Page 60 - Ciancia, On Civilization's Edge

distributed to an unknown destination—“allegedly to the Bolsheviks in the east”—Jews were

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accused of driving the towns of Volhynia to the brink of starvation.

If the Guard depicted Jews as a population whose economic behavior aided hostile “Eastern”

forces, whether in the guise of Russian imperialism or Russian Bolshevism, they believed that

Ruthenians were little more than political apprentices who needed the Poles to lead them through the

twists and turns of becoming democratic citizens. In many cases, their declarations were prompted by

complaints that these populations themselves made against Polish occupying forces. While

individuals who were identified as “Ruthenians” in the minutes of local meetings asserted that they

shared the Poles’ commitment to democratic ideals in theory, they used that same language of

democracy to argue that Poland was falling short in practice. After stating that “only the Polish

government can give us rights,” one Ruthenian at a meeting of local delegates in the northern

Volhynian town of Sarny in September 1919 went on to accuse the Polish administration of

distributing money to Polish schools, rather than to their Ruthenian counterparts, and thereby not

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living up to the tenets of democratic equality. The head of the Guard was irritated. “This is a Polish
meeting to which the Ruthenians were invited,” he said, admonishing the speaker and adding that

Ruthenian complaints about the lack of government assistance should not be taken as seriously as

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those made by their Polish counterparts. But behind the irritation lay an important point: national
hierarchies, rather than equality, formed a central part of the Guard’s local vision of democracy.

Similar encounters occurred across the region that fall. The following month, Kowel county’s

head instructor began one gathering by declaring that the 120 Ruthenians who attended the meeting

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were there to learn about the “purity of our [sic] intentions.” And yet when a Ruthenian participant

72 “Do Naczelnika Państwa Józefa Piłsudskiego,” AAN TSK 218/6.
73 “Protokuł zjazdu delegatów północnych części powiatów Łuckiego i Rówieńskiego dnia 28 września 1919 r w
Sarnach,” AAN TSK 239/120-121.
74 Ibid., 121.
75 “Protokół Zjazdu delegatów ludności polskiej pow. Kowelskiego w dniu 14.9.1919r.” AAN TSK 239/94.

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