Controversies of the Polish-Soviet War
Encyclopedia
Polish-Soviet War
The Polish–Soviet War was an armed conflict between Soviet Russia and Soviet Ukraine and the Second Polish Republic and the Ukrainian People's Republic—four states in post–World War I Europe...
, fought in 1919–20, concern the behaviour of the military forces and crimes they committed. Both sides raised charges of many violations of international law
International law
Public international law concerns the structure and conduct of sovereign states; analogous entities, such as the Holy See; and intergovernmental organizations. To a lesser degree, international law also may affect multinational corporations and individuals, an impact increasingly evolving beyond...
in order to sway public opinion in the West
Triple Entente
The Triple Entente was the name given to the alliance among Britain, France and Russia after the signing of the Anglo-Russian Entente in 1907....
which was felt to be important for both sides.
Prisoners of war
One of the most controversial issues that surfaced in the 1990s, was the situation of Soviet prisoners of war in PolandCamps for Russian prisoners and internees in Poland (1919-1924)
Camps for Russian prisoners and internees in Poland that existed during 1919-1924 housed two main categories of detainees:*personnel of the Imperial Russian Army, and Russian civilians, captured by Germany during World War I and left on Polish territory after the end of the war; and*Soviet military...
. During this war between two countries experiencing great socioeconomic difficulties, and often unable to care for their own populations, the treatment of prisoners of war was far from adequate, with tens of thousands on both sides, in Russian and Polish camps
Camps for Russian prisoners and internees in Poland (1919-1924)
Camps for Russian prisoners and internees in Poland that existed during 1919-1924 housed two main categories of detainees:*personnel of the Imperial Russian Army, and Russian civilians, captured by Germany during World War I and left on Polish territory after the end of the war; and*Soviet military...
, dying of communicable diseases. Between 16,000 to 20,000 of Soviet POWs – out of 80,000 – died in Polish camps; and a similar number of Polish POWs – out of about 51,000 – died in Soviet and Lithuanian camps.
After 1922 the Polish and Russian prisoners were exchanged among two sides. Ekaterina Peshkova
Ekaterina Peshkova
Yekaterina Pavlovna Peshkova née Volzhina was a Soviet human rights activist and humanitarian, first wife of Maxim Gorky.Before the October Revolution she took an active part in the work of the Committee for Assistance to Russian Political Prisoners under the leadership of Vera Figner...
the chairwoman of organization Assistance to Political Prisoners (Pompolit, Помощь политическим заключенным, Помполит). was awarded by an order of Polish Red Cross
Polish Red Cross
Polish Red Cross is the Polish member of International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. It was founded in 1919 by Dr. Benjamin Reschovsky of Warsaw City Hospital and recognized by the Red Cross on July 24th 1919, and its first president was Paweł Sapieha....
for her participation in the exchange of POWs after the Polish-Soviet War
Polish-Soviet War
The Polish–Soviet War was an armed conflict between Soviet Russia and Soviet Ukraine and the Second Polish Republic and the Ukrainian People's Republic—four states in post–World War I Europe...
.
Atrocities
The Polish side claimed that during the Soviet retreat from BerdychivBerdychiv
Berdychiv is a historic city in the Zhytomyr Oblast of northern Ukraine. Serving as the administrative center of the Berdychiv Raion , the city itself is of direct oblast subordinance, and is located south of the oblast capital, Zhytomyr, at around .The current estimated population is around...
, Kiev
Kiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....
and Zhytomyr
Zhytomyr
Zhytomyr is a city in the North of the western half of Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Zhytomyr Oblast , as well as the administrative center of the surrounding Zhytomyr Raion...
mass hostage-taking of civilians occurred, with hostages forced to go with the Reds all the way to the rear of the front. Similar claims were made that returning to Berdychiv the Bolsheviks threw out the sick and wounded from the hospital "disregarding the lives and honor of the medical personnel" and that in general the Soviet advance into Ukraine was characterized by mass killing of civilians and the burning of entire villages, especially by Budyonny's cossacks, designed to cow the Ukrainian population. Behind Polish lines, the Soviet forces hanged suspected enemies on the spot. Ultimately, in the pacification of Ukraine that began during the Soviet counteroffensive in 1920 and which would not end until 1922, the Soviets would take tens of thousands of Ukrainian lives. On 7 June the same day Budionny's Cossacks, spreading terror in the rear of recently broken Polish frontlines, burned a hospital in Berdychiv
Berdychiv
Berdychiv is a historic city in the Zhytomyr Oblast of northern Ukraine. Serving as the administrative center of the Berdychiv Raion , the city itself is of direct oblast subordinance, and is located south of the oblast capital, Zhytomyr, at around .The current estimated population is around...
, with 600 patients and Red Cross nuns inside.
Some first hand accounts from participants may support the claim that such behavior was found on both sides. The rights of prisoners of war were often diseregarded; for example in January 1918 in Cichinicze near Mohylow Bolsheviks shot patients and personnel of a Polish hospital. Particularly notorious were the accounts concerning the former officer of the Imperial Russian and Bolsheviks armies, Stanisław Bułak-Bałachowicz, who switched sides in the conflict and became a general in Poland. Although Bułak-Bałachowicz is claimed to be a national hero to Belarusians
Belarusians
Belarusians ; are an East Slavic ethnic group who populate the majority of the Republic of Belarus. Introduced to the world as a new state in the early 1990s, the Republic of Belarus brought with it the notion of a re-emerging Belarusian ethnicity, drawn upon the lines of the Old Belarusian...
in Poland for protection against Bolshevik terror, and his refusal to kill peasants on orders from Soviets, witness accounts claim that he was known to behave like an absolute ruler of the territories controlled by his troops, even conducting public executions As one Polish officer wrote in a letter to his wife: "This is the person without ideology. The bandit and the murderer and his comrades – subordinates are just like that. They know no shame and are similar to barbarians... I witnessed throwing the cut-off heads of Bolsheviks under his feet... I drank with him all night long and in the morning he with his group and me with my regiment went to the fighting. The massacre of Bolsheviks was horrific". There is evidence that the bands of Cossack "Colonel" Vadim Yakovlev
Vadim Yakovlev
Vadim Yakovlev was a Russian Cossack cavalry commander, in the rank of yesaul.A veteran of the World War I, during the Russian Civil War he commanded a Cossack brigade in the ranks of Gen. Anton Denikin's White Russian army in Ukraine...
were similarly cruel. He was a Don Cossack Ukrainian and Bolshevik officer who also switched to the Polish side along with his band and allegedly was a bloody marauder of villages and towns in Ukraine, Belarus, and was responsible for several anti-Jewish
Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
pogroms.
Pogroms
In 1919, Russian Jews were caught in the middle of a civil war, and became the victims of warring Red and White Russian, Ukrainian and Polish forces, among others. Thousands of pogroms resulted in the loss of an estimated 100,000 Jewish lives. Polish troops, Petlura's soldiers, and Bałachowicz's squads staged pogroms against Jews in practically every town they captured. Jews, accused by the Poles of treason, espionage and support of communism, were victims of murders in a string of cities in the course of the Polish-Soviet War. In Ukraine at this time, murders of Jews took place on an unprecedented scale, second only to the Holocaust years of World War II. Isaac BabelIsaac Babel
Isaak Emmanuilovich Babel was a Russian language journalist, playwright, literary translator, and short story writer. He is best known as the author of Red Cavalry, Story of My Dovecote, and Tales of Odessa, all of which are considered masterpieces of Russian literature...
, a war correspondent embedded with the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
, in his 1920 diary wrote down many first-hand accounts of atrocities committed by both sides against the Jews. On 5 April 1919 in Pinsk
Pinsk
Pinsk , a town in Belarus, in the Polesia region, traversed by the river Pripyat, at the confluence of the Strumen and Pina rivers. The region was known as the Marsh of Pinsk. It is a fertile agricultural center. It lies south-west of Minsk. The population is about 130,000...
a Polish officer, after hearing reports that Jewish inhabitants of the city were preparing to riot, panicked and instead of carrying the proper investigation ordered the execution of thirty-five Jews (Pinsk massacre
Pinsk massacre
The Pinsk massacre was the murder of thirty-five Jewish residents of Pinsk taken as hostages by the Polish Army after it captured the city in April 1919, during the opening phases of the Polish-Soviet War. The local Jews were arrested while holding a meeting...
). Similar hostilities, resulting in fewer casualties, took place in other towns. In Lida soldiers stopped several elderly Jews and cut off their beards with sabres and knives. During the pillage of Lida, Jewish homes were looted and 30 Jews were killed. Violence against Jews caused a major uproar and condemnation in the Polish parliament
Polish parliament
Polish parliament is an expression referring to the historical Polish parliaments. It implies chaos and general disorder, and that no real decision can be reached during sessions...
