The Soviet-Polish War of 1919-1921 briefly. Red Army counteroffensive

On March 18, 1921, the signing of the Treaty of Riga ended Soviet- Polish war 1920.

The Soviet-Polish War was an armed conflict between Poland and the Ukrainian People's Republic on the one hand and Soviet Russia and Soviet Ukraine on the other on the territory of the collapsed Russian Empire.

After the surrender of Germany, the Soviet government canceled the conditions " Treaty of Brest-Litovsk" and launched an armed operation called "Vistula". Soviet troops were supposed to bring revolution to Europe and ensure the victory of communism. In December 1918, Soviet troops occupied Minsk, and in January 1919 - Vilna and Kovno. On February 27, 1919, the restoration of the Lithuanian-Belarusian Socialist Republic of Soviets was announced.

The Polish government, seeking to delay the march of Soviet troops to the west, managed to agree on February 5, 1919 with the retreating German army on the passage of Polish army units through the territories occupied by the Germans. February 9 -14, 1919 Polish troops took up positions on the line: Kobryn, Pruzhany, along the Zalewanka and Neman rivers. A few days later, the Red Army reached the positions occupied by the Poles, and a Polish-Soviet front was formed on the territory of Lithuania and Belarus.

At the beginning of March 1919, the Poles launched an offensive. A group of troops of General S. Shcheptytsky occupied Slomin and created fortifications on the northern bank of the Neman, a group of General A. Listovsky occupied Pinsk and crossed the Yascholda River and the Oginsky Canal. As a result of the next blow, in April 1919, the Poles captured Novogrudok, Baranovichi, Lida and Vilnius, this last city was taken by the 1st Division of Legionnaires of General E. Rydz-Szmigloy, numbering 2.5 thousand people, and a group of cavalry of Lieutenant Colonel V. Belina-Prazmowski in number of 800 people. Between the beginning of May and the first half of July, the front line stabilized.

In September, the Polish side entered into an agreement with S. Petliura, the head of the Ukrainian People's Republic, on a joint fight against the Red Army. J. Pilsudski broke the alliance with General A.I. Denikin (who was striving to restore Russia within the borders that existed before World War I and refused to recognize independence Polish state), so as not to support the offensive of the White Guards unfriendly to Poland.

The Polish side began, lasting from October to December 1919, peace negotiations with the Bolsheviks in Moscow and Mikashevichi in Polesie. A break in the offensive of the Polish army allowed the release of part of the Red Army forces, which allowed them to defeat A.I. Denikin and S. Petliura. By the end of 1919, the territories to the west of the line were under Polish control: the Zbruch River, Ploskirov, the Sluch River, Zvyakhel, the Uborch River, Bobruisk, the Berezina River, Borisov, Lepel, Plotsk, Dyneburg.

In January 1920, at the request of the Lithuanian government, E. Rydz-Szmigly, at the head of the 1st and 3rd Divisions of the Legions, set out for Dyneburg and was supported by significantly weaker Lithuanian forces took the city and handed it over to Lithuania. Taking advantage of the break in hostilities in the winter, both sides began preparing for the offensive. The Red Army gathered forces in Belarus, the Polish - in Eastern Galicia.

After the conclusion of a political treaty and military convention with the Ukrainian government of S. Petliura (April 21 and 24, 1920), on April 25 the offensive of the Polish army in Ukraine began. Polish units under the command of E. Rydza-Szmigloy, with the support of Ukrainian units, occupied Kyiv on May 7, 1920, and on May 9 occupied the heights on the Dnieper. On May 14, the Soviet command launched an offensive on the Dvina and Berezina, which, however, was stopped.

On May 26, Soviet troops launched an offensive in Ukraine (General A.I. Egorov), on June 5 the cavalry army of S.M. Budyonny broke through the Polish defenses near Samokhorodka and threatened to encircle Polish units in Kyiv. On June 10, the Polish army abandoned the city and retreated to the west with heavy fighting. The pursuing Red Army approached Lvov and Zamosc. The Russian offensive, launched on July 4 in Belarus, also ended successfully. By the end of July, Soviet troops occupied Vilnius, Lide, Grodno and Bialystok. In the first half of August, the Red Army under the command of M.N. Tukhachevsky reached the Vistula and created a threat to Warsaw. In this situation, the government of L. Skulsky resigned.

The turning point of the war was the Battle of Warsaw, which took place on August 13-25, 1920. The burden of defending the capital lay with the army of the Northern Front of General J. Haller. After the attacks of units of the Soviet Western Front under the command of M.N. Tukhachevsky were repulsed on August 14-15, on August 16-21 there was a successful attack on the positions of the 15th and 3rd armies of the Red Army over Vkra, carried out by the 5th army of General V. Sikorsky.

On August 16, a maneuver group consisting of five infantry divisions and a cavalry brigade, under the command of J. Pilsudski, struck near Wiepsz. The maneuver group broke through the Russian front near Kotsk, occupied Podlase and reached the rear of M.N. Tukhachevsky’s troops. Soviet units attacked from the south and west were forced to cross the Prussian border, and some troops retreated to the east. In September, M.N. Tukhachevsky tried to organize a defense on the Neman line, where he took the battle, but was defeated.

Given the critical situation on the Western Front, on August 14, Commander-in-Chief Kamenev ordered the transfer of the 12th and 1st Cavalry Armies to the Western Front to significantly strengthen it. However, the leadership of the Southwestern Front, which was besieging Lvov, ignored this order. Only on August 20, after a sharp demand from the central leadership, the 1st Cavalry Army began moving north. By the time the 1st Cavalry Army began to march from near Lvov, the troops of the Western Front had already begun an unorganized retreat to the east. On August 19, the Poles occupied Brest, and on August 23, Bialystok. On the same day, the 4th Army and the 3rd Cavalry Corps of Guy and two divisions from the 15th Army (about 40 thousand people in total) crossed the German border and were interned. At the end of August, through Sokal, the 1st Cavalry Army struck in the direction of Zamosc and Grubeshov, in order to then, through Lublin, reach the rear of the Polish attack group advancing to the north. However, the Poles advanced the General Staff's 1st Cavalry reserves to meet them. On August 31, 1920, a major cavalry battle took place near Komarov. Budyonny's 1st Cavalry Army entered into battle with Rummel's 1st Polish cavalry division. Despite the superiority in numbers (7,000 sabers versus 2,000), Budyonny’s army, exhausted in the battles for Lvov, was defeated, losing more than 4,000 people killed. Rummel's losses amounted to about 500 soldiers. Budyonny's army, and behind it the troops of the Southwestern Front, were forced to retreat from Lvov and go on the defensive.

The Red Army was also defeated in southern Poland. After the battles near Komarov Khrubeshov, in which Budyonny’s cavalry army was defeated, the retreat of the Soviet troops followed. At the beginning of October, the Polish army reached the line: Tarnopol, Dubno, Minsk, Dryssa. On October 12, 1920, a decree on laying down arms was signed, on October 18, hostilities were stopped, and on March 18, 1921, the Riga Peace Treaty was signed, ending the war and establishing the eastern border of Poland.

There is still no exact data about the fate of Polish and Soviet prisoners of war. According to Russian sources, about 80 thousand of the 200 thousand Red Army soldiers captured by Poland died from hunger, disease, torture, abuse and execution. Of the 60 thousand Polish prisoners of war after the end of the war, 27,598 people returned to Poland, about 2 thousand remained in the RSFSR. The fate of the remaining 32 thousand is unclear.

Neither side achieved its goals during the war: Belarus and Ukraine were divided between Poland and the republics that were part of the Soviet Union. The territory of Lithuania was divided between Poland and the independent state of Lithuania. The RSFSR, for its part, recognized the independence of Poland and the legitimacy of the Pilsudski government, and temporarily abandoned plans for a “world revolution” and the elimination of the Versailles system. Despite the signing of a peace treaty, relations between the two countries remained tense for the next twenty years, which ultimately led to the Soviet participation in the partition of Poland in 1939.

WHITE EAGLE VS RED STAR
Soviet-Polish War 1919-20

THE BEGINNING OF THE CONFLICT

Before 1914, Poland was almost evenly divided between Russia, Austria-Hungary and Germany. The military defeat of these states led to the formation of new countries on the map of Europe and to the re-establishment of Poland.
Back in early October 1918, the Regency Council (the temporary administration of Polish lands seized from Russia) demanded the creation of an independent Polish state with access to the Baltic Sea. From October 31, 1918, located in Krakow special commission took over the administration of the Polish lands of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. On November 7, 1918, the left-wing Provisional Government of Dashinsky was formed in Lublin. Three days later, after a year and a half of German imprisonment, Józef Pilsudski arrived in Warsaw in triumph, who the very next day took command of the armed forces, and on November 14 took full power from the dissolved Regency Council. On November 18, 1918, a unified left-wing government was created headed by Moraczewski, but already on January 16, 1919 it was replaced by the coalition government of Paderewski.

The armed forces of the new state consisted of several components:

A) units of the Austro-Hungarian service:

Piłsudski's volunteer legions (3 brigades - 7 infantry and 2 uhlan regiments) and several hundred thousand people in other parts of the former Austro-Hungarian armed forces.

B) parts of the Russian service:

Since 1917, the formation of three Polish corps began; in fact, 4 infantry divisions and 7 Uhlan regiments were created; disbanded by the Germans in June 1918

IN) German service units:

Since November 1916, on the territory seized from Russia, the German military authorities began to form Polish military units; in total, up to 300 thousand people were recruited;

G) French service units:

From the end of 1917 in France, the Polish army of General Haller was formed from volunteers, which by November 1918 reached a strength of 70 thousand soldiers and officers;

D) parts of Denikin and Kolchak:

At their disposal were the 4th and 5th Polish divisions, respectively, which were later transferred to Poland.

The government of the Second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (the official name of Poland in 1918-39) immediately began occupying territories inhabited by ethnic Poles. This immediately led to conflict with the self-proclaimed Western Ukrainian Republic in Galicia. There was a clash with the Czechs near the city of Cieszyn in Silesia. The Polish population of German Silesia rebelled with the active support of the Polish authorities. And from the east, the Reds were rapidly approaching the Polish regions, pursuing the retreating German troops. By the end of 1918 they were so close to the areas claimed by the Poles that it prompted a diplomatic note from the Polish Foreign Ministry on December 30th. However, there was no political solution to the problem and soon clashes began between the Poles and the Red troops.
At the beginning of 1919, German troops suspended their retreat, not letting the Reds pass any further. On February 18, a truce between Poles and Germans was concluded in Poznan, which made it possible to transfer Polish troops to the east. This immediately led to an intensification of hostilities. The first battle between the Poles and the Reds took place on January 16 near the city of Lida. At the beginning of March, the Poles went on the offensive, taking Baranovichi on March 17, but they could not hold it and on March 25 the Reds recaptured the city. On April 15, having previously concentrated large forces, the Poles launched an attack on Vilna. On April 16, they captured the city of Lida, and on April 19, the cities of Novogrudok and Baranovichi. On this day, the Poles carried out a successful operation in the spirit of the “Trojan horse”. The commander of the 1st Cavalry Brigade, Colonel Belina-Prazhimovsky, selected 350 soldiers, dressed them as Red Army soldiers, and sent them by train to Vilna. The landing party captured the station and part of the city, and a stubborn battle ensued. At the same time, Polish cavalry burst into the city. The battle lasted 57 hours and on April 21 the Poles captured the entire city. Subsequent counterattacks by the Red Army yielded no results.
From May 3 there was a temporary lull that lasted until July, when final victory Poles in Galicia and the signing of the Treaty of Versailles on June 28, 1919 allowed the Polish command to launch a new offensive on July 1. Having overcome the resistance of the 17th and 52nd divisions of the Red Army, which lost up to 50% of their personnel in battle, the Polish troops of the Lithuanian-Belarusian Front took Minsk on August 8, Borisov on August 18, Bobruisk on the 28th and reached the Berezina, receiving a convenient line for defense. The strike group of General Rydz-Smigly - two divisions and a cavalry brigade launched an attack on Dvinsk, defended by Latvian and Estonian red units. In stubborn battles, a significant territory was captured, but the city could not be taken. Later, at the beginning of January 1920, the Strike Group nevertheless captured the city, handing it over to Latvia. In October 1919, long Russian-Polish negotiations began, which did not produce any results, but contributed to the departure of almost the entire 16th Army of the Red Army to fight Denikin and Yudenich: by November 1919, the 8th and 17th Infantry Division with a total strength of 6,000 bayonets. Despite the negotiations, local battles took place, for example, in November the Reds recaptured the city of Lepel.

