IX. ERIVAN CAMPAIGN Among the Transcaucasian wars of Prince Tsitsianov, the campaign near Erivan occupies, perhaps, the most prominent place. If the intended goal was not achieved, then there is no doubt that the reason for this lay in the unexpected difficulties encountered under

XXXI. UNSUCCESSFUL TRIP TO ADJARIA We left Adzharia, Akhaltsikhe, Guria and Kobuleti at the very beginning of the 1829 campaign of the year, when the victory at Liman calmed the Kobuletians, and the defeat at Digur cooled the ardor of the Adjarian bek.

Crusade There are two books on my desk. The novel by the famous American writer Kurt Vonnegut "Slaughterhouse Five, or the Children's Crusade" and the solid work of the Englishman David Irving "The Destruction of Dresden" (1963). The first book is a direct testimony of an eyewitness,

46. ​​Campaign A military campaign is not an easy task. Passing through a dangerous place, you need to beware of an enemy ambush. When crossing a water stream, you need to remember that the enemy can attack at any moment. During the day you should be wary of a sudden attack. Need to be at night

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Soviet-Polish war against the backdrop of fratricidal strife in Russia
Soviet-Polish war 1919–1920 was part of a large Civil War on the territory of the former Russian Empire. But on the other hand, this war was perceived by the Russian people - both those who fought for the Reds and those who fought on the side of the Whites - precisely as a war with an external enemy.

New Poland "from sea to sea"

This duality has been created by history itself. Before the First World War, most of Poland was Russian territory, other parts of it belonged to Germany and Austria - an independent Polish state did not exist for almost a century and a half. It is noteworthy that with the outbreak of World War II, both the tsarist government and the Germans and Austrians officially promised the Poles after the victory to recreate an independent Polish monarchy. As a result, thousands of Poles in 1914-1918 fought on both sides of the front.

The political fate of Poland was predetermined by the fact that in 1915 the Russian army, under pressure from the enemy, was forced to retreat from the Vistula to the east. The entire Polish territory was under the control of the Germans, and in November 1918, after the surrender of Germany, power over Poland automatically passed to Jozef Pilsudski.

This Polish nationalist was engaged in anti-Russian struggle for a quarter of a century, with the outbreak of World War I he formed the “Polish Legions” - volunteer detachments as part of the Austro-Hungarian troops. After the surrender of Germany and Austria, the "legionnaires" became the basis of the new Polish government, and Pilsudski officially received the title of "Head of State", that is, dictator. At the same time, the new Poland, headed by a military dictator, was supported by the winners in the First World War, primarily France and the United States.

Paris hoped to make from Poland a counterbalance to both the defeated but not reconciled Germany, and Russia, in which the power of the Bolsheviks, incomprehensible and dangerous for the Western European elites, appeared. The United States, for the first time realizing its increased power, saw in the new Poland a convenient opportunity to extend its influence to the very center of Europe.

Taking advantage of this support and the general turmoil that engulfed the central countries of Europe after the end of the First World War, the revived Poland immediately came into conflict with all its neighbors over borders and territories. In the west, the Poles began armed conflicts with the Germans and Czechs, the so-called "Silesian uprising", and in the east - with the Lithuanians, the Ukrainian population of Galicia (Western Ukraine) and Soviet Belarus.

For the new, extremely nationalistic authorities of Warsaw, the troubled times of 1918-1919, when there were no stable authorities and states in the center of Europe, seemed very convenient to restore the borders of the ancient Commonwealth, the Polish empire of the 16th-17th centuries, stretching od morza do morza - from sea ​​and to the sea, that is, from the Baltic to the Black Sea coast.

The beginning of the Soviet-Polish war

No one declared a war between nationalist Poland and the Bolsheviks - in the context of widespread uprisings and political chaos, the Soviet-Polish conflict began without prior notice. Germany, which occupied the Polish and Belarusian lands, capitulated in November 1918. And a month later, Soviet troops moved into the territory of Belarus from the east, and Polish troops from the west.

In February 1919, in Minsk, the Bolsheviks proclaimed the creation of the "Lithuanian-Belarusian Soviet socialist republic”, and in the same days the first battles of the Soviet and Polish troops began on these lands. Both sides tried to quickly correct the chaotically folding borders in their favor.

The Poles were more fortunate then - by the summer of 1919, all the forces of the Soviet government were diverted to the war with the White armies of Denikin, who launched a decisive offensive on the Don and in the Donbass. By that time, the Poles had captured Vilnius, the western half of Belarus and all of Galicia (that is, western Ukraine, where Polish nationalists fiercely suppressed the uprising of Ukrainian nationalists for six months).

The Soviet government then several times offered Warsaw to officially conclude a peace treaty on the terms of the actually formed border. It was extremely important for the Bolsheviks to free up all their forces to fight Denikin, who had already issued the “Moscow directive” - an order for a general attack by the Whites on the old Russian capital.

Soviet poster. Photo: cersipamantromanesc.wordpress.com

In August 1919, the advancing White armies occupied the ancient Russian capital of Kyiv, while the advancing Poles captured Minsk. Soviet Moscow found itself between two fires, and in those days it seemed to many that the days of Bolshevik power were numbered. Indeed, in the event of joint action by the Whites and the Poles, the defeat of the Soviet armies would have been inevitable.

In September 1919, the Polish embassy arrived in Taganrog at the headquarters of General Denikin, met with great solemnity. The mission from Warsaw was led by General Alexander Karnitsky, Knight of St. George and former Major General of the Imperial Russian Army.

Despite the solemn meeting and the mass of compliments that the white leaders and representatives of Warsaw expressed to each other, the negotiations dragged on for many months. Denikin asked the Poles to continue their offensive to the east against the Bolsheviks, General Karnitsky suggested first to decide on the future border between Poland and the "United Indivisible Russia", which would be formed after the victory over the Bolsheviks.

Poles between reds and whites

While negotiations were underway with the Whites, the Polish troops stopped the offensive against the Reds. After all, the victory of the Whites threatened the appetites of the Polish nationalists in relation to the Russian lands. Pilsudski and Denikin were supported and supplied with weapons by the Entente (an alliance of France, England and the USA), and if the Whites succeeded, it would be the Entente that would become the arbiter on border issues between Poland and “white” Russia. And Pilsudski would have had to make concessions - Paris, London and Washington, the winners in the First World War, having become the arbiters of the fate of Europe at that time, had already determined the so-called Curzon Line, the future border between the restored Poland and Russian territories. Lord Curzon, head of the British Foreign Office, drew this line along the ethnic border between Catholic Poles, Uniate Galicians and Orthodox Belarusians.

Pilsudski understood that in the event of the capture of Moscow by the Whites and negotiations under the patronage of the Entente, he would have to cede to Denikin part of the occupied lands in Belarus and Ukraine. The Bolsheviks were outcasts for the Entente. The Polish nationalist Pilsudski decided to wait until the Red Russians pushed the White Russians back to the outskirts (so that the White Guards would lose influence and no longer compete with the Poles in the eyes of the Entente), and then start a war against the Bolsheviks with the full support of the leading Western states. It was this option that promised the Polish nationalists the maximum bonuses in case of victory - the capture of vast Russian territories, up to the restoration of the Commonwealth from the Baltic to the Black Sea!

While the former tsarist generals Denikin and Karnitsky were wasting time on polite and fruitless negotiations in Taganrog, on November 3, 1919, a secret meeting took place between representatives of Pilsudski and Soviet Moscow. The Bolsheviks managed to find the right person for these negotiations - the Polish revolutionary Julian Markhlevsky, who had known Pilsudski since the time of the anti-tsarist uprisings of 1905.

At the insistence of the Polish side, no written agreements were concluded with the Bolsheviks, but Piłsudski agreed to stop the advance of his armies to the east. Secrecy became the main condition of this oral agreement between the two states - the fact of Warsaw's agreement with the Bolsheviks was carefully hidden from Denikin, and mainly from England, France and the United States, which provided political and military support to Poland.

Polish troops continued local battles and skirmishes with the Bolsheviks, but Piłsudski's main forces remained motionless. The Soviet-Polish war froze for several months. The Bolsheviks, knowing that in the near future there was no need to fear a Polish attack on Smolensk, almost all their forces and reserves were transferred against Denikin. By December 1919, the White armies were defeated by the Reds, and the Polish embassy of General Karnitsky left the headquarters of General Denikin. On the territory of Ukraine, the Poles took advantage of the retreat of the White troops and occupied a number of cities.

Polish trenches in Belarus during the battle on the Neman. Photo: istoria.md

Both the Bolsheviks and the Poles understood that the informal truce in the autumn of 1919 was a temporary phenomenon. After the defeat of Denikin's troops, it was Pilsudski who became for the Entente the main and only force capable of resisting "Red Moscow" in Eastern Europe. The Polish dictator skillfully took advantage of this circumstance by bargaining large military aid from the West.

In the spring of 1920, France alone supplied Poland with 1,494 guns, 2,800 machine guns, 385,000 rifles, about 700 aircraft, 200 armored vehicles, 576 million rounds of ammunition and 10 million shells. At the same time, many thousands of machine guns, more than 200 armored vehicles and tanks, more than 300 aircraft, 3 million sets of uniforms, 4 million pairs of soldiers' shoes, a large amount of medicines, field communications equipment and other military equipment were delivered to Poland by American ships from the USA.

By April 1920, the Polish troops on the borders with Soviet Russia consisted of six separate armies, fully manned and well-armed. The Poles had a particularly serious advantage in the number of machine guns and artillery pieces, and Pilsudski's army absolutely outnumbered the Reds in aviation and armored vehicles.

