In the shadow of the war: Bolshevik perceptions of Polish subversive and military threats to the Soviet Union, 1920–32

ABSTRACT

This article examines Soviet perceptions of subversive and military threats from Poland to the Soviet Union in the 1920s and early 1930s. Drawing on archival materials from the Soviet foreign ministry, Communist Party leadership and security organs, it shows how the Soviet leadership held exaggerated fears about Polish threats to the Soviet western border regions and military intervention. A pattern of misperception stemmed from the Bolshevik defeat to Poland in the 1919–20 Soviet-Polish War, which rather than moderating the early Soviet regime ultimately encouraged more widespread use of state violence and provided further rationale for Stalin’s ‘Revolution from Above’.

KEYWORDS:

• Soviet Union
• Poland
• war scare
• industrialisation
• collectivisation
• Ukraine

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ O. V. Khlevniuk et al. (eds.), Stalin i Kaganovich perepiska. 1931–1936 gg (Moscow: Rosspen, 2001) 273–4.

² Lars T. Lih, Oleg V. Naumov and Oleg V. Khlevniuk (eds.), Stalin’s Letters to Molotov: 1925–1936 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995) 208.

³ Numerous such reports about Polish subversion and the POV can be found in the Archive of the State Security Services of Ukraine. See for instance, Derzhavnyi haluzevyi arkhiv sluzhby bezpeky Ukraïny (hereafter DHASBU), especially f. 13.

⁴ Alfred J. Rieber, Stalin and the Struggle for Supremacy in Eurasia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015).

⁵ David Shearer, ‘Stalin at War, 1918–1953: Patterns of Violence and Foreign Threat’, Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 66/2 (2018) 188–217.

⁶ The importance of the connection between the worsening international climate and the launch of industrialisation has previously been drawn by scholars, however, not specifically highlighting the centrality of the perceived Polish military threat to the Soviet Union in the 1920s. See for instance, R. W. Davies, The Socialist Offensive: The Collectivisation of Soviet Agriculture, 1929–30 (Palgrave Macmillan, 1980) 37. See also David. R. Stone, Hammer and Rifle: The Militarization of the Soviet Union, 1926–1933 (University Press of Kansas, 2000); Lennart Samuelson, Plans for Stalin’s War Machine: Tukhachevskii and Military-Economic Planning, 1925–1941 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000).

⁷ For this suggestion see a classic work on the Soviet-Polish War, Norman Davies, White Eagle, Red Star: The Polish-Soviet War 1919–1920 and ‘The Miracle on the Vistula’ (London: Pimlico, 2003).

⁸ Leon Trotsky frequently accused the Entente of driving Poland into war against Soviet Russia in his public speeches in 1920. See How the Revolution Armed: The Military Writings and Speeches of Leon Trotsky Vol. 3: Year of the Polish War 1920 (London: New Park, 1981). Also available: https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1920/military/index.htm.

⁹ A. Berelovich and V. Danilov (eds.), Sovetskaia derevnaia glazami VChK-OGPU-NKVD. 1918–1939. Dokumenty i materialy. t. 1. 1918–1922 (Moscow: Rosspen, 2000) 363–79.

¹⁰ S. A. Kokin, R. Iu. Podkur and O. S. Rubl’ov (eds.), Sprava ‘Pol’s’koi Organizatsii Viis’kovoi’ v Ukraini. 1920–1938 rr.: Zbirnykh dokumentiv ta materialiv (Kyiv: Holovna redkolehiia naukovo-dokumental’noi serii knyh ‘Reabilitovani istoriieiu’, 2011) 42.

¹¹ Ibid., 38.

¹² Ibid., 37.

¹³ A. A. Plekhanov and A. M. Plekhanov (eds.), F. E. Dzerzhinskii – Predsedatel’ VChK–OGPU, 1917–1926. Dokumenty (Moscow: MFD: Materik, 2007) 258.

¹⁴ In April Dzerzhinskii instructed his subordinates to collect more information about the role of Poland, Romania and other powers in financing banditism. Viktor Chebrikov, Istoriia sovetskikh organov gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti: uchebnik. (Moscow: KGB, 1977) 174. See also Plekhanov and Plekhanov (eds.), F. E. Dzerzhinskii, 295.

¹⁵ Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv sotsial’no-politicheskoi istorii (hereafter RGASPI), f. 17, op. 109, d. 137, l. 1.

¹⁶ Aleksandr Zdanovich, Pol’skii krest sovetskoi kontrrazvedki: pol’skaia liniia v rabote VChK-NKVD 1918–1938 (Moskva: Kraft+, 2017) 332–4.

¹⁷ See investigation of the POV in Kharkov in March 1921, Kokin, Podkur and Rubl’ov (eds.), Sprava ‘Pol’s’koi Organizatsii Viis’kovoi’ v Ukraini. 59; an investigation into an organisation in May 1921, Chebrikov, Istoriia sovetskikh organov gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti, 171; an investigation from June 1921, Berelovich and Danilov (eds.), Sovetskaia derevnaia glazami VChK-OGPU-NKVD. t. 1, 449. On the Cheka’s wider successes against insurgents in Ukraine in 1921, see Jan Jacek Bruski, Between Prometheism and Realpolitik. Poland and Soviet Ukraine, 1921–1926 (Krakow: Jagiellonian University Press, 2016) 102.

¹⁸ Iu. Shapoval, V. Prystaiko, and V. Zolotar’ov (eds.), ChK – GPU–NKVD v Ukraïni: Osoby, fakty, dokumenty (Kyiv: Abris, 1997) 226.

¹⁹ Plekhanov and Plekhanov (eds.), F. E. Dzerzhinskii, 334.

²⁰ Arkhiv Vneshnei Politiki Rossiiskoi Federatsii (hereafter AVPRF), f. 4, op. 52, d. 55273, p. 341, l. 22.

²¹ AVPRF, f. 4, op. 32, d. 52482, p. 209, l. 49. On reports that France showed willingness to acknowledge the Soviet government, see f. 4, op. 32, d. 52482, p. 209, ll. 55–56. It must be noted, however, that some reports to Chicherin did underline the possibility that France would try to push Poland and Romania into war against Soviet Russia, but this went against the grain of the majority of diplomatic communications. See AVPRF, f. 4, op. 32, d. 52482, p. 209, l. 60. On French plans for buffer states in Eastern Europe, see AVPRF, f. 4, op. 32, d. 52511, p. 210, l. 13.

²² AVPRF, f. 4, op. 52 d. 55273, p. 341, ll. 12–13.

²³ Among many examples, see Bruski, Between Prometheism and Realpolitik, 122; Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi voennyi arkhiv (hereafter RGVA), f. 33987, d. 1, d. 460, ll. 68, 71; Tsentral’nyi derzhavnyi arkhiv vyshchykh orhaniv vlady ta upravlinnia Ukraïny (hereafter TsDAVO), f. 4, op. 1, d. 29, l. 26; Berelovich and Danilov (eds.), Sovetskaia derevnaia glazami VChK-OGPU-NKVD. t. 1, 449. The threat of war was raised by Soviet diplomats as part of protests against Polish-sponsored banditism. Soviet diplomats in Ukraine, for instance, complained to their Polish counterparts that they would not consider the Treaty of Riga fulfilled unless those trying to start war (the Polish government in sponsoring banditism) were stopped. TsDAVO, f. 4, op. 1c, d. 31, l. 3.

²⁴ Plekhanov and Plekhanov (eds.), F. E. Dzerzhinskii, 344–5; M. Ul’, V. Khaustov and V. Zakharov (eds.), Glazami razvedki. SSSR i Evropa, 1919–1938 gody: sbornik dokumentov iz rossiiskikh arkhivov (Moscow: ISTLIT, 2015) 83–89; RGASPI, f. 558, op. 1, d. 2422, l. 15.

