approximately four-fifths of the Ukrainian cultural elite, intellectuals, writers, artists and clergy, had been "eliminated", executed or imprisoned, in the following decade. Mass arrests of the hierarchy and clergy of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church culminated in the liquidation of the church in 1930. Galicia and Volhynia under Polish rule Following the end of World War I, the eastern part of the former Austrian province of Galicia, as well as Volhynia, which had belonged to the Russian Empire, became the area of a Polish-Ukrainian War. The Ukrainians claimed these lands because they made up the majority of the population there (except for cities, such as Lviv), while the Poles saw these provinces as Eastern Borderlands, a historical part of their country. The war was won by the Poles, and their rule over these disputed lands was cemented after another Polish victory, in the Polish-Soviet War. While some Ukrainians supported Poland, their hopes for independence or autonomy were quickly dashed. In the interbellum period, eastern Galicia was divided into three administrative units — Lwów Voivodeship, Stanisławów Voivodeship, and Tarnopol Voivodeship, while in Volhynia, Wołyń Voivodeship was created. The Ukrainian majority of these lands was often treated as second-class citizens by the Polish authorities. The conflict escalated in the 1930s, with terrorist actions of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists resulting in increasingly heavy-handed actions by the Polish government. The tensions were further exacerbated by the arrival of thousands of osadniks, or Polish settlers, who were granted land, especially in Volhynia. Henryk Józewski advocated a self-governance autonomy for Ukrainians in Volhynia 1928–1938. Polish rule over the provinces ended in September 1939, following Nazi and Soviet attack. After the Battle of Lviv, units of the Red Army entered regional capital, Lviv, and following the staged Elections to the People's Assemblies of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus, both eastern Galicia and Volhynia were annexed by the Soviet Union. A few days after the Germans invaded Poland, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin told an aide his long-term goal was the spread of Communism in Eastern Europe: Now [Poland] is a fascist state, oppressing the Ukrainians, Belorussians and so forth. The annihilation of that state under current conditions would mean one fewer bourgeois fascist state to contend with! What would be the harm if as a result of the rout off Poland we were to extend the socialist system onto new territories and populations. Historian Geoffrey Roberts notes