This pamphlet arrives at an opportune moment. So much has happened, and upon such a gigantic scale, since the invasion of Poland, that there is a tendency to forget that Soviet Russia is holding down by force half the territory and one-third of the population of our ally. When M. August Zaleski told the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Polish Council that Poland considers herself to be at war with Soviet Russia, surprise was expressed, and even disapproval in those quarters where Marxist aggression is excused or called by another name. But this is an idea to which we must become accustomed. Poland, like the rest of Europe has two enemies.

We in Britain have been told a great deal about the Germans in Poland, but very little about the Russians. The scarcity of news has led many to imagine that conditions under Russia are not as bad as they might have been. The information supplied by the present publication will enable the reader to form his own conclusions on this matter.

The account given in these pages of what is occurring in Poland's Eastern provinces is extremely valuable for two other reasons. It is authentic, and it is restrained. It is more concerned with facts and figures than with the rhetoric of indignation. The historical sketch of the Eastern provinces will be particularly useful for English readers, many of whom have been told (and have believed it) that most of the territory seized by the Russians was really Russian territory, and that the Red armies were merely taking back what belonged to them, and perhaps a little bit more. The author of this pamphlet answers that blatant lie very effectively.

It is of the utmost importance for British people to understand something of the past history and present agony of Poland, not merely because that country is our ally but also because posterity will, to a great extent, judge our contribution to the reconstruction of Europe by our attitude to Poland. History and geography have made Poland an outpost of Christendom, and when she once more has been liberated, her task will be what it has ever been: to stand as the warden of the marches.

The Soviet Occupation of Poland

On September 17, 1939, at 2:15 a.m. the Polish Ambassador to the U.S.S.R., M. Waclaw Grzybowski, was summoned to the Soviet Foreign Office. On arriving at the Kremlin, he was received by M. Potemkin, who read him a Note to the effect that the Soviets regarded the Polish Government as disintegrated, and the Polish State as having in fact ceased to exist. All agreements concluded between the U.S.S.R. and Poland were in consequence declared to have ceased to operate. Poland bereft of leadership had become a suitable field for all manner of hazards and surprises constituting a threat to the U.S.S.R. Furthermore, the Soviet Government could not view with indifference the fate of the kindred Ukrainian and White Russian people living on Polish territory, and, in existing circumstances, left defenceless.

Accordingly, the Soviet Government had ordered its troops to cross the Polish border and take under their protection the life and property of the population of Western Ukraine and Western White Russia. At the same time, the Soviet Government proposed to extricate the Polish people from the unfortunate war into which they were dragged by their unwise leaders, and enable them to live a peaceful life. (* This passage has been taken from the Polish White Book, pp. 189-190.)

There existed between Poland and the Soviet Republic a pact of non-aggression dated July 25,1932, which on May 5, 1934, was extended until December 31, 1945.

Notwithstanding the strong misgivings aroused in all quarters by the new pact concluded on August 23, 1939, between the Soviets and Germany, in the first days of the war between Poland and Germany a general impression prevailed of a certain good will on the part of the Soviets towards Poland. On August 27 Izvestia published an interview with Marshal Vorosilov who stated that the new understanding with Germany would not prevent Russia from supplying raw materials and even war materials to Poland (* Ibid., p 187.)

Along the entire Russian border it had been noticed that the tone of Russian broadcasts was not at all unfriendly towards Poland, and on certain frontier stations - much to the amazement of those who were informed - special arrangements were being made in great haste in order to facilitate the transport of goods into Poland. At Molodeczno, it was rumoured, a large convoy of lorries had been rushed over the frontier by night in early September. The Polish Government certainly had difficulties in keeping in touch with its local representatives. Since September 5 it was constantly moving owing to German bombing. But complete tranquillity reigned in the Eastern Provinces of Poland. Mobilisation had taken place under normal conditions and perfectly smoothly; all public authorities were functioning without interruption.

In the light of events it is unnecessary to stress the evident bad faith of the Soviets. The perfidy of Moscow's diplomatic language was vividly reminiscent of many similar documents of the 18th century, when Russia, with Berlin as chief accomplice, undermined the old monarchic Commonwealth of Poland.

In any event, the entrance of the Russian troops was such a surprise, not only to the population but also to the civil and military authorities, that in many places it was thought that the Bolsheviks had entered Poland as allies against Nazi Germany. These doubts were, of course, very soon dispelled. In many places communist "fifth columns" made their appearance with accompanying incidents of violence and plunder. The more determined Polish commanders swerved eastwards, and a new phase of warfare began between the Carpathians and the Dzwina, which lasted another three weeks.

Territory

The northern provinces involved in the invasion knew the Russians well. The provinces of Volhynia (Wolyn), Polesie, Nowogrodek, and Wilno as well as Bialystok had been subjected to the Russian Empire for more than a century. But Lwow, Stanislawow and Tarnopol had seen the Russians only once, in 1914, and had never been under Russian rule: they had been annexed by Austria in the first partition of Poland in 1772.

The territory invaded, and later incorporated by Russia with the so-called Soviet Ukraine and Soviet White Russian Republics, after a farcical election on October 29, 1939, was the poorer and more backward part of Poland. For this there are many reasons. The mineral resources of the Eastern Carpathians are smaller than those of the Western district of Silesia. The immense marshes of the Prypec exclude the possibility of cultivation of large tracts of land, also consist of very poor soil.

To the north of them the climate is very severe, and the soil is in general not very fertile. But, above all things, the former Eastern Galicia, wedged in between the Carpathians and the Russian border (with an economic outlet only towards the West at a distance of more than 250 miles of hilly and difficult country), had always been the most neglected and poverty-stricken of the provinces of the Austrian Empire.

As for the western confines of Russia, until 1914, they were certainly the most abandoned and underdeveloped part of Europe. After the Polish risings of 1830 and 1863, these lands were deliberately neglected and wasted by the Tsarist Governments, and the building of a few railways late in the 19th century was quite insufficient to raise the standard of living and economic activity in such vast regions. Even the much more densely populated "Kingdom of Poland," with its large centres like Warsaw and Lodz, with its coal mines of Dabrowa with its numerous and enterprising population, had experienced the extreme difficulty of improving conditions under Russian rule.