. Ignacy Daszyński
Ignacy Daszynski
Ignacy Ewaryst Daszyński was a Polish politician, journalist and Prime Minister of the Polish government created in Lublin in 1918....
, leader of the Polish Socialist Party
Polish Socialist Party
The Polish Socialist Party was one of the most important Polish left-wing political parties from its inception in 1892 until 1948...
, called all soldiers that commit acts of violence against the Jewish population "hooligans in uniform". However, Minister of War General Józef Leśniewski, in his written reply to the speaker of Parliament, defended anti-Jewish violence by Polish units in Lida, referring to Jews as a Communist-minded community and stating that the Polish Army had the right to kill their adversaries.
The reports of these incidents caused the United States to send a commission led by Henry Morgenthau, Sr.
Henry Morgenthau, Sr.
Henry Morgenthau was a lawyer, businessman and United States ambassador, most famous as the American ambassador to the Ottoman Empire during the First World War. He was father of the politician Henry Morgenthau, Jr. and the grandfather of Robert M. Morgenthau, who was the District Attorney of...
and Sir Stuart M. Samuel. According to the findings
Morgenthau Report
The Morgenthau report was a report issued by the United States' commission led by Henry Morgenthau, Sr., Homer H. Johnson, Brigadier General Edgar Jadwin and from the British side, Sir Stuart M. Samuel to investigate reports of mistreatment of Ashkenazi Jews in Poland...
of this Anglo-American Investigating Commission, a total of about 300 Jews lost their lives in all incidents. The commission also found out that the Polish military and civil authorities did do their best to prevent the incidents and their recurrence in the future. According to the Morgenthau report, some forms of discrimination against Jews was of political rather than anti-Semitic nature, rooted in political competition. The report specifically avoided use of the term "pogrom
Pogrom
A pogrom is a form of violent riot, a mob attack directed against a minority group, and characterized by killings and destruction of their homes and properties, businesses, and religious centres...
," noting that the term was used used to apply to a wide range of excesses, and had no specific definition.
Tadeusz Piotrowski
Tadeusz Piotrowski (sociologist)
Tadeusz Piotrowski or Thaddeus Piotrowski is a Polish-American sociologist. He is a Professor of Sociology in the Social Science Division of the University of New Hampshire at Manchester in Manchester, New Hampshire, where he lives....
noted that Morgenthau Reported admitted that the word pogrom was inapplicable to the conditions existing within a war zone. Richard C. Lukas
Richard C. Lukas
Richard C. Lukas is an American historian and author of numerous books and articles on Polish history and Polish-Jewish relations. He is recognized as a leading authority on Poland during World War II....
argues that in some places, Jews had made themselves vulnerable by collaborating with Poland's Lithuanian and Soviet enemies.
Property destruction
Similar to the Polish side, the Soviet government raised complaints on every occasion in diplomatic notes addressed to the EntenteTriple Entente
The Triple Entente was the name given to the alliance among Britain, France and Russia after the signing of the Anglo-Russian Entente in 1907....
. One note stated that during the Soviet advance the retreating Poles, disappointed by their military misfortunes, engaged in "vengeful vandalism", as in Borisov where the Poles, following their retreat, shelled the city with artillery from another bank of the Berezina River
Berezina River
The Berezina is a river in Belarus and a tributary of the Dnieper River.The Berezina Preserve by the river is in the UNESCO list of Biosphere Preserves.-Historical significance:...
"killing hundreds of people and leaving thousands without shelter." Another joint diplomatic note issued by Soviet Ukraine and Soviet Russia to the Entente
Triple Entente
The Triple Entente was the name given to the alliance among Britain, France and Russia after the signing of the Anglo-Russian Entente in 1907....
blamed the Poles for heavily damaging Kiev including its civilian and art objects, such as St. Volodymyr's Cathedral, a charge the Poles denied, admitting only to the Kiev bridges destruction, claimed necessary to slow the Red Army (the bridges survived multiple hostilities and conflicts prior to Polish occupation of Kiev). That particular note seems to be based on Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....
's telegraph, and Trotsky himself admitted parts of it were false.
Around the same time, on 7 June – two days after breaking Polish front line – Budyonny's 1st Army destroyed the bridges in Zhytomyr
Zhytomyr
Zhytomyr is a city in the North of the western half of Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Zhytomyr Oblast , as well as the administrative center of the surrounding Zhytomyr Raion...
, wrecked the railway station and burned various buildings; Budyonny's troops would both spread terror and wreck infrastructure, to delay Polish army and disrupt it logistics, over the coming month in West Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
and East Poland.