The years 1937–1938 in the russian Union were recorded in past as a period of large panic – mass repression that included millions of citizens regardless of their social status, education or erstwhile loyalty to the state. In an atmosphere of ubiquitous fear and suspicion, the safety apparatus led by Nikolay Jeżov led a number of alleged "national operations" aimed at cultural minorities surviving in the USSR.
Among them is the so-called. Polish operation NKWD, launched by order No 00485 of 11 August 1937. It was the largest action of its kind – both in terms of the number of people arrested and the percent of people murdered. During this process, the Polish community in the USSR was practically paralyzed: thousands of families lost loved ones, and full communities were disintegrated. The intent of this article is to show the origin, course and effects of the Polish NKVD operation, as well as reflection on its place in historiography and collective memory. Although this subject has remained silent for decades, it is now an crucial part of investigation into the mechanisms of panic and crimes of the Stalinist regime.
Background
To full realize the genesis of the Polish NKVD operation, 1 must go back to the turbulent period after the October Revolution of 1917 and the Polish-bolshevik War. The conflict ended with the Treaty of Riga in March 1921 established a fresh Polish-Soviet border, leaving on the side of the USSR a crucial number of Poles – according to estimates from respective 100 1000 to more than million people. These were both agrarian communities inhabiting Ukraine, Belarus and Russia for generations, as well as Polish settlers, workers, and intelligence, who found themselves in a fresh political reality.
Initially, the policy of russian authorities towards national minorities, including Poles, was comparatively liberal. As part of the alleged Corenisation Polish schools were created, newspapers were published in Polish, and even 2 Polish autonomous areas were established – Marchlewszów in Ukraine and Dzierżenszów in Belarus. However, in the late 1920s, this course changed rapidly. Stalin's concept of "strengthening the unity of the state" began to treat national isolation as a possible political threat.
The perception of Poles in the USSR was greatly influenced by strained relations with the Second Republic. The east border was heavy militarized, and propaganda portrayed Poland as an aggressive neighbour, ready to attack. In this atmosphere, accusations of alleged espionage, sabotage or counter-revolutionary activity among Poles began to multiply – regardless of their actual attitudes. Subsequent waves of repression in the 1930s, including collectivisation and the fight against “cult”, peculiarly affected Polish villages. The authorities gradually liquidated Polish cultural and educational institutions and autonomous areas were dissolved. In this way, the Polish community in the USSR lost its organization support, which facilitated the subsequent actions of the NKVD.
Such a political and social background made it possible for the safety apparatus to carry out an cultural cleansing action in 1937, presenting it as a essential step in the fight against the “enemies of the people” and in the defence of state security.
Generation of the Polish operation
A direct impulse to launch the Polish operation was the decision of the NKVD management and Stalin himself to extend the cleaning of the large panic to national minorities. In August 1937, Nikolai Yezhov, the National Commissioner for Home Affairs of the USSR, signed Operational order No 00485, previously approved by Stalin and the Political Office of WKP(b). This paper ordered "to destruct the network of the Polish Military Organization" – a fictional spy structure which, according to the NKWD, was to be created by most Poles in the russian state.
Pretext was consistent with the then propaganda narrative: Poland was portrayed as a "bastion of imperialism" and a possible aggressor, and Poles in the USSR – as a natural base of abroad agentry. In fact, the POW, operating during planet War I and the Polish-bolshevik War, was dissolved many years earlier, and its alleged activity in the 1930s was completely invented by the russian safety apparatus.
Order 00485 clarified the methods of action: arrests were to include not only "active members" of the alleged grid, but besides all their relatives, friends, neighbours and people who kept in contact with Poland. A quota strategy was besides introduced – a certain number of "suspects" were allocated to each region to be detained, which forced mass and arbitrary repression. The genesis of the operation was so the consequence of a combination of paranoid Stalinist regime, a tense global situation in which Poland appeared as an enemy, and the logic of large Terror, in which mass repression was a tool for maintaining power. In this context, the Polish operation was not only another installment of political purgatory, but besides a planned, centrally controlled impact on the full national community.
Conduct of Polish NKVD operation (1937–1938)
The Polish NKVD operation was 1 of the most drastic views of the large panic in the russian Union. It was formally launched on 11 August 1937, erstwhile the National Commissioner for Home Affairs of the USSR, Nikolai Yezhov, issued Operational order No 00485. This document, approved by Józef Stalin, provided detailed instructions for carrying out mass repression of the “Polish element” in the russian state. Originally planned for 3 months, the action lasted in fact until November 1938, covering all republics of the ZSRS.
The order listed categories of persons intended for arrest: alleged members and sympathizers of the Polish Military Organisation (POW), participants of the Polish-bolshevik War on the Polish side, refugees from the Second Republic, erstwhile members of the PPS and another “controvolution” groups, as well as persons maintaining any contacts with Poland. In practice, the criterion was much broader – it was adequate to have a Polish surname, a Catholic religion or cognition of the Polish language to become the mark of the russian apparatus of repression.
The activities of the NKVD were conducted in an organized and mass manner. After receiving arrest amounts from the headquarters, specifying how many “suspects” should be retained in the region, local troops joined the action. Information on "wine" was collected most frequently through a network of informers, forced evidence or completely accidental associations. The investigation was apparent – most of the charges were based on fictitious allegations of espionage or sabotage.
