Poles in the Soviet Union

Last updated

The Polish minority in the Soviet Union are Polish diaspora who used to reside near or within the borders of the Soviet Union before its dissolution. Some of them continued to live in the post-Soviet states, most notably in Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine, the areas historically associated with the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, as well as in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan among others.

Contents

History of Poles in the Soviet Union

1917–1920

Painter Kazimir Malevich (Kazimierz Malewicz) was a prominent artist of Polish descent active in the Soviet Union. His attempt at settling in Warsaw in 1927 failed. Self-Portrait (1908 or 1910-1911).jpg
Painter Kazimir Malevich (Kazimierz Malewicz) was a prominent artist of Polish descent active in the Soviet Union. His attempt at settling in Warsaw in 1927 failed.

Millions of Poles lived within the Russian Empire (along with Austria-Hungary and the Prussian Kingdom) following the military Partitions of Poland throughout the 19th century, which resulted in the extinction of the Polish state. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, followed by the Russian Civil War, the majority of the Polish population saw cooperation with the Bolshevik forces as betrayal and treachery to Polish national interests. [2] Polish writer and philosopher Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz lived through the Russian Revolution while in St. Petersburg. What he saw, had a profound effect on his works, many of which display themes of the horrors of the Civil War he witnessed.[ citation needed ] Among the many Polish victims of the revolution was the father of Polish eminent composer Witold Lutosławski, Marian Lutosławski and his brother Józef, murdered in Moscow in 1918 as alleged "counter-revolutionaries". [3]

There were also some Poles (or those of partial Polish descent) associated with the communist movement. Famous revolutionaries include Konstantin Rokossovsky, Vyacheslav Menzhinsky, Julian Marchlewski, Stanislaw Kosior, Karol Świerczewski and Felix Dzerzhinsky, founder of the Cheka secret police which would later turn into the NKVD. The Soviet Union also organized Polish units in the Red Army [ citation needed ] and a Polish Communist government-in-exile, however the former were persecuted and subject to mock trials following the end of the Second World War and the latter being appointed and installed by the Soviet regime as opposed to the legitimate government-in-exile based in London.[ citation needed ] Provisional Polish Revolutionary Committee was created in 1920 but failed to control Poland.

1921–1938

Polish communities were inherited from Imperial Russia after the creation of the Soviet Union. After World War I, Poland reestablished itself as an independent country, and its borders with the USSR were finalized by the Peace of Riga in 1921 at the end of the Polish-Soviet War, which left significant territories populated by Poles near or within the confines of the Soviet Union. According to the 1926 Soviet census, there were a total of 782,334 Poles in the USSR. The largest concentration of Poles was in what is now modern-day West Ukraine, where according to the Soviet census in 1926 476,435 Poles lived. Those estimates are considered to have been lowered by Soviet officials. Church and independent estimates show estimates of 650,000 to 700,000 Poles living in that area. [2] This suggests that the total Polish population of the USSR was in excess of 1,000,000.

Initially the Soviets pursued a policy where the local national language was used as a tool for eradication of national identity in favour of "communist education of masses". In the case of the Poles this meant a goal of Sovietisation of the Polish population. However this proved extremely difficult as the Soviet communists themselves realised that the Poles were en masse opposed to communist ideology, seeing it as hostile to Polish identity and their predominant Roman Catholic religion. The policy of religious discrimination, plunder[ clarification needed ] and terror[ clarification needed ] further strengthened Polish resistance to Soviet rule. As a result, the Soviet authorities started to imprison and forcefully remove all those seen as an obstacle to their policies. [2]

Two Polish Autonomous Districts were created, with one in Belarus and one in Ukraine. The first one was named Dzierzynszczyzna , after Felix Dzierżyński; the second was named Marchlewszczyzna after Julian Marchlewski. Following the failure of the Sovietisation of the USSR's Polish minority, the Soviet rulers decided to portray Poles as enemies of the state and use them to fuel Ukrainian nationalism in order to direct Ukrainian anger away from the Soviet government. [2] After 1928 Soviet policies turned to outright eradication of Polish national identity. Special centers were established where the youth was indoctrinated towards hatred against the Polish state, all contacts with relatives within Poland were dangerous and could result in imprisonment. Newspapers printed out in the Polish language were de facto used to print anti-Polish propaganda. [2] Following attacks on the Polish minority, from 18 February 1930 till 19 March 1930 over 100,000 people from Polish areas were expelled by the Soviet authorities. [2]

Following the collectivization of agriculture under Joseph Stalin, both autonomies were abolished and their populations were subsequently deported to Kazakhstan in 1934–1938. [2] Many people starved during the deportation and after, since the deported were moved to sparsely populated areas, unprepared for migration, lacking basic facilities and infrastructure. The survivors were under the supervision of the OGPU/NKVD, cruelly punished for any sign of discontent. 21,000 Poles died during the Holodomor.

