How Poland Might Have Saved Europe From Communism

When people think of great victories of the 20th century, Poland rarely comes to mind. After all, most are familiar with the crushing defeat the country suffered in 1939 against Germany and the USSR. In 1920, matters looked ally grim as the specter of Bolshevism fell over Europe. Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, and the other Soviet revolutionaries cast their eyes towards expanding Soviet influence across the whole of Europe in preparation for a global communist revolution.

For all their ambitions, the communists had not counted on the resistance of the newly-formed Republic of Poland. But it would prove their undoing as Poland, against all odds, crushed the Soviets in the Battle of Warsaw in 1920. The story is one of perseverance of a people abandoned by all of Europe who, with their faith in their God, their church, and their country stopped communism cold and ensured that Western democracies would live to fight another day. This is the story of the Miracle on the Vistula.

When Poland declared independence, its western territories had been part of the German Empire. The Treaty of Versailles passed some of these territories to Poland and fixed the two country's territorial boundaries. The Entente Powers left the question of Poland's eastern borders for a future time. But there was one problem: the Eastern Front of World War I had degenerated into chaos following the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia and the establishment of the Soviet Union.

As is clear from the Map Archive, while the Treaty of Versailles resolved boundaries in Central and Western Europe, Eastern Europe was a free-for-all. Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Romania, which either came out of the Austro-Hungarian empire or in the latter case gained its territory, all clashed over disputed areas. The nascent state of Yugoslavia found itself at loggerheads with Italy over the status of the historically-Italian Adriatic coast. Out of Russia came the Baltic states and Finland, which seceded as Russia was engulfed in a bloody civil war between the tsarist Whites and the Bolshevik Reds.

Against such a backdrop, it seemed certain that Poland's eastern borders with the USSR would be drawn not with ink but with blood. And like with many of Poland's past wars involving Russia, the fighting started in Ukraine.

The Soviet attack on Poland initially seemed a response to the Polish attack in Ukraine, but according to the Polish National Institute for Remembrance, the Soviets had already been planning an invasion earlier. Attempts to negotiate with Poland were merely attempts to buy time and undermine Polish preparedness. But once Soviet armies shoved Poland out of Ukraine, Soviet general Mikhail Tukhachevsky activated Soviet forces on the Belarussian front and ordered a full-scale invasion in the summer of 1920.

For Poland, the situation had degenerated into a disaster. Jozef Pilsudski had banked on Simon Petliura's Ukraine to act as an anti-Bolshevik wall. But he had not expected Soviet forces to steamroll Ukraine so easily. Now, as the bulk of Poland's forces were in the Southeast, Polish military author and historian Witold Lawrynowicz notes that four Soviet armies totaling 120,000 men rolled into Poland's weakly-defended Northeast. Pilsudski had intended to stabilize Ukraine and bring his forces north to counter the Soviet threat. Now it seemed too late.

At the Battle of Vilnius, Tukhachevsky's forces forced the Poles, who mounted a spirited defense, into a retreat towards Warsaw. Polish artilleryman Stanislaw Rembek (via Niepodległa) described the chaos as Polish forces abandoned equipment, territory, and the dead in a mad rush to escape the advancing Soviets. But not all was lost. Despite foreign propaganda to the contrary, Poland's Catholic bishops and general Jozef Haller noted that the population rallied to the defense of the country. The White Eagle would not go down without a fight.

The Soviet propaganda campaign was wildly successful. Per the National Institute for Remembrance, Britain and France advised Poland to accept Soviet demands, to renounce claims to Ukrainian and Belarusian lands, limit its army to 50,000 men, and effectively become a Soviet puppet. According to Niepodlegla, anti-Polish British Prime Minister David Lloyd George told Poland on August 10 that having rejected the Soviet terms, Poland could expect no help from Britain or anyone else.

The speed of the Soviet invasion and lack of foreign support sent Poland into a flurry of preparations. The northeast was evacuated. Civilian Maria Macieszyna recorded that most civilians believed the Soviets would reach Warsaw and the Vistula River without opposition and were hell-bent on getting West of the city. Warsaw's banks moved their valuables to Krakow or Poznan. The Polish Army stockpiled munitions, took volunteers, and fortified the capital. Now, according to Witold Lawrynowicz, the Polish army had serious problems. Its units were equipped with six weapons produced in as many countries that fired five different types of ammunition. Its logistics were in such shambles that many soldiers did not even have shoes. But they were defending their lands and their faith, and that was enough to motivate them to fight.

