Peace of Riga - Treaty Aftermath

Treaty Aftermath

The Soviet-Polish peace treaty was registered in League of Nations Treaty Series on August 12, 1921.

The Allied Powers were reluctant to recognize the treaty, which had been concluded without their participation. Their postwar conferences supported the Curzon Line as the Polish-Russian border, and Poland's territorial gains in the treaty lay about 250 km east of that line. French support led to its recognition in March 1923 by France, Great Britain, Italy, and Japan, followed by the US in April.

In Poland, the Treaty of Riga was met with criticism from the very beginning. Some characterized the treaty as short-sighted and argued that much of what Poland had gained during the Polish-Soviet war was lost during the peace negotiations. By 1921, General Jozef Piłsudski was no longer the head of state and had participated in the Riga negotiations only as an observer, which he called an act of cowardice. Piłsudski felt the agreement was a shameless and short-sighted political calculation. Allegedly, having walked out of the room, he told the Ukrainians waiting there for the results of the Riga Conference: "Gentlemen, I deeply apologize to you". In fact, Piłsudski did apologize the Ukrainian officers on a completely different occasion. His words, commonly associated with the Riga conference, were said on May 15, 1921, during Piłsudski's visit to the internment camp at Szczypiorno. The context however was clearly the same.

Belarussian and Ukrainian independence movements saw the treaty as a setback. Four million Ukrainians and over one million Belarussians lived within areas ceded to Poland; in one estimate, only 15% of the population was ethnically Polish. The Ukrainian People's Republic led by Symon Petliura had been allied with Poland by Treaty of Warsaw, but the Treaty of Riga abrogated it. The new treaty violated Poland's military alliance with the UPR, which had explicitly prohibited a separate peace. In doing so, it worsened relations between Poland and those Ukrainians who had supported Petliura. These supporters felt Ukraine had been betrayed by its Polish ally, a feeling that would be exploited by Ukrainian nationalists and contribute to the growing tensions and eventual violence in the 1930s and 1940s. By the end of 1921, the majority of Poland-allied Ukrainian, Belarusian and White Russian forces had either crossed the Polish border and laid down their arms or had been annihilated by Soviet forces.