Stalin's Persecution of Greeks

[Plutonas]

I thought I'd share this article considering that there doesn't seem to be any information on this topic here:


In Memory of Stalin's Persecution of Greeks
The National Herald, December 18-19, 1999

ATHENS, Greece. - It has been 50 years since the violent mass expulsion of the Greek population in the Caucasus to the steppes of Central Asia. On June 13, 1949, Stalin's forces surrounded the Greek villages in the Caucasus and forced the people to evacuate within a few hours. This mandatory deportation was the last act in a series of violent deeps by Soviet leaders against the Greek minority of about 450,000 people. This persecution, which is part of one of the least known chapters of Greek modern history, began in 1937 and ended in 1949.

The Greek communities of the former Soviet Union grew out of the age-old Greek presence in the area around the Black Sea and in the intense Russo-Turkish conflict, which determined the final form that this region took.

The final shape of the Greek communities coincides with the catastrophe in Asia Minor, when thousands of refugees from the Turkish side of the Black Sea inundated Russia. The refusal of the governments of Greece to allow an influx of refugees after 1928 -- which was imperative since the refugees' status was governed by the Lausanne treaty -- led to their entrapment within the Soviet Union.

The Greek people of the Soviet Union continued to participate in all phases of the original Soviet experiment. They enjoyed the fruits of the new economic policies and the multicultural policies of the early days of the young government.

They created a whole network of Greek schools, theater troupes and publishing houses, established autonomous Greek areas within the framework of the Soviet administrative system, and developed a Greek literature of their own and a distinct form of the Greek language. They suffered painfully, however, from the consequences of the forced collectivization and the assimilation policies that came with Stalinism.

The Moscow Trials

The turning point in domestic policy in the Soviet Union came with the Moscow trials, whose symbolic message was that the sole and uncontested leader of the vast Communist empire was Joseph Stalin. The countdown had begun for small ethnic groups, as well as for any social or political opposition that still remained.

Confessions and the concentration camp, by numbers

The largest number of arrests of Greeks took place in the Kuban valley, in southern Russia, where there was a large autonomous Greek region. The secret police carried out mass arrests of Greek males 16 years of age and older. In this region there was no Greek family without victims. The survivors remember the scenes of the arrests clearly. The authorities went from house to house in the Greek communities and seized everything -- Greek passports, photographs and letters from Greece. The Greek residents of the Krasnodar district, where most of the arrests took place, abandoned their homes in terror and found shelter in the homes of neighbors. The main charge against them was that the residents there belonged to illegal Greek nationalist organizations aimed at the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the creation of a Greek republic in southern Russia. They were accused of founding a "Greek anti-revolutionary, nationalistic, secessionist, terrorist, spy organization." They were accused of consorting with Italian, Japanese and German spies.

Torture

Those arrested were tortured into confessing. The depositions that were extracted by torture were a set of confessions and accusations against fellow prisoners. Everyone confessed that they had tried in every way to sabotage and to dissolve the Soviet state and that they wished to establish a Greek republic in southern Russia.

The entire procedure reached the limits of absurdity, since the central headquarters gave only the number of those who were to be arrested. The names of the individuals to be arrested were determined by the regional organizations. For those who were ultimately included on the list, various accusations were invented, such as "He insulted Stalin," or "He blew up a bridge," or "He took a part in a nationalist group." The prisoners were not given a trial, but their sentences were determined by a three-member committee based on the depositions made and were simply announced to the accused. The convicted were then sent to concentration camps.

The Greek ambassador

Greece was aware of the extent and the intensity of the persecution. In a report by the Greek ambassador in Moscow, the treatment of some of these arrested is described : "The condition of the prisoners is as follows: Each prisoner undergoes violent torture. Whatever the interrogator wishes to hear, he succeeds in getting by torture. Many of them are thrown in dark, secluded and damp basements where they are held for a month or more. The food consists of 100 grams of bread and half a liter of boiled water. Following the food, without air and under bright electric light, many lost their sight, but apart from this punishment, the prisoners are subject to bodily harm; there have been cases of whipping until blood flowed from the mouth and nose.

"The accused were sentenced to 10 years labors in concentration camps, some to five years hard labor, while others have not yet been sentenced and are being held in the basement of the GPO. In addition, the families of the convicted, including their young children, have been deported to places thousands of kilometers away, to dry, arid places, where day after day they are dying of hardship. "

1937-38: The purging of "the enemies of the people"

The mass persecution intensified after September 1938, when in a telegram to Kaganovich and Molotov, signed by Stalin and Zdanof, the NKVD secret police (Popular Commission for Internal Affairs) were accused of delaying the start of mass expulsion by four years and instructed to quickly make up for the lost time. Then the mass arrests and executions began under the banner of the fight against the Trotskyites. In 1937 Stalin's rivals were completely purged from the party. At this time, ethnic criteria for persecution also began to be applied. It started with the Koreans in the Far East, who were transported from Dalni Vostok to the lands of Central Asia. The official charge made was that all ethnic Koreans in the U.S.S.R were spies for the Japanese. The whole population, even the members of the party, were expelled.

