Krushchev to Stalin on the western regions of Ukraine and the measures taken to combat the OUN
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| Volunteers , western Ukraine |
November 15, 1944
№ 1173
Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks - comrade. Stalin I.V.
From October 28 to November 5 of this year. I traveled to the western regions of Ukraine. I was in Lvov, districts of the Lvov region and in the city of Rivne, where I got acquainted with the state of the fight against gangs of Ukrainian-German nationalists.
As a result of the measures taken to combat OUN banditry, the strengthening of the Chekist-military operations and political work among the population, the number of bandit groups and gang manifestations has somewhat decreased. If in August this year. 418 gang manifestations took place on the territory of the western regions of the Ukrainian SSR, in October there were 338 of them.
Since the liberation of the western regions of Ukraine, 45,742 bandits have been destroyed and 38,000 bandits have been captured alive.
In order to ascertain the mood of the gang members, I interrogated a number of arrested bandits, both privates and leaders. The arrested bandits say that the mood in the gangs is bad, that many detachments and groups are on the verge of decay. The vast majority of bandit detachments consist of forcibly mobilized peasants. Discipline is maintained only by terror. Active OUN members hang or cut off their heads for the manifestation of desertion and hesitation, destroy not only those who desert, but threaten to destroy the entire family. These threats are often carried out.
Despite these cruel repressions, desertion and surrender not only of ordinary bandits, but also of the commanding staff of bandit detachments are increasing. This is facilitated not only by Chekist-troop measures, but also by the appeal we adopted on February 12, 1944 to the participants in the so-called UPA and UNRA. In this appeal, the government of the Soviet Ukraine promised an amnesty to all those members of the nationalist gangs who would break with the gangs and take the path of an honest life. We adhere to this appeal. During the time that has elapsed since the publication of this appeal, 11,577 bandits have turned themselves in.
Taking into account the situation in the bandit detachments and the mood of ordinary gang members, we have now decided to slightly change the procedure for processing those who came with a confession and their use.
Most of those who confessed asked to be immediately sent to military units and to do it in such a way that the village would not know that he had confessed.
Until recently, NKVD workers suggested that those who came with a confession must go to their village and live at home, and after some time, in the usual manner, through the military registration and enlistment offices, be drafted into the Red Army. This was intended to show that the gang member really received an amnesty and returned to honest work. Some of the bandits who confessed were sent back to the gangs by the NKVD, so that they would agitate their comrades there to stop the fight and turn themselves in confession.
Most of those who confessed reluctantly agreed with the proposal of the NKVD to go to the villages and were especially reluctant to return to the bandit detachments. This reluctance to return to their villages and back to the gangs is explained by the fact that the leaders of the gangs brutally persecute them if they manage to find out who confessed. There are many cases when the OUN killed those who left the gangs, and often destroyed their families, leaving a note threatening to exterminate everyone who left the gang. The OUN also dealt with those who turned themselves in and came back to the bandit squad.
Thus, for those who would like to break with the gang and return to honest work, a stalemate was created. They see the strength of the Soviet Union, they see the hopelessness of the struggle and understand that sooner or later the gang will be destroyed. Therefore, many would like to leave the gang, but they are afraid of revenge from the leader. The arrested bandits, with whom I had to talk, declare: “If you come with a confession, you will send back to the gang to carry out the corresponding work, or you will force me to go to your village, where I will be revealed as a deserter from the gang, after which I and all my the family will be destroyed." Therefore, the bandits reason like this: “It’s better that I myself die in a gang, but then my family will survive.”
Given this situation, we instructed the NKVD workers to be guided by the following: everyone who voluntarily leaves the gang can return to his village home or, if he is not of military age, go to work at his own discretion. When you turn yourself in, in no case force the ilti back into the gang to carry out the relevant work, but send back only those who express a desire. If a person who has confessed wishes to immediately join the army or get a job in another area, one should try to satisfy his desire. NKVD workers must guarantee that the fact of returning from the gang is kept secret . We will announce this in leaflets, at meetings of peasants so that relatives and acquaintances will pass it on to the bandits. This will contribute to the expansion of their ranks.
