bm2617@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote in
news:7373b342-194f-4634-aa4f-713362f8bcdc@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
:
> Greetings and salutations.
>
> I'm assuming that the Red Army does worse, and the Poles do a better
> job of getting the Ukranians on their side.
>
> A peace treaty is eventually hammered out in which Poland's eastern
> border from a bit south of Minsk is along the Dneiper - probably later
> than OTL, since the Soviets will be rather unhappier than OTL with the
> "facts on the ground." For the nonce, let's say it happens before 1921
> ends (OTL the Peace of Riga was signed in March). The Ukranians get a
> certain amount of autonomy within a Polish state less centralized than
> OTL.
I think that few Poles wished to incor****ate the heartland of Ukraine
directly into the Polish state--that would make Poland too heavily non-
Polish. What Pilsudski and Petlura actually agreed to in 1920
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Warsaw_(1920)
was a nominally
independent Ukrainian state--to be more precise, Poland agreed to
recognize
Petlura's "Ukrainian People's Republic" ("Ukrayins'ka Narodna Respublika"
also translated as "Ukranian National Republic") in return for a military
alliance, economic concessions, and Petlura's recognition of Polish
sovereignty over eastern Galicia and western Volhynia. In practice,
though,
such a Ukrainian state would be a Polish protectorate, Petlura needing the
Poles to protect him against not only Soviet Russia and local Bolsheviks
but
also against non-Bolshevik socialists (large numbers of whom would
doubtless
regard Bolshevism as a far lesser evil than rule by "Polish landlords and
their puppets") and Ukrainian nationalists bitter about his "betrayal" of
Western Ukraine.
The National Democrats would be especially opposed to such a large Polish
state, for reasons noted at
http://groups.google.com/group/soc.history.what-if/msg/4cf64c8278d7f3d0
I realize that for the purposes of some of your questions, whether right-
(i.e., west-) bank Ukraine would be part of Poland or part of a Polish
client
state would be irrelevant (the Soviets would still be denied some
im****tant
agricultural land) but for others (such as the effects on Polish internal
politics) it could be quite significant.
--
David Tenner
dtenner@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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