Ethnic Cleansing in the USSR, 1937-1949: (Contributions to the Study of World History)

Comrades, let us reach for some other facts. The Soviet Union is justly considered as a model of a multinational state because we have in practice assured the equality and friendship of all nations which live in our great fatherland. All the more monstrous are the acts whose initiator was Stalin and which are rude violations of the basic Leninist principles of the nationality policy of the Soviet state. We refer to the mass deportations from their native places of whole nations, together with all Communists and Komsomols without any exception; this deportation action was not dictated by any military considerations. Thus, already at the end of 1943, when there occurred a permanent breakthrough at the fronts of the Great Fatherland War benefiting the Soviet Union, a decision was taken and executed concerning the deportation of all the Karachay from the lands on which they lived. In the same period, at the end of December 1943, the same lot befell the whole population of the Autonomous Kalmyk Republic. In March 1944, all the Chechen and Ingush peoples were deported and the Chechen–Ingush Autonomous Republic was liquidated. In April 1944, all Balkars were deported to faraway places from the territory of the Kabardino-Balkar Autonomous Republic and the Republic itself was renamed the Autonomous Kabardian Republic. The Ukrainians avoided meeting this fate only because there were too many of them and there was no place to which to deport them. Otherwise, he would have deported them also. Доп. информация : В книге рассматривается один из самых сложных и страшных периодов в истории России. Этническая чистка уничтожила тысячи и сотни тысяч жизней. В данной книге представлена точка зрения Запада на происходящие события.

Between 1937 and 1949, Joseph Stalin deported more than two million people of 13 nationalities from their homelands to remote areas of the U.S.S.R. His regime perfected the crime of ethnic cleansing as an adjunct to its security policy during those decades. Based upon material recently released from Soviet archives, this study describes the mass deportation of these minorities, their conditions in exile, and their eventual release. It includes a large amount of statistical data on the number of people deported; deaths and births in exile; and the role of the exiles in developing the economy of remote areas of the Soviet Union.

The first wholesale deportation involved the Soviet Koreans, relocated to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan to prevent them from assisting Japanese spies and saboteurs. The success of this operation led the secret police to adopt, as standard procedure, the deportation of whole ethnic groups suspected of disloyalty to the Soviet state. In 1941, the policy affected Soviet Finns and Germans; in 1943, the Karachays and Kalmyks were forcibly relocated; in 1944, the massive deportation affected the Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, Crimean Tatars, Crimean Greeks, Meskhetian Turks, Kurds, and Khemshils; and finally, the Black Sea Greeks were moved in 1949 and 1950.

Contents......Page 8 Tables......Page 10 Preface......Page 14 Glossary......Page 16 Introduction......Page 20 1. Koreans......Page 28 2. Finns......Page 40 3. Germans......Page 46 4. Kalmyks......Page 80 5. Karachays......Page 92 6. Chechens and Ingush......Page 98 7. Balkars......Page 106 8. The North Caucasians in Exile......Page 112 9. The Return of the North Caucasians......Page 124 10. Crimean Tatars......Page 128 11. Greeks......Page 138 12. Meskhetian Turks, Kurds, and Khemshils......Page 148 Conclusion......Page 156 Appendixes......Page 158 Notes......Page 162 Selected Annotated Bibliography......Page 190 Index......Page 196