Open Military Studies 2020; 1: 88–103 Research Article Bartosz Kruszyński* The Kiev operation and Tukhachevsky’s two offensives in 1920 as attempts at undertaking strategic and operational initiative during the Polish-Soviet War of 1919-1920 https://10.1515/openms-2020-0112 Received Nov 11, 2020; accepted Jan 07, 2021 Abstract: The article is an analysis of: 1) the Kiev operation from late April and early May 1920, 2) Tukhachevsky’s first offensive in May 1920, 3) Tukhachevsky’s second offensive launched in July 1920. All the three operations were attempts at undertaking strategic and operational initiative during the Polish-Soviet War of 1919-1920. The first offensive pertained to the Polish army, in the subsequent two cases it was the Soviet Western Front. Tukhachevsky’s second offensive resulted in the battle of the Bug in late July and early August 1920. By discussing each of the operations, the author presents the fighting potential of the armies involved, the tactical and operational goals, the course of the fighting, the turning points, both parties’ planning mistakes and the consequences of the operations. Keywords: Polish-Soviet War of 1919-1920; Polish Army in 1919-1920; Red Army in 1919-1920; Kiev operation in 1920; Tukhachevsky’s first offensive - May 1920; Tukhachevsky’s second offensive - July 1920; Mikhail Tukhachevsky. 1 Introduction In the spring of 1920, the Supreme Headquarters of the Polish Army launched an offensive against Ukraine; the operation’s climax was the capturing of Kiev. The events definitely shifted the centre of gravity in the war. Poland made an attempt at undertaking the strategic initiative. Soviet Russia considered it an attack at the Russian ethnic and cultural territory while the war with “white” Poland was deemed “sacred”. For the first time in its short history, Soviet propaganda resorted to patriotic language. Veterans of the former tsar army from WWI were conscripted on a mass scale. However, the Kiev operation offered Poland an opportunity for defeating the Red Army. From the point of view of the strategy, the operation had the potential of restricting and halting the expansion of Soviet Russia to the West of Europe 1 . The Kiev operation conducted by the Polish Army resulted in the first offensive of the Western Front under the command of Mikhail Tukhachevsky, launched in Belarus in May 1920. The result of the war with “white” Poland was to be affected by the second offensive of the Western Front in July 1920. The goal of each of these operations was to undertake operational initiative. 1 Kutrzeba T., Wyprawa kijowska 1920 roku, Gebethner i Wolff, Warsaw 1937, pp. 333-345; Davies N., Orzeł biały czerwona gwiazda. Wojna polsko-bolszewicka 1919-1920, translated by Andrzej Pawelec, Wydawnictwo Znak, Krakow 1998, pp. 135-143. Open Access. © 2020 Bartosz Kruszyński, published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Public License. *Corresponding author: Bartosz Kruszyński