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The Deportation and Fate of the Crimean Tatars
By J. Otto Pohl
The mass expulsion of populations based upon ethnicity has marked much of the 20th
century. Most recently the ethnic cleansing of Kosova by Yugoslavia captured headlines
around the world.For much of the previous decade the plight of the Bosnian Muslims,
subjected to similar measures, held the world's attention. These recent events are only
the most recent manifestations of an old phenomenon. The Muslim nationalities of Eastern
Europe have been victims of numerous ethnic cleansing campaigns since the late 18th
century. Among those nationalities expelled en masseduring the 19th century from their
homelands were the Bulgarian Muslims, Circassians, and Abkhazians. The Imperial Russian
government was involved in all these mass expulsions.[1] In the 20th century, the
government of the Soviet Union perfected the crime of ethnic cleansing. During World War
II, the Stalin regime used the resources of a highly organized state with a modern rail
system to rapidly exile entire nations from their ancestral homelands. The Soviet
government targeted the Muslim nationalities of the Caucasus and Crimea for deportation in
their entirety. The Soviet political police, NKVD (Peoples Commissariat of Internal
Affairs) exiled the Karachays, Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, Crimean Tatars, and Meskhetian
Turks to Kazakhstan, Central Asia, Siberia, and other remote areas of the USSR in 1943 and
1944. These brutal forced relocations to desolate areas with poor material conditions
resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths.[2]
The Soviet government allowed the surviving
Karachays, Chechens, Ingush, and Balkars to return to their homelands and reestablish
their national institutions in the late 1950s. The Crimean Tatars and Meskhetian Turks,
however, remained exiled far from their roots. Only after 1989, could a significant number
of Crimean Tatars return to their ancestral homeland. Today more than 250,000 (more than
50% of the total population in the former USSR) Crimean Tatars reside in the Crimea.[3] Although they still suffer from
discrimination and exclusion in their homeland, the Crimean Tatars have made significant
progress in repairing the damage inflicted upon their national existence by Stalin. This
recovery has been an incredible feat. Stalin's policies killed tens of thousands of
Crimean Tatars, deprived the entire nation of its homeland a nd cultural foundations for
over half a century, and sought to completely eliminate them as a culturally distinct
people. This paper will examine Stalin's deportation and repression of the Crimean Tatars
during the 1940s in the light of materials from the former Soviet archives released in the
past decade. In particular it will address the hardships and suffering endured by the
Crimean Tatars as a result of their exile to Uzbekistan and the Urals .
The Crimean Tatars consider themselves the indigenous people (korenni narod) of
the Crimean peninsula. This claim received official recognition from the Soviet government
during the era of korenzatsiia (nativization) in the 1920s and early 1930s. During
this time the Soviet government actively promoted the national development of non-Russian
ethnic groups in the USSR. The primary focus of this nation building centered on the
creation of national territorial units within the USSR. These units ranged in size from
village soviets to soviet socialist republics. On 18 October 1921, the SNK (Council of
Peoples Commissariats) of the RSFSR (Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic) formed
the Crimean ASSR (Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic).[4] This administrative unit actively
promoted the cultural autonomy of the Crimean Tatars, who made up about a qu arter of the
territory's population. Both Crimean Tatar and Russian were official state languages of
the Crimean ASSR. On a local level the Crimean ASSR had 144 village Soviets which used
Crimean Tatar as their administrative language. [5] The territory also possessed a
myriad of Crimean Tatar cultural institutions including four teachers' colleges, journals,
newspapers, museums, libraries, theaters, and an Oriental Institute at Tavrida University
specializing in Crimean Tatar language and literature.[6] The Soviet government's active
promotion of Crimean Tatar national development in the 1920s contrasts sharply with
Stalin's later attempt to destroy the Crimean Tatars as a people.
During the 1930s, Soviet policies towards the
Crimean Tatars became increasingly repressive. Despite enjoying real cultural autonomy
during korenzatsiia, the Crimean Tatars suffered from Stalin's economic and
political policies. The "dekulakization" campaign of 1929-1931 involved the
deportation of thousands of Crimean Tatars to Northern Russia and the Urals. The forced
collectivization of agriculture in the Crimea devastated the vineyards, orchards, and
farms of the Crimean Tatars. This devastation contributed greatly to the 1932-1933 famine
in the region. As the 1930s progressed Stalin began to curtail the cultural autonomy of
the Crimean Tatars and persecute their intelligentsia. In 1935 there were 23 Crimean Tatar
language publications in the Crimean ASSR.[7] By 1938 the Soviet government had
eliminated 14 of them.[8] During 1937
and 1938, the Stalin regime executed a large number of Crimean Tatar intellectuals. This
persecution turned many Crimean Tatars against the Soviet government. During World War II,
the German government sought to exploit this resentment for their own purposes. Their
limited success in this endeavor had tragic consequences for the Crimean Tatars.
The events of World War II had a
huge impact on the entire Crimean Tatar population. The Axis occupation of the Crimean
peninsula precipitated a brutal war between Soviet partisans and German and Romanian
forces. This war involved Crimean Tatars on both sides. After the Soviet
victory in World War II, the Stalin regime exiled the entire Crimean Tatar
population to Uzbekistan and Eastern Russia. Crimean Tatar soldiers in the Red Army found
themselves rewarded for their loyalty with harsh forced labor in coal mines and lumber
camps in the Urals. These events still haunt the Crimean Tatars both demographically and
psychologically. In 1939, the Soviet census counted 218,179 Crimean Tatars in the Crimean
ASSR.[9] By 1953, their numbers in the USSR
had dropped to 165,259 people scattered throughout Kazakhstan, Cent ral Asia, the Urals,
and Siberia.[10] This loss
becomes even more staggering when the pre-war growth of the Crimean Tatar population is
taken into account. Between 1923 and 1939, the Crimean Tatar population increased from
150,000 to over 218,000.[11] The scale
of this demographic loss gives a small indication of the traumatic devastation the war,
deportations, exile, and forced labor had upon the Crimean Tatars.
The German and Romanian armies entered the Crimean
peninsula in September 1941. By November only Sevastopol still remained under Soviet rule.
In July 1942, Sevastopal also came under German rule. Between November 1941 and April
1944, the Germans controlled most of the former territory of the Crimean ASSR. Despite the
defeat of the Red Army by the Germans and Romanians in the Crimea, Soviet resistance did
not cease. Soviet partisans organized by the NKVD and Communist Party activists continued
to struggle against the Germans throughout the occupation of the peninsula. These
partisans engaged in sabotage and other guerrilla operations. They often targeted German
supplies and communications in the Crimea. They also ruthlessly terrorized elements of the
civilian population of the peninsula suspected of cooperating with the German occupation.
