The justification for the Soviet invasion of Poland surprised even Joseph Goebbels. How did Poles learn about aggression? Did the Red Army soldiers fit the propaganda image?
"The Soviets have entered. I am ordering a general withdrawal to Romania and Hungary by the shortest routes ”
On Sunday, September 17 at around 2.15 am Moscow time, in the building of the Polish embassy, at 30 Spiridinowka Street in Moscow, the sound of a telephone was heard. The secretariat of Vladimir Potemkin's Deputy People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs was called with a request to urgently arrive at Narkomindiel, i.e. the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union, Wacław Grzybowski, the Polish ambassador, at 3.00 am. He was to be handed over an important statement from the Soviet government. The Polish diplomat was expecting bad news: I thought that under one pretext or another, our non-aggression pact would be terminated. What awaited me was far worse ”
The Polish-German war revealed the internal bankruptcy of the Polish state. During ten days of hostilities, Poland lost all its industrial and cultural centers. Warsaw, as the capital of Poland, no longer exists. The Polish government has decayed and shows no signs of life. Thus, the agreements concluded between the USSR and Poland have expired. […]
The Soviet government cannot remain indifferent to the fact that the fellow Ukrainian and Belarusian people living in Poland, left to their own fate, have become defenseless. In view of the above circumstances, the Soviet Government ordered the Supreme Command of the Red Army to order the troops to cross the border and take care of the lives and property of the people of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus. At the same time, the Soviet Government intends to take all measures aimed at extricating the Polish nation from the unfortunate war into which it was pushed by foolish leaders, and allowing it to live a peaceful existence.
In this tragic situation, greatly upset Ambassador Wacław Grzybowski behaved with dignity and prudence, as befits a seasoned diplomat. He categorically refused to accept the document, accusing it of an open contradiction with the facts and argumentation inconsistent with the law applicable in the civilized world. He also did not hesitate to call the actions taken by the Red Army aggression.
The Soviet aggression against Poland was the result of the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact
Potemkin was surprised by the implacable position of a Polish diplomat. He tried in various ways to persuade him to accept the document. Under the guise of consultation with Molotov, he interrupted the meeting and ordered the note delivered by a messenger upon receipt to the building of the Polish Embassy. He also referred his conversation with Grzybowski to his superior. After the meeting resumed, Potemkin resorted to threats. He told the Polish ambassador that due to the fact that Moscow did not recognize the existence of the Polish state, he and his associates automatically lost their diplomatic immunity and constituted only a group of people who had Polish citizenship, but were subject to Soviet legislation with all the consequences. In response, Wacław Grzybowski stated that he would submit a formal protest to the dean of the diplomatic corps and would request visas to leave the territory of the Soviet Union. The fact that Friedrich-Werner von der Schulenburg was the dean was the dean of the whole affair!
Potemkin didn't do anything. Wacław Grzybowski left his office around 4.30 am. He only agreed to inform the Polish government of the fact of Soviet aggression. After returning to the embassy, however, he found that unfortunate note, delivered by a messenger. So he ordered to take her back, and when she was refused, stamps were put on and the Soviet post office was used! Earlier, however, the package was discreetly unsealed and the content of the note was copied. Just in case the Soviets thought of using other motives to justify their aggression against Poland. Grzybowski immediately sent a cable informing about the expected imminent attack of the Red Army against its head minister Józef Beck. Another dispatch contained the content of the Soviet document.
The official reasons for the Red Army entering Poland were announced on September 17 in a radio speech by Vyacheslav Molotov. Brazen lies sewn with such thick threads amazed even the Minister of Propaganda of the Third Reich, Joseph Goebbels, who wrote in his diary:
Moscow […] will enter Poland along the entire length of the border to protect its [national] minorities. It will do so while maintaining its neutrality and because the Polish state no longer exists. The justification is very original, but the fact itself is a gift for us.
Meanwhile, at the Polish embassy, due to the expected violation of its extraterritoriality, the feverish destruction of secret documents and codes began. Following Minister Beck's order, Ambassador Grzybowski also began efforts to evacuate the personnel of Polish diplomatic missions - apart from the embassy in Moscow, the Republic's representative offices in the USSR included consulates in Minsk, Kiev and Leningrad. The Soviets made a number of obstacles for him, without prejudging the possibility of his departure. Moreover, veiled threats were made at the Poles. As Col. Stefan Brzeszczyński recalled:
[...] our consulates were actually interned in their buildings, they were denied the sale of train tickets to Moscow, and our janitors and servants from the GPU unambiguously implied that if we left Moscow, then at most to the "conclagier".
