The words 'denazification', 'population distribution' conceal brutal practices dating back to Stalinist times

Putin announces the deportation of the Ukrainian population deep into Russia. This includes regions beyond the Urals and into Siberia. This is what denazification will look like in practice. According to British sources, the Russian President was to approve the ‘distribution’ of citizens to ‘constituent entities of the Russian Federation’, almost 100 000 people. They are to be sent, among other places, to Siberia, the Far East Caucasian republics of Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan. The Ukrainian authorities have already spoken of kidnapping children and resettling people. The words ‘denazification’ and ‘population distribution’ conceal brutal practices reminiscent of Stalinist times.

Exactly today is the 82nd anniversary of the deportation of Polish citizens living in the eastern borderlands of the Second Polish Republic in April 1940. The deportation included government officials, policemen, teachers, political activists and representatives of the landed gentry. It is estimated that around 61,000 people were deported at that time.

In May, the Crimean Tatars commemorate Sürgünlik, namely exile. In 1944, several hundred thousand people were deported from Crimea to Central Asia. Half of them died as a result of disease, hunger and poor living conditions. They were replaced by representatives of the Soviet state elite. Resorts and leisure centres were built. The old world of the Crimean Tatars, but also of the Germans, Armenians, Greeks and even Persians, was effectively wiped out. This was Stalin’s retaliation for their collaboration with Germany during World War II. In fact for their anti-communism and dislike towards Stalin. In 2015, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine recognised the deportation of Crimean Tatars as genocide.

This is what the „denazification” of Poles, Tatars, Germans, Caucasians and other inconvenient nations, social or ethnic groups living in the Soviet Union looked like in practice. We have seen these methods many times in Polish history. As early as the beginning of the 17th century, during the wars of the Commonwealth of Poland against Moscow, Polish prisoners of war were sent deep into Russia. The first ones were taken during Stefan Batory’s wars with Ivan IV the Terrible. This was the fate of the participants of the Bar Confederation, Kościuszko Uprising and November Uprising who were taken prisoner. About 40 000 exiles were sent to Siberia after the fall of the January Uprising. In 1937-1938, Stalin began exterminating Poles living in the USSR in Ukraine and Belarus. This was followed by the real extermination of the Eastern Borderlands of the Second Polish Republic and the deportations of February, April, June, 1940 and the last one in June 1941.

Of course, what happened in tsarist times is incomparable to the genocidal and industrially organised nature of the Soviet GULAG. But the method remains the same. Putin was never secretive about the fact that his political role models were Tsarina Catherine, Peter the Great and Stalin. Indeed, ” ideologies carry consequences”.