STUDIES IN RUSSIA AND EAST EUROPE formerly Studies in Russian and East European History

Chairman of the Editorial Board: M. A. Branch, Director, School of Slavonic and East European Studies.

This series includes books on general, political, historical, economic, social and cultural themes relating to Russia and East Europe written or edited by members of the School of Slavonic and East European Studies in the University of London, or by authors working in association with the School. Titles already published are listed below. Further titles are in preparation.

Phyllis Auty and Richard C10gg (editors) BRITISH POLICY TOWARDS WARTIME RESISTANCE IN YUGOSLAVIA AND GREECE

Elisabeth Barker BRITISH POLICY IN SOUTH-EAST EUROPE IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR

Roger Bartlett (editor) LAND COMMUNE AND PEASANT COMMUNITY IN RUSSIA: Communal Forms in Imperial and Early Soviet Society

Roger Bartlett and Janet M. Hartley (editors) RUSSIA IN THE AGE OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT: Essays for Isabel de Madariaga

Richard Clogg (editor) THE MOVEMENT FOR GREEK INDEPENDENCE, 1770-1821: A Collection of Documents

Olga Crisp STUDIES IN THE RUSSIAN ECONOMY BEFORE 1914

John C. K. Daly RUSSIAN SEAPOWER AND 'THE EASTERN QUESTION', 1827-41

Norman Davies and Antony Polonsky (editors) JEWS IN EASTERN POLAND AND THE USSR, 1939-46

Dennis Deletant and Harry Hanak (editors) HISTORIANS AS NATION-BUILDERS: Central and South-East Europe

Richard Freeborn and Jane Grayson (editors) IDEOLOGY IN RUSSIAN LITERATURE

Julian Graffy and Geoffrey A. Hosking (editors) CULTURE AND THE MEDIA IN THE USSR TODAY

Jane Grayson and Faith Wigzell (editors) NIKOLA Y GOGOL: Text and Context

Hans Giinther (editor) THE CULTURE OF THE STALIN PERIOD

Harry Hanak (editor) T. G. MASARYK (1850-1937) Volume 3: Statesman and Cultural Force

Geoffrey A. Hosking (editor) CHURCH, NATION AND STATE IN RUSSIA AND UKRAINE

Geoffrey A. Hosking and George F. Cushing (editors) PERSPECTIVES ON LITERATURE AND SOCIETY IN EASTERN AND WESTERN EUROPE

D. G. Kirby (editor) FINLAND AND RUSSIA, 180S-1920: Documents

Michael Kirkwood (editor) LANGUAGE PLANNING IN THE SOVIET UNION

Paul Latawski (editor) THE RECONSTRUCTIONS OF POLAND, 1914-23

Martin McCauley mE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION AND mE SOVIET STATE, 1917-1921: Documents (editor) KHRUSHCHEV AND mE DEVELOPMENT OF SOVIET AGRICULTURE COMMUNIST POWER IN EUROPE: 1944-1949 (editor) MARXISM-LENINISM IN mE GERMAN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC: The Socialist Unity Party (SED) mE GERMAN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC SINCE 1945 KHRUSHCHEV AND KHRUSHCHEVISM (editor) mE SOVIET UNION UNDER GORBACHEV (editor) GORBACHEV AND PERESTROIKA (editor)

Martin McCauley and Stephen Carter (editors) LEADERSHIP AND SUCCESSION IN mE SOVIET UNION, EASTERN EUROPE AND CHINA

Martin McCauley and Peter Waldron THE EMERGENCE OF THE MODERN RUSSIAN STATE, 1856-81

Arnold McMillin (editor) FROM PUSHKIN TO PALlSANDRIIA

Evan Mawdsley mE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION AND THE BALTIC FLEET

LaszI6 Peter and Robert B. Pynsent (editors) INTELLECTUALS AND mE FUTURE IN mE HABSBURG MONARCHY, 1890-1914

Robert B. Pynsent (editor) T. G. MASARYK (1850-1937) Volume 2: Thinker and Critic MODERN SLOVAK PROSE: Fiction since 1954

Ian W. Roberts NICHOLAS I AND mE RUSSIAN INTERVENTION IN HUNGARY

Keith Sword (editor) THE SOVIET TAKEOVER OF mE POLISH EASTERN PROVINCES, 1939--41

J. J. Tomiak (editor) WESTERN PERSPECTIVES ON SOVIET EDUCATION IN THE 1980s

Paul I. Trensky mE FICTION OF JOSEF SKVORECKY

Stephen White and Alex Pravda (editors) IDEOLOGY AND SOVIET POLITICS

Stanley B. Winters (editor) T. G. MASARYK (1850-1937) Volume 1: Thinker and Politician

Alan Wood and R. A. French (editors) mE DEVELOPMENT OF SIBERIA: People and Resources

THE SOVIET TAKEOVER OF THE

POLISH EASTERN PROVINCES, 1939-41

Edited by

Keith Sword Research Fellow

School of Slavonic and East European Studies University of London

M MACMILLAN

in association with the Palgrave Macmillan

© School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London, 1991

Softcover reprint ofthe hardcover 1 st edition 1991

All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission.

No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 3~ Alfred Place, London WCIE 7DP.

Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

First published 1991

Published by MACMILLAN ACADEMIC AND PROFESSIONAL LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data The Soviet takeover of the Polish eastern provinces, 1939--1941 - (Studies in Russia and East Europe) 1. Poland. Political events, 1939-1945 I. Sword, Keith II. University of London, School of Slavonic and East European Studies III. Series 943.8053

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ISBN 978-1-349-21381-8 ISBN 978-1-349-21379-5 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-21379-5

Contents List of Maps Vll

p~~ ~ Notes on the Contributors x List of Abbreviations xiii Introduction XVI

1 The Red Army's March into Poland, September 1939 John Erickson 1

2 The Polish-Soviet War of September 1939 Ryszard Szawlowski 28

3 Polish POW Camps in the Soviet-Occupied Western Ukraine Jan T. Gross 44

4 The Plight of Refugees from the German-Occupied Territories Y osef Litvak 57

5 Sociological Aspects of the Annexation of Poland's Eastern Provinces to the USSR in 1939-41 Jan Malanowski 71

6 Soviet Economic Policy in the Annexed Areas Keith Sword 86

7 Soviet Policies in the Literary Sphere: Their Effects and Implications Bogdan Czaykowski 102

v

VI Contents

8 The Socio-political Role of the Polish Literary Tradition in the Cultural Life of Lwow: The Example of Adam Mickiewicz's Work Mieczyslaw lnglot 131

9 Armed Resistance in the north-eastern Provinces of the Polish Republic, 1939-41 Tomasz Strzembosz 149

10 Armed Underground Activity in the Lwow District, 1939-41 Jerzy WfJgierski 182

11 Arrest and Imprisonment in the Light of Soviet Law Kazimierz Zamorski 201

12 The Mass Deportations of the Polish Population to the USSR, 1940--41 Zbigniew Siemaszko 217

13 The Ukrainians in Eastern Poland under Soviet Occupation, 1939-41: A Study in Soviet Rural Policy David R. Marples 236

14 The Byelorussians of Eastern Poland under Soviet Occupation, 1939-41 Mikolaj lwanow 253

15 The Baltic States under Stalin: The First Experiences, 1940--41 V. Stanley Vardys 268

Appendices

1 The reactions of the world press to the Soviet invasion of Poland on 17 September 1939 291

2 'A Historical Campaign' (Soviet account of the Red Army's campaign in Poland) 295

3 Documents relating to the mass deportations 301

Index 309

List of Maps 2.1 Locations of major encounters between Polish

and Soviet forces during September 1939 34 9.1 The north--eastern provinces of the Polish Republic

in 1939 151

Vll

Preface This volume appears as the result of a conference held at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London in April 1989 to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Soviet takeover of eastern Poland. Although the Red Army moved into Poland on 17 Septem­ber 1939, the precise date of the anniversary was avoided by the organisers, in the sure knowledge that the anniversary of the out­break of the Second World War would bring with it a spate of other historical conferences. The London conference was convened in order to bring together scholars from both inside and outside Poland interested in a dark episode in Polish-Soviet relations and a largely neglected chapter of twentieth-century European history.

At the time the London conference was conceived, the study of this 'first' Soviet takeover of Polish territory during the 1940s was one of the 'blank spots' in Polish historiography. It was a taboo area, and not considered a legitimate subject for research by the communist authorities. While scholars outside Poland - some of the contributors to this volume included - had published pioneering works on the subject, within Poland research into the more controversial aspects of Polish-Soviet relations was largely confined to the privacy of the home; any works published appeared only in the underground press.

In the late 1980s, with glasnost declared a cornerstone of the new Soviet thinking, there came a greater freedom in Poland to discuss the previously unmentionable. The relinquishing of Soviet domi­nation over east-central Europe and the introduction of democratic, multi-party political systems during the latter part of 1989 encourages the hope that censorship will become a thing of the past and that henceforth all of recent Polish history will be an open field for researchers. Despite this it seems that the greatest stumbling block to research in many key areas - lack of access to Soviet archive material - will remain a barrier for some time to come.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the M. B. Grabowski Foundation, the De Brzezie Lanckoronska Foundation and the Leverhulme Trust, without whose financial support it would have been impossible to organise the conference, and therefore also to

Vlll

Preface ix

produce this book; also Professor Michael Branch, Director of the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, for encouraging the idea of such a conference, and Ms Kate Moore, Publications and Conference Officer at the School, for the administrative effort put into organising the session and for helping to bring this volume to press.

Sincere thanks also go to those who have helped in different ways with the preparation of this volume; to Nick Brown, Jim Dingley, Lizzie Graham-Maw, Andrzej Rzepczynski, Nina Taylor, Bernadeta Tendyra, Samantha Westwood and Anna Marianska for translation and editing of papers, to Iwona Nowicka for retyping many of the papers, and to Ed Oliver (Queen Mary College, University of Lon­don) for drawing the maps.

KEITH SWORD

Notes on the Contributors Bogdan Czaykowski is Professor of Polish Literature and History at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. His publi­cations include over thirty studies, papers, critical articles and chap­ters in books in modern Polish literature and Polish history; two books of translations of modern Polish poetry (co-authored); a book on the Polish community in Great Britain (co-authored), and on the Polish community in British Columbia (senior editor). He is currently working on a book on Ideology, Politics and Literature in Poland, 1939-1989, and is preparing a Selection of Documents on the Inter­national Aspects of Major East European Crises in the Postwar Period.

John Erickson is a world-renowned expert on Soviet military forces and military history. He has held one of Edinburgh University's two Chairs of Politics since 1968 and is Director of its Institute of Defence Studies. He is the author of the classic studies of the Red Army's campaigns during the Second World War, The Road to Stalingrad (1975) and The Road to Berlin (1983); also of The Soviet High Command: a military political history, 1918-1941 (1962 and 1984).

Jan T. Gross is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Soviet and East European Studies Program at Emory University. He is the author of Polish Society Under German Occupation: the General­gouvernement, 1939-1944 (Princeton, 1979), and Revolution from Abroad. The Soviet Conquest of Poland's Western Ukraine and Western Byelorussia (Princeton, 1988).

Mieczyslaw Inglot is Professor of Polish Literature at the University of Wroctaw and also works at the Teachers' Educational Institute. His main research interests are the Romantic period in the history of Polish literature, and literary education. His publications include books about Fredro, Norwid and Stowacki, and school editions of literary texts. He is a contributor to Biblioteka Narodowa, Nasza Biblioteka, (as Editor), Pami~tnik Literacki, Polonistyka, and Prace

x

Notes on the Contributors xi

Literackie, and is a member of the governing body of the Adam Mickiewicz Literary Society.

Mikolaj L. Iwanow is Senior Lecturer in Russian and Soviet History at Wroctaw University. Until 1986 he was a senior research associate at the History Institute of the Byelorussian Academy of Sciences in Minsk. He is the author of many articles on national minorities in the USSR. Among his recent publications is Polacy w Zwiqzku Rad­zieckim, 1921-1939 (1990).

Yosef Litvak, until his retirement, was Head of the Diaspora Jewry Research Department in the Israeli Ministry of Immigrant Absorp­tion. He holds a doctorate in Jewish History and, in addition to numerous articles, has published one book, Polish-Jewish Refugees in the USSR, 1939-1946.

Jan Malanowski is Professor of Sociology and Head of the Chair of Social Problems at Warsaw University. He is the author of Warsaw Motorcycle Workers, Social Changes in Small Towns, 1938-1960, Class Differences and Class Relations in the City, and Polish Workers.

