This paper presents research undertaken in archives in Poland and the UK on the situation of the Belarussian minority in Poland in the immediate post-war period. It draws heavily upon the pioneering work of Eugeniusz Mironowicz (1993, 2000) to position Belarussians’ experience within the Polish context and seeks to extend Mironowicz’s contribution by highlighting the role played by Poland’s war time western Allies in sanctioning both the redrawing of the Eastern border and the transfer of population groups on the basis of nationality. Furthermore, it is argued that the nationality policy and practice of the period 1944-1950 instituted national minorities as an ambiguous exception to the rule of Polish homogeneity. As ‘tolerated’ exceptions to the promoted norm of nation-state, minorities remained unduly dependent upon the good will of government which has had a distorting effect upon their long-term development.

Introduction

During the final years of the second world war the contours of the post-conflict settlement were discussed in a variety of fora. The Polish government in exile, based in London, as early as 1942 discussed the possibility of transferring population to solve the problems seen to be associated with the Versailles minority rights settlement. General Sikorski in a memorandum of December 1942 to the Western Allied governments wrote:

‘In connection with the problem of population it will be important to reach definite conclusions on the problem of the transfer of the German population as a means of protecting the State against fifth column activities and of eliminating from international relations the source of recurring friction due to the activities of German minorities’[1]

This memorandum also suggested shifting Poland’s western border west to the Oder. It has consequently been extensively debated. On the one hand is the view that Sikorski was making high demands in order to be able retreat to a comfortable level during post-conflict negotiations. Against this, is the suggestion that Sikorski was merely testing British and US sentiment prior to any real substantive claims. As Siebel Achenbach (1994:34) points out, ‘the wording was left deliberately vague indicating that these thoughts were preliminary and far from final’. While Sikorski was referring to the German minority, the possibility of population transfer ‘solving’ minority problems forms an important backdrop to understanding the government in exile’s response to the Lublin government’s population transfers of the mid 1940s. In short, the desirability of a nation-state was not seriously contested in theory, and given Soviet hegemony on the ground, certainly not in practice. Minorities, with the cessation of hostilities, became problem populations for the political project of achieving national homogeneity.

The decisions most keenly affecting Poland were taken without a Polish contribution at the conferences at Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam between the Soviet, British and US leadership. Following Tehran, Stalin probably understood the Western position as ‘permitting Soviet domination over neighbouring states’ (Polonsky 1980:34). It was not until the 20th January 1944 that Churchill met with Polish Prime Minister Stanisław Mikołajczyk, Foreign Minister Tadeusz Romer and Polish National Council Chairman Stanisław Grabski to advise them what had been agreed at Tehran.[2] Later, during 1944 ‘Churchill was prepared to give Poland the Oder line as an inducement to the pro-Western Poles to accept the loss of the Curzon territories’ (Siebel Achenbach 1994:84). By February 1945, with the defeat of the Warsaw Uprising the previous year, the Polish government in exile based in London had lost any real influence upon the course of events in Poland.[3] The Yalta settlement made this clear. In its declaration of 11th February 1945 it stated:

‘The three heads of Government consider that the eastern frontier of Poland should follow the Curzon line, with digressions from it in some regions five to eight kilometres in favour of Poland. They recognise that Poland must receive substantial accessions of territories to the north and west’

The declaration also called for a new provisional government to be formed ‘in such a manner as to command recognition by the three major Powers’. By the 18th of April, the most influential exiled Polish politician, Stanisław Mikołajczyk, following persuasion from Churchill, publicly recognised the validity of Yalta. But only three days later on the 21st of April 1945 the USSR and Warsaw concluded an ‘Agreement regarding Friendship, Mutual Assistance and Post-War Co-operation’ valid for twenty years, which helped to secure Poland within the Soviet sphere. Where there was agreement between London-based Poles and the Lublin Poles was on the question of accession of former German land up to the Oder. Mikołajczyk’ s contribution was to argue that an Oder-Neisse western border would encourage the return of Poles to Poland and support political pluralism.

However, it was the Lublin Poles who most fully exploited the idea of the ‘recovered territories’ to their political advantage. The PPR’s (Polska Partia Roboticzna — Polish Workers Party, 1942-48) general secretary Władysław Gomułka at the PPR’s plenum of the central committee 20-21 May 1945 clearly stated the import of gaining this area:

‘Polonization is important because the acquisition of the western territories is one of the arguments we are using in seeking the support of society. If there is no Polish population there the administration will be in the hands of the Red Army. We must expel all Germans because countries are built on national lines and not on multinational ones’[4](My italics).

