POLITICAL REPRESSIONS IN THE BORDER REGIONS OF VOLYN IN THE 1920S AND 1930S

Abstract

The article investigates the reasons, forms and consequences of the political repressions in the border areas of Volyn in Soviet Ukraine in the 1920s and 1930s. In the period between the First and Second World War, after the defeat in the fight for sovereignty, Ukrainian territories were divided between several countries. This created a border problem. In particular, Volyn, being under the rule of Soviet Ukraine and Poland, became an arena of struggle of the communist system, which did not abandon the idea of spreading its influence over Western Europe. The first were brutal repressions by the Bolsheviks against the peasant insurgent movement, which rose up in Volyn as well as in other regions against the policy of “war communism”. By means of ruthless extrajudicial massacres, the use of military force, hostages, and social division of the village, when the poor population was opposed to other classes, the Bolsheviks managed to suppress the peasant rebellion. However, it was only in the mid-1920s that it became possible to completely overcome “political banditry”, as the communist authorities called it. A peculiarity of the peasant insurgent movement in the Volyn region was its orientation towards the sovereignty of the Ukrainian People's Republic. A new wave of uprisings tooke place during the period of collectivization and dekulakization between 1920s and 1930s. They were classified by the authorities as "counter-revolutionary" protests. The materials of a separate folder of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CP(b)U, where the most secret documents were collected, testify to the complete control of the judicial system and the determination of the work of the prosecutor's office and punitive bodies. Specifically, political cases were investigated, in which insurgents, people who cooperated with Polish intelligence and saboteurs were repressed based on the materials of the special commission on political affairs created by the Politburo. This data shows that a significant part of the population opposed the Bolshevik regime. Another form of the communist regime repressions was the deportation of the disloyal population into the interior of Ukraine and the USSR. This way, the ethnic map of the region was being changed and the most loyal population was being settled instead. Moreover, this process can be considered a contribution to the creation of fortified districts in the border regions. According to the military doctrine of the Bolshevik leadership, they were supposed to become a barrier to the advance of the enemy in the inevitably upcoming war. This preparation was also enhanced by training and transferring of subversive groups and agents into the territory of neighboring Poland. Thus, the border regions of Volyn became an arena of subversive and counter-subversive struggle. Key words: political repressions, border regions, Volyn, 1920s, 1930s, separate folder of the Politburo, political cases, Olevsk.