Illustration copyright Getty Image caption
On September 1, 1939, Hitler attacked Poland. 17 days later, at 6 am, the Red Army in large forces (21 rifle and 13 cavalry divisions, 16 tank and 2 motorized brigades, a total of 618 thousand people and 4,733 tanks) crossed the Soviet-Polish border from Polotsk to Kamenets-Podolsk.
In the USSR the operation was called a “liberation campaign”, in modern Russia neutrally called the "Polish campaign". Some historians consider September 17 the date of actual accession Soviet Union in the Second world war.
Spawn of the Pact
The fate of Poland was decided on August 23 in Moscow, when the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was signed.
For “calm confidence in the East” (the expression of Vyacheslav Molotov) and supplies of raw materials and bread, Berlin recognized half of Poland, Estonia, Latvia (Stalin later exchanged Lithuania from Hitler for part of the Polish territory owed to the USSR), Finland and Bessarabia as a “zone of Soviet interests.”
They did not ask for the opinions of the listed countries, as well as other world players.
Great and not-so-great powers constantly divided up foreign lands, openly and secretly, bilaterally and internationally. international conferences. For Poland, the German-Russian partition of 1939 was the fourth.
The world has changed quite a lot since then. The geopolitical game continues, but it is impossible to imagine that two powerful states or blocs would cynically decide the fate of third countries behind their backs.
Has Poland gone bankrupt?
Justifying the violation of the Soviet-Polish non-aggression treaty of July 25, 1932 (in 1937, its validity was extended until 1945), the Soviet side argued that the Polish state had virtually ceased to exist.
“The German-Polish war clearly showed the internal bankruptcy of the Polish state. Thus, the agreements concluded between the USSR and Poland were terminated,” said the note handed to the Polish Ambassador Waclaw Grzybowski, summoned to the NKID on September 17, by Deputy People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs Vladimir Potemkin.
“The sovereignty of the state exists as long as the soldiers of the regular army fight. Napoleon entered Moscow, but as long as Kutuzov’s army existed, they believed that Russia existed. Where did the Slavic solidarity go?” - Grzybowski answered.
The Soviet authorities wanted to arrest Grzybowski and his employees. The Polish diplomats were saved by the German ambassador Werner von Schulenburg, who reminded the new allies about the Geneva Convention.
The Wehrmacht's attack was truly terrible. However, the Polish army, cut by tank wedges, imposed on the enemy the battle on Bzura that lasted from September 9 to 22, which even the Voelkischer Beobachter recognized as “fierce.”
We are expanding the front of socialist construction, this is beneficial for humanity, because the Lithuanians, Western Belarusians, and Bessarabians consider themselves happy, whom we delivered from the oppression of landowners, capitalists, police officers and all other bastards from Joseph Stalin’s speech at a meeting in the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on September 9 1940
The attempt to encircle and cut off the aggressor troops that had broken through from Germany was unsuccessful, but the Polish forces retreated beyond the Vistula and began to regroup for a counterattack. In particular, 980 tanks remained at their disposal.
The defense of Westerplatte, Hel and Gdynia aroused the admiration of the whole world.
Ridiculing the “military backwardness” and “gentry arrogance” of the Poles, Soviet propaganda picked up Goebbels’s fiction that the Polish lancers allegedly rushed to German tanks on horseback, helplessly pounding the armor with sabers.
In fact, the Poles did not engage in such nonsense, and the corresponding film, made by the German Ministry of Propaganda, was subsequently proven to be a fake. But the Polish cavalry seriously disturbed the German infantry.
Polish garrison Brest Fortress led by General Konstantin Plisovsky repulsed all attacks, and German artillery stuck near Warsaw. Soviet heavy guns helped, shelling the citadel for two days. Then a joint parade took place, which was hosted by Heinz Guderian, who soon became too well known to Soviet people, on the German side, and by brigade commander Semyon Krivoshein on the Soviet side.
Surrounded Warsaw capitulated only on September 26, and resistance finally ceased on October 6.
According to military analysts, Poland was doomed, but could fight for a long time.
Diplomatic games
Illustration copyright GettyAlready on September 3, Hitler began to urge Moscow to act as soon as possible - because the war was not unfolding quite as he wanted, but, most importantly, to induce Britain and France to recognize the USSR as the aggressor and declare war on it along with Germany.
The Kremlin, understanding these calculations, was in no hurry.
On September 10, Schulenburg reported to Berlin: “At yesterday’s meeting, I got the impression that Molotov promised a little more than can be expected from the Red Army.”
According to historian Igor Bunich, diplomatic correspondence every day more and more resembled conversations on a thieves' "raspberry": if you don't go to work, you'll be left without a share!
The Red Army began to move two days after Ribbentrop, in his next message, transparently hinted at the possibility of creating an OUN state in western Ukraine.
If Russian intervention is not initiated, the question will inevitably arise as to whether a political vacuum will be created in the area lying east of the German zone of influence. In eastern Poland, conditions may arise for the formation of new states from Ribbentrop's telegram to Molotov dated September 15, 1939.
