Sovietization of Western Byelorussia (1939-1941)

The wealthy strata of the population of Western Byelorussia were ruined in the first months of Soviet power due to the confiscation of surplus cash and bank deposits, as well as high inflation and the emergence of the "black market".

[16] In the second half of the 1930s, projects for the colonization of Western Byelorussia by Poles and the Polonization of the local Belarusian population began to appear in Polish circles.

On September 12, 1939, at a meeting in Abbeville, the prime ministers of Great Britain and France came to the conclusion that Poland had lost the war and that it was useless to help it.

For example, in Skidel, the rebels captured the railway station, but were defeated by Polish units and later helped the Red Army liberate this settlement.

[30] I. E. Yelenskaya, based on oral recollections of residents of Western Byelorussia (recorded in the 2000s), collected stories about how Belarusians greeted the Red Army with bread, salt, and flowers and erected “gates” (symbolic arches with welcoming slogans).

[33] The leader of the Communist Party of the Byelorussian SSR, Panteleimon Ponomarenko, having visited a number of settlements in Western Byelorussia (including Baranovichi, Slonim and Volkovysk), noted in a letter to Joseph Stalin on September 25, 1939, the Russification of the urban population, as well as the presence of hostile Polish resistance in the Belastok Oblast[45]: The Byelorussian peasantry is in excellent spirits, supporting the Red Army in every way it can.

The peasants speak real Byelorussian… In Bialystok, the population greets our troops with more restraint, they know Russian less, shots are heard more often from around the corner, from the forest, at Red Army soldiers and commanders.

members - the situation is becoming more difficult than in areas where ByelorussiansGerman documents confirm that part of the local population greeted the Soviet troops joyfully.

[35] In almost all cities and towns, the place of the fleeing Polish administration was taken (on their own initiative) by local Jews, who took power into their own hands (before the arrival of the Red Army).

[36] Local Ukrainian nationalists, the Polesie Lozovoye Cossacks, also took up arms against the Polish authorities at the beginning of the war, and they occupied Drohichyn on September 22, 1939.

Respondent N. R. Priluk recalled in 2003 that the Germans were "well-fed, fit, with good posture, excellently dressed", and the Red Army soldiers were "very thin, skinny, exhausted".

[43] In early October 1939, the Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Union ordered that all government posts in the new lands should accept former members of the Communist Party of Western Byelorussia "not indiscriminately, but on an individual basis after a thorough and unhurried check".

[44] In October 1939 – January 1940, the Soviet government nationalized banks in Western Byelorussia (with confiscation of large deposits), a few industrial enterprises, restaurants, cinemas, and most retail outlets.

In Western Byelorussia in 1939–1941, a huge “black market” and a total deficit of consumer goods developed, although compared to the eastern regions of the Belarusian SSR, there was an abundance.

In June 1940, the Zelva District Prosecutor F. M. Shapiro (an "Easterner" from Pukhovichi) organized the sale of manufactured goods belonging to the former tradeswoman Ratner, which had been confiscated from her as evidence, in the building of the People's Court.

For example, on February 2, 1940, the Belostok Regional Committee of the Communist Party of Byelorussia decided to begin issuing patents for handicrafts (without hiring labour), small trade, and other services (such as shoe repair) for payment of a state fee.

Red Army soldiers and officers emptied Western Byelorussian stores to a large extent, which resulted in local traders hiding most of the goods in the winter of 1939-1940.

For example, in the Belastok Region in the third quarter of 1940, deliveries of hosiery and legwear amounted to 2% of the plan, "clothing" - 4.7%, canned fish - 19%, and no felt footwear was received at all.

[64] Since November 15, 1939, three- and six-month courses for teachers of Western Byelorussia were launched, who were required to teach not in Polish, but in Russian or Belarusian.

Thus, when the Jewish woman Esther Goldberg was not accepted into the Institute of Philosophy, Literature, and History, the chairman of the All-Union Committee for Higher Education under the Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Union, Sergei Kaftanov, went out with Esther and addressed the parents of the applicants with a speech in which he stated that the Goldberg case "really smacks of pre-revolutionary anti-Semitism, which no one will put up with.

[66] Upon entering the territory of Western Byelorussia, the Red Army soldiers were provided with newspapers and propaganda literature (for distribution to adults) and sweets (for treating children).

[75] Lev Mekhlis set up a system for studying Polish propaganda for military councils and political administrations of the fronts only after the start of the war.

In addition, during the campaign, the printing houses of the Byelorussian Front published 13 leaflets and brochures for residents of Western Byelorussia with a circulation of 6,610 thousand copies.

[76] After the occupation of Western Belarusian territory (but before its official incorporation into the USSR), stationary editorial offices of Soviet newspapers began to be created in its populated areas.

Due to a shortage of paper to publish newspapers for Western Byelorussia, the Soviet authorities reduced the circulation, volume, and frequency of periodicals in the eastern regions of the Belarusian SSR (and in some cases completely liquidated them).

As early as September 29, 1939, the newspaper "Soviet Belarus" reported on the release of "News of the Day" - a special issue of newsreel from Western Byelorussia shot by Minsk filmmakers.

On January 8, 1940, the Białystok City Executive Committee adopted a resolution "On renaming streets in order to remove from them the names of those who oppressed the peoples of Western Byelorussia".

The total number of military personnel in Western Byelorussia (in units of the Belarusian Front) in September 1939 ranged from 200,802 to 378,610 soldiers and commanders.

[89] The Red Army soldiers had a great influence on the formation of party bodies, which had (unlike the councils of people's deputies) real power.

At first, the Red Army received certain judicial functions in relation to Polish prisoners of war in the territory of Western Byelorussia.