²⁵ Bruski, Between Prometheism and Realpolitik, 127.

²⁶ Ministerstvo inostrannykh del SSSR, Dokumenty vneshnei politiki SSSR. t. 4 (Moscow: Gospolitizdat, 1960) 430.

²⁷ Ibid., 452.

²⁸ Bruski, Between Prometheism and Realpolitik, 128.

²⁹ TsDAVO, f. 4, op. 1c, d. 31, l. 3; Ministerstvo inostrannykh del SSSR, Dokumenty vneshnei politiki SSSR. t. 4, 529.

³⁰ See G. N. Sevost’ianov et al. (eds.) ‘Sovershenno Sekretno’: Lubianka Stalinu o polozhenii v strane (1922–1934 gg.) t. 1, ch. 1 (Moscow: Nauka, 2001) 163, 302, 358, 372; ibid., t. 1. ch. 2, 788, 928, 947; ibid., t. 2, ch, 1, 69; ibid., t. 3, 247.

³¹ AVPRF, f. 122, op. 5, d. 4, p. 20, ll. 50–53. In autumn 1922, relations between Russia and Poland worsened because of the Soviet support given to guerrilla groups in Galicia. Polish troops were subsequently deployed. Bruski, Between Prometheism and Realpolitik, 198–99. See also RGVA, f. 33988, op. 2, d. 533, l. 326.

³² RGASPI, f. 558, op. 1, d. 1631, l. 1.

³³ RGASPI, f. 558, op. 1, d. 2426, l. 20.

³⁴ RGASPI, f. 63, op. 1, d. 554, l. 17.

³⁵ RGASPI, f. 63, op. 1, d. 363, l. 57.

³⁶ RGASPI, f. 63, op. 1, d. 360, l. 1; d. 363, ll. 22–25.

³⁷ Sevost’ianov et al. (eds.), ‘Sovershenno Sekretno’: Lubianka Stalinu o polozhenii v strane, t. 1, ch. 1, 230. For general war rumours among ordinary people, see ibid., t. 1, ch. 2, 613, 808. The political police noted that the closer to the Romanian and Polish borders, the more numerous and better-armed the bandit groups. See ibid., t. 1, ch. 1, 177.

³⁸ A. A. Kol’tiukov et al. (eds.), Russkaia voennaia emigratsiia 20-kh- 40-kh godov XX v.; Dokumenty i materialy, t. 4 (Moscow: RGGU, 2007) 808.

³⁹ TsDAVO, f. 2, op. 2, d. 905, ll. 1, 6.

⁴⁰ DHASBU, f. 13, ark. 162, t. 8, ll. 2–6.

⁴¹ RGASPI, f, 17, op. 87, d. 177, ll. 89–129.

⁴² In February 1924, Polish intelligence reported on its connections to an anti-Soviet group comprising 1600 active members, the leaders of which were former tsarist officers. RGVA, f. 308, op. 3, d. 39, l. 61.

⁴³ RGVA, f. 308, op. 3, d. 133, l. 10. Polish intelligence believed some of the number to be Soviet provocateurs.

⁴⁴ For war fears in 1923, see David R. Stone, ‘The prospect of war? Lev Trotskii, the Soviet army, and the German revolution in 1923’, The International History Review 25/4 (2003) 15.

⁴⁵ RGVA, f, 308, op. 3, d. 39, l. 45.

⁴⁶ Plekhanov and Plekhanov (eds.), F. E. Dzerzhinskii, 544.

⁴⁷ Ul’, Khaustov and Zakharov (eds.), Glazami Razvedki, 179.

⁴⁸ RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 2, ll. 148–50.

⁴⁹ Shapoval, Prystaiko and Zolotar’ov (eds.), ChK – GPU–NKVD v Ukraïni, 232.

⁵⁰ Vested interests were probably also at play. The Cheka had an interest in presenting heightened threats at a time when some Bolsheviks had questioned its position in the Soviet state. See David R. Shearer, Policing Stalin’s Socialism: Repression and Social Order in the Soviet Union, 1924–1953 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2009), 96.