In 1936 the Poles were deported from the territories of Belarus and Ukraine adjacent to the state border (the first recorded deportation of a whole ethnic group in the USSR). Tens of thousands of ethnic Poles became victims of the Great Purge in 1937–1938 (see Polish operation of the NKVD). The Communist Party of Poland was also decimated in the Great Purge and was disbanded in 1938. Another decimated group of Poles was the Roman Catholic clergy, who opposed the forced atheization.

A number of Poles fled to Poland during this time, among them Igor Newerly and Tadeusz Borowski.

1939–1947

Polish refugees evacuated from the Soviet Union to Iran, 1942 Evacuation of Polish Civilians From the Soviet Union To Persia, 1942 E19024.jpg
Polish refugees evacuated from the Soviet Union to Iran, 1942

During World War II, after the Soviet invasion of Poland the Soviet Union occupied vast areas of eastern Poland (referred to in Poland as Kresy wschodnie or "eastern Borderlands"), and another 5.2–6.5 million ethnic Poles (from the total population of about 13.5 million residents of these territories) were added, followed by further large-scale forcible deportations to Siberia, Kazakhstan and other remote areas of the Soviet Union.

The number of Poland's citizens held captive in the Soviet Union is a matter of dispute, and ranges from over 300,000 up to nearly 2 million, according to various sources. On March 30, 2004, the head of the Archival Service of Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, General Vasili Khristoforov gave alleged exact numbers of deported Poles. According to him, in 1940 exactly 297,280 Poles were deported, in June 1941 another 40,000. These numbers do not include P.O.W.s, prisoners, small groups, people arrested trying to cross the new borders, people who voluntarily moved into the USSR, and men drafted into the Red Army and into construction battalions or stroybats.[ citation needed ]

In August 1941, following the German attack on the USSR and the dramatic change in Soviet/Polish relations, according to a January 15, 1943, note from Beria to Stalin, 389,041 Polish citizens (including 200,828 ethnic Poles, 90,662 Jews, 31,392 Ukrainians, 27,418 Belarusians, 3,421 Russians, and 2,291 persons of other nationalities) held in special settlements and prisoner of war camps were granted 'amnesty' and allowed to enroll in Polish army units. The location of reception centres was kept secret and no travel facilities provided. [4] Nevertheless, 119,855 Poles were evacuated to Iran with General Anders' army, which subsequently fought alongside the Allies in Iran and Italy; 36,150 were transferred to the Polish Army which fought with the Red Army on the Eastern Front and 11,516 are reported to have died in 1941–1943. [5]

The following are cases of direct executions of Poles during the 1939–1941 occupation:

After World War II most Poles from Kresy were expelled into Poland, but officially 1.3 million stayed in the USSR. Some of them were motivated by the traditional Polish belief that one day they would become again lawful owners of the land they lived on. Some of them were kept forcefully in. Some simply stayed, without force or ideological reasons.

Wanda Wasilewska was an exceptional case – she became a Soviet citizen and did not return after the war.

1947–1991

The Polish minority was one of the few whose numbers decreased over time, according to official statistics. There was also the repatriation of Poles (1955–1959).

After 1989, Poles who survived in Kazakhstan started to emigrate due to national tensions, mainly to Russia and, supported by an immigration society, to Poland. The number remaining is between 50,000 and 100,000.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the following post-Soviet countries have significant Polish minorities:

Demographics

The Polish population in the Soviet Union peaked in 1959, decreased by about 20% by 1970, and then decreased extremely slowly between 1970 and 1989.

Historical Soviet Polish population
YearPop.±%
1926782,334—    
1939630,097−19.5%
19591,380,282+119.1%
19701,167,523−15.4%
19791,150,991−1.4%
19891,126,334−2.1%
Source:

List of prominent Soviets of Polish descent

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic</span> Republic of the Soviet Union

The Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, also known as Byelorussia, Soviet Belarus, or simply Belarus, was a republic of the Soviet Union (USSR). It existed between 1920 and 1991 as one of fifteen constituent republics of the USSR, with its own legislation from 1990 to 1991. The republic was ruled by the Communist Party of Byelorussia and was also referred to as Soviet Byelorussia or Soviet Belarus by a number of historians. Other names for Byelorussia included White Russia or White Russian Soviet Socialist Republic and Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Curzon Line</span> Historical demarcation of territories of Poland and the Soviet Union

The Curzon Line was a proposed demarcation line between the Second Polish Republic and the Soviet Union, two new states emerging after World War I. Based on a suggestion by Herbert James Paton, it was first proposed in 1919 by Lord Curzon, the British Foreign Secretary, to the Supreme War Council as a diplomatic basis for a future border agreement.

