Page 117 - Ciancia, On Civilization's Edge

peasants also used the border as a shield that offered protection from the pursuit of the law. When

thieves stole horses from pastures in the middle of the night and smuggled them to the Soviet side,

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the border became their unwitting ally. Indeed, horse thefts flourished in Volhynia, with 171 cases
53
reported in the second quarter of 1924, only 48 of which led to arrests. In the border settlement of
Międzyrzecz, police complained that people supported those who committed acts of horse theft and

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failed to assist the police when they sought out the wrongdoers.
Local people also continued to use their traditional networks of prewar trade, which proved

especially useful as the economic situation on the Soviet side changed. The introduction of the New

Economic Policy (NEP) in 1921, which constituted a partial return to capitalism after the more

centralized economic practices of War Communism, brought demands for goods from Poland. In

particular, the rising price of foodstuffs and other essential products, along with the complete lack of

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many consumer goods, meant that cheaper items from Poland were suddenly much sought after.

Through exchanges at the border, people in the Soviet Union gained access to a long list of goods

that they could not find on the domestic market: textiles, jewelry, socks, scarfs, gloves, neckties,

combs, pencils, leather, suede, mirrors, gramophone needles, garters, razors, French buttons,

cardigans, saccharin, alcoholic spirit, and weapons. Those involved in these transactions also avoided

the use of standardized currency, creating an informal economy at the border. On the Soviet side,

people paid with dollars, gold rubles, or even fox fur, with Polish banknotes emerging as a trading

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currency only at the end of the 1920s. In such circumstances, smuggling boomed. In August 1924,

132 people were caught smuggling goods from Volhynia into Soviet territory, while there were 169

52 Ibid., 172.
53 “Sprawozdanie sytuacyjne za II-gi kwartał 1924r.,” DARO 33/4/9/83od.
54 “Raport sytuacyjny kwartalny za czas od 1/IV do 30/VI 1924r.” (Międzyrzecz), DARO 147/1/5/64.
55 Andrea Chandler, Institutions of Isolation: Border Controls in the Soviet Union and its Successor States, 1917-
1993 (Montreal, 1998), 50.
56 Benecke, Die Ostgebiete, 51.

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