David R. Marples is a Research Associate with the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, and Visiting Professor of History at the Univer­sity of Alberta. He is Editor of the Journal of Ukrainian Studies, and the author of numerous articles. His latest book is The Social Impact of the Chernobyl Disaster (1988).

Zbigniew S. Siemaszko has published a number of books and papers, mainly in Polish, about Polish affairs during the Second World War. These include Narodowe Sily Zbrojne (1982), dealing with the underground wartime organisation. His book about Polish-Soviet relations in the period 1939-43 will be published shortly. Since the last war he has lived in London and, until his recent retirement, worked as a Chartered Engineer.

Tomasz R. Strzembosz is Associate Profess<?r of History at the Catholic University of Lublin, having worked previously at the Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. For more than thirty years he has studied the history of the Polish resistance movement during the period 1939-45. His seven books include Akcje zbrojne podziemnej Warszawy 1939-1944 (Warsaw, 1978, 1983).

xii Notes on the Contributors

Keith Sword has been a Research Fellow at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London since 1982. His main interest is the migration of Poles during and after the Second World War. He is the author (with Norman Davies and Jan Ciecha­nowski) of The Formation of the Polish Community in Great Britain, 1939-1950 (1989) and is currently working on a study of the mass deportations of Poles to the Soviet Union during 1940 and 1941.

Ryszard Szawlowski (Karol Liszewski) studied at the University of Warsaw, where he received a Doctorate in International Law, and was awarded the Diplome superieur de droit compare by the Inter­national University of Luxembourg. Formerly Professor of Political Science at the University of Calgary and Visiting Professor of Inter­national Law at the Catholic University of Lublin, he is now Pro­fessor of International Law and Political Science at the Polish University in London. His many publications include The System of the Inter­national Organizations of the Communist Countries (1976) and Prawo Czlowieka a Polska (1982).

V. Stanley Vardys is Professor of Political Science at the University of Oklahoma. He has published extensively on Baltic history, and his publications include (as editor) Lithuania under the Soviets (1965), (co-edited with Romuald Misiunas) The Baltic States in Peace and War, 1917-1945 (1978) and The Catholic Church, Dissent and National­ity in Soviet Lithuania (1978).

Jerzy W~gierski is Professor of Railway Engineering at the Poly­technic of Krakow. An officer in the Polish underground Home Army from 1942 to 1944, for several years he has been concentrating on the history of the Home Army in the Lwow district. He is the author of many technical publications and, most recently, W lwows­kiej Armii Krajowej (1989).

Kazimierz Zamorski (Silvester Mora) is an independent researcher. He has a Master's degree in International Relations from the Univer­sity of Southern California. From 1952 to 1979 he was chief of the Polish Research Section at Radio Free Europe in Munich. He is co-author of La Justice sovietique (Rome, 1945), and author of Kolyma, Gold and Forced Labor in the USSR (Washington, DC, 1949).

List of Abbreviations AK (Pol) Armia Krajowa (Home Army - i.e.

Polish underground organisation owing allegiance to the Polish government in London)

ASSR Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic BCD (Byel) Belaruskaia Khrystsyianskaia

Demakratsyia (Byelorussian Christian Democracy)

BNA (Byel) Belaruskaia N atsianal' naia Asatsyiatsia (Byelorussian National Association)

BNK (ByeI) Belaruski Natsianal'ny Kamitet (Byelorussian National Committee)

BSS (ByeI) Belaruski Sialanski Saiuz (Byelorussian Association of Peasants)

CC CPSU Central Committee, Communist Party of the Soviet Union

CP(b)B (Bolshevik) Communist Party of Byelorussia

CPU Communist Party of Ukraine DSK (Pol) Dywizja Strzelc6w Karpackich

(Carpathian Rifle Division - of the Polish Second Corps in Italy)

GL (Pol) Gwardia Ludowa (People's Guard-communist-led Polish underground organisation)

JHP (Pol) Junacki Hufiec Pracy (Youth Volunteer Labour Brigade)

KOP (Pol) Korpus Ochrony Pogranicza (Frontier Defence Corps)

KPZB (Pol) Komunistyczna Partia Zachodniej Bia}orusi (Communist Party of Western Byelorussia - i.e. in prewar Poland)

xiii

xiv List of Abbreviations

KPZU (Pol) Komunistyczna Partia Zachodniej Ukrainy (Communist Party of Western Ukraine - i.e. in prewar Poland)

LWP (Pol) Ludowe Wojsko Polskie (Polish People's Army)

MTS Motor Tr;:tctor Station NKVD (Rus) Narodnyi Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del

(People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs)

OGPU (Rus) Ob' edinennoe gosudarstvennoe politicheskoe upravlenie (U nited State Political Directorate)

OSB (Pol) Obywatelska Straz Bezpieczenstwa (Citizens' Security Guard)

OSO/OSSO/o.s. (Rus) Osoboye Soveshchanie (Special Tribunal - for sentencing more serious offences against Soviet penal code)

OUN Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists PAW (Pol) Polska Armia Wyzwolencza

(Polish Army of Liberation) POW (Pol) Polska Organizacja Wojskowa

(Polish Military Organisation) POWW (Pol) Polska Organizacja Walki 0 Wolnosc

(Polish Organisation for the Struggle for Freedom)

PPR (Pol) Polska Partia Robotnicza (Polish Workers' Party)

PRL (Pol) Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa (Polish People's Republic)

RFSFR Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (i.e. Russia proper)

SSR Soviet Socialist Republic SZP (Pol) (S}uzba Zwyci~stwu Polski

(Service for the Victory of Poland) UNDO (Ukr) Ukrains'ke

Natsional'ne-Demokratychne Od'ednannia (Ukrainian National Democratic Union)

VKP(b)

ZOWO

ZWZ

List of Abbreviations

(Rus) Vsesoiuznaia Kommunisticheskaia Partiia (bol'sheviki) (All-Union (Bolshevik) Communist Party)

xv

(Pol) Zwicp:ek Obronc6w Wolnosci Ojczyzny (Union of Defenders of the Freedom of the Homeland)

(Pol) Zwi~zek Walki Zbrojnej (Union of Armed Struggle - forerunner of AK)

Introduction On 17 September, as the Red Army crossed the Polish eastern frontier, the Soviet Commissar for Foreign Affairs, Viacheslav Molo­tov made his now notorious broadcast: 'Events arising out of the Polish-German war have revealed the internal insolvency and obvi-ous impotence of the Polish State .... Warsaw as the capital of the Polish State no longer exists .... The population of Poland have been abandoned by their ill-starred leaders to fate .... Poland has become a fertile field for any accidental and unexpected contingency that may create a menace to the Soviet Union. ,1 More than one historian has noted that the Soviet 'justification' for its action bore an uncanny resemblance to arguments used by the Tsarist Government in 1795 when the final partition of Poland was carried out. 2

The Soviet seizure of Polish territory took place as a result of the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 23 August 1939, and was carried out at a time when the world's attention was held by events on the Polish western front. The Polish army was making valiant but doomed efforts to contain the Wehrmacht as armoured units penetrated deep into Polish territory.

Although official statements emanating from Moscow continued to stress Soviet 'neutrality', by ordering its troops to cross the Polish border uninvited, the Soviet Union committed an act of aggression under international law. It would certainly have been classified as such under the 1933 London Convention on the Definition of Ag­gression which Foreign Commissar Litvinov signed for the USSR. The Convention stated that an act of aggression had been committed if one state invaded the territory of another - even without a declar­ation of war. It also warned that 'no political, military, economic or other considerations could serve as a justification for such aggression. 3 We can see then that under the terms of the Convention, Soviet arguments that the Polish State had collapsed, that its own security was threatened, that it was intervening to safeguard the interests of Ukrainian and Byelorussian inhabitants of the region were not sufficient to warrant the action taken.

There is little doubt also that, both then and subsequently, the

xvi

Introduction XVll

Soviet Union violated a number of other treaties and conventions to which it was a signatory. At the 1921 Riga Conference, which had been convened to establish a new Polish eastern frontier following the Polish-Soviet War of 1919-20, the final treaty had stated that 'Russia and the Ukraine renounce all rights and claims to the terri­tory lying west of the border established in Article II of the treaty' .4 It became clear though that the Soviet leadership had never forgotten the humiliating terms of this defeat and were determined to regain the lost territory.

