At the end of XIX and beginning  XX century, as you know, capitalism entered the highest stage -  to the stage of imperialism, the essence of which was revealed by Lenin, who characterized imperialism in Russia as military-feudal. This characteristic fully applied to the economy of Belarus, which was a limited part of Russia.

According to statistical data, at the beginning of the century the national economy of Belarus was dominated by  agriculture, which employed 75 percent of the total population. Materials on agriculture in Byelorussia speak of a high proportion of landownership, of the widespread use by landowners of such forms of exploitation as tillage, share-cropping, bonded rent, and winter hiring.

In industrial production, the leading place was occupied by the primary processing of raw materials and the production of food products. Medium and small enterprises accounted for over 90 percent of all enterprises in Belarus.

In the Grodno province in 1905, there were 3,725 factories and factories, which employed 21,008 people, permanent workers. There were 16 factories and 48 factories in Grodno (Photo. One of the buildings in which workers lived. Early 9th century)

In the industry of the Grodno region, a significant role belonged to craft and handicraft production. These tables show that in 1305 in our province the total number of artisans was 46968 people, including: craftsmen - 28109, workers - 12294, students - 6585. A significant part of them were tailors (4598), shoemakers (4964 ), watchmakers (246), barbers (231).

During the period of imperialism, the position of the working masses deteriorates sharply. An analysis of archival documents of those years testifies to terrible working conditions, cruel exploitation of female and child labor, a meager level of wages, a lack of safety equipment at enterprises, as a result of which

there were frequent cases of injury and death of workers. So, in 1904. the average wage of an industrial worker was 50 kopecks. per day, and women and adolescents - 25 kopecks. Beggarly wages were reduced by various fines and deductions. At the match, tobacco, and textile enterprises, a significant number of workers were teenagers. They worked 12 to 14 hours a day, just like adult workers. There was almost no medical care.

Tsarism stifled national culture and openly pursued a policy of forced assimilation. Belarusian schools in Belarus were banned. "People's education" eked out a miserable existence; there were few schools, and even those did not have the most necessary for normal study and huddled in miserable shacks, in terrible unsanitary conditions. Teaching was put out of hand badly, since teachers were deprived of the very necessary allowances and material resources. The financial situation of the teachers themselves was terrible. Secondary education was available only to the children of nobles, officials, the bourgeoisie and the clergy - this is clearly evidenced by the data on the social composition of gymnasium students in the Vilna educational district, which included educational institutions of the Grodno region.  provinces (Table). There were no higher educational institutions in Belarus.

The consequence of the policy of tsarism in the field of public education in Belarus was a massive  illiteracy of the population, which the governors and representatives of the Ministry of Public Education had to admit in their reports.

Only a seventh of school-age children studied in primary schools. By the beginning of the 9th century, 17% of the population of Belarus was illiterate.

But the working people, despite the heavy social and national oppression, strove for knowledge, for enlightenment. The workers studied in the so-called Sunday schools. These schools were organized mainly by the Bolsheviks, who used every opportunity to strengthen ties with the masses. Peasant children, who usually did not have the opportunity to attend school, were taught by home teachers - "principals". That was the name of the boys who graduated from elementary school. For food and a small fee, they taught the children to read and write.

The children of working people could study in elementary schools, but these schools were few. In elementary schools, which were led by priests, the main attention was paid to the study of the "law of God", prayers and church hymns. A student who graduated from elementary school could read a little, was familiar with the four arithmetic operations. Primary schools existed mainly with funds collected from the population.

Teaching in the Belarusian language in schools was prohibited. Tsarism also did not allow printing books in their native language. Hindering the development of enlightenment, tsarism supported the church in every possible way, which helped it to keep the people in darkness and ignorance and always defended the interests of the exploiters. More than 4,000 churches, churches and synagogues operated in Belarus.

The revolutionary struggle of the working class and the peasantry of the Grodno region at the beginning of the 20th century was an integral part of the liberation movement in Russia. This movement increasingly took on a political character. In familiarizing the advanced workers and peasants, the progressive intelligentsia with the theory of Marxism-Leninism, Lenin's ideas played, which were widely disseminated here in the Iskra (document).

The Great October Socialist Revolution liberated the peoples of Russia and the national border regions from the oppression of the capitalists and landowners. All the power and wealth of the country passed into the hands of the working people, the workers and peasants themselves began to manage the state, to build a new life.

