Volhynia and Galicia under the Reinstated Soviet Power
This publication offers an extensive selection of Soviet source materials on Poles and the Polish underground in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia.
The documents come from the archives of the Security Service of Ukraine and cover the last period of the Second World War, when the Soviet Union re-occupied the Volhynia, Lviv, Ternopil and Stanislavl provinces, and the first post-war years, already after Volhynia and Eastern Galicia were ceded by Poland to the USSR.
Readers will find reports describing and analyzing the sentiments of the Polish population, proposals made by Nikita Khrushchev for actions against Poles, details of the operational work of NKGB and NKVD officers, information on recruited agents, sources illustrating the involvement of Poles in "Istriebitelny battalions," and finally, materials revealing the cruelty of Soviet totalitarianism through the experiences of individuals.
"For the first time, the published materials include documents that provide a closer look at the agent-operational activities of the NKGB and NKVD, traces of which have been meticulously removed—even through falsification and manipulation—from even the most serious source editions. This is particularly significant because, in these areas, the Soviet security apparatus achieved substantial results, and these forms of breaking down the Polish independence underground were widely considered by NKGB and NKVD officers to be the most important and effective," write Łukasz Adamski and Grzegorz Hryciuk in the introduction.
This volume is a continuation of the collection "Volhynia and Eastern Galicia under German Occupation 1943–1944". This publication is the result of work within the research project Relations between Soviet Power and the Polish Underground State: 1943–1946.
