Editing Curzon Line (section)

==Polish–Soviet War of 1919–1921==
{{Main|Polish–Soviet War}}
Polish forces pushed eastward, [[Kiev offensive (1920)|taking Kiev]] in May 1920. Following a strong Soviet counteroffensive, Prime Minister [[Władysław Grabski]] sought Allied assistance in July. Under pressure, he agreed to a Polish withdrawal to the 1919 version of the line and, in [[Galicia (Eastern Europe)|Galicia]], an armistice near the current line of battle.<ref name=wand>{{cite book|author=Piotr Stefan Wandycz|title=France and her eastern allies, 1919-1925: French-Czechoslovak-Polish relations from the Paris Peace Conference to Locarno|url=https://archive.org/details/francehereastern0000wand_w3|url-access=registration|access-date=26 January 2011|year=1962|publisher=U of Minnesota Press|isbn=978-0-8166-5886-2|pages=[https://archive.org/details/francehereastern0000wand_w3/page/154 154]–156}}</ref> On {{awrap|11 July 1920}}, Curzon signed a telegram sent to the Bolshevik government proposing that a ceasefire be established along the line, and his name was subsequently associated with it.<ref name=Boemeke/>

Curzon's July 1920 proposal differed from the 19 December announcement in two significant ways.<ref name=SuyWellens1998>{{cite book|author1=Eric Suy|author2=Karel Wellens|title=International law: theory and practice : essays in honour of Eric Suy|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Nv6CuZ-AcoYC&pg=PA111|access-date=4 February 2011|year=1998|publisher=Martinus Nijhoff Publishers|isbn=978-90-411-0582-0|pages=110–111}}</ref> The December note did not address the issue of Galicia, since it had been a part of the Austrian Empire rather than the Russian, nor did it address the Polish-Lithuanian dispute over the [[Vilnius Region]], since those borders were demarcated at the time by the [[Foch Line]].<ref name=SuyWellens1998/> The July 1920 note specifically addressed the Polish-Lithuanian dispute by mentioning a line running from [[Grodno]] to [[Vilnius]] (Wilno) and thence north to [[Daugavpils]], [[Latvia]] (Dynaburg).<ref name=SuyWellens1998/> It also mentioned Galicia, where earlier discussions had resulted in the alternatives of Line A and Line B.<ref name=SuyWellens1998/> The note endorsed Line A, which included Lwów and its nearby oil fields within Russia.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://web.ku.edu/~eceurope/hist557/lect11.htm|author=Anna M. Cienciala|publisher=University of Kansas|title=Lecture Notes 11 - THE REBIRTH OF POLAND|access-date=2011-01-26|author-link=Anna M. Cienciala}}</ref> This portion of the line did not correspond to the current line of battle in Galicia, as per Grabski's agreement, and its inclusion in the July note has lent itself to disputation.<ref name=wand/>

On 17 July, the Soviets responded to the note with a refusal. [[Georgy Chicherin]], representing the Soviets, commented on the delayed interest of the British for a peace treaty between Russia and Poland. He agreed to start negotiations as long as the Polish side asked for it. The Soviet side at that time offered more favourable border solutions to Poland than the ones offered by the Curzon Line.<ref name=eh-carr>E. H. Carr (1982). ''The Bolshevik Revolution 1917–1923'' (A history of Soviet Russia), volume 3 , p.260, Greek edition, ekdoseis Ypodomi</ref> In August the Soviets were defeated by the Poles just outside Warsaw and forced to retreat. During the ensuing Polish offensive, the Polish government repudiated Grabski's agreement with regard to the line on the grounds that the Allies had not delivered support or protection.<ref name="Palij1995">{{cite book|author=Michael Palij|title=The Ukrainian-Polish defensive alliance, 1919-1921: an aspect of the Ukrainian revolution|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2T9zYXqL56AC&pg=PA134|access-date=27 January 2011|year=1995|publisher=CIUS Press|isbn=978-1-895571-05-9|pages=134}}</ref>

