1934: Josef Stalin, who had ruled the USSR with an iron hand since the

end of the 1920s, launched the Great Purge in January 1934 to

consolidate his power.
1935: Between 7,000 and 9,000 Finns from Lembovo and Nikoulias
districts, in the Leningrad region, becaome the first group to be
massively deported based on ethnicity. Falsely accused of betrayal, the
Finns were expelled to secure the Soviet frontiers. The People’s
Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD), forerunner of the Committee
for State Security (KGB) orchestrated the operation, as it did for all
subsequent mass deportations.

** (Gelb, 1996:237-269; Matley, 1979:1-16)

1936, April: About 35,700 Poles living alongside the Ukrainian frontier
and some 20,000 Finnish peasants were deported to Kazakhstan for the
same reasons as those previously mentioned. The deportation was
class-based in the sense that it targeted specific economic categories;
but it was also ethnically motivated, as it aimed to secure the frontiers.

** (Bugai, 1995:8-27; Polian, 2004:35-75)

1937, September-October: The first large-scale operation of massive

deportation occurred in the Soviet Far East. About 175,000 Koreans
living along the Chinese and Korean borders were relocated by force to
Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. They were charged with espionage, spying
for the Japanese. After a brutal expulsion, the Koreans experienced
severe living conditions. Moscow did not inform the local Uzbek and
Kazakh authorities about the arrival of a large population of
“administrative settlers.” Nothing was prepared to accommodate or
provide them with basic supplies such as food, clothes and shoes.
Although there was no reliable data regarding the Korean death toll,
testimonies and NKVD documents indicate that many of them died
from disease, starvation and lack of housing. By 1945, they joined the
long list of “special settlers,” among other punished peoples.

*** (Gelb, 1995:398-412; Pohl, 1999:9-21)

1939, August 23: Germany and the Soviet Union signed a

Nonaggression Pact, known as the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact.
1939, September 17: (Poland) The Red Army invaded Poland.
1940, February to April: (The Red Army annexed territories in the
eastern parts of Poland) About 250,000 Poles and thousands of
Ukrainians and Byelorussians were deported in three major waves to
Siberia and to Central and Far Eastern Asia in order to remove the most
active populations from the annexed territories. Although based on
ethnic criteria, these forced expulsions mainly targeted families of
military colonists, prisoners-of-war and foresters. They were dispatched
to labor camps or executed. The deportees who survived the journey
experienced very hard living conditions in exile. Most of the Polish
citizens were allowed to return home when the USSR and Poland
reached an agreement on July 30th, 1941.

*** (Lebedeva, 2000:28-46; Sword, 1994)

1941, June 13-14: (Baltic countries) In the aftermath of the Baltic States’
conquest, about 39,395 persons – Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians but
also Poles, Finns, and Germans – were deported to the Soviet Far East.
Ivan Serov coordinated the operation under the command of Lavrenti
Beria.

** (Bugai, 1993:213-223; Polian, 2004:35-75)

1941, June 22: The Nazi army invaded the Soviet Union.
1941, August: The Finns, or Ingrians, inhabiting the Leningrad region
and who had not been deported in 1932-1934, were expelled by force
to Central Asia. The USSR took this measure to prevent them from
assisting the Finnish army that had just invaded the Soviet Karelia
region.

** (Pohl, 1999:21-27)

1941, August 28: A decree from the Supreme Soviet Presidium

established that Russian-Germans were collectively responsible for
collaboration with the German invaders, and ordered their massive
deportation. From the end of August 1941 until June 1942, about
1,200,000 Russian-Germans were removed from their homes and
relocated in Siberia and Central Asia. The operation mobilized
thousands of soldiers, policemen and NKVD members. Hundreds of
trains and vehicles were dedicated to this task at a time of Russian
military retreat. No reliable data exists on the death toll among the
Russian-German deportees.

*** (Bugai, 1995:27-56; Marie, 1995:35-57; Pohl, 1999:27-61)

1943, October 12: The Supreme Soviet issued a decree ordering the
deportation of all the Karachays, a Turkish-speaking people inhabiting
the North Caucasus. The USSR accused them of collaboration with the
German army, which had been occuping Karachay territory for the
previous six months. In November 68,938 persons, mainly disarmed
(women, children, elderly people and war veterans) were transported
under very hard conditions to Kirghizia and Kazakhstan. The men
serving with the Red Army or fighting in partisan movements were
demobilized and sent into exile or to labor camps. All the Karachays
paid for the relationship that a few of their fellow Karachays had
established with the German occupiers. This scenario became a
common one for all punished peoples.

*** (Marie, 1995:57-71; Shamanov, 1993)

1943, December 27: Under Beria’s orders began the brutal deportation
of the Kalmyks, a Buddhist people living in southern Russia near the
Volga river basin. In three days, about 93,000 persons were expelled to
Siberia. The lack of food and disease claimed the lives of thousands of
people who had been forced into jam-packed cattle cars. Likewise, the
settlements in exile were equally inhospitable. During the first glacial
Siberian winter many died, faced with widespread indifference.

** (Marie, 1995:57-71; Nekrich, 1978:66-86; Ubushaev, 1991)

1944, February 23: The Soviet government deported the Chechens and

the Ingush, two Muslim peoples of the North Caucasus. Although the
Germans had only occupied a region in the extreme northwest of the
Republic, Chechens and Ingush were accused of betrayal and massive
collaboration with the German occupiers, like the other punished
peoples. Beria’s administration used methods resembling those of
earlier deportations. Yet this operation proved to be more difficult due
to the uneven nature of the terrain. Furthermore, the resistance of a
few Chechen and Ingush groups slowed down the NKVD soldiers’
agenda. Nonetheless, in seven days nearly 478,000 people, comprised
of 387,000 Chechens and 91,000 Ingush, were arrested, loaded into
hundreds of convoys and then resettled in Central Asia, mainly in
Kazakhstan. It is difficult to set an exact death toll due to the lack of
evidence. According to different estimations, between 30% and 50% of
the deportees died, either during the journey or in the first years of
exile in the special settlements.

*** (Bugai, 1990:32-44; Bugai, 1995:90-142; Nekrich, 1978:36-66)

1944, March 7: The deportation of the 38,000 Balkars, a small Turkish

people living near the Elbruz Mountain in Northern Caucasus, began.
Three days later, all deportee-convoys were en route to Central Asia.
Between 20% and 40% of the Balkars died between 1944 and 1956.

** (Bugai, 1995:90-142; Marie, 1995:85-93; Nekrich, 1978:36-66)

1944, May 18: The Crimean Tatars, a Muslim Turkish-speaking people

originating from the peninsula of Crimea located on the borders of
Black Sea, were deported. This forced removal took place one month
after the German army, who had occupied the peninsula from 1942 to
April 1944, retreated. In two days roughly 190,000 persons, mostly
women, children and elderly people, were loaded into freight trains and
transferred to an unknown destination. Most of them landed in
Uzbekistan, while others arrived either in the Volga basin or Siberia.
The forced expulsion, along with thirteen years of exile as special
settlers, took a heavy toll among the Crimean Tatars. According to
different studies and censuses, between 20% and 46.2% of them died
either during the journey or in the first year and a half of exile.

*** (Bugai, 2002:83-116; Marie, 1995:93-105; Nekrich, 1978:13-36)

1944, June: Other non-Slavic peoples living in Crimea were deported a

few weeks after the Crimean Tatars: 12,075 Bulgarians, 14,300 Greeks
and about 10,000 Armenians were expelled from their homes and sent
to Central Asia against their will. All of them were accused of treason
and more specifically, of having commercial interests that linked them
to the German occupiers. At the same time, Greeks from Rostov and
Krasnodar were exiled to the eastern regions of the Soviet Union. They
were suspected of having a close relationship with Greece, as most of
them had refused Soviet citizenship and struggled to maintain their
Greek culture.

*** (Bugai, 2002:83-116; Marie, 1995:105-111; Pohl, 1999:119-129)

1944, November: Muslim Turkish-speaking peoples living in Georgia

along the Turkish borders (the Meskhetian Turks, the Khemchins and
the Kurds) became the next target of the Stalinist national policy. Given
that the Nazi army had never reached Georgia, they could not be
accused of massive collaboration. Instead they were charged with being
Turkish spies. About 90,000 persons were brutally expelled and
relocated to Central Asia to “clean” the frontiers. This constituted the
last large-scale operation.

The NKVD continued hunting down all members of these groups who
might have managed to escape deportation, for some reason.

*** for the Meskhetian Turks, ** for the Kurds and * for the Khemchins
(Bugai, 1995:163-186; Marie, 1995:111-129; Pohl, 1999:129-137)

1945, May 8: End of the Second World War, called the “Great Patriotic
War” in the former USSR.
1948: Confronted with the large insurrection that followed the Baltic
States’ annexation, the Soviet central apparatus decided to deport new
groups of Lithuanians, Estonians and Latvians: about 48,000 persons
were sent to Siberia.

** (Bugai, 1993:213-223; Polian, 2004:65-100)

1948, November 26: Stalin issued a decree by which all massive

deportations were declared definitive.
1949, March: The previous measures did not stop the revolts in the
Baltic States. In response, Stalin ordered the deportation of an
additional 30,000 families, that is to say a total of about 95,000 persons,
to discourage insurgents and bring all the opponents to heel. All
deportees became special settlers and lived under the NKVD’s harsh
rule.
* (Bugai, 1993:213-223)

1949: About 37,000 Greeks living in Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and

the Krasnodar Region were deported to Kazakhstan. Like their fellow
Greeks forcibly removed in 1944, they were accused of disloyalty and
non-integration.

** (Bugai and Koconis, 1999; Pohl, 1999:119-129)

1950: After the organized famine of 1946-47, the Soviet government

decided to deport approximately 100,000 Moldavians from Moldavia,
who were suspected of having close ties with their Romanian
neighbors. They too joined the long list of special settlers and endured
especially difficult conditions in exile.

* (Polian, 2004:75-130)

1953: Stalin died.

1954, July: The USSR Council of Ministers passed a resolution that
“liberated” some categories of deportees: those employed in socially
useful professions and children under ten.
1956: During the Twentieth Congress of the Soviet Union’s Communist
Party, Leonid Khrushchev declared that earlier massive deportations
were arbitrary and criminal acts. The Supreme Soviet Presidium
decided to rehabilitate the majority of the punished peoples, thereby
authorizing them to return to their region of origin. But this measure
did not include the Crimean Tatars, the Russian-Germans, or the
Meskhetian Turks. These three groups were neither collectively
rehabilitated nor allowed to return. They were condemned to stay in
exile, scattered and deprived of all collective rights.