Soviet deportations from Estonia were a series of massdeportations in 1941 and 1945–1953 carried out byJoseph Stalin's government of the formerUSSR from then Soviet-occupiedEstonia.[1] The two largest waves of deportations occurred inJune 1941 andMarch 1949 simultaneously in all three occupiedBaltic countries: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. In addition, there were Soviet deportations from Estonia based on the victims' ethnicity (Germans in 1945 andIngrian Finns in 1947–1950) and religion (Jehovah's Witnesses in 1951).[1] Ethnic Estonians who had been residing inSoviet Russia (mostly in theLeningrad Oblast) had already been subjected to deportation since 1935.[2][3]
People were deported to remote areas of the Soviet Union, predominantly toSiberia andnorthern Kazakhstan,[4] by means of railroadcattle cars. Entire families, including children and the elderly, were deported without trial or prior announcement. Of March 1949 deportees, over 70% of people were women and children under the age of 16.[5]
In total, over 35,000 of "enemies of the people", individual persons and whole families, were deported during 1945-1953, of which 33,000 were deported during the March deportation of 1949 (Operation Priboi). Their names were compiled into lists by theMemento [et] Estonian Repressed Persons' Records Bureau.[6]
TheEstonian Internal Security Service has brought to justice several organizers of these events.[7] The deportations have been repeatedly declared to constitute acrime against humanity by the Parliament of Estonia[8] and acknowledged as such by theEuropean Court of Human Rights.[9][10]
In Estonia, as well as in other territories annexed by the Soviet Union in 1939–40, the first large-scale deportation of ordinary citizens was carried out by the local operational headquarters of theNKGB of theEstonian SSR under Boris Kumm (chairman), Andres Murro, Aleksei Shkurin, Veniamin Gulst, and Rudolf James, according to thetop secret joint decreeNo 1299-526ss Directive on the Deportation of the Socially Alien Element from theBaltic Republics,Western Ukraine,Western Belarus andMoldavia[11] by theCentral Committee of theAll-Union Communist Party (bolsheviks) and theCouncil of People's Commissars of theSoviet Union of 14 May 1941.[12] The deportation procedure was established by theSerov Instructions.
The first repressions in Estonia affected Estonia's national elite. On 17 July 1940,Commander in Chief of theArmed ForcesJohan Laidoner (died 1953,Vladimir prison) and his family, and on 30 July 1940,PresidentKonstantin Päts (died 1956,Kalinin Oblast) and his family were deported toPenza andUfa, respectively. In 1941 they were arrested. The country's political and military leadership was deported almost entirely, including 10 of 11 ministers and 68 of 120 members ofparliament.[citation needed]
On 14 June 1941, and the following two days, 9,254 to 10,861 people, mostly urban residents, of them over 5,000 women and over 2,500 children under 16,[12][13][14][15][16][17] 439 Jews (more than 10% of theEstonian Jewish population)[18] were deported, mostly toKirov Oblast,Novosibirsk Oblast or to prisons.[citation needed]
Only 4,331 persons returned to Estonia. 11,102 people were to be deported from Estonia according to the order of 13 June but some managed to escape.[15] Identical deportations were carried out inLatvia andLithuania at the same time. A few weeks later, approximately 1,000 people were arrested onSaaremaa for deportation, but this was interrupted as Nazi Germany launcheda large-scale invasion of the Soviet Union and a considerable number of the prisoners were freed by the advancing German forces.[citation needed]
The first wave of deportation has always been well documented, as many witnesses were subsequently able to flee abroad during theSecond World War. Deportations after 1944 were, however, much harder to document.[19]
In July 1941 Estonia was conquered byNazi Germany, who were forced out by the Soviet troops in 1944. As soon as the Soviets had returned the deportations resumed.[citation needed] In August 1945, 407 persons, most of them ofGerman descent, were transferred from Estonia toPerm Oblast.[citation needed] 18 families (51 persons) were transferred toTyumen Oblast in October (51 persons), 37 families (87 persons) in November and other 37 families (91 persons) in December 1945 as "traitors".[20]
During thecollectivization period in the Baltic republics, on 29 January 1949, theCouncil of Ministers issuedtop secret decree No. 390–138ss,[21] which obligated theMinistry for State Security (MGB) to exile thekulaks andthe people's enemies from the three Baltic Republics forever.
