Rok 1944 na Białostocczyźnie

Abstract

The stabilization of the Belorussian front and the lack of any military operations in the area until June 1944 made it possible for the Belorussian authorities to form Soviet guerilla forces and underground party institutions in western Belorus. The Belorussian guerillas wanted to establish posts in the area of Białystok and recruit the local people. In order to do that, from the summer of 1943 numerous guerilla units were sent westwards; but it soon turned out that they were unable to take control over the region. Most of the units stopped in the forests of the district of Baranowice near the river Niemen. They did not want to admit their failure and formed underground party committees and Comsomol units that never played any significant role; their existence was supposed to suggest the importance of the Soviet authorities in the area. The Soviet guerillas reached the district of Białystok as late as in the summer of 1944. Underground party units received orders from Minsk that obliged them to form copy the Minsk model of Soviet administration in Białystok as soon as the Red Army took control over the region. These plans were not abandoned even after "Izwiestia" published the information that the district of Białystok was to go under the Polish jurisdiction. Belorussian authorities never seemed to have believed that Stalin decided to give that area to Poland. This attitude manifested itself in the establishment of Soviet authorities in Białystok, Sokółka and Brańsk when the Soviet army took control over the region in July 1944; this fact caused considerable confusion when Polish representatives of PKWN arrived in these places. The loss of Białystok was painful to Belorussian authorities because it seriously diminished the economic potential of the area. Party activists of the Białystok district stressed this aspect many times; they sent a letter to the secretary of KC KP(b)B, in which they tried to persuade him that he should prevent the loss of Białystok and its surroundings, because, in their opinion, most of the inhabitants of the region were of Belorussian origin. However, this was against Stalin's plans, and leaving Białystok within the borders of the Soviet Republic of Belorus could undermine the importance of PKWN, which was in the process of being established in Poland. Belorussian authorities, in particular the representatives of the Białystok district which was still in existence on the Soviet side of the border, had no choice hut to accept the situation. The new "hosts" of the region had a difficult task too. They were entirely surprised by the Soviet activities in the area: the Soviet army plundered the factories and houses that survived the war. On 28 July 1944, Soviets began manhunts in the city because they needed men to fill the pits at the bombarded airport, and build fortifications in the foreground of the city. The last Soviet move in the Białystok area was the elimination of the Polish underground movement. It was a part of a more general process, which began in the summer of 1943, of "the clearing of the western districts of the Soviet Republic of Belorus from anti-revolutionary elements" which were seen as a threat to the safety of the Soviet state. The process of elimination of the Polish underground organization was supervised by general Piotr Sobiennikov, second-in-command of the third Army of the Second Belorussian Front. Later, the units under supervision of the central board of NKWD army responsible for the protection of the rear front took over the task of "the clearing of the area". This formation was in command of general Ivan Gorbatiuk at the time. In October 1944, the central Soviet authorities decided that a group of workers called "Smiersz" and NKGB officers, as well as 2 regiments of NKWD army should be sent to the area of Białystok. The action was commanded hy general Victor S. Abakumov, commander of t he military espionage unit "Smiersz"; and Ławrientij F. Canava, commissar responsible for the safety of the state. By the end of 1944, NKWD, NKGB and "Smiersz" arrested and sent in to exile into the Soviet Union at least 3978 people from the Białystok area.