During a successful campaign in 1919, the Poles captured a vast territory with borders convenient for defense. At the same time, the construction of the national armed forces was intensive, the military industry young state, new divisions were formed. In Belarus, for example, the Poles formed two Lithuanian-Belarusian divisions.

FEATURES OF THE THEATER OF WAR

Relief and climate.
The theater of military operations (TVD) included all of Belarus, a significant part of Poland, Lithuania and right-bank Ukraine. The relief is a slightly hilly flat area, in the south and southeast (due to the spurs of the Carpathians) it has acquired the character of a hill. The rivers (Dnieper, Berezina, Neman, Vistula, Western Bug and Narev) flowing from north to south and favoring the defenders have a significant influence. Smaller rivers also flowed in the south: Zbruch, Zolotaya Lipa, Gnilaya Lipa. A certain obstacle for the attacking side was Polesie, stretching from the Western Bug to the Dnieper. A third of the territory was occupied by forests, partly swampy. A well-known obstacle was Belovezhskaya Pushcha(60*40 km). The lake areas near Polotsk and Pripyat created a number of natural defensive lines. The climate in the theater of operations is generally mild and damp, especially in Polesie and the valleys large rivers. In winter there are frequent thaws, summer is cool and rainy.

Road network.
The most dense network of railways and stations was located at the beginning of the campaign among the Poles. The main railway lines of the theater of operations: Dvinsk-Vilno-Warsaw (575 km), Polotsk-Vileyka-Molodechno-Lida-Warsaw (700 km), Smolensk-Orsha-Minsk-Demblin (800 km), Gomel-Pinsk-Brest (500 km) , Kiev-Brody-Lviv-Przemysl (600 km), Cherkasy-Proskurov-Stry (700 km). All roads were double track. Of the long-distance railway lines, four were owned by the Poles (Vilno-Baranovichi-Rovno, Graevo-Bialystok-Brest, Lvov-Malki-Przemysl, Ostroleka-Demblin-Lublin) and only one by the Reds (Vitebsk-Kalinkovichi-Zhitomir-Mogilev-Podolsk). Polish troops used the Vistula as a transport artery, the Red Command used the Dnieper and Western Dvina.

Fortifications.
The Polish army inherited from Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia an extensive network of fortresses and fortifications, however, due to a lack of manpower, these structures had almost no impact on the course of operations. The former fortress of Grodno, occupied by a weak Polish garrison, was captured on the move by Guy's 3rd Cavalry Corps. The fortresses of Novo-Georgievsk and Ivangorod in August 1920 served to concentrate the Polish 5th and 4th armies before their counterattack on the Red troops.

Population of the area.
The average population density in Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine is 45-48 people per km2 decreases in Polesie to 15-30 people and increases in Poland to 70 people. There were food surpluses only in Ukraine; in Belarus and other regions, their own resources were not enough.

Features of combat operations.
In 1920, the main direction was the western direction, the southwestern one was auxiliary.
The large length of the front led to the fact that, with relatively small forces of the parties, there was no continuous front line and military operations were not of a protracted positional nature. The battles were fought mainly for strongholds, cities and railway stations. The strong position of the defender could easily be bypassed by mobile formations of the attackers, primarily cavalry. This gave a great advantage to the attacking side.

POLISH ARMY

Military leadership.

The head of state and commander-in-chief of the Polish Army is Marshal of Poland Jozef Pilsudski.
Minister of War - General Józef Lesniewski, from August 10, 1920 - General Kazimierz Sosnkowski.
Chief of the General Staff - General Stanislaw Haller, from July 22, 1920 - General Tadeusz Rozwadowski.

Fronts.

Lithuanian-Belarusian(North-Eastern) - General Count Stanislav Sheptytsky, from July 31, 1920 - General Józef Haller.
Ukrainian (South-Eastern) - General Antoniy Listovsky, from June 25, 1920 - General Edward Rydz-Smigly.

Northern - General Jozef Haller.
Central- General Edward Rydz-Smigly, and from August 17, 1920 - Marshal Józef Pilsudski.
Southern - General Vaclav Iwaszkiewicz, from August 20, 1920 - General Robert Lamezan-Sahlins.

Composition: 2-5 infantry divisions, 1-2 cavalry brigades or cavalry division.

1st Army - General Stefan Majewski, from May 31, 1920 - General Gustav Zygadlowicz, from July 22, 1920, General - Jan Romer, from July 29, 1920 - General Mieczyslaw Kuliński, from July 31, 1920 - General Wladyslaw Jedrzejewski, from August 5, 1920 - General Franciszek Latinik, from August 21, 1920 - General Alexander Osinsky. At the end of August, the army administration was disbanded.

2nd Army - General Antony Listovsky, on May 28, 1920, the army control was transformed into the control of the Ukrainian Front,
restored at the end of June 1920 - General Kazimierz Raszewski, from August 9, 1920 - General Boleslaw Roja, from August 18, 1920 - General Edward Rydz-Smigly.

3rd Army - Marshal Jozef Pilsudski, from May 3, 1920 - General Edward Rydz-Smigly, from June 25, 1920 - General Zygmunt Zielinski, from August 27, 1920 - General Wladyslaw Sikorski.

4th Army - General Count Stanislav Sheptytsky, from the end of June 1920 - General Leonard Skersky.
5th Army control existed from August 11 to August 27, 1920 - General Wladislav Sikorsky.
6th Army - General Waclaw Iwaszkiewicz, from June 25, 1920 - General Jan Romer, from July 23, 1920 - General Waclaw Iwaszkiewicz, from August 6, 1920 - General Wladyslaw Jedrzejewski, from August 20, 1920 - General Robert Lamezan-Sahlins, from September 20, 1920 - General Stanislav Haller.
7th Army - General Gustav Zygadlovic, from May 31, 1920 - General Stefan Majewski; June 26, 1920 Army Administration
disbanded. In August 1920, the administration of the 7th Ukrainian Army was created in Galicia - General Mikhail Omelyanovich-Pavlenko. Reserve Army - General Kazimierz Sosnkowski (25 May - 10 August 1920).

Infantry divisions.

1st Legion Infantry Division: 1st, 5th, 6th regiment of legions: Colonel Stefan Domb-Bernacki.
2nd Legion Infantry Division: 2nd, 3rd, 4th regiment of legions, 24th division; Colonel Michal Zymierski.
3rd Legion Infantry Division- 7th, 8th, 9th regiment of legions, 23rd division; General Leon Berbetsky.
4th Infantry Division: 10th, 14th, 18th, 37th points; Colonel Stanislav Kaliszek.
5th Infantry Division: 19th, 38th, 39th, 40th points; General Pavel Shimansky.
6th Infantry Division: 12th, 16th, 17th, 20th points; General Mieczyslaw Linde.
7th Infantry Division: 11th, 25th, 26th, 27th points; General Karol Schubert.
8th Infantry Division: 13th, 21st, 33rd, 36th points; Colonel Olgerd Pozhersky.
9th Infantry Division: 15th, 22nd, 34th, 35th points; Colonel Alexander Narbut-Luchinsky.
10th Infantry Division: 28th, 29th, 30th, 31st points; General Lucian Zheligowski.
11th Infantry Division: 46th, 47th, 48th points; Colonel Boleslav Uzhvinsky.
12th Infantry Division: 51st, 52nd, 53rd, 54th points; General Marian Zegota-Janusaitis.
13th Infantry Division: 43rd, 44th, 45th, 50th points; General Stanislav Haller.
14th Infantry Division: 55th, 56th, 57th, 58th points; General Daniel Konazhewski.
15th Infantry Division: 59th, 60th, 61st, 62nd points; General Vladislav Jung.
16th Infantry Division: 63rd, 64th, 65th, 66th PP: Colonel Kazimierz Ladoś.
17th Infantry Division: 67th, 68th, 69th, 70th points; General Alexander Osinskiy.
18th Infantry Division: 42nd, 49th, 144th, 145th points; General Franciszek Krajowski.
1st Lithuanian-Belarusian Infantry Division: (from August 1920 - 19th Infantry Division): Vilensky, Minsk, Novogrudok, Grodno PP;
General Zhondkovsky.
2nd Lithuanian-Belarusian Infantry Division: (from August 1920 - 20th Infantry Division): Bialystok, Kovensky, Lida, Slutsky PP; Colonel Mieczyslaw Mackiewicz, from September 1920 - General Nikolai Osikowski.
21st mountain division : 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th Podhala Mountain Infantry Regiments: General Andrzej Galica. Volunteer Infantry Division: 201st, 202nd, 205th volunteer brigade; Lieutenant Colonel Adam Kotz.
Separate Siberian Infantry Brigade: 1st, 2nd Siberian PP; Colonel Kazimierz Rymsza.
1st Reserve Infantry Brigade: 101st, 105th, 106th reserve paragraphs.
7th Reserve Infantry Brigade: 155th, 157th, 159th reserve subsections.
32nd separate Tsekhanovsky infantry regiment.
41st Separate Suwalki Infantry Regiment.

SPRING CAMPAIGN

On March 5, 1920, the Polesie group of General Sikorsky launched an offensive at the junction of two red fronts. As a result, the only rockade connecting both red fronts was cut. During stubborn battles, by May the Poles reached the Dnieper, capturing the cities of Mozyr, Kalinkovichi and Rechitsa.
The troops of the Red Southwestern Front were in unsatisfactory condition. Having a sufficient amount of artillery and machine guns, the divisions of the 12th and 14th armies numbered only from 1 to 3 thousand bayonets and sabers (consequences of the winter typhus epidemic). The front was also weakened by the fight against the rebels swarming in the rear. In entire counties, Soviet power existed only on paper. At the same time, the Reds had a new ally - the Red Ukrainian Galician Army (KUGA). These were Galicians who were defeated by the Poles in July 1919, who were then under Petliura, and after his defeat they passed over to Denikin in the fall of 1919. In the winter of 1920 they defected to the Reds. KUGA had 3 brigades attached to the red rifle divisions.

On April 22, 1920, Pilsudski signed an alliance agreement with Petliura, according to which the marshal undertook to transfer (after its capture) a significant part of the right bank of Ukraine to Petliura. He, in turn, had to deploy his troops and independently liberate Ukraine from the Reds. On April 25, the Polish offensive began. The 2nd, 3rd and 6th Polish armies, consisting of 8 divisions and 5 brigades, possessing a fourfold superiority in strength, quickly advanced across Ukraine. This offensive was supported by the uprising of the 2nd and 3rd Galician brigades and the strengthening of the insurgency in the red rear. In two weeks, the Poles advanced 200-300 km, capturing Kyiv on May 7. The 12th Army of the Red Army lost up to 10 thousand prisoners and almost all its artillery. The 14th Army of the Red Army withdrew without significant losses. Polish troops gained a foothold in the captured territory. The new commander of the Western Front, Tukhachevsky, launched a powerful, but insufficiently prepared offensive in Belarus. In a number of places, the Red troops advanced to a depth of 100 km. The Poles, having brought up reserves and transferred three divisions from Ukraine, by the beginning of June, with powerful counterattacks, pushed Tukhachevsky back to their original positions.
But at this time the 1st Cavalry Army with a force of 18,000 sabers was already approaching the Uman area. The Polish command had information about its approach, but underestimated its significance. On May 28, the Cavalry began advancing to the Polish front. Quickly dispersed Kurovsky's rebel group and exterminated several thousand rebels. On May 29, she began fighting directly against the Poles. The cavalry army was opposed by the 13th Infantry Division, the 1st Cavalry Division and the 27th Infantry Regiment from the 7th Infantry Division.

