Stefan,
The Winston Dictionary defines the word "elect" to mean " to choose
from among the number". Soviet Union was a one party, it is the
communist party, state. All decisions and selections of officials
were made by the national or local communist party. The selected
individuals were presented to the community at a meeting and
confirmed by acclamation. To submit a different name was considered
to be a contra-revolutionary act and subject to a severe
punishment.I believe that you and the others consider Soviet
arranged acclamation meetings to be elections. I do not.
As you suggested I have read the article on Jean Iwanski's website.
I see that it was prepared by a British writer and is unsigned.He
refers to Lwow as Lemberg, and he never heard the term "Western
Ukraine" and thinks that even local population doesn't know it. I
don't think it is a credible document.
In the fall of 1939 I was a first year student at the Lwow
Polytechnic, with my home town being the town of Stryj (population
32,000) and 60 km south of Lwow, I commuted betwen the two and
witnessed the events as they occured.I can not change my memory and
the knowledge of the events because some unknown British writer,
years after the events occured, wrote a misleading story.
No, Stefan, I am not upset that the Polish government fled Warsaw, I
simply asked a hypothetical question.I still ponder what would have
happened,where would I be living now,where would you be living, etc,
etc.
Roman Skulski
West Vancouver, Canada
--- In Kresy-Siberia@..., Stefan Wisniowski
<swisniowski@p...> wrote:
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 ? 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.
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?
--
Stefan Wisniowski (moderator)
Sydney, Australia
From: "romed46" <romed46@y...>
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