After the re-establishment of Poland in 1918, conditions in the Eastern Provinces had improved in many respects. Artificial frontiers were set aside, and a natural exchange of goods between neighbouring territories developed. The first roads were built, railway lines improved and transport greatly accelerated. Many towns, now administrative centres (such as Brzesc, Baranowicze, Pinsk, etc) were developed to a remarkable degree. Many large estates laid waste by the war were parcelled out, and the intricate system of peasant land tenure was converted into separate holdings. Education was promoted, about eleven thousand schools were opened (* Of these 4,800 elementary schools were situated in territory formerly under Austrian rule. The odd 6,000 in the northern voivodships were completely new foundations.): the University of Wilno was reinstated and recovered some of its former lustre; so did the "Lyceum" of Krzemieniec. Churches were erected or restored, and religious orders took up their beneficent activities.

Owing to the new outlet on the Baltic, there was a remarkable development of the timber industry, the exploitation of forests being subjected to strict governmental control. Considerable tracts of marshland and pasture were drained and reconditioned fisheries established.

In the northern regions, the production of flax and the manufacture of yarn and linen were greatly advanced.

Industry, so far as conditions permitted, began to thrive.

The oil-fields of Boryslaw were developed: oil refineries were built and mineral gases rationally exploited. The large centre of textile industry in Bialystok underwent a considerable revival.

Agriculture in general made visible progress, and the development of dairy produce was remarkable. A wide system of co-operative organisations, both Polish and Ukrainian, was established, and the standard of living of the population was rising slowly but steadily.

In short, the Eastern Provinces of Poland, when war broke out on September 1, 1939, represented a vast agricultural area, dotted here and there with industrial centres, not devoid of a decided elementary prosperity, although awaiting many necessary developments, and hampered - as was the whole of Poland - by an eveident lack of capital.

The present condition of these provinces cannot be understood or equitably judged without reference to their political history. It is all the more necessary to keep the historical past in mind when considering the ethnographical aspect as well as the psychology of the population.

Population

Of the territory at present occupied by the Bolsheviks every square mile had belonged to the Polish Commonwealth ever since the 14th century. The southern part was conquered from the Hungarians (1340-1352) by Casimir the Great. The northern part was included in the union of Poland and Lithuania in 1386.

The two countries after a period of purely personal union became a homogenous State in 1569. For centuries the whole political and cultural life of these countries has theretofore been Polish. It is an anachronism to speak of nationalist movements when referring to bygone centuries, and Poland always was a country of outstanding tolerance. Whereas the religious conflicts of the 16th and 17th centuries led to bloody wars in the whole of Western Europe, in Poland they remained entirely within the spiritual sphere. It is largely to be attributed to this tolerance that in the south-eastern provinces of Poland, which stretched in those days beyond the Dnieper, the adherents of the Greek Orthodox Church remained very numerous. When the power of the Polish state declined, this religious minority became a tool in the hands of the rulers of Moscow, who planned its disintegration.

Later violent social upheavals and military revolts of the Cossacks foreshadowed the appearance of modern Ukrainian aspirations. Nevertheless it must be borne in mind that from the 14th century an uninterrupted flow of Polish colonists made its way towards the East, very strongly affecting the ethnographical aspect of these regions.

The Polish territory at present under Soviet occupation represents some 74,700 square miles, with about 12,000,000 inhabitants, that is to say, almost exactly one-half of the area and roughly one-third of the population of the entire country. According to the census of 1931, of the inhabitants 4.5 million were Poles, over 4 million Ruthenians (or Ukrainians), over 1 million White Russians, over 1 million Jews, about 150,000 Russians, 90,000 Germans, about 40,000 Czechs and about 40,000 Lithuanians.

The entire Ukrainian or Ruthenian population is grouped in the four provinces of the South-East, whereas the largest grouping of White Russians is to be found in the province of Polesie - containing the marshes of the Prypec - in the province of Nowogrodek and the Eastern part of the province of Bialystok. The northern territories adjoining the district of Wilno, handed over to the Lithuanians, though eccentrically situated, contain a very high percentage of Polish population, reaching 90% in some parishes.

The whole Polish population is Roman Catholic. Those who claim to be White Russians are most frequently followers of the Orthodox church, if they do not belong to numerous sects which still continue to develop in certain parts. The Ukrainian population of Volhynia is on the whole Orthodox, whereas in the former Austrian territories, it belongs almost exclusively to the Greek Uniate Church. (* In 1594 a Church Union was brought about in Poland. At that time a considerable part of the Greek Orthodox Church in Poland submitted to Rome, but retained oriental ritual and ancient Slavonic liturgy. Known as the Uniate Church, it was wide-spread in eastern Poland. Ruthlessly suppressed by the Tsarist Government and Orthodox Russia, it remained a characteristic feature of "Eastern Galicia" under Austrian rule and was claimed as a national religion by the Ruthenians, especially since the Ukrainian movement has become conspicuous.) It is, therefore, an outstanding feature of the situation that no less than 8 million Catholics of the two rites have been subjected to Bolshevik domination, even if we do not take into account that hundreds of thousands of refugees, who found themselves in the occupied area, profess the same faith. Jews are fairly uniformly scattered over the whole territory, but mostly grouped in the cities and small towns. 

First days of Occupation

The first contacts between the population of Poland and the Bolsheviks - who for twenty years had been kept beyond a fortified border - aroused profound astonishment on both sides. All witnesses are unanimous in stating that the Bolshevik troops on entering this part of Poland (which was generally regarded as a poor and backward region) were seized with admiration for the extraordinary wealth and abundance of the country into which they marched.

On the other hand, even the poorest (Polish) peasants were startled by the appearance of extreme misery of the invading troops. It is true that they possessed tanks and long columns of lorries, but the soldiers themselves were in rags, they looked underfed and were generally low-spirited. Shrewd observers soon discovered that demonstrations of motorised forces often consisted in a circular movement intended to make their number appear more formidable. The machines broke down frequently, and Bolshevik vehicles towed by Polish cars became a familiar sight.

