Belarusian Peasants' and Workers' Union

The Polish authorities began to suppress the activities of the Hramada in late 1926 due to its policy coordination with the delegalized Communist Party of Western Belarus.

[6] The Hramada had party cells in the following powiats of the Nowogródek Voivodeship in Second Polish Republic: Baranovichi (Baranowicze), Bielsk, Valozhyn (Wołożyn), Vawkavysk (Wołkowysk), Vileyka (Wilejka), Wilno, Grodno, Dzisna, Kosava, Lida, Maladzyechna, Navahrudak, Pastavy, Pinsk, Slonim, Stouptsy and Sokółka.

[4][6] As the years went on, due to ongoing polonization of West Belarus (called Kresy macroregion in interwar Poland) and increasingly discriminatory and nationalistic policies of the central Polish government, the Belarusian national movement in grew more loyal to the Soviet regime and its communist ideology.

The Polish authorities handed them over to the Soviets in 1930 (Rak-Michajłoŭski, Vałošyn, Miatła) and 1933 (Taraškievič) in exchange for political prisoners held in the USSR (including the West Belarusian journalist and playwright Francišak Alachnovič).

[4] According to historian Andrew Savchenko, by 1927 the Hramada organization was controlled entirely by agents deployed from Moscow, whose aim was to destabilize the region and recruit partisans.

[2] According to Savchenko, BPWU only theoretically demanded independence for Belarus, but in practice promoted only the idea of incorporating the ethnically Belarusian lands into the Soviet Union which meant yet another partition of Poland.

[3] In turn, Hramada leaders did exactly what their Moscow advisers suggested they do, and disseminated Comintern propaganda,[3] which resulted in the rapid growth of its rank and file.