The Warsaw Pact was the result of months of secret negotiations
Dialogue and alliance from a position of strength. This is exactly how one can characterize the Polish-Ukrainian agreement of April 21-24, 1920. On the first day, a political, trade and economic convention was signed in Warsaw between representatives of the Polish Republic Jan Dąbski and the Ukrainian People's Republic Andrey Levitsky.
According to this agreement, Ukraine’s right to independent state existence was recognized. The Directory, headed by the chief ataman Simon Petliura, was also recognized as the highest authority of the Ukrainian People's Republic.
Joint military action against Bolshevik Russia
The border between the states was laid along the Zbruch River, and then along the former border of Austria-Hungary with Tsarist Russia in the north-western direction to Vyshgorodok and to the north – through the Kremenets Mountains, and then east of Zdolbuniv, along the eastern border of Rivne district to the Pripyat River. So, Western Ukrainian lands ended up within the Polish Republic.
The military convention between the PR and the UPR, signed three days later, on April 24, also became an integral part of the Warsaw Pact.. On the Polish side, General Valeriy Jan Slawek signed his signature, and on the Ukrainian side, General Vladimir Sinclair. The military alliance provided for joint military actions against Bolshevik Russia in Ukraine.
At the time of the signing of the two agreements, the UPR troops were in a catastrophic situation (most of the units crossed the Zbruch and ended up in the territory occupied by the Poles, where they were interned), and the leader of the state, Symon Petliura himself, left for Warsaw in December 1919. There, at the end of that year, difficult negotiations began in the hope of concluding an agreement on cooperation with the Poles in the fight against the Russian Bolsheviks, who occupied almost all of the Dnieper Ukraine.
This agreement was the result of months of secret negotiations between representatives of Jozef Piłsudski and Symon Petliura.. The points of the convention were developed in complete secrecy not only for the European community and Entente allies, but even for the Polish Sejm and most Ukrainian officials. Maybe that’s why the agreement was called the Pilsudski-Petliura Treaty.
However, by the mid-spring of 1920, these state entities were in completely different “weight categories”… Ukrainian historian Yaroslav Gritsak in “Essay on the History of Ukraine. Formation of the modern Ukrainian nation of the 19th-20th centuries” wrote: “Both Pilsudski and Petliura shared socialist views, but sacrificed them at the critical hour of national competitions in order to achieve independence . Both rose above all party divisions within their societies and became the embodiment of the liberation struggle of the entire nation. With the fundamental difference, however, that Pilsudski represented a victorious nation, and Petliura a defeated one … Even if Pilsudski had been completely faithful to his allied obligations, it remained in great doubt whether Polish society would have refrained from the huge temptation to interpret the conquered Ukraine as conquered territory? “ (emphasis I. Gritsak).
Poland itself was in rather uncertain circumstances. The state, which won independence only on November 11, 1918, continued until 1921 to conflict with its neighbors – Galicians, Germans, Czechs and Slovaks, Lithuanians – on almost all lines of borders that were not yet fully established.
…In all military clashes, except for the concession of Czechoslovakia in Cieszyn (Zaolshye), the Poles were victorious. The state mechanism in Warsaw worked (the socialists, the peasant party and the national democrats acted coherently for now, putting aside disputes). The Poles provided almost unanimous support for Piłsudski during the liberation struggle.
At the end of the summer of 1919, after six months of hostilities, the Poles occupied the territory of the Western Ukrainian People's Republic. The army of the Western Ukrainian People's Republic crossed the Zbruch to find itself in the whirlpool of the struggle for the Dnieper region: either on the side of the army of the Ukrainian People's Republic, or in alliance with the white Denikinites, or as part of the army of the Red Bolsheviks…
Already in exile, Symon Petliura wrote in the article “Recent problems of military development in Ukrainian military literature”: “The Warsaw Pact on April 22, 1920 (it was on this day that he received the text of the convention. – Auth .) was a historically forced fact, an inevitable chain in the course of the political-military events of our recent history, and not an artificial formation of political recklessness or ill will, as some frivolously and superficially think about it. Its negative aspects were known to the responsible figures who signed it, but could not be overcome or neutralized for objective reasons of an international nature.”
