On 22 October 1939 the Soviets organised elections of delegates to the so-called people’s assemblies in the annexed Eastern Borderlands (Kresy) of the Second Polish Republic. After a rapid propaganda campaign accompanied by terror and violence, the “vote” took place.

On 31 October 1906 Marian Malinowski set off, as he himself put it, “on a journey into the unknown at government expense.”