Special settlements in the Soviet Union

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Special settlements in the Soviet Union were the result of

After the special settlement system was officially abolished in the 1950s, most deported indigenous peoples were allowed to return to their homelands, except for the Crimean Tatars and Meskhetian Turks, who were denied the right of return in the Khrushchev and Brezhnev era and largely remained in areas they were deported to because of the Soviet residence permit system (propiska).^[1][5]

Exile settlements

Exile settlements (ссыльное поселение, ssylnoye poselenie) were a kind of

The major source of the population in exile settlements were victims of what is now called ethnic cleansing. The Soviet government feared that people of certain nationalities would act as "fifth column" subversives during the expected war, and took drastic measures to prevent this perceived threat. The deported were sent to prisons, labor camps, exile settlements, and "supervised residence" (residence in usual settlements, but under the monitoring of the NKVD).

Forced resettlements

Deportations of 1928–1939

In 1929, the government led by Josef Stalin designated some regions (known as districts) of Western Siberia as locations for future deportations of what were referred to as "socially dangerous classes" of people from Belarus, Ukraine, and the northwestern part of European Russia.^{[6]: 478–481 [7][8]} Siberian researchers note that deportations of this period may be characterized as "depeasantization" (Russian: раскрестьянивание) as peasants represented a significant share of those who experienced this kind of repression.^{[6]: 478–481 [7][8]} In 1928, the Soviet Union underwent a goods famine known as the soviet grain crisis; this led to the forced collectivization of agriculture. As a result, the government began to subject members of the farming population of the countryside peasantry to a policy of mass deportations; they were forcibly removed and sent to the regions selected for deportations. This policy was enforced up until 1933, when soviet authorities conducted series of so-called "city cleansings", by which they forced some of the marginalized population (peasants who had hid from earlier deportations, Romani people, and other targeted groups) to resettle.^{[6]: 478–481 [7][8]} Streets of many cities like Leningrad and Moscow were raided by militia and those who were caught were sent to the East. This policy had fatal consequences for some who were targeted; one example of the harsh environment to which deportees were subjected is the infamous Nazino tragedy of 1933 that happened near Tomsk.^{[6]: 478–481 [7][8]} The impact on the deportees to Nazino Island was devastating; over 4,000 people died or disappeared within thirteen weeks, having been given only raw flour to survive.^[9] The early deportations coincided with dekulakization and passportization policies of the Soviet Union.

Deportations from border territories in 1939–1941

Several waves of forced resettlement occurred from the territories on the Western borders. These territories included

In territories annexed from Poland (the

On 23 June 1940,

Deportations of "exiled settlers" from the Baltic States (

After the 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union, Stalin sought a rapprochement with the West, which included establishing diplomatic relations with the

These deportations concerned Soviet citizens of "enemy nationality". The affected were Volga Germans, Finns, Romanians, Italians, and Greeks. At the end of this period, Crimean Tatars were included in this wave of deportation.

"Punitive" deportations of nationalities in 1943–1944

These deportations concerned ethnicities declared guilty of cooperation with Nazi occupants: a number of peoples of North Caucasus and Crimea: Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, Karachays, Meskhetian Turks, Crimean Tatars, and Crimean Bolgars, as well as Kalmyks.

Post-war deportations

Deportations after the end of

Lithuania suffered its heaviest deportation number on the night of May 22, 4 o'clock. Placing people in animal wagons, Stalin deported around 40,000 people, including 10,897 children under the age of 15. The journeys alone took a toll of 5,000 Lithuanian children.^[10]

Ukazniks

The term ukaznik derives from the Russian term "

The above are the major, most populous categories of exile settlers. There were a number of smaller categories. They were small in the scale of the whole Soviet Union, but rather significant in terms of the affected categories of population. For example, in 1950 all Iranians, with the exception of persons of Armenian ethnicity, were resettled from Georgia, a population of some 4,776 persons, and in the same year thousands of Christian ethnic Assyrians were deported from Armenia and Georgia to Kazakhstan.^[12]

Labor settlements

Labor settlements (трудопоселение, trudoposelenie) were a method of internal exile that used settlers for

In Lithuania alone around 131,600 people were banished along with 156,000 sent to gulags.[14]

See also

• 101st kilometre
• Deportation of Romanians in the Soviet Union
• Forced labor of Germans in the Soviet Union
• Gulag: Colonization
• Human rights in the Soviet Union
• Penal transportation
• Persecution of Christians in the Soviet Union
• ZATO

References