Until the complete cessation of Polish resistance in early October (dates are called 7 and even ) of the year.
At the end of September, Soviet and German troops met at, and. There was even a small clash between the “allies”, during which both sides had minor losses. However, all the problems were resolved, and the German and Red armies held joint parades in and. years, summing up the results of the operation, he said, referring to Poland: “Nothing remains of this ugly brainchild that lived off the oppression of non-Polish nationalities.”
The Battle of Sarn, The Battle of Dubne, The Battle of Kodziowci, The Defense of Vilno, The Battle of Puchova Góra, The Battle of Wola Sudkowska, The Battle of Wladypol, The Battle of Dchwola, The Battle of Krzemen, The Battle of Shaskem, The Battle of Wytyczno, The Battle of Kock.
Poland was finally destroyed as a state. The USSR moved its border to the west, generally uniting all ethnically Belarusian and Ukrainian territories under its rule.
The losses of the Polish side in actions against Soviet troops amounted to 3,500 people killed, 20,000 missing and 454,700 prisoners. Of the 900 guns and mortars and 300 aircraft, the vast majority were taken as trophies.
After the entry of Soviet troops into the territory of Western Belarus and the division of Poland between Germany and the USSR, tens of thousands of Polish citizens, captured by the Red Army and interned - military personnel of the Polish army and officials of local authorities, ended up in the territory occupied by Soviet troops. state power, “Osadniks” (military colonists), policemen.
With the entry of the Red Army into the eastern Polish lands, there was a wave of robberies, looting and spontaneous killings of members of the local Polish administration by peasants. The general described the appearance of “liberated” Lvov at the end of 1939:
Shops were looted, windows were broken, only one had several hats on it. Endless queues at grocery stores. (..) People are in a gloomy mood. The streets are full of NKVD members and soldiers. The pavements and sidewalks are dirty and covered with snow. The impression is terrible.
The Soviet government gave the local population free education and medical care, support Ukrainian language; on the other hand, the Polish population was subjected to discrimination and repression. Coercion and repression against “socially hostile elements” dealt a heavy blow to the entire society and embittered the population. Poles were subjected to severe discrimination; they tried not to hire them, and from the beginning of 1940 they began to deport them en masse. Even before the start of the Great Patriotic War, 312 thousand families, or 1173 thousand people, were exiled to Siberia. On June 1, 1941, 2.6 thousand collective farms were created here, in which 143 thousand were united. rural farms. According to the commander of the rear of Army Group South, General Friederici, the Ukrainian population in 1941, when German troops entered, greeted them as friends and liberators.
The London Times called this event “a stab in the back of Poland”; the Soviet leadership considered the Polish campaign of the Red Army to be liberating.
In April 1939, Poland demonstratively conducted large-scale military maneuvers on the border of the USSR. At the same time, the Soviet side invited the Polish government to consider the issue of a defensive alliance against third countries, to which it received a very strict refusal, the meaning of which was that if necessary, the Polish army was ready to defeat both Stalin and Hitler at the same time. The Soviet Union did not react to this essentially offensive demarche. Ironically, a few months later in September 1939, the Polish army had to deal with both German and Soviet troops within a short period of time. Of course, it is impossible to talk about a war on two fronts. There was only spotty resistance to the Soviet troops, and even more so not from the army, but from the siege troops, the police and the local militia.
On the eve of the Liberation Campaign, on September 16, an absurd and tragic plane crash occurred, in which the most productive Soviet pilot 30s, twice Hero of the Soviet Union, Major Sergei Ivanovich Gritsevets. Participant civil war In Spain, Gritsevets destroyed 7 enemy aircraft, for which he was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Gritsevets was remembered for his new victories at Khalkhin Gol, having shot down 12 Japanese planes. In addition, he took his commander, Major V. Zabaluev, from the territory captured by the enemy, landing his I-16 near Japanese positions. Remaining invincible in the air, Gritsevets died through no fault of his own during landing at the Balbasovo airfield near Orsha. According to all the rules, at dusk and in foggy conditions, he made an exemplary landing and, fearing a collision with the pilots following him to land, taxied from the landing strip to the neutral one. At this moment, Major P. Hara, against all odds, came in to land from the opposite direction, mistaking the neutral strip for a landing strip. There was a collision between the fighters, and while Khara escaped with bruises, Gritsevets died from the impact of the propeller. As the campaign began, it was decided not to report the death of the famous pilot. Gritsevets was never destined to see his native village of Borovtsy, liberated by Soviet troops during the 1939 campaign in Belarus.
30 km from Grodno is the small town of Skidel, in which, after receiving news that the Red Army had crossed the border, an uprising against the Polish authorities began, brutally suppressed by punitive forces: “30 people were immediately shot by punitive forces. They also shot just those who turned up. Before the execution they mocked: some had their eyes gouged out, others had their tongues cut, others had their fingers broken with rifle butts...” There could have been more victims if the group had not arrived in time to the scene Soviet tanks, which in a short but fierce battle defeated the Polish detachment.
It is noteworthy that during the Liberation Campaign, a number of Soviet tank units often had only one fuel refueling. The lack of fuel made it necessary to form attack mobile groups from tanks and quickly move on, transferring fuel to them from other combat vehicles. Since there was no serious opposition from Polish troops, this experiment was successful. However, the same fuel shortage would fatally affect in June 1941, when hundreds of Soviet tanks were abandoned or destroyed by their crews due to lack of fuel.
The liberation campaign was definitely reflected in literature, cinema and music. In memory of the Soviet tank in Antopol, which was burned by the gang that surrounded it (by no means Polish soldiers), together with the crew, Alexander Tvardovsky wrote the poem “Tank”, then set to music by V. Kochetov. The appearance of the famous “Song of the Red Regiments” is also connected with the history of the Liberation Campaign.
On the evening of September 18, 1939, mobile tank groups of the 3rd and 11th armies of the Belorussian Front broke into Vilna and by the middle of the next day completely captured the city. Losses amounted to 9 tanks and armored cars: 13 were killed and 24 Red Army soldiers were wounded. The city, according to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (point 1), was transferred to Lithuania (this was later secured by the corresponding Soviet-Lithuanian treaty). Thus, Lithuania regained its capital, lost during the conflict with Poland in 1922. Until this time, Vilna was still considered the official capital of Lithuania (its loss was not recognized), but all government structures were located in Kaunas.
