Poles in the Soviet Union

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Poles in the former Soviet Union
)

The Polish minority in the Soviet Union are

Ukraine, the areas historically associated with the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, as well as in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan
among others.

History of Poles in the Soviet Union

1917–1920

Painter Kazimir Malevich (Kazimierz Malewicz)[1] was a prominent artist of Polish descent active in the Soviet Union. His attempt at settling in Warsaw in 1927 failed.[1]

Millions of Poles lived within the

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

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

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

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

See also: Poles in Kazakhstan
Polish refugees evacuated from the Soviet Union to Iran, 1942

During

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

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

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:

  • Katyn massacre about 22,000
  • executions of prisoners after the German invasion 1941
    .

After World War II most Poles from

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

References

  1. ^
    ISBN 8370524869
    .
  2. ^ a b c d e f g 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. 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.

External links

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