Roman
You are clearly upset that the Polish government fled Warsaw and abandoned the nation. But it never surrendered and kept fighting in exile, while other nations sued for peace with the Germans and even set up puppet governments. Hard to say which is more of an abandonment.
Anyway, to answer your questions about elections, citizenship and so on.
You previously said ¡°Oct. 29-30/39? Soviet occupying? power carries out a plebiscite in the occupied territory asking the population one question, do they want to join the Soviet Union,? yes or no.? Nov. 1 - 2 /39? The Soviet authorities announce the results of the plebiscite stating that?99 % voted yes, and that the occupied territory is now part of the Soviet Union¡±
You also said you voted on October 29 in in Lw¨®w. ?Well, perhaps something did happen in Lw¨®w on those days, but it does not correspond with the published histories of the events leading to the USSR¡¯s claims of legality for annexing eastern Poland and appropriating its citizens. I refer you to the website for a legal examination of this. ?
I also urge you to purchase or borrow and read the book ¡°Revolution from Abroad ¨C The Soviet Conquest of Poland¡¯s Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia¡±.
?The extensive research is based in part on the thousands of depositions in the Hoover Institution at Stanford by Polish citizens who were there and escaped to Persia as well as on original Soviet sources.
To summarise the ¡°plebiscite¡± and ¡°elections¡± that led to incorporation of these territories into the USSR and hence to the decree of Soviet citizenship:
1. On 4 October 1939 the local provisional councils announced elections to be held on Sunday 22 October 1939
2. Local populations were forced to pre-election meetings to hear speeches from activists (usually in Russian) and to endorse candidates. People were rounded up to attend these meetings and if they did not they were blacklisted and often arrested. The issues in question were never clear to the voters, who were subjected to propaganda about the great Soviet Union etc. but never told exactly what they were voting for.
3. The candidates were announced to the meetings, having been selected by soviet authorities. They were generally unknown to the local community, or were imbeciles, ?thieves, or otherwise highly incompetent. When local communities protested and wanted to nominate one of their own candidates they were admonished as not understanding the system, and told the incompetents would be educated on the job. Any who protested were blacklisted and often arrested.
4. When it came time to vote on 22 October 1939, participation was carefully monitored and the locals were hounded out of their homes to vote. Any who refused were blacklisted and often arrested.
5. When the voting was conducted, the official candidate was listed on the ballot. Most ballots were ¡°spoiled¡±, for example by crossing out that name, writing obscenities about the USSR, smudging the ballot, writing in a new candidate. ¡°Good ballots¡± were those for the official candidate. In some places the voter was handed a ballot premarked and told not to look at it before they deposited it in the ballot box.
6. Counting the ballots. Officials duty was to record maximum support for the official candidate. As the electorate generally cast a small number of ¡°good¡± ballots (one report said 3%) there were a number of ways of getting the desired result. Some officials counted all ballots as ¡°good¡± no matter what they said. Other destroyed the ¡°bad¡± ballots and substituted them with new ones. In any case, they all ended up reporting ¡°good¡± votes in the 90%¡¯s as required by the election authorities. The published results were: [Electorate / Votes] "Western Ukraine: ?4,776,273 / 4,433,997 (or 93%); "Western White Ruthenia: ?2,763,191 / 2,672,280 (or 97%).
7. Despite an overall ethnic makeup of the 13 million people in eastern Poland of about 1/3 Poles, 1/3 Ukrainians and 1/3 split between Belorussians, Polesians and Jews, the newly elected National Assemblies were made up as follows: Western Ukraine (1389 Ukrainians, 61 Jews, 44 Poles and 8 Russians) and Western Belorussia (659 Belorussians, 105 Poles, 75 Jews and 58 Russians).
8. The National Assemblies met for 2 days on 26 and 28 October 1939 to endorse the new system of government, incorporation into the USSR, confiscation of private landholdings and nationalisation of banks and large industry. The sessions were marked by readings of socialist writings, poems to Stalin and so on. In the Lw¨®w assembly in Lw¨®w, delegates were seated between NKVD officers to ensure they voted correctly. The one or two who did not were later arrested.
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9. The Assemblies sent delegations to Moscow to request incorporation with the USSR before the Supreme Soviet (approved 1 November 1939) and then to Kiev and Minsk respectively for amalgamation with the Ukrainian SSR (approved 15th November 1939) and the Belorussian SSR (approved 14th November 1939).
10. Meanwhile, back in the Kresy, the ballots had all been marked and numbered so that the authorities could tell who voted which way. As a result, many were blacklisted and often arrested.
Do you still think the election and plebiscite of 22 October 1939 leading to incorporation into the USSR was legal and fair? ?Any questions?
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Stefan Wisniowski (moderator)
Sydney, Australia
From: "romed46"
You state that the plebiscite was conducted under duress. In my home town there was no duress. You also refer to rigged "elections", and if my memory serves me
right,someone else mentioned elections where the Russians presented one Russian, one Ukrainian and one Jew as candidates. Could you tell me where and when the elections were held and for what position or office the candidates ran. I have not heard about it ?before.
Roman Skulski
West Vancouver, Canada