===Peace of Riga===
{{Main|Peace of Riga}}
[[Image:Caricature_for_Riga_Peace_1921.png|thumb|250px|Belarusian Caricature: "Down with the infamous Riga partition! Long live a free peasant indivisible Belarus!"]]
At the March 1921 [[Treaty of Riga]] the Soviets conceded<ref name="Ryan2004">{{cite book|author=Henry Butterfield Ryan|title=The vision of Anglo-America: the US-UK alliance and the emerging Cold War, 1943-1946|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uRGu4C1FgKsC&pg=PA75|access-date=3 February 2011|date=19 August 2004|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-89284-1|page=75|quote=A peace was finally concluded and a boundary, much less favourable to Russia than the Curzon Line, was determined at Riga in March 1921 and known as the Riga Line.}}</ref> a frontier well to the east of the Curzon Line, where Poland had conquered a great part of the [[Vilna Governorate]] (1920/1922), including the town of Wilno (''Vilnius''), and East Galicia (1919), including the city of Lwów, as well as most of the region of [[Volhynia]] (1921). The treaty provided Poland with almost {{convert|135000|sqkm|sqmi}} of land that was, on average, about {{convert|250|km|mi}} east of the Curzon Line.<ref name="FryGoldstein2004">{{cite book|author1=Michael Graham Fry|author2=Erik Goldstein|author3=Richard Langhorne|title=Guide to International Relations and Diplomacy|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z5ndamBABdIC&pg=PA203|access-date=3 February 2011|date=30 March 2004|publisher=Continuum International Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-8264-7301-1|pages=203}}</ref><ref name="Tucker2010">{{cite book|author=Spencer Tucker|title=Battles That Changed History: An Encyclopedia of World Conflict|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SWBkx0UlgMAC&pg=PA448|access-date=3 February 2011|date=11 November 2010|publisher=ABC-CLIO|isbn=978-1-59884-429-0|pages=448}}</ref> The Polish-Soviet border was recognised by the [[League of Nations]] in 1923{{Citation needed|reason=Reliable source needed for the whole sentence|date=November 2020}} and confirmed by various Polish-Soviet agreements.{{Citation needed|reason=Reliable source needed for the whole sentence|date=November 2020}} Within the annexed regions, Poland founded several administrative districts, such as the [[Wołyń Voivodeship (1921–39)|Volhynian Voivodeship]], the [[Polesie Voivodeship]], and the [[Wilno Voivodeship (1926–39)|Wilno Voivodeship]].

As a concern of possible expansion of Polish territory, Polish politicians traditionally could be subdivided into two opposite groups advocating contrary approaches: restoration of Poland based on its former western territories one side and, alternatively, restoration of Poland based on its previous holdings in the east on the other.

During the first quarter of the 20th century, a representative of the first political group was [[Roman Dmowski]], an adherent of the [[Pan-Slavism|pan-slavistic movement]] and author of several political books and publications<ref>Roman Dmowski: ''La question polonaise''. Paris 1909, in French, translated from the Polish 1908 edition of ''Niemcy, Rosja a sprawa polska'' (''Germany, Russia and the Polish Question'', reprinted in 2010 by Nabu Press, U.S.A., {{ISBN|978-1-141-67057-4}}).</ref> of some importance, who approached the issue pragmatically, but advocating for incorporation of available land based on a [[Ethnography|ethnographic principle]] combined with a theory of easy assimilation of Belarusians within a centralised Polish state- the task potentially to be shared with Russia concerning Belarusians beyond the border which he viewed it would be possible to incorporate and assimilate.

This resulted in a modification of the [[Dmowski Line]] in negotiations for the Treaty of Riga, in which the Polish delegation (consisting of a majority of parliamentary representatives, Dmowski’s [[Zjednoczenie Ludowo-Narodowe]] being the strongest party) unilaterally ceding claims to the Minsk area without basis on the line of actual control, and despite it having a higher Polish-identified population (in absolute and proportionally) than many of the areas still claimed within the border. The goal is thought to be jeopardising Józef Piłsudski’s ambitions for creating a Polish-Belarusian federation, as a remnant of his ‘federationist idea’ (opposed to Dmowski’s ‘incorporation its idea’) with a Belarusian capital in Minsk. It was predicted that a Belarusian entity without [[Minsk]] would be deemed politically illegitimate and untenable to the local population. An anti-communist, but believing in the inevitability of a [[White movement|White]] victory in the Russian Civil War he wished to concentrate on resisting a more dangerous enemy of the Polish nation than Russia, which in his view was Germany.

The most powerful representative of the opposed group was [[Józef Piłsudski]], a former [[Socialism|socialist]] who was born in the Vilna Governorate annexed during the 1795 Third Partition of Poland by the Russian Empire, whose political vision was essentially a far-reaching restoration of the borders of the [[Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth]], ideally in the form of a multinational federation. Because the Russian Empire had collapsed into a state of civil war following the [[Russian Revolution of 1917]], and the [[Soviet Army]] had been defeated and been weakened considerably at the end of World War I by Germany's army, resulting in the [[Treaty of Brest-Litovsk]], Piłsudski took the chance and used military force in an attempt to realise his political vision by concentrating on the east and involving himself in the Polish–Soviet War.