Despite the fact that Crimean Tatars were the second largest nationality in the partisans
after Russians, partisan units led by Russians and Ukrainians often targeted Crimean Tatar
villages for destruction.[12] This activity frequently had more to do with
Slavic animosity towards the Crimean Tatars than any real collaboration by the victimized
villagers. In order to help garrison the peninsula from partisan attacks, the German
occupation sought to organize local self defense battalions among the Crimean Tatars.
These units became the basis behind the slanderous charge by the Stalin regime that the
entire Crimean Tatar nation actively collaborated with Nazi Germany against the Soviet
Union. Despite an official recognition of the falsehood of this charge by the Soviet
government in 1967, it is still repeated by some Russian chauvinists today.
The German military authorities in the Crimea began creating self defense battalions
from Crimean Tatar POWs in January 1942. General Manstein viewed the Crimean Tatars as
being more sympathetic to the German occupation than the Slavic population of the
peninsula. These POWs volunteered for service in the self defense battalions in exchange
for release from the camps and better rations. The Germans formed six battalions and 14
companies of Crimean Tatars with 1,632 men by 15 February 1942.[13] In total, close to 20,000 Crimean Tatars served in German
organized self-defense battalions during WWII.[14] Fighting against the Nazis were an
equally large number of Crimean Tatars in the Red Army.[15] Eight of these soldiers even won
the Hero of the Soviet Union award. [16] Despite the Stalin regime's
contrary claims, tens of thousands of Crimean Tatars risked their lives fighting against
Nazi Germany.
On 11 May 1944, the Soviet Red Army recaptured the last
holdouts of the German Wehrmacht on the Crimean peninsula. On this same day the GKO
(State Defense Committee) issued resolution N5859ss signed by Joseph Stalin.[17] This decree ordered the deportation of all Crimean Tatars from
the Crimea to Uzbekistan. Its first operative clause reads, "1. All Tatars are to be
exiled from the territory of the Crimea and settled permanently as special settlers in
regions of the Uzbek SSR." The resolution entrusted Lavrentry Beria of the NKVD and
Lazar Kaganovich of the NKPS (Peoples Commissariat of Transportation) to carry out the
expulsion of the Crimean Tatars to Uzbekistan. These two organs jointly devised the train
schedules for the deportation. The decree entrusted the NKVD to set the train routes and
the number of trains needed for the operation. The NKVD also received responsibility for
loading the Crimean Tatars on to the train echelons and guarding them enroute to Central
Asia. The resolution gave the NKPS the task of organizing the train echelons and
maintaining the routes and schedules set by the NKVD. The deportation order only allowed
each Crimean Tatar family to bring 500kg of personal property into exile with them.
The Soviet government confiscated all other property including buildings, furniture, live
stock, and agricultural produce. GKO resolution N5859ss provided provisions for
compensation for this property. But, despite these provisions, the Crimean Tatars have
never received any compensation for this lost property. In 1956, the Soviet government
decreed that the Crimean Tatars were ineligible to receive any compensation for property
lost due to the deportations.[18] For the Crimean Tatars, however, the loss of their personal
property was a minor matter compared to the permanent loss of their national homeland. GKO
resolution N5859ss condemned virtually the entire Crimean Tatar nation to over 50 years of
exile in the deserts of Uzbekistan.
The official Soviet explanation for the deportations was that the Crimean Tatars
betrayed the USSR and collaborated with Nazi Germany. GKO resolution 5859ss officially
accused the Crimean Tatars of mass treason.
In the period of the Fatherland war many Crimean Tatars betrayed the
Motherland, deserted from units of the Red Army defending the Crimea, and turned over
the country to the enemy, joined German formed voluntary Tatar military units to fight
against the Red Army in the period of occupation of the Crimea by German-Fascist troops
and participated in German punitive detachments. Crimean Tatars were particularly noted
for their brutal reprisals towards Soviet partisans, and also assisted the German
occupiers in organizing the forcible sending to German slavery and mass destruction of
Soviet people.
Crimean Tatars actively collaborated with the German occupying powers,
participating in the so called "Tatar National Committees" organized by German
intelligence and were extensively used by the Germans to infiltrate the rear of the Red
Army with spies and diversionists. "Tatar National Committees," in which the
leading role was played by White Guard-Tatar emigres, with the support of the Crimean
Tatars directed their activity at the persecution and oppression of the non-Tatar
population of the Crimea and conducted work in preparation for the forcible separation
of the Crimea from the Soviet Union with the assistance of the German armed forces.
Most of the 20,000 Crimean Tatars in German military units, however, retreated to
Germany in May 1944. The majority of Crimean Tatar young men remaining in the USSR were
Red Army soldiers fighting against the Germans. Most of the Crimean Tatar population
remaining in the Crimea in May 1944 were women and children.[19] The Soviet government did not
merely send suspected German collaborators and their families into exile. Instead it
deported innocent women, children, invalids, Red Army veterans, Communist Party members
and Komsomolists without exception. In March 1949 the special settlements contained8,995
former Red Army soldiers of Crimean Tatar nationality.[20] These veterans included 534
officers, 1,392 sergeants, and 7,079 rank and file soldiers.[21] Also among the Crimean Tatar
special settlers were 742 Communist Party members and 1,225 Komsomolists.[22] The charges of treason against the Crimean Tatar nation were
thusspurious. A fact recognized by the Soviet government in 1967.
The real reason for the deportation of the Crimean
Tatars appears to be related to Soviet foreign policy objectives in the Middle East.[23] The Stalin regime had designs on Turkish territory after WWII.
Moscow desired to obtain the Turkish provinces of Kars and Adharan. It also wanted to
establish military bases in the Dardenelle Straits. In March 1945, Molotov informed the
Turkish ambassador to Moscow that the Soviet Union was not going to renew the 1925
Soviet-Turkish Treaty of Neutrality. On 7 July 1945, Molotov formally requested that
Turkey allow Soviet naval bases in the Straits and cede Kars and Ardahan.[24] Stalin reiterated this request at
both the Yalta and Potsdam summits.[25] On 20 May 1945, the USSR demanded that Turkey acquiesce to Soviet
desires on these matters.[26] At this time the USSR began to put military and
diplomatic pressure on Turkey to meet its demands. Part of this campaign involved a
massive anti-Turkish propaganda effort among Armenians and Georgians in the Caucasus.