In the early morning of 25 March 1949, the second major wave of deportation from theBaltic Republics,operation "Priboi", carried out byMGB began, which was planned to affect 30,000 in Estonia, including peasants.[22] Lieutenant GeneralPyotr Burmak, commander of the MGBInternal Troops, was in generally charge for the operation. In Estonia the deportations were coordinated byBoris Kumm, Minister of Security of theEstonian SSR, and Major GeneralIvan Yermolin, MGB representative to Estonia. Over 8,000 managed to escape, but 20,722 (7,500 families, over 2.5 percent of the Estonian population, half of them women, over 6,000 children under the age of 16, and 4,300 men) were sent toSiberia during three days. Slightly more than 10 percent were men of working age. The deported included disabled people, pregnant women, newborns and children separated from their parents. The youngest deportee was one-day-old Virve Eliste from Hiiumaa island, who died a year later in Siberia; the oldest was 95-year-old Maria Raagel.[23] Nine trainloads of people were directed toNovosibirsk Oblast, six toKrasnoyarsk Krai, two toOmsk Oblast, and two toIrkutsk Oblast.[20]
Many perished, most have never returned home. This second wave of the large-scale deportations was aimed to facilitatecollectivization, which was implemented with great difficulties in the Baltic republics. As a result, by the end of April 1949, half of the remaining individual farmers in Estonia had joinedkolkhozes.[19][24][25]
From 1948–50, a number ofIngrian Finns were also deported from Estonian SSR. The last large-scale campaign of deportations from Estonia took place in 1951, when members of prohibited religious groups from the Baltic countries,Moldavia,Western Ukraine andBelarus were subject to forced resettlement.[20]
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Outside the main waves, individuals and families were continually deported on smaller scale from the start of the first occupation in 1940 up to theKhrushchev Thaw of 1956. The Soviet deportations only stopped for three years in 1941–1944 when Estonia wasoccupied by Nazi Germany.[citation needed]
Estonians' experience with the first year of Soviet occupation, which included theJune deportation, led to two significant developments:
Only in 1956, duringKhrushchev Thaw, were some survived deportees allowed to return to Estonia.[citation needed]
On 27 July 1950, diplomats-in-exile of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania appealed to theUnited States to support aUnited Nations investigation of "genocidalmass deportations" they said were being carried out in their countries by the Soviet Union.[28]
Stalin's deportation of peoples was criticized in the closed section ofNikita Khrushchev's 1956 Report to the20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union as "monstrous acts" and "rude violations of the basic Leninist principles of the nationality policy of the Soviet state."[29]
On 14 November 1989, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR accepted declaration "On the Recognition as Unlawful and Criminal The Repressive Acts Against Peoples Who Were Subjected to Forced Resettlement, and On Guaranteeing Their Rights", in which it condemned Stalin's deportation of peoples as the terrific felony, guaranteed that such violations of human rights won't be repeated and promised to restore the rights of repressed Soviet peoples.[30]
In 1995, after the re-establishment of Estonian independence,Riigikogu, the parliament of independent Estonia, declared the deportations officially acrime against humanity, and several organizers of the 1949 deportations, former officers of MGB, were convicted under Article 61-1 § 1 of the Criminal Code.[31][32][33][34] TheBBC noted in April 2009 that Estonia's claims ofgenocide are not widely accepted.[35]
TheRussian Federation, the only legalsuccessor state to the Soviet Union, has never recognized the deportations as a crime and has not paid any compensation.[15][39] Moscow has criticized the Baltic prosecutions, calling them revenge, not justice, and complained about the criminals' age.[40]
In March 2009, theMemorial society concluded that the deportations were a crime against humanity, but stopped short of declaring them genocide or war crimes. In the opinion of Memorial, interpretation of events in 1949 as genocide is not based upon international law and is unfounded.[41]
TheEstonian International Commission for Investigation of Crimes Against Humanity[42] was established by PresidentLennart Meri, who himself was a survivor of the1941 deportation, in October 1998 to investigatecrimes against humanity committed in Estonia or against Estonian citizens during the Soviet and Nazi occupation. The commission held its first session in Tallinn in January 1999. Finnish diplomatMax Jakobson was appointed to chair the commission. For neutrality purposes, there are no Estonian citizens among its members.[43]
On 2 April 2009, The European Parliament issued a resolution condemningcrimes against humanity committed by "all totalitarian and authoritarian regimes". The resolution underlines the millions of victims who were deported, imprisoned, tortured and murdered by totalitarian and authoritarian regimes during the 20th century in Europe. While not explicitly mentioned, this includes the Soviet deportations from Estonia, which theEuropean Court of Human Rights has held to constitute crimes against humanity[citation needed]. The Parliament called for the proclamation of 23 August as Europe-wide Remembrance Day for the victims of all totalitarian and authoritarian regimes.[44]
According to this decree, the following categories should be transferred: (1) active members of so-calledcounterrevolutionary organisations and members of their families; (2) former leading officials of the police and prisons, as well as ordinary policemen and prison guards involved in anti-soviet activity or espionage; (3) former significant landowners, merchants, factory owners and leading officials of former governments – all with the members of their families; (4) compromised former officers; (5) the family members of thesentenced to death and of members of counterrevolutionary organisations gone into hiding; (6) individuals repatriated fromGermany and subject to resettlement in Germany; (7)refugees from theannexed Polish areas who refused to acceptSoviet citizenship; (8) active criminals; (9)prostitutes.