Having waited for the final defeat of Denikin and thus becoming the main ally of the Entente in Eastern Europe, Pilsudski decided to continue the Soviet-Polish war. Relying on weapons generously supplied by the West, he hoped to quickly defeat the main forces of the Red Army, weakened by long battles with the Whites, and force Moscow to cede all the lands of Ukraine and Belarus to Poland. Since the defeated Whites were no longer a serious political force, Pilsudski had no doubt that the Entente would prefer to give these vast Russian territories under the control of the allied Warsaw, rather than see them under the rule of the Bolsheviks.

On April 17, 1920, the Polish "Head of State" approved the plan to capture Kyiv. And on April 25, Pilsudski's troops launched a general offensive on Soviet territory.

This time, the Poles did not drag out the negotiations and quickly concluded a military-political alliance against the Bolsheviks, both with the whites who remained in the Crimea, and with the Ukrainian nationalists of Petliura. Indeed, in the new conditions of 1920, it was Warsaw that was main force in such unions.

The head of the Whites in the Crimea, General Wrangel, bluntly stated that Poland now has the most powerful army in Eastern Europe (at that time 740 thousand soldiers) and it is necessary to create a "Slavic front" against the Bolsheviks. An official representative office of the white Crimea was opened in Warsaw, and the so-called 3rd Russian Army began to form on the territory of Poland itself (the first two armies were in Crimea), which was created by the former terrorist revolutionary Boris Savinkov, who knew Pilsudski from the pre-revolutionary underground.

The fighting was carried out on a huge front from the Baltic to Romania. The main forces of the Red Army were still in the North Caucasus and Siberia, where they finished off the remnants of the White armies. The rear of the Soviet troops was also weakened by peasant uprisings against the policy of "war communism".

On May 7, 1920, the Poles occupied Kyiv - this was already the 17th change of power in the city in the last three years. The first blow of the Poles was successful, they captured tens of thousands of Red Army soldiers and created an extensive bridgehead on the left bank of the Dnieper for further offensive.

Tukhachevsky's counteroffensive

But the Soviet government was able to quickly transfer reserves to the Polish front. At the same time, the Bolsheviks skillfully used patriotic sentiments in Russian society. If the defeated Whites agreed to a forced alliance with Pilsudski, then the broad sections of the Russian population perceived the invasion of the Poles and the capture of Kyiv as external aggression.

Sending mobilized communists to the front against the White Poles. Petrograd, 1920. Reproduction. Photo: RIA

On June 2, 1920, the Soviet government issued a decree "On the release from liability of all White Guard officers who will help in the war with Poland." As a result, thousands of Russian people volunteered to join the Red Army and went to fight on the Polish front.

The Soviet government was able to quickly transfer reserves to the Ukraine and Belarus. In the Kiev direction, the cavalry army of Budyonny became the main striking force of the counteroffensive, and in Belarus divisions liberated after the defeat of the white troops of Kolchak and Yudenich went into battle against the Poles.

Piłsudski's headquarters did not expect that the Bolsheviks would be able to concentrate their troops so quickly. Therefore, despite the superiority of the enemy in technology, the Red Army again occupied Kyiv in June 1920, and Minsk and Vilnius in July. The uprisings of Belarusians in the Polish rear contributed to the Soviet offensive.

Piłsudski's troops were on the verge of defeat, which worried the Western patrons of Warsaw. First, a note from the British Foreign Office came out with a proposal for a truce, then the Polish ministers themselves turned to Moscow with a request for peace.

But here the sense of proportion betrayed the Bolshevik leaders. The success of the counter-offensive against Polish aggression gave rise among them to hope for proletarian uprisings in Europe and the victory of the world revolution. Leon Trotsky then bluntly offered to "probe the revolutionary situation in Europe with the Red Army bayonet."

The Soviet troops, despite losses and devastation in the rear, continued their decisive offensive with the last of their strength, trying to take Lvov and Warsaw in August 1920. The situation in Western Europe was then extremely difficult; after a devastating world war, all states, without exception, were shaken by revolutionary uprisings. In Germany and Hungary, local communists then quite realistically claimed power, and the appearance in the center of Europe of the victorious Red Army of Lenin and Trotsky could really change the entire geopolitical alignment.

As Mikhail Tukhachevsky, who commanded the Soviet offensive against Warsaw, later wrote: “There is no doubt that if we had won a victory on the Vistula, the revolution would have engulfed the entire European continent in flames.”

"Miracle on the Vistula"

In anticipation of victory, the Bolsheviks had already created their own Polish government - the "Provisional Revolutionary Committee of Poland", which was headed by communist Poles Felix Dzerzhinsky and Julian Marchlevsky (the one who negotiated an armistice with Pilsudski at the end of 1919). The famous cartoonist Boris Efimov has already prepared for the Soviet newspapers a poster "Warsaw taken by the Red Heroes."