At this time, the Polish command unwittingly helped the Reds. On May 28, the control of the 2nd Army was disbanded, its commander took command of the front. The army's troops were divided between the 6th and 3rd armies. Budyonny’s strike accidentally fell on the junction of the Polish armies. On May 29, Budyonny began an operation to break through the Polish front. During the fighting, some Polish units suffered significant losses (for example, two battalions were destroyed in the 50th Infantry Regiment), but there was no breakthrough. Several units of the Red Army went over to the side of the Poles, for example, three squadrons of the 14th Cavalry Division. On the Western Front, on May 25, the entire 59th Cavalry Regiment of the 10th Cavalry Division (Orenburg Cossacks) passed over to the Poles. In July, the Kuban regiment went over to the Poles from the 1st Cavalry Army.
Budyonny immediately began preparing a new breakthrough. Summing up spring campaign, it should be noted that with the offensive in Ukraine, the Poles created problems for themselves, since the length of the front line increased by 300 km, reaching 1200 km. They did not have the troops to firmly hold such a wide front.

SUMMER CAMPAIGN

On June 5, 1920, Budyonny finally broke through the Polish front with all four cavalry divisions. In Zhitomir, he attacked the barely escaped headquarters of the Ukrainian Front, and in Berdichev he captured and blew up a warehouse with one million artillery shells. 7 thousand captured Red Army soldiers were released. All this forced the Polish troops to withdraw, but in general the actions of the Reds did not lead to the complete defeat of the Polish troops: the 3rd Polish Army, which (according to the Reds' plan) was supposed to be destroyed, avoided encirclement.
Subsequently, on the Southwestern Front, the Reds moved forward only thanks to their cavalry. It should be noted the extremely low combat level of the Red Army infantry: small in number, practically not replenished, poorly trained, it only followed the advancing Red cavalry. The 1st Cavalry Army had a hard time, since the main forces of the Poles acted against it, but the inconsistency of the enemy’s attacks allowed the Reds to avoid defeat. The Southwestern Front continued to be in a difficult situation and was forced to disperse its forces between the Polish front, the Wrangelites, who broke out of the Crimea in early June, and the rebels. Almost all reinforcements went against Wrangel. It was impossible to carry out local mobilization.
By the beginning of July 1920, the Western Front achieved superiority in forces and prepared for the offensive. The Poles, stretched along a long front, had no reserves. The offensive, which began on July 4, was immediately successful. The 33rd RKKA SD broke through the front using three tanks: when they appeared, the battalion of the 159th Reserve Regiment of the Polish Army fled. On July 5, a large withdrawal of the Polish army began. Attempts to stay on the defensive lines were unsuccessful, since the 3rd kk Gai, operating in the north, ahead of the Poles, went to their rear, taking Vilna and Grodno. However, the Reds failed to deliver strong blows; the 4th and 1st Polish armies retreated, maintaining manpower. At the beginning of August, the Poles tried to gain a foothold on the line of the Western Bug River, but another breakthrough of the 3rd KK in the north and the capture of Brest by the 16th Army of the Red Army forced them to further retreat. From the beginning of August, Tukhachevsky began planning the capture of Warsaw. He aimed more than half of his forces for a deep bypass of the Polish capital from the north, which was a repetition of the actions of the Russian Field Marshal Paskevich in 1831.
Tukhachevsky's main forces - the 3rd, 4th and 15th armies were located north of Warsaw, the 16th army was supposed to break through the front and take Warsaw head-on.

The Polish Chief of the General Staff, General Rozwadovsky, having calculated Tukhachevsky's plans, developed the idea of ​​a counter-offensive against the Red Army. On August 6, 1920, the Polish command reorganized the active army, forming three fronts. The main blow was to be delivered by the Central Front, consisting of 5 infantry divisions with cavalry assigned to them, a total of 45 thousand soldiers.
The only opponent of the Polish group that launched a sudden offensive was Khvesin’s Mozyrskha group, stretched over 200 km (3 weak divisions, with a total number of 3-4 thousand people). The inequality of power was also aggravated by Khvesin’s low qualifications.
On August 13, 1920, divisions of the 16th Army attacked the Warsaw fortified area, but were only able to achieve a breakthrough of the first line of defense and the capture of the city of Radzymin. In the north, Guy's 3rd kk reached the Vistula, fighting stubborn battles for the cities of Plonsk and Plock. The slow offensive continued in the Southwestern Front. The 14th Army penetrated deeply into Galicia, but was forced to allocate part of its forces to cover the Romanian direction. The 12th Army, meeting the stubborn defense of the 3rd Polish Army, stopped. Budyonny's cavalry army approached Lvov. Volunteer recruitment took place in Poland, most of which were enlisted in the active army, but some formed volunteer units - an infantry division, 10 cavalry regiments and a number of exotic units: the women's battalion of the city of Vilna, the death hussars division (formed on July 23 in Lodz from a squadron of mounted police) and others.

At this time, the Reds made a number of changes - the 1st Cavalry and 12th Armies of the Southwestern Front were included in the Western Front. Tukhachevsky was subordinate to 6 armies and one task force on a front stretching almost 1000 km, but their number barely exceeded 60 thousand, so the formation of new units was actively underway. The lack of personnel was aggravated by a small supply of cartridges and shells; the railways were not operational, destroyed during the retreat by the Poles, there was no motor transport, there were not enough convoys.

The Polish counterattack began on August 16. In the very first two days, the strike group threw back the Mozyr group of the Reds, reaching the rear of the 16th Army near Warsaw. During the battles, an interesting episode occurred: on August 19, 1920, the Red Army strike artillery group (24 light and 15 heavy guns, 3,200 people), marching near Warsaw without shells and without cover, was attacked by the 4th Polish Cavalry Brigade and the 15th Uhlan Regiment . The personnel were partially destroyed, partially captured, and all the guns were captured.

Then the 1st Polish Army launched an offensive from near Warsaw. The 3rd, 4th and 15th armies of the Red Army were under threat of encirclement. During the week-long battles, some of the Red troops managed to break through, but 50 thousand people retreated to East Prussia and were interned. The remaining troops of the Western Front, having lost most of their artillery, retreated beyond the Western Bug. From the end of August there was a two-week lull. The 1st Cavalry Army moved to the Zamosc region, but was surrounded and escaped with great difficulty, suffering such losses that in the future it was only capable of rearguard battles.

The results of the Warsaw operation for the Reds were complete destruction strike group of the Western Front - loss of 66 thousand prisoners, 25 thousand killed and wounded, 50 thousand interned; The Poles captured 1,023 machine guns and 231 guns. In fact, the Reds lost the war.

Then the Polish offensive began in Belarus and by the end of September, having overcome the stubborn resistance of the Red Army, the Poles reached the cities of Grodno, Lida, Luninets. During the fighting, the Polish Army carried out successful raids: on September 12-13, a motorized detachment of the 7th Infantry Division (1000 soldiers in 54 trucks, 8 guns and 9 armored vehicles) carried out a raid on Kovel. Having captured a red battery along the way, on the morning of September 13, the detachment took the city, destroyed the headquarters of the 12th Army and captured 3,000 prisoners, 2 armored trains, 36 guns and 3 airplanes. On September 26, the partisan division of Bulak-Bulakhovich captured the city of Pinsk and the headquarters of the 4th Army in a raid to the rear of the Reds.

In general, the Poles quickly pressed back the Red Army units, whose retreat was covered by the 1st Cavalry Army. On October 15, Polish units captured Minsk. The fighting was stopped on October 17, 1920. Tukhachevsky suffered a complete defeat.
During the fighting, the Polish Army lost: killed - 17,278, died - 30,337, wounded - 113,510, missing - 51,374, other losses - 38,830. In total - 251,329 people.
The Red Army lost 144,423 military personnel (7,507 commanders) on the Western Front; on the Southwestern Front - 87,564 military personnel (7,669 commanders). More than 100 thousand people were captured.

"Zyabki Station, 1920: the first battle of Soviet tanks"

In 1919 at Putilov plant In Petrograd, the first batch of five Austin armored vehicles on the Kegress half-track chassis was produced. Being attached to the 2nd Infantry Division of the 7th Army, these armored vehicles supported the infantry advance with machine-gun fire and contributed to the success of the Red Army counterattack during the liberation of the village of Bolshoye Karlino from Yudenich’s troops.
Since one of the Austin Kegress armored cars carried the proud name “Tank No. 1” on board, in 1954 the day of the battle at Big Karlin was celebrated in the Soviet Union as the birthday of the Soviet tank forces. Even Feature Film about it historical event was released.
In reality, everything was somewhat different. It all started on Belarusian soil, at settlement with the unassuming name of Zyabki.
It was here that the Red Army tanks launched their first attack, and it was here that the Soviet tank forces were born.
Zyabki is now the capital of Belarusian divers, a center of ecotourism, and then, in 1920, a tiny station on the Polotsk-Molodechno railway: somewhat pitiful-looking station buildings, and above them is the round brick “head” of a water pump. To the west, between lakes Svyadovo and Dolgoe, cutting through Soviet and Polish trenches, ran a railway line. It was here, between Polotsk and Molodechno, that the May offensive of our 15th Army of the Western Front got bogged down in 1920.
The Polish troops, having prudently blown up the railway bridge, were well fortified: they prepared three lines of full-profile trenches, strong points equipped with fire weapons (50 heavy machine guns alone!) and covered with 12 rows of barbed wire and minefields. In the inter-lake defile, a mile wide, just before the trenches, the Auta River carried its waters, and behind it - wire barriers of 2-3 stakes.
To participate in the breakthrough of the Polish front, three tanks of the 2nd tank detachment were delivered to Polotsk. They were recaptured from the Denikinites and underwent thorough repairs at the Putilov plant in Petrograd: a “large” Mk V (Ricardo) and two “small” FT17 Renault. To transport them to the left bank of the Western Dvina, a large ferry was hastily built. The tanks moved towards Zyabki.

By October 1, 1920, the Armored Forces of the Red Army included: 51 armored squads (216 armored vehicles), 103 armored trains and armored vehicles, 16 airborne detachments attached to armored trains.
To staff the first tank units of the Red Army, captured tanks were used, captured from the interventionists in different times. The troops of the White Guards and interventionists at different periods of the war against the Red Army involved from 39 to 87 armored vehicles, from 47 to 79 armored trains and over 130 tanks (including 62 Mk V, 17 Mk A, 3 Mk B, 21 FT17 Renault). Of this number, 73 Mk V, Mk A, and FT17 Renault vehicles were delivered to the Armed Forces of the South of Russia under General Denikin. In the spring of 1919, near Odessa, 4 small Renault type tanks were recaptured from the French. Soldiers of the 2nd Ukrainian Soviet Army sent one of the captured vehicles to Moscow as a gift to V.I. Lenin. The tank was demonstrated on Red Square on May 1, 1919, thereby marking the beginning of the Soviet tradition of tank parades. In total, in 1919 - 1920, Soviet troops captured 93 tanks as trophies (59 Mk V, 17 Mk A, 1 Mk B, 14 FT17 Renault), of which 83 were in European Russia, 10 – in the Far East.
Only in 1920 did conditions develop in the Red Army that made it possible to begin forming its own tank detachments. In March 1920, in Yekaterinodar, on the basis of the seized property of the White Guard school of English tanks, courses for training tankers from drivers were organized.
Another center for the formation of tank units of the Red Army was Smolensk, where the 1st tank detachment arrived from Petrograd in May 1920. The first unified “Staff and report card of a tank armored detachment” was approved by order of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic on May 28, 1920. All tanks of the Red Army were classified into three main types: 1) type “B” (“large”) - the English heavy tank Mk V (“Ricardo”); 2) type “C” (“medium”) – English tanks Mk A “Whippet” and Mk B (“Taylor”); 3) type “M” (“small”) - light tanks of the FT17 Renault type, French, Italian, American and Soviet production.
By October 1, 1920, 11 auto-tank detachments were formed in the Red Army, consisting of 81 - 113 personnel, 3 - 4 tanks, 1 - 2 guns, 12 - 28 machine guns. The tank fleet of the Red Army Armored Forces at the end of December 1920 consisted of 96 vehicles, including the first-born of Soviet tank building - 3 light tanks KS-1 "Russian Renault". Already in September 1920, the “Instructions for the Combat Use of Tanks” were issued.
The Mk V tank (Ricardo) became the first tank to be placed on a pedestal in the Soviet Union. In the 1920s - 1930s, tank monuments were installed in Arkhangelsk, Kharkov, Lugansk, Voronezh and Kyiv, and all of them, with the exception of the tank monument in Kiev, have survived to this day. There is no doubt that a similar monument would have appeared in Zyabki, but alas - until September 1939 they were under Polish rule.

