Why Stalin resettled the Crimean Tatars. Why Stalin deported the Crimean Tatars. How the Tatars lived in Crimea before deportation
Irina Simonenko
Every year on May 18, Crimean Tatars celebrate the Day of Remembrance for Victims of Deportation. Through the efforts of Ukrainian political strategists and their curators, from the original day of grief of the deportation of the Crimean peoples, this day methodically and purposefully turned into the Day of Remembrance of the victims of the exclusively Crimean Tatar, “punished without guilt” people.
The words of Petro Poroshenko are especially cynical: “We are obliged to give the Crimean Tatars the right to self-determination within the framework of a single Ukrainian state. This is what we owe the Crimean Tatars. The Ukrainian authorities should have done this at least 20 years ago. And now the situation would be completely different.”
By the way, no matter how much the “representatives” of the Kyiv Crimean Tatars, they will never get it. For Kyiv, these people have always been a tool for manipulation. And in the entire history of Ukraine, things have not gone beyond promises, only time after time “the need to amend Section 10 of the Constitution of Ukraine is emphasized,” but in reality this will never be allowed.
Ukraine consists of different regions that once belonged to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Turkey, Russian Empire. And if the Crimean Tatars receive self-determination, which the Guarantor of the Constitution enthusiastically talks about every May 18, then they are quite capable of wanting the same “autonomy” in Transcarpathia. And there, further along the chain, Square may lose all its lands.
Ukrainian politicians continue to lead the Crimean Tatar people by the nose by promising their land, their government and mountains of gold. But even on paper, they still do not want to formalize such changes in relation to the already lost territory of Crimea, postponing the adoption of the document for another year, two, three. And so on ad infinitum.
Today, the number of historical hoaxes associated with the “Stalinist expulsion of peoples” is only growing and bottom experts are already calling it “planned genocide.”
It will not be superfluous to understand this issue. What were the reasons for the deportation? What actually happened on the territory of Crimea during the war? There are very few living witnesses of those events left who could tell how everything really happened. But what many eyewitnesses tell, and what is recorded in Soviet and German chronicles is enough to understand that resettlement was the only and most correct decision.
I would like to immediately dot the i's - I in no way want to say that all Crimean Tatars are bad. Many Crimean Tatars valiantly defended the common Soviet Motherland in the ranks of the Red Army, in the ranks of the Crimean partisans they turned the life of German and Romanian Nazis in Crimea into hell, thousands were awarded state awards. Their exploits deserve a separate post. Here, I want to understand why what happened happened.
The deportation was justified by the facts of the participation of the people in collaborationist formations that acted on the side Nazi Germany during the Great Patriotic War.
Of the 200,000 total Crimean Tatar population, 20,000 became fighters in the Wehrmacht, punitive detachments, and in other ways went into the service of the German occupiers, that is, almost all men of military age, as evidenced by the reports of the German command. How would they get along with the Red Army soldiers returning from the front, what would the war veterans do with them if they learned about what the Tatar punitive forces did in the Crimea during the German occupation? A massacre would begin, and resettlement was the only way out of this situation. But there was something to take revenge on the Red Army soldiers for, and this is not Soviet propaganda; there are plenty of facts about their atrocities from both the Soviet and German sides.
Thus, in the Sudak region in 1942, a group of Tatar self-defenses liquidated a reconnaissance landing of the Red Army, while the self-defenses caught and burned alive 12 Soviet paratroopers.
On February 4, 1943, Crimean Tatar volunteers from the villages of Beshui and Koush captured four partisans from S.A. Mukovnin’s detachment.
Partisans L.S. Chernov, V.F. Gordienko, G.K. Sannikov and Kh.K. Kiyamov were brutally killed: stabbed with bayonets, laid on fires and burned. Particularly disfigured was the corpse of the Kazan Tatar Kh.K. Kiyamov, whom the punishers apparently mistook for their fellow countryman.
The Crimean Tatar detachments dealt equally brutally with the civilian population. It got to the point that, fleeing the massacre, the Russian-speaking population turned to the German authorities for help.
Beginning in the spring of 1942, a concentration camp operated on the territory of the Krasny state farm, in which at least 8 thousand residents of Crimea were tortured and shot during the occupation.
The concentration camp was the largest fascist concentration camp during the Great Patriotic War on the territory of Crimea, in which about 8 thousand Soviet citizens were tortured during the years of occupation.
The German administration was represented by a commandant and a doctor.
All other functions were carried out by soldiers of the 152nd Tatar volunteer battalion, whom the head of the camp, SS Oberscharführer Speckmann, recruited to perform “the dirtiest work.”
With special pleasure future "innocent victims" Stalin's repressions“They mocked ideologically incorrect prisoners. With their cruelty, they were reminiscent of the Tatar horde of the distant past, and were distinguished by a particularly “creative” approach to the issue of exterminating prisoners. In particular, mothers and children were repeatedly drowned in pits with feces dug under camp toilets.
Mass burning was also practiced: living people tied with barbed wire were stacked in several tiers, doused with gasoline and set on fire. Eyewitnesses claim that “those who lay below were the luckiest” - they were suffocating under the weight of human bodies even before the execution.
