The Real Stalin Series Part 17: The Deportation of Nations
DEPORTATION OF NATIONALITIES DURING THE WAR WAS NECESSARY AND JUSTIFIED
CHUEV: How do you explain the forced resettlement of entire ethnic groups during the war?
MOLOTOV: …The fact is that during the war we received reports about mass treason. Battalions of Caucasians opposed us at the fronts and attacked us from the rear. It was a matter of life and death; there was no time to investigate the details. Of course innocents suffered. But I hold that given the circumstances, we acted correctly.
Chuev, Feliks. Molotov Remembers. Chicago: I. R. Dee, 1993, p. 195
CHUEV: Why were the Kalmyks deported during the war?
MOLOTOV: They helped the Germans.
Chuev, Feliks. Molotov Remembers. Chicago: I. R. Dee, 1993, p. 195
There have been many and varied oppositionist groupings. The first was that of Yenukidze, Sheboldayev and Metelyov…. In 1934 there was a plot to start a revolution by arresting the whole of the…17th Congress of the Party. In 1942 there was the armed uprising of the North Caucasian peoples, more especially of the Chechen nation, who tried to establish their independence against both Stalin and Hitler. These are representative instances of opposition.
Tokaev, Grigori. Comrade X. London: Harvill Press,1956, p. 37
By the autumn of 1942 the axis forces had reached those districts of the Northern Caucasus which were least loyal of all to Stalin–Checheno-Ingushetia, Dagestan, Dzaudzhikau and Grozny.
Tokaev, Grigori. Comrade X. London: Harvill Press,1956, p. 237
… A number of Caucasian and near-Caucasian people had shown themselves disloyal. The Chechens, Ingushes, the Balkarians, the people of Karachay, the Tatars of Crimea and the Kalmyks had indeed fought equally against the Nazis and the Soviet ‘imperialisms’. The Karachay people had openly welcomed the Germans under General Kleist and the prime mover in this astonishing act had been none other than the Chairman of the Provincial Executive Committee of the Soviets of the Karachay Autonomous Province. The Crimean Tatars were still working together with the Germans exterminating all the Russians they could, especially the Party members. There was an anti-Soviet partisan war in progress.
Tokaev, Grigori. Comrade X. London: Harvill Press,1956, p. 245
… It was not till June 28, 1946, nearly three years later, that they [the Russian people] learned about it…. The Secretary of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Socialist Federal Republic, then Bakhmurov, [made] the announcement.
“Comrades,” he said, “the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR places before you for confirmation the draft of a law to abolish the Chechen-Ingush ASSR and for the transformation of the Crimean ASSR into the Crimean province…. During the Great Fatherland War, when the peoples of the USSR were heroically defending the honor and independence of their Fatherland in the struggle against the German-Fascists conquerors, many Chechens and Crimean Tatars, giving ear to German agents, entered volunteer units organized by the Germans and together with the German armies fought against units of the Red Army. On German instructions, they set up saboteur bands for the struggle against the Soviet regime in the rear. The main body of the population of the Chechen-Ingush and Crimean Tatar ASSR’s offered no resistance to these traitors to the Fatherland. For this reason the Chechens and Crimean Tatars have been transported to other parts of the Soviet Union. In the new regions they have been given land as well as the requisite state assistance for their economic establishment….”
Tokaev, Grigori. Comrade X. London: Harvill Press,1956, p. 268
Towards the Moslem peoples, the Germans pursued a benign, almost paternalistic policy. The Karachai, Balkars, Ingush, Chechen, Kalmucks, and Tatars of the Crimea all displayed pro-German sympathies in some degree. It was only the hurried withdrawal of the Germans from the Caucasus after the battle of Stalingrad that prevented their organizing the Moslem people for effective anti-Soviet action. The Germans boasted loudly, however, that they had left a strong “fifth column” behind them in the Caucasus.
Grey, Ian. Stalin, Man of History. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1979, p. 373
Remembering the response of the Sudeten Germans to Nazi appeals, Stalin considered them [the Volga Germans] a risk and ordered their removal, but as a precaution rather than a punishment. They were nevertheless treated harshly. NKVD troops descended suddenly on the Volga German Republic, and gave the people only a few hours in which to get ready for the long journey by cattle truck. Many died of hunger and hardship on the way. On arrival at their destination in uninhabited regions of Kazakhstan in Siberia, the survivors were given agricultural tools and left to build a new life. [From Conquest]
After Stalin’s death five of the Moslem peoples were allowed to return to their homes. The Crimean Tatars and Volga Germans were not permitted to return. [Werth page 581]
Grey, Ian. Stalin, Man of History. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1979, p. 504
As a result of these three operations, some 650,000 Chechens, Ingushes, Kalmucks and Karachays have been deported to the eastern regions of the USSR.
Volkogonov, Dmitri. Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy. New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1991, p. 445
Early in 1943 Stalin had taken a decision on an operation against a section of…his own citizens. In this case it was the smaller nationalities of the Caucasus and the Crimea who had, in Stalin’s view, either welcomed or not opposed the Germans.
Conquest, Robert. Stalin: Breaker of Nations. New York, New York: Viking, 1991, p. 258
German attempts to play off Caucasian nationalities and tribes against one another and to recruit collaborators among them were not without success–the fact was to be officially admitted after the war, when several hundred thousand Chechens and Ingushes, as well as Crimean Tartars, charged with helping the enemy, were punished with deportation to Siberia.
Deutscher, Isaac. Stalin; A Political Biography. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1967, p. 480
Others, such as mass collaboration with the enemy, especially in the Ukraine and Caucasus, resulted from grievances and resentments lingering on since the ’30s….
Deutscher, Isaac. Stalin; A Political Biography. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1967, p. 485
But the real story of Sevastopol was of how the Soviet authorities treated collaborators. The Crimean Tartars had welcomed the arrival of the Germans. They had hunted down Russian soldiers in disguise, had formed a police force under German control, had been active in the Gestapo, and had supplied the Wehrmacht with soldiers. Now the moment of reckoning had arrived. The whole Crimean tartar community of something between 300,000 and 500,000 men, women, and children was rounded up and sent into exile in Central Asia, and they have never been allowed to return.
Knightley, Phillip. The First Casualty. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975, p. 263
Only in the North Caucasus, in the Chechen-Ingush and Kabarda-Balkar “autonomous republics” did Hitler obtain some semblance of collaboration by exploiting the hatred of Moslems for Russians.
Radzinsky, Edvard. Stalin. New York: Doubleday, c1996, p. 481
During their occupation of the Caucasus the Germans had promised independence to the Chechens, the Ingush, the Balkars, and the Kalmyks. Members of these ethnic groups did sometimes collaborate with the Germans. The same was true of the Crimean Tartars.
Radzinsky, Edvard. Stalin. New York: Doubleday, c1996, p. 502
As regards collaborators sent to camps during and after the war, no reliable figures are available either. During the war, a number of “disloyal” nationalities– Volga Germans, Crimean Tartars, Kalmuks and several Caucasian Moslem nationalities–had been deported en masse to Siberia, including all the women, children and even communists and Komsomols. The operation was in the nature of a resettlement, and if some were sent to actual forced labor camps, they were in a small minority….
But the vast majority in the three Baltic States were bourgeois kulak and, therefore, pro-German and often pro-Nazi and savagely anti-Semitic….
Since the great majority of the population is [in the Baltics] (apart from the Jews) could be said to have “collaborated” in some measure with the Germans after having been re-incorporated by Russia for only a year, no particular loyalty to the latter could in fact have been expected, and the Baltic deportees, though numerous, did not apparently run into more than 10,000 or 20,000–fewer than had been deported during the first Russian takeover in 1940. Moreover, the most violently anti-Soviet people had fled in very large numbers to Germany when, in the summer and autumn of 1944, the Russians were about to overrun or had already overrun the Baltic states.
Werth, Alexander. Russia; The Post-War Years. New York: Taplinger Pub. Co.,1971, p. 26
Proportionately to their numbers, very many more people were deported from the Western Ukraine than from the Baltic states. Cities like Lvov were hotbeds of the most extreme Ukrainian nationalism, fascism, and anti-semitism ; and the Western Ukraine was by far the most pro-Nazi part of the Soviet Union to have been occupied by the Germans. For at least two years after the war a savage guerrilla war was waged by Ukrainian nationals, with Nazi officers, against the Russians.
Werth, Alexander. Russia; The Post-War Years. New York: Taplinger Pub. Co.,1971, p. 27
One disturbing fact revealed a new and terrible danger and threw a fresh light on the state of mind prevailing in the south: on 10 August 1942 Mannstein’s advanced guard of armored cars was welcomed with enthusiastic cheers from a portion of the inhabitants of Vorochilovsk, whose recollections of collectivization were only too painful. It was the same at Ordzhonikidze. This made it possible for the Germans to begin to form regiments from the Cossack’s of the Terek and the natives, who enlisted in their thousands. This was the prodrome of a separatist rot, although for the present it was local. In vain did Stalin send into the Caucasus plenipotentiaries whose duty it was to inquire into the situation.
Delbars, Yves. The Real Stalin. London, Allen & Unwin, 1951, p. 322
This danger was revealed in all its amplitude in the Northern Caucasus. Despite the capture of Rostov on the Don, Mannstein, cut off from the bulk of the Wehrmacht, was still holding the Northern Caucasus. His army was revictualled by way of the Straits of Kertch; and he was able to form more and more numerous detachments of Cossacks from Terek and Kuban, of Tartars from the Crimea, of native Caucasians and of volunteers. When these troops withdrew they were followed by a great proportion of the population.
Delbars, Yves. The Real Stalin. London, Allen & Unwin, 1951, p. 332
CHECHENS WOULD NOT COOPERATE WITH THE RED ARMY
Only in the Chechen area was the local population reluctant to cooperate with the Red Army.
Sudoplatov, Pavel. Special Tasks. Boston: Little, Brown, c1993, p. 149
HUMANE RESETTLEMENT OF GERMANS FROM THE UKRAINE
[Resolution of the State Defense Committee, Sept. 22, 1941, on removal of Germans from certain areas of the Ukraine]
… 4. To allow the re-settled persons to bring with them their personal property and a supply of provisions for the journey in the amount of 200 kg for each member of the family.
5. Buildings, agricultural implements, livestock, and cereal/grain fodder belonging to the resettled persons will be handed over to the following commissioner representatives: the local executive committee, the People’s Commissariat for Agriculture, the People’s Commissariat for Meat and Dairy Production, and the People’s Commissariat for State Purchases, and will be restored at the place of settlement in accordance with confirmed instructions from the Council People’s Commissars, the People’s Commissariat for Agriculture, and the People’s Commissariat for Meat and Dairy Production.
Structures for kolkhozes and kolkhoz farm personnel will be provided at the place of settlement by delivery of prefabricated houses.
Those re-settled persons not provided homes at the place of supplement will be given loans for construction and, if necessary, repair of housing from the Agricultural Bank in the sum of up to 2000 rubles to be repaid in five years at 3% annual interest with amortization of the loans starting the second year after received.
… 7. To task the People’s Commissariat of Foreign and Domestic Trade with providing food to the resettled persons at locations as ordered by the NKVD.
8. To task the USSR People’s Commissariat for Health with providing medical service for the re-settled persons in transit, for which medical personnel, medicines, and first-aid supplies will be allocated as ordered by the NKVD.
9. To release from the reserve fund of the Council of People’s Commissars and the NKVD the sum of 15 million rubles for resettlement expenses.
10. To put the chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars of the Kazakh SSR and the Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan in charge of organizing the reception, settling, and household arrangements for the resettled persons.
Koenker and Bachman, Eds. Revelations from the Russian Archives. Washington: Library of Congress, 1997, p. 203
… The Volga Germans, whose position was similar to that of the Japanese Americans, became suspect owing to their particular language and culture, and were largely relocated to non-strategic areas but, unlike Japanese-Americans, without confinement.
Szymanski, Albert. Human Rights in the Soviet Union. London: Zed Books, 1984, p. 257
In fact, the resettled peoples were allotted land and given state assistance to build a new life in the areas in which they were resettled. The Volga Germans, for example, were resettled:
“with the promise that the migrants shall be allotted land and that they should be given assistance by the State in settling into new areas.”
(Decree of the presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet, 28 August 1941).
while the resettled Chechens and Crimean Tatars
” were given land, together with the necessary governmental assistance for their economic establishment.”
(Decree of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet, 25 June 1946)
The Enforced Resettlements Speech to the Stalin Society by Bill Bland, 1993.
HUMANE RESETTLEMENT OF CRIMEAN TATARS
[Decree of the State Defense Committee, May 11, 1944, signed by Stalin, on deportation of Crimean Tatars to Uzbekistan]
During the Patriotic War many Crimean Tatars betrayed the Motherland, deserted Red Army units that defended the Crimea, and sided with the enemy, joining volunteer army units formed by the Germans to fight against the Red Army. As members of German punitive detachments during the occupation of the Crimea by German fascist troops, the Crimean Tatars particularly were noted for their savage reprisals against Soviet partisans, and also helped the German invaders to organize the violent roundup of Soviet citizens for German enslavement and the mass extermination of the Soviet people.
The Crimean Tatars actively collaborated with the German occupation authorities, participating in the so-called Tatar national committees, organized by the German intelligence organs, and were often used by the Germans to infiltrate the rear of the Red Army with spies and saboteurs. With the support of the Crimean Tatars, the “Tatar national committees,” in which the leading role was played by White Guard-Tatar emigrants, directed their activity at the persecution and oppression of the non-Tatar population of the Crimea and were engaged in preparatory efforts to separate the Crimea from the Soviet Union by force, with the help of the German armed forces.
Taking into account the fact cited above, the State Defense Committee decrees that:
1. All Tatars are to be banished from the territory of the Crimea and re-settled permanently as special settlers in regions of the Uzbek SSR….
The following procedure and conditions of resettlement are to be established:
a) The special settlers will be allowed to take with them personal items, clothing, household objects, dishes and utensils, and up to 500 kilograms of food per family.
… Exchange receipts will be issued in every populated place and every farm for the receipt of livestock, grain, vegetables, and for other types of agricultural products.
By July 1 of this year, the NKVD, People’s Commissariat of Agriculture, People’s Commissariat of the Meat and Dairy Industries, People’s Commissariat of State Farms, and People’s Commissariat of Procurement are to submit to the USSR Council of People’s Commissars a proposal on the procedure for repaying the special settlers, on the basis of exchange receipts, for livestock, poultry, and agricultural products received from them.
… d) To each convoy of special settlers, the People’s Commissariat of Public Health is to assign, within a time frame to be coordinated with the NKVD, one physician and two nurses, as well as an appropriate supply of medicines, and to provide medical and first-aid care to special settlers in transit;
e) The People’s Commissariat of Trade will provide all convoys caring special settlers with hot food and boiling water on a daily basis….
… e) To grant plots of farm land to the newly arrived settlers and to help them build homes by providing construction materials;…
… 4. Seven-year loans of up to 5000 rubles per family, for the construction and setting up of homes, are to be extended by the Agricultural Bank to special settlers sent to the Uzbek SSR, in their places of settlement.
5. Every month during the June-August 1944 period, equal quantities of flour, groats, and vegetables will be allocated by the USSR People’s Commissariat of Procurement to the Uzbek SSR Council of People’s Commissars for distribution to the special settlers.
Flour, groats, and vegetables are to be distributed free of charge to the special settlers during the June-August period, as re-payment for the agricultural products and livestock received from them in the areas from which they were evicted.
Koenker and Bachman, Eds. Revelations from the Russian Archives. Washington: Library of Congress, 1997, p. 205-207
HUMANE RESETTLEMENT OF CRIMEAN TATARS, BULGARIANS, GREEKS, & ARMENIANS
[State Defense Committee resolution, June 2, 1944, to evict from the Crimean Republic 37,000 Bulgarians, Greeks, and Armenians, cited as German collaborators]
The State Defense Committee resolves to:…
3. … Direct the People’s Commissar of Agriculture, the People’s Commissar of the Meat and Dairy Industry, the People’s Commissar of Procurement, and the People’s Commissar of State Farms to ensure that the evicted Crimean Greeks, Bulgarians, and Armenians receive livestock, grain, and collective farm products using exchange receipts….
5. Direct the People’s Commissar of Trade to provide food for 37,000 people during the convoy of special settlers from the Crimea in accordance with the schedule set by the NKVD….
8. Direct the People’s Commissar of procurement to determine the methods to be used by the oblast executive committees… in distributing provisions to the special re-settlers during the first three months after resettlement (July-September) in equal monthly portions…. The distribution of foodstuffs to the special re-settlers during July-September will be free of charge taking into account the collective farm foodstuffs and livestock received at the place of eviction.
Koenker and Bachman, Eds. Revelations from the Russian Archives. Washington: Library of Congress, 1997, p. 209
BERIA SAYS THE RESETTLED PEOPLE FOUND GOOD LIVING CONDITIONS AT THEIR DESTINATION
[Report from Beria to Stalin, July 4, 1944, stating that re-settlement of Tatars, Bulgarians, Greeks, Armenians, and others from the Crimea has been completed]
… All of the special settlers who have reached their destination have found satisfactory living conditions. A significant number of the resettled, able-bodied Tatars special settlers have been engaged in agricultural work on collective and state farms, in logging, in industry, and in construction. There were no incidents during the resettlement operation on site or during transit.
Koenker and Bachman, Eds. Revelations from the Russian Archives. Washington: Library of Congress, 1997, p. 211
US ALSO DEPORTED NATIONALITIES WHEN DEEMED NECESSARY
One of the most massive repressions of civil liberties in American history occurred during the war in respect of those of Japanese descent. All Japanese living West of the Mississippi, regardless of the degree of Japanese blood, whether are not they were citizens, or how many years they, or their ancestors, had been in the U.S., were forcibly removed to isolated relocation camps. The 85 percent of Japanese Americans who lived West of the Mississippi, a total of 112,000 persons, were given between 48 hours and two weeks to prepare for evacuation to camps in the barren areas of the West. They were allowed to take with them only what they could carry, thus being forced to dispose of their houses, cars, appliances, and other possessions–typically to unscrupulous buyers who offered extremely low prices for Japanese possessions, knowing that they had to sell immediately. The Japanese Americans lost hundreds of millions of dollars in this period.
The West Coast Japanese were put under the authority of the U.S. Army. Relocation (concentration) camps were opened in the most desolate areas of California, Arizona, Colorado, Utah, and Arkansas. Until the relocation camps were ready, the Japanese were put into 15 temporary assembly centers, usually race tracks or fairgrounds. The camps were enclosed by barbed wire, with military sentinels stationed in towers to prevent escape. Families were crowded into single rooms. Employment was offered at the rate of $16 a month (which often, although promised, failed to materialize). Strikes against labor conditions in the camp were systematically repressed by the army, which confined strike leaders, isolating them from the rest of the population, for the duration of the war. The celebration of Japanese culture and the use of the Japanese language were strongly discouraged, and Japanese schools were forbidden.
Szymanski, Albert. Human Rights in the Soviet Union. London: Zed Books, 1984, p. 175
VOLGA GERMANS WORKED WITH THE NAZIS
The measures of enforced resettlements in these cases were presented not as a mass punishment, but as a Preventive measure to avoid the necessity of mass punishment:
“According to trustworthy information received by the military authorities, there are among the German population living in the Volga area thousands and tens of thousands of diversionists and spies, who, on a signal being given from Germany, are to carry out sabotage in the area inhabited by the Germans of the Volga.
None of the Germans living in the Volga area has reported to the Soviet authorities the existence of such a large number of diversionists and spies among the Germans; consequently, the German population of the Volga conceals enemies of the Soviet people and of Soviet authority in its midst.
In case of diversionists acts being carried out at a signal from Germany by German diversionists and spies in the Volga-German Republic or in the adjacent areas and bloodshed taking place, the Soviet government will be obliged, according to the laws in force during the war period, to take punitive measures against the whole of the German population of the Volga.
In order to avoid undesirable events of this nature and to prevent serious bloodshed, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR have found it necessary to transfer the whole of the German population living in the Volga area into other areas.”
(Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR: Decree of 28 August 1941).
The Enforced Resettlements Speech to the Stalin Society by Bill Bland, 1993.
Adam Geisinger wrote From Catherine to Khrushchev: The Story of Russia’s Germans; Battleford (Canada); 1974; and on pages 304, 313 said:
“As German troops overran western Russia in July and August 1941, they came across German villages
When German (or Romanian) soldiers arrived in such a village, they were greeted as liberators
Some of them (the Soviet Germans,Ed.) volunteered to work in the Reich during the war. Some of these defected fully to the Nazis and served in the German armed forces.”
The Enforced Resettlements Speech to the Stalin Society by Bill Bland, 1993.
TARTARS AND CHECHENS WORKED WITH THE NAZIS
“During the Great Patriotic War many Chechens and Crimean Tatars, at the instigation of German agents, joined volunteer units organized by the Germans and, together with German troops, engaged in armed struggle against units of the Red Army; also at the bidding of the Germans they formed diversionary bands for the struggle against Soviet authority in the rear; meanwhile, the main mass of the population of the Chechen-Ingush and Crimean ASSRs took no counter-action against these betrayers of the Fatherland.
In connection with this, the Chechens and the Crimean Tatars were resettled in other regions of the USSR.”
(Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR: decree to 25 June 1946).
The Enforced Resettlements Speech to the Stalin Society by Bill Bland, 1993.
Alexander Werth said in Russia at War: 1941-1945; London; 1964; pages 579-80, 838:
Altogether the Tatars’ record was as bad as could be. They had formed a police force under German control and had been highly active in the Gestapo.”
The Enforced Resettlements Speech to the Stalin Society by Bill Bland, 1993.
Alan W. Fisher said in The Crimean Tatars; Stanford; 1987; on pages 153, 155, 159:
“In most Crimean cities, the German advancing army was met with jubilation and calls of ‘liberators’ from the local Tatar population
Manstein was relatively successful in his attempts to gain active support from the Tatars. According to both German and Tatar evidence, the Germans persuaded between 15,000 and 20,000 Tatars to form self-defense battalions that were partially armed by the Germans and sent into the mountains to hunt down partisan units From the various Caucasian peoples over 110,000 volunteers were recruited; and the Kalmyks provided about 5000 volunteers
Large numbers of Tatar villagers as well as six organized Tatar self-defense battalions fought hard against the Soviet partisans.
The Enforced Resettlements Speech to the Stalin Society by Bill Bland, 1993.
Alan W. Fisher: The Crimean Tatars, the USSR and Turkey, in: William O. McCagg and Brian Silver (Eds.): Soviet Asian Ethnic Frontiers; New York; 1979; page 12:
“A large part of the Crimean Tatar population did not consider the government in Moscow to be their ‘sovereign’ nor the USSR to be their country
“Tatar collaboration; with the Germans took the following forms
First, early in 1942, the Germans encouraged the creation of ‘self-defense’ battalions of Tatars to ‘defend’ their villages against the activities of Soviet partisans in the Crimea. According to German records, between 15,000 and 20,000 Crimean Tatars formed these military units. Second, with German aid, Tatars established local ‘Muslim Committees’ to take over the responsibility for most non-political and non-military affairs.”
The Enforced Resettlements Speech to the Stalin Society by Bill Bland, 1993.
Walter Kolarz stated in Russia and her Colonies; London; 1952; on pages 185, and 187:
“When the German armies occupied the Northern Caucasus region many mountaineers manifested their hostility towards the Soviet regime. They attempted to use the retreat of the Red Army to free themselves from what they considered the ‘Russian yolk.’ Over 20 years of Soviet rule had not altered their imagined conviction that Russia’s foes were their friends….
In Chechnya, it would seem that Muslim opposition to the Soviet regime was never quite suppressed. The mullahs, who were powerful opponents of the Soviet regime, even managed to keep alive the illegal Sharia courts.
The hostile attitude of the Chechens toward the Soviet Russian regime was often manifested
The Enforced Resettlements Speech to the Stalin Society by Bill Bland, 1993.
DEPORTATIONS AND RESETTLEMENTS WERE LEGALLY JUSTIFIED
While there were individual traitors among all the nations of the Soviet Union, a few small nations were guilty of mass treachery.
An authoritative textbook of Soviet law (Ilya D. Levin [Ed.]. Soviet State Law; Moscow; 1947) tells us:
“In the background of patriotic enthusiasm which inflamed the nations of the Soviet country united against the common enemy… there stand out strangely the monstrous, criminal and treacherous acts of some small, backward nations which gave support to the enemy in the expectation of receiving ‘privileges’ from him at the expense of the other nations of the Soviet Union. These acts called for necessary and extraordinary measures by the Soviet state in the interests of the USSR as a whole.”
The Enforced Resettlements Speech to the Stalin Society by Bill Bland, 1993.
“But an authoritative book on Soviet law (Administrative Law of the USSR ; Moscow; 1950) sets out the circumstances in which groups of citizens may legally be resettled in other parts of the Soviet Union:”
‘Resettlement is carried out by the state organs of the USSR:
1) for the purpose of realizing measures connected with state security and defense of state frontiers;
2) for the purpose of acquiring lands for agricultural production.’
The first function is carried out by the organs of state security.”
The Enforced Resettlements Speech to the Stalin Society by Bill Bland, 1993.
Anti-historians often describe the enforced resettlements as acts of ‘genocide.’… But enforced resettlement of national groups can in no way be identified with intent to destroy them. Indeed, even such a hostile commentator as Conquest is compelled to admit:
“Nothing here matches the horror of the Nazi gas chambers. These nations were not physically annihilated.”
The Enforced Resettlements Speech to the Stalin Society by Bill Bland, 1993.
KARACHAI PEOPLE IN CAUCASUS WORKED WITH THE NAZIS
Alexander Dallin recounts in German Rule in Russia: 1941-1945: A Study of Occupation Policies; London; 1981; pages 244, 246, 258 that early in the Soviet-German war:
“…Revolts broke out among some of the Caucasian Mountaineers. Most widespread in the Muslim areas, particularly among the Chechens and Karachai, these rebellions prepared the ground for a change of regime…. Faced with a concentrated German onslaught and a lack of support from the indigenous population, the Red Army retreated from Rostov to the Greater Caucasus Mountains without giving battle….
In the Karachai region the bulk of the Muslim Mountaineers accorded the Germans a more genuine welcome than in most other occupied areas.
The Germans…announced the formation of a Karachai voluntary squadron of horsemen to fight with the German army
During the entire occupation, there was no evidence of anti-German activity in the Karachai area”
The Enforced Resettlements Speech to the Stalin Society by Bill Bland, 1993.
THE BALKARS WORKED WITH THE NAZIS
Robert Magidoff said in, The Kremlin Versus the People: The Story of the Cold Civil War in Stalin’s Russia; New York; 1953; pages, 20, 22,
“The Germans were welcomed by practically the entire population of the Crimea and the Muslim areas of the Northern Caucasus
The Balkars were Muslims and unlike the Christian Kabardinians, collaborated en masse with the enemy.”
The Enforced Resettlements Speech to the Stalin Society by Bill Bland, 1993.
Alexander Werth said in Russia at War: 1941-1945; London; 1964; pages 579-80, 838:
“The Muslim Balkars were more outspokenly pro-German than the mostly non-Muslim. Kabardinians. Although the Germans did not penetrate far into the Chechen-Ingush ASSR (south of Grozny), these two peoples appear to have made no secret of their sympathy for the Germans
The Enforced Resettlements Speech to the Stalin Society by Bill Bland, 1993.