Later, in August 1945 Bolesław Bierut, President of the Polish provisional government in a press conference held at the Belvedere Palace, Warsaw, highlighted the merit in moving Poland west of the Curzon line:

‘The Ukrainian and Belarussian populace ripped from its motherland as a result of the old artificial division now returns to it. As a rule the lands that leave Poland are those inhabited by populace of a foreign nationality. Poland gets rid of the source of constant unrests, constant internal discord. In this way the issue has been solved in the spirit of mutual interest, in the spirit of the idea of a one nation state. This has great significance for the development of Poland, not only as the basis of friendly co-habitation of neighbouring nations but also as a basis of the permanence of general European peace’[5]

Bierut contended that the borders of the Second Republic were radically inappropriate as they extended far beyond the areas dominated by ethnic Poles. Furthermore, those of non-Polish nationality within the new borders were simply in the wrong country and had to leave. The communist leadership (and others) echoed the integral nationalist position of the interwar period advocated by Roman Dmowski, the the leading figure of the various national movements collectively known as the Endecja or National Democracy, which argued for the coincidence of nation (ethnically conceived) with the state’s borders. The federalist solution championed by Piłsudski had no place within the new Poland.

Western leaders through the last years of the war echoed the contention that countries must be ‘national’ rather than multi-national. Following Yalta, Churchill spoke to the House of Commons arguing that the new frontiers were ‘an essential condition of the establishment and future welfare and security of a strong, independent, homogeneous Polish state’ (my italics) [6]. The way to achieve such homogeneity had been explicitly discussed the previous year. In a speech to the House of Commons on 15th December 1944 Churchill encapsulated Western support for population transfers:

‘Expulsion is the method which, so far as we have been able to see, will be the most satisfactory and lasting. There will be no mixture of populations to cause endless trouble...A clean sweep will be made. I am not alarmed by these large transferences which are more possible in modern conditions than they ever were before.’

In the US population transfers had been considered as early as 1942. Herbert Hoover wrote:

‘Bitter experience for a hundred years shows that these European irredentas are a constant source of war. Consideration should be given even to the heroic remedy of transfer of population. The hardship of moving is great, but it is less than the constant suffering of minorities and the constant recurrence of war’[7]

Three days after Churchill’s 15/12/1944 speech to the House of Commons, the US secretary of state Edward Stettinius articulated US support for population transfers on the basis of nationality in a memorandum on the Polish situation.[8]

Overall, there was widespread support for population transfers to facilitate the creation of a Polish nation-state.[9] The western allies’ support ebbed at the close of the war as the tasks of post-war reconstruction and preventing mass famine in the harsh winter of 1946 assumed greater significance, especially given the scale of German expulsions from the ‘recovered territories’. The British government was also concerned about the cost of maintaining the occupation in Germany.[10] But through 1944 and into 1945 general approval of population transfers was sustained.[11]

It was in this permissive climate subsequent to the Tehran conference of 1943 that Soviet policy towards Eastern Poland took concrete shape. Following the Red Army’s success, on July 22nd 1944 the PKWN (Polski Komitet Wyzwolenia Narodowego — Polish Committee of National Liberation) was formed in Lublin and staffed by pro-Moscow Polish communists. The task of creating a nation-state was of high priority. As early as 9th September 1944 an agreement between the PKWN and the Ukrainian and Belarussian Soviet Socialist Republics on the ‘mutual evacuation of citizens’ was signed. This agreement legitimated the ‘transfer’ of Poles from areas now deemed to be Ukraine and Belarus to the new area of Poland and of Belarussians and Ukrainians to their respective nation-state. These ‘transfers’ were formally voluntary and ‘evacuees had the right to choose their new places of residence and to receive compensation for property left behind’ Kochanowski (2001). However, in practice the process of transfers was frequently chaotic, coerced and marred by migrants being bribed, robbed and dying. According to Kochanowski (2001) a major fault of the transfer agreements were the unrealistic deadlines that placed undue pressure on already stretched resources in terms of transportation, documentation and resettlement.

