Revolution from Abroad: The Soviet Conquest of Poland's Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia [Paperback]

The main primary source of this book is a collection of thousands of handwritten statements collected by the Polish government in exile when they interviewed the surviving Polish citizens released after the 1942 "amnesty" of those detained by the Soviets after 1939. By careful research, crosschecking and comparison with other resources Professor Gross has been able to produce a work of exceptional clarity and importance in understanding the workings of Stalinism in particular and totalitarianism in general.

He provides an outline of Soviet occupation policy and methods. The whole process seems to have been well planned out, one phase setting up the conditions to implement the second, which in turn set up the conditions for the third, all this operating within an artificial atmosphere of fear, chaos and confusion. An initial period of lawlessness, promoted by the Soviets in order for a rapid collapse of the old order accompanied by the promoting of ethic hatreds among the four main groups- Poles, Ukrainians, Belorussians and Jews, was followed by rapid consolidation of police powers by those who owed their new won power to Soviet authority alone. In the process of laying out this interesting story, Gross adds many interesting insights.

Discussion of social control, prisons and deportation, NKVD interrogation methods (including use of female interrogators) and much more provides a well rounded sketch of this particularly brutal episode of Polish history. I found his analysis of the "privatization of the public realm", "the spoiler state", "totalitarian language", and Soviet use of family networks to insure discipline and control illuminating.

Actually the only short coming of this very interesting book is that is was published in 1988 just before the end of the Soviet Union and thus produced without the use of the since partially-opened Soviet archives. He only has limited information on the Katyn massacres for instance. While this should not affect his conclusions or insights, it may give more accurate statistics than those quoted. Perhaps a new revised edition is called for. In the meantime, this book should be a welcome addition to any library on Polish history, Soviet history or the history of World War II.

Jan Gross does a commendable job in expanding the studies of World War II Central European History beyond the dominant themes: Poland, and the Holocaust.

He focuses on what was, from Versailles to Molotov-Ribbentrop, eastern Poland, today, Byelorussia, Lithuania and western Ukraine. The first map effectively demonstrates the shifting borders, and how ethnographic identities could be lost in a swirl of martial dust. Jan Gross starts with the dual invasion of September 1939, and at a social anthropological level, examines the initial responses of the ethnic populations of those areas either outright taken by Soviet forces, or first seized by German forces, and then ceded back to Soviet control. The first part "Seizure" is broken into three chapters that neatly chronicle the seizure, transfer of authority from Polish government to Soviet government, the so-called elections, and final imposition of total social control. The Soviets exploited the chaos and lawlessness that existed prior to and during the initial stages of their arrival to impose their own hierarchy and control mechanisms, whether through promises of wealth redistribution, political power via elections, or simple terror. While going through this process, Gross spends detailed, yet concise prose on scrutinizing the new power relationships between Poles "cruelly victimized" Ukrainians "always exploited" and Jews "weak...looking for some power to regulate their relationships." Gross goes to great lengths to destroy the myth that Jews were frequent, widespread conspirators or supporters of the new Communist regime. Gross proves that there was a level playing field, in which "people lost all privacy." He further goes to show how the Soviets tapped into the emotional vein of all peasants in the region since the 17th century, land distribution and reform, not so much to "make things better" but to "create havoc in the countryside." Ultimately, as gross notes, the Soviets sought an "induced self destruction of a community."

The elections were the final part of the triad for the imposition of Soviet control. They made everyone vulnerable, and created power struggles between teachers and other intellectual leaders, and the new regime and its officers, no matter how stupid, inept or corrupt. The great quote on p. 85 sums of the average reception of elections, held just weeks after the Soviets took over "What the voting was for...I don't know." Gross details the actual voting, counting of votes and manipulation of the results by the Soviets, and how the October 1939 elections set the stage for follow on elections (and state processes for control) in March 1940.

In his detailed examination of social control, Gross asserts his most interesting scholarly work, namely, that instead of the totalitarian state confiscating the private realm, in fact, the Soviet system privatized the public realm. In other words, the state did not control the terror-every private citizen had access to terror and its effects by making private matters an issue of public (Soviet) concern. As Gross further notes in his theory "the real power of the totalitarian state results from it being at the disposal of every inhabitant, available for hire at a moment's notice."

In the second part of the book "Confinements," Gross concentrates on the maintenance of terror until the (re) liberation by the Germans in 1941. He concentrates on the upending of the social apple cart where traditional authority figures such as parents, religious leaders and teachers are replaced by cultural, sports and militant atheism programs to woo, seduce, and control the youth. Through this, and the induction of permanent disorder, the Trotsky ideal of permanent revolution is maintained, even while Trotsky himself is drinking tequila and waiting for an ice pick in Mexico. The substructure for permanent chaos and terror is the NKVD, their prisons, tortures, and depopulation/deportation of peoples. Gross estimates that in 20 months, in just this region, approximately 120,000 people were arrested and imprisoned, and another 315,000 deported. For this rural area with few cities, this is indeed a staggering toll in such a short time, and added to the wider destruction of World War II, represents a towering figure of almost unimaginable and permeating suffering and loss. Gross ends the regular text with a challenge to historians to move into the kresy between the Oder and the Urals, and really examine the 1939-1941 period with its larger implications not only on the war, but all of post modern central European history.

