin V.P. History of diplomacy. diphis.ru

September 1, 1939. This is the day of the beginning of the greatest catastrophe, which claimed tens of millions of human lives, destroyed thousands of cities and villages and ultimately led to a new redistribution of the world. It was on this day that the troops of Nazi Germany crossed the western border of Poland. The Second World War began.

And on September 17, 1939, from the east, Soviet troops struck the back of defending Poland. Thus began the final partition of Poland, which was the result of a criminal conspiracy between the two greatest totalitarian regimes of the 20th century - Nazi and communist. The joint parade of Soviet and Nazi troops on the streets of occupied Polish Brest in 1939 became a shameful symbol of this conspiracy.

Before the storm

The end of the First World War and the Treaty of Versailles created even more contradictions and points of tension in Europe than before. And if we add to this the rapid strengthening of the communist Soviet Union, which, in fact, was turned into a giant weapons factory, then it becomes clear that a new war on the European continent was almost inevitable.

After World War I, Germany was crushed and humiliated: it was prohibited from having a normal army and navy, it lost significant territories, huge reparations caused economic collapse and poverty. This policy of the victorious states was extremely short-sighted: it was clear that the Germans, a talented, hardworking and energetic nation, would not tolerate such humiliation and would strive for revenge. And so it happened: in 1933, Hitler came to power in Germany.

Poland and Germany

After the end of the Great War, Poland regained its statehood. In addition, the Polish state has still seriously “grown” with new lands. Part of Poznan and the Pomeranian lands, which were previously part of Prussia, went to Poland. Danzig received the status of a “free city”. Part of Silesia became part of Poland, and the Poles forcibly captured part of Lithuania along with Vilnius.

Poland, together with Germany, took part in the annexation of Czechoslovakia, which in no way can be considered an action worth being proud of. In 1938, the Cieszyn region was annexed under the pretext of protecting the Polish population.

In 1934, a ten-year Non-Aggression Pact was signed between the countries, and a year later - an agreement on economic cooperation. In general, it should be noted that with Hitler’s rise to power, German-Polish relations improved significantly. But it didn't last long.

In March 1939, Germany demanded that Poland return Danzig to it, join the Anti-Comintern Pact and provide a land corridor for Germany to the Baltic coast. Poland did not accept this ultimatum and early in the morning of September 1, German troops crossed the Polish border and Operation Weiss began.

Poland and the USSR

Relations between Russia and Poland have traditionally been difficult. After the end of the First World War, Poland gained independence and the Soviet-Polish War began almost immediately. Fortune was changeable: first the Poles reached Kyiv and Minsk, and then the Soviet troops reached Warsaw. But then there was the “miracle on the Vistula” and the complete defeat of the Red Army.

According to the Treaty of Riga, the western parts of Belarus and Ukraine were part of the Polish state. The country's new eastern border ran along the so-called Curzon Line. In the early 30s, a treaty of friendship and cooperation and a non-aggression agreement were signed. But, despite this, Soviet propaganda portrayed Poland as one of the main enemies of the USSR.

Germany and USSR

Relations between the USSR and Germany during the period between the two world wars were contradictory. Already in 1922, an agreement on cooperation between the Red Army and the Reichswehr was signed. Germany had serious restrictions under the Treaty of Versailles. Therefore, part of the development of new weapons systems and training of personnel was carried out by the Germans on the territory of the USSR. A flight school and a tank school were opened, among whose graduates were the best German tank crews and pilots of the Second World War.

After Hitler came to power, relations between the two countries deteriorated, and military-technical cooperation was curtailed. Germany again began to be portrayed by official Soviet propaganda as an enemy of the USSR.

On August 23, 1939, a Non-Aggression Pact was signed between Germany and the USSR in Moscow. In essence, in this document, two dictators Hitler and Stalin divided Eastern Europe between themselves. According to the secret protocol of this document, the territories of the Baltic countries, as well as Finland, and parts of Romania were included in the sphere of interests of the USSR. Eastern Poland belonged to the Soviet sphere of influence, and its western part was supposed to go to Germany.

Attack

On September 1, 1939, German aircraft began bombing Polish cities, and ground forces crossed the border. The invasion was preceded by several provocations on the border. The invasion force consisted of five army groups and a reserve. Already on September 9, the Germans reached Warsaw, and the battle for the Polish capital began, which lasted until September 20.

On September 17, meeting practically no resistance, Soviet troops entered Poland from the east. This immediately made the position of the Polish troops almost hopeless. On September 18, the Polish high command crossed the Romanian border. Individual pockets of Polish resistance remained until the beginning of October, but this was already agony.

Part of the Polish territories, which were previously part of Prussia, went to Germany, and the rest was divided into general governorships. Polish territories captured by the USSR became part of Ukraine and Belarus.

Poland suffered huge losses during World War II. The invaders banned the Polish language, all national educational and cultural institutions, and newspapers were closed. Representatives of the Polish intelligentsia and Jews were massacred. In the territories occupied by the USSR, Soviet punitive agencies worked tirelessly. Tens of thousands of captured Polish officers were killed in Katyn and other similar places. Poland lost about 6 million people during the war.