. . . the Latvians began to prepare for an offensive against the Bolsheviks with the object of liberating Latgale. An important feature of this offensive was the offer of military aid given by the Poles, who were intent on maintaining good relations with Latvia in order to offset their bad relations with Lithuanian. On 29 December 1919, the Latvian and Polish high commands agreed on the terms of a combined operation, which was duly mounted on 3 January 1920 and in which three Polish divisions and the �Baltische Landeswehr�
took part. The extremely welcome support afforded by Poland was readily understandable in the light of the general hostility1 which existed between the Poles and the Soviet Russians. But there was also a more immediate reason for Polish intervention, namely that Warsaw wanted to ensure that Daugavpils passed to Latvia and not to Lithuania. In this connection, it would seem that Pilsudski may well have toyed with the idea of incorporating Latvia into his plans for a great East and Central European federation. Within a few weeks Latgale was liberated, thus removing the only impediment to an armistice between Latvia and Soviet Russia ; and on 1 February such an armistice agreement was duly signed.
1 It is easier to criticise than to be constructive ; this applies very much here. I would voice few complaints against the author, Georg von Rausch. As a general remark on the (as-if symmetrical) 'hostility' in question : Had Mr. von Rausch ever read the Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engles ? Would he want anything of that sort anywhere near his own precious person ?
WPT
Moscow�s . . .
The Latvian-Soviet negotiations were opened in Moscow on 16 April. On 12 June a preliminary agreement was signed covering the repatriation of Latvian refugees from Russia and on 1 August 1920, just fourteen days before Pilsudski�s counter-offensive turned the tide in the Polish-Soviet war, a full peace treaty was signed in Riga. This treaty was essentially the same as the concluded in Tartu between Soviet Russia and Estonia. Under its terms Latvia�s eastern frontier was drawn along ethnological lines, with the result that it acquired the districts of Daugavpils, Rezekne and Ludza, which had
previously formed part of the government of Vitebsk, together with an area in the district of Dissa and a strip of land running along the border of the government of Pskov, which contained Pytalova, an important town on the railway line from Livonia to Latgale. And so as a result of this treaty. Latgale, which had been separated from Livonia ever since 1629, was reunited with the rest of Latvia.
Meanwhile, the state of war which had existed between Latvia and Germany had been brought to an end on 5 July 1920. Germany was obliged to make reparations, and gave de jure recognition to the new Latvian Republic.
After defeating the Bolshevik troops in the late summer and autumn of 1919, the Lithuanian Army disposed of Bermondt�s force before the year was out. Peace negotiations were then opened in Moscow on 9 May 1920, and these led to the conclusion of a peace treaty on 12 July, which also corresponded in the main to the Treaty of Tartu. Under its terms the R.S.F.S.R expressly recognized the Vilnius district as part of Lithuanian.
After defeating the White Russian Army commanded by General Wrangel in southern Russia and making peace with Finland (on 14 October 1920) and Poland (on 12 March 1921), the Soviet Government was able to devote itself exclusively to the task of national reconstruction. . . .1
( pages 73 - 75 )
1 Was it a 'national reconstruction' that was seen as its task by the Soviet "Government" ? Please study the statements of the period by the Bolsheviks themselves, and the history of their subsequent actions. — (WPT).
On 2 January 1919 the Lithuanian authorities were forced to withdraw from their historic capital when it was threatened by Bolshevik troops. Three days later the Bolsheviks marched into Vilnius, and the Lithuanian Government moved to Kaunas. Then, in the spring of 1919, the Lithuanian Army began to move eastwards again while Polish troops of General Haller�s army advanced north-eastwards in pursuit of the retreating Russians. Both the Lithuanians and the Poles were heading for Vilnius. The Poles arrived first, and occupied the city on 19 April, thus depriving the Lithuanians of what they had hoped would be their crowning achievement. Pilsudski offered to set up a Polish-Lithuanian federation, but his offer was rejected. Diplomatic contacts were established but brought no positive result.
Comment a Polish historian gives, "the Polish Army liberated Wilno from the Bolsheviks in April, 1919". Pilsudski on that occasion : "The Polish Army under my command has come here to remove the rule which acts against the freedom and will of the population. . . . I do not propose to establish a military but a civil government . .etc.".
Compare the Bolshevik achievements of that period in Hungary (under Aaron Kohn/Cohen alias Bela Kun) or in Riga-Latvia (under one Peter Stutchka), and in the U.S.S.R. itself.
Compare : Trotsky then resorted, on February 10, 1918, to a method "never used in the World's history." He demobilized his army and "handed over the Russian front to the protection of German workmen." Mr. Zinoviev, the Petrograd dictator, reveled in exultation. "We dealt a terrible blow to the World's imperialism, when, three months ago, we began our peace negotiations. Now we deal that imperialism a deadly blow by our new formula ('neither peace nor war')." At Smolny, in Petrograd, a member of the Assembly asked : "What next?" Lenin was calm as he answered ; "Next is the revolution in Germany." And the Soviet voted its approval while expressing its faith "that German, Austro-Hungarian, Bulgarian and Turkish workingmen will do their duty and will not permit their Governments to assail the peoples of Poland, Lithuania and Courland."
