The former chief of P. N. Wrangel’ staff P. S. Makhrov on the Red Army campaign to Western Ukraine and Western Belarus in 1939

Abstract

The memoirs of general P. S. Makhrov are devoted to the events of 1939 and the campaign of the Red army in Western Ukraine and Western Belarus. Pyotr Semyonovich Makhrov was a General staff officer, participant of the Russian-Japanese war, World War I, and the Russian Civil war. In 1918, Makhrov lived in Ukraine, and in 1919-1920 he took part in the White movement in Southern Russia, after which he emigrated. In exile he lived in France, where he wrote his extensive memoirs. The events of September 1939 could not pass past his attention. At that time, the Red army committed approach in Western Ukraine and Western Belarus. Contrary to the widespread Anti-Sovietism among the white emigrants, Makhrov perceived the incident with enthusiasm as a return of Russia to its ancestral lands occupied by the Poles.