Polish minority in the Soviet Union
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The Polish minority in the Soviet Union refers to people of Polish descent who resided in the Soviet Union.
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[edit] History of Poles in the Soviet Union
[edit] 1917-1920
Poles were revolutionaries and victims of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the Russian Civil War. Marian Lutosławski and his brother Józef, the father of the Polish composer Witold Lutosławski, were murdered in Moscow in 1918. Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz lived through the Russian Revolution in St. Petersburg, which had a profound effect on his works, many of which displayed themes of the horrors of social revolution. Famous revolutionaries with Polish origins include Konstantin Rokossovsky, Julian Marchlewski, Karol Świerczewski and Felix Dzerzhinsky, founder of the Cheka secret police which would later turn into the NKVD.However according to their ideology they didn't identify as Poles or with Poland, and members of Communist party viewed themselves as Soviet citizens without any national sentiments. Soviet Union also organized Polish units in the Red Army and a Polish Communist government-in-exile, however these organisations were Polish in name only, and led by non-Poles, in the case of "Polish Army" Russians.
[edit] 1921-1938
Polish communities were inherited from Imperial Russia after the creation of the Soviet Union. After World War I, Poland became an independent country, and its secession was finalized by the Peace of Riga in 1921 at the end of the Polish-Soviet War, which left significant territories populated by Poles within the Soviet Union. Initially, the Poles were given 2 Polish Autonomous Districts, 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 collectivization of agriculture under Joseph Stalin, both autonomies were abolished and their populations were subsequently murdered or deported to Kazakhstan in 1934-1938. 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 supervision of the NKVD/GPU, cruelly punished for any sign of discontent.
In addition to the deportation of the Poles (the first recorded deportation of a whole ethnic group in the USSR, see Polish operation of the NKVD), the Polish Communist Party was also decimated following the Great Purge and was eventually abolished in 1938.
Another decimated group of Poles was 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.
[edit] 1939-1947
During World War II, the Soviet Union occupied vast areas of eastern Poland (so called Kresy), and another 5.2-6.5 million Poles (from the total population of about 13,5 million of these territories) were added, with further large-scale deportations to Kazakhstan and other areas.
On March 30, 2004, the head of the Archival Service of Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, general Vasili Khristoforov gave final exact numbers of deported Poles. According to him, in 1940 exactly 297,280 Poles were deported, in June 1941 another 40,000. This numbers don't include P.O.W.s, prisoners, small groups, people who voluntarily moved into the SU, men drafted into stroybats.
In August 1941, following the German attack on the USSR and the dramatic change in Soviet/Polish relations, former Polish citizens held in special settlements and prisoner of war camps were granted 'amnesty' and allowed to enrol in Polish army units. The location of reception centres was kept secret and no travel facilities provided.[1] 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. [2]
The following is case of direct executions of Poles during the 1939-1941 occupation:
- massacres of Polish POWs in September 1939
- Katyn massacre 15,000
- executions of prisoners in Spring 1940, e.g. in Kurapaty
- executions of prisoners after the German invasion 1941.
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. There are reasons to believe that those expelled were more happy than those who stayed.
Wanda Wasilewska was an exceptional case - she became a Soviet citizen and didn't return after the war.
[edit] 1947-1991
The Polish minority was one of the few whose numbers decreased over time, according to official statistics. They also belonged to the least educated ethnic group, which allegedly was caused by ethnic persecutions.
After 1989, Poles who survived in Kazakhstan started to emigrate due to national tensions, mainly to Russia and, supported by immigration society, to Poland. The number remaining is between 50 000 and 100 000.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the following post-Soviet countries have significant Polish minorities:
- Lithuania, around 250 000 (7% of population), see also Polish minority in Lithuania,
- Belarus, at least 420 000 (almost 4.5% of population),
- Ukraine, at least 150 000,
- Russia, more than 100 000.
- Kazakhstan – between 60,000 and 100,000
[edit] List of prominent Soviet Poles
- Marshall Konstantin Rokossovsky
- Felix Dzerzhinsky
- Karol Świerczewski
- Julian Marchlewski
- Antoni Skulbaszewski
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Michael Hope, 'Polish Deportees in the Soviet Union', Veritas Foundation, London, 2000, ISBN 0 948202769
- ^ 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
