Polish–Soviet border agreement of August 1945

Curzon-Namier Line's variants. Tehran, 1943

The Border Agreement between Poland and the USSR of 16 August 1945 established the borders between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and the Republic of Poland. It was signed by the Provisional Government of National Unity (Tymczasowy Rząd Jedności Narodowej) formed by the Polish communists. According to the treaty, Poland officially accepted the ceding its pre-war Eastern territory to the USSR (Kresy) which was decided earlier in Yalta already. Some of the territory along the Curzon line, established by Stalin during the course of the war, was returned to Poland. The treaty also recognised the division of the former German East Prussia and ultimately approved the finalised delimitation line between the Soviet Union and Poland: from the Baltic sea, to the border tripoint with Czechoslovakia in the Carpathians.

Prelude

Prior to the First World War, within the Russian Empire Polish territories were administered by a Vistula Land, whose eastern frontier roughly determined the ethnic border between the Polish people on the west, and the Ukrainians and Belarusians (the referred to as Little and White Russians respectively) on the east. In Austrian Galicia there was no administrative border which marked the ethnic one between Poles and the Galician Ukrainians (Ruthenians).

During the First World War, the Russian Civil, the Polish-Soviet and Polish-Ukrainian wars, the territory passed hands several times, and each of the controlling powers tried to create its own administration on the region. During the conflict, the Supreme War Council, tried several times to intervene and create an agreeable frontier between the Second Polish Republic and Bolshevik Russia, the most notable outcome, was the border presented by the British Foreign Secretary George Curzon, after whom the proposed line was named. Its trace followed the 19th century border between the Vistula Land, but also extended further south and portioned Galicia along the rough ethnic border between Poles and Ukrainians.

Though accepted by the Bolshevik government, the line was ignored by Poland, and after the Polish-Soviet War's conclusion, at the Treaty of Riga, Bolshevik Russia recognised a new frontier almost 250 km east of the Curzon Line. The border was recognised by the League of Nations in 1923, and confirmed by numerous Polish-Soviet treaties and delimited in due course.

World War II partitions

The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact's secret protocol of August 1939 provided for the partition of the Second Polish Republic between the USSR and Nazi Germany. Following the corresponding invasions, a new border was drawn up, though based on the Curzon Line, deviated west of it in several regions. Most notably, was the Belastok Voblast, that was added to the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, although most of the region was populated by Poles.

After Germany's invasion of the USSR, the territory in question was re-partitioned by the Nazis. Ukraine and Belarus were administered by the occupation Ostland and Reichskommissariat Ukraine Reichskommissariats. Galician territory east of the 1939 border and the Belastok Voblast plus adjacent territory to the east of this were transformed respectively into the Distrikt Galizien and Bezirk Bialystok, and subjugated directly to the Reich, with appropriate repressions against Poles, Ukrainians and Belarusians alike as well as the region's large Jewish community.

Prior to the agreement

After the agreement

Wartime relations

During the interbellum, the Second Republic of Poland carried out policies of repressive nature with regard to Ukrainians and Belarusians. Many welcomed the 1939 Soviet troops. The local Polish population had little sympathy of its second invader, and as resistance to German occupation gathered in momentum, clashes between the Polish Armia Krajowa and Soviet partisans became a regular occurrence. In Podlachia the Soviet partisan's activity was minute, drastically contrasting with the rest of the occupied BSSR.

As the tide of war swept into Soviet favour and its army was making westward progress, the Tehran and Yalta conferences discussed the questions of Polish-Soviet borders. Allied leaders, to the dismay of the Polish government-in-exile recognised the Soviet right to territory annexed east of the 1939 border. Dialogue between the Moscow and the exiled government would be extremely difficult, given the ongoing clashes between AK and partisans, whilst facts like Katyn massacre, the USSR's pledge that Western Ukrainians and Belarusians would remain part of the USSR were major stumbling blocks for constructive dialogue.

Stalin opted for a more rigorous and simpler solution, to create a loyal Polish body, which would then simply inherit administration of Poland as the Red Army advanced into it. Earlier in 1942, the Polish Workers' Party was formed in Moscow and managed to organise its own guerrilla force, the Gwardia Ludowa. In June 1943, this became the Union of Polish Patriots (ZPP), and a whole Polish Division was formed in the Red Army.

To avoid conflicts with local partisans, the GL was made responsible for operations in Podlachia. Simultaneously its initial activity in Eastern Galicia was too halted, in light of the ethnic conflict between Poles and Ukrainian nationalists in Western Ukraine.

Although the initial GL was only a shadow of the AK, Soviet support, arms and equipment, allowed the unit to grow. On 31st of December 1943, to show that the loyal Polish forces were not only political allies, but a national representative of the occupied country the a parliament-like State National Council (KRN) was established. A day later the GL was re-organised into an Armia Ludowa.

On July 7, 1943 the Polish military attaché to the United States, Colonel. Vladimir Onacewicz, issued a statement in which he wrote that the division does not belong to the Polish Army and is a Red Army Division under the command of the Soviet authorities.

