marion kanawha 3 | 107
21 Feb 2024 #1
The more I study Polish history, the more shocking it becomes. I'm new to Polish history having investigated it intensely for only two years.
So here's something I never heard of --- not ever. I found out about this because of one sentence appearing in Michael Sliva's book POLAND'S EASTERN BORDERS.
We've all heard about Stalin's Great Purge. All I ever heard about the Great Purge was it helped the Nazi Operation Barbarossa succeed because all the top Soviet military personal were eradicated. I also heard that a large segment of the bureaucrats were eliminated.
It took place in 1937-38 and I never realized the scope of this purge. 681,692 EXECUTED. If you include all arrested and their lives destroyed it can reach 950,000.
NOW HERE'S THE SCHOCKER FOR ME. The LARGEST group of those executed were not military or bureaucrats --- it was Soviet citizens of Polish ethnicity. Based on Order No. 000485, some 139,835 were arrested and sentenced. Of those 111,091 were EXECUTED. But it doesn't end there. Historian michal Jasinski says most who were executed were MEN. The wives were deported to Kazakhstan for 5-10 years prison sentences. All possessions were confiscated. The parents and in-laws of the executed lost all possessions and fell into poverty.
The children? Sent en masse to orphanages where they lost their Polish identities. Jasinski calculates that the 1937-38 victims could reach an average of 225,000. IT WAS THE LARGEST ETHNIC SHOOTING AND DEPORTATION ACTION DURING THE GREAT PURGE.
Stalin called them "...Polish espionage mud..." "Officially" it was an action against "agents" of Polish ethnicity who could be the "fifth column" that worked in the railroad, the post office, telephone and transportation, armament factories, the military and those who belonged to social or cultural clubs and organizations.
Ethnic Poles made up .4% of the USSR population but were 12.5% of the victims. 40% came from Ukrainia SSR and 17% came from Byelorussia SSR.
Now here's another shocking fact. NOT ALL THE "POLISH" VICTIMS WERE ETHNIC POLES!!! Because of last names (the NKVD went through telephone books), because of speaking Polish, because of their religion (Catholic?), because of Polish customs and traditions a lot of Belorusians, Ukrainians, Jews and even Russians got swept up in Order No. 000485. They all became POLISH; they all became DEAD !!!
The Great Purge was only known in the West and it was only known about the purge of military and party members. That only became known after some victims escaped the USSR.
It was only in the late 1960s that more info started to come out of the USSR. All this falls into the Soviet concept of "rehabilitation historiography".
And Stalin was right! He was at a meeting and supposedly muttered the following to himself:
"Who's going to remember all this riff-raff in ten or twenty years time? No one. Who remembers the names now of the boyars Ivan the Terrible got rid of? No one."
Stalin was dead right. 86 years later and I just found out about the largest eradication of "riff-raff" during the Great Purge.
So here's something I never heard of --- not ever. I found out about this because of one sentence appearing in Michael Sliva's book POLAND'S EASTERN BORDERS.
We've all heard about Stalin's Great Purge. All I ever heard about the Great Purge was it helped the Nazi Operation Barbarossa succeed because all the top Soviet military personal were eradicated. I also heard that a large segment of the bureaucrats were eliminated.
It took place in 1937-38 and I never realized the scope of this purge. 681,692 EXECUTED. If you include all arrested and their lives destroyed it can reach 950,000.
NOW HERE'S THE SCHOCKER FOR ME. The LARGEST group of those executed were not military or bureaucrats --- it was Soviet citizens of Polish ethnicity. Based on Order No. 000485, some 139,835 were arrested and sentenced. Of those 111,091 were EXECUTED. But it doesn't end there. Historian michal Jasinski says most who were executed were MEN. The wives were deported to Kazakhstan for 5-10 years prison sentences. All possessions were confiscated. The parents and in-laws of the executed lost all possessions and fell into poverty.
The children? Sent en masse to orphanages where they lost their Polish identities. Jasinski calculates that the 1937-38 victims could reach an average of 225,000. IT WAS THE LARGEST ETHNIC SHOOTING AND DEPORTATION ACTION DURING THE GREAT PURGE.
Stalin called them "...Polish espionage mud..." "Officially" it was an action against "agents" of Polish ethnicity who could be the "fifth column" that worked in the railroad, the post office, telephone and transportation, armament factories, the military and those who belonged to social or cultural clubs and organizations.
Ethnic Poles made up .4% of the USSR population but were 12.5% of the victims. 40% came from Ukrainia SSR and 17% came from Byelorussia SSR.
Now here's another shocking fact. NOT ALL THE "POLISH" VICTIMS WERE ETHNIC POLES!!! Because of last names (the NKVD went through telephone books), because of speaking Polish, because of their religion (Catholic?), because of Polish customs and traditions a lot of Belorusians, Ukrainians, Jews and even Russians got swept up in Order No. 000485. They all became POLISH; they all became DEAD !!!
The Great Purge was only known in the West and it was only known about the purge of military and party members. That only became known after some victims escaped the USSR.
It was only in the late 1960s that more info started to come out of the USSR. All this falls into the Soviet concept of "rehabilitation historiography".
And Stalin was right! He was at a meeting and supposedly muttered the following to himself:
"Who's going to remember all this riff-raff in ten or twenty years time? No one. Who remembers the names now of the boyars Ivan the Terrible got rid of? No one."
Stalin was dead right. 86 years later and I just found out about the largest eradication of "riff-raff" during the Great Purge.