“The question of whether the preservation of an independent Polish State is desirable in mutual interests, and what the boundaries of this state will be, can only be finally clarified during further political development,” said paragraph 2 of the secret protocol.
At first, Hitler was inclined to the idea of preserving Poland in a reduced form, cutting it off from the west and east. The Nazi Fuehrer hoped that Britain and France would accept this compromise and end the war.
Moscow did not want to give him a chance to escape the trap.
On September 25, Schulenburg reported to Berlin: “Stalin considers it a mistake to leave an independent Polish state.”
By that time, London officially declared: the only possible condition for peace is the withdrawal of German troops to the positions they occupied before September 1; no microscopic quasi-states will save the situation.
Divided without a trace
As a result, during Ribbentrop's second visit to Moscow on September 27-28, Poland was divided completely.
The signed document already talked about “friendship” between the USSR and Germany.
In a telegram to Hitler in response to congratulations on his own 60th birthday in December 1939, Stalin repeated and strengthened this thesis: “The friendship of the peoples of Germany and the Soviet Union, sealed by blood, has every reason to be long-lasting and strong.”
The agreement of September 28 was accompanied by new secret protocols, the main one of which stated that the contracting parties would not allow “any Polish agitation” in the territories they controlled. The corresponding map was signed not by Molotov, but by Stalin himself, and his 58-centimeter stroke, starting in Western Belarus, crossed Ukraine and entered Romania.
At the banquet in the Kremlin, according to Gustav Hilger, adviser to the German embassy, 22 toasts were raised. Further, Hilger, according to him, lost count because he drank at the same rate.
Stalin honored all the guests, including the SS man Schulze, who stood behind Ribbentrop’s chair. The adjutant was not supposed to drink in such a company, but the owner personally handed him a glass, proposed a toast “to the youngest of those present,” said that a black uniform with silver stripes probably suited him, and demanded that Schulze promise to come to Soviet again. Union, and certainly in uniform. Schulze gave his word and kept it on June 22, 1941.
Unconvincing arguments
Official soviet history offered four main explanations, or rather, justifications for the actions of the USSR in August-September 1939:
a) the pact made it possible to delay the war (obviously, it is implied that otherwise the Germans, having captured Poland, would immediately march on Moscow without stopping);
b) the border moved 150-200 km to the west, which played an important role in repelling future aggression;
c) the USSR took under the protection of half-brothers Ukrainians and Belarusians, saving them from Nazi occupation;
d) the pact prevented an “anti-Soviet conspiracy” between Germany and the West.
The first two points arose in hindsight. Until June 22, 1941, Stalin and his circle did not say anything like this. They did not consider the USSR as a weak defending party and did not intend to fight on their territory, be it “old” or newly acquired.
The hypothesis of a German attack on the USSR already in the fall of 1939 looks frivolous.
For aggression against Poland, the Germans were able to assemble 62 divisions, of which about 20 were undertrained and understaffed, 2,000 aircraft and 2,800 tanks, over 80% of which were light tankettes. At the same time, Kliment Voroshilov, during negotiations with the British and French military delegations in May 1939, said that Moscow was able to field 136 divisions, 9-10 thousand tanks, 5 thousand aircraft.
On the previous border we had powerful fortified areas, and the direct enemy at that time was only Poland, which alone would not have dared to attack us, and if it had colluded with Germany, it would not have been difficult to establish the exit of German troops to our border. Then we would have time to mobilize and deploy. Now we are face to face with Germany, which can secretly concentrate its troops for an attack, according to the speech of the chief of staff of the Belarusian Military District, Maxim Purkaev, at a meeting of the district’s command staff in October 1939.
Pushing the border west in the summer of 1941 did not help the Soviet Union, because the Germans occupied this territory in the first days of the war. Moreover: thanks to the pact, Germany advanced east by an average of 300 km, and most importantly, acquired a common border with the USSR, without which an attack, especially a sudden one, would have been completely impossible.
A “crusade against the USSR” might have seemed plausible to Stalin, whose worldview was shaped by the Marxist doctrine of class struggle as the main driving force history, and also suspicious by nature.
However, not a single attempt by London and Paris to conclude an alliance with Hitler is known. Chamberlain's "appeasement" was not intended to "direct German aggression to the East", but to encourage Nazi leader give up aggression altogether.
The thesis of protecting Ukrainians and Belarusians was officially presented by the Soviet side in September 1939 as the main reason.
Hitler, through Schulenburg, expressed his strong disagreement with such an “anti-German formulation.”
“The Soviet government, unfortunately, does not see any other pretext to justify its current intervention abroad. We ask, taking into account the difficult situation for the Soviet government, not to allow such trifles to stand in our way,” Molotov said in response to the German Ambassador
In fact, the argument could be considered flawless if the Soviet authorities, in pursuance of secret NKVD order No. 001223 of October 11, 1939, in a territory with a population of 13.4 million, had not arrested 107 thousand and administratively deported 391 thousand people. About ten thousand died during the deportation and settlement.
High-ranking security officer Pavel Sudoplatov, who arrived in Lvov immediately after its occupation by the Red Army, wrote in his memoirs: “The atmosphere was strikingly different from the state of affairs in the Soviet part of Ukraine. The Western capitalist way of life, wholesale and retail were in the hands of private owners who were soon to be liquidated."
