In the Soviet Union, before the war, social classes were subjected to deportation, the "class alien population" was evicted, and during the war, the enemy peoples, accused by Stalin of total betrayal, were already deported.
In total, 12 peoples were deported, who lost their native land, and many of their national-territorial autonomies. Within a few days, hundreds of thousands of people under the escort of the NKVD troops were sent in echelons to remote regions of the country, as a rule, to Siberia or Central Asia.
Stalin was no exception. In 1940, with the outbreak of World War II, Great Britain interned 74 thousand Germans, and 120 thousand Japanese were taken to the United States to internment camps.
General Serov, who was then the deputy head of the NKVD and who frankly described these processes in his diary (recently discovered), was also involved in most of the Soviet deportations. Interesting is the look of a person who directly organized the resettlement of peoples at the command of state bodies.
The deportation of the "class alien population" in 1939-1941 was carried out after the annexation of Western Ukraine, Western Belarus, Bessarabia and the Baltic countries.
This was not an initiative of local leaders, everything was formalized by resolutions of the Politburo and Decrees of the Presidium of the Supreme Council, the executors were the organs of the NKVD. Deportation operations were seriously prepared, covertly drawn up lists of the evicted with an indication of their location, trains were prepared and unexpectedly for one or several days they were detained, loaded into wagons and sent to places of exile.
Deportation from Western Ukraine, Western Belarus and Bessarabia
Soviet troops entered Western Ukraine and Western Belarus only on September 17, when the Polish government had already emigrated. The Polish army did not offer resistance, but there were skirmishes in the cities, since not everyone agreed with the introduction of the Red Army and were angry, moreover, in that turmoil, the soldiers of the Red Army often began skirmishes. During this campaign, losses from the Soviet side were 1,475 people, from the Polish - 3,500 dead.
By order of the NKVD, it was ordered to organize on the ground operational groups and take measures to detain officers, heads of local authorities, police chiefs, border guards, voivods, members of the White Guard, emigre and monarchist parties, as well as persons exposed in the organization of political excesses.
In total, as a result of the operation, 240-250 thousand Polish soldiers, border guards, police officers, gendarmes, and prison guards were arrested. Most of the soldiers and non-commissioned officers were soon released, some 21,857 officers were sent to Katyn, the rest to camps on the territory of the USSR.
Repressions also affected their relatives, Beria signed an order on March 7, 1940 to evict all family members previously arrested for a period of 10 years to the regions of the Kazakh SSR. The operation was carried out simultaneously in all cities, the evicted were allowed to take up to 100 kg of things per person, the deportees were escorted to the railway station for loading into wagons. In total, in Western Ukraine and Belarus there were about 25 thousand families, almost 100 thousand people. All their real estate, property and assets were confiscated as state revenue. During the pre-war period, the forces of the NKVD carried out four massive waves of deportation of "socially alien" Poles. For example, in February 1940, in two days, an operation was carried out to evict 95 314 "siege" - Polish military participants in the Soviet-Polish war of 1920, who received land plots there.
Also, in order to fight the intensified Bandera underground in May 1940, they were arrested and sent into exile for a settlement in remote regions of the USSR for a period of 20 years with the confiscation of the property of 11,093 members of the Bandera families.
With the annexation in June 1940 of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, captured by Romania in 1918, by agreement between the USSR and Germany, the German population from the south of Bessarabia (about 100 thousand people) and from Northern Bukovina (about 14 thousand) was resettled to Germany, and to the liberated territories were brought in by the population from Ukraine. Before the war on June 13, 1941, in one night at the same time, an operation was carried out in many places to deport about 29,839 "socially alien" Moldovans.
Deportation in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia
After the incorporation of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia into the Soviet Union in the summer of 1940, the armies of these states were transformed into rifle corps as part of the Red Army. However, under the leadership of their officers, they resisted taking the oath, in this regard, it was decided to disarm and deport all Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian officers.
Disarming the officers turned out to be not such an easy task; special operations had to be developed. Estonian officers were invited to the meeting, announced the decision of the Estonian government to disband the Estonian army and offered to surrender their weapons. At the exit, their pistols were confiscated and sent by cars to the station to be sent deep into the territory of the USSR. Lithuanian officers were taken to the forest, as it were, for exercises, and there they were disarmed and deported, and the Latvians were gathered, explained about the need for disarmament, and they obeyed.