Meanwhile, the West stepped up its military support for Poland. The actual commander of the Polish army was the French General Weygand, head of the Anglo-French military mission in Warsaw. Several hundred French officers with extensive experience in World War II became advisers in the Polish army, creating, in particular, a radio intelligence service, which by August 1920 had established the interception and decoding of Soviet radio communications.

On the side of the Poles, an American aviation squadron, financed and manned by pilots from the United States, actively fought. In the summer of 1920, the Americans successfully bombed Budyonny's advancing cavalry.

The Soviet troops that made their way to Warsaw and Lvov, despite the successful offensive, found themselves in an extremely difficult situation. They were hundreds of kilometers away from the supply bases, due to the devastation in the rear, they were not able to deliver replenishment and supplies on time. On the eve of the decisive battles for the Polish capital, many red regiments were reduced to 150-200 fighters, artillery lacked ammunition, and the few serviceable aircraft could not provide reliable reconnaissance and detect the concentration of Polish reserves.

But the Soviet command underestimated not only the purely military problems of the "campaign to the Vistula", but also the national moods of the Poles. Just as in Russia during the Polish invasion there was a reciprocal surge of Russian patriotism, so in Poland, when the Red troops reached Warsaw, a national upsurge began. This was facilitated by active Russophobic propaganda, which represented the advancing Red troops in the form of Asian barbarians (although the Poles themselves in that war were extremely far from humanism).

Polish volunteers in Lvov. Photo: althistory.wikia.com

The actions of the White troops of Wrangel also contributed to the weakening of the Soviet troops near Warsaw. In the summer of 1920, the Whites just launched their last offensive from the territory of the Crimea, capturing a vast territory between the Dnieper and Sea of ​​Azov and diverting the red reserves. Then the Bolsheviks, in order to free part of the forces and secure the rear from peasant uprisings, even had to make an alliance with the anarchists of Nestor Makhno.

If in the fall of 1919 Pilsudski's policy predetermined the defeat of the Whites in the attack on Moscow, then in the summer of 1920 it was Wrangel's strike that predetermined the defeat of the Reds in the attack on the Polish capital. As the former wrote tsarist general and the military theorist Svechin: "In the end, it was not Pilsudski who won the Warsaw operation, but Wrangel."

The Soviet troops defeated near Warsaw were partially captured, and partially retreated to the German territory of East Prussia. Near Warsaw alone, 60,000 Russians were captured, and in total, more than 100,000 people ended up in Polish prison camps. Of these, at least 70 thousand died in less than a year - this clearly characterizes the monstrous regime that the Polish authorities established for the prisoners, anticipating the Nazi concentration camps.

The fighting continued until October 1920. If during the summer the Red troops fought more than 600 km to the west, then in August-September the front again rolled back more than 300 km to the east. The Bolsheviks could still gather new forces against the Poles, but they chose not to risk it - they were increasingly distracted by the peasant uprisings that flared up throughout the country.

Pilsudski, after a costly success near Warsaw, also did not have sufficient forces for a new offensive against Minsk and Kyiv. Therefore, in Riga began peace talks that stopped the Soviet-Polish war. The final peace treaty was signed only on March 19, 1921. Initially, the Poles demanded from Soviet Russia monetary compensation of 300 million royal gold rubles, but during the negotiations they had to cut their appetites by exactly 10 times.

As a result of the war, the plans of neither Moscow nor Warsaw were realized. The Bolsheviks failed to create Soviet Poland, and Pilsudski's nationalists failed to recreate the ancient borders of the Commonwealth, which included all Belarusian and Ukrainian lands (Pilsudski's most zealous supporters even insisted on the "return" of Smolensk). However, the Poles returned to their power for a long time western lands Ukraine and Belarus. Until 1939, the Soviet-Polish border was only 30 km west of Minsk and was never peaceful.

In fact, the Soviet-Polish war of 1920 largely laid the foundation for the problems that "shot" in September 1939, contributing to the outbreak of World War II.

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What happened after the Red Army entered Poland in September 1939?

Interview with historian Alexander Guryanov, Chairman of the Polish Commission of the Memorial Society. This part of the interview is devoted to the events that followed the entry of the Red Army into the territory of the Polish state on September 17.

-Still, why was the decision made on the non-resistance of the Red Army?

I think it was based on a military assessment of the situation. But this decision was not unconditional. The troops were ordered not to resist if the Soviets did not try to disarm the army. Military units were to leave across the border to Romania and Hungary. And do not engage in battles with the Red Army, except in cases of disarmament attempts.

But besides the order, there was also a general mood of the troops. There was no morale to fight the Soviets. Any military action requires the psychological preparation of the troops, but it was not conducted. Back in the spring of 1939, after the German ultimatum, it was clear to the Polish leadership and army that war with Germany was inevitable. And psychological preparation was carried out to repel the Polish invasion.

