On 22 October 1939, the Soviets held 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. According to official figures, in so-called Western Ukraine the turnout was 97%, while in so-called Western Belarus it was 92%. The candidates nominated by the authorities (there were no others) won more than 90% of the votes. The assemblies “elected” in this way met a week later in Lviv and Białystok and passed resolutions to formally “be in line with the will of the people” and to incorporate these areas into the Soviet Ukrainian and Belarusian republics. In this way, the Soviets wanted to show the world that almost all the inhabitants of this area, whose fate they cared so much about when they entered the Kresy, supported communism and wanted to become citizens of the USSR. Not only did the Soviet “elections” legitimise in the eyes of the world Russia’s expansion into an area it had always regarded as its own, but were also an effective tool of psychological pressure which, together with physical terror, was designed to force society into subordination. “The elections” of 22 October 1939 were also the first case of the “export” of Soviet “electoral technology” outside the Soviet Union.

Photo: Leaflet of a candidate for the People’s Assembly of Western Ukraine, source: Polona