NKVD detentions were violent. Physical torture, prolonged sleep deprivation, beating, and isolation were utilized for dark purposes. The aim was to force a confession and to identify further "co-workers". At the end of the hearings, the cases were brought before the alleged NKVD three-man commissions, which speeded up the death sentences or long-term punishments of the camp. The meetings lasted a fewer minutes, and the convicts were frequently not even present erstwhile announcing the judgment. The executions usually took place at night. The most common method was to shoot a gunshot to the back of the head. The bodies of the victims were buried in mass graves in isolated places – in forests, on the outskirts of cities or in prisons. Families never received information about the burial site; the papers featured false causes of death or fictional dates of death.
The scale of the operation was huge. According to NKVD archival records, 139,835 people were arrested, of which 111,091 were shot, and 28,744 were sentenced to prison sentences or deportations to camps. More than 100 1000 Poles were displaced from Ukrainian SRR and Belarusian SRR to Kazakhstan, Siberia or the Archangelic region. surviving conditions at exile were highly hard – there was a deficiency of food, clothing and adequate shelter.
The Polish operation stood out against the background of another NKVD national operations with both scale and strength – Poles accounted for almost 45% of all victims of this kind of action. Historians emphasize that during the large panic period, a Pole in the USSR had more than 30 times more likely to die than a typical of a different nationality.
The action lasted until the fall of 1938, erstwhile the fresh NKVD chief, Lavrientij Beria, issued order No. 00762 terminating the operation. He was preceded by the resolution of the NKVD Politburo (b) of 17 November 1938, formally condemning the "distortions" in the work of the NKVD. In practice, it was an effort to close 1 of the most bloody chapters of terror, without accounting for the guilty. The course of the Polish operation shows the absolute efficiency of the state force apparatus in the USSR: from the selection of victims, through brutal interrogations, to mass executions and deportations. Everything was realized according to the central plan aimed at physically destroying the Polish community in the russian state.
Effects and consequences
The Polish NKVD operation left behind disastrous demographic, social and cultural consequences among Poles surviving in the USSR. The most visible effect was human losses – over 1 100 1000 murdered and tens of thousands sent to the camps and to distant exiles. In many regions, especially Ukraine and Belarus, all Polish villages ceased to exist, and the remainder of the community was scattered and intimidated.
Repressions from 1937–1938 led to the actual abolition of Polish national life in the russian state. Schools, newspapers and cultural institutions were closed, which survived after the early liquidation of Marchlewszczyzna and Dzierżynszczyzna. Polish language has been driven out of public space, and in many homes it has besides ceased to be utilized privately, in fear of accusations of "nationalism" or "contra-revolutionary action". This accelerated the process of assimilation and in many cases led to a complete failure of national identity.
The effects besides had a intellectual dimension. surviving in constant fear, knowing that ethnicity itself can be a death sentence, and the trauma of losing loved ones have left a lasting mark on the survivors. There was silence in families for decades – the subject of repression was taboo, and children frequently did not know the actual past of their parents or grandparents.
Politically, the operation met the russian authorities' objective: the Polish number was neutralized as a possible “fire of disloyalty”. The demolition of elites – teachers, clergy, social activists – has deprived the community of its ability to organize itself. At the same time, although diplomatic relations between the Second Republic and the USSR were silent about these events before 1939, their memory was deepened by mistrust and hostility in Polish-Soviet relations.
The long-wave effects of the operation are inactive visible today. In many places in the area of the erstwhile ZSRS the memory of Polish roots was interrupted by the panic of 1937–1938. The Polish operation is an example of how a totalitarian government can in a short time lead to almost full demolition of the national group – not only physical, but besides cultural and mental.
Memory, meaning and ending
For decades after the end of the Polish NKVD operation, there was silence. In the USSR, the subject was subject to complete censorship, and in the Polish People's Republic – despite formal diplomatic relations with the russian Union – repressions from 1937 to 1938 were not the subject of investigation or public discussion. The families of the victims frequently did not know the destiny of their loved ones; in authoritative papers they were listed as “convicted” or “missing”. Fear and trauma caused that even in private conversations there was no mention of tragedy.
The breakthrough took place only after 1989, erstwhile historians – including researchers of the Institute of National Memory and the Russian association "Memorial" – gained access to parts of the NKVD archives. Orders, interrogation protocols, and death lists revealed the actual scale of the crime. From that point on, the process of memory restoration began: technological publications, documentary films, monuments and plaques at execution sites. A peculiar day of commemoration became 11 August – anniversary of order No 00485.
In historiography, the Polish operation occupies a unique place as the largest of NKVD's "national operations". It exceeded the number of victims of actions aimed at another minorities, and its character meets the conditions of genocide – the planned demolition of the full national group on the basis of an cultural criterion. It is besides a key proof that the repression apparatus in the russian state could act with almost “technical” precision, eliminating full communities regardless of the actual threat.
Today the memory of the Polish operation is part of a broader reflection on the destiny of Poles in the East and on the mechanisms of totalitarian terror. Its commemoration is not only a work to the victims, but besides a informing of how ideology and power based on fear can lead to the demolition of communities – physically, culturally and spiritually.
Filip Bielski