page_title: Elections to the People's Assemblies of Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia
section_title: The election
hierarchical_section_title: Elections to the People's Assemblies of Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia / The election
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Sowjetisches Propagandaposter: Ein Soldat der Roten Armee ersticht den polnischen Adler – die Polen hatten angeblich die Ukrainer und Weißrussen im östlichen Polen unterdrückt. English: Soviet propaganda poster depicting the Red Army killing the Polish eagle which had supposedly oppressed the Belarusians and Ukrainian peasants under Polish rule.
context_page_description: Elections to the People's Assemblies of Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia, which took place on October 22, 1939, were an attempt to legitimize the annexation of the Second Polish Republic by the Soviet Union following the September 17 Soviet invasion of Poland in accordance with the secret protocol of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. Only one month after the eastern territories of Poland were occupied by the Red Army, the Soviet secret police and military led by the Party officials staged the local elections in an atmosphere of state terror. The referendum was rigged. The ballot envelopes were numbered and often handed over already sealed. By design, the candidates were unknown to their constituencies which were brought to the voting stations by armed militias. The results were to become the official legitimization of the Soviet takeover of what is known today as the Western Belorussia and the Western Ukraine. Consequently, both Assemblies voted for incorporation of all formerly Polish voivodeships into the Soviet Union.
context_section_description: The electoral campaign began on October 7, 1939, and from the beginning, was supervised by the NKVD troops. The campaign itself took place in an atmosphere of state terror, with mass arrests, and uniformed NKVD agents present at all polling stations. All candidates had been designated by the party's local peasants and workers' committees based on instructions from Moscow. It was not possible to vote for anybody else. Soviet banners and posters were seen everywhere, people were gathered to listen to propaganda slogans, and frequently, citizens were told that if they did not participate, they would be fired, arrested, and even sent to Siberia. Electoral meetings were very short. Participants were asked "who was against" the candidate offered; frightened people would not raise their hands, and then the meeting was closed. On October 11, in article published in Pravda, Soviet propaganda pointed out the issues to be solved by the Western Ukraine's Assembly. These were: establishment of Soviet authority, unification of Western Ukraine with Soviet Ukraine, confiscation of estates, and nationalization of banks and industrial properties. There were instances when local Polish Communists, especially in Western Belorussia, tried to designate their own candidates, but these attempts were immediately dismissed by the party officials.
  
  Historian Rafal Wnuk, author of the book During the First Soviet, described the election in the city of Lviv. According to his research, on the day of the election, the city was flooded with the Soviet propaganda posters. At the polling stations, the inhabitants were able to purchase alcohol products and foods otherwise not available on the market. In some cases, people were brought by force. As Bronislawa Stachowicz from Lviv recalled: 
  I was forced to vote, taken from our home only in slippers and a bathrobe. I was escorted by two militiamen and an NKVD agent, who did not let me put on my coat. My mother, brother, and sister were also forced to vote.
    At all voting stations, there were uniformed militia or soldiers, and names were checked on a list. Voting was monitored to such a degree that in some places people were given envelopes which had been already sealed, and told to drop them in the box. Both the campaign and the election were presented as a "great holiday of the freed people". A Polish-language newspaper "Wolna Łomża" ("Free Łomża") wrote on October 22 that "suppressed by the Polish masters masses of Western Belorussia had been waiting for this day [October 22] for almost twenty years". Another newspaper, "Nowe Zycie" ("New Life") wrote: "Never before has the nation enjoyed so much freedom as now, given by the Red Army".
  The results of the election show the efficiency of the Stalinist state. According to the official data, in Western Ukraine, 93% voters took part in it, and in Western Belorussia, 96%. Party candidates garnered more than 90% of the popular vote. However, in some districts (11 in Ukraine, and 2 in Belorussia), the candidates were so unpopular, that they got less than half of the votes, and it was necessary to organize a second election. Among those eligible to vote, were soldiers of the Red Army, who had invaded these provinces just five weeks before. Polish historians noted some cases of civil disobedience, which took place despite widespread terror. In Białystok, people would put in cards with slogans such as "Long live Poland, Białystok is not Belorussia". In Hrodna, slogans on the walls were painted, which said "Down with the Bolsheviks, long live Poland", and in Pinsk, high school students handed leaflets stating: "Long live Poland, down with Communists".
caption: Soviet propaganda poster; the killing of the Polish Eagle in the east
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