New-York tribune., 1920-07-25
Misrepresenting Poland

i
rair play demands that the Ukrai-
man campaign of Marshal Pilsudsk;
be truthfully described. 1t may not be
Justly called an attempt at conquest.
The Polish venture, ill-considered
though it may have been from the
viewpoint of expediency, was strictly
IN keeping with determination:
indeed, it was an effort to vindicate
that right. To misinterpret the
Polish advance into the Ukraine as
"lmperlalistic aggression" is cruelty
unjust.
The Polish armies entered the
Ukraine disclaiming any design of
territorial aggrandizement. A treaty
was signed between Pilsudski and
Petlura, the Ukrainian patriot who
more than any other seemed to have
right to speak for the Ukrainian
people. Their joint campaign was
waged, first, to secure the from
tiers of the new Poland against
Bolshevik aggression; second, to
assist the aspirations of the
Ukrainian nationalists. The Polish
troops crossed the Dnieper as not
only champions of Polish and Eu-
ropean safety. but of Ukrainian
freedom. To central Russians an
independent Ukrainian state is OBJ
jectionable, but is it Russia's bust
ness to decide? The desire of a con-
siderable section of the Ukrainian
people for independent nationhood is
a fact.
The Ukrainian nationalists, who
plan to build up their country on the
principle of small freehold owner
ship, were and are strongly opposed
to Russian communism. To them the
imperialism of Trotzky is merely an
cient Muscovite imperialism painted
red. Ukrainian nationalists and
Polish nationalists quarrel on ques-
tons of detail; they agree on the
Fundamental principles of national
ism, and of democracy as opposed to
dictatorship of any kind.
The Ukrainians recognize they
can exist side by side with strong
Poland, but that the first thing
strcAg Soviet Russia would do would
be to overrun a democratic Ukraine.
Thus the idea of the Polish
Ukrainian combination was born.
Such a combination would have
formed link in the federation of
border states with Esthonia, Lettonia
and Lithuania as other members.
The federation, again, would have
formed a natural barrier against
Bolshevik Russia; yet it would not be
inevitably hostile to Russian inter-
ests. Necessity, operating through
factors of geography and commerce,
would have seen to it that between
this series of states and the future
Russia normal relations were re-
stored. Indeed, this necessity would
have accelerated an equitable and
democratic settlement of the Russian
chaos.
Even IF one may charge hasty
counsel, and an overestimation of his
own resources and an undertaking.
of those of his opponent against
Pilsudski's account, the accusation
Of imperialism has no reality to fall
back upon. Upholders of all-Rus-
sian unity may argue that the
Ukraine ought not to be nation;
Ukrainians argue that not only
there ought to be, but that there is
a Ukrainian nation, and they asked
Pilsudski to come and help consoli-
date it.
Pilsudski went to Kiev not to
conquer but to restore the ma
tional government of the Ukraine,
overthrown by the Bolsheviki. In
cidentally the joint effort was cal
culated to eliminate one of the bit
terest racial quarrels of eastern Eu-
rope by reconciling Poles and Ukrai-
mans on the basis of mutual interest.
The Ukrainian war is an instance
not of imperialistic aggression but
of democratic cooperation, and pref
udice and ignorance alone cannot
long obscure this dominant fact.