⁵¹ Bruski, Between Prometheism and Realpolitik, 188.

⁵² V. N. Khaustov, V. P. Naumov, and N. S. Plotnikova (eds.), Lubianka. Stalin i VChK-GPU-OGPU-NKVD, ianvar’ 1922–dekabr’ 1936 (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnyi fond ‘Demokratiia’, 2003) 117.

⁵³ Zdanovich, Pol’skii krest, 140–41.

⁵⁴ Aleksandr Zdanovich, Organy gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti i krasnaia armiia: Deiatel’nost’ organov VChK-OGPU po obespecheniiu bezopasnosti RKKA (1921–1934) (Moscow: Kulikovo Pole, 2008) 74–75.

⁵⁵ Iurii I. Shapoval, ‘Vsevolod Balickij bourreau et victim’, Cahiers du Monde Russe 44/2–3 (2003) 68.

⁵⁶ Zdanovich, Pol’skii krest, 357–60; RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 726, ll. 55-56ob.

⁵⁷ DHASBU F. 13, ark 445, l. 1; Plekhanov and Plekhanov (eds.), F. E. Dzerzhinskii, 664.

⁵⁸ Ibid., 665.

⁵⁹ Ibid., 666.

⁶⁰ Ibid., 668.

⁶¹ RGASPI, f. 76, op. 3, d. 364, l. 72.

⁶² M. M. Narinskii and A. V. Mal’gina (eds.), Sovetsko-pol’skie otnosheniia v 1918–1945 gg. Sbornik dokumentov v chetyrekh tomakh. t. 2 1926–1932 (Moscow: Aspekt Press, 2017) 47.

⁶³ Ibid., 108.

⁶⁴ Bruski, Between Prometheism and Realpolitik, 273.

⁶⁵ Shapoval, Prystaiko and Zolotar’ov (eds.), ChK – GPU–NKVD v Ukraïni, 254.

⁶⁶ On war rumours, see Sevost’ianov et al. (eds.), ‘Sovershenno Sekretno’: Lubianka Stalinu o polozhenii v strane, t. 4, ch. 1, 638 and ibid., t. 4, ch. 2, 718.

⁶⁷ N. S. Simonov, ‘“Strengthen the defence of the land of the Soviets”: the 1927 “war alarm” and its consequences’, Europe-Asia Studies 48/8 (1996) 1357. In April 1927 Tukhachevskii called for detailed study of the western theatre of war, see Evgenii Gorbunov, Stalin i GRU (Moscow: Iauza, Eksmo, 2010) 73.

⁶⁸ RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 4, l. 42.

⁶⁹ Samuelson, Plans for Stalin’s War Machine, 39.

⁷⁰ Lennart Samuelson, ‘Mikhail Tukhachevsky and War-Economic Planning: Reconsiderations on the Pre-war Soviet Military Build-up’, Journal of Slavic Military Studies 9/4 (1996) 810.

⁷¹ Stone, Hammer and Rifle, 43–63.

⁷² Michael Carley, Silent Conflict: A Hidden History of Early Soviet-Western Relations (Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014), 275; Stephen Kotkin, Stalin, Vol. I: Paradoxes of Power, 1878–1928 (London: Penguin, 2014) 622–3.

⁷³ Ibid. 622–3.

⁷⁴ I. V. Stalin, Works, vol. 8 (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel’stvo politicheskoi literatury,1954) 277.

⁷⁵ Stalin Works, vol. 9, 173.

⁷⁶ Ibid., p. 318.

⁷⁷ L. S. Gatagova, L. P. Kosheleva and L. A. Rogovaia (eds.), TsK RKP(b) – BKP(b) i natsional’nyi vopros, kniga 1 1918–1933 gg. (Moscow: Rosspen, 2005) 486–93.

