Stalin: A Biography

During the early campaigns of the Civil War the operational assumption was that foreign territory began at the borders of the former Russian Empire. For this reason the Politburo acted as if it expected the Red Army to reconquer the borderlands as soon as the fighting in Russia was brought to completion. Progress seemed very satisfactory in 1920. Azerbaijan and Armenia were brought to heel — and Stalin and his friend Sergo Ordzhonikidze were regularly involved in strategic and political discussions at the highest level.⁴ But the Baltic region remained a problem. Attempts had been made to establish Soviet republics in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania; but in each case there were counter-coups, and these countries regained their independence in 1918–19.⁵ Estonia inaugurated full diplomatic relations with the RSFSR in February 1920. The international situation was unstable. The Bolsheviks did not perceive the western borderlands, any more than those to the south, as foreign places, and Stalin held to this viewpoint with noticeable tenacity.⁶ But what happened to such countries would depend on what occurred in the broader framework of war and peace in Europe. Bolshevik leaders had to decide on a permanent policy.

Things were brought to a head by armed conflict between Poland and the RSFSR. Clashes had taken place while the Civil War was in spate, and the Polish commander-in-chief Josef Piłsudski had long aspired to form a federal union with Ukraine. In spring 1920 Piłsudski struck deep into Ukrainian territory. On 7 May his forces occupied Kiev, surprising Red Army officers as they waited at bus stops. Sovnarkom appealed for a patriotic war of defence. Sergei Kamenev took supreme military command and his main front commander was the twenty-five-year-old Mikhail Tukhachevski. Volunteers rallied to the Red Army’s banners. Kiev was retaken on 10 June and, after an agreement with the Lithuanian government, a joint offensive seized Vilnius and transferred it to Lithuania. The advance of the Reds was practically unopposed. The British government warned the Soviet leadership to halt its troops, but the Party Central Committee on 16 July took the strategic decision to take the war on to Polish territory, and Lenin informed Stalin and others on the same day.⁷ (Stalin, based in Kharkov in eastern Ukraine, had been unable to attend.)⁸ The military command of the Western Front prepared to cross the River Bug and move on Warsaw. European socialist revolution beckoned, and on 23 July the Politburo set up a Provisional Polish Revolutionary Committee under Julian Marchlewski.⁹

The British government tried to prevent the spead of communism by calling for peace negotiations and suggesting a new border between the Soviet state and Poland. This was the Curzon Line, named after the British Foreign Secretary in 1920. The advance of the Red Army into central Europe had to be halted. The Politburo had taken such overtures more seriously earlier in the war when Piłsudski looked like winning. But the rapid march of the Reds across Ukraine changed Lenin’s stance and he started to advocate an invasion of Poland.

Stalin was unenthusiastic. He had been warning all summer about the resurgence of White military capacity in the Crimea, and he questioned the wisdom of taking on the Poles while Wrangel remained a threat.¹⁰ Even Trotski and Radek, who had opposed Lenin over Brest-Litovsk, were disconcerted by Lenin’s position.¹¹ Stalin’s objections were not confined to his chronic scepticism about European socialist revolution and his concern about Wrangel. He doubted that the Red Army was adequately co-ordinated and organised. He worried about the length and strength of the lines of supply.¹² From his base with Red forces in Ukraine he had reason to think he knew what he was writing about. The Soviet state was insecure from attack by the Whites. Plans for a military breakthrough to Poland and Germany were unrealistic. Stalin repeatedly mentioned the danger posed by Wrangel from the Crimea.¹³ He also reminded Lenin not to underestimate the strength of nationalism among the Polish working class. Stalin was surprised that Lenin, usually his ally on the national question, failed to sense the danger awaiting the Red Army in this respect. He wanted the care used at Brest-Litovsk in 1918 to be applied to the decision on war or peace with Poland.