"Minority Report" Purge and Compromise: Estonian Soviet Republic 1944-45 (II)

"Minority Report" Purge and Compromise: Estonian Soviet Republic 1944-45 (I)

《Cleansing and Compromise: The Estonian SSR in 1944-1945》

Author: Olaf Mertelsmann, University of Tartu; Aigi Rahi-Tamm

The purpose of this article is to analyze the two policy approaches adopted by the Soviet Union in 1944-1945 with regard to the retaken Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic: purges and compromises. The literature on the subject is well reasoned to elaborate on various aspects of purges and repression; To understand the short-term post-war situation, both aspects must be considered. The scale of the repression is often exaggerated in literature.

Preparation of the SOVIET Union in the rear

Estonians who were evacuated to the rear faced poor living conditions, but the situation of Estonian soldiers in labor camps was certainly worse. As a result of the war, their living, working conditions and food supplies were inadequately prepared. Food rations that are barely enough to sustain life, poor working conditions, inadequate clothing or shelter, hunger, overwork and cold have caused severe attrition. About a third of Estonian men evacuated to the rear died within six months. [31] In the winter of 1941-1942, survivors were able to leave the camps, resume supplies and be integrated into new combat units, especially the Estonian Infantry Corps, or sent to work in the rear in poor health.

Preparations to retake Estonia were slow at first, but began early. For example, Estonian artists who had been evacuated to the rear gathered in Yaroslavl to form an art group. From February 1942 to February 1944, first in Moscow and then in Leningrad, the Central Committee of the Estonian Communist Party worked to gather party staff to prepare propaganda work in Estonia, to cooperate with the Soviet partisans there – but unsuccessfully – and to rearrange the post-war order in Estonia. [32] In 1943, the pace of preparations accelerated. Estonian party organizations recruited party members among Estonian soldiers and evacuees, and special courses were offered to train tractor drivers, clerks or NKVD agents for post-liberated Estonia.

After the victory of the war, the Estonian Soviet Republic will be established according to the Soviet model. In addition to this, the Estonian Party recruited Estonians from the "Old Republic" (i.e. other Republics of the Soviet Union) in order to work in their "historic homeland". As early as December 1943, the People's Commissariat of the Interior of the Estonian Soviet Republic had about 400 cadres, while the People's Commissariat of State Security had about 170 cadres, nine months before the liberation of Estonia. However, the leaders of the Estonian Communist Party considered the cadres to be grossly under-represented in order to perform the necessary duties after liberation. New training courses must be introduced to recruit more cadres. 【33】

The Soviet side paid special attention to preparations for future purges. Archives will play an important role in these crackdowns. In 1940, the Estonian archives administration was subordinated to the People's Committee of the Interior. Gottlieb Ney, then director of the Estonian National Archives, expressed surprise that the archives were subordinate to the NKVD, while Fomin, head of the Central Archives Bureau of the NKVD of the NKVD (GAU), replied that the general idea of the archives as a research institution should soon be forgotten, which may be the case in the capitalist world, but "in Soviet countries, The main task of the archives is to expose the class enemy in order to eliminate them". 【34】

In October 1940, the archives administration of the People's Committee of the Interior of Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Karelia, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia was ordered to register "counter-revolutionaries". This is a continuation of the system of all-union "political elements" archives established a year earlier, in September 1939. By the spring of 1941, the archives of "politically colored elements" had registered 37,794 people in Estonia. [35] After the outbreak of the war, the compilation of the relevant archives continued in Kirov in the Soviet rear, and the materials of the special department of the Estonian State Archives were evacuated to the rear, and the identity information of about 53,000 people was supplemented.

From February to August 1944, Bernhard Veimer, head of the Estonian Archives, remained in Leningrad to study newspapers published in Estonia during the German occupation in search of "anti-Soviet elements" from them. His targets were not only politicians, policemen, or soldiers who had served in the German army, but also economists, farmers, clerics, scientists, artists, athletes, newspaper journalists, and more. On 7 July 1944, Weimer presented the selected documents to the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Estonian Soviet Republic - the Ministry of State Security, and then they drew up a special list. 【36】

In 1944, in preparation for the reconquest of Estonia, the Central Archives Bureau repeatedly reminded Weimer that the archives must provide the security agencies and the General Directorate of Hoeing and Rape with confidential information in their custody and help them carry out their work. [37] In the autumn of 1944, the unit provided about 160,000 archives for use in operations by relevant Soviet units. These personal files were compiled by the Germans between 1941 and 1944 and were left in Estonia after their retreat. These dossiers include data on Estonian citizens who served in the German army and were killed, wounded or missing on the front lines.