On September 18, 1939, Polish crews on Pripyat and Pina sank 5 river monitors as Soviet troops approached. They were examined and raised at the same time, in September 1939, and then put into operation with a change of names - “Vinnitsa” (“Torun”), “Bobruisk” (“Gorodishche”). "Vitebsk" ("Warsaw"), "Zhitomir" ("Pinsk"), "Smolensk" ("Krakow"). The ships became part of the Dnieper and then the Pinsk flotilla. Military biography monitors in Great Patriotic War turned out to be short, but bright - they all distinguished themselves while operating on Pripyat, Berezina and the Dnieper, managing to complete a number of combat missions, breaking out of disastrous traps more than once in June-September 1941. While leaving Kiev on September 18, 1941, the Vitebsk was lost - the last of the five trophy monitors remaining at that time.
According to generally accepted opinion, the Second World War began on September 1, 1939. World War– The Third Reich attacked Poland, although in China they count from 1937. At 4 hours 45 minutes at the mouth of the Vistula River, the old German battleship Schleswig-Holstein opened fire on the Polish military warehouses of Westerplatte in Danzig, the Wehrmacht went on the offensive along the entire border line.
Poland at that time was a rather artificial state entity - created from the Polish territories proper, the debris Russian Empire, German Empire and Austria-Hungary. In 1939, out of 35.1 million people in Poland, there were 23.4 million Poles, 7.1 million Belarusians and Ukrainians, 3.5 million Jews, 0.7 million Germans, 0.1 million . Lithuanians, 0.12 million Czechs. Moreover, Belarusians and Ukrainians were in the position of oppressed slaves, and the Germans also sought to return to the Reich. Warsaw, on occasion, was not averse to expanding its territory at the expense of its neighbors - in 1922 it captured the Vilna region, in 1938 the Cieszyn region from Czechoslovakia.
In Germany, they were forced to accept territorial losses in the east - West Prussia, part of Silesia, the Poznan region, and Danzig, predominantly populated by Germans, was declared a free city. But public opinion regarded these losses as temporary losses. Hitler initially did not focus on these territories, believing that the problem of the Rhineland, Austria, and the Sudetenland was more important, and Poland even became an ally of Berlin, receiving crumbs from the master’s table (Cieszyn region of Czechoslovakia). In addition, in Warsaw they hoped, in alliance with Berlin, to march to the East, dreaming of creating a “Greater Poland” from the sea (Baltic) to the sea (Black Sea). On October 24, 1938, the Polish Ambassador to Germany Lipski was sent a demand for Poland's consent to the inclusion of the Free City of Danzig in the Reich, and Poland was also offered to join the Anti-Comintern Pact (directed against the USSR, it included Germany, Italy, Japan, Hungary), during the subsequent After negotiations, Warsaw was promised territories in the East, at the expense of the USSR. But Warsaw showed its eternal stubbornness and constantly refused the Reich. Why were the Poles so self-confident? Apparently, they had complete confidence that London and Paris would not abandon them and would help them in the event of war.
Poland at that time pursued an extremely unwise policy, falling out with almost all its neighbors: they did not want help from the USSR, although Paris and London tried to come to an agreement on this matter, there were territorial disputes with Hungary, they captured Vilna from Lithuania, even with the formation of years, Slovakia (after the occupation of the Czech Republic by Germany) had a fight - trying to seize part of its territory. Therefore, in addition to Germany, in September 1939, Slovakia also attacked Poland - they sent 2 divisions.
France and England gave her a guarantee that they would help her, but the Poles had to hold out for a week or two for France to complete mobilization and concentrate forces for the strike. This is official, in reality, in Paris and London they were not going to fight with Germany, thinking that Germany would not stop and would go further to the USSR, and the two enemies would fight.
Plans, strengths of the parties
Poland began covert mobilization on March 23, 1939, managed to mobilize for war: 39 divisions, 16 separate brigades, a total of 1 million people, approximately 870 tanks (most of the wedges), a number of armored vehicles, 4,300 guns and mortars, up to 400 aircraft. In addition, the Poles were confident that from the very beginning of the war they would be supported with the full might of the Allied aviation and the British fleet.
They planned to conduct a defense for two weeks, to contain the Wehrmacht along the entire length of the border - almost 1900 km, against East Prussia, in favorable conditions, even expected to lead an offensive. Plan offensive operation against East Prussia was called “West”, it was to be carried out by the operational groups “Narev”, “Wyszkow” and the army “Modlin”. In the “Polish corridor” that separated East Prussia and Germany, the Pomože army was concentrated; in addition to defense, it was supposed to capture Danzig. The Berlin direction was defended by the Poznan army, the border with Silesia and Slovakia was covered by the Lodz army, the Krakow army and the Karpaty army. In the rear southwest of Warsaw, the Prussian auxiliary army was deployed. The Poles stretched their formations along the entire border, did not create a powerful anti-tank defense in the main directions, and did not create powerful operational reserves for flank attacks on the enemy who had broken through.
The plan was designed for several “ifs”: if the Polish army held out for two weeks in the main positions; if the Germans concentrated a small part of their forces and assets (especially aviation and tanks), the Polish command expected that Berlin would leave a significant group in the west; if in two weeks the Anglo-French forces launch a major offensive. Another weak point of the Polish army was the leadership; almost from the very beginning of the war, they thought only about their own skin. It is surprising that with such a command the Polish army held out for almost a month.
Germany, against Poland, the Third Reich deployed 62 divisions (of which 40 were first strike personnel divisions, of which 6 tank and 4 mechanized), a total of 1.6 million people, approximately 6,000 guns, 2,000 aircraft and 2,800 tanks (of which more than 80% were light , wedges with machine guns). The German generals themselves assessed the combat effectiveness of the infantry as unsatisfactory, and they also understood that if Hitler was mistaken and the Anglo-French army struck in the west, then disaster was inevitable. Germany is not ready to fight with France (its army at that time was considered the strongest in the world) and England, they had superiority at sea, in the air and on land, the defensive structures were not prepared (“Siegfried Line”), the western front was exposed.
The Polish army was planned (White Plan) to be destroyed with a powerful blow of the maximum number of troops and assets within two weeks (the idea of “blitzkrieg”), due to the exposure of the western border. They wanted to defeat the Poles before the West could go on the offensive, creating a strategic turning point in the war. At this time, the western border was covered by 36 understaffed, almost untrained divisions, lacking armored vehicles and aircraft. Almost all tanks and armored vehicles were concentrated in five corps: 14th, 15th, 16th, 19th and mountain. They had to find weak points in the enemy’s defenses, overcome the enemy’s defenses, enter the operational space, going to the enemy’s rear, while the infantry divisions pinned down the enemy along the front.
