page_title: Polish–Soviet War
section_title: Diplomatic front, part 1
hierarchical_section_title: Polish–Soviet War / Course / 1919 / Diplomatic front, part 1
caption_attribution_description: English: General Antoni Listowski (left) during a conversation with Chief Otaman Symon Petliura (right) during the Polish-Soviet War. Polski: Generał Antoni Listowski (z lewej) podczas rozmowy z Hetmanem Symonem Petlurą (z prawej).
context_page_description: The Polish–Soviet War was fought by the Second Polish Republic and the Soviet Russia over a region comparable to today's westernmost Ukraine and parts of modern Belarus. Following the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War, Russia sought to relieve the pressure by crossing Poland in order to stimulate a Europe-wide communist revolution under the Trotskyist slogan "to give water to red horses out of the Wisła and Rhine".
  Poland's Chief of State, Józef Piłsudski, felt the time was right to expand Polish borders as far east as feasible, to be followed by a Polish-led Intermarium federation of Central and Eastern European states, as a bulwark against the re-emergence of German and Russian imperialism. Vladimir Lenin saw Poland as the bridge the Red Army had to cross to assist other Communist movements and bring about more European revolutions. By 1919, Polish forces had taken control of much of Western Ukraine, emerging victorious from the Polish–Ukrainian War. The West Ukrainian People's Republic, led by Yevhen Petrushevych, had tried to create a Ukrainian state on territories to which both Poles and Ukrainians laid claim.
context_section_description: In 1919, several unsuccessful attempts at peace negotiations were made by various Polish and Russian factions. In the meantime, Polish–Lithuanian relations worsened as Polish politicians found it hard to accept the Lithuanians' demands for certain territories, especially the city of Vilnius which had a Polish ethnic majority but was regarded by Lithuanians as their historical capital. Polish negotiators made better progress with the Latvian Provisional Government, and in late 1919 and early 1920 Polish and Latvian forces were conducting joint operations including the Battle of Daugavpils, against Soviet Russia.
  The Warsaw Treaty, an agreement with the exiled Ukrainian nationalist leader Symon Petlura signed on 21 April 1920, was the main Polish diplomatic success. Petlura, who formally represented the Government of the Ukrainian People's Republic (by then de facto defeated by Bolsheviks), along with some Ukrainian forces, fled to Poland, where he found asylum. His control extended only to a sliver of land near the Polish border. In such conditions, there was little difficulty convincing Petlura to join an alliance with Poland, despite recent conflict between the two nations that had been settled in favour of Poland. By concluding an agreement with Piłsudski, Petlura accepted the Polish territorial gains in Western Ukraine and the future Polish–Ukrainian border along the Zbruch River. In exchange, he was promised independence for Ukraine and Polish military assistance in reinstalling his government in Kiev.
  For Piłsudski, this alliance gave his campaign for the Międzymorze federation the legitimacy of joint international effort, secured part of the Polish eastward border, and laid a foundation for a Polish-dominated Ukrainian state between Russia and Poland. For Petlura, this was the final chance to preserve the statehood and, at least, the theoretical independence of the Ukrainian heartlands, even while accepting the loss of West Ukrainian lands to Poland. Yet both of them were opposed at home. Piłsudski faced stiff opposition from Dmowski's National Democrats who opposed Ukrainian independence. Petlura, in turn, was criticised by many Ukrainian politicians for entering a pact with the Poles and giving up on Western Ukraine.
  The alliance with Petlura did result in 15,000 pro-Polish allied Ukrainian troops at the beginning of the campaign, increasing to 35,000 through recruitment and desertion from the Soviet side during the war. This would, in the end, provide insufficient support for the alliance's aspirations.
caption: Polish General Antoni Listowski (left) and Ukrainian leader Symon Petlura, allied with Poland
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