Soviet Agenda
The Soviets used a program of violence, terror and liquidation to eliminate opposition and to ensure compliance of the local populations to their system. To achieve this end, the Soviets used both government policy, and encouraged vindictive, destructive behaviour from the local populations which would obliterate the old order.
On September 19, Laverenti Beria (head of the Soviet NKVD), under Order # 0308 set up a new Directorate for Prisoners of War, as well as a network of prison camps. In early October, there were already 37,000 Polish prisoners used as forced labour for road mending and heavy industry, and some other number of prisoners had been sent to gulag camps. In addition special camps were set up at Starobielsk and Kozielsk for Polish officers, and at Ostaszkow for policemen, prison and frontier guards.
In Luboml county of Wolyn, Red Army Lieutenant Minkov’s instruction to the local Ukrainians was typical of Soviet guidance to the peasants: “to go and take what rightfully belongs to them and to avenge the pains of twenty years of exploitation - kill and take the property of those who filled their pockets and barns with your blood. If you do not succeed on your own, the Red Army will assist you.”
These reprisals were often extremely brutal. As witnessed in Leczowka in Tarnopol voivodeship: "The landowner was tied to a pole, two strips of skin peeled off and the wound covered with salt, and he was left alive to watch the execution of his family."
In Szczorse, Nowogrod voivodeship: “some policemen and several settlers - twelve people altogether, it seems - were brought to the gmina seat, condemned to death, and then killed with axes. Scores of nameless others died there. Every night a group was led to execution."
Often it was these brutal perpetrators of violence that received Soviet sanction to form the local militias. Village committees members were often selected from outcasts, radicals or criminals, so that there was an absence of crime, as now "theft was practised legally, in the line of duty".
Western Ukraine and Western Belorussian Unification with the USSR
Two weeks after the Soviets first crossed into eastern Poland, arrangements were already undertaken to hold elections on October 22, 1939, with the objective of unifying Western Belorussia and Western Ukraine with their Soviet neighbours. Holding these elections was a show to give the illusion that the Soviet occupation was desired by the local populations.
Participation at large rallies, which had important speakers such as Nikita Khrushchev, the first secretary of the Ukrainian Communist party, was demanded of the local populations. Typically only Soviet approved, obscure or unknown candidates for these elections were nominated by the officials, as in the village of Pronki: "she (Prosecuter Minkova) introduced ...I don't remember the name of the candidate, and I don't know where he was from . . . one of the inhabitants of our village asked Prosecutor Minkova, whether because the candidate for deputy was unknown to us she would allow us to put forward a candidate . ...Minkova answered the candidate had been appointed by the head of Postaway county Captain Brykov, and that he could not be changed."
A fiscal employee from Zaleszcyki , Kwiatkowski commented on the actual voting: "Among more intelligent Poles and Ukrainians one can observe a little shame and discomfort. Everybody knows that he is doing something wrong, but is also aware that by skipping the elections he may get in trouble. This is why everybody goes as if to a funeral, to drop a handful of dirt on the casket of a dead friend". Jan Gross summarizes the impact of what happened in this election process: "what we observe from October 4 to October 22 throughout this territory is not the transfer of sovereignty from one state to another, but the transfer of individual sovereignty from each person separately to the state."
In spite of the fact that many voters did deface ballots, in both territories official results declared that over 90% of the population voted, and they voted over 90% for the official candidates.
Tightening the Soviet noose
After the Soviet Union had forcibly absorbed Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia, it tightened control over the population of these areas by systematically eliminating all who had been or potentially could be disruptive to the communist system. Initially the Soviets targeted Poles who were the leaders in the local administration, but then they also started to arrest better off Ukrainian and Belorussian peasants (kulaks). In fact, everyone became a potential candidate for arrest (and more), if they had either engaged in any anti communist activities or had crossed someone who kept a grudge and had the ear of the Soviets.
Propaganda, arrest, imprisonment, deportation, torture and execution were the standard tools used by the Soviet occupiers. The objective of the procedures were twofold; eliminate or remove the dissenters, while terrorizing the remaining population into total obedience. The NKVD agents who implemented the Soviet policies with zeal, were typically socially marginal people from Russia, as documented by British diplomat J.W. Russell in Lvov in January 1940; "The local NKVD militia (who are also staffed by imported thugs from Russia proper) in all of their dealings with Mr. Trant and myself showed a remarkable combination of ignorance, incompetence and unpleasantness."
At the beginning of 1940, a concentrated effort was made to start winning the minds of school age children. Private schools were abolished, teaching was switched to predominately Russian, Marxist-Leninist doctrine became a key subject, and religion was banned from schools. In addition there was a strong focus on creating new identifiers for the young by delivering anti-Polish and atheist propaganda, and by celebrating new state holidays.
In 1940, the Soviets stepped up their campaign to eliminate all threats to their new regime in the former eastern Poland. A decision was made in February 1940 by Beria "to apply the supreme penalty" to the prisoners of Kozielsk, Starobielsk, and Ostaszkow. This resulted in the execution of over 25,000 Polish prisoners in the first half of 1940, including the killing of 4,404 Polish officers at Katyn.
In addition, the Soviets started massive deportations of Polish citizens in cattle cars into the northern and interior gulag work camps. The first deportations were planned in December 1939, and removed over 140,000 people, mostly Polish peasants, on February 10, 1940. The second deportation on March 2, 1940, removed the families of prisoners, at which time over 60,000 mostly women and children were sent to Kazakhstan.
The next deportation on June 28, 1940, removed 80,000 people (predominantly Jews) who had previously not lived in the eastern Polish territory. The last of the mass deportations prior to the Nazi attack occurred on May 21, 1941, when over 86,000 "undesirables" were sent to Kazahkstan.
To exemplify how hated the Soviet system had become, some Jews when offered the choice between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany in June 1940, preferred taking their chances with the Nazi regime that had already displayed its attitude and behaviour towards the Jews.
When Nazi Germany did finally attack the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, the Soviets carried out mass executions of prisoners in the Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia with estimates ranging from 6,000 to 100,000 victims.
The Soviet terror wrought a terrible toll on the population of the former eastern Poland. Deportation estimates range from over 400,000 (Courtois) to 1.5 million (Davies), and estimates of loss of life from range between 130,000 (Courtois) to almost 800,000 (Davies). Regardless of the actual number of victims, the goal of the Soviet policy was to systematically break all resistance to their regime, and by eliminating 5 -10% of the population, they succeeded.
(to be continued)
Made in Moscow: The Soviet occupation of Poland and Estonia (3) (1)
Archived Articles | 18 Mar 2005 | Toomas TreiEWR
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