The real result was somewhat different. A week later, German armies invaded the Russian borderlands. Petrograd was in panic. On February 24, the Soviet capitulated. "Yes," said Lenin, "these peace conditions are doubly ruinous, but we have not the strength to resist." . . . Three weeks pass after the signing of the Brest-Litovsk peace (March 3) and one week after is ratification by the All-Russian Soviet. And Lenin, in an interview with a Daily News correspondent (March 22), said : "The task of the Soviets is to hold on until the mutual exhaustion of the fighting groups of European capital brings about revolution in all countries.' On October 22, 1918, he repeated before the Central Executive Committee ; "In the chain of revolutions the chief link is the German one. The success of the World Revolution depends on it much more than on any other."
These people are mad, one might be induced to say. Just wait a while with your judgment. There was a method in that madness. At the moment when these \words were being pronounced, the German Army was already demoralized, and on November 11, the Armistice was concluded. What a chance for a "World Revolution" to follow ! "Never before," said Lenin in the speech just mentioned, "was the universal proletarian revolution as close as it is now." A few days later, Zinoviev seconded him ; "The bankers of France and of London will soon learn that a revolution in Berlin is not a feast but a momento mori to remind them of their coming perdition." And they prepared for the spring of 1919 an extensive scheme for revolutionizing the whole of middle Europe.
Millions of Russian roubles were rushed to Germany, in order to promote the revolutionary movement, through the new Russian "Ambassador" in Berlin, Mr. Joffe. After the Bolshevist literature was discovered in a diplomatic courier's bag, Mr. Joffe had to go (November 5, 1918). But in December another, unofficial envoy to the German proletarians, Mr. Radek, came, and in January, 1919, he concluded a formal "treaty" directly with Liebknecht himself. By the terms of his treaty, Lenin undertook to recognize Liebknecht as President of the German Soviet Republic, to furnish important funds for Spartacist propaganda and to order Soviet armies to take the offensive and cross the German frontier in support of a simultaneous Spartacist rising in Berlin. These were the same Red armies concerning which negotiations had been carried on a year before between Trotsky and Colonel Raymond Robbins for America and Captain Sadoul for France, in order to get Allied assistance and Allied instructors, to fight Germany. They now were to be used indeed to fight Germany � but with the aim of imposing communist law on Europe. Liebknecht, on his part, pledged himself to establish a Soviet Government in Germany immediately upon his advent to power, to raise a Red Army of 500,000 men to be placed under the supreme command of Trotsky and observe faithfully and put into practice all the teachings of Lenin's doctrine. After a successful revolution in Hungary, in March, 1919, another treaty was concluded between Lenin and Bela Kun, his Hungarian nominee, according to which "up to the time of the other European States going over to the Soviet r�gime" mutual military and material assistance was to be accorded ; movements of troops were to be as a preliminary concerted "among the different Soviet States." An attack was designated against "the Entente, and especially Poland and Rumania." When on February 12, Radek was arrested, in his Spartacist-Bolshevist propaganda bureau in Wilmersdorf (Berlin), more proofs were found that "a great Bolshevist revolutionary stroke throughout Germany had been planned to take place in the spring, whilst at the same time a Bolshevik army was to attack Germany on the Eastern frontier." This news was confirmed from Moscow, via Helsingfors. A Red army of 150,000 men was to be prepared in all haste to invade Germany at the end of April or the middle of May via Poland and Courland. The next step was � to put on a war footing several hundred thousands of Russian war prisoners, to take the line of the Elbe. This plan was said to have been worked out by a German major a certain Busch a former prisoner who had declared himself a communist and played a prominent r�le in Moscow. It is interesting to compare with this news, the boastful declarations of the Hungarian leaders after their revolution. "In three weeks," they were saying, "we shall have 150,000 perfectly equipped, trained men. In six weeks we expect to have 300,000 men trained. . . . We are surrounded with discontented people. . . . We shall start with Czecho-Slovakia. . . .Then comes Rumania's turn. . . . Jugoslavia will follow . . . in three months Italy will come over to us. On April 8, there will be a joint meeting of Workmen's and Soldiers' Councils in Berlin. We have absolutely certain information that Germany will adopt Bolshevism. . . . how long do you think France will hold out? . . . Then will come England's turn. . . . We have every scrap of paper ready for Czecho-Slovakia, Rumania, Bulgaria, Italy, France and England. No country will be able to hold out against us."
