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Before the Red Army even entered Poland, the Soviet Union pursued a strategy of eliminating pro-Western resistance there, in order to ensure that Poland would fall under its sphere of influence. [29] In 1943, after the revelation of the Katyn massacre, Stalin suspended relations with the Polish government-in-exile in London. [30]
The Soviet authorities regarded service for the pre-war Polish state as a "crime against revolution" [158] and "counter-revolutionary activity", [159] and subsequently started arresting large numbers of Polish intelligentsia, politicians, civil servants and scientists, but also ordinary people suspected of posing a threat to the Soviet rule.
In November 1939 the Soviet government annexed the entire Polish territory under its control. Some 13.5 million Polish citizens who fell under the military occupation were made Soviet subjects following show elections conducted by the NKVD secret police in an atmosphere of terror, [12] [13] [14] the results of which were used to legitimise the ...
The history of Poland from 1939 to 1945 encompasses primarily the period from the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union to the end of World War II.Following the German–Soviet non-aggression pact, Poland was invaded by Nazi Germany on 1 September 1939 and by the Soviet Union on 17 September.
The Polish–Soviet border, as of 1939, had been determined in 1921 at the Treaty of Riga peace talks, which followed the Polish–Soviet War. [7] Under the terms of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, two weeks after the German invasion of western Poland, the Soviet Union invaded the portions of eastern Poland assigned to it by the Pact, followed by co-ordination with German forces in Poland.
The Soviet authorities regarded service to the prewar Polish state as a "crime against revolution" [24] and "counter-revolutionary activity", [25] and proceeded to arrest large numbers of Polish intelligentsia, former officials, politicians, civil servants and scientists, intellectuals and the clergy, as well as ordinary people thought to pose ...
Poland's fate was heavily discussed at the Yalta Conference in February 1945. Joseph Stalin, whose Red Army occupied the entire country, presented several alternatives which granted Poland industrialized territories in the west whilst the Red Army simultaneously permanently annexed Polish territories in the east, resulting in Poland losing over 20% of its pre-war borders.
Initially, the Soviet authorities deported primarily political figures as well as all Polish officials, civil servants, police, and Polish citizens who had fled from the Germans. The exact number of Poles deported to Siberia or Central Asia between 1939 and 1941 remains unknown, and has been estimated at from under 500,000 to over 1,500,000.