The Bolshevik troops were generally well disciplined and evidently provided with ample money to buy any goods which seemed to them specially attractive. The shops in Eastern towns of Poland - three weeks after the mobilisation and diverse passages of troops and refugees - were certainly not well supplied, but watches, sweets, and various trifling objects of doubtful value, such as fly-paper, seemed to delight the invaders particularly.

In one case known to the author a Russian non-commissioned officer in Wilno hesitated in exchanging a barrel of petroleum for a watch, but showed joyful surprise on ascertaining that the watch actually worked and surrendered his barrel without any further delay. A commissar found such delight in a hat adorned with a red feather that he purchased half a dozen on the spot. In Wilno two "comrades" of the fair sex created a sensation on appearing in the theatre in dainty nightgowns, which they had purchased and mistaken for gorgeous evening dresses.

Unfortunatley, these comic incidents were only a prelude to tragic happenings which were to follow. Even so, they contributed towards the complete exhaustion of the small reserves of many goods which still existed in the occupied areas.

The first impression which the Russian invasion produced seemed to indicate that it might be limited to a military occupation, leaving country and people more or less in the situation which had previously existed. Business was allowed to be carried on, and employees in private and public undertakings were ordered to remain at their posts. The practice of religion was not visibly interfered with. Soon, however, the country, already flooded with immense crowds of refugees from the West of Poland retreating before the German invasion, witnessed a new tide of emigration from the East. Officers' families, civil administrators, commissars of different ranks made their appearance and above all the O.G.P.U., the dreaded political police, undertook its familiar tasks, and it became evident that the new rulers were bent upon reducing the seized provinces radically and mercilessly to the state and conditions prevailing in Soviet Russia.

Trouble started when accomodations for the newcomers had to be found. For the use of the Muscovite bureaucracy lodgings were seized in the towns, often crowded and with limited housing, as a result of damage done during the war. At the same time, the Bolshevik doctrine was applied that every room should accomodate no fewer than two persons.

The inhabitants' belongings were also subjected to strict regulations, inspired by the high principle that one change of clothes and underwear satisfies all legitimate aspirations of the individual. Everything in excess of this was liable to be confiscated. Numerous roving gangs, often consisting of the very scum of society, offered their services and undertook the task of searching apartments by day and night, laying hands on anything of value. Goods assembled in this way were exported into Russia, notwithstanding the recurrent assurance: "We have everything, and you shall also have everything."

The Soviet officials and their families produced an impression similar to that which accompanied the military invasion. "The women," writes an eye-witness, " wore rags wrapped round their feet or felt slippers, instead of shoes: they brought all their family belongings in one battered suitcase, and sometimes even an iron bedstead. Bedding was not known to them and the luxury of fresh linen was never dreamed of in the Soviet Republic, even by dignitaries and important women commissars. The pick of the Soviets sent out for display to this bourgeois country were ignorant of the simplest arrangements of everyday life. Accustomed to being herded together, they did not understand the superfluous habit of enjoying individual lodgings: bathrooms and kitchens they considered as uncanny inventions, and their way of feeding and housekeeping could - by its extreme misery and primitivity - only make one think of the simplicity of requirements attributed to cave-dwellers."

Organized Plunder

But personal belongings were in no way the sole object of measures amounting to seizure and spoliation. Under one pretext or another, be it reorganisation, nationalisation, or any other formula in which the Bolshevik terminology abounds, the whole country, as time went on, was subjected to the most ruthless plunder. It must be observed, however, that the invaders acted step by step and with a great deal of cunning. They did not take extreme measures at once, but availed themselves of all the possibilities which every phase of their proceedings afforded them.

Most Polish officials and employees had received three months' salary in advance before the withdrawl of the Polish forces. Here then the Soviets considered themselves as having simply taken the place of the former authorities and institutions and made these people work without pay for three months, at the expiration of which most of them were dismissed.

Trade was allowed to be carried on as long as the stocks of goods lasted, and Polish currency was maintained as legal tender. The value of the Polish zloty was fixed as equal to that of the rouble. As the current rate was 12 to 1, all transactions were carried on in zloty and the merchants came into possession of considerable sums in cash received for their stocks - which they sold out. The whole life of the population continued to be relatively normal. Then, suddenly, on December 21, 1939, the zloty was declared as withdrawn from circulation - no equivalent whatever being provided for the unfortunate possessors, only a few insignificant exceptions were made in favour of certain public institutions.

Simultaneously, all bank deposits above 300 zloty were seized, and the amount thus wantonly suppressed amounted to 1,500 million zloty, or 60,000,000 British pounds sterling. (* The zloty, still in circulation within the German occupation, preserved a certain value, but it fell in relation to the rouble to between 25 per cent and 50 per cent of its former rate of exchange, and became an object of every kind of unscrupulous transaction on the "black bourse," with all the misery and hardship, which is the lot of the public under such circumstances.)

The sudden abolition of the zloty meant the destruction of such humble remnants of well-being as still existed in the country.

Prices soared and the markets showed a sudden lack of many commodities, as the country people would not sell their produce for a currency which they distrusted. It was then that a system of barter began to develop on a large scale, and the standard of living experienced a violent depression.

"Nationalism" Of Property

More or less simultaneously the process of nationalisation of commerce was put into practice. In reality it amounted to the seizure of all available stocks of goods, especially in the wholesale stores where some quantities still existed. All these supplies were carried off to Russia. The value of goods thus seized in the city of Lwow alone is estimated at about 400,000,000 pre-war zloty or 15,000,000 British pounds sterling - and at about 80,000,000 British pounds sterling in the whole occupied area. Of the 8,500 shops existing in Lwow, 6,500 were in consequence closed, and of the rest, only 500 remained in the hands of their proprietors; 1,500 were transformed into co-operative societies of different kinds, subject to incessant inroads by the Soviet authorities, and carrying on in a most precarious way.

At the same time all buildings were declared to be the property of the people, and it is only with the greatest effort that the proprietors of small houses (used as their personal residence) succeeded in preserving the use of them.  But this was in the larger centres; in the provincial towns the arbitrary decisions of local officials were in no way restrained.

