President Donald Trump is meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Aug. 15 to discuss territorial compromises to achieve a ceasefire deal in the war in Ukraine.
This is a fortuitous date, as 105 years earlier on the same exact date, Poland defeated Bolshevik Russia in the battle of Warsaw, chased its armies east toward Moscow and started negotiations for the ceasefire in Riga.
At the same time, neighboring Ukraine was the chessboard where great battles took place between Bolshevik forces and armies of Poland and its Ukrainian ally General Petlura, Soviet Ukrainian Republic in Kiev, anarchist Ukrainian peasants under leadership of Makhno, and White Russians under leadership of Gen. Piotr Wrangel.
Gen. Wrangel occupied Crimea and the lands north of it on the east side of the Dnieper River through Zaporozhia and south to Mariupol, much the same places where today’s battles are being fought.
Crimea was the historical seat of Tartars, remnants of the Golden Horde, which invaded Europe in the early Middle Ages and was taken over by the Russian empire at the end of the 18th century.
In 1920, Crimea was inhabited by Tartars, Russians, Ukrainians, Greeks, Armenians, Turks, and Germans. General Wrangel intended to make it a free Russian Republic, which would be an alternative to Bolshevik Russia for dissatisfied citizens.
In order to survive, after the other White Russian Armies have already been defeated, General Wrangel needed to negotiate with numerous parties to have a chance of success.
He had the support of the British but they were tired of spending vast sums of money on White Russian armies which did not achieve success.
He tried to negotiate with well-armed and ruthless Makhno anarchists, but they made a deal with Bolsheviks on Oct. 18, 1920.
They were incorporated into the Red Army in exchange for a chance to participate in elections to the soviets as a recognized political party once the fighting was over.
However, once it was over, Bolsheviks liquidated most of anarchists and their leader fled to the United States.
Lastly, Gen. Wrangel had to obtain cooperation of the Polish Armies to create a united southwestern front against the Bolsheviks.
However, the White Russians did not want to support the independence of Poland and the British did not send help when Poland was facing the vast Red Army in the spring and summer of 1920.
Once Poland defended its capital on Aug. 15, and restored most of its territorial integrity, it sued for peace and did not want to take risks for those who were trying to revive remnants of the tsarist empire, which enslaved Poland for the previous hundred years.
Therefore, Gen. Wrangel had to face the Bolsheviks alone and on Oct. 28, he withdrew to Crimea. This peninsula is virtually an island.
It's connected to the mainland by two narrow strips of land, while the rest is deep marshes covered with reeds. The neck of the peninsula was fortified by lines, built by French engineers, from where Wrangel’s troops were attacking.
The Bolshevik Armies marched forward to Crimea through the swamps with their horses, machine guns and heavy artillery, up to their chests in water and under heavy fire.
Losses were enormous.
They arrived at the dry land, behind the fortifications.
Resistance collapsed and on Nov. 16, they declared victory. Bela Kun, a leader of the just failed Hungarian Soviet Republic and a Communist International official, was appointed the President of the Revolutionary Committee of Crimea. He promised favorable terms of surrender to Wrangel’s troops but never intended to keep his word.
What followed was a period of martial law and Red terror.
Wrangel’s officers, White Russian refugees, bandits, and all "unreliable and counterrevolutionary elements" were executed.
Wrangel’s troops were reportedly drowned in the Black Sea. Crimea had no fuel, food or electric power, resulting in famine and enormous loss of human lives.
In January 1921, Bela Kun returned to Moscow. Crimea was Russian.
Poland signed a peace treaty with Bolshevik Russia on March 18, 1921, in Riga, Latvia.
It renounced vast tracts of territory that it had in the 18th century when it was partitioned by Russia, Prussia, and Austria- Hungary.
But it kept its independence until 1939 when on the authority of the Stalin-Hitler pact it was partitioned again between Russia and Germany. Thus, Aug. 15 reminds us of what is at stake and how every tool of negotiations, warfare, deception, and ruthlessness are deployed in the service of essential political goals.
Dr. Lucja Swiatkowski Cannon is a senior research fellow at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, D.C. She was a strategist, policy adviser and project manager on democratic and economic reforms in Eastern Europe, the Baltics, and Central, South and Southeast Asia for Deloitte & Touche Emerging Markets, Coopers & Lybrand, and others. She has been a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Dr. Cannon received a B.A., M.Phil. and Ph.D. from Columbia University where she was an International Fellow and IREX Scholar at Warsaw University, and the London School of Economics. Read more of Dr. Swiatkowski Cannon's reports — Here.