Special scores
In the first two weeks of the war, the Soviet press devoted short news reports to it under neutral headlines, as if they were talking about distant and insignificant events.
On September 14, in order to prepare information for the invasion, Pravda published a large article devoted mainly to the oppression of national minorities in Poland (as if the arrival of the Nazis promised them better times), and containing the statement: “That’s why no one wants to fight for such a state.”
Subsequently, the misfortune that befell Poland was commented on with undisguised gloating.
Speaking at the session of the Supreme Council on October 31, Molotov rejoiced that “nothing remained of this ugly brainchild of the Treaty of Versailles.”
Both in the open press and in confidential documents, the neighboring country was called either “the former Poland” or, in Nazi fashion, the “Government General”.
Newspapers printed cartoons depicting a border post being knocked down by a Red Army boot, and a sad teacher announcing to the class: “This, children, is where we finish our study of the history of the Polish state.”
Through the corpse of white Poland lies the path to world fire. On bayonets we will bring happiness and peace to working humanity Mikhail Tukhachevsky, 1920
When the Polish government in exile led by Wladyslaw Sikorski was created in Paris on October 14, Pravda responded not with information or analytical material, but with a feuilleton: “The territory of the new government consists of six rooms, a bathroom and a toilet. In comparison with this territory, Monaco looks limitless empire."
Stalin had special scores to settle with Poland.
During the disastrous Polish War of 1920 for Soviet Russia, he was a member of the Revolutionary Military Council (political commissar) of the Southwestern Front.
The neighboring country in the USSR was called nothing less than “lord's Poland” and was always blamed for everything.
As follows from the decree signed by Stalin and Molotov on January 22, 1933 on the fight against the migration of peasants to the cities, people, it turns out, did this not trying to escape the Holodomor, but being incited by “Polish agents.”
Until the mid-1930s, Soviet military plans viewed Poland as main opponent. Mikhail Tukhachevsky, who at one time was also among the beaten commanders, according to the recollections of witnesses, simply lost his composure when the conversation turned to Poland.
Repressions against the leadership of the Polish Communist Party living in Moscow in 1937-1938 were common practice, but the fact that it was declared “sabotage” as such and dissolved by decision of the Comintern is a unique fact.
The NKVD also discovered in the USSR the “Polish Military Organization”, allegedly created back in 1914 by Pilsudski personally. She was accused of something that the Bolsheviks themselves took credit for: the disintegration of the Russian army during the First World War.
During the “Polish operation”, carried out under Yezhov’s secret order No. 00485, 143,810 people were arrested, 139,835 of them were convicted and 111,091 were executed - every sixth of the ethnic Poles living in the USSR.
In terms of the number of victims, even the Katyn massacre pales in comparison to these tragedies, although it was she who became known to the whole world.
Easy walk
Before the start of the operation, Soviet troops were consolidated into two fronts: Ukrainian under the command of the future People's Commissar of Defense Semyon Timoshenko and Belarusian under General Mikhail Kovalev.
The 180-degree turn occurred so quickly that many Red Army soldiers and commanders thought they were going to fight the Nazis. The Poles also did not immediately understand that this was not help.
Another incident occurred: the political commissars explained to the fighters that they had to “beat the gentlemen,” but the attitude had to be urgently changed: it turned out that in the neighboring country everyone is a gentleman.
The head of the Polish state, Edward Rydz-Śmigly, realizing the impossibility of a war on two fronts, ordered the troops not to resist the Red Army, but to be interned in Romania.
Some commanders did not receive the order or ignored it. The battles took place near Grodno, Shatsk and Oran.
On September 24, near Przemysl, the lancers of General Wladyslaw Anders defeated two Soviet infantry regiment. Tymoshenko had to move tanks to prevent the Poles from breaking into Soviet territory.
But for the most part, the “liberation campaign,” which officially ended on September 30, was a cakewalk for the Red Army.
The territorial acquisitions of 1939–1940 resulted in a major political loss and international isolation for the USSR. The “bridgeheads” occupied with Hitler’s consent did not strengthen the country’s defense capability at all, since this was not what Vladimir Beshanov was intended for,
historian
The winners captured about 240 thousand prisoners, 300 combat aircraft, a lot of equipment and military equipment. Created at the Beginning Finnish war“the armed forces of democratic Finland”, without thinking twice, dressed in captured uniforms from warehouses in Bialystok, disputing Polish symbols from them.
The declared losses amounted to 737 killed and 1,862 wounded (according to updated data from the website “Russia and the USSR in the Wars of the 20th Century” - 1,475 dead and 3,858 wounded and sick).
In a holiday order on November 7, 1939, People's Commissar of Defense Kliment Voroshilov argued that “the Polish state at the very first military clash scattered like an old rotten cart.”
“Just think how many years tsarism fought to annex Lvov, and our troops took this territory in seven days!” - Lazar Kaganovich triumphed at a meeting of the party activists of the People's Commissariat of Railways on October 4.
To be fair, it should be noted that there was a person in the Soviet leadership who tried to at least partially cool the euphoria.
“We were terribly damaged by the Polish campaign, it spoiled us. Our army did not immediately understand that the war in Poland was a military promenade, not a war,” Joseph Stalin said at a meeting of senior command staff on April 17, 1940.
However, in general, the “liberation campaign” was perceived as a model for any future war, which the USSR would start when it wanted and finish victoriously and easily.
Many participants in the Great Patriotic War noted the enormous harm caused by the sabotage sentiments of the army and society.
Historian Mark Solonin named August-September 1939 finest hour Stalin's diplomacy. From the point of view of immediate goals, this was the case: without officially entering the world war, and with little loss of life, the Kremlin achieved everything it wanted.
However, just two years later, the decisions taken then almost turned into death for the country.
The Polish campaign of the Red Army in 1939 has acquired an incredible number of interpretations and gossip. The invasion of Poland was declared both as the beginning of a world war jointly with Germany and as a stab in the back of Poland. Meanwhile, if we consider the events of September 1939 without anger or partiality, a very clear logic is revealed in the actions of the Soviet state.
Relations between the Soviet state and Poland were not cloudless from the very beginning. During Civil War Poland, which gained independence, laid claim not only to its territories, but also to Ukraine and Belarus. The fragile peace of the 1930s did not bring friendly relations. On the one hand, the USSR was preparing for a worldwide revolution, on the other, Poland had huge ambitions in the international arena. Warsaw had far-reaching plans to expand its own territory, and in addition, it was afraid of both the USSR and Germany. Polish underground organizations fought against German Freikorps in Silesia and Poznan, Pilsudski armed force recaptured Vilna from Lithuania.
The coldness in relations between the USSR and Poland developed into open hostility after the Nazis came to power in Germany. Warsaw reacted surprisingly calmly to the changes at its neighbor, believing that Hitler did not pose a real threat. On the contrary, they planned to use the Reich to implement their own geopolitical projects.
The year 1938 was decisive for Europe's turn towards big war. The history of the Munich Agreement is well known and does not bring honor to its participants. Hitler presented an ultimatum to Czechoslovakia, demanding the transfer to Germany of the Sudetenland on the German-Polish border. The USSR was ready to defend Czechoslovakia even alone, but did not have a common border with Germany. A corridor was needed through which Soviet troops could enter Czechoslovakia. However, Poland flatly refused to allow Soviet troops through its territory.
During the Nazi takeover of Czechoslovakia, Warsaw successfully made its own acquisition by annexing the small Cieszyn region (805 sq. km, 227 thousand inhabitants). However, now clouds were gathering over Poland itself.
Hitler created a state that was very dangerous for its neighbors, but its strength was precisely its weakness. The fact is that extremely rapid growth war machine Germany threatened to undermine its own economy. The Reich needed to continuously absorb other states and cover the costs of its military construction at someone else's expense, otherwise it was under the threat of complete collapse. The Third Reich, despite all its external monumentality, was a cyclopean financial pyramid needed to serve its own army. Only war could save the Nazi regime.
We are clearing the battlefield
In the case of Poland, the reason for the claims was the Polish corridor, which separated Germany proper from East Prussia. Communication with the exclave was maintained only by sea. In addition, the Germans wanted to reconsider in their favor the status of the city and the Baltic port of Danzig with its German population and the status of a “free city” under the patronage of the League of Nations.
Warsaw, of course, was not pleased with such a rapid disintegration of the established tandem. However, the Polish government counted on a successful diplomatic resolution of the conflict, and if it failed, then on a military victory. At the same time, Poland confidently torpedoed Britain’s attempt to form a united front against the Nazis, including England itself, France, Poland and the USSR. The Polish Foreign Ministry stated that they refused to sign any document jointly with the USSR, and the Kremlin, on the contrary, announced that they would not enter into any alliances aimed at protecting Poland without its consent. During a conversation with People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs Litvinov, the Polish ambassador announced that Poland would turn to the USSR for help “when necessary.”
However, the Soviet Union intended to secure its interests in Eastern Europe. There was no doubt in Moscow that a big war was brewing. However, the USSR had a very vulnerable position in this conflict. The key centers of the Soviet state were too close to the border. Leningrad was under attack from two sides at once: from Finland and Estonia, Minsk and Kyiv were dangerously close to the Polish borders. Of course, we were not talking about concerns directly from Estonia or Poland. However, the Soviet Union believed that they could be successfully used as a springboard for an attack on the USSR by a third force (and by 1939 it was quite obvious what this force was). Stalin and his entourage were well aware that the country would have to fight Germany, and would like to obtain the most advantageous positions before the inevitable clash.
Of course, where best choice there would be a joint action with the Western powers against Hitler. This option, however, was firmly blocked by Poland's decisive refusal of any contacts. True, there was one more obvious option: an agreement with France and Britain, bypassing Poland. The Anglo-French delegation flew to the Soviet Union for negotiations...