In reality, the Red Army was opposed by the border troops, the border protection corps. A thin chain of outposts - they really put up resistance. And ours did not capture all of them. When the outpost was captured after a bloody battle, the officers were shot, and the privates were taken prisoner. This is described in memoirs. And then the order of the commander-in-chief simply did not reach the border guards. He did not reach many scattered army units that retreated from the Germans, leaving the encirclement, being in the western part of Belarus and Ukraine. For example, the Anders cavalry brigade, which tried to leave Belarus for Hungary. She started this movement even before our invasion. When the Red Army entered, the brigade rushed along the corridor between the two enemy armies, engaging in battles with both the Germans and ours. And already somewhere near Lvov Anders was wounded, the brigade laid down their arms. That is, in most cases, the Polish units did not clash with ours, but separate fights There were losses on both sides.

- The initial marking of the proposed zones of occupation (secret protocol) assumed that the indigenous regions of Poland also went to the Soviet Union. But the Soviet-German Treaty of Friendship and Borders of September 28, 1939 suggests a fundamentally different concept of division.

I think it was Stalin's idea to draw the border to the east. He could understand that this was fraught with big problems with the Polish underground, the Polish resistance. And to minimize their responsibility for the aggression against Poland. Then he did not just give up the Lublin Voivodeship, there was a profitable exchange for Lithuania. And the Germans still demanded money for themselves - 7 million gold rubles. And Hitler agreed to everything, because he clearly planned to take all the territories for himself in the future.

- What did the double occupation of Poland mean directly for the population of this country?

Poland, of course, fell under repression from both sides. Can they be considered balanced? For decades after the end of the war, Polish emigration historiography stuck to the figure of 2 million repressed by the Soviets (at first they talked about one and a half million), meaning those people who were Polish citizens on September 1. It was assumed that all types of repression were taken into account. And next to this, until the 90s, there was another figure, a figure-symbol - 6 million citizens of Poland, destroyed - precisely destroyed - by the Germans. It is clear that the round figure of 2 million was kept in order to somehow numerically correlate the losses from the Soviets with the losses from the Germans. The problem with these historians arose immediately. Back in 1941, when a turning point occurred in Soviet-Polish relations, and an amnesty was announced for all Polish citizens on the territory of the USSR, it turned out that for all categories of the repressed - special settlers, prisoners of concentration camps, prisoners of war - a total of 390 thousand turns out. converged. How did Polish historians get out of this contradiction? - they said that the rest died in a year and a half. There are 400 thousand left, and some more people whom the Soviets do not want to grant amnesty and are kept in special camps. The Polish historian Shchedletsky and other representatives of this school believed that 700-800 thousand died.

- What did they say about the causes of death? Did they assume still unknown executions, except for Katyn, death in the camps?

They did not try to specify, they only called total number dead. It turns out that I am now acting as a defender of Stalin, but when access to documents was opened in the 90s, it quickly became clear that the number of all those repressed was still 3-4 times less than Polish historians assumed. In the period from September 1939 to June 1941, a little less than half a million people were subjected to all types of repression in the territories occupied by the USSR. From 460 to 490 thousand, such a fork is obtained. Moreover, if we talk about people who lost their lives (precisely during this period), this is 58 thousand. 33 thousand were shot, the rest died in the camps and in the settlement.

- Nevertheless, these scales of repressions from the Soviet side are very high.

With German - for the same period they are many times, almost an order of magnitude larger. Hundreds of thousands of just executed. The well-known action AB, which coincided with Katyn (the question is always raised whether they were interconnected, planned) was not, unlike Katyn, directed at the military. Its object was intellectuals, officials, in general, the intellectual elite. There is no direct evidence that these stocks are related, only conjecture and speculation. There is minimal documentary evidence of two meetings held on the territory of Poland by representatives of the Gestapo and the NKVD. But not only the NKVD, the Foreign Ministry as well. I saw a photograph of these negotiators, where the central Soviet figure was not anyone, but Maxim Litvinov. Spring 1940. But there are no written documents. Only pictures - how the Soviet delegation was met in Krakow, how it was being taken to Zakopane. Where are the pictures from? - survived by the Germans, in 1945 they came to the allies.

- But still, in the autumn of 1939, there were agreements between the Gestapo and the NKVD on "countering Polish propaganda"?

On September 28, Germany and the USSR signed a Treaty of Friendship and Borders, which established these new borders, formalized the exchange of the Lublin Voivodeship for Lithuania. (Stalin's statement is well known - they say, we understand you, any military give away their booty with pain, so take it.) The agreement was accompanied by a secret protocol, according to which the parties were obliged to counteract "Polish agitation." This euphemism assumed that if there were attempts by the Poles to act against the Germans from the Soviet side of the border, we would stop them, but if there were Polish actions against the Soviets from the German side, then the Germans would stop them.

