Against Their Will: The History and Geography of Forced Migrations in the USSR

Forced Migrations during and after the Second World War (1939–1953)

Forced Migrations during and after the Second World War (1939–1953) SELECTIVE DEPORTATIONS FROM THE ANNEXED TERRITORIES OF POLAND, THE BALTIC REPUBLICS AND ROMANIA IN 1939–1941 It is widely accepted that 1 September 1939, the day when Germany attacked Poland from the west, was the first day of the Second World War. By attacking Poland in the east on 17 September, the Soviet Union entered the war as well. In September 1939, after the Red Army occupied eastern provinces of Poland, which were immediately declared western territories of the “reunited” Ukraine and Belorussia, “cleansing” operations on these territories were swiftly launched. This time it was Polish, Ukrainian, Jewish and other “nationalists” that were to be introduced to this new form of nation building. The dark shadow of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact loomed over the actions of the Soviet authorities in Poland. At least the main target groups earmarked for deportation were promptly interned, and some of them even convicted. Among them were: firstly, soldiers and officers taken prisoner (the Soviet side did not regard them as prisoners of war); secondly, all residents of the frontier zone between Wilno and Lvov, along with forest rangers, railway workers, and even prisoners; and thirdly, “socially alien” elements that failed to hide in time, such as province governors, public officials, police members, land proprietors, industrialists and traders. They were prosecuted by troikas1 and sentenced to prison terms of 8 to 20 years under Criminal Code articles 54 or 58. The rumors about the imminent deportations of Poles began to circulate as early as November 1939. However, it was only in 1940 that the wheels of mass banishment began to turn (it can be suggested that the Soviet–Finnish war was a hindrance to any earlier implementation2 ). The operations lasted into 1941. According to A. Guryanov , four successive and thoroughly rehearsed operations were carried out. Each of them was executed in fact within 24 hours. Three operations were completed in 1940—10 February,3 13 April (more precisely 9 and 13 April), and 29 June, and one in 1941 (in May–June). The transportation by train of deportees inland into the USSR took from two to four weeks. Guryanov, who studies the matter at the transport logistics level (the number of trains required reached 211), evaluates the total of those banished in the course of the three operations of 1940 as 275 thousand persons, 139–141 thousand of them deported in February, 61 in April,4 and 75 in the summer.5 The preparation for the first deportation started as early as 1939: on 2 December 1939 Beria addressed Stalin with a proposition that all osadniki (one can regard the group as a Polish equivalent to the Cossacks) and their family members be banished from the annexed districts before 15 February 1940.6 And the official title of the first deportation target group was precisely “special resettlers—osadniki”7 (or, more accurately, osadniki and forest rangers). According to the official Soviet version, osadniki were “the bitterest enemies of the working people”: former military service members distinguished in the Polish–Soviet war of 1920, who were rewarded by their grateful motherland with strips of land in eastern districts populated mainly by Belorussians and Ukrainians (Poles made up 85% of osadniki, but there were also Ukrainians and Belorussians among them). The operations were carried out at night, between 2 and 6 a.m. But it was hardly possible to miss the signs of preparation, since one could not disguise thousands of carts driven by local coachmen, hundreds of lorries and railway cars. Those that were not caught in the raids were often listed as unavailable and left alone. As early as 29 December 1939, the Council of People’s Commissars adopted a decree “On the special settlement and labor employment of osadniki banished from western oblasts of Ukraine and Belorussia.” In order to employ the resettlers, it was intended to found special settlements under the supervision of the Narkomles in timber-harvesting areas, primarily in the northern European part of the country, in the Urals and Siberia: in particular, in the Komi ASSR, in Kirov, Perm, Vologda, Arkhangelsk, Ivanovo, Yaroslavl, AGAINST THEIR WILL 116 Sverdlovsk and Omsk Obls., and in Altay and Krasnoyarsk Krays.8 Taking into account the fact that forest rangers, who appeared to be naturally intended for the Narkomles, were included in the target groups at the “prompting” of Belorussia’s...