Polish diplomats finally left the USSR on October 10, 1939 thanks to the efforts of von der Schulenburg, who intervened several times in their case at the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The sense of professional solidarity and attachment to diplomatic conventions evidently meant more to him than the war between the two countries. His efforts should be appreciated all the more, considering that the ambassadors of France and Great Britain have done virtually nothing in this regard.
"Poverty looks more and more into people's homes"
Poles did not hide their dislike of the occupiers. They mentioned their lack of manners, aggressive behavior and brutality, especially in relation to "Polish gentlemen". Some compared the entry of the Red Army into eastern Poland with the invasion of locusts, when the starving Bolsheviks first began to rob and then buy whatever they could in borderland shops . With their appearance, way of being, general intelligence and some such life helplessness, the Red Army aroused general contempt, disregard and pity than fear and respect that would be expected of the soldiers of the victorious army. 
On propaganda posters from the period of aggression against Poland, Red Army soldiers are presented as self-confident, perfectly uniformed and armed soldiers, often surrounded by modern military technology, greeting a poor, poorly dressed Ukrainian or Belarusian peasant or worker with a firm embrace. The reality, however, differed significantly from the artificially created image of "liberators". In the reports from the Borderlands, the most common images depict hungry, dirty Soviet soldiers, often with clearly Asian features, in a torn or patched uniform with a rifle on a string over his shoulder. Some of them are worth mentioning.
"Every Soviet soldier smelled from afar"
This is how Wanda Woźniak from Dubno remembered the Red Army soldiers she saw for the first time and the feelings that accompanied many Poles at that time:
I remember that day well and those Soviet troops, those slanted eyes. The soldiers rode in carts drawn by little horses. Harness tied with strings. Dressed sloppy. Lots of slanted eyes. On the back there are some bags, torn shoes. Military equipment was also drawn by small horses. It was evident that people and horses were hungry. Every roadside fruit tree was immediately stripped of fruit, and roadside gardens of vegetables. They ate raw vegetables and collected them into sacks - backpacks tied with strings. They never saw anything and were always hungry. Wretched and poor army. None of the Poles went out into the street. The situation was observed hidden from view. They were scared, they looked terrible.
Aleksander Szmiel from the village of Dumaryszki near Brasław describes the Red Army soldiers in a slightly different tone. As he recalls, seeing them made him amused rather than afraid:
Figures of soldiers sat as stiff as mannequins. They were dressed in dirty, black, quilted cotton wool. The material from which they were sewn resembled a tarnished quilt thrown over the litter of a doghouse. The sackcloth bag that beggars usually wandered in villages with, the dirty green forage cap and the hand-held rifle with a long sharp bayonet, made up the uniforms and armaments of these bizarre soldiers.
Next, Aleksander Szmiel makes interesting observations about the behavior of Soviet soldiers. Officers often used various polite phrases like "here you go" and expressed themselves only in superlatives about the Soviet system and its civilization gains . Moreover, they eagerly spread before all interested visions of a new, glorious future for countries and nations under the aegis of the Soviet Union. On the other hand, the rank and file turned out to be complete "grunts". They looked very scared and avoided answering any questions from the curious, referring them to the commander or even hiding from the more nosy residents of Dumaryszki. In this way, the Red Army, at least in Dumaryszki, tried to implement the recommendations of the political officers, who ordered to treat the civilians of the conquered country courteously, strictly observe discipline and respond to any kind of insubordination. Of course, as is clear from the previous chapter, in other parts of occupied Poland it was usually a wishful thinking.
The article is an excerpt from the book by Dariusz Kaliński Czerwony Invasion
It is also worth quoting the description of the Red Army soldiers entering the capital of Polish kerosene - Borysław. It was preserved in the memoirs of Adam Żarski, who writes:They made an incredibly negative impression on me and my colleagues compared to the Polish and German armies. Soviet soldiers were poorly dressed, often their shoes (kierzowyje sapohi) were tied with wires or strings due to the detachable soles. Black uppers once, now muddy, testified to the fact that they had not been cleaned with paste for a long time. Kufajki and gymnasts (green shirts with a stand-up collar) often had their sleeves worn on the elbows. It was all very dirty. Every Soviet soldier smelled from afar. Later we found out that they smeared themselves with some goo against lice and other insects. The soldiers claimed that the ointment was very effective.