Grodno residents were also active participants in the socialist revolution and civil war. Among them is Kiselyov Ivan Osipovich. He was born on February 15, 1899 in the village of Kanevichi, Grodno region. Member of the CPSU since May 1920. After the Great October Socialist Revolution, he worked in the Cheka under the leadership of Uritsky.

Gavryushchenko Kozma Fedotovich was born on July 1, 1894 in the village of Krutsets, Brasovsky district, Bryansk region, into the family of a landless peasant. From early childhood he knew hunger, hard peasant labor. Before the October Revolution, he worked in county repair shops, where master Mokrov attracted him to revolutionary activities. In 1913, he first read the Communist Manifesto. The comrades helped to understand, to understand the truth for which the Bolsheviks fought. Since 1919 - a member of the CPSU. The very next day after receiving party card No. 47, the communist Kozma Gavryushchenko, at the head of the voluntary detachment he created, went to the front. In 1920, he carried out a special task for the Special Department of the 15th Army, which was headed by Jan Karlovich Berzin (later the head of Soviet military intelligence). Active participant in the Great Patriotic War. After demobilization - a resident of Grodno, worked as an instructor in the Grodno district party committee.

“After solving the problem of the greatest political upheaval in the world, cultural tasks have become before us,” wrote V.I. Lenin. From the first steps of its activity, the workers' and peasants' government began to radically break the bourgeois apparatus of education and create a new body to guide public education. Among the first decrees of the Soviet Power were also decrees in the field of education.

On November 9 (22), 1917, by the decree of the All-Russian Central Committee of Moscow, signed by V.I. Lenin and A.V. Lunacharsky, along with the organization of the People's Commissariat of Education, the State Commission for Education was approved, which was entrusted with the overall management of public education in the country. The Decree of the Council of People's Commissars "On the Separation of Church from State and School from Church" permanently removed churchmen from any participation in government and education of children in schools. By a special decree of the People's Commissariat of Education of December 11, 1917, all educational institutions in the country were transferred to the jurisdiction of the People's Commissariat for Education. At the head of this People's Commissariat, the party put a professional revolutionary, an active participant in the Great, October Socialist Revolution, Anatoly Vasilyevich  Lunacharsky (1875-1933), who headed the People's Commissariat from 1917 to 1929. Under his leadership, the reform of the secondary school is being carried out, the active participants of which were M.I. Kalinin (1875-1946), N.K. Krupskaya (1869-1939), F.B. Legnik, M.N. Pokrovsky and others. "On Schools of National Minorities" secured the right of all nations to organize education in their own language,

The Soviet government attached great importance to the training of professional personnel in the country. In his notes "On Polytechnic Education", V.I. Lenin pointed out the need, in the conditions of the extremely difficult economic situation of the republic, to merge the 2nd stage of the school with vocational schools, while not allowing early specialization of students, to expand general education subjects in all vocational schools.

On June 30, 1919, V.I. Lenin signed a decree of the Council of People's Commissars "On measures to disseminate professional and technical knowledge", which stated that "a necessary condition for the final triumph of the workers' and peasants' revolution is to raise labor productivity, and the fastest and surest way to such a rise is the dissemination of professional and technical knowledge and skills among the broad masses of the people.

In June 1919 The Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR issued a decree on the organization of a special section under the People's Commissariat of Education for the management of vocational education. On January 29, 1920, the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR adopted a resolution on the transformation of this section into the Main Committee for Vocational Education (Glavprofobr). The resolution pointed out the need to expand the network of vocational schools and courses to provide the country's economy with a skilled workforce.

Discussing the immediate tasks of economic construction in the country, the IX Congress of the RCP (b) (March 29-April 5, 1920) pointed out the need for a wide popularization of vocational education of all types, organization of courses

for the training of instructors and labor commissars, the publication of textbooks and teaching aids, cinematographic tapes, etc., the attraction of scientific forces for the development of questions of technology and the scientific organization of industry, the creation and worldwide support of institutes for scientific research and inventions.

At the first session of the Council at Glavprofobr  (April 27-29, 1920) People's Commissar of Education A.B. Lunacharsky, in his report “The Main Tasks of Our Front,” emphasized: “We clearly accept that we must produce not just a worker who will solve purely material problems, but the master of our country.”

On June 11, 1920, the board of the Glavprofobra approved the Regulations on the social security of students in vocational schools. It was based on the principle of student remuneration  according to their qualifications. The actual earnings corresponding to the given qualification in production were taken as the rate of remuneration.

