DISINFO: On 17 September 1939, the Red Army began liberation campaign in Poland
SUMMARY
On 17 September 1939, the Red Army began liberation campaign on the territory of Poland. The Soviet troops moved to the Curzon Line, preventing the Wehrmacht from approaching Minsk. The peoples of Western Belarus and Western Ukraine greeted the Soviet soldiers with euphoria.
RESPONSE
This message is part of the Kremlin's policy of historical revisionism – it accuses Poland of the "falsification and re-writing" of WWII history. This narrative is an attempt to erode the disastrous historical consequences of the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (also known as Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) signed in August 1939 and the Soviet attack on Poland that followed in September 1939.
On 23 August 1939, Nazi Germany and the USSR signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with a Secret Supplementary Protocol, which divided Poland and other countries in Northern and Eastern Europe between these two totalitarian powers. On 1 September 1939, Nazi Germany attacked Poland while the Soviet Union's attack on Poland started on 17 September. In this way, Nazi Germany and the USSR started the implementation of the Secret Supplementary Protocol to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
Thus, the pact with Nazi Germany laid basis for Soviet aggression against Poland, not a threat from the German Wehrmacht towards Minsk.
After the invasion, the introduction of the Red Army on the territory of Eastern Poland (modern day Western Belarus and Western Ukraine) in 1939 the Soviet authorities started an intensive campaign of political repressions aimed at the population of these regions. As a result of the large-scale repressions, several hundred thousand of ethnic Poles, Ukrainians and Belarusians were deported from the occupied and annexed areas to Siberia and Central Asia. Also, tens of thousands of political prisoners were murdered by the NKVD (Soviet secret police agency) in areas under Soviet occupation.
Read similar examples of the Russian historical revisionism concerning this issue - Signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact thwarted the UK’s expansionist plans in Europe, The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact did not violate the rights of the Polish state, The shift of all blame for WWII outbreak at the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact the best example of manipulation of history.
Read our.account of the infamous 17 September 1939.