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

Patterns of Deported Peoples’ Settlement, and Rehabilitation Process

Patterns of Deported Peoples’ Settlement, and Rehabilitation Process A prevalent majority of deportees were ascribed the status of “special resettlers,” which implied their strict administrative subjection to the network of so-called special komendaturas in their new places of residence . In April 1949 the number of the komendaturas numbered 2,679.1 One komendatura was designed to supervise an average of 700 families.2 On 8 January 1945, the Council of People’s Commissars passed two important documents—“Provision on the NKVD special komendaturas ” and “On the legal status of special resettlers”—that mitigated the special settlement regime. Apart from the freedom of movement and freedom in choosing residence, a number of special resettlers ’ civic rights were restored; they were to follow all directives of special komendaturas, to report any changes of their family composition within a three-day period and not to leave the zone controlled by a corresponding komendatura without its special sanction (arbitrary leave was regarded as an offence equal to escape and was prosecuted ).3 On 28 July 1945, a resolution “On benefits for special resettlers” dealing primarily with agricultural taxation was issued. In January 1946, there were instances of cancellation of special settlement registration for ethnic groups. Finns, deported to theYakut ASSR, Krasnoyarsk Kray and the Irkutsk Obl., were the first to be struck off the register. They were to remain in the same location, but their status of special settlers was changed to that of residents.4 Many people opted for escape: 24,324 attempts were recorded in the period until 1947, with only 9,917 fugitives, i.e., less than one half, detained.5 According to other data (as of 1 October 1948), out of the total of 2,104,751 special settlers registered at that time, 77,541 escaped, with 20,955 of them remaining in hiding. Germans made the largest group among fugitives (22,235), however in proportional terms this number constituted 2.2% of the entire ethnic group, against 3.5% among the North Caucasus natives, 4.4% among former Crimean residents, 9.3% among the Vlasov army members [Vlasovtsy] and as many as 13.4% among the OUN members!6 Under a resolution “On resettlers” issued by the Council of People ’s Commissars on 24 November 1948, punishments for escaping were aggravated to a significant extent.7 Special komendaturas started administering both family and individual registration of special settlers; while in theYakut ASSR and Krasnoyarsk Kray several strictregime settlements were founded for those allegedly “strongly predisposed ” to escaping. Special MVD inspections and fugitive– retrieval executive groups were constantly at work seeking runaways at their homelands, the supposed break-out destinations.8 However, it was later—when in writing they were made aware of the content of the USSR Supreme Soviet Presidium Decrees of 26 November 1948 and 9 October 1951—that special resettlers faced truly dark times. The decrees stipulated the term of their banishment as eternal, without the right of return to their native places. Escape was now to be punished by 20 years of penal servitude instead the previously envisaged 8 years of prison confinement.9 Apart from the seven “totally deported” peoples, the decree of 1948 targeted Crimean Greeks, Bulgarians and Armenians, Meskhetian Turks, Kurds and Khemshins, along with those banished from the Baltic republics in 1949. All these categories were ascribed a new status designation of “evictees”: and MVD personnel were to get each evictee to produce a written acknowledgement of their familiarity with the decree content. Over 1.8 million, or 80%, out of the 2.3 million registered special settlers fell under the category of “evictee.”10 As far as the Vlasov army members were concerned, and other special settlers employed at the construction enterprises to which the decree’s stipulations on “eternal settlement” did not apply, their affiliation with these enterprises before the completion of their industrial and capital construction projects turned out to become something of a “gift” for them.11 Besides, after 11 March 1952 special target group composition was replenished with those representatives of repressed ethnic and social groups that had served their terms in the GULAG work camps up until that time.12 AGAINST THEIR WILL 182 A break in the clouds of the Stalin “eternity” opened only after the death of the “peoples’ father.” In the mid-1950s a series of USSR Supreme Soviet Presidium decrees was issued, which envisaged cancellation of restrictions pertaining to...