Speech #910076401

The holiday mood of the crowd was rapidly changed when Major Khorin. the counterespionage officer. read the following announcement: It has been established that during the time of the German occupation of Soviet territory. the population of the ChechenIngushi Republic gave aid to the enemy. collaborated with them. formed bandit units and carried on hostilities against the Soviet army. In this way they damaged Soviet power and aided the enemies of Communism. For these reasons. the Communist Party and the Soviet government have decided that the entire population of the autonomous Republic of ChechenIngushi shall be banished forever to the far regions of the Soviet Union.2 Colonel Burlutskii was awarded an inscribed gold watch which expressed gratitude for "the successful accomplishment of a mission."" General in the NKVD Ivan Serov won a "Hero of Soviet Union" medal for directing the deportations. The scope of the population transfers. the thoroughness with which they were carried out. and the awards bestowed on their directors. indicate the importance to Stalin of the policy of deportation. The Soviets might have justified these measures in several ways. They mention the usual ideological charges of "bourgeois nationalism." The deportations could have been used to weaken resistance to Stalins collectivization programs. Stalin might have relocated the Islamic minorities to sever an irredentist attraction from Turkey and Iran. Exile could have been one method of settling the underpopulated regions of Soviet Russia.