Census data: Contextualising population figures

Prior to the second world war Poland was a multi-national state. As the 1930s progressed the Polish Right focused upon national differences as being a fundamental problem for the Polish state. Indeed, the liberal constitution of 1921 with its guarantees of civil equality and cultural autonomy for minorities expressed in articles 95, 101 and 110 was superseded by the authoritarian constitution of 1935. The previous year, on 13th September 1934, Poland renounced its obligations to the Treaty signed at Versailles in 1919 following the high number of petitions being sent to the League of Nations by the German minority and the legal inability of Poles in Germany to make similar petitions. Poland’s representative, Colonel Beck, stated before the League’s Assembly: ‘Pending the introduction of a general and uniform system for the protection of minorities, my Government is to refuse…all co-operation with the international organisations in the matter of the supervision of the application by Poland of the system of minority protection’[12].

The poor climate for minorities’ self-expression impacted upon the results of the 1931 census. Jerzy Tomaszewski (1985) argues persuasively that minorities were undercounted, particularly the Belarussian minority. The census used language spoken as a proxy for nationality. Tomaszewski (1985) contends that those who refused to declare Polish and stated that they were ‘tutejszy’ (from here / locals) should be enumerated as Belarussians. It should also be recognised the language of the state, Polish, had an disproportionate influence upon results as it is clear that some respondents wrongly declared that Polish was their primary language to state officials. Furthermore in the case of the Belarussians, the widespread assumption that this group could be easily assimilated underpinned the complacent view that declared language spoken could unproblematically be conflated with nationality. But more sober observers noted that, ‘practically every Belarussian uses Polish fluently, which does not however mean that he considers himself a Pole.’ Łopalewski (n.d. 34)[13].

The clear status differentials between Polish and Belarussian sustained by state sponsorship of the Polish language (use in government, services etc) marginalised the Belarussian language significantly. An internal paper of the ministry of internal affairs written in 1935 outlined the government’s understanding of the situation: ‘there is no desire amongst the Belarussian national minority at grassroots level to set themselves apart ethnically, on the contrary, they want to merge with the Polish majority. We can see this phenomenon in the area of elementary education, where the Belarussian peasant not only does not demand Belarussian schools to be opened, but, faced with a choice of two schools, Polish or Belarussian, himself opts to send his children to the Polish one’[14].

This interpretation contrasts with the Polish government’s response to events in Silesia nine years earlier when Poles demanded schooling in German. In both cases parents were making decisions regarding the utility of the language of instruction. For Belarussians, Polish language provided the possibility for social advancement and to overcome negative stereotypes. Similarly for Poles in Silesia, German provided access to jobs and the opportunity to improve one’s standard of living. In the Silesian case in 1926, the Polish government suspected that a considerable number of requests for the opening of a minority school contained false declarations concerning the mother tongue of children and the League of Nations commissioned a Swiss expert to investigate. He confirmed the Polish government’s suspicions, stating that thousands who had declared German as their mother tongue did not know this language. The Polish government did not consider Belarussian’s language declarations problematic, as this group’s choices were congruent with the government’s policy of promoting Polish.

Minorities formed at least 31.1% of Poland’s population in 1931 as the table below illustrates and the Belarussian population was at a minimum 3.1% of the population.

Table 1: Nationalities in Poland 1931-1950[15]

Source: Tomaszewski, J. (1985:35) and Eberhardt, P (2000:76) (see below for further details)

(a) recorded figures based on response to the census language question,

(b) adjusted estimate taking into account other measures. See Tomaszewski, J. 2000:35.

Data for 1939 from Mały Rocznik Statystyczny Polski 1939-1941, published in London 1941.

Data for 1946 derived from census 14/2/1946. Data for Belarussians in 1946 refers to all those declaring themselves not to be Polish in the Białystok voivodship. In this census 286,500 people did not declare their nationality. The verification category largely refers to possible Germans being assessed by nationality verification panels mainly in the ‘recovered’ territories.

Data for 1950 from census 4/12/1950

In the Białystok voivodship Belarussians constituted at least 17.8% of the population. According to the census figures the only significant area of Belarussian population in the territory that was to remain in Poland after 1944 was Bielsk Podlaski with around 56,700 Belarussians in 1931 (unadjusted). By 1944 around 86,000 Belarussian lived in the Bielsk powiat out of a total of 127,000 Belarussians in the Białystok voivodship.[16]

Table 2: Nationality in the Białystok Voivodship 1931

Source Eberhardt, P. (2000:34) Derived from Powszechny Spis Ludności 9/12/1931

The cleavage between national minorities and the dominant Polish majority also manifested itself in differences in religion as well as language, as the table below adequately illustrates.