Army Group North (4th and 3rd Armies) attacked from Pomerania and East Prussia to general direction to Warsaw, so that, connecting with units of Army Group South east of Warsaw, close the encirclement over the remaining Polish troops north of the Vistula. Army Group South (8th, 10th, 14th Armies) attacked from the territory of Silesia and Moravia in the general direction of Warsaw, where it was supposed to connect with units of Army Group North. The 8th Army was heading towards Lodz, the 14th Army was supposed to take Krakow and advance on Sandomierz. There were more in the center weak forces, they were supposed to pin down the Polish army “Poznan” in battles and imitate the direction of the main attack.
Occasion
In order to maintain the appearance of supposedly retaliatory actions, the German security services organized a provocation - the so-called “Gleiwitz Incident”. On August 31, SS soldiers and criminals specially selected from prisons in Polish uniforms attacked a radio station in Gleiwitz, Germany. After the seizure of the radio station, one of them read a specially prepared text on the radio in Polish, provoking Germany to war. Then the criminals were shot by the SS (one of the names of the operation is “Canned Food”), abandoned on the spot, and they were discovered by the German police. At night, German media announced that Poland had attacked Germany.
War
During the first day, the Luftwaffe destroyed most of the Polish aviation, and also disrupted communications, control, and the transfer of troops by rail. The German attack groups quite easily broke through the front and moved on, which is not surprising given the dispersed nature of the Polish units. Thus, the 19th Mechanized Corps (one tank, two mechanized, two infantry divisions), fighting from Pomerania, penetrated the defenses of the 9th Division and the Pomeranian Cavalry Brigade, covering 90 km by the evening of September 1st. In the Bay of Danzig, the German Navy destroyed a small Polish squadron (one destroyer, one destroyer and five submarines), even before the start of the war, three destroyers went to England, and two submarines were able to break out of the Baltic (they later fought as part of the British Navy).
Already on September 1, the president left Warsaw, on the 5th the government followed him, and so their movement to Romania began. Last order The “heroic” commander-in-chief of the Polish army, Edward Rydz-Smigly, issued a message on the 10th, did not contact him after that, and then showed up in Romania. In his last orders, he ordered Warsaw and Modlin to keep their defenses surrounded, the remnants of the army to hold their defenses along the border with Romania and wait for help from England and France. Rydz-Smigly arrived in Brest on September 7, where Headquarters was supposed to be prepared in case of war with the USSR, but it was not prepared; on the 10th he arrived in Vladimir-Volynsky, on the 13th in Mlynov, and on September 15 - closer to the Romanian border, to Kolomyia, where there was already a government and a president.
On the 2nd, the “Pomoże” army, defending the “Polish corridor”, was cut by counter attacks from East Prussia and Pomerania, its most coastal part was surrounded. In the southern direction, the Wehrmacht found the junction of the Lodz and Krakow armies, the 1st Panzer Division rushed into the breakthrough, going to the rear of the Polish units. The Polish command decides to withdraw the Krakow army to the main line of defense, and the Lodz army to the east and southeast beyond the line of the Nida and Dunajec rivers (approximately 100-170 km). But the border battle had already been lost; from the very beginning it was necessary not to defend the entire border, but to concentrate troops in the main directions and create operational reserves for counterattacks. The defense plan of the Polish command was thwarted; in the north, units of the Wehrmacht, advancing from East Prussia, broke the resistance of the Modlin army by the 3rd day, its remnants retreated beyond the Vistula. There was no other plan; all that was left was to rely on allies.
On the 4th, the Poles in the center retreated to the Warta River, but were unable to hold out there; almost immediately they were knocked down by flank attacks; already on the 5th, the remnants of the units retreated to Lodz. The main reserve of the Polish armed forces - the Prussian army - was disorganized and simply “dissolved”, by September 5 the war was lost, the Polish army was still fighting, retreating, trying to gain a foothold on some lines, but... The Polish units were cut up, lost control, did not know what to do, and were surrounded.
On September 8, the battle for Warsaw began, its defenders fought until September 28. The first attempts to take the city on the move, on September 8-10, were repulsed by the Poles. The Wehrmacht command decided to abandon the plan to take the city on the move and continued to close the blockade ring - on the 14th the ring was closed. On the 15th-16th the Germans offered to capitulate, on the 17th the Polish military asked for permission to evacuate civilians, Hitler refused. On the 22nd, a general assault began; on the 28th, having exhausted the possibilities of defense, the remnants of the garrison capitulated.
Another group of Polish forces was surrounded west of Warsaw - around Kutno and Lodz, they held out until September 17, surrendering after several attempts to break through and when food and ammunition ran out. On October 1, the Baltic naval base of Hel surrendered, the last center of defense was eliminated in Kock (north of Lublin), where 17 thousand Poles capitulated on October 6.
The myth of the Polish cavalry
At the instigation of Guderian, a myth was created about attacks by Polish cavalry on Wehrmacht tanks. In reality, horses were used as transport (as in the Red Army, in the Wehrmacht), reconnaissance was carried out on horseback, and the soldiers of the cavalry units entered into battle on foot. In addition, the cavalrymen, due to their mobility, excellent training (they were the elite of the army), good weapons (they were reinforced with artillery, machine guns, armored vehicles) turned out to be one of the most combat-ready units of the Polish Army.
In this war, only six cases of an attack on horseback are known, in two cases there were armored vehicles on the battlefield. On September 1, near Kroyanty, units of the 18th Pomeranian Uhlan Regiment met a Wehrmacht battalion that was at a halt and, taking advantage of the surprise factor, attacked. Initially, the attack was successful, the Germans were caught by surprise, they were cut down, but then German armored vehicles intervened in the battle, which the Polish scouts did not notice, and as a result the battle was lost. But the Polish cavalrymen, having suffered losses, retreated into the forest and were not destroyed.
On September 19, near Wulka Weglowa, the commander of the 14th regiment of the Yazlowiec lancers, Colonel E. Godlewski (he was joined by a unit of the 9th regiment of the Lesser Poland lancers) decided to break through the German infantry on horseback, relying on the factor of surprise, to Warsaw. But these turned out to be positions of motorized infantry of a tank division, and besides, artillery and tanks were not far away. Polish cavalrymen broke through the Wehrmacht positions, losing approximately 20% of the regiment (at that time - 105 people killed and 100 wounded). The battle lasted only 18 minutes, the Germans lost 52 people killed and 70 wounded.
Results of the war
Poland as a state ceased to exist, most of its territories were divided between Germany and the USSR, and Slovakia received some lands.
On the remnants of lands not annexed to Germany, a General Government was created under the control of German authorities, with its capital in Krakow.
The Vilnius region was transferred to Lithuania.
