Target Vistula

Soviet westward offensives of 1918–1919

Part of Russian Civil War, Polish-Soviet War, Estonian War of Independence, Latvian War of Independence, Lithuanian Wars of Independence, and Ukrainian War of Independence

Soviet anti-Polish propaganda poster 1920

Date	November 18, 1918 – March, 1919
Location	Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Ukraine
Result	Soviet defeat

Belligerents

Belarus

Estonia

Latvia

Lithuania

Poland

Romania

White Movement

Ukraine

United Kingdom

Ober Ost
Finnish volunteers

Russian SFSR

Commanders and leaders

Dmitry Nikolayevich Nadyozhny

Strength

Estonia: 19,000
Poland: ?

285,000

The Soviet westward offensive of 1918–1919 was part of the general move of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic into areas abandoned by the Ober Ost garrisons that were being withdrawn to Germany following that country's defeat in World War I. The initially successful offensive against Estonia ignited the Estonian War of Independence which ended with the Soviet recognition of Estonia. The war against Latvia and Lithuania was more successful for the Soviets, and resulted in the Latvian Socialist Soviet Republic and Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republics being established. In Belarus the Belarusian People's Republic was conquered and the Socialist Soviet Republic of Byelorussia proclaimed.

The campaign eventually bogged down and led to the Estonian Pskov Offensive, the White Russian Petrograd Offensives, the Lithuanian–Soviet War, the Latvian War of Independence, continuation of the Ukrainian–Soviet War and the start of the Polish-Soviet War.

The newly formed Red Army was growing in personnel, and Vladimir Lenin could gather enough strength to replace withdrawing Western curtain forces ("Западная завеса") by solid military and re-take the lands lost by Russia in 1917 by simply following the withdrawing German army. Upon receiving the news about the German Revolution, on November 13, 1918, the Soviet government annulled the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and issued orders to the Red Army to move in the direction of Belarus, Ukraine and the Baltic States in order to establish Soviet governments there. The newly-created (on November 16) Western Army moved at night of November 17, 1918, into the operational vacuum created by the withdrawing German Imperial army. This move, in the general direction of Belarus, Ukraine and Poland (parts of the latter within Imperial Russia were referred to as "Privislinsky Krai" ), according to N. Davies, was code-named "Target-Vistula".

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