"Artillery".

In 1920, the First Cavalry Army, making its legendary Polish campaign, approached the city of Novograd-Volynsk. Here the White Poles strongly fortified themselves, blocking the path of the Red cavalry with a dense network of wire fences, trenches and machine-gun nests.
Comrade Voroshilov ordered the artillery to break through the passages in the wire fences with their fire.
More than once artillery had to carry out such tasks during the world imperialist and civil wars. An hour and a half to two hours of intense fire, the consumption of 200-250 shells - and a passage 6 meters wide will be ready. But just one pass. How many such passages are needed to allow an entire cavalry division to attack? How many thousands of shells need to be spent on this? And at that time the Cavalry Army transported shells 300-400 kilometers from the front line on carts. Was it easy to expend thousands of shells under these conditions? But the valiant Red artillerymen, trained by comrades Stalin and Voroshilov, knew how to solve the most difficult combat tasks in the Bolshevik way. Here is their solution.
A horse artillery division flew out from behind the forest in full force. 12 cannons quickly rushed straight towards the enemy positions (Fig. 352). Having flown almost close to the wire obstacles, just before the White Poles’ trenches, the division turned sharply “around the left” and at the same instant opened fire at point-blank range with grapeshot at the wire obstacles. With such point-blank shooting with buckshot, one shell immediately pierced a six-meter passage in the wire, that is, it replaced 200-250 shells that had to be fired for this from a closed position.

Cavalry

In 1920 cavalry still played a significant role, as it had for centuries before. Despite the great progress in small arms, the cavalry could still successfully launch attacks with a saber in hand. And if the tactical value of cavalry nevertheless fell, its strategic importance was very high. This meaning of cavalry, first recognized by the Americans during the Civil War of 1861-65, was understood and accepted as doctrine only in the Russian army. During the war of 1914-18. cavalry was used very limitedly, which led to its underestimation even by the Poles, traditionally strong cavalrymen. The Red Command continued the tradition of strategic use of cavalry in the Russian army, strengthening it with technical innovations, such as carts. In the raids of the red cavalry, the features of future blitzkriegs are visible, and the 1st Cavalry can be considered the prototype of tank divisions.

Armor.

Both sides used tanks and armored vehicles, however, the number of armored vehicles was insignificant, in addition, the technical characteristics did not allow the use of armored vehicles on a strategic scale. The artillery present on the battlefield was too formidable an opponent for slow-moving and weakly armored vehicles. Armies used tanks more as mobile strongholds in defense and attack. The Poles used tanks at the forefront of the attack, and also as a reserve that the commander could move to the threatened area. During the retreat, tanks covered the retreat of the main forces, forming a rearguard. However, not all high-ranking commanders appreciated all the capabilities of the new weapon. In addition to tanks, armored trains have also found widespread use. The armored train, in addition to conventional weapons, had a unit of sappers and a landing force of up to 300 people. As a rule, armored trains were used to protect railway lines, but were often used to support attackers. They were of great importance in the struggle for cities and railway junctions, but they were very vulnerable.

Aviation

Both the Polish Army and the Red Army were armed with a large number of aircraft different types. The Poles more successfully used aviation, using aircraft not only as reconnaissance aircraft, but also to carry out bombing attacks and interrupt supply lines, both land and river. The Reds used aviation mainly for harassing raids against military formations, and also widely used them for propaganda, dropping leaflets on the enemy. Air battles occurred extremely rarely: during the entire war, Polish pilots shot down only 4 red airplanes, and the Poles also suffered losses. The Polish doctrine of the use of aviation was successful and was subsequently used in subsequent wars. It is believed that the Poles owe their victory near Warsaw to a large extent to aviation: aerial reconnaissance made it possible to detect a gap between the red armies, where the main attack was delivered, and the aircraft of the 19th fighter squadron did not allow the red reserves to approach the battlefield at the beginning of the Polish counterattack .

Polish aviation with a "dead head".

Professor Karpus's technique

The question of the number of soldiers and officers who died in Polish captivity (among whom were not only Red Army soldiers) still causes heated debate to this day. In domestic scientific periodicals, the first to raise the problem of Red Army soldiers in Polish captivity was Yu. V. Ivanov, who published a selection of archival documents in 1993 (31). A year later, the topic was continued by I. V. Mikhutina (32). As G.F. and V.S. Matveev note, Mikhutina’s conclusion “about the death in captivity of tens of thousands of captured Red Army soldiers caused an extremely sharp negative reaction from Polish historians and publicists, often turning into hysteria. They accused Mikhutina of wanting to show the Poles as being too cruel towards captured Red Army soldiers; they explained the death of many thousands of “prisoners” of the war as objective difficulties experienced by the young Polish state” (33).
Since then, the view of Polish historians, publicists and politicians on the problem has not become more sober and objective. An example of this is the article by D. Balishevsky with the “talking” title “Anti-Katyn. Although no one has heard of the killing of captured Bolsheviks by the Poles, the Russians repeat these lies” (34). Such authors are not even embarrassed by the fact that in the collection of documents “Red Army Soldiers in Polish Captivity in 1919-1922” published in 2004 by Polish and Russian historians. Numerous examples of reprisals and bullying are given.
The book by G. F. and V. S. Matveev “Polish Captivity” completely refutes the statements of the leading Polish expert on the topic, professor of Torun University. Nicolaus Copernicus Z. Karpus, that allegedly 16-18 thousand Soviet soldiers died in Polish captivity. Scrupulous calculations carried out by the Matveevs on the basis of reliably established facts convincingly refute the conclusions of the Polish professor.
The Matveevs focus their attention on the oddities of Karpus’ “methodology”: “In 1999 in Poland, professors M. Jablonski and A. Kosieski published daily reports from the III (operational) department of the Supreme Command of the Polish Army on the situation on the fronts for the period from January 4, 1919. to April 25, 1921, which are stored in the Warsaw Central Military Archives (CAW). Since January 11, 1919, they were classified as secret and were printed in approximately 80 copies intended for a limited circle of addressees from the military sphere, including the office of the commander-in-chief. The scientific fate of this source is somewhat unusual. The reports were actively used by Polish military historians in the 1920-1930s. as an absolutely reliable source, including on the problems of prisoners. But modern Polish historians completely ignore them. This is clearly seen in the example of the monograph by Z. Karpus, where there is not a single footnote to this source. But this historian unconditionally trusts the reports of the Polish General Staff for the press for 1918-1920, which naturally did not have the “Secret” stamp” (35).
Karpus’s method for determining the number of Red Army soldiers who were captured was no less biased. The professor assures that there were 110 thousand of them. Back in 2001, G. F. Matveev explained how this figure appeared: “The fact is that already in 1921 there was a figure of prisoners of war actually returned by Warsaw under the Peace of Riga. According to Polish data - 66,762 people (according to Soviet official data - 75,699 people). It was this that was used as the basis for the calculation by the Polish side total number captured Red Army soldiers. The technique looked so convincing that it is still used today: to the 67 thousand Red Army soldiers who returned to their homeland, about 25 thousand people are added, who, as Z. Karpus writes, “having barely been captured or having spent a short time in the camp, succumbed to agitation and entered into Russian, Cossack and Ukrainian army groups who, together with the Poles, fought the Red Army." To these are added 16-18 thousand who died in the camps from wounds, disease and malnutrition. In total, this turns out to be about 110 thousand people. On the one hand, this figure convincingly testifies to the triumph of Polish weapons in the war of 1919-1920, and on the other hand, it avoids accusations of inhumane treatment of prisoners” (36).
Karpus did not need the true number of prisoners. After all, the more prisoners there are, the more there are those whose fate is shrouded in the darkness of the unknown. Its seemingly harmonious scheme does not imply the use of documents that do not fit into it. T. M. Simonova, having studied the archival fund of the II Department of the Polish Army (military intelligence and counterintelligence), in the article “Field of White Crosses” came to the conclusion: “It is difficult to imagine a more accurate source. The results of the calculations give us a figure of 146,813 people and some more, recorded as: “many prisoners”, “a significant number”, “two divisional headquarters”” (37).
Other Russian researchers give slightly different figures.
They are presented in the Matveev monograph. The Matveevs themselves came to the conclusion that “in just 20 months (38), no less than 206,877 Red Army soldiers fell into the hands of the Poles” (39).
As for the number of dead, back in September 1921 Chicherin announced 60 thousand Red Army soldiers who died in Polish captivity. Obviously, this figure cannot be considered complete, if only because it does not take into account victims harsh winter 1921/1922. N. S. Raisky agrees with her (40). Military historian M. S. Filimoshin came to the conclusion that there were 83.5 thousand people killed and died in Polish captivity (41). A. Selensky also named the same figure for our losses (42). A. Tuleyev wrote about 80 thousand who died in Polish captivity (43). Ultimately exact figure losses remain unknown. Considering how badly the Poles kept records of prisoners (44), there is no hope that it will be clarified. But the order of the numbers is clear.
Speaking of 16-18 thousand dead Soviet soldiers and officers, Z. Karpus ignores the fact that on February 1, 1922, the head of the II Department of the General Staff, Lieutenant Colonel I. Matuszewski, officially informed the Minister of War of Poland, General K. Sosnkowski, about the death of 22 thousand people in the Tucholi camp alone (45). If Karpus believes that a well-informed leader of the Polish military intelligence and counterintelligence was telling lies to his superiors, risking ending up in a military tribunal, he should have explained what pushed the lieutenant colonel onto a slippery slope? And since there were no explanations, there is reason to think that it was not Matuszewski who was involved in hanging the noodles, but Karpus.