In the training of skilled workers for industry and transport and the advanced training of workers already working in production, an important role belongs to the decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR of July 29, 1920 "On educational vocational service", according to which all workers aged 18 to 40 years were declared subject to educational, vocational and technical conscription. They went on short courses  in the evening in the order of priority established by the plant management  in agreement with the trade union. The working day of students was reduced to 6 hours. With full pay. The students were not involved in the performance of labor duties, but the absence of classes was considered as absenteeism. For the further development and improvement of the system of vocational education, raising its level, B.I. Lenin "The Tasks of Youth Unions", delivered by him on October 2, 1920 at the III Congress of the RKSM and the decisions of the Congress. V.I. Lenin substantiated the connection between education and upbringing and the practical activities of people. He taught that it is impossible to educate communists only by books, within the walls of a school cut off from life, that only in the struggle of all working people against the exploiters and in labor together with workers and peasants can one become a real communist. The congress adopted a resolution on the unification of all types of schools and colleges of vocational education in a single type of school - factory apprenticeship (FZU).

Among those who stood at the origins of the Soviet system of education was Alexander Alexandrovich Kostsov, a resident of our city (1895-1988). A.A. Kostsov was born on November 18, 1895 in the city of Gorky (formerly Nizhny Novgorod) in the family of a railway worker. father - an active participant in the revolution of 1905, a member of the working combat squad, died. In 1907 he entered the XI Moscow Gymnasium, from which he graduated in 1917. From the age of 15 he earned his living by teaching, and in 1915, being a 7th grade student, he taught at a school for refugee children in Moscow.

The October Revolution found Kostsov in the 197th Infantry Reserve Regiment. After demobilization, he worked as a rural teacher at the first stage school in the village of Lunevo, Murashkinsky district, Nizhny Novgorod province. In December 1019, he was mobilized into the ranks of the Red Army and, as a teacher, was sent to the political department of the Nizhgub military enlistment office, which appointed him a school teacher of the first guard regiment. It was forbidden to send marching companies with illiterate Red Army soldiers. They had to go through an educational program without fail. So stated Lenin's decree and orders for the Red Army. Later, Alexander Alexandrovich was appointed instructor of the Red Army schools of educational program.

In September, in 1920, Kostsov was delegated from the Nizhny Novgorod garrison to the 1st All-Russian Congress of Education and Socialist Culture, where V.I. Lenin, also N.K. education, and O.Yu. Schmidt.

In 1928, Alexander Aleksandrovich graduated from the Faculty of Mechanics of the University of Nizhny Novgorod, then postgraduate studies at the Department of Technology of Fibrous Substances, worked in various engineering and technical positions at knitwear enterprises. Member of the Great Patriotic War. After the war, he worked in the People's Commissariat of Light Industry of the Lithuanian SSR. Written and published in 1953, 1954, 1955. textbooks on twisting and cane production, which have been translated into Polish, Czech and Chinese. In January 1957, he was seconded by the Union Ministry to work in Belarus and was appointed director of the Grodno fine-grain plant. On retirement in 1970, he switched to pedagogical work: he worked in our school No. 74, and later - in PTSU - 120 textile workers. Since the autumn of 1976, at the age of 81, he has been retired. In 1981, his new textbook for vocational education “Twisting and thread production machines” was published. Alexander Alexandrovich Kostsov died in 1988.

The fate of the working people of the Grodno region turned out differently than their brothers in the East. On August 21, 1915, Grodno was captured by the troops of Kaiser Germany, who on April 27, 1919 handed over the city to the White Poles. The working people of the Grodno region, under the leadership of the Communist (Party) organization, waged a stubborn struggle for Soviet power. In December 1918 - January 1919, under the conditions of the Kaiser occupation regime, elections were held for the first Grodno Soviet of Workers' Deputies. On January 26, 1919, the grand opening of the Council of Workers' Deputies took place in the building of the city theater, which was surrounded by armed German soldiers.  However, the theater and the surrounding streets filled with workers. The largest faction in the Soviet was the communist faction.

After the transfer of the city of Grodno to Pilsudski's legionnaires, the communists were forced to go underground. The first Soviet of Workers' Deputies ceased to exist.

For 14 months, the White Poles ruled the Grodno region, persecuting the revolutionary workers, robbing the population. But the working people did not submit to the invaders. Under the leadership of the communists, they fought for the establishment of Soviet power in the region.

