FACTOR OF THE COMMUNIST REVOLUTION IN GERMANY IN SOVIET-POLISH RELATIONS IN 1923

Abstract

The article raises the little-studied topic of the influence of the proletarian revolution in Germany, prepared in 1923 with the active support of the Comintern and the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), on relations between Poland and the USSR. The author relies on unpublished archival materials, first published and introduced into scientific circulation, revealing these events in a new light, declassified in the post-Soviet period. The work shows how, despite the presence of radical proposals that threatened a new large-scale war in Europe, the leadership of the RCP(b) chose a more pragmatic approach. Given the military power of the Polish state, Moscow decided to dispense with threats and intimidation that distinguished the Soviet approach to Poland from its policies towards Lithuania and Latvia in order to achieve the lifting of Warsaw's severe restrictions on transit between Germany and the USSR. In response, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP(b) agreed to make a number of concessions, primarily on economic and financial issues, including the payment of 30 million rubles in gold to Poland, to which Warsaw was entitled under the Riga Peace Treaty and was actually sabotaged by Moscow. In addition, the USSR was ready to allow the transit of Polish goods to Persia. This plan did not work, since Poland was aware that the lifting of restrictions on transit between the USSR and Germany increased the chances of revolution in Germany, which threatened Poland with communist countries encircling it. In addition, by the time the Soviet mission arrived in Warsaw with the above-mentioned proposals, there was no longer much sense in insisting on such an exchange with strong opposition from Polish diplomats, since plans to organize a proletarian revolution in Germany had failed.