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TOP SECRET
STATE DEFENSE COMMITTEE
State Defense Committee Decree No. 5859ss
May 11, 1944
Moscow, the Kremlin
On the Crimean Tatars
During the Patriotic War [World War II], many
Crimean Tatars betrayed the Motherland,deserting Red Army units that defended the Crimea and siding with the
enemy, joining volunteer army units formed by the Germans to fight
against the Red Army; as members of German punitive detachments,
during the occupation of the Crimea by German fascist troops, the
Crimean Tatars particularly were noted for their savage reprisals
against Soviet partisans, and also helped the German invaders to
organize the violent roundup of Soviet citizens for German
enslavement and the mass extermination of the Soviet people.
The Crimean Tatars actively collaborated with the German occupation
authorities, participating in the so-called "Tatar
national committees,"
organized by the German intelligence organs, and were often used by the Germans to infiltrate the rear of the Red Army with spies and saboteurs.With the support of the Crimean
Tatars, the "Tatar national committees," in which the leading role
was played by White Guard-Tatar emigrants, directed their activity
at the persecution and oppression of the non-Tatar population of
the Crimea and were engaged in preparatory efforts to separate the Crimea from the Soviet Union by force, with the help of the German armed forces.
Taking into account the facts cited above, the State Defense Committee decrees that:
1. All Tatars are to be banished from the territory of the
Crimea and resettled permanently as special settlers in the regions
of the Uzbek SSR. The resettlement will be assigned to the Soviet
NKVD. The Soviet NKVD (comrade Beria) is to complete the
resettlement by 1 June 1944.
2. The following procedure and conditions of resettlement are to be established:
a) The special settlers will be allowed to take with them personal items, clothing, household objects, dishes and utensils,
and up to 500 kilograms of food per family.
Property, buildings, outbuildings, furniture, and farmstead lands
left behind will be taken over by the local authorities; all beef
and dairy cattle, as well as poultry, will be taken over by the
People's Commissariat of the Meat and Dairy Industries, all agricultural
production by the USSR People's Commissariat of Procurement,
horses and other draft animals by the USSR People's Commissariat
of Agriculture, and breeding cattle by the USSR People's
Commissariat of State Grain and Animal Husbandry Farms.
Exchange receipts will be issued in every populated place and
every farm for the receipt of livestock, grain, vegetables, and for
other types of agricultural production.
By 1 July this year, the USSR NKVD, People's Commissariat of
Agriculture, People's Commissariat of the Meat and Dairy
Industries, People's Commissariat of State Grain and Animal
Husbandry Farms, and People's Commissariat of Procurement are to
submit to the USSR Council of People's Commissars a proposal on the
procedure for repaying the special settlers, on the basis of
exchange receipts, for livestock, poultry, and agricultural
production received from them.
b) ...
To facilitate the receipt of livestock, grain, and
agricultural production from the special settlers, the USSR
People's Commissariat of Agriculture (comrade Benediktov), USSR
People's Commissariat of Procurement (comrade Subbotin), USSR
People's Commissariat of the Meat and Dairy Industries (comrade
Smirnov), and USSR People's Commissariat of State Grain and Animal
Husbandry Farms (comrade Lobanov) are to dispatch the required
number of workers to the Crimea, in coordination with comrade Gritsenko.
c) The People's Commissariat of Railroads (comrade Kaganovich)
is to organize the transport of the special settlers from Crimea to the Uzbek SSR, using specially formed trains,
according to a schedule devised jointly with the USSR NKVD. The number of trains, loading stations, and destination points are to
be determined by the USSR NKVD.
Payment for the transport will be based on the rate at which
the prisoners are transported;
d) To each train of special settlers, the USSR People's
Commissariat of Public Health (comrade Miterev) is to assign,
within a time frame to be coordinated with the USSR NKVD, one
physician and two nurses, as well as an appropriate supply of
medicines, and to provide medical and first-aid care to special settlers in transit;
e) The USSR People's Commissariat of Trade (comrade Liubimov)
will provide all trains carrying special settlers with hot food and
boiling water on a daily basis.
To provide food for the special settlers in transit, the
People's Commissariat of Trade is to allocate the quantity of food
supplies indicated in Appendix No. 1.
