 Further Polonization ensued as the government encouraged settlement of Polish army veterans in the disputed regions.During the World War II expulsions and shortly after the war, the Soviet Union, during its struggle to establish the People's Republic of Poland, forcibly resettled many Poles, who lived in the Lithuanian SSR and were seen as enemies of the state and were sent into Siberia.After the war, in 1945–1948, the Soviet Union allowed 197,000 Poles to leave to Poland; in 1956-1959, another 46,600 were able to leave.