Migration of peoples in the USSR: Why, where and who was deported before World War II, and then during the war

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

There are pages in history that are rethought and perceived differently in different periods. The history of the deportation of peoples also evokes contradictory feelings and emotions. The Soviet government was often forced to make decisions at a time when the enemy was already trampling on their native land. Many of these decisions are controversial. However, without trying to denigrate the Soviet regime, we will try to figure out what the party leaders were guided by when they made such fateful decisions. And how they solved the issue of deportation in Europe in the post-war world.

It is customary to call deportation the forced expulsion of people to another place of residence, often violent. At the end of 1989, the Declaration on the Criminalization of Repressive Measures against Displaced Peoples was adopted. The historian Pavel Polyan in his scientific work "Not of their own free will" calls such a large-scale deportation total. According to his calculations, ten peoples were deported to the Soviet Union. Among them are Germans, Koreans, Chechens, Ingush, Crimean Tatars, Balkars, etc. Seven of them lost their national autonomous territories during deportation.

In addition, a huge number of other ethno-confessions and categories of Soviet citizens suffered from the deportation.

Deportations for security

Total forced migrations began in the USSR back in the 30s. By this time, the Soviet leadership started a massive purge of "socially dangerous elements" in large cities and in areas adjacent to the borders. Anyone who was not trustworthy enough could be included in this category.

In 1935, according to the Decree of the Leningrad Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, it was decided to evict the Finns from the border strip adjacent to Leningrad. First, those who lived in the immediate border zone (3, 5 thousand families) were evicted, then they began to evict everyone, lived on the territory of 100 km from the border.

The high-ranking officials were settled in Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, sent to Western Siberia. More than 20 thousand of the second-deported displaced persons were sent to the Vologda Oblast. In total, about 30 thousand people were evicted.

In the same year, about 40 thousand people, mainly Poles and Germans, were evicted from the border regions. The next year, these same nationalities were planned to be resettled from the border with Poland. On the site of their former farms, the construction of landfills and fortifications had already begun. As a result, more than 14 thousand families were resettled.

Similar ban bands began to be organized in Central Asia, Transcaucasia. The local population was also evicted from the border areas. Several thousand families of Kurds and Armenians were classified as unreliable.

But the main migrations were not along the western, but along the Far Eastern border. In 1937, the Pravda newspaper published an article in which it exposed Japanese espionage in the Far East. The Chinese and Koreans acted as foreign agents. In the same year, according to the resolution of the Council of People's Commissars, more than 170 thousand Koreans, several thousand Chinese, hundreds of Balts, Germans and Poles were evicted. Most of them were transported to Kazakhstan, to remote villages and villages. Some families were deported to Uzbekistan and the Vologda region. A "cleaning" of the southern borders was carried out.

After the outbreak of World War II and the German attack on Poland, the mass eviction of Poles began. Basically, they were relocated to the north of the European part, beyond the Urals, to Siberia - deeper into the country. The deportation of the Poles continued until the attack on the USSR. In total, more than 300 thousand Poles were deported.

World War II and mass migration of peoples

The main and most tangible blow fell on the Germans - after all, it was with representatives of their nationality that the war was going on. At that time, according to the 1939 census, there were 1.4 million Germans. Moreover, they were very free throughout the country, only one-fifth of the total was concentrated in cities. The deportation of the Germans took place in all regions of the country, they were taken away from almost everywhere, as far as the war allowed. This deportation was of a preventive nature in order to prevent mass collaboration.

According to research by historians, subsequent deportations were no longer preventive in nature. Rather, they were precisely repressive measures, punishment for certain actions during the war. Following the Germans, Karachais and Kalmyks were deported.

According to historical data, both those and others suffered for complicity with the German side, the organization of supportive detachments, the transfer of food to the fascist side. The Karachais were evicted to Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, the Far East. In 1943, a decree was issued on the liquidation of the Kalmyk ASSR. For similar offenses, the operation "Lentil" was organized to resettle the Chechens and Ingush. The official version was the accusation of organizing a terrorist movement against the Red Army and the Soviet Union. The Chechen-Ingush ASSR was also liquidated.

Why did Stalin resettled peoples

Total deportation is recognized as one of the forms of repression and a form of centralization of Stalin's power. Basically, those areas were settled where there was a large concentration of certain nationalities that led their way of life, preserved traditions, spoke their own language and had autonomy.

Despite the fact that Stalin advocated visible internationalism, it was also important for him to eliminate all autonomies. Potentially dangerous autonomies, possessing a certain independence, could separate and pose a threat to the current government. It is difficult to say how real such a threat was. It cannot be ruled out that the old revolutionary saw counter-revolutionaries everywhere.

By the way, Stalin was not the first to invent the deportation of peoples. This already happened in the 16th century, when Prince Vasily the Third, having reached power, evicted all noble families that posed a danger to his power. Vasily, in turn, borrowed this method from his father, the founder of the Moscow state, Ivan III.

It is to this sovereign that the first historical experience of deportation belongs. He evicted 30 of the most powerful families. Their property was confiscated. In the 19th century, deportation was used as a way to suppress uprisings.

The resettlement of peoples in the USSR took place under the clear leadership of the state. Lavrenty Beria personally drew up detailed instructions according to which the eviction was carried out. Moreover, for each nation, the instruction was compiled separately. The deportation itself was carried out by local authorities with the help of the arrived security officers. They were responsible for compiling a list, organizing transportation and delivering people and their cargo to the place of departure.

Luggage for one family could not exceed one ton, moreover, everyone gathered in a hurry, taking only the most necessary things with them. There was practically no time to get ready. On the way, they were fed hot and given bread. In a new place, they had to start all over again. Barracks were built, to the construction of which the entire able-bodied population was attracted. Collective and state farms were created, schools, hospitals and houses were erected. The settlers had no right to leave their new places of residence.

The resettlement of peoples did not stop during the Second World War. Why was it necessary, distracting the soldiers and employees of the NKVD from front-line tasks, to transport hundreds of thousands of people from one place to another? Often in history textbooks one can find the opinion that total deportation was a whim and a personal whim of Stalin. A way to strengthen your already strong authority, strengthened in your unlimited power.

Active cooperation with the German occupiers, subversive activities carried out by representatives of some nationalities, is one of the main reasons for the deportation of peoples during the war. Thus, the Crimean Tatars created "Tatar national committees", which helped the Tatar military formations, which were subordinate to the Germans. In total, about 19 thousand people consisted of such formations.

These formations were used in punitive operations against partisans and the local population. The fact that mass betrayal took place is evidenced by many different facts. And the recollections of civilians indicate that they were characterized by special cruelty and unscrupulousness.

There is a certain pattern in the deportation of peoples. The unreliable category of citizens included representatives of nationalities who had their own statehood outside the USSR - Germans, Koreans, Italians, etc.

Muslim peoples living in the border areas were also deported. They were resettled either after being accused of complicity or as a preventive measure. If Turkey got involved in the war, and this was considered by the Soviet side, then the Muslims of the Crimea and the Caucasus would become their potential accomplices.

Mass betrayal is often cited as the main justification for deportation. However, for example, in Ukraine or in Pribalitka, cases of complicity with the Nazis were much more common, but no deportation followed. The punishments were individual and pinpoint, according to the facts revealed.

Broken destinies and ruined families, isolation from the roots and loss of property were far from the only problem of deportation. It was a real blow to the regional economies. Agriculture and trade suffered the most. And the most obvious thing is the aggravation of interethnic conflicts, which were already enough in a multinational country.

However, there is another side to the coin. The war, which the country was waging for life and death, erased the value of the lives of both individuals and nationalities. The tense political situation and the lack of room for error forced the state to take extreme measures.

Post-war reparation by labor

Most countries have abandoned the use of German prisoners of war to rebuild the country. Of the UN member states, only Poland agreed to reparations. At the same time, almost every country used slave labor of one or another category of the population. The conditions of such labor were in fact slavish, and there was no question of preserving human rights and freedoms. This often led to massive loss of life.

Some researchers are sure that the system worked according to the same principle in relation to the deported Crimean Tatars. The overwhelming majority of the Crimean Tatars were taken to Uzbek special settlements. In fact, it was a camp with guards, roadblocks and barbed wire fences. Crimean Tatars were recognized as life-long settlers. In fact, this meant that they became prisoners of labor camps.

Historians are inclined to believe that these special settlements would be more correctly called labor camps. Considering that it was impossible to leave their territory without permission, and the prisoners worked for free, this definition is quite appropriate. Cheap labor was used in collective and state farms, in enterprises.

Tatars cultivated fields with cotton, were employed at work in a mine, construction sites and factories, participated in the construction of hydroelectric power stations.

For a modern person, this seems to go beyond all norms and morals. However, everything was within the law. The living conditions of the Crimean Tatars cannot be compared with the situation of the same Germans in Poland in the post-war years. It was then the norm to force German old men and women to do the work that is usually entrusted to farm animals. They were harnessed to carts and plows. It is difficult to apply modern views on human rights and freedoms to the post-war world as a whole.

Crimean Tatars, for example, could count on compensation for the property they left in the same place. The settlers were entitled to food rations per person. Their relations with the locals did not go well, they met them as enemies of the people and treated them accordingly. However, on the part of the Soviet state, no legislative deprivation of civil rights was allowed.

Whereas in the same Poland, at the legislative level, the need for the Germans to wear special identification armbands was enshrined. They could not move from place to place, quit and get another job, they had separate certificates and work books.

In Czechoslovakia, those suspected of collaboration were also forced to wear special armbands. They were unable to use public transport, freely go to shops, walk to parks, or use the sidewalk. Very similar to the Nazi rules for Jews. In the postwar years, the Nazi foundations were still prevailing.

Polish labor camps

If in Czechoslovakia the Germans were hastily expelled from their country, the Poles were in no hurry. Officially, they were forced to deport the Germans only in 1950, when the resettlement law was passed. All these five years, the German population has been brutally exploited. Despite the fact that officially it was called reparation labor, in fact it was the use of hard labor of prisoners of the camps.

The Germans also took part in the restoration of Soviet cities. But they were prisoners of war - men, and civilians were engaged in the restoration of Poland. Mostly old people and women.

The Germans, who lived here throughout their lives, were robbed of their property. Many Germans were forced to flee their homes and move to sheds, attics and hayloft. By the summer of 1945, the Polish government began to restrict the freedom of ethnic Germans - Polish citizens and drive them to concentration camps. In them, the conditions of detention were much worse than in concentration camps, when the Germans themselves were in charge of them.

Rehabilitation of the deported

Subsequently, most of the immigrants were given the opportunity to return to their historical homeland. The state recognized deportation as a criminal mistake, thereby allowing internally displaced persons to return to their usual life.

This fact in the history of the country, despite the fact that it is extremely controversial, is not hushed up or denied. Whereas other countries that once owned entire slave colonies do not try to make amends for historical injustice.

The main lesson that the country learned from this situation is tolerance and tolerance for each other, regardless of eye color, skin color and native language. Hundreds of nationalities living peacefully within the framework of one country, having the right to their autonomy, their language and their historical heritage are proof of this.