THE STRUGGLE OF THE SOVIET POWER WITH THE VOLYN INSURGENT ARMY

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The purpose of the article is to analyze the formation of underground cells of the anti-Bolshevik insurgent movement in Volyn after the Second Winter Campaign of the UNR army. Coverage of the measures of the Soviet authorities, aimed at the detection, intelligence development and destruction of an underground organization of an insurgent character called the Volyn Insurgent Army, which operated on the territory of the Volyn Province during 1922.
 Methodology. When writing the article, the basic principles of historical knowledge were used: historicism, scientificity, objectivity. Specific search tasks of the research were solved by problem-chronological means (optimal involvement of the thematic literature and source base); historical-comparative (analysis of various sources and formation of relevant research provisions and conclusions); critical analysis (critical attitude to various sources) methods.
 The scientific novelty consists in a comprehensive study of the stages of detection and liquidation by Soviet law enforcement agencies of the Volyn rebel army on the basis of unpublished sources and the available historiographical base. New source material, in particular archival documents, important for solving the problem, was introduced into scientific circulation and analyzed.
 Conclusions. The unsuccessful completion of the Second Winter Campaign of the UNR army accelerated the decline of the anti-Bolshevik insurgent movement, which continued under the repressive policy of the Soviet government. Even in such difficult conditions for the local insurgents, several underground cells began to operate on the territory of Volyn, which later merged into a whole insurgent organization called the Volyn Insurgent Army. The insurgents' activation and lack of conspiracy experience on their part allowed the Soviet authorities to discover that not just ordinary partisan units, but a whole underground organization with its own structure and tasks, began to operate in Volyn. In order to eliminate all the cells and structures of the VPA as effectively as possible, the Bolsheviks decided to infiltrate the rebels with their agents under the guise of members of the anti-Soviet underground. They successfully managed to do this and the work to identify all the participants of the underground continued. The success of the insurgents in expanding their network and their preparation for the uprising forced representatives of the Soviet authorities to quickly draw up a plan to eliminate the VPA. The very liquidation of the organization was quite successful for the Bolsheviks, because most of the members of the VPA were arrested or destroyed, although the underground command staff managed to retreat abroad.