Editing History of Poland (section)

===Securing national borders, war with Soviet Russia===

[[File:Powstanie wielkopolskie 1919.jpg|thumb|right|The [[Greater Poland uprising (1918–1919)|Greater Poland Uprising]], a war with Germany, erupted in December 1918]]

After more than a century of foreign rule, Poland regained its independence at the end of [[World War I]] as one of the outcomes of the negotiations that took place at the [[Paris Peace Conference, 1919|Paris Peace Conference of 1919]].<ref>{{Harvnb|MacMillan|2002|p=207}}.</ref> The [[Treaty of Versailles]] that emerged from the conference set up an independent Polish nation with an outlet to the sea, but left some of its boundaries to be decided by plebiscites. The largely German-inhabited [[Free City of Danzig]] was granted a separate status that guaranteed its use as a port by Poland. In the end, the settlement of the German-Polish border turned out to be a prolonged and convoluted process. The dispute helped engender the [[Greater Poland uprising (1918–1919)|Greater Poland Uprising of 1918–1919]], the three [[Silesian Uprisings|Silesian uprisings]] of 1919–1921, the [[1920 East Prussian plebiscite|East Prussian plebiscite]] of 1920, the [[Upper Silesia plebiscite]] of 1921 and the 1922 Silesian Convention in [[Geneva]].<ref name="playground 291–321">{{Harvnb|Davies|2005b|pp=291–321}}.</ref><ref>{{Harvnb|Lukowski|Zawadzki|2006|pp=224, 226–227}}.</ref><ref name="Heart 115-121">{{Harvnb|Davies|2001|pp=115–121}}.</ref>

Other boundaries were settled by war and subsequent treaties. A total of six border wars were fought in 1918–1921, including the [[Polish–Czechoslovak border conflicts]] over [[Cieszyn Silesia]] in January 1919.<ref name="playground 291–321"/>

[[File:Polish-soviet war 1920 Polish defences near Milosna, August.jpg|thumb|left|[[Polish–Soviet War]], [[Battle of Warsaw (1920)|defenses near Warsaw]], August 1920]]

As distressing as these border conflicts were, the [[Polish–Soviet War]] of 1919–1921 was the most important series of military actions of the era. Piłsudski had entertained far-reaching anti-Russian cooperative designs in Eastern Europe, and in 1919 the Polish forces pushed eastward into Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine by taking advantage of the Russian preoccupation with a [[Russian Civil War|civil war]], but they were soon confronted with the [[Soviet westward offensive of 1918–19]]19. Western Ukraine was already a theater of the [[Polish–Ukrainian War]], which eliminated the proclaimed [[West Ukrainian People's Republic]] in July 1919. In the autumn of 1919, Piłsudski rejected urgent pleas from the former [[Allies of World War I|Entente]] powers to support [[Anton Denikin]]'s [[White movement]] in its advance on Moscow.<ref name="playground 291–321"/> The Polish–Soviet War proper began with the Polish [[Kiev offensive (1920)|Kiev offensive]] in April 1920.<ref>{{Harvnb|Duraczyński|2012|p=112}}</ref> Allied with the [[Directorate of Ukraine]] of the [[Ukrainian People's Republic]], the Polish armies had advanced past [[Vilnius]], [[Minsk]] and Kiev by June.<ref>{{Harvnb|Lukowski|Zawadzki|2006|pp=224–229}}</ref> At that time, a massive Soviet counter-offensive pushed the Poles out of most of Ukraine. On the northern front, the Soviet army reached the outskirts of Warsaw in early August. A Soviet triumph and the quick end of Poland seemed inevitable. However, the Poles scored a stunning victory at the [[Battle of Warsaw (1920)]]. Afterwards, more [[Battle of the Niemen River|Polish military successes]] followed, and the Soviets had to pull back. They left swathes of territory populated largely by Belarusians or Ukrainians to Polish rule.  The new eastern boundary was finalized by the [[Peace of Riga]] in March 1921.<ref name="playground 291–321"/><ref name="Heart 115-121"/><ref>{{Harvnb|Biskupski|1987}}.</ref>

[[File:Daszynski and Witos.jpg|thumb|right|[[Wincenty Witos]] (right) and Ignacy Daszyński headed a wartime cabinet in 1920. Witos was an [[Polish People's Party "Piast" (1913–31)|agrarian party]] leader and a centrist politician, later [[Brest trials|persecuted]] under the [[Sanation|Sanation government]].]]