Petliura was right about one thing: he tried, not always successfully, to defend national interests and had no other plans other than a joint struggle to defend independence in the extremely difficult conditions of confrontation with both Red and White Russia.
This difficulty lay not only in the lack of support for the UPR among the victorious countries in the First World War (which the newborn Second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth received from the Entente, which turned a blind eye to the tough policies of the Poles on the national issue), but also because it was Pilsudski’s Ukrainophile views that researchers often exaggerate their significance and real weight – they did not find support in a wide circle of Polish society and politicians.
They put up with them because Piłsudski’s authority as the leader of the nation was at an unattainable height. The “Commandant” of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth at this stage was implementing the idea of restoring independence.
The attitude of national democrat Roman Dmovsky and his allies towards Ukrainian statehood in general was extremely negative. The slogan “Polska od morza do morza” – from the Baltic to the Black Sea – was popular throughout the interwar history of the state. And if most officials in Warsaw did not want to see an independent Ukraine on the map of Europe, then the Entente states even more so.
“Liberators” or occupiers
Ukrainian historian Sergei Litvin in his fundamental work “The Court of History: Simon Petliura and Petliurian” wrote: “The Polish government demanded from the Ukrainian side not only recognition of the occupied Western Ukrainian regions, but also wanted to interfere in the internal affairs of the UPR, in particular in the land matter… Polish claims were found support in French government circles, which were interested in the natural resources of Ukraine, in particular the Drohobych oil basin, the exploitation of which by the French would be facilitated in the event of a federal connection between Ukraine and Poland.”
What were the results of the Pilsudski-Petliura Treaty? At the end of April 1920, the offensive of the 65,000-strong allied Polish-Ukrainian army began in the direction of Kyiv, which was liberated on May 7. Ukrainians in this army were a little more than 20%. And already on May 9, columns of “victor-liberators” marched on Khreshchatyk; the parade was hosted by Polish General Edward Ridz-Smigly.
“The Ukrainian people, who saw in their capital a foreign general with a Polish army instead of Petliura at the head of their own troops, did not perceive this act as liberation, but rather as a kind of occupation. Therefore, instead of enthusiasm and joy, the Ukrainians maintained a gloomy silence and, instead of taking up arms in defense of the freedom they had received, they remained passive spectators,” wrote a participant in this action, captain of the Polish army Tadeusz Machalski.
However, in June 1920, a rapid offensive of the Russian Bolsheviks began, who captured Kyiv on June 11, and soon found themselves near Warsaw. Where already in August the “Miracle on the Vistula” happened…
Poland was on the verge of capitulation, but in August 1920 the Red Army suffered a crushing defeat. The Ukrainians heroically fulfilled their allied obligations: the famous victory of the units under the command of General Hornet Mark Bezruchko during the defense of Zamosc is known.
Ahead was the signing of a peace treaty with the Bolsheviks in Riga on March 18, 1921 (as a result of it, the ethnic Ukrainian lands – Galicia, Volyn, Kholmshchyna became part of the Second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth). The Warsaw Pact of 1920 was annulled, Ukrainian units were disarmed and interned in Poland.
Of course, this agreement was received extremely negatively by the leaders of the Western Ukrainian People's Republic, whose army heroically resisted the Polish occupation of Galicia from November 1918 to July 1919. They considered him a betrayal of all-Ukrainian national interests. And to a large extent they were right. We wrote about Petliura’s reasons above…
But it must be noted that the leaders of both the UPR and WUNR were unable to consolidate their efforts on the path to independence. The merger of these two Ukrainian state entities, which took place on January 22, 1919, in fact turned out to be a declaration of unfulfilled intentions. The reaction of the Dnieper and Western Ukrainian elites to the signing of the Warsaw Pact a little more than a year later was completely different.
And the foreign policy situation for Ukraine turned out to be extremely unfavorable. The Ukrainians’ arguments about the need to build their own state of the country of the victorious Entente were simply rejected. In a situation of international isolation, it was almost impossible to resist both the Red and White Russians, as well as the resurgent Poland…