Industrial establishments met with a similar fate, but were subjected to special proceeedings in which the old nomadic instinct of carrying off loot seemed to be uppermost. Thus in Wilno during the first Bolshevik occupation the workmen employed in a well-known factory of wireless receivers, Electrit, were induced to carry unanimously a resolution that the whole establishment be transferred to Smolensk. The same thing happened to the Courland Oil Factory. The plant was actually removed to Russia, the workmen and a good many others volunteered for work in the new locality. Some 1,000 persons, families included, decided to move. They, however, soon returned to Wilno, where in the meantime they had lost their livelihood. They were utterly disgusted with the conditions of life in Russia.

In accordance with a motion passed by the "National Assembly of Western Ukraine and White Russia," a similar fate was in store for many of the 9,000 factories of different kinds and sizes in the occupied area. Naturally the largest and best-equipped establishments were first to attract the attention of the ingenious reorganizers. The plant of the up-to-date and important sugar factories of Chodorow and Horodenka, south-east of Lwow, those of the electric works of Czortkow, Kolomyja and Stanislawow in the same region, the fine spinning jennies and looms of many firms in Bialystok have disappeared, to supplement the flourishing industry of Soviet Russia. The railway workshops in Lwow, Stanislawow and Przemysl were emptied, and even the equipment and furniture of the Agrarian Bank in Lwow and of many other public institutions was not allowed to remain. Movable goods were taken away, wherever they could be found, such as timber from the Polish State forests, hay and straw from the big estates, reserves of grain, sugar, tobacco, of spirits owned by the State Monopoly, cement, hides and textiles, iron ore, coal, wrought iron and pig-iron, also medical supplies, such as cotton wool, bandages, iodine.

In this respect the treatment which the country received at the hands of its invaders, who claimed to have come to protect it against possible hazards, bears a close resemblance to the Tatar invasions of these parts in former centuries.

The fate of owners of industrial establishments as well as of the directing staffs was that meted out to all persons tarnished with the sin of possessing property. In the country most of the mansions were plundered or burnt down in the first days of the invasions, valuable collections were destroyed, libraries were scattered and dumped into rivers. The landowners fled, frequently taking with them only the clothes in which they stood. Much less seemed to threaten the independant craftsmen of different trades who possessed 67,000 workshops in the occupied provinces, with an annual output estimated at 1,200 million zloty. But the men of this class also were ruined, for they sold out in the first months of the occupation such stocks of ready articles as they possessed. The money they held was suddenly abolished, and they ended by being thrown out of work because of the total lack of raw materials, which had completely disappeared from the markets. In exchange for all the goods carried away, the much-vaunted national stores introduced by the Bolsheviks contrived, after four months' intense efforts, to offer the public some very inferior matches, dirty salt, and soap and herrings, the latter remarkable for their reek of cod-liver oil. Stationary stores in some places only contain portraits of Lenin and Stalin beside gramophone records of the "International."

The Position of the Workers

The 120,000 workmen employed in the few industrial centres of the occupied provinces may have expected that they would be a favoured group of society, since a "Government of peasants and workmen" had taken over control. But even this minority met with nothing but bitter disappointment. The Bolsheviks boasted that they were going to suppress unemployment and raise output. As a rule workmen were not dismissed unless they happened to displease their new masters. On the contrary, the hours of labour were reduced to six or seven and considerable numbers of new hands were taken on. To have been imprisoned on the charge of Communist propaganda was a first-class qualification, regardless of technical ability. Soon it became evident that the much-advertised achievements of "shock workers," "order-wearers," and other "heroes of labour" in Soviet Russia were considerably inferior to the normal output obtained by less pretentious workmen in other countries.

In any case the general collapse of trade could scarcely result in any benefit to the working class. What happened in reality was a precipitate decline in the standard of living to a level which people in Western Europe can scarcely imagine. As a result of the substitution of the rouble for the zloty, the monthly earnings of workmen in  Eastern Poland amount to 100-150 roubles, whereas prices have reached an unprecedentedly high level.

In February, 1940, the free market price in Lwow of one kilogram of potatoes was 5-6 roubles, that of bread 5 roubles, of meat 30-50 roubles, of butter and lard 70 roubles. In Bialystok fifty kilograms of Rye cost 700 roubles; one kilogram of sugar, 50-75 roubles; one kilogram of tea, 700 roubles. In Luck the price of butter was 30 roubles, in Bialystok 75 roubles. A pair of shoes in Lwow could easily be sold for 500 roubles. Of course, the official prices in the "national" stores are considerably lower, but there the supplies are so insufficient hat they never satisfy the demand. Nothing can be purchased without the drudgery of standing endlessly in queues and obtaining ration cards - which are refused to many people. The life of a working-man's family can be easily imagined, seeing that he is obliged to live on 150 roubles a month. Women have to secure jobs at all costs - an additional hardship which the Soviet regime brings with it.