⁷⁸ Jonathan Haslam, Near and Distant Neighbours: A New History of Soviet Intelligence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015) 38–9; Ul’, Khaustov and Zakharov (eds.), Glazami Razvedki, 242.

⁷⁹ Stalin, Works, vol. 10, 206. Voroshilov likewise stated in a speech in November that while relations with England and Poland were naturally worse after Voikov’s murder, war was not about to start. RGASPI, f. 74, op. 2, d. 10, l. 52.

⁸⁰ RGASPI, f. 588, op. 11, d. 71, l. 2.

⁸¹ Quoted in Per Rudling, The Rise and Fall of Belarussian Nationalism, 1906–1931 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2014) 285.

⁸² RGASPI, f. 63, op. 1, d. 357, l. 61.

⁸³ RGASPI, f. 63, op. 1, d. 357, l. 54.

⁸⁴ TsDAVO, f. 413, op. 2, d. 4, l. 1.

⁸⁵ A. M. Plekhanov, VChK-OGPU v gody novoi ekonomicheskoi politiki, 1921–1928 (Moscow: Kuchkovo Pole, 2006) 62, 285.

⁸⁶ Litvinov made this point in a note to Stanisław Patek in the aftermath of the Voikov murder. See Vladislav Goldin, Rossiiskaia voennaia emigratsiia i sovetskie spetssluzhby v 20-e godu XX veka (St Petersburg: Poltorak, 2010) 440–1.

⁸⁷ Narinskii and Mal’gina (eds.), Sovetsko-pol’skie otnosheniia v 1918–1945 gg., t. 2, 173, 175.

⁸⁸ Simonov, ‘Strengthen the defence of the land of the Soviets’, 360.

⁸⁹ See Davies, The Socialist Offensive; Stone, Hammer and Rifle; Samuelson, Plans for Stalin’s War Machine.

⁹⁰ Simonov, ‘Strengthen the Defence of the Land of the Soviets’.

⁹¹ Samuelson, ‘Mikhail Tukhachevsky and War-Economic Planning’, 813; Samuelson, Plans for Stalin’s War Machine, 34.

⁹² Narinskii and Mal’gina (eds.), Sovetsko-pol’skie otnosheniia v 1918–1945 gg., t. 2, 226. Stomoniakov did not agree with Bogomolov that France was pushing Poland into war, see ibid., 277. Bogomolov would continue to write about the risk of war against Poland, see his report from April: Iu. V. Ivanov, Ocherki istorii rossiisko (sovetsko)-pol’shikh otnoshenii v dokumentakh. 1914–1945 (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia, 2014), 157.

⁹³ Narinskii and Mal’gina (eds.), Sovetsko-pol’skie otnosheniia v 1918–1945 gg., t. 2, 291.

⁹⁴ O. N. Ken and A. I. Rusapov, Politbiuro TsK VKP(b) i otnosheniia SSSR s zapadnymi sosednimi gosudarstvami (konets 1920–1930-kh gg.): problem, oput, kommentarii (St Petersburg: Evropeiskii Dom, 2000) 82.

⁹⁵ Narinskii and Mal’gina (eds.), Sovetsko-pol’skie otnosheniia v 1918–1945 gg., t. 2, 303. Stomoniakov, however, suggested that Piłsudski’s ill-health cast doubt on this plan. The Soviets were well aware of the ‘campaign’ in the Polish press for the separation of Ukraine from the Soviet Union. See ibid., 319.

⁹⁶ Ibid., 324.

⁹⁷ Ul’, Khaustov and Zakharov (eds.), Glazami Razvedki, 261; Shearer, ‘Stalin at War, 1918-1953’, 193–4.

⁹⁸ V. P. Danilov, R. Manning and L. Viola (eds.), Tragediia Sovetskoi derevni: kollektivizatsiia i raskulachivanie: dokumenty i materially v 5 tom., 1927–1938 gg., t. 1 (Moscow: Rosspen, 1999–2004) 327. Voroshilov proclaimed in a speech to a military audience in March 1928 that there was no imminent danger of war but that new methods were being used by hostile countries, including economic blockade. It is no surprise that the leadership started to think more seriously about the self-sufficiency of the Soviet Union. RGASPI, f. 74, op. 2, d. 12, l. 37.

