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

in conjunction 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 reserve

fund of the USSR Council of People's Commissars to the USSR NKVD,

for the implementation of special measures.

I. Stalin

Chairman, State Defense Committee

-----------------------------------------------------------------

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.

---------------------------

TRANSLATOR'S COMMENTS:

1. Notation in upper left-hand corner: "To be returned to the

State Defense 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.

Käll: Library of Congress Home Page