The Polish-Soviet Non-Aggression Treaty of August 1932 had enjoined both parties to 'renounce war as an instrument of national policy in their mutual relations, and to refrain from conducting any act of aggression or invasion against the territory of the other Party, whether independently, or in concert with other Powers'. This Treaty was renewed in March 1934 for a further ten years (i.e. until 1945) and was therefore still in force in September 1939.5

International obligations, however, counted for little against the prospect of easy and immediate territorial gains. In the wake of the military campaigns fought on Polish soil, the USSR extended its 'sphere of influence' by taking over half of the territory of the prewar Polish Republic. As Molotov pointed out to the Supreme Soviet on 31 October, the territory which passed to the USSR was equal in area to that of a large European state.6 The total area occupied was 196 000 sq km - almost 52 per cent of the territory of the Polish State in 1939 - and was more than twice the area of Austria, more than five times that of Switzerland.

In the west, Poland's allies, Britain and France, reacted with resignation to the Soviet aggression. The French were prompted to make a protest in Moscow, but the British were opposed to making what they regarded as empty gestures. London concentrated on keeping the lines of communication with Moscow open. It was concerned not to force Stalin irrevocably into the German camp. With regard to the territory occupied by the Soviets, the British were pessimistic about the prospects of it being returned to Poland. A senior Foreign Office official, Sir Frank Roberts, commenting on a report by the British ambassador in Warsaw on the September events in Poland, wrote,

I do not think that it would be advisable to commit ourselves publicly to the view expressed by Sir Howard Kennard .... that 'the whole Polish people' should at the end of this war have the

xviii Introduction

right to live an independent life. Unfortunately, I see little pros­pect of those sections of the Polish people included in areas taken over by Russia ever being given such an opportunity. 7

The British were aware that the region was one of mixed population, and that the interwar Polish regime had experienced considerable difficulties with the minority communities. Soviet propagandists were quick to emphasise the fact that in the region they had seized, ethnic Poles were a minority. However, Soviet claims that the 13 million people of the occupied areas included 7 million Ukrainians, 3 million Byelorussians, over 1 million of both Poles and Jews, should be treated with scepticism.8 Although Polish population figures for the region, based on the 1931 Census, have been queried by scholars - it is felt that they overstate the Polish element - they are much closer to the truth than Molotov's. Soviet propaganda would have wished to show the world that the Polish element was small, in order to undercut Polish claims to the territory. Updated to 1938 the Polish figures reveal 51f4 million Poles, 41f2 million Ukrainians, equal num­bers (some 1.1 million) of Jews and Byelorussians, with smaller numbers of Russians, Czechs, Germans, Lithuanians and Polesians.9

The Soviet Union proceeded to consolidate its hold over the region by organising 'elections' during October 1939 to two National As­semblies - one for the Western Ukraine and one for Western Byelorussia. 10 These Assemblies convened in Lw6w and Bialystok respectively between 26 and 28 October, and their petitions for admission to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics were granted on 1 and 2 November. Opinion varies on why the elections were carried out with such haste. Czaykowski, writing in this volume, suggests that it was a move designed to present the Germans with a fait accompli, to forestall any revival of the idea that a rump Polish state should be formed between the Soviet and German zones. Another view is that the Soviet move was prompted by the British and French rejection of the Nazi-Soviet thesis that Poland no longer existed. London and Paris insisted on honouring their obligations to Poland and indeed extended diplomatic recognition to a new Polish government formed under General Sikorski. 11

Whatever the Soviet motive, this hasty and manifestly fraudulent operation to engineer a 'democratic' and 'popular' expression of approval for the Soviet takeover was not recognised by the Polish Government, nor by international opinion. It breached the terms of the 1907 Hague Convention which stipulated that military authorities

Introduction xix

of occupation were required to maintain peace and order, to respect existing laws, the local administration and legal system. 12 The occu­pation authorities were also forbidden to force the inhabitants of the territory to commit any acts contrary to the interests of their home­land; yet the holding of such elections, and the manner of their conduct, must come under this heading.

The formal Soviet annexation of the region raises the further problem of whether the occupied region should be referred to as Polish territory or Soviet territory during the period in question. Can one, for example, talk about deportations 'to the Soviet Union' if the victims are already on territory which has been annexed to the USSR? In addition, the question of whether these areas were. not so much 'Polish' or 'Soviet', but rather Ukrainian and Byelorussian will inevitably be raised. The case for this would be based perhaps more on demographic factors - the large numbers of Ukrainians and Byelorussian residing in the region - rather than the fact that they were formally annexed to the Ukrainian SSR (Kiev) and the Byelo­russian SSR (Minsk). Despite such arguments, I continue to refer to the area as Polish territory, since, although it was incorporated into the Soviet Union, the 1939-41 occupation was clearly illegal; the area came under de facto, but not de jure Soviet control.

The papers which follow reflect the diverse interests and concerns of their authors. I have no doubt all the contributors would wish to stress that the papers do not present an exhaustive treatment of their subject matter. Nor, indeed, do the titles listed exhaust all possible topics which could have been included. Many aspects of the Soviet takeover and occupation of eastern Poland in 1939 are not dealt with, or are merely touched upon. The diplomatic background, and par­ticularly the Nazi-Soviet rapprochement of the late summer of 1939, has received considerable attention by historians and receives only passing mention here. The 'elections' referred to above, are only mentioned in passing. The fate of the minority communities is dis­cussed only with regard to particular circumstances; thus, for exam­ple, Soviet rural policies as they affected the Ukrainian community, the fate of Jewish refugees from the west (but not the situation of the indigenous Jewish population). There are two papers on resistance which limit themselves to defined geographical areas. There is little on collaboration with the Soviet authorities, beyond that of the Polish literary elite in Lw6w, as discussed in the chapter by Bogdan Czaykowski. There is nothing on the fate of the organised religions, the education system, local government and administration.

xx Introduction

Nevertheless, considering the poor state of knowledge - particu­larly in the English-speaking world - about the 21-month period of Soviet rule in the former Polish provinces, we hope this volume will serve both to draw attention to the nature and consequences of the Soviet takeover and to encourage others to look at the events in more detail.

In the first chapter, John Erickson discusses the background to the Red Army's campaign in Poland viewed largely from the Soviet perspective, stressing the significance of the Red Army's Far Eastern campaign against the Japanese for the timing of Soviet moves against Poland. His article contains the Red Army's Order of Battle for the Polish campaign which has recently been published for the first time in the Soviet Union. In the second, related chapter, Ryszard Szawlowski emphasises that Polish military units, the Frontier De­fence Corps (KOP) and the civilian population offered spirited resist­ance to the Red Army. He refutes the version of events put forward by many historians that the Polish frontiers were undefended and that the Red Army entered without bloodshed.

The third and fourth chapters deal with the aftermath of the military campaign in eastern Poland. Jan Gross describes the situ­ation of those Polish soldiers captured by the Soviets, who were held in POW camps in the south-eastern provinces of the former Polish Republic. In addition to portraying the harshness of the regime that many prisoners endured, he reminds us that following the German attack in the summer of 1941, the POWs - just like so many of the inmate populations of NKVD prisons - were subjected to harrowing evacuation marches in which large numbers died. Yosef Litvak examines the refugee situation, looking particularly at those many thousands of Jewish refugees who fled into the eastern Polish terri­tories to evade the clutches of the Nazis. Litvak emphasises the suspicion harboured by the Soviet authorities towards the refugees and their unwillingness to accept them on any other basis than as Soviet citizens.

Jan Malanowski discusses sociological and psychological aspects of life under Soviet rule. He also makes the point that if serious sociological research is to be attempted on this subject, it must be carried out soon, while witnesses to the events still live. Keith Sword presents an overview of developments on the economic front, stress­ing that the pauperisation of the community - a 'levelling down' - was an important weapon in subduing the population and bending their will to the new authorities' dictates.

Introduction xxi

There are two chapters on Soviet cultural policy. The first, by Bogdan Czaykowski, reminds us that the artist - especially the man of letters (the 'engineer of the spirit') - had an important role in the Stalinist scheme of things. However, Czaykowski's main objective is to show how the changing policies of the Soviet authorities towards the Polish literary elite reflected Moscow's assessment of the wider political situation - in particular, its realisation that there might eventually be a need to play the 'Polish card'. Following on from this, Mieczyslaw Inglot looks in detail at an example of Soviet cultural policies in action - the attempts to invest the nineteenth-century Polish poet, Adam Mickiewicz, with the credentials of a respectable revolutionary and internationalist. A high point of these attempts were the celebrations to mark the 85th anniversary of the poet's death in November 1940.

