Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916-1926

Another key to the outcome of the war, however, was that rather than follow the orders of the Soviet commander in chief, S. S. Kamenev (and the pleas of Tukhachevskii) that his forces should push northward against Warsaw, Egorov (encouraged by his military commissar on the South-West Front, J. V. Stalin) continued to push westward, hoping (but failing) to capture Lwów and Lublin. (Stalin’s motives in this affair are obscure, but may have involved his known distaste for military specialists of the type of Kamenev and Tukhachevskii.) The consequence was that, although Red Cossacks of the 3rd Cavalry Corps under G. D. Gai crossed the Vistula as early as 10 August 1920 and threatened to attack Warsaw from the west, the Polish 1st Army (under General Franciszek Latinik) was able to resist Tukhachevskii’s assault on the capital from the east, stopping Soviet forces at Radzymin on 13 August, while a countereattack by the heavily armored Polish 5th Army (under General Władysław Sikorski) halted the 3rd and 15th Red Armies around Nasielsk on 14–15 August 1920. Further Polish forces, among them the Reserve Army, then joined the battle, pushing northward through the gap between the two Soviet fronts and encircling Tukhachevskii’s armies. The Poles’ thereafter legendary “Miracle on the Vistula” was complete, while the puppet governments that the Bolsheviks had prepared to install in a Soviet Western Ukraine and a Soviet Poland (the Galrevkom and Polrevkom, respectively) proved to be redundant.

On 18 August 1920, Tukhachevskii ordered a general withdrawal toward the Bug River, but by then he had lost contact with most of his forces, which fled in disarray—some of the 4th and 15th Red Armies into East Prussia, where they were disarmed by the Germans. Most of the 3rd Red Army extracted itself from Poland intact, but the 16th Red Army disintegrated at Białystok, and most of its men were taken prisoner. Freed from commitments before Warsaw, Polish forces then headed south to confront Budennyi. The 1st Cavalry Army was forced to abandon its siege of Lwów on 31 August 1920 and was that same day defeated by Polish cavalry at the Battle of Komarów—the greatest cavalry battle since the Napoleonic era and the last significant cavalry battle of the 20th century. Another defeat followed at the Battle of Hrubieszów (6 September 1920), as what remained of the 1st Cavalry Army limped eastward.

With Red Army forces in retreat from Lithuania to Ukraine throughout September 1920, the Soviet government was eventually forced to sue for peace (with offers made on 21 and 28 September 1920); a cease-fire was signed on 12 October and went into effect on 18 October 1920. Following protracted negotiations, a full peace treaty, the Treaty of Riga, was signed on 18 March 1921. Under its terms, Poland made substantial territorial and other gains from Soviet Russia. At the same time, Warsaw was left free to force a successful outcome to the Polish–Lithuanian War (1 September to 7 October 1920), thereby capturing Wilno/Vilnius.

In the course of the Soviet–Polish War, the Red Army suffered casualties of over 100,000 and the Polish Army almost 50,000 men. The number of civilians killed remains unknown, but among the many controversial aspects of the conflict are charges that all contending armies engaged in terror against the civilian population—particularly the many Jews in the region, who were subjected to a wave of pogroms that resulted in the deaths of up to 100,000 people, according to some estimates. (Attacks on Jewish communities during the conflict form a central motif of Isaak Babel’s collection of short stories, Red Cavalry, which was based on his own experiences in Poland in 1920.) Moreover, after the Treaty of Riga, more than 80,000 Red soldiers remained in Polish prisoner of war camps, of whom around 20,000 would perish; a similar number of Polish prisoners (out of around 51,000 in captivity) died in Soviet and Lithuanian camps. Prisoner exchanges began only in 1922. Apart from Babel’s aforementioned work, the Soviet–Polish War has been portrayed in myriad literary and filmic accounts, notably the feature film Bitwa warzawska (“Battle of Warsaw, 1920,” dir. Jerzy Hoffman, 2011), which was shot in 3D and was one of the most expensive films ever made in Poland.

Soviet Republic of Gīlān.See Gīlān, Soviet Republic of.

Soviet Republic of Soldiers and Fortress-Builders.See nargen, socialist republic of.

SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF TAURIDE.See TAURIDE, SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF.