Talk:Soviet invasion of Poland

Convoluted lead paragraph
The first paragraph talks more about the Soviet-Japanese conflict, than the subject of the article. Why? --illythr (talk) 19:00, 27 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: Stale, and no longer applicable. Copy-edited for clarity and meaning,  Poeticbent  talk 20:07, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

From the perspective of modern science, we can justly say that the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was a criminal organization as defined by the new International Military Tribunal (IMT) category of wartime criminality. As far as its ideological basis prior to the invasion of Poland the campaign of murder and mass persecution of targeted groups across continents was inspired by a piece of writing almost as vile as the Mein Kampf itself, called the Communist Manifesto. Here's where that one characteristic stands out among the invaders.  Poeticbent  talk 22:14, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Which kind of "modern science" is that? Communists were spot on about "bourgeoisie" (= citizens, in English), as normal citizens can never transform the class/caste-based feudal society into flat/equal-rights democratic society. The regular citizens are capital (resource) of the ruling elite, today its the elites controlling the banking system. Most of what today is called "democracy" was laid out by communists/labourists/left. 87.79.191.114 (talk) 19:59, 24 April 2019 (UTC)
 * WP:NOTAFORUM (Hohum @ ) 23:27, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Commanders and leaders - Edward Rydz-Śmigły
Edward Rydz-Śmigły left Poland on 18 September and lost any inluence.Xx234 (talk) 10:39, 3 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Officially, he still counts. I agree we should list someone else in addition, but I am not sure who commanded the forces after 18th; if anyone - the entire command structure was falling apart. Ping User:Halibutt, User:Volunteer Marek? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 12:44, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Soviet invasion of POLAND?
The Soviet invasion was an invasion of Ukraine and Belarus. These regions had been taken bu the Poles in 1923. Neither one of these territories are, nor were, considered polish by other nations. They were considered occupied. That is also why Britain and France did not declare war against the Soviet union får the occupation. Shouldn't this be stated in the article? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.228.241.121 (talk) 10:39, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
 * It was an invasion of sovereign Polish territory. The UK and France did not declare war because that would have immediately led to the USSR joining the Axis. (Rhdkke (talk) 17:53, 31 July 2016 (UTC))
 * "The UK and France did not declare war because that would have immediately led to the USSR joining the Axis" You fail to provide reason why would USSR join Axis, as later 95% of the Europe population HAS joined Axis and attacked USSR. What kind of logic is that? UK and France did not declare war, because USSR returned its lands from Polish illegal annexation. 87.79.191.114 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 19:53, 24 April 2019 (UTC)
 * They were former parts of the Russian Empire, not of Russia itself. (CharltonR (talk) 16:28, 4 September 2016 (UTC))
 * Lenin made Ukraine independent in 1917. Poland attacked in 1919 and the war ended with occupation of western Ukraine in 1921. This occupation was not recognized by any other state.
 * In 1939 the USSR liberated the occupied territory and gave it back to Ukraine. 2A02:AA1:1626:AC48:9D86:1227:C177:A872 (talk) 17:45, 19 May 2023 (UTC)
 * "Lenin made Ukraine independent in 1917"???? BUHAHAHA :D
 * Do You know anything about "Collectivisation" or about "Holodomor" - according RUSSIAN wikipedia -
 * ""от 2,2 до 3,9 млн" - from 2,2 to 3,9 died from hungry in "Great Ukrainian Famine" - made by soviet authorities in 30's. Did You know anything about alliance between Poland and REAL independent Ukrainian state - Українська Народна Республіка - which fought together agains soviets (and after collapsed their government existed in exile - in Poland) What do You think - was Soviet Ukraine "independent state" or soviet colony rather?? Rian (talk) 03:43, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

The Western powers new nothing about the existence of the secret Nazi Soviet Pact which was denied by the Soviet government until 1989. Stalin insisted that the Red Army troops were transiting through the territory of Poland in order to fight Hitler ... it was one of the biggest deceptions of the 20th century. Prior to World War II, Poland and Soviet Russia maintained peace by agreeing to abandon all rights and claims to the territories of their respective borderlands (paragraph 3 of the Treaty of Riga).  Poeticbent  talk 14:50, 13 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Citations
 * 1) Chatham House: "Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact International Affairs, May 2011, Volume 87, Number 3.
 * 2) Watson, Derek (2000). "Molotov's Apprenticeship in Foreign Policy. The Triple Alliance Negotiations in 1939". Europe-Asia Studies. 52 (4): 695–722. doi:10.1080/713663077.
 * 3) Michael Palij (1995). The Ukrainian-Polish Defensive Alliance, 1919-1921. An Aspect of the Ukrainian Revolution. CIUS Press. p. 165. ISBN 1895571057.


 * Misinterpretation of facts. This is peace treaty. Ofc USSR was forced to accept Polish demands. And even if we accept Polish occupation as something legitimate, Stalin started liberation only after Polish goverment had left, making Poland no man's land. Both of those facts, Soviet claim on those lands and Polish goverment abandoning their land, made Soviet actions both legal and legitimate. And yeah, no one could say a word about that. It is easily seen from dates under your sources: 1995, 2000, 2011. 95.24.170.31 (talk) 17:55, 13 November 2016 (UTC)


 * As per the original poster's question, the Soviet Union invaded and occupied Poland. Claiming that the lands were Belarus and Ukraine is a falsehood.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.205.212.35 (talk) 23:17, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
 * There was no "transit excuse". Can someone please adjust the article to reflect communication to the Polish representative in Moscow, the justification for Soviet actions. It would make sense to replace "no declaration of war" with something like "after presenting an official comunique signed by V. Molotov to extraordinary Polish representative Grzhibovski". AzzAzeL-US (talk) 10:45, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
 * So do you claim that these territories rightfully belong to Poland today? 2A02:AA1:1626:AC48:9D86:1227:C177:A872 (talk) 17:46, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

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Joint invasion of Poland envisaged in the Molotov-von Ribbentrop Pact?
The usual refrain that M-vR secret protocols defined the terms for a "joint invasion" of Poland is false. Nowdays the document "is in the public domain", you can read it and I'm afraid you'll find not even a single word about any invasion by either part. One could eventually say that historian xyz says that soviets and nazis agreed to invade Poland when preparing the treaty. Still, saying that the pact envisaged such invasion is reading between the line, which is not what wikipedia should do. Also "joint invasion" maybe deserves a closer look: what exactly is a "joint invasion"?, in particular: does the mere simultaneous presence of two armies on the territory of another state imply ipso facto a joint invasion of that state? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 5.88.210.77 (talk) 17:52, 5 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Actually, WP:PRIMARY says the opposite. It says, "Do not analyze, evaluate, interpret, or synthesize material found in a primary source yourself; instead, refer to reliable secondary sources that do so." So if the historians say that "territorial and political rearrangement of the areas belonging to the Polish state" and "whether the interests of both parties make desirable the maintenance of an independent Polish State" mean they agreed an invasion, then that's what Wikipedia says. The same goes for the the phrase "joint invasion of Poland", which is almost ubiquitous in history books. Scolaire (talk) 09:19, 25 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Well, surely there may be a number of historians who, quoting your own words, «say that "territorial and political rearrangement of the areas belonging to the Polish state" and "whether the interests of both parties make desirable the maintenance of an independent Polish State" mean they agreed an invasion», but I'm not sure whether these historians are actually the majority, here; I'd be happy to be wrong on this, but I'm afraid that, if we take enough time to check it out, we'd find out that what really is ubiquitous in (western) history books is the plain and simple assertion "the agreement for a joint invasion is IN the pact" (or that it is a PART of the pact, or that it can be found in the secret protocols of the pact, and other variations on the same theme). As I said before, that specific assertion is false; and in saying this I'm neither saying anything about any possible interpretation of the pact's wording (let alone how majoritarian/minoritarian they may be), nor I'm trying to interpret the pact on my own (btw, an interpetation is… an interpretation; I'm not sure whether, by its own nature, an interpretation can be called either "true" or "false"). PS: would you ever say that Turkey and Israel (and maybe IS and US) are jointly invading/attacking Syria?, would/should wp ever use such words? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.152.186.107 (talk) 02:20, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

