God’s Playground. A History of Poland, Vol. 2. 1795 to the Present

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THE MODERN POLISH FRONTIERS 379

nationalist movement was suppressed in Russia, first by Denikin's Whites and
then by the Bolshevik Reds; whilst their colleagues in Galicia were suppressed
by the Poles. In the long run, though the Poles gained a temporary advantage,
the only beneficiary was Moscow.
Eastern Galicia — which was known to the Poles as eastern Malopolska, and
to the Ukrainians as the Western Ukraine - was unquestionably an area of
predominantly Ruthenian settlement. In the last years of Austrian rule, it had
provided the Ukrainian national movement with its main base and refuge. (See
Map 20b.) Yet the pattern of settlement, when examined in detail, was infer-
nally complex. In the cities, including Lwow, the Poles enjoyed both numerical
superiority and a favourable social and economic position. In the smaller towns,
the Jews were preponderant. In the countryside, exclusively Polish, Catholic vil-
lages frequently existed side by side with exclusively Ruthenian, Uniate or
Orthodox villages. In this situation, no simple line on a map could possibly have
traced a meaningful divide between a Polish zone and a Ukrainian one. What
was worse, by taking the law into their own hands from the start, the Ukrainian
leadership wrecked all chances of co-operation or compromise. By their unilat-
eral declaration of the People's Republic of Western Ukraine (ZURL) in
Lemberg on 1 November 1918, they provoked the Poles into massive retaliation
which did not relax until the whole province had been conquered. This cam-
paign, which lasted until July 1919, absorbed the principal effort of the Polish
Army at the time. Thereafter, the Polish frontier on the Zbrucz held firm. It was
recognized by the Ukrainian Directorate on 2.1 April 1920 as Pitsudski's price for
the march on Kiev, and on 18 March 1921 by the representatives of the
Ukrainian SSR at the Peace of Riga. In 1923, its reluctant ratification by the
Council of Ambassadors permitted the formal transfer of East Galicia into the
Polish Republic.^19 Less than twenty years later, of course, this settlement, too,
was overturned. In September 1939 in their agreement with the Nazis, as in
1944—5 in their dealings with Churchill and Roosevelt, the Soviet leaders suc-
cessfully contrived to take the whole of East Galicia into the USSR.
In 1945, Poland's eastern frontier was imposed by Soviet policy. Its Polish
advocates were confined to officials of the PKWN, the TPRP, and TJRN, who
had been obliged by their Soviet patrons to accept its validity as a prior condi-
tion of their appointment. Its acceptance by Mikolajczyk was only effected by
the most intense diplomatic pressure. 'You are on the verge of annihilation,'
Churchill told him. 'Unless you accept the frontier you are out of business for-
ever. The Russians will sweep through your country and your people will be
liquidated.'^20 Its recognition by the Western Powers was confirmed at Yalta on
the basis of the Curzon Line. A significant area more to the west round
Grodno, was annexed by the Soviet Union. By that time, however, the matter
was purely academic. It had already been decided to resettle all Poles from the
east of the new frontier into the Polish People's Republic, and to deport all
non-Poles from the west to the USSR. Inimitably, frontiers were to have prior-
ity over mere people.

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