AHC/WI - Polish Odessa

So the OTL is at the Treaty of Riga the Russians offer as much territory as the Polish politicians want, who then tell Pilsudski that they don't want Kiev, Dniepro, Minsk and Odessa and are going to hand it all back to Russia.

Instead of apologies to his Ukrainian allies for the betrayal per OTL, he arrests the Polish negotiators for treason and launches his coup five years early, telling the Ukrainians that he'll stand by them.

They support the coup and agree to a federation with a capital in say Brest Litovsk and Pilsudski as President and a bilingual parliament. Revised Treaty of Riga. Odessa in new state. Donetsk, too?

Hlodomor avoided. Suppression of Polish and Ukrainian nationalists by Pilsudski. Hitler and Stalin still come to power. Back on OTL to WW2, except invasion of Poland-Ukraine takes twice as long. Curzon line is Soviet-Nazi border by 1940.
 
So the OTL is at the Treaty of Riga the Russians offer as much territory as the Polish politicians want, who then tell Pilsudski that they don't want Kiev, Dniepro, Minsk and Odessa and are going to hand it all back to Russia.

Instead of apologies to his Ukrainian allies for the betrayal per OTL, he arrests the Polish negotiators for treason and launches his coup five years early, telling the Ukrainians that he'll stand by them.

They support the coup and agree to a federation with a capital in say Brest Litovsk and Pilsudski as President and a bilingual parliament. Revised Treaty of Riga. Odessa in new state. Donetsk, too?

Hlodomor avoided. Suppression of Polish and Ukrainian nationalists by Pilsudski. Hitler and Stalin still come to power. Back on OTL to WW2, except invasion of Poland-Ukraine takes twice as long. Curzon line is Soviet-Nazi border by 1940.

The Hlodomor also took place east of the Dnieper, too (and the Dnieper seems to be outer most limit of what's possible for an eastern Polish border in 1920-21). In fact, it extended into the Adyghe and lower Volga River river regions, too. So it's quite possible it still happens, just not in western Ukraine.

That said: Having such a substantial part of Ukraine outside Soviet control could complicate the entire "de-kulakization" policy in what remains of the Ukraine in ways difficult to foresee - how will Ukrainians be perceived by Moscow, and how will Ukrainians perceive themselves. Likewise, a Soviet Union whose borders are so much farther to the East may shrink as a perceived threat in countries like Germany.
 
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@Athelstine

Poland would stop at the Dniepr, yes, but a Polish-Ukrainian federation could have included Donetsk and even Azov.

Right, I meant to say no Hlodomor in the now non-Stalinist territores. Chances are it would still have happened further east.

With regard to the OP's original question, Odessa would have had a minimal change to the OTL Polish economy because Constanta already served that function. Romania had an alliance with Poland; its Black Sea port of Constanta facilitated Polish military supply lines, trade and emigration. It even enabled the strategic re-grouping of the continuity Polish armed forces in Lebanon, plus the evacuation of the national gold reserves, the Enigma code breakers and airmen bound for Britain, in 1939.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanian_Bridgehead
 
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Deleted member 94680

Would an ATL Hlodomor in "Soviet Ukraine" (or whatever takes that place in this TL) encourage further integration of Polish Odessa? "We may have it bad, but nowhere near as bad as they do" kind of thing? Would this lead to internal agitation to "liberate" the Ukrainians living under the Soviet yoke from within Poland?
 
Would an ATL Hlodomor in "Soviet Ukraine" (or whatever takes that place in this TL) encourage further integration of Polish Odessa? "We may have it bad, but nowhere near as bad as they do" kind of thing? Would this lead to internal agitation to "liberate" the Ukrainians living under the Soviet yoke from within Poland?

All depends on the nature of the 'Polish' state in this TL. NB in OTL late 1930s the Second Polish Republic had a large Ukrainian population in Galicia which probably hated the Poles as much as the Soviets, due to more immediate 'Polonization' measures and Nazi agents provocateurs. But in a Pilsudskiite Polish-Ukrainian federation with no discrimination against Ukrainians, yes you would have sympathy for Ukrainians over the border if it was in the Dniepr. But if it was closer to the modern border of Ukraine you might have less care about Soviet Citizens who self-identified as Russians.
 
@Athelstine

Poland would stop at the Dniepr, yes, but a Polish-Ukrainian federation could have included Donetsk and even Azov.

