Poland was part of the Soviet Union before WWII

I was wondering on what everyone would speculate would have happened had Poland been conquered by the Soviet Army during the Polish-Soviet War. It was originally Lenin's goal to bring Poland back under Russian control, viewing it not only as a breakaway region of the former Russian Empire, but also as he described it the "gateway into Europe" to spread Communism.

It was very possible that the Soviet Army could have conquered the Poles in 1920. By April, they had advanced across 75% of Poland and nearly captured Warsaw. Had Poland been annexed into the Soviet Union, what course of events could have unfolded? Could Hitler have signed a Non-Aggression Pact with Stalin anyways in 1939 and simply started a war with the west in another region such as Jutland? Or could it have been the reverse and Hitler would have outright launched a war at the Soviet Union first rather than attack the west?

 

It seems to me it was meant to continue the revolution further on, which might have happened starting with Germany next?! Who knows what would have happened then.
There are so many possible end results it´s difficult to imagine what could have happened most likely, at least for me.

Anyway, the new side which I did not know until now was the meaning of the Polish cryptologists already then. Check the following site:

Magdeburg Sting 1936 - Part VI (documents)

 

If the USSR was encroaching on Poland in 1920 (thereby signifying that they have a genuine interest in world revolution and all that), the West would hardly be expected to turn a blind eye. We'd likely see a war between the USSR and some sort of anti-Soviet alliance well before 1939, probably even before the rise of Hitler. Possibly such a course of events would even prevent the fall of the Weimar republic, by mopping up the supply of bored ex-military wandering the streets and giving them something to do.

 

There were all sorts of foregn troops supporting the whites until their ultimate collapse but it's unlikely war the war weary winners of WW1 would be able to do much more than they historically did. Sending war weary troops, and especially the warhips needed to support them, against the fledgling USSR meant risking mutinies on a large scale as nearly happened historically.

 

An interesting What-if. Im on board with TOS on this one. I do find it hard to imagine the the "revolution" would have extended into Germany as there seems to be evidence of a friendly relationship.... Lenin's boxcar anyone???

No Western nation wanted war. There was nothing the West could do but just watch... Lets also not forget that this war was not started by the Bolsheviks.

 

Poland wasn't a part of the USSR pre-WW2, it was a part of the former Tzarist Russia, but that was long over.

What is meant by "Poland was part of the Soviet Union before WWII"? It most definetly was NOT.

 

The new USSR was getting pretty well "whupped" by the Poles at the time of the Treaty of Riga. In reality, up to and including its nearly final "partition" in Oct. 1795 which effectively ended its existence as a "state" until after WW1, that partition had created a situation where Poles existed, Poland did NOT. The Poles were not happy campers. And it was before the Brest-Litovsk Treaty (1918) pre-Versailles, when the Tzarist Russian Empire included most of Poland, all of Finland, the Baltic States, and the Ukraine. That doesn’t make Poland "Russian", let alone a member state of the USSR.

Following one of the Treaties of Riga, between the USSR and Poland, a semi-truce existed. The war between Poland and the USSR (1919-20) had been precipitated largely by the demand of Poland that its eastern border of 1772 be restored, before Poland was split up between Prussia, Austria-Hungary, and Russia. These treaty terms (Brest-Litovsk), which fixed the Russo-Polish border, did not satisfy the claims of the Poles who had now been victorious on the battlefield, and in their weakened military state (the USSR had yet to finish its own civil war battles until later), the Soviets awarded Poland large parts of Belorussia and the Ukraine in the Riga Treaty.

War weary or not, to help the White Army, troops from Britain, France, Japan and the United States were sent into Russia. And by December, 1918, there were 200,000 foreign soldiers supporting the White/anti-Bolshevik forces, including another 100,000 strong Czech Legion who also fought with the Whites. These anti-Bolshevik men were supplied with arms from all the "western allies" as well. This whole "revolution" inside the Civil war weakened the Reds to the point they had to make treaties with their opponents in the west (Poland, Finland, etc.) so they could focus on the Whites and their supporters inside what would become the USSR.

And let us not forget that the new "Poland" wasn't without territorial desires and grabs of it's own, it had been right in there at the "feed bin" picking up a little chunk of Czechoslovakia while the "Munich Pact" (Peace in our time) was being hammered out and signed in Oct. of 1938. Poland snatched up and occupied a part of the new state of Czechoslovakia, the coal Teschen (Cieszyn Silesia) region, which they claimed was improperly given to the Czechs when the A-H Empire was divided up, when it should have gone to Poland.

All of eastern Europe was a mess by the end of WW1. Animosities were long standing and still running hot and heavy.

 

Well, I'm just pointing out that it is very difficult to imagine a situation that involves Soviet excursions into Poland in the 20s and still leaves the rest of the timeline undisturbed until 1939.

*If* Soviets were occupying Poland at 1939, and were just as weak as they were in the real 1939, and Hitler was in power, then yeah, Hitler would probably invade the USSR directly. Hitler's aims always lay eastward - the Nazi-Soviet pact served only really to temporarily isolate Poland from any chance of foreign aid, and ease the takeover. Unlike Poland, there's little chance of the West entering the war to help out Stalin. And Hitler could probably cook up a fairly legitimate pretext for invading, like protecting Polish-German minorities or whatever.