Soviet actions aimed at forcing Turkey to meet its demands continued until September 1946.
They ended when President Truman returned the body of the recently deceased Turkish
ambassador to the US back to Turkey. Truman sent the ambassador's body back on board the
Battleship Missouri escorted by the Aircraft Carrier Franklin D. Roosevelt
and several destroyers.[27] Moscow understood this not so subtle message and
ceased its bullying of Ankara.
The Stalin regime deported the Karachays, Chechens, Ingush,
Balkars, Crimean Tatars, and Meskhetian Turks in preparation for this anti-Turkish
campaign.[28] All of these Muslim nationalities had historical and cultural
ties to Turkey. They also all occupied strategic areas of the Soviet Union in relation to
Turkey. The Meskhetian Turks inhabited the Georgian-Turkish border, the Karachays,
Chechens, Ingush, and Balkars lived near the main highways through the Caucasus, and the
Crimean Tatars made their homes near the naval bases and facilities of the Black Sea
Fleet. The Stalin regime feared that these nationalities would not be completely loyal to
the USSR in the event of a conflict with Turkey. In the minds of Stalin and Beria these
ethnic groups represented a potential pro-Turkish fifth column living close to vulnerable
Soviet military assets. Thus one of the main r eason for the deportation of these groups
was to prevent any espionage, sabotage, diversion, or other assistance to Ankara by their
members in the event of a Soviet-Turkish conflict. The importance of the Crimean peninsula
in such a conflict had already been demonstrated in the Crimean War in the last century.
The Soviet leadership believed that military control of the Black Sea depended upon a
solidly loyal population in the Crimea. Hence the Stalin regime deemed it
necessary to deport the Crimean Tatars with theirlinguistic, cultural and historical ties
to Turkey far away from the region to Uzbekistan and the Urals.
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On 18 May 1944, the NKVD began the actual deportation of the
Crimean Tatars. Two of the deputy Chiefs of the NKVD, Bogdan Kobulov and Ivan
Serov personally oversaw the roundup and entrainement of the condemned nation. The
entire operation involved 23,000 officers and soldiers of the NKVD internal troops
and 9,000 NKVD-NKGB operatives, 100 "Willey Jeeps," 250 trucks, and 67
train echelons. [29] The NKVD informed each individual
household that they were to be deported for betraying the Motherland and made them
quickly gather up their personal possessions. The Crimean Tatar families had only
15 to 20 minutes to attempt to gather up the 500 kg allowed by GKO resolution
N5859ss. Most did not take anything near 500 kg of belongings with them into
exile. The NKVD did not allow some Crimean Tatar families to bring
anything with them during the deportation. Many others managed to
collect only a few possessions during this time. The NKVD then
drove the Crimean Tatars to the nearest train station and loaded them into box
cars. It took three days to load the vast majority of the Crimean Tatar population
onto trains and send them east enroute to Uzbekistan. By 8:00 Am 18 May 1944, the
NKVD had loaded 90,000 Crimean Tatars onto 25 train echelons. [30] A total of 48,400 of these exiles on 17 echelons had
already departed for Uzbekistan. [31] The next day, the NKVD completed transporting 165,515
Crimean Tatars to train stations and sent 136,412 enroute to Uzbekistan. [32] On 20 May 1944, the NKVD
completed the exile of the Crimean Tatars. According to their initial count, the
NKVD exiled a total of 180,014 Crimean Tatars to special settlements between 18
and 20 May 1944. [33] On 4 July
1944, they revised this figure to 183,155. [34] In addition to these
exiles, the NKVD also separated 11,000 young Crimean Tatar men from their families
and sent them to perform forced labor. [35] The Red Army conscripted
6,000 of these Crimean Tatars into construction battalions. [36] The remaining 5,000 became
part of an 8,000 man special contingent of the labor army requested by the Moscow
Coal Trust. [37] In a mere
three days, the Soviet government forcibly removed 194,155 Crimean Tatars from the
Crimea. The NKVD successfully expelled virtually the entire Crimean Tatar
population from its ancestral homeland. To this day it remains one of the most
rapid and thorough cases of ethnic cleansing in world history.
| Table I. Schedule of
Crimean Tatar Deportation[38] |
| Day |
Taken to Train Stations |
Sent Enroute to Uzbekistan |
| 18 May 1944 |
90,000 |
48,400 |
| 19 May 1944 |
165,515 |
136,412 |
| 20 May 1944 |
183,155 |
183,155 |
The 5,000 Crimean Tatars sent to work in the Moscow
Coal Trust found themselves condemned to hard labor. On 29 May 1944, Deputy
Chief of the NKVD, Chernyshov reported to Beria that the Crimean Tatars sent to
the Mocsow coal basin had been organized into labor brigades in the labor army.[39] The Soviet government originally created the labor army
ostensibly as an alternative to military service for ethnic Germans. In reality
the labor army was a collection of work camps and brigades differing little from
the Gulag camps. The Stalinregime forcibly mobilized Soviet Germans
and other national minorities into these militarized labor detachments during
the course of World War II. The Soviet leadership condemned the workers in the
labor army to strictly supervised forced labor without any charges or trials.
The labor army worked under strict NKVD discipline and surveillance.[40] Special boards of the
NKVD reviewed all cases involving discipline violations.[41] The punishment for
refusal to work was 10 years in a corrective labor camp.[42] Desertion was punishable
by death. [43] The
Crimean Tatars in the labor army working in the Moscow coal basin endured long
hours of hard work under difficult conditions. The NKVD also organized the
Crimean Tatars later sent to the Tula coal basin into labor army detachments.[44] By October 1945, there
remained only 1,188 of the original 5,000 Crimean Tatars sent to the Moscow coal
basin.[45] Another
1,650 Crimean Tatars in the labor army worked in the Tula coal basin on this
date.[46] On 20
June 1946, there were 1,334 Crimean Tatars in labor army detachments in the
Moscow coal basin and 2,532 in the Tula coal basin.[47] During 1947 and 1948,
the Soviet government disbanded the labor army and reclassified its members as
special settlers.[48] Because
of the paucity of published archival data is impossible to say exactly how many
Crimean Tatars perished in the labor army. The anecdotal evidence suggest that
these losses ranged in the thousands.
The NKVD herded the Crimean Tatars bound
for special settlements into box cars at an average of 50 people percar along
with their possessions.[49] Thesetrain carriages
were not designed for carrying human passengers. With the exception of a hole to
serve as a primitive toilet, the carriages were identical to the freight cars
used to transport cattle. The crowded and unsanitary conditions of these cars
led to many cases of typhus. Often these cases proved fatal. The
train echelons periodically stopped at train stations to remove the sick and
dead. Most of the dead were children and the elderly. In Chkalov Oblast 59 train
echelons with 3,252 wagons and 163,632 Crimean Tatar deportees passed through
the Iletsk train station between 23 May and 4 June 1944.[50] At this station alone, the NKVD removed 4 sick and 14
dead Crimean Tatars during this eleven day period.[51] The NKVD recorded a
total of 191 Crimean Tatars dying enroute to Uzbekistan.[52] This number is certainly
an undercount. On 6 June 1944, the NKVD reported that 176,746 of the 183,155
exiled Crimean Tatars had arrived in special settlements.[53] Thus 6,409 Crimean
Tatars were missing. By the end of July the NKVD records showed 341 more Crimean
Tatar arrivals in Uzbekistan for a loss of 6,068.[54] The N KVD also recorded
the arrival of 9,177 Crimean Tatars in the Mari ASSR in July 1944.[55] It is clear from the
numbers involved that these arrivals had already been counted in the 6 June 1944
tally. If they are added to it the total number of arrivals reaches 185,923 a
number greater than the total number of deportees. The Crimean Tatars in the
Mari ASSR thus had to be transported from one of the other exile destinations.
Between 18 May and 6 June 1944, more than 6,000 Crimean Tatars permanently
disappeared. Some of these can be attributed to escapes, but the vast majority
of them must be assumed to have perished. Other scholars give even higher
estimates of the deaths in transit. Brian Williams places the number
of deaths of Crimean Tatars enroute to the special settlements at 7,000.[56] Michael Rywkin places it
at 7,900.[57] The
long weeks spent on the slow moving trains were only the beginning of a long
nightmare for the Crimean Tatars.
The Stalin regime deported the Crimean Tatars
to special settlements. The Soviet government created the special settlement
regime during the collectivization of agriculture during 1929-1931. Gulag chief
Matvei Berman conceived the special settlements as an economical way to confine
the massive waves of deported kulaks and exploit their labor.[58] The OGPU (Unified State
Political Administration, predecessor to the NKVD) established the special
settlements as isolated villages surrounded by guard posts, check points, road
blocks, and even barbed wire.[59] The Soviet security
organs kept the special settlements under close surveillance and maintained a
strict regimen over the settlers. They enforced their control over the special
settlements though draconian means. They required a representative of each
household to register with them every ten days.[60] Every month each
individual exile also had to register separately with the security organs. [61] During World War II, the
Soviet government deported numerous nationalities to the special settlements. In
1941 the NKVD deported the Soviet Germans and Finns, in 1943 the Karachays and
Kalmyks, and in 1944 the Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, Crimean Tatars, and
Meskhetian Turks. The Soviet government imposed a series of repressive
legislative restrictions upon the special settlers during the 1940s.
The Stalin regime deprived the special
settlers of their constitutional right to native language education and
publications. The SNK passed resolution no. 13287 rs on 20 June 1944 mandating
that Karachay, Chechen, Ingush, Balkar, and Crimean Tatar children receive their
primary education in Russian.[62] This resolution allowed
Crimean Tatars to receive middle and higher education in Uzbek or Russian, but
not their mother tongue. The Soviet government also allowed no official Crimean
Tatar language publications between 1944 and 1957. Despite this loss of Crimean
Tatar language schools and media, the deported nation managed to maintain its
distinct cultural identity in exile.
The Soviet government also imposed strict
restrictions on the mobility and activities of the special settlers. The SNK
passed resolution 35 on "The Rights of Those Settled in Special
Settlements" on 8 January 1945.[63] This resolution required the settlers to engage in
useful labor and instructed the NKVD and local authorities to organize them to
work in agriculture, industry and construction. This resolution also prohibited
the special settlers from leaving the boundaries of the settlements without NKVD
permission. Failure to obtain this permission was punishable as a criminal act.
The resolution stipulated that each family head to report all births, deaths,
escapes, and treasonous acts within their family to the NKVD within three days.
It also required all special settlers to obey all NKVD orders. Finally, it gave
the NKVD the power to administer punishments up to five days in jail and a fine
of a 100 rubles for violations of the special settlement regime. This regime
became increasingly oppressive throughout the late 1940s. On 24 November 1948,
the Council of Ministers issued resolution N436-1726ss.[64] This decree made refusal
to work by a special settler punishable by eight years in a corrective labor
camp. On 26 November 1948, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet
issued an even harsher decree regarding the special settlements.[65] This decree declared
that the exile of the Crimean Tatars and other deported nationalities was
permanent. In order to enforce this eternal exile, the decree established a 20
year sentence in a hard labor camp for leaving the settlement without MVD
(Ministry of Internal Affairs , the successor of the NKVD) permission. The
decree mandated that special boards of the MVD investigate all unauthorized
absences and refusals to work by special settlers within 10 days. It also
subjected free citizens to five years imprisonment for assisting fugitives from
the special settlements. The Stalin regime administered the special settlements
as open air labor camps. These penal settlements combined internal exile,
confinement to restricted areas, and forced labor.
The day after completing the deportation of the
Crimean Tatars (21 May 1944), the GKO passed resolution 5937ss.[66] This resolution diverted
31,551 of the 183,155 Crimean Tatars destined for special settlements in
Uzbekistan to the Mari ASSR andGorky, Ivanovo, Kostroma, Molotov, and Sverdlovsk
oblasts in the RSFSR.[67] Originally 8,597 of
these exiles were to be sent to the Mari and Udmurt ASSRs.[68] On 21 May 1944, Beria's
deputy Chernyshov informed him that the UNKVD of Gorky Oblast had finished
preparations to accept 5,000 Crimean Tatar exiles.[69] The UNKVD of the Mari
ASSR was prepared to receive 5,500, Ivanovo Oblast 3,000, and Yaroslav Oblast
1,000. [70] Stalin
issued a GKO resolution in May 1944 to resettle 10,000 Crimean Tatar families to
the Mari ASSR, Molotov, Gorky, and Sverdlovsk oblasts.[71] This resolution was
based upon a decision by Beria to use Crimean Tatars special settlers in the
paper and cellulose industries and lumber preparation in these territories. By 6
June 1944, there were 15,969 Crimean Tatar special settlers in Molotov, Gorky,
and Sverdlovsk oblasts.[72] Not until July, however,
did Crimean Tatars arrive in the Mari ASSR. A report by Deputy Chief of the Mari
ASSR NKVD Svintsov to Chief of the Special Settlements Kuzetsov on 24 August
1944 notes the number of these new arrivals.[73] The influx of Crimean
Tatars into the Mari ASSR during July 1944 totaled 9,177 people (2,201
families). More than 80% of these arrivals were women and children. Only 1,481
were adult men while 3,329 were women and 4,367 were children under 16. The
Soviet government employed most of the Crimean Tatar special settlers sent to
the Urals in the lumber and paper industries. The conditions for the Crimean
Tatars in the Urals were far from ideal.
The conditions for Crimean Tatar in specialsettlements attached to the
lumber industry in Kostroma Oblast proved to be especially difficult. On 10
October 1944, 6,387 Crimean Tatar special settlers lived in Kostroma Oblast.
Those capable of labor worked in the lumber and paper industries.[74] In Manturov raion (776
Crimean Tatar exiles) and Kologriv raion (1,893 Crimean Tatar exiles) conditions
were extremely substandard.[75] Material conditions for
the Crimean Tatars in Kologriv raion were especially unhealthy. A report from
Deputy Chief of the Special Settlements NKVD, Col. G. B. Malkov to Deputy Chief
of the NKVD USSR V.V. Chernyshov of 10 October 1944 describes these conditions.
In Kologriv raion preparations for winter barracks move slowly.
Due to an absence of glass window frames can not be repaired. Clothes and
shoes for resettlers have not been provisioned. Special settlers work in the
forest bare foot. The supplies to special settlers of bread are interrupted
for two to three days at a time. From 16 to 20 August we gave absolutely no
bread to the Fonfonova section of the Pongov lumber enterprise. Families of
special settlers receive food irregularly, the quality of this food is
unsatisfactory, the bread given is rationed at 150 grams a person. Wages were
not paid for July this year. Medical service is unsatisfactory. Among the
special settlers in the lumber sections of Fofanova, Markovlug and Shirokii
Luga have spread diseases like dysentery, mange, and eczema. [76]
Malnutrition, disease, and exposure took a high toll among the Crimean Tatars
in the Urals. By 1953, the number of Crimean Tatars in Kostroma Oblast had
declined to 2,243.[77] Much of
this loss was due to an unnaturally high mortality rate.
The vast majority of exiled Crimean Tatars ended up
in special settlements in Uzbekistan. On 6 June 1944, the NKVD
counted a total of 151,083 Crimean Tatars in Uzbekistan. [78] By the end of July, a
total of 151,424 Crimean Tatars (35,750 families) had arrived in Uzbekistan.[79] Most of these arrivals
were women and children (see table). The majority of adult Crimean Tatar men had
not yet been discharged from the Red Army. They continued to fight for the USSR
against Germany while the Soviet government sent their families into exile. The
NKVD organized the special settlements in Uzbekistan prior to the arrival of the
Crimean Tatar exiles. Kobulov presented Beria with a plan to settle the deported
Crimean Tatars in speci al settlements throughout Uzbekistan on 20 May 1944.[80] This plan called for
confining the exiled Crimean Tatars to 350 settlements guarded by 97 special
commands. Originally the Soviet government assigned 94,500 Crimean Tatars in
Uzbekistan to kolhozes, 36,300 to sovhozes, and 23,200 to industrial
enterprises. The Crimean Tatars provided an influx of cheap labor into
Uzbekistan. These exiles worked in the vast cotton fields of Uzbekistan as well
as in mines, industrial construction projects, and factories. The Crimean Tatars
contributed significantly to the economic development of Uzbekistan.
| Table II. Number of
Crimean Tatar Special Settlers in Uzbekistan[81] |
| Year |
Families |
Men |
Women |
Children |
Total |
| 1944 |
37,750 |
--- |
--- |
--- |
151,424 |
| 1945 |
36,564 |
21,619 |
47,537 |
65,586 |
137,742 |
| 1946 |
34,946 |
21,332 |
42,071 |
56,726 |
120,129 |
The Crimean Tatars found the first years
of exile in Uzbekistan extremely difficult. The Uzbeks met the exiled Crimean
Tatars with hostility.NKVD agitatorspublicly slandered the Crimean Tatars as
traitors and Nazi collaborators in Uzbekistan prior to their arrival.[82] This NKVD
propaganda stressed Crimean Tatar collaboration with Nazi Germany against the
Soviet Union while Uzbeks fought in the Red Army. Not only did the Uzbeks refuse
to assist the dislocated Crimean Tatars, but in some cases they stoned them. The
hostility of the Uzbeks dissipated after they learned the Crimean Tatars were
fellow Muslims.[83] Far
from being Nazi collaborators who believed Central Asians were untermenschen
(subhuman s), the Crimean Tatars shared the same religious beliefs and
traditions as the Uzbeks. The initial hostility of the Uzbeks, however, meant
that the Crimean Tatars had to face the burdens of exile without any local
assistance during 1944 and 1945.
The NKVD assigned the Crimean Tatar special settlers
in Uzbekistan to work in factories, mines, cotton fields, and industrial
construction. Often they worked 12 hour days under dangerous and unhealthy
conditions.[84] Life was especially difficult for the
Crimean Tatar workers and their families assigned to the construction of the
Farkhad and Nizhnebossi hydroelectric stations.[85] Other places with difficult living conditions for the
Crimean Tatars in Uzbekistan included the Koitash mine, Haryn and Dal'verzin
sovhozes, and Shakhrizyb and Kharvat kholhozes.[86] The local authorities
were unable to provide sufficient food and clothing to the exiled Crimean Tatars
assigned to the se areas. The Soviet government also provided little in the way
of adequate housing for the Crimean Tatars in Uzbekistan. The majority of the
exiles were forced to live in hastily constructed barracks, mud huts, and
earthen dugout. By September 1944, conditions at the Farkhad construction site
were intolerable to even the local authorities. On 30 September 1944, the
Central Committee of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan and the Uzbek NKVD passed
resolution No. 1228-1593 to improve the conditions of the Crimean Tatars at
Farkhad.[87] The
Uzbek leadership relocated 2,472 Crimean Tatars (772 families)
working and living at Farkhad to cotton kolhozes in Tadzhikistan in accordance
with this decree.[88]
The difficult work, strange climate, and la ck of proper clothing, housing and
food in Uzbekistan had a horrible effect upon the Crimean Tatars. It weakened
their physical constitutions and made them susceptible to a host of infectious
diseases common to Central Asia.
