Editing Great Purge (section)

==Campaigns targeting nationalities==
{{Main|Mass operations of the NKVD|Stalinist repressions in Azerbaijan|Armenian victims of the Great Purge}}

A series of [[mass operations of the NKVD]] was carried out from 1937 through 1938 targeting specific nationalities within the Soviet Union, on the order of [[Nikolai Yezhov]].

The [[Polish Operation of the NKVD]] was the largest of this kind.{{sfn|Snyder|2010|ref=none|pp=103–104}} The Polish operation claimed the largest number of the NKVD victims: 143,810 arrests and 111,091 executions according to records. Snyder estimates that at least eighty-five thousand of them were ethnic Poles.{{sfn|Snyder|2010|ref=none|pp=103–104}} The remainder were 'suspected' of being Polish, without further inquiry.<ref name="Russian1">{{cite web|url=http://www.memo.ru/history/POLAcy/00485ART.htm|script-title=ru: "Польская операция" НКВД 1937–1938 гг.|publisher=НИПЦ «Мемориал»|access-date=May 27, 2012|author=Н.В.Петров, А.Б.Рогинский|quote=Original title: ''О фашистско-повстанческой, шпионской, диверсионной, пораженческой и террористической деятельности польской разведки в СССР''|language=ru|trans-title='The Polish operation' NKVD 1937–1938|archive-date=15 February 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170215195305/http://www.memo.ru/history/polacy/00485ART.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref>
[[File:Yakov Alksnis.jpg|thumb|[[Yakov Alksnis]], head of the<br />[[Soviet Air Force|Red Army Air Forces]], fell victim to the "[[Latvian Operation of the NKVD|Latvian Operation]]" in 1938|200px]]
[[File:Kosior.jpg|thumb|192x192px|Polish-born Soviet politician [[Stanislav Kosior]], a contributor to the [[Holodomor]], executed in 1939]]

Poles comprised 12.5% of those who were killed during the Great Terror, while comprising only 0.4% of the population. Overall, national minorities targeted in these campaigns composed 36%<ref name="snyvic">{{cite book|last=Snyder|first=Timothy|title=Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin|date=2010|publisher=Basic Books|page=104}}</ref> of the victims of the Great Purge, despite being only 1.6%<ref name="snyvic"/> of the Soviet Union's population. 74%<ref name="snyvic"/> of ethnic minorities arrested during the Great Purge were executed while those sentenced during the Kulak Operation had only a 50% chance of being executed,<ref name="snyvic"/> (though this may have been due to the Gulag camp's lack of space in the late stages of the Purge rather than deliberate discrimination in sentencing).<ref name="snyvic"/>

The wives and children of those arrested and executed were dealt with by the [[NKVD Order No. 00486]]. The women were sentenced to forced labour for 5 or 10 years.<ref name="fronda"/> Their minor children were put in orphanages. All possessions were confiscated. Extended families were purposely left with nothing to live on, which usually sealed their fate as well, affecting up to 200,000–250,000 people of Polish background depending on the size of their families.<ref name="fronda">{{cite web| url=http://fronda.gliwice.pl/czytelnia.php5?id=84| title=Zapomniane ludobójstwo stalinowskie (The forgotten Stalinist genocide)|publisher=Gliwicki klub Fondy. Czytelnia|date=2010-10-27|author=Michał Jasiński| via=Internet Archive|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120323100829/http://fronda.gliwice.pl/czytelnia.php5?id=84|archive-date=23 March 2012}}</ref>
[[National operations of the NKVD]] were conducted on a quota system using [[album procedure]]. The officials were mandated to arrest and execute a specific number of so-called "counter-revolutionaries", compiled by administration using various statistics but also telephone books with names sounding non-Russian.{{Citation needed|reason=Previously linked source doesn't match claim|date=December 2024}}

The Polish Operation of the NKVD served as a model for a series of similar NKVD secret decrees targeting a number of the Soviet Union's diaspora nationalities: the [[Finns|Finnish]], [[Latvians|Latvian]], [[Estonians|Estonian]], [[Bulgarians|Bulgarian]], [[Pashtuns|Afghan]], [[Persians|Iranian]], [[Greeks|Greek]], and [[Han Chinese|Chinese]].<ref name=":4">{{Cite book| last1=Sundström|first1=Olle|url=https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1167084/FULLTEXT01.pdf|title=Ethnic and Religious Minorities in Stalin's Soviet Union: New Dimensions of Research|last2=Kotljarchuk| first2=Andrej|publisher=Södertörn Academic Studies|year=2017|isbn=978-9176017777|page=16|chapter=Introduction: the problem of ethnic and religious minorities in Stalin's Soviet Union}}</ref> Of the operations against national minorities, it was the largest one, second only to the "Kulak Operation" in terms of the number of victims. According to [[Timothy Snyder]], ethnic Poles constituted the largest group of victims in the Great Terror, comprising less than 0.5% of the country's population but comprising 12.5% of those executed.<ref>[[Timothy Snyder|Snyder, Timothy]]. 2010. ''[[Bloodlands|Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin]]''. [[Basic Books]]. {{ISBN|0465002390}}. pp. 102, 107.</ref>