The Poles come from different West Slavic tribes living on territories belonging later to Poland in the early Middle Ages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Territories of Poland annexed by the Soviet Union</span> 1939 Soviet Union invasion of Poland

Seventeen days after the German invasion of Poland in 1939, which marked the beginning of the Second World War, the Soviet Union entered the eastern regions of Poland and annexed territories totalling 201,015 square kilometres (77,612 sq mi) with a population of 13,299,000. Inhabitants besides ethnic Poles included Belarusian and Ukrainian major population groups, and also Czechs, Lithuanians, Jews, and other minority groups.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Volhynia</span> Historical region in Central and Eastern Europe

Volhynia, is a historic region in Central and Eastern Europe, between southeastern Poland, southwestern Belarus, and western Ukraine. The borders of the region are not clearly defined, but the territory that still carries the name is Volyn Oblast, in western Ukraine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kresy</span> Former eastern regions of Poland

Eastern Borderlands or simply Borderlands was a term coined for the eastern part of the Second Polish Republic during the interwar period (1918–1939). Largely agricultural and extensively multi-ethnic with a Polish minority, it amounted to nearly half of the territory of interwar Poland. Historically situated in the eastern Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, following the 18th-century foreign partitions it was divided between the Empires of Russia and Austria-Hungary, and ceded to Poland in 1921 after the Treaty of Riga. As a result of the post-World War II border changes, all of the territory was ceded to the USSR, and none of it is in modern Poland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Polish National District</span> Polish national autonomy in early Soviet Union

Polish National Districts were national districts of the Soviet Union in the interbellum period providing national autonomy for Polish minorities in the Ukrainian and Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republics of the USSR. They were created in an attempt to live up to the postulate of Leninism about the rights of nations for self-determination. Also, creation of these regions served one of purposes of the Bolsheviks to export the revolution since after their defeat in the Polish-Soviet War, the Soviets did not give up their idea of creating a Soviet Republic in Poland. Polish National Districts were supposed to be the origin of future Soviet Poland. They both were disbanded in mid-1930s and a significant part of their populations was deported to Kazakhstan, with many of them killed during the Great Purge.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Polish diaspora</span> People of Polish heritage who live outside Poland

The Polish diaspora comprises Poles and people of Polish heritage or origin who live outside Poland. The Polish diaspora is also known in modern Polish as Polonia, the name for Poland in Latin and many Romance languages.

The Polish Operation of the NKVD in 1937–1938 was an anti-Polish mass-ethnic cleansing operation of the NKVD carried out in the Soviet Union against Poles during the period of the Great Purge. It was ordered by the Politburo of the Communist Party against so-called "Polish spies" and customarily interpreted by NKVD officials as relating to 'absolutely all Poles'. It resulted in the sentencing of 139,835 people, and summary executions of 111,091 Poles living in or near the Soviet Union. The operation was implemented according to NKVD Order No. 00485 signed by Nikolai Yezhov.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Western Belorussia</span> Historical region of Belarus

Western Belorussia or Western Belarus is a historical region of modern-day Belarus which belonged to the Second Polish Republic during the interwar period. For twenty years before the 1939 invasion of Poland, it was the northern part of the Polish Kresy macroregion. Following the end of World War II in Europe, most of Western Belorussia was ceded to the Soviet Union by the Allies, while some of it, including Białystok, was given to the Polish People's Republic. Until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Western Belorussia formed the western part of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR). Today, it constitutes the west of modern Belarus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stanisław Grabski</span> Polish economist

Stanisław Grabski was a Polish economist and politician associated with the National Democracy political camp. As the top Polish negotiator during the Peace of Riga talks in 1921, Grabski greatly influenced the future of Poland and the Soviet Union.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Subdivisions of Polish territories during World War II</span>

Subdivision of Polish territories during World War II can be divided into several phases. The territories of the Second Polish Republic were first administered first by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, then in their entirety by Nazi Germany, and finally by the Soviet Union again. In 1946, administrative control of the areas not annexed by the Soviet Union was returned to Poland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Poles in Belarus</span> Ethnic group in Belarus

The Polish minority in Belarus numbers officially 288,000 according to 2019 census. However, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland the number is as high as 1,100,000. It forms the second largest ethnic minority in the country after the Russians, at around 3.1% of the total population. An estimated 205,200 Belarusian Poles live in large agglomerations and 82,493 in smaller settlements, with the number of women exceeding the number of men by 33,905. Some estimates by Polish non-governmental sources in the U.S. are higher, citing the previous poll held in 1989 under the Soviet authorities with 413,000 Poles recorded.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Polish population transfers (1944–1946)</span> Post WWII resettlement

