From 1926 to 1935, Poland had been ruled by Marshal Pilsudski, the man who had allied with the Ukrainians in an attempt to recreate a Polish-Ukrainian alliance that would take Soviet territory while the USSR was weak. Somewhat repeating the Polish tactics during the Russian Time of Troubles. After being pushed back nearly to the gates of Warsaw, the Polish army had rallied, and the Polish-Soviet War ended with the Treaty of Riga (March 1921) that gave significant Soviet territories to Poland but left most of Ukraine in Soviet hands. The resulting Polish borders are shown in red below, with the territory taken from the USSR in the lighter colour.
Pilsudski had seen the Treaty of Riga as an “act of cowardice”, but the 1921 Polish constitution greatly limited his powers; removing his ability to continue waging war. After removing himself from politics, he returned as the dictatorial head of state through a 1926 coup. He managed to maintain good relations with both Germany and Russia, with the 1932 Soviet-Polish Non-Aggression Pact and the 1934 German-Polish Non-Aggression Pact. With the death of Pilsudski in 1935, Jozef Beck remained as Polish foreign minister and set the course of Polish foreign policy until the 1939 German invasion.
As Germany grew stronger through the 1930s, re-occupying the Ruhr, combining with Austria through the Anschluss and taking first the Sudetenland and then the rest of Czechoslovakia, its attention turned toward the last of the Treaty of Versailles “mistreatments”; the giving of German territory to Poland and the separation of East Prussia from the rest of Germany via the open city of Danzig and the Danzig Corridor.
Hitler was ready to forget about the other parts of Germany that had been given to Poland and just accept a reconnection of East Prussia to Germany, with access to the Baltic guaranteed to the Polish. This would have aligned the anti-communist Poland with Nazi Germany, with both having interests in destroying the Soviet Union. The fascist Baltic States could also have been brought into this alliance, providing a kicking off point for any invasion of the USSR that was only 85 miles from Leningrad, 400 miles from Moscow and 170 miles from Kiev and 275 miles from Dnipropetrovsk on the Dniepr River.
Given the actual Axis performance in Operation Barbarossa (the invasion of the Soviet Union), all of these cities would have been taken within the first two months of the invasion, and quite possibly also Kharkov and the industrial heartland of the Soviet Union, the Donbass. With Soviet logistics crippled by the taking of the hub of the Soviet railway system, Moscow, and the industrial heartland taken before it could be moved beyond the Axis advance, the Soviets would have been ill equipped to fight on. In addition, the fall of Moscow and the other major cities so rapidly would have been a body-blow to Soviet morale and possibly regime stability. An additional factor would be that the Axis would have the full manpower of Poland and the Baltic States to call upon, and with the fall of Leningrad the Finnish may also have joined them. A crippling peace treaty (for the Soviet Union) may then have been the result, and the German lebensraum achieved.
But this was not to be as the Poles overplayed their hand, believing their own armies to be much stronger than they were and thinking that they could continue to play off both the Germans and the Soviets. In addition, they even increased the persecution of the ethnic Germans in Poland - exacerbating tensions with Germany needlessly. The self-destructive Polish behaviour is documented by Stephen Kotkin in Stalin Volume 2: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941 and A. J. P. Taylor in The Origins of the Second World War. David Hoggan’s The Forced War also provides details of the Polish internal politics and foreign policy, although that does require a certain wading through of excessively pro-German and extreme anti-communist positions. The Polish obstinate intransigence was then deepened by the British promise of intervention if Poland were invaded.
With Britain giving him the diplomatic run around and time rapidly running out, Stalin pulled off a diplomatic masterstroke at nearly the last moment, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of August 23rd, 1939; only 8 days before the German invasion of Poland. It was agreed that the Soviet Union could both take back the lands that Poland had taken with the Treaty of Riga and incorporate the three Baltic States. The start line for Barbarossa was moved 600 miles away from Leningrad, 365 miles further west of Moscow, 300 miles further west of Kiev and the Axis would not have access to the manpower of Poland and the Baltic States.
These extra distances and lessened Axis manpower proved critical to the ability of the Soviet Union to first resist, and then defeat, the Axis invasion. The obstinacy of the Polish elites and the last minute masterstroke of Stalin saved the Soviet Union; and therefore the world from the Nazi domination of Eurasia possibly in concert with a fascist Japan supplied with Soviet and Middle Eastern oil and a Turkey ready to regain some of its Treaty of Versailles losses.
It is ironic that Poland is now allied with Germany through NATO, and has recently accepted the possible stationing of German troops on Polish soil; only 85 years too late! Thankfully, 2024 is a very different world than 1939.
Note: Images used are from Wikipedia.
Sixty years ago as a (Labour Party) Young Socialist I had the privilege of listening to a presentation by the Director of the York Art Gallery, the veteran Marxist and refugee from Hitler, Hans Hess. He described the day he received the news of the Molotov Pact as one of the happiest in his political life.
Hess the son of a shoe manufacturer and connoisseur in Erfurt who had accumulated one of the finest collections of modern art in the country co-founded the magazine "Inside Nazi Germany" and helped launch the Free German League of Culture in London which he reached in 1935, after two years in Paris.
Hans knew all the Parisian communists from Willi Munzenberg to Picasso and Charlie Chaplin. All of which made no difference when war broke out-he was interned on the Isle of Man and later deported to Canada until 1942.
On his return he was appointed, thanks to Trevor Thomas (the last man to see Sylvia Plath alive! and a famous victim of the draconian laws against homosexuality) deputy director of the Leicester Art Gallery, which perhaps not coincidentally is famous for its modern Art collection.
Thereafter Hess became the director of the York Art Gallery where, inter alia, he played an important part in the re-discovery and regular staging of the Mystery Plays. After a clash with philistine councillors Hess moved to Sussex where he taught Art History at the University.
His daughter Anita succeeded in winning reparations from the German government for the Hess collection stolen in 1933. Whether her mother Lilli and father were still alive then I do not know but they would have approved of her donation of the proceeds to the working class movement.
So Poland tried to play both sides and was ultimately the biggest loser of WWII. It's always interesting that some lesser powers manage to play both sides and benefit like Belarus today (until 2022). I think there is a lack of analysis on how non hegemonic actors should conduct their geopolitics.