Citation

Statiev A. J. Genocide Res. 2009; 11(2): 243-264.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2009, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/14623520903118961

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This article examines ethnic deportations conducted by the Soviet state in 1935-44 in the territories within its pre-1939 borders. These deportations inflicted so many deaths that some scholars interpret them as deliberate extermination of minorities.1 Others maintain “killing off these nations in a genocidal attack was clearly not the Soviets' intentions. Instead, policies were implemented to reeducate” the stigmatized ethnic groups, “to force them to forget their homelands and cultures. The 'human material' was salvageable; just the nations—as nations—were slated to disappear through assimilation and detachment from their homeland.”2 Both sides advance these theses as assumptions, without backing them with facts. This article furnishes evidence supporting the latter argument. Instead of contrasting official justifications of ethnic deportations with their actual causes, it focuses squarely on the gap between intent and practice, and explains why a policy aiming to assimilate certain minorities, inflicted so many deaths. Rather than a conscious intention to exterminate the stigmatised ethnic groups, Stalinist political culture, poor planning, haste, and wartime shortages were responsible for the genocidal death rate among them.