1944 Developments

In summer of 1944, Red Army's two successful Bagration and Lvov–Sandomierz operations brought the Soviets to their 1939 borders. On 1st of August the AK began the Warsaw Uprising, which, if succeeded, would have restored the exiled Polish statehood. Though official historiography maintains that the Soviet leadership was unaware of it taking place, facts show that Stalin was aware of the operation, and began exercising his Polish contingency. By this time, the front was already 100-150 km west of the 1939 border. Eight days before the uprising, the KRN proclaimed the Polish Committee of National Liberation(PKWN), a provisional government, in the Polish city of Chełm. Militarily, the 1st infantry division and the AL were merged to form the Ludowe Wojsko Polskie, including the First Polish Army.

USSR's refusal to support AK's Warsaw Uprising strained relations with the Western allies who were still committed to the exiled Polish government, and the very loyal Polish forces, who also took part in supporting the Home Army. In fact the First Polish Army was stationed on the eastern bank of the Vistula and made several landings. In a demonstration to show that Stalin was still committed to the Polish cause and simultaneously that the Polish client state he was establishing had real authority, a decision was made to cede Podlachia to the latter.

Formally a Polish committee, formed in the town of Sapotskin, sent a letter to Moscow asking that they remain part of Poland. Stalin agreed, and on 20th of September, 17 of the 23 districts of Belastok Voblast (including the cities of Bialystok, Łomża, Augustów, Zambrów and Bielsk) and an additional three from the Brest Voblast: Siemiatycze, Hajnówka and Kleszczele.

This measure also solved the issue around the Suwałki triangle. During the 1939 partition, the territory was occupied by Germany, not USSR, and was (and still is) pictured as a small enclave between East Prussia, Lithuania (later Lithuanian SSR) and Belastok Voblast of the Byelorussian SSR. Having been partially liberated from the Germans during Bagration, it too qualified for the loyal administration from the PKWN, despite objections from Lithuania (during the interbellum, Lithunia claimed parts of this territory, in particular the city of Sejny). The return of Podlachia to Poland established a physical connection to the rest of Polish territory under PKWN control. Although the PKWN did not participate in the Baltic Offensive of autumn 1944, the city of Suwałki was liberated in October and passed to the PKWN in due course. Ironically the town of Sapotskin remained with the USSR, and actually its border was expanded 30 km northwest from the city of Grodno. Presently encompassing the Sapotskinsky Biological Reserve, which was not part of the USSR in 1939-41. The city of actual city of Suwałki was still held by the Nazis until 10th of October 1944. (A side operation during the Baltic Offensive).

Although Stalin purposely left the loyal Polish GL and AL forces out of the Western Ukraine, now the Ukrainian Insurgent Army was proving increasingly irritant to the Soviet Union. In a further gesture of good will and to gain the PKWN's support for the effort against the UPA, in October 1944 the districts of Lubaczów, Horyniec, Laszki, Uhnów and Sieniawa from the Lviv Oblast of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic were passed to the PKWN.

Though its real authority was questionable, it did nonetheless support the preparation for the major Vistula-Oder offensive and in December 1944 was re-ogranised into a more official Provisional Government of the Republic of Poland (RTRP), which the USSR now recognised as the only official representative of the Polish statehood.

1945

File:Western portions of the Ukrainian SSR 1940.jpg

Ukrainian SSR's western border in 1939 included the distinctive "open beak" of Eastern Galicia in the southwest. This was "shaved off", and returned to Poland in 1944/1945

In Winter 1945 the Soviet Union opened its Vistula-Oder offensive in which the First Polish Army was tasked to liberate Warsaw, and the RPTD to help aid restoring peace and order. As the Red Army rolled victoriously across Poland, the Polish Underground State and the AK were officially disbanded. To silence yet another wave of criticism from the London based Polish government, and to once again route the UPA, in March 1945, an additional batch of land, the Bieszczady, Lesko, and most of Przemyśl raions(including Przemyśl city) were transferred to Poland from the Drohobych Oblast of Ukraine.

In May World War II finished. As civilian life returned to Poland, to finish political confrontation permanently, in June 1945 the RPTD and some of the AK and underground representatives formed a coalition Provisional Government of National Unity (TRJN). As relations became more and more official, and as in accordance to Yalta and ultimately Potsdam conference the TRJN was establishing administration of the Recovered Territories, a formal treaty became necessary with the USSR. On 16th of August 1945, the border agreement was officially signed by Edward Osóbka-Morawski, on behalf of the Provisional Government of National Unity and Vyacheslav Molotov, the Soviet Minister of Foreign affairs. The exchange of ratified documents occurred on 5 February 1946 in Warsaw, and from that date the agreement was in force.

Aftermath

Although the treaty finalised the 1939 line, with the 1944/45 adjustments, the border would receive a few more alterations. On 15th of May 1948, the raion of Medyka was transferred from the Drohobych Oblast of Ukraine to the Republic of Poland. And finally a 1951 Polish–Soviet territorial exchange, saw Poland return its pre-1939 territory of Ustrzyki Dolne raion from the Drohobych Oblast, and instead it passed the USSR part of the Lublin Voivodship, with the cities of Belz, Uhniv, Chervonohrad and Varyazh, (all of which after the Nazi & Soviet Axis invasion of Poland in September 1939 became a part of Poland occupied by the USSR and was allocated to Ukraine in 1939 until 1941 when the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union. It was occupied again in 1944-1945 after the Soviet advance to Berlin). The border between Poland and Belarus, and Poland and Ukraine has remained the same since.