Decyzje, które ocaliły niepodległość

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Lenkijos valstybės atkūrimas; Lenkijos-Sovietų Rusijos karas; Vilnius. Keywords: Forming of Polish state; Polish-Soviet war; Vilnius.

ENAt the turn of 1918 and 1919, the reborn Polish state faced the threat of invasion by the Red Army for the first time. Independent Poland stood in the way of the westward march of the revolution and therefore, according to the Bolshevik authorities, had to disappear from the map of Europe. It could exist only as another Soviet republic. The Polish elites, the Polish intelligentsia, would then face the fate that the Bolsheviks had prepared for the Russian elites–physical annihilation. Contrary to the opinions expressed by the majority of Polish politicians and military men of that time, Commander-in-Chief Józef Piłsudski made a risky decision not to wait on the Niemen and Bug Rivers for the approach of the Red Army but to send his very limited forces to the east to meet the enemy. He wanted to protect the centre of the country from invasion, which could have unpredictable consequences for the only forming Polish state. Few Polish formations, composed mainly of volunteers, thanks to their soldier qualities and good command, were able to beat the leading units of the Red Army, which made the Bolshevik command, having no information about the Polish forces, stop the offensive. This fact was decisive for the first phase of the Polish-Soviet war. The shift of the front to the east allowed Piłsudski to prepare an attack on Vilnius in the spring of 1919, which anticipated the Bolshevik offensive, was a complete success, and started a string of Polish victories on the Polish-Bolshevik front in 1919. [From the publication]