After the great success of the Battle of Warsaw in 1920, it seemed that anything was possible. Pińsk, Słonim and Baranowicze fell into Polish hands. Then, however, the offensive stopped and negotiations with the Bolsheviks produced meager results. Professor Andrzej Nowak claims that the documents he found in Moscow allow us to finally understand why this happened.
On September 21, 1920, Polish-Soviet peace negotiations began in Riga. Less than a month later, a ceasefire was concluded, which allowed the Bolsheviks to focus on the crackdown with the "white" general Peter Wrangl. As a result, the civil war ended, and the Reds took full power over the now Soviet Russia, soon transformed into the Soviet Union.
On March 18, 1921, Poland signed peace with the Bolsheviks. On the Soviet side of the border, among others, Minsk and large areas of Belarus to which Poland previously claimed rights. Until now, the dominant view was that the National Democratic Party led to such a conclusion of the negotiations. It was its representatives that dominated the Polish peace delegation sent to Riga. In his latest book, prof. Andrzej Nowak offers a different explanation for the mysterious "devotion" to Belarus. The document he discovered indicates that Józef Piłsudski could have been behind these decisions.
Polish borders according to Roman Dmowski's proposal presented at the peace conference in Paris in 1919 (Fig. Halibutt &Mix321, CC BY-SA 3.0).
Conspiracy theory confirmed?
As the scholar writes: We are entering an area dangerously close to conspiracy theories. Sometimes, however, it turns out that a historian can find ore for his work in such an area, from which an image of not a sick imagination is created, but a fragment of political reality.
In this case, this ginger a letter from Wiktor Kopp, the Soviet representative in Berlin, to Georgy Chicherin, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, turned out to be. In a message from September 28, 1920 The diplomat informed his superior about the meeting he had held with the PPS activist Ryszard Kunicki. The latter politician was to act on the order of Deputy Prime Minister Ignacy Daszyński, Józef Piłsudski's main associate.
Kunicki proposed to Kopp a meeting with Daszyński, at which the terms of peace were to be discussed in order to speed up the conclusion of an agreement. This would mean working behind the backs of the parliamentary delegation in Riga. The Pole immediately agreed to the Soviet condition of not interfering in the Russian civil war and not supporting the Ukrainian aspirations for independence.
It is hard to suppose that Kopp was lying to Chicherin (and consequently to Lenin), just as it is unlikely that Kunicki was acting on his own. Could Daszyński come out with such an initiative without consulting the Chief of State? Andrzej Nowak does not answer this question. He also admits that it is not known whether further behind-the-scenes talks actually took place, although he notes that the next report was not made by Kopp until November 4, although he did so almost every day before. Is it because he was involved in secret negotiations in the meantime?
The news is based on the book by Andrzej Nowak entitled "West's first betrayal. 1920 - the forgotten appeasement ”(Wydawnictwo Literackie 2015).
Whites and reds - who are more dangerous?
What goal would Daszyński pursue, and above all, the Marshal behind him? On this issue, the historian from Krakow gives the floor to Jędrzej Giertych. In his letters to Józef Mackiewicz, he wrote: Piłsudski, having come to terms with the essence of the program of "incorporation of the eastern territories into Poland", because he lost his federal program, he wanted to discredit and limit the same program [ie incorporation] by using parliamentary politicians.
It would mean nothing less than that, but Piłsudski agreed to give Belarus over to the communists, just to discredit his political rivals.
The second motive was to facilitate the Bolsheviks' fight against Wrangl. Piłsudski's personal experiences and the conviction that white Russia would in fact be more dangerous than red Russia prompted the Marshal to stop the Polish offensive. It seemed to him that it would be better for his country. But is he really right?
The source of the above news is:
Andrzej Nowak, The First Betrayal of the West. 1920 - the forgotten appeasement , Wydawnictwo Literackie, Krakow 2015.
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