- Stopped?

It is known that from the very first weeks of the occupation, the Polish underground began to organize, both in the German and in the Soviet zone. Both the Germans and the Soviet Union fought this underground, and the successes of the NKVD were an order of magnitude higher than those of the Germans. In the German zone of occupation, the underground developed dynamically and rapidly, it was also possible to organize it in the Soviet zone, but it was all permeated with agents of the NKVD. In Western Belarus and Western Ukraine - up to the highest persons who were put in command of the underground.

-What were these agents? From the Polish communists?

There is no talk of communists. The Polish communists were defeated in 1938, and those of them who ended up in these territories (and they survived because they were not in the USSR in 1938) were sitting quieter than water, lower than grass. It is known that by the beginning of 1938 the Polish Communist Party had approximately 7,000 members. Of these, 5 thousand people were at that moment in the Soviet Union. Almost all without exception were repressed, the majority were shot, some were sent to camps. Those Polish communists who ended up on the territory of the USSR in 1939 did not advertise their ideological affiliation. After all, the Comintern dissolved the Polish Communist Party and announced that we, the Comintern, would consider any attempt to restore it as a provocation. As an attempt to infiltrate us, the Comintern, agents of the world bourgeoisie. For example, the communist Gomulka worked quietly in Bialystok as a plumber. So, returning to the topic of the Polish underground, the Soviet agents in it were not communists. The processing of agents was well done by the NKVD.

At the same time, the activities of the Gestapo and other German services in this sense turned out to be rather helpless. The Polish underground by 1944 had become such an impressive force, so impressive! It was an underground state with its own departments, a clear division into civil and military structures. The Home Army was not just an armed force, but part of this underground state.

- Among those repressed by the Soviets were not only Poles, but also representatives of other nations.

Yes, the territories annexed to the USSR in 1939 - 11 new regions (5 western regions of the Byelorussian SSR and 6 western regions of the Ukrainian SSR) were cut so that their eastern borders exactly coincided with the pre-war border of the USSR. In the summer of 1940, the Vilna Territory was added to them, in 1939 it was given to Lithuania, which now also became Soviet.

Ethnic composition of the population in these territories is not so easy to establish. There was no "nationality" column in Polish pre-war statistics. But there were two columns indirectly indicating nationality - "religion" and "language". The language that a person uses in everyday life.

Based on these statistics, Poles in the territories annexed to the USSR lived from 30 to 42-43 percent. According to religion (Roman Catholics) it is 30%, according to language - more than 40%. At the same time, in the Tarnopol and Lvov voivodeships, Poles accounted for more than half. But in the Volyn and Stanislav voivodships there were less than 20% of them, according to Polish statistics. And if we take the average statistics for all the new Soviet regions, Ukrainians are in second place. In total, from 12.5 to 13 million lived on these lands. At least a third of them were Poles. Meanwhile, Molotov, in his famous speech - this is when he called Poland "the ugly brainchild of the Treaty of Versailles" - declared that there were only 1 million Poles in these territories - an absolutely obvious fraud.

The national composition of the repressed in 1939-1941 is not proportional to the general structure of the population. The Poles made up something around 62-63%. Jews are in second place - about 22%. There are relatively few Ukrainians and Belarusians.

- This is understandable - those groups of the population, for the sake of which the Red Army allegedly came to liberate, showed less discontent, and the new authorities tried to irritate them less.

They were directed directly at them. However, Belarusians and Ukrainians also fell under deportations.

And there was an expulsion, 84% consisted of Jews - refugees from Central Poland. Those who fled from the Germans to the Soviet zone of occupation, and then, having lived for several months under the Soviets, not representing the order of the German occupation and the impending destruction, expressed a desire to return to the German zone, to the places from which they had fled. They wrote appropriate statements, and those whom the Germans did not accept were subjected to deportation. It was the expulsion on June 29, 1940, a total of 70-80 thousand people, of which more than 80% were Jews. They were sent for logging to the northern regions - Arkhangelsk, Komi, the Urals, beyond the Urals, to the same place where they sent the first and largest batch of exiled Poles - the so-called. "siegemen".

- Who are the "settlers"?

In Russian, the word "osadnik" is best translated as "colonist". The Soviet repressive machine first hit the so-called. military settlers. These were former servicemen, participants in the war of 1919-1920 with Soviet Russia. After the end of the war there was a mass demobilization. And the Polish government distributed large tracts of land to the demobilized precisely in the eastern territories. They had several goals in mind - firstly, to somehow arrange a mass of people who had become unnecessary for the army, and secondly, to strengthen Polish influence in areas dominated by Ukrainians and Belarusians. They handed out the lands of huge military training grounds, which were still left from the tsarist army and were not used for Agriculture. The osadniks had a head start over the local population - free land, various benefits, loans for the purchase of equipment, they constantly felt the support of the state, and the local population looked at this rather evil. But until the beginning of the 30s, relations with the surrounding population were quite correct, nothing foreshadowed an aggravation of relations. In the 1930s, the situation began to change. Mainly due to the development of the Ukrainian separatist movement in the east of the Polish state.

