"The Soviet invasion of Poland of 1939 was a military operation that started on September 17, 1939, during the early stages of World War II, sixteen days after the Nazi German attack on Poland. It ended in a decisive victory for the Soviet Union’s Red Army.
In early 1939, the Soviet Union claimed it tried to form an anti-German alliance with the United Kingdom, France, Poland, and Romania; but several difficulties arose, including the refusal of Poland and Romania to allow Soviet troops into their territories as part of collective security.[7] With the failure of the negotiations, the Soviets reversed their policy and on 23 August signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany. As a result, on 1 September, the Germans invaded Poland from the west; and on 17 September, the Red Army invaded Poland from the east after several calls by Germany to do so. The Soviet government announced that it was acting to protect the Ukrainians and Belarusians who lived in the eastern part of Poland, because the Polish state had collapsed in the face of the German attack and could no longer guarantee the security of its own citizens.[8][9]
The Red Army quickly achieved its targets, vastly outnumbering Polish resistance. It has been documented that the Polish fought bravely with casualties of up to six thousand to seven thousand. The Red Army meanwhile included deaths of about 3,000 and under 10,000 wounded as a result of the battle.[1] About 230,000 Polish soldiers or more were taken prisoners of war.[10] The Soviet government annexed the territory newly under its control and in November declared that the 13.5 million Polish citizens who lived there were now Soviet citizens. The Soviets quelled opposition by executing and arresting thousands.[11] They sent hundreds of thousands (estimates vary) to Siberia and other remote parts of the USSR in four major waves of deportations between 1939 and 1941.[b]
The Soviet invasion, which the Politburo called “the liberation campaign”, led to the incorporation of millions of Poles as well as western Ukrainians and western Belarusians into the Soviet Ukrainian and Byelorussian republics.[12] During the existence of the People’s Republic of Poland, the invasion was considered a delicate subject, almost taboo, and was often omitted from official history in order to preserve the illusion of “eternal friendship” between members of the Eastern Bloc.[13]
Contents
* 1 Prelude
* 2 Military campaign
* 3 Allied reaction
* 4 Aftermath
o 4.1 Byelorussia and Ukraine
o 4.2 Censorship
* 5 Orders of battle
* 6 Notes
* 7 References
* 8 Select bibliography
* 9 External links
Prelude
Deployment of Polish divisions on 1 September. The majority of Polish forces were concentrated on the German border; the Soviet border had been mostly stripped of units.
Deployment of Polish divisions on 1 September. The majority of Polish forces were concentrated on the German border; the Soviet border had been mostly stripped of units.
In the late 1930s, the Soviet Union tried to form an anti-German alliance with the United Kingdom, France and Poland.[h] The negotiations, however, proved difficult. The Soviets insisted on a sphere of influence stretching from Finland to Romania and asked for military support not only against anyone who attacked them directly but against anyone who attacked the countries in their proposed sphere of influence.[14] They also demanded the right to enter Poland, Romania and the Baltic States whenever they felt their security was threatened. The governments of those countries rejected the proposal because, as Polish foreign minister Józef Beck pointed out, they feared that once the Red Army entered their territories, it might never leave.[7] The Soviets did not trust the British and French to honour collective security, since they had failed to assist Spain against the Fascists or protect Czechoslovakia from the Nazis. They also suspected that the Western Allies would prefer the Soviet Union to fight Germany by itself, while they watched from the sidelines.[15] In view of these concerns, the Soviet Union abandoned the negotiations and turned instead to an alliance with Germany.
On 23 August 1939, the Soviet Union signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany, taking the allies by surprise. The two governments announced the agreement merely as a non-aggression treaty. As a secret appendix reveals, however, they had actually agreed to partition Poland between themselves and divide Eastern Europe into Soviet and German spheres of influence.[d] The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which has been described as a license for war, was a key factor in Hitler’s decision to invade Poland.[7][16]
The treaty provided the Soviets with extra defensive space in the west.[17] It also offered them a chance to regain territories ceded to Poland twenty years earlier and to unite the eastern and western Ukrainian and Belarusian peoples under a Soviet government for the first time.[18] Soviet leader Joseph Stalin saw advantages in a war in western Europe, which might weaken his ideological enemies and open up new regions to the advance of communism.[19][f]
Soon after the Germans invaded Poland on September 1, the Nazi leaders began urging the Soviets to play their agreed part and attack Poland from the east. The German ambassador to Moscow, Friedrich Werner von der Schulenburg, and the Soviet foreign minister, Vyacheslav Molotov, exchanged a series of diplomatic communiqués on the matter.[8] The Soviets delayed their intervention for several reasons. They were distracted by crucial events in their war with Japan; they needed time to mobilise the Red Army; and they saw a diplomatic advantage in waiting until Poland had disintegrated before making their move.[20][21] On 17 September, Molotov declared on the radio that all treaties between the Soviet Union and Poland were now void,[g] because the Polish government had abandoned its people and effectively ceased to exist.[22] On the same day, the Red Army crossed the border into Poland.[20][4]
The Red Army entered the eastern regions of Poland with seven field armies and between 450,000 and 1,000,000 troops.[4] These were deployed on two fronts: the Belarusian Front under Mikhail Kovalyov, and the Ukrainian Front under Semyon Timoshenko.[4] By this time, the Poles had failed to defend their western borders, and in response to German incursions had launched a major counter-offensive in the Battle of the Bzura. The Polish Army originally had a well-developed defensive plan to deal with the threat of the Soviet Union, but they were unprepared to face two invasions at once.[23] By the time the Soviets invaded, the Polish commanders had sent most of their troops west to face the Germans, leaving the east protected by only 20 under-strength battalions. These battalions consisted of about 20,000 troops of border defence corps (Korpus Ochrony Pogranicza), under the command of general Wilhelm Orlik-Rueckemann.[1][4]
Soviet and German officers meet after the Soviet invasion of Poland. From German propaganda newsreel.
Soviet and German officers meet after the Soviet invasion of Poland. From German propaganda newsreel.
At first, the Polish commander-in-chief, Marshal of Poland Edward Rydz-Śmigły, ordered the border forces to resist the Soviets. He then changed his mind after consulting with Prime Minister Felicjan Sławoj Składkowski and ordered them to fall back and engage the Soviets only in self-defense.[1][5] The two conflicting sets of orders led to confusion,[4] and when the Red Army attacked Polish units, clashes and small battles inevitably broke out.[1] The response of non-ethnic Poles to the situation added a further complication. In some cases, Ukrainians,[m] Belarusians[24] and Jews[25] welcomed the invading troops as liberators. The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists rose against the Poles, and communist partisans organised local revolts, for example in Skidel.[4][j]
The Polish military’s original fall-back plan was to retreat and regroup along the Romanian Bridgehead, an area in south-east Poland near the border with Romania. The idea was to adopt defensive positions there and wait for a promised French and British attack in the west. This plan assumed that Germany would have to reduce its operations in Poland in order to fight on a second front.[4] The allies expected Polish forces to hold out for up to several months, but the Soviet attack made this strategy obsolete.
The Polish political and military leaders knew that they were losing the war against Germany even before the Soviet invasion settled the issue.[4] Nevertheless, they refused to surrender or negotiate a peace with Germany. Instead, the Polish government ordered all military units to evacuate Poland and reassemble in France.[4] The government itself crossed into Romania at around midnight on 17 September. Polish units proceeded to manoeuvre towards the Romanian bridgehead area, sustaining German attacks on one flank and occasionally clashing with Soviet troops on the other. In the days following the evacuation order, the Germans defeated the Polish Armies Kraków and Lublin at the Battle of Tomaszów Lubelski, which lasted from 17 to 20 September.[26][…]
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Poland_(1939)
