This article examines the Bolshevik Party’s efforts to radicalize tens of thousands of Polish prisoners of war (POWs) held in makeshift prison camps across Soviet Russia in the aftermath of the Soviet-Polish War of 1919­−20. The end goal was to create a new cadre of Polish revolutionaries to agitate for revolutionary change on repatriation. These propaganda efforts were almost entirely undermined by a series of everyday problems from rudimentary camp living conditions and violence against prisoners to disease and ineffective leadership by Soviet institutions. This article will show, however, that as part of these efforts, the Bolsheviks committed to safeguarding POW welfare, mirroring international standards set by the Hague conventions, even if this was primarily designed to better cultivate revolutionaries and was rarely met in practice. In a comparative sense, therefore, the everyday lives of Polish POWs and their management by Soviet authorities did not markedly differ from the POW experience across Europe, where other governments likewise made claims about safeguarding welfare and often failed to deliver. Contrary to existing interpretations of early Soviet POW camps, which present these as unique stepping-stones to the future Stalinist GULAG, this article shows stronger continuities with past practices.

本文审视了布尔什维克党在 1919−20 年苏波战争后将关押在苏俄各地临时战俘营中的数万名波兰战俘 (POW) 激进化的努力。最终目标是建立一支新的波兰革命者骨干队伍，以鼓动对遣返的革命性变革。这些宣传工作几乎完全被一系列日常问题所破坏，从简陋的营地生活条件和对囚犯的暴力行为到疾病和苏联机构的低效领导。然而，本文将表明，作为这些努力的一部分，布尔什维克致力于保障战俘福利，反映海牙公约制定的国际标准，即使这主要是为了更好地培养革命者而在实践中很少得到满足。因此，在比较意义上，波兰战俘的日常生活和苏联当局对他们的管理与整个欧洲的战俘经历没有明显不同，欧洲其他国家的政府同样提出保障福利的要求，但往往未能兑现。与早期苏联战俘营的现有解释相反，这些解释将这些解释为未来斯大林主义古拉格集中营的独特垫脚石，本文显示了与过去做法的更强连续性。