"The joint German-Soviet invasion of Poland was secretly agreed to following the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact on 23 August 1939" has a single citation pointing to the text of the pact, which plainly does not consist of an agreement to invade. Zetaeta (talk) 23:10, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

Adding on to this because it seems the correct discussion. As of my reading it the article contained: "The pact also provided designs for the Soviet participation in the invasion,[25] that included the opportunity to regain territories ceded to Poland in the Peace of Riga of 1921.". The latter half about the peace of Riga is entirely uncited, but the former part about designs for soviet participation, while having a citation, it refers to Davies 1996 p.440; which is about medieval fortifications, clearly a miscitation. The source starts on the invasion of Poland at page 996 (I have corrected another citation in the article here to refer to page 1001). I can find nothing in the source suggesting the pact provided designs for an invasion, the source even seems to imply the contrary ("[The Soviet union,] Declining any joint timetable with the Germans [...]") FireCrack (talk) 21:16, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

"An agreement at the Yalta Conference permitted the Soviet Union to annex almost all of their Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact portion of the Second Polish Republic"... I suggest replacing word "ANNEX" with the word "received". Or do you want to cast a shadow on all the participants of the Yalta Conference: the USA, the UK and others? Lol)))176.14.208.239 (talk) 17:35, 24 September 2021 (UTC)


 * "annex" is the proper word - your view that this somehow casts a dark light on a fait accompli is ludicrous. 50.111.31.194 (talk) 04:45, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

the Soviet Union invision was on the 17th of September
That implies Fall Weiss was a  joint invasion  which is obviously not true. Fall Weiss was an exclusively German plan, and the USSR was not informed about its details (even about the start date). In 8 September, Ribbentrop send a telegram to Stalin where he was asking what the Soviet plan to do with "their" part of Poland. That means no previous agreement existed on that account. Ribbentrop was event threatening that if the USSR would not take Eastern Poland under its control, Germany would have to do that by itself. All of that was a demonstration that no joint invasion occurred.Jack90s15 (talk) 06:19, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

The Polish armed forces hoped to hold out long enough so that an offensive could be mounted against Germany in the west, but on September 17 Soviet forces invaded from the east and all hope was lost. The next day, Poland’s government and military leaders fled the country. On September 28, the Warsaw garrison finally surrendered to a relentless German siege. That day, Germany and the USSR concluded an agreement outlining their zones of occupation. For the fourth time in its history, Poland was partitioned by its more powerful neighborsJack90s15 (talk) 06:19, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/germans-invade-poland

www.electronicmuseum.ca
- a diplomatic note by a Soviet official in Pravda may or may not be reliable (I would think not, and definitely a PRIMARY source as opposed to secondary analysis)... However www.electronicmuseum.ca is most certainly not a RS. This is a blog that currently advertises legal services. I left the text of the note in place - and just placed a cn tag. If this note os significant (and DUE) - surely it is repeated in a reliable secondary academic sources? Tomes have been written on the subject of this article - a reasonable source should be available.Icewhiz (talk) 17:39, 26 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Sorry, did not look onto the electronicmuseum.ca link itself. If the link became rotten in the recent years,  should make repairs for the source instead of ejection. As for definitely PRIMARY – true, but “Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources and, to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources and primary sources”. Perhaps the current edition relies too heavily on the Molotov’s note, but the note itself is a notable event may not be ignored in this context. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 05:50, 27 May 2019 (UTC)
 * It's clearly not a reliable site - it hosts dubious materials, is a blog, and advertises legal services on its main page ("Criminal Lawyer Toronto Can Save You from False Convictions and Charges ...."). I did not remove the note or make any "ejection" - I placed cn tag next to the text of the note, keeping all the text in the article intact. I will note that having looked for sources now, the quotation of the note is quite surely WP:UNDUE - it seems it is quoted only in two fairly low quality books - popular audience books - here (Pen & Sword) and here (which seems to be possibly a self-published ebook). It is also partially (about half the note in each - different bits) quoted in this 1958 journal article, and this journal article in the context of international law. The Soviet invasion of Poland is a rather well researched topic - you'd expect better sourcing to be available here.Icewhiz (talk) 06:17, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

