This article will look at the Soviet occupations of Poland and Estonia at the beginning of World War II, and their impact on the local populations. Did these occupations reflect popular local sentiment, or were there other plans at work?
The Soviet occupation of terror in eastern Poland has been thoroughly documented by Jan T. Gross in his book "Revolution from Abroad - The Soviet Conquest of Poland's Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia". This book paints a clear picture as to what transpired in eastern Poland as it captures both individual experiences as well as overall developments. For the Soviet occupation of Estonia, there is no book that details personal narratives in a similar, detailed manner. However, there are several good Estonian history texts (Kareda, Raun, Uustalu), which allow insights into that period, and when looked at in conjunction with Gross' book, the patterns of Soviet communist annexation become familiar.
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At the close of the First World War, with the collapse of the German, Russian and Austro-Hungarian Empires, many subjugated peoples sought to extract themselves from their imperialistically dominated relationships, as the Poles and Estonians had inside Tsarist Russia.
With American President Woodrow Wilson encouraging peoples' rights to self-determination, the map of Europe was being redrawn on new ethnic and nationalistic backdrops. As the former autocratic empires were dissolving, the countries of Poland and Estonia fought for and regained their independence. For both countries, this did not happen through chance or luck, but rather through concerted militaristic, diplomatic and spiritual efforts. Both the Polish and Estonian peoples wanted to establish independent nation states that were free from direct German and Russian domination, and they both succeeded in achieving their goal.
Treaties with Soviet Russia
To secure recognition from Soviet Russia, both Estonian and Polish troops fought the Soviet Bolsheviks to a standstill. This enabled the fledgling nations to sign peace treaties with the Soviet Russian government, which thus was forced to recognize the rights of Poland and Estonia as free and independent states.
Estonia
Article 2 of the 'Treaty of Peace between Soviet Russia and Estonia' signed at Tartu on February 2, 1920, stated: "…Russia unreservedly recognizes the independence and autonomy of the State of Estonia, and renounces voluntarily and forever all rights of sovereignty, formerly held by Russia over the Estonian people and territory."
The basic principles of this treaty were reconfirmed by the 'Treaty of Non Aggression and Peaceful Settlement of Disputes between Estonia and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics', signed in Moscow on May 4, 1932, which stated: "Both High Contracting Parties…undertake to refrain from any act of aggression against each other…not to participate in any political agreements manifestly directed against the other Party." A new protocol, which extended this Treaty to December 31, 1945, was signed in Moscow on April 4, 1934.
Estonia signed a similar nonaggression treaty with Nazi Germany on June 7, 1939. These two treaties with the bellicose Nazi and Soviet powers were to secure Estonia's neutrality and protect it from being drawn into the developing conflict in the highly charged European cauldron.
Poland
After General Pilsudski defeated the Soviets east of Warsaw, eliminating the immediate Bolshevik threat to Western Europe, the Poles and the Soviet Russians concluded the Peace of Riga on March 18, 1921.
Stalin was blamed for the defeat of the Red Army by many Soviets, and for this reason he developed a particular hatred for the Poles. The terms of this Treaty were favourable to Poland and established the new Polish/Soviet border far into the territories of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania, where historically the Poles had played a leading role.
In these remote border territories, the Polish population was often a minority to the Ukrainians and Belorussians who still harboured ambitions of creating their own independent nation states.
Even after the appeasement policy with the Nazis had been shown to be a dismal failure with the loss of Czechoslovakia, Poland remained somewhat emboldened in front of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, because Chamberlain and France continued to support an independent Poland.
Soviet policy
Lenin set up the Comintern in March 1919, to provide Moscow-based leadership for communist revolutions in Europe and throughout the world. Though Lenin's initial primary aim was creating revolution among the proletariat in industrial Germany, his goal broadened to exporting revolution everywhere.
Thus the treaties of Tartu and Riga did not keep the Soviet Communists from interfering in the affairs of both Estonia and Poland. On December 1, 1924, a Moscow-led Communist putsch attempted to seize power in Tallinn, but due to no local support and the quick arrest of the ringleaders, this coup failed, and resulted in the Communist party being banned in Estonia.
After many bloody Polish uprisings and battles in the nineteenth century against Tsarist Russia, and because the Polish volunteer army had just fought and won independence from Soviet Russia, tension between these two countries stayed high, even after Peace at Riga was signed.
During the interwar period, all Poles living in the Ukrainian or Belorussian Soviet Republics were vulnerable to accusations of being spies, and being arrested and shot by the NKVD> Poles living in Moscow or in St. Petersburg/Leningrad often suffered the same fate.
Poles were specifically targeted in the Yezhov NKVD Operational Order No. 00485 of August 11, 1937. The Polish Communist Party was liquidated, and the 10,000 Poles recruited by Moscow for Comintern coaching, all became victims of Stalin's Great Terror/Purge of 1938. Of the 135,000 Poles arrested in the Purge, it is estimated that approximately half were killed, and the remainder were shipped to Kazakhstan.
In 1939, when Stalin was looking for sanctified approval from Great Britain and France for territorial gains in Europe, he was rebuffed by Chamberlain in the British House of Commons on July 31, 1939, when the Briton refused to recognize Soviet domination over the Baltic States. Stalin now understood that he had to work with Hitler to achieve his imperialistic goals.
(To be continued)
Made in Moscow: The Soviet occupation of Poland and Estonia
Archived Articles | 04 Mar 2005 | Toomas TreiEWR
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