WI:Polish-Soviet War, Soviets dont retreat from Ukraine

In OTL the Soviet forces withdrew from western Ukraine and even abandoned Kiev. What if the Soviet army had stayed in Ukraine and been defeated in a battle for Kiev.

Say it is because they fear that the Polish-Ukrainian forces would get bolstered by taking such a populous city and they do not want to deal with that problem. They then force a battle, which the Polish command wished, on the outskirts of Kiev and are defeated. Retreating Soviet forces cause much devastation to Kiev hoping to make certain that it cannot benefit the Poles. This backfires leading to major popular support for Poland now seen as the liberator of Kiev. Instead of in OTL the Ukrainian Army remaining rather small it grows very large and turns back the Soviet armies.

If this happens what would you expect Eastern Europe to look like?

I expect a Ukraine that goes maybe to Poltava if battles continue to go their way, but at least a very pro-Poland Ukraine that is at the Dneiper.

Thoughts?
 
It is interesting how history repeats itself with a twist. In 1949 it was the Polish and Ukrainian armies that needed to make the decision whether to withdraw from their positions in the city, while 18 years later it was the Soviet armies that had to make the decision.

Still, it is said that the new Kiev is more beautiful than the old.
 
In OTL the Soviet forces withdrew from western Ukraine and even abandoned Kiev. What if the Soviet army had stayed in Ukraine and been defeated in a battle for Kiev.

Say it is because they fear that the Polish-Ukrainian forces would get bolstered by taking such a populous city and they do not want to deal with that problem. They then force a battle, which the Polish command wished, on the outskirts of Kiev and are defeated. Retreating Soviet forces cause much devastation to Kiev hoping to make certain that it cannot benefit the Poles. This backfires leading to major popular support for Poland now seen as the liberator of Kiev. Instead of in OTL the Ukrainian Army remaining rather small it grows very large and turns back the Soviet armies.

If this happens what would you expect Eastern Europe to look like?

I expect a Ukraine that goes maybe to Poltava if battles continue to go their way, but at least a very pro-Poland Ukraine that is at the Dneiper.

Thoughts?

So you propose a TL in which there is a Ukraine in the 1920s and 30s. I don't really see how much this matters. So in Molotov-Ribbentrop it is decided that Germany gets all of Poland, and the Bolshies get only the Ukraine - maybe. Even so, this won't have much of an effect on history.
Even if Poland keeps Galicia under Nazi occupation (assuming Stalin doesn't get it anyway) the Soviets will probably annex it to the Ukraine in '44-'45.

The only major international effects I can think of are:
1) The Soviet Union is slightly smaller and the west has a broader defense line against communist agression, perhaps making the west a bit less alarmed and suspicious of Stalin.
2) Romania doesn't have territorial and national disputes with a nation that happens to be communist, therefor the Romanians are less Bolshi-phobic and might not deteriorate to complete fascism, although their fall to the radical right is inevitable.
 
Erm.. the Soviets not having Ukraine means huge, huge butterflies. For a start the Soviet Union just become significantly poorer.
 
So you propose a TL in which there is a Ukraine in the 1920s and 30s. I don't really see how much this matters. So in Molotov-Ribbentrop it is decided that Germany gets all of Poland, and the Bolshies get only the Ukraine - maybe. Even so, this won't have much of an effect on history.
Even if Poland keeps Galicia under Nazi occupation (assuming Stalin doesn't get it anyway) the Soviets will probably annex it to the Ukraine in '44-'45.

The only major international effects I can think of are:
1) The Soviet Union is slightly smaller and the west has a broader defense line against communist agression, perhaps making the west a bit less alarmed and suspicious of Stalin.
2) Romania doesn't have territorial and national disputes with a nation that happens to be communist, therefor the Romanians are less Bolshi-phobic and might not deteriorate to complete fascism, although their fall to the radical right is inevitable.

Ukraine provided a good amount of the foodstuffs for the Soviet Union, IIRC, and if they get Sevastopol(which I doubt) then that eliminates the most important European warm water port.

Also I think that Latvia would be stronger, as they were a Polish ally, whilst Lithuania would be significantly weaker as they were in conflict over Wilno.