Table 3: Faith and language in the Białystok voivodship in 1931

Source: Goss, K. (2001:123) Derived from Powszechny Spis Ludności 9/12/1931

The homogenising project of the post-war government therefore had three inter-related criteria for creating a nation-state. Firstly, to claim those asserting themselves to be Polish, secondly to objectively incorporate into the definition of who was Polish the ability to speak Polish and thirdly to recognise the fact that Poles were, in the main, Roman Catholic. Those who did not conform to this idealistic definitional triad were at risk not only from state-backed initiatives and from a society responsive to nationalist rhetoric as a result of pre-war and wartime experience, but also through late 1944 and the first half of 1945 from the uncontrolled activities of the Soviet repatriation representatives (that is uncontrolled by the Polish authorities).

For example in November 1944 the Starosta of the Białystok powiat reported that he ‘established that in the area of Michałowo, Grodek, Zabładów and Czarna Wieś gminas delegates from the [Soviet] Belarussian committee for the repatriation of the Belarussian population go from house to house and forcibly add to the evacuation list all inhabitants of Orthodox faith against the will of those enumerated. This type of activity creates fear among the populace of voivodship gminas. The result of this action is the withholding of supplies by the inhabitants of these gminas who in actual fact are not contemplating leaving’.[17] Soviet action in the Białystok voivodship was causing such concern to the Voivod that he requested specific instructions from Warsaw. In the event, none were forthcoming and he decided not to assist in the removal of Belarussians from the region during this period.[18]

Nevertheless, the project of creating a nation-state was largely successful through the removal of the multi-national borderlands in the east and south and through expulsions and population transfers affecting several million people. In addition, the Provisional Government issued a decree instituting Polish as the language of state and state administration (30th November 1945, Dziennik Ustawa Nr 57. poz 324) which indicated that a criteria of Polishness was the ability to speak Polish (thereby excluding those who did not speak this language and marginalizing those who were deemed to speak it poorly). Later, in 1946, with the founding of the Commission for the determination of the names of places and physiographical objects (Komisję Ustalania Nazw Miejscowości i Obiektów Fizjograficznych) geographical space was progressively Polonised.[19] The figure below illustrates the progressive homogenisation of Poland.

Figure 1: Nationalities in Poland 1931-1950

Source: Census (various years)

It is also worth noting that parallel to expelling / transferring national minorities out of Poland, the Polish government actively sought to bring to Poland ethnic Poles. The agreements with neighbouring countries facilitated the transfer of millions of Poles. From the east at least 2 million people arrived. In the west, the situation was far more problematic. In addition to sending representatives to the displaced persons camps in Germany to persuade Poles to return to Poland,[20] the Polish government in Warsaw also petitioned the British government to facilitate the transfer of the ‘Westphalian Poles’. This incident suggests that the Polish communist government maintained a primordialist understanding of nationality. In short the Polish government requested that ‘Poles’ in Westphalia be allowed to ‘return’ to Poland. These Poles, however, according to the British report into the matter (6 May 1947) ‘have enjoyed German nationality for 150 years. In the circumstances reference to a Polish minority in Westphalia seems altogether devoid of reality. These persons are as much German as any other German in Germany’ and that the expressed desire of 20,000 of these people to leave Germany ‘can no doubt be attributed solely to present conditions in Germany’.[21] Consequently, the British were very skeptical about the Polish request. The Poles also saw this transfer as a way to partly replace the skilled German labour force in Silesia scheduled for expulsion. This point was emphasised by the head of the Polish Repatriation Mission who stated to potential transferees that the terms of employment for heavy skilled workers — i.e. miners — in Poland were very good.[22]

By January 1948 the British Foreign Office had made a clear decision: there would be no mass population transfer, but individuals could leave Germany so long as they were not involved in essential work. Essential work was to be interpreted as ‘liberally as possible’.[23]

In relation to Poles in the DP camps in Germany during late 1945, many returnees were made to sign a statement confirming their loyalty to the Polish nation and the legal authority of the Provisional Government in Warsaw. This statement condenses some of the communist authority’s criteria to define Polishness, specifically loyalty to the new regime. It is quoted below:

‘I hereby state that I have not acted, and that I am not acting to the detriment of the Polish nation and State, that I associate myself entirely solidly with the July Manifesto of the PKWN and that this Manifesto is known to me, and that I acknowledge the Provisional Government of KR (Krajowa Rada — Homeland Council) in Warsaw as the only legal Government of Poland, and that I have not collaborated, either directly or indirectly with any agency or the so-called émigré Government in London, or with other pro-Fascist organisations, and that I have behaved and am behaving as a Pole who is loyal to his country, in proof of which are the following facts. I make the present declaration instead of a sworn statement, and I am ready to bear full responsibility for its truth’[24]

Clearly, for many Armia Krajowa (Home Army) soldiers and others who had survived the Warsaw Uprising, for example, such commitments were impossible to make. 100,000 eventually settled in the UK rather than return to Poland. The new Polish citizenship demanded Polish nationality and loyalty to the state, that is to the communist authorities.

