SSR, Ukrainian SSR, and the Soviet Union, became citizens of various Sovietrepublics, and thus citizens of the Soviet Union.
Concerning the People’s Assembly. The People’s Assembly was faced with a series of specific issues, which [2] it had to decide.
These issues included:
1. Annexing the areas of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus to therespective Soviet republics.
2. Nationalisation of land, big industry, and banks.
An election was held under a special electoral law modelled on the Supreme Soviets electoral law. Candidates for deputies running in the election advocated joining the USSR, the nationalisation of land, banks, and big industrial concerns.
Approximately 98 per cent of the population voted in the election. A totalof 95 per cent voted for the candidates, and thereby for the slogans they advocated. [3] The People’s Assembly voted unanimously to appeal to the Supreme Councils of the Byelorussian SSR, Ukrainian SSR, and the Soviet Union witha request to join the Soviet Union, and for legislation to be passed in order to nationalise land, banks, and big industrial concerns. For this purpose, the Plenipotentiary Committee of the People’s Assemblies of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus, appointed specifically for this purpose, went to Moscow.
Only the consent of the Supreme Council of the Soviet Union, expressed in a new law, was the legal basis for adaptation of new areas to the condi-tions of a socialist state. The law was also the legal basis for establishing [4]the nationality of the population in these areas. It should be emphasised thatpeople received Soviet citizenship automatically, without any other options (in fact, the resolution of the People’s Assembly was believed to be a general, transitional option). Before the general “passportisation”, the Soviet-German Repatriation Committee was established (in Brześć).
Therefore, the Soviet authorities carried out a registration (voluntary) of all refugees, who were going to go back to the “other side”.
A large number of refugees recruited mostly from the intelligentsia (especially lawyers, office workers without specific qualifications, and doctors – mostly older) registered for the return journey.
GENERA L SITUATION OF REFUGEES AT THE SOVIETO CC UPIE D TERRITORIES [ 3] 20