⁹⁹ Davies, The Socialist Offensive, 41–2.

¹⁰⁰ Samuelson, Plans for Stalin’s War Machine, 135; Naumov, Khlevniuk and Lih (eds.), Stalin’s Letters to Molotov, 208.

¹⁰¹ Ibid., 196.

¹⁰² David Shearer and Vladimir Khaustov, Stalin and the Lubianka: a Documentary History of the Political Police and Security Organs in the Soviet Union, 1922–1953 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015) 72.

¹⁰³ V. P. Danilov et al. (eds.), Kak lomali NEP: stenogrammy plenumov TsK VKP(b) 1928–1929 gg. v 5-ti tomakh. Tom 1. Ob’edinennyi plenum TsK i TsKK VKP(b) 6–11 Aprelia 1928 g. (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnyi fond ‘demokratiia’, 2000) 156–7.

¹⁰⁴ Volodymyr Prystaiko and Iurii Shapoval, Sprava ‘Spilky Vyzvolennia Ukrainy’: Nevidomi Dokumenty i Fakty (Kyiv: Intel, 1995) 160, 352.

¹⁰⁵ Anne Applebaum, Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine (London: Penguin, 2017) 152–3, 160.

¹⁰⁶ Elena Borisenok, Fenomen Sovetskoi Ukrainizatsii, 1920–30-e gody (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo ‘Evropa’, 2006) 198; ‘Sovershenno Sekretno’: Lubianka Stalinu o polozhenii v strane, t. 9, 432–45; ibid, t. 8, ch. 2, 1531–47. DHASBU, f. 13, 1068, ll. 1–61.

¹⁰⁷ RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 8, ll. 109–10. Lynne Viola, The Unknown Gulag: The Lost World of Stalin’s Special Settlements (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 28; Viola, The Tragedy of the Soviet Countryside: The War Against the Peasantry, 1927–1930: vol 1 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005) 215.

¹⁰⁸ Ken and Rusapov, Politbiuro TsK VKP(b) i otnosheniia SSSR s zapadnymi sosednimi gosudarstvami, 514–15; ‘Sovershenno Sekretno’: Lubianka Stalinu o polozhenii v strane, t. 8, ch. 2, 1258–344. In June 1930, the Ukrainian OGPU reported on a large counterrevolutionary organisation in Kharkov that supposedly aimed to overthrow Soviet power in Ukraine and transfer the republic to Poland. The OGPU noted that the PolishSecond Department was carrying out constant intelligence in Ukraine in preparation of war. See DHASBU, f. 13, ark 124, ll. 32, 115. For similar see, DHASBU, f. 13, ark 90.

¹⁰⁹ Yuri Shapoval, ‘Vsevolod Balytsky and the Holodomor of 1932-33’. https://holodomor.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Shapoval-article-translated-BK-ekm-emy-done-1.pdf, 8.

¹¹⁰ Shearer and Khaustov, Stalin and the Lubianka, 114.

¹¹¹ DHASBU, f. 13, ark. 180, t. 4, l. 30.

¹¹² Ibid., l. 92.

¹¹³ James Morris, ‘The Polish Terror: Spy Mania and Ethnic Cleansing in the Great Terror’, Europe-Asia Studies 56/5 (2004) 757.

¹¹⁴ See R. Serbyn (ed.),Holodomor Studies 3/1–2 (2011) 189.

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Peter Whitewood

Peter Whitewood is a Senior Lecturer in History at York St John University. He is the author of The Red Army and the Great Terror: Stalin’s Purge of the Soviet Military and editor, along with James Harris and Lara Douds, of The Fate of the Bolshevik Revolution: Illiberal Liberation, 1917-1941 (forthcoming with Bloomsbury Academic, 2020).