I also consider it necessary to make extensive use of those who came with a confession, especially from the command staff, so that they write leaflets or agree to speak at meetings in those districts and villages where they acted, calling on the bandits to leave the gangs. This will also help accelerate the decomposition of the OUN gangs. Those former bandits who will actively help us, we will take under protection.
In connection with the intensification of the fight against gangs and the onset of cold weather, the OUN people want to withdraw the gangs from the forests for the winter, disband them in the villages and conduct mainly individual terror against rural activists and senior officials of district and regional organizations. The arrested bandits say that there is a directive from the leaders of the OUN on this issue.
The facts of increased terrorist activity in recent days confirm these statements. Cases of attacks on local rural activists have become more frequent. The bandits follow those who actively cooperate with us, take them to the forest at night and kill or hang them there. Cases of brutal reprisals against entire families of activists and civilians who sympathize with the Soviet regime are not uncommon. On the night of October 25 this year. in the village of Selets-Benkuv, Lviv region, bandits slaughtered three families and hanged the secretary of the village council. October 29 this year in the village of Vorganets, Vashkovsky district, Chernivtsi region, 19 people of Soviet activists were killed by bandits. In the village of Karelovichi, Peremyshlyansky district, bandits hanged Petrik, a former gang member who turned himself in and the Olenich family, whose two sons serve in the Red Army. In one village of the Peremyshliansky district of the Lviv region, the bandits caught the village teacher and cut him with knives, while inflicting many shallow wounds on him and leaving a note threatening to destroy those who would help. Despite the fact that the teacher was in a serious condition, none of the villagers, not even his wife, began to help him until the workers of the district organizations arrived and took him to the hospital.
By exterminating local activists and civilians, the leaders of the gangs pursue the goal of intimidating the peasants and, under pain of extermination, to keep them from actively supporting the activities of the Soviet government.
To carry out terrorist acts, the OUN created the so-called “Bezpeki Service” (“Security Service”). The most notorious bandits, as a rule, members of the OUN, are selected for these "Security Services". They live in the villages, monitor the behavior of the peasants and inform the leaders of the OUN organizations about those persons who help the organs of Soviet power. Having received information about the active work of the peasants, the OUN members sentence them to death, and members of the Security Service group carry out this sentence.
We set the task for the NKVD and NKGB bodies to pay special attention to identifying bandits from the Security Service groups and exterminate these notorious thugs - OUN activists as soon as possible . For this, ambushes will be widely used in places where groups of the "Security Service" operate. Such ambushes, if carefully prepared, give good results. Recently, a number of successful operations have been carried out, as a result of which several dozen bandit leaders were destroyed and captured.
Self-defense groups created in many districts and villages or, as they are called, “extermination squads” (“Hawks”), justified themselves. These squads consist of local residents who take an active part in the fight against gangs. As a rule, these self-defense groups fight well when confronted with bandits. We will continue to create new self-defense groups. and supply them with weapons .
There were facts when individual operations failed, as the bandits learned in advance about the events being prepared. This is explained by the fact that our employees do not always observe secrecy, a large circle of employees knows about the operations being prepared. We set the task of strengthening the conspiracy . Minimize the number of people who know about the activities being carried out. Before the party organizations and bodies of the NKVD and the NKGB we set the task of carefully checking the apparatus , especially the composition of technical workers from the local population.
I consider it necessary to introduce military field courts under the troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs . To intimidate bandits, according to the verdicts of these courts-martial, those sentenced to destruction should not be shot, but hanged. Courts must be held openly with the involvement of the local population. The results of the trials should not be published in the press. The execution of the sentences of courts-martial shall be carried out publicly in the villages, if possible, where the convict committed the crime. This will act more soberingly on the bandits.
Military tribunals are delaying the consideration of cases against arrested members of Ukrainian-German nationalist gangs. There are many cases when convicts are kept in custody for 3-4 months.
Introduced a proposal to temporarily establish special troikas under the regional departments of the NKVD in the western regions of the Ukrainian SSR : the secretary of the regional party committee, the head of the regional department of the N KVD and the regional prosecutor. These troikas shall be granted the right to consider the cases of Ukrainian-German nationalists and their accomplices and shall be granted the right to apply capital punishment to the guilty - execution by firing squad with the execution of the sentence immediately. Cases submitted for review by trios must be drawn up with strict adherence to the rules of the process.
