The First Soviet Sponsored Elections in Eastern Europe
The First Soviet Sponsored Elections in Eastern Europe

Summary/Abstract: The earliest episode of Soviet imperial expansion into Europe took place during the first two years of the Second World War. It was only then that the stabilized Soviet state, almost two decades after the revolution and the ensuing civil war had ended, in the aftermath of collectivization and the Great Purges, reached abroad for new territory. In 1939 and 1940 the Western Ukraine, Western Belorussia, the Baltic states, and Bessarabia were incorporated into the Soviet Union. They were absorbed into the Soviet state through a complex process where military occupation, police repression, induced civil war, and citizens' participation were mixed together. Many of the future leaders of People's Poland were apprenticed during this period. [...]

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