The Second Rzeczpospolita - myths and reality

The question of Polish independence arose during the First World War, and it was promised by three emperors. However, in the course of it, all three monarchies collapsed, and the formula of the American President Woodrow Wilson was adopted for implementation: the state of the Poles should be recreated in territories in which "the predominance of the Polish population would be undeniable." The eastern line of such indisputability was soon called the Curzon Line, which basically coincided with the borders of the former Polish kingdom and the current borders between Belarus, Lithuania, Ukraine and Poland, but in some sections passed even further west.

The revived Polish state, which became the second Commonwealth, headed not by the king, but by the marshal, who had much more powers than the king, began with the fact that in November 1916 Austria-Hungary and Germany, having occupied the Polish lands that were previously part of Russia , declared the independence of Poland, without specifying its borders.

At that time, there was a joke among the Poles that their country is the largest in the world, since no one knows where its limits end. However, the jurisdiction of the proclaimed entity, which was called the Regency Kingdom of Poland, extended only to the territory of the former Kingdom of Poland. Formally, it was ruled by a regency council, consisting of the Warsaw archbishop Alexander Kakovsky, the Warsaw mayor Zdzislaw Lubomirsky and the large landowner Jozef Ostrovsky, but the real power belonged to the German governor-general Hans Hartwig von Beseler. After the surrender of Germany in November 1918, the Regency Council transferred all powers to the organizer of the Polish legions in the Austro-Hungarian army, Józef Piłsudski, who on November 11 was named interim Head of State, Commandant. And he had his own views on where the Polish borders should go. Three months later, the second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth began a war with its neighbors.

The Polish historian Władysław Pobug-Malinowski writes in his Modern History of Poland that Piłsudski considered war to be the only way to resolve the territorial issue in the east. It could have started earlier, but it took time to create "armed forces appropriate to the tasks." Piłsudski "had no doubt that negotiations with Moscow could not be the way to find answers in the matter of the eastern lands and even the future of Poland in general." For him, “only force could be the only effective argument”, he considered it necessary “not only to delay the red run-in, but also to move it as far to the east as possible”, moreover, he planned to do this “not only in order to protect the building of the Polish state under construction, but also in order to ensure Poland's effective participation in determining the fate of the lands,

Already on November 16, 1918, Piłsudski notified all countries of the creation of an independent Poland. Everything except Russia.

A signal that the new government in Warsaw was not going to talk to the new government in Petrograd was the execution of the Russian Red Cross mission on January 2, 1919, which was not saved even by the fact that it was headed by the Pole Bronislav Veselovsky.

In connection with the revolution in Germany, German troops were already returning home, the territories they left were occupied by Soviet units. They entered Minsk on December 10, 1918, Grodno on January 28, but on December 30, 1918, Warsaw told Moscow that the Red Army’s offensive in Lithuania and Belarus was an aggressive act against Poland, therefore “the Polish government will prepare to defend the territories, inhabited by the Polish nation”. Moscow replied that its troops had nowhere entered territory that could be "regarded as belonging to the Polish Republic."

The fighting in the war, now called the Polish-Bolshevik war in Warsaw, began on February 14, 1919.

Parts of Pilsudski suddenly attacked the red garrison in Bereza-Kartuzskaya, which is located a hundred kilometers east of Brest. On the same day, clashes began near the Western Belarusian town of Mosty, sixty kilometers east of Grodno. Some Polish authors argue that the start of that war was the skirmishes during the occupation of the city of Vilna by the Red Army on January 5, 1919, but in any case, the “casus belli” did not work on Polish territory, but on lands that were never a legitimate part of Poland were not. At the same time, two more important points deserve to be mentioned.

