Genocide against non-russians in USSR. Polish Operation of the NKVD (1937–38).Order № 00485
In the fourteen months after the adoption of Order № 00485, some 143,810 Polish people were taken into custody, of whom 139,885 were sentenced by extrajudicial organs, and 111,091 executed (nearly 80% of all victims)
NKVD Order No. 00485, called
"On the liquidation of the Polish diversionist and espionage groups and POW units,"
was approved on August 9, 1937 by the Party's Central Committee Politburo, and was signed by Nikolai Yezhov on August 11, 1937.
It was distributed to the local subdivisions of the NKVD simultaneously with Yezhov's thirty-page "secret letter," explaining what the "Polish operation" was all about. The letter was entitled,
"On fascist-resurrectionist, spying, diversional, defeationist, and terrorist activity of Polish intelligence in the USSR".
Stalin demanded the NKVD to "keep on digging out and cleaning out this Polish filth."
The operation was the second in a series of national operations of the NKVD, carried out by the Soviet Union against ethnic groups, including Latvian, Finnish, German, Romanian an others, based on a theory about the "fifth column" residing along its western borders. The Russian Communist Party classified these peoples as a "hostile capitalist surrounding."
Related events
Map
Sources: wikipedia.org, news.lv
Adverts