The Wehrmacht lost 13-20 thousand people killed and missing, about 30 thousand wounded. Polish army - 66 thousand killed, 120-200 thousand wounded, about 700 thousand prisoners.
Sources:
Halder F. War diary. Daily notes of the Chief of the General Staff Ground Forces 1939-1942 (in 3 volumes). M., 1968-1971.
Guderian G. Memoirs of a Soldier. Smolensk, 1999.
Kurt von Tippelskirch. Second World War, St. Petersburg, 1998.
Meltyukhov M.I. Soviet-Polish wars. Military-political confrontation 1918-1939. M., 2001.
http://victory.rusarchives.ru/index.php?p=32&sec_id=60
http://poland1939.ru/
For the Polish operation, a fairly large group of Soviet troops was created.
By the evening of September 16, the troops of the Belorussian and Ukrainian fronts were deployed in the initial areas for the offensive. The Soviet group united 8 rifle, 5 cavalry and 2 tank corps, 21 rifle and 13 cavalry divisions, 16 tank, 2 motorized brigades and the Dnieper Military Flotilla (DVF). Air Forces of the fronts, taking into account the 1st, 2nd and 3rd aviation armies relocated to their territory on September 9-10 special purpose numbered 3,298 aircraft. In addition, about 16.5 thousand border guards of the Belarusian and Kyiv border districts A.V. Meltyukhov served on the border. Soviet-Polish wars. M., 2005. P. 328..
On the eastern border of Poland, apart from 25 battalions and 7 squadrons of border guards (about 12 thousand people, or 8 soldiers per 1 km of border), there were practically no other troops, which was well known to Soviet intelligence. Thus, according to intelligence data from the 4th Army, “the border strip to the river. Shchara is not busy with field wars, and the KOP battalions are weak in their combat training and combat capability... There was no serious resistance from the Polish army to the river. It’s unlikely to expect schar from the Poles.” Ibid.. At 5.00 on September 17, the advanced and assault detachments of the Soviet armies and border troops crossed the border and defeated the Polish border guards. Crossing the border confirmed Soviet intelligence data about the absence of significant groups of Polish troops, which made it possible to speed up the offensive.
For the Polish leadership, the USSR's intervention was completely unexpected. Polish intelligence did not record any threatening movements of the Red Army, and the information received on September 1-5 was perceived as an understandable reaction to the outbreak of war in Europe. And although on September 12 information was received from Paris about a possible USSR attack against Poland, they were not taken seriously.
The behavior of the Soviet troops also seemed strange; as a rule, they did not shoot first; they treated the Polish troops with demonstrative goodwill, treated them to cigarettes and said that they had come to help against the Germans. They were waiting on the ground for instructions from the commander-in-chief. At first, the commander-in-chief of the Polish army, Rydz-Smigly, was inclined to give the order to repel the Soviet invasion. However, a more careful study of the situation showed that there were no forces in Eastern Poland except for the COP battalions and a certain number of rear and reserve units of the army. These weakly armed troops had no chance in a battle with the Red Army. As a result, on September 17, the Polish leadership was faced with a fait accompli and, based on the statements of the Soviet government and its notes, believed that the Red Army was being introduced in order to limit the zone of German occupation. Therefore, at about 11:40 p.m. on September 17, Rydz-Smigly's order was broadcast over the radio: “The Soviets have invaded. I order the withdrawal to Romania and Hungary by the shortest routes. Do not conduct hostilities with the Soviets, only in the event of an attempt on their part to disarm our units. The task for Warsaw and Modlin, which must defend themselves from the Germans, remains unchanged. The units approached by the Soviets must negotiate with them with a view to leaving garrisons in Romania or Hungary.” Only units of the COP retreating from Zbruch to the Dniester, and units covering the “Romanian bridgehead” Meltyukhov A.V. were ordered to continue resistance. Soviet-Polish wars. M., 2005. p. 334..
Of course, the Polish command had a plan for deploying troops on the eastern border “Wschud”, which was developed from 1935-1936 Ibid.. It was planned to deploy all available forces of the Polish Army on the eastern border. Of course, in the real situation of the second half of September 1939, when Poland spent all its available defense potential on attempts to continue resistance fascist Germany, superior to the Poles in manpower and equipment and having practically won the war, this entire plan remained on paper.
On the right flank of the Belarusian Front of the Red Army from the Latvian border to Begoml, the 3rd Army was deployed, which had the task of reaching the Sharkovshchina Dunilovichi Lake line by the end of the first day of the offensive. Whore Yablontsy, and the next day to the front of Sventsyany, Mihalishki and further advance to Vilna. The main blow was delivered by the right wing of the army, where the troops of the 4th Rifle Corps and a mobile group consisting of the 24th Cavalry Division and the 22nd Tank Brigade were concentrated under the command of the division commander of the 24th brigade commander P. Akhlyustin Meltyukhov A.V. Soviet-Polish wars. M., 2005. P. 335..
To the south of the 3rd Army, on the front from Begoml to Ivanets, the troops of the 11th Army were deployed, with the task of occupying Molodechno, Volozhin by the end of September 17, the next day Oshmyany, Ivye and moving further to Grodno. Having crossed the border at 5 o'clock on September 17, the 6th Tank Brigade occupied Volozhin at 12 o'clock, formations of the 16th Rifle Corps at the same time entered Krasnoe, and by 19 o'clock they reached Molodechno and Benzovets. Units of the 3rd Cavalry Corps had already reached the area of Rachinety, Poryche, Marshalka by 15 o'clock, and on the morning of September 18 they moved further towards Lida, reaching the front of Rynovich, Postoyanny, Voishtovich by 10 o'clock. At this time, the 3rd Cavalry Corps and the 6th Tank Brigade were given the task of attacking Vilna, which they were ordered to occupy.
At this time, only minor Polish units were in Vilna: about 16 infantry battalions (approximately 7 thousand soldiers and 14 thousand militia) with 14 light guns. However, the Polish command in Vilna did not have a general attitude towards the Bolshevik invasion. At 9 o’clock on September 18, the commander of the garrison, Colonel J. Okulich-Kozarin, gave the order: “We are not in a state of war with the Bolsheviks, units, by additional order, will leave Vilno and cross the Lithuanian border; non-combat units can begin to leave the city, combat units remain in positions, but cannot shoot without an order.” Meltyukhov A.V. Soviet-Polish wars. M., 2005. P. 335.. However, since some of the officers perceived this order as treason, and rumors spread in the city about a coup in Germany and a declaration of war by Romania and Hungary, Colonel Okulich-Kozarin at about 16.30 decided to refrain from issuing an order to retreat until 20 o'clock.