The liberation of the workers of the Grodno region was brought in July 1920 by the Red Army.

Everywhere on the liberated territory, the bodies of Soviet power - the military revolutionary committees - surrendered. The Grodno Uyezd Military Revolutionary Committee was established on July 20, 1820. On July 24, departments were created: military, land, public education, food, social security, economic, etc. The chairman of the Grodno Military Revolutionary Committee from July 20 to August 4, 1920 was Liger, and then Adam Semyonovich Slavinsky (Kacharovsky).

A new life began to seethe in the city, intensified work began to establish and strengthen Soviet power, to eliminate the consequences of the occupation. The Grodno and other county and volost revolutionary committees considered it their top priority to replenish the ranks of the Red Army with personnel and provide it with food. Much attention was also paid to social transformations, cultural construction, and the elimination of economic ruin.

Having taken into account all the factories and factories, the revolutionary committees began to establish production. Nationalization (of production) of industrial enterprises was carried out on a large scale, and control over private production was established. In August and September 1920, thanks to the measures taken and the labor heroism of the workers, a number of enterprises were put into operation.

It is impossible to read archival documents without great excitement, characterizing the measures in the field of cultural construction undertaken by the revolutionary committees of the Grodno region. They registered teachers, children of school age, repaired school buildings, and looked for new ones. Despite the fact that the war was in full swing, the department of public education of the Grodno military revolutionary committee convenes a teachers' conference in August. It raised the issue of organizing school, preschool and out-of-school education.

Decisive measures have been taken to combat child neglect. To this end, it was planned to create kindergartens and shelters. The school subdivision has developed a project to organize teacher training courses for labor schools. By September 1, it was planned to open the Lunacharsky People's House, a literacy school, and work courses.

A resident of the city of Grodno, a communist K. Orman, who was 21 years old, was appointed head of the department of public education. Under the department of public education, a cultural and educational sub-department was created, which was headed by Vladimir Kurbinsky. In the sub-department there was a collegium of arts, a drama section, a music section, a fine arts section, a decorative department, etc.

Among the employees of the department of public education, according to data as of August 20, 1920, there were: communists-3, socialists-2, left-wing socialist-revolutionaries-2, Bundists-1, the Belarusian party-1, the rest were non-party, a total of 31 people.

Thus, through the heroic efforts of the Red Army and the selfless struggle of the Belarusian workers and peasants, Soviet power was established in the Grodno region.

However, peaceful construction was soon interrupted. The Grodno region was occupied by the troops of the protege of the Entente-Pilsudsky.

As a result of the Riga Peace Treaty of March 18, 1921, bourgeois Poland, with the help of international imperialism, managed to wrest away their western lands from Soviet Ukraine and Soviet Belarus.

The territory of the Vilna, Novogrudok, Polessky voivodeships and the eastern povets of the Bialystok voivodeship with a predominantly Belarusian population, including several povets with a Lithuanian, Polish, Ukrainian population, received in those years among the working people the name of Western Belarus.

The Polish reactionary bourgeoisie and landowners established a harsh occupation regime in Western Belarus. In order to break the will of the Belarusian people to fight for liberation, the reactionary forces of Poland turned Western Belarus into their colony, into the so-called "eastern cresses" (outskirts). They suppressed any thought about the right of the Belarusian people to an independent existence.

In economic terms, Western Belarus, including the Grodno region, was considered as a raw material appendage and a market for the industrial products of the western regions of Poland, as a source of cheap raw materials, cheap labor. The bourgeoisie hindered the development of industry, held back the growth of the working class in western Belorussia, and carried out predatory exploitation of the economic wealth of our region.

Along with social oppression, the working people of Western Belarus were subjected to severe national oppression. Polish landlords and capitalists tried to deny the very existence of the Belarusian people and their right to develop a national language and culture.

A few Belarusian schools eked out a miserable existence.

None of the 400 Belarusian schools that existed in Western Belarus subsequently remained.

In the 1920s there were 4 Belarusian gymnasiums, but they were not given the right to issue a document on secondary education. And in the 30s, only one Polish-Belarusian school remained in Vilna, which was later also closed.

There were 5 gymnasiums in Grodno, with instruction in Polish. However, in all these gymnasiums, perhaps, the same number of students studied as now in one secondary school No. 1 in Grodno. in other settlements of the Grodno district there were almost no schools (secondary).

