Outside the bright yellow walls of St.
George’s Cathedral on St.
George’s Hill, a surging crowd blocked the entire entrance to the cathedral.
Banners and flags fluttered above the hill, filling the air with restless energy.
Around the edge of the crowd stood a large number of People’s Militia members maintaining order.
Dressed in civilian clothes and armed with various old-fashioned rifles, they patrolled the area.
Don’t misunderstand—these People’s Militia were genuine civilian militias, not paramilitary units organized by the Civil Police Bureau of the Peoples Commissariat for Internal Affairs.
They were unofficial organizations spontaneously formed by the various ethnic communities of Lviv, including Ukrainians, Belarusians, Russians, and Jews.
Their declared purpose was “to resist the oppression of Polish landlords and capitalists and to prevent sabotage by anti-Soviet elements from Poland.”
From the organization’s stated purpose, it was easy to see why Moscow permitted its existence.
Fundamentally, it served as a tool for exploiting ethnic tensions to counter the demographic advantage of the Poles in the Lviv region and to strengthen Soviet control over the area.
At present, Soviet control over West Ukraine—especially the territories east of the Curzon Line that had only recently been recovered—remained relatively weak.
The leaders in Moscow understood very well that military occupation alone did not equal genuine control.
There was still much work to be done before the region could truly be integrated.
They used ethnic divisions to elevate minorities such as Ukrainians and Jews against the numerically dominant Polish population; they exploited religious divisions by promoting the Eastern Orthodox Church over the predominantly Catholic population; and they encouraged class conflict by setting workers and peasants against kulaks and capitalists.
All of these measures were intended to strengthen Soviet rule.
Driven by these policies, People’s Militia organizations and workers’ unions throughout the Lviv region had become extremely active.
They enthusiastically reported, exposed, and denounced kulaks, capitalists, and anti-Soviet elements, cooperating with the Peoples Commissariat for Internal Affairs in arresting spies and saboteurs and confiscating the property of so-called class enemies.
In some respects, they displayed even greater enthusiasm than the security organs themselves, as many were motivated by a desire to settle old grievances.
Viktor’s jeep slowly pushed through the dense crowd and entered through the cathedral’s main gate.
After driving a short distance up the slope, he switched off the engine and parked by the roadside.
Looking out through the window, his eyes settled on the iron gate farther up the road.
There, more than twenty monks in black robes were leaving the cathedral with their luggage.
They were Catholic clergy who had likely lived there since they were very young.
But now they were being forced to leave St.
George’s Cathedral.
They had only two choices: abandon the clergy and become ordinary civilians, or leave Lviv altogether and move into the former Polish territories now occupied by Germany.
Under the Soviet Union’s religious policy, the Leninist principle of the separation of church and state had always been officially upheld.
Members of the Bolshevik Party were atheists, and the state was not supposed to provide administrative support for the development of any religion.
However, in West Ukraine, this policy had been temporarily modified.
The Peoples Commissariat for Internal Affairs had been ordered to confiscate the property of the Eastern Rite Catholic Church, especially its churches and monasteries, and transfer them to the Moscow and All Russia Eastern Orthodox Church.
Through this administrative measure, the authorities sought to promote the growth of Eastern Orthodoxy while suppressing the influence of Catholicism throughout West Ukraine. Get faster updates on novelping dot com.
According to the plan, the Moscow and All Russia Eastern Orthodox Church would take over seventy-three churches and monasteries that had previously belonged to the Catholic Church in the Lviv region, and St.
George’s Cathedral was just one of them.
Since the relevant orders and notices had been issued, several violent clashes between Catholic and Eastern Orthodox believers had already broken out across the oblast, centered around the city of Lviv.
It is important to remember that the conflict between Eastern Orthodoxy and Catholicism had lasted for nearly a thousand years, dating back to the Great Schism of 1054.
Under the previous Polish government, Catholicism had long dominated Eastern Orthodoxy in the Lviv region.
Now the situation had completely reversed, and it was easy to imagine how intense the tensions had become.
From Viktor’s personal point of view, using religion to strengthen influence in newly occupied territories was understandable.
Religion made it easier to integrate the population of the newly acquired regions into the broader cultural community of the Soviet Union.
This was a matter of state policy, and such policies were never designed with the feelings of individuals in mind.
Religion was not the only area undergoing change.
Lviv’s education system had also recently come under sweeping reform.
Following Moscow’s directives, every university, college, and school in the Lviv region had begun removing courses related to the Polish language and Polish history while expanding instruction in Ukrainian and Russian.
As a result, many teachers who had previously taught Polish language or Polish history lost their jobs, while some were arrested and sent directly to prison.
For ordinary people unfortunate enough to stand in the path of the state’s policies, the consequences were often tragic.
Entire families lost their primary source of income overnight, falling from the middle class into the ranks of the proletariat.
Yet even that was not the worst outcome.
More tragic still was that many families would be permanently torn apart by the political upheaval.
As head of the Peoples Commissariat for Internal Affairs in the Lviv region, Viktor’s responsibility was no longer simply to maintain public order.
He was overseeing the complete transformation of society itself.
Under the pressure of these reforms, the atmosphere throughout Lviv had become increasingly distorted.
Some people resisted openly, others endured in silence, while still others eagerly took advantage of the chaos.
In just the past two weeks, the Peoples Commissariat for Internal Affairs had received more than one hundred thousand denunciations, accusations, and reports of every imaginable kind.
The alleged crimes ranged from criticizing the Soviet state, to expressing sympathy for a Polish kulak, to simply having once traveled to Warsaw.
Yes—even having visited Warsaw had become, in some people’s eyes, sufficient grounds for investigation.
Most of these accusations were completely worthless.
Many stemmed from neighborhood disputes, personal grudges, or simple jealousy.
The problem, however, was that once such a report reached the Peoples Commissariat for Internal Affairs, someone had to process it.
After initial screening, the majority were forwarded to the Civil Police Bureau, but a considerable number still required investigation by the State Security Directorate.
As a result, the already overburdened workforce became stretched even thinner, giving Viktor an ever-growing headache.
Backed by armed soldiers, the transfer of St.
George’s Cathedral proceeded smoothly.
Although the priests of the Eastern Rite Catholic Church protested and even submitted formal complaints to Moscow, it made no difference.
From that day onward, the cathedral officially belonged to the Eastern Orthodox Church once again.
Although he did not appear during the handover ceremony, he had remained there the entire time.
Given his position, it was inappropriate for him to step forward and show himself.
Sitting in the back seat of the jeep, Viktor gazed at the streets of Lviv through the window.
Whether he wanted to admit it or not, the city looked far more desolate than it had when he first arrived.
Back then, the streets had been bustling with life, lined with shops selling goods from all over the world.
Now, many of those shops had closed, leaving only a handful of stores selling daily necessities.
Of course, most of those belonged to the Committee for Consumer Goods and Public Services—in other words, they were state-owned.
The remaining businesses were mostly privately owned by Jewish merchants.
Compared to the easily frightened Poles, the Jewish community was far bolder and continued conducting business much as they had before.
While the number of shops had greatly decreased, propaganda posters and political slogans had become far more numerous.
Most praised the happy life of the great Soviet family, while others displayed portraits of Party leaders.
Looking at those portraits, Viktor could not help recalling another case.
According to a report from the Workers’ and Peasants’ Militia General Administration, a despicable anti-Soviet group had recently become active in the city.
Their preferred method of sabotage was simple—they went out every night and tore down portraits of Lenin and Comrade Stalin throughout Lviv.
If possible, Viktor would rather have dismissed it as little more than childish mischief.
Behind the so-called conspiracy, there were probably only a few Polish children or, at most, some unemployed young men.
Their motivation was likely nothing more than repeating anti-Soviet opinions they had heard from their parents.
But as the head of the Peoples Commissariat for Internal Affairs in Lviv, he had no choice but to treat the matter seriously.
Officially, this was an anti-Soviet organization engaged in acts of sabotage.
The case carried clear political significance, and how he handled it would reflect both his political stance and his political sensitivity.
Ten minutes later, the jeep stopped in front of the headquarters building of the Peoples Commissariat for Internal Affairs.
Viktor stepped out of the vehicle, straightened his uniform, and climbed the stone steps toward the main entrance.
Along the way, everyone he passed—whether sentries standing guard or staff members moving through the building—stopped to salute him.
This young Lieutenant, not yet thirty years old, was the highest-ranking official of the region’s most powerful security organization.
He made his way back to his office.
Just as he removed his military cap and hung it on the coat rack beside the door, there was a knock.
“Come in,” he said, unfastening the top two buttons of his tunic and letting out a quiet sigh of relief.
The door opened, and Sofia walked in wearing her military uniform, a folder tucked under one arm.
“Viktor, I have some bad news,” she said from the doorway, raising the folder in her hand.
“Go ahead,” Viktor replied without turning around.
“It’s not as if we’ve had any good news lately anyway.”