Restoration of state independence of Poland by Pilsudski's policy. Restoration of state independence of Poland

On September 17, 1939, the then President of Poland, Ignacy Moscicki, crossed the border into Romania. On this day, Poland once again ceased to exist as a sovereign state. Polish political circles still have not realized or deliberately do not recognize Poland's guilt before Europe and Russia (USSR), blaming Hitler and Stalin for the fact that Russia and Germany divided the neighboring country between themselves in 1939. After three sections 1772-1795. Poland, only thanks to the revolution in Russia, restored its statehood and gained independence in 1918.

Now let us remind forgetful Poles how Poland behaved from 1918 to 1939. On December 10, 1917, the independence of Poland was recognized by decree of the Council of People's Commissars. But just over a year later, the I Polish Corps under the command of Dovbor-Musnitsky, taking advantage of the resumption of the war, occupied Minsk on February 21 and, by agreement with the Austro-German command, became part of the occupation forces. Then Poland, together with Germany, became an occupier of Russian lands. On August 29, 1918, V.I. Lenin signed the Council decree people's commissars RSFSR on the renunciation of treaties and acts concluded by the government of the former Russian Empire on the divisions of Poland.

After Germany's defeat in the war in November 1918, when Poland was restored as an independent state, the question of its new borders arose. Polish politicians decided to take revenge on Russia and return the eastern territories former Speech The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth became part of the new state. On November 11, 1918, the Compiègne Armistice was signed, ending the First World War, after which the withdrawal of German troops from the occupied territories began. The Soviet Western Army, whose task was to establish control over Belarus, moved after the retreating German units on November 17, 1918 and entered Minsk on December 10, 1918. But the main goal of the new Polish leadership, led by Józef Pilsudski, was to restore Poland to the historical borders of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth of 1772, establishing control over Belarus, Ukraine, Lithuania and geopolitical dominance in Eastern Europe. It was this aggressive policy of Poland, which was just getting back on its feet, that largely laid the foundation for its fourth partition in 1939. Here is J. Pilsudski’s opinion on how to make Russia a second-class power: “Closed within the borders of the sixteenth century, cut off from the Black and Baltic Seas, deprived of the land and mineral wealth of the South and Southeast, Russia could easily become a second-class power ", unable to seriously threaten Poland's newfound independence. Poland, as the largest and most powerful of the new states, could easily secure for itself a sphere of influence that would stretch from Finland to the Caucasus Mountains."

The Soviet side sought to establish control over the western provinces of the former Russian Empire (Ukraine and Belarus) and their Sovietization. The Soviet-Polish War was brewing, and in Polish historiography the “Polish-Bolshevik War”. On December 19, the Polish government gave the order to its troops to occupy the city of Vilna. On January 1, 1919, the Belarusian SSR was proclaimed. On the same day, Polish units took control of Vilna. The first armed clash between units of the Red Army and Polish units occurred on January 6, 1919, when the Polish garrison was driven out of Vilna. On February 16, the authorities of the Byelorussian SSR proposed to the Polish government to determine the borders, but Warsaw ignored this proposal. Poland was thirsty for new territorial acquisitions and, like a stagnant mare for 123 long years, was eager to continue the military race. On February 27, after Lithuania was included in the Byelorussian SSR, it was renamed the Lithuanian-Belarusian SSR. At this time, Poland still had a border conflict with Czechoslovakia and was preparing for a possible conflict with Germany over Silesia. However, on February 4, Polish troops occupied Kovel, on February 9 they entered Brest, and on February 19 they entered Bialystok, abandoned by the Germans. At the same time, Polish troops moving east liquidated the administration of the Ukrainian People's Republic in the Kholm region, Zhabinka, Kobrin and Vladimir-Volynsky.

Leftovers German troops allowed Polish units to go east, so that a Polish-Soviet front was formed on the territory of Lithuania and Belarus. At the end of February 1919, Polish troops crossed the Neman and launched an offensive into Belarus (which had been in a federation with the RSFSR since February 3). And this is a direct attack by Poland against the young Soviet state. Western Ukraine comes under the control of the Poles - on June 25, 1919, the Council of Foreign Ministers of Great Britain, France, the USA, and Italy authorizes Poland to occupy eastern Galicia up to the river. Zbruch. By July 17, eastern Galicia was completely occupied by the Polish army, and the administration of the Western Ukrainian People's Republic (WUNR) was liquidated.

Here, leading Western countries are already using Poland as a battering ram against Russia. Soviet Russia had a hard time, since the Soviet General Staff sent all its reserves to the south against Anton Denikin’s Volunteer Army, which launched an attack on Moscow in July. In August, Polish troops again went on the offensive, the main goal of which was Minsk. After a six-hour battle on August 9, Polish troops captured the Belarusian capital, and on August 29, despite stubborn resistance from the Red Army, Bobruisk was captured by the Poles. Since Anton Denikin did not want to support plans for further Polish expansion, a temporary truce was concluded before the start of next year. Denikin, like the White movement as a whole, recognized the independence of Poland, but was opposed to Polish claims to the lands east of the Bug, believing that they should be part of a single and indivisible Russia. Denikin proved himself to be a true patriot of Russia. He behaved the same way during World War II, while in exile. On December 8, 1919, the Declaration on the eastern border of Poland (see Curzon Line), recognized by the Entente, was announced, coinciding with the line of ethnographic predominance of the Poles. In January 1920, in a conversation with the British diplomat Sir Mackinder, Pilsudski was of the following opinion: “he regarded the Bolsheviks as being in a difficult situation and strongly argued that the Polish army could independently enter Moscow next spring, but in this case he would be faced with the question - what to do politically."

In early January 1920, hostilities resumed. In Ukraine, the actions of the Poles, in accordance with the agreement, were supported by Petliura’s troops. At the end of April, the Poles captured more than 25 thousand Red Army soldiers, and already on May 7, 1920, the Polish cavalry entered Kyiv, abandoned by units of the Red Army. Kyiv was liberated on June 12 by Budyonny's 1st Cavalry Army. The Poles controlled Kiev for about five weeks. The Red Army advanced and on July 26, in the Bialystok area, the Red Army moved directly to Polish territory. The Red Army was in a hurry to take Warsaw, as England threatened to help Poland. However, the expectation that the Polish proletariat would help the Red Army turned out to be in vain. Friction in the work of the administrative apparatus and the delay in the transfer of the 1st Cavalry Army to the Western Front caused the defeat of Tukhachevsky’s troops near Warsaw: 60 thousand were captured by the Polish, 45 thousand were interned by the Germans. “We expected uprisings and revolutions from the Polish workers and peasants, but what we got was chauvinism and stupid hatred of the “Russians” (Voroshilov). During the Battle of the Neman at the end of September 1920, Polish troops captured 40 thousand prisoners. On October 12, the Poles re-entered Minsk and Molodechno. On March 18, 1921, in Riga, between Poland, on the one hand, and the RSFSR (whose delegation also represented the Belarusian SSR) and the Ukrainian SSR, on the other, the Riga Peace Treaty was signed, drawing a final line under the Soviet-Polish War. Under the terms of the treaty, Poland undertook recognize the independence of Belarus and Ukraine and confirmed that it respects their state sovereignty. The parties that signed the agreement pledged not to interfere in each other’s internal affairs, not to create or support organizations “with the goal of armed struggle with another contracting party,” and also not support "another's military action against another side."

According to Russian sources, about 80 thousand of the 200 thousand Red Army soldiers captured by Poland died from hunger, disease, torture, abuse and execution. According to the 1921 agreement on the exchange of prisoners (addition to the Riga Peace Treaty), 65 thousand captured Red Army soldiers returned to Russia. If the information about 200 thousand captured and the death of 80 thousand of them is correct, then the fate of about 60 thousand more people is unclear. Mortality in Polish camps reached 20% of the number of prisoners, mainly the cause of death was epidemics, which, in conditions of poor nutrition, overcrowding and lack of medical care, quickly spread and had a high mortality rate. Of the 41-42 thousand Polish prisoners, the total loss was only about 3-4 thousand prisoners of war, of which about 2 thousand were recorded according to documents as having died in captivity. The Soviet-Polish war took place simultaneously with the intervention in Russia of the Entente countries, which actively supported Poland from the moment of its re-establishment as an independent state. In this regard, Poland's war against Russia was considered by the "great powers" as part of the struggle against the Bolshevik government. Neither side achieved its goals during the war: Belarus and Ukraine were divided between Poland and the republics that became part of the Soviet Union. The territory of Lithuania was divided between Poland and the independent state of Lithuania.

Poland started a war with Soviet Russia, which led to large human losses on the part of the Red Army, both on the battlefield and those killed in captivity, 40 times higher than the number of dead Polish prisoners. This circumstance alone, as well as the territories of the former Russian Empire transferred to Poland, give rise to the events of 1939. However, Poland's anti-Russian policy was not limited only to the consequences of the Soviet-Polish War. The Polish side, posing as a victim of aggression by Germany and the USSR, hides from the public documents of its own aggressive plans to destroy the Soviet Union, hatched long before 1939. Polish policy towards Russia (USSR) was finally formed on August 31, 1937 (two years before the start of World War II) in the form of Directive No. 2304/2/37 of the Polish General Staff. The directive states in black and white that the ultimate goal of Polish policy is “the destruction of all Russia.” That is, the Polish leadership did not care what Russia was: tsarist, Soviet, capitalist, in general, any one as such. See article by Vitaly Chumakov “Polish plan for the destruction of the Soviet Union” dated August 28, 2014.

During the World War, Germany and Austria-Hungary occupied the Kingdom (Kingdom) of Poland, which had been part of the Russian Empire since 1815. Before the arrival of the Austro-German troops, about 2 million inhabitants of the Kingdom of Poland, partly under pressure from the tsarist administration, partly on their own initiative, were evacuated deep into Russia. Many of these Polish refugees took part in the struggle of the workers and peasants of multinational Russia for victory and the establishment of Soviet power. The organizations of the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania (SDKP and L), as well as the Polish Socialist Party-Left (PPS-Left), played a major role in uniting the Polish revolutionary forces on the territory of Russia. Outstanding figures of these parties - F. Dzerzhinsky, Y. Markhlevsky, Y. Unshlikht, Y. Leshchinsky (Lensky), F. Kohn and others selflessly served the cause of the proletarian revolution.

Immediately after the October Revolution, the Main Board of the SDKP and L, which was in an illegal position in Warsaw, addressed an appeal to the Polish workers. It said: “Workers, working women! Unheard of, amazing news comes to us from Russia! The working class has won in St. Petersburg! The bourgeois government has been swept away, the dictatorship of the proletariat has become a fact! Polish workers, we have a bloody struggle ahead of us, perhaps a long one. But we know one thing: a clear and great goal is shining upon us... Down with the war! Down with capitalism! Long live the social revolution!”

The working people of all parts of Poland - both the former Kingdom of Poland and the Polish lands under the rule of Austria-Hungary and Germany - treated with deep sympathy the activities of the Soviet government, especially its struggle for democratic peace. During the peace negotiations that took place in Brest-Litovsk, the question of Poland took one of the central places. The Soviet delegation sought to grant the Polish people the right to freely decide their fate. Representatives of the Polish revolutionary social democracy, invited by the delegation of Soviet Russia to participate in the conference, read out a declaration which, on behalf of the workers of the Kingdom of Poland, Galicia, Poznan, Silesia, demanded the destruction of national oppression, the removal of partitions between the three parts of Poland and the provision of the Polish people with the opportunity to freely arrange their lives of your country.

The situation of the working masses of Poland was extremely difficult. There was famine in the country. As a result of various exactions, requisition of horses and draft animals, a significant part of the small and middle peasantry was ruined. Industrial production was continuously declining. Coal production in the Dombrovsky basin was 40% of the pre-war level. 800 thousand workers were taken to forced labor in Germany.

By mid-January 1918, when general strikes began in Austria-Hungary and Germany, a wave of strikes also spread to Polish lands. Large demonstrations and strikes, whose participants demanded bread, an end to the war and the creation of an independent Polish state, took place in Krakow, Przemysl, Nowy Sacz, Auschwitz, Warsaw, the Dąbrowski Basin, and Kielce. In Warsaw, during the strike, the Council of Communal Workers' Deputies was formed, which testified to the power of influence of the great ideas of October; Polish workers came to the idea of ​​the need to create new class organizations, which, both in name and in the essence of their tasks, would represent something more than ordinary strike committees. After the occupiers concluded an agreement with the counter-revolutionary Ukrainian Central Rada (February 9, 1918) and transferred the Chelm region to it, mass political demonstrations against the German and Austro-Hungarian imperialists took place in Lodz, Sosnowiec, Radom, Czestochowa, Lublin and other cities in Poland. The outrage was so great that even the Regency Council, a puppet body created by the occupiers in the Kingdom of Poland, considered it necessary to condemn the actions of Germany and Austria-Hungary.

In the spring of 1918, tens of thousands of refugees began returning to Poland from Russia. They brought with them news of the struggle of workers and peasants for socialism, of the participation of Polish workers and soldiers in the Russian revolution. Among Polish workers, the idea of ​​creating Soviets of Workers' and Peasants' Deputies gained increasing recognition. However, the revolutionary parties - the SDKP and L and the PPS-Left - at that time enjoyed much less influence among the workers than the conciliatory, nationalist parties - the Social Democratic Party of Galicia and Silesia and the Polish Socialist Party - “revolutionary faction” (PPS-fraction). The reason for this was, in particular, that the working class of Poland during the war years was replenished by the petty-bourgeois elements of the city and ruined peasants, and a significant part of the cadre proletariat ended up in Russia or Germany.

Both conciliatory parties spoke out in favor of convening a Constituent Sejm, designed to resolve issues government system Poland, as well as engage in agrarian and other reforms, establish an 8-hour working day, and nationalize some industries. At the same time, these parties put forward a plan for a “union” between the future Polish state and Lithuania, of which they considered Belarus to be an integral part. The plan for such a “union” reflected the great-power aspirations of the Polish ruling classes and had nothing to do with the true interests of the Polish, Lithuanian, and Belarusian peoples.

The Compromisers forced cooperation with the bourgeoisie on the workers, arguing that the social demands of workers and peasants would be automatically satisfied after the formation of an independent Polish state. At the same time, the anti-capitalist nature of some slogans, speeches in favor of peace, and promises of major reforms helped to increase the popularity of these parties.

The revolutionary parties SDKP and L and PPS-Left, whose positions were becoming increasingly closer, had not yet developed the correct tactics and were unable to lead the revolutionary upsurge of the working people. Believing that a pan-European socialist revolution would take place in the very near future and that its victory would solve all the social and national problems of Poland, they underestimated the slogans of national liberation and democratic transformation that were close and understandable to the masses.

The active struggle of the Polish people for their national independence unfolded in the fall of 1918 under the direct influence of the ideas of the Great October Socialist Revolution and the Leninist national policy of the Soviet government.

From the first days of its existence, the Soviet government consistently defended the right of nations to self-determination. Concretizing the provisions of the Decree on Peace and the Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia, continuing the line proclaimed during the Brest-Litovsk negotiations, the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR adopted on August 29, 1918 a decree renouncing a number of treaties of the government of the former Russian Empire, Article 3 of which stated: “ All treaties and acts concluded by the government of the former Russian Empire with the governments of the Kingdom of Prussia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire concerning the divisions of Poland, in view of their contradiction to the principle of self-determination of nations and the revolutionary legal consciousness of the Russian people, which recognized the inalienable right of the Polish people to independence and unity, are hereby cancelled. irrevocably."

Signed by V.I. Lenin, this decree of the Soviet government created solid legal and political foundations for the independence of Poland.

In September - October 1918, in some parts of the country, power was already slipping from the hands of the Austro-Hungarian and German occupiers. On October 1, a strike began among the miners of the Dombrovsky basin. The revolutions in Austria-Hungary and Germany had a great influence on the development of the national liberation movement in Poland. In mid-October, when the collapse of Austria-Hungary came, the occupation regimes in Poland were already on the eve of collapse. In the southwestern regions, various Polish organizations began to disarm the Austro-Hungarian troops.

Polish landowners and capitalists began to make efforts to prevent the establishment of people's power. The Regency Council, with the help of the occupiers, launched feverish activities aimed at creating its own apparatus of power. On the other hand, the Polish National Committee, created in Paris in August 1917, developed widespread activity, representing the interests of those Polish bourgeois-landowner circles that were oriented towards the victory of the Entente. The predominant influence in it was enjoyed by the main party of the Polish bourgeoisie - the “national democrats” (endeks) and their leader R. Dmowski. The governments of France, England, Italy, and the United States recognized the Polish National Committee as an “official Polish organization.”

Demonstrating complete disregard for the national interests of the Polish people, the victorious powers ordered Germany, in accordance with the terms of the Compiegne Armistice, to withdraw troops to the eastern border line that existed at the beginning of the war, and the withdrawal was to follow when the victors demanded it. However, as a result of the national liberation struggle of the Polish people, the Austro-Hungarian and German occupation power collapsed in large areas of Poland. The vast majority of Polish lands were freed from foreign yoke.

So October Revolution, having put an end to the Russian landowners and capitalists, undermining by the force of its revolutionary influence the power of Poland’s other oppressors - the German and Austro-Hungarian invaders, increased the revolutionary energy of the Polish people and confirmed the vitality of V. I. Lenin’s provisions that the Polish question can only be resolved in connection and on the basis of the proletarian revolution in Russia and that “the freedom of Poland is impossible without the freedom of Russia” ( V. I. Lenin, A few comments on P. Maslov’s “Answer”, Soch., vol. 15, p. 241.).

The struggle between revolutionary and counter-revolutionary forces

From the beginning of November 1918, Soviets of Workers' Deputies began to emerge in Poland, and in some places - Soviets of Peasants' and Farmers' Deputies. The Lublin Council of Workers' Deputies began its activities first (November 5), followed by the Council of Workers' Deputies in Dąbrowa, and on November 11 the Council was formed in Warsaw. Within a short time, Soviets were created in Radom, Lodz, Czestochowa and other centers. In total, up to 120 Soviets arose in the country. In addition, various other bodies operated in a number of localities, which, although not called Soviets, actually represented the interests of the working class and the working peasantry. Thus, in Tarnobrzeg, Pinchuv and some other povets (counties), povet committees and local “republics” were formed. A major role in organizing the peasant movement in the Tarnobrzeg district was played by Tomasz Dombal, later a prominent figure in the Communist Party. A lot of work on organizing the Warsaw Council was carried out by participants of the October Revolution in Russia - members of the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania - Franciszek Grzelytsak and Stanislaw Budzinski, member of the PPS-Leftist Stefan Krulikowski and others. In the Dąbrowski Basin, the organizers of the Councils were Stefan Rybacki, Leon Purman, Lodz - Władysław Gibner, in Ciechanów - Marceli Nowotko; Bolesław Bierut took an active part in the work of the Council in Lublin. The councils of workers' deputies demanded the establishment of an 8-hour working day, an increase in wages, assistance to the unemployed, etc.

As in the entire Polish labor movement, the Soviets, with the exception of the Dąbrowski Basin Soviets, were dominated by compromisers. They sought to limit the activities of the Soviets to only certain economic issues and viewed them as an appendage to the emerging bodies of bourgeois power. The revolutionary minority in the Soviets was unable to achieve isolation and exposure of the compromising elements.

On December 16, 1918, at a congress in Warsaw, the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania (SDKP&L) and the Polish Socialist Party-Left (PPS-Left) were united into a single communist party, which took the name of the Communist Workers' Party of Poland (since 1925 .- Communist Party of Poland). Its leadership was headed by Adolf Warszawski (Barski), Maria Kossutska (Vera Kostrzewa), Maximilian Horwitz (Walecki) and other prominent figures of the former two revolutionary parties.

Organizationally, the Communist Party of Poland was not strong at that time. In addition, many of its members shared erroneous Luxembourgian views on national and peasant issues. Nevertheless, the formation of the Communist Party was an outstanding achievement of the Polish proletariat. The young party led a brave struggle in the name of the interests of workers and peasants. The manifesto of the first party congress said: “Let the united force of the working class, walking hand in hand with socialist Russia and the revolutionary proletariat of all countries, rise up against the bourgeois classes united in the international imperialist counter-revolution.” The congress expressed feelings of “brotherhood and solidarity of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and the government of the Republic of Soviets, the pioneers of the world socialist revolution.”

Meanwhile, on November 7, 1918, a “people's government” was formed in Lublin, headed by the leader of the Social Democratic Party of Galicia and Silesia I. Daszynski. The “people's government” included right-wing socialists E. Moraczewski, T. Artsishevski, the leaders of one of the peasant (so-called people’s) organizations - the Wyzvolene party - Art. Tugutt, J. Poniatowski and others. The Lublin government proclaimed Poland a people's republic, declared civil liberties, an 8-hour working day, and also promised to submit a proposal for the consideration of the future Sejm on the alienation of large and medium-sized land property and its transfer into the hands of the people, on nationalization a number of industries, etc. This program attracted the sympathy of many workers and peasants to the side of the Lublin government, who naively believed that it really wanted and could fulfill their aspirations.

The Lublin government turned out to be short-lived: the German occupiers brought Pilsudski to Warsaw, and on November 14 the Regency Council transferred full power to him.

An ardent nationalist, Józef Piłsudski was closely associated with right-wing socialists. In petty-bourgeois circles, he was known as an enemy of tsarism, but in reality he was a chauvinist who identified the Russian people with tsarism and tried to incite hostility between Polish and Russian workers and prevent the expansion of the Polish-Russian revolutionary alliance. From the beginning of the war, Pilsudski commanded volunteer units - Polish legions that fought on the side of Austria-Hungary and Germany. Convinced that his patrons would be defeated, he came into conflict with them. German authorities arrested Pilsudski in 1917 and kept him in Germany until the very end of the war. His supporters tried to use this fact to present Pilsudski as an irreconcilable enemy of both tsarism and Kaiser Germany, an enemy of all oppressors of Poland. In November 1918, the German occupiers, taking into account the trusting attitude of quite a wide circle of people towards Pilsudski, who were not aware of the actual role of this reactionary politician, the enemy of the revolution and socialism, decided to use Pilsudski’s authority to fight against the Polish revolutionary movement. Some Polish landowners and capitalists also had well-founded hopes in Pilsudski.

With the support of the leaders of the Compromise and Ludovo parties, as well as foreign imperialists, Pilsudski was proclaimed “chief of state.” The Lublin “people's government”, as well as another “government” formed in Krakow - the Liquidation Commission - recognized the power of Pilsudski. On November 18, on the instructions of Pilsudski, an all-Polish government was formed headed by Moraczewski, which called itself “workers and peasants.” It authorized the introduction of some minor social measures (sickness insurance, etc.) and declared its main task to convene the Constituent Sejm.

Right-wing socialists and Ludovites tried in every possible way to restrain the revolutionary activity of the broad masses, spreading the illusion that Poland under the leadership of Pilsudski would become a country of freedom and justice. This policy encouraged supporters of open counter-revolution, who launched a fierce struggle against revolutionary elements. Communist Party organizations and individual communists were persecuted; The Red Guard created in the Dombrovsky basin was disarmed, a number of Soviets were defeated, revolutionary uprisings in Zamosc and other places were suppressed. The "Workers' and Peasants'" government supported the policy of seizing Ukrainian, Belarusian and Lithuanian lands, which various counter-revolutionary organizations began to implement. At the same time, it did nothing to help the uprising that broke out at the end of December in the Poznan region, which remained under German rule; Nevertheless, the uprising was victorious, and Poznanycin was reunited with the rest of Poland.

The Warsaw government hid from the people the proposals of the Soviet government to establish normal relations. On January 2, 1919, members of the Soviet Red Cross mission, led by the outstanding figure of the Polish and Russian revolutionary movement B. Wesolowski, were killed by Polish gendarmes.

Thus, the right-wing socialists, striking at the revolutionary movement, themselves cleared the way for the bourgeois parties striving for power. The largest of them, the Endek party, attempted a coup d'etat already at the beginning of January 1919. This attempt ended in failure, but then, under pressure from England, France and the United States, the “workers’ and peasants’” government of Moraczewski resigned. The leaders of the Polish Socialist Party, which soon united the Social Democratic Party of Galicia and Silesia and the PPS “faction,” went into opposition, ceding state power to the bloc of Endeks and Pilsudski supporters. On January 19, 1919, a new government was formed headed by I. Paderewski, an active figure in the Polish National Committee, who was closely connected with the American ruling circles. Pilsudski remained as head of state.”

A week later, on January 26, under conditions of siege, elections to the Constituent Sejm took place. The Endeks came in first place in the Sejm in terms of the number of mandates, and the kulak party “Piast” came in second.

The Constituent Sejm began its work on February 10, 1919. After its opening, a number of major strikes occurred. Revolutionary elements in the surviving Soviets attempted to hold a Congress of Soviets, but this was prevented by right-wing socialists. In the summer of 1919, the last Soviets were dispersed.

The peasant movement, which intensified in the spring of 1919, soon began to decline due to the adoption by the Constituent Sejm on July 10, 1919 of a law limiting large land holdings. This law passed the Sejm with a majority of just one vote. The law established a maximum land holding - different for different parts of the country, but did not provide for either methods of alienation of surplus land or the procedure for its distribution among the peasants.

The coming to power of the bourgeois government, the creation of an anti-people army, and the defeat of the revolutionary forces of the working class led to the strengthening of the dominance of landowners and capitalists in the young Polish state. This became possible due to the widespread dissemination of nationalist views, the weakness of the proletariat, the absence of a strong worker-peasant alliance and, to a huge extent, as a result of the anti-revolutionary, reformist, schismatic activities of the leaders of the conciliatory parties and the Ludovo movement, as well as widespread assistance to the Polish exploiting classes from foreign imperialists .

Poland and the Paris Peace Conference

The "Polish Question" featured prominently at the Paris Peace Conference. Its leaders sought to support Polish landowners and capitalists in their struggle against the revolutionary movement and create conditions for transforming the territory of Poland into a springboard for anti-Soviet intervention. Relying on this support, bourgeois-landlord Poland captured Kovel and Brest in February 1919, Baranovichi, Lida and Vilnius in April, Minsk and all of Belarus in August. Polish troops arriving from France (the so-called Haller's army) captured Western Ukraine in July.

At the same time, the ruling circles of Poland did not provide any assistance to the liberation uprisings in Silesia and agreed to leave behind Germany most of the western Polish lands previously captured by Prussia. The largest Polish port of Gdansk (Danzig) was not returned to Poland. She received only a narrow, 70-kilometer semi-desert section of the sea coast with the so-called corridor, on both sides of which German possessions remained. In some Polish lands a plebiscite was to be held on the issue of their statehood. A plebiscite carried out in 1920 under the terror of German nationalists in the districts of Allenstein (the southern part of East Prussia) and Marienwerder (its southwestern part) led to unfavorable results for Poland: these districts were left to Germany.

In general, the Polish-German border, established by the victorious powers contrary to the national interests of the Polish people, provided economic, political and strategic benefits to Germany. Despite this, Polish representatives Paderewski and Dmowski signed the Treaty of Versailles on June 28, 1919. Betraying the country's national interests, the ruling classes of Poland hoped to compensate themselves with new seizures of Soviet lands and the enslavement of the Ukrainian, Belarusian and Lithuanian peoples.

By the fall of 1919, the strength of the Polish army reached 600 thousand people. A mixed Anglo-French military mission, numbering almost 3 thousand people, supervised the combat training of Polish troops. From Western countries weapons and uniforms arrived; the cost of American supplies alone reached $1.7 billion. The maintenance of a huge army placed a heavy burden on the country's undermined economy.

In 1919-1920 Poland was experiencing an acute economic crisis. By the spring of 1920, monthly production of pig iron was only 10.2% compared to the level of 1913, steel - 11.6%, iron - 10.2%. External debt increased steadily, the exchange rate of the Polish mark fell, and unemployment increased. Dissatisfaction with the policies of terror, profiteering, and robbery of the working masses grew in the country. There was no unity among the various groups of the ruling classes on issues of domestic and foreign policy. One of the main groups, the leader of which was Pilsudski, sought to pursue an extremely adventurist course. By seizing new Soviet territories and increasing oppression on the already occupied Ukrainian, Belarusian and Lithuanian lands, she hoped to strengthen the power of landowners and capitalists and soften the internal contradictions that were tearing Poland apart. This group covered up its aggressive policy with promises to grant autonomy to the conquered peoples and to transform Poland, after it had captured Belarus, Lithuania and Ukraine, into a federal state. Another political group, in which the Endeks played the largest role, rejected proposals to transform Poland on a federal basis and, although it approved of further conquests in the East, still considered the adventuristic plans of the Pilsudczyks to expand the Polish borders to the Black Sea dangerous.

The Soviet government, which did everything possible to ensure the freedom and independence of Poland, from the first days of the restoration of the Polish state tried to establish normal, good neighborly relations with it. However, the Polish government refused to accept the Soviet diplomatic representative and left unanswered the Soviet government's repeated proposals to establish peaceful relations.

After the failure of the anti-Soviet intervention of the Entente in 1919 and the defeat of Kolchak and Denikin by the Red Army, the Western imperialists decided to make a new attempt to crush Soviet power - this time with the forces of bourgeois-landlord Poland and the counter-revolutionary General Wrangel. In meeting these plans, the Polish rulers hoped to expand the borders of Poland “from sea to sea” - from the Baltic to the Black Sea. This adventure was fraught with great danger for Poland itself, especially since the country’s internal political and economic situation was steadily deteriorating.

On April 25, 1920, Polish troops resumed military operations against the Soviet state; On May 6 they managed to capture Kiev. But soon the Red Army, having brought up reserves, launched a counteroffensive and on June 5 broke through the Polish front line. Despite the stubborn opposition of the Polish troops, the Red Army rapidly moved forward.

Due to the defeat of the Polish army, the situation in Poland worsened and a government crisis arose. On June 23, a government led by one of the figures close to the Endeks, V. Grabsky, came to power. It hastily appealed to the leaders of the main imperialist powers, gathered at a conference in the Belgian city of Spa, asking for help. On behalf of the conference, the British Foreign Minister Curzon sent a note to the Soviet government in which he demanded to stop the Red Army's offensive on the line accepted as the temporary eastern border of Poland by the Supreme Council of the Entente. In general, this line (since the summer of 1920 it was called the “Curzon Line”) corresponded to the ethnographic border of Poland and could serve as the basis for establishing the Soviet-Polish state border. But in putting forward their ultimatum demand, the imperialists did not strive for peace, but only to give a respite to bourgeois-landowner Poland and gain time to prepare a new aggression. This, for example, was evidenced by the increase in military supplies to lord Poland observed just these days.

On July 24, Grabski's cabinet gave way to the government of the “national coalition” led by the leaders of the kulak party “Piast” W. Witos and the Polish Socialist Party I. Daszynski. In order to attract the sympathy of the peasantry, the new government passed through the Sejm “executive rules” for the 1919 law on limiting the size of land holdings. At the same time, fierce nationalist propaganda unfolded in the country. Ruling classes they tried to convince the people that the offensive of the Red Army allegedly threatened the existence of the Polish state, and thereby disguise the aggressive and anti-national nature of their policy.

In reality, the Red Army, entering the lands of the fraternal Polish people, brought help and liberation to the working people of Poland. “Remember firmly, comrades, that we are fighting against the Polish bloodsuckers, and not against the Polish working people,” stated one of the orders to the Red Army troops operating on the Polish front. “Remember that by destroying these bloodsuckers, we are saving ourselves from oppression and We bring freedom to all working people of Poland.”

On July 29, units of the Red Army liberated the large industrial center-city of Bialystok from the White Poles; on July 30, the Provisional Revolutionary Committee of Poland (Polrevkom), the first government of workers and toiling peasants in the history of Poland, was formed here. The Polrevkom included Y. Markhlevsky (chairman), F. Dzerzhinsky, F. Kon, E. Prukhnyak, Y. Unshlikht. The Polrevkom adopted a Manifesto to the Polish working people, which contained a program for the construction of socialist Poland.

Revolutionary committees arose on Polish lands liberated by the Red Army from landowner-bourgeois rule. Under the leadership of the Polrevkom, they launched energetic work to establish normal life, restore industry and transport, reorganize school affairs, etc. The Polrevkom began to create the Polish Red Army.

The multifaceted activities of the Polrevkom were not without mistakes, the largest of which was the decision, contrary to Dzerzhinsky’s position, to transfer the majority of landowners’ estates to committees of agricultural workers to organize large state-owned agricultural farms, instead of dividing the landowners’ lands between farm laborers and land-poor peasants. The power of the Polrevkom extended over a small territory. His activity was short-lived: it stopped in mid-August, after the Red Army suffered a setback on the approaches to Warsaw and began to retreat along the entire front.

Having achieved some success at the front with the support of the Western imperialist powers, the Polish government, however, no longer had the strength to continue the anti-Soviet war and was forced to enter into peace negotiations with the Soviet government. These negotiations, which took place first in Minsk and then in Riga, ended with the signing of the Riga Peace Treaty on March 18, 1921, which fixed the new eastern border of the Polish state.

The ruling circles of Poland had to come to terms with the collapse of their plans to seize the entire Right Bank of Ukraine and abandon the encroachment on a number of territories that they owned before the attack on the Soviet state in April 1920. But Western Ukraine and Western Belarus still remained under the rule of Polish landowners and capitalists. In addition, by attacking Lithuania, Poland seized part of its lands along with the capital Vilnius.

Constitution of 1921 Plebiscite in Upper Silesia

Bourgeois-landlord Poland developed as a multinational state, which gave rise to deep internal contradictions and was fraught with serious complications in the future. Of the entire country's territory of 388 thousand square meters. km, Ukrainian, Belarusian and Lithuanian lands accounted for about 180 thousand square meters. km, and of the total population of 27 million people, almost a third were Ukrainians, Belarusians, Lithuanians, Jews, etc.

The national question, which became one of the main contradictions tearing apart the Polish state, was closely connected with the agrarian question. According to the 1921 census, on the territory of the country (excluding Upper Silesia and the Vilnius region) there were 3,261 thousand agricultural farms, of which 34% of farms had up to 2 hectares of land each and 30.7% - from 2 to 5 hectares; these poor farms, which made up 64.7% of all farms, owned a total of only 14.8% of the privately owned land area. Middle peasant farms ranging in size from 5 to 10 hectares each accounted for 22.5% of all farms and had 17% of privately owned land. The share of landowners and kulak farms, the total number of which barely reached 13% of all farms, accounted for more than two-thirds of privately owned lands. At the same time, an insignificant handful - 18 thousand of the largest landowners, or 0.6% of land owners, owned 44.8% of the privately owned land area. The Catholic Church and the state also had large land holdings.

Landowners and kulaks mercilessly exploited the working peasantry, especially agricultural workers, whose number exceeded 17% of the total number of people employed in agriculture. In large landownership, feudal remnants were strong - easements, natural forms wages for agricultural workers, indentured labor for loans and land rent; they prevailed in Western Ukrainian and Western Belarusian lands, where the largest latifundia were located, as well as in the south of the country.

The labor issue was also extremely acute. There were about a million industrial workers in Poland. The most numerous group of the proletariat were textile workers - about 200 thousand people, followed by workers in the mining, metalworking, and food industries; each of these industries employed more than 100 thousand workers. Almost half of the cadre proletariat suffered from chronic unemployment.

The standard of living of the Polish proletariat was lower than in most capitalist countries of Europe. In Lodz, Warsaw, and the Dąbrowski Basin, workers were in dire need of housing. There were no basic sanitary conditions. The social gains of the working class, which it achieved during the period of revolutionary upsurge of 1918-1919, were gradually narrowed and eliminated.

One of the main tasks of the ruling classes in Poland was the stabilization of state power. Therefore, the ruling circles attached great importance to the work of the Constituent Sejm, designed to approve the constitution of the new state. Considering that the country was in a state of deep economic and political crisis, and the power of landowners and capitalists was shaken as a result of their adventurist policies, the majority of Sejm factions were inclined to give the draft constitution some democratic features.

On March 17, 1921, after an intense political struggle, the Sejm adopted a constitution that established a republican system in Poland. The constitution declared that supreme power belonged to the people and should be exercised through the Sejm and Senate, elected on the basis of universal, equal, direct, secret and proportional suffrage. The functions of the executive branch were assigned to the President of the Republic and the Cabinet of Ministers. The official language was Polish, and the dominant religion was Roman Catholic. It provided for the conclusion of a concordat with the Vatican (the signing of the concordat took place in February 1925) and compulsory religious education in schools and the army. In addition to the usual civil “rights” and “freedoms” in bourgeois-democratic constitutions, the constitution contained articles on social insurance, labor protection, protection of motherhood and infancy, and the allocation of land to peasants. But the various rights and freedoms proclaimed by the constitution were practically not guaranteed in any way.

Almost simultaneously with the adoption of the constitution in March 1921, a plebiscite took place in Upper Silesia, provided for by the Treaty of Versailles. It was carried out under strong pressure from the German authorities and the Catholic clergy, who acted on the instructions of the Vatican in favor of Germany. The results of the plebiscite were also affected by the negative attitude of the population towards the adventuristic, militaristic policy of the ruling circles of Poland. As a result, about 60% of the plebiscite participants voted for leaving Upper Silesia within Germany. However, the population of a number of areas strongly demanded reunification with Poland. When representatives of the Entente prevented the implementation of the will of the population of these areas, a new national liberation uprising began in May 1921 in Upper Silesia. Without receiving support from the Polish government, it failed. Nevertheless, the Entente powers had to agree in October 1921 to transfer approximately a third of the territory of Upper Silesia to Poland.

Communist Party of Poland in 1921-1922.

Despite the climate of terror and police persecution, the Communist Party of Poland grew and strengthened. In February 1921, the party conference reconsidered the party's attitude towards bourgeois parliamentarism and decided to participate in the elections of a new Sejm. The conference approved “21 conditions” for admission to the Communist International. The conference indicated that only the establishment of workers' and peasants' power and a close alliance with the Soviet Republic could lead the country out of the economic crisis and strengthen its independence. The next party conference, held in April 1922, took place with the participation of representatives of the Communist Party of Eastern Galicia (in 1923 renamed the Communist Party of Western Ukraine). The conference paid great attention to the issue of putting forward partial demands in the struggle for the interests of the working class and a united workers' front. She also examined theses on the agrarian question, in which the party sought to approach the problem of the alliance of the proletariat with the peasantry in a new way, from Lenin’s positions.

The influence of communists in the country was increasing. Their ranks included active figures in the workers' and peasants' movement who were leaving other parties - socialist deputy Art. Lancuti, a prominent peasant deputy T. Dombal and others.

Communists played an increasingly significant role in leading the class struggle of the proletariat. They were the instigators and the most persistent participants in many strikes. In total, according to official data, in 1921 there were 720 strikes with the participation of 473 thousand workers, in 1922 there were 800 strikes with the participation of 607 thousand workers. The strikes were of a combative nature and in most cases ended in partial satisfaction of the strikers' demands.

In 1922, the national liberation movement intensified in Western Ukraine and Western Belarus. Peasants often attacked landowners' estates and police posts.

Parliamentary elections of 1922

Having launched an attack on the living standards of the working people, using enslaving foreign loans, the bourgeoisie took measures to overcome the economic devastation that intensified during the anti-Soviet war. In 1922, some improvement in the economic situation began. This economic recovery did not have a solid foundation: it was accompanied by inflation, significant penetration of foreign capital into the Polish economy, and a continuous increase in external debt. The normalization of the economic situation was hampered by the government's militaristic policy; Despite the constant budget deficit, in 1923 direct military needs alone absorbed 42% of government spending.

In the autumn of 1922, as parliamentary elections approached, the struggle between various bourgeois parties intensified. The Endeks, the Christian Democrats and the Christian National Group formed a bloc called the Christian Union of National Unity, ironically nicknamed "Hjena" (hyena). This bloc came out with a chauvinistic demand for the “Polonization” (Polonization) of industry and trade, directed, however, not against foreign capital, but only against the German, Jewish, and Ukrainian capitalists living and operating in Poland, and conducted great-power nationalist propaganda.

The so-called Ludivist parties claimed representation from the peasantry - the kulak “Piast”, which expressed the interests of the wealthy middle peasantry “Wyzvolene” and some others. They put forward a demand for agrarian reform, but were far from the interests of the working peasants.

The Polish Socialist Party, whose leaders largely contributed to the consolidation of the power of landowners and capitalists, in words advocated the development of democracy and the satisfaction of some of the wishes of the workers, but in reality supported the basic demands of the bourgeoisie.

Before the elections, another political grouping, very heterogeneous in composition, emerged, uniting some of the organizations of national minorities - the bloc of national minorities. Along with bourgeois and petty-bourgeois figures, it also included radical elements who collaborated with the communists.