Polish “humanism” as the main reason for the death of prisoners of war

The question of the reasons for the death of our prisoners of war also raises controversy. The myths propagated by the Poles on this matter look provocative. In May 2011, the newspaper “Rzeczpospolita” published an interview with Z. Karpus, entitled “Polish death camps - a Soviet myth.” Having mentioned the “Bolshevik attack” on Poland, Karpus did not dispute the fact that 8 thousand Red Army soldiers died in the Strzalkowo camp, calling the claim that they were “cruelly tortured” a lie. Dismissing the comparison of Polish camps with fascist camps during World War II as absurd, he insisted that the Polish government tried to “ease the fate of these people” and “resolutely fought against abuses.”
To understand who is actually lying and creating myths, let us turn to the documents in the collection “Red Army Soldiers in Polish Captivity in 1919-1922,” to the publication of which Karpus was directly involved.
First of all, we note that the number of victims is not limited to those who ended their lives in Polish death camps. Not all captured soldiers and officers were “lucky” to reach them. The Poles either finished off the wounded or left them to die in the field. An idea of ​​the scale of the disaster is given by the report of the command of the 14th Greater Poland Infantry Division to the command of the 4th Army dated October 12, 1920, which reported that during the battles from Brest-Litovsk to Baranovichi, “5000 prisoners were taken and left on the battlefield about 40% of the named amount of wounded and killed” (46), that is, about 2 thousand people! Why didn't Karpus say anything about this important document?
He also ignored A. Chestnov’s message. Having been captured in May 1920, he witnessed the execution of 33 prisoners of war (47) in the city of Siedlce. The fact that the captured Red Army soldiers, in violation of all international agreements, were killed on the spot by Polish “humanists” without trial, was not seriously condemned in Poland itself, and the generals who gave the “execution” orders subsequently did good careers. For example, in August 1920, near Mlawa, 199 captured Red Army soldiers were shot by soldiers of the 5th Army, commanded by General V. Sikorski, the future prime minister of the Polish émigré government. G. F. and V. S. Matveev came to the conclusion that “the execution of prisoners was not considered something extraordinary and reprehensible in the Polish army. It is no coincidence that we did not find a single order prohibiting doing this” (48).
Many of our compatriots died on the way from the place of captivity to the camp. In December 1920, the chairman of the Polish Red Cross Society, N. Krejc-Welezhinska, stated that captured Red Army soldiers “are transported in unheated carriages, without appropriate clothing, cold, hungry and tired... After such a journey, many of them are sent to the hospital, and the weaker ones are dying" (49). V.N. Shved drew attention to the fact that prisoners who died on the way “were buried near the stations where the trains stopped. Information about these cases is not included in cemetery statistics. Those who died at the entrance to the prisoner of war camps were buried near the camps, but the camp administration did not take them into account either” (50). Karpus does not take them into account either.
In some places mass death prisoners of war became distribution stations and transit points. Only from November 18 to 28, 1920, and only in Brest-Litovsk, 75 prisoners died (51). And the head of the distribution station in Pulawy, Major Chlebowski, was indignant at the fact that “obnoxious prisoners, in order to spread unrest and ferments in Poland,” constantly eat potato peelings from the dung heap. It’s as if they reached such a life of their own free will and without the participation of Khlebowski and other representatives of the Polish authorities, who, according to Karpus, “tried to make the fate of these people easier.”
A similar picture was observed not only in Puławy. In October 1920, the commander of the fortified area Modlin Malevich telegraphed to his superiors that an epidemic of stomach diseases was raging among prisoners of war and internees in Modlin. The main causes of the disease were stated to be “eating by prisoners of various raw peelings and their complete lack of shoes and clothing” (52). If this picture is somehow fundamentally different from what happened in the concentration camps fascist Germany, then let Karpus explain what exactly. It is important to emphasize that the facts presented are not a product of Bolshevik propaganda. Documents addressed to the Minister of War and which the Polish military exchanged among themselves are cited.
Explaining the high mortality rate, Z. Karpus recalled that the Red Army soldiers “were captured in the summer, and they had only light and generally scanty clothing. And Poland, devastated after the Bolshevik attack, could not provide them with clothing.” Why the Red Army soldiers were “scarcely” dressed was explained above by Ya. Podolsky and I. Kononov. We will not argue about whether Poland could provide prisoners of war with clothing. I think it could. Another thing is indicative: there was a catastrophic shortage of straw in the camps. Due to its lack, the prisoners froze, were more likely to get sick and die. Even Karpus does not try to claim that there was no straw in Poland. They just weren’t in a hurry to bring her to the camps.
The Polish authorities acted deliberately slowly. On December 6, 1919, the assistant for prisoner affairs, Z. Panowicz, after visiting the camp in Strzałkowo, reported to the Ministry of War of Poland: “We saw barracks flooded with water, the roofs were leaking in such a way that to avoid misfortune it is necessary to periodically bail out the water with buckets. General lack of linen, clothes, blankets and worst of all - shoes... Due to lack of fuel. food is prepared only once a day.” (53)
A year later, the situation in the camps would not get better, as evidenced by the mortality rate of prisoners of war in the autumn-winter period of 1920/1921. According to the fair conclusion of V.N. Shved, the reluctance of the Polish authorities to change the situation in the camps is “direct evidence of a deliberate policy to create and maintain conditions unbearable for the life of Red Army soldiers” (54). The Supreme Extraordinary Commissioner for the Fight against Epidemics, E. Godlevsky, came to a similar conclusion in December 1920. In a letter to the Polish Minister of War K. Sosnkowski, he characterized the situation in the prisoner of war camps as “simply inhuman and contrary not only to all the needs of hygiene, but to culture in general” (55).
A variety of abuses were used against prisoners of war. An eyewitness testified that in Strzałkowo, Lieutenant W. Malinowski (a future historian and one of the editors of Pilsudski’s collected works) “walked around the camp, accompanied by several corporals who had wire lashes in their hands, and whoever he liked ordered to lie down in a ditch, and the corporals beat as much as was ordered; if the beaten one moaned or begged for mercy, it was time. Malinovsky took out his revolver and fired” (56). Cases were recorded when prisoners of war were not released from their barracks for 14 hours, and “people were forced to send natural needs into pots, from which you then have to eat” (57).
Where is Solzhenitsyn who will describe the suffering of Russians, Belarusians, Ukrainians, Jews and Tatars in Polish prisons and camps in 1919-1922? One cannot expect this from Polish authors. In their writings there is no place for such sources as the report of the head of the bacteriological department of the Military Sanitary Council, Lieutenant Colonel Szymanowski, dated November 3, 1920, on the results of a study of the causes of death of prisoners of war in Modlin. The document says: “The prisoners are in a casemate, quite damp; When asked about food, they answered that they received everything they needed and had no complaints. But the hospital doctors unanimously stated that all the prisoners gave the impression of being extremely hungry, since they rake and eat raw potatoes directly from the ground, collect and eat all kinds of waste from garbage dumps, such as bones, cabbage leaves, etc.” (58)
In fact, Soviet prisoners of war were in terrible conditions until last day being in captivity. This is evidenced by the Note of the Plenipotentiary Representative of the RSFSR in Warsaw to the Government of Poland regarding the abuse of Soviet prisoners of war in the Strzalkowo camp dated January 5, 1922. In particular, it says:
“On the night of December 18-19, a systematic beating of Russian prisoners of war and citizens took place in the camp. Things even went so far as to shoot at the barracks, as a result of which the prisoner Kalita Korney, who was sleeping on his bunk, was wounded. Prisoners in the barracks were forbidden to leave after 6 pm. It was impossible to carry out this order, since there are no latrines inside the barracks. The prisoners of war and internees who were leaving were beaten by Polish soldiers who were specially watching them. Gentlemen officers of the Polish army also took part in this beating of prisoners: for example, the prisoner Reusz was beaten with a naked saber by the officer on duty, who was going around the posts, and most of the blows fell on the head. Red Army soldier Biryunov, who was on duty in the kitchen that day, returning to the barracks, was stopped by a patrol and, without any warning, severely beaten with rifle butts. To top it all off, late in the evening a squad of soldiers was called in and opened fire on the barracks, which fortunately only had the unfortunate consequence of wounding one prisoner of war” (59).
In March 1921, before sending a group of surviving Red Army soldiers home, they were given sanitary treatment: “they were stripped in one barracks, driven naked through the snow to another barracks, where they were doused with ice water and forced back through the snow to get dressed” (60). The main reasons for the high mortality in the camps were hunger, cold, beatings (beatings, flogging with rods made of barbed wire and willow twigs), unsanitary conditions, diseases (typhoid, cholera, dysentery, scarlet fever), low capacity of bathhouses and laundries, lack of clothes, blankets, medicines. The rapid spread of epidemics was also facilitated by the fact that cholera and typhoid patients were kept in the same barracks with healthy people. I would like to ask Karpus, who assured that the Polish authorities did everything to “make the fate of these people easier”: why were the sick not isolated from the healthy?
Concluding their excellent monograph, G. F. and V. S. Matveev explained that it is not necessary “to have a special order to kill Red Army prisoners of war, which, according to Z. Karpus, is what Russian researchers are allegedly looking for in Polish archives. It was quite enough for the people who were entrusted with the fate of many tens of thousands of Red Army prisoners of war to continue their personal war with them, without remorse or a sense of Christian charity, dooming their defenseless charges to cold, hunger, illness and painful dying” (61).
Scientists confirmed their conclusion with many documents. Every time they need to be reminded by those who like to rant about the innocence of the Poles and their “humanism” allegedly shown towards our compatriots.

Soviet-Polish War (1920–1921)
	Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia
	Treaty of Riga 1921
Opponents
Ukrainian SSR
Byelorussian SSR
Latvian SSR	Entente intervention
Commanders
M. N. Tukhachevsky	J. Pilsudski
A. I. Egorov	E. Rydz-Smigly
S. M. Budyonny	S. V. Petlyura
	M. V. Omelyanovich-Pavlenko
	P. S. Makhrov
Strengths of the parties
About 900 thousand fighters (summer 1920)	About 850 thousand fighters (summer 1920)
Military losses
100-150 thousand dead	About 60 thousand dead

Soviet-Polish War(Polish wojna polsko-bolszewicka (wojna polsko-rosyjska), Ukrainian Polish-Radian War) - armed conflict between Poland and Soviet Russia, Soviet Belarus, Soviet Ukraine on the territory of the collapsed Russian Empire - Russia, Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine in 1920–1921 during the Russian Civil War. In modern Polish historiography it is called the “Polish-Bolshevik War”. Troops of the Ukrainian People's Republic and the Western Ukrainian People's Republic also took part in the conflict; in the first phase of the war they acted against Poland, then units of the UPR supported Polish troops.

Background

The main territories for the possession of which the war was fought until the middle of the 14th century were various Old Russian principalities. After a period of internecine wars and the Tatar-Mongol invasion in 1240, they fell into the area of ​​influence of Lithuania and Poland. In the first half of the 14th century, Kyiv, the Dnieper region, the area between the Pripyat and Western Dvina rivers became part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and in 1352 the lands of the Galicia-Volyn principality were divided between Poland and Lithuania. In 1569, according to the Union of Lublin between Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, some Ukrainian lands, previously part of the latter, came under the authority of the Polish crown. In 1772-1795, as a result of three divisions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, part of the lands ( Western Belarus and most of Western Ukraine) comes under the authority of the Russian crown, Galician territories become part of the Austrian monarchy.

After Germany's defeat in the war in November 1918, when Poland was restored as an independent state, the question of its new borders arose. Although Polish politicians differed in their views on exactly what status they should have eastern territories former Speech The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as part of the new state, they unanimously advocated their return to Polish control. The Soviet government, on the contrary, intended to establish control over the entire territory of the former Russian Empire, making it (as officially stated) a springboard for the world revolution.

Goals of the parties to the conflict

The main goal of the Polish leadership led by Józef Piłsudski was to restore Poland to the historical borders of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth of 1772, establishing control over Belarus, Ukraine (including Donbass), Lithuania and geopolitical dominance in Eastern Europe:

WITH Soviet side, the initial goal was to establish control over the western provinces of the former Russian Empire (Ukraine and Belarus) and their Sovietization. As the war progressed, the goal became the Sovietization of Poland, followed by Germany and the transition to world revolution. The Soviet leadership considered the war against Poland as part of the struggle against the entire Versailles international system that existed at that time.

Lenin subsequently noted that the attack on Warsaw created a situation in which “even in relation to Germany we tested the international situation.” And this “probing” showed: a) “the approach of our troops to the borders East Prussia" led to the fact that "Germany was all boiling"; b) “you won’t get Soviet power in Germany without a civil war”; c) "in internationally There is no other force for Germany other than Soviet Russia.”

Progress of the war

The situation in Eastern Europe at the end of 1918

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

On November 11, 1918, the Compiegne Truce was signed, ending the First world war, after which the withdrawal of German troops from the occupied territories began. In Eastern European countries, this led to a political vacuum that they tried to fill different forces: on the one hand, local governments, most of them successors to the authorities formed during the occupation by Germany; on the other, the Bolsheviks and their supporters, supported by Soviet Russia.

In November 1918, German units began to withdraw from the territories of the former Russian Empire they had occupied.

The Soviet Western Army, whose task was to establish control over Belarus, moved after the retreating German units on November 17, 1918 and entered Minsk on December 10, 1918. The Poles of Lithuania and Belarus created the organization “Committee for the Defense of the Eastern Borders” (KZVO) with combat units formed from former soldiers of the Polish corps, and turned to the Polish government for help. By decree of the Polish ruler (“temporary head of state”) Jozef Pilsudski dated December 7, 1918, KZVO units were declared integral part Polish troops under the overall command of General Władysław Veitka. On December 19, the Polish government gave the order to its troops to occupy Vilnius.

On December 21, 1918, a Polish administration was created in Vilnius: the Temporary Commission for the Administration of the District of Central Lithuania.

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

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

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

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

The offensive of Polish troops in Belarus

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

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

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

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

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

Diplomatic struggle

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

The Entente's position on this issue coincided with Denikin's - in December the Declaration on the eastern border of Poland, coinciding with the line of ethnographic predominance of the Poles, was announced. At the same time, the Entente demanded that Pilsudski provide military assistance to Denikin’s troops and resume the offensive in Belarus. However, at that time, the Polish troops were located significantly east of the Curzon line and the Pilsudski government did not intend to leave the occupied territories. After months of negotiations in Taganrog between Denikin and Pilsudski's representative, General Alexander Karnicki, ended without result, Polish-Soviet negotiations began.