Some of the bandits who confessed and arrested members of the nationalist gangs show that recently negotiations took place between the leaders of the OUN and the Polish nationalists to stop the struggle between the OUN gangs and the Poles in order to direct all the efforts of both to the fight against Soviet power.
Apparently, in a number of regions they already have such an agreement, since recently the number of terrorist acts by bands of Ukrainian-German nationalists against the Polish population has sharply decreased.
Poles in Lvov and especially in Drohobych behave rather suspiciously. The facts show that in these cities and some areas there are Polish organizations associated with the Polish government in exile in London. Three underground groups of Polish nationalists were recently uncovered in the Gorodok district of the Lvov region. The Poles are preparing for action, buying weapons, publishing leaflets.
November 1 of this year in Lvov, the Poles made an attempt to show themselves more actively. There is a cemetery in the city where the Poles who died in the fight against the Red Army in 1921 are buried. Under the guise of performing a religious rite on All Saints' Day - November 1, Poles came to this cemetery in large groups, decorated all the graves with Polish national flags, burned candles decorated the graves with flowers. On the grave of an unknown Polish soldier, two cardboard lampshades were placed with the inscription: "We will not give Lvov to the USSR." Some of the wreaths contained small posters with anti-Soviet slogans.
The Poles decorated the statues of an American pilot and a French soldier, who were in the Polish army and died in the fight against the Red Army. Cardboard lampshades were placed near the statue of the American pilot, on which, on the one hand, the slogan was written: “Glory to those fighting for Polish Lviv”, and on the other side there is a map of Poland with the inclusion of the cities of Lviv, Stanislav, Ternopil, Lutsk and others with the inscription: “What the enemy population has taken from us, we will take away with a saber.” While singing religious songs, some Poles shouted anti-Soviet slogans: “We will not give the land where our family comes from”, “Let’s die for Lvov”, “Long live Mikolajczyk”, “Let the Home Army live”, “Death to the Bolsheviks”, etc. The NKVD and NKGB arrested 7 Polish nationalists who were shouting anti-Soviet slogans.
On the square in Lvov hangs a map of Europe, which shows the movement of the fronts. On this map the border of the Soviet Union with Poland is drawn along the Curzon line 157. Unknown persons, certainly Poles, doused this map once with ink, and twice tried to set it on fire, but they were prevented by patrols.
We received information that the Poles were preparing for November 11 (Polish Independence Day) for active action. Therefore, we took a number of measures: we put the troops on alert, strengthened the protection of the cities of Lvov and Drohobych, first of all, the post office, power plant, railway, buildings of party and Soviet institutions and other objects. November 11 was a quiet day. It is possible that the Poles will try to go on an adventurous performance in the years. Lvov and Drohobych to demonstrate their influence here. We have now taken a number of measures to intensify political work among the Polish population and Chekist work.
It seems to me that a number of organizational measures should be taken in relation to a certain part of the Polish population. The agreement on the resettlement of Poles from Ukraine to Poland has not yet yielded positive results 158 . Part of the Polish population sincerely does not want to leave because it would be better for them to live in our Soviet state, while part of the reactionary-minded Poles do not leave because they received a directive from the government in exile in London.
If there is your consent , we will move part of the Polish population to other places under the guise of mobilization for work in industrial centers in order to change the ethnic composition in the cities of Lvov and Drohobych in favor of Ukrainians and Russians.
Currently, in the western regions of the Ukrainian SSR, Ukrainians are being mobilized into the Red Army through 1900 inclusive, and Poles into the Polish Army 159 through 1908 inclusive.
I consider it necessary and following your instructions to mobilize the Poles on the same grounds as the Ukrainians, i.e. up to 45 years of age and, if it is not possible to send them to the Polish Army, then send them to the Red Army or to work in the Soviet rear.
There are no city departments of the NKGB in the cities of Lvov and Drohobych. The Regional Directorate of the NKGB devotes its main attention to the fight against the OUN gangs and weakly fights against the Polish underground organizations. I consider it necessary to strengthen the KGB work to create city departments of the NKGB in the cities. Lvov and Drohobych.