The Communist Party, which was underground, created a legal organization to participate in the elections - the Union of the Proletariat of Town and Country. The Union's election program provided for the establishment of genuine political freedom in the country, the transfer of landowners, church and monastery lands to the peasantry, the introduction of workers' control in industry, equal rights for national minorities, etc.

Elections to the Sejm took place on November 5, 1922, and to the Senate on November 12. The overwhelming majority of parliamentary seats were divided between bourgeois groups, but none of them received absolute predominance in parliament. Candidates nominated by the Union of the Proletariat of Town and Country were persecuted. Nevertheless, two communists were elected to the Sejm - Stanislav Lancutsky and Stefan Krulikovsky (later some other deputies spoke with the communists, a total of 25-26 people).

On December 9, a joint meeting of the Sejm and Senate convened to elect a president. With the election of the president, Piłsudski’s activities as “chief of state” ceased. In the fifth round of voting, the representative of the Vyzvo-Lena party, G. Narutowicz, received the number of votes required by the constitution. Deputies of the PPS, Wyzvolene, the bloc of national minorities, partly Piast and other parties voted for him in order to prevent the election of the Endek candidate, the extreme reactionary Count M. Zamoyski. The Endeks did not accept defeat. On December 16, 1922, an Endek terrorist killed Naruto-vich. This crime caused an explosion of indignation among the broad masses. But the government led by General V. Sikorsky, which came to power on the day of the president’s assassination, introduced martial law and prevented protests against the Endeks. On December 20, Piast representative S. Wojciechowski was elected president. Although the Endek candidate was again defeated, the new president was in favor of rapprochement with them. In May 1923, the Hiena bloc, led by the Endeks, and the Piast reached an agreement on cooperation. This led to the formation of a new government in which far-right elements began to play a leading role.

Growing revolutionary crisis. II Congress of the Communist Party

The creation of the Hien-Piast government coincided with Poland's entry into a period of acute crisis. It developed under the direct influence of the economic and political crisis that engulfed Germany in 1923, and manifested itself, on the one hand, in a sharp reduction in the effective demand of the population, on the other, in increased tax oppression and lower wages. Inflation, carried out by bourgeois-landlord governments since the formation of the Polish state, became catastrophic.

The dollar at the end of 1919 was worth 119 Polish marks, in June 1923 it was already 100 thousand, and in October - 1675 thousand Polish marks. Social and national contradictions deepened, the class and national liberation struggle intensified. In June, there were 152 strikes involving 190 thousand workers; Major strikes continued in the following months, escalating into clashes with police and troops. The national liberation movement in the eastern “outskirts” began to intensify.

In such a tense situation, in August - September 1923, the Second Congress of the Communist Workers' Party of Poland took place. The congress stated that Poland was rapidly approaching disaster and that the reasons for this were not only the economic crisis, but also the cooperation of the ruling circles with the imperialists, in particular with the worst enemies of the Polish people - the German revanchists. Putting forward the patriotic task of defending the country's independence, the congress warned: “The bourgeois governments of Poland pose a mortal danger to its independence. Only the victory of the revolution can give the Polish people true state independence. The revolutionary proletariat of Poland must enter the arena historical events not only as the representative of the interests of his class, but also as the defender of the whole nation."

The congress discussed national and peasant issues, recognized the right of oppressed nationalities to self-determination up to and including secession, and spoke in favor of the division of landowner and church land between working peasants. The congress emphasized that the general line of development of the Polish labor movement is aimed at creating a united workers' front and a workers' and peasants' alliance, and called on all parties in Poland, in whose ranks there are workers and poor peasants, primarily the Polish Socialist Party and the Wyzvolene Party, to join the common front of the struggle for the immediate goals of the masses. At the congress, the Party Charter was adopted, in the spirit of Marxist-Leninist organizational principles. The congress sent greetings to the leader of the world proletariat V.I. Lenin.

The Central Committee of the party, elected by the congress, included A. Barski, V. Kostrzewa, F. Grzelycak, F. Fiedler, E. Pruchniak, O. Dlusski and others.

  On Katyn.ru, I quite accidentally came across a very extensive and informative article about Soviet-Polish relations. Which I simply cannot help but post after three recent posts. gezesh according to 1939 (which I strongly recommend to those who have not yet read):

  So:

  Yuri IVANOV

  ESSAYS ON THE HISTORY OF SOVIET-POLISH
  RELATIONS IN DOCUMENTS
  1917-1945

  Chapter I

  OCTOBER REVOLUTION IN RUSSIA AND INDEPENDENCE OF POLAND

  Let us turn to the documents adopted in the first days of the revolution - the Decree on Peace of October 26 (November 8), 1917 and the Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia of November 2 (15), 1917. In the first act - in general terms, and in the second - it was more specifically enshrined in law “the right of all peoples of Russia (including the Polish) to free self-government up to and including secession and the formation of an independent state”. The unique nature of such a declaration should be emphasized: a clearly formulated provision on the right of every nation to its own statehood, adopted by the highest legislative and executive bodies of any country, simply did not exist at that time.
  Thus, already in the first days of the Russian revolution, it was created legal framework for the formation of an independent Polish state. As for the other powers participating in the world war, their positions on the Polish issue looked much weaker and inferior in comparison with the above-mentioned Decree and Declaration.
  The well-known Austro-German act of November 5, 1916 on the future Poland and its borders was of an extremely vague and non-binding nature; at best, it provided for the autonomy of the Polish lands that were part of Russia, but did not concern the Polish territories that were transferred to Germany and Austria. Hungary as a result of the partitions of Poland. France and Great Britain, however, have already begun to lean towards the re-establishment of an independent Poland, but have so far refrained from formulating their position on this issue, and even at a high official level.
  The October Revolution in Russia objectively led to the internationalization of the Polish question, which tsarist diplomacy always feared and constantly tried to avoid. Such internationalization undoubtedly benefited the idea of ​​​​reconstructing the Polish state, although the issue of Polish independence, in principle, had already been resolved by the October Revolution.
  An impartial analysis shows that it is also necessary to take into account a number of other factors that predetermined the birth of independent Poland. In addition to the October Revolution and the acts adopted by it, the defeat in the war of the powers that participated in the partitions of Poland - Germany, Austria-Hungary and, in a certain sense, Russia, as well as the support provided to Poland by the Entente and the United States, were also important. However, the most important factor was, undoubtedly, the powerful desire of the Polish people themselves to recreate their state and the presence of Polish political forces in the country and beyond its borders, ready to realize national aspirations.
  It is impossible not to refer to another fundamental document, which, in our opinion, also played a role in the legal formation of the Polish state. This is a decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR dated August 29, 1918 on the renunciation of Russia's treaties with Germany and Austria-Hungary on the divisions of Poland. Article 3 of this decree, adopted even before the formation of the Polish Republic in November 1918, declared:

  All agreements and acts concluded by the government of the former Russian Empire with the governments of the Kingdom of Prussia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire concerning the divisions of Poland, due to their contradiction to the principle of self-determination of nations and the revolutionary legal consciousness of the Russian people, who recognized the inalienable right of the Polish people to independence and unity, are cancelled. hereby irrevocably*.

  However, further developments went in such a way that Russia, due to the prevailing circumstances, found itself pushed away from active participation in Polish affairs: as a result of the signing of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty with Germany, civil war, foreign military intervention, economic and diplomatic blockade.
  Despite this, it should be noted a number of steps regarding Polish affairs taken by the Soviet government in the first year of its existence, the great importance of which for Poland became evident later, during the period of implementation of the resolutions of the Riga Peace Treaty of 1921.
  In the conditions of the most difficult internal political and international situation of the country, the People's Commissariat for the Affairs of Polish Nationality is created with Yu. Leszczynski at the head (decree of November 28 (December 11), 1917), energetic measures are taken to take into account and preserve Polish cultural values ​​that have been lost for various reasons on Russian territory, mainly as a result of military operations. Most of the documents adopted at that time on this issue were published in well-known collections. We will limit ourselves to citing the text of the main document - the decree of January 17 (30), 1918, which first of all showed the respectful attitude of the new Russian government towards the Polish people.

  Decree
  about the protection of antiquities and art,
  belonging to the Polish people

  Taking into account that in the western and northwestern provinces of the Russian Republic, in many cities and estates of persons of Polish nationality, there are objects of exceptional value for the Polish people, and most of these objects were taken out of Poland during the retreat of Russian troops and earlier, The Council of People's Commissars, for the return of these items in complete safety to the entire Polish people, decides and for the leadership of the subject revolutionary authorities declares the following:
  1. Objects of antiquity and art, libraries, archives, paintings and museum objects in general, wherever they are located, are accepted as the national property of the Polish people under the protection of the authority of the Workers' and Peasants' Government represented by the Commissariat for Polish Affairs and the Society for the Preservation of Antiquities until their transfer Polish folk museums.
  2. Acts on the acceptance of the above-mentioned items for protection are drawn up, and the act on the voluntary transfer of items located in Polish estates to Polish museums is signed personally by the owner of the estate or his authorized person. The act is drawn up in two copies: one of them is kept in the Polish Commissariat under the Council of People's Commissars, the second - in the Petrograd Department of the Polish Society for the Preservation of Antiquities - the official representative of Polish artistic and historical societies in Russia.
  3. In addition to the acts, an accurate inventory of the transferred items is drawn up in 4 copies, and one copy remains with the owner, the other - in the Commissariat for Polish Affairs, the third - in the regional commissariat for the protection of ancient monuments or in the bureau of the nearest executive body of the Union of Military Poles, the fourth - on the Board of the Society for the Preservation of Antiquities in Petrograd.
  4. For the preparation of acts and inventories and for the implementation of this decree, as well as control over compliance with it locally, the Polish Commissariat appoints special district commissars with the powers of Commissars of the Workers' and Peasants' Government.
  5. All the mentioned organizations and individuals work in contact with local revolutionary authorities represented by local Councils of Soldiers, Workers and Peasants' Deputies, who are charged with providing full assistance in the local protection and transportation of Polish cultural property.

Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars
Vl. Ulyanov (Lenin)
People's Commissar for Education
A. V. Lunacharsky
Commissioner for Polish National Affairs
Yu. Leshchinsky
Administrator of the Council of People's Commissars
V. Bonch-Bruevich*

  The Soviet side informed Warsaw about the ongoing work to record and preserve Polish national values ​​that ended up in Russia almost immediately after the restoration of Polish statehood. In a lengthy note people's commissar Foreign Affairs of the RSFSR G.V. Chicherin to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland I. Paderewski on February 10, 1919, in particular, it was noted:

&nbsp Russian The Soviet Republic, striving to live in constant friendship with all peoples, has always wished and ardently wishes to maintain peaceful and good neighborly relations with the Polish people. The Russian Soviet Government clearly demonstrated its desire to provide a service and be useful to the Polish masses by carefully preserving the Polish national treasures in its hands, Polish antiquities, invaluable works of art, paintings by famous artists, manuscripts of Polish composers, generally inherited from the historical past of Poland There are several thousand treasures, including bells alone, which are of significant artistic and historical value. The Russian Soviet Government preserves these values ​​with unfailing attention with the aim of returning them, when the moment comes, to the fraternal masses of Poland*.

  The fact that by their consent in 1917 to the separation of Poland from Russia and their refusal in 1918 from the treaties on the divisions of Poland should forever be preserved in the memory of Russians, they took decisive steps in the implementation of the democratic principles of new international relations proclaimed by the Republic. Thus, during this most difficult period of history, Russians must have a clear national conscience before the Polish people. And, perhaps, with this principled position of his, we dare to hope, he atoned for the guilt for more than a century of Poland’s forced presence as part of Russia.

The First World War did not spare Polish lands. This is where it took place Eastern front. The participants in the partitions of Poland - Russia, Germany and Austria-Hungary - found themselves, due to disagreements between them, in opposing military blocs, and therefore it was to be expected that the Polish question would become the subject of a political game, and the “Polish card” would become important during military operations .

None of the three powers that divided Poland, when entering the war, intended to grant freedom to the Polish people. However, they all wanted to use the Poles and Polish lands to their advantage. In the first weeks of the war, army commanders published proclamations, in which they appealed to a sense of community (Western European or Slavic) and recalled years of successful and supposedly joint development. From the first days of the war, Polish figures of different political orientations, in public speeches and in the quiet of government offices, recalled the right of the Polish people to an independent state existence. Henryk Sienkiewicz, Nobel Prize winner in literature, author of the novel “Quo vadis”, and virtuoso pianist Ignacy Jan Paderewski used their popularity to ensure that Western politicians turned their attention to the unresolved Polish question.

As a result February Revolution, the Provisional Government that came to power declared the restoration of the Polish state in all territories with a predominant Polish population and the convening of a constituent assembly in Warsaw, after the liberation of Polish lands. Russia was supported by France; its president published a decree on the formation of a “Polish autonomous army”, the ranks of which were joined by over 20 thousand volunteers from among Polish emigrants living in the USA and Brazil.

In September 1917, the German Emperor Wilhelm II and the Austrian Emperor Charles I established the Council of Regency, giving it legislative and executive powers until the Polish lands came under the authority of the king, or regent. At the same time, in Paris, with the support of the governments of France, Great Britain, Italy, and the United States, the Polish National Committee was created, headed by Roman Dmowski.

In January 1918, US President Woodrow Wilson, speaking to Congress, in paragraph 13 of his Declaration, emphasized the need to create an independent Polish state with access to the sea. In the summer of 1918, Germany lost several major battles on the Western Front, thereby signaling the defeat of the Central Powers in the war. In addition to the Regency Council and the Polish National Committee, politicians of different orientations aspired to power. Józef Pilsudski enjoyed great influence in society.

At the beginning of October, the Regency Council announced preparations for elections to the Seimas. A few days later, command of the army, previously subordinate to the Germans, passed into his hands. At the same time, the Poles began to spontaneously eliminate the German and Austrian occupiers and create new centers of power. The Polish Liquidation Commission was established in Krakow, and the National Council of the Duchy of Cieszyn began its work in Cieszyn, announcing the annexation of this part of Silesia to Poland; The Polish People's Council was formed in Poznan. However, there was still no government.

In such a situation, the leaders of the left who fought for the independence of parties and the PVO (Polish Military Organization) decided to take the power “lying on the street” into their own hands. At the beginning of November, the Provisional People's Government of the Polish Republic was formed in Lublin, headed by Ignacy Daszynski, which promulgated the principles of the socio-political structure of the newly created state. When Pilsudski arrived in Warsaw on November 10, he was met at the station by a member of the Regency Council, Prince Zdzislaw Lubomirski, and the organizer of the POV, Adam Kotz. The next day, the Prime Minister of the Lublin government, Ignacy Daszynski, and the commander of the POV, Edward Rydz-Śmigły, placed themselves at Piłsudski's disposal, and the Regency Council transferred military power to him. On the same day, November 11, 1918, an armistice was signed on the Western Front, ending the hostilities of the First World War.

“Pilsudski won such fame that probably no one in Poland will experience for the next couple of centuries.” Over time, November 11 began to be celebrated as a public holiday - Poland's Independence Day.

Dmitry Mezentsev

The history of re-establishing the independence of the Polish state

On the eve of the First World War, two camps formed in Polish society, oriented towards one of the two military-political blocs that had developed in Europe. Participants in the partitions of Poland - Russia, Germany and Austria-Hungary - found themselves in opposing military blocs, and therefore it was to be expected that the Polish question would become the subject of a political game, and the “Polish card” would become important during military operations. In his forecasts regarding the development of events Polish politicians reckoned with the victory of one side or another of the conflict. , depending on the expected outcome, they made their own plans on how to use the situation in the interests of restoring the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as a state. Each party sought to convince as many compatriots as possible of the correctness of their choice.

Initially, two solutions were envisaged: either an alliance with Russia and the unification of Polish lands under the royal scepter, or interaction with Austria-Hungary and the restoration of Polish statehood under the rule of the Habsburgs. The division between supporters of the pro-Russian orientation and the orientation towards the Central Powers coincided more or less with the division along party lines.

The majority of Galician parties, as well as some of the parties and political groups operating in the Kingdom of Poland, led by the PPS faction, relied on Austria-Hungary as “the best of the invaders.” Therefore, J. Pilsudski in 1906 established contact with the military circles of Austria-Hungary. In 1908, the Union of Active Struggle was created in Galicia under the leadership of K. Sosnkovsky, on the basis of which, with the support of the Austrian authorities, rifle squads began to emerge in 1910. The People's Democratic Party of Galicia, linked by vital interests with Austria, has more than once declared loyalty to it. The Endeks also formed military units on the basis of the Sokol gymnastics society. The conservatives of Galicia did not intend to associate themselves with the Streltsy movement. Pilsudski and politicians close to him sought to liberate the Kingdom of Poland and unite it into a single state organism with Galicia as part of Austria. The day after Austria-Hungary declared war on Russia, August 6, 1914, a cadre company of riflemen left Krakow to raise an uprising among the inhabitants of Polish lands under Russian rule. The calculations did not come true - the uprising did not break out.

The PDP of the Kingdom of Poland belonged to the political camp focused on the victory of the Entente in the war and the unification of Polish lands under the scepter of the Romanovs. In 1909, it formed the Polish Democratic (from 1910 - National Democratic) Society in the western Polish lands.

The war was a disaster for the population of Polish lands. About 2 million residents of the Kingdom of Poland were evacuated to the internal provinces of Russia. Some industrial enterprises and a number of educational institutions were relocated. In the occupied Polish lands, the German authorities established a regime of military dictatorship. The authorities confiscated food and industrial raw materials, took out cars, machine tools, and forcibly transported workers deep into Germany.

The war forced the governments of the countries that divided the Polish lands to look for ways to resolve the Polish issue. In August 1914, the commander-in-chief of the Russian army Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich addressed the Polish people with an appeal, asserting that the Polish lands needed to be united “under the scepter of the Russian Tsar” and given self-government. In 1916, the Central Powers proclaimed the creation of a state “with a hereditary monarchy and a constitutional system” “from the Polish regions separated from Russian rule.” The decision on the borders of this state allied with the Central Powers was postponed to the future.

independence Polish state war

At the beginning of the war, the Endeks and their supporters formed the Polish National Committee in November 1914, in which R. Dmowski played a leading role. His appeal defined the task of uniting Poland under the scepter of the Russian monarch. Supporters of the Austro-German orientation created the Main National Committee under the leadership of V. Sikorski, V. Vitos, P. Daszynski. Pilsudski, with the active assistance of the PPS faction, created an illegal formation - the Polish military organization(POV). Since October 1914, the POV established contact with the German command and pledged to carry out all its tasks. From these organizations it was supposed to create military formations that would fight on the side of the Central Powers. And although rifle squads and unions were associated with different political groups, they, as a rule, interacted during combat training and did not challenge each other’s influence on the inhabitants of the Polish lands under Russian rule and on the Polish emigration. Planning to recreate an independent state with the help of the Central Powers, Piłsudski and his supporters expressed their readiness to abandon the western Polish lands, but dreamed of including Ukrainian, Belarusian and Lithuanian territories that were once part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth into the future Poland.

The left wing of the Polish social movement was convinced that only the victory of the revolution in the countries that had seized Polish lands could liberate the Polish people and restore Polish statehood. These views did not meet with a response among the Polish population. The majority was closer to Pilsudski's program, which, although socially limited, had a distinct national-patriotic overtones.

After February 1917, the Petrograd Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies adopted an appeal to the Polish people, in which it proclaimed that “Poland has the right to be completely independent in state and international relations,” and expressed hope for the establishment of a “democratic republican system” in independent Poland. The provisional government promised to facilitate the creation of a Polish state on lands inhabited mostly by Poles. With all the reservations that surrounded these promises, it is difficult to overestimate the significance of the declaration on the reunification of Polish lands.

Events in Russia caused different reactions in Polish lands. Some bourgeois-landowner elements began to view the German occupiers as a defense against the revolution. For the working people, the news of the overthrow of tsarism was an incentive to fight against the occupiers. In a number of industrial centers, on the initiative of SDKPiL and PPS-Left, strikes and demonstrations took place. Polish bourgeois-landowner political organizations in Russia in August 1917 created the Polish Council of Inter-Party Association. On its basis, in August R. Dmowski and others formed the Polish National Committee in Lausanne. The French government recognized the Committee, which moved to Paris, as something like the government of the future Polish state, at the same time it was recognized by England and Italy, and in December by the USA. These facts indicated that in the current international situation Western powers took up the solution of the Polish question and their interests. This was confirmed by the decree of the French President of June 4, 1917 on the formation of the Polish army in France.

