Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916-1926

Tarnobrzeg, Republic of. This short-lived, pro-Soviet polity was proclaimed by radical Poles in the town of Tarnobrzeg, in Austrian Galicia, on 6 November 1918, following a demonstration attended by some 30,000 people. Its leaders were the socialist activist Tomasz Dabal and a radical Catholic priest called Eugeniusz Okoń. The Tarnobrzeg Republic (to which the towns and regions of Kolbuszowa, Mielec, and Sandomierz also adhered) had a strong following among local peasants and proclaimed a sweeping program of land reform. It was suppressed by Polish forces in early 1919, as they occupied the region during the Ukrainian–Polish War, and was subsequently incorporated into the Lwów Voivodship of the Second Polish Republic.

Tartu, TREATY OF (2 february 1920). This agreement brought to an end the various conflicts between Soviet Russia and Estonia arising from the Estonian War of Independence. Under its terms, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic recognized the independence of Estonia and renounced territorial claims against it “in perpetuity,” agreed to pay Estonia 15 million gold rubles from the Imperial Russian Gold Reserve, and undertook to return property and valuables to Estonia that had been evacuated from the region during the First World War. Both signatory states also agreed not to harbor on their territories organizations hostile to the other: Estonia had, in fact, already disarmed and interned members of the North-West Army of General N. N. Iudenich, and Soviet Russia proceeded to disperse its own Red Estonian Riflemen. (In fact, however, the men were simply redistributed to other units, and the Soviet government continued to foster subversion within Estonia, for example, sponsoring the failed coup d’état launched by Jaan Anvelt’s Estonian Communists on 1 December 1924.)

The border established by the Treaty of Tartu, which incorporated some small parts of the former St. Petersburg and Pskov provinces into Estonia, was moved westward by the USSR during the Second World War and is currently the subject of a low-level dispute between the Russian Federation and Estonia.

Tartu, TREATY OF (14 October 1920). This agreement, signed after four months of negotiations, confirmed the border between Soviet Russia and Finland and regularized relations between the two countries in the aftermath of Finland’s independence from Russia, the Finnish Civil War, and the Soviet–Finnish Kinship Wars. Under the terms of the treaty (Article II), the border between Finland and the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic was established along the line of that between the former Grand Duchy of Finland and the Russian Empire, except that (under Article IV) Finland received Pechenga (Petsamo), in the far north, giving it an (ice-free) outlet on the Barents Sea. Finland also agreed (under Article X) to return to Russia the areas of Karelia it had occupied around Repola and Porajärvi. In addition, Soviet Russia granted Finnish vessels free navigation through Lake Ladoga and along the River Neva to the Gulf of Finland, and Finland agreed to disarm the coastal fortresses of Ino (Nikolaevsk) Pumaala and to demilitarize the outer islands it controlled in the Gulf of Finland (Articles XIII–XV).

Taryba. The Council of Lithuania (Lietuvos Taryba) was convened at a conference in German-occupied Vilnius on 18–23 September 1917, charged with the establishment of an independent Lithuanian state. On 11 July 1918, it was redubbed the State Council of Lithuania (Lietuvos Valstybės Taryba), and it continued its activities until the meeting of the Constituent Assembly of Lithuania, on 15 May 1920. During its first meeting, Antanas Smetona was elected chairman of the Taryba. He retained that post until he was elected president of Lithuania on 4 April 1919, when he was succeeded by Stasys Šilingas. The membership was initially 20 (including 8 Christian Democrats and 4 priests), but the Taryba had almost doubled in size by 1919. On 16 February 1918, it issued a declaration of independence, but Germany remained dominant in the region, a situation recognized by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (3 March 1918). Indeed, Berlin tolerated rather than supported the Taryba and obstructed efforts at the establishment of a meaningfully independent Lithuanian administration.