The following section has two very interesting and very different papers dealing with resistance to Soviet rule. Tomasz Strzembosz gives an outline of partisan activities in the north-eastern territories -tantalising because it is possible that much more resistance occurred, the traces of which are now lost. Most of the groups he describes were operating locally, often in isolation from any central command, and few documentary records, if they were made at all, have sur­vived. Jerzy W<;gierski, by contrast, deals not with the 'grassroQts' of partisan operations, but with the structure of the underground lead­ership in the Lwow region. He describes the troubled rivalries, the communications difficulties with higher authorities in the west, and the eventual penetration by the Soviet security services.

On the security front the activities of the NKVD and its informers, filled the population with both dread and hatred. By their policy of widerspread arrest and transportation, NKVD officials gave the impression of having almost limitless power - and certainly the power of life or death over ordinary mortals. Kazimierz Zamorski examines the penal theory which lay behind the excesses of Stalinist rule introduced on Polish territory. He emphasises the secondary role which principles of justice played to the paramount interests of the Party. Zbigniew Siemaszko's chapter contains an overview of the mass deportations to the Soviet interior that took place during 1940-41. He describes the procedure of the operations, analyses who was taken and attempts to find an explanation for the deportations in the policies of the Soviet leadership.

David Marples' chapter on the Ukrainian population concentrates on Soviet rural policy, with particular attention to the progress of the

xxii Introduction

collectivisation campaign. As he parenthetically reminds us, the annexation of these regions to the Ukrainian Republic provides historians of the Ukraine with the irony that Stalin, Ukrainophobe and architect of the Great Ukrainian famine during the 1930s, was the person who finally united both halves of the Ukrainian-inhabited lands. Mikotaj Iwanow presents us with a rare glimpse inside Soviet policymaking at this time - the preparations made within the Byelo­russian Communist Party for the takeover and absorption of the Western Byelorussian territories. His interview with a former high­ranking Party official, Klimov, is perhaps the closest we are likely to get to Soviet source materials. Finally V. Stanley Vardys presents a comparative study of the Soviet takeover in the Baltic States. It is highly instructive in illustrating the cynical uses of diplomacy and the degree of mendacity employed by the Soviet leadership to achieve their ends. Moreover it provides topical reading at a time when the Baltic peoples are attempting to slip free of Moscow rule.

In conclusion, a word about place names. There has been no attempt by the editor to impose a uniform spelling of the names of towns and cities. Each contributor has been permitted the freedom to observe his own conventions, so that the Polish 'Lwow' may be rendered 'L'viv' or 'Lvov' according to whether a Ukrainian or Russian transcription is used. It is hoped that this will not lead to confusion, but where doubt arises, the index includes all versions.

Notes

1. Documents on Polish-Soviet Relations (DPSR) (London: 1961), Vol. I, p.47.

2. See, for example, Norman Davies, God's Playground, Vol. I, p. 542 and p. 571, flnote 34. 'Prince Riepenin informed his Polish majesty that this Kingdom and Republicke no longer existed.'

3. DPSR, pp. 16-17. 4. DPSR, pp. 3-8. 5. DPSR, pp. 15-16. 6. DPSR, p. 68. 7. (Public Record Office, Kew) F0371123135 C16572. 8. DPSR, p. 68. 9. E. Rozek, Allied Wartime Diplomacy (New York: 1958), p. 37.

10. The conduct of these elections is discussed at length in Jan Gross, Revolution From Abroad. The Soviet Conquest of Poland's Western Ukraine and Western Byelorussia (Princeton, 1988).

Introduction XXlll

11. W. Sukiennicki, 'The Establishment of the Soviet Regime in Eastern Poland in 1939' Journal of Central European Affairs, Vol. 23 (1963-64), p. 210.

12. The Hague Convention was signed by the Tsarist Government, and the Communist regimes which succeeded might have considered them­selves not to be bound by its requirements. However, the stipulations quoted in this paragraph were contained in the 1939 Larger Soviet Encyclopedia, suggesting that the Soviet authorities did pay lipservice at least to the principles enshrined therein.