POV activities continued. When many volunteers refused to take the oath of brotherhood with the armies of the Central Powers in July, the German authorities interned them. Pilsudski and his chief of staff K. . Sosnkovsky was isolated in the Magdeburg fortress. In August, the Provisional State Council ceased to exist, and on September 12, the occupiers announced the creation of a new government body, the Regency Council. But the real power was retained by the German and Austrian governors-general.

Great importance For the Polish people, the October Revolution in Russia and the principles of restructuring international relations proclaimed in the Decree on Peace were important. The Soviet government defended the reunification of the Polish people at the peace negotiations in Brest-Litovsk at the end of 1917 and the beginning of 1918. On January 25 (February 7), 1918, the Soviet delegation announced a declaration demanding that the residents of the three parts of Poland be given the right to freely organize their lives. But the Central Powers rejected discussion of the Polish question and did not allow representatives of the Regency Council to participate in the negotiations. Having concluded an agreement with the Ukrainian Central Rada, they pledged to assist in the establishment of its power in Ukraine, to cede to it the Kholm region and some other Polish lands, i.e. went to a new partial partition of Poland.

In an effort to weaken the resonance of the Peace Decree and the proposals of the Soviet government to resolve the issue of Poland, English Prime Minister D. Lloyd George declared on January 5, 1918 that an independent Poland, “including all exclusively Polish elements that wish to become part of it,” is a necessary condition for the stabilization of Eastern Europe. The “14 Points” of US President William Wilson, published three days later, stated that an independent Polish state should be created, including territories inhabited by an undeniably Polish population. The same meaning was contained in the joint declaration of the heads of government of England, France and Italy on June 2, 1918. All these statements did not promise reunification of Poznan, Silesia, and Gdansk with the future Poland.

In August 1918, the Council of People's Commissars adopted a decree stating that all treaties concluded by the tsarist government concerning the divisions of Poland, “in view of their contradiction to the principle of self-determination of nations and the revolutionary legal consciousness of the Russian people, which recognized the inalienable right of the Polish people to independence and unity, are canceled hereby irrevocably." The decree established the international legal basis for the restoration of Poland's independence.

In the lands neighboring Poland - in Belarus, Lithuania, and Ukraine - the proportion of Polish landownership, as well as the Polish population in cities, was very high. Polish nationalist circles opposed the establishment of Soviet power in these territories, created anti-Soviet “self-defense” units, and supported various anti-Soviet forces. If the Endeks laid claim only to historical lands, then Pilsudski’s supporters, abandoning the western Polish territories, put forward the demand for the creation of a federation of Eastern European powers under the auspices of Poland. They saw Polish territory as part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth until the partition of 1772.

In October 1918, the Polish Liquidation Commission was formed in Krakow, headed by V. Witos. The commission's tasks included the implementation of transitional measures to ensure the connection of Galicia with other Polish lands as part of a single state. The Austrian administration was also relatively easily eliminated in the occupied Polish provinces of the former Russian Empire. IN administrative center this zone - Lublin - on November 5, the Council of Workers' Deputies arose. In opposition to the Council, the Provisional People's Government of the Polish Republic was created in Lublin. It was headed by I. Dashinsky.

In the face of retreat and inevitable capitulation, Germany took measures to ensure that, in the process of rebuilding the Polish state, a government would be established in it that would be ready to keep Germany's eastern border intact. The most suitable candidate for carrying out this plan was Pilsudski. In October 1918, G. Kesler entered into negotiations with him, whom Pilsudski assured that the modern generation of Poles would not fight a war for Poznan or East Prussia, which for Poland, as well as for Germany, main danger- this is the threat of Bolshevism. First, the Regency Council transferred power to Pilsudski, and then the Lublin government and the Liquidation Commission. E. Moraczewski became the head of the government, Pilsudski was proclaimed “temporary head of state” with the right to remove the government, approve or reject bills and the budget, etc.

November Pilsudski notified various countries of the world about the formation of the Polish state. The telegram was not sent to the Soviet government, and proposals from the Soviet Republic to establish diplomatic relations remained unanswered. At the same time, Pilsudski appealed to the Entente countries with a request to send troops to protect the country from Bolshevism. On November 10, Pilsudski concluded an agreement with the German command on the evacuation of German troops from the territory, the western border of which corresponded to the Russian-German border of 1914. This meant agreement to preserve within the German region of Poznań and Upper Silesia. The Main People's Council, located in Poznan, considered the Polish National Committee, located in Paris, not to be the representative of the entire country, not the Warsaw government.

After on November 19, the Council of People's Representatives, formed after the victory of the revolution in Germany, recognized the independent Polish Republic, which included Polish lands that were previously part of Austria-Hungary, the Warsaw government expanded military operations against the Western Ukrainian People's Republic. These hostilities ended in July 1919 with the occupation of Western Ukraine by Polish troops. Back in January 1919 they occupied Volyn, and “self-defense” detachments, formed with the assistance of the Poles, began to seize Lithuanian and Belarusian lands.

Cooperation with Germany put the Warsaw government in a difficult position in relation to the Entente countries and made it difficult for Poland to participate in the upcoming peace conference. Therefore, the Warsaw authorities in December 1918. broke off diplomatic relations with Germany and intensified the search for ways to reach an agreement with the Polish National Committee in Paris. The Warsaw government and the Paris Committee came to an agreement that J. Pilsudski would retain his prerogatives, but from January 19, 1919, one of the prominent figures of the Paris Committee, J. Paderewski, would become the head of the government.

On December 1918, a unification congress of the SDKPiL and the PPS-Left took place in Warsaw, which laid the foundation for the existence of the Communist Workers' Party of Poland (KWP). In April 1919, a unification congress of three parties took place - the PPS faction, the PPS of the former Prussian takeover, and the Social Democratic Party of Galicia and Silesia (PPSD). Right-wing leaders managed to maintain their positions. The united teaching staff, having a strong organizational apparatus, had a great influence on trade unions and cooperative organizations. All this weakened the movement for the Soviets. In September 1919, the PPS-opposition emerged from the new PPS, which later, in August 1920, became part of the KRPP, which back in April 1919 was forced to go underground. Around the same time, all the revolutionary Soviets were defeated.

In the spring and summer of 1919, the epicenter of the class struggle moved from the cities to the countryside. The rural proletariat and land-poor peasants demanded the fastest implementation of agrarian reform. In a number of places, peasants arbitrarily seized landowners' lands and agricultural implements. Even the Endeks were forced to agree to discuss the agrarian issue in the Sejm. The dispute was about the maximum size of land holdings that were not subject to division, about the methods of division, about the inviolability of church property, etc. Ultimately, the Sejm adopted the “Fundamentals of Land Reform” by a majority of one vote. Despite its extreme limitations, despite the fact that the Sejm resolution was not formalized as a law, the prospect of obtaining land “legally” led to a weakening of revolutionary tensions in the countryside.

March 1921 The Sejm adopted the Constitution of the Polish Republic. veto. The Constitution of 1921 met the requirements of bourgeois democracy. Moreover, in a number of cases it went further than classical bourgeois constitutions, since it contained articles on labor protection, social assistance in case of unemployment and illness, on the protection of motherhood and infancy, on national and cultural autonomy for national minorities, etc. But in political practice For the ruling classes, constitutional articles that were inconvenient for them were not applied, and the constitution therefore could not open the way to solving the deep social and national problems that were tearing Poland apart. Be that as it may, the Constitution of 1921 completed the formation of the Polish state and stabilized its internal structure for a time.

The independence of Poland was recognized and the United States (January 30, 1919), France (February 24), England (February 25) and other states announced the establishment of diplomatic relations with it. Poland was invited to participate in the peace conference that opened on January 18, 1919 in Paris. She was represented by I. Paderewski and R. Dmowski.

January, at a meeting of the Council of Ten - the governing body of the conference - G. Dmowski outlined the territorial claims of Poland, which consisted in recognizing the borders of 1772 with possible partial changes. Thus, if this plan were implemented, Lithuania, Belarus, most of Ukraine, and part of Latvia would be included in Poland. Pilsudski's supporters proposed a plan to create the most extensive federation of states under Polish hegemony in Eastern Europe. When determining the state border between Poland and Germany, the Commission on Polish Affairs took into account the nationality of the population of the respective territories. Lands with an undeniably Polish population were to become constituent parts of Poland. It was supposed to return to her Danzig (Gdansk) and the territories lying along the railway leading from Warsaw to Danzig, which, while retaining the main part of East Prussia for Germany, would give the Polish access to the sea the character of a corridor laid through German possessions. Ultimately, D. Lloyd George, W. Wilson, J. Clemenceau agreed to separate Gdansk into a special state entity - a “free city”. This deprived Poland of the free and reliable access to the sea that was promised to it by the three Western powers. In addition, these same powers decided to form not one, as previously assumed, but several regions, the statehood of which was to be determined as a result of plebiscites. Among them was Upper Silesia, with its undeniably Polish ethnic majority and highly developed industry. The head of the Polish government did not express any objections to this decision, although he doubted the outcome of the plebiscite. In general, a plebiscite was to be held in territories with a total area of ​​27.7 thousand square kilometers with a population of 3 million people. 45 thousand sq. km remained under German domination; the Polish population of these lands also amounted to 3 million people.

The Paris Peace Conference legally formalized the re-establishment of an independent Polish state. The great significance of the conference decisions for the history of Wormwood is undoubtedly. However, we should not forget that in some ways they infringed upon the vital interests of Wormwood. In particular, Germany retained a number of Polish lands, the border line was given a bizarre, winding character, a strategic situation unfavorable for Poland was created, its maritime connections were actually placed under German control, and almost all the vital centers of the country became easily vulnerable. But the conditions of the Versailles Peace Treaty signed on June 28, 1919, as well as the simultaneously concluded treaty with the victorious powers on the rights of national minorities in Poland, which contained articles on transit and trade beneficial to the great powers, were also unfavorable for Poland in many ways.

Although the Cambon Commission at one time, based on the actual boundaries of the settlement of the Poles, proposed recognizing the eastern border of Poland as passing along a line that later received the name “Curzon Line,” the Paris Peace Conference did not establish this border. The Western powers thereby encouraged Poland in its aggressive policy. Already in January 1919, in the Vilnius region, things came to a head in clashes between Polish armed formations and units of the Red Army. In March 1919, Polish troops captured Slonim, then Pinsk, Lida, and Vilnius. In April, J. Pilsudski’s appeal to the population of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania was published, calling on all the peoples living in it to federal unify with Poland.

In April, the seventy-thousandth Polish army formed there, commanded by General J. Haller, arrived from France. It was immediately thrown to the Western Ukrainian front; about half of Poland's state budget was absorbed by expenses for military purposes. Numerous foreign loans were used for the same purposes.

Although, as a rule, the Polish authorities concealed and did not publish reports about the Soviet peace proposals, they gradually became known in the country and contributed to the expansion of the struggle of the leading circles of the Polish people for peace. The Supreme Council of the Entente, once again returning to Polish affairs, on December 8, 1919, decided to establish a Polish administration in the east of the country only up to the line recommended by the Cambon Commission.

In order to facilitate the further seizure of Ukrainian lands, the Polish government on April 21, 1920 entered into an agreement with the Directory headed by S.V. Petlyura. At the same time, Poland agreed that the power of the “chief ataman” would extend to the border of 1772, i.e. extended to the lands that it would obtain from Russia by force of arms or through diplomacy. For their part, the Petliurists agreed to annex Eastern Galicia, the western part of Volyn, and also part of Polesie to Poland. Under this agreement, signed on April 24, the Petliura Directory, which agreed to conduct military operations under the leadership of the Polish command, undertook the obligation to ensure the food supply of the Polish army. Somewhat later, an agreement was signed between Poland and the Belarusian Supreme Rada, which provided for the entry of Belarus on the basis of autonomy into Poland, recreated within the borders of 1772.

April Polish troops, using significant forces concentrated in the southwestern direction, broke through the front line and rushed to Kiev. On May 14, 1920, troops of the Western Front under the command of M.P. Tukhachevsky launched a counteroffensive.

In mid-August, on the near approaches to Warsaw, after a counterattack by Polish troops, Red Army units began to roll back to the east. However, having achieved a turning point in the course of hostilities, the Polish ruling circles did not even have the strength to try to return their troops to the line from which their offensive began in April 1920.

Peace negotiations that began on August 17 in Minsk ended on October 12, 1920 in Riga with the signing of preliminary conditions for a future peace treaty. Poland agreed to sign the final text of the peace treaty only after the defeat of Wrangel and the futility of plans for a new Entente campaign against Soviet Russia was revealed. Its terms, signed in March 1921 in Riga, were unfair, since they established a border that left Western Ukraine and Western Belarus within Poland, but were more favorable for the Soviet side than those that it agreed to accept before the start of the 1920 war At the same time, the peace treaty did not correspond to the plans, for the sake of which Pilsudski waged an armed struggle for more than two years, while neglecting the interests of the country in the west and in the north.

The only success for Poland was the capture of the Vilnius region. Back on December 15, 1918, the Vilnius Council of Workers' Deputies took power in the city. The next day, the Provisional Revolutionary Government, formed on December 8, proclaimed an independent Lithuanian Socialist Soviet Republic. On December 22, the independence of Soviet Lithuania was recognized by the government of the RSFSR. On the night of January 2, 1919, Polish troops entered Vilnius, but four days later Red Army units liberated the city. Only on April 21, 1919, Polish troops were able to gain a foothold there. From the end of August 1919, bourgeois power was established in Lithuania. On July 12, 1920, its government signed the Soviet-Lithuanian Treaty in Moscow, and on July 14, the Red Army expelled the Polish invaders from Vilnius, and it was immediately transferred to Lithuania. September 22, 1920. Poland started a war against Lithuania. According to the temporary agreement concluded between both states on October 7 in Suwalki, Poland recognized Vilnius and the Vilna region as part of Lithuania. However, a day later, General L. Zheligovsky, allegedly acting only on his own initiative, moved the division subordinate to him to the capital of Lithuania. On October 12, the Polish authorities announced the creation of the so-called Central Lithuania, which joined Poland in 1922. After the end of the fighting in 1920, the Lithuanian government declared that it continued to consider itself in a state of war with Poland.

In August 1919, the strike of Polish workers that took place in Upper Silesia grew into a liberation uprising. But it was quickly suppressed by the German authorities. In accordance with the Versailles Peace Treaty signed in June 1919, which provided for the holding of a plebiscite in Upper Silesia in one of its articles, military units of Western armies and the Inter-Allied Government and Plebiscite Commission arrived on its territory during January-February 1920. It practically did not oppose the activities of German nationalist circles and the aggravation of interethnic relations, which led to the second uprising of the Polish population of Upper Silesia, which lasted from August 18 to August 28, 1920.

In an atmosphere of acute national and social conflicts, on March 20, 1921, a plebiscite took place in Upper Silesia. Due to the fact that the resolution of the issue was delayed, on the night of May 2-3, a significant part of Upper Silesia was engulfed in an uprising. On October 12, 1921, the Council of the League of Nations decided to divide Upper Silesia. About 30% of the territory where the plebiscite took place was transferred to Poland. With the establishment of Polish administrative bodies in this region in July 1922, it became an economically developed territory with a large number of coal and iron ore mines, many metallurgical and machine-building enterprises. A significant part of the indigenous Polish lands in the west ended up outside the state, but areas with Belarusian, Ukrainian and Lithuanian populations were included in Poland.

During these same years, the main foreign policy positions and connections of Poland were determined. France signed a treaty of alliance and a military convention with Poland in February 1921. Subsequently, on March 3, 1921, an alliance agreement was concluded between Poland and Romania. Of the Little Entente allies, Poland established more or less close relations with Yugoslavia. Relations with Czechoslovakia remained tense in the future due to Poland's claims to the entire Cieszyn Silesia.

Poland was an agricultural country. About 65% of the population was employed in agriculture, only 9% in industry; 7% were engaged in handicraft production, 6% worked in trade and transport. The share of national minorities reached approximately 40%.

% of all peasant farms had less than 2 hectares, and 30% had from 2 to 5 hectares. At the other extreme there were 18 thousand estates, which owned 45% of all privately owned land. In addition, there were 1.3 million landless agricultural workers in the Polish countryside. The Catholic Church remained a major land owner.

In terms of agricultural productivity, despite fairly favorable climatic and soil conditions, Poland was one of the last in Europe.

Being a state with an average level of capitalist development, Poland at the same time had a highly developed fuel and raw material base and heavy industry concentrated in the Dąbrowski Basin and Upper Silesia, an equally developed textile industry in the Lodz region and Bialystok, numerous sugar refineries, distilleries and other enterprises. But the total volume of industrial production during the entire existence of the Second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth did not rise to the level of industrial production that was in 1913 in the corresponding territory. The main reasons for this were the narrowness of the domestic market, the difficulty of establishing a single national economic organism, and the weak competitiveness of Polish goods on the world market.

The commanding heights in industry were occupied by large enterprises owned by a small number of cartels and syndicates closely associated with banks and land magnates, with foreign , predominantly American and French capital.

The working class, whose number in 1921 was about 700 thousand people, from unemployment, which did not fall below 20%, in some years reached approximately half of the total number of workers. Small enterprises with up to 15 people employed three times as many workers as large and medium-sized ones. In terms of living standards, Polish workers were one of the last in Europe.

Most of the workers had a low professional and cultural level. But according to official data, among the population aged 20 to 60 years, 35% were illiterate. In the territories included in the Polish state, there were significant differences in social structures and political and legal systems. The process of integration of Polish society was complicated by the presence of foreign territories, as well as historically established regional specifics. Socio-political and cultural factors determined the multiplicity of parties, organizations and ideological movements.

The end of the Polish-Soviet war and the adoption of the country's fundamental law led to a decline in the intensity of patriotic, and partly nationalist, passions. The adoption of a democratic constitution raised hopes for the future among many Polish citizens. The process of normalization of the economic situation was hampered by the fact that, despite the constant deficit of the state budget, 42% of government spending was spent only on direct military purposes. Economic instability and the unresolved nature of many social issues led to intensified strike struggles. If in 1921, according to official data, 720 strikes took place in the country, then in 1922 900 strikes were registered. The village was also worried, seeking the implementation of the promised land reform. In Western Ukraine and Western Belarus, attacks by peasants on landowners' estates and clashes with the police became more frequent.

The government crisis ended with the formation of July 31, 1922. government headed by Yu. Novak. The main task of the government of J. Novak was to hold parliamentary elections. A number of restrictive changes were made to the previously existing electoral law.

Elections to the Sejm took place on November 5, 1922. A bloc of right-wing parties sought the Polonization of the country. Demanding the Polonization of industry and trade and the exclusion of competitors of non-Polish origin, the far-right parties of the Endeks and Christian Democrats, as well as the Christian National Group, formed an electoral bloc - the Christian Union of National Unity (in common parlance it was ironically called “Hiena”).

On the other hand, in order to fight against nationalism, many Belarusian, German, Jewish, as well as some Ukrainian political organizations joined the Bloc of National Minorities. The common platform of its participants was the demand for national equality. No group received an absolute majority. The group supporting Pilsudski turned out to be weaker. Therefore, he did not dare to stand as a presidential candidate. G. Narutovich, elected by the left part of the Sejm, was killed. S. Wojciechowski, close to the Piast party, became president. The post of head of state was abolished, Pilsudski retired. In the spring of 1923, the Endeks and the Piast party formed the first parliamentary government.

The CPPP conference, held in February 1921, reconsidered the erroneous position of boycotting the Sejm. The next conference, held in April 1922, was attended by representatives of the Communist Party of Eastern Galicia (since 1923 - the Communist Party of Western Ukraine, KPZU) and the Communist Party of Western Belarus (KPZB). The party reconsidered its negative attitude towards the very fact of education sovereign state. Ideas developed about the need for a policy of broad social unions in order to fight for genuine freedom of the Polish and oppressed peoples, for land for the peasants, for workers' control in industry, for cheap bread, and for providing housing for the urban population. The issue of orientation was discussed not towards a direct transition to socialism, but towards the establishment of a revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the broad masses of the people.