At about 19.10, the commander of the 2nd battalion deployed on the southern and southwestern outskirts of the city, Lieutenant Colonel S. Shileiko, reported the appearance of Soviet tanks and asked if he could open fire. Ibid.. While Okulich-Kozarin gave the order to open fire, while This order was transmitted to the troops, 8 tanks had already passed the first line of defense and reserve units were sent to fight them. At about 20 o'clock Okulich-Kozarin gave the order for the withdrawal of troops from the city and sent Lieutenant Colonel T. Podvysotsky to the location of the Soviet troops in order to notify them that the Polish side did not want to fight with them and demand their departure from the city. After this, Okulich-Kozarin himself left Vilno, and Podvysotsky, who returned around 21:00, decided to defend the city and at around 21:45 issued an order to suspend the withdrawal of troops. At this time, uncoordinated battles were taking place in the city, in which Vilna Polish youth played a large role. Teacher G. Osinski organized volunteer teams from gymnasium students who took positions on hills. The eldest shot, the rest delivered ammunition, organized communications, etc.
Approaching Vilna at about 19.30 on September 18, the 8th and 7th tank regiments began a battle for the southern part of the city. The 8th Tank Regiment broke into the southern part of the city at 20.30. The 7th Tank Regiment, encountering stubborn defenses, was only able to enter the southwestern part of the city at dawn. Due to stubborn defense, the city was captured only the next day.
While all these turbulent events were taking place in the Vilna region, the troops of the 16th Rifle Corps of the 11th Army were turned to the northwest and moved towards Lida.
While the troops of the 3rd and 11th armies occupied the northeastern part of Western Belarus, to the south on the front from Fanipol to Nesvizh, KMG units went on the offensive, with the task of reaching Lyubcha and Kirin on the first day of the offensive, and the next day crossing the river. Keep quiet and move towards Volkovysk. The 15th Tank Corps, advancing on the southern flank of the group, crossed the border at 5.00 and, having broken the minor resistance of the Polish border guards, moved west. By the evening of September 17, the 27th Tank Brigade crossed the river. Servech, 2nd tank brigade r. Usha, and the 20th motorized brigade was pulling up to the border. At about 16:00 on September 18, the 2nd Tank Brigade entered Slonim Meltyukhov A.V. Soviet-Polish wars. M., 2005. P. 340..
In Grodno there were insignificant forces of Polish troops: 2 improvised battalions and an assault company of the reserve center of the 29th Infantry Division, the 31st guard battalion, 5 platoons of positional artillery (5 guns), 2 anti-aircraft machine gun companies, a two-battalion detachment of Colonel Z. Blumsky, the national defense battalion "Postawy", the dismounted 32nd division of the Podlaska Cavalry Brigade, there were a lot of gendarmerie and police in the city. The commander of the Grodno district, Colonel B. Adamovich, was determined to evacuate units to Lithuania. On September 18, there were riots in the city in connection with the release of prisoners from the city prison and the anti-Polish protest of local “red” activists. Soviet troops were expected from the east, but they approached the city from the south, which was advantageous for the defenders, since the right bank of the Neman was steep.
Only as fuel arrived did units of the 15th Tank Corps, from 7 a.m. on September 20, begin to move towards Grodno in peculiar waves. At 13:00, 50 tanks of the 27th Tank Brigade approached the southern outskirts of Grodno. The tankers attacked the enemy on the move and by evening occupied the southern part of the city, reaching the banks of the Neman. Several tanks managed to break through the bridge to the northern bank and into the city center. However, without infantry support, the tanks were attacked by soldiers, police and youth, who used a few guns and Molotov cocktails. As a result, some of the tanks were destroyed, and some were taken back beyond the Neman. The 27th Tank Brigade, with the support of the 119th Infantry Regiment of the 13th Infantry Division, which arrived at 18:00, occupied the southern part of the city. The group of junior lieutenant Shaikhuddinov, with the help of local workers in boats, crossed to the right bank of the Neman, 2 km east of the city. On the other side, battles began for cemeteries where machine gun nests were installed. During the night battle, the 119th regiment managed to gain a foothold on the right bank and reach the approaches to the eastern outskirts of the city.
By the morning of September 21, the 101st Infantry Regiment arrived, which also crossed to the right bank and deployed north of the 119th Regiment. From 6 o'clock on September 21, the regiments, reinforced by 4 guns and 2 tanks, attacked the city and by 12 o'clock, despite the counterattacks of the Poles, reached the line railway, and by 14 o’clock they reached the center of Grodno, but by the evening they were again withdrawn to the outskirts. In these battles, the regiments were supported by a motorized group of the 16th Rifle Corps, which, after spending the night on the highway a few kilometers from Skidel, moved towards Grodno at dawn on September 21. Approaching the city, the tanks suppressed firing points on its eastern outskirts, thereby providing support to the 119th and 101st rifle regiments. The attack on the city from the east was successful, but after crossing the railway line the main forces of the rifle units again retreated to the outskirts. As a result, the tanks were forced to fight alone. Soviet-Polish War of 1939 // www.hronos.ru..
In the second echelon, troops of the 10th Army advanced behind KM G, which crossed the border on September 19 with the task of reaching the front of Novogrudok, Gorodishche and moving further to the Palace. By the end of the first day of the offensive, the troops of the 10th Army reached the river line. Neman and Usha. Continuing their slow advance in the second echelon of the Belorussian Front, by the end of September 20 the army troops reached the Naliboki, Derevna, Mir line, where they received the task of advancing to the Sokolka front. Bolshaya Berestovitsa, Svisloch, Novy Dvor, Pruzhany. In the evening, by order of the commander of the Belorussian Front No. 04, the troops of the 5th Rifle, 6th Cavalry and 15th Tank Corps were subordinated to the army. However, during negotiations between the commanders of the 10th Army, the KMG and the Belorussian Front on September 21, it was decided to leave the 6th Cavalry and 15th Tank Corps as part of the KMR Soviet-Polish War of 1939 // www.hronos.ru..
On the front of the 4th Army, which had the task of attacking Baranovichi with access to the Snov, Zhilichi line by the end of the first day of the operation, the offensive began at 5 a.m. on September 17. At 10 p.m., the 29th Tank Brigade occupied Baranovichi and the fortified area located here, which was not occupied by Polish troops. The first tank battalion to enter the city was under the command of I.D. Chernyakhovsky. In the Baranovichi area, up to 5 thousand Polish soldiers were captured; 4 anti-tank guns and 2 trains of food became Soviet trophies.