Before the war, in 1941, it was decided to arrest former police officers, landowners, manufacturers, Russian emigrants and send them to camps for a period of 58 years with confiscation of property; their family members exiled to a settlement in remote areas of the Soviet Union for a period of 20 years. As a result of this deportation, 9,156 people were deported from Estonia, about 17,500 from Lithuania and 15,424 from Latvia.
Deportation of the Volga Germans
The reason for the deportation of the Volga Germans, where they had historically settled since the time of Catherine II, was the possibility of a strike of the Volga Germans in the rear of the Red Army, and the reason for Stalin was an encrypted message from the command of the Southern Front on August 3, 1941, which reported: “Military operations on The Dniester was shown that the German population was firing from windows and vegetable gardens at our retreating troops…. The incoming Nazi troops in a German village on August 1, 1941 met with bread and salt."
In August, the GKO decree and the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Council were adopted on the mass eviction of the Volga Germans to Siberia and Kazakhstan, at the same time the autonomous Volga Germans were abolished. The decree on the eviction stated without evidence that among the German population living in the Volga region, there were saboteurs and spies who, upon a signal from Germany, should carry out explosions and other acts of sabotage.
As a result of a well-prepared operation in the period from September 3 to September 20, 438, 7 thousand Volga Germans were taken out to Siberia and Kazakhstan, the bulk of them were deported within one day. The eviction of the Germans took place without excesses, they meekly fulfilled the order, left their homes and went into exile.
When Serov drove through the villages abandoned by the Germans, he was amazed by the order and their grooming: there were good houses, herds of well-fed and well-fed cows, sheep, horses walked, hay was prepared in barns and heaps, and wheat was harvested in the fields. It all looked somehow unnatural, people had to leave it all and leave their homes.
In parallel with the deportation of the Volga Germans, deportations of the German population from other regions began: from Moscow, Rostov, Crimea, the Caucasus, Zaporozhye, Voronezh, for example, about 60 thousand Crimean Germans were deported from Crimea under the guise of evacuation into the interior of the country. By October 1941, 856,158 Germans had been deported.
Deportation of Karachais, Balkars and Kalmyks
The reason for the deportation of the Karachais was their complicity with the Germans during the occupation, the creation of the Karachay National Committee and the presence of bandit formations supported by the population after the liberation from the Germans. Since February 1943, the activities of the Karachai anti-Soviet underground intensified in this liberated territory, and Serov led the KGB operations to eliminate them. In the first half of 1943 alone, 65 gangs were eliminated here.
In accordance with the decree of the State Defense Committee and the Decree of the PVS, the Karachai autonomy was liquidated. The eviction of the Karachais was carried out on November 2, 1943, and it was Serov who was instructed to carry out the deportation. The operation was carried out in one day, as a result 68,938 Karachais were deported.
In February 1944, preparations began for the deportation of the Balkars, which was officially substantiated by the facts of their participation in collaborationist formations, aiding the Germans in the seizure of the Caucasus passes, the creation of an anti-Soviet underground and the presence of a large number of bandit formations on the territory of the Kabardino-Balkarian autonomy. As of May 1943, 44 anti-Soviet gangs were active in the republic, actively cooperating with the Germans and receiving weapons and food from them. In accordance with the decree of the State Defense Committee and the Decree of the PVS, a special operation was carried out on the territory of the republic on March 8-9, as a result of which 37,713 Balkars were deported.
The reason for the deportation of the Kalmyks was also the too active mass cooperation of the population with the Germans during the occupation, active opposition to bandit formations to Soviet troops after the liberation of Kalmykia in 1943, as well as the desertion of the Kalmyk cavalry division and the transition to the Germans in 1941.
In 1943, Stalin was reported from the front that Kalmyk squadrons from the division that had gone over to the Germans were strongly hampering successful operations in the Rostov direction, and asked to liquidate these bandit formations. Indeed, the former hero of the Civil War, cavalryman Gorodovikov, a Kalmyk by nationality, in a patriotic impulse in 1941 proposed to Stalin to form a Kalmyk cavalry division, and when he returned to Moscow, it soon became known that the division, almost in full force, went over to the side of the Germans.
On the territory of Kalmykia, after the retreat of the Germans, up to 50 armed bands from among the former legionnaires of the Kalmyk cavalry corps formed by the Germans actively operated and were supported by the population. During 1943, they carried out armed raids and plundered military transports going to the front, killed soldiers and officers, raided collective farms and Soviet institutions, and terrorized the population. During the operations of the NKVD troops under the leadership of Serov, the armed resistance was suppressed, the gangs were destroyed. In December 1944, the Kalmyk autonomy was abolished by the decree of the State Defense Committee and the Decree of the PVS. On December 28-29, 1944, Serov carried out Operation Ulus to deport Kalmyks, as a result of which 93,919 people were deported to Siberia.
Deportation of Chechens and Ingush
The deportation of the Chechens and Ingush had to be organized most seriously, since the armed anti-Soviet resistance was well organized in the Chechen-Ingush autonomy. The GKO decree in January 1944 and the PVS Decree of March 7, 1944 abolished the Chechen-Ingush autonomy, and the entire population of the republic "for complicity with the fascist invaders" was subject to deportation to Central Asia.
Operation "Lentil" was personally led by Beria, it took place from February 23 to March 9, the general leadership was entrusted to Serov. Back in the fall of 1942, he took part in the defense of Vladikavkaz and had the opportunity to make sure of the existence of an extremist underground in Chechen-Ingushetia, mainly deserters and criminal elements. When the Germans, it seemed, were about to take the Caucasus, the Chechen rebels took up arms, anti-Soviet uprisings arose in almost all mountainous regions, coordinated by a certain Provisional People's Revolutionary Government of Chechnya.
As the front line approached, the situation became noticeably tense, gangs in contact with German agents began to operate actively in the mountains. From the middle of 1942, German agents began to drop in parachutes to communicate with the rebels, until August 1943, the NKVD recorded the deployment of at least 8 sabotage teams. Several officers, led by a colonel, were deployed to the mountains, whose task was to organize a sabotage detachment of 200-300 people from Chechens and Ingush and, at the right time, strike in the rear and occupy Grozny.
The situation in Grozny was alarming, the command did not trust the Chechens, they brazenly walked around the city and threatened to kill the Russians when the Germans arrived. There were cases of attacks and killings of soldiers. At the same time, the overwhelming majority of the Chechens and Ingush called up to the front fought heroically, among them were the heroes of the Soviet Union. The activities of the underground did not stop, in 1944 the bandit formations continued to operate and were supported by the population.
Operation "Lentil" was thoroughly prepared, under the guise of exercises "in the highlands" up to 100 thousand troops and up to 19 thousand NKVD operatives were brought together. Troops and operatives were distributed across sectors, well instructed on how to act quickly and decisively. The operation took place in one day, by the evening everything was over, for some time then in the mountains they searched for and deported those who had managed to escape.
On this day, the evicted were especially hostile, on the streets the Russians smiled and shook their fists at those leaving. During the eviction, there were several incidents of clashes and shooting at soldiers and officers of the NKVD troops, while 2016 people were arrested who tried to resist or flee. By the evening, all the trains had been sent; there were 475 thousand deportees in them.
Deportation of Crimean Tatars
The reason for the deportation of the Crimean Tatars was also their active cooperation with the German invaders, support for the activities of the "Tatar national committees" created with the assistance of the Germans, assistance to Tatar military formations, punitive and police detachments. The number of Tatar military formations subordinate to the Germans was about 19 thousand people, including 4 thousand armed self-defense units. They took an active part in punitive operations against partisans and civilians.
Civilians told with horror how the Tatars committed atrocities, how they finished off the surrounded defenders of Sevastopol, even the Germans and Romanians seemed to be decent people in comparison with them. No one doubted the mass betrayal of the Tatars, too many facts testified to this.
Serov with a brigade of operatives arrived in Simferopol at the end of April 1944, when the southern coast of Crimea and Sevastopol were still in the hands of the Germans. Their tasks were to identify the traitors and arrest them, determine the number of the remaining Tatars and their place of residence for subsequent deportation, which was supposed to be carried out as soon as possible. They also had to determine the number of Armenians, Greeks and Bulgarians. In the process of work, they found out that the Armenians actively cooperated with the Tatars, and the Greeks and Bulgarians practically did not take part in the atrocities. The Tatars were included in the deportation lists, and on May 11, 1944, by a resolution of the State Defense Committee, Tatar autonomy was abolished and the Tatars were deported for treason and brutal reprisals against Soviet partisans. From May 18 to May 20, 193 thousand Tatars were sent in echelons to the places of exile.
Beria insisted on the expulsion of more Armenians, Greeks and Bulgarians "for an active struggle against the partisans", on June 2 an additional GKO decree on their expulsion was issued, and 36 thousand Armenians, Greeks and Bulgarians were also deported.