A conversation took place in Mikashevichi between Julian Marchlewski and Ignacy Börner. Release was expected political prisoners- a list was compiled of 1,574 Poles imprisoned in the RSFSR, and 307 communists in Polish prisons. The Bolsheviks demanded a plebiscite in Belarus among the local population on the issue of state structure and territorial affiliation. The Poles, in turn, demanded the transfer of Dvinsk to Latvia and the cessation of hostilities against the UPR of Petliura, with which they had by this time entered into an alliance.

In October, Polish-Soviet negotiations resumed in Mikashevichi. Immediate cause, on which the Polish side again entered into negotiations, was its concern about the successes of Denikin’s army in the fight against the Red Army, its occupation of Kursk and Orel on the way to Moscow. According to Pilsudski, white support was not in Poland's interests. A similar opinion was expressed to Julian Marchlewski by the representative of the head of the Polish state at the negotiations in Mikashevichi, Captain Ignacy Berner, noting that “helping Denikin in his fight against the Bolsheviks cannot serve the interests of the Polish state.” A direct consequence of the negotiations was the transfer of the elite Latvian division of the Red Army from the Polish to the Southern Front , the victory of White became possible solely thanks to the flank attack of the Strike Group, the basis of which were Latvians. In December 1919, negotiations in Mikashevichi were stopped at the initiative of the Poles. This is largely explained by the low assessment of the Red Army (as well as the AFSR) by Pilsudski before the start of military operations of the Polish troops against the Reds - in particular, in January 1920, in a conversation with the British diplomat Sir MacKinder, he expressed the following opinion:

Although the negotiations ended without results, the break in hostilities allowed Pilsudski to suppress the pro-Soviet opposition, and the Red Army to transfer reserves to the Belarusian direction and develop an offensive plan.

Polish offensive in Ukraine

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

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

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

Polish Army:

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

Total: 30.4 thousand bayonets and 4.9 thousand sabers.

Southwestern Front of Alexander Egorov:

• 12th Army of Sergei Mezheninov
• 14th Army of Hieronymus Uborevich

Total: 13.4 thousand bayonets and 2.3 thousand sabers.

On the northern section of the front - between Pripyat and Western Dvina

Polish Army

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

Total: 60.1 thousand bayonets and 7 thousand sabers.

Western Front of Mikhail Tukhachevsky:

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

Total: 66.4 thousand bayonets and 4.4 thousand sabers.

Thus, in Belarus the forces were approximately equal, and in Ukraine the Poles had an almost threefold numerical superiority, which the Polish command decided to make maximum use of by transferring additional troops to this direction overall strength 10 thousand bayonets and 1 thousand sabers. In addition, the actions of the Poles, in accordance with the agreement, were supported by Petliura’s troops, numbering about 15 thousand people at that time.

On April 25, 1920, Polish troops attacked the positions of the Red Army along the entire length of the Ukrainian border and by April 28 occupied the line Chernobyl - Kozyatin - Vinnitsa - Romanian border. Sergei Mezheninov, not risking engaging in battle, withdrew the troops of the 12th Army, parts of which were scattered at a great distance from each other, lost unified control and needed to be regrouped. During these days, the Poles captured more than 25 thousand Red Army soldiers, captured 2 armored trains, 120 guns and 418 machine guns. On May 7, Polish cavalry entered Kyiv, abandoned by units of the Red Army, and soon the Poles managed to create a bridgehead up to 15 km deep on the left bank of the Dnieper.

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

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

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

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

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

The creation of the Polrevkom was explained by the serious hopes of the Soviet leadership for the help of the Polish proletariat and played a negative role in the decision on further actions by the military leadership.

Having reached the Polish border, the High Command of the Red Army was faced with a difficult choice whether to continue the operation or not. Commander-in-Chief Kamenev 2 years later in the article “The Fight against White Poland” (originally published in the magazine “Military Bulletin”, 1922, 12, pp. 7-15) described the situation that developed when making the decision:

“The period of struggle in question turned out to be the cornerstone in the entire course of events. Having achieved the above successes, the Red Army obviously faced the last task of capturing Warsaw, and at the same time with this task, the situation itself set a deadline for its completion “immediately.” This period was determined by two most important considerations: information on the political side boiled down to the fact that the tests of the revolutionary impulse of the Polish proletariat must not be delayed, otherwise it will be strangled; judging by the trophies, prisoners and their testimonies, the enemy army undoubtedly suffered a great defeat, therefore, there is no time to hesitate: the uncut forest will soon grow back. This forest could grow soon also because we knew about the help that France was in a hurry to provide to its beaten brainchild. We also had unequivocal warnings from England that if we crossed such and such a line, then real help would be provided to Poland. We crossed this line, therefore, it was necessary to end it until this “real help” was provided. The listed motives are sufficiently weighty to determine how short the period at our disposal was. Naturally, our command faced the question of whether an immediate solution to the upcoming task was feasible for the Red Army in its composition and condition in which it approached the Bug, and whether the rear could cope. And now, as then, we have to answer this: yes and no. If we were right in taking into account the political moment, if we did not overestimate the depth of the defeat of the Belopol army and if the fatigue of the Red Army was not excessive, then the task had to be started immediately. otherwise the operation, quite possibly, would have to be abandoned completely, since it would be too late to give a helping hand to the proletariat of Poland and finally neutralize the force that carried out the treacherous attack on us. Having repeatedly checked all the information listed, it was decided to continue the operation without stopping.”

As you can see, the decision was made based on two factors - political and military. And if the second, in general, was probably assessed correctly - the Polish army was really on the verge of disaster, even according to outside observers (in particular, a participant in the French military mission, General Faury noted that “at the beginning of the operation on the Vistula, for all military specialists, the fate of Poland seemed completely doomed, and not only was the strategic situation hopeless, but also morally the Polish troops had formidable symptoms, which, it seemed, should have finally led the country to destruction”) and give time for a break during other favorable conditions it was impossible to give it to her, then the second factor turned out to be erroneous. As Kamenev noted, “now the moment has come when the working class of Poland could really provide that assistance to the Red Army... but there was no outstretched hand of the proletariat. Probably, the more powerful hands of the Polish bourgeoisie hid this hand somewhere.”.

Subsequently - this opinion has become widespread recently - it is customary to place the blame for the decision to further develop an extremely risky offensive on Tukhachevsky. This opinion was also heard from military professionals, in particular Konev (here is what K. Simonov, for example, wrote down in his conversations with Marshal Konev: “His (Tukhachevsky’s) shortcomings included a well-known touch of adventurism, which manifested itself back in Polish campaign, in the battle of Warsaw. I. S. Konev said that he studied this campaign in detail, and, whatever the mistakes of Egorov and Stalin on the South-Western Front, there was no reason to blame them entirely for Tukhachevsky’s failure near Warsaw. His very movement with exposed flanks, with stretched communications and all his behavior during this period do not make a solid, positive impression.”). Nevertheless, as we see, this risk was recognized - and accepted - at the highest level by the military and political leadership of the country:

“Thus, the Red Army openly took risks, and the risks were excessive. After all, the operation, even with a satisfactory resolution of all the listed conditions, still had to be carried out primarily without any rear, which was completely impossible to quickly restore after the destruction caused by the White Poles. There was another moment of risk here, which was created by political significance the Danzig corridor, which the Red Army might not have appreciated and was forced to accept a plan to capture Warsaw from the north, since first of all it was necessary to cut it off from the highway, which not only served material aid by the Poles themselves, but the help of the Entente (read France) in manpower could appear. The very operation of capturing Warsaw from the north severely separated our main forces from the Ivangorod direction, where significant forces of the White Poles were retreating, and then overextended our front. Our forces, unable to receive reinforcements, since the railways left to us by the White Poles were completely destroyed, melted away every day. Thus, we were approaching the moment of denouement, every day decreasing in number, in military supplies and stretching our front.”

Ultimately, it was precisely the factor of extended communications and the weakening of the Red Army, combined with a strengthening, and not weakening (as the Soviet political leadership) the rear of the Polish army led to the situation balancing on a razor's edge. At this moment, any insignificant factor and/or the slightest tactical error could play a decisive role in the turn of fortune to one side or another, which is what happened in reality. This is what an outside observer-participant wrote in particular: White movement, Major General of the General Staff of the Old Army Goncharenko:

“The rapid movement forward, without preparing the rear and equipping communication lines, for its part, most decisively affected the loss of the campaign. The leaders of the Red Army are blinded by political considerations... At the same time, the command makes extremely bold, risky decisions, where not only complete absence any pattern, but where the presence of risk in every strategic maneuver is striking, more than abundantly justifying the thought of old Moltke “great successes in war are impossible without great risk”. Moreover, the essence of operational plans is sharpened to such an extent that “one inch of strategic error nullifies miles of strategic success”

However, by the beginning of August the situation in Poland was critical and close to disaster. Moreover, not only because of the rapid retreat in Belarus, but also because of the deterioration international situation countries. Great Britain actually stopped providing Poland with military and economic assistance, Germany and Czechoslovakia closed their borders with Poland and Danzig remained the only point of delivery of goods to the republic. However, the main supplies and assistance were provided not by the above countries, but by France and the United States, which did not stop their activities (see below “The role of the “great powers” ​​in the conflict”). As the Red Army troops approached Warsaw, the evacuation of foreign diplomatic missions began from there.

Meanwhile, the position of the Polish troops worsened not only in the Belarusian, but also in the Ukrainian direction, where the Southwestern Front again went on the offensive under the command of Alexander Egorov (with Stalin as a member of the Revolutionary Military Council). The main goal The front was the capture of Lvov, which was defended by three infantry divisions of the 6th Polish Army and the Ukrainian army under the command of Mikhailo Omelyanovich-Pavlenko. On July 9, the 14th Army of the Red Army took Proskurov (Khmelnitsky), and on July 12 it stormed Kamenets-Podolsky. On July 25, the Southwestern Front began the Lvov offensive operation, however, he was never able to capture Lvov.

Battle of Warsaw

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

Composition of the Western Front

• 3rd Cavalry Corps Guy Guy
• 4th Army A.D. Shuvaev, chief of staff - G.S. Gorchakov
• 15th Army of Augustus Cork
• 3rd Army of Vladimir Lazarevich
• 16th Army of Nikolai Sollogub
• Mozyr group of Tikhon Khvesin

The two fronts of the Red Army were opposed by three Polish ones:

Northern Front of General Józef Haller

• 5th Army of General Wladislav Sikorski
• 1st Army of General Frantisek Latinik
• 2nd Army of General Bolesław Roja

Central Front of General Edward Rydz-Śmigły

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

Southern Front of General Vaclav Iwaszkiewicz

• 6th Army of General Władysław Jędrzejewski
• Army of the UPR General Mikhail Omelyanovich-Pavlenko

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

Mikhail Tukhachevsky's plan included crossing the Vistula in the lower reaches and attacking Warsaw from the west. According to some assumptions made, the purpose of “deviating” the direction of the attack of Soviet troops to the north was to quickly reach the German border, which was supposed to speed up the establishment Soviet power in this country. On August 13, two rifle divisions of the Red Army struck near Radimin (23 km from Warsaw) and captured the city. Then one of them moved to Prague (the right bank part of Warsaw), and the second turned right - to Nieporent and Jablonna. Polish forces retreated to the second line of defense.

At the beginning of August, the Polish-French command finalized the counteroffensive plan. The Soviet historian of the Soviet-Polish war N. Kakurin, analyzing in detail the formation of this plan and the changes made to it, comes to the conclusion that the French military had a significant influence on the appearance of its final version:

“Thus, we can assume that the final plan of action in the Polish headquarters took shape only on August 9. It was the fruit of the collective creativity of Marshal Pilsudski, gene. Rozvadovsky and Weygand. The first of these generals was responsible for the technical processing of the plan, the second was the author of very important adjustments made to original plan actions. Therefore, we can consider that the final plan of action of the Polish high command of August 9 is a symbiosis of the operational ideas of Marshal Pilsudski and General. Weygand, but by no means the fruit of the former’s independent operational creativity, as one might think based on Pilsudski’s book “1920”. ... Turning to the analysis of the enemy’s plan, we note once again that it included elements of exceptional risk and was the fruit of collective creativity with a very significant participation of the gene in it. Weigand. Weygand's intervention, firstly, expanded and clarified its scope, gave a clear goal setting, activated the entire plan and, with the creation of a northern strike wing, somewhat mitigated the risk that filled Pilsudski's original plan. ...Based on Piłsudski's own admission, we are inclined to believe original version his decisions of August 6 were more a gesture of despair than the fruit of sound calculation. Apart from the immediate goal - saving Warsaw at any cost - Pilsudski saw nothing..."

