Since there has not been such a topic yet, I would like to ask what do you think about Lenin's plans to conquer all of Europe and create the European Soviet Republic? To this end, it was in July 1920 that he directed the armies of two fronts to the West.

There was only one small problem, Poland, which was reviving (in november 1918) after 123 years of captivity to independent life. After the "corpse of Poland" - as Lenin stated, the communist revolution was to reach Berlin, Paris, Rome, Brussels, Madrid and perhaps even London.

This did not happen, because the reviving Polish Army dealt a complete defeat to the Bolsheviks in two battles (August near Warsaw and September on the Nemunas River).


My question is what do you think about it and what is said and written about it in your countries.

Thank you in advance for your answer

To be honest it's not well known over here, in fact the multitude of "small" wars that bedevilled Europe 1919-22 are all but forgotten. 
Having said that I have a copy of Warsaw 1920, Lenin's Failed Conquest of Europe by Adam Zamoyski which I used on another site in 2020 when drawing attention to the subject. Most members (admittedly Americans) had no idea there was a war of such importance going on in 1920.

First time I came across the Battle of Warsaw was in this book:



Did it stop a Soviet advance across Europe? I doubt it. Fuller gives Tukhachevski's army a strength of 200,000, which is nowhere near enough for an invasion of Western Europe, nor was the Soviet economy of 1920 developed enough to sustain such a war.
 Starting in the later 20s, Joe Stalin's five year plans did turn the USSR into a major industrial power 

Included a short video of the events:

MarkUK wrote:

To be honest it's not well known over here, in fact the multitude of "small" wars that bedevilled Europe 1919-22 are all but forgotten.

I thought so. In Western countries, the memory of this war is practically zero, or very little - which is a pity, because it was not really a "small war".

If Lenin achieved what he wanted and Poland lost in the Battle of Warsaw (august 1920), the Soviets / Russians would have an open road to Berlin, Paris, The Hague, Amsterdam, Brussels or Rome (not to mention the scandinavian countries). Perhaps the Pyrenees would be a barrier, but only for a short time. And England? Should the invasion of the Island fail, it would become such a lifeboat moored to a Soviet ship called "Europa" and would be doomed to slow bankruptcy.

And why do I think that after defeating Poland, the Soviets would go further to the West? In 1920, the Red Army consisted of a total of 16 armies, eight of which were directed to the Western Front. Lenin's goal was to get to Germany, because he knew well that this country was as revolted as Russia, and as soon as the Red Army entered the Reich, there would be no one to fight it (Germany had already carried out the demilitarization ordered by the victorious Allies - although, of course, incomplete) . If the Soviets entered Germany and began to form the german Red Army, with which they would go to the West, to Paris, which the Germans had not managed to capture during the Great War, there would not be such a force in the West to stop them.

The French were totally exhausted from World War I and they really did not want to fight anymore (the disgraceful surrender of France in 1940 - where they had an army much larger and better armed than the german one - is a perfect example of this. The French simply did not want to fight, because they remembered well the horrors of the First World War and the enormous losses they suffered there then). They would have surrendered quite quickly, especially since there were neither British nor Americans on their land at that time.

Lenin's triumph would then be complete, and the "enemies of the people" would hang, for example, on ... the Eiffel Tower. Anyway, what Lenin did not manage in 1920, Stalin wanted to finish in 1945, but then there were Americans in the West and additionally they had nuclear weapons, so Stalin had to stop at capturing half of Europe.

If the Poles had lost then, the entire history of mankind would have changed, which is why lord d'Abernon called the Battle of Warsaw the eighteenth decisive battle in the history of the world.

I hope that no one will feel offended - because this is not my goal - but I will add that in Poland there is a saying: "What will happen when France will fight Italy? Italy will go to the enemy's side, and France in this confusion will manage to capitulate. "

Sigbert81 wrote:

If the Poles had lost then, the entire history of mankind would have changed, which is why lord d'Abernon called the Battle of Warsaw the eighteenth decisive battle in the history of the world.

About 15 years ago the BBC produced a series of programmes entitled 20th Century Battlefields. There were 8 episodes in the series which were:

Amiens 1918
Midway 1942
Stalingrad 1943
Imjin River (Korea) 1951
Hue (Vietnam) 1968
Chinese Farm (Sinai) 1973
Goose Green (Falklands) 1982
Kuwait 1991

They were basically trying to spread the series out with one battle from each decade of the century and it was understandable that there were 2 battles from the 1940s (Midway and Stalingrad) because of the significance of the Second World War. There were, however, 3 decades of the 20th Century which were not represented - the 1900s, the 1920s and the 1930s. If those decades had also been represented then the following battles would most likely have been included:

Tsushima 1905
Warsaw 1920
Teruel 1938

The Battle of Tsushima was the naval climax of the Russo-Japanese War which was significant in that it was the first major defeat of a European power by a non-European power in over a century.

The Battle of Warsaw during the Polish-Soviet War, in which the Poles defeated the Red Army, put an end to Soviet ambitions of 'world revolution'. It meant that the Bolsheviks in Moscow would now be forced into a policy of attempting 'socialism in one country'.

The Battle of Teruel during the Spanish Civil War demonsrated the staying power of the Nationalist forces and signalled the begining of the end for the Republican forces. It had begun as a Republican offensive on Nationalist positions and was initially successful. Then, however, the Nationalists counter-attacked and not only recovered their lost ground put ultimately succeeded in pushing the Republicans so far back that the Nationalists reached the Mediterranean coast and split the Republican-held part of Spain in 2. The success of the Nationalists also encouraged their supporters in the Italian and German governments and so had profound implications on European diplomacy over the next couple of years.

With regard to the decisiveness of the Battle of Warsaw, then just prior to it the Red Army commander Mikhail Tukhachevsky had issued the following order on the 4 July: "To the West! Over the corpse of White Poland lies to road to worldwide conflagration." The Poles, of course, had other plans. By the end of the year war-weariness and domestic trouble caused the Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin to call off the war. Lenin said - "No, the thought of the agonies of another winter of war was unbearable. We had to make peace." Yet, as you rightly point out Sigbert, very few people in Western Europe are aware of the huge service rendered to Western civilization by the Poles at Warsaw in 1920.

As a post-script (but somewhat predictably) the hero of Lenin's army Mikhail Tukhachevksy ended his days in a Moscow dungeon in 1937 with a bullet in the back of the head courtesy of Joseph Stalin.

If the Soviets had won in 1920 in theory the "road to Europe" would have been open, but I doubt if Russia would have gone any further. There was a civil war going on in their rear and surely the combined armies of Europe would have been more than enough to keep the Reds at bay. It would probably have brought the Cold War forward 30 years though. The significance of Warsaw 1920 was that it demonstrated Soviet weakness in planning and operation and ended immediate thoughts of exporting Bolshevism westwards. Instead Lenin concentrated on "perfecting" Communism within his own borders before thinking about a worldwide revolution, which for him never came.

Vizzer wrote:

With regard to the decisiveness of the Battle of Warsaw, then just prior to it the Red Army commander Mikhail Tukhachevsky had issued the following order on the 4 July: "To the West! Over the corpse of White Poland lies to road to worldwide conflagration." The Poles, of course, had other plans. By the end of the year war-weariness and domestic trouble caused the Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin to call off the war. Lenin said - "No, the thought of the agonies of another winter of war was unbearable. We had to make peace." Yet, as you rightly point out Sigbert, very few people in Western Europe are aware of the huge service rendered to Western civilization by the Poles at Warsaw in 1920.

But the Battle of Warsaw was not the only great battle during this war. Yes, it stopped the soviet push towards the West, but it did not completely smash them, they (for example, thanks to German help) regrouped and resumed the attack a month later, in september 1920. And it was here that the truly decisive battle took place, known as the Battle of the Nemunas, which led to the complete shattering of four Soviet armies that already saw themselves as victorious.

It was only then that Lenin asked for peace when the Polish Army again began to regain the lands from which in june and july 1920 it had been forced out by the soviet attack.

Unfortunately, the war - although it was won militarily, but politically did not achieve the intended goals, which was the rebirth of Ukraine and Belarus and linking these countries with Poland, following the example of the former power of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. This was what Marshal Piłsudski was trying to do, but the reluctance of Lithuanians, some Ukrainians and, above all, polish politicians with a national and popular profile, who feared that too large territorial acquisitions in the East would "drown" the polish element among Ukrainians and Belarusians. However, Piłsudski's goal was not to Polonize these lands, but to create independent nation-states there, connected with Poland militarily, politically and economically.

This was not possible and it is a pity, because if then an independent Ukraine and independent Belarus were established ... World War II would not have broken out, because Hitler had to have Stalin's support in order to attack Poland, without it he could not have started the war. And if there were Ukraine and Belarus in the East, the Soviet Union could not come to the rescue of the Germans during their invasion of Poland in September 1939, because it would have to deal with the Ukrainians and Belarusians first.

The Marshal was well aware of this, and upon the news of the final delineation of Poland's eastern borders in Riga and the signing of the peace in March 1921 (although these borders were extensive and extended far to the East), he stated that: "For this treaty, someone in Poland should be smashed stupid head "(he often used quite blunt statements), and then added:" Within these borders, Poland will not survive even a generation. " Unfortunately, it turned out that he was right.

I was in Poland on business in 1975 staying with others from our company with an elderly Polish couple in Poznan, I was there for the Poznan trade fair.  Meeting with our Polish rep and other Poles representing trade delegations, he mentioned that the husband had fought at the battle of the Vistula/Warsaw expecting the usual blank look from westerners.  I, however, had read Fullers 3 volume history of western decisive battles which included the battle and commented as to that being the battle when the Poles had defeated the Red Army and probably saved Western Europe from being overrun.  i was apparently the first westerner the Poles had met who was aware of the battle and I got a lot of free drinks, probably too many for my health, on the basis of that.  
I have always been proud though to have met someone who fought in the momentous battle.
Tim