In my mind I think that Poland would expand to Vitebesk likely, they were planning an offensive on Zhloben and would likely continue north, Latvia would move all the way to Pskov likely, and Ukraine to the river near Poltava then down the Dneiper.

Perhaps this would delay WW2 for a little while due to German fears as to what such a strong eastern alliance could do. Mayhaps it delays Munich as well because the Czechs would know the Poles would defend them.
 
Also, an independent Ukraine would be strongly anti-Bolshevisk but without any dispute with Germany (as Poland had) so it could gravitate towards a German alliance in the 30s. At the same time, the Nazis might 'forget' that the Ukrainians are Slavs, like they did with the Croats and Bulgarians. The result would be a Germany that is willing to count on and cooperate with the Ukrainians during Operation Barbarossa, changing the dynamics of the Eastern Front in WW2.
 
Also, an independent Ukraine would be strongly anti-Bolshevisk but without any dispute with Germany (as Poland had) so it could gravitate towards a German alliance in the 30s. At the same time, the Nazis might 'forget' that the Ukrainians are Slavs, like they did with the Croats and Bulgarians. The result would be a Germany that is willing to count on and cooperate with the Ukrainians during Operation Barbarossa, changing the dynamics of the Eastern Front in WW2.

Would Ukraine though be able to get out of the thumb of Poland?
 
Well, once Poland is inevitably overrun by Nazi armies, that would be quite easy.

Considering Ukraine would be allied to Poland at the time wouldnt Germany continue on to them? And without the historical Soviet oppresion the Ukrainians would not be as receptive to the Germans.
 
Erm.. the Soviets not having Ukraine means huge, huge butterflies. For a start the Soviet Union just become significantly poorer.

Earling

Not only that but, unless the Ukraine is really badly fouled up it would be the Soviets worse nightmare. I.e. a relatively rich and prosperous, fairly free, state with the same culture as Russia and adjacent. I can't see the two co-existing for any length of time. Coupled with the lack of the resources looted from the Ukraine especially, but also from the rest of the rump Russian empire, it would be virtually impossible to see it develop as it did.

Steve
 
It might be possible that an Independent Ukraine might benefit not only Poland but the entire Baltic states. Cooperation between Poland and the Ukraine might have allowed the Polish industry to grow and result in a much stronger and more Mechanized Polish army in 1939. The Poles might have develope a much more formable airforce and with sales to the Ukraine it might have been beneficial fro both countries. Indeed Romania would not have turned to the Germans but would have been allied with the Poles and Ukrainians.
 

Faeelin

Banned
Earling

Not only that but, unless the Ukraine is really badly fouled up it would be the Soviets worse nightmare. I.e. a relatively rich and prosperous, fairly free, state with the same culture as Russia and adjacent. I can't see the two co-existing for any length of time. Coupled with the lack of the resources looted from the Ukraine especially, but also from the rest of the rump Russian empire, it would be virtually impossible to see it develop as it did.

Steve

What makes you so sure that Ukraine is relatively rich and free?

Perhaps it's as democratic as Hungary.
 
What makes you so sure that Ukraine is relatively rich and free?

Perhaps it's as democratic as Hungary.

When the alternative is having a bloody great chunk of its population deliberately starved to death, Hungary under Horthy is relatively rich and free.
 

Faeelin

Banned
When the alternative is having a bloody great chunk of its population deliberately starved to death, Hungary under Horthy is relatively rich and free.

Rich? Well, Hungary didn't bang out a crackerjack industrial base in a decade.

Free? Eh. A Nazi ally, fairly antisemitic....
 
Rich? Well, Hungary didn't bang out a crackerjack industrial base in a decade.

Free? Eh. A Nazi ally, fairly antisemitic....

Most places are free and rich compared to Soviet Ukraine in the early 1930s. By relatively, I mean comparatively. Think some Latin American caudillo vs. Kim Jong Il.

Horthy was an authoritarian twit, but he protected the Hungarian Jews from the Nazis until they invaded Hungary and threw him out. The Soviets strip-mined Ukraine of food and wouldn't let the people leave, leading to millions of deaths by starvation.
 