Remaining on the outskirts of Pruzhany, the 29th Tank Brigade on September 20 was engaged in technical inspection of tanks and conducted reconnaissance towards Brest. Widoml established contact with German units. As brigade commander S. M. Krivoshey later recalled, “reconnaissance sent forward under the command of Vladimir Yulianovich Borovitsky, secretary of the brigade party commission, soon returned with a dozen soldiers and officers of the German motorized corps of General Guderian, who managed to occupy the city of Brest. Without precise instructions on how to deal with the Germans, I asked the chief of staff to contact the army commander [Chuikov], and I and the commissar engaged in a non-binding conversation with them. The conversation took place in Lenin’s tent, where on folding portable stands, along with indicators of combat training and the growth of the industrial power of our country, hung posters calling for the destruction of fascism. Many Germans had cameras. After looking around, they asked permission to photograph the tent and those present in it. One of them filmed the commissar and me in a group of German officers against the background of an anti-fascist poster...
Having fed the Germans rich Russian borscht and Karski-style shish kebab (the guests devoured all of this with enviable zeal), we sent them home, ordering them to convey “warm greetings” to General Guderian.” The brigade commander forgot to mention that during lunch the brigade orchestra played several marches.
Troops of the 23rd Rifle Corps were deployed in Polesie and were prohibited from crossing the border until further notice. The corps commander's appeal to the Military Council of the Belorussian Front with a request to go on the offensive along with the rest of the front troops was rejected. As a result, the corps crossed the border at 16.25 on September 18. At 11 a.m. on September 19, the advance detachment of the 52nd Infantry Division occupied Lakhwa. Moving further, Soviet troops in Kozhan-Gorodok were fired upon by a detachment of the 16th KOP battalion. Turning around, the units entered the battle and soon pushed the Poles into the forest north of Kozhan-Gorodok. During the battle, Soviet units lost 3 people killed and 4 wounded. 85 Polish soldiers were captured, 3 of them were wounded and 4 were killed. At about 5 p.m., the 205th Infantry Regiment with the 1st Division of the 158th Artillery Regiment occupied David-Gorodok after a small battle. At 19.30, units of the 52nd Infantry Division occupied Luninets Soviet-Polish War of 1939 // www.hronos.ru .. Meanwhile, the ships of the Soviet Dnieper flotilla reached the mouth of the Goryn River, where they were forced to stop due to shoals and sunken Polish ships .
The troops of the Ukrainian Front also crossed the Polish border on September 17 and began to advance deeper into Poland. On the northern flank, on the front from Olevsk to Yampol, the troops of the 5th Army deployed, which was tasked with “delivering a powerful and lightning strike on the Polish troops, decisively and quickly advancing in the direction of Rivne.” The 60th Infantry Division, which had the task of attacking Sarny, was concentrated in the Olevsk area. In the Gorodnitsa Korets area, troops of the 15th Rifle Corps deployed, with the immediate task of reaching the river. Goryn, and by the end of September 17, occupy Rivne. The 8th Rifle Corps, deployed in the Ostrog region of Slavuta, was supposed to occupy Dubno by the end of the day. On September 18, both corps were supposed to occupy Lutsk and move towards Vladimir-Volynsky.
By the end of September 22, the troops of the 5th Army reached the line Kovel Rozhitsa Vladimir-Volynsky Ivanichi. To the south, on the Teofipol Voytovtsy front, the troops of the 6th Army deployed, with the task of attacking Tarnopol, Ezerna and Kozova, then going to the Buek Peremyshlyany front and then to Lviv. Soviet-Polish War of 1939 // www.hronos.ru..
At 4.00 on September 17, an assault group of border guards and Red Army soldiers captured the Volochisk border bridge. At 4.30, troops of the 17th Rifle Corps launched an artillery strike on enemy firing points and strongholds and at 5.00 began crossing the river. Zbruch, using the captured bridge and established crossings. Having crossed the river practically without any enemy resistance, units of the 17th Rifle Corps at about 8.00 rolled up into marching columns and moved towards Tarnopol. Mobile formations quickly overtook the infantry and after 18.00 on September 17, the 10th Tank Brigade entered Tarnopol. Ibid.. The advancing north of the city The 24th Tank Brigade with the 136th Infantry Regiment of the 97th Infantry Division passed Dobrovody at 12 o'clock and, having bypassed Tarnopol from the north-west, at about 22 o'clock reached its western outskirts and began clearing it of Polish units. At 19:00, 11 tanks of the 5th Cavalry Division of the 2nd Cavalry Corps entered the city from the north, however, not knowing the situation, the tankers decided to wait until the morning to attack. Having entered Tarnopol, the 5th Division had to start clearing the city of scattered groups of Polish officers, gendarmes and simply the local population. During the skirmishes in the city between 10.20 and 14.00 on September 18, the division lost 3 people killed and 37 wounded. At the same time, at 10.30, rifle divisions of the 17th Rifle Corps entered the city. Up to 600 Polish soldiers were captured.
The formations of the 2nd Cavalry Corps advancing to the north crossed the river on the morning of September 18. Seret and at 10.00 received an order from the command of the Ukrainian Front to move to Lvov with a forced march and capture the city. Soviet-Polish War of 1939 // www.hronos.ru..
The combined motorized detachment of the 2nd Cavalry Corps and the 24th Tank Brigade with 35 bales approached Lvov at about 2.00 on September 19. After stubborn fighting, the city was taken.
On September 20, the troops of the 12th Army advanced to the Nikolaev Stryi line. In the Stryi area at about 17.00 contact was made with by German troops, who handed over the city to the Red Army on September 22. On September 23, the 26th Tank Brigade arrived there. As a result of negotiations, Soviet troops were stopped at the reached line.
At 10.30 on September 21, the headquarters of the Belorussian and Ukrainian fronts received the order of the People's Commissar of Defense No. 16693, demanding that the troops be stopped on the line reached by the advanced units by 20.00 on September 20 Meltyukhov A.V. Soviet-Polish wars. M., 2005. P. 367.. The troops were tasked with bringing up lagging units and rear areas, establishing stable communications, being in a state of full combat readiness, being vigilant and taking measures to protect rear areas and headquarters. In addition, the command of the Belorussian Front was allowed to continue the offensive in the Suwalki ledge. At 22.15 on September 21, the headquarters of the Belarusian and Ukrainian fronts received the People's Commissar of Defense Order No. 156, which outlined the contents of the Soviet-German protocol and allowed the movement to begin westward at dawn on September 23. The next day, the Military Council of the Belarusian Front issued the corresponding order No. 05. On September 25, the troops received the directive of the People's Commissar of Defense No. 011 and the order of the Military Council of the Belorussian Front No. 06, warning that “when the army moves from the August line reached Bialystok Brest-Litovsk to the west in the territory left by the German army, it is possible that the Poles will collect scattered units into detachments and gangs that, together with the Polish troops operating near Warsaw, can provide us with stubborn resistance and in some places launch counterattacks” Radzinovich V. Search for Anti-Katyn (interview with Boris Nosov). // New Poland. 2000. No. 11..
