Page 179 - Ciancia, On Civilization's Edge

directly to the influence of both the Seventh-Day Baptists and the Stundists, an Evangelical

Protestant group that had developed in the Ukrainian regions of the Russian empire during the late

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nineteenth century. The events of the Great War, including the mass displacement of populations,
had only exacerbated this trend. Sects in Volhynia, Polish observers argued, found their primary

supporters in re-emigrants who had been exposed to new ideas as a consequence of the evacuation of

the region during the war, their service in the Russian army, and experiences working in America and

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Germany. Having fallen prey to a kind of collective psychosis, returning migrants were allegedly
spreading prophecies about the approaching end of the world, rumors about an impending war, and

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stories that there would be a rush of emigration to Africa. The problem was widespread. By 1929,

the provincial authorities recorded the presence of 44 sects in Volhynia, involving a total of 15,000

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people.
While the idea that tales spun by millenarian sects could sway large numbers of Volhynian

peasants was an embarrassment to a self-consciously modernizing state like Poland, none of these

concerns operated in a geopolitical vacuum. In the eyes of Polish officials, the perception that

ignorant and disorganized rural inhabitants supported anti-state elements was only intensifying by the

late 1920s. They had good reason to worry. In 1928, the last reasonably free elections to be held in

the Second Republic had resulted in communist front parties in Volhynia receiving 48% of the vote,

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a worrying sign for the authorities who saw communism as a fundamental threat to the state. By

1931, local authorities reported that Sel-Rob Jedność, the left wing of a front organization for the

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Communist Party of Western Ukraine, had become more influential. The following year, the

51 “Stan prawosławia na Kresach Wschodnich,” Głos Lubelski, March 31, 1924.
52 “Sekty religijne na Wołyniu,” Znicz: miesięcznik regionalny społeczno-naukowy (September 1934), 3-4.
53 Obrębski, “The Changing Peasantry of Eastern Europe,” 47.
54 “Sprawozdanie wojewody wołyńskiego o ogólnym stanie Województwa działalności administracji państowej w r.
1929-ym i ważniejszych zamierzeniach na przyszłość,” AAN MSW 69/153.
55 John-Paul Himka, “Western Ukraine in the Interwar Period,” Nationalities Papers 22, no. 2 (1994): 358.
56 “Sprawozdanie z działalności partji Sel-Rob-Jedność na terenie Wołynia za czas od 1.I do 1.IX.1931 r.,” DARO
30/18/1759/9. In Kowel county, where Sel-Rob was at its most successful, there was a county committee, 64
regional committees, and a total of 1,173 members.

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