The Position of the Peasants

According to current ideas, after the workmen, the peasants should have drawn some benefit from the Soviet occupation. In the opinion of an important London periodical the peasants are for the time being pleased with the change, having at last received the land for which they longed. (* The Economist of May 25, 1940, p. 931. The Economist has since repeated the same assertions concerning the Soviet "agrarian reform' in Eastern Poland. The issue of October 5 contains a survey of conditions in that part of the country which, on the whole, bears out the picture drawn in this pamphlet. We feel bound, however, to question the allegation that the "Soviets won the political support of the peasantry." We maintain that even the material conditions for this did not exist. What great acheivements can have been attained considering that eight years before the Bolshevik invasion, large estates represented the following percentage of the total area under cultivation: 13.5 in the voivodship of Lwow, 15.5 in Stanislawow, 19.3 in Tarnopol, 11.1 in Volhynia, 16.5 in Nowogrodek, 19.1 in Wilno, 9.7 in Bialystok and 22 in Polesie.; these figures have very considerably declined since. In speaking of the "obsolete semi-fuedal structure with its overgrown and backward landlord class" as being characteristic of agriculture in Eastern Poland, The Economist's contributor is merely repeating the hackneyed slogans of Soviet propaganda. Furthermore he states that 400 collective farms were established in Western Ukraine and 650 in Western White Russia. This only confirms our information, according to which a considerable proportion of estates were not distributed to the peasants, but maintained as large enterprises, working under Soviet control instead of being managed by their owners.) It is a great mistake to over-estimate the area of agricultural land existing as large estates in Poland. In reality, in 1939 it averaged at about 16 per cent of the entire cultivable area, including meadows and pastureland, and was still being parcelled out rapidly. Even the complete distribution of this land could not have had a decisive influence on the state of the peasant community as a whole, which in Poland represented well over three million holdings, one-half of which is under Bolshevik occupation. The sudden destruction of large agricultural enterprises was an additional blow to the welfare of the countryside. Not only did many lanourers lose their work, but tremendous waste occurred - as is always the case in situations of this kind. Horses are scarce where armies have passed, the harvest was destroyed or removed by Bolshevik requisitions - if by no other means - livestock was actually distributed among the peasants, but was killed by them before winter set in, partly owing to lack of fodder, and partly to forestall Bolshevik regulations - which were very soon enforced. All livestock was registered and the sale of it prohibited without the consent of the local committee, which was in turn subjected to the control of many other authorities. It was also soon clear that the distribution of land was in fact illusory, as the greatest pressure was being exercised on the peasants to pool their allotments and to go in for collective farming on kolkhoz  lines. All reports also agree that many estates have remained in the hands of the authorities and become State enterprises.

But the actual condition of the country people was influenced for the worse by the ruin of the natural and necessary exchange between town and country, even more than by the effect of these chaotic measures. The country folk have little enough to sell, and now there is nothing to buy. Clothes, shoes, underwear have become an unattainable luxury, ironware a precious and uncommon thing. Sheepskin coats - a necessity in that climate and the cherished belongings of every family - have frequently been requisitioned. In Lida, soon after the occupation, the sight of a wagon-load of primitive moccasins - the footgear of the poor - produced a painful sensation. It was, no doubt, intended to be an imposing contribution towards the well-being of the newly aquired province.

Apart from purely material wants and deficiencies, the life of the Polish country population under Soviet rule has been profoundly troubled and depressed by many other causes. Lavish words and fine promises have not prevented the Soviets from imposing enormous taxes exceeding the boldest estimate of the taxpayers' possibilities, taxes which sometimes amount to 230 roubles per hectare (about 2 acres). Also, from the first, Muscovite policy, running true to type, has not been satisfied with the ruin of the landlords and the intellectual classes, and has made the extermination of the richer peasants, or kulaks, one of its aims - in the prosecution of which it does not recoil from the most drastic methods.

These men, wantonly accused of sabotaging the Government plans for the formation of large collective farms, were seized and deported to distant districts in Russia. The practice is well known from extensive application in the U.S.S.R.

The area under Soviet occupation is too vast to have anything like a homogenous distribution of property. In the south, in better conditions of climate and soil, small and very small holdings are the rule. In the north, larger peasant farms are very frequent. They were regarded in Poland, as in other countries, as a particularly valuable class of property both economically and socially. New holdings were not allowed to be formed below a certain size. In the east, the owners were often new settlers from the western provinces, sometimes ex-servicemen who had obtained land under a special law. The soulless mechanism of Bolshevik "reform" has struck these men with customary cruelty. And here we come to another and more tragic subject.

Forced Labour and Political Persecution

It was generally remarked that on first entering Poland the Bolsheviks proceeded with relative gentleness and moderation. The army was not used for measures of political repression. It was only when they had a strong grip on everything, when the entire personnel of their administrative offices had arrived, when local elements, well adapted to the job they were to carry out, were sufficiently organized and above all, when the dreaded political police was well in control, that the full blessings of the new order began to be showered on the population. The first step was the arrest of many persons active in public life. In Lwow the mayor, the deputy mayor (a Jew), two other members of the municipality, three members of the Polish Diet (one Jew and two Ukrainians), and two old professors who had been leaders of the Polish National Party were among the first to be arrested - and in some cases have died in prison since. In Wilno the proceedings were similar. A former rector of the university, a director of the Agrarian Bank, the president of the Court of Appeal, a well-known member of agricultural organisations, a barrister of repute and the director of a large fishery concern were among the first victims. It was also a striking feature of the Bolshevik methods that they turned with special malice against persons who had been known for their Communist sympathies. It appears that the divergence between the creed of Stalin and Trotsky was the underlying cause.

After that in many places (as for instance in Wilno, during its first occupation) strong pressure equivalent to constraint was brought to bear on specialists of all kinds, doctors and nurses, engineers and fitters, university professors and assistants, to prevail upon them to offer their services to the Soviet Government. At the same time certain categories of people were singled out for special reprisals. In this way the remnants of the Polish police were exterminated, while the whole personnel of the administration of justice - judges, public prosecutors and prison inspectors - were carried off to unknown places. The same fate overtook the entire forestry service, whether private or State-owned, although at first these men had been encouraged to remain at their posts. Soon it was known in all quarters remaining in contact with the occupied provinces through the refugees that any person suspected by the Bolsheviks would disappear in this way. To be suspected it was sufficient to be prominent in any sphere. To understand the frequency of these cases, it must be borne in mind that under Soviet rule the whole population is spied upon through an elaborate system of organizations, "cells," committees, etc., so that even those in the humblest position are apt to fall victim of denunciation. And this appears to be a method which Bolsheviks and Nazis have in common - to paralyse the community they wish to enslave by striking at the nerve centres even of a local and subordinate type.

Immediately after the abolition of the zloty, which deliberately deprived great numbers of people of their means of subsistence, special delegates made their appearance in Poland to engage workers for various enterprises in Russia. In fact, in Lwow, several thousand people registered for the coal mines of the Don, eight thousand for the forests of Samara and Kazan, but in other places the results were much more meagre. Consequently, compulsory registration was ordered, the pressure became direct and the ways of securing the necessary labour more and more brutal. That the inexhaustible reserve of man-power in Russia should be unable to supply workmen to the relatively modest industry it possesses may well be an object of wonder. It would appear that the conditions of work are such as to be exceedingly unattractive to men able to live otherwise. However that may be, the barbarous practice of deportation, a revival of the darkest ages of mankind, increased rapidly within a few weeks, and whole villages were carried off.