The defeat of the Russian armies forced [[Vladimir Lenin]] and the Soviet leadership to postpone their strategic objective of linking up with the German and other European revolutionary leftist collaborators to spread [[communist revolution]]. Lenin also hoped for generating support for the [[Red Army]] in Poland, which failed to materialize.<ref name="playground 291–321"/>

Piłsudski's seizure of Vilnius in October 1920 (known as [[Żeligowski's Mutiny]]) was a nail in the coffin of the already poor [[Lithuania–Poland relations]] that had been strained by the [[Polish–Lithuanian War]] of 1919–1920; both states would remain hostile to one another for the remainder of the [[interwar period]].<ref>{{Harvnb|Lukowski|Zawadzki|2006|p=231}}.</ref> Piłsudski's concept of [[Intermarium]] (an East European federation of states inspired by the tradition of the multiethnic [[Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth]] that would include a hypothetical multinational successor state to the [[Grand Duchy of Lithuania]])<ref name="Snyder 60-65">{{Harvnb|Snyder|2003|pp=60–65}}.</ref> had the fatal flaw of being incompatible with his assumption of Polish domination, which would amount to an encroachment on the neighboring peoples' lands and aspirations. At the time of rising national movements, the plan thus ceased being a feature of Poland's politics.<ref name="Prazmowska 164-172">{{Harvnb|Prażmowska|2011|pp=164–172}}.</ref><ref>{{Harvnb|Lukowski|Zawadzki|2006|pp=225, 230, 231}}.</ref><ref name="Snyder 57-60, 62">{{Harvnb|Snyder|2003|pp=57–60, 62}}.</ref>{{Ref label|a|a|none}} A larger federated structure was also opposed by Dmowski's National Democrats. Their representative at the [[Peace of Riga]] talks, [[Stanisław Grabski]], opted for leaving Minsk, [[Berdychiv]], [[Kamianets-Podilskyi]] and the surrounding areas on the Soviet side of the border. The National Democrats did not want to assume the lands they considered politically undesirable, as such territorial enlargement would result in a reduced proportion of citizens who were ethnically Polish.<ref name="Heart 115-121"/><ref>{{Harvnb|Lukowski|Zawadzki|2006|p=230}}.</ref><ref name="Snyder 64-65, 68-69">{{Harvnb|Snyder|2003|pp=64–65, 68–69}}.</ref>

[[File:Wojciech Korfanty in color (2a).jpg|thumb|left|upright|[[Wojciech Korfanty]] [[Silesian Uprisings|fought for a Polish Silesia]] and was the leader of the [[Polish Christian Democratic Party]]]]

The Peace of Riga settled the eastern border by preserving for Poland a substantial portion of the old Commonwealth's eastern territories at the cost of partitioning the lands of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania (Lithuania and Belarus) and Ukraine.<ref name="Heart 115-121"/><ref name="Snyder 63-69">{{Harvnb|Snyder|2003|pp=63–69}}.</ref><ref name="Heart 147">{{Harvnb|Davies|2001|p=147}}</ref> The Ukrainians ended up with no state of their own and felt betrayed by the Riga arrangements; their resentment gave rise to extreme nationalism and anti-Polish hostility.<ref name="Snyder 139-144">{{Harvnb|Snyder|2003|pp=139–144}}.</ref> The [[Kresy]] (or borderland) territories in the east won by 1921 would form the basis for a swap arranged and carried out by the Soviets in 1943–1945, who at that time [[Territorial changes of Poland immediately after World War II|compensated]] the re-emerging Polish state for the eastern lands lost to the Soviet Union with [[Recovered Territories|conquered areas of eastern Germany]].<ref name="Heart 115-121, 73-80">{{Harvnb|Davies|2001|pp=73–80, 115–121}}.</ref>

The successful outcome of the Polish–Soviet War gave Poland a false sense of its prowess as a self-sufficient military power and encouraged the government to try to resolve international problems through imposed unilateral solutions.<ref name="Prazmowska 164-172"/><ref name="Lukowski 232">{{Harvnb|Lukowski|Zawadzki|2006|p=232}}.</ref> The territorial and ethnic policies of the interwar period contributed to bad relations with most of Poland's neighbors and uneasy cooperation with more distant centers of power, especially [[France]] and [[United Kingdom|Great Britain]].<ref name="Heart 115-121"/><ref name="Prazmowska 164-172"/><ref name="Lukowski 232"/>