- It is clear that the settlers fell under repression, firstly, as a "Polish element", and as a "rural bourgeoisie" - "kulaks", secondly.

The main thing, of course, was that they were seen as a potential basis for Polish resistance. But there were few of them in this vast territory - 9 thousand families. And on February 10, 1940, nearly 27,000 families fell under deportation. It is clear that ours interpreted the term "siegeman" broadly. In the 1930s, civilian, non-military siegemen appeared. These were small-land peasants from Central Poland, who were resettled to the east, giving them the opportunity to buy land on favorable terms. In addition, military settlers sold or leased land to local residents. And these latter were also enlisted by the Soviets as siegemen. The forest guards were also added here - foresters of various ranks. All these people fell under the most massive expulsion in 1939-41 - 140 thousand in two weeks. And in the settlement, they all began to be called Polish settlers. Deported by families, with children.

-There is such an important issue as the Polish memory of these events. Until the end of the 80s, there was no official Polish historiography on this topic?

Not certainly in that way. There were Polish historians who were quite loyal to the “people's democracy” regime, who tried to study these topics, and even publish something “under camouflage”. All these movements and migrations were so massive - even half a million people, not two - that it was impossible to ignore them, various euphemisms were invented to explain them. It was impossible to pretend that nothing had happened.

Already during the war, when it became clear that post-war Poland would be under the control of the USSR, and the border would pass approximately along the Curzon line, the question arose about the Poles who remained east of this line. And there was an idea to resettle them in central, native Poland. In 1944, the new Polish government concluded the first of the treaties with the USSR, according to which the Poles were "repatriated" from Soviet territory, although, of course, this was not repatriation, but rather evacuation. The first wave - the end of 1945 and especially 1946 - amounted to about 1.5 million. Formally, it was a voluntary resettlement. In many places, the resettlement was situationally forced, while maintaining a formal voluntariness. But often the Poles had no choice. Especially in Ukraine, where ethnic cleansing carried out by Ukrainian nationalists during the German occupation became an important factor in "repatriation". The most famous is the "Volyn massacre", which in fact was not only Volyn, but also Galician. For many months, the UPA (Ukrainian Insurgent Army, "Bandera") carried out terrorist actions, the purpose of which was to clear these lands from the Poles. And the surviving Poles were so scared that after the war they rushed from there to Poland. But at the same time, there were Poles who considered it their duty to stay and defend this land as their homeland.

- Perhaps there were hopes for the return of the former borders?

There were hopes for the allies, for the third world. But the main argument was this: if we stay, we can preserve the Polish character of these lands. Most, of course, left. Clusters of Poles remained where there was no ethnic cleansing, in Belarus. In the Grodno region, Brest region, in the south-west of the Vitebsk region. Many remained in Lithuania, but the majority nevertheless left the Vilna region.

- Obviously, the taboo on the topic of the pact was lifted after the "velvet revolution" and the withdrawal of the USSR from Poland.

I would not say that the taboo of the pact came from the Soviet Union. I deeply disagree with the thesis that in 1944-1989 Poland was occupied. Its sovereignty was severely limited, but it is a strong simplification to consider that the entire Polish regime was supported by Soviet bayonets. Poland had its own elite, who believed that posing as communists and being friends with Soviet Union in the national interests of Poland. Its main thesis is that those who oppose friendship with the USSR harm Polish interests. This elite, first of all, arranged well-being for itself, but it relied on very broad sections of the population, who also arranged their own well-being. They raised it relatively to a rather beggarly level, but did not protest. And, despite the fact that internal indignation at the loss of sovereignty was stronger in Poland than in neighboring countries, most of its inhabitants during the Soviet decades were not very eager for upheavals. That is, I want to say: the assertion that only Soviet bayonets strangled Polish freedom is not true. But Soviet bayonets were implied.

And then, you say "velvet revolution". The revolution in Poland was more profound and less "velvet" than similar events in the GDR, Hungary or Czechoslovakia. Polish resistance to socialism dealt the very first and strong blow to the socialist system, I would say that it greatly contributed to the collapse of this system. I mean the activities of Solidarity, 1980-81.

Questions were asked by Dmitry Yermoltsev and Natalia Darsavelidze.

Interview prepared by Dmitry Ermoltsev

The ultimatum contained a demand to transfer the city of Danzig to Germany and a number of other provisions, the adoption of which would mean Poland's dependence on the "Third Reich".

