The Moscophile Movement as a Target of Soviet Influence on the Socio-Political Situation in Western Ukraine in the 1920s
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31861/hj2025.61.66-74Keywords:
Moscophile movement, Soviet diplomacy, «Sel-Rob», «Narodna Volia», Eastern Galicia, Western Ukraine, Second Polish Republic, hybrid warfare, political subversion, Ukrainian national movementAbstract
The purpose of the study is comprehensive analysis of how Soviet diplomatic structures instrumentalized a segment of the Russophile movement in Eastern Galicia to form the left-radical party «Sel-Rob» as a legal political base for subversive activities in Western Ukraine. This influence was directed both against the institutions of the Polish state and the diverse ideological currents of the Ukrainian national movement.
The methodological framework of the study is based on the principles of objectivity, reliability, historicism, scientific rigor, and consideration of alternative perspectives. This approach makes it possible to single out a specific segment of the Russophile movement as an object of Soviet influence in interwar Poland, to characterize its ideological foundations, political platform, and organizational structure as the basis for the formation and noticeable influence of the legal political party «Sel-Rob» on the socio-political situation in Western Ukraine in the 1920s. The party was formed through the unification of the left-radical party «Narodna Volia» with the «Peasantsʼ Union» party under the active organizational efforts of Soviet diplomacy in Warsaw.
The scientific novelty lies in the identification and analysis of a previously underexplored mechanism of Soviet influence through the creation and support of a far-left legal political entity intended to destabilize the socio-political landscape of Western Ukraine in the 1920s.
After the incorporation of most of the Western Ukrainian ethnic lands into the restored Polish state, socio-political processes unfolded under new geopolitical conditions. These changes, among other factors, influenced the institutional and political transformation of the Moskvophile (Russophile) movement in Eastern Galicia, Chełm Land, and Podlachia during the 1920s. The splits, separations, and emergence of new legal political entities within the reestablished Polish state did not escape the attention of Soviet diplomats and the USSR’s special services, who sought to exploit these processes of socio-political structuring both to exert a destabilizing influence on Polish state institutions and to oppose the legal Ukrainian national movement while also curbing the influence of Russian émigré structures with anti-Bolshevik orientations. It is worth noting that contradictions within the leadership of the newly formed «Sel-Rob» party became increasingly irreconcilable, and on September 11, 1927, the majority of former «Narodna Volia» members announced the formation of «Selrob-Left», which in the following years played a key role in spreading Soviet influence in Western Ukraine.
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