The dramatic and little-known story of how, in the summer of 1920,
Lenin came within a hair's breadth of shattering the painstakingly
constructed Versailles peace settlement and spreading Bolshevism to
western Europe. In 1920 the new Soviet state was a mess, following
a brutal civil war, and the best way of ensuring its survival
appeared to be to export the revolution to Germany, itself
economically ruined by defeat in World War I and racked by internal
political dissension. Between Russia and Germany lay Poland, a
nation that had only just recovered its independence after more
than a century of foreign oppression. But it was economically and
militarily weak and its misguided offensive to liberate the Ukraine
in the spring of 1920 laid it open to attack. Egged on by Trotsky,
Lenin launched a massive westward advance under the flamboyant
Marshal Tukhachevsky. All that Great Britain and France had fought
for over four years now seemed at risk. By the middle of August the
Russians were only a few kilometres from Warsaw, and Berlin was
less than a week's march away. Then occurred the 'Miracle of the
Vistula': the Polish army led by Jozef Pilsudski regrouped and
achieved one of the most decisive victories in military history. As
a result, the Versailles peace settlement survived, and Lenin was
forced to settle for Communism in one country. The battle for
Warsaw bought Europe nearly two decades of peace, and communism
remained a mainly Russian phenomenon, subsuming many of the
autocratic and Byzantine characteristics of Russia's tsarist
tradition.
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