Pygmywars update April 2021

[trev]

Hi all,

I noticed yesterday that there were some updates on Pygmywars.  Either I wasn't paying attention or Mark has been hiding his light under a bushel and not telling us himself about the new pages on his web site.

http://pygmywars.com/misc/latest.html

There are some Soviet Orbats for the 1920 Polish front, a short page on Don tachankas and four new articles on various theatres in the RCW history section. 

[Mark Plant]

Trev,

The changes I made were not very BoB oriented, so I didn't post here.

There will be a major revision in the coming months, as I have a whole new section on "Gaming the Red Army" that will be of more interest. I'm just faffing around trying to sort out the uniforms and flags pages.

It will include a few extra orders of battle, including one for the Fergana Front in 1919, which is a bit more BoB-like.

[trev]

Hi Mark,

That sounds good.  I'm looking forward to that now. 

Generally, I was under the impression that anything Russian Civil War was on topic here although the Russo-Polish war could be perhaps Interwar instead.  Happy to be guided by the mods to which side of the line we should be.

It's good stuff either way. 

[cuprum]

I think a more correct name would be the Polish-Bolshevik war, since the Poles fought only with one of the factions that existed in Russia.

[Mark Plant]

Cuprum you know the Poles fought the UHA (UGA) to control the L'viv (L'vov area). So that's two factions the Poles fought. Plus the Lithuanians on the side. (Also the Czechs and Germans, if we're counting.)

Even in 1920 there were a fair number of Ukrainians on the "Polish" side, plus various Russians (especially Cossack and Bulak-Bulakovich's mob). They may have been the minority, but that is about four divisions of troops not actually Polish. (Then we can add in all the interned Russians from the Bredov March.)

I don't mind calling it the "Polish-Bolshevik War", but then we get the "Latvian-Bolshevik War", "Estonian-Bolshevik War", "Don-Bolshevik War", "Semirechensk-Bolshevik War" and the whole thing breaks down into tiny fragments.

At the time Russians tended to consider Poland to be largely Russian, so it gets to be the "Rebellious Western Russians vs Bolshevik Russians War" from their point of view.

[cuprum]

On August 29, 1918, the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR issued a decree renouncing the treaties concluded by the Russian Empire with Austria and Prussia, including those concerning the partition of Poland, as contradicting the "principle of self-determination of nations and the revolutionary legal consciousness of the Russian people." Thus, they de facto recognized the independence of Poland and demonstrated to the international community that Russia has no claims to Poland.

The independence of Estonia (its Soviet government) was recognized by the Bolsheviks in December 1918. Russian Bolshevik troops acted here as allies of the Estonian Red Army.

The Cossack governments were never recognized by the Bolsheviks, as were the claims of the Cossacks to be recognized as a separate nationality (which is absolutely logical - the Cossacks are a military estate, a transformed relic of the Middle Ages). Accordingly, there could not have been any Soviet-Cossack wars.

And yes, from the point of view of Soviet and now Russian historiography, all these wars on the territory of the former Russian Empire are considered as a single Civil War, part of which were clashes, including with various nationalists - former Russian citizens. In addition, one should not forget that often large national units and formations were part of the Red Army, and sometimes communist governments were created, claiming the leadership of these regions.

If you look at the situation from, say, Estonia, then you will see only a small fragment of the events taking place around Estonia itself. But if you look at the entire territory of the former Russian Empire, then the events around Estonia are just a small fragment of large-scale events. So yes - there was a Soviet-Estonian war, but this is just one campaign of a big war.

It should also be taken into account that often different factions entered into a military alliance. For example, Polish military formations actively fought against the Bolsheviks in the South of Russia, in the North of Russia and in Siberia. They fought against the Russians, or against one of the factions in the Russian Civil War? Were they participants in the Russian civil war in this case?

[trev]

Interesting how subjective even the name of a war can be.  In my first post I wrote 'Polish Front', considering the fighting part of the Civil War.  After Mark's comment about parts of the RCW not being BoB enough I called it the 'Russo-Polish war' to hypothetically make it distinct and worthy of the Interwar group.  Personally I tend towards viewing the Polish nationalist vs Bolshevik fighting as part of the Civil war given there was no pre-existing Polish state.  I imagine from a Polish nationalist point of view Poland was always a nation even when ruled/occupied by foreign powers.   I think we're safe to talk about it in this group whichever we go for though.  It's all Back of Beyond to the arrogant anglocentric view that really counts. 

[cuprum]

To see an object convex and in all details, you need to look at it from different points of view