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toleration of the open incitement of residents,” he wrote, “all of these factors prepare the perfect

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ground for Bolshevik raids in the eastern borderlands.” It was, in short, everyday behavior—the

drinking, the tolerance for subversion, the demoralization—that weakened the state’s authority in the

eyes of local people and suggested that Polish rule was temporary. In September 1924, the month

after Sikorski had issued his memorandum, the government organized a new force to guard the

border and quell internal agitation in the borderlands. The Borderland Protection Corps (Korpus

Ochrony Pogranicza, or KOP) was, they hoped, the answer to the state’s security problems in the

east.

On the one hand, KOP, which came under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of the Interior but

was comprised of specially selected soldiers serving in the Polish army, had a predominantly military

remit. It was charged with militarizing a border that had, for too long, been crossed at will, reporting

on events that occurred on the Soviet side, and even, in time, sending agents into Soviet territory in

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order to collect intelligence for the state. It also focused its attention on communities that fell on the
Polish side of the border. From November 1924, when the first units arrived in Volhynia, KOP’s

soldiers reported on daily events within the Polish borderlands, attempted to eliminate communist

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banditry, and evicted people who crossed the border from the Soviet Union. Moreover, the arrival

of KOP led to a reconfiguration of border zones, which were subjected to more stringent rules and

regulations. The “protective strip” (pas ochronny) constituted territories that were within 30

kilometers of the border, creating a so-called zone of cooperation with the administrative authorities.

81 “Pismo ministra spraw wojskowych gen. dyw. Władysława Sikorskiego do prezesa Rady Ministrów Władysława
Grabskiego – załącznik do protokołu Komitetu Politycznego Rady Ministrów z 6 sierpnia 1924 r.,” in Marek
Jabłonowski and Adam Koseski, eds., O Niepodległą i Granice: T4: Korpus Ochrony Pogranicza 1924-1939:
Wybór Dokumentów (Warsaw, 2001), 15.
82 Snyder, Sketches, 89.
83 See DARO 30/18/1018 for examples of situational reports.

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