The year was marked in Poland by the growth of a new wave of the labor movement. In October alone, according to official data, 408 thousand workers went on strike. Silesian workers, including railway workers, led by a single strike committee created on the initiative of the communists, achieved a 130% increase in wages. The strike of drivers at the Krakow railway junction that began on October 6 gradually spread to all the country's railways. Almost simultaneously, mass strikes of textile workers, miners, postal workers, and teachers broke out. On October 29, hoping to take control of the situation and break the opposition of the proletariat, the government of V. Vitos decided to introduce a state of emergency on the iron thresholds and courts-martial. There were clashes with the police.

The frightened government canceled the order to militarize the railways and introduce courts-martial. On November 6, the leaders of the PPS gave instructions to end the general strike.

In the context of a deepening economic crisis and aggravation of political contradictions, in November 1923 a new split occurred in the PSL-Piast party. The Vitos government resigned. In December 1923, an extra-parliamentary government was formed headed by V. Grabsky.

The Grabsky government considered its central task to be the improvement of the financial situation of the state and the stabilization of the currency. In February 1924, the country's budget was for the first time brought to a positive balance. In April 1924, the Polish Bank began operations and a new currency was introduced - the zloty. The situation of workers was seriously affected by the crop failure that befell the country in 1924. Unemployment continued to rise in almost all sectors. Increased oppression in the national outskirts caused unrest in the Vilnius region, partisan movement in Western Belarus and Western Ukraine. On the initiative of a group of Belarusian deputies of the Sejm, the Belarusian Peasant-Worker Community was created in February 1925.

In November 1924, the Independent Peasant Party arose, which generally shared the position taken by the CPP on agrarian and some other issues. The Independent Peasant Party sought to carry out deep socio-economic reforms, replace the police and army with weapons of the working people, separate the church from the state and schools, recognize the right to self-determination for national minorities, and a policy of cooperation and alliance with the USSR.

The deterioration of the international situation, the partial failure of the financial and economic stabilization plan, and the sharp depreciation of the zloty forced Grabski to leave on November 14, 1925. announce your resignation. Pilsudski's supporters tried to take advantage of the government crisis.

The November government crisis was resolved on the basis of a compromise. The cabinet could not be stable, as it relied on a motley coalition. The formation of the new government coincided with a sharp deterioration in the economic situation. Demonstrations of the unemployed took place throughout the country. In parallel with the political and economic crisis, a crisis unfolded in the army, which was expressed in the fact that, under pressure from Pilsudski’s supporters, a whole group of very competent generals resigned and resigned, including J. Haller, T. Rozwadovsky, S. Sheptytsky. Trying to cause the fall of the government, in February 1926, Pilsudski's longtime ally, Moraczewski, left the government. There was an intense struggle within the government itself over ways to overcome the crisis. On May 5, the government resigned.

The new government was formed by Vitos. The population reasonably expected a new deterioration in their situation. The Sejm clubs issued a joint statement about the reactionary nature of the new government. Anti-government protests by officers sympathetic to Pilsudski took place in public places. Pilsudski began to look like a defender of democracy. The CPT strongly opposed the reactionary government of Vitos. On May 12, clashes between troops began. The workers actively joined the fight against the government. On May 14, the government decided to resign.

K. Bartel became the head of the new government, and Pilsudski, not wanting to be bound by the fairly democratic constitution of 1921, became Minister of War. I. Mostycki was elected president.

Already the first actions of the new regime gave enough reason to believe that the essence of the events was not the improvement of the country, but the search for new ways to consolidate the existing system. This was also recognized by supporters of “sanitation.” On August 2, 1926, an amendment to the constitution came into force, which limited the rights of the legislative bodies, freeing the government and a number of issues from the control of the Sejm and the Senate, expanding the rights and powers of the president. Contrary to expectations, political prisoners were not amnestied, and politics on the national outskirts did not change.

The strengthening of the position of the new regime was facilitated by the fact that, due to the strike of its coal miners, England had to resort to purchasing Polish coal for the first time since the beginning of summer. E. Kwiatkovsky became the Minister of Industry and Trade in 1926, showing himself to be a major economic leader. Transport transportation increased sharply, engineering and other industries received new orders, unemployment decreased, and the exchange rate of the zloty strengthened somewhat. 1926 turned out to be very fruitful. These changes in the economy stabilized the situation for some time.

Only the checkpoint, which was subject to repression, spoke out sharply against the “sanation” regime.” The internal struggle at the checkpoint, which intensified as a result, consumed a lot of time and energy at the checkpoint. different estimates positions of the party leadership during the May events. Disagreements turned into acute factional struggles during 1926-1929. tearing apart the party.

In early August 1926, the post of Inspector General of the Armed Forces was created. The person who held this post was not responsible either to the government or to the Sejm. On August 27, Pilsudski took and actually retained this post for life, as well as the portfolio of the Minister of War.

October he headed the new government. The military personnel close to Pilsudski were called “groups of colonels.”

The Nesvizh meeting with representatives of the largest Polish aristocracy demonstrated that the new government is not going to take into account even the PPS and other democratic forces, and is not going to soften its policy towards the national. minorities. In a short period of time, about 6 thousand political prisoners were imprisoned.

In foreign policy, Poland established cooperation with England and Germany. Poland, during secret negotiations, promised Germany some territorial concessions in exchange for consent to Poland’s seizure of Lithuania, and subsequently a number of Soviet territories.

The political situation in the country, despite some economic recovery and repressive government measures, remained unstable. In November 1926, the PPS decided to go into opposition, seeking not the liquidation of the existing regime, but only the reorganization of the government, the removal of the most reactionary ministers from its composition.

In the second half of 1928, signs of economic stagnation began to appear. Earlier than others, they made themselves known in one of the leading branches of Polish industry - textiles. Lodz textile workers held a strike from September 17 to 22. On October 15, almost all Lodz workers joined the strike as a sign of solidarity with the textile workers. Although the textile workers' strike, which lasted until October 23, was not successful, it was the harbinger of a new period of sharp class battles. Conflicts between the Sejm and the government became more frequent and became extremely acute. There was quite a heated struggle going on inside the “rehabilitation” camp.

A sign of the gradual reorientation of Poland's foreign policy towards improving relations with Germany was the liquidation of the French military mission in Poland in 1932. In July of the same year, Poland and the USSR signed a non-aggression pact (its three-year validity period in May 1934 was extended until December 31, 1945). Beck, who was close to Pilsudski and focused on rapprochement with Germany, became Minister of Foreign Affairs. The ruling circles of Poland hoped, with the help of diplomatic actions, to achieve cooperation with Germany, which in October 1933 withdrew from the League of Nations and left the conference to disarmament. At the beginning of November 1933, Pilsudski and Beck instructed the Polish Ambassador to Germany J. Lipski to tell the Fuhrer that since Hitler became the head of the German government, there had been an improvement in Polish-German relations.

The proposals of the French Minister of Foreign Affairs L. Barthou to conclude a multilateral pact of non-aggression and mutual assistance, made by him during a visit to Poland in April-May 1934, did not receive the support of Warsaw. Moreover, Pilsudski tried to “warn” Barthou against the policy of rapprochement and cooperation of France from the USSR. In relation to the French-Soviet project of the so-called Eastern Pact, Poland took a negative position.

In May 1933, Mośticki was re-elected president for the third time. On April 23, 1935, the president signed a new constitution.

The president was now elected for seven years by popular vote. Only two candidates were allowed to be nominated for the presidency. According to the new constitution, the president was endowed with broad powers: he appointed the prime minister, and, at the latter’s proposal, ministers, convened and dissolved the Sejm and the Senate, was the supreme commander of the armed forces, decided issues of war and peace, had the prerogative to issue various acts without prior agreement with the prime minister or individual ministers, appointed a third of the Senate. Having these and many other rights, the president was considered responsible for his actions “only before God and history.”

Before the introduction of the new constitution, Slawek became prime minister for the third time. Piłsudski died shortly after its adoption, in May 1935. Following the constitution, a new electoral law was introduced on July 8, 135. The right to nominate candidates for deputies was granted only to district election commissions; No more than two candidates could be nominated for each deputy seat. The dismantling of the principles of parliamentarism continued at an accelerated pace.

The mass anti-fascist, democratic, anti-war movement has been growing since the establishment of Hitler's dictatorship in Germany. The population of the country demanded the liquidation of the concentration camp in Bereza Kartuzskaya, created in 1934 according to Hitler’s model. The leadership of the CPP, not without difficulty, came to the understanding that the tasks of the struggle against fascism, for peace, for the independence of Poland dictated the need for united action with a wide range of social and political forces. It was the unity of action that ensured the success of the strikes of Lodz and Czestochowa textile workers, Warsaw foundries, and tailors in 1934. In 1935, an agreement was reached between the CPP and the PPS that both parties would refrain from mutual attacks and jointly fight for the release of political prisoners. At the VII Congress of the Comintern, Lenski noted that in Poland, due to the urgency of the agrarian question and the scope of the peasant movement, a popular front could emerge before a united workers' front.

The failure of the “sanation” policy, the struggle in the ruling camp between the “presidential” or “castle” group, the “general” or “belvedere” group, which was headed by Rydz-Smigly, the “colonel” and other groups forced the ruling regime to put up with the legal the existence of petty-bourgeois and bourgeois opposition. Reshuffles in the ruling elite could not stop the new wave of mass protests. If in 1934 there were 946 strikes in the country, then in 1935 - 1165, and in 1936 - 2040. A great revival occurred in the peasant movement. The mass peasant party at the congress that took place in December 1935 put forward demands for the distribution without redemption of large land holdings, amnesty for political prisoners, the liquidation of the concentration camp in Bereza Kartuzskaya; on June 29, 1936, the president, on behalf of the peasant party, was presented with previously discussed demands for the restoration of democratic constitution, holding free elections, creating a government of people's trust.

The persecution and repression to which the communists were subjected were inevitable. But terror also fell on the checkpoint workers who found themselves on the territory of the Soviet Union. Back in 1931, S. Voevudzki was arrested. Since 1922, he was an active figure in the left-wing peasant party PSL-Vizvolene, then one of the organizers of the Independent Peasant Party, and in 1922-1927. - a deputy of the Sejm who constantly collaborated with the CPP. In 1933, E. Chesheiko-Sokhatsky, a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, was arrested in Moscow, since 1930, a representative of the Communist Party of China at the Executive Committee of the Comintern. Members of the Central Committee of the CPP K. Greser and S. Wudzynski, CPP figures V. Vrublevski, T. Zharski were arrested. Many figures of the Belarusian peasant-worker community who ended up in the USSR, leaders of the KPZB and KPZU, became victims of false accusations. In 1936, and especially in 1937, hundreds and thousands of those Polish communists who flawlessly served the cause of state, socio-economic, political, and military construction of the Soviet state since October 1917 became victims of arbitrariness, violence, and lawlessness. The activities of the checkpoint were sharply criticized.

The fifth, and last, plenum of the Central Committee of the CPP took place in February 1937. It oriented the party towards the creation of a united workers' and popular front, the struggle for peace, for friendship with the USSR, against the threat of Hitler's aggression and the policy of "sanitation". A “Draft resolution of the ICCP on the dissolution of the CPP” was prepared. On December 2, Stalin put his resolution on the draft resolution. So, in fact, the verdict was passed by the CAT, as well as the KSMP, KPZU, and KPZB.

August 1938 The Presidium of the ECCI approved a resolution to dissolve the CPP.

In the second half of the 30s. In Poland, a relatively favorable economic situation began to emerge. Under the leadership of the Minister of Finance E. Kwiatkowski, the development of the Central Industrial District continued, the creation of which was officially announced on February 5, 1935. In the area between the Vistula and San rivers, the construction of a number of new industrial enterprises, mainly for military purposes, took place. In general, industrial production, the level of development of which in 1932 was 54 points in relation to 1926, rose in 1938 to 119 points. At the same time, due to population growth, the total number of unemployed almost did not decrease. The four-year investment plan adopted in 1936 was successfully implemented. But Poland never became one of the industrialized countries. For 1921-1939 its population increased from 27 to 35 million people, and the share of the rural population during this time decreased from 75 to 70%. National income growth has lagged significantly behind population growth

In the context of the aggravation of social and national contradictions, certain trends emerged towards a rapprochement between bourgeois-landowner and clerical circles with the ruling elite. The legal opposition was unable to significantly influence the government's shift to the right. Some more realistic bourgeois circles tried to unite in the fight against reorganization. An unstable, purely top-level cooperation developed between influential political figures who tried to counteract the “sanation” - Paderewski, Sikorski, Haller, Korfanty.

Equally ineffective were the efforts of the anti-fascist intelligentsia clubs that began to take shape at the end of 1937, which in 1939 served as the base for the Democratic Party (Stronnitstvo demokratychne, SD). The entire anti-sanation circle of socio-political forces lacked either energy, cohesion, or the desire and ability to rely on the emerging anti-fascist front.

In July 1933, Poland, together with a number of other states, signed the convention proposed by the USSR on the definition of an aggressor. When Berlin refused to participate in the creation of the Eastern Pact in September 1934, Beck sent a memorandum to Paris stating that Poland could become a party to the pact only if Germany joined it, that it renounced joint obligations regarding Lithuania and Czechoslovakia, prefers bilateral treaties to multilateral ones.

The Polish government negatively assessed the Soviet-French and Soviet-Czechoslovak treaties on mutual assistance signed in 1935. The attitude of the Polish government towards the Anti-Comintern Pact between Germany and Japan concluded in November 1937 was different.

In negotiations with Goering on February 23, 1938. Beck announced Poland's readiness to take into account German interests in Austria and emphasized Poland's interest in the Czech lands. At this moment of aggravation of the international situation, Poland made an attempt to achieve the complete subjugation of Lithuania. The Soviet Union's warning about the inadmissibility of inciting a Polish-Lithuanian war forced the rulers of Poland to limit themselves to demanding that the Lithuanian government establish diplomatic relations with Poland, which meant Lithuania's recognition of the annexation of the Vilna region.

After the capture of Austria, Nazi Germany declared its claims to part of the territory of Czechoslovakia. The Soviet Union informed the Czechoslovak government of its readiness to take all measures to ensure its security. Poland ignored the advice of France to take the path of improving relations with the USSR and not only rejected the possibility of passing Soviet troops through its territory and Soviet aviation flights through Polish airspace in order to help Czechoslovakia, but also provided diplomatic assistance to Nazi Germany, counting on support in the annexation of Cieszyn Silesia.

In a conversation between German representatives and Lipsky on August 11, it was discussed that after achieving its goals regarding Czechoslovakia, Poland could count on Germany’s understanding of its interest in the territory of Soviet Ukraine. Contributing to the Nazis, as well as supporters of the policy of appeasing the aggressor, Beck instructed the Polish ambassador in England to notify the British government that Czechoslovakia, which flanks Poland from the south, is bound by an agreement with its potential enemy - the Soviet Union. A few days later, on September 19, he asked Lipsky to inform Hitler that Poland considered the Czechoslovak Republic an artificial entity and supported Hungarian claims against Carpathian Rus (Transcarpathian Ukraine), and that there was a concentration of Polish troops in the areas bordering Czechoslovakia. At a reception on September 20, Hitler told Lipsky that in the event of a Polish-Czechoslovak military conflict, Germany would be on the side of Poland. The very next day, Poland sent a note to Czechoslovakia containing a demand for a solution to the “problem” of the Polish national minority living in Cieszyn Silesia.

In connection with the actions of Polynya, the Soviet government announced on September 23 that it would consider the crossing of the border of Czechoslovakia by Polish troops as an act of aggression, which would force the USSR to denounce the Soviet-Polish non-aggression treaty without warning.

After the conclusion of the Munich Agreement, the Polish government, threatening to use military force, presented Czechoslovakia with an ultimatum demanding the transfer of Cieszyn Silesia. The leaders of Czechoslovakia preferred the policy of repelling aggressors while relying on the USSR to satisfy the demands of Germany and Poland.

In the autumn, Hitler's Germany began to reveal its aggressive plans towards Poland. On October 24, Hitler's Foreign Minister Ribbentrop, in a conversation with the Polish Ambassador in Berlin Lipski, invited Poland to express consent to the annexation of the Free City of Danzig to Germany and to the construction of an extraterritorial highway and a multi-track railway through " Polish corridor" to East Prussia. In Poland itself, subversive elements became more active, especially from Nazi circles of the local German population.

In September 1938, the Soviet Union issued a warning to the Polish government in connection with preparations for the seizure of Cieszyn Silesia. At the same time, the USSR and Poland agreed to negotiations on the settlement of Soviet-Polish relations. This was recorded in a message published on November 29, 1938 in Warsaw and Moscow.

The beginning of 1939 was marked by an attempt to attract Poland ToNazi campaign against the USSR. On January 5, 1939, Hitler said that there was “a unity of interests of Germany and Poland in relation to the Soviet Union.” On January 20, 1939, Beck promised Ribbentrop to consider the possibility of Poland joining the Anti-Comintern Pact if Germany supported Polish wishes take over Soviet Ukraine and gain access to the Black Sea. It was in this regard that, speaking on March 11, 1939 at the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, Beck considered it appropriate to emphasize Poland’s interest in obtaining colonies.

What was done spoke about the growing danger to Poland from Germany the German side On April 28, a notification that in connection with the conclusion of the Anglo-Polish agreement on guarantees, Germany considers the Polish-German non-aggression declaration of 1934 to be no longer in force. The Soviet Union, trying to strengthen resistance to the aggressive plans of Nazi Germany, approved English sentence that England, France, the USSR and Poland announce a declaration indicating their interest in preserving the independence of the states of Central and South-Eastern Europe, their readiness to mutually guarantee the integrity and inviolability of the territories of these countries. Having learned about this. Beck then, on March 22, notified the British government of its reluctance to enter into any anti-Hitler agreements in which the Soviet Union would participate.

In May 1939, in Warsaw, the Soviet government’s point of view on the international situation was outlined. On May 11, in Moscow, People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR V.M. had a conversation. - Molotov with the Polish Ambassador to the USSR W. Grzybowski. The ambassador stated that “Poland does not consider it possible to conclude a mutual assistance pact with the USSR due to the practical impossibility of providing assistance to the Soviet Union.” But the Soviet Union did not expect help from Poland, but its consent to cooperate with the USSR in the event of an attack by Nazi Germany.

In mid-May, Poland sent a special military mission to Paris. On May 19, a protocol was signed there, according to which France pledged to immediately provide assistance to Poland in the event of an attack by Nazi Germany on Poland. The British military mission gave approximately the same kind of commitment. If they were carried out, Hitler's Germany would face the threat of disaster.

The position of the Polish ruling circles towards the USSR continued to remain inconsistent and hostile. On May 25, 1939, the Soviet ambassador in Warsaw P.I. Sharonov confirmed to Beck his readiness to provide military assistance to Poland, but this proposal was rejected. Warsaw’s position turned out to be negative even when the question of allowing Soviet troops through Polish territory in the event of German aggression arose during the Anglo-French-Soviet negotiations. Then Stalin and Molotov made a sharp change in course. On August 23, 1939, they signed the Soviet-German non-aggression pact. In a secret annex to the treaty, a decision was recorded on the actual liquidation of the independent Polish state and the division of its territory between the signatories of the treaty.

The Polish government, not losing hope for a peaceful settlement, postponed general mobilization until August 31. On the night of August 30-31, Operation Himmler was carried out.

On September 1939, German troops launched an offensive against Poland along the entire border from the Baltic Sea to the Carpathians. The people, whose six generations fought for independence, did not agree to capitulation. On September 2, at the last meeting of the Sejm, all parliamentary factions, including Ukrainian and Jewish, expressed support for the government and confidence in the final victory. On September 3, Great Britain, France and a number of other powers declared war on Germany .

Hitler threw 58 divisions into Poland, including six tank and eight motorized, with a total number of 1.8 million people; they were armed with 11 thousand guns, 2.5 thousand tanks and "1 thousand aircraft. Poland could oppose them with only 37 infantry divisions and two motorized brigades, 11 cavalry brigades, a total of about 1 million people, possessing 4.5 thousand guns, 700 tanks, mostly light, and 400 aircraft. Before the start of the war, Hitler declared that the goal should not be to reach any designated line, but to destroy manpower.

The first battles with the Nazis showed the high moral and patriotic spirit of the army and people. However, using their numerical and technical superiority, the Nazis occupied the “Polish corridor” during the first six days, captured Pomerania, Silesia and moved far into the center of the country. The Polish government appealed in vain to its Western allies to fulfill their obligations and take active action against the Reich. 110 French and five British divisions opposing the Western Front 23 Germans were inactive. France and England led" strange war". Poland had to fight alone.

September, the Nazis approached Warsaw, and by September 15, the Nazis, having occupied the western and partly central parts of Polynya, reached Brest, Lvov and Zamosc.

