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Abstract
After the Soviet Union expanded westwards in 1939–40, its government began weeding out real or imagined opposition in its new lands (these areas are termed ‘the western borderlands’, and the regions within pre-1939 frontiers ‘the old territories’). Deportation was a major tool in the Soviet counterinsurgency kit. This paper analyses the motivations behind each type of deportation, as well as the effectiveness of this and other similar measures in attaining their desired ends. Unlike the indiscriminate and illogical ethnic cleansing in the old territories, deportations in the western borderlands remained selective; most were arguably a rational means for enforcing planned policies, and the ethnic criterion played no role in targeting members of non-diaspora nationalities. However, ideological dogma caused communists to downplay nationalism and inflate class affiliation as factors of anti-Soviet opposition. The inaccurate concept of the enemy and sweeping deportations of prosperous peasants prolonged insurgency because their only alternative to exile was armed resistance.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank John Ferris and Jeffrey Burds for their suggestions that helped me refine this article.
Notes
1 Constantine R. Jurgela, Lithuania: the Outpost of Freedom (St. Petersburg, FL: The National Guard of Lithuania in Exile 1976); V. Stanley Vardys (ed.), Lithuania Under the Soviets (New York: Frederick A. Praeger 1965); Albertas Gerutis (ed.), Lithuania: 700 Years (New York: Manyland Books 1969); Mart Laar, War in the Woods: Estonia's Struggle for Survival (Washington, DC: Compass Press 1992).
2 George Reklaitis, ‘A Common Hatred: Lithuanian Nationalism during the Triple Occupation, 1939–53’ (Ph.D. diss., Boston: Northeastern University 2003); Heinrihs Strods, ‘The Latvian Partisan War between 1944 and 1956’, in Arvydas Anušauskas (ed.), The Anti-Soviet Resistance in the Baltic States (Vilnius: Du Ka 2000); Jan T. Gross, Revolution from Abroad (Princeton: Princeton University Press 2002); Ivan Bilas, Represyvno-karal'na systema v Ukraini 1917–53 (Kyiv: Lybid’ 1994).
3 Volodymyr Serhiichuk (ed.), Deportatsiia poliakiv z Ukrainy (Kyiv: Ukrains'ka vydabnycha spilka 1999); Antanas Tyla (ed.), Lietuvos gyventoju tremimai 1940–41, 1945–53 metais sovietines okupacines valdzios dokumentuose (Vilnius: Pasaulio lietuviu bendruomene 1995); Nijole Gaškaite, Algis Kašeta and Juozas Starkauskas (eds), Lietuvos partizanu kovos ir ju slopinimas MVD – MGB dokumentuose (Kaunas: Pasaulio lietuviu bendruomene 1996); ‘Meropriiatiia po vyseleniiu iavlialis’ chrezvychainoi meroi’, Istochnik 1 (1996); V.I. Pasat (ed.), Trudnye stranitsy istorii Moldovy: 1940–50-e gody (Moscow: Terra 1994).
4 V.N. Zemskov, ‘Zakliuchennye, spetsposelentsy, ssyl'noposelentsy, ssyl'nye i vyslannye’, Istoriia SSSR 5 (1991); Nikolai Bugai, ‘Deportatsii naselennia z Ukrainy, 30–50ti roky’, Ukraïns'kyi istorychnyi zhurnal, hereafter UIZh 10 (1990); Eugenijus Grunskis (ed.), Lietuvos gyventoju tremimai 1940–41, 1945–53 metais (Vilnius: Pasaulio lietuviu bendruomene 1996); I.V. Alferova, ‘Gosudarstvennaia politika v otnoshenii deportirovannykh narodov (30–50-e gody)’ (Ph.D. diss., Moscow: MGU 1997); Valerii I. Pasat, Deportatsii s territorii Moldavskoi SSR 1940–51 (Moscow: Rossiiskaia akademiia nauk 1996).
5 P.A. Aptekar’, ‘Krest'ianskaia voina’, Voenno-istoricheskii zhurnal (VIZ) 1 (1993) pp.53, 54; Peter Holquist, ‘To Count, to Extract and to Exterminate: Population Statistics and Population Politics in Late Imperial and Soviet Russia’, in Ronald G. Suny and Terry Martin (eds), A State of Nations (Oxford: OUP 2001) pp.117–21.
6 A.N. Dugin (ed.), Neizvestnyi GULAG (Moscow: Nauka 1999) p.101.
7 Document Nr.107 in A. N. Dugin (ed.), Neizvestnyi GULAG (Moscow: Nauka 1999) p.86.
8 Document Nr.73 in S. B. Stepashin (ed.), Organy gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti SSSR v Velikoi Otechestvennoi voine (Moscow: Kniga i biznes 1995) Book 1, Vol. 1, p.156; Bugai, ‘Deportatsii naselennia z Ukrainy, 30–50ti roky’, p.35.
9 Nikolai Bugai, ‘20–50-e gody: pereseleniia i deportatsii evreiskogo naseleniia v SSSR’, Otechestvennaia istoriia 4 (1993) p.179.
10 Beria, ‘Spravka Nr.430 [Report Nr.430]’ (20 August 1941). Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii [State Archive of the Russian Federation] hereafter GARF, f.9479, op.1, d.116, l.3, 4; Beria to Stalin (1 May 1944). GARF, f.9401, op.2, d.64, l. 380.
11 Documents Nr.181, 225, 249, 253, in Stepashin (ed.), Organy gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti SSSR, Book 2, Vol. 1, pp.85–7, 194, 234, 235, 240.
12 Document Nr.179, ibid. pp.79–81.
13 Document Nr.238, ibid. pp.215, 216.
14 Document Nr.217, ibid. p.163.
15 ‘Memorandum of the Provisional Government of Lithuania’ (1941). Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi voennyi arkhiv (RVGA), f.38650, op.1, d.160, l. 12.
16 Document Nr.207 in Stepashin (ed.), Organy gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti SSSR, Book 2, Vol. 1, p.145.
17 Documents Nr.212, 254, ibid. pp.154, 155, 247; Documents Nr.19–21, 32 in V. I. Pasat (ed.), Trudnye stranitsy istorii Moldovy: 1940–50-e gody (Moscow: Terra 1994) pp.165, 187. The total number of deportees from the Baltic region in 1941 was slightly higher because some individuals were arrested and deported before 14 June.
18 Documents Nr.213, 274 in Stepashin (ed.), Organy gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti SSSR, Book 2, Vol. 1, pp.155, 156, 297.
19 Rein Taagepera, Estonia (Boulder: Westview Press 1993) p.67; Gerutis (ed.), Lithuania: 700 Years, p.286.
20 Valentinas Brandišauskas, ‘Anti-Soviet Resistance in 1940 and 1941 and the Revolt of June 1941’, in Arvydas Anušauskas, The Anti-Soviet Resistance in the Baltic States (Vilnius: Du Ka 2000) p.14.
21 S. Kuznetsov et al., ‘Vooruzhennoe natsionalisticheskoe podpol'e v Estonii v 1940kh–1950kh godakh’, Izvestiia TsK KPSS 8 (1990) p.170.
22 Zenonas Ivinskis, ‘Lithuania During the War’, in V. Stanley Vardys (ed.), Lithuania Under the Soviets (New York: Frederick A. Praeger 1965) p.65; Algirdas Budreckis, ‘Lithuanian Resistance, 1940–52’, in Albertas Gerutis (ed.), Lithuania: 700 Years (New York: Manyland Books 1969) p.322.
23 G.G. Alov, ‘Palachi’, VIZ 6 (1990) p.30; Nijole Gaškaite-Žemaitiene, ‘The Partisan War in Lithuania from 1944 to 1953’, in The Anti-Soviet Resistance in the Baltic States, ed. Arvydas Anušauskas (Vilnius: Du Ka 2000) p.27.
24 Stepashin, Organy gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti, Book 2, Vol. 1, p.19; Pasat, Deportatsii, p.48.
25 Document Nr.18 in Pasat (ed.), Trudnye stranitsy istorii Moldovy, p.91.
26 Pasat, Deportatsii, p.93.
27 Alexander Statiev, ‘The Nature of Anti-Soviet Armed Resistance, 1942–44: The North Caucasus, the Kalmyk Autonomous Republic, and Crimea’, Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 6/2 (2005) pp.285–318.
28 Suslov, ‘Otchet o rabote buro TsK VKP(b) po Litve [Report of the VKP(b) Central Committee Bureau for Lithuania]’ (July 1945). Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv sotsial'no-politicheskoi istorii [Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History], hereafter RGASPI, f.597, op.1, d.2, l. 20.
29 N. Khrushchev to Stalin (March 1944). Tsentral'nyi derzhavnyi arkhiv hromads'kykh ob'iednan’ Ukraïny [Central State Archive of Public Organizations of Ukraine], hereafter TsDAHOU, f.1, op.23, d.703, l. 18.
30 ‘OUN i UPA u druhii svitovii viini’, UIZh 3 (1995) pp.103, 104.
31 Document Nr.224 in Ssylka kalmykov: kak eto bylo (Elista: Kalmytskoe knizhnoe izdatel'stvo 1993) p.232.
32 Kobeliatskii, Instructor of the Organizer and Instructor Section of the Central Committee of the Ukrainian Communist Party, to Khrushchev, ‘Spravka o khode vypolneniia resheniia TsK KP(b)U [Report on the Fulfilment of the Directive of the Central Committee of the Ukrainian Communist Party]’ (18 March 1945). TsDAHOU, f.1, op.23, d.1695, l.32; S. Oleksenko, Secretary of the Drogobych Provincial Party Committee, to Khrushchev, ‘O reagirovanii naseleniia i banditov na vyselenie semei banditov [Reaction of the Population and the Bandits to the Eviction of Bandit Families]’ (27 December 1945). TsDAHOU, f.1, op.23, d.1695, l.328.
33 Document Nr.3 in Volodimir Serhiichuk (ed.), Desiat’ buremnykh lit (Kyiv: Dnipro 1998) p.577.
34 Beria to Stalin (14 March 1944). GARF, op.9401, op.2, d.64, l.172; Document Nr.56 in ‘OUN i UPA u druhii svitovii viini’, UIZh 3 (1995) p.110; Documents Nr.3, 14 in Serhiichuk (ed.), Desiat’ buremnykh lit, pp.708–11, 789–91.
35 Colonel Mikhailov, Commander of the 62nd MGB Rifle Division, ‘Donesenie [Report]’ (21 October 1947). Peter Potichnyj Collection on Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in Ukraine, University of Toronto, hereafter PC, Reel 175, p.223; Bilas, Represyvno-karal'na systema 1, p.284.
36 Galich, Instructor of the Organizer and Instructor Section of the Central Committee of the Ukrainian Communist Party, to Khrushchev, ‘Spravka o khode vypolneniia resheniia TsK KP(b)U [Report on the Fulfilment of the Directive of the Central Committee of the Ukrainian Communist Party]’ (February 1945). TsDAHOU, f.1, op.23, d.1697, l.5.
37 Documument Nr.15 in Serhiichuk (ed.), Desiat’ buremnykh lit, pp.603–17.
38 Oleksenko, Secretary of the Drogobych Party Provincial Committee, ‘Dokladnaia zapiska [Report]’ (27 March 1945). TsDAHOU, f.1, op.23, d.1695, l.79.
39 Brovkin, Commander of the 64th NKVD Rifle Division, ‘Obzor operativno-boevoi i sluzhebnoi deiatel'nosti 64 sd [Overview of the Actions of the 64th Rifle Division]’ (October 1947). PC, Reel 173, p.243.
40 Document Nr.191in Nijole Gaškaite, Algis Kašeta and Juozas Starkauskas (eds), Lietuvos partizanu kovos ir ju slopinimas MVD – MGB dokumentuose (Kaunas: Pasaulio lietuviu bendruomene 1996) p.621; ‘Spravka o meropriiatiiakh po usileniiu bor'by s banditizmom v Litovskoi SSR [Note about the Steps Aimed at Intensification of the Fight against Banditry in Lithuania]’ (12 June 1945). GARF, f.9478, op.1, d.440, l. 11.
41 Antanas Sniečkus, ‘Otchet TsK KP(b)L [Report of the Central Committee of the Lithuanian Communist Party]’ (31 August 1946). RGASPI, f.597, op.1, d.20, l. 2.
42 Protocol of the Meeting of the Lvov Provincial Party Committee (7 May 1945). Tsentral'nyi derzhavnyi istorichnyi arkhiv Ukraïny, Lviv [Central State Historical Archive of Ukraine, Lvov], hereafter TsDIAL, f.3, op.1, d.193, l.59.
43 Allik, People's Commissar of Agriculture of Estonia, ‘Kratkii otchet o rabote narkomata zemledeliia ESSR [Brief Report of the Estonian People's Commissariat of Agriculture]’ (22 January 1946). RGASPI, f.598, op.1, d.3, 62; Mitriushkin, ‘O rukovodstve Latviiskoi partiinoi organizatsii sel'skim khoziaistvom [Management of Agriculture by the Latvian Party Organization]’ (24 January 1947). RGASPI, f.600, op.1, d.23, l. 71; B. Baranauskas, Head of the Agrarian Section of the Central Committee of the Lithuanian Communist Party, ‘Spravka o zemlepol'zovanii v Litve [Information about Land Use in Lithuania]’ (No date). RGASPI, f.597, op.1, d.10, l.16.
44 Mazepa, Secretary of the L'vov Provincial Committee, ‘Otchet o rabote L'vovskogo Obkoma KP(b)U [Report of the L'vov Provincial Party Committee]’ (February 1947). RGASPI, f.17, op.88, d.793, l. 49. The use of the artificial classification of farmers as poor (bedniaks), middle (seredniaks) and wealthy (kulaks) while discussing Soviet decision-making is unavoidable because the state conducted its rural policy on the basis of these notions.
45 Mikhail Naumov, Zapadnyi reid (Kiev: Izdatel'stvo politicheskoi literatury 1985) p.124.
46 Liudas Truska, ‘Voina posle voiny’, Rodina 7 (1997). p.131. Truska does not reveal the sources of his data.
47 ‘Spravka o nekotorykh sotsial'no-ekonomicheskikh izmeneniiakh v krestianskikh khoziaistvakh Litovskoi SSR [Information about Some Socio-Economic Changes among Lithuanian Farms]’ (August 1946). RGASPI, f.597, op.1, d.27, l. 44.
48 Ibid. ll.12, 44.
49 Document Nr.15 in Volodimir Serhiichuk (ed.), OUN-UPA v roky viiny (Kyiv: Dnipro 1996) p.601. See also Documents Nr.4, 8 in Volodimir Serhiichuk (ed.), Desiat’ buremnykh lit, pp.721, 849.
50 Calculated from Colonel Mikhailov, Commander of the 62nd NKVD Rifle Division, ‘Donesenie [Report]’ (21 October 1947). PC, Reel 175, p.222; Reklaitis, ‘A Common Hatred’, pp.194, 196.
51 Bilas, Represyvno-karal'na systema, 1, p.239.
52 The compensations paid for the property left behind were inadequate and many ‘repatriates’ were robbed on their way to Poland by Soviet military units.
53 Directive of the VKP(b) Central Committee ‘O poriadke pereseleniia v Pol'shu byvshikh pol'skikh grazhdan pol'skoi i evreiskoi natsional'nostei [Resettlement to Poland of Former Polish Citizens of Polish and Jewish Background]’ (9 November 1945). GARF, 9401, op.2, d.105, ll.63, 64; ‘Vypiska iz soglasheniia mezhdu pravitel'stvami Belorusskoi Sovetskoi Sotsialisticheskoi Respubliki i PKNO [Excerpt from the Agreement between the Belorussian Government and PCNL]’ (1944). GARF, f.9401, op.2, d.68, l.84; RGASPI, f.597, op.1, d.1, l.49.
54 Mikhail Suslov, Head of VKP(b) Central Committee Bureau for Lithuania, ‘Protocol Nr.3’ (24 January 1945). RGASPI, f.597, op.1, d.1, ll.32, 33; Directive of the Central Committee of the Lithuanian Communist Party, ‘O khode evakuatsii grazhdan pol'skoi natsional'nosti [Evacuation of Poles]’ (25 May 1945). RGASPI, f.597, op.1, d.1, l.116.
55 ‘Spravka o meropriiatiiakh po usileniiu bor'by s banditizmom v Litovskoi SSR [Note about the Steps Aimed at Intensification of the Fight against Banditry in Lithuania]’ (12 June 1945). GARF, f.9478, op.1, d.440, l. 11; N. S. Khrushchev, Vremia, liudi, vlast’ (Moscow: Moskovskie novosti 1999), 1, p.822.
56 Calculated from Kruglov to Stalin (31 October 1946). GARF, f.9401, op.2, d.139; ‘Spravka o repatriatsii poliakov iz Litovskoi SSR v Pol'shu [Repatriation of Poles from Lithuania to Poland]’. RGASPI, f.597, op.1, d.1, l.47; Bilas, Represyvno-karal'na systema, 1, p.231.
57 Kruglov to Stalin (22 March 1947). GARF, f.9401, op.2, d.168, l.497; Kruglov to Molotov (31 December 1945). GARF, f.9401, op.2, d.105, l.400; Bugai, ‘Deportatsii naselennia z Ukrainy’, p.23.
58 The authorities practised labour draft under wartime decrees in the eastern regions too, aiming to make up for a labour deficit in industry.
59 Documents Nr.5, 7 in Serhiichuk (ed.), Deportatsiia poliakiv z Ukrainy, pp.660, 812–14; Document Nr.47 in Volodimir Serhiichuk (ed.), OUN-UPA v roky viiny, p.418; Pavel Sudoplatov, Spetsoperatsii (Moscow: Olma-Press 1999) pp.415, 416.
60 Jurgela, Lithuania: The Outpost of Freedom, p.235; Strods, ‘The Latvian Partisan War between 1944 and 1956’, p.159; Gerutis (ed.), Lithuania: 700 Years, p.286; Yuriy Tys-Krokhmaliuk, UPA Warfare in Ukraine (New York: Society of Veterans of Ukrainian Insurgent Army of the United States and Canada 1972) p.11.
61 Gerutis (ed.), Lithuania: 700 Years, p.286; Ivinskis, ‘Lithuania During the War’, p.68.
62 Misiunas and Taagepera, The Baltic States (London: Hurst 1993) p.43.
63 Misiunas and Taagepera, The Baltic States, p.42; Gerutis (ed.), Lithuania: 700 Years, p.285.
64 Document Nr.254 in Stepashin, Organy gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti, Book 2, Vol. 1, p.247. According to another police report compiled in 1953, it deported 15,028 persons throughout all of 1941. Document Nr.14 in Grunskis (ed.), Lietuvos gyventoju tremimai, p.207.
65 Misiunas and Taagepera, The Baltic States, p.73.
66 Jan T. Gross, Revolution from Abroad (Princeton: Princeton University Press 2002) p.xiv.
67 Document Nr.14 in Grunskis (ed.), Lietuvos gyventoju tremimai, p.206.
68 Taagepera, Estonia, pp.81–4.
69 Laar, War in the Woods, p.8; Gerutis (ed.), Lithuania: 700 Years, p.299; Misiunas and Taagepera, The Baltic States, p.104.
70 Gross, Revolution from Abroad, pp.xiv, 222, 229. In the introduction to the new edition of his book, Gross admits that his data on the number of Poles deported in 1939–41 is inaccurate but leaves the wildly inflated figures in the text unchanged.
71 Out of 139,590 deported osadniks, 132,463 remained in exile by August 1941. V. Chernyshov, ‘Spravka po kolichestvu grazhdan byvshikh pol'skikh poddannykh [Report on the Number of Former Polish Citizens]’ (August 1941). GARF, f.9479, op.1, d.116, ll.1, 2; Document Nr.107 in Dugin (ed.), Neizvestnyi GULAG, 86.
72 Document Nr.220 in Ssylka kalmykov (1993) pp.228, 229. All categories of deportees were referred by the overarching term ‘special settlers’ (spetsposelentsy).
73 Karl Jäger, Commander of SS Einsatzkommando 3, reported on 19 September 1941 that the operations assisted by Lithuanians accounted for 47,000 out of 85,000 of the Einsatzkommando killings of Lithuanian citizens, mainly Jews, Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews (New York: Holmes & Mayer 1985), 1, p.313. George Reklaitis concludes that extermination of the Jews ‘involved a good number of Lithuanians, and not just small bands of criminals or virulent anti-Semites’, Reklaitis, ‘A Common Hatred’, p.103.
74 Bugai, ‘20–50-e gody: pereseleniia i deportatsii evreiskogo naseleniia v SSSR’, p.179.
75 Wiktor Poliszczuk, Bitter Truth (Toronto: Wiktor Poliszczuk 1999) pp.271, 272.
76 Dugin (ed.), Neizvestnyi GULAG, p.101; Romuald Misiunas and Rein Taagepera, The Baltic States, p.353; Document Nr.14 in Grunskis (ed.), Lietuvos gyventoju tremimai, p.206; Document Nr.191 in Gaškaite, Lietuvos partizanu, p.621. Soviet population equalled 147 million people in 1926, Iu. A. Poliakov et al. (eds), Vsesoiuznaia perepis' naseleniia 1939 goda (Moscow, Nauka 1992) p.21.