18–20 May 1944 — Over three days, the NKVD deported about 191,000 Crimean Tatars, mostly to Uzbekistan. Accounts differ sharply on how many died in the first years: NKVD records put the share at about a fifth, while Crimean Tatar surveys put it at almost half. They could not return home until 1989.
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20 MAY 1944 · THE SOVIET UNION UNDER STALIN, 1924–1953
The moment in context
Soviet leaders first acted against minorities along borders they feared they might have to defend. Poles, Germans, Finns and Koreans had homelands or connections beyond the Soviet Union, and planners imagined that they might help an invading power. In 1936 tens of thousands of Poles and Germans were moved from Ukraine’s western border zone to Kazakhstan. Their residence and ancestry made them suspect before any invasion had occurred.
Why it happened — Fear of foreign enemies on the borders. Japan occupied Manchuria from 1931, Nazi Germany rose to power in 1933, and the two signed the Anti-Comintern Pact against communism in 1936. Soviet…
The turn — The Korean deportation, September 1937. About 172,000 Koreans were removed from the Far East in autumn 1937. Earlier operations had targeted social classes, such as kulaks, or people…
What it changed — Homelands abolished and resettled. The deportations changed the political map as well as the population. The Volga German, Kalmyk and Chechen-Ingush republics and the Karachay region…
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