Український фронт неоголошеної Радянсько-польської війни 1939 року: військова складова реалізації експансіоністської зовнішньої політики СРСР у дослідженнях сучасної української історіографії
Authors: Щеглов Андрій 
Published: December 2024

The purpose of the article is to reveal the modern Ukrainian historians, political scientists and lawyers main researches results on the activities of the Red Army Ukrainian Front against Poland in the process of implementing the expansionist foreign policy of the USSR in the fall of 1939. The article comprehensively analyzes research approaches and topics of domestic historiography studies of the armed intervention of the Red Army into the southeastern voivodships of the Second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in September 1939. Publications of domestic historians and lawyers, in particular the period of large-scale aggression of the russian federation against Ukraine, are included in the broad academic discourse. The traditional field of domestic historiography of the events of «Golden September» of 1939 includes military-historical issues related to the formation, combat operations against Polish armed formations, disbandment of the Ukrainian Front of the Red Army in Western Ukraine. The main focus is on the analysis of combat operations during the advance of Soviet troops through the territory of Poland with a dominant Ukrainian ethnic population after September 17, 1939. Separately, critical evaluations of the effectiveness of units of the Red Army are presented, both in clashes with units of the Polish Army and in the occupation of the vast majority of Galicia and Volhynia towns and villages without armed resistance from Polish units, the facts of low training of the personnel of the Ukrainian Front, etc. The basis of article methodology is the use of general philosophical, scientific and special methods of scientific knowledge, which are based on the principles systematicity, objectivity, interdisciplinary disclosure of preparation for the creation, course of operations and evaluation of the effectiveness of the Ukrainian Front of the Red Army during the undeclared Soviet-Polish war of 1939. The scientific novelty consists in the generalization of the process of deployment and combat operations of the Ukrainian Front during the so-called Liberation campaign. Conclusions. The preparation, implementation and consequences of the expansionist foreign policy course of the leadership of the Soviet Union led by Y. Stalin in Western Ukraine in the fall of 1939 were complex in nature, including the direct military power of the newly formed Ukrainian Front of the Red Army, which is shown in detail by modern Ukrainian historians. At the same time, for the Polish command, the appearance of Soviet troops in the southeastern provinces of Eastern Galicia and Western Volynhia came as a complete surprise, which may indicate the low effectiveness of intelligence work against the USSR in conditions when all Polish efforts were directed at fighting the aggression of Nazi Germany. The researchers cite new facts about the disorganization of the Polish state against the entry of the Red Army by issuing orders not to resist, or even considering it as an ally in this war. At the same time, the facts of the unpreparedness of certain parts of the Red Army and many recruits of the Ukrainian Front, even to such an almost unhindered advance the territory of Western Ukraine, as well as chaotic «friendly fire» and shooting on civilian objects in many Galician and Volynhian towns and villages. An equally impressive page of the undeclared Soviet-Polish war of 1939 on the part of the Ukrainian Front of the Red Army, which is present in the national historiography, are numerous examples of violence, robbery, shootings of civilians of the western Ukrainian region, who in most cases did not receive adequate punishment, but on the contrary, quite often were encouraged especially for «settling scores» on national and social grounds. Undoubtedly, this behavior of Red Army soldiers and commanders could not only contribute to the widespread support of the so-called «Liberation campaign» on the part of the local population, but also formed the national base of the resistance movement, both Polish and Ukrainian, which may be the subject of further research.