Things also became more difficult for the ethnic Greeks, nearly a third of whom were Greek citizens. When the persecution began, the entire Greek leadership, along with the majority of adult Greek males, were arrested and executed. During the first phase of the persecution which began on December 17, 1937, there were mass arrests of Greeks which continued until the end of February 1938. In 1937 an order was issued that allowed the arrest of children younger than 12 years of age and their sentencing to even the most severe punishment. This order expedited the annihilation of the children of "the enemies of the people." The children that were arrested were taken to orphanages and forced to change their names, there by cutting ties with their convicted parents. The families of the convicted were called "families of the enemies of the people," and as a result were also arrested and convicted on insignificant charges. The persecution of the Greeks was based on ethnic criteria. Large areas with a solid Greek population were purged. Not even members of the party were exempt. Thousands of Greek people were executed on the charge that being an "enemy of the people" or were deported to concentration camps in Siberia. The main arguments from their accusers were that they supported the Trotsky-Bukharin movement and participated in secret organizations aimed at "the overthrow of the Soviet power and the establishment of a Greek republic on the southern shores of Russia."

The newspaper Red Smoke wrote that a group of Greek students at the Pedagogical Institute in Sokhumi, in the Caucasus, were arrested and charged as "anti-revolutionary elements" and for "Trotsky-Bukharin activity". Nearly the entire Greek intelligentsia, even members of the party, were wiped out. During this period dozens of Greek Communists who had escaped from Metaxas' Greece and, for ideological reasons, found refuge in the Soviet Union, were exterminated.

Destruction

In August 1938, without any public announcement, all 104 Greek schools were closed and the publication of Greek newspapers and magazines was stopped. Greek publishing houses were closed and their printing presses destroyed. The destruction of the Collectivist publishing house was typical. The type fonts were thrown in the Sea of Azov, "so that no Greek book will ever be published again in Russia." Greek theaters were also closed. Most aspects of the Greek cultural activity were deliberately destroyed. The fate of the Greek church was similar; priests were among the first to be arrested and executed. Any church that was not torn down was used for other purposes. Some became warehouses, others, party offices.

Mass Deportations

The persecution of the Greek population was completed during the 1940's. With the start of World War II, a new wave or persecution against small ethnic groups began. Many people were suspected of treason. From 1939 to 1941 large populations were deported from the recently appended regions such as the Baltic and Western Ukraine. During the summer of 1941 German citizens of the U.S.S.R. from the dissolved Soviet Republic of Volga were moved en masse to Central Asia. The first Greeks to be deported were those inhabitants of the Kuban Valley in southern Russia who had Greek citizenship. Some of them were taken to areas near Vladivostok. The majority of Greek citizens who lived in southern Russia were deported in 1942, mainly to regions of Siberian Kazakhstan.

In 1944, after the retreat of the Germans, the ethnic Greeks of the Crimea were exiled to Kazakhstan from Siberia. In 1946 a large number of the Greeks in the Kuban who had eluded the first deportation were deported to Kazakhstan, to the area between Alma Ata and Tzabul. Many of them died of hardship on the way.

Forced labor

Special settlement zones were created for the deportees. Any violation of the deportation process or of the regulations was punishable by imprisonment or forced labor of up to 25 years. In 1949, approximately 100,000 Black Sea Greeks of the Caucasus were placed in the category of "special deportees" and were exiled to Central Asia. During the same period the last Greek people that had remained in the area of Krasnodar were deported, transported in closed trains to their places of exile.

Hundreds of people died during the journey, or after reaching their destination, cut down by abdominal fever, Malta fever, measles and tuberculosis. The authorities forbade the sick to leave the settlements or be treated in a hospital. According to some figures, during the first three years the fatality rate was 20 percent of the population. The deportation of the Greek population was helped by the fact that a five year development plan had started and there were difficulties in finding laborers. The exiled Greek people were moved to areas of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan where there were lead mines and cotton plantations.

In lieu of an epilogue

The persecution of the Greek people by the Stalinist regime -- an estimated 50,000 victims -- is one of the most dramatic, but unknown pages of modern Greek history. Successive Greek governments were indifferent to the drama of ethnic Greeks, while for the Left, the persecution was justifiable since it was carried out by the Soviets.

The greatest victims were the Greeks of the Soviet Union, who were forced to face both Stalin and the incompetence of the Greek State.