Soviet Expulsions from Eastern Poland 1939-'41

[Gorque]

I'm curious as to the number, ethnicity, and destination of the inhabitants of Eastern Poland that were expelled from the area in the years of Soviet occupation prior to Barbarossa. I've seen various numbers bandied from about 400,000 to 1.6 million as well as various destinations ranging from Siberia to Central Asia.

BTW: If this topic has been discussed earlier, my apologies. However my search for the subject came up empty.

[Art]

An article in Russian:
http://www.memo.ru/history/POLAcy/G_1.htm
In short the number drawn from various archival sources ranges between 309 and 325 thousand in four different waves in 1940-1941. Destination was mostly the north of European Russia, Siberia and North Kazakhstan. A smaller part went to the POW camps.

[Gorque]

Hi Art:

Thank you for the reply.

This is just what I was referring to regarding the wide discrepancy in the numbers of expellees. According to the Simon Sebag Montefiore , 10% of Eastern Poland's population of over 13,700,000 were expelled. That's quite a discrepancy!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupatio ... occupation

Soviet terror in the occupied eastern Polish lands was as cruel and tragic as Nazi in the west. Soviet authorities brutally treated those who might oppose their rule, deporting by 10 November 1940, around 10% of total population of Kresy, with 30% of those deported dead by 1941.[95] They arrested and imprisoned about 500,000 Poles during 1939–1941, including former officials, officers, and natural "enemies of the people", like the clergy, but also noblemen and intellectuals. The Soviets also executed about 65,000 Poles

[Art]

Ah, good old cold war propaganda. As I've said on a number of occasions all the literature of the Stalin's repression published before 1990 is a complete junk which is best to be avoided. In fact up to a quarter of the total number (78-79 thousand men) were refugees from German-controlled Poland rather than residents of future Belorussian and Ukrainian republics, unsurprisingly most of them Jewish. Also a couple of standard Russian sources on the subject online:
Pavel Polyan "Ne po svoyey vole" History and geography of forced migrations in the Soviet union", 2001
http://demoscope.ru/weekly/knigi/polian/polian.html
"Stalin's deportations. 1928-1953. Documents", 2005
http://www.alexanderyakovlev.org/fond/issues/62150

[Gorque]

Hi Art:

Thanks for the additional links. I'll give them a thorough reading this weekend.

[Gorque]

Ah, good old cold war propaganda. As I've said on a number of occasions all the literature of the Stalin's repression published before 1990 is a complete junk which is best to be avoided.

Hi Art:

I'm a bit perplexed by your comment regarding 1990 as the quoted section refers to Montefiore's book "Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar" which was published in 2005.

[wm]

In short the number drawn from various archival sources ranges between 309 and 325 thousand in four different waves in 1940-1941. Destination was mostly the north of European Russia, Siberia and North Kazakhstan. A smaller part went to the POW camps.

Although many Polish historians accept this as probable, many of them say more research is needed. The earlier numbers were estimations made at the time Anders' Army was formed.

[Art]

I'm a bit perplexed by your comment regarding 1990 as the quoted section refers to Montefiore's book "Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar" which was published in 2005.

Montefiore is not an original researcher but rather a compiler from earlier books and a very indiscriminate one.

Although many Polish historians accept this as probable, many of them say more research is needed.

Good luck to them, but I doubt that they would make some difference. That "Memorial" work made a very good use of archival sources.