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Soviet invasion of Poland

This article is about part of Invasion of Poland in 1939. For the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1920, see Polish–Soviet War.

Soviet invasion of Poland
Part of the invasion of Poland in World War II

Soviet parade in Lwów, September 1939, following the city's surrender
Date17 September – 6 October 1939
Location
Poland
Result Soviet victory
Territorial
changes		 Territory of Eastern Poland (Kresy) annexed by the Soviet Union
Belligerents
 Poland  Soviet Union
Commanders and leaders
Second Polish Republic Edward Rydz-Śmigły Soviet Union Mikhail Kovalev
Soviet Union Semyon Timoshenko
Strength
20,000 Border Protection Corps[1][Note 1]
450,000 Polish Army[2][Note 2]		 600,000–800,000 troops[2][3]
33+ divisions
11+ brigades
4,959 guns
4,736 tanks
3,300 aircraft
Casualties and losses
Total: ~343,000–477,000
3,000–7,000 killed or missing[1][4]
Up to 20,000 wounded[1][Note 3]
320,000–450,000 captured[5]: 85 		 Total: 3,858–13,000
1,475–3,000 killed or missing
2,383–10,000 wounded[Note 4]

The Soviet invasion of Poland was a military conflict by the Soviet Union without a formal declaration of war. On 17 September 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east, 16 days after Nazi Germany invaded Poland from the west. Subsequent military operations lasted for the following 20 days and ended on 6 October 1939 with the two-way division and annexation of the entire territory of the Second Polish Republic by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.[7] This division is sometimes called the Fourth Partition of Poland. The Soviet (as well as German) invasion of Poland was indirectly indicated in the "secret protocol" of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact signed on 23 August 1939, which divided Poland into "spheres of influence" of the two powers.[8] German and Soviet cooperation in the invasion of Poland has been described as co-belligerence.[9][10]

The Red Army, which vastly outnumbered the Polish defenders, achieved its targets, encountering only limited resistance. Some 320,000 Poles were made prisoners of war.[4][11] The campaign of mass persecution in the newly acquired areas began immediately. In November 1939 the Soviet government annexed the entire Polish territory under its control. Some 13.5 million Polish citizens who fell under the military occupation were made Soviet subjects following show elections conducted by the NKVD secret police in an atmosphere of terror,[12][13][14] the results of which were used to legitimise the use of force. A Soviet campaign of political murders and other forms of repression, targeting Polish figures of authority such as military officers, police and priests, began with a wave of arrests and summary executions.[Note 5][15][16] The Soviet NKVD sent hundreds of thousands of people from eastern Poland to Siberia and other remote parts of the Soviet Union in four major waves of deportation between 1939 and 1941.[Note 6] Soviet forces occupied eastern Poland until the summer of 1941 when Germany terminated its earlier pact with the Soviet Union and invaded the Soviet Union under the code name Operation Barbarossa. The area was under German occupation until the Red Army reconquered it in the summer of 1944. An agreement at the Yalta Conference permitted the Soviet Union to annex territories close to the Curzon Line (which almost coincided with all of their Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact portion of the Second Polish Republic), compensating the Polish People's Republic with the greater southern part of East Prussia and territories east of the Oder–Neisse line.[19] The Soviet Union appended the annexed territories to the Ukrainian, Byelorussian and Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republics.[19]

After the end of World War II in Europe, the Soviet Union signed the Polish–Soviet border agreement of August 1945 with the new, internationally recognized Polish Provisional Government of National Unity on 16 August 1945. This agreement recognized the status quo as the new official border between the two countries, with the exception of the region around Białystok and a minor part of Galicia east of the San River around Przemyśl, which were later returned to Poland.[20]

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Cite error: The named reference Sanford 20-24 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference PWN_KW_old was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Krivosheev was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Wojsko92 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Steve Zaloga (2004). Poland 1939: The Birth of Blitzkrieg. Praeger. ISBN 978-0-275-98278-2.
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference WIF was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference Gross 17-18 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ "The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, 1939". Fordham University. 26 January 1996. Retrieved 19 September 2020.
  9. ^ Cite error: The named reference :0 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  10. ^ Cite error: The named reference :1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  11. ^ Cite error: The named reference PWN was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  12. ^ Contributing writers (2010). "Stosunki polsko-białoruskie pod okupacją sowiecką" [Polish-Byelorussian relations under the Soviet occupation]. Internet Archive. Bialorus.pl. Archived from the original on 29 May 2010. Retrieved 26 December 2014.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  13. ^ Marek Wierzbicki (2000). Polacy i białorusini w zaborze sowieckim: stosunki polsko-białoruskie na ziemach północno-wschodnich II Rzeczypospolitej pod okupacją sowiecką 1939–1941. Volumen. ISBN 978-83-7233-161-8.
  14. ^ Bernd Wegner (1997). From Peace to War: Germany, Soviet Russia, and the World, 1939–1941. Berghahn Books. p. 74. ISBN 1-57181-882-0. Retrieved 26 December 2014.
  15. ^ Cite error: The named reference Rummel 130 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  16. ^ Cite error: The named reference Rieber 30 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  17. ^ Cite error: The named reference Rummel 132 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  18. ^ Cite error: The named reference Kushner 219 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  19. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Wettig 47 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  20. ^ SYLWESTER FERTACZ (18 December 2007). "Bolesna granica, 1945: KROJENIE MAPY POLSKI". Archive. Archived from the original on 25 April 2009. Retrieved 19 September 2020.


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