On September 21, the 2nd Tank Brigade in Sokolka formed a detachment for operations in the Augustow Suwalki area under the command of Major F.P. Chuvakin, which consisted of 470 people, 252 rifles, 74 machine guns, 46 guns, 34 BT 7 tanks, 6 armored vehicles and 34 cars. Moving north, the detachment at about 5 o'clock on September 22 at Sopotskin caught up with the Poles leaving Grodno, who hoped to gain a foothold in. old forts of the Grodno fortress, where there were military warehouses. In the ensuing battle, which lasted until 10 o’clock, 11 Red Army soldiers were killed and 14 wounded, 4 tanks and 5 vehicles were destroyed. The enemy widely used Molotov cocktails, which created significant problems in conditions of tank operations without infantry cover.
Meanwhile, a detachment of the 27th Tank Brigade of 20 BT-7 tanks and 1 armored vehicle under the command of Major Bogdanov combed the border line with Lithuania and arrived in Suwalki at 24 hours on September 24. Soviet-Polish War of 1939 // www.hronos.ru. .
The troops of the 3rd Army continued to guard the Latvian and Lithuanian borders from Drissa to Druskininkai. The 11th Army began redeploying along the Lithuanian border to Grodno. Units of the 16th Rifle Corps continued to advance towards Grodno and occupied Eishishki on September 21. By September 24, corps troops deployed on the Lithuanian and German borders north and northwest of Grodno.
By September 26-28, the troops of the 3rd and 11th armies were entrenched on the border with Lithuania and East Prussia from Druskininkai to Shchuchin. Meanwhile, on September 21, at negotiations in Volkovysk, representatives of the German command and the 6th Cavalry Corps agreed on a procedure for the withdrawal of the Wehrmacht from Bialystok. Soviet-Polish War of 1939 // www.hronos.ru..
To the north, the 20th motorized brigade operated, transferred to the 10th Army, which on September 25 at 15:00 took Osovets from the Germans, on September 26, moving along the bank of the river. Biebrza entered Sokoly, and by the evening of September 29 it reached Zambrów. On September 27, the forward detachments of the 5th Rifle Corps occupied Nur and Chizhev, and in the Gainuyki area, units of the corps again came across a Polish warehouse, where Soviet trophies included about 14 thousand shells, 5 million rounds of ammunition, 1 wedge, 2 armored vehicles, 2 vehicles and 2 barrels of fuel.
On the southern sector of the front, the troops of the 4th Army moved west. At 15:00 on September 22, the 29th Tank Brigade entered Brest, occupied by troops of the 19th Motorized Corps of the Wehrmacht. As Krivoshei later recalled, during negotiations with General G. Guderian, he proposed the following parade procedure: “At 16 o’clock, parts of your corps in a marching column, with standards in front, leave the city, my units, also in a marching column, enter the city, stop at streets where German regiments pass, and salute the passing units with their banners. Orchestras perform military marches” Melkov D. The Third Reich: the practice of political terrorism // MEMO. 2001. No. 1. In the end, Guderian, who insisted on holding a full-fledged parade with preliminary formation, agreed to the proposed option, “with the stipulation, however, that he would stand on the podium with me and greet the passing units” Melkov D. The Third Reich: Practice political terrorism // MEMO. 2001. No. 1.
By September 29, the troops of the Belorussian Front advanced to the line of Szczuczyn Staviski Lomza Zambrów Ciechanowiec Kosów-Lacki Sokołów Podlaski Siedlce Łuków Wohyn. On October 1, the commander of the 4th Army, Divisional Commander Chuikov, issued an order, which demanded that “for the forward detachments, there should be one commander of the headquarters and the political department to conduct negotiations with German troops.”
By the end of September 29, the troops of the Ukrainian Front were on the line Pugachuv Piaski Piotrkuv Krzemen Bilgoraj Przemysl upper reaches of the river. San Meltyukhov A.V. Soviet-Polish wars. M., 2005. P. 381..
Here we should dwell on another side of the Polish campaign of the Red Army, associated with various military crimes of Soviet soldiers. Lynchings, looting and robberies as manifestations class struggle not only were they not persecuted, but they were encouraged. Let us give some very clear examples.
On September 21, having disarmed the Polish troops, units of the 14th Cavalry Division sent the soldiers home, and left the officers and gendarmes on duty in Sasuwa until further notice. At 7 p.m., the prisoners entered the school basement, killed the worker guarding the weapons, and opened fire from the windows. Battalion Commissar Ponomarev and the Red Army soldiers suppressed the uprising of officers and, arriving at the headquarters of the 14th Cavalry Division, spoke about what had happened. At the same time, he expressed the idea that all officers and gendarmes are bastards who need to be destroyed. Impressed by what they heard, on September 22, in the village of Boshevitsy, 4 Red Army soldiers, under various pretexts, took 4 captured officers from the custody of the people's militia and shot them.
On September 22, during the battle for Grodno, at about 10 o’clock, the commander of the communications platoon, junior lieutenant Dubovik, received an order to escort 80-90 prisoners to the rear. Having moved 1.5-2 km from the city, Dubovik interrogated the prisoners in order to identify the officers and persons who took part in the murder of the Bolsheviks. Promising to release the prisoners, he sought confessions and shot 29 people. The remaining prisoners were returned to Grodno. The command of the 101st Infantry Regiment of the 4th Infantry Division was aware of this, but no measures were taken against Dubovik. Moreover, the commander of the 3rd battalion, Senior Lieutenant Tolochko, gave a direct order to shoot the officers.
On September 21, the Military Council of the 6th Army, represented by the commander of the corps commander Golikov and a member of the Military Council, brigade commissar Zakharychev, while in parts of the 2nd cavalry corps, issued an obviously criminal resolution on the execution and procedure of lynching 10 people (the names are not indicated in the resolution). On this basis, the head of the special department of the 2nd cavalry corps, Koberniuk, went to the city of Zlochow and made arrests of various employees of the Polish prison, police, etc., such as V.V. Klimecki, ex-officio chief. prison, Kuchmirovsky K.B., room. beginning prison, Lukashevsky M.S., vice city prosecutor. Plakhta I. shot the official of the headman and others in the amount of 10 people and all these persons, in accordance with the limit established by the Military Council of the 6th Army, in the prison building. Ordinary prison employees were present at this lynching. This criminal decision of the Military Council on lynchings was quickly transmitted to the leadership circles of commanders and commissars of formations and units of the 2nd Cavalry Corps, and this led to dire consequences when a number of commanders, military commissars and even Red Army soldiers, following the example of their leaders, began to carry out lynchings of prisoners, suspicious detainees and etc.
