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Old page wikitext, before the edit (old_wikitext ) | '{{DISPLAYTITLE:''Polish Operation'' of the NKVD}}
{{Infobox civilian attack
| title = ''Polish Operation'' of the NKVD
| partof = the [[Great Purge]] and [[Polish Genocide in the Soviet Union]]{{dn|date=September 2018}} <ref name="rp.pl"/><ref name="arlindo-correia-2"/>
| image = Nikolai Yezhov conferring with Stalin.jpg
| caption = [[Nikolai Yezhov|Yezhov]] and Stalin, USSR, 1937
| location = {{flag|Soviet Union|1936}}, modern-day [[Russia]], [[Ukraine]], [[Belarus]], [[Kazakhstan]] and others
| target = [[Poles]]
| date = 1937–1938
| type = [[Genocidal massacre]]<br>[[Ethnic cleansing]]<br>Prison shootings
| fatalities = + / - 111,091
| perps = [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] [[NKVD]]
| weapons =
}}
The '''''Polish Operation''''' of the [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] [[NKVD|security service]] in 1937–1938 was a [[Mass operations of the NKVD|mass operation of the NKVD]] carried out in the [[Soviet Union]] against [[Poles]] (labeled by the Soviets as "agents") during the period of the [[Great Purge]]. It was ordered by the [[Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Politburo]] against the so-called "Polish spies" and customarily interpreted by the [[NKVD]] officials as relating to 'absolutely all Poles'. It resulted in the sentencing of 139,835 people, and summary executions of 111,091 Poles.<ref name="Gellately-Kiernan"/><ref name="Goldman2011-217">{{cite book |author=Wendy Z. Goldman |year=2011 |url=https://books.google.ca/books?id=D0_HYK8R-8IC&pg=PA217#v=onepage&q=%22NKVD%20units%20interpreted%20the%20order%20as%20sanctioning%20the%20arrest%22%20%22of%20absolutely%20all%20Poles%22 |title=Inventing the Enemy: Denunciation and Terror in Stalin's Russia |location=New York |publisher=Cambridge University Press |ISBN=978-0-521-19196-8 |page=217}}</ref> The operation was implemented according to [[NKVD Order № 00485]] signed by Nikolai Yezhov.<ref name="Russian1" /> The majority of the shooting victims were ethnically Polish,<ref name="rp.pl"/> but not all, wrote [[Timothy Snyder]].<ref name="Snyder2010-103">{{cite book |last=Timothy Snyder |year=2010 |url=https://books.google.ca/books?id=ZCP6WKJwVr8C&lpg=PA103&dq=%22The%20Polish%20operation%20was%20in%20some%20respects%20the%20bloodiest%22&pg=PA103#v=onepage&q=%22The%20Polish%20operation%20was%20in%20some%20respects%20the%20bloodiest%22&f=false |title=Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin |location=New York |publisher=Basic Books |ISBN=978-0-465-00239-9 |pages=103–104}}</ref> The remainder were 'suspected' of being Polish, without further inquiry,<ref name="Russian1">{{cite web |url=http://www.memo.ru/history/POLAcy/00485ART.htm |script-title="Польская операция" НКВД 1937–1938 гг. |title="Polish Operation" of the NKVD, 1937-1938. |publisher=НИПЦ «Мемориал» |accessdate=May 27, 2012 |author=Н.В.Петров, А.Б.Рогинский |quote=''Original title:'' О фашистско-повстанческой, шпионской, диверсионной, пораженческой и террористической деятельности польской разведки в СССР |language=Russian}}</ref> or classed as possibly having pro-Polish sympathies.<ref name="nybooks-1">{{cite web |url=http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2011/jan/27/hitler-vs-stalin-who-was-worse/ |title=Hitler vs. Stalin: Who Was Worse? |publisher=The New York Review of Books |date=January 27, 2011 |accessdate=June 12, 2012 |author=[[Timothy Snyder]] |page=1, paragraph #7}}</ref> In order to speed up the process the NKVD personnel reviewed local telephone books and arrested persons with Polish-sounding names.<ref>{{cite journal |publisher=The New York Times Book Review |title=Bloodlands - Europe Between Hitler and Stalin - By Timothy Snyder |author=Joshua Rubenstein |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/28/books/review/Rubenstein-t.html |date=November 26, 2010}}</ref>
The Polish Operation was the largest ethnic shooting and deportation action during the [[Great Purge|Great Terror]] campaign of political murders in the Soviet Union, orchestrated by Nikolai Yezhov.<ref name="bookhaven">{{cite web |url=http://bookhaven.stanford.edu/tag/timothy-snyder/ |title=A letter from Timothy Snyder of Bloodlands: Two genocidaires, taking turns in Poland |publisher=Stanford University |work=The Book Haven |date=December 15, 2010 | accessdate=April 25, 2011}}</ref><ref name="B/E/F">{{cite book | url=https://books.google.ca/books?id=0WIhAQAAQBAJ&q=Snyder%3A+85%2C000+Poles#v=snippet&q=Snyder%3A%2085%2C000%20Poles&f=false | title=Memory and Theory in Eastern Europe | publisher=Palgrave Macmillan | work=Introduction | date=2013 | accessdate=18 February 2015 |author1=Uilleam Blacker |author2=Alexander Etkind |author3=Julie Fedor | page=21 | isbn=1137322063}}</ref> It is also the largest killing of Poles in history outside any armed conflict.<ref name="rp.pl"/>
==Order № 00485==
{{main article|Order № 00485}}
The top secret [[NKVD Order No. 00485]], titled "''On the liquidation of the Polish diversionist and espionage groups and POW units''," was approved on August 9, 1937 by [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|the Party's]] [[Central Committee]] [[Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee|Politburo]], and was signed by [[Nikolai Yezhov]] on August 11, 1937.<ref name="Russian1" /> It was distributed to the local subdivisions of the NKVD simultaneously with Yezhov's thirty-page "secret letter," explaining what the "Polish operation" was all about. The letter from Yezhov was titled, "''On fascist-resurrectionist, spying, diversional, defeationist, and terrorist activity of Polish intelligence in the USSR''".<ref name="Russian2">Original document. [http://perpetrator2004.narod.ru/documents/Great_Terror/Letter_On_POV.doc Full text of the Order in the Russian language.] "О фашистско-повстанческой, шпионской, диверсионной, пораженческой и террористической деятельности польской разведки в СССР." Хлевнюк О. В. Политбюро: Механизмы политической власти в 1930-е гг. М., 1996.</ref> Stalin demanded the NKVD to "keep on digging out and cleaning out this Polish filth."<ref name="arlindo-correia-2">{{cite web | url=http://www.arlindo-correia.org/040111.html | title=Savagery in the East | publisher=[[The Wall Street Journal]] | date=October 18, 2010 | accessdate=April 26, 2011 | author=Matthew Kaminski}}</ref>
[[File:NKVD Order No. 00485 - Kharkov copy (2).jpg|thumb|right|First page of one of the copies of the Order No. 00485, archived by the Kharkov branch of the NKVD.]]
The "Order" adopted the simplified so-called "[[album procedure]]" (as it was called in NKVD circles). The long lists of Poles condemned by a lower NKVD organ (so-called ''dvoika'', a two-man team) during early meetings,{{r|Sanford2007}} were then collected into "albums" and sent to the midrange NKVD offices for a stamp of approval by a ''troika'' (a three-man team; a communist official, NKVD leader, and party procurator). Poles were the first ever major Soviet population group to be sentenced in this manner.<ref name="Sanford2007">{{cite book |title=Katyn and the Soviet Massacre of 1940: Truth, Justice and Memory |author=[[George Sanford (political scientist)|George Sanford]] |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tV2AAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT33 |publisher=Routledge |date=2007 |ISBN=1134302991 |page=33}}</ref> After the approval of the entire "album", the executions were carried out immediately. This procedure was also used later on in other [[mass operations of the NKVD]].<ref name="Werth2010">{{cite web |url=http://www.tyrollins.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/SEMELIN-MASS-VIOLENCE-IN-USSR-NATION-FRON-OPERATIONS-OF-THE-NKVD-1937-TO-1938.pdf |title=The NKVD Mass Secret National Operations (August 1937 - November 1938) |publisher=MassViolence.org |work=Online Encyclopedia of Mass Violence |date=20 May 2010 |via=Internet Archive |author=Nicolas Werth |pages=4 of 10 |format=PDF |ISSN=1961-9898 |deadurl=bot: unknown |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20180220170831/http://www.tyrollins.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/SEMELIN-MASS-VIOLENCE-IN-USSR-NATION-FRON-OPERATIONS-OF-THE-NKVD-1937-TO-1938.pdf |archivedate=20 February 2018 |df= }}</ref>
The "Polish Operation" was a second in a series of [[Mass operations of the NKVD|national operations of the NKVD]], carried out by the Soviet Union against ethnic groups including Latvian, Finnish, German and Romanian, based on a theory about an internal enemy (i.e. the [[fifth column]]) labelled as the "hostile capitalist surrounding" residing along its western borders.<ref name="arlindo-correia-2" /> In opinion of historian [[Timothy Snyder]], this fabricated justification was intended only to cover-up the state-sanctioned campaign of mass-murder aiming to eradicate Poles as a national (and linguistic) minority group.<ref name="arlindo-correia-2" /> Another possible cause according to Snyder might have sprung from the necessity to explain the [[Holodomor|Soviet-made famine in Ukraine]] which required a political scapegoat. A top Soviet official [[Vsevolod Balitsky]] chose the [[Polish Military Organization]] which was disbanded in 1921. The NKVD declared that it continued to exist. Some Soviet Poles were tortured in order to confess to its existence, and denounce other individuals as spies. Meanwhile, the Communist International helped by revisiting its files in search of Polish members, producing another bountiful source of made-up evidence.<ref>Timothy Snyder (2005), ''[https://books.google.ca/books?id=LkZlidUKEl8C&lpg=PA73&dq=elections%20Poland%201930&pg=PA129#v=onepage&q=sabotaging+collectivization&f=false Sketches from a Secret War]'' Yale University Press, p. 129. {{ISBN|030010670X}}</ref>
==Scale of the Polish Operation and its victims==
The operation took place approximately from August 25, 1937 to November 15, 1938.<ref name="balticnorthernminorities">{{cite web |url=http://www.balticnorthernminorities.org/pdf/project_abstracts.pdf |title=The 'Polish operation' of the NKVD |publisher=[[Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw|University of Stefan Wyszyński]] in [[Warsaw]] |work=The Baltic and Arctic Areas under Stalin. Ethnic Minorities in the Great Soviet Terror of 1937-38. |date=January 25–26, 2011 |via=Internet Archive |authors=Prof. Bogdan Musial [[et al.]] |pages=17– |id=UMEA International Research Group. Abstracts of Presentations |quote=Official documents of the State Security Administration show that 'ethnicity alone was sufficient grounds for arrest.' – Dr. Iryna Ramanava, National Academy of Sciences of Belarus. |deadurl=bot: unknown |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20120323074748/http://www.balticnorthernminorities.org/pdf/project_abstracts.pdf |archivedate=2012-03-23 |df= }}</ref> The largest group of people with Polish background, around 40 percent of all victims, came from the Soviet Ukraine, especially from the districts near the border with Poland. Among them were tens of thousands of peasants, railway workers, industrial labourers, engineers and others. An additional 17 percent of victims came from the Soviet Byelorussia. The rest came from around Western Siberia and Kazakhstan, where exiled Poles had lived since the [[Partitions of Poland|Partitions]], as well as from the southern Urals, northern Caucasus and the rest of Siberia, including the Far East.<ref name="Gellately-Kiernan">{{cite book | title=The specter of genocide: mass murder in historical perspective. | publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] | author=Robert Gellately, Ben Kiernan | year=2003 | pages=396 | isbn=0521527503 | url=https://books.google.ca/books?id=k9Ro7b0tWz4C&pg=PA232&dq=%22lead,+in+the+next+fourteen+months,+to+the+arrest+of+143,810+people%22&hl=en&ei=XHC3TdekDoPniALfvPE7&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22lead%2C%20in%20the%20next%20fourteen%20months%2C%20to%20the%20arrest%20of%20143%2C810%20people%22&f=false | quote= Polish operation (page 233 –) }}</ref>
The following categories of people were arrested by the NKVD during its Polish operation, as described in Soviet documents:
# "Active" members of the [[Polish minority in Soviet Union]] (practically all Poles).<ref name="Gellately-Kiernan"/><ref name="Goldman2011-217"/>
# All [[immigrant]]s from [[Poland]].
# Political refugees from Poland (mostly members of the [[Communist Party of Poland]]).
# Former and present members of the [[Polish Socialist Party]] and other non-[[communist]] Polish political parties.
# All [[prisoner of war|prisoners of war]] from the [[Polish-Soviet war]] remaining in the Soviet Union.
# Members of [[Polish Military Organisation|Polska Organizacja Wojskowa]] listed in the special list (most of them were not members of that organisation).
[[File:Partitioned Poland & the 2nd Republic.png|thumb|right|Outline of the [[Second Polish Republic]] on the map of the [[Partitions of Poland]]. Most territories [[Russian Partition|annexed by the Russian Empire]] by 1793 (in shades of green) remained in the Soviet Union after the [[Bolshevik Revolution]] and became the scene of the genocide of Poles in 1937–38.]]
===Killing process and death toll===
According to archives of the NKVD: 111,091 [[Poles]] and people accused of ties with Poland, were sentenced to death, and 28,744 were sentenced to [[labor camp]]s (known as the "dry guillotine" of slow death by exposure, malnutrition, and overwork);<ref name="grhs.org">{{cite web | url=http://www.grhs.org/heritage/SovietRepression.pdf | title=Soviet "Paradise" Revisited: Genocide, Dissent, Memory and Denial | publisher=GRHS Heritage Society | accessdate=April 26, 2011 | author=Eric J. Schmaltz | deadurl=yes | archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20111018085732/http://www.grhs.org/heritage/SovietRepression.pdf | archivedate=October 18, 2011 | df= }}</ref> 139,835 victims in total.<ref name="memo.ru">{{cite web | url=http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&sl=ru&tl=en&u=http://www.memo.ru/history/POLAcy/00485-1.htm&prev=_t&rurl=translate.google.ca&usg=ALkJrhgLJ0y4jTz5qldwJAVKxBPTYXajVw | title=A breakdown of the chronology and the punishment, NKVD Order № 00485 (Polish operation) in Google translate | accessdate=April 26, 2011 | author=O.A. Gorlanov}}</ref> This number constitutes 10% of the total number of people officially convicted during the [[Yezhovshchina]] period, based on confirming NKVD documents.<ref>McLoughlin, [[#References|References]], [https://books.google.com/books?id=8yorTJl1QEoC&pg=PA164&dq=polish+operation+of+nkvd+111,091&ei=kpXuRu_aLKfUowKVmZC2Dw&ie=ISO-8859-1&sig=-1KiWrPJ2aP3HQJiSz5LWxesdC4 p. 164.]</ref>
The Operation was only a peak in the persecution of the Poles, which spanned more than a decade. As the Soviet statistics indicate, the number of ethnic Poles in the USSR dropped by 165,000 in that period. "It is estimated that Polish losses in the Ukrainian SSR were about 30%, while in the Belorussian SSR... the Polish minority was almost completely annihilated."<ref name="balticnorthernminorities" />
[[Timothy Snyder]] gives a conservative estimate of 85,000 confirmed Poles executed simultaneously across the country.<ref name="Snyder2010-103"/>
Almost all victims of the NKVD shootings were men, wrote Michał Jasiński, most with families. Their wives and children were dealt with by the [[NKVD Order № 00486]]. The women were generally sentenced to deportation to Kazakhstan for an average of 5 to 10 years. Orphaned children without relatives willing to take them were put in orphanages to be brought up as Soviet, with no knowledge of their origins. All possessions of the accused were confiscated. The parents of the executed men – as well as their in-laws – were left with nothing to live on, which usually sealed their fate as well. Statistical extrapolation, wrote Jasiński, increases the number of Polish victims in 1937–1938 to around 200–250,000 depending on size of their families.<ref name="fronda">{{cite web | url=http://fronda.gliwice.pl/czytelnia.php5?id=84 | title=Zapomniane ludobójstwo stalinowskie (The forgotten Stalinist genocide) | publisher=Gliwicki klub Fondy. Czytelnia | date=2010-10-27 | accessdate=April 28, 2011 | author=Michał Jasiński | deadurl=yes | archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20120323100829/http://fronda.gliwice.pl/czytelnia.php5?id=84 | archivedate=March 23, 2012 | df= }}</ref>
====Great Purge of Poles in Leningrad====
In [[Leningrad]], the [[NKVD]] reviewed local telephone books and arrested almost 7,000 citizens with Polish-sounding name with the vast majority of such nominal "suspects" were executed within 10 days of arrest.<ref name="arlindo-correia">{{cite web | url=http://www.arlindo-correia.org/040111.html | title=The Devils’ Playground | publisher=[[The New York Times]] | accessdate=April 26, 2011 | author=Joshua Rubenstein | quote=Rubenstein is the Northeast regional director of [[Amnesty International USA]] and a co-editor of ''The Unknown Black Book: The Holocaust in the German-Occupied Soviet Territories.''}}</ref>
==Genocide characterization==
Historian [[Michael Ellman]] asserts that the "national operations", particularly the "Polish Operation", may have constituted [[genocide]] as defined by the UN convention.<ref name="paulbogdanor">Michael Ellman, [http://www.paulbogdanor.com/left/soviet/famine/ellman1933.pdf Stalin and the Soviet Famine of 1932-33 Revisited] [[PDF]] file</ref> His opinion is shared by [[Simon Sebag Montefiore]], who calls the Polish operation of the NKVD "a mini-genocide".<ref>Simon Sebag Montefiore. ''Stalin. The Court of the Red Tsar'', page 229. Vintage Books, New York 2003. Vintage {{ISBN|1-4000-7678-1}}]</ref> Polish writer and commentator, Dr [[Tomasz Sommer]], also refers to the operation as a genocide, along with Prof. [[Marek Jan Chodakiewicz]] among others.<ref name="rp.pl">{{cite journal |url=http://www.rp.pl/artykul/594183.html |trans-title=Nieopłakane ludobójstwo |title=Genocide Not Mourned |publisher=Presspublica |journal=[[Rzeczpospolita]] |date=2011-01-15 |via=Internet Archive |author=Prof. [[Marek Jan Chodakiewicz]] |deadurl=bot: unknown |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20121004125909/http://www.rp.pl/artykul/594183.html |archivedate=2012-10-04 |df= }}</ref><ref name="se.pl">{{cite web | url=http://m.se.pl/wydarzenia/opinie/zbrodnia-wieksza-niz-katyn_157172.html | title=Tomasz Sommer: Ludobójstwo Polaków z lat 1937-38 to zbrodnia większa niż Katyń (Genocide of Poles in the years 1937-38, a Crime Greater than Katyn) | publisher=[[Super Express (newspaper)|Super Express]] | accessdate=April 28, 2011 | author=Franciszek Tyszka}}</ref><ref name="historyton.pl">{{cite web | url=http://historyton.pl/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=11729 | title=Rozstrzelać Polaków. Ludobójstwo Polaków w Związku Sowieckim (To Execute the Poles. Genocide of Poles in the Soviet Union) | publisher=Historyton | accessdate=April 28, 2011 | deadurl=yes | archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20111003143755/http://historyton.pl/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=11729 | archivedate=October 3, 2011 | df= }}</ref><ref name="wiara.pl">{{cite web | url=http://info.wiara.pl/doc/578542.Publikacja-na-temat-eksterminacji-Polakow-w-ZSRR-w-latach-30 | title=Publikacja na temat eksterminacji Polaków w ZSRR w latach 30 (Publication on the Subject of Extermination of Poles in the Soviet Union during the 1930s) | author= Andrzej Macura, [[Polska Agencja Prasowa]] | publisher=Portal Wiara.pl | date=2010-06-24 | accessdate=April 28, 2011 }}</ref><ref name="polishclub.org">{{cite web | url=http://www.polishclub.org/2011/03/22/prof-iwo-cyprian-pogonowski-rozkaz-n-k-w-d-no-00485-z-dnia-11-viii-1937-a-polacy/ | title=Rozkaz N.K.W.D.: No. 00485 z dnia 11-VIII-1937, a Polacy | publisher=Polish Club Online | date=22 March 2011 | accessdate=April 28, 2011 | author=Prof. [[Iwo Cyprian Pogonowski]] | quote= See also, Tomasz Sommer: Ludobójstwo Polaków w Związku Sowieckim (Genocide of Poles in the Soviet Union), article published by The Polish Review vol. LV, No. 4, 2010.}}</ref><ref name="naukowa.pl">{{cite web | url=http://www.naukowa.pl/Historia,7kt/Rozstrzelac-Polakow.-Ludobojstwo-Polakow-w-Zwiazku-Sowieckim-w-latach-1937-1938.-Dokumenty-z-Central,328396ks | title= Sommer, Tomasz. Book description (Opis). | publisher=Księgarnia Prawnicza, [[Lublin]] | work=Rozstrzelać Polaków. Ludobójstwo Polaków w Związku Sowieckim w latach 1937-1938. Dokumenty z Centrali (Genocide of Poles in the Soviet Union) | accessdate=April 28, 2011}}</ref><ref name="global364">{{cite journal |url=http://globalizacja.org/print/364 |trans-title=Konferencja "Rozstrzelać Polaków – Ludobójstwo Polaków w Związku Sowieckim" |title="To Shoot the Poles." Conference on the Genocide of Poles in the Soviet Union |location=Warsaw |publisher=Instytut Globalizacji oraz Press Club Polska in cooperation with the Memorial Society |via=Internet Archive |journal=Globalizacja.org |author=Dawid Ciężarkiewicz |deadurl=bot: unknown |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20131112020824/http://globalizacja.org/print/364 |archivedate=2013-11-12 |df= }}</ref>
==See also==
{{Div col}}
* [[Soviet repressions of Polish citizens (1939–1946)]]
* [[Gestapo–NKVD conferences|Gestapo–NKVD conferences (1939-1940)]]
* [[Katyn massacre]]
* [[Great Purge]]
* [[Aardakh]]
* [[Deportation of the Crimean Tatars]]
{{div col end}}
== Footnotes ==
{{reflist}}
== Further reading ==
* McLoughlin, Barry, and McDermott, Kevin (eds). ''Stalin's Terror: High Politics and Mass Repression in the Soviet Union.'' [[Palgrave Macmillan]], December 2002. {{ISBN|1403901198}}.
* Naimark, Norman M. ''Stalin's Genocides.'' Princeton University, 2010.
* {{Citation | surname = Paczkowski| given = Andrzej| year = 1999| chapter = Poland, the "Enemy Nation"| editor = [[Stéphane Courtois]]| title = [[Black Book of Communism]]|pages=372–375|chapter-url=http://www.warsawuprising.com/paper/nkvd.htm|display-editors=etal}}
{{USSR repressions}}
{{Genocide topics}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Polish Operation of the NKVD (1937-1938)}}
[[Category:Political repression in the Soviet Union]]
[[Category:Ethnic cleansing]]
[[Category:Great Purge]]
[[Category:NKVD]]
[[Category:1937 in the Soviet Union]]
[[Category:1938 in the Soviet Union]]
[[Category:Anti-Polish sentiment in Europe]]
[[Category:1937 in Belarus]]
[[Category:1937 in Ukraine]]
[[Category:1938 in Ukraine]]' |
New page wikitext, after the edit (new_wikitext ) | '{{DISPLAYTITLE:''Polish Operation'' of the NKVD}}
{{Infobox civilian attack
| title = ''Polish Operation'' of the NKVD
| partof = the [[Great Purge]] and [[Polish Genocide in the Soviet Union]]{{dn|date=September 2018}} <ref name="rp.pl"/><ref name="arlindo-correia-2"/>
| image = Nikolai Yezhov conferring with Stalin.jpg
| caption = [[Nikolai Yezhov|Yezhov]] and Stalin, USSR, 1937
| location = {{flag|Soviet Union|1936}}, modern-day [[Russia]], [[Ukraine]], [[Belarus]], [[Kazakhstan]] and others
| target = [[Poles]]
| date = 1937–1938
| type = [[Genocidal massacre]]<br>[[Ethnic cleansing]]<br>Prison shootings
| fatalities = + / - 111,091
| perps = [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] [[NKVD]]
| weapons =
}}
The '''''Polish Operation''''' of the [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] [[NKVD|security service]] in 1937–1938 was a [[Mass operations of the NKVD|mass operation of the NKVD]] carried out in the [[Soviet Union]] against [[Poles]] (labeled by the Soviets as "agents") during the period of the [[Great Purge]]. It was ordered by the [[Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Politburo]] against the so-called "Polish spies" and customarily interpreted by the [[NKVD]] officials as relating to 'absolutely all Poles'. It resulted in the sentencing of 139,835 people, and summary executions of 111,091 Poles.<ref name="Gellately-Kiernan"/><ref name="Goldman2011-217">{{cite book |author=Wendy Z. Goldman |year=2011 |url=https://books.google.ca/books?id=D0_HYK8R-8IC&pg=PA217#v=onepage&q=%22NKVD%20units%20interpreted%20the%20order%20as%20sanctioning%20the%20arrest%22%20%22of%20absolutely%20all%20Poles%22 |title=Inventing the Enemy: Denunciation and Terror in Stalin's Russia |location=New York |publisher=Cambridge University Press |ISBN=978-0-521-19196-8 |page=217}}</ref> The operation was implemented according to [[NKVD Order № 00485]] signed by Nikolai Yezhov.<ref name="Russian1" /> The majority of the shooting victims were ethnically Polish,<ref name="rp.pl"/> but not all, wrote [[Timothy Snyder]].<ref name="Snyder2010-103">{{cite book |last=Timothy Snyder |year=2010 |url=https://books.google.ca/books?id=ZCP6WKJwVr8C&lpg=PA103&dq=%22The%20Polish%20operation%20was%20in%20some%20respects%20the%20bloodiest%22&pg=PA103#v=onepage&q=%22The%20Polish%20operation%20was%20in%20some%20respects%20the%20bloodiest%22&f=false |title=Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin |location=New York |publisher=Basic Books |ISBN=978-0-465-00239-9 |pages=103–104}}</ref> The remainder were 'suspected' of being Polish, without further inquiry,<ref name="Russian1">{{cite web |url=http://www.memo.ru/history/POLAcy/00485ART.htm |script-title="Польская операция" НКВД 1937–1938 гг. |title="Polish Operation" of the NKVD, 1937-1938. |publisher=НИПЦ «Мемориал» |accessdate=May 27, 2012 |author=Н.В.Петров, А.Б.Рогинский |quote=''Original title:'' О фашистско-повстанческой, шпионской, диверсионной, пораженческой и террористической деятельности польской разведки в СССР |language=Russian}}</ref> or classed as possibly having pro-Polish sympathies.<ref name="nybooks-1">{{cite web |url=http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2011/jan/27/hitler-vs-stalin-who-was-worse/ |title=Hitler vs. Stalin: Who Was Worse? |publisher=The New York Review of Books |date=January 27, 2011 |accessdate=June 12, 2012 |author=[[Timothy Snyder]] |page=1, paragraph #7}}</ref> In order to speed up the process the NKVD personnel reviewed local telephone books and arrested persons with Polish-sounding names.<ref>{{cite journal |publisher=The New York Times Book Review |title=Bloodlands - Europe Between Hitler and Stalin - By Timothy Snyder |author=Joshua Rubenstein |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/28/books/review/Rubenstein-t.html |date=November 26, 2010}}</ref>
The Polish Operation was the largest ethnic shooting and deportation action during the [[Great Purge|Great Terror]] campaign of political murders in the Soviet Union, orchestrated by Nikolai Yezhov.<ref name="bookhaven">{{cite web |url=http://bookhaven.stanford.edu/tag/timothy-snyder/ |title=A letter from Timothy Snyder of Bloodlands: Two genocidaires, taking turns in Poland |publisher=Stanford University |work=The Book Haven |date=December 15, 2010 | accessdate=April 25, 2011}}</ref><ref name="B/E/F">{{cite book | url=https://books.google.ca/books?id=0WIhAQAAQBAJ&q=Snyder%3A+85%2C000+Poles#v=snippet&q=Snyder%3A%2085%2C000%20Poles&f=false | title=Memory and Theory in Eastern Europe | publisher=Palgrave Macmillan | work=Introduction | date=2013 | accessdate=18 February 2015 |author1=Uilleam Blacker |author2=Alexander Etkind |author3=Julie Fedor | page=21 | isbn=1137322063}}</ref> It is also the largest killing of Poles in history outside any armed conflict.<ref name="rp.pl"/>
==Order № 00485==
{{main article|Order № 00485}}
The top secret [[NKVD Order No. 00485]], titled "''On the liquidation of the Polish diversionist and espionage groups and POW units''," was approved on August 9, 1937 by [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|the Party's]] [[Central Committee]] [[Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee|Politburo]], and was signed by [[Nikolai Yezhov]] on August 11, 1937.<ref name="Russian1" /> It was distributed to the local subdivisions of the NKVD simultaneously with Yezhov's thirty-page "secret letter," explaining what the "Polish operation" was all about. The letter from Yezhov was titled, "''On fascist-resurrectionist, spying, diversional, defeationist, and terrorist activity of Polish intelligence in the USSR''".<ref name="Russian2">Original document. [http://perpetrator2004.narod.ru/documents/Great_Terror/Letter_On_POV.doc Full text of the Order in the Russian language.] "О фашистско-повстанческой, шпионской, диверсионной, пораженческой и террористической деятельности польской разведки в СССР." Хлевнюк О. В. Политбюро: Механизмы политической власти в 1930-е гг. М., 1996.</ref> Stalin demanded the NKVD to "keep on digging out and cleaning out this Polish filth."<ref name="arlindo-correia-2">{{cite web | url=http://www.arlindo-correia.org/040111.html | title=Savagery in the East | publisher=[[The Wall Street Journal]] | date=October 18, 2010 | accessdate=April 26, 2011 | author=Matthew Kaminski}}</ref>
[[File:NKVD Order No. 00485 - Kharkov copy (2).jpg|thumb|right|First page of one of the copies of the Order No. 00485, archived by the Kharkov branch of the NKVD.]]
The "Order" adopted the simplified so-called "[[album procedure]]" (as it was called in NKVD circles). The long lists of Poles condemned by a lower NKVD organ (so-called ''dvoika'', a two-man team) during early meetings,{{r|Sanford2007}} were then collected into "albums" and sent to the midrange NKVD offices for a stamp of approval by a ''troika'' (a three-man team; a communist official, NKVD leader, and party procurator). Poles were the first ever major Soviet population group to be sentenced in this manner.<ref name="Sanford2007">{{cite book |title=Katyn and the Soviet Massacre of 1940: Truth, Justice and Memory |author=[[George Sanford (political scientist)|George Sanford]] |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tV2AAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT33 |publisher=Routledge |date=2007 |ISBN=1134302991 |page=33}}</ref> After the approval of the entire "album", the executions were carried out immediately. This procedure was also used later on in other [[mass operations of the NKVD]].<ref name="Werth2010">{{cite web |url=http://www.tyrollins.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/SEMELIN-MASS-VIOLENCE-IN-USSR-NATION-FRON-OPERATIONS-OF-THE-NKVD-1937-TO-1938.pdf |title=The NKVD Mass Secret National Operations (August 1937 - November 1938) |publisher=MassViolence.org |work=Online Encyclopedia of Mass Violence |date=20 May 2010 |via=Internet Archive |author=Nicolas Werth |pages=4 of 10 |format=PDF |ISSN=1961-9898 |deadurl=bot: unknown |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20180220170831/http://www.tyrollins.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/SEMELIN-MASS-VIOLENCE-IN-USSR-NATION-FRON-OPERATIONS-OF-THE-NKVD-1937-TO-1938.pdf |archivedate=20 February 2018 |df= }}</ref>
The "Polish Operation" was a second in a series of [[Mass operations of the NKVD|national operations of the NKVD]], carried out by the Soviet Union against ethnic groups including Latvian, Finnish, German and Romanian, based on a theory about an internal enemy (i.e. the [[fifth column]]) labelled as the "hostile capitalist surrounding" residing along its western borders.<ref name="arlindo-correia-2" /> In opinion of historian [[Timothy Snyder]], this fabricated justification was intended only to cover-up the state-sanctioned campaign of mass-murder aiming to eradicate Poles as a national (and linguistic) minority group.<ref name="arlindo-correia-2" /> Another possible cause according to Snyder might have sprung from the necessity to explain the [[Holodomor|Soviet-made famine in Ukraine]] which required a political scapegoat. A top Soviet official [[Vsevolod Balitsky]] chose the [[Polish Military Organization]] which was disbanded in 1921. The NKVD declared that it continued to exist. Some Soviet Poles were tortured in order to confess to its existence, and denounce other individuals as spies. Meanwhile, the Communist International helped by revisiting its files in search of Polish members, producing another bountiful source of made-up evidence.<ref>Timothy Snyder (2005), ''[https://books.google.ca/books?id=LkZlidUKEl8C&lpg=PA73&dq=elections%20Poland%201930&pg=PA129#v=onepage&q=sabotaging+collectivization&f=false Sketches from a Secret War]'' Yale University Press, p. 129. {{ISBN|030010670X}}</ref>
==Scale of the Polish Operation and its victims==
The operation took place approximately from August 25, 1937 to November 15, 1938.<ref name="balticnorthernminorities">{{cite web |url=http://www.balticnorthernminorities.org/pdf/project_abstracts.pdf |title=The 'Polish operation' of the NKVD |publisher=[[Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw|University of Stefan Wyszyński]] in [[Warsaw]] |work=The Baltic and Arctic Areas under Stalin. Ethnic Minorities in the Great Soviet Terror of 1937-38. |date=January 25–26, 2011 |via=Internet Archive |authors=Prof. Bogdan Musial [[et al.]] |pages=17– |id=UMEA International Research Group. Abstracts of Presentations |quote=Official documents of the State Security Administration show that 'ethnicity alone was sufficient grounds for arrest.' – Dr. Iryna Ramanava, National Academy of Sciences of Belarus. |deadurl=bot: unknown |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20120323074748/http://www.balticnorthernminorities.org/pdf/project_abstracts.pdf |archivedate=2012-03-23 |df= }}</ref> The largest group of people with Polish background, around 40 percent of all victims, came from the Soviet Ukraine, especially from the districts near the border with Poland. Among them were tens of thousands of peasants, railway workers, industrial labourers, engineers and others. An additional 17 percent of victims came from the Soviet Byelorussia. The rest came from around Western Siberia and Kazakhstan, where exiled Poles had lived since the [[Partitions of Poland|Partitions]], as well as from the southern Urals, northern Caucasus and the rest of Siberia, including the Far East.<ref name="Gellately-Kiernan">{{cite book | title=The specter of genocide: mass murder in historical perspective. | publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] | author=Robert Gellately, Ben Kiernan | year=2003 | pages=396 | isbn=0521527503 | url=https://books.google.ca/books?id=k9Ro7b0tWz4C&pg=PA232&dq=%22lead,+in+the+next+fourteen+months,+to+the+arrest+of+143,810+people%22&hl=en&ei=XHC3TdekDoPniALfvPE7&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22lead%2C%20in%20the%20next%20fourteen%20months%2C%20to%20the%20arrest%20of%20143%2C810%20people%22&f=false | quote= Polish operation (page 233 –) }}</ref>
The following categories of people were arrested by the NKVD during its Polish operation, as described in Soviet documents:
# "Active" members of the [[Polish minority in Soviet Union]] (practically all Poles).<ref name="Gellately-Kiernan"/><ref name="Goldman2011-217"/>
# All [[immigrant]]s from [[Poland]].
# Political refugees from Poland (mostly members of the [[Communist Party of Poland]]).
# Former and present members of the [[Polish Socialist Party]] and other non-[[communist]] Polish political parties.
# All [[prisoner of war|prisoners of war]] from the [[Polish-Soviet war]] remaining in the Soviet Union.
# Members of [[Polish Military Organisation|Polska Organizacja Wojskowa]] listed in the special list (most of them were not members of that organisation).
[[File:Partitioned Poland & the 2nd Republic.png|thumb|right|Outline of the [[Second Polish Republic]] on the map of the [[Partitions of Poland]]. Most territories [[Russian Partition|annexed by the Russian Empire]] by 1793 (in shades of green) remained in the Soviet Union after the [[Bolshevik Revolution]] and became the scene of the genocide of Poles in 1937–38.]]
===Killing process and death toll===
According to archives of the NKVD: 111,091 [[Poles]] and people accused of ties with Poland, were sentenced to death, and 28,744 were sentenced to [[Gulag|labor camp]]s; 139,835 victims in total.<ref name="memo.ru">{{cite web | url=http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&sl=ru&tl=en&u=http://www.memo.ru/history/POLAcy/00485-1.htm&prev=_t&rurl=translate.google.ca&usg=ALkJrhgLJ0y4jTz5qldwJAVKxBPTYXajVw | title=A breakdown of the chronology and the punishment, NKVD Order № 00485 (Polish operation) in Google translate | accessdate=April 26, 2011 | author=O.A. Gorlanov}}</ref> This number constitutes 10% of the total number of people officially convicted during the [[Yezhovshchina]] period, based on confirming NKVD documents.<ref>McLoughlin, [[#References|References]], [https://books.google.com/books?id=8yorTJl1QEoC&pg=PA164&dq=polish+operation+of+nkvd+111,091&ei=kpXuRu_aLKfUowKVmZC2Dw&ie=ISO-8859-1&sig=-1KiWrPJ2aP3HQJiSz5LWxesdC4 p. 164.]</ref>
The Operation was only a peak in the persecution of the Poles, which spanned more than a decade. As the Soviet statistics indicate, the number of ethnic Poles in the USSR dropped by 165,000 in that period. "It is estimated that Polish losses in the Ukrainian SSR were about 30%, while in the Belorussian SSR... the Polish minority was almost completely annihilated."<ref name="balticnorthernminorities" />
[[Timothy Snyder]] gives a conservative estimate of 85,000 confirmed Poles executed simultaneously across the country.<ref name="Snyder2010-103"/>
Almost all victims of the NKVD shootings were men, wrote Michał Jasiński, most with families. Their wives and children were dealt with by the [[NKVD Order № 00486]]. The women were generally sentenced to deportation to Kazakhstan for an average of 5 to 10 years. Orphaned children without relatives willing to take them were put in orphanages to be brought up as Soviet, with no knowledge of their origins. All possessions of the accused were confiscated. The parents of the executed men – as well as their in-laws – were left with nothing to live on, which usually sealed their fate as well. Statistical extrapolation, wrote Jasiński, increases the number of Polish victims in 1937–1938 to around 200–250,000 depending on size of their families.<ref name="fronda">{{cite web | url=http://fronda.gliwice.pl/czytelnia.php5?id=84 | title=Zapomniane ludobójstwo stalinowskie (The forgotten Stalinist genocide) | publisher=Gliwicki klub Fondy. Czytelnia | date=2010-10-27 | accessdate=April 28, 2011 | author=Michał Jasiński | deadurl=yes | archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20120323100829/http://fronda.gliwice.pl/czytelnia.php5?id=84 | archivedate=March 23, 2012 | df= }}</ref>
====Great Purge of Poles in Leningrad====
In [[Leningrad]], the [[NKVD]] reviewed local telephone books and arrested almost 7,000 citizens with Polish-sounding name with the vast majority of such nominal "suspects" were executed within 10 days of arrest.<ref name="arlindo-correia">{{cite web | url=http://www.arlindo-correia.org/040111.html | title=The Devils’ Playground | publisher=[[The New York Times]] | accessdate=April 26, 2011 | author=Joshua Rubenstein | quote=Rubenstein is the Northeast regional director of [[Amnesty International USA]] and a co-editor of ''The Unknown Black Book: The Holocaust in the German-Occupied Soviet Territories.''}}</ref>
==Genocide characterization==
Historian [[Michael Ellman]] asserts that the "national operations", particularly the "Polish Operation", may have constituted [[genocide]] as defined by the UN convention.<ref name="paulbogdanor">Michael Ellman, [http://www.paulbogdanor.com/left/soviet/famine/ellman1933.pdf Stalin and the Soviet Famine of 1932-33 Revisited] [[PDF]] file</ref> His opinion is shared by [[Simon Sebag Montefiore]], who calls the Polish operation of the NKVD "a mini-genocide".<ref>Simon Sebag Montefiore. ''Stalin. The Court of the Red Tsar'', page 229. Vintage Books, New York 2003. Vintage {{ISBN|1-4000-7678-1}}]</ref> Polish writer and commentator, Dr [[Tomasz Sommer]], also refers to the operation as a genocide, along with Prof. [[Marek Jan Chodakiewicz]] among others.<ref name="rp.pl">{{cite journal |url=http://www.rp.pl/artykul/594183.html |trans-title=Nieopłakane ludobójstwo |title=Genocide Not Mourned |publisher=Presspublica |journal=[[Rzeczpospolita]] |date=2011-01-15 |via=Internet Archive |author=Prof. [[Marek Jan Chodakiewicz]] |deadurl=bot: unknown |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20121004125909/http://www.rp.pl/artykul/594183.html |archivedate=2012-10-04 |df= }}</ref><ref name="se.pl">{{cite web | url=http://m.se.pl/wydarzenia/opinie/zbrodnia-wieksza-niz-katyn_157172.html | title=Tomasz Sommer: Ludobójstwo Polaków z lat 1937-38 to zbrodnia większa niż Katyń (Genocide of Poles in the years 1937-38, a Crime Greater than Katyn) | publisher=[[Super Express (newspaper)|Super Express]] | accessdate=April 28, 2011 | author=Franciszek Tyszka}}</ref><ref name="historyton.pl">{{cite web | url=http://historyton.pl/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=11729 | title=Rozstrzelać Polaków. Ludobójstwo Polaków w Związku Sowieckim (To Execute the Poles. Genocide of Poles in the Soviet Union) | publisher=Historyton | accessdate=April 28, 2011 | deadurl=yes | archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20111003143755/http://historyton.pl/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=11729 | archivedate=October 3, 2011 | df= }}</ref><ref name="wiara.pl">{{cite web | url=http://info.wiara.pl/doc/578542.Publikacja-na-temat-eksterminacji-Polakow-w-ZSRR-w-latach-30 | title=Publikacja na temat eksterminacji Polaków w ZSRR w latach 30 (Publication on the Subject of Extermination of Poles in the Soviet Union during the 1930s) | author= Andrzej Macura, [[Polska Agencja Prasowa]] | publisher=Portal Wiara.pl | date=2010-06-24 | accessdate=April 28, 2011 }}</ref><ref name="polishclub.org">{{cite web | url=http://www.polishclub.org/2011/03/22/prof-iwo-cyprian-pogonowski-rozkaz-n-k-w-d-no-00485-z-dnia-11-viii-1937-a-polacy/ | title=Rozkaz N.K.W.D.: No. 00485 z dnia 11-VIII-1937, a Polacy | publisher=Polish Club Online | date=22 March 2011 | accessdate=April 28, 2011 | author=Prof. [[Iwo Cyprian Pogonowski]] | quote= See also, Tomasz Sommer: Ludobójstwo Polaków w Związku Sowieckim (Genocide of Poles in the Soviet Union), article published by The Polish Review vol. LV, No. 4, 2010.}}</ref><ref name="naukowa.pl">{{cite web | url=http://www.naukowa.pl/Historia,7kt/Rozstrzelac-Polakow.-Ludobojstwo-Polakow-w-Zwiazku-Sowieckim-w-latach-1937-1938.-Dokumenty-z-Central,328396ks | title= Sommer, Tomasz. Book description (Opis). | publisher=Księgarnia Prawnicza, [[Lublin]] | work=Rozstrzelać Polaków. Ludobójstwo Polaków w Związku Sowieckim w latach 1937-1938. Dokumenty z Centrali (Genocide of Poles in the Soviet Union) | accessdate=April 28, 2011}}</ref><ref name="global364">{{cite journal |url=http://globalizacja.org/print/364 |trans-title=Konferencja "Rozstrzelać Polaków – Ludobójstwo Polaków w Związku Sowieckim" |title="To Shoot the Poles." Conference on the Genocide of Poles in the Soviet Union |location=Warsaw |publisher=Instytut Globalizacji oraz Press Club Polska in cooperation with the Memorial Society |via=Internet Archive |journal=Globalizacja.org |author=Dawid Ciężarkiewicz |deadurl=bot: unknown |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20131112020824/http://globalizacja.org/print/364 |archivedate=2013-11-12 |df= }}</ref>
==See also==
{{Div col}}
* [[Soviet repressions of Polish citizens (1939–1946)]]
* [[Gestapo–NKVD conferences|Gestapo–NKVD conferences (1939-1940)]]
* [[Katyn massacre]]
* [[Great Purge]]
* [[Aardakh]]
* [[Deportation of the Crimean Tatars]]
{{div col end}}
== Footnotes ==
{{reflist}}
== Further reading ==
* McLoughlin, Barry, and McDermott, Kevin (eds). ''Stalin's Terror: High Politics and Mass Repression in the Soviet Union.'' [[Palgrave Macmillan]], December 2002. {{ISBN|1403901198}}.
* Naimark, Norman M. ''Stalin's Genocides.'' Princeton University, 2010.
* {{Citation | surname = Paczkowski| given = Andrzej| year = 1999| chapter = Poland, the "Enemy Nation"| editor = [[Stéphane Courtois]]| title = [[Black Book of Communism]]|pages=372–375|chapter-url=http://www.warsawuprising.com/paper/nkvd.htm|display-editors=etal}}
{{USSR repressions}}
{{Genocide topics}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Polish Operation of the NKVD (1937-1938)}}
[[Category:Political repression in the Soviet Union]]
[[Category:Ethnic cleansing]]
[[Category:Great Purge]]
[[Category:NKVD]]
[[Category:1937 in the Soviet Union]]
[[Category:1938 in the Soviet Union]]
[[Category:Anti-Polish sentiment in Europe]]
[[Category:1937 in Belarus]]
[[Category:1937 in Ukraine]]
[[Category:1938 in Ukraine]]' |
Whether or not the change was made through a Tor exit node (tor_exit_node ) | false |
Unix timestamp of change (timestamp ) | 1547060870 |