During a trip to the western regions, I saw a lot of Polish soldiers and officers hanging out in cities and villages. As a rule, these persons have leave documents from units of the Polish Army. It is possible that some of these Poles in the military uniform of the Polish Army are illegal immigrants and carry out work hostile to us. There is also no doubt that in the units of the Polish Army they provide a lot of holidays. It would be necessary through Comrade. Bulganin or through other bodies to agree with the Polish Committee of National Liberation 160 that the Polish Army should not provide holidays in the city of Lvov and other western regions of the Ukrainian SSR .
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In October this year in all the western regions of the Ukrainian SSR, regional meetings of party activists were held, at which the question of the implementation of the decision of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks “On shortcomings in the conduct of political work among the population of the western regions of the Ukrainian SSR” was discussed 161 . The meetings were held with great activity and were an important means of mobilizing all communists to improve party political work among the workers, peasants and intelligentsia of the western regions of the Ukrainian SSR. As a result of the implementation of the decision of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, party political work is improving. Many propaganda workers were sent to the districts, and oral propaganda was widely developed. The Central Committee of the CP(b)U has outlined a number of measures to assist party organizations in the western regions in carrying out party political work .
N. Khrushchev
A note on the first page of the document: "From comrade Khrushchev."
157 The Curzon Line is the code name for the line, which was recommended in December 1919 by the Supreme Council of the Entente as the eastern border of Poland (Grodno - Yalovka - Nemirov - Brest-Litovsk - Dorogobuzh - Ustilug - east of Grubeshov, through Krylov - further west of Rava-Russkaya , east of Przemysl - to the Carpathians). It was named after the British Foreign Minister J. Curzon.
158 On September 9, 1944, an agreement was signed in Lublin between the Government of the Ukrainian USSR and the Polish Committee of National Liberation on the mutual exchange of population. In accordance with this document, the resettlement was to be carried out from October 15, 1944 to February 1, 1945. The parties to the agreement undertook to provide settlers arriving in their states with cash loans in the amount of 5 thousand Soviet rubles or an equivalent amount of Polish zlotys. Each evacuee was allowed to carry with him food, household equipment, household items with a total weight of up to two tons and money up to 1000 rubles, and the peasants also had their livestock. Housing and household buildings left by the settlers, land, forests, lands and separately crops were subject to inventory and inclusion in the documents necessary for evacuation in order to so that after presenting them at the place of arrival, the migrants could receive appropriate compensation, i.e. yard, housing, land or a sum of money. For each hectare of crops left at the place of previous residence, the settler had to receive four centners of grain at the place of arrival vol. 1, 1939-1945, Lviv, 1996, pp. 287-293).
159 On July 21, 1944, the Army of Ludow was merged with the 1st Polish Army into a single Polish Army.
160 The Polish Committee of National Liberation (Polski Komitet Wyzwolenia Narodowego) is a temporary (July 22 - December 31, 1944) executive body created by the People's Regional Council (Polski Komitet Wyzwolenia Narodowa) in July 1944 in the city of Helm in the context of the beginning of the liberation of Poland by the Red Army and Polish military units.
161 This refers to the resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks “On shortcomings in political work among the population of the western regions of the Ukrainian SSR”, adopted by protocol No. 175 of the meeting of the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of September 27, 1944 (p. 3s) (see RGASPI. F. 17. On. 116. D. 175. L. 4-9).
162 To the proposals of N.S. Khrushchev gave the answer to L.P. Beria. In Lvov and Drohobych, it was decided to organize the second departments of the UNKGB, i.e. counterintelligence departments. In order to speed up the consideration of cases against arrested OUN members, it was decided to send two visiting sessions of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR to Western Ukraine. Also, the NKVD decided to enter “with a request to grant these sessions the rights of courts-martial, provided for by Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of April 19, 1943 No. 160/23. In my opinion, under these conditions, the creation of regional troikas is not necessary ”(GA RF. F. R-7523. Op. 4. D. 164. L. 118-120; publ.: NKVD-MVD of the USSR in the fight against banditry and armed nationalist groups, Moscow, 2008, pp. 112-113). With regard to the reduction in the travel of Polish military personnel, “the question is raised before the PKNO about the maximum reduction in vacations ... ”(see: Ibid. 213-214; Political leadership of Ukraine: 1938-1989. P. 113). When publishing the text of Beria's response, the compilers of the collection indicated that they did not find Khrushchev's initiative letter.
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