The question worthy of attention is what tasks were assigned to the troops during the action in Poland. For example, the commander of the Ukrainian Front, Army Commander 1st Rank Semyon Timoshenko, noted in his order that “the Polish government of landowners and generals dragged the peoples of Poland into an adventuristic war.” About the same thing was said in the order of the commander of the troops of the Belorussian Front, Army Commander 2nd Rank Kovalev. They contained an appeal to the population to turn “their weapons against the landowners and capitalists,” but nothing was said about the fate of the western regions of Ukraine and Belarus. Ibid.. This was apparently explained by the fact that after the Riga Peace Treaty of 1921, the Soviet government never raised the question of the reunification of the western regions of Ukraine and Belarus. But subsequent documents noted the task of the troops as saving the Ukrainian and Belarusian peoples from the threat of “ruin and beating” from enemies; it was emphasized that Soviet troops were going to Poland not as conquerors, but as liberators of the Belarusians, Ukrainians and working people of Poland.
The actions of the Red Army on Polish territory lasted 12 days. During this time, the troops advanced 250-300 km and occupied the territory with total area over 190 thousand sq. km with a population of more than 12 million people, including more than 6 million Ukrainians and about 3 million Belarusians.
In the countries of the so-called socialist camp, political crises occurred from time to time. The transfer of the Soviet economic and political system to soil saturated with the traditions of private property and democracy gave rise to chronic dissatisfaction among the population, primarily with the Soviet Union, since it was clear that it was the source of troubles, and all local communists were only its satellites. Every time domestic political unrest began, local communists found themselves completely deprived of support for preserving the pro-Soviet system and tried to find a common language with the opposition. At these critical moments, the Soviet Union intervened and, in order to maintain control over a particular country, resolved the issue radically - with the help military force, after which he brought another puppet to power, since the previous one failed to cope with its task.
This happened in 1953 in the GDR, in 1956 in Hungary (where for a whole month there was a real war between the regular armies of the USSR and Hungary, as a result of which thousands died), in 1968 in Czechoslovakia (the national army abandoned armed resistance to the invasion, but without there were still numerous casualties). These are the most famous operations to “preserve the unity of the socialist camp.”
In Poland, too, acute internal political conflicts have repeatedly arisen, as in 1956 and 1970. They were accompanied by strikes and mass demonstrations, which were suppressed by the authorities. Both times, the undivided ruling Polish United Workers' Party (PUWP) managed to independently resolve the situation, preventing USSR intervention. She simply changed leaders, and the new leader made new promises to the population. Thus, in 1956, two leaders of the PUWP were removed from office in a row (in March B. Bierut and in October E. Ochab). In 1970, V. Gomułka was forced to resign.
In the 1970s, Poland entered a period of economic recovery. But, as you know, it doesn’t happen that everyone wins; someone always feels left out compared to others. The majority of workers grew dissatisfied with their situation, and strikes became more frequent. In addition, the generation that emerged as a result of the post-war baby boom was entering adulthood. The post-war compensatory demographic explosion in Poland was so strong that the authorities even had to introduce restrictions: the marriage age for young men was raised to 21 years.
In 1976, a wave of strikes began, which did not subside until martial law was introduced. The center of the strike movement was Gdansk, which had already manifested itself in the events of 1970 (when dozens of people were shot by the authorities). Here a young, charismatic labor leader, Lech Walesa, emerged, who soon created the Solidarity trade union, a consolidated anti-communist opposition that united millions of people regardless of their views - social democratic, liberal or Catholic. It turned out to be a paradoxical thing: it was the workers themselves who spoke out against the state, which claimed to protect the interests of the workers, in a powerful front.
The most powerful protests in August-September 1980 forced the resignation of the head of the PUWP, Edward Gierek. But the new head of the party, Stanislav Kana, was unable to stabilize the situation. The PUWP had to make concessions to Solidarity, including political ones. The regime began to erode. In Moscow, this could be regarded as the events in Hungary in 1956 or in Czechoslovakia in 1968. There was a smell of gunpowder from the Soviet invasion. It should be noted that Soviet troops stayed in Poland only for a few years after the end of the war, and then were withdrawn from there. Only communications were located here that connected the Soviet Union with the Group of Soviet Forces in the GDR, and their provision within the framework of the collective security of the Warsaw Pact Organization (WTO) was entrusted to the Polish Army.
But for the Soviet Union, the desire to restore “political order” in Poland by force was complicated by two circumstances. Firstly, the USSR got involved in a protracted war in Afghanistan. And what kind of resistance, given the traditional bilateral relations, the Poles will Soviet army, it was still unclear. This is still not Czechoslovakia, as the Second World War proved. Secondly, the Soviet leadership itself, led by L.I. Brezhnev, which had remained virtually unchanged since the time when the decision was made to bring tanks into Golden Prague, was already much more decrepit.
But the most important circumstance turned out to be the presence in the PUWP of energetic military leaders who were ready to take any measures to pacify Solidarity, and thereby not give a reason for Soviet intervention. In October 1981, the plenum of the Central Committee of the PUWP removed Kani and elected General Wojciech Jaruzelski, a supporter of tough measures, as the first secretary of the Central Committee. On December 3, the party-obedient Sejm banned strikes. In response, Solidarity declared an indefinite strike. At this moment, Jaruzelski did everything to convince Moscow that Warsaw itself was able to cope with the crisis. Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee M.A. Suslov called Warsaw and promised Jaruzelski that the Soviet Union would not send troops to Poland if martial law was declared in Poland.
On the night of December 12–13, 1981, a military coup took place in Poland, eliminating even formal rule under the communist “constitution.” All power passed to the created Military Council of National Salvation. Martial law was declared in the country. At the time of its introduction, all means of communication that could be used by private individuals were turned off: telephone, telegraph, mail. As with the coup of General Augusto Pinochet in Chile (Jaruzelski in military uniform and constant dark glasses was also compared to Pinochet), all known oppositionists were interned. The number of internees reached 10 thousand people. Dozens of civilians were killed in clashes with troops in the first days after the introduction of martial law. The task of suppressing civil protest was carried out by the Polish Army, which remained faithful to its command. Soviet troops, already preparing to cross the borders of Poland from the USSR, East Germany and Czechoslovakia, remained in their previous positions.
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