State Terror in the Western Ukrainian Lands as a Method of Establishment of Soviet Power
The course of historical events is studied with regard to the reunification of Western Ukraine with Soviet Ukraine. The formation of the foundations of the new state-political and territorial system with the formation of new regions of Western Ukraine is shown. The characteristics of the most important regulations on the formation of law enforcement agencies of the Soviet government and their repressive actions on the territory of the region are given. The first repressive actions were directed against the Polish servicemen and the members of counter-revolutionary, espionage organizations, the former landowners, the manufacturers, the Polish officers, the officials, and the defectors, who were at the prisons in the western regions of Ukraine. The activities of Ukrainian political parties were banned. The activity of «Prosvita», Taras Shevchenko Scientific Society was stopped and the work of cultural and educational institutions, theaters, philharmonics, museums was reorganized. The policy of forced collectivization, nationalization of the industrial enterprises, the banks was tracked on the basis of the research materials. There were four waves of deportations during the 1939–1940 years, when not only the Polish settlers and Polish civil servants of local self-government but also a group of Ukrainian foresters, members of public, political, nationalist organizations, entrepreneurs, merchants, wealthy peasants were deported. The priests of various denominations, members of the OUN underground did not escape deportation and repression. It is stated that the victorious conclusion of the war with Germany promoted realization of administrative measures to restore the Soviet power in the western Ukrainian lands. The edge of mass repression is directed against the Ukrainian bourgeois nationalists. The mass inspections were introduced under the guise of registration and population censuses. The repressive politics aims to fight the Greek Catholic clergy of the region. Strengthening the struggle against politically unreliable intelligentsia, students, Western Ukrainian literary and artistic elite, and members of Lviv organization of the Union of Soviet Writers of Ukraine is substantiated. Repressive bodies had a special attention to the assessment of the political views of the scientific and pedagogical workers of Lviv universities and the pupils of M. Hrushevskyi.