Had it not been for the Polish victory in the Polish-Bolshevik war, the balance of power in Europe and its borders would look very different today. Shortly after regaining independence, Poland could have once again disappeared from the world map. Riding the wave of victories, the Bolsheviks were pushing westwards, aiming to spread their revolutionary ideas across Europe.

The Polish-Bolshevik war broke out on 14 February 1919. The site of the first confrontation was the town of Mosty near Szczuczyn in the Grodno region, where Polish Army units halted the Red Army’s march. The bloody war campaign continued in 1920. The Polish Army, which grew to almost one million soldiers at the height of the conflict, claimed many military victories, the most important of which was halting the Bolsheviks on the outskirts of Warsaw in mid-August. Thanks to this victory, an armistice was reached in 1920, and in 1921 the parties signed a peace treaty in Riga that marked the Polish-Soviet border, which remained in force until 1939.

In gratitude for their services, the state gave land plots in the recovered eastern territories to the veterans of the Polish-Bolshevik war. In 1940, they – military settlers – were among the first to be deported with their families deep into the USSR. The Soviet state did not forget their fierce resistance to the Red Army 20 years before and continued to regard them as dangerous opponents of the Soviet power.

Photo: A group of Polish soldiers in a trench, 1919, source: National Digital Archives.