Following the German occupation of Poland in 1939, the proportion of Germans increased as ethnic Germans from the Baltic States were transferred to the western regions. At the same time Poles were being deported to Germany for slave labour at factories and munitions plants. Through the occupation approximately 3 million Polish Jews were systematically exterminated, firstly through hunger, malnutrition, overwork in the ghettoes and then in the gas chambers of Treblinka (Warsaw’s Jews), Majdanek, Chełmno, Auschwitz , Bełżec and Sobibór. In the Eastern regions killing squads were active. By the time of the 1946 census the Polish Jewish population had been reduced to a fraction, most of whom had survived the war in the Soviet Union following the German invasion. Those Germans that remained in what was to be recognised as Poland were scheduled for expulsion. In relation to the Belarussian population, following the September 1944 agreement between the PKWN and the Belarussian SSR some 36,388 people of Belarussian nationality left the Białystok voivodship for Belarus between 1944 and 1946 (Mironowicz, E. 1993:111). By 1950, Poland was essentially a nation-state. Figure 2 below quantifies the radical changes that took place between 1931 and 1950.

Figure 2: Minorities in Poland 1931-1950

Source: Census (Various years. Figures for 1931 are adjusted following Tomaszewski 1985)

Belarussian experiences 1944-1950

The different treatment of people due to their nationality inherent in the post-war settlement was grounded upon the belief that minorities formed possible obstacles to long-term peace. The brief conjunctural window which permitted massive population transfers in the period 1944-46 allowed the ideal of a nation-state to be striven for. Yet, nations are not ready made with set and immutable characteristics but are continuing social projects, subject to disintegrating as well as integrating forces. As Guibernau (2004:133) makes clear ‘the nation-state is a modern institution, defined by the formation of a kind of state which has the monopoly of what it claims to be the legitimate use of force within a demarcated territory and seeks to unite people subject to its rule by means of cultural homogenization’ (my italics).

Indeed in post-war Poland the civil war (Prażmowska 2004) illustrated opposing conceptions of what Poland was to be and to a lesser degree who was to be Polish. The decision of 100,000 Polish servicemen, many of whom had fought in a variety of theatres, not to return to Poland, demonstrated that cultural homogenisation to the new communist norm was an unappealing adjunct to the redefined Polish citizenship. Many former AK fighters continued to struggle against the new state in a variety of insurgency groups until a general amnesty was agreed in 1947. But during this period when the state had not yet achieved a monopoly on violence the position of national minorities was particularly difficult. On the one hand insurgency groups articulated a view of Polishness reminiscent of Roman Dmowski’s integralist position which overdetermined Polish national identity through its emphasis on homogenised language, religion and culture. On the other, the communist authorities aimed to create a nation-state based on similar criteria but with communist social relations. Nationalism from both the Right and the Left tightly circumscribed minorities’ freedom of action.

For the Belarussians with a weak sense of national identity co-operation with the government made sense, especially since insurgency groups conflated Belarussians (and Jews) with communists. Insurgents believed that they represented real Poland and that minorities aided and abetted the communist takeover of the(ir) country. For example the Association of Freedom and Independence (WiN) was founded in September 1945 to prevent a communist take-over, and operated throughout 1946 in the Lublin and Białystok areas. It only ceased operations in February 1947, when 40,000 men took advantage of the amnesty offered. Belarussians became legitimate targets for repression. However, this logic mistaked cause and effect and overestimated Belarussian influence. Indeed, fear of insurgent violence must be considered to be an important factor in assessing the Belarussian minority’s relationship with the communist authorities.

Research conducted by Mironowicz clearly shows that Poles maintained control of key positions and decision-making within the emerging communist state apparatus. He notes, for example, that in 1945 in the Białystok powiat the PPR had 228 members of whom 175 were Belarussian, 52 were Poles and 1 was Jewish, similarly in the Bielsk powiat of 520 members, 437 were Belarussian, 82 were Poles and 1 was Jewish yet in the Białystok powiat committee (the governing body) of the 10 members, 5 were Poles including the key post of secretary and his deputy. More striking is the fact that of the 20 gmina secretaries 9 were Belarussian and 11 were Polish. A similar situation took place in the Bielsk powiat.[25] For while some Belarussians were functionaries[26] within the emerging communist apparatus they did not determine policy and remained vulnerable to changes in government nationality policy as well as to insurgent violence.