3. By 1 June of this year, the Secretary of the Central
Committee of the Communist Party (Bolshevik) of Uzbekistan, comrade
Iusupov, the Chairman of the Uzbek SSR Council of People's
Commissars, comrade Abdurakhmanov, and the Uzbek SSR People's
Commissar of Internal Affairs, comrade Kobulov, are to carry out
the following steps in regard to the acceptance and settlement of
the special settlers:
a) To accept and settle within the Uzbek SSR 140 to 160 thousand special settlers -- Tatars, sent by the USSR NKVD from the
Crimean ASSR.
The settlement of the special settlers will occur in state
farm communities, existing collective farms, farms affiliated with
enterprises, and in factory communities, for employment in
agriculture and industry;
b) To establish commissions in oblasts where the special
settlers are resettled, consisting of the chairman of the oblast
executive committee, secretary of the oblast committee, and chief
of the NKVD administration, charging them with the implementation
of all measures in connection with the acceptance and distribution
of the newly arrived special settlers;
c) To organize raion troikas, consisting of the chairman of
the raion executive committee, secretary of the raion committee,
and chief of the raion branch of the NKVD, charging them with
preparation for the distribution and organization of the acceptance
of the newly arrived special settlers;
d) To arrange the automotive transport of the special
settlers, mobilizing the vehicles of any enterprises or
institutions for this purpose;
e) To grant plots of farm land to the newly arrived special
settlers and to help them build homes by providing construction materials;
f) To organize special NKVD
commandant's headquarters, to be maintained by the USSR NKVD, in the raions of settlement;
g) By 20 May of this year, the Uzbek SSR Central Committee
and Council of People's Commissars are to submit to the USSR NKVD
(comrade Beria) a plan for the settlement of the special settlers
in the oblasts and raions, indicating the destination points of the
trains.
4.Seven-year loans of up to 5,000 rubles per family, for the
construction and setting up of homes, are to be extended by the
Agricultural Bank (comrade Kravtsov) to special settlers sent to
the Uzbek SSR, in their places of settlement.
5. Every month during the June-August 1944 period, equal
quantities of flour, groats, and vegetables will be allocated by
the USSR People's Commissariat of Procurement (comrade Subbotin) to
the Uzbek SSR Council of People's Commissars for distribution to
the special settlers, in accordance with Appendix No. 2.
Flour, groats, and vegetables are to be distributed free of
charge to the special settlers during the June-August period, as
repayment for the agricultural production and livestock received
from them in the areas from which they were evicted.
6. To augment the automotive transport capacity of the NKVD
troops, garrisoned in the raions of settlement in the Uzbek,
Kazakh, and Kirgiz SSR's, the People's Commissariat of Defense
(comrade Khrulev) is to provide 100 recently repaired "Willys"3
motor vehicles and 250 trucks during the May-June 1944 period.
7. By 20 May 1944, the Main Administration for the Transport
and Supply of Petroleum and Petroleum Products (comrade Shirokov)
is to allocate and supply 400 tons of gasoline to locations
specified by the USSR NKVD, and 200 tons of gasoline are to be
placed at the disposal of the Uzbek SSR Council of People's
Commissars.
The supply of gasoline [for this purpose] is to be carried out inconjunction with a corresponding reduction of supplies to all
other consumers.
8. By 15 May of this year, the Main Supply Administration of the USSR Ministry of Forestry, USSR Council of People's Commissars
(comrade Lopukhov), is to deliver 75,000 2.75-meter railroad car boards to the People's Commissariat of Railroads, using any means at its disposal.
9. In May of this year, the People's Commissariat of Finance (comrade Zverev) is to transfer 30 million rubles from the reservefund
of the USSR Council of People's Commissars to the USSR NKVD, for
the implementation of special measures.
I. Stalin
Chairman, State Defense Committee
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cc: Comrades
Molotov, Beria, Malenkov, Mikoian,
Voznesenskii,Andreev, Kosygin, Gritsenko, Iusupov,
Abdurakhmanov, Kobulov (Uzbek SSR NKVD), Chadaev --
entire document; Shatalin, Gorkin, [illegible] Smirnov, Subbotin, Benediktov, Lobanov, Zverev,Kaganovich, Miterev, Liubimov, Kravtsov, Khrulev, Zhukov, Shirokov, Lopukhov -- appropriate sections.
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TRANSLATOR'S COMMENTS:
1. Notation in upper left-hand corner: "To be returned to the
StateDefense Committee Secretariat (Part II).
2. Typed along left edge of first page: "Making copies or extracts of this decree is strictly prohibited."
3. Willys-Overland developed and mass-produced a jeep model that was given to the Soviet Union during World War II.
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