WI: Galician Greek Catholic Ukrainians to Poland after WWII

[Jackson Lennock]

Poland and the USSR had "population exchanges" after WWII, but Stalin only felt it was necessary to send over ethnic Poles and not everybody with Polish citizenship. Meanwhile, Ukrainians from the formerly Polish part of Ukraine resisted the Soviets until the 1950s and were later part of the core of the independence struggle.

What if Stalin had decided to send Galician Greek Catholic Ukrainians to Poland after WWII? This would be on the assumption that they were too "independent-minded" and would undermine Soviet control of Ukraine.

 

[Francisco Cojuanco]

The problem is that Stalin justified his annexation of Eastern galicia and Volhynia as vindicating Ukrainian wishes to be re-united into one state. So deporting Ukrainians to Poland, well, doesn't look good.

On that train of thought, Greek-Catholics had a disproportionate influence ob the development of Ukrainian identity. Propaganda at the time was that Greek-Catholics were real Ukrainians, just decieved into following the Pope by the Austrians/Poles/Germans. So that would justify de-Catholicizing them to "rejoin the rest of the Ukrainian nation," not deporting them to another country.

Basically, the people were as necessary to Stalin's annexation project as the land itself.

 

[SpanishSpy]

The problem is that Stalin justified his annexation of Eastern galicia and Volhynia as vindicating Ukrainian wishes to be re-united into one state. So deporting Ukrainians to Poland, well, doesn't look good.

I read about how all of this was the justification for the invasion of Poland and the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in Serhii Plokhy's Lost Kingdom and was struck by how similar it was to the justification for a more recent Russian invasion.