Collective farm is a “voluntary” business
Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia gained their independence from the Russian Empire following the October Revolution. In this context, Baltic residents avoided the worst for which Soviet power is remembered: the Red Terror of the Civil War, the forced collectivization and dispossession of the 1920s and 1930s, Stalin’s Great Terror, and the persecution of the cultural and scientific elite. In 1940, the USSR annexed these three countries, but did not have time to fully develop its policy; The Great Patriotic War began. Until 1945 the regions were occupied by the German army.
In the first post-war years, Sovietization of the republics proceeded slowly, but in May 1947 the party raised the issue directly and demanded that local governments draw up a plan for the collectivization of agriculture as soon as possible. At first, the authorities planned to seduce the Baltic peasants with the advantages of the Soviet system by organizing several sample collective farms equipped with the latest technology. It is not known how exemplary the first collective farms were, but by 1949 only 4-8% of Baltic peasants had participated in them.
There were two main reasons for this.
- First, the peasants are dark but practical people: they understood that the collective farm actually meant lack of rights and extreme poverty. A resident of the Juuru neighborhood in Estonia directly at one of the meetings stated:
“Why do you praise the collective farm system to me? I recently received a letter from Russia saying that the collective farmers were there for a working day. (working days are points given to collective farmers for work rather than payment; grain exchanges were carried out at an arbitrary rate determined by the authorities and were completely canceled in lean years) “We bought 350 grams of grain and most of it was oats.”
- Secondly, local anti-Soviet partisans – “forest brothers” – were operating in the Baltic states. They viewed the Soviet power as an occupying force, and anyone who cooperated with it was considered a collaborator. A peasant who joined the collective farm instantly became the target of the “forest brothers”, and therefore the people refused collectivization, despite the threat of sanctions from the administration.
The Soviet government decided to break the resistance of the local population with mass deportations.
Approximate appearance of cars used for deportation
Albert Jankowski/Wikimedia
Accelerated Sovietization
29 January 1949 Council of Ministers of the USSR decided:
“[Провести] “Evacuated Kulaks and repressed accomplices of bandits with their families from the territory of the Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian SSR, families of bandits, nationalists in an illegal situation, legalized bandits killed and convicted in armed conflicts, who continue to carry out enemy activities, and their families.”
In this regard, the Soviet government called local partisans bandits.
The execution was entrusted to the USSR Ministry of State Security (MGB), the operation was called “Surf”.
The idea was simple; If you fail to catch the attackers hiding in the forest, you may destroy their social base from which they can recruit supplies and new recruits. Evictions also made it possible to intimidate rural residents: if you do not join the collective farm, you may possibly be deported.
Due to the fact that the lists were compiled in advance by the MGB based on operational work and intelligence information, the operation began on March 25 and lasted four days. Small task forces of nine to ten people were formed to remove people; among them were three MGB agents, two fighters from the extermination battalion (party militia) and four to five local party activists. Each such group was tasked with evacuating three or four families. After finding the desired farm, the team searched the facility, identified all residents, and filled out a questionnaire on each one. The villagers then had to quickly pack their belongings and travel with the task force to the station by horse-drawn carriage, truck, or ship.
By Soviet standards, the operation could be called humanitarian. Wagons had to be equipped to carry people, and each train had a medical team. Officially, the residents left with nothing but what they had, but they could collect up to one and a half tons of items for a family (but in practice, few people had time to collect). A four-axle car can accommodate 44-48 people; for example, a similar modern subway car has 30-40 seats. Guards were strictly forbidden to use weapons or shoot children under any circumstances, except for self-defense and to pursue escapees.
Estonian children in Siberia, 1952
Wikimedia Commons
Therefore, the conditions of deportation cannot be called genocide, but they can certainly be prison-like, despite the fact that the deported families did nothing. People slept in bunk beds in converted freight cars, took buckets of food from the kitchen car (one per car), walked allowed only during long stops and surrounded by guards. Officially, it was forbidden to separate families, but in reality MGB officers frequently detained children so that their hiding parents would come forward for voluntary deportation.
Life in Siberia
In total, just under 100 thousand people were removed from the three republics during the deportation in March. Approximately 72% were women and children under 16 years of age. By contrast, about 15% were over 60, and 2,850 were “worn-out, single older people.” Therefore, those taken out were mostly family members or sympathizers, not resistance fighters.
They took people to special settlements in Siberia, the construction of which was completed in the years when Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian peasants were dispossessed. The deportees were not allowed to leave the designated area and were required to report monthly to the local command of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Failure to comply with this requirement was considered a crime. Deportees were often given work on collective farms and state farms, and a small number were employed in forestry and manufacturing.
Living conditions varied greatly from region to region. Private settlers lived in barracks, farm sheds, dugouts, or housing rented from local people. Since bread was distributed according to working days rather than the number of people, the standard of living largely depended on the number of workers in the family, which led to starvation. By December 31, 1950, 4,123, or 4.5%, of the deportees had died; among them were 2,080 children. Estimated mortality rate over the entire period of exile amount 10-15%, but this figure varied among different peoples and different settlements.
Mass deportation of people turned out to be an effective way to drive peasants to collective farms – by the end of 1949, 80% of Estonian farms and 93% of Latvian farms had joined them. In Lithuania, where the resistance was strongest, the rate remained at 62% and therefore deportations were repeated several times.
According to the decision of the party, the Balts were exiled to Siberia “forever”, but it turned out that even Stalin had no authority over eternity. Nikita Khrushchev, who came to power when he died, allowed almost all of the deportees to return to their homeland. After Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia gained their independence, many local participants in Operation Surf were subject to criminal prosecution. persecution for genocide.
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Source: Gazeta
Barbara Dickson is a seasoned writer for “Social Bites”. She keeps readers informed on the latest news and trends, providing in-depth coverage and analysis on a variety of topics.