First applied to provide forced labour, it was practised more and more as a wholesale reprisal. In the province of Polesie it was used against villages in arrear with tax payment and grain deliveries, but it occurred in the East Carpathians no less than in the neighbourhood of Bialystok, where the village of Zacisze was doomed to destruction in the same way. Another excuse for the atrocious proceedings appeared when train-loads of Poles were dumped into the German occupation, as caravans of Jews were being dumped on the Bolshevik border. To be carried on in a humane way, such operations would have demanded thorough and elaborate preparation. In reality they were put into effect under the most appalling conditions, the exceptionally heavy winter adding to the unutterable sufferings of the victims. Unheated cattle trains were the general mode of conveyance and a very high mortality resulted, especially among the children. Not the slightest regard was ever paid to the most elementary human feelings or necessities. Illness, childbirth, the absence of the nearest members of the family were no hindrance to the relentless execution of cruel orders. As a rule raids of the doomed houses or villages were made suddenly and at night, much in the style of slave hunting of former times. It was useless to ask for reasons, and any mode of appeal was unknown. In general, the dealings of the Bolsheviks are not marked by consistency and clear principles of action. The chaos produced by contradictory measures and arbitrary orders is one of the additional plagues attendant on their rule, and the unhappy population is always the sufferer.

Wholesale Deportation 

The night of February 8 to 9, 1940, was a memorable date in the development of this hideous system. Hundreds of villages were surrounded by the O.G.P.U. and militia, and whole families were seized. Neither were old people, women in childbed or new-born children spared. But worse was to come. Between the 4th and 6th of March, ten trains passed into Russia through the station of Baranowicze, each carrying separate loads of men, women and children, which showed that here unfortunate families had been torn asunder.

And then this wholesale transfer of vast groups of the population became an outstanding feature in Bolshevik policy in Poland. Certainly it serves some large scheme. And in this character it is not new. It was first put into practice in Russia in 1929 and continued in 1936 and 1937. In the Polish frontier regions, on the river Zbrucz and further north, it was well known that the population of the adjoining Soviet territories had completely changed twice in the period of eight years. There was the question of establishing a defensive belt 50 kilometres wide, and also of removing Polish and Ukrainian elements suspected of disloyal tendencies. This appeared to be the chief aim. Now the same plan was to be realised along the new border on the Carpathians, which afforded the Poles certain facilities for reaching neutral countries. Something similar, on a smaller scale, was carried out on the new Lithuanian frontier.

Under this plan 5,000 persons were deported from the districts of Kuty (on the Rumanian frontier) and Kolomyja, 1,000 families from Podhajce, 1,400 persons from Drohobycz.

These figures show that a complete evacuation of these densely populated areas was not acheived. But the sudden shifting of whole communities into the depths of Asia has taken the place of the old Tsarist practice of sending individual convicts to Siberia - a practice which was so justly stigmatised in the 19th century.

It has not been abandoned by the successors of the Tsarist regime. Bolshevik justice, like Nazi justice, is not over-scrupulous. Regular sentences are reserved for a small minority. Suspects are deported to concentration camps or places of hard labour. The choice in Polish territory is wide.

At one time the prisons in Lwow held 20,000 people. On January 29 and 31, 1940, 850 arrests were made in that city. Two thousand persons were in gaol in the small town of Czortkow. So in one form or another, these ghastly practices continue under various pretexts. First it is the removal of refractory peasants, then it is the forcing of labour, the transportation of refugees, the relief of unemployment, or simply the exile of political prisoners. The Soviet government is shifting the population of the country it has seized in accordance with its own motives and plans, and in a matter that has not been practised since the days of the Assyrian despots. The aim is clear: all people capable of independant judgement, the educated classes, and all those accustomed to a certain measure of independence, such as the peasant farmers - if they cannot be starved out rapidly enough - must be removed lest they should hinder the introduction of Communist institutions. Poles and Ukrainians must disappear in order to make room for the Russian element. Russians are favoured everywhere because they are already cowed into submission, and are therefore more reliable. The Russian language is encouraged everywhere.

Revolution in Russia to-day seems to be advancing hand in hand with imperialism, to which the Poles have fallen victims. In February it was estimated that 100,000 people had been removed from their native country in one week, as about 100 trains with deportees are known to have passed through the station of Podwoloczyska during that time. Between the 12th and the 15th of April about 25,000 people were arrested in the city of Lwow alone, and taken to some unknown destination. The figures, as given here, do not seem to be exaggerated, if we recall Russian practices in the past years. The victims of these measures are chiefly the Polish educated class, officers' families being picked out for specially brutal treatment. Boy Scouts and Girl Guides, and members of pre-military organisations are nearly always separated from their parents.

In Western "White Russia" wholesale arrests and deportations were made on the 25th and 26th of April. The first to be rounded up were the families of military men, policemen, foresters, railway employees and political prisoners, then also people prominent in any sphere. Thus in Lida some 700 families were affected. The prisoners were herded in railway trucks, which remained at the station for several days, waiting for new contingents from other districts to join the transport.

On the 28th, permission having been granted for the relatives to visit those in the train, practically the whole population of the town, without distinction of language and religion, flocked to the railway station carrying parcels with food. This invasion of the station alarmed the military guard. Quickly a locomotive was put before the train and the signal for departure given. At that moment some 200 persons advanced and threw themselves down across the rails to prevent the train from passing. Strong detachments of infantry were sent for to clear the line and another 100 arrests were made. As the train moved out of the station the deportees and the crowd on the platform joined in singing the national anthem. Cases are known of women having lost their reason when they were separated from their children.

The atmosphere attending these proceedings is not merely one of revolutionary commotion, but also one of national oppression. At the outset the Ukrainians were played off against the Poles. Old grievances were encouraged and led to many cruel outrages against Polish neighbours. The wholesale release of convicts often gave the first impulse. Later, however, the common suffering at the hands of the invader made them forget old injuries and brought them together. "An incredible force," wrote a correspondent recently, "has been developed: both sides have striven to forget the past , to understand each other and to form a joint Polish and Ukrainian 'peasant' front." 