Lastly, in this new expanded addition, Gross adds an after word, "Tangle Web," that examines the interaction of Polish, Jewish, Ukrainian and Lithuanian suffering, but primarily focused on Poles and Jews in previously Polish lands. That the Polish elites were decimated is not debatable; that the Jews were almost eliminated is also not debatable. What Gross tries to do, with mixed results, is move the debate past the common stereotypes (which means admitting that they exist, no easy task in this region) and into the long term effects, still present today, and, as Lenin would say, ask what is to be done? Finally Gross spends some more time on the issue, not of Polish Jewish relations, but of Soviet Jewish relations, and concludes that, referring to the deportations of Jews, the "victims of deportations turned out to be the lucky ones." Gross also shows other tidbits of anecdotal evidence that seems to show the potential for almost disastrous post war Polish Jewish relations existed, in not in fact, than at least in the perceived public perceptions, as early as late 1939, and grew worse under the cumulative pressures of Germans, Soviets, Germans again, Soviets again, imposition of Warsaw Pact in the 1939 to 1949 decade.

This book is a hard read, because it deals with many layers of issues simultaneously. Life, too, is not a series of isolated events, but a sequential interaction of parallel choices, actions, and occurrences. Gross thus makes a statement better than the average historical timeline, but more challenging in its presentation, and demanding in its search for illumination and accuracy.

According to the Polish national anthem, "Poland is not dead whilst we live. What others took by force, with the sword will be taken back." Both Nazi and Soviet occupiers must have taken these words to heart as they set out thoroughly to crush the Polish population between September 1939 and June 1941. In Revolution from Abroad: the Soviet Conquest of Poland's Western Ukraine and Western Belorusssia, Jan T. Gross (New York University) draws on documents from Polish, German, Israeli, and U.S. archives to show with camera-like precision how ordinary Polish citizens at the grassroots level experienced the Soviet occupation of Poland and the mechanisms Soviet authorities used to induce their participation. U.S. citizens who have never known the horrors of foreign occupation will find this study especially sobering. Polish citizens never knew when a few Soviet soldiers might enter their houses and apartments, live there for several days or weeks, eat their food, and steal their possessions. If they resisted, they faced arrest, torture, and/or execution, often in full view of loved ones. As Soviet soldiers explained to the newly adopted Soviet citizens, "There are three categories of people in the Soviet Union: those who were in jail, those who are in jail, and those who will be in jail." (p. 230). Gross points out that, in sheer numbers, more Polish citizens suffered under Soviet occupation in the first two years of World World II (i.e. before the Nazis' mass annihilation of Jews began) than under German occupation. Whereas the Germans killed approximately 120,000 Poles, the Soviet security police (NKVD) nearly "matched that figure in just two episodes of mass execution" (viz., the mass murder of Polish prisoners of war in the spring of 1940, and the evacuation of prisons in the Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia during June and July 1941). (p. 228). However, despite the Soviets' greater victimization of Polish citizens in terms of loss of life, suffering inflicted by forced resettlement, and material losses through confiscation, Gross argues that, to the Polish and Jewish citizens, the Soviet occupiers seemed less "oppressive." They lacked the "discriminatory contempt" and "Übermensch airs" that the Nazis evinced so imperiously (p. 230). The author explains that perhaps one reason why the Soviet army seemed less oppressive at first is that it claimed to "liberate" Poland. Generally, the population was confused about Soviet intentions, and indeed, "nobody had warned the local community and the authorities that a Bolshevik invasion was possible and what to do in case it occurred" (p. 22). The deceptive slogans of national liberation soothed millions of wishful thinking Polish citizens-Jews, Ukrainians, Belorussians-who "could meet fellow ethnics" in the Red Army or the Soviet administration (p. 230). The stark contrast between soldiers in the Wehrmacht and those in the Red Army - the latter in coats of assorted lengths, with rags wrapped around their shoeless feet -- also made the Soviet occupiers seem less intimidating. Still another reason for the Red Army's cloddish image is the febrile rapaciousness with which the soldiers bought and consumed Polish goods. Expecting to hear discussions of lofty communist ideals, Poles instead saw "in the marketplace how these Soviet people ate eggs, shell and all, horseradish, beets, and other produce. Country women rolled with laughter" (p. 46). In a restaurant "a Red Army soldier might order several courses or a dozen pastries and eat them all on the spot" (p. 46). In comparison to Nazi Germany, then, the Soviet Union struck the Poles as a petty and materialistic "spoiler state."
In addition to these colorful descriptions in the first part of the book, Gross also raises a serious, but long neglected, topic in his final historiographical essay ("A Tangled Web"): Polish-Jewish relations during World War II. Why didn't more Polish citizens try to help the Polish Jews? To be sure, one faced severe penalties-torture and execution, often in front of one's family members. However, ignorance persists among Poles today about the ultimate fate of Polish Jews. Gross cites an opinion poll in which Poles were asked who suffered and died more, the Poles or Jews, during World War II? About 30% thought it was roughly equal. Almost no one realized that nearly all Polish Jews were killed. Gross also explains how anti-Semitism prevailed in Poland during the war and even after (Auschwitz) was revealed in all its horror (p . 248).
Revolution from Abroad thus makes an important contribution to a growing body of literature about the ignorance of the populations in Warsaw Pact countries of their countries' Nazi pasts. The Soviet-imposed myth about "communist heroes of resistance" enabled them for decades to avoid the painful questions faced long ago by other Western countries, West Germany in particular.

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