Soviet Union's document which gave guidelines for deporting people from Baltic states in 1940s
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The so-called
Serov Instructions
(full title:
On the Procedure for Carrying out the Deportation of Anti-Soviet Elements from Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia
) was an undated
top secret
document, signed by General
Ivan Serov
, Deputy
People's Commissar for State Security
of the
Soviet Union
(
NKGB
). The instructions detailed procedures on how to carry out
the mass deportations to Siberia
of June 13?14, 1941, which occurred throughout
Lithuania
,
Latvia
and
Estonia
during the
first (1940-1941) Soviet occupation of the three Baltic countries
.
The instructions specified that the deportations would be carried out as secretly, quietly and speedily as possible. Families were restricted to taking 100 kilograms (220 lb) of their belongings (clothes, food, kitchenware). The heads of the families were sent to
Gulag
labor camps
, and other members were transported to
forced settlements
in remote areas of the Soviet Union.
Dating and confusion
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While the original document is undated, sources provide various dates from October 11, 1939 to January 21, 1941.
[1]
However, the NKGB was created only on February 3, 1941 and so could not have issued documents earlier.
[2]
A copy of the instructions, found in
?iauliai
, had a stamp that the document was received on June 7.
[3]
Therefore, the instructions must have been written sometime between February and June 1941.
The Serov Instructions are often confused with
NKVD Order No. 001223
,
[3]
a completely different document that was signed by
Lavrenty Beria
on October 11, 1939,
[4]
which was prepared by the
People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs
(NKVD) and listed various groups of people (anticommunists, former military or police personnel, large landowners, industrialists etc.) to be targeted by Soviet security structures according to the
Article 58 (RSFSR Penal Code)
.
[4]
The original Serov Instructions had no date or number.
[3]
The confusion possibly originates from the Third Interim Report by the
United States House Select Committee to Investigate the Incorporation of the Baltic States into the U.S.S.R.
, which published the full text of the Instructions under a misleading heading as Order № 001223.
[3]
See also
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References
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