Similar feelings have been roused in other parts of the country. Men speaking the White Russian dialect were heard saying "For twenty years the Polish Government failed to teach us who we are. But now we know." There are on record numerous instances of Ukrainian families protecting Polish families against assaults.

Propaganda, Education and Religion

This widespread revulsion of feeling has produced results which were quite contrary to those sought by the Bosheviks. It was a reaction not only against material wrong, but also against moral pressure and debasement which human beings who have known better things could not bear. Moral torture is one of the features of Bolshevik rule; it is not unknown to men familiar with conditions in the U.S.S.R., and at present frequently witnessed by innumerable involuntary observers in Poland. Ostensibly the whole administration of the Soviets is based on local and professional autonomy, on the initiative of groups and "cells" of different rank and order. In reality all the subordinate bodies are simply instruments in the hands of those in power.

In a recent letter from Soviet occupied Poland we read: "In the initial stage, local factory committees were formed in the occupied area to win the workers over and the workers themselves assumed control. But very soon, after a short period of demonstrations, they were assigned to their real task of keeping the zeal and the state of mind of their comrades under observation. Actual control was taken over by Party commissars sent from distant parts, men who never work themselves and form a sort of privileged upper class in the Soviets. Lavish of attractive sounding catchwords, they were in unrestrained control of the toil and way of thinking of the workers and could even interfere with their outward appearance. It was highly characteristic that in one of the factories in Lwow, the first order of the commissar was that all men had to shave their moustaches."

In a short time people came to see that although under the Soviets the working classes are declared to occupy a privileged position, their privileges in reality are limited to forming delegations to various unions and councils, where they are called upon noisily to approve the decisions of the governing group and to give them wide publicity as truly revolutionary measures. Labour meetings have no other choice than to express opinions in strict keeping with the course steered by those in power, and to carry motions for raising the output of work for the benefit of "socialist construction." Any attempt at true independence of judgement and genuine criticism is soon stifled. In reality, therefore, the ordinary workman is less important than in any country governed by the"middle classes."

The peasant is even worse off and is given every opportnity to feel it in occupied Poland. There is no question of any peasant self-government. The collective farms are made to work for the delivery of assigned quotas, and the country committees take orders from the bureaucrats without having the slightest chance of discussing them beforehand.

As the intellectual worker does not belong to a privileged group, his lot is, if possible, even harder and the claims on the complete surrender of his critical faculties more absolute. Flattery and servility are prevalent everywhere, and anybody wishing to succeed and secure any position has to resort to them. "Our life is happy and joyful," "Our army is heroic and invincible," "Comrade Stalin is the leader of the international proletariat, the sun of humanity," "Nothing can be happier than to live under the Stalin constitution, the most democratic in the world" - these phrases have to be repeated on every occasion. Otherwise one is immediately suspected of being a "Trotskyist dog," or "an agent of the criminal West European capitalists." To secure or retain a job, one must submit to the ordeal of being schooled in Communist doctrines, generally in the form of special evening classes. These are mainly concerned with the defilement of everything Polish, everything connected with democratic culture or the Christian faith, as well as blasphemy and atheism.

In a general way it must be stated that there is no education under the Soviets which is not reduced to propaganda. A person who recently managed to send a letter abroad says: "The Red circles and clubs, the news posters, the debating societies for promoting education, the workmen's universities, the different ways of raising and developing the masses intellectually lead in reality to nothing more than the obliteration of truth and a distorted picture of reality by putting it into the frame of officially organised opinion. As a result of this kind of education the Bolsheviks strike one as being like big children, monkeys or parrots, who have aquired mechanically the art of reading and certain strangely contorted pieces of knowledge. They give the impression of being absolutely incapable of reasoning in the simplest way, of criticising intelligently, of drawing a logical conclusion or of associating ideas in a way familiar to any brain which functions normally."

A prodigious proficiency in expounding the Communist dogma is combined with the most shocking ignorance and the complete absence of rudimentary education in every other department of knowledge. It is well known that industry in Russia, highly developed in certain directions, is greatly hampered by its incapacity to overcome elementary difficulties which demand independent judgement and rapid application. It can also easily be imagined to what level medical science has sunk, considering that the term of study has been reduced to three years, and may be taken on the strength of an elementary school certificate.

The prevailing atmosphere is obvious from one striking event which took place in the University of Lwow. Here a statue of the Blessed Virgin was removed and replaced by a kind of altar in honour of Stalin, in front of which the red lamp continues to burn. Threatening as these symptoms of triumphant obscurantism are for the future, they are not the most painful point of Poland's contact with Bolshevik educational methods.

Seeing their incapacity of making headway in their endeavour to win over the population, the Bolsheviks at present direct all their efforts towards inculcating their principles in the young generation. As they have absolute power and no scruples, their methods can easily be imagined. After having done away with most of the former teachers, they replace them by their own men, without the slightest regard to qualification. Besides, four or five commissars are attached to every school in order to supervise the methods of teaching, and to spy on the teachers. Religion, Polish History and Literature, Latin and Greek, were immediately removed from the curriculum, but the doctrines of Marx and the principles of the Stalin constitution - "the most magnificent in the world" - are driven home to the unfortunate children, even in the elementary classes. All librairies and bookshops have, of course, been methodically purged, and the schools submerged with worthless propagandist literature. Then the children are forced to take part in meetings, lectures and debates in which the Soviet officers and specialised propagandists direct their criticism against the bourgeois regime, and against Poland as a country controlled by "landlords." This teaching is intended to destroy their hearers' faith in everything they had hitherto been taught to love and respect. Immediate impressions and recent experiences did not appeal very strongly to the children's minds in favour of Bolshevism as the shortest cut to happiness, and they often gave spirited answers or put embarrasing questions to their teachers. But fair play is something which is not to be expected under a totalitarian government. Courageous boys and girls were very often arrested. Boys of eight are known to have been flogged in prison to induce them to give away their school-fellows who inspired them in their opposition. It is not uncommon for schoolchildren to disappear like any adult suspected of political heterodoxy. Not only is every imaginable method of spying and trapping applied to the children themselves, but the greatest efforts are made to induce them to spy and denounce each other or members of their families.  Apart from more drastic methods employed , this is represented to the children as "heroism in the service of the working class."

Atheism is of great importance in the Bolshevik system of education. Even children in nurseries are subjected to special training in this branch of wisdom. Everything that we heard about the U.S.S.R. in this respect has been verified in Poland. Even the crude experiment of a prayer to God remaining vain and the invocation of Stalin ending in the distribution of rolls to the hungry children, has been applied. But practices no less despicable and even more loathsome are in use. A sort of maniacal stress is laid on the dissolution of morals. Soviet officers have been called upon to make disclosures concerning sexual life in classrooms attended by little girls, and to explain that chastity was a prejudice of the decayed bougeoisie. The helpless indignation of parents forced to put up with these shameless inroads on everything they hold sacred can be imagined. Their helplessness and misery are callously discounted by those in power. Many a starving mother has consented to send her child to a Bolshevik boarding school simply to save it from starvation. Children without parents are of course subjected to Communist education. Religious orders concerning themselves with the care of destitute children have been evicted and replaced by Bolshevik educationists, trained in all the devices of propaganda.

It is in keeping with this that every effort is made to undermine all feelings of respect and trust of child towards their parents. Religious practices are not directly forbidden, but are hindered and hampered by every possible means. Sunday mornings or Feast days are picked out for meetings, demonstrations or additional occupation in the schools. The same method of unrelenting, though somewhat disguised, destruction is put into practice against the religious communities throughout the country. Their property is not confiscated, but burdened with enormous taxes and seized under the pretext of their being in arrears. In this way the important educational establishment for poor boys directed by the Salesians in Bialystok was suppressed, as was the convent of the Capuchines in Lwow and the well known Jesuit college in Chyrow. The Soviet Atheist League was also let loose on the country and its president Jaroslawski recently boasted of having had 4,000 Polish priests sent to Siberia. Whether some of them were of the Greek Rite, we do not know, but it is a notorious fact that every effort is made to starve the Ukrainian clergy, even their children being excluded from receiving any employment. (* In the Greek Catholic or "Uniate" Church celibacy is not obligatory for priests, and until quite recently the vast majority of them were married.) That all Ukrainian organisations, which were very numerous, such as educational societies, private schools, reading circles, sport clubs, co-operative societies - have been suppressed need scarcely be mentioned.

General Conditions

The state of utter destitution to which all people dependent on the Polish State have been reduced is also evident. The whole population of the country is now beggared. And still it is a fact that of those who - with their consent or without - have found themselves in Russia, great numbers have used every possible device to return, preferring a shattered existence at home to life in a country laid waste by twenty years of Bolshevik sway. A letter recently received throws light on the conditions and moral atmosphere in which people in Eastern Poland are compelled to live.  A journalist writes from Wilno to a friend who had left the country earlier:

"Despite all my great efforts, and as I was several times arrested, I have not succeeded in getting across to Hungary or to Rumania. Lithuania remained as a last resort, and that is the way I chose. A man accustomed to a certain measure of liberty cannot endure existence in a totalitarian country. You have passed too short a time on Soviet territory to be able to judge how burdensome life is there. And I do not speak of the most primitive comforts of life such as lodging and food. You most likely know from the Press how things stand; one has to queue up from 8 to 10 hours to secure a piece of bread; a kilogram of butter costs 50 roubles, a dinner 15, boots are unobtainable. In Warsaw we had no adequate idea of the horror of life in a totalitarian State. We wrote about it, we talked about it, but we were far from understanding the real state of things. We did not know how totalitarianism can debase a human being.

"Spies at every corner, arrests, the everlasting threat of being sent into the depths of Russia, being searched in the streets, endlessley standing in queues to get bread, sugar, bootlaces - that was a normal working day of our 'happy and joyous life.' And what is worse, the everlasting declarations, the applause, the greetings, the carrying of motions. When certain words were pronounced one had to rise and applaud. And then the Press wrote of frantic applause. Under these conditions, there is not a sound instinct in human nature which is not made to suffer, not a nerve which is not put to special agony."

The plight of Poland, as all available information shows, is pathetic beyond expression. Not only has she again been torn in two by hostile and aggressive neighbours. But she exemplifies before the world the effect of the gigantic but soulless machinery contrived by totalitarian states, when directed against the body and the soul of a living people. On the German side there is the monstrous conception of national interest which has turned the German nation into a savage horde, coveting the spoils of an enslaved world. On the Russian side a relentless system built up on ruins and blood for the alleged happiness of mankind is blindly crushing all human happiness, and waging a fierce war on those very things which heretofore have been looked upon as the honour and nobility of man.

There is something fatal - or providential - in the history of nations. Long ago, the great poets of Poland announced that she would have to suffer cruelly for a better future of the world. Generations of Poles have striven to convince Western statesmen that her cause and the cause of European freedom were one. This point at least seems to be clearly established by now.

THE END

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PART TWO:

Teresa Oszurko, Buffalo, New York.

(The continuation of a story begun on the home page at http://felsztyn.tripod.com/germaninvasion)

The Russians closed the border (to German occupied Poland) and a few months later deported us to Siberia with other war "criminals" like intellectuals, land owners and officers of the Polish Armed Forces, of whom thousands were murdered at Katyn and other yet to be discovered places. In many cases, when the man of the family was in hiding, the women and children were arrested. One woman in our group was seized from a hospital bed with her newborn baby.

The arrests always took place in the dark of night. At the time of our arrest, I was almost twelve and quite cognizant of the Siberian climate, so my first conscious act, after being awakened in the middle of the night, was to run to the cellar, followed by an armed guard, for our winter shoes.

Subconsciously, I must have expected our arrest. My parents told me that a few nights before, I woke up and told them that we should run because we were going to be deported to Russia, after which I went promptly back to sleep, with no memory of the incident next morning.