In addition, the Polish authorities were unsympathetic to the specific problems faced by the minority (population transfer, insurgent activities). For example, in December 1945 the Voivod of the Białystok voivodship contended that ‘The Belarussian populace has a very bad attitude towards the Polish populace and authorities. Despite their hostile attitude to everything Polish they do not want to leave Polish areas and the few who do leave are from among the poorest farmers’[27]. Without contextualisation, such views provided further support for population transfers and the monitoring of minority populations.

More concretely, whereas the immediate months (August, September 1944) following liberation from Nazi occupation saw an encouragement of Belarussian middle schools in Hajnówka, Białystok and Bielsk Podlaski and primary schools in Belarussian areas in the Białystok voivodship for example,[28] the decisions made at the PPR’s voivodship and powiat secretaries conference of 10-11 October 1944 in Lublin confirmed the intention to create a state without minorities and reiterated the policy of population transfer agreed earlier on the 9th of September. The commitments made at this conference were soon felt within the Białystok voivodship with the commencement of population transfers and the closure of Belarussian cultural and social institutions. The figure below illustrates that between October 1944 and December 1947 virtually all Belarussian schools were shut down.

Figure 3: The number of Belarussian schools in the Białystok voivodship 1944-1947

Source Mironowicz 1993:192

Mironowicz (1993:133) comments upon the transfer programme in the following way: ‘It is difficult to describe on what basis the deadline outlined in the (transfer) agreement (could be fulfilled), that is in the period from 15th Oct 1944-15th Feb 1945 all Belarussians would willingly leave Polish territory. However the signing of the agreement brought in an atmosphere of impermanence into the lives of Belarussians in Poland, especially in the Bialystok voivodship’.[29]

Nevertheless, such feelings of impermanence did not stop small acts of resistance. In December 1945 a representative from the State Repatriation Office (PUR) reported that ‘In spite of a large number of free farms, the settling of repatriates is simply undoable during the winter since most farms, houses and farm buildings are partly or totally devastated by the evacuating Belarussians and the local populace.’[30] For those transferred such acts were frequently the only possible way to demonstrate opposition to moving. But by the beginning of May 1945 around half of those who were eventually transfered to Belarus had left. Table 4 below illustrates from where the minority were evacuated.

Table 4: Total number of people transferred to Belarus as of 1st May 1945 from Poland

Source: Sosna 1996:18

October 1944 marks the beginning of a very difficult period for the Belarussian minority. Not only were those of Orthodox faith marked down for evacuation and important community institutions closed down, but also insurgent activities continued to undermine confidence and security. Although insurgent activities were muted in late 1944, due to the large Soviet presence in the voivodship, by the beginning of 1945 several formal and informal armed groups had emerged. In the main, these groups limited their contact with the Belarussian minority confining their activities to requisitioning supplies (food etc) from the Belarussian peasants and punishing them (various forms of violence, but not usually killing them) if they handed over to the government the demanded quotas. Since the communist authorities had difficulty in extracting taxes from ethnic Polish villages in the voivodship a disproportionate tax burden fell on the Belarussians.

Nevertheless, the activity of the insurgent group PAS-NSW (Pogotowie Akcji Specjalnej- Narodowych Sił Zbrojnych, Special Action Group of the National Army Unit) encouraged the Belarussians to view the communist authorities as significantly less hostile towards them. The PAS-NSW under the command of Romuald Rajs (pseudonym ‘Bury’) forced Belarussians to leave Poland, and during January and February 1946 murdered 87 Belarussians, maimed several dozen others, pacified 6 Belarussian villages and in the village of Zaleszany locked people in a building before burning it down.[31] In such a dangerous environment government closures of Belarussian schools and institutions were, understandably, not contested.