The Polish population transfers in 1944–1946 from the eastern half of prewar Poland, were the forced migrations of Poles toward the end and in the aftermath of World War II. These were the result of a Soviet Union policy that had been ratified by the main Allies of World War II. Similarly, the Soviet Union had enforced policies between 1939 and 1941 which targeted and expelled ethnic Poles residing in the Soviet zone of occupation following the Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland. The second wave of expulsions resulted from the retaking of Poland from the Wehrmacht by the Red Army. The USSR took over territory for its western republics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Population exchange between Poland and Soviet Ukraine</span>

The population exchange between Poland and Soviet Ukraine at the end of World War II was based on a treaty signed on 9 September 1944 by the Ukrainian SSR with the newly-formed Polish Committee of National Liberation (PKWN). The exchange stipulated the transfer of ethnic Ukrainians to the Ukrainian SSR and of ethnic Poles and Jews who had Polish citizenship before September 17, 1939 to post-war Poland, in accordance with the resolutions of the Yalta and Tehran conferences and the plans about the new Poland–Ukraine border. Similar agreements were signed with the Byelorussian SSR and the Lithuanian SSR ; the three documents are commonly known as the Republican Agreements.

Repatriation of Polish population in the years of 1955–1959 was the second wave of forced repatriation of the Poles living in the territories annexed by the Soviet Union. The widely used term repatriation, promoted by decades of Polish communist propaganda, is a manipulation, an euphemism for an act of illegal expatriation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Soviet repressions of Polish citizens (1939–1946)</span>

In the aftermath of the German and Soviet invasion of Poland, which took place in September 1939, the territory of Poland was divided in half between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. The Soviets had ceased to recognise the Polish state at the start of the invasion. Since 1939 German and Soviet officials coordinated their Poland-related policies and repressive actions. For nearly two years following the invasion, the two occupiers continued to discuss bilateral plans for dealing with the Polish resistance during Gestapo-NKVD Conferences until Germany's Operation Barbarossa against the Soviet Union, in June 1941.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Polish minority in Russia</span> Ethnic minority in Russia

There are currently more than 47,000 ethnic Poles living in the Russian Federation. This includes native Poles as well as those forcibly deported during and after World War II. When including all of the countries of the former Soviet Union, the total number of Poles is estimated at up to 3 million.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Soviet annexation of Eastern Galicia and Volhynia</span>

On the basis of a secret clause of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, the Soviet Union invaded Poland on September 17, 1939, capturing the eastern provinces of the Second Polish Republic. Lwów, the capital of the Lwów Voivodeship and the principal city and cultural center of the region of Galicia, was captured and occupied by September 22, 1939 along with other provincial capitals including Tarnopol, Brześć, Stanisławów, Łuck, and Wilno to the north. The eastern provinces of interwar Poland were inhabited by an ethnically mixed population, with ethnic Poles as well as Polish Jews dominant in the cities, and ethnic Ukrainians dominating the countryside and overall. These lands now form the backbone of modern Western Ukraine and West Belarus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Flight of Poles from the USSR</span>

The flight and forced displacement of Poles from all territories east of the Second Polish Republic (Kresy) pertains to the dramatic decrease of Polish presence on the territory of the post-war Soviet Union in the first half of the 20th century. The greatest migrations took place in waves between the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and in the aftermath of World War II in Europe.

References

  1. 1 2 Andrzej Turowski, Malewicz W Warszawie: Rekonstrukcje i Symulacje Universitas 2002, ISBN   8370524869.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 J. M. Kupczak "Stosunek władz bolszewickich do polskiej ludności na Ukrainie (1921–1939), Wrocławskie Studia Wschodnie 1 (1997) Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego, 1997 page 47–62" IPN Bulletin 11(34) 2003.
  3. ↑ Mirosław R. Derewońko (February 9, 2009), Witold Lutosławski bał się wspomnień... (Witold Lutosławski was afraid of memories...) Regionalny Portal Łomża.(in Polish)
  4. ↑ Michael Hope, Polish Deportees in the Soviet Union, Veritas Foundation, London, 2000, ISBN   0-948202-76-9
  5. ↑ Stephen Wheatcroft, "The Scale and Nature of German and Soviet Repression and Mass Killings, 1930–1945", Europe-Asia Studies , Vol.48, No.8, 1996, p. 1345
  6. ↑ "Приложение Демоскопа Weekly". Demoscope.ru. Retrieved 2016-04-27.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.