Timothy Snyder attributes 300,000 deaths during the Great Purge to "national terror" including ethnic minorities and Ukrainian "kulaks" who had survived [[dekulakization]] and the [[Holodomor]] famine that had been used to kill millions in the early 1930s.<ref>Timothy Snyder, ''Bloodlands'', Basic Books, 2010, pp. 411–412 {{ISBN?}}</ref> [[Lev Kopelev]] wrote "In Ukraine 1937 began in 1933", referring to the earlier Soviet political repressions in Ukraine.<ref>{{cite book |last=Subtelny |first=Orest |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=l5uiWHgRphQC |title=Ukraine: A History |publisher=University of Toronto Press |year=2009 |isbn=978-1442609914 |edition=4th revised |location=Toronto |author-link=Orest Subtelny |orig-year=1988}}</ref>{{rp|418}} There was also deadly persecution of Ukrainian cultural elites, who are referred to as the [[Executed Renaissance]]. Statistics of Ukraine's Ministry of Foreign Affairs indicate that about 200,000 victims of the Great Purge were Ukrainians.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Dyck |first=Kirsten |title=Denial: the final stage of genocide |date=2022 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-003-01070-8 |editor-last=Cox |editor-first=John M. |series=Routledge studies in modern history |location=London New York |pages=31 |chapter=Holodomor and Holocaust memory in competition and cooperation |editor-last2=Khoury |editor-first2=Amal |editor-last3=Minslow |editor-first3=Sarah}}</ref>

Concerning diaspora minorities, the vast majority of whom were Soviet citizens and whose ancestors had resided for decades and sometimes centuries in the Soviet Union and Russian Empire, "this designation absolutized their cross-border ethnicities as the only salient aspect of their identity, sufficient proof of their disloyalty and sufficient justification for their arrest and execution" (Martin, 2001: 338).<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://nkvd-mass-secret-national-operations-august-1937-november-1938.html/|title=The NKVD Mass Secret National Operations (August 1937 – November 1938) &#124; Sciences Po Mass Violence and Resistance – Research Network|date=15 April 2019|website=nkvd-mass-secret-national-operations-august-1937-november-1938.html}}{{Dead link|date=March 2022 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> Some scholars have called the national operations of the NKVD [[Genocide|genocidal]].<ref>[https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1078&context=jil "The Crime of Genocide Committed against the Poles by the USSR before and during World War II: An International Legal Study"] by Karol Karski, Case Western Reserve ''Journal of International Law'', Vol. 45, 2013</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|url=https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/3229636/Martin%201998.pdf?sequence=2|author=Martin, Terry|title=The origins of Soviet ethnic cleansing|journal=The Journal of Modern History|volume=70|issue=4 |date=1998|pages=813–861|doi=10.1086/235168 |s2cid=32917643 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/oct/05/holocaust-secondworldwar|title=The fatal fact of the Nazi-Soviet pact|last=Snyder|first=Timothy|date=2010-10-05|website=the Guardian|language=en|access-date=2018-08-06}}</ref><ref name=stalpol>{{Cite book|last=Naimark|first=Norman M.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IB-hDQAAQBAJ&q=%2522Polish%2520operation%2522|title=Genocide: A World History|date=2016|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0190637729|language=en}}</ref> [[Norman Naimark]] called Stalin's policy towards Poles in the 1930s "genocidal".<ref name="stalpol"/> However, he does not consider the Great Purge entirely genocidal because it also targeted political opponents.<ref name="stalpol"/>

Some scholars, however, focus on the security dilemma in the border areas suggesting the need to secure the ethnic integrity of Soviet space ''vis-à-vis'' neighboring capitalistic enemy states.<ref name=":4" /> They stress the role of [[international relations]] and believe that representatives of these minorities were killed not because of their ethnicity, but because of their possible relations to countries hostile to the USSR and fear of disloyalty in the case of an invasion.<ref name=":4" /> Nevertheless, little proof exists to suggest that Russia's and Stalin's alleged prejudices played a central causal role in the Great Purge.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Kuromiya|first1=Hiroaki|last2=Pepłoński|first2=Andrzej|date=2009|title=The Great Terror|journal=Cahiers du monde russe. Russie – Empire russe – Union soviétique et États indépendants|language=en|volume=50|issue=50/2–3|pages=647–670|doi=10.4000/monderusse.9736|issn=1252-6576|doi-access=free}}</ref>