...and it quickly became clear that the allies had nothing to offer Moscow. Stalin and Molotov were primarily interested in the question of what plan of joint action could be proposed by the British and French, both regarding joint actions and in relation to the Polish question. Stalin feared (and quite rightly so) that the USSR might be left alone in the face of the Nazis. Therefore, the Soviet Union took a controversial move - an agreement with Hitler. On August 23, a non-aggression pact was concluded between the USSR and Germany, which determined the areas of interests in Europe.
As part of the famous Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the USSR planned to gain time and secure a foothold in Eastern Europe. Therefore, the Soviets expressed an essential condition - the transfer of the eastern part of Poland, also known as western Ukraine and Belarus, to the sphere of interests of the USSR.
The dismemberment of Russia lies at the heart of Polish policy in the East... The main goal is the weakening and defeat of Russia."
Meanwhile, reality was radically different from the plans of the commander-in-chief of the Polish army, Marshal Rydz-Smigly. The Germans left only weak barriers against England and France, while they themselves attacked Poland with their main forces from several sides. The Wehrmacht was indeed the leading army of its time; the Germans also outnumbered the Poles, so that for a short time the main forces Polish army found themselves surrounded west of Warsaw. Already after the first week of the war, the Polish army began to retreat chaotically in all sectors, and part of the forces were surrounded. On September 5, the government left Warsaw towards the border. The main command left for Brest and lost contact with most of the troops. After the 10th, centralized control of the Polish army simply did not exist. On September 16, the Germans reached Bialystok, Brest and Lvov.
At this moment the Red Army entered Poland. The thesis about a stab in the back of fighting Poland does not stand up to the slightest criticism: no “back” no longer existed. Actually, only the fact of advancing towards the Red Army stopped the German maneuvers. At the same time, the parties did not have any plans for joint actions, and no joint operations were carried out. The Red Army soldiers occupied the territory, disarming Polish units that came their way. On the night of September 17, the Polish Ambassador in Moscow was handed a note with approximately the same content. If we leave aside the rhetoric, we can only admit the fact: the only alternative to the invasion of the Red Army was the seizure of the eastern territories of Poland by Hitler. The Polish army did not offer organized resistance. Accordingly, the only party whose interests were actually infringed was the Third Reich. The modern public, worried about the treachery of the Soviets, should not forget that in fact Poland could no longer act as a separate party; it did not have the strength to do so.
It should be noted that the entry of the Red Army into Poland was accompanied by great disorder. Poles' resistance was sporadic. However, confusion and a large number of Non-combat losses accompanied this march. During the storming of Grodno, 57 Red Army soldiers died. In total, the Red Army lost, according to various sources, from 737 to 1,475 people killed and took 240 thousand prisoners.
The German government immediately stopped the advance of its troops. A few days later, the demarcation line was determined. At the same time, a crisis arose in the Lviv region. Soviet troops clashed with German troops, and on both sides there was damaged equipment and casualties.
On September 22, the 29th Tank Brigade of the Red Army entered Brest, occupied by the Germans. At that time, without much success, they stormed the fortress, which had not yet become “the one.” The piquancy of the moment was that the Germans handed over Brest and the fortress to the Red Army right along with the Polish garrison entrenched inside.
Interestingly, the USSR could have advanced even deeper into Poland, but Stalin and Molotov chose not to do this.
Ultimately, the Soviet Union acquired a territory of 196 thousand square meters. km. (half the territory of Poland) with a population of up to 13 million people. On September 29, the Polish campaign of the Red Army actually ended.
Then the question arose about the fate of the prisoners. In total, counting both military and civilians, the Red Army and the NKVD detained up to 400 thousand people. Some (mostly officers and police) were subsequently executed. Most of those captured were either sent home or sent through third countries to the West, after which they formed the “Anders Army” as part of the Western coalition. Soviet power was established on the territory of western Belarus and Ukraine.
The Western allies reacted to the events in Poland without any enthusiasm. However, no one cursed the USSR or branded it an aggressor. Winston Churchill, with his characteristic rationalism, stated:
- Russia pursues a cold policy of its own interests. We would prefer that the Russian armies stand in their present positions as friends and allies of Poland, and not as invaders. But to protect Russia from the Nazi threat, it was clearly necessary for the Russian armies to stand on this line.
What did the Soviet Union really gain? The Reich was not the most honorable negotiating partner, but the war would have started in any case - with or without a pact. As a result of the intervention in Poland, the USSR received a vast forefield for a future war. In 1941, the Germans passed it quickly - but what would have happened if they had started 200–250 kilometers to the east? Then, probably, Moscow would have remained behind the Germans’ rear.
On September 17, 1939, the Polish campaign of the Red Army began. Officially, during the USSR (and in some sources even now), this military conflict was called " Liberation campaign to Western Belarus and Western Ukraine." The official pretext was quite interesting - "to take under protection the lives and property of the population of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus." The reason for the invasion sounds simply ridiculous, considering that it was from this population that the Soviet government took away all the property, and very many also life.