Access to the gymnasium for the children of workers and peasants was closed. In private gymnasiums, the monthly tuition fee reached 60 zlotys, and for 70 zlotys you could buy a cow. In state gymnasiums - PLN 220 per year, which was equal to the monthly salary of a teacher with higher education.

Not only in Grodno, but throughout Western Belarus there was not a single university.

A characteristic feature of the local school was the lack of continuity between the "secondary" school and the gymnasium. This made access to the gymnasium difficult.

A significant part of the youth, not wanting to study in a Polish school, remained illiterate.

The Grodno magistrate allocated very small funds for the cultural needs of the population. In the 1937-1938 academic year, only 140 zlotys 46 groszy were spent from the city budget for school libraries, while 8477 zlotys were allocated for the salary of the city president, i.e. 60 times more.

The reactionary school law of 1932, setting before the school the task of preparing citizens "who are aware of their obligations to the state, providing them with the highest religious, moral, mental, physical training." The desire for national development of the Belarusians was considered incompatible with the awareness of "their duties" to the state.

school program  provision as a whole gave very limited positive knowledge. The ruling classes of Poland saw the main value of school preparation in educating the younger generation in the spirit of devotion to the anti-people regime. One of the manifestations of national oppression was the religious intolerance of the Polish government towards the Orthodox majority of the Belarusian people. Of the 500 Orthodox churches that existed in Western Belarus, more than 300 were converted into Catholic churches. The Catholic Polish clergy became a powerful tool for the Polonization of the population, social and national oppression in Western Belarus.

The entire organization of public education ensured the leading role of religion in the upbringing of the younger generation. The management of institutions of religious worship and education in Poland was carried out  by one body - the Ministry of Religious Cults and Public Education. Religion was given a significant place in the curricula of all types of schools. All school teaching and upbringing was saturated with religion.

Schools and orphanages were set up at monasteries in order to instill a religious ideology in young people. In the city of Grodno, "sub-student" schools were organized at the Brigitsky and Bernardine monasteries, the steam (parish) church took care of the orphanage. These schools educated young people in the spirit of militant Catholicism and bourgeois nationalism.

The working people of Western Belorussia waged a stubborn struggle against the oppressors. The Belarusian people defended their culture, fought for a national school, against  policy of planting bourgeois-nationalist culture. At the head of the revolutionary struggle of the workers and peasants was the Communist Party of Western Belarus (KPZB), formed at the end of October 1923, which was an autonomous communist organization within the unified Communist Party of Poland. By the beginning of the 1930s, the number of members of the KPZB reached 4,000. In addition, more than 3,000 communists were constantly in prisons, in the Bereza Kartuzskal concentration camp.

A loyal assistant to the KPZB would be the Communist Youth Union of Western Belarus (KSMZB), formed under the leadership of the KPZB in January 1924. It united in its ranks the advanced worker and peasant youth of all nationalities of Western Belarus.

The most active participants in the underground struggle in the Grodno region were Slavyansky, Shaikovsky, Krishtofovia, Orekhvo, Khoruzhaya, Pritytsky, Tsygelnitskaya, Sereda, Pankova and others.

The KPZB and KSMZV stubbornly fought for the victory of the proletarian revolution in Poland, for the right of self-determination of Western Belarus up to secession and reunification with the BSSR, for the transfer of land to the peasants, for education in the Belarusian language, etc.

The struggle for a school in the Belarusian language covered the whole of Western Belarus (WB). Responded to the call of the Central Committee of the KPZB to fight for their native school

157 villages in 14 ZB counties. Actively involved in this struggle  Komsomol and der. Zhitlin of the Kossovsky district. Under the influence of Komsomol members, about 60 children did not attend school for a long time, demanding teaching in their native language. In the town of Golshany, students boycotted a Polish school for more than a month. Children of the villages of Kokoshchitsy, Melkanovichi, Sergeevichi, Slonim district  organized a mass demonstration for a school in the Belarusian language.

In 1935 At the beginning of the school year, students of the Mining School of the Grodno region held a student strike. They demanded: a free school in their native language, free clothes and shoes, protested against Polonization. In a number of schools in the Slonim and Novogrudok districts, students wrote slogans on their desks, sang revolutionary songs, and answered teachers' questions in Belarusian. Many stakes were established  communist children's groups, which were later organized into pioneer detachments. In conditions of deep underground in 1926. the pioneer organization of Belarus was born. Risking their lives and being in danger of imprisonment, the young pioneers carried out the instructions of the members of the party and the Komsomol.

