ANTI-ESPIONAGE ACTIVITIES AND COUNTERACTION TO ILLEGAL MIGRATION AT THE BORDER BETWEEN THE USSR AND THE REPUBLIC OF POLAND IN 1929–1933

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to analyze anti-espionage activities and violations of the state border regime by the authorized services of the Republic of Poland (Second Polish Republic) or the USSR, in the context of illegal migration in the border territories, during 1929 – 1933, for information purposes, the intelligence of Polish or USSR, or harmful action on the neighboring state. The proposed research examines, probably for the first time, the relationship between the state border protection and the targeted sabotage and intelligence activities of the Soviet side in the territory of the Republic of Poland during the accelerated collectivization, peasant uprisings and the Holodomor of 1932 – 1933. Analyzing the surge in activity of illegal migration processes on the Polish-Soviet border and the growing opposition from their border structures, we observe the ambivalence of the position of both countries, since the special services of Poland and the USSR, while raising the protection of the border, purposefully kept the illegal migration for the purpose of their own sabotage, reconnaissance and recruiting activities in the territory of the enemy. The struggle of the Ukrainian peasantry with collectivization, massive attempts to escape abroad from the repression and the Holodomor of 1932 – 1933 intensified the Soviet activity to build an intelligence network in the eastern provinces of the Republic of Poland, effectively neutralizing the polish forces in the neighboring country. Accordingly, further study of the cause-and-effect complex of illegal migration on the Polish-Soviet border in the 1920s – 1930s, as a method of illegal entry into the territory of a neighboring state to carry out intelligence activities and create situations aimed at destabilization in the region, remains a relevant subject of further historical studies.