Belarus, the Versailles-Riga System and the Fate of European Peace

The review was prepared within the joint “Book Review” project of the Political Sphere Institute and the Centre for European Studies in Minsk.

Borzęcki, Jerzy. The Soviet-Polish Peace of 1921 and the Creation of Interwar Europe. – Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2008. – XVI+401 pp.

Review prepared by Aliaksandr Paharely.

In modern Belarusian history, painted in dark shades, it is not difficult to find “black spots” where the darkness is especially concentrated. The Treaty of Riga is undoubtedly one of many such “black spots”. For many Belarusians it became a tragedy that is still felt even 90 years later. The book by Canadian historian Jerzy Borzęcki of the University of Toronto is devoted precisely to this topic. The book was also published in Polish translation by the Polish Institute of International Affairs in 2012. In Poland, emphasis is placed on the compromise character of the agreements reached between the Bolsheviks and the Poles, noted by Borzęcki. For us, however, what matters is that the book seeks a multifaceted description of the mechanisms of interaction among different participants — not only Poland and Bolshevik Russia — in the Polish-Soviet War of 1919-1920 and in the settlement of its consequences.

The aim of the book is to study the Peace of Riga in connection with its regional and broader European context. The author does this by introducing new materials from Russian and Polish archives. The book consists of nine chapters: two are devoted to the first diplomatic contacts between the Poles and the Bolsheviks, three to negotiations in Minsk in the summer and autumn of 1920, another three to the negotiations themselves and the conclusion of the peace treaty in Riga, while the final chapter offers a detailed examination of the implementation of the treaty’s provisions.

The book contains several motifs running throughout it. These include the internal contradiction of Polish federalist plans, the sympathetic attitude of part of the Polish elite toward possible autonomous Belarus and Ukraine, and the Bolshevik idea of world revolution. According to the author, the recognition by Poland of Soviet Belarus and Ukraine as a condition for signing the armistice in October 1920 destroyed the federalist plans. At the same time, the author overstates the significance of federalism in the case of Belarus. Belarusian statehood did not arise in the context of Polish projects. On the contrary, those projects adapted to the fact that Belarusians themselves had state-building aspirations.

The author illustrates the Bolshevik position on the Belarusian question in a fairly interesting way, using new documents. For the Bolsheviks, Belarus and Belarusians served exclusively as a bargaining chip. The contrast is quite clear between official declarations and statements by Bolshevik leaders and what appeared in their correspondence, for example between Ioffe, the head of the Soviet delegation in Riga, and Chicherin. According to Chicherin and Ioffe, Belarus was to be represented at the negotiations by Charviakou. The Bolsheviks agreed to merge the state structures of the BSSR with the RSFSR, thus ensuring the formal participation of the BSSR in the Riga negotiations. On the Belarusian question, the Soviets were ready to make territorial concessions, since negotiations with Poland were tied to negotiations with Finland and Great Britain.

The Treaty of Riga was never fully implemented. Borzęcki, however, looks at it and at the Versailles-Riga system more broadly from the perspective of the events of 1939. The fall of Poland meant the loss of independence by other countries of East-Central Europe. Jerzy Borzęcki is unambiguous in his assessment of the consequences of the treaty for Belarusians, and this assessment will not please everyone: the division of Belarusian lands had a positive significance, because today it is in Western Belarus that the idea of national independence enjoys the greatest support.

Nevertheless, it is difficult to accuse the author of inattention to detail. For the diplomatic and political history of Belarus, such an approach is necessary for a better understanding of the mechanisms and processes that led to Belarus being fixed on the map of Europe.