Editing Stalinism (section)

=== Deportations ===
{{Main|Population transfer in the Soviet Union|Deportation of Koreans in the Soviet Union|Deportation of the Balkars|Deportation of the Chechens and Ingush|Deportation of the Meskhetian Turks|Deportation of the Crimean Tatars|Deportation of the Karachays|Deportation of the Kalmyks|}}
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Shortly before, during, and immediately after [[World War II]], Stalin conducted a series of [[Forced settlements in the Soviet Union|deportations]] that profoundly affected the ethnic map of the Soviet Union. [[Separatism]], resistance to Soviet rule, and collaboration with the [[Operation Barbarossa|invading Germans]] were the official reasons for the deportations. Individual circumstances of those spending time in [[German-occupied Europe|German-occupied territories]] were not examined. After the brief [[Battle of the Caucasus|Nazi occupation of the Caucasus]], the entire population of five of the small highland peoples and the [[Crimean Tatars]]—more than a million people in total—were deported without notice or any opportunity to take their possessions.{{sfn|Bullock|1962|pp=904–906}}

As a result of Stalin's lack of trust in the loyalty of particular ethnicities, groups such as the [[Koryo-saram|Soviet Koreans]], [[Volga Germans]], Crimean Tatars, [[Chechens]], and many Poles, were forcibly moved out of strategic areas and relocated to places in the central Soviet Union, especially [[Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic|Kazakhstan]]. By some estimates, hundreds of thousands of deportees may have died en route.{{sfn|Boobbyer|2000|p=130}} It is estimated that between 1941 and 1949, nearly 3.3 million people{{sfn|Boobbyer|2000|p=130}}<ref>Pohl, Otto, ''Ethnic Cleansing in the USSR, 1937–1949'', {{ISBN|0-313-30921-3}}.</ref> were deported to [[Siberia]] and the Central Asian republics. By some estimates, up to 43% of the resettled population died of diseases and malnutrition.<ref>{{cite web|title=Soviet Transit, Camp, and Deportation Death Rates|url=http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/USSR.TAB1B.GIF|access-date=June 25, 2010}}</ref>

According to official Soviet estimates, more than 14 million people passed through the gulags from 1929 to 1953, with a further 7 to 8 million deported and exiled to remote areas of the Soviet Union (including entire nationalities in several cases).<ref>{{cite journal|author=Conquest, Robert |title=Victims of Stalinism: A Comment|journal=Europe-Asia Studies|volume=49|issue=7|year=1997|pages=1317–1319|quote=We are all inclined to accept the Zemskov totals (even if not as complete) with their 14 million intake to Gulag 'camps' alone, to which must be added 4–5&nbsp;million going to Gulag 'colonies', to say nothing of the 3.5 million already in, or sent to, 'labour settlements'. However taken, these are surely 'high' figures.|doi=10.1080/09668139708412501}}</ref> The emergent scholarly consensus is that from 1930 to 1953, around 1.5 to 1.7 million perished in the gulag system.<ref>{{cite journal|author=Wheatcroft, Stephen G.|year=1999|title=Victims of Stalinism and the Soviet Secret Police: The Comparability and Reliability of the Archival Data. Not the Last Word|url=http://sovietinfo.tripod.com/WCR-Secret_Police.pdf|journal=[[Europe-Asia Studies]]|volume=51|issue=2|pages=315–345|doi=10.1080/09668139999056|author-link=Stephen G. Wheatcroft}}</ref><ref>[[Steven Rosefielde|Rosefielde, Steven]]. 2009. ''Red Holocaust.'' [[Routledge]], 2009. {{ISBN|0-415-77757-7}}. pg. 67: "[M]ore complete archival data increases camp deaths by 19.4 percent to 1,258,537"; pg 77: "The best archivally based estimate of Gulag excess deaths at present is 1.6 million from 1929 to 1953."</ref><ref>[[Dan Healey|Healey, Dan]]. 2018. "[https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/ou_press/golfo-alexopoulos-illness-and-inhumanity-in-stalin-s-gulag-i363rKPYOp Golfo Alexopoulos. 'Illness and Inhumanity in Stalin's Gulag']" (review). ''[[The American Historical Review|American Historical Review]]'' 123(3):1049–51. {{doi|10.1093/ahr/123.3.1049}}.</ref> In February 1956, [[Nikita Khrushchev]] condemned the deportations as a violation of Leninism and reversed most of them, although it was not until 1991 that the Tatars, [[Meskheti]]ans, and Volga Germans were allowed to return ''en masse'' to their homelands.