After October 1944, soviet security in Tallinn continued to organize documents. By 1945 more than 45,000 archives had been archived. The main focus was on the search for materials from the various institutions operating during the German occupation. The archives department must provide the operational sector with the necessary information on the establishment of the system for these institutions. [38] At the same time, the archives department collected materials about former members of the "Self-Defense Corps" and former Soldiers of the German Army, or about missing and captured soldiers. The main focus is on the political loyalty of specific individuals, in addition to the fact that all those questioned as witnesses at trial are also registered.

The Soviets prepared and trained three operational brigades in the rear areas in order to re-establish Soviet power in Estonia after liberation. Their actions will be coordinated by the special operations personnel of the NKVD. [39] These brigades of action began operations immediately after the Red Army offensive in the late summer of 1944. At that time, these working groups mainly carried out the following tasks: to hunt down Tongde elements, traitors, enemy agents, and anti-Soviet elements; to clear the remnants of the German army and spy groups; to eliminate anti-Soviet guerrillas; and to organize counter-intelligence activities against foreign intelligence agencies and activities outside the Baltic Sea. [40] These brigades, together with the Red Army, entered the baltic states and were responsible for registering the local population, keeping archival documents and screening personnel. 【41】

Purge and compromise

When the Soviets retake Estonia in September 1944, the population was reduced by a quarter from before the war. According to the estimates of the Statistical Department, on January 1, 1945, the Estonian Soviet Republic was inhabited by 854,000 people, 280,000 fewer than in the late 1930s. The reasons for the decline were manifold, with a total of 20,000 Baltic Germans emigrating between 1939 and 1941, although some of them were not Ethnic Germans. By the time german troops invaded, the population had been reduced by 100,000 people due to Soviet evacuations, mass deportations, mobilizations, and arrests. The Germans killed about 8,000 people, killed 30,000 in the war, moved 7,000 Swedes to Sweden, and more than 70,000 Estonians fled abroad. A small number of people were taken captive to Germany to become "Ostarbeiter", which was mainly ethnic Russian. The Estonian population has been declining since 1940. In addition, Soviet population data did not include soldiers, prisoners of war, and other prisoners, so the actual population of Estonia at that time was probably larger. 【42】

Over the next few years, Estonia's population began to pick up, from sources including the return of exiled Estonians from Russia, the population repatriated from Germany and returning through screening camps, demobilized soldiers[43], freed prisoners of war and members of labor camps, and large numbers of immigrants from other republics. The first ethnic cleansing took place in the summer of 1945. Some 400 remaining Ethnic German citizens in Estonia, including non-German family members who voluntarily followed them, were deported. [44] A total of 64 foreign citizens in the Republic were subject to strict scrutiny and a special list was drawn up to ensure that only ethnic Germans were expelled. 【45】

The second wave of ethnic cleansing against Finnish, Echolian and Karelian ethnic groups took place in 1946-1947. [46] These peoples, because of their proximity to Estonian language, religion, and other customs, also emigrated to Estonia during or after the war from the Karelian Soviet Republic and Leningrad Oblast in order to escape persecution. These people, who usually leave Estonia within 24 hours for the Russian interior, have their passports stamped with the mark "§58-1", which means "traitor".

With the reoccupation of the three Baltic states, the Kremlin's attention was once focused on the "Baltic question." With regard to the organization of the party organizations of the three Baltic countries, the Organization Department of the Central Committee of the United Communist Party issued a resolution on "errors and defects" in the work of the party organizations in those countries between the end of October and the beginning of November 1944. These documents became the decisive documents for the advancement of the Process of Sovietization in the three Baltic States and influenced Soviet policy in these areas for years to come. Opposition to "bourgeois nationalism" was one of the main problems of the three Baltic states. 【47】

The party organizations of the three Baltic states all set up special bodies in the Moscow Central Committee (the Estonian, Lithuanian and Latvian bureaus) of the Central Committee of the Communist Party to strengthen management, open up channels for information exchange, promote the implementation of the Policy of Sovietization and eliminate "hostile elements". [48] Apparently in the late summer and autumn of 1944