Litvinov Maxim (1876-1951) Russian revolutionary, Soviet statesman and diplomat. In 1930-1939 People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs. Opponent of the Hitler regime, sought to create a system of " collective security" in Europe. A supporter of the union of the USSR and France against Nazi Germany. Removed from office by Stalin in May 1939, in view of the emerging rapprochement between the USSR and Germany.

Gomulka Vladislav (1905-1982). One of the leaders of post-war communist Poland, in 1956-1970 the head of the PZPR (Polish Workers' Party). He criticized the Stalinist model of communism, the ideologist of the doctrine of the "Polish path to communism", which suggested a less rigid socio-economic and political system than in the USSR.

This is the customary name for the dividing line, which was recommended in 1919 by the leadership of the Entente as the eastern border of independent Poland. During the Soviet-Polish war, the advancing Red Army crossed this border. On July 11, 1920, British Foreign Minister J. Curzon sent a note to Moscow demanding that troops be withdrawn behind the line, which has since received his name. Along the Curzon line, a border was established between the USSR and communist Poland. Since then, the Polish border has not changed.

Association of Polish trade unions, created in 1980. The leader was the Gdansk worker Lech Walesa. Solidarity led a powerful anti-communist movement, to which the government, led by Marshal Jaruzelski, responded in 1981 with the imposition of martial law and repression. The victory of Solidarity in the 1989 elections meant the collapse of the communist regime in Poland, Walesa became the first president of democratic Poland.

Reprisal against the USSR - premeditated murder Burovsky Andrey Mikhailovich

Soviet-Polish war of 1918–1920

As soon as a restored Poland arose, the Polish communists and anarchists immediately raised their uprisings. The first wanted to create their own state; others - to destroy the state as such. Both of them relied on Soviet Russia and waited for her help. It would seem that the Polish nationalists had something to do in the most indigenous Poland. But before they had time to strengthen their own state, they rushed to restore the Commonwealth - that is, their empire of the XVII-XVIII centuries.

The war with Poland in the east was fought by the forces of the Russian armies: and the Armed Forces of the South of Russia A.I. Denikin, and the Red Army.

You can describe this war for a long time, the feats and crimes committed in its course, tell how the front line rolled west and east many times ... There was a moment when the Red Army stood almost on the Vistula, in the native Polish lands, and rapidly marched on Warsaw. There was a moment when the Poles stood in Kyiv, and Pilsudski was quite seriously planning a horse raid on Moscow.

For a long time, from April to December 9, 1919, Soviet-Polish border negotiations dragged on. They didn't lead to anything.

But now this is not the main thing ... For our topic, it must be emphasized that the Polish army attacked the positions of the Red Army whenever the Red Army smashed Denikin and rolled south. And when Denikin beat the Reds and his army moved north, the Poles loomed menacingly over the rear of the White Army. Until the end of his days, A.I. Denikin was sure that the fateful campaign against Moscow in the autumn of 1919 was thwarted precisely by the operations of the Poles: at the decisive moment, they agreed with the Reds to conduct joint operations.

During the offensive of Denikin, the Poles stopped the war with the Reds. Denikin is negotiating with him: let Pilsudski continue operations against the 12th Army, even sluggish ones. At least for containment.

Pilsudski is negotiating with Denikin - obviously. But he secretly negotiated with Lenin a completely different kind. Through the head of the “Red Cross mission” Markhlevsky, a personal friend of Piłsudski and his colleague in the times of terrorism. Pilsudski's headquarters communicated with Markhlevsky and ordered that an oral note be handed over to the government of the Soviet Republic. It said: "Assistance to Denikin in his struggle does not correspond to the Polish state interests." And he pointed out: the blow of the Polish army to Mozyr could be decisive in Denikin's war with the Bolsheviks. But Poland did not deal this blow. Let the Bolsheviks believe him... The Communists assured Piłsudski that "the secret will be preserved inviolably." And kept until 1925. It was only after Markhlevsky's death that the Soviet press let it slip: it spoke verbosely about the merits of the deceased, including negotiations with Pilsudski.

The 12th Army wedged itself between the positions of the Poles and the Whites - a very unstable, operationally losing position. The Poles stopped, and the 12th Army actively acted against the Whites in the Kiev direction. The Reds transferred 43 thousand bayonets from Volhynia to Yelets to break the white front.

Only after the whites abandoned Kyiv and the volunteers retreated to the south, did General Listovsky begin to occupy the cities left by the whites. And in the north, the Polish army resumed its operations.

It turns out that the main goal of the Poles was to maintain as long as possible and as cruel as possible unrest in Russia ... in order to grab as many western regions as possible from the weakened country, including Ukrainian ones. This is really worth remembering.

Only after the Treaty of Riga in 1921 was the Polish-Soviet border finally established ... Within Poland were the lands of the so-called Western Ukraine - that is, Volhynia and Galicia. A state arose, which was officially called the "Second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth."