Revolution from Abroad: The Soviet Conquest of Poland's Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia - Expanded Edition

by Jan Tomasz Gross

Book Overview

Jan Gross describes the terrors of the Soviet occupation of the lands that made up eastern Poland between the two world wars: the Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia. His lucid analysis of the revolution that came to Poland from abroad is based on hundreds of first-hand accounts of the hardship, suffering, and social chaos that accompanied the Sovietization of this poorest section of a poverty-stricken country. Woven into the author's exploration...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0691096031
• ISBN13: 9780691096032
• Release Date: May 2002
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Length: 408 Pages
• Weight: 0.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.1" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

A Generally Informative Account of Soviet Rule in Eastern Poland

In contrast with his later works, Gross is quite candid about Jewish-Soviet collaboration against Poles. (pp. 29-35). However, his reflexive exculpation of this conduct in terms of the awfulization of minorities' experiences in prewar Poland is, at best, oversimplified. For instance, Jews retained their economic dominance, and the average Jew remained wealthier than the average Pole. For those not willfully blind, "Communist paradise" thinking ran smack against the fact that, whatever the wrongs non-Poles had experienced from Polish government policies, these were dwarfed by those faced by their co-nationals in the Soviet Union. Think of the purges of Jews in the 1930's and, especially, the intentional starvation of up to 7 million Ukrainians in the Holodomor. Gross admits the fact that many Jews voluntarily went westward to German-occupied regions of Poland. (pp. 205-207). Although not mentioned, this refutes the premise that non-Communist Jews necessarily saw Communism as the lesser of two evils. So why the Zydokomuna? Many Polish Jews, notably the descendants of Litvaks, had a Russophile orientation, and Jews had been significantly overrepresented in radical leftist political and social movements since time immemorial. The following, though not described as such, serves as refutation of the Communist-propaganda mischaracterization of local Poles as wealthy, exploitive capitalists: "With some obvious exceptions, they [invading Soviets] could not immediately distinguish `people' from `Pans' [landlords]. Even the Polish military settlers--truly the betes noires of ideologically sophisticated Soviets because the majority of them were veterans of the Polish-Bolshevik war of 1920--lived and looked like any peasant in the vicinity." (p. 41; see also p. 246). Among those deported to the interior of the USSR, 27.6% were peasants, while artisans were a distant second at 8.0%. (p. xxi). Clearly, the Soviets were intent on destroying the Polish element, not merely waging war against "capitalists." Gross gives many technical details of the Soviet-occupation apparatus and policies in eastern Poland. One hilarious irony occurred during the Communist war against religion. Sometimes they allowed a crucifix to remain, though now with a portrait of Lenin and Stalin on each side. Poles remarked that, once again, Christ was spread on a cross between two criminals! (p. 127). As for the Gulag Poles, Gross cites a figure of 120,000 of them released in the 1941 "amnesty"; 800,000-850,000 remaining in captivity as of 1943, and 300,000-750,000 having already died. (p. 229). Oddly enough, he claims that, under the early German occupation (1939-1941), 100,000 Polish Jews perished compared with (a preposterously-low) 21,000 Polish gentiles. (p. 228). Is this an early manifestation of his later overt Judeocentric Polonophobia?

Revolution from abroad, and inside too

Jan Gross does a commendable job in expanding the studies of World War II Central European History beyond the dominant themes: Poland, and the Holocaust. He focuses on what was, from Versailles to Molotov-Ribbentrop, eastern Poland, today, Byelorussia, Lithuania and western Ukraine. The first map effectively demonstrates the shifting borders, and how ethnographic identities could be lost in a swirl of martial dust. Jan Gross starts with the dual invasion of September 1939, and at a social anthropological level, examines the initial responses of the ethnic populations of those areas either outright taken by Soviet forces, or first seized by German forces, and then ceded back to Soviet control. The first part "Seizure" is broken into three chapters that neatly chronicle the seizure, transfer of authority from Polish government to Soviet government, the so-called elections, and final imposition of total social control. The Soviets exploited the chaos and lawlessness that existed prior to and during the initial stages of their arrival to impose their own hierarchy and control mechanisms, whether through promises of wealth redistribution, political power via elections, or simple terror. While going through this process, Gross spends detailed, yet concise prose on scrutinizing the new power relationships between Poles "cruelly victimized" Ukrainians "always exploited" and Jews "weak...looking for some power to regulate their relationships." Gross goes to great lengths to destroy the myth that Jews were frequent, widespread conspirators or supporters of the new Communist regime. Gross proves that there was a level playing field, in which "people lost all privacy." He further goes to show how the Soviets tapped into the emotional vein of all peasants in the region since the 17th century, land distribution and reform, not so much to "make things better" but to "create havoc in the countryside." Ultimately, as gross notes, the Soviets sought an "induced self destruction of a community."The elections were the final part of the triad for the imposition of Soviet control. They made everyone vulnerable, and created power struggles between teachers and other intellectual leaders, and the new regime and its officers, no matter how stupid, inept or corrupt. The great quote on p. 85 sums of the average reception of elections, held just weeks after the Soviets took over "What the voting was for...I don't know." Gross details the actual voting, counting of votes and manipulation of the results by the Soviets, and how the October 1939 elections set the stage for follow on elections (and state processes for control) in March 1940.In his detailed examination of social control, Gross asserts his most interesting scholarly work, namely, that instead of the totalitarian state confiscating the private realm, in fact, the Soviet system privatized the public realm. In other words, the state did not control the terror-every private citizen had access to terr

excellent

According to the Polish national anthem, "Poland is not dead whilst we live. What others took by force, with the sword will be taken back." Both Nazi and Soviet occupiers must have taken these words to heart as they set out thoroughly to crush the Polish population between September 1939 and June 1941. In Revolution from Abroad: the Soviet Conquest of Poland's Western Ukraine and Western Belorusssia, Jan T. Gross (New York University) draws on documents from Polish, German, Israeli, and U.S. archives to show with camera-like precision how ordinary Polish citizens at the grassroots level experienced the Soviet occupation of Poland and the mechanisms Soviet authorities used to induce their participation. U.S. citizens who have never known the horrors of foreign occupation will find this study especially sobering. Polish citizens never knew when a few Soviet soldiers might enter their houses and apartments, live there for several days or weeks, eat their food, and steal their possessions. If they resisted, they faced arrest, torture, and/or execution, often in full view of loved ones. As Soviet soldiers explained to the newly adopted Soviet citizens, "There are three categories of people in the Soviet Union: those who were in jail, those who are in jail, and those who will be in jail." (p. 230). Gross points out that, in sheer numbers, more Polish citizens suffered under Soviet occupation in the first two years of World World II (i.e. before the Nazis' mass annihilation of Jews began) than under German occupation. Whereas the Germans killed approximately 120,000 Poles, the Soviet security police (NKVD) nearly "matched that figure in just two episodes of mass execution" (viz., the mass murder of Polish prisoners of war in the spring of 1940, and the evacuation of prisons in the Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia during June and July 1941). (p. 228). However, despite the Soviets' greater victimization of Polish citizens in terms of loss of life, suffering inflicted by forced resettlement, and material losses through confiscation, Gross argues that, to the Polish and Jewish citizens, the Soviet occupiers seemed less "oppressive." They lacked the "discriminatory contempt" and "Übermensch airs" that the Nazis evinced so imperiously (p. 230). The author explains that perhaps one reason why the Soviet army seemed less oppressive at first is that it claimed to "liberate" Poland. Generally, the population was confused about Soviet intentions, and indeed, "nobody had warned the local community and the authorities that a Bolshevik invasion was possible and what to do in case it occurred" (p. 22). The deceptive slogans of national liberation soothed millions of wishful thinking Polish citizens-Jews, Ukrainians, Belorussians-who "could meet fellow ethnics" in the Red Army or the Soviet administration (p. 230). The stark contrast between soldiers in the Wehrmacht and those in the Red Army - the latter in coats of assorted lengths, with rags wrapped around the

Brilliant analysis of an ignored event of World War II

The main primary source of this book is a collection of thousands of handwritten statements collected by the Polish government in exile when they interviewed the surviving Polish citizens released after the 1942 "amnesty" of those detained by the Soviets after 1939. By careful research, crosschecking and comparison with other resources Professor Gross has been able to produce a work of exceptional clarity and importance in understanding the workings of Stalinism in particular and totalitarianism in general. He provides an outline of Soviet occupation policy and methods. The whole process seems to have been well planned out, one phase setting up the conditions to implement the second, which in turn set up the conditions for the third, all this operating within an artificial atmosphere of fear, chaos and confusion. An initial period of lawlessness, promoted by the Soviets in order for a rapid collapse of the old order accompanied by the promoting of ethic hatreds among the four main groups- Poles, Ukrainians, Belorussians and Jews, was followed by rapid consolidation of police powers by those who owed their new won power to Soviet authority alone. In the process of laying out this interesting story, Gross adds many interesting insights. Discussion of social control, prisons and deportation, NKVD interrogation methods (including use of female interrogators) and much more provides a well rounded sketch of this particularly brutal episode of Polish history. I found his analysis of the "privatization of the public realm", "the spoiler state", "totalitarian language", and Soviet use of family networks to insure discipline and control illuminating. Actually the only short coming of this very interesting book is that is was published in 1988 just before the end of the Soviet Union and thus produced without the use of the since partially-opened Soviet archives. He only has limited information on the Katyn massacres for instance. While this should not affect his conclusions or insights, it may give more accurate statistics than those quoted. Perhaps a new revised edition is called for. In the meantime, this book should be a welcome addition to any library on Polish history, Soviet history or the history of World War II.