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A Case Study in the Soviet use of International Law: Eastern Poland in 1939

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2017

George Ginsburgs
George Ginsburgs*
Affiliation:
University of California at Los Angeles
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Extract

On September 17, 1939, Soviet troops crossed the Soviet-Polish frontier and, advancing rapidly, soon occupied the oft-disputed territory known at various times as Eastern Poland, Eastern Galicia, or Western Ukraine and Western Byelorussia.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Journal of International Law , Volume 52 , Issue 1 , January 1958 , pp. 69 - 84
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of International Law 1958

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References

1 For text, see Nazi-Soviet Relations, 1939-1941, Documents from the Archives of the German Foreign Office (ed. by B. J. Sontag and J. S. Beddie, Washington, D. C, 1948), p. 78.

2 Republic of Poland, Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Official Documents Concerning Polish-German and Polish-Soviet Relations, 1933-1939 (The Polish White Book), (London, n.d.), Item No. 175, pp. 189-190; Pravda, Sept. 18, 1939, p. 1.

3 Pravda, Sept. 18, 1939, p. 1.

4 Ibid.

5 The text may be found in Mirovoe Khozyaistvo i Mirovaya Politika, November, 1939, No. 11, pp. 3-14.

6 Ibid. 16-27.

7 Dr. Hermann Jahrreiss, ‘'Statement Before the Nuremberg Tribunal,'’ Nuremberg, German View of the War Trials (ed. by W. E. Benton and G. Grimm, Dallas, 1955), p. 38.

8 Polish-Soviet Relations, 1918-1943, Official Documents, issued by the Polish Embassy in Washington by authority of the Government of the Republic of Poland (Washington, D. C, n. d.), Item No. 13, p. 96.

9 Pravda, Sept. 18, 1939, p. 1.

10 Printed in 27 A. J . I. L. Supp. 188, 192 (1933).

11 New York Times, Sept. 19, 1939.

12 The Polish armies did resist the Soviet troops in certain localities. In the Communique1 issued by the Polish Embassy in London, Sept. 17, 1939, (The Polish White Book, Item No. 178, p. 191), one reads: “On September 17, at 4 a.m., Soviet troops crossed the frontier of Poland at many points and were met immediately with strong resistance on the part of the Polish National Army. A sharp encounter in particular is being fought near the frontier in the region of Molodeczno.” However, the brief duration of the military operations and the extent of the Red Army's casualties, officially put by Molotov in his report before the 5th Extraordinary Session of the Supreme Soviet, at 737 killed and 1,862 wounded, make it doubtful whether the scope of the hostilities would warrant recognizing them as constituting a war.

13 Montanus, B., Polish-Soviet Relations in the Light of International Law 27 (New York, 1944).Google Scholar The author also considers that the reference in the Polish-Soviet Agreement of July 30, 1941, to “amnesty” for Polish “prisoners of war” is “only due to an awkward usage of inappropriate terms.”

14 See Final Report, presented by the former Ambassador in Moscow, to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Paris, Nov. 6, 1939, The Polish White Book, Item No. 184, p. 211; also A. S. Cardwell, Poland and Russia, The Last Quarter Century 50 (New York, 1944).

15 Among others, Leon Noël, L‘agression allemande contre la Pologne 501-503 (Paris, 1946); T. Taylor, Sword and Swastika 334-357 (New York, 1953).

16 The Polish White Book, p. 222.

17 Molotov's radio broadcast of Sept. 17, 1939, Pravda, Sept. 18, 1939, p. 1.

18 Ibid.

19 Note of September 17, 1939, The Polish White Book, p. 189.

20 J . B. Moore, A Digest of International Law, Vol. I, p. 300 (Washington, D.C., 1906).

21 The Polish White Book, p. 189.

22 See particularly, E. Redslob, Les principes du Droit des Gens moderne 141, 144 (Paris, 1937); Fenwick, C. G., “Intervention: Individual and Collective,” 39 A.J.I.L. 647 (1945).Google Scholar

23 The Sept. 13, 1939, issue of Pravda, p. 5, carried a TASS dispatch from Berlin, datelined Sept. 12, quoting Transocean, on Rumanian reports from Chernovitz on widespread anti-Polish movements in Eastern Galicia, accompanied by burning and looting of Polish property, and erupting, or expected any moment to erupt, into an armed uprising of Ukrainians and Byelorussians against the Polish Administration.

24 See Nazi-Soviet Relations, 1939-1941, pp. 91, 94-96.

25 The U.S.S.R. and Finland (published by Soviet Russia Today, New York, 1939), p. 34.

26 I. Lemin, “Torzhestvo Stalinskoi politiki mira” (The triumph of Stalin's policy of peace), Mirovoe Khozyaistvo i Mirovaya Politika, November, 1939, No. 11, p. 82.

27 For Soviet thoughts along these lines, see Count Szembek 's Minute of his Conversation with M. Szaronov, Krzemeniec, Sept. 11, 1939, The Polish “White Book, Item No. 173, p. 189. Pravda's issue for Sept. 16, 1939, p. 2, carried a dispatch on the violation of the Soviet frontier by a German plane.

28 C.G. Fenwick, , International Law 242 (3rd ed., New York, 1948)Google Scholar.

29 The Polish White Book, pp. 189-190.

30 Pravda, Sept. 14, 1939, p. 1.

31 E. A. Korovin, Mezhdunarodnoe pravo perekhodnogo vremeni (International Law of the Period of Transition) 61 (2nd ed., Moscow, 1924). Though Korovin ‘a theses were subjected to scathing criticism by Vyshinsky in a lecture read on July 16, 1938, Voprosy teorii gosudarstva i prava (Questions of Theory of State and Law) 98 (2nd ed., Moscow, 1949), the differentiation between progressive and reactionary intervention, whether consciously or not, was left untouched.

32 In 1951, it was finally denounced in the textbook, Mezhdunarodnoe Pravo (International Law) 199 (Moscow, 1951, published by the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.B.), as “formalist-dogmatic” and “anti-scientific.” The chief editor of this textbook was E. A. Korovin himself.

33 E. Radetsky, ‘ * Zapadnaya TJkraina i Zapadnaya Byelorussiya'’ (Western Ukraine and Western Byelorussia), Mirovoe Khozyaistvo i Mirovaya Politika, November, 1939, No. 11, p . 86.

34 V. T. Fomin, Imperialisticheskaya agressiya protiv Polshi v 1939g (The Imperialistic Aggression against Poland in 1939) 163 (Moscow, 1952).

35 Molotov, V., Report to the Moscow Soviet, November 6, 1939 (Moscow, 1939), p. 8 Google Scholar.

36 V. I. Lenin, Socheneniya (Works), Vol. 26, p. 218, and Vol. 22, p. 320.

37 S. V. Molodtsov, “Nekotorye voprosy territorii v mezhdunarodnom prave” (Some questions of territory in international law), Sovetskoe Gosudarstvo i Pravo, 1954, No. 8, p. 67; I.N. Malukevich, “Obrazovanie Polskogo Narodno-Demokraticheskogo Gosudarstva” (The formation of the Polish People's Democratic State), Proval imperialisticheskikh planov v otnoshenii Polshi v gody vtoroi mirovoi voiny (Collapse of the imperialistic plans concerning Poland during the Second World War) (ed. by N. Eubinshtein, Moscow, 1952), p. 115. For the same line of argument as used by contemporaries of the event, see E. Eadetsky, loc. cit.; I. Lemin, loc. oit.; Molotov's report of Oct. 31, 1939.

38 See A. I. Zuev, “Zakonnye prava Egipetskogo naroda” (The legal rights of the Egyptian nation), Sovetskoe Gosudarstvo i Pravo, 1952, No. 2, p 61.

39 V. P. Potemkin (ed.), Istoriya Diplomatii (History of Diplomacy), Vol. Ill , p. 813 (Moscow, 1945).

40 Editorial in Pravda, Sept. 14, 1939, p. 1; and daily in the issues of Pravda and Izvestiya after Sept. 18, 1939.

41 Of which Vyshinsky 's performance in the use of procedural rules in the United Nations Organization to tie up the meetings is the best, but not the only, illustration.

42 Nazi-Soviet Relations, 1939-1941, pp. 87, 91, 93.

43 Ibid., p. 91.

44 In spite of the assertions found in The Polish White Book, p. 210, that Pravda on Sept. 12, 1939, published a “leading article violently attacking the condition of our minorities in the eastern areas,” repeated by M. Beloff, The Foreign Policy of Soviet Russia, 1929-1941, Vol. II, p. 281 (London, 1949), and modified by L. Nöel, op. cit. 500, to read “Pravda for September 11, 1939,” an examination of all Pravda issues from Sept. 11 to Sept. 17 failed to uncover any such article except the one in the Sept. 14, 1939, issue already mentioned.

45 Nazi-Soviet Relations, 1939-1941, p. 91.

46 Ibid., p. 90.

47 In particular, see Falsifiers of History (A Historical Survey) 42-43 (Moscow 1948), and the leading editorial, “ O Mezhdunarodnoi Organizatsii Bezopasnosti” (On the International Security Organization), Voina i Babochii Klass, Oct. 15, 1944, No. 20.