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

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

Given the critical situation on the Western Front, on August 14, Commander-in-Chief Kamenev ordered the transfer of the 12th and 1st Cavalry Armies to the Western Front to significantly strengthen it. There is an opinion that the leadership of the South-Western Front, which was besieging Lvov, ignored this order, and one of the opponents of the transfer of the Cavalry to the western direction was a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the South-Western Front, I. V. Stalin, who in general was a principled opponent of the plans to conquer the original Polish territories, in particular, the capital of Poland.

This opinion appeared almost immediately after the Civil War, and became especially widespread in the 60s, with the debunking of the cult of personality, in connection with the issue of transferring the 1st Cavalry Army to the Western Front, as well as the assertion that it was this refusal that caused the defeat Bolsheviks near Warsaw. If the second is partly true, then the first part of the statement is more than controversial. The issue of the delay in the turn of the First Cavalry to the north was discussed in detail back in the 20s in the work “Civil War”, written under the editorship of Kakurin and Vatsetis. Kakurin, who examined this issue in detail based on documents, ultimately came to the conclusion that the decision made by the Commander-in-Chief finally on August 10-11 to reorient the First Cavalry and 12th Armies to the north could not be implemented in a timely manner, primarily due to friction in the operation of the control apparatus:

It was precisely the friction in the work of the control apparatus and the inertia associated with the withdrawal of the 1st Cavalry from the battles in the Lvov direction that predetermined that fatal delay, which turned out to be decisive at the moment of crisis, “the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

So, only on August 20, the 1st Cavalry Army began moving north. By the time the 1st Cavalry Army began to march from near Lvov, the troops of the Western Front had already begun an unorganized retreat to the east. On August 19, the Poles occupied Brest, and on August 23, Bialystok. On the same day, the 4th Army and the 3rd Cavalry Corps of Guy Guy and two divisions from the 15th Army (about 40 thousand people in total) crossed the German border and were interned. At the end of August, through Sokal, the 1st Cavalry Army struck in the direction of Zamosc and Grubeshov, in order to then, through Lublin, reach the rear of the Polish attack group advancing to the north. However, the Poles advanced the General Staff's 1st Cavalry reserves to meet them.

There is a legend that at the end of August, near Komarov, the largest cavalry battle since 1813 took place, in which the 1st Polish division of Rummel, numbering 2,000 sabers, defeated the Cavalry Army, numbering 7,000 sabers (and according to other statements, 16 thousand). The reality, of course, was much more prosaic. Firstly, the size of the Cavalry Army is 16 thousand bayonets and sabers - this is its number at the beginning of the campaign - after the Ukrainian campaign and heavy battles in Lviv, its number was reduced by more than half. Secondly, when the First Cavalry was thrown into a raid on Zamosc, in order to ease the situation of the armies of the Western Front, there it encountered more than one Polish division. According to Soviet intelligence, by the time of the raid in the Zamosc area, the Poles had managed to regroup, and in addition to units of the 3rd Polish Army, the 10th and 13th Infantry, 1st Cavalry, 2nd Ukrainian and Cossack divisions were discovered there. Those who write about Rummel’s one and only division, which defeated the Cavalry alone, as a rule do not mention that this division arrived to reinforce the formations of the 3rd Polish Army that were already operating in that area, while the reinforcements themselves were not limited to this division alone. The battle near Komarov was only one of the episodes in which only one of the four cavalry divisions, the 6th, took part on the side of the Cavalry, i.e. the number of Red and Polish units that collided near Komarov was comparable, and the scale of the battles did not in any way match the a large cavalry battle (in Soviet historiography, the largest cavalry battle of the Civil War is considered to be the oncoming battle at Sredny Yegorlyk on February 25-27, 1920 - up to 25 thousand sabers on both sides). The failure of the raid on Zamosc was more than understandable - the Cavalry began this raid, being exhausted in the battles for Lviv, leaving supply bases on the right bank of the Western Bug, and being forced to overcome “throughout the entire five-day raid the raging elements that covered this entire wooded and swampy area continuous rains turned areas of terrain into difficult to pass, greatly complicating the issue of maneuvering.” Extremely tired and not having enough ammunition, the units could not withstand the collision with the enemy who had received reinforcements, and with difficulty escaped from the encirclement. Budyonny's army, and behind it the troops of the Southwestern Front, were forced to retreat from Lvov and go on the defensive.

As a result of the defeat near Warsaw, Soviet troops on the Western Front suffered heavy losses. According to some estimates, during the Battle of Warsaw, 25 thousand Red Army soldiers died, 60 thousand were captured by Poland, 45 thousand were interned by the Germans. Several thousand people went missing. The front also lost a large amount of artillery and equipment. Polish losses are estimated at 15 thousand killed and missing and 22 thousand wounded.

Fighting in Belarus

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

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

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

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

Pilsudski intended to build on his success, encircle and destroy the remaining troops of the Western Front at Novogrudok. However, the Polish units, weakened in battle, were unable to carry out this order and the Red Army troops were able to regroup and organize defense.

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

Terror against civilians

During the war, troops from both countries carried out executions of civilians, while Polish troops carried out ethnic cleansing, mainly targeting Jews. The leadership of both the Red Army and the Polish Army initiated official investigations into the results of such actions and tried to prevent them.

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

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

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

Excerpt from the testimony of H. Gdanski and M. Blumenkrank to the investigation, given in the book of the Polish researcher Marek Kabanovsky “General Stanislav Bulak-Balachovich” (Warsaw, 1993):

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

The report of the commission for registering victims of Balakhovich’s raid in Mozyr district stated that

On the Soviet side, Budyonny’s army gained fame as the main pogrom force. Particularly large pogroms were carried out by the Budennovites in Baranovka, Chudnov and Rogachev. In particular, from September 18 to 22, the 6th Cavalry Division of this army committed more than 30 pogroms; in the town of Lyubar on September 29, during a pogrom, 60 people were killed by division soldiers; in Priluki, on the night of October 3, 12 people were wounded, 21 were killed “and many women were raped.” At the same time, “women were shamelessly raped in front of everyone, and girls, like slaves, were dragged away by beasts and bandits to their carts.” In Vakhnovka on October 3, 20 people were killed, many were wounded and raped, and 18 houses were burned. After on September 28, while trying to stop the pogrom in the town of Polonnoye, the commissar of the 6th division G. G. Shepelev was killed, the division was disbanded, and two brigade commanders and several hundred ordinary soldiers were put on trial and 157 were shot.

Captured by the Red Army Polish officers They were certainly shot on the spot, just like the Bolshevik commissars captured by the Poles.

The fate of prisoners of war

There is still no exact data about the fate of Polish and Soviet prisoners of war. According to Russian sources, about 80 thousand of the 200 thousand Red Army soldiers captured by Poland died from hunger, disease, torture, abuse and execution.

Polish sources give figures of 85 thousand prisoners (at least that many people were in Polish camps at the end of the war), of which about 20 thousand died. They were kept in the camps remaining after the First World War - Strzałkow (the largest), Dombier, Pikulice, Wadowice and Tuchol concentration camp. According to the 1921 agreement on the exchange of prisoners (addition to the Riga Peace Treaty), 65 thousand captured Red Army soldiers returned to Russia. If the information about 200 thousand captured and the death of 80 thousand of them is correct, then the fate of about 60 thousand more people is unclear.

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

A sickening smell emanates from the guardhouses, as well as from the former stables in which prisoners of war were housed. The prisoners are chillingly huddling around a makeshift stove where several logs are burning - the only way to warm themselves. At night, sheltering from the first cold weather, they lie in close rows in groups of 300 people in poorly lit and poorly ventilated barracks, on planks, without mattresses or blankets. The prisoners are mostly dressed in rags... due to the overcrowding of the premises, unsuitable for habitation; close cohabitation of healthy prisoners of war and infectious patients, many of whom died immediately; malnutrition, as evidenced by numerous cases of malnutrition; swelling, hunger during the three months of stay in Brest - the camp in Brest-Litovsk was a real necropolis.

The story of a private in the Red Army: Manin Polikarp Ivanovich, a resident of the village of Akhidovka, Rodnikovsky district, Ivanovo region of Russia: “In 1919, our detachment of 17 people got lost and was captured near Warsaw. We were lined up and the Polish boss asked who could pay us off. I had a royal gold coin, taken to the war “for good luck.” The Poles valued the coin at two lives and released me and my colleague. The rest were immediately hacked to pieces with sabers before our eyes.” Recorded from his words by his grandson, Mikhail Ivanovich Manin.

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

As for Polish prisoners of war, according to updated data, 33.5-34 thousand prisoners of war were taken in 1919-1920 (the figure of 60 thousand prisoners of war given by Meltyukhov without citing sources does not correspond to reality - this figure is taken from the reports of the Polish Bureau of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party (b. ), which in the spring of 1921 asked for trains for the repatriation of Poles for such a number of people); even up to 8 thousand prisoners, this is the 5th Polish division, which surrendered in the winter of 1919-20 in Krasnoyarsk). The total is 41-42 thousand Polish prisoners, of which a total of 34,839 Polish prisoners of war were repatriated from March 1921 to July 1922, and about 3 thousand more expressed a desire to remain in the RSFSR. Thus, the total loss amounted to only about 3-4 thousand prisoners of war, of which about 2 thousand were recorded according to documents as having died in captivity.

The role of the “great powers” ​​in the conflict

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

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

From February to August 1919, Poland received 260,000 tons of food worth $51 million from the United States. In 1919, Poland received $60 million worth of military equipment from US military warehouses in Europe alone; in 1920, $100 million worth.

In total, in 1920, France alone supplied the following volumes of weapons (in parentheses for comparison, the figures for British deliveries to Denikin for the period March-September 1919):

(figures for French supplies to the Polish army are given according to the work of Kakurin and Melikov, for British - Denikin - according to the report of the British military mission of General Hallman dated October 8, 1919). According to other sources, in the spring of 1920, England, France and the USA supplied Poland with 1,494 guns, 2,800 machine guns, about 700 aircraft, and 10 million shells.

As can be seen from a comparison with British supplies of AFSR, the figures are quite comparable. At the same time, the scale and importance of British supplies is well demonstrated by the fact that, for example, the number of cartridges supplied by the British to the AFSR was comparable to the number of cartridges received by the Red Army during the same period from the warehouses of the tsarist army and from the cartridge factories operating at that time. Here, in relation to French supplies to Poland, the number of cartridges is not indicated, but the comparability of other figures allows us to draw a conclusion about the importance and scale of French supplies.

In addition to supplying weapons, France also sent a military mission, which not only trained Polish troops, but also had a significant influence in the planning and development of operations, and as a result, greatly contributed to the victory of the Polish army. Military personnel from the United States also took part in the fighting on the side of the Poles - the Kosciuszko squadron, which operated against Budyonny’s army, was composed of US pilots and was commanded by US Colonel Fauntleroy. In July 1919, a 70,000-strong army arrived in Poland, created in France mainly from emigrants of Polish origin from France and the United States. French participation in the conflict was also reflected in the activities of hundreds of French officers, led by General Maxime Weygand, who arrived in 1920 to train Polish troops and assist the Polish General Staff. Among the French officers in Poland was Charles de Gaulle.

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

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

The reduction in assistance from the Entente countries played a significant role in the fact that after the victory at Warsaw, the Poles were unable to build on their success and defeat the Soviet troops of the Western Front. The change in Britain's diplomatic position (under the influence of the trade unions, which in turn were secretly financed by the Soviet government) accelerated the conclusion of the peace treaty in Riga.

Results of the war

Neither side achieved its goals during the war: Belarus and Ukraine were divided between Poland and the republics that became part of the Soviet Union in 1922. The territory of Lithuania was divided between Poland and the independent state of Lithuania. The RSFSR, for its part, recognized the independence of Poland and the legitimacy of the Pilsudski government, and temporarily abandoned plans for a “world revolution” and the elimination of the Versailles system. Despite the signing of a peace treaty, relations between the two countries remained tense for the next twenty years, which ultimately led to the Soviet participation in the partition of Poland in 1939.

