Soviet (Russo)-Polish War

Soviet (Russo)-Polish War, 1919-1920 war between Soviet Russia and Poland. An independent Poland was established in 1918, but its eastern frontiers remained unsettled. Britain and France suggested the so-called “Curzon Line”, but the Polish leader Józef Piłsudski aimed to establish control over traditional Polish territories in Belarus and Western Ukraine. In April 1919 the Poles took Vilnius in Lithuania and, in August, Minsk in Belarus. During the following April they advanced to Kiev in Ukraine, allying themselves with the Ukrainian nationalist movement. However, the Bolshevik Red Army mounted a counter-offensive, and by midsummer the Poles had been driven out of Ukraine. Meanwhile, the Russian Western Army Group mounted an offensive in Belarus. Led by General Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky, it advanced 750 km (466 mi) to the River Wisła (or Vistula) and the gates of Warsaw. The Bolshevik leadership now harboured hopes of crushing Poland and exporting the Russian Revolution to Germany. The situation of the demoralized Polish Army was critical and Piłsudski decided to risk everything on a counterattack. Re-deploying his forces, he assembled a strike force south-east of Warsaw. On August 16, 1920, they broke through the overstretched Red Army lines in that area, and struck northwards. This battle, which became known as the “Miracle of the Vistula”, transformed the strategic situation, forcing the Bolsheviks into a hurried retreat to avoid encirclement. The pursuing Poles regained positions deep within Belarus, before an armistice was agreed in October. By the Treaty of Riga (March 1921) Poland gained a border well to the east of the “Curzon Line”.