Faeelin

Banned
Most places are free and rich compared to Soviet Ukraine in the early 1930s. By relatively, I mean comparatively. Think some Latin American caudillo vs. Kim Jong Il.

Stalin was not Kim Jong Il.

The USSR may have been many things, but early on it developed extremely rapidly, something that you seem unwilling to grasp. And that development was something that people were proud of.
 
Stalin was not Kim Jong Il.

The USSR may have been many things, but early on it developed extremely rapidly, something that you seem unwilling to grasp. And that development was something that people were proud of.

Unwilling to grasp?

I am willing to give credit where credit is due, but they didn't NEED to do what they did in Ukraine.
 
Independent Ukraine

How much this matters depends partly on how much of what is now the Ukraine remains independent and how well governed it is. Any significant independent Ukraine cuts into the Soviet ability to feed the USSR without imports or more investment in farming. A Ukraine that extends east to the area around Kharkov cuts into Soviet coal and iron production.

Other impacts: If it extends far enough east, an independent Ukraine would shield Wrangel's White Russian army from land-based attack by the Soviets. Any significant independent Ukraine would also alter the balance of power within the Soviet Union quite a bit. The Ukraine was the most heavily populated Soviet Socialist Republic other than the Russian SSR. That means that the rump USSR would be even more heavily Russian dominated than the historic version. However, there would be a smaller proportion of Slavs to non-Slavs, especially Moslems than there was historically.

Bottom line there: A considerably less powerful Soviet Union with less pretence of being a multi-national society.

From the Polish standpoint, having an independent Ukraine would be a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it would give them a valuable buffer against the Soviets if the Soviets became strong again. On the other hand, interwar Poland contained large chunks of territory that were Ukrainian-speaking and did not want to be part of Poland.

As a matter of fact, the formerly Austrian part of what is now the Ukraine fought a bitter war with the Poles shortly after World War I ended, and around 100,000 men from the defeated army of the "Western Ukrainian People's Republic" went into exile in the then still independent Eastern Ukraine rather than live under Polish rule. If the Ukraine became strong it would encourage Ukrainain nationalists in Polish-held territories to try to become part of it, just by being there. The Poles had enough problems controlling the Ukrainian-speaking areas of interwar Poland as it was, with a low-level rebellion continuing through most of the interwar years.

How would an independent Ukraine shape up? Based on what I know of Ukrainian governance in the brief period they were independent, not so well. The part of the Ukraine that had been controlled by Russia before World War I was largely agricultural, with a lot of poor, poorly educated peasants and very few people with much experience governing a country or even a town. Of the educated minority, many were close enough to the Bolsheviks that many of them joined the party in the early to mid 1920s, and were purged fo nationalist tendencies in the late 1920s. Then there was Mahkno and his anarchists, who controlled (or at least kept anyone else from controlling) large parts of the southern Ukraine. I'm guessing that the Ukraine would be poor, unstable and militarily vulnerable until able leaders emerged and gained experience. I woud guess that it would take ten years before that happened, assuming that the Soviets stayed out long enough for it to happen.

Unfortunately for the Ukrainians, they simply didn't have many people experienced in making things work because the Russians had worked to prevent Ukrainians from acquiring those kinds of skills. By contrast, the Poles had a class of people from the formely Austrian part of the Ukraine with experience running at least the local government of the primarily Polish areas, and some Poles had long been part of the Austria-Hungarian government, so the Poles had some experience to draw on.

I don't know exactly where this leads, and it may be more info than you wanted, but hopefully it gives you some ideas one where this could go.
 
How brutal were the Soviets in Ukraine before the Polish invasion?

If they weren't particulalry unpleasant and the Poles become particularly odious during the interwar years, Ukraine might be vulnerable to Soviet subversion later on.
 
Here's another idea.

With a weaker USSR, would Hitler still come to power? The spectre of Communism might not be as scary, particularly if Soviet shenanigans are confined to Ukraine and other parts of Eastern Europe.

(they did assist the German Communist party during Weimar)
 
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