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Before the Red Army even entered Poland, the Soviet Union pursued a strategy of eliminating pro-Western resistance there, in order to ensure that Poland would fall under its sphere of influence. [29] In 1943, after the revelation of the Katyn massacre, Stalin suspended relations with the Polish government-in-exile in London. [30]
The Soviet invasion of Poland was a military conflict by the Soviet Union without a formal declaration of war.On 17 September 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east, 16 days after Nazi Germany invaded Poland from the west.
The Polish–Soviet border, as of 1939, had been determined in 1921 at the Treaty of Riga peace talks, which followed the Polish–Soviet War. [7] Under the terms of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, two weeks after the German invasion of western Poland, the Soviet Union invaded the portions of eastern Poland assigned to it by the Pact, followed by co-ordination with German forces in Poland.
[9] [240] The Peace of Riga, signed on that day, determined the Polish–Soviet border and divided the disputed territories in Belarus and Ukraine between Poland and the Soviet Union (soon to be officially established). [4] [244] [245] The treaty also regulated various other aspects of Polish–Soviet relations. [226]
After World War II, Poland's borders were redrawn, following the decision taken at the Tehran Conference of 1943 at the insistence of the Soviet Union. Poland lost 77,000 km 2 of territory in its eastern regions , gaining instead the smaller but much more industrialized (however ruined) so-called "Regained Territories" east of the Oder-Neisse line.
The anti-communist resistance in Poland, also referred to as the Polish anti-communist insurrection fought between 1944 and 1953, was an anti-communist and anti-Soviet armed struggle by the Polish Underground against the Soviet domination of Poland by the Soviet-installed People's Republic of Poland, since the end of World War II in Europe.
The Invasion of Poland, [e] also known as the September Campaign, [f] Polish Campaign, [g] and Polish Defensive War of 1939 [h] [13] (1 September – 6 October 1939), was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany, the Slovak Republic, and the Soviet Union, which marked the beginning of World War II. [14]
In September 1939, Poland was invaded and occupied by two powers: Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, acting in accordance with the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. [7] Germany acquired 48.4% of the former Polish territory. [8]