The significance of the meeting between Russia President Vladimir Putin and President Trump in Alaska is clear not only because of the high stakes of the talks — peace in Ukraine — but also because of its symbolic date: Aug. 15.
Tomorrow marks the 105th anniversary of the historic Battle of Warsaw, when Poles halted the advance of Russian communism to the West.
Trump once said that the Russians are a valiant nation, having defeated both Napoleon and Hitler. That much is true. However, the Russians have also suffered many defeats, especially in offensive wars. Moreover, between defeating Napoleon and Hitler, they lost a war with Poland at enormous cost. The Battle of Warsaw on Aug. 15, 1920 was another day of defeat for Russia that ended Bolshevik dreams of expansion westward.
Vladimir Lenin wanted to spread the communist revolution to Western Europe. In the aftermath of World War I, the German, Austrian, French and British proletariat were all ripe for revolt; they just needed a little help. Thus General Mikhail Tukhachevsky’s Red Army, whose political commissar was none other than Joseph Stalin, marched westward.
Few believed the Polish Army could stop the Bolshevik forces, which were three times larger. But what happened was the “Miracle on the Vistula.” Poland’s head of state, Józef Piłsudski, repelled the Bolsheviks on the eastern outskirts of Warsaw, and Polish forces launched a devastating counteroffensive. The victory of the Polish army five weeks later in the Battle of the Niemen River in northeastern Poland put an end to the Bolsheviks’ plans for expansion to the West.
The U.S. also contributed to the victory over Russia, having granted Poland a wartime loan of $176 million. This had enabled the purchase of 200 tanks and 300 aircraft. Additionally, 30,000 volunteers from the American Polish community had trained in military camps on the Canadian border. Poland also received considerable humanitarian aid, thanks to a program led by Herbert Hoover.
American volunteer pilots also took part in the war against Bolshevism by serving in the 7th Fighter Squadron, which was named after the hero of both nations, Tadeusz Kościuszko. The Squadron was the first line of defense against the might of Semyon Budyonny’s 1st Cavalry Army.
Three American airmen lost their lives in combat. Several were wounded, and Captain Merian Cooper was taken prisoner by the Bolsheviks, from whom he escaped and then trekked nearly 400 miles to safety. Recalling the day when Józef Piłsudski bestowed him and other U.S. pilots with Poland’s highest order, the Virtuti Militari, Cooper recalled: “We blushed with pride, feeling that we had not failed, but had served Poland, if only a little.” After returning to the United States, Cooper co-directed the film “King Kong,” in which he himself played the pilot of the plane attacking the giant ape. In 1952 he received an Oscar for lifetime achievement.
American aviators who fought against the Bolsheviks in 1920 were also commemorated by a monument erected at the military cemetery in Lviv. However, it was destroyed during the communist era, as the defeat of the Soviet Union by Poland was to be forever erased from memory. It was only after Ukraine regained its independence in 1991 that the monument was restored.
The significance of the Battle of Warsaw was hailed by then-U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who took part in the celebrations of the 100th anniversary of the battle on August 15, 2020. In Warsaw on that symbolic day, the two countries signed the Poland-United States Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, which, as Pompeo emphasized, was signed on the anniversary of the event when Poland stopped the wave of communism spreading across Europe. The agreement created a legal framework for the U.S. military presence in Poland and the US V Corps Command.
This Friday, therefore, Poland will celebrate the 105th anniversary of her victory over the Bolshevik army. Without, however, the participation of U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who will no doubt accompany President Trump during talks with Putin at the U.S. military base near Anchorage.
History will thus come full circle: The former adversary of the U.S. will become a partner in talks on peace in Ukraine, and Aug. 15 will fade away as a symbol of the Russian defeat in 1920, instead becoming a symbol of Russian victory — the end of the Kremlin’s international isolation and Putin’s return to the diplomatic center stage.
Jacek Czaputowicz served as Poland’s foreign minister from 2018 to 2020 and is a professor at the University of Warsaw.
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