At three o'clock in the morning on September 17, the Polish ambassador in Moscow, W. Grzybowski, was summoned to the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs, where he was given a note from the Soviet government, which stated that the Polish government had "disintegrated and shows no signs of life," which means that the Polish state actually ceased to exist. The USSR, the note said, cannot be indifferent to the fact that “Ukrainians and Belarusians are of the same blood. abandoned to the mercy of fate, will remain defenseless,” and therefore units of the Red Army were ordered to cross the border of Poland in order to “take under their protection the lives and property of the population of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus.” These provisions were repeated by Molotov in his speech on Radio 17 September.

The actions of the Soviet Union, although motivated by the noble goal of protecting an oppressed national minority, were a violation of international morality and the agreements signed by the governments of the USSR and Poland: the Treaty of Riga of 1921. and the non-aggression treaty of 1932, as well as the convention on the definition of an aggressor, which recognized as such a state whose armed forces would invade the territory of another state, even without a declaration of war. The Polish government and high command were at a loss. On the same day, President Mośticki and the government crossed the Polish-Romanian border and were interned.

Unlike the German command, the Soviet command did not seek to defeat the Polish army and destroy manpower; it called on its soldiers to disobey their officers and go over to the side of the Red Army. But in a number of places there were clashes between Soviet and Polish units. Finding itself in the second half of September under a double blow and without any help from the allies, Poland could not continue resistance. On September 28, a joint parade of Soviet and German troops took place in Brest.

The further fate of Poland was determined by the Soviet-German Treaty of September 28, 1939 “On Friendship and Borders”. During the negotiations on concluding this treaty, Stalin expressed the opinion that the remainder of the Polish state could not be left independent and proposed dividing its territory between the USSR and Germany. A secret protocol was attached to the agreement that defined the Soviet-German border, according to which, in comparison with the previously established demarcation line, the Lublin Voivodeship and part of the Warsaw Voivodeship moved into the “sphere of influence of Germany” in return for its abandonment of Lithuania, which it claimed under the secret protocol to the agreement of August 23.

By Hitler's decrees of October 8 and 12, 1939, the Polish lands were divided into two parts. Greater Poland, Western Pomerania, part of Upper Silesia and Suwalki Voivodeship were included directly in the empire, the rest formed the so-called General Government for the occupied Polish provinces.

The general concept of Nazi policy towards the Poles, developed in the so-called General Plan Ost, consisted of their rapid and complete Germanization. Special commissions, guided by the principles of “racial selection,” ascertained the origin of persons capable of becoming “full members of the German national community.” Immediately after the occupation, the Nazi authorities began confiscating public and private property of Poles and Jews, which passed into the hands of the German state and large concerns or private ownership Germans.Poles were sent to the empire for forced labor or evicted to the General Government, and Germans from the Baltic states or the Reich settled in their place.

Frank’s residence was not Warsaw, but Krakow (Wawelski). The sovereign ruler of the Governorate until the end of its existence was G. Frank. The local government of German officials was subordinate to him, the Polish state apparatus was destroyed, but unlike the “annexed lands,” some local bodies were preserved Subsequently, in the spring of 1941, bodies of Polish economic self-government were established.

The Jews were placed in an exceptionally difficult situation. They were forced to wear a yellow six-pointed "Star of David" on their clothes, and soon after the start of the occupation they were imprisoned in a ghetto. The largest was Warsaw ghetto, formed in October 1940 in the southeastern part of the Polish capital.

The governorate was seen by the Nazi authorities as a source of cheap labor and raw materials for the Reich. Labor conscription was introduced for the Polish population aged 14 to 00

From the very first days of the occupation, the German authorities began a policy of terror. Concentration camps began to operate in Auschwitz, Maidanek, and others. The Nazis pursued a deliberate policy of eliminating Polish culture and education. All higher and secondary educational institutions were closed, the activities of all cultural, scientific, and public organizations were prohibited. Polish names were replaced by German ones. The policy of the German occupiers, which aimed not only at the destruction of Polish statehood, but also at turning the inhabitants into powerless slaves and their physical destruction, led to the fact that the main contradiction became the contradiction between the occupiers, the ruling German nation and the entire oppressed non-German population. Unlike other states enslaved by the Nazis, conditions for political collaboration did not exist in Poland. Society as a whole, including the propertied classes, was hostile towards the Nazis. Previous class contradictions temporarily faded into the background, which potentially created the possibility of the formation of a broad anti-fascist, patriotic front against the occupiers.

The composition of the government, formed on September 30, 1939 by General V. Sikorsky, reflected a compromise between moderate figures in the “sanation” camp and the former opposition. Speaking on the radio, President I. Moscicki said that he would act in close contact with the government. This meant a renunciation of the exclusive prerogatives that the Constitution of 1935 granted to the head of state. On December 9, 1939, by presidential decree, the National Council (Rada of Peoples) was formed - an advisory body that included representatives of all political trends operating in exile. I. Paderevsky was elected Chairman of the People's Rada, and S. Mikolajczyk was elected vice-chairman. The formation of the government of V. Sikorsky and the People's Rada meant that, despite the statements of Hitler and Molotov about the liquidation of Polish statehood, Poland continues to exist, and its armed forces, together with its allies, will wage war against Nazi Germany in the name of restoring national independence. The Polish government was officially recognized by France, Great Britain, and then the United States as representing the sovereign morality of the people.

The main provisions of foreign policy were formulated in the government declaration of December 18, 1939. The main goal was the liberation of Polish lands from occupation and the provision of Poland in the future, along with wide and direct access to the sea, guarantees of lasting security.

In general, in external and domestic policy Sikorsky sought to emphasize its difference from the policy of “sanation” and to show that his government would establish a bourgeois-democratic system. The prime minister considered his main task to be the creation on the territory of France of a hundred thousand strong army from Polish emigrants and those patriots who managed to defeat the country occupied by the Nazis. By the spring of 1940, there were 82 thousand soldiers and officers in the Polish armed units and units in France, including 38 thousand refugees from Poland. First baptism of fire they took during the Allied Norwegian Campaign (April-June 1940) and in battles in France. Only about 25 thousand people were evacuated to Great Britain, where, at the invitation of its government, the highest authorities of Poland also arrived.

The defeat of France put Sikorsky in a difficult position. His concept of liberating Poland with the help of France, which he considered as his main ally, failed. There was no hope for the formation of large Polish forces in England, since there, unlike France, there was no significant Polish emigration.

After the defeat of France, the main directions of the foreign policy of the Sikorski government did not change: acting together with Great Britain, continue the war until the complete liberation of Poland. The 1st Polish Corps guarded the coast of Scotland, and Polish pilots took part in the “Battle of England.” From mid-July to the end of 1940, they shot down 203 German aircraft out of 1,733 lost by the Nazis during this time.

Considering, like Churchill, a war between Germany and the USSR to be inevitable, Sikorskny admitted, although not without hesitation, the possibility of an agreement with the Soviet Union, meaning primarily the creation of a Polish army on its territory. At the same time, he supported the idea put forward by British diplomacy back in November 1939 of creating a federation of states in Eastern Europe after the war. As a result of negotiations between V. Sikorsky and the President of Czechoslovakia, E. Benes, a joint declaration was signed on November 11, 1940, the participants of which declared their desire to conclude a close political and economic union, which would become the basis of the new order and a guarantee of its strength. Sikorsky, like English politicians, viewed the future federation as a new “cordon sanitaire” designed to prevent the spread of communism in Europe.

While the Sikorski government sought to defend the interests of Poland in the international arena, reminding the allies and the whole world of the existence of the Polish state, a Resistance movement gradually unfolded in the country enslaved by the Nazis. It began spontaneously in the very first days of the war, when groups of patriots, mostly young people, began collecting weapons and ammunition on the battlefields. But the partisan movement did not gain any noticeable scope - before the war, bases and weapons reserves were not created for this, and leadership cadres were not trained. The most common forms of the Resistance movement were sabotage, slow work, and acts of sabotage. Of all the occupied countries, a specific form of Resistance that existed only in Poland was the secret training of schoolchildren, which was carried out since the fall of 1939 by an underground teachers’ organization.

The first conspiracy groups began to emerge already in September 1939. With the aim of uniting them, in November 1939, Sikorsky issued an order on the formation of the Union of Armed Struggle (Związek Valki Zbrojna, ZVZ) led by Colonel S. Rowecki (pseudonym "Grot"), who subordinated to the chairman of the Committee on National Affairs, General K. Sosnkovsky, who was in London. Sikorsky considered the ZVZ as an “apolitical and non-partisan army” unconditionally subordinate to him. Three pre-war political parties operating underground - SP, SL and PPS - recognized the government of Sikorski and the ZVZ, but, fearing the restoration of the “sapation” regime in Poland (command posts in the ZVZ were occupied by “sanation” officers), they began to create their own military organizations. The joint venture formed Parod's military organization (NOV). SL-"Rokh" (as the SL became known underground) initially recognized the ZVZ as an "army in secrecy", but then, in July 1940, created its own armed forces - the Peasant Battalions (Hlopske Battalions, BH).

Of all the underground political groups, the closest to the ZVZ was a new organization that arose in October 1939 to replace the dissolved PPS - the Central Management of the Movement of the Working Masses of the City and Countryside - Freedom, Equality and Independence (Volyyusst, Ruvnost, Nepodleglost), known as the PPS-VRP . It placed its armed detachments at the disposal of the ZVZ. On February 26, 1940, a Political Conciliation Committee (PC) was created under the Main Command of the ZVZ. The Sikorsky government, despite the resistance of the ZVZ command, achieved subordination to political conspiracy. In February 1940, the Government Delegation was formed, which was charged with implementing the policies of the emigrant government in the country and preventing the formation of a competitive government body. At the end of 1940, a representative of the Stronnitstvo Pratsa (SP) party associated with Sikorski was co-opted into the ISC, and thus the ISC became the body of four parties.

The Resistance movement associated with the Sikorski government had a very broad social base. It was attended by the bourgeoisie, petty bourgeoisie, intelligentsia, Catholic clergy, workers, peasants, who took different ideological and political positions, but were united by a common goal - the struggle for the restoration of an independent Polish state. The heterogeneity of the social and political composition of this movement determined the lack of internal unity in it, the confrontation of various parties and trends, which was also facilitated by the personal ambitions of political figures.

The restoration of Poland's independence by both the exile government and its supporters in the country was thought of as a result of the defeat of Hitler's Germany in the war with the Western powers and the associated retreat of his troops from occupied Polish territory. The operational plan developed by the ZVZ headquarters provided for in this situation the possibility of a short-term, within 2-3 days, uprising by the forces of conspiratorial organizations, without the participation of the masses. If, following the retreating Germans, Soviet troops entered the territory of Poland, it was planned to organize a front against the USSR on the “Vistula Line”, repeating the “miracle on the Vistula” of 1921.

The left direction in the anti-fascist Resistance movement during 1939-1941. had no organizational form. The working masses at that time trusted the emigrant government and the conspiratorial organizations associated with it. In conditions of secrecy, it was difficult for the left, radical elements in the SL to oppose the authoritative leaders of the party, especially since the SL was represented both in the exile government and in the ISK. The left socialists, fearing a split in the socialist movement, for a long time did not consider it possible for themselves to break with the PPS-VRN. At the turn of 1939 - 1940, but as the leaders of the VRN strengthened interaction with the “sanation” elements, in Warsaw a group of left socialists began to unite around P. Barlicki, S. Dubois and other supporters of the united popular front known in the past. They established connections with a group of radical Ludovites, and in the spring of 1940, a leftist group (“Barrikadovtsy”) formed around the editorial office of the magazine “Barrikada Volnostsi”, but soon its leaders were arrested by the Gestapo. Subsequently, a split occurred in the ranks of the “barricades” - one part was looking for ways to unite the entire socialist movement, the other began to get closer to the communists, and then created its own organ, “Standar Volnosci”. The group of "barricades", continuing efforts to unite the socialist movement, put forward a number of program provisions. She expressed the conviction that the world war, which is of an imperialist nature, will end in a socialist revolution. Its main force will be the revolutionary movement in the West and in Germany, as a result of which the United States of Socialist Europe will emerge, which will include Poland. At the same time, the “barricades” took a negative position towards the USSR, where, as they believed, after the NEP the counter-revolution had won, and the Soviet state was a unique form of the dominance of state capitalism. Many United Front socialists did not share the position of the “barricades” and broke ties with them; some of them began to gradually move closer to the communists.

The position of the communists in the first stage of the war was very difficult. Those who managed to cross into the Soviet Union were not trusted there, and many communists, along with thousands of residents of territories annexed by the USSR, were deported to Siberia and other remote areas or ended up in prison. Those who remained in the country continued their conspiratorial activities, but were bound by the Comintern directive to dissolve the CPT. The agreement of August 23, 1939 caused confusion among the communists, and it was especially difficult for them to accept the agreement on “border and friendship” between the USSR and Germany. The hostility of the population towards the Soviet Union as a participant in the division of Poland forced the Communists to maintain secrecy not only in front of the Nazis, but also in front of other Resistance groups.

Unlike the “barricades,” the Polish communists considered the USSR a stronghold of the socialist revolution and were convinced that war between the Soviet Union and Hitler’s Germany was inevitable and that it would lead to the liberation of Wormwood from the fascist yoke and the formation of a people’s government. Based on the principles of the Comintern that they knew about the Second World War as imperialist on both sides, they negatively assessed both the actions of Hitler's Germany and the actions of England and France and their ally - the Polish émigré government. Nevertheless, the Communists gradually became involved in the Resistance movement.

Young socialists and communists united around the Spartak group, which had resumed its activities, under the patronage of the PPS. In February 1940, the Union of Peasants and Workers was created in Warsaw, which established contact with the radical Ludovites, and in March the group Revolutionary Workers' and Peasants' Councils (RRKS) arose, publishing the magazine "Hammer and Seri". She began preparations for armed struggle against the occupiers, forming Red Militia detachments, the number of which reached 1 thousand people by May 1941. In the spring of 1941, the Society of Friends of the USSR arose, with which the RRKS group began negotiations on unification, but the arrests of many of its members and destruction by the Nazis

The Red police prevented this.

The communists acutely felt the need to recreate the party, tried to establish a connection with the Comintern through the Soviet resettlement mission that had been operating since the spring of 1940, but received no response from the Comintern. Under these conditions, they began to develop their concept of the liberation of Poland. The Krakow group, which also included socialists and radical Ludowites, adopted a declaration at the beginning of 1940, in which, in accordance with the guidelines of the Comintern given at the beginning of the Second World War, it spoke out for a socialist revolution, the formation of a union of free people's republics in Europe, and the transformation of Poland V socialist republic, covering all “undoubtedly ethnographic Polish lands.” The course towards a socialist revolution in the conditions of the victory of the Soviet Union over Hitler's Germany was proclaimed at the beginning of 1941 by the RRKS. The ideas of a socialist revolution and orientation towards the Soviet Union, which the communists defended, could not gain support from the Polish people; the majority of them still considered the Soviet Union, like Hitler’s Germany, as their enemy.

But gradually a different concept began to take shape. The Workers' and Peasants' Action group, in documents published in March 1941, while continuing to assert that the governments of England and the United States were pursuing their own imperialist goals, expressed the opinion that it was necessary to support them against Hitler's Germany, since the defeat of Hitler would free them from the yoke of fascism the working class and peasantry and will create opportunities for the implementation of their revolutionary aspirations.

Thus, by the summer of 1941, the communist groups operating in Poland had not yet managed to develop a program of struggle for national and social liberation around which broad sections of the Polish people could unite.

The attack of Hitler's Germany on the Soviet Union led to changes in Polish-Soviet relations. In a speech on the radio on June 23, 1941. V. Sikorsky, expressing the hope that “Russia will invalidate the 1939 pact with Germany,” said that from now on “the Polish-Russian problem will disappear in international politics.” In practice, this meant abandoning the state of war with the USSR and readiness for negotiations, which began through the mediation of British diplomacy on July 5. From the Soviet side, Ambassador I.I. participated in them. Maisky, from Polish - Prime Minister V. Sikorsky and Minister of Foreign Affairs A. Zalessky. The most difficult issue was the issue of boundaries. Maisky, saying that the Soviet Union would under no circumstances agree to the restoration of the previous border, proposed leaving this issue open. Sikorski was inclined to confine himself to the statement that the USSR considered the agreements with Germany concerning Poland invalid, but President V. Raczkiewicz and Minister Zaleski, supported by General K. Sosnkowski, put forward a demand for the restoration of the pre-war borders of Poland. The British government put pressure on Polish politicians, emphasizing that "borders are not a primary issue." Despite the opposition of the president and three ministers of his government, Sikorsky signed the Polish-Soviet agreement on July 30, 1941, in the presence of W. Churchill and A. Eden.

Under the terms of the agreement, the Soviet Union and Poland assumed obligations to provide each other with assistance and support in the war against Nazi Germany. A Polish army was created on the territory of the USSR, operationally subordinate to the Soviet command, which implied its use on the Soviet-German front. The border issue remained open. The agreement stated: “The government of the USSR recognizes the Soviet-German treaties of 1939 regarding territorial changes in Poland as no longer in force. The Polish government declares that Poland is not bound by any agreement with any third party directed against the Soviet Union.” On August 14 it was signed a military agreement on the formation of a Polish army on the territory of the USSR, the equipment of which was partially undertaken by the Soviet government, and partially was to be carried out on the basis of Lend-Lease.

The Soviet-Polish agreements of July 30 and August 14, 1941 created the preconditions for a radical change in relations between the two states. Sikorski showed himself to be a realistically thinking politician, capable, for the sake of the main goal - the restoration of Poland's independence - to reach an agreement with the state, to which he had so recently declared hostility. In turn, the Soviet Union, denouncing the thesis about Poland as “the ugly brainchild of the Treaty of Versailles”, proclaimed by V.M. Molotov in October 1939, recognized Poland as a sovereign state.

The signing of an agreement with the Soviet Union and the resignation of three ministers who objected to it, including A. Zalessky, strengthened Sikorsky’s position. Representatives of left-wing emigration circles were included in the government - S. Mikolajczyk (SL) and H. Lieberman (PPS).

The Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of August 12, 1941 on the amnesty of Polish citizens in Soviet prisons and camps gave the opportunity to hundreds of thousands of Poles deported by the NKVD in 1939-1941. from Western Ukraine and Western Belarus to the eastern and northern regions of the USSR, choose another place of residence. Many of them began to join the Polish army, which began to form at the end of August both from volunteers and from persons subject to conscription who had Polish citizenship before September 1939. By the end of October, the strength of the Polish army reached 41.5 thousand people. The mood there and the attitude towards the Soviet Union were determined by the fact that the overwhelming majority of the personnel, like the army commander, General W. Anders, went through Stalin’s camps and exile and were recently considered by the Soviet authorities as “class hostile elements.”

Churchill, interested in using the Polish army to protect British interests in the Middle East, recommended that Sikorski seek Soviet agreement to transfer it to Iran. The US government also showed interest in this. Sikorski, fearing that if the Soviet Union were defeated, history would repeat itself with Polish troops in France, was inclined, although not without hesitation, to follow the advice of the Western allies.

December 1941, during the first ever visit of the head of the Polish government to the USSR, Sikorsky was received by Stalin. Stalin stated that he was a supporter of the restoration of Poland as a strong, independent and allied state of the USSR, whose borders in the west should include East Prussia and “rest on the Oder River.” He made it clear that there was the possibility of an agreement on Poland’s borders in the east. However, Sikorski, who shared the conviction of members of his government and emigration leaders that the question of Poland’s borders would be resolved after the end of the war with the help of the West, refused to discuss it at all, saying that the borders of 1921 could not be questioned.

The main issue for Sikorsky in the negotiations was the issue of the Polish army. He presented Stalin with a list of 3,845 officers interned in September 1939, insisting that they be included in Anders' army. Stalin stated that they probably fled to Manchuria (later, in March 1942, in a meeting with Anders, Stalin argued that the fate of the Polish officers was unknown to the Soviet authorities, and suggested that they fled the camps and fell into German hands ).

Stalin regarded the position of Sikorski, who insisted on the withdrawal of the Polish army to Iran, where it would be armed and equipped by Great Britain, as the reluctance of the Poles to fight together with the Soviet Union, directly stating that this proposal concealed an Anglo-American intrigue. Sikorsky, realizing that the withdrawal of the army from the USSR would deprive it of the opportunity to further be replenished from the huge human reserves remaining in the Soviet Union, contrary to the promise given to Churchill, withdrew the demolition proposal. As a result, during the negotiations an agreement was reached to increase the size of the Polish army to 96 thousand people and its participation in the battles on the Soviet-Gorman front.