On 8th July 1946 the Polish government organised a referendum that sought approval for 1) the abolition of the upper house — the Senate, 2) the need for nationalisation and economic relocation, 3) the new western frontiers of Poland. In many respects this referendum was a mechanism for the consolidation of communist power. The non-communists strongly argued against the abolition of the Senate, but were unsuccessful, largely because of the communists’ greater control of information, that is propaganda. Marcin Zaremba (2001:154) in his research, located in the archives of the PPR slogans used to promote agreement with the three proposals. Most interesting was the slogan ‘3 x yes = Poland without national minorities’. This slogan was accepted on 21st June 1946 at a meeting of the inter-party committee of people’s voting affairs, and although it probably wasn’t published in any form, it adequately illustrates that the communist authorities clearly thought that success relied upon a strong nationalistic sentiment.[32] It also serves to demonstrate the very difficult position of minorities in the immediate post-war period. No major party spoke for them.

By the end of 1946 the removal of Belarussians from Poland had run its course. Relatively few people had been expelled (in the context of post-war expulsions / transfers). Instead, the assertion of Polish culture and Polish values was emphasised and the presence of national minorities was simply denied. For example in the Białystok powiat, the starosta (Mayor) Alfons Kaczmarek asserted in early 1948: ‘In the area covered by the powiat there are no national minorities left. There is a certain number of people who possibly were previously considered Belarussian but at the present moment in all official events underline their Polishness. These elements inhabit in the most part the borderland gminas in the eastern part of the powiat’. The starosta of the Sokólski powiat was more direct; ‘In the area of this powiat there are no national minorities’.[33]

However, despite these denials the presence of the Belarussian minority was unofficially recognised in the form of widespread negative stereotypes. Belarussians were, as Mironowicz (1993:154) points out, stigmatised as ‘ruskies’, ‘simple’ ‘orthodox’ and ‘from here / locals’ (tutejszy). Concretely, as early as June 1946 the president of Białystok MO (Milicja Obywatelska — Citizens’ Militia) demanded that all those who spoke Polish poorly be removed from office — a clear signal of the intent to ‘Polonise’ the security apparatus.[34]

By 1949 changes in Polish-Soviet relations necessitated a slight change of policy.[35] In the summer of that year the central committee of the PZPR[36] ordered that Belarussian schools be re-established. But rather than being a mere matter for the education authorities, the entire administration, party committee, militia and the office of public security became involved. There would be Belarussian schools in the Białystok voivodship, but they would be closely policed by the organs of the state to ensure that they did not form the foundations for a Belarussian renaissance. Indeed, of the schools that had been created by 1950 most were primary schools (39) and only 3 were middle schools. Furthermore, the number of schools that were created remained substantially below the number existing in October 1944. No other Belarussian institutions were created at this point.

Conclusion

The post-war settlement assumed that ‘European irredentas are a constant source of war’ (Hoover 1942) and that conflict could only be avoided if there was ‘no mixture of populations to cause endless trouble’ (Churchill 1944). In order to protect ‘the State against fifth column activities and ..eliminat[e] from international relations source[s] of recurring friction’ (Sikorski 1942) the creation of homogeneous nation-states in East-Central Europe was deemed to be necessary. To achieve this goal the western allies supported population transfers that engulfed several million people. Though the Soviet Union put this policy into practice as soon as it ‘liberated’ areas of Poland, forcing the western allies to clearly articulate their position in late 1944 and through 1945, the tone was set earlier at the Tehran conference.

For the Polish communists, the process of population transfers played a key a role in securing legitimacy as Gomułka clearly stated at the PPR conference in 1945, especially in relation to the ‘recovered territories’. But the objective of creating a nation-state did not in fact unify policy towards the different minorities. While the German population was expelled, with exceptions made for key workers, autochthones and some Catholics in Silesia (mainly Upper), the Belarussian experience was somewhat different.[37] True, 36,000 people were transferred to Belarus but in theory far more people could have been moved. But, given Polish long term stereotypes of Belarussians being ‘on a very low rung of civilisation’ (Władysław Wydżga 1923)[38] and the assumption that ‘Belarussian national consciousness was an external phenomenon…[and that] the Belarussian village would easily succumb to Polonization influences, provided such influences were exerted consistently and that outside inspiration was cut off’ (Tomaszewski, 1985:113), government policy relatively quickly moved to an assimilatory / dominating position.

This policy found a degree of acquiescence amongst a population fearful due to insurgent activity and offered them the chance to remain in situ. For the Polish authorities, some Belarussian declarations of Polishness in official documents proved the Polishness of the Białystok voivodship and inhibited any Soviet claims for borderland areas.