What was the reality in occupied Poland?
In many cases, instead of leather straps or at least webbing straps, ordinary strings were tied to the rifles, which served as shoulder straps . The Russians had webbing belts on their pants, and the top shirts were worn “loose” or sometimes tied with webbing belts. Most of the time they wore undershirts (underpants) under the gymnasts. Due to the lack of a T-shirt, some soldiers put gymnasts on the naked body, and in winter padded jackets (t-shirts - padded jackets). They wore warm hats with earflaps. In the summer, the officers wore ordinary military caps with a large, high and wide brim and a small, hard, black, shiny visor. On the other hand, ordinary rank and file soldiers wore forage caps. Caps with blue rims distinguished the NKVD militia services.
The soldiers were always hungry and when there was no officer around, they asked us where we could get something to eat . Immediately after the occupation of Borysław by the Red Army, soldiers with indigenous people (Ukrainians) began to break up closed grocery stores and other expensive goods, which were mostly owned by rich and middle-class Jews. They also destroyed the shops and warehouses of the Polish owners. […]
Further, Żarski describes the habits of the Red Army soldiers and their love of strong alcoholic drinks:
Alcoholic beverages, including denatured alcohol, were loaded by soldiers into trucks, tanks and armored vehicles. They immediately expressed their satisfaction, because they had something to eat and drink, so they sang loudly, danced and played balalaikas. The soldiers drank not only vodka and denatured alcohol, but even cologne stolen from drugstores. They poured ordinary drinking water into the cologne and the drink was completely white. [...] Usually, the rank and file liked to talk to us when the officer was not around. You could chat and laugh with them. We learned from them how people in the Soviet Union live, how they work in kolkhozes and what are kolkhozes and sovkhozes in general, and for what they love Stalin's batiuszko (Stalin's father). Indeed, they had an idolatrous worship for him. Simple rank-and-file soldiers were very eager to talk to us honestly, but they were terrified of their politicians, i.e. political officers, who had enormous powers. They could destroy the soldier completely, put him in prison or send him to Siberia. The political officer could harm not only the soldier he believed was at fault, but also his entire family. Soviet soldiers called the commissars sobaks (dogs). They warned us not to talk to them at all because they are very bad people ...
While the low level of hygiene of the Red Army soldiers can be blamed on long marches and participation in hostilities, the shortages of supplies and poor uniforms clearly testify to the terrible condition of the Soviet quartermaster services. Żarski touched on the topic of addictions in his memoirs. The fighters not only drank it, but were also famous for their love of tobacco . They smoked the captured cigarettes and the most vile tobacco substitute:the so-called kryszka, or coarsely chopped tobacco stalks. It happened that, in order to give itself seriousness, a cricket twisted in a tissue paper or a cigarette was placed in a barrel, and this function could be performed by various objects. A Polish shopkeeper in Bialystok was somewhat shocked when the Red Army soldier bought a few pears for enema in his drugstore, disconnected the Bakelite tube from the rubber pear and put it in his mouth with apparent satisfaction.
There is another interesting thread in the memoirs concerning the attitude of ordinary soldiers to political officers. There are also other reports that the Red Army soldiers felt much more at ease and were able to open up to the interlocutor when they were not around. When a Pole from Brest came across a broken Soviet tank near the city and asked one of the crew members what life in the Soviet Union was like, he went aside, looked around and replied in an undertone:".
Poles were also surprised by the lack of basic technical knowledge among the occupiers, which seemed quite bizarre, considering the high level of mechanization of the Red Army. In Przemyśl, a certain Red Army soldier bought a manual meat grinder, walked down the street twisting a crank, and was surprised that the device did not make music. Karolina Lanckorońska recalled such a situation from Lviv:
In my presence, the officer was buying a rattle. He put it to his companion's ear, and as it rattled, they both jumped amid shouts of joy. Finally they bought it and left happy. The stunned shopkeeper, after a moment of silence, turned to me and asked helplessly: How will it be, ma'am? After all, they are officers ” .