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

The main active parties in the Soviet-Polish war were: Poland and the UPR (Ukrainian People's Republic) on one side, and, Soviet Ukraine- on the other.
In connection with the surrender of Germany, the Soviets canceled the conditions of the shameful "" and launched Operation Vistula. In December 1918, the Red Army occupied Minsk, and already in January 1919 it entered Kovno and Vilna. On February 27 of the same year, the restoration of the Lithuanian-Belarusian Socialist Republic was officially announced.
Concerned about the rapid advance of Soviet troops to the West, the Polish government agreed with the retreating German units to allow its army to pass through the areas occupied by the Germans. By February 14, Polish troops fortified themselves on the line: Pruzhany, Kobrin, along the Neman and Zalivanka rivers. This is how the Polish-Soviet front was formed in the Belarusian and Lithuanian territories.

In March 1919, Polish troops launched an offensive. The military group of General Shcheptytsky took Slonim, and the units of General Listovsky captured Minsk and crossed the Oginsky Canal. Then in April 1919 there was another attack by the Polish army, as a result of which it captured Baranovichi, Novogrudok, Lida and Vilna. For some time, until mid-July, the situation at the front stabilized.

In early autumn, the Poles entered into an agreement on a joint fight against the Red Army with Petlyura, who headed the UPR. At the same time, J. Pilsudski broke off allied relations with, which sought to restore imperial Russia within the borders before the First World War, and therefore did not recognize the independence of Poland.

From October to December 1919, the Polish side began peace negotiations with the Soviet government in and on the territory of Polesie. This break in the offensive of the Polish troops allowed the Red Army to mobilize part of the forces from the Polish front and defeat S. Petlyura and A.I. Denikin. By this time, territories to the east as far as the Berezina River and Bobruisk were under Polish control. By January 1920, there was a temporary lull, which both sides used to regroup units and prepare for a further offensive.

April 25, 1920 The Polish army went on the offensive in Ukraine and already on May 7, units under the leadership of E. Rydza-Shmiglovo captured Kyiv on May 7, and on May 9 fortified themselves on the heights of the Dnieper. In response, Soviet units launched an offensive on the Dvina and Berezina, but it was stopped.

The Red Army launched a new offensive in Ukraine on May 26, and on June 5, a cavalry army under the command broke through the Polish positions near Samokhorodka, threatening the encirclement of the Polish army in Kyiv. In this regard, on June 10, Polish units left the city and retreated to the west with heavy losses. Inflicting serious blows on the retreating Poles, the Red Army soldiers approached Lviv and Zamosc.

Events also developed successfully for the Soviet army in Belarus and Lithuania. Having launched the offensive on July 4, 1920, by the end of the same month, units of the Red Army entered Vilna, Grodno, Lida and Belastok. Under the command of the Soviet army approached the Vistula, and created a threat of encirclement of Warsaw. In this situation, the government of L. Skulsky was forced to resign.

It was the Battle of Warsaw that became the turning point of the war, which took place on August 13-25, 1920. After unsuccessful attempts by the Red Army to break through the enemy’s defenses, on August 16-21, the 5th Army of V. Sikorsky successfully attacked the positions of the 15th and 3rd Soviet Army above Vkra. And on August 16, a group of units under the command of Pilsudski broke through the Soviet front near Kotsk and reached the rear of Tukhachevski’s army. The Soviet units were forced to retreat, and in September Tukhachevsky organized a defense on the Neman River, took the battle, but was completely defeated.

Realizing the criticality of the situation on the Western Front, on August 14, Commander-in-Chief Kamenev gave the order to advance the 1st Cavalry and 12th Army to the Western Front in order to significantly strengthen it. But the leaders of the Southwestern Front, who were besieging Lviv at that time, ignored him. Only on August 20th 1st equestrian beginning move north, but it was too late - the troops of the Western Front had already begun a panicky retreat to the east. Soon the Polish army occupied Brest, Bialystok and Podlasie. And the 1st Cavalry Army, exhausted in battles and long marches, was defeated by Rumel's division, despite superiority in strength more than twice.

The Red Army was also defeated in southern Poland. A general retreat of Soviet units followed. By October 12, the Poles secured a foothold on the line: Dubno, Tarnopol, Drissa, Minsk, after which the signing of a decree on laying down arms followed. On October 18, fighting on both sides stopped. The war ended with the signing of the Treaty of Riga on March 18, 1921 and the establishment of the eastern borders of Poland. According to its terms, until 1939, the territories of Western Belarus and Ukraine became part of Poland.

#war #1920 #history #RSFSR

Causes of the conflict

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

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

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

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

Beginning and course of the war

France, England, and the USA helped Poland create a strong army.

In particular, the United States provided her with $50 million in 1920. France and England provided assistance with advisers and instructors. Ferdinand Foch in January 1920 set the task of the French mission in Warsaw: “to prepare as strong an army as possible in the shortest possible time.” In France, under the command of General Haller, a Polish army was created, consisting of two corps. In 1919 she was transferred to Poland. These states provided Poland with enormous military and economic assistance. In the spring of 1920, they supplied it with 1,494 guns, 2,800 machine guns, 385.5 thousand rifles, 42 thousand revolvers, about 700 aircraft, 200 armored vehicles, 800 trucks, 576 million cartridges, 10 million shells, 4.5 thousand carts, 3 million equipment components, 4 million pairs of shoes, communications equipment and medicines.

With the help of the above countries, by the spring of 1920, Poland managed to create a strong and well-equipped army of about 740 thousand people. By April 1920, the Polish armed forces on the Eastern Front consisted of six armies, the combat strength of which was determined at 148.4 thousand soldiers and. They were armed with 4,157 machine guns, 302 mortars, 894 artillery pieces, 49 armored vehicles and 51 aircraft. On the Soviet side, they were opposed by two fronts: Western (commander V.M. Gittis, member of the Revolutionary Military Council I.S. Unshlikht), deployed on the territory of Belarus, and Southwestern (commander A.I. Egorov, member of the Revolutionary Military Council R.I. Berzin ), located on the territory of Ukraine. Both fronts had two armies. In general, on the Soviet-Polish front, Polish troops were slightly superior to Soviet troops. However, in Ukraine, where the Polish command planned to deliver the main blow, he managed to create a superiority in fighters by 3.3 times, machine guns by 1.6 times, and guns and mortars by 2.5 times. The plan of the Polish command, approved by the Entente, provided for the defeat of the 12th and 14th Soviet armies at the first stage of military operations; they began to retreat. However, it was not possible to defeat them, as the Polish command expected.

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

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

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

Red Army counteroffensive

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

However, the enemy, having brought up reserves, managed to push our troops back 60-100 km. But this was done in no small part due to the transfer of troops from Ukraine, where the Poles had weakened their positions. The May offensive of Soviet troops in Belarus forced them to expend a significant part of their reserves. This made it easier for the troops of the southwestern front to go on the offensive. In May 1920, the Southwestern Front received reinforcements in the amount of 41 thousand people. The first Cavalry Army was transferred from the Northern Caucasus to the Southwestern Front. Its commander was S.M. Budyonny; members of the RVS - K.E. Voroshilov and E.A. Shchadenko. The cavalry made a 1000-kilometer march on horseback. During the campaign, she defeated many rebel and anti-Soviet detachments operating in the rear of the troops of the Southwestern Front. On May 25, the cavalry concentrated in the Uman region (18 thousand sabers). It significantly strengthened the offensive capabilities of the Southwestern Front. May 12-15 at the front headquarters in Kharkov with the participation of Commander-in-Chief S.S. Kamenev developed a front counteroffensive plan. On the eve of the offensive, the balance of forces looked as follows: Polish troops consisted of 78 thousand bayonets and sabers; The Southwestern Front had 46 thousand bayonets and sabers. But he seriously outnumbered the enemy in cavalry. At the beginning of June, the first cavalry army went on the offensive. On June 7, the 4th Cavalry Division captured Zhitomir, freeing 7 thousand Red Army soldiers from captivity, who immediately entered service. It was here that Pilsudski's headquarters was almost captured. On June 8, they took the city of Berdichev. The Polish front in Ukraine was split into two parts. On June 12, Kyiv was liberated, and on June 30, Rivne.

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

As a result, on July 16, at the Plenum of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), Curzon’s note was rejected and a decision was made on a further offensive against Poland. Just 2.5 months later, in September 1920, at the IX All-Russian Conference of the RCP(b), Lenin was forced to admit the fallacy of such a decision. Meanwhile, against the backdrop of the victories of the Red Army in Ukraine and Belarus, the conviction about the possibility of turning this war into a revolutionary war grew. The leadership of Soviet Russia planned that the entry of the Red Army into the territory of Poland and the defeat of Pilsudski here could be the beginning of the transformation of lordly bourgeois Poland into a Soviet Republic, headed by Polish workers and peasants. On July 30, the Polish Revolutionary Committee (Polrevkom) was created in Bialystok, which included Bolsheviks of Polish origin Julian Marchlewski (Chairman), Felix Dzerzhinsky, Felix Kohn, Edward Pruchniak and Józef Unschlicht. 1 million rubles were allocated for its activities. The task of the Polrevkom was to prepare a revolution in Poland. At the end of July - beginning of August 1920, the Red Army entered the territory of ethnic Poland.

Disaster of the Red Army on the Vistula

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

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

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

Therefore, front commander Tukhachevsky gave the order for the troops to retreat to the east, although a considerable part was surrounded. On August 18, Pilsudski, as the Head of the Polish State, addressed the population with an ominous appeal not to allow any Red Army soldier who remained surrounded to leave Polish soil. As a result of the defeat near Warsaw, the troops of the Western Front suffered heavy losses. According to some estimates, during the Battle of Warsaw, 25 thousand Red Army soldiers died, more than 60 thousand were captured, 45 thousand were interned by the Germans. Several thousand people went missing. The front also lost a large amount of artillery, small arms and property. Polish losses are estimated at 4.5 thousand killed, 10 thousand missing and 22 thousand wounded. On August 25, 1920, retreating Soviet troops found themselves in the area of ​​the Russian-Polish border of the 18th century. It is necessary, however, to pay attention to the fact that at that time few in the West believed that Pilsudski could win. The Entente countries did not have confidence in him. This is evidenced by the fact that at a meeting between Lloyd George and the French Prime Minister Milner, Warsaw was actually recommended to remove Pilsudski from the post of Commander-in-Chief. The Polish government offered this post to the French General Weygand, who refused, believing that in the specific conditions of this war a local military leader should command. Pilsudski's authority as a military leader was also low among the Polish military. It is no coincidence, therefore, that many said that Poland could be saved either by Action or by a Miracle. And Churchill would call the Polish victory near Warsaw “the Miracle on the Vistula, only with some changes, it was a repetition of the miracle on the Marne.” But the victory was won, and in the future she began to be associated with Jozef Pilsudski. During the battle on the Vistula, a Soviet-Polish peace conference opened in Minsk on August 17. The Soviet delegation consisted of representatives of the RSFSR and the Ukrainian SSR. The interests of Belarus were represented by the Russian delegation. During the conference, hostilities between Poland and Russia did not stop. In order to undermine the negotiating position of the Soviet delegation, Polish troops increased their offensive, capturing new territories. On October 15-16, 1920, they occupied Minsk, and in the southwestern direction they were stopped by September 20 at the border of the rivers Ubort, Sluch, Litvin, Murafa, that is, significantly east of the “Curzon line”. Negotiations from Minsk were moved to Riga. They started on October 5th. Poland did not stop military operations this time either, seizing new territories and pushing the border more and more towards Russia. The armistice was signed on October 12, 1920 and came into effect at midnight on October 18.

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

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

The report also emphasized that the prisoners' clothes and shoes were also taken away; many had no clothes at all. As for Polish prisoners of war in Soviet captivity, their situation was completely different. No one pursued a policy of extermination towards them. Moreover, they were considered victims of the Polish lords and capitalists, and in Soviet captivity they were looked upon as “class brothers.” In 1919-1920 41-42 thousand people were captured, of which 34,839 were released to Poland. Approximately 3 thousand people expressed a desire to remain in Soviet Russia. Thus, the total loss was approximately 3-4 thousand, of which about 2 thousand were recorded according to documents as having died in captivity.

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