The Polish-Soviet War: Lenin's Gamble at Warsaw

In the summer of 1920, as the Russian Civil War wound down, Lenin ordered the Red Army west toward Warsaw, gambling that Poland would ignite a European revolution. This episode follows the dramatic Polish-Soviet War through its pivotal moments: the Kiev offensive of May 1920, the Soviet counterattack that pushed Polish forces back to the gates of Warsaw, and the August 'Miracle on the Vistula,' where Józef Piłsudski's bold counterstroke shattered Mikhail Tukhachevsky's armies. We dig into the strategic miscalculations on both sides, the crucial role of French military advisor Maxime Weygand, and the bitter peace treaty signed at Riga in March 1921, which redrew borders and shaped Soviet-Polish relations for decades. Through the eyes of soldiers and commanders — from Tukhachevsky's overconfident dispatches to Piłsudski's underdog maneuvering — we explore why this 'war of the world' (as one participant called it) mattered so much, and how Lenin's failure in Poland forced him to abandon dreams of spreading revolution by bayonet. A fresh angle for our series: not the October coup, but the war that nearly exported it.

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