On September 1, 1939, Germany attacked Poland, its troops successfully and quite quickly advanced deep into Polish territory. Not long ago a very interesting historical fact- already from September 1, the USSR provided a radio station in Minsk to the German Air Force as a special radio beacon, which carried out coordinate reference using radio compasses. This lighthouse was used by the Luftwaffe to bomb Warsaw and some other cities. Thus, from the very beginning the USSR did not hide its intentions. On September 4, partial mobilization began in the Soviet Union. On September 11, two fronts were created on the basis of the Belarusian and Kyiv military districts - Belarusian and Ukrainian. The main blow was to be delivered by the Romanian front, because Polish troops retreated to the Romanian border, from there a counter-offensive against German troops was planned.
Soviet troops launched a massive attack on eastern Polish territories. 620 thousand soldiers, 4,700 tanks and 3,300 aircraft were thrown into the attack, that is, twice as many as the Wehrmacht had, which attacked Poland on September 1st.
The Polish government, having given the troops an incomprehensible order not to engage in battle with the Red Army, fled from their country to Romania.
At that time there were no regular military units on the territory of Western Ukraine and Belarus. Militia battalions were formed without heavy weapons. The incomprehensible order of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief disoriented the commanders on the ground. In some cities the Red Army was greeted as allies, in some cases the troops avoided clashes with the Red Army, there were also attempts at resistance and stubborn battles. But the forces were not equal, and most of the Polish generals and senior officers behaved exclusively cowardly and passively, preferring to flee to neutral Lithuania. Polish units on the territory of Western Belarus were finally defeated on September 24, 1939.
Already in the first days after the Red Army's invasion of Poland, war crimes began. First they affected Polish soldiers and officers. The orders of the Soviet troops were replete with appeals addressed to the Polish civilian population: they were encouraged to destroy the Polish military, portraying them as enemies. Ordinary soldiers were encouraged to kill their officers. Such orders were given, for example, by the commander of the Ukrainian Front, Semyon Timoshenko. This war was fought against international law and all military conventions.
For example, in the Polesie Voivodeship, the Soviet military shot an entire captured company of the Sarny Border Guard Corps battalion - 280 people. A brutal murder also occurred in Velyki Mosty, Lviv Voivodeship. Soviet soldiers herded the cadets of the local School of Police Officers to the square, listened to the report of the school commandant and shot everyone present from machine guns placed around. No one survived. From one Polish detachment that fought in the vicinity of Vilnius and laid down their arms in exchange for a promise to let the soldiers go home, all the officers were withdrawn and were immediately executed. The same thing happened in Grodno, taking which Soviet troops killed about 300 Polish defenders of the city. On the night of September 26-27, Soviet troops entered Nemiruwek, Chelm region, where several dozen cadets spent the night. They were captured, tied with barbed wire and bombarded with grants. The police who defended Lviv were shot on the highway leading to Vinniki. Similar executions took place in Novogrudok, Ternopil, Volkovysk, Oshmyany, Svisloch, Molodechno, Khodorov, Zolochev, Stryi. Separate and massacres of captured Polish soldiers were carried out in hundreds of other cities in the eastern regions of Poland. The Soviet military also abused the wounded. This happened, for example, during the battle near Vytyczno, when several dozen wounded prisoners were placed in a building People's House in Wlodawa and locked there without providing any assistance. Two days later, almost everyone died from their wounds, their bodies were burned at the stake.
Sometimes the Soviet military used deception, treacherously promising Polish soldiers freedom, and sometimes even posing as Polish allies in the war against Hitler. This happened, for example, on September 22 in Vinniki near Lvov. General Wladislav Langer, who led the defense of the city, signed a protocol with the Soviet commanders on the transfer of the city to the Red Army, according to which Polish officers were promised unhindered access to Romania and Hungary. The agreement was violated almost immediately: the officers were arrested and taken to a camp in Starobelsk. In the Zaleszczyki region on the border with Romania, the Russians decorated tanks with Soviet and Polish flags to pose as allies, and then surround the Polish troops, disarm and arrest the soldiers. The prisoners were often stripped of their uniforms and shoes and allowed to continue without clothes, shooting at them with undisguised joy. In general, as the Moscow press reported, in September 1939, Soviet army About 250 thousand Polish soldiers and officers were captured. For the latter, the real hell began later. The denouement took place in the Katyn forest and the basements of the NKVD in Tver and Kharkov.
Terror and murder of civilians acquired special proportions in Grodno, where at least 300 people were killed, including scouts who took part in the defense of the city. Twelve-year-old Tadzik Yasinsky soviet soldiers tied to a tank and then dragged along the pavement. Arrested civilians were shot on Dog Mountain. Witnesses of these events recall that piles of corpses lay in the center of the city. Among those arrested were, in particular, the director of the gymnasium, Vaclav Myslicki, the head of the women's gymnasium, Janina Niedzvetska, and the deputy of the Sejm, Constanta Terlikovsky.
They all soon died in Soviet prisons. The wounded had to hide from Soviet soldiers, because if discovered, they would be immediately shot.
The Red Army soldiers were especially active in pouring out their hatred on Polish intellectuals, landowners, officials and schoolchildren. In the village of Wielie Ejsmonty in the Białystok region, Kazimierz Bisping, a member of the Landowners' Union and senator, was tortured and later died in one of the Soviet camps. Arrest and torture also awaited engineer Oskar Meishtovich, owner of the Rogoznitsa estate near Grodno, who was subsequently killed in a Minsk prison.