The poor material and
climatic conditions of Uzbekistan took a heavy toll on the health of the Crimean
Tatar exiles. Lack of clean water and other unhygienic conditions resulted in
mass outbreaks of diseases such a malaria, yellow fever, and dysentery. The
Crimean Tatars had little immunity to these diseases. Absence of proper medical
care and widespread malnutrition greatly exacerbated the death toll from these
diseases. In late July 1944, Chernyshov informed Beria that malaria and yellow
fever epidemics had broken out among the Crimean Tatar special settlers in
Uzbekistan.[89] Namagan, Samarkand, and Bukhara
oblasts suffered especially high rates of infection.[90] Around 40% of the 13,097
Crimean Tatars in Namagan Oblast had either malaria or yellow fever in July
1944.[91] In
addition to infectious diseases, the Crimean Tatars in Uzbekistan also suffered
from dystrophy and other ailments stemming from malnutrition. Exile to
Uzbekistan meant hunger, disease, and death for the Crimean Tatars.
The death toll of the Crimean Tatars in special
settlements in Uzbekistan was extremely high. According the NKVD archives
between May 1944 and 1 January 1945, 13,592 Crimean Tatars died in Uzbkistan.[92] This figure represents 9.1% of the Crimean
Tatars exiled to Uzbekistan and 7.4% of all Crimean Tatars sent to special
settlements. Between 1 January 1945 and 1 January 1946, NKVD figures record
another 13,183 Crimean Tatars perishing in Uzbek special settlements.[93] This represents anther
8.7% of the Crimean Tatars originally sent to Uzbekistan and 7.1% of all Crimean
Tatars deported to special settlements. In a year and a half, 17.8% of the
Crimean Tatars exiled to Uzbekistan perished. These deaths constituted 14.5% of
all Crimean Tatars initially sent to special settlements. Almost half of these
deaths occurred among children under 16 and less than a quarter were among adult
men. Out of 13,183 recorded deaths in 1945, 6,096 were children, 4,525 women,
and only 2,562 men.[94] The deserts of
Uzbekistan decimated the Crimean Tatar population during the first year of
exile.
Attempting to establish the total
number Crimean Tatar deaths as a result of the exile (Surgun) is
difficult. The available figures are both incomplete and often count Crimean
Greeks, Armenians, and Bulgarians along with the Crimean Tatars. A report from
Col. V. Shiain on the work of the MVD Section on Special Settlers dated April
1953 provides some important figures on special settler mortality.[95] This report states that
between arriving in the special settlements and 1 July 1948, the recorded number
of Crimean Tatar, Greek, Armenian and Bulgarian deaths is 44,887, 19.6% of those
deported. This document provides no national division of this number into
Crimean Tatars, Greeks, Armenians, and Bulgarians. Another report gives the
total number of Crimean exiles to perish in special settlements from 1945 to
1950 as 32,107.[96] Again this document provides no
national break down of these deaths.
| Table III. Deaths and
Births of Crimean Exiles in Special Settlements[97] |
| Year |
Deaths |
Births |
| 1945 |
15,997 |
1,099 |
| 1946 |
4,997 |
961 |
| 1947 |
2,937 |
1,753 |
| 1948 |
3,918 |
1,753 |
| 1949 |
2,120 |
3,586 |
| 1950 |
2,138 |
4,671 |
| Total |
32,107 |
13,823 |
The year 1945, however, allows a comparison of this information with that
reports on the deaths of Crimean Tatars in Uzbekistan. A total of 15,997 special
setters deported from the Crimea perished in 1945 of which 13,183 (82.4%) were
Crimean Tatars in Uzbekistan. Based upon this information it can safely be
assumed that more than 40,000 Crimean Tatars died in special settlements before
1951. This number does not include the Crimean Tatars that perished enroute to
the settlements or those who died in the labor army. Adjusting for natural
deaths, Michael Rywkin calculates that 42,000 Crimean Tatars perished as a
result of the deportations by May 1949[98] . Others place the number considerably higher. Many
Crimean Tatar activists cite 100,000 or 46% of the 1939 Crimean Tatar
population.[99] At a bare minimum, Stali n's
deportations, exile, and forced labor mobilization killed more than 20% of the
Crimean Tatar population in less than five years. On this basis alone it
qualifies as one of the worst cases of ethnically motivated mass murder in the
20th century.
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The huge loss of lives among the Crimean Tatars due to the deportations inevitably
raises the question of genocide. The United Nations Treaty on the Prevention and
Punishment of Genocide defines genocide in Article II. This article reads "In the
present convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent it to
destroy in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group".[100] These acts include "Deliberately inflicting on the group
conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or
part."[101] It is clear that Stalin's deportation of the
Crimean Tatars qualifies as genocide under this definition. The Soviet government
deliberately deported the Crimean Tatars to areas with inadequate housing, food,clothing,
and medicine. It is thus not sur prising that a large percentage of the Crimean Tatars
perished in exile from causes directly related to these deficiencies.
Not only does the deportation and fate of the
Crimean Tatars meet the UN's definition of genocide, but the Russian government has
recognized it as such. On 14 November 1989, the Supreme Soviet issued " On
Recognizing the Illegal and Criminal Repressive Acts against Peoples Subjected to Forcible
Resettlement and Ensuring their Rights." This decree officially recognized 11
"Repressed Peoples" including the Crimean Tatars.
The exile in the years of the Second World War from their homelands of
the Balkars, Ingush, Kalmyks, Karachays, Crimean Tatars, Germans, Meskhetian Turks, and
Chechens present themselves as barbaric acts of the Stalin regime. Political forced
resettlement affected the fate of Koreans, Greeks, Kurds, and other peoples. [102]
On 26 April 1991, the RSFSRpromulgated a law entitled "On
Rehabilitating the Repressed Peoples." This act admitted that Stalin's deportation of
the "Repressed Peoples" to special settlements constituted genocide.
Repressed peoples are regarded as those (nations, nationalities or ethnic groups and
other historically formed cultural-ethnic communities of people, for example, Cossacks)
against whom was conducted at a state level a policy of slander and genocide,
accompanied by forced resettlement, abolition of national-state formations, redrawing of
national-territorial borders and establishment of a regime of terror and violence in
special settlements. [103]
Signed by Boris Yeltsin, this law was the first official recognition by the Russian
government that Stalin's actions towards the Crimean Tatars and others was genocide.
The Crimean Tatars remained confined to the special settlements until Khrushchev's
destalinization campaign. Part of this campaign entailed the dismantlement of the special
settlement regime. On 5 July 1954, the SNK released all children under 16 from the
settlements.[104] Almost two years later, on 20 April 1956, the
Presidium of the Supreme Soviet freed all Crimean Tatars remaining in the special
settlements.[105] This decree
freed the Crimean Tatars from MVD discipline and surveillance. It also forbade them from
returning to the Crimea or receiving compenstation for property lost due to the
deportations. Despite removing the special settlement restrictions from the Crimean
Tatars, the Soviet government still considered them guilty of treason. The
Crimean Tatars activ ely petitioned and lobbied Moscow for rehabilitation from 1957 on.[106] This campaign included mass
petitions, letters, and appeals to the Soviet leadership. Finally, on 21 July
1967, a delegation of Crimean Tatars met with key members of the Soviet politburo and
received a favorable hearing of their grievances.[107] In response to this meeting the
Presidium of the Supreme Soviet officially rescinded the charges of treason against the
Crimean Tatars on5 September 1967[108] . This resolution, however,
reiterated the prohibition on returning to the Crimea. Indeed it referred to
"citizens of Tatar nationality who had been living in t he Crimea" rather than
Crimean Tatars. Officially from this time forward, the Soviet government did not
distinguish between Crimean Tatars and the much larger Volga Tatar population. Despite the
similarity in the names of these two groups, they are distinct and separate nationalities.
This official merger of the Crimean and Volga Tatars aimed at denying the existence of a
Crimean Tatar nationality with the right to live in the Crimea. The limited rehabilitation
of the 50s and 60s did not satisfy the exiled Crimean Tatars. During the late 1960s, 70s,
and 80s they continued to struggle to return to their homeland.
This struggle intensified after the 1967 decree. It took the
forms of attempts to illegally return to the Crimea, lobbying the Soviet leadership, and
public demonstrations. On 21 April 1968, Crimean Tatars in Chirchik, Uzbekistan staged a
major demonstration to celebrate Lenin's birthday and demand repatriation to the Crimea.
Soviet authorities responded violently and dispersed this gathering.[109] In the wake of this
demonstration, the Crimean Tatars began to address their appeals not only to Moscow, but
abroad. Crimean Tatar leaders like other human and national rights activists in the USSR
based their appeals on Soviet and international law. Their letters and petitions
highlighted the violation of Leninist nationality policies and socialist legality entailed
by their continued exile. Rather than oppose the Soviet system, the Crimea n Tatars
insisted that its leadership obey its own laws.[110] Despite this valiant struggle
for repatriation, the Crimean Tatars made little progress towards their primary goal prior
to 1989.
After 14 November 1989 Supreme Soviet decree, "On Recognizing the Illegal and
Criminal Repressive Acts against Peoples Subjected to Forcible Resettlement and Ensuring
their Rights" became known to the Crimean Tatars, they began to return to the Crimea
in large numbers.[111] Thousands upon
thousands of Crimean Tatar families left Uzbekistan to live in the land of their
ancestors. In a little over four years nearly 250,000 or almost half of all
Crimean Tatars in the former Soviet Union managed to returnto the Crimea.[112] The repatriation and
reintegration of the Crimean Tatars is still an ongoing process. Their struggle for a full
restoration of their national rights and restitution is far from over. They have, however,
succeeded far beyon d the expectations of almost all outside observers.
|
End Notes
|
[1] See JustinMcCarthy, Death
and Exile: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ottoman Muslims, 1821-1922, (Princeton,
NJ: The Darwin Press, Inc., 1995).
[2] See Svetlana Alieva ed., Tak
eto bylo:Natsional'nye repressi v SSSR, 1919-1952 gody (Moscow: Russian
International Cultural Fund, 1993)and N.F. Bugai
ed. , Iosif Stalin - Lavrentiiu Berii: "Ikh nado deportirovat'":
dokumenty, fakty, kommentarii (hereafter Ikhnado
deportirovat') (Moscow: Druzhba narodov, 1992) for most of the relevant
documents on these deportations from the Presidium
ofthe SupremeSoviet, Council of Peoples Commissars, NKVD,
and MVD.
[4]N.F. Bugai, L. Beria - I. Stalinu: "Soglasno vashemu
ukazaniiu..., (hereafter Soglasno) (Moscow: "AIRO XX,"
1995), p. 142.
[6] Alan Fisher, The Crimean Tatars (Stanford, CA:
Hoover Institution, 1978), p. 140.
[9]Bugai, Soglasno, p. 143.
[10] V.N.
Zemskov, "Zakliuchenye, spetsposelentsy, ssyl'noposelentsy, ssylne, i
vyslanye," Istoriia SSSR, no. 5, 1991, table 3, p. 155.
[11] Brian Glyn
Williams, A Homeland Lost. Migration, the Diaspora Experience and the Forging
of Crimean Tatar NationalIdentity (Ph.D. diss.,
University of Wisconsin, 1999), p. 535.
[12] Williams,
pp. 576-578.
[13] Aleksandr
Nekrich, The Punished Peoples: The Deportation and Fate of Soviet Minorities
at the End of the Second World War (New York: Norton, 1979), pp. 15-16.
[14] Bugai, Soglasno,
p. 146; and Fisher, Crimean Tatars, p. 155.
[15] Fisher, Crimean
Tatars, p. 161.
[17] Document
reproduced in Alieva, Tak eto bylo, vol. III, pp. 62-65.
[18] Document
reproduced in Alieva, Tak eto bylo, vol. III, p. 72 and Bugai, Ikh
nado deportirovat', doc. 57, p. 273.
[19] Williams,
pp. 580-582 and 592-593.
[20] N.F. Bugai
ed., "40-50-e gody: Posledstviia deportatsii narodov (svideteltsvuiut
arkhivy NKVD-MVD SSSR)," Istoriia SSSR no.1,
1992, doc. 24, p. 134.
[22] V.N.
Zemskov, "Spetsposlentsy, (po doukemtatsii NKVD-MVD SSSR)," Sotsiologicheskie
issledovaniia no. 11, 1990, pp. 15-16.
[23] Fisher, Crimean
Tatars, pp. 168-170.
[24] Fisher, Crimean
Tatars, p. 169.
[26] Basil
Dmytryshin, USSR: A Concise History (New York: Charles Scrbner's Sons,
1971), p. 256.
[27] Herbert
Druks, Truman and the Russians (New York: Robert Speller and Sons
Publishers, 1981), p. 119.
[28] Williams,
pp. 583-584.
[29] Bugai, Ikh
nado deportirovat', doc. 21, p. 144.
[30] Bugai, Ikh
nado deportirovat', doc. 11, p. 138.
[32] Bugai, Ikh
nado deportirovat', doc. 12, p. 138.
[33] Bugai, Ikh
nado deportirovat', doc. 13, pp. 138-139.
[34] Bugai, Ikh
nado deportirovat', doc. 20, p. 144.
[35] Bugai, Ikh
nado deportirovat', doc. 13, pp. 138-139.
[38] Bugai, Ikh
nado deportirovat', docs. 11-13, pp. 138-139.
[39] Bugai, Soglasno,
pp. 157-158.
[40] Document
reproduced in A. Andreevich and Ch. Georgievna, eds., Istoriia rossiikikh
nemstev v dokumentakh 1763-1992 (Moscow: International Institute
for Humanitarian Programs, 1993), . 168-169.
[42] N.F.
Bougai, The Deportation of Peoples in the Soviet Union (Commack, NY: Nova
Science Publishers, Inc., 1996), p. 184.
[44] Bugai, Soglasno,
p. 158.
[45] Bugai, Soglasno,
p. 161.
[47] Alfred
Eisfeld and Victor Herdt eds, Deportation, Sondersiedlung, Arbeitsarmee: Deutsche
in der Sowjetunion 1941 bis 1956 (Koln, Germany: Verlag
Wissenschaft und Politik, 1996 , doc. 272, p. 287.
[48] Eisfeld
and Herdt, p. 20.
[49] Bugai, Ikh
nado deportirovat', doc. 15, pp. 139-140.
[52] V.N.
Zemskov, "K voprosu o masshtabakh repressi v SSSR," Sotsiologicheskie
issledovaniia, no. 9, 1995, pp. 114-127. Reproduced on http://www.tuad.nsk.ru/~history/repress/Disput.HTM
[53] Bugai, Soglasno,
p. 155.
[54] Document
reproduced in Nekrich, The Punished Peoples, pp. 113-114.
[55] Bugai, Ikh
nado deportirovat', doc. 24, p. 146.
[57] Michael
Rywkin, Moscows's Lost Empire (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1994), table 8,
p. 67.
[58] M. Gorky,
L. Averbach and S.G. Firin, eds., Belomor: The Construction of the Great
Canal between the White Sea and the Baltic Sea (New York: Harrison Smith and
Robert Hass, 1935), pp. 48-49.
[59] V.N.
Zemskov, "Kulatskaia ssylka v 30-e gody," Sotsiologicheskie
issledovaniia, no. 10, 1991, p. 7 and Edwin Bacon, "Glasnost and the
Gulag: New Information on Soviet Forced Labor around World War II," Soviet
Studies, no. 6, 1992, p. 1084.
[60] Nekrich, The
Punished Peoples, p. 119.
[62] Bugai, Ikh
nado deportirovat', doc. 5, pp. 227-228.
[63] Bugai, Ikh
nado deportirovat', doc. 10, p. 231.
[64] Document
reproduced in Alieva, Tak eto bylo, vol. I., pp. 296-297.
[65] Document
reproduced in Alieva, Tak eto bylo, vol. 1, pp. 294-296.
[66] Bugai, Soglasno,
p. 151.
[67] Bugai, Soglasno,
p. 154.
[69] Bugai, Soglasno,
pp. 154-155.
[71] Bugai, Ikh
nado deportirovat', doc. 16, p. 140.
[72] Bugai, Soglasno,
p. 155.
[73] Bugai, Ikh
nado deportirovat', doc. 24, p. 146.
[74] Bugai, Ikh
nado deportirovat', doc. 26, p. 147.
[77] V.N.
Zemskov, "Zakluchenye, spetsposelentsy, ssyl'noposelentsy, ssylne, i
vyslanye," Istoriia SSSR,, no. 5, 1991, table 3, p. 155.
[78] Bugai, Soglasno,
p. 155.
[79] Document
reproduced in Nekrich, The Punished Peoples, pp. 113-114.
[80] Bugai, Soglasno,
p. 152.
[81] Document
reproduced in Nekrich, The Punished Peoples, pp. 113-114.
[82] Williams,
pp. 590-592.
[83] Williams,
pp. 592-593.
[84] Williams,
pp. 596-599.
[85] Bugai, Soglasno,
p. 159.
[92] Document
reproduced in Nekrich, The Punished Peoples, pp. 113-114.
[95] Bugai, Ikh
nado deportirovat', doc. 48, pp. 264-265.
[96] Bugai,
"40-50-e gody: Posledstviia," doc. 7, p. 125.
[98] Rywkin,
table 8, p. 67.
[99] Fisher, The Crimean Tatars, p. 170
and Williams, pp. 601-602.
[100]Yearbook
of the United Nations (New York: United nations, 1948-1949), p. 959.
[102] Document reproduced in Alieva, Tak
eto bylo, vol. III, p. 257.
[103] Document reproduced in Alieva, Tak
eto bylo, vol. III, pp. 263-265.
[104] V.N. Zemskov, "Massovoe
osvobzhdenie spetsposelentsev i ssyl'nynkh (1954-1960 gg.)," Sotsiologicheskie
issledovaniia,no. 1,1991, p. 10.
[105] Document reproduced in Alieva, Tak
eto bylo, vol. III, p.72 and Bugai, Ikh nado deportirovat', doc. 57,
p. 273.
[106] Fisher, Crimean Tatars, pp.
175-201 and Williams pp. 629-651.
[107] Fisher, Crimean Tatars, p. 178
and Williams p. 632.
[108] Document reproduced in Alieva, Tak
eto bylo, vol. III, p. 73.
[109] Fisher, Crimean Tatars, p. 185
and Williams, p. 635-636.
[110] Fisher, Crimean Tatars, pp.
188-199.
© 2000 J. Otto Pohl
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J. Otto Pohl is an independent scholar who lives in
Sacramento, California. He is the author of two books, The Stalinist Penal
System: A Statistical History of Soviet Repression and Terror, 1930-1953
(Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1997) and Ethnic Cleansing in the USSR, 1937-1949
(Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999).
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