For their service to the Germans, many hundreds of punishers from among the Crimean Tatars were awarded special insignia approved by Hitler - “For courage and special merits shown by the population of the liberated regions who participated in the fight against Bolshevism under the leadership of the German command.”
Thus, according to the report of the Simferopol Muslim Committee, for 12/01/1943 - 01/31/1944:
“For services to the Tatar people, the German command was awarded: a badge with swords of the second degree, issued for the liberated eastern regions, the chairman of the Simferopol Tatar Committee Dzhemil Abdureshid, a badge of the second degree, the Chairman of the Department of Religion Abdul-Aziz Gafar, an employee of the Department of Religion Fazil Sadyk and the Chairman of the Tatar Table Tahsin Cemil."
Dzhemil Abdureshid took an active part in the creation of the Simferopol Committee at the end of 1941 and, as the first chairman of the committee, was active in attracting volunteers into the ranks of the German army.
In a response speech, the chairman of the Tatar committee, Cemil Abdureshid, said the following:
“I speak on behalf of the committee and on behalf of all Tatars, confident that I express their thoughts. One conscription of the German army is enough and every last one of the Tatars will come out to fight against the common enemy. We are honored to have the opportunity to fight under the leadership of Fuhrer Adolf Hitler, the greatest son of the German people. The faith that lies within us gives us the strength to trust the leadership of the German army without hesitation. Our names will later be honored along with the names of those who spoke out for the liberation of oppressed peoples.”
April 10, 1942. From a message to Adolf Hitler, received at a prayer service by more than 500 Muslims in Karasu Bazar:
"Our liberator! It is only thanks to you, your help and thanks to the courage and dedication of your troops that we were able to open our houses of worship and perform prayer services in them. Now there is not and cannot be such a force that would separate us from the German people and from you. The Tatar people swore and gave their word, volunteering to join the ranks German troops, hand in hand with your troops, fight against the enemy to the last drop of blood. Your victory is a victory for the entire Muslim world. We pray to God for the health of your troops and ask God to give you, the great liberator of nations, long life. You are now a liberator, the leader of the Muslim world - gases Adolf Hitler.
Our ancestors came from the East, and until now we were waiting for liberation from there, but today we are witnesses that liberation is coming to us from the West. Perhaps for the first and only time in history it happened that the sun of freedom rose in the West. This sun is you, our great friend and leader, with your mighty German people, and you, relying on the inviolability of the great German state, on the unity and power of the German people, bring us, the oppressed Muslims, freedom. We swore an oath of allegiance to you to die for you with honor and weapons in our hands and only in the fight against a common enemy.
We are confident that together with you we will achieve the complete liberation of our peoples from the yoke of Bolshevism.
On the day of your glorious anniversary, we send you our heartfelt greetings and wishes, we wish you many years of fruitful life for the joy of your people, us, the Crimean Muslims and the Muslims of the East."
Abdul-Aziz Gafar and Fazil Sadyk, despite their advanced years, worked among volunteers and did significant work to establish religious affairs in the Simferopol region.
Tahsin Cemil organized the Tatar Table in 1942 and, working as its chairman until the end of 1943, provided systematic assistance to “needy Tatars and families of volunteers.”
In addition, the personnel of the Crimean Tatar formations were provided with all sorts of material benefits and privileges. According to one of the resolutions of the Wehrmacht High Command, “any person who actively fought or is fighting against the partisans and Bolsheviks” could submit a petition for “the allotment of land or the payment of a monetary reward of up to 1000 rubles.”
At the same time, his family had to receive a monthly subsidy from the social security departments of the city or district administration in the amount of 75 to 250 rubles.
After the publication of the “Law on the New Agrarian Order” by the Ministry of the Occupied Eastern Regions on February 15, 1942, all Tatars who joined volunteer formations and their families were given full ownership of 2 hectares of land. The Germans provided them best plots, taking land from peasants who did not join these formations.
As noted in the already quoted memorandum of the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, State Security Major Karanadze, to the NKVD of the USSR “On the political and moral state of the population of Crimea”:
“Persons who are members of volunteer groups are in a particularly privileged position. All of them receive wages, food, are exempt from taxes, received the best plots of fruit and grape gardens, tobacco plantations, taken away from the rest of the non-Tatar population.
Volunteers are given items looted from the Jewish population.”
All these horrors are not the invention of Soviet political instructors, but the bitter truth. You can give many more examples of the “innocence of the Crimean Tatars,” but this article is not about that.
The whole problem is that modern Tatars are not obliged to bear the stigma of traitors until the end of their days, because they were not even born then. Likewise, modern Russians have nothing to do with the deportation of the Tatars. We all need to move on, live in peace and harmony. And to do this, we need to stop crying about our long-suffering past, and think about our common future. Russian Tatars and Ukrainians must develop the economy of Crimea together, stop taking skeletons out of closets, blaming each other for what their neighbor’s great-grandfather or great-great-grandfather did.
In the meantime, every May 18th, the Crimean Tatars provide an excellent occasion for all sorts of speculation on the part of the Ukrainian Mejlis and their curators in Ukraine and further to the west, and thanks to their position as “offended and oppressed,” they are used as a bargaining chip to create instability in the region.
Myths of the Great War. “Deportation” of the Crimean Tatars: facts of history versus facts of consciousness
Myths of the Great War. “Deportation” of the Crimean Tatars: The Logic of War and the Cost of Punishment
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The Soviet leadership did this because, as the war continued on its territory, I.V. Stalin did not consider it necessary or possible to persecute and destroy thousands of Tatar “renegades”; chase them through the mountains and forests; to catch and deal with everyone, losing their people, dooming local residents to new suffering, wasting resources, time, and effort on a tedious, exhausting struggle for the country that could drag on for many years. The decision was made differently. It did not provide for deportation, which would mean expulsion from the USSR, but the forced resettlement of the Tatars to those areas where their adaptation would take place as quickly and gently as possible, without provoking new religious and national strife, and would not threaten the security of the country.
In essence, this resettlement in Crimea eliminated the inevitable clash between the Tatars and the rest of the Crimeans (including those returning home from the front), whose loved ones were destroyed by them during the occupation. How serious this was, we can judge from the events of 1943-1944 in southeastern Poland and Western Ukraine (Polesie, Kholmshchyna, Eastern Galicia), where, according to some sources, about 100 thousand people on both sides died in clashes between Ukrainians and Poles, and hundreds of villages and hamlets were burned. Then, to avoid further bloodshed, the Polish government and Soviet Union carried out an “exchange” of the population, during which 810 thousand Poles were resettled in Poland and 483 thousand Ukrainians in the Ukrainian SSR, as well as about 40 thousand Czechs and Slovaks in Czechoslovakia. So the Tatars were actually saved from physical extermination and given the opportunity to atone for their guilt if possible.
In pursuance of this, on May 11, 1944, the State Defense Committee adopted a resolution “On the Crimean Tatars,” which announced the decision on their resettlement to Central Asia. It said, in particular: “During the Patriotic War, many Crimean Tatars betrayed their homeland, deserted from the Red Army units defending Crimea, and went over to the enemy’s side, joining volunteer Tatar military units formed by the Germans that fought against the Red Army; during the occupation of Crimea Nazi troops, participating in German punitive detachments, the Crimean Tatars especially distinguished themselves by their brutal reprisals against Soviet partisans...” How true this is, everyone can now judge for themselves.
In addition to defining common task The State Defense Committee described the procedure and conditions for resettlement in detail. In accordance with this, “special settlers were allowed to take with them personal belongings, clothing, household equipment, utensils, and food in quantities of up to 500 kg per family.” The remaining property was described with the drawing up relevant document(so-called “exchange receipts”) for subsequent compensation. Each echelon was assigned a doctor and nurses “with an appropriate supply of medicines for medical and sanitary care of specially displaced persons en route. To provide people with hot meals and boiling water on the way, it was necessary to allocate food... based on daily norm for 1 person: bread 500 g, meat and fish 70 g, cereals 60 g, fat 10 g.” In places of resettlement, it was allowed to issue a loan in the amount of up to 5,000 rubles per family for the construction of housing and farming in installments for 7 years. Immediately upon arrival, adult special settlers were provided with work on state farms and industrial enterprises. In addition, during June-August 1944, everyone received food assistance (norm per month per person: flour and vegetables - 8 kg, cereals - 2 kg).
It is worth noting that “not all Crimean Tatars were subjected to forced eviction... Participants of the Crimean underground, Crimean Tatars who acted behind enemy lines in the interests of the Red Army and members of their families were exempted from “migrant status.” The requests of front-line Tatars to return to Crimea were often granted. Tatar women who married Russians were not evicted either. Proposals for this were set out in a Report addressed to the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR L.P. Beria dated August 1, 1944, signed by V. Chernyshov and M. Kuznetsov.”
Upon completion of the relocation, in a telegram to I.V. To Stalin, People's Commissar of Internal Affairs L.P. Beria reported that “all the Tatars arrived at the places of settlement and settled in the regions of the Uzbek SSR - 151,604 people, in the regions of the RSFSR - 31,551 people. In a telegram from the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Uzbek SSR, Babzhanov, addressed to Beria, it was reported that 191 people died along the route of the trains with Tatars to Uzbekistan.
Was this decision out of the ordinary? Hardly. This is evidenced by the already mentioned “exchange” of citizens between Poland and the USSR in 1944, as well as Operation Vistula, carried out in Poland in April–August 1947 after a series of terrorist actions carried out by UPA fighters (Bandera) on its territory. As a result of this operation, local Ukrainian residents living in the southeastern part of Poland (Western Galicia, the so-called Kholmshchyna and Podlasie) were resettled to areas of the Vistula, where the Germans had previously lived. In addition, 14 million Germans were deported to Germany from the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland in 1945-1949. And this expulsion took place in such monstrous conditions that two million Germans died, including old people, women, and children, in “death marches” when they were driven in columns to Germany.
Now representatives of the Crimean Tatars say that up to 46% of them died on the way and in the first months after the resettlement. It was as if they were not in warm Central Asia, but in the bitter winter in besieged Leningrad. It’s as if they had to live in dilapidated unheated houses in the winter cold, receiving the so-called 800 rubles. “bread” (125 g) per day. Of course, the conditions in which the Crimean Tatars found themselves were difficult. At first there was nowhere to live. It was necessary to build temporary huts first, and only then permanent housing. The tragedy of the Tatars’ situation was aggravated by the loss of their homeland, the internal state of “exodus”, exile. But otherwise, their living conditions were no worse than the situation of those millions of Soviet people who, at the beginning of the war, after being evacuated, found themselves beyond the Urals without housing, and upon returning to their native villages and cities after the war were forced to completely rebuild them.
It’s trite, but everything is learned by comparison. And we need to compare the situation of the Tatars not with today, but with what could be seen throughout the country during and immediately after the war. However, there is an example from the 90s: refugees from Chechnya who lived in tents for more than one year. It is very difficult to live in such conditions, but we have not observed any data on mass deaths in refugee camps. They did not observe it, because such a mortality rate as the representatives of the Crimean Tatars call is possible only in the case of organized physical extermination of people or a mass epidemic.
So, let's think: who suffered more in this war? Who had it harder? Who suffered more tragedy and gave more lives? And then we will have to admit that the description of the conditions of resettlement of the Crimean Tatars, undoubtedly harsh, can hardly be compared with the hardships experienced by the Soviet people who were subjected to forced evacuation beyond the Urals in 1941, fleeing the rapidly advancing German troops. Then all their property fit into one or two suitcases or several duffel bags. The echelons leaving to the east were constantly bombed. There was a catastrophic shortage of water, food and fuel. And then there were difficult everyday life in the rear. I had to live and work in the rain and in bitter frost, V unheated rooms, or simply in the tents where the machines and equipment of the factories evacuated to the rear stood. Work, producing products for the front, for adults and children, seven days a week, 12 hours a day. Work despite hunger, chronic lack of sleep and the cold that numbed your hands. And people not only survived, but also won. They won because they believed in their country and, despite everything, remained human, not allowing hatred to spill out on other peoples.
This was greatly facilitated by the socio-political structure of the Soviet Union, which, according to S.G. Kara-Murza "system with negative feedback in relation to conflicts...”, where “when the contradiction aggravated, economic, ideological and even repressive mechanisms were automatically turned on, which resolved or suppressed the conflict, “calming” the system” and not allowing some peoples to exterminate others.
Can the policy of resettling the Crimean Tatars be considered genocide after this, if in reality genocide means a course towards the destruction of a people, a systematic reduction in their numbers and social degradation? Can the actions of the authorities be considered genocide if they were based on the most gentle option for the participants in the war to resolve an extremely tense problem? Apparently not. But now everything seems different. And the “miraculously surviving people”, returning to their homeland to improve their lives here, consider the forced eviction from Crimea as a historical insult that gave advantages not to the “true owners of Crimea” - the Crimean Tatars, but to its “tenants”, as the Crimean Tatars often call Russian population of Crimea.
Something in this story was forgotten, something was remembered incorrectly. Once again, history is used as an argument in today's struggles for power, territory and resources. In it, the Soviet Union continues to look like an “evil empire,” and the violence used by the Soviet government appears to be initially “criminal even in the most critical periods, when government bodies were forced to solve urgent and emergency problems in order to save many lives of citizens.” Why are these arguments still not accepted by many citizens of Ukraine and Russia? Apparently, this is due to the dominance of certain mythologies, the purpose of the emergence and functioning of which has not yet been completed.
So, even using just one episode as an example Great War it is clear that the history of the 20th century has not yet been written, since many issues turned out to be much more complex than previously thought by official historiography. And one of the most interesting and current issues This period concerns the understanding of the role of the “Muslim legions” of the Crimean Tatars in the Great Patriotic War, as well as the policies of Soviet power during the Great War in the context of both the logic of the System itself and the logic of war. Its modern analysis, in particular, shows how simplified and one-sided, and, therefore, extremely mythologized, was the presentation of information during the period of “perestroika,” which went down in history under the slogans of demythologization and a return to historical truth. Then it was not very clear what was behind all this and who was behind it. The secret springs of these processes had not yet emerged; the mechanism of their unfolding was not entirely clear. But the contours of globalization, which emerged in all their power in the last decade of the twentieth century after the US victory in the Cold War, force us to perceive these processes as a small but very important component of the new Big Games. Games in which peoples will again be the object of politics and a means, and their historical grievances will be used in the struggle for world resources to separate them, weaken them as much as possible and subjugate them to new winners who expect that it will always be this way.
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On May 11, 1944, shortly after the liberation of Crimea, Joseph Stalin signed Resolution of the State Defense Committee of the USSR No. GOKO-5859:
“During the Patriotic War, many Crimean Tatars betrayed their Motherland, deserted from the Red Army units defending Crimea, went over to the enemy’s side, joined volunteer Tatar military units formed by the Germans that fought against the Red Army; During the occupation of Crimea by Nazi troops, participating in German punitive detachments, the Crimean Tatars were especially distinguished by their brutal reprisals against Soviet partisans, and also helped the German occupiers in organizing the forced abduction of Soviet citizens into German slavery and the mass extermination of Soviet people.
The Crimean Tatars actively collaborated with the German occupation authorities, participating in the so-called “Tatar national committees” organized by German intelligence and were widely used by the Germans to send spies and saboteurs to the rear of the Red Army. “Tatar national committees”, in which the main role was played by White Guard-Tatar emigrants, with the support of the Crimean Tatars, directed their activities towards the persecution and oppression of the non-Tatar population of Crimea and worked to prepare the violent separation of Crimea from the Soviet Union with the help of German armed forces.
Considering the above, State Committee Defense
RESOLVES:
1. All Tatars should be evicted from the territory of Crimea and settled permanently as special settlers in the regions of the Uzbek SSR. Entrust the eviction to the NKVD of the USSR. Oblige the NKVD of the USSR (comrade Beria) to complete the eviction of the Crimean Tatars by June 1, 1944.
2. Establish the following procedure and conditions for eviction:
a) allow special settlers to take with them personal belongings, clothing, household equipment, dishes and food in an amount of up to 500 kilograms per family.
Property, buildings, outbuildings, furniture and garden lands remaining on site are accepted by local authorities; all productive and dairy cattle, as well as poultry, are accepted by the People's Commissariat of Meat and Milk Industry, all agricultural products - by the People's Commissariat of Transport of the USSR, horses and other draft animals - by the People's Commissariat of Agriculture of the USSR, breeding cattle - by the People's Commissariat of State Farms of the USSR.
Acceptance of livestock, grain, vegetables and other types of agricultural products is carried out with the issuance of exchange receipts for each settlement and each farm.
Instruct the NKVD of the USSR, the People's Commissariat for Agriculture, the People's Commissariat of Meat and Milk Industry, the People's Commissariat of State Farms and the People's Commissariat for Transport of the USSR by July 1 this year. d. submit to the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR proposals on the procedure for returning the livestock, poultry, and agricultural products received from them according to exchange receipts to special settlers;
b) to organize the reception of the property, livestock, grain and agricultural products left by special settlers in the places of eviction, send to the site a commission of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, consisting of: the chairman of the commission, Comrade Gritsenko (deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR) and members of the commission, Comrade Krestyaninov (member of the board of the People's Commissariat of Agriculture) USSR), Comrade Nadyarnykh (member of the board of NKMiMP), Comrade Pustovalov (member of the board of the People's Commissariat of Transport of the USSR), Comrade Kabanov (Deputy People's Commissar of State Farms of the USSR), Comrade Gusev (member of the board of the People's Commissariat of Finance of the USSR).
Oblige the People's Commissariat of Agriculture of the USSR (comrade Benediktova), the People's Commissariat of the USSR (comrade Subbotina), the People's Commissariat of Transport and MP of the USSR (comrade Smirnova), the People's Commissariat of State Farms of the USSR (comrade Lobanova) to ensure the reception of livestock, grain and agricultural products from special settlers, in agreement with comrade Gritsenko , to Crimea required amount workers;
c) oblige the NKPS (Comrade Kaganovich) to organize the transportation of special settlers from Crimea to the Uzbek SSR by specially formed trains according to a schedule drawn up jointly with the NKVD of the USSR. Number of trains, loading stations and destination stations at the request of the NKVD of the USSR.
Payments for transportation should be made according to the tariff for transportation of prisoners;
d) The People's Commissariat of Health of the USSR (Comrade Miterev) allocates one doctor and two nurses with an appropriate supply of medicines for each train with special settlers, within a time period in agreement with the NKVD of the USSR, and provides medical and sanitary care for special settlers en route; The People's Commissariat of Trade of the USSR (Comrade Lyubimov) must provide all trains with special settlers with hot meals and boiling water every day.
To organize food for special settlers on the way, allocate food to the People's Commissariat of Trade in quantities according to Appendix No. 1.
3. Oblige the Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Uzbekistan, Comrade Yusupov, the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the UzSSR, Comrade Abdurakhmanov, and the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Uzbek SSR, Comrade Kobulov, until June 1 of this year. d. carry out the following measures for the reception and resettlement of special settlers:
a) accept and resettle within the Uzbek SSR 140-160 thousand people of special settlers - Tatars sent by the NKVD of the USSR from the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.
The resettlement of special settlers should be carried out in state farm settlements, existing collective farms, subsidiary agricultural farms of enterprises and factory settlements for use in agriculture and industry;
b) in the areas of resettlement of special settlers, create commissions consisting of the chairman of the regional executive committee, the secretary of the regional committee and the head of the NKVD, entrusting these commissions with carrying out all activities related to the reception and accommodation of arriving special settlers;
c) in each area of resettlement of special settlers, organize district troikas consisting of the chairman of the district executive committee, the secretary of the district committee and the head of the RO NKVD, entrusting them with preparing for the placement and organizing the reception of arriving special settlers;
d) prepare horse-drawn vehicles for transporting special settlers, mobilizing for this purpose the transport of any enterprises and institutions;
e) ensure that arriving special settlers are provided with personal plots and provide assistance in the construction of houses with local building materials;
f) organize special commandant's offices of the NKVD in the areas of resettlement of special settlers, attributing their maintenance to the budget of the NKVD of the USSR;
g) Central Committee and Council of People's Commissars of the UzSSR by May 20 this year. d. submit to the NKVD of the USSR Comrade Beria a project for the resettlement of special settlers in regions and districts, indicating the train unloading station.
4. Oblige the Agricultural Bank (Comrade Kravtsova) to issue special settlers sent to the Uzbek SSR, in the places of their resettlement, a loan for the construction of houses and for economic establishment of up to 5,000 rubles per family, with an installment plan of up to 7 years.
5. Oblige the People's Commissariat of the USSR (Comrade Subbotin) to allocate flour, cereals and vegetables to the Council of People's Commissars of the Uzbek SSR for distribution to special settlers during June-August. in monthly equal amounts, according to Appendix No. 2.
Distribution of flour, cereals and vegetables to special settlers during June-August. d. produce free of charge, in exchange for agricultural products and livestock accepted from them in the places of eviction.
6. Oblige the NPO (comrade Khruleva) to transfer within May-June this year. g. to strengthen the vehicles of the NKVD troops garrisoned in the areas of resettlement of special settlers - in the Uzbek SSR, Kazakh SSR and Kirghiz SSR, Willys vehicles - 100 pieces and trucks - 250 pieces that were out of repair.
7. Oblige Glavneftesnab (comrade Shirokova) to allocate and ship 400 tons of gasoline to the points at the direction of the NKVD of the USSR by May 20, 1944, and 200 tons to the disposal of the Council of People's Commissars of the Uzbek SSR.
The supply of motor gasoline will be carried out at the expense of a uniform reduction in supplies to all other consumers.
8. Oblige the Glavsnables under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR (Comrade Lopukhov), at the expense of any resources, to supply the NKPS with 75,000 carriage planks of 2.75 m each, with their delivery before May 15 this year. G.; Transportation of NKPS boards must be carried out using your own means.
9. The People's Commissariat of Finance of the USSR (Comrade Zverev) to release the NKVD of the USSR in May of this year. 30 million rubles from the reserve fund of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR for special events."
The draft decision was prepared by a member of the State Defense Committee, People's Commissar of Internal Affairs L.P. Beria. Deputy People's Commissars of State Security and Internal Affairs B.Z. Kobulov and I.A. Serov were entrusted with leading the deportation operation.
The bulk of the Crimean Tatar collaborators were evacuated by the occupation authorities to Germany, where the Tatar Mountain Jaeger Regiment of the SS was created from them. Most of those remaining in Crimea were identified by the NKVD in April-May 1944 and condemned as traitors to the Motherland. In total, about 5,000 collaborators of all nationalities were identified in Crimea during this period.
The deportation operation began early in the morning of May 18 and ended on May 20, 1944. To carry it out, NKVD troops (more than 32 thousand people) were involved. The deportees were given very little time to get ready. Officially, each family had the right to take up to 500 kg of luggage with them, but in reality they were allowed to take much less, and sometimes nothing at all. After this, the deportees were taken by truck to the railway stations.
On May 20, Serov and Kobulov reported in a telegram addressed to the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR L.P. Beria:
“We hereby report that started in accordance with your instructions on May 18 this year. The operation to evict the Crimean Tatars was completed today, May 20, at 16:00. A total of 180,014 people were evicted, loaded into 67 trains, of which 63 trains numbered 173,287 people. sent to their destinations, the remaining 4 echelons will also be sent today.
In addition, the district military commissars of Crimea mobilized 6,000 Tatars of military age, who, according to the orders of the Head of the Red Army, were sent to the cities of Guryev, Rybinsk and Kuibyshev.
Of the number of special contingents sent at your direction to the Moskovugol Trust, 8,000 people are 5,000 people. also constitute Tatars.
Thus, 191,044 persons of Tatar nationality were removed from the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.”
Deportation of Crimean Tatars to Last year The Great Patriotic War was a mass eviction of local residents of Crimea to a number of regions of the Uzbek SSR, Kazakh SSR, Mari ASSR and other republics of the Soviet Union.
This happened immediately after the liberation of the peninsula from the Nazi invaders. The official reason for the action was the criminal assistance of many thousands of Tatars to the invaders.
Collaborators of Crimea
The eviction was carried out under the control of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs in May 1944. The order for the deportation of the Tatars, who were allegedly part of collaborationist groups during the occupation of the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, was signed by Stalin shortly before, on May 11th. Beria justified the reasons:
Desertion of 20 thousand Tatars from the army during the period 1941-1944;
- unreliability of the Crimean population, especially pronounced in the border areas;
- a threat to the security of the Soviet Union due to the collaborationist actions and anti-Soviet sentiments of the Crimean Tatars;
- the abduction of 50 thousand civilians to Germany with the assistance of the Crimean Tatar committees.
In May 1944, the government of the Soviet Union did not yet have all the figures regarding the real situation in Crimea. After the defeat of Hitler and the counting of losses, it became known that 85.5 thousand newly-made “slaves” of the Third Reich were actually driven to Germany from among the civilian population of Crimea alone.
Almost 72 thousand were executed with the direct participation of the so-called “Noise”. Schuma are auxiliary police, and in fact - punitive Crimean Tatar battalions subordinate to the fascists. Of these 72 thousand, 15 thousand communists were brutally tortured in the largest concentration camp in Crimea, the former collective farm "Krasny".
Main charges
After the retreat, the Nazis took some of the collaborators with them to Germany. Subsequently, a special SS regiment was formed from their number. Another part (5,381 people) were arrested by security officers after the liberation of the peninsula. During the arrests, many weapons were seized. The government feared an armed revolt of the Tatars because of their proximity to Turkey (Hitler hoped to drag the latter into a war with the communists).
According to the research of the Russian scientist, history professor Oleg Romanko, during the war, 35 thousand Crimean Tatars helped the fascists in one way or another: they served in the German police, participated in executions, betrayed communists, etc. For this, even distant relatives of traitors were entitled to exile and confiscation of property.
The main argument in favor of the rehabilitation of the Crimean Tatar population and their return to their historical homeland was that the deportation was actually carried out not on the basis of the actual actions of specific people, but on a national basis.
Even those who did not contribute to the Nazis in any way were sent into exile. At the same time, 15% of Tatar men fought along with other Soviet citizens in the Red Army. In the partisan detachments, 16% were Tatars. Their families were also deported. This mass participation precisely reflected Stalin’s fears that the Crimean Tatars might succumb to pro-Turkish sentiments, rebel and find themselves on the side of the enemy.
The government wanted to eliminate the threat from the south as quickly as possible. Evictions were carried out urgently, in freight cars. Many died on the road due to overcrowding, lack of food and drinking water. In total, about 190 thousand Tatars were expelled from Crimea during the war. 191 Tatars died during transportation. Another 16 thousand died in their new places of residence from mass starvation in 1946-1947.
Illustration copyright Getty Image caption Every May, Tatars celebrate the anniversary of the deportation. This year, Russian authorities banned the rally in Simferopol
On May 18-20, 1944, NKVD soldiers, on orders from Moscow, herded almost the entire Tatar population of Crimea to railway cars and sent them towards Uzbekistan in 70 trains.
This forced removal of the Tatars, whom the Soviet government accused of collaborating with the Nazis, was one of the fastest deportations carried out in world history.
How did the Tatars live in Crimea before the deportation?
After the creation of the USSR in 1922, Moscow recognized the Crimean Tatars as the indigenous population of the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic as part of the indigenization policy.
In the 1920s, the Tatars were allowed to develop their culture. Crimean Tatar newspapers, magazines were published in Crimea, educational institutions, museums, libraries and theaters.
The Crimean Tatar language, together with Russian, was the official language of the autonomy. It was used by more than 140 village councils.
In the 1920-1930s, Tatars made up 25-30% of the total population of Crimea.
However, in the 1930s, Soviet policy towards the Tatars, as well as other nationalities of the USSR, became repressive.
Illustration copyright hatira.ru Image caption Crimean Tatar State Ensemble "Haitarma". Moscow, 1935First, dispossession and eviction of the Tatars began to the north of Russia and beyond the Urals. Then came forced collectivization, the Holodomor of 1932-33, and the purges of the intelligentsia in 1937-1938.
This turned many Crimean Tatars against Soviet rule.
When did the deportation take place?
The main phase of the forced relocation occurred over the course of less than three days, beginning at dawn on May 18, 1944 and ending at 16:00 on May 20.
In total, 238.5 thousand people were deported from Crimea - almost the entire Crimean Tatar population.
For this, the NKVD recruited more than 32 thousand fighters.
What caused the deportation?
The official reason for the forced relocation was the accusation of the entire Crimean Tatar people of high treason, “mass extermination of Soviet people” and collaboration - collaboration with the Nazi occupiers.
Such arguments were contained in the decision of the State Defense Committee on deportation, which appeared a week before the start of the evictions.
However, historians name other, unofficial reasons for the relocation. Among them is the fact that the Crimean Tatars historically had close ties with Turkey, which the USSR at the time viewed as a potential rival.
Illustration copyright hatira.ru Image caption Spouses in the Urals, 1953In the USSR's plans, Crimea was a strategic springboard in the event of a possible conflict with Turkey, and Stalin wanted to be safe from possible “saboteurs and traitors,” whom he considered the Tatars.
This theory is supported by the fact that other Muslim ethnic groups were also resettled from the Caucasian regions adjacent to Turkey: Chechens, Ingush, Karachais and Balkars.
Did the Tatars support the Nazis?
Between nine and 20 thousand Crimean Tatars served in the anti-Soviet combat units formed by the German authorities, writes historian Jonathan Otto Pohl.
Some of them sought to protect their villages from Soviet partisans, who, according to the Tatars themselves, often persecuted them on ethnic grounds.
Other Tatars joined the German forces because they had been captured by the Nazis and wanted to alleviate the harsh conditions in prison camps in Simferopol and Nikolaev.
At the same time, 15% of the adult male Crimean Tatar population fought on the side of the Red Army. During the deportation, they were demobilized and sent to labor camps in Siberia and the Urals.
In May 1944, most of those who served in German units retreated to Germany. Mostly wives and children who remained on the peninsula were deported.
How did the forced relocation take place?
NKVD employees entered Tatar homes and announced to the owners that because of treason to their homeland they were being evicted from Crimea.
They gave us 15-20 minutes to pack our things. Officially, each family had the right to take up to 500 kg of luggage with them, but in reality they were allowed to take much less, and sometimes nothing at all.
Illustration copyright memory.gov.ua Image caption Mari ASSR. Crew at the logging site. 1950Of people trucks were taken to the railway stations. From there, almost 70 trains with tightly closed freight cars, crowded with people, were sent east.
About eight thousand people died during the move, most of whom were children and elderly people. The most common causes of death are thirst and typhus.
Some people, unable to bear the suffering, went crazy. All the property left in Crimea after the Tatars was appropriated by the state.
Where were the Tatars deported?
Most of the Tatars were sent to Uzbekistan and neighboring regions of Kazakhstan and Tajikistan. Small groups of people ended up in the Mari Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, the Urals and the Kostroma region of Russia.
What were the consequences of deportation for the Tatars?
In the first three years after the resettlement, according to various estimates, from 20 to 46% of all deportees died from hunger, exhaustion and disease.
Almost half of those who died in the first year were children under 16 years of age.
Due to shortage clean water, poor hygiene and lack medical care Malaria, yellow fever, dysentery and other diseases spread among the deportees.
Illustration copyright hatira.ru Image caption Alime Ilyasova (right) with a friend whose name is unknown. Early 1940sThe new arrivals had no natural immunity against many local diseases.
What status did they have in Uzbekistan?
The vast majority of Crimean Tatars were transported to so-called special settlements - areas surrounded by armed guards, checkpoints and barbed wire that were more reminiscent of labor camps than civilian settlements.
The newcomers were cheap labor; they were used to work on collective farms, state farms and industrial enterprises.
In Uzbekistan, they cultivated cotton fields, worked in mines, construction sites, plants and factories. Among the hard work was the construction of the Farhad hydroelectric power station.
In 1948, Moscow recognized the Crimean Tatars as lifelong migrants. Those who left their special settlement without permission from the NKVD, for example to visit relatives, were in danger of 20 years in prison. There were such cases.
Even before the deportation, propaganda incited hatred of the Crimean Tatars among local residents, branding them as traitors and enemies of the people.
As historian Greta Lynn Ugling writes, the Uzbeks were told that “cyclops” and “cannibals” were coming to them, and were advised to stay away from the aliens.
After the deportation, some local residents felt the heads of visitors to check that they were not growing horns.
Later, upon learning that the Crimean Tatars were of the same faith as them, the Uzbeks were surprised.
Children of immigrants could receive education in Russian or Uzbek, but not in Crimean Tatar.
By 1957, any publications in Crimean Tatar were prohibited. From Bolshaya Soviet encyclopedia an article about the Crimean Tatars was withdrawn.
This nationality was also prohibited from being included in the passport.
What has changed in Crimea without the Tatars?
After the eviction of the Tatars, as well as Greeks, Bulgarians and Germans from the peninsula, in June 1945, Crimea ceased to be an autonomous republic and became a region within the RSFSR.
The southern regions of Crimea, where previously predominantly Crimean Tatars lived, are deserted.
For example, according to official data, only 2,600 residents remained in the Alushta region, and 2,200 in the Balaklava region. Subsequently, people from Ukraine and Russia began to resettle here.
“Toponymic repressions” were carried out on the peninsula - most cities, villages, mountains and rivers that had Crimean Tatar, Greek or German names received new Russian names. Among the exceptions are Bakhchisaray, Dzhankoy, Ishun, Saki and Sudak.
The Soviet government destroyed Tatar monuments, burned manuscripts and books, including volumes of Lenin and Marx translated into Crimean Tatar.
Cinemas and shops were opened in mosques.
When were the Tatars allowed to return to Crimea?
The regime of special settlements for Tatars lasted until the era of Khrushchev's de-Stalinization - the second half of the 1950s. Then the Soviet government softened their living conditions, but did not drop the charges of treason.
In the 1950s and 1960s, Tatars fought for their right to return to their historical homeland, including through demonstrations in Uzbek cities.
Illustration copyright hatira.ru Image caption Osman Ibrish with his wife Alime. Settlement of Kibray, Uzbekistan, 1971In 1968, the occasion of one of these actions was Lenin’s birthday. The authorities dispersed the meeting.
Gradually, the Crimean Tatars managed to achieve expansion of their rights, however, an informal, but no less strict ban on their return to Crimea was in effect until 1989.
Over the next four years, half of all Crimean Tatars who then lived in the USSR returned to the peninsula - 250 thousand people.
The return of the indigenous population to Crimea was difficult and was accompanied by land conflicts with local residents who had managed to settle in the new land. Major confrontations were nevertheless avoided.
A new challenge for the Crimean Tatars was the annexation of Crimea by Russia in March 2014. Some of them left the peninsula due to persecution.
The Russian authorities themselves banned others from entering Crimea, including Crimean Tatar leaders Mustafa Dzhemilev and Refat Chubarov.
Does deportation have signs of genocide?
Some researchers and dissidents believe that the deportation of the Tatars meets the UN definition of genocide.
They argue that the Soviet government intended to destroy the Crimean Tatars as an ethnic group and deliberately pursued this goal.
In 2006, the Kurultai of the Crimean Tatar people appealed to the Verkhovna Rada with a request to recognize the deportation as genocide.
Despite this, most historical works and diplomatic documents now call the forced resettlement of the Crimean Tatars deportation, not genocide.
In the Soviet Union they used the term "resettlement".