Of course other factors played a role in limiting the Belarussian transfers to Belarus including limited absorption capacity in devastated Belarus, but emphasis should be placed on how the Polish authorities conceptualised the Belarussian minority. For them, the peasant masses, with limited consciousness of their national identity, posed no real challenge to the formation of the nation-state (unlike the Germans or Ukrainians, for example). The Belarussians who remained could be ignored or co-opted into low-level positions in the state administration. Eugeniusz Mironowicz (1993:178) succinctly describes the immediate post-war situation: ‘Belarussian society in 1944-1949 cannot be described as engaged in the process of social and political changes that were occurring. Only some individuals were active. Attitudes of political nihilism dominated amongst the masses. The vast majority of the populace was passive, remained in uncertainty and waited for further changes. Its psychological state is best characterised by the head of issues for rebuilding attached to the voivodship office in Bialystok ‘the peasant in general is restless, he has lost all orientatation. He does not believe in himself or in his neighbour and in particular not in an administration official’’. In short, the Belarussian minority was shattered.

The experience of the Belarussian minority in the immediate post-war period forces us to re-examine the relationship between state-nation-identity. While (brutal) population transfers necessarily formed the major strategy to forming the idealised nation-state, strong demands that non-conforming groups assimilate were also articulated. Clearly, forced assimilation is oppressive and distorting of both individual and group identity. One of the main reasons why it is oppressive is because it denies both individual and group development. But at the same time, difference is not obliterated by forced assimilation. Habits of speech and culture are not easily overcome, nor is the memory of difference, both for the majority and minority. Consequently there remain fertile areas for stereotyping and exclusion on the grounds of difference in the new enforced homogeneity. Concretely, Belarussians, as Mironowicz (1993 / 2000) points out, became ‘communist’ (for those Poles hostile to the communist government), ‘orthodox’ (for both non-communist Polish Roman Catholics and the communist authorities using Roman Catholicism as a measure of Polishness), ‘Tutejszy’ and ‘simple’ (for those wishing to describe Belarussians as backward / harmless / malleable).

Belarussians therefore were not accorded equality through enforced homogenisation. Rather the oppression that affected them remained unexpressed and inexpressible in the context of the late 1940s and later[39]. A logical consequence of this was quietism — a problem that still has resonance. It is only by recognising the full legacy of the Belarussian minority’s post-war situation can appropriate policies be formulated and more just social relations created.

Рэзюмэ

Аўтар аналізуе становішча беларускай нацыянальнай мяншыні ў Польшчы ў гадах 1944-1950, апіраючыся на польскія і брытанскія архіўныя матэрыялы. Асабліва зьвяртае ўвагу на ўнікальныя даследваньні Яўгена Мірпновіча, апублікаваныя ў гадах 1993 і 2000. Ідучы далей, аўтар намагаецца паглыбіць высновы Мірановіча, прыдаючы ім эўрапэйскі кантэкст у святле палітыкі саюзьнікаў Польшчы. Была ў той час міжнародная згода на масавыя дэпартацыі, прасоўваньне этнічных межаў. Не існавалі нарматывы трактоўкі нацыянальных мяншыняў, што вызначыла іх няясны лёс і ў сучаснай Польшчы. Яе ўнутраная палітыка надалей кіруецца прынцыпамі этнічнае чысьціні, адносячыся да мяншыняў як да інцыдэнтальных зьяў; відавочнае тут сваевольле дзяржаўнай адміністрацыі.

Naród i państwo bezpośrednio po wojnie:
doświadczenie mniejszości białoruskiej w Polsce 1944-1950

Referat przedstawia wyniki badań przeprowadzonych w archiwach polskich i brytyjskich, dotyczących sytuacji mniejszości białoruskiej w Polsce, w okresie bezpośrednio po wojnie. Opiera się on w znacznym stopniu na pionierskich pracach Eugeniusza Mironowicza (1993, 2000), mających na celu osadzenie doświadczeń Białorusinów w polskim kontekście i stara się poszerzyć wkład Mironowicza przez uwypuklenie roli odegranej przez zachodnich sojuszników Polski w usankcjonowaniu zarówno nowej granicy wschodniej jak i masowego przesiedlania ludności na podstawie narodowości. Ponadto autor referatu przeprowadza tezę, że polityka i praktyka narodowościowa w okresie 1944-1950 przyjęła mniejszości narodowe jako niejasny wyjątek od reguły polskiej jednolitości. Jako „tolerowane” wyjątki od promowanej normy państwa narodowego, mniejszości pozostawały w nadmiernej zależności od dobrej woli rządu, co spowodowało wypaczenie w ich długofalowym rozwoju. 

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