Right, I meant to say no Hlodomor in the now non-Stalinist territores. Chances are it would still have happened further east.

With regard to the OP's original question, Odessa would have had a minimal change to the OTL Polish economy because Constanta already served that function. Romania had an alliance with Poland; its Black Sea port of Constanta facilitated Polish military supply lines, trade and emigration. It even enabled the strategic re-grouping of the continuity Polish armed forces in Lebanon, plus the evacuation of the national gold reserves, the Enigma code breakers and airmen bound for Britain, in 1939.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanian_Bridgehead

I think if we're talking the Dniepr and Odessa, we're talking a Ukrainian state of some kind - even if in Commonwealth with Poland.

And I think anything beyond that is unlikely, if my reading of the Soviet position at that point is correct. Giving up western Ukraine is one thing; giving up all of it is another.
 
@Athelstane

The Bolsheviks already had form on giving up all of Ukraine - at the Treaty of Brest Litovsk in 1918. Their negotiating position at the Treaty of Riga in 1921 is surprising. I've read that the Poles were offered "as much as they wanted". To my mind that could have been a Brest-Litovsk II. But the nationalists on the Polish side wanted an ethnically dominant Polish state, and 'appeared to be negotiating as if they had lost, rather than won'. So a Second Commonwealth that included Donetsk might not have been out of the question. But Pilsudski would have needed to 'get Medieval' on his nationalist politicians undermining his plan before they handed most of Ukraine to Lenin. And some Poles complain about being betrayed...
 
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Deleted member 94680

I'm fairly certain the Soviet negotiating position was pretty much "do anything as long as the State survives". I always got the impression that any "concessions" were considered temporary until the Soviet state became strong enough to overturn them by force of arms.
 
I'm fairly certain the Soviet negotiating position was pretty much "do anything as long as the State survives". I always got the impression that any "concessions" were considered temporary until the Soviet state became strong enough to overturn them by force of arms.

Exactly so.

My sense is that whatever concessions Lenin and Trotsky offered to either Germany or Poland, they were going to be only provisional - to be rectified at the first opportunity.

A Soviet Russia wholly deprived of Ukraine would not have been content with such a state of affairs, since without Ukraine, it is quite difficult for Russia to maintain great power status. The more of Ukraine it held, the more willing it would have been to hold off on attempted to retrieve the rest, I think. The Dniepr would have been hard enough to swallow - but at least it is a clear border line, and it also largely overlaps with the older, deeper-seated cultural lines between Eastern and Western Ukraine.
 
IMHO Poland was foolish not to demand Dniepr as eastern border at Riga.
Population of Poland Belarus and west bank Ukraine 1939? I would guess approx. 50 million.
Would a portion of Wrangel's army evacuate to Odessa?
 
IMHO Poland was foolish not to demand Dniepr as eastern border at Riga.
Population of Poland Belarus and west bank Ukraine 1939? I would guess approx. 50 million.
Would a portion of Wrangel's army evacuate to Odessa?

It was a classic split between military leadership (Pilsudski) and the politicians in Poland. The military said the politicians were foolish at the time. The military also said the politicians had betrayed their Ukrainian allies led by Petliura.

I'm not sure how Wrangel could get in to the mix with Petliura and Pilsudski. They probably mistrusted him to much to give him a 'South Ukrainian' state based around Odessa. However giving him 'South Russia' based in Astrakhan as a counterweight to the Bolsheviks is probably something they could have handled!
 
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The challenge is to have present day Poland not only occupy much of West Ukraine (and possibly much of Belarus similar to Second Polish Republic), but also gain access to the Black Sea by controlling Odessa (by absorbing the entire Odessa Oblast).

Assuming it is even possible with the right PODs, what impact if any would an ATL Polish ruled Odessa have economy wise and in other respects?

With regard to the OP's original question, Odessa would have had a minimal change to the OTL Polish economy because Constanta already served that function. Romania had an alliance with Poland; its Black Sea port of Constanta facilitated Polish military supply lines, trade and emigration. Romanian Constanta even enabled the strategic re-grouping of the continuity Polish armed forces in Lebanon, plus the evacuation of the national gold reserves, the Enigma code breakers and airmen bound for Britain, in 1939.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanian_Bridgehead

P.S. additional trivia: Constanta was also the port that the Poles used to supply Polish-trained Jewish fighters to the Zionist insurgency in the British Mandate of Palestine of the 1930s, as well as guns for them.
 
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