On December 1941, the Declaration of Friendship and Mutual Assistance was signed, in which the governments of the Soviet Union and Poland expressed their readiness, together with other allies, to “wage the war until complete victory over German-Hitler imperialism”, to provide each other with “full military assistance” during the war, and in times of peace, build their relations on the principles of good neighborly cooperation, friendship and honest fulfillment of their obligations.

In March 1942, when the Soviet government decided to reduce the number of food rations for the Polish army due to the failure of the United States to fulfill its obligations to supply wheat to the USSR, Anders, with the consent of Stalin, evacuated part of his units to Iran. By April 1, 1942, 31,488 soldiers and officers and 12,455 members of their families left the base in Krasnovodsk. Subsequently, with the support of Churchill, Anders, contrary to Sikorsky’s position, obtained the consent of the Soviet government to evacuate the rest of the Polish army from the USSR. In total, by September 1, 1942, about 114 thousand people left the Soviet Union.

The deterioration of relations with the USSR weakened the international position of the émigré government. Sikorsky’s attempts to obtain support from Churchill and Roosevelt for the Polish position on the issue of borders with the Soviet Union during negotiations in March 1942 did not produce noticeable results. The only thing that Sikorsky could be satisfied with was that the Anglo-Soviet treaty of alliance, signed in London on May 26, 1942, did not include the provision discussed during the negotiations on the recognition by Great Britain of changes in the borders of the USSR in 1939-1940.

The transition in Soviet-Polish relations from cooperation to confrontation was skillfully used by the Nazis. On April 13, 1943, Reich radio announced that mass graves of Polish officers - victims of the NKVD - had been discovered in the Katyn Forest near Smolensk. On April 16, TASS stated that these officers were killed by the Nazis in the summer of 1941 during the occupation of the Smolensk region.

April, the Ministers of Defense M. Kukel and Information S. Kot, in agreement with Prime Minister Sikorsky, published a statement in which, in fact agreeing with the version of Hitler’s radio, they considered it necessary to conduct an investigation with the participation of the International Red Cross (ICR). The next day, representatives of the Red Cross of Nazi Germany and Poland almost simultaneously made a corresponding request to the IRC. Such actions caused a sharp reaction from the USSR. Stalin, in a message to Churchill on April 19, accused the Sikorsky government of “conspiracy” with Hitler, crossing out the allied relations of this government with the USSR. On April 25, it was stated that the Soviet government was breaking off relations with the Polish émigré government. An international commission of representatives of 12 countries under the control of the Reich, and after it a group of the Polish Red Cross, which examined the remains of 4143 Polish officers (but according to other sources - 4151), came to the conclusion that they were shot in the spring of 1940. After 25 September 1943, Soviet troops liberated Smolensk, a Soviet commission led by Academician N.N. Burdenko conducted an investigation, as a result of which it was announced that Polish officers became victims of the German occupiers in July 1941. At the Nuremberg trials, the Katyn Case was considered, but was not included in the indictment. Over the following years, the Soviet Union adhered to official version and only as a result of studying various documentation, the Soviet-Polish commission, while studying the “blank spots” in the history of relations between the two countries, recognized the responsibility of the NKVD for the tragedy in Katyn. After the break with the USSR, Sikorsky could only rely on the actions of Great Britain and the United States, for which Polish interests were of secondary importance in their international policy, although they were interested in the exile government returning to Poland after the expulsion of the Nazi invaders and gaining power.

Sikorsky also failed to achieve the implementation of the plan to create a confederation in the center of Europe. Negotiations with the government of Czechoslovakia on this issue, which had been ongoing since 1940, in January 1942 led to the signing of an agreement between the two states on the principles of a confederation with the possible participation of other states, but as Polish-Soviet relations worsened, the prospect of a future confederation became increasingly elusive .

Sikorski's policy was sharply criticized both by progressive circles of the Polish emigration and in the British and American press, since it ran counter to the general trend of strengthening the anti-fascist coalition. On the other hand, he was constantly under pressure from anti-Soviet-minded Polish circles, who demanded that he take a “firm course” towards the USSR. In search of a way out of the difficult situation in which his government found itself, Sikorsky intended to make a second trip to Moscow, hoping to achieve the restoration of broken relations in personal negotiations with the Soviet government. In order to strengthen his position in the army and gain support from its command, the prime minister went to the Middle East in June 1943, where he inspected the Polish armed forces. On the way back to London, Sikorsky's plane crashed while taking off from an airfield in Gibraltar on July 4, 1943. The death of General Sikorski - an energetic politician, an ardent patriot, who, despite certain failures of his political course, managed to gain authority and respect not only in the ideologically and politically close layers of Polish society, but also among those who did not share his concepts, was an irreparable loss . In the Polish emigration in England there was no other politician as authoritative as Sikorski.

The leadership of the underground associated with the exile government assessed the attack of Nazi Germany on the Soviet Union from the perspective of the theory of “two enemies.” The “Information Bulletin” issued by the Delegation expressed satisfaction that “the hands of one of our enemies are crushing the other,” and demanded that the Poles in the occupied territory take a neutral position in relation to both opponents. The émigré government and the leadership of the underground believed that any active action against the Nazis was premature. The theory of “two enemies” also determined the tactical line - “stand with weapons at your feet” waiting for the moment when both enemies weaken each other so much that a real opportunity implementation of plans for the liberation of Poland.

In the fall of 1941, the organization "Vakhlazh" ("Fan") was created with the aim of carrying out acts of sabotage behind German troops in the territories located east of the pre-war border of Poland. On February 14, 1942, in order to unite all the armed formations of the underground, Sikorsky issued an order to rename ZVZ to the Home Army (AK). Back in September 1941, Rowecki developed “Operational Plan No. 154,” which provided not only for an uprising in the General Government at the moment when the Anglo-American troops reached the Rhine, but also to counteract the Red Army when it entered the territory of pre-war Poland. However, in instructions to Rowetsky dated March 8, 1942, Sikorsky, referring to agreements with the USSR, wrote that he abandoned the plan of resistance to the Red Army.

In the Polish underground, with the outbreak of war between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, some regrouping of forces took place. A group of “barricades”, even before the signing of the Soviet-Polish agreements, declared that all Poles should actively support the Red Army. On September 1, 1941, at a congress of a number of left-wing groups, convened on the initiative of the “barricades,” the organization of Polish Socialists (PS) was created, headed by with A. Pruhnik. Anti-fascist groups under the leadership or ideological influence of the communists became more active. At the end of August - beginning of September 1941, on the initiative of a group of Warsaw communists, the Liberation Union was created, which put forward the idea of ​​uniting all patriotic forces into a national front and switching to partisan actions.

In the Soviet Union, a group of Polish communists, which included M. Novotko, P. Finder, at a meeting with the General Secretary of the ECCI G. Dimitrov, reached an agreement on the formation of the Initiative Group for the restoration of the Marxist-Leninist Party in Poland. On the advice of G. Dimitrov, it was decided to call it the “Polish Workers' Party” (Polska Partiya Robotnicza, PPR), which took into account the real situation and emphasized the national, Polish character of the new party.

At the end of December 1941 The initiative group was transferred to Poland, and at its meeting on January 5, 1942 with representatives of the Union of Liberation Struggle and other organizations, it was decided that all formations represented at the meeting would cease their activities, and their members would join the PPR. In the first manifesto of the PPR “To the workers, peasants, intelligentsia, to all Polish patriots!”, published on January 10, 1942, the idea of ​​​​creating a national front with the participation of all Poles, with the exception of “traitors and capitulators”, was put forward to solve the main task - restoration an independent, democratic Polish state. The PPR expressed its readiness for the closest cooperation with other parties fighting for national liberation.

Unlike most parties in the “London camp,” the PPR unambiguously spoke out for participating in the fight against fascism together with the Soviet people and stated that, by taking the line of San and Bug in the fall of 1939, the Soviet Union “created a barrier against the aggression of Nazi Germany.” Condemning passive resistance tactics as " English way conduct of military operations", the PPR called for an armed struggle against the occupiers.

The formation of the PPR marked the beginning of the formation of a second center of Resistance in Poland, which took upon itself the organization of armed struggle against the occupiers not in the distant future, but immediately.

Not only the right-wing parties of the “London camp,” but also the Ludovites and the Polish Socialists reacted negatively to the calls of the PPR to launch an armed struggle, considering them premature. Nevertheless, the PPR managed to create the People's Guard (GL) on the basis of the armed detachments of the communist underground, the first chief of staff of which was M. Spychalsky.

In 1941-1943. The policy of the Nazi authorities in the Polish lands was aimed at using them for military purposes. Having suspended the dismantling of enterprises and the removal of equipment, carried out in 1939-1941, the Nazis transferred the remaining factories and factories to military production, systematically reducing the production of consumer goods. The number of craft and small trade enterprises sharply decreased, many Polish firms were confiscated in favor of the Reich, others came under the compulsory control of the occupation authorities. Due to the growth of military production in the General Government in 1942-1943. unemployment has practically disappeared. This was also facilitated by the massive export of labor for forced labor to Germany, where by the end of December 1942 about 940 thousand Poles were working. From the Polish lands annexed to the Reich, by the end of 1942, 193 thousand people were sent to work in Germany and 365 thousand were resettled in the General Government. Mass raids were often carried out on the streets of Polish cities, and people captured at this time were shot on the spot or sent to concentration camps and to work in Germany. In a Polish village compared to 1939-1941. Confiscations of land property of landowners and peasants increased sharply. The increasing economic exploitation of Polish lands was accompanied by an escalation of terror. In the gas chambers of Auschwitz, which turned into the largest death camp in Poland, Majdanek, Treblinka and others, hundreds of thousands of Poles, Jews, Soviet prisoners of war and citizens of other countries occupied by the Nazis were exterminated.

The resistance movement continued in various forms. Secret training of school youth became widespread. Classes with students were taught by professors from Warsaw, Jagiellonian and other universities. The number of underground publications grew. The Polish population provided assistance to fugitives from concentration camps and prisoner of war camps and hid Jews. The Catholic clergy, most of whom took patriotic positions, made a significant contribution to the fight against the occupiers.

The tactics of passive resistance caused disappointment among young people, who preferred to take active action rather than wait in a safe place for a signal for future struggle. In June 1942 S. Rowetsky, in a dispatch to London, wrote that the actions of the GL were awakening the population “from what had been several years of passive waiting” and that “sympathy for the Bolsheviks is shown by landless and land-poor peasants, farm workers, as well as radical elements of urban workers and intelligentsia.” In October 1942, the AK High Command created a special Directorate of Sabotage, which included various pre-existing units engaged in sabotage activities, as well as the Gray Ranks scouting organization. The tasks were set to carry out sabotage, acts of sabotage on railways, retaliatory actions against the actions of the occupiers, for which several thousand people were allocated.

At the turn of 1942-1943. An important center of the struggle against the Nazis became the Zamosc region (Lublin Voivodeship), where at that time the occupiers carried out a mass eviction of the Polish population. The fighting in the Zamosc region continued until mid-1943. The Nazis here were unable to fully implement their plans.

April 1943, but on the orders of Himmler, the German authorities began to liquidate the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw. The Jewish combat organization established contacts with the main command of the GL and AK, and prepared for defense. The GL and AK detachments helped evacuate many people from the ghetto through underground channels and inflicted a number of blows on the Nazis who attacked it. Despite the courage of its defenders, after several weeks of stubborn fighting, the uprising in the ghetto in July 1943 was suppressed. Throughout 1943, the Nazis carried out actions to “solve the Jewish question,” as a result of which, in total, more than 3.2 million Polish citizens of Jewish nationality were killed.

At the end of 1942 - beginning of 1943, activists of the PPR created a revolutionary youth organization, which later received the name "Youth Struggle Union". Its first director was Kh. Shapiro-Savitskaya. Many members of the Union came to it from the AK, attracted by the opportunity to take an active part in the hostilities. The PPR, continuing the course towards creating a national front, on January 15, 1943, addressed an “Open Letter to the Delegation of the Government of General Sikorsky,” in which, calling for a break with passive waiting with “a weapon at one’s feet,” it expressed readiness for cooperation. Sikorski, in a dispatch to the Delegation, demanded that “those who strive for the Sovietization of Poland be unconditionally rejected.” The negotiations did not produce any results. The anti-Soviet sentiments of all parties in the “London camp” and their attitude towards the PPR as an “agent of Moscow” have not changed. The breakdown of relations between the Polish émigré government and the USSR further aggravated the negative attitude towards the Soviet Union and the PPR.

The failure of attempts to unite all the forces of the Resistance movement became apparent when the Nazis intensified their terror throughout Poland. The process of liquidation of Jewish ghettos, mass executions of prisoners in Pawiak and other prisons, and the eviction of peasants from the territory of Lublin, Kieleck and other voivodeships continued. And at the same time, activities expanded partisan detachments GL, Soviet partisans. The Cotton Battalions also joined the fight. Under these conditions, the AK command changed tactics - instead of the slogan “wait with weapons at your feet”, in early April 1943 the slogan of “limited struggle” was put forward, which should be carried out by special detachments depending on the behavior of the occupiers: “To respond to increased atrocities of the Germans by strengthening our shares." As before, all actions of the AK were subordinated to the main goal - preparation of a general uprising at the appropriate moment and by order of the High Command.

By the spring of 1943, the PPR had become a single party operating throughout the country. On March 1, 1943, the PPR published the declaration “What are we fighting for?”, which formulated a program of political and socio-economic transformations in Poland after its liberation: the creation of temporary democratic bodies “from commune and city councils up to and including the government”, the transfer to the state of enterprises seized by the occupiers and the establishment of working class control over them, the return of their property to small town and village owners, the division of landowner estates between peasants, an alliance with the USSR, etc. .

This program did not receive a positive response in the “London camp,” which opposed it with its own point of view on transformations in Poland after liberation. On August 15, 1943, all four parties included in the National Political Representation announced a declaration of cooperation before the elections to the Sejm, where declared support for the foreign policy activities of the exile government. Social program was quite radical - it provided for the transfer into the hands of the state or self-government of industrial enterprises that were under German control or owned by Germany, as well as ownerless enterprises, which amounted to approximately 90% of their total number, and the implementation of agrarian reform at the expense of lands owned by the Germans.

Fundamental changes in the international situation in 1943 after the defeat of the Nazis at Stalingrad and Kursk and the further strengthening of the anti-Hitler coalition did not lead to a revision of the “London camp” attitude towards the USSR and the PPR. Operating outside the framework of the AK, the far-right armed group of the SI - the National Armed Forces (People's Forces Zbrojne, PSZ), which proclaimed the USSR and the communists as "enemy No. ) GL group - 26 guardsmen and four local peasants.

The PPR, convinced that the position of the “London camp” made it impossible to create a broad national front, changed course. In November 1943, the second declaration “What are we fighting for?”, written by the Secretary of the Central Committee of the PPR W. Gomulka, was published. It formulated more radical demands than in the March declaration: the creation of a democratic state, within the framework of which “the working class and the working masses will strive for the transition to a socialist system,” the nationalization of large industry, banks and transport, the introduction of workers’ control in production, planning economy, expropriation without redemption of landowners' lands and their division between peasants and agricultural workers, etc. By denying the emigrant government the right to power, the PPR thereby declared that it was beginning the struggle for a popular system based on the alliance of the working class and the peasantry. This was the new strategic concept of the PPR - the concept of a democratic national front. To implement this program, the Central Committee of the PPR began to create in the country a second political center opposing the “London camp” - the Home Rada of the People’s War (KRN). In mid-December 1943, the Manifesto of democratic socio-political and military organizations was published, which recognized the goals and objectives of the KRN.

On New Year's Eve 1944, at a secret meeting in Warsaw, a decision was made to form the Home Rada of the People, which declared the main task to be an armed struggle against the Nazi occupiers until the complete liberation of the country. He was elected Chairman of the KRN TO.Take (PPR). The KRN adopted a decree on the formation of the People's Army (AL) as the main armed force of the Polish people. WITHWith the formation of the KRN in Poland, a political center emerged opposing the “London camp,” which hoped, during the liberation of Poland by the Red Army, relying on its support, to seize power and create a government designed to implement a program of revolutionary transformations.

While the country was preparing for the struggle for power after liberation under the Nazi occupation, in the Soviet Union, on the initiative of communist emigrants, an organization ideologically close to the PPR arose - the Union of Polish Patriots (UPP), led by the writer V. Wasilewska. The Ideological and Political Declaration adopted by the Congress of the SPP in June 1943 declared the task of the Union to be the struggle for a democratic Poland based on the principle of democracy. The Soviet government in May 1943 agreed to the request of the SPP to form an infantry division for the USSR, which, unlike Anders’ army, would take part in the war together with the Red Army. At the head of the 1st division, which was named after T. Kosciuszko, Colonel 3. Berling was placed. October 12-13, 1943 1st division named after. T. Kosciuszko received a baptism of fire near the town of Lenino in Belarus.

As the Red Army approached the borders of Poland, the international position of the émigré government became increasingly difficult. Histhe expectation that with the help of England and the USA it would be possible to restore relations with the USSR did not materialize. The conditions proposed by the Soviet Union - to exclude from its composition those ministers whom Stalin considered “the most reactionary” and to agree to a border with the USSR along the “Curzon line” - were rejected. The Polish government also rejected the formula proposed by Great Britain for compensation for the loss of the eastern provinces by annexing East Prussia, Gdansk and Opole Silesia to Poland. In November 1943, the Tehran Conference of the Big Three, despite this position of the Polish government, accepted Churchill’s proposal that “the hearth of the Polish state and people should be located between the so-called Curzon line and the Oder River line,” as well as the transfer of part of East Prussia to Poland and Opole Silesia.

January 1944, after the Red Army crossed the pre-war border of Poland, the Soviet government expressed its readiness to negotiate the resumption of Soviet-Polish relations, subject to the Polish government accepting the “Curzon Line” as the eastern border of Poland. At the same time, it was publicly stated for the first time that the western borders of Poland should be expanded by annexing the ancestral Polish lands captured in the past by Germany. Despite vigorous pressure from Churchill, the Polish government rejected this proposal.

The “London camp” hoped that it would be able to force the Soviet Union to recognize the de facto jurisdiction of the emigrant government and the Delegation by the actions of the AK when the Red Army entered the territory of Poland. Developed by the AK High Command in November 1943, based on instructions from London, the “Storm” plan provided for active AK operations against retreating German rear units. At the same time, in relation to the Soviet command, the commanders of the AK units, together with representatives of the underground civil administration, would perform the “role of the owner” of the liberated territory.

"London Underground" in early 1944 in contrast to the KRN, it created the Council of National Unity \REN\. On March 15, its declaration “What the Polish people are fighting for” was published, in which, emphasizing the need for complete victory over Nazi Germany, the authors advocated the revival of Poland as a parliamentary republic with a strong government and borders in the east, based on the Treaty of Riga of 1921, and in the west, including all of East Prussia, Gdansk, “the Pomeranian wedge between the Baltic and the mouth of the Odra, Opole Silesia” into the Polish state.

On the eve of Poland's liberation from occupation, there were two opposing political centers operating in the country, each of which was preparing to take power into its own hands. Around the KRN, under the leadership of the PPR, which was the main political force in this camp, numerically small organizations and groups united, representing the left trends in the workers' socialist and peasant movement. The KRN relied on a rather impressive armed force - the 1st Polish Army, in the ranks of which by June 1944 there were 78 thousand soldiers and officers. Orientation towards the Soviet Union, whose troops were steadily marching west, provided the KRN with powerful external support in the struggle for power.

The second center was represented by the AK Delegation and Command, closely associated with the London exile government. Participation in this camp by SL-Rokh and PPS-VRN made it possible for the bourgeoisie, which occupied leading positions in it, to keep significant masses of the working class and peasantry under its influence. However, as was repeatedly recognized in AK documents in the spring of 1944, the mood of Polish society was characterized by a constant shift to the left." These sentiments were intensified due to the fact that after the adoption of the declaration "What the Polish people are fighting for," the Delegation did not take any concrete steps, which would indicate the intention of the leadership of the “London camp” to carry out agrarian reform and nationalization of industry during liberation, the Emigrant Government also did not make any statements about its plans regarding social reforms.

