International academic conference

Soviet repressions 1943-1946. New findings and new interpretations

The purpose of the International academic conference “Soviet repressions 1943-1946. New findings and new interpretations”, organised by the Centre for Polish-Russian Dialogue and Understanding, is to present and discuss in a group of acclaimed historians the working arrangements which are the results of several years’ archival researches conducted by the Centre for Polish-Russian Dialogue and Understanding (CPRDiP) as a part of the project “The relations between the Soviet authorities and the Polish Underground State”. The project conducted by prof. Grzegorz Motyka is funded by National Science Centre grant.  

The Centre for Polish-Russian Dialogue and Understanding is going to publish in the nearest future four volumes of sources including documents concerning the Polish Underground State and the Soviet policy towards Poland. Most of these documents are unknown. They have been found in Russian, Ukrainian and Polish archives by a prof. Motyka’s research team. The Centre is also planning to organize a popular science presentation of a special publication concerning this subject.

The main conclusions drawn from the analysis of the archive sources:

•  All of the formations and structures of the security agency of the Soviet Union were involved in fighting the Polish Underground State: The Red Army, internal and border forces of NKVD, specialized departments of NKGB and NKVD, Main Directorate of Counter-Intelligence "SMERSH”.  
•  About 12 thousand people in Vilnius Region, about 13,3 thousand people in the territories which became a part of the Byelorussian SSR and 10 thousand people in Volhynia and the Eastern Galicia fell victim to repressions.
• The Augustów roundup was undertaken by the Red Army forces, but the murders were committed by the agencies “SMERSH” and NKVD.
• Without the Red Army Polish communist would not had been able to seize power and to retain their authority. Between 1944 and 1945 the only forces that were able to fight Polish underground were the NKVD units. In the summer of 1945 five NKVD divisions stationed in Poland.
• One of the most effective and most willingly used methods of fighting the Polish underground was the information agency.
• Soviet partisans and local party structures in Volhynia regularly informed the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Ukraine and the military structures of the USSR about murders of Polish civilians committed by the Ukrainian nationalistic underground.
• Nikita Khrushchev, the leader of the USSR, had been avoiding to stress in his reports the ethnic background of the murders committed by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA).