Ethnic Cleansing in the USSR, 1937-1949

Between 1937 and 1949, Joseph Stalin deported more than two million people of 13 nationalities from their homelands to remote areas of the U.S.S.R. His regime perfected the crime of ethnic cleansing as an adjunct to its security policy during those decades. Based upon material recently released from Soviet archives, this study describes the mass deportation of these minorities, their conditions in exile, and their eventual release. It includes a large amount of statistical data on the number of people deported; deaths and births in exile; and the role of the exiles in developing the economy of remote areas of the Soviet Union.The first wholesale deportation involved the Soviet Koreans, relocated to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan to prevent them from assisting Japanese spies and saboteurs. The success of this operation led the secret police to adopt, as standard procedure, the deportation of whole ethnic groups suspected of disloyalty to the Soviet state. In 1941, the policy affected Soviet Finns and Germans; in 1943, the Karachays and Kalmyks were forcibly relocated; in 1944, the massive deportation affected the Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, Crimean Tatars, Crimean Greeks, Meskhetian Turks, Kurds, and Khemshils; and finally, the Black Sea Greeks were moved in 1949 and 1950.

.,."not so much a monograph as a compendium of quantitative indexes and basic documentation...Pohl has provided a great service."-The Russian Review, .,."Pohl presents a detailed account of the deportations, while at the same time trying to uncover the Stalin regime's motivations behind the deportations...a comprehensive account of Stalin's policy of deportation of ethnic minorities. Pohl paints a chilling picture of the resolve with which Soviet officials, above all Stalin and Beria, sought to remove any threat to Soviet security, either real or perceived, from the non-Russian population, and in some cases even to punish certain ethnic groups for alleged collaboration with enemies of the Soviet Union...Ethnic Cleansing will be invaluable to scholars of Soviet history, politics, and ethnography."-European Studies Journal, ?...not so much a monograph as a compendium of quantitative indexes and basic documentation...Pohl has provided a great service.?-The Russian Review, ?...Pohl presents a detailed account of the deportations, while at the same time trying to uncover the Stalin regime's motivations behind the deportations...a comprehensive account of Stalin's policy of deportation of ethnic minorities. Pohl paints a chilling picture of the resolve with which Soviet officials, above all Stalin and Beria, sought to remove any threat to Soviet security, either real or perceived, from the non-Russian population, and in some cases even to punish certain ethnic groups for alleged collaboration with enemies of the Soviet Union...Ethnic Cleansing will be invaluable to scholars of Soviet history, politics, and ethnography.?-European Studies Journal, ?, , , groundbreaking work...With the publication of Pohl's work, those studying the phenomena of ethnic cleansing and genocide with this act of genocide which has for too long remained hidden.?-Journal of Genocide Research

J. OTTO POHL is a freelance writer and historian. He is the author of The Stalinist Penal System: A Statistical History of Soviet Repression and Terror, 1930-1953 (1997), and his articles have appeared in Ararat, Journal of the Hellenic Diaspora, Quadrant (Australia), and Jewish Affairs (South Africa).