The international position of the “London camp” on the eve of liberation was weaker than the KRN. Foreign policy allies - Great Britain and the USA - did not support the exile government in its main dispute with the USSR - the issue of the eastern border. There was still hope that the weakly armed units of the Home Army, using the fear of the bulk of the population of the “Soviet occupation of Poland”, which the propaganda of the “London camp” constantly spoke about, would be able to, when the Red Army entered the country, try to confront the Soviet Union with the fact of the appearance of political structures, subordinate to the emigrant government, which enjoys the support of the Western powers allied to the USSR.

June 1944 The Red Army, carrying out Operation Bagration, launched a broad offensive and reached the Bug-Narev line. The AK command tried to implement the “Storm” plan, but when Vilnius was captured on July 13 by the joint actions of the AK and Soviet troops, the command’s attempts to act as the “master” of the liberated territory and its refusal to transfer its units to the 1st Polish Army led to that they were disarmed and interned. The political demonstration of AK during the liberation of Lvov ended with the same result.

Meanwhile, on July 21, negotiations ended in Moscow on the formation of a temporary government body in Poland, which, at the insistence of Stalin, received the name of the Polish Committee of National Liberation (PKPO). The Manifesto of the PCNO declared that the exile government and the Delegation in the country were a self-proclaimed, illegal power. The KRN, acting on the basis of the Constitution of 1921, was declared the “sole legal source” of power. The main task of the new government was said to be the liberation of the country from the Nazi invaders. The basis of the foreign policy of the PCNO Manifesto proclaimed “a strong alliance with our immediate neighbors - the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia”, the desire for friendship and alliance with Great Britain, the USA and France.

The social program of the Manifesto was less radical than the PPR declaration “What are we fighting for?” But at the insistence of the Central Bank of Russia, it did not include the requirement for the nationalization of large industry, transport and banks; they were supposed, like all German property, to be transferred under temporary state control. To speed up the restoration of the country and satisfy the “eternal desire of the peasants for land,” the Manifesto announced the implementation of agrarian reform through the confiscation of the property of Germans and traitors, as well as landowners’ estates larger than 50 hectares. Such a program was designed to win over to the side of the PCNO not only the working class, but also the masses of the peasantry and the urban petty bourgeoisie.

With the formation of the PCNO, the Soviet government abandoned the previously put forward demands for the reorganization of the emigrant government and immediately began formalizing relations with the NKNO as the only legitimate authority in Poland. On July 26, 1944, a Soviet-Polish border agreement was signed in Moscow on the basis of the “line Curzon" with some deviations from it in favor of Poland: Bolostok and part of Belovezhskaya nushcha went to it. The USSR declared support for Poland's demand to establish a western border along the Odra and Nysa Lusatia rivers with the inclusion of the city of Szczecin. On August 1, 1944, the Soviet government officially recognized the PCNO as the de facto government of Polynya.

During the liberation of the eastern part of Poland by the Red Army, the administration of the “London camp”, operating in secret conditions, tried to come out of hiding and take power. On July 25, a representative of the Delegation in Lublin announced that he was beginning to exercise power in the city on behalf of the emigrant government, but already on the next day the People's Rada began to function there. Although the Storm plan did not foresee the possibility of an uprising in Warsaw, the crossing of the Bug by the Red Army on July 21 accelerated the adoption of a preliminary decision by the AK high command in Warsaw. After the formation of the PCNO became known in London, the émigré government authorized Yankovsky to give the signal for an uprising at the moment he deemed appropriate for this. The AK was tasked with capturing the capital at least 12 hours before the entry of Soviet troops, so that the underground authorities could act on behalf of the emigrant government as plenipotentiary representatives of the Polish people. A victorious uprising would force the Soviet Union to recognize the London government.

Having given the leadership of the “London underground” the choice of the date of the uprising, S. Mikolajczyk went to Moscow on July 26 for negotiations. During his stay in Moscow, Mikolajczyk had meetings with the chairman of the KRN, B. Bierut, the chairman of the PKNO. The prime minister of the exile government rejected the proposal to head a single government of 14 members of the PCNO and four ministers from emigration. No agreement was reached on the issue of the Polish constitution. Mikolajczyk insisted on maintaining the Constitution of 1935, while the PCNO considered it necessary to replace it with the more democratic Constitution of 1921. Mikolajczyk’s intransigence was explained by the fact that he still counted on the support of his position from the United States and Great Britain, as well as on the success of the uprising in Warsaw, which would strengthen the position of the emigrant government within the country and in negotiations with the USSR.

August, the order was given to start an uprising in Warsaw.

The decision to uprising was made without the consent of the Soviet command and the command of the Polish Army, as well as the command of the AL and other conspiratorial military groups located in Warsaw. The AK leadership knew that the British government promised only minor assistance to the uprising, responding negatively to the request to send a brigade of paratroopers from England. The Polish Supreme Commander-in-Chief, General Sosnkowski, who had been in Italy with Polish troops since July 11, did not give permission for the uprising. In making the decision, the commander of the AK Bur-Komorowski, the delegate Jankowski and Prime Minister Mikolajczyk were guided primarily by political considerations - to confront the Soviet Union and its Western allies with the fact that power in Warsaw was transferred to a body opposing the PCNO and the Soviet Union, for which on July 26 the exile government appointed three ministers of the Regional Council of Ministers, headed by Deputy Prime Minister Yankovsky.

The plans of the Soviet command did not include the immediate capture of Warsaw; the main blow to the Nazis was delivered south of the capital, where on August 1 a bridgehead was created in the Magnushev area. The threat to Warsaw from the south forced the German command to transfer tank and other units there, which allowed the rebels to continue the fight. There was no direct assistance to the uprising from the Soviet Union. Stalin continued to evaluate it only as a political demonstration and, in response to Churchill’s call for help to the rebels, stated in his message: “The Soviet command came to the conclusion that it must dissociate itself from the Warsaw adventure.” Until mid-September, Stalin did not even give consent to the use of Soviet military airfields by allied pilots who dropped weapons and ammunition to the rebels.

At the beginning of September the uprising was in crisis. The Nazis brutally dealt with the rebels and civilians. The enthusiasm of the first weeks gradually, as hopes for a quick liberation disappeared, was replaced by pessimistic moods, and in some cases, capitulatory ones. This was facilitated by the exorbitant hardships that the Warsaw residents endured - hunger, lack of water, illness. On September 8-10, with the help of the Polish Red Cross, 20-25 thousand sick people, women, children and the elderly were evacuated. In this situation, the Regional Council of Ministers and the High Command of the AK continued to reject the possibility of interaction with the Soviet command and the command of the Polish Army. On September 9, Bur-Komorowski decided to begin negotiations with the Nazi general on surrender. These negotiations dragged on due to the fact that units of the 1st Belorussian Front, with the forces of the 47th and 70th armies, went on the offensive, in which the T. Division took part. Kosciuszko. On September 14, Prague was liberated.

On the night of September 13-14, Soviet aviation began dropping weapons, ammunition and food to rebel units, and on September 18, 110 American “flying fortresses” appeared over Warsaw, but most of the cargo they dropped fell into the hands of the Nazis. The 1st Polish Army, trying provide direct assistance to the rebels, but on the orders of General Berling, on the night of September 15-16, the crossing of the Vistula began. On September 19, an attempt was made to cross the 8th Infantry Regiment north of Cherpyakow, but the Nazis, using tanks, managed to defeat the Polish units, who suffered heavy losses.

By order of the commander of the 1st Belorussian Front, Marshal K. Rokossovsky, the operation was stopped.

During these battles, the main forces of the rebels, located in the center of Warsaw and on Żoliborz, remained passive, making no attempts to alleviate the situation in Czerpiaków. The offer of the command of the Polish Army to assist in the evacuation of the rebels from Zoliborz to Prague was rejected. On October 2, the rebels signed an act of surrender.

The Warsaw Uprising, which lasted 63 days, was a heroic page in the history of the liberation struggle of the Polish people. The fight against the Nazis on the barricades of Warsaw united all Polish patriots, regardless of their political views and membership in various armed groups. The actions of the rebels and the civilian population pinned down large forces of Hitler's troops and thereby provided assistance to the Red Army. The German 9th Army, engaged in suppressing the uprising, lost about 26 thousand people killed, wounded and missing.

The political calculations of the exile government and the leadership of the AK, who decided on the uprising, failed - the “London camp” lost the fight with the PCNO and the Soviet Union. The authority of the emigrant government in the eyes of the population was shaken.

The PCNO, which chose Lublin as its residence, relied only on the revolutionary-minded minority of the Polish people, and most of it, primarily the peasantry and intelligentsia, treated with distrust and fear the government that arrived from the east and was not recognized by the Western allies. This was facilitated by deeply and long-rooted anti-communist and anti-Soviet sentiments in the minds of the Poles, and the prevailing image of the Soviet Union as a totalitarian state. But the presence of 2.5 million Soviet soldiers and military commandant’s offices on the territory of “Lublin Poland” made it possible to suppress attempts by the underground administration of the “London camp” to take local power into their own hands. The NKVD authorities disarmed the AK units.

Another supporter of the PKNO was the Polish Army, whose strength by the end of 1944 had increased to 290 thousand people. Soviet General V. Korchits was appointed commander of the 1st Polish Army to replace Z. Berlnng, who was sent to study at the Academy of the USSR General Staff. The Soviet Union sent an additional 12 thousand officers to the Polish Army. The process of creating security and police bodies, as well as a central and local apparatus, gradually took place.

In August 1944, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the PPR was formed, headed by W. Gomulka. All other posts in it were occupied by members of the pulp and paper industry who arrived from the USSR. The revived PPS collaborated with the PPR, the basis of which was the part of the RPPS that interacted with the communists during the occupation.

On September 1944, in Lublin, on the initiative of the group “Volya Ludu,” a congress of left-wing radical Ludivists met, which critically assessed the activities of S. Mikolaichnok and spoke out in favor of supporting the PCNO. At the same time, many Ludowians expressed dissatisfaction with the leading role of the PPR and demanded that the composition of the PKNO reflect the role of the peasantry as the largest part of the Polish population with the right to govern the country. The fourth political party in the National Front was the Democratic Party (Stronnitstvo Demokratychne, SD). At a meeting of a group of democratic leaders in Lublin on August 22, 1944, it was decided to resume the activities of the SD as a representative of a part of the intelligentsia who, “not yet being a supporter of socialism, are clearly aware that only through broad reforms can Poland open a window to Europe.” . The SD also included small entrepreneurs, artisans, and traders. There was a process of revival of the trade union movement associated with the PPR and PPS, and youth organizations that were under the ideological influence of political parties.

After the liberation of the eastern part of Poland, contrary to the provision of the PKPO Manifesto on the restoration of the rights of Polish owners, the process of practical nationalization of enterprises began. Factory committees that played big role in preserving the enterprise from plunder by the Nazis or their evacuation, they took their management into their own hands and sought to prevent former owners from taking control. According to the decision of the PCNO, enterprises that belonged before the war to the Polish state, German capital or the Reich, as well as collaborators, were subject to nationalization, while the rest either remained with the Polish owners or, in their absence, came under temporary state control. The credit and financial system practically ended up in the hands of the state, which made it impossible for the remaining small part of private banks to freely dispose of their capital. On September 6, 1944, the PKPO issued a decree according to which the lands of Germans, collaborators, as well as the lands of Polish owners, if their size exceeded 100 hectares of total area or 50 hectares of arable land were confiscated and transferred to the state fund for division among peasants, and the maximum size of a newly created farm was set at 5 hectares. For a small fee, peasants received plots of land as their property, free from debts and any obligations. Part of the land was intended for the organization of state farms. In reality, due to the lack of land, the new plots did not exceed 2-3 hectares. The middle peasants, who made up the bulk of the participants in the Ludov movement, could not count on an increase in their plots. Landless peasants who did not receive the coveted 5 hectares were also unhappy. The majority of the peasantry found itself aloof from the implementation of the reform and continued to take a wait-and-see attitude.

By the end of 1944, many industrial enterprises were launched, classes in schools resumed, the University of Lublin was prepared for the opening, and newspapers began to be published.

The new government also had to overcome the resistance of underground structures. General P. Okulicki, who left Warsaw along with the civilian population, headed the AK on October 4, 1944 and began to create on its basis a secret organization, the purpose of which was to fight no longer against Hitler’s

occupiers, but against the PKNO administration and its policies. In response to this, on October 30, 1944, the PKNO issued a decree on the protection of the state, which provided for severe punishments for opponents of the new system, including the death penalty.

In the international arena, the Mikolajczyk government tried to achieve, through a maneuver, the consent of the Soviet Union to recognize it as the legitimate power in Poland. At the Soviet-British negotiations in Moscow on October 9-19, 1944, Mikolajczyk expressed his readiness to include three communists in his cabinet, rejecting the proposal of the PCNO to provide emigrant figures with 20-25% of the seats in the unified government. Convinced that the support of the Western powers could not be counted on on the issue of the border with the Soviet Union, Mikolajczak, upon returning to London, proposed accepting the “Curzon Line,” but the cabinet rejected his position, and on November 24, 1944, he was forced to resign. The new cabinet, which did not include the Ludovites, was headed by T. Artsishevsky, a representative of the right wing of the PPS. The government sent instructions to General Okulitsky to intensify the fight against the PCNO.

The PPR, assessing the situation in the country, proposed that the KRN transform the PKPO into the Provisional Government. The head of the Provisional Government, formed by decree of the KRN on December 31, 1944, was Osubka-Morawski, the first deputy prime minister was W. Gomulka. Bierut began to be called the president of the KRP. On January 4, 1945, the Soviet Union announced recognition of the Provisional Government and the establishment of diplomatic relations with it.

January 1945 part of the 1st Ukrainian Front went on the offensive, in which the 2nd Polish Army under the command of Soviet General S. Poplawski also took part. Warsaw was liberated on January 17, Krakow and Lodz on January 19. On this day, units of the 1st Ukrainian Front crossed the pre-war Polish-German border east of Wroclaw and, having liberated all of Silesia, crossed the Odra at the end of January. The 1st Polish Army took part as part of the 1st Belorussian Front in breaking through a powerful line of fortifications covering access to the Baltic coast - the Pomeranian (Pomeranian) shaft.

The troops of the 2nd Belorussian Front, which began the East Pomeranian operation on February 10, 1945, captured the Gdansk-Gdynia fortified area. On March 30, Polish tank crews hoisted the white and red Polish flag in Gdansk. In southern Poland, units of the 1st Ukrainian Front reached the line of Nysa Luzhitskaya. Thus, by the spring of 1945, not only the entire territory of Poland within its pre-war borders was liberated, but those lands in the west, the return of which was announced in the PKNO Manifesto, were actually under its control.

Far from the borders of Poland, Polish troops fought, the basis of which was the Anders army that had left the USSR. They took part in battles with German and Italian troops in Africa, then in Italy, where they covered themselves with glory in the battles of Monte Cassino in May 1944, in France and Holland. Their total number reached 200 thousand people. If we compare the entire composition of troops deployed by the countries of the anti-fascist coalition, then their Poland was second only to the Soviet Union, the USA and Great Britain in numbers.

As Polish lands were liberated, the international positions of the Provisional Government of Poland gradually strengthened. Back in December 1944, the head of the Provisional Government of the French Republic, General de Gaulle, during negotiations with Stalin, agreed to recognize the PCNO without breaking relations with the Polish émigré government and to establish new borders of Poland in the east and west. Official recognition followed on January 30, 1945 Polish Provisional Government by the emigrant government of Czechoslovakia.

At the Yalta Conference of the Heads of Government of the Three Great Powers (February 4-11, 1945), the “Polish question” took one of the central places. Churchill stated that Great Britain could not recognize the Provisional Government because it represented only a third of the Polish population, and proposed the creation of a new government that would replace both London and Lublin and act as a provisional government until a permanent government was established through free elections. Roosevelt proposed forming a “presidential council” of Polish leaders, which would then create a government of representatives of the five parties. Western leaders hoped in this way to secure leading positions in Poland for the “London camp,” although in a conversation with Mikolajczyk (January 11, 1945), A. Eden said that “obviously, in the near future we will be forced to recognize the provisional Lublin government and in view of this is to refuse recognition of the Polish government in London."

Stalin assured his partners that the Provisional Government was popular among the Poles, since its leaders did not flee Poland, but fought underground, and the liberation of the country by the Red Army was accepted by the Polish population as a great national holiday and, as a result, sentiment towards Russia changed. He stated that the Provisional Government was ready to expand its composition by including emigration figures who had not compromised themselves, but objected to granting the post of prime minister to Mikolajczyk.

Ultimately, the participants in the Yalta Conference accepted a compromise solution proposed by the United States, which provided for the reorganization of the Provisional Government “on a broader democratic basis with the inclusion of democratic figures from Poland itself and Poles from abroad.” To reach an agreement on the creation of a new government, called the Polish Government of National Unity, a “commission of three” was formed (Molotov, the ambassadors of the United States and England in Moscow). The new government was charged with the responsibility of holding general elections as soon as possible, and the conference participants declared their readiness to recognize it.

The issue of Poland's eastern border did not cause much debate - it was recognized that it should follow the "Curzon Line" with deviations of 5-8 km from it in favor of Poland. There were heated debates at the conference regarding the western border. Stalin proposed to install it along the Odra-Nysa Lusatian (Western) line with the inclusion of Szczecin. Churchill, citing the negative attitude of British public opinion towards the possibility of eviction of 6 million Germans from this territory and the difficulties of their development by the Poles, insisted on limiting it to the Odra-Nysa East line. Roosevelt considered moving the border to Western Nysa “unjustifiable.” After the issue of creating a Provisional Government of National Unity was resolved, the conference participants accepted Roosevelt's compromise proposal: “Poland should receive a significant increase in territory in the north and west” and “on the issue of the size of these increases, the opinion of the new Polish government will be sought in due course.” national unity."

Questions for the intermediate test on the history of Poland In the course "Modern history of the Western Slavs"

1.Formation of political camps in Polish society during the First World War.

2.Internal economic and political situation in Polish lands at the beginning of the 20th century.

.Conditions and specific circumstances of the revival of an independent Polish state.

.The Polish question at the Paris Peace Conference.

.Polish-Soviet relations in 1918 - 1920.

7.The Polish-Soviet War of 1920 and the establishment of the eastern borders of the Polish state.

.Problems in Upper Silesia and the establishment of the western borders of the Polish state.

9.The international position of the Polish state in the early 20s.

.Territory, population and economy of Poland in the first half of the 20s.

11.The first laws of the Polish Republic. (1918 - 1926).

12.Social and political struggle in Poland in the 1st half of the 20s.

.The essence of the coup d'etat in May 1926

14.The main features of the "rehabilitation" regime.

15.International situation and foreign policy of the Polish state in the second half of the 20s.

.The global economic crisis at the turn of the 20-30s and its features in Poland.

.The internal political situation of Poland in the first half of the 30s.

.Adoption of the 1935 Constitution and its main features. (compared to the 1921 constitution)

.Foreign policy of Poland in the first half of the 30s.

.Internal political instability in Poland last years"sanitation" mode.

.Foreign policy of Poland in 1935 - 1939.

.Policy of the Polish state towards national minorities in the 20-30s.

.The struggle of national minorities to preserve their national identity.

.Documentary materials about the foreign policy and international position of Poland in the interwar period.

.Documentary materials about the revolutionary movement in bourgeois Poland in the 20-30s.

.Diplomatic actions on the Polish issue in the summer and autumn of 1939.

27.Attack and occupation Nazi Germany Polish territories.

.The march of the Red Army on September 17 into the territory of Western Belarus and Western Ukraine.

29.Soviet-German relations 1939-1941.

30.Occupation regime on the territory of Poland.

.Formation of the Polish government in exile.

32.Activities of the London emigrant government.

33.The beginning of the Resistance movement in Poland.

.Creation of AK and its activities.

.Formation of the radical left movement in the Polish Resistance movement.

.Help of the Soviet Union in activating the Polish Resistance movement.

.Relations between the USSR and the Polish emigrant government in London.

.Creation of the PPR and its activities during the years of occupation.

.Creation and activities of the Ludova Guard.

.Polish military formations on the fronts of World War 2.

.Participation of Poles in the European Resistance Movement.

.Creation of the Regional Council of the People and its activities.

.The rise of the Resistance movement in Poland in 1943

.Polish Committee of National Liberation and its activities.

45.Warsaw uprising.

46.Liberation of Polish territory from Nazi invaders.

.The Polish question at the Yalta and Potsdam conferences.

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