Bolshevist preparations for the Spring of 1919 were not confined to the West of Europe. A revolution was also expected to take place at that very time in the East, and especially in India. The Soviet official paper, the Pravda (The Truth), is responsible for the statement that 4,000,000 copies of pamphlets were published by a special "Bureau of Mussulman Communist Organizations," during the first ten months of 1918, in the Tatar, Turkish, Kirghiz, Sart and Hindu languages. At the same time explosives and money were sent to Bombay by the Bolshevist representatives in Stockholm, via London. A certain "Indian professor," Mayavlevi Mohammed Baranutulla, a former German agent in Afghanistan during the war, formally declared in Moscow that "in the normal course of events this summer (1919) will prove decisive in the liberation of India." Afghanistan was considered to be "of primary importance for the propaganda in Asia," just like Hungary in Europe. (Milyukov.)
The Lithuanian-Soviet agreement of 12 July (as below) shows a weakness in the Lithuanian position on the Bolshevik issue. In order to gain Vilnius for themselves the Lithuanians had allowed the Red armies to pass through Lithuania ; in effect they had opened the way to the Red terror, and had only been rescued from the Red terror by the Polish counter-offensive (20 August 1920). An entirely typical account of any dealings by any party at any time with the Bolshevized Russia ; what was that so many people could not "get" about those communists ?
One might not overlook the intensive anti-Polish propaganda carried on among the Lithuanians by the pre-Bolshevik tsarist regimé (this, by the way, mentioned somewhere by Count Korzybski). Nor the usual treatment of the Lithuanians, the Latvians, the Esths, the Finns, etc., by said regimé. Nor, that what was eventually to come, for a period of time (the several dictatorships 'of the proletariat') was in many ways even worse.
— (WPT)
It was only when the tide of war turned against the Poles in the summer of 1920 that the Lithuanians were given a further chance of regaining Vilnius. On 12 July they had
signed a peace treaty with Soviet Russia, and on 15 July the Russians offered to restore Vilnius to them provided the Lithuanian Army joined forces with the advancing Red Army, or alternatively allowed Russian troops to pass through their territory. The Lithuanian Government accepted this offer and opted for the second alternative, thus exposing itself to the machinations of the Lithuanian Communist Leader Kapsukas, who had entered Vilnius with the Red Army. The situation was not without its dangers. In fact, but for the �Miracle on the Vistula� of 20 August, Lithuania might well have become Communist, despite its peace treaty. As it was, this Polish victory set the seal on Lithuanian sovereignty, and forced Kapsukas to go under ground. Towards the end of August the Red Army handed Vilnius over to the Lithuanians, who proclaimed it as their capital city on 26 August. The Military Control Commission sent out by the League of nations under the French Colonel Chardigny then brought pressure to bear on the Poles, who agreed to sign a treaty with the Lithuanians. This was duly concluded in Suwalki on 7 October 1920, and under its terms the Lithuanians gained control over Vilnius and the surrounding district, an area of 14,500 sq. km. with a population of nearly half a million.
Two days later, on 9 October the Polish General L. Zeligowski launched a surprise attack and occupied the city. The Polish Government disclaimed all knowledge of this coup, maintaining that the General had acted on his own initiative, although it was quite evident that Warsaw had in fact given its blessing to the venture. In attempting to realize his dream1 . . .Pilsudski had tried but failed to advance into the Ukraine. It was then that Zeligowski, following the line of least resistance, had invaded the Vilnius district. At that time the Poles frequently referred to the great love they bore the Lithuanians, and maintained that it was purely on this account2 that they wanted to set up a Polish-Lithuanian federation. Unfortunately for Warsaw, the Lithuanians failed to respond to these ardent overtures, as they doubted whether Poland was capable of entering into a confederate relationship without seeking to assert her predominance. For eighteen months Vilnius3 was a Polish dependency, and as such served as a buffer state, which was known in
Warsaw as Central Lithuania. The Polish language was used for all administrative purposes, and the territory was governed by a commission set up by Zeligowski and composed entirely of Poles.
( pages 100 - 102 )
1 Pilsudski's �dream� was the pre-partitions borders. That was not a vague claim but a clear proposition, it did not imply annexations of anything that had not before belonged to Poland.
The advance then into the Ukraine was done in co-operation with the Ukrainian anti-Bolshevik leader Petlura. Kiev was taken, then lost. Why.
2 Pilsudski was of the Lithuanian ancestry himself ; so were many other prominent Poles, who would often and without contradiction proclaim themselves Lithuanian — perhaps not unlike those among the British who are Scot (not supposing that the analogy be exact).
There had been several centuries history of union of the two peoples. The exact nature of any Polish positions regarding Lithuania ca. 1920 can only be found in the actual statements by the statesmen of the time.
3 The population of the city of Vilnius then was over 90% (by one report I have seen 98%) Polish, a reality which could not have been ignored by any party.
— (WPT).