In fact, confused two notes of 1939 and 1943, hence my edit was totally screwed up. Possibly have been in a mood inappropriate to edit Wikipedia. My apologies to. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 06:50, 27 May 2019 (UTC)
 * No worries. My aim here was cleaning up electronicmuseum.ca (prompted after I saw they were also hosting copies of very unreliable and extreme material and I did a bit more digging around the site) - the copy of the 1939 note may be OK there (match the original) - but the site itself doesn't come close to passing WP:V. If you want to place one of the books (all be it - low quality, and probably published after it appeared in this form on Wikipedia - WP:CITOGEN concerns) I linked to above as a citation - that would be an improvement as long as the quote itself is in. Another option is shortening the quote to the 1958 journal (page 70) which contains the beginning of the note + Molotov's radio address. Icewhiz (talk) 06:57, 27 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Also - a factoid perhaps worth incorporating - is that the Soviet legal rationale for their invasion (that Poland ceased to effectively exist following the German invasion) is somewhat novel and discussed in sources on international law - may be worth incorporating - this is a legal claim still discussed today. (though obviously - it was all rather a pretext given the pre-arranged deal with Nazi Germany). Icewhiz (talk) 07:02, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

Grover Furr disaggrees the Soviets invaded Poland
Here is his article: https://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/research/mlg09/did_ussr_invade_poland.html#The%20Question%20of%20the%20State%20in%20International%20Law

In short, I believe, the USSR didn't invade Poland because there was no Poland to invade. Its government fled the country, constituting Polish ground as "free land" under international law. Echaskaris (talk) 08:27, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

The Soviets invaded Poland on the morning of September 17, and the Polish government fled the country on the night of September 17-18. Poland's administration was still intact across the unoccupied parts of the country, and its army was still fighting. In fact it fought several battles against the Soviets, including one where the latter openly fought alongside the Germans. Despite being on the defeat in September 1939, Poland still legally existed as a country throughout the war, so your assertion makes every bit as much sense as claiming that Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, etc. legally ceased to exist as their governments were in exile.

Grover Furr is not a respected historian: he's a professor of medieval English with no credentials in 20th century history. His work is not subject to academic peer review nor taken seriously by any mainstream historical authorities. ImperatorPublius (talk) 02:07, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Updating later censorship section
Russia's foreign ministry put out a statement on 17 September 2019, the anniversary of the invasion, claiming that the Soviet Union never invaded Poland. I think this should be considered for addition to the end of the Communist and later censorship section, given that it was a statement given out by the Russian foreign ministry. Dmac2619 (talk) 20:03, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Merging of the page with "Invasion of Poland."
I think the page, along with Slovak invasion of Poland, should be merged with Invasion of Poland, since the three countries invaded the aforementioned country within a short period of each other, and Germany and the Soviet Union divided up Poland as part of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.VivaBlondie2000 (talk) 03:05, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Merge, rename and reformat or remove the page
The arguments given by the Soviets on the referring to the lack of existence of the Polish state were considered valid at the time, the Polish had used the same justification the year prior to annex and occupy Czechoslovak territory as well as skirmish with Czechoslovak forces. The Poles have rewritten the narrative of their own aggressive expansion before WW2 making themselves seem victims of aggression despite fighting many wars of aggression and territorial expansion. The Polish capital had fallen, the government fled the country disbanding the Polish state, nullifying international commitments to Poland and leaving free real estate. The Poles never even surrendered because there was no government to surrender. Merge-Merge with Invasion of Poland with Soviet occupation of Poland rather than invasion Rename and reformat-Rename to Soviet occupation of Poland and change or remove titles Remove-Misleading article with clear anti communist bias with very little substance in the "communist and later censorship" — Preceding unsigned comment added by AnonApril2020 (talk • contribs) 23:42, 31 August 2020 (UTC)


 * You had one wiki edits assigned to capitalist consumerist game called Overwatch, quite a reach considering your plethora of edits pretty much mirroring the same propaganda mouthpiece as the Soviets would against that game 2001:448A:3070:53EB:E9D6:CEFD:DAED:5432 (talk) 00:50, 2 December 2023 (UTC)