KSMZB was one of the first in Poland, in response to the call of the Communist Youth International (KIM), to send volunteers to help the struggling Spain. The Grodno District Committee of the KSMZB published  message about the formation of the republican Spain of the Belarusian battalion. S.O. Pritytsky, in which to enroll in the Belarusian battalion of the Republican Army.

Many Komsomol members of the Grodno region responded to this call. Among them were F.K. Voronishche, Yu.I. Elevich, N.A. Serzhan and others. The commander of the tank battalion was a member of the KPZB G. Dau (Bogen), and the commissar was the secretary of the Central Committee of the KSMZB Nikolai Dvornikov, who died in the mountains of Extremadura.

Under the influence of the KPZB was the legendary cultural and educational organization - the partnership of the Belarusian school. Poddubchik, Lemashevich, Balitsky, Shirma, Karpyuk and others were the leaders of the Grodno district council of TBSh. TBSh fought for the opening of schools teaching in their native language, libraries, and staging Belarusian performances. In 1928, in the ranks of the TSHh, school committees were created everywhere, leading the struggle of the working people for the Belarusian school, drama and choir groups were organized, which prepared and performed works of democratic and revolutionary content in the villages. After the parties and performances organized by the TBS circles, the communists often organized anti-government rallies and demonstrations. Despite the blows that continuously rained down on the TBSH, it continued to act. The defeated circles resumed their work semi-legally.

In the struggle for the preservation of the Belarusian national culture, progressive people from the environment of the Belarusian intelligentsia distinguished themselves. Prominent fighters for Belarusian culture in the Grodno region are: Maxim Tank, Philip Pestrak, Mikhas Vasilek, Valentin Tavlai and others.

The revolutionary activity and creativity of the famous Belarusian poet Valentin Tavlay is connected with the city of Grodno. Thrown into prison by the Polish invaders, he continued to fight. In the thirties, the poet was in Grodno prison, where he wrote a number of poems. He dedicated his poem "Stone for Stone" to Soviet Komsomol members. In it, the poet conveys the idea of the unity of the creative struggle of the Soviet people and the revolutionary struggle in the ZB.

In the Grodno prison, Tavlai wrote the following works: “The astarozhny zen has passed”, “Agyushnaye words”, etc. in these works the poet calls for further struggle, he is full of faith in the victory of a just cause.

The activities of the fighter for the liberation of the Belarusian people Maxim Tank took place in the Grodno region. He did a lot of revolutionary work among the Komsomol members of the Novogrudod and Korelich povets. Prison, torture and bullying were not able to break the staunch revolutionary.

He is full of love for life, does not lose heart, looks optimistically into the future. Lyrically, the hero of Maxim Tank's poetry is, first of all, a revolutionary, a courageous fighter for the people's happiness. The poet speaks about this hero in the poem “Two Days”, “Usyo is less than maіh tavaryshaў”.

Among the fighters for the happiness of the Belarusian people, the name of the writer Pestrak, who was thrown into prison by executioners, stands out. At one time, Philip Pestrak was in Grodno prison. In his novel “Meet me at the barricades”, the writer truthfully portrayed the hard lot of Western Belarusian workers, their struggle for liberation. He clearly showed the solidarity of the working people of different nationalities in their struggle against the bourgeois-landowner oppression.

The merit of the KPZB was that the revolutionary literature in the ZB was progressive and served the interests of the people.

The unceasing struggle for Soviet power for two decades, for the reunification of Western Belarus in a single Soviet state, was crowned with success. This happened on the memorable September days of 1939. After the attack of Nazi Germany on Poland, the Polish bourgeois-landlord government left its people to the mercy of fate.  Poland was destroyed. The peoples of Western Ukraine and the West Bank were under the threat of Hitler's enslavement. In the situation that had arisen, the Soviet government extended a hand of fraternal assistance to them. September 17, 1939 The Soviet government ordered its troops to cross the border and take under the protection of "the life and property of the population of ZU and ZB."

As soon as the working people of the Grodno region heard on the radio about the decision of the Soviet government, military revolutionary committees immediately began to be created in different settlements of the Grodno region.

Even before the arrival of the Soviet troops, they established the power of the people, created partisan detachments, disarmed and arrested police officers and siegemen.