The Riga peace of 1921 ended the Soviet-Polish war and is sometimes considered the most important Eastern European peace treaty of the inter-war period. This book offers an account of how the two sides came to sign the treaty - a pact that established a boundary with a measure of stability that would last untill 1939.
Professor Wandycz has written the first monograph in the English language on the turbulent diplomatic and military relations between Poland and Soviet Russia during the critical years 1917-1921. Soviet Russia, rules in 1917 by the newly triumphant Bolsheviks, faced Poland, a nation that had just recovered independence after more than a century of oppression. The Bolsheviks feared their revolution would fail if confined to Russia alone; Poland lay directly in their path to the West and international conquest. The resulting controversy, ending with the Treaty of Riga in 1921, spans one of the most complicated and crucial periods in the long and tulmultuous history of Russian-Polish relations. Although this conflict of 1917-1921 was part of the immediate international struggle of revolution and counterrevolution, centuries of antagonism and war were characteristic of the earlier relations between the two countries. The current dispute went far deeper than a Communist-nonCommunist clash; the entire balance of power in Eastern Europe was at stake. Pilsudski's great plan was to push Russia back to its seventeenth-century borders, thus creating an important and powerful Poland. For the Bolsheviks, a successful march on Warsaw might initiate the destruction of the Versailles settlement and the European post-war system. Using recently published documents and Russian, Polish, English, and American archives, the author presents an objective and sophisticated picture of the complicated Soviet-Polish relations in this period. He is careful to examine these affairs in the light of the historical background of the two nations, for although many of these relations were newly esetablished, few were entirely divorced from the past. The first chapter dips back in time for a brief outline of the social and political events behind the deep antagonism of the two nations. Included is an examination of the basic disharmony between their civilizations, caused by the philosophical differences in their respective religions, Polish Catholicism and Greek Orthodoxy. Chapter Two introduces political figures and theories and the development in the half century preceding the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. The nine remaining chapters are devoted to the struggles between the two countries over the territorial, ideological, and socio-political problems that dominated their relations. The Peace Treaty of Riga, signed in March 1921, proved to be only a stalemate, the negative effects of which were more pronounced for Poland than Russia. As Mr. Wandycz concludes, " The former lost the chance of becoming a real power; the plans of the latter were merely delayed." -- from dust jacket.
Surprisingly little known, the Polish-Soviet War of 1919-20 was to change the course of twentieth-century history. In White Eagle, Red Star, Norman Davies gives a full account of the War, with its dramatic climax in August 1920 when the Red Army - sure of victory and pledged to carry the Revolution across Europe to 'water our horses on the Rhine' - was crushed by a devastating Polish attack. Since known as the 'miracle on the Vistula', it remains one of the most decisive battles of the Western world. Drawing on both Polish and Russian sources, Norman Davies illustrates the narrative with documentary material which hitherto has not been readily available and shows how the War was far more an 'episode' in East European affairs, but largely determined the course of European history for the next twenty years or more.
A major new history of the eight days in February 1945 when FDR, Churchill, and Stalin decided the fate of the world Imagine you could eavesdrop on a dinner party with three of the most fascinating historical figures of all time. In this landmark book, a gifted Harvard historian puts you in the room with Churchill, Stalin, and Roosevelt as they meet at a climactic turning point in the war to hash out the terms of the peace. The ink wasn't dry when the recriminations began. The conservatives who hated Roosevelt's New Deal accused him of selling out. Was he too sick? Did he give too much in exchange for Stalin's promise to join the war against Japan? Could he have done better in Eastern Europe? Both Left and Right would blame Yalta for beginning the Cold War. Plokhy's conclusions, based on unprecedented archival research, are surprising. He goes against conventional wisdom-cemented during the Cold War- and argues that an ailing Roosevelt did better than we think. Much has been made of FDR's handling of the Depression; here we see him as wartime chief. Yalta is authoritative, original, vividly- written narrative history, and is sure to appeal to fans of Margaret MacMillan's bestseller Paris 1919.
The Polish-Soviet War of 1919-1921 was a direct consequence of the ideological objectives pursued by the belligerents. Ideology shaped the political agenda and the diametrically opposed war aims of both states, and was implemented through the foreign policy, diplomatic negotiation and military engagements pursued. This proved to be the principal obstacle to the establishment of cordial relations. As western democracy and Russian Marxism battled it out, war was inevitable. Externally, the Paris Peace Conference provided the necessary conditions for the resumption of traditional Russian-Polish hostilities, whilst the Allied States consistently demonstrated their absolute inability to directly influence either the development, or outcome, of the conflict. Redressing the balance of historiography, this thesis includes a greater examination of the conflict from the perspective of the Soviet regime. This firmly controlled the Russian decision-making process. By charting the war, it becomes clear that both states deliberately pursued a dual offensive: traditional diplomatic negotiation and military campaign as conditions dictated. However, in addition, Soviet Russia developed a unique and innovative, revolutionary, agit-prop, diplomatic medium. This enabled adept Soviet diplomats to win the majority of diplomatic battles during the conflict, although often negotiating from a militarily weak position. Nevertheless, the regime ultimately failed in its objective: to ignite socialist revolution in western Europe. The mistaken Soviet decision in July 1920 to cross the ethnographic border to forcefully sovietise Poland, in opposition to Marxist doctrine, irreversibly altered the complexion of the war and proved its pivotal turning point. This culminated politically with the short-lived establishment of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee in Bia?ystok, and militarily, with the decisive defeat of the Red Army at the Battle of Warsaw. It is now certain that the Red Army offensive into Poland in July 1920 aimed not only at the sovietisation of Poland, but at spreading the socialist revolution to Western Europe and overthrowing the Versailles settlement. The European revolutionary upsurge had largely extinguished during the previous year and in August 1920, Communist ideology ultimately failed to inspire the vast majority of the Polish population. Thus, by utilising the Soviet military to secure its war aims, Lenin and the Politburo inadvertently signed the death-warrant of socialist revolution in Poland at the beginning of the twentieth century.
The region between the Baltic and the Black Sea was marked by a set of crises and conflicts in the 1920s and 1930s, demonstrating the diplomatic, military, economic or cultural engagement of France, Germany, Russia, Britain, Italy and Japan in this highly volatile region, and critically damaging the fragile post-Versailles political arrangement. The editors, in naming this region as "Middle Europe" seek to revive the symbolic geography of the time and accentuate its position, situated between Big Powers and two World Wars. The ten case studies in this book combine traditional diplomatic history with a broader emphasis on the geopolitical aspects of Big-Power rivalry to understand the interwar period. The essays claim that the European Big Powers played a key role in regional affairs by keeping the local conflicts and national movements under control and by exploiting the region's natural resources and military dependencies, while at the same time strengthening their prestige through cultural penetration and the cultivation of client networks. The authors, however, want to avoid the simplistic view that the Big Powers fully dominated the lesser players on the European stage. The relationship was indeed hierarchical, but the essays also reveal how the "small states" manipulated Big-Power disagreements, highlighting the limits of the latters' leverage throughout the 1920s and the 1930s.
In "White Eagle, Red Star," distinguished historian Norman Davies gives us a full account of the Polish-Soviet War, with its dramatic climax in August 1920 when the Red Army- sure of victory and pledged to carry the Revolution across Europe - was crushed by a devastating Polish attack. Since known as " The Miracle of the Vistula, " it remains one of the most crucial conflicts of the Western world. Drawing on both Polish and Russian sources, Norman Davies shows how this war was a pivotal event in the course of European history.
Laura Engelstein, one of the greatest scholars of Russian history, has written a searing and defining account of the Russian Revolution, the fall of the old order, and the creation of the Soviet state.