Despite Poland's problems, there was a path to victory. Marshal Jozef Pilsudski noted that the key to the Soviet victory was coordination between its armies in Ukraine and those advancing from Belarus. If he could separate the two, they could be defeated separately. But Warsaw had to hang on long enough to make the plan work.

To have an idea of the stakes, it is worth revisiting the personalities of the commanders. The Polish army was led by Marshal Jozef Pilsudski. According to the Pilsudski Institute, he had fought against foreign rule since the late 19th century and spent five years in a Siberian labor camp for trying to assassinate Russian czar Alexander III. Ironically, he was also a member of the Polish Socialist Party. He acquired military experience during World War I from service in the Austro-Hungarian Polish legion, hoping that in return for Polish aid against Russia, Austria-Hungary would support Polish independence. Now the temporary head of state, Pilsudski faced the monumental task of fending off the massive Soviet invasion commanded by the brilliant but eccentric Russian general Mikhail Tukhachevsky.

Tukhachevsky, unlike Pilsudski, was a Russian aristocrat, who per the Revue historique des armées, had joined Bolshevism upon his release from a Central Powers POW camp. There he was cellmates with future president Charles de Gaulle and French journalist Remy Roure, who wrote of his time with Tukhachevsky. According to Roure (via Sergei Minakov's "Red Conspiracy") Tukhachevsky was a neo-pagan acolyte of the Slavic storm god Perun. While his cellmates believed it a joke, Tukhachevsky despised Christianity, claiming the faith had sapped Russia of its strength. Marxism provided a new religion, but with its materialist bent, could never restore Russia's true spirit. Only the old gods could. Marxism, with all its violence, death, and suffering, was the perfect vehicle to crush Christianity in preparation for Tukhachevsky's vision. The Catholic fortress of Poland would be his first victim.

Despite Joseph Stalin's insubordination, the Soviet assault continued to gain ground. Per Witold Ławrynowicz, the Soviets advanced all the way to the village of Izabelin and were a mere eight miles from Warsaw proper. By August 15, Pilsudski was still massing his reinforcements in southern Poland and had not yet arrived, leaving the capital in a mood of desperation.

Enter the supernatural. Per EWTN, August 15 was also an auspicious day, for it was the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. As Soviet forces pushed the Poles further into the capital, rumors began to circulate that a lady holding a child had appeared over the Polish lines and Warsaw itself. Inspired by rumors of divine intervention of Our Lady of Czestochowa, Polish forces counterattacked. Military chaplain Ignacy Skorupta, per the Institute of National Remembrance, died with the cross in hand urging the men forward in an epitome of the Polish cause. His death would not be in vain. Soviet rifleman Vitovt Putna (via Niepodlegla) recalled on the 15th, "A moment came when not just single units, but the entire mass lost faith in the success of our fight against the enemy, faith in our chance to win." Soviet forces began to fall back, handing Poland the initiative.

The Soviet casualty list was catastrophic. According to the Institute of National Remembrance, Poland captured 66,000 Soviet soldiers. 25,000 more were killed, while another 50,000 more were taken prisoner in Germany. Witold Lawrynowicz adds to that total 231 guns and 1,023 machine guns, which fell into Polish hands.

Despite the victory in Warsaw, fighting continued in Western Ukraine, where Polish forces were holed up in Lviv. Per the Institute of National Remembrance, Semeon Budionny, who had abandoned his post at Warsaw to capture Lviv, encountered a Polish battalion of 330 men. Despite numerical inferiority, the Poles won the Battle of Zadworze, which earned the moniker "the Polish Thermopylae” after the famous last stand of the 300 Spartans of Greek lore.

The fighting finally ended with the 1921 Treaty of Riga. Article II handed Poland Western Ukraine and Belarus alongside a payment of 30 million gold rubles. The latter served as an indemnity for Poland's economic contribution to the Russian Empire. As the Hungarian Review notes, it was a humiliation the Soviets would not forget. And dictator Joseph Stalin, whose actions had in part led to the Soviet defeat, would exact a brutal revenge in 1939-'40, first with the invasion of Poland and then with the massacre of the Polish officer corps and intelligentsia in the Katyn Forest — many of whom had fought at Warsaw.