Soviet soldiers treated foresters and military settlers with particular cruelty. The command of the Ukrainian Front gave the local Ukrainian population 24-hour permission to “deal with the Poles.” The most brutal murder occurred in the Grodno region, where, not far from Skidel and Zhidomli, there were three garrisons inhabited by former legionnaires of Pilsudski. Several dozen people were brutally killed: their ears, tongues, noses were cut off, and their stomachs were ripped open. Some were doused with oil and burned.
Terror and repression also fell on the clergy. Priests were beaten, taken to camps, and often killed. In Antonovka, Sarnensky district, a priest was arrested right during the service; in Ternopil, Dominican monks were expelled from monastery buildings, which were burned before their eyes. In the village of Zelva, Volkovysk district, a Catholic and Orthodox priest was arrested, and then they were brutally dealt with in the nearby forest.
From the first days of the entry of Soviet troops, prisons in cities and towns in Eastern Poland began to rapidly fill up. The NKVD, which treated prisoners with brutal cruelty, began creating its own makeshift prisons. After just a few weeks, the number of prisoners had increased at least six to seven times.
On September 28, German troops captured Warsaw; the last armed clashes on Polish territory were on October 5. Those. Despite the USSR's assertions, the Polish army continued to resist after September 17.
At the end of September, Soviet and German troops met at Lublin and Bialystok. Two joint parades of Soviet and German troops (sometimes called parades) were held; in Brest, the parade was hosted by brigade commander S. Krivoshein and General G. Guderian, in Grodno by corps commander V. Chuikov and a German general (last name is not yet known).
As a result undeclared war The Red Army lost 1,173 people killed, 2,002 wounded, 302 missing, 17 tanks, 6 aircraft, 6 guns and 36 vehicles. The Polish side lost 3,500 people killed, 20,000 missing, 454,700 prisoners and a large number of guns and aircraft.
During the era of the Polish People's Republic, they tried to convince the Poles that on September 17, 1939, there was a “peaceful” entry of Soviet troops to protect the Belarusian and Ukrainian population living on the eastern borders of the Polish Republic. However, it was a brutal attack that violated the provisions of the 1921 Treaty of Riga and the 1932 Polish-Soviet non-aggression pact. The Red Army that entered Poland did not take into account international law. It was not only about the capture of the eastern Polish regions as part of the implementation of the provisions of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact signed on August 23, 1939. Having invaded Poland, the USSR began to implement the plan that originated in the 20s to exterminate the Polish elite. The Bolsheviks acted according to their usual pattern.
September 1, 1939. This is the day the greatest disaster began, which claimed tens of millions human lives, destroyed thousands of cities and villages and ultimately led to a new redistribution of the world. It was on this day that the troops Hitler's Germany crossed the western border of Poland. The Second World War began.
And on September 17, 1939, from the east, Soviet troops struck the back of defending Poland. Thus began the last partition of Poland, which was the result criminal conspiracy two greatest totalitarian regimes of the 20th century - Nazi and communist. The joint parade of Soviet and Nazi troops on the streets of occupied Polish Brest in 1939 became a shameful symbol of this conspiracy.
Before the storm
The end of the First World War and the Treaty of Versailles created even more contradictions and points of tension in Europe than before. And if we add to this the rapid strengthening of the communist Soviet Union, which, in essence, was turned into a giant weapons factory, then it becomes clear - new war on the European continent was almost inevitable.
After World War I, Germany was crushed and humiliated: it was prohibited from having a normal army and navy, it lost significant territories, huge reparations caused economic collapse and poverty. This policy of the victorious states was extremely short-sighted: it was clear that the Germans, a talented, hardworking and energetic nation, would not tolerate such humiliation and would strive for revenge. And so it happened: in 1933, Hitler came to power in Germany.
Poland and Germany
After graduation Great War Poland regained its statehood. In addition, the Polish state has still seriously “grown” with new lands. Part of Poznan and the Pomeranian lands, which were previously part of Prussia, went to Poland. Danzig received the status of a “free city”. Part of Silesia became part of Poland, and the Poles forcibly captured part of Lithuania along with Vilnius.
Poland, together with Germany, took part in the annexation of Czechoslovakia, which in no way can be considered an action worth being proud of. In 1938, the Cieszyn region was annexed under the pretext of protecting the Polish population.
In 1934, a ten-year Non-Aggression Pact was signed between the countries, and a year later - an agreement on economic cooperation. In general, it should be noted that with Hitler’s rise to power, German-Polish relations improved significantly. But it didn't last long.
In March 1939, Germany demanded that Poland return Danzig to it, join the Anti-Comintern Pact and provide a land corridor for Germany to the Baltic coast. Poland did not accept this ultimatum and early in the morning of September 1, German troops crossed the Polish border and Operation Weiss began.
Poland and the USSR
Relations between Russia and Poland have traditionally been difficult. After the end of the First World War, Poland gained independence and the Soviet-Polish War began almost immediately. Fortune was changeable: first the Poles reached Kyiv and Minsk, and then the Soviet troops reached Warsaw. But then there was the “miracle on the Vistula” and the complete defeat of the Red Army.
According to the Treaty of Riga, the western parts of Belarus and Ukraine were part of the Polish state. The country's new eastern border ran along the so-called Curzon Line. In the early 30s, a treaty of friendship and cooperation and a non-aggression agreement were signed. But, despite this, Soviet propaganda portrayed Poland as one of the main enemies of the USSR.
Germany and USSR
Relations between the USSR and Germany during the period between the two world wars were contradictory. Already in 1922, an agreement on cooperation between the Red Army and the Reichswehr was signed. Germany had serious restrictions under the Treaty of Versailles. Therefore, part of the development of new weapons systems and training of personnel was carried out by the Germans on the territory of the USSR. A flight school and a tank school were opened, among whose graduates were the best German tank crews and pilots of the Second World War.
After Hitler came to power, relations between the two countries deteriorated, and military-technical cooperation was curtailed. Germany again began to be portrayed by official Soviet propaganda as an enemy of the USSR.
On August 23, 1939, a Non-Aggression Pact was signed between Germany and the USSR in Moscow. In fact, in this document, two dictators Hitler and Stalin divided between themselves Eastern Europe. According to the secret protocol of this document, the territories of the Baltic countries, as well as Finland, and parts of Romania were included in the sphere of interests of the USSR. Eastern Poland belonged to the Soviet sphere of influence, and its western part was supposed to go to Germany.
Attack
On September 1, 1939, German aircraft began bombing Polish cities, and ground troops crossed the border. The invasion was preceded by several provocations on the border. The invasion force consisted of five army groups and a reserve. Already on September 9, the Germans reached Warsaw, and the battle for the Polish capital began, which lasted until September 20.
On September 17, meeting practically no resistance, Soviet troops entered Poland from the east. This immediately made the position of the Polish troops almost hopeless. On September 18, the Polish high command crossed the Romanian border. Individual pockets of Polish resistance remained until the beginning of October, but this was already agony.
Part of the Polish territories, which were previously part of Prussia, went to Germany, and the rest was divided into general governorships. Polish territories captured by the USSR became part of Ukraine and Belarus.
Poland suffered huge losses during World War II. The invaders banned Polish language, all national educational and cultural institutions and newspapers were closed. Representatives of the Polish intelligentsia and Jews were massacred. In the territories occupied by the USSR, Soviet punitive agencies worked tirelessly. Tens of thousands of captured Polish officers were killed in Katyn and other similar places. Poland lost about 6 million people during the war.
Until the complete cessation of Polish resistance in early October (dates are called 7 and even ) of the year.
Prelude
September 1939
At the end of September, Soviet and German troops met at, and. There was even a small clash between the “allies”, during which both sides had minor losses. However, all the problems were resolved, and the German and Red armies held joint parades in and. years, summing up the results of the operation, he said, referring to Poland: “Nothing remains of this ugly brainchild that lived off the oppression of non-Polish nationalities.”
Campaign battles and skirmishes
The Battle of Sarn, The Battle of Dubne, The Battle of Kodziowci, The Defense of Vilno, The Battle of Puchova Góra, The Battle of Wola Sudkowska, The Battle of Wladypol, The Battle of Dchwola, The Battle of Krzemen, The Battle of Shaskem, The Battle of Wytyczno, The Battle of Kock.
Results
Poland was finally destroyed as a state. The USSR moved its border to the west, generally uniting all ethnically Belarusian and Ukrainian territories under its rule.
Territorial changes
Losses of the parties
The losses of the Polish side in actions against Soviet troops amounted to 3,500 people killed, 20,000 missing and 454,700 prisoners. Of the 900 guns and mortars and 300 aircraft, the vast majority were taken as trophies.
Prisoners
After the entry of Soviet troops into the territory of Western Belarus and the division of Poland between Germany and the USSR, the occupied Soviet troops territory ended up with tens of thousands of Polish citizens captured by the Red Army and interned - Polish army soldiers and local government officials state power, “Osadniks” (military colonists), policemen.
With the entry of the Red Army into the eastern Polish lands, there was a wave of robberies, looting and spontaneous killings of members of the local Polish administration by peasants. The general described the appearance of “liberated” Lvov at the end of 1939:
Shops were looted, windows were broken, only one had several hats on it. Endless queues at grocery stores. (..) People are in a gloomy mood. The streets are full of NKVD members and soldiers. The pavements and sidewalks are dirty and covered with snow. The impression is terrible.
The Soviet government gave the local population free education and medical care, support Ukrainian language; on the other hand, the Polish population was subjected to discrimination and repression. Coercion and repression against “socially hostile elements” dealt a heavy blow to the entire society and embittered the population. The Poles were subjected to severe discrimination; they tried not to hire them, and from the beginning of 1940 they began to deport them en masse. Even before the start of the Great Patriotic War 312 thousand families, or 1173 thousand people, were exiled to Siberia. On June 1, 1941, 2.6 thousand collective farms were created here, in which 143 thousand were united. rural farms. According to the commander of the rear of Army Group South, General Friederici, the Ukrainian population in 1941, when German troops entered, greeted them as friends and liberators.