The first is that Germany, whose troops have not yet left a significant part of the Belarusian territories, gave consent to unleashing that war. It was the commander of the 10th German Army, General Falkenhayn, on February 5, 1919, who signed an agreement with the new authorities in Warsaw, according to which the Polish formations got the opportunity to advance through the territories controlled by the Reichswehr, that is, the right to “Polish march against the Bolsheviks”. By March 15, they advanced two hundred kilometers to Baranovichi and Luninets, on August 9 they occupied Minsk, Borisov and soon reached the Dnieper near Rechitsa, approached Polotsk and the Western Dvina. Almost all Belarusian lands and all Lithuanian ones were occupied. The Red Army, whose main forces were engaged in the fight against Denikin, retreated further and further east. For her, the Polish offensive was a stab in the back.

On the political front, Warsaw remained silent for a long time, believing that any negotiations with the Bolsheviks would indicate recognition of their government. People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the RSFSR G.V. Already on February 10, 1919, Chicherin sent a note to the head of the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I. Paderevsky, with a proposal to establish normal relations and settle disputes peacefully. He also drew attention to the fact that some issues, in particular, "those that relate to territorial agreements, will have to be resolved through negotiations with the governments of the Soviet republics of Lithuania and Belarus, which they directly relate to." The Polish leadership withheld the note, and when it was published by the Pshelom newspaper, the circulation was confiscated and the publication was closed.

The second point is precisely that with that offensive, Pilsudski stabbed in the back the proclaimed statehood of Lithuanians, Belarusians, and Ukrainians.

After all, back in February 1918, the restoration of Lithuanian independence was announced, exactly ten months later the Lithuanian SSR was formed. In March of the same year, the Byelorussian People's Republic declared itself, and on January 1, 1919, the Byelorussian SSR. Back in January 1918, the Ukrainian People's Republic was declared. Since November of the same year, the Poles fought with military formations of the Western Ukrainian People's Republic. Following Chicherin, six days later, a note was sent to Warsaw by the Provisional Revolutionary Government of Soviet Lithuania and the Central Executive Committee of the BSSR. It also contained a protest against "an attempt on the part of the Polish Republic to resolve territorial disputes by force." And it was not brought to the attention of the Polish public, in Warsaw they continued to pretend that there was no power in either Minsk or Vilnius.

The prevailing mood in Poland was eloquently mentioned in a report dated April 11, 1919, by the American representative at the Entente mission in Warsaw, Major General J. Kernan, to US President W. Wilson: “Although in Poland all messages and conversations constantly talk about Bolshevik aggression, I couldn't see anything of the sort. On the contrary, ... clashes on the eastern borders of Poland testified rather to the aggressive actions of the Poles and their intention to occupy Russian lands as soon as possible and move as far as possible ... This military spirit is a greater danger for the future of Poland than Bolshevism ... ". The German diplomat Herbert von Dirksen, who then headed the German mission in Poland, wrote in his memoirs that the attack on the eastern neighbors was completely unmotivated.

 British Prime Minister Lloyd George spoke harshly about  "Polish imperialism" . Lord Curzon also advised Poland to "keep its claims within reasonable limits, not seeking to absorb nationalities that have no tribal relationship with Poland and can only be a source of its weakness and decay."

In Poland, claims to all the lands of the first Rzeczpospolita were actively substantiated. Roman Dmowski, a prominent ideologue of Polish nationalism, played the leading role in this. The main postulate was that "between the strong German nation and the Russian nation there is no place for a small nation, we must strive to become a nation greater than we are."

Dmowski convinced European politicians that a resurrected Poland should be larger than Germany and France combined and play a leading role on the continent. The quintessence of his approach was the belief in the civilizational superiority of the Poles over all those who live east of the Bug.

In the “Memorandum on the Territory of the Polish State”, handed over to Foreign Minister Balfour in London at the end of March 1917, he convinced the British politician that it was simply impossible to talk about any kind of civilization on Belarusian lands apart from the Poles, Belarusians are a village people , which in general "is at a very low level of education and does not express formulated national aspirations." There are too few Lithuanians to create their own state, therefore the future of the Lithuanian people can only be ensured by inclusion in the Polish.

On October 8, 1918, R. Dmowski also presented a special “Memorial on the Territory of the Polish State” to US President W. Wilson. In it, the Vilenshchina, Kovenshchina, Grodnoshchina, Minskshchina, Vitebshshchina, Mogilevshchina are called “the old territories of the Polish state” and it was argued that the Poles are the only intellectual and economic force on those lands, and as for the Belarusians, they “represent an element of racially absolutely inert”, that “there is no national movement among them, and even the beginnings of Belarusian literature,” although by that time the Belarusian classics Yanka Kupala and Yakub Kolas, Frantisek Bogushevich, Maxim Bogdanovich had declared themselves in full voice. Dmovsky and Wilson "explained" that Poland should include not only Vilna with Minsk, but also Mozyr on Pripyat and Rechitsa on the Dnieper.

No less curious is the Note of the Head of the Political Department of the Department of Eastern Lands M. Svekhovsky on the foundations of Polish policy in the Lithuanian-Belarusian lands, published in the two-volume book Documents and Materials on the History of Soviet-Polish Relations . It is dated July 31, 1919, and in it Pan Swiechowski referred to the main principles of Polish policy in the east “transferring borders with it as far as possible from the center of Poland”, as well as “maintaining in general in the sphere of Polish influence all those lands that felt this influence during its historical development. He was sure that it was necessary to “state ... the need to separate all the lands  of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania from Russia…”. It is again said about the Belarusians that they “represent the most indefinite element ...”, the demands for the independence of the Belarusian territories are called “rather theoretical”, since “for the interests of Poland, the existence of independent, unrelated small states, such as Belarus or Ukraine, would be harmful ".

In accordance with the draft preliminary conditions for peace negotiations with the Soviet government, developed by the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the inclusion in the second Rzeczpospolita of all the lands that were once part of the first at the time of its partitions is the "MINIMUM variant of Poland's requirements." Such an appetite caused misunderstanding in Western countries, which were by no means sympathetic to the Soviets. British Prime Minister Lloyd George called Piłsudski the chief imperialist. As the Polish envoy E. Sapieha reported from London, “the British government considers the peace conditions put forward by Poland to be madness ... The main obstacle lies in the fear of the British that Russia, having returned to normal conditions, will immediately seek to return the western lands and for this purpose will move closer to Germany. England fears that in such a case a new European crisis will arise, into which she may also be drawn." As the British Foreign Office looked into the water, so it happened in less than two decades. Meanwhile, having defeated Wrangel, the Red Army concentrated its forces against Poland. The Poles had to leave all the way to Warsaw, and it turned out that “the Polish units retreating from Belarus under the pressure of Tukhachevsky’s troops were not seen off with regret,” the Polish scientist Bogdan Skaradzinsky stated years later in his book “Belarusians, Lithuanians, Ukrainians”, published in Bialystok in 1990. Following the legionnaires, not only curses sounded, but also shots. that “no one saw off the Polish units retreating from Belarus under the pressure of Tukhachevsky’s troops with regret,” the Polish scientist Bohdan Skaradzinsky stated years later in his book “Belarusians, Lithuanians, Ukrainians”, published in Bialystok in 1990. Following the legionnaires, not only curses sounded, but also shots. that “no one saw off the Polish units retreating from Belarus under the pressure of Tukhachevsky’s troops with regret,” the Polish scientist Bohdan Skaradzinsky stated years later in his book “Belarusians, Lithuanians, Ukrainians”, published in Bialystok in 1990. Following the legionnaires, not only curses sounded, but also shots.

The war, called the Soviet-Polish war, lasted more than two years and ended with the signing of the Peace of Riga in March 1921. As a result, the Belarusians lost half of their territories, the Lithuanians - the capital of Vilna, the Ukrainians - one of the states, which was called the Western Ukrainian People's Republic, and several other regions.

The League of Nations did not recognize that treaty for two years, motivating its decision precisely by the fact that it was the result of Polish aggression. 

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