# The Polish budget in the Sejm - URL: https://syn.by/en/history/archives/polish-budget-in-sejm/ - Published: 1924-06-28T19:50:00+00:00 - Updated: 2026-11-12T01:47:33+00:00 - Section: Archives - Language: en - BE edition: https://syn.by/historya/arkhivy/polski-biudzhet-sojmie.md - RU edition: https://syn.by/ru/istoriya/arhivy/polskiy-byudzhet-seyme-2.md > The end of the budget debate: Ukrainian deputies demand a plebiscite and self-determination, and Poland, in their words, keeps its army at the expense of its own minorities. The speakers declare that they will vote against the Grabski government. ![](https://syn.by/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/illustration-6651-1024x585.webp) (continuation and end of the general debate on the budget). 8. The demand for a plebiscite. One of the most interesting speeches, beyond doubt, was delivered by the Ukrainian deputy Pavel Vasynchuk. The Polish newspapers printed this speech in a very abridged form, so we give it according to the Ukrainian newspapers. "The main cause of unrest in Europe is the state borders artificially cut out after the war. This concerns Poland first of all, which has seized vast stretches of non-Polish lands. And so the need for a revision of the war treaties and borders keeps growing. Not only Trotsky or Rakovsky speak of this, but English ministers too. The new leaders of France once said plainly that Poland should have been given quite strong… ethnographic borders! It is clear to everyone that the present Polish borders are the cause not only of the oppression of minorities, but of a perpetual threat of war in the east of Europe. In Poland such a posing of the question simply provokes panic. Although Poland made use of the principle of the self-determination of peoples for its own resurrection, yet as soon as it had seized, having come into strength, vast expanses of Ukrainian and Belarusian lands, it at once cast this principle of self-determination aside in relation to our peoples. But by this Poland deprived itself of any moral strength. It has lost all influence abroad. You, gentlemen, blame our "anti-Polish agitation" abroad for this. But that is hardly fair. You would perhaps like to choke us by the throat, but without our shouting and calling for help. You yourselves give testimony about yourselves to foreign countries. The system of police terror that reigns on our lands drives the population to indignation and outburst, and at the same time calls forth the just protests of eminent figures in Europe. In the end the gentlemen have even received three notes from the Soviets in defence of the Ukrainian and Belarusian population and of the Orthodox faith in Poland. Though Mr. Chicherin did sign the Treaty of Riga, there, in the common root of our brotherly peoples, a living heart beats, which feels the pain of the brother tortured here… Poland keeps an army beyond its financial strength. Poland pursues a policy of rooting out the minorities. Poland in the 20th century rebaptizes Orthodox churches into Catholic churches with blood. The hands of Prime Minister Grabski are splashed with the blood of Ukrainians, citizens of Poland. This is what the Polish Republic gives us. Now, under the pressure of Europe, this question of the minorities or of the "Kresy" has been proclaimed "the most burning". Well, I dare assure the gentlemen that all Ukrainian parties, from the Communists to the Fascists, stand unwaveringly on the ground of the self-determination of peoples and demand that this principle be applied fully to the Ukrainian people and to other lands; in this respect all Ukrainians are nationalists. Just now a new wave of Polish terror has begun on all Ukrainian territories. In revenge for its own impotence the Polish government crushes every manifestation of popular discontent by means simply unheard of in civilized countries. Together with the political and national oppression, a planned economic destruction of our territories is under way; unbearable taxes create the threat of unrest and revolts. In such a state of affairs it is naive to hope for improvement from some "reorganization of the administration", or to expect to catch one of the Ukrainian parties with this or that sweet promise!.. No, my dear gentlemen, not a single party of ours will come to an agreement with you. We feel ourselves too strong to go in for any deals in that direction. We no longer need your lordly favour; we feel ourselves masters on our own land. We know from our own historical experience that temporary failures and defeats do not kill a people's struggle. On the contrary, they only temper and forge the national character. The present terrible regime on our lands is nothing other than a state of war between Poland and us, a quiet war, but no less terrible and fierce. It cannot be said that this war is bloodless, but all the more horror is in it. So then, any compromises and half-measures in settling the minority question will no longer reach the goal. Now the question can be settled only by a plebiscite, or a vote of the whole people. The people itself must answer the question of how it wants to arrange and shape its fate. We demand full, unrestricted self-determination of the people. This is our primordial right, from which we will not retreat. Peace in the east of Europe can be preserved only when Poland recognizes this principle in its entirety. The Poles like to speak with fervour of some "cultural and historical role of Poland in the east of Europe", of some "civilizing messianism of Poland", of the "task of liberating neighbouring peoples", under the slogan "free with the free, equal with the equal". In a word, all the well-known old litanies… And here are the concrete results of this romantic "messianism" as soon as real Poland got hold of power. In 4 years of rule on our lands, in the Kholm region alone, of the 287 churches that had existed there from time immemorial, 237 were taken by force. The blood of the people is being shed in their defence to this day. One of the churches was blown up with dynamite. This is the "cultural mission"… And here is the "civilizing role". In the whole of the Kholm region, Podlachia and Polesia, for a million Ukrainians there is not a single Ukrainian school. Even those that existed during the German occupation have been closed. On this whole territory there is not a single secondary school. The Ukrainian University and Polytechnic exist in secret, driven by the Polish authorities into catacombs. Poland has seized all church land (but only Orthodox) and settled colonists on it. Belonging to Orthodoxy is a brand that closes the way to posts not only in the state service but in private Polish employment too. The very name "Ukrainian" exposes us to mockery and persecution. That, gentlemen, is how this mission of carrying Western culture to the East looks, that is what this glorious Polish "messianism" really is. For all this we shall vote against the budget and express no confidence in the government of Mr. Grabski. 9. To the U.S.S.R. An even more vivid speech was delivered by the Ukrainian Social Democratic deputy Voitsiuk. We give it according to the newspaper "Kurjer Polski": In Poland crisis, hunger, unemployment, despair and lamentation reign… It is not the Sejm but the stock exchange that is the true heart of the capitalist state. The sanitation of the treasury, even if it succeeds, will bring no salvation. In general, present-day capitalist Poland has no peaceful way out… Just as at the beginning Poland sought a way out of crisis through war (the adventures of Piłsudski), so now the crisis raises the adventurous spirit of Polish billionaires. Military colonization has become a real provocation. The Polish left supports this colonization, made after the worst Kaiser-and-Tsar examples, even more warmly than the right. Poland has become a real prison for minorities… But this only gives more strength to the strivings of our people for freedom and independence… And so the Ukrainian people rejects all liberal promises of autonomy and declares that it demands, in a united Ukraine, a plebiscite in order to join the Union of Soviet Republics… 10. Interesting trifles. The leader of the Ukrainian "peasant farmers" (something like our "Aliaksiukoўtsy") remarked in passing that not a single mark had been put into the budget for the University "already finally promised" to the Ukrainians… The famous priest Okań, a cheap and dishonest demagogue, threatened the Grabski government, shouting that "the Polish peasant still has flails in his hands"… The Communist Łańcucki said that the Grabski government is the very same "Hyena-Piast", only it beats even harder; that bourgeois Poland can exist only as a colony of foreign capital, but that all this European capitalism without the Russian markets will croak like a broken-winded mare.. The Jew Pryłucki wittily said that of Mr. Grabski's sanitation one can repeat the well-known anecdote about a famous surgeon-professor: the operation was brilliantly successful, but the patient died… With this the general debate was ended, and reports and debates on the budgets of the individual ministries began.