Mass operations of the People's Comissariate of Internal Affairs (NKVD) were carried out during the
Great Purge
The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Nikolay Yezhov, Yezhov'), was General ...
and targeted specific categories of people. As a rule, they were carried out according to the corresponding order of the
People's Commissar
Commissar (or sometimes ''Kommissar'') is an English transliteration of the Russian (''komissar''), which means 'commissary'. In English, the transliteration ''commissar'' often refers specifically to the political commissars of Soviet and Eas ...
of Internal Affairs
Nikolai Yezhov
Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov ( rus, Никола́й Ива́нович Ежо́в, p=nʲɪkɐˈɫaj ɪˈvanəvʲɪt͡ɕ (j)ɪˈʐof; 1 May 1895 – 4 February 1940) was a Soviet secret police official under Joseph Stalin who was head of the N ...
.
List
*
Ex-kulaks, criminals, and other anti-Soviet "elements" ~386,798 killed (mostly ethnic Ukrainians)
**
NKVD Order No. 00447
NKVD Order No. 00447 of July 30, 1937 (russian: О операции по репрессированию бывших кулаков, уголовников и других антисоветских элементов, "About operation to repress ...
*
Family members of traitors to the Motherland
"Traitor of the Motherland family members" ( ru , ЧСИР: члены семьи изменника Родины , translation = members of the family of a traitor of the Motherland) was a term in Article 58 of the Criminal Code of RSFSR (as a ...
*
Kharbin Operation of the NKVD ~30,992 killed
National operations of the NKVD
The operations of this type in this period targeted "foreign" ethnicities (ethnicities with cross-border ties to foreign
nation-states
A nation state is a political unit where the state and nation are congruent. It is a more precise concept than "country", since a country does not need to have a predominant ethnic group.
A nation, in the sense of a common ethnicity, may i ...
), unlike
nationally targeted repressions during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. According to historian
Oleg Khlevniuk
Oleg Vitalyevich Khlevniuk ( rus, Олег Витальевич Хлевнюк, born 7 July 1959 Vinnytsia, Ukrainian SSR) is a historian and a senior researcher at the State Archive of the Russian Federation in Moscow.[Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, lin ...]
and believed that "nationalities of foreign governments" posed a threat in border regions, even if they were Soviet citizens whose ancestors had sometimes lived decades or centuries in the areas controlled by the Soviet Union.
From August 1937 to October 1938, 353,513 people were arrested and 247,157 were shot in the national operations of NKVD. It is estimated that this would make up 34% of the total victims of the Great Purge.
*
Polish Operation of the NKVD
The ''Polish Operation'' of the NKVD (Soviet security service) in 1937–1938 was an anti-Polish mass-ethnic cleansing operation of the NKVD carried out in the Soviet Union against Poles (labeled by the Soviets as "agents") during the period of ...
~111,091 killed
**
NKVD Order No. 00485
*
German Operation of the NKVD NKVD Order № 00439, signed by Nikolai Yezhov on July 25, 1937, was the basis for the German operation of the NKVD in 1937–1938. The operation was the first in the series of national operations of the NKVD.
See also
*Anti-German sentiment
*Fligh ...
~41,898 killed
*
Greek Operation of the NKVD
The Greek Operation (russian: Греческая Операция, translit=Grecheskaya Operatsiya; uk, Грецька Операція, translit=Hretska Operatsiia; gr, Ελληνική επιχείρηση) was an organised mass persecution o ...
~20,000
—50,000
*
Latvian Operation of the NKVD
The ''Latvian Operation'' (russian: «Латышская операция», lv, „Latviešu operācija”) was a national operation of the NKVD against ethnic Latvians, Latvian nationals and persons otherwise affiliated with Latvia and/or ...
16,573 killed
*
Korean Operation of the NKVD ~40,000 killed
[Pohl, J. Otto (1999), Ethnic Cleansing in the USSR, 1937-1949, Greenwood, page 13-14]
*
Chinese Operation of the NKVD
*
Estonian Operation of the NKVD
The Estonian Operation of the NKVD was a mass arrest, execution and deportations of persons of Estonian origin in the Soviet Union by the NKVD during the period of Great Purge (1937–1938). It was a part of the larger mass operations of the NKVD ...
4,672 killed
*
Finnish Operation of the NKVD
The Finnish Operation of the NKVD was a mass arrest, execution and deportations of persons of Finnish origin in the Soviet Union by the NKVD during the period of Great Purge (1937–1938). It was a part of the larger mass operations of the NKVD wh ...
8,000–25,000 killed or disappeared
Rollback
On November 17, 1938 a joint decree No. 81 of
Sovnarkom
The Councils of People's Commissars (SNK; russian: Совет народных комиссаров (СНК), ''Sovet narodnykh kommissarov''), commonly known as the ''Sovnarkom'' (Совнарком), were the highest executive authorities of ...
USSR
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
and
Central Committee
Central committee is the common designation of a standing administrative body of Communist party, communist parties, analogous to a board of directors, of both ruling and nonruling parties of former and existing socialist states. In such party org ...
of
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
"Hymn of the Bolshevik Party"
, headquarters = 4 Staraya Square, Moscow
, general_secretary = Vladimir Lenin (first) Mikhail Gorbachev (last)
, founded =
, banned =
, founder = Vladimir Lenin
, newspaper ...
and the subsequent order of the NKVD undersigned by
Lavrentiy Beria
Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria (; rus, Лавре́нтий Па́влович Бе́рия, Lavréntiy Pávlovich Bériya, p=ˈbʲerʲiə; ka, ლავრენტი ბერია, tr, ; – 23 December 1953) was a Georgian Bolshevik ...
cancelled most of NKVD orders of mass type (but not all, see, e.g.,
NKVD Order No. 00689) and suspended implementation of death sentences, signifying the end of the
Great Purge
The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Nikolay Yezhov, Yezhov'), was General ...
("Yezhovshchina").
See also
*
Mass killings under communist regimes
References
Political repression in the Soviet Union
Political and cultural purges
NKVD
Great Purge
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