ABSTRACT
The stabilisation of the Second Republic’s territorial integrity in the aftermath of the victory over the Bolsheviks allowed its independent existence until the combined onslaught of Germany and the Soviet Union in September 1939. However, during the interwar decades, Poland’s independence was never entirely secure. Not only was the overall international situation in Europe anxious and unstable, but Poland continued to be the object of hatred for the two principal revisionist powers, Germany and the Soviet Union. Both regarded Poland as living proof of their defeat and subsequent loss of territory, influence and status, and both were determined to destroy her at the earliest possible opportunity within the context of their assault on the Treaty of Versailles itself. In the early 1920s, Germany was still too traumatised and weakened by the First World War and its consequences to be able to do anything effective about her Polish problem, while the nascent Soviet Union regarded her defeat by the Poles in 1920 as a temporary setback that would be avenged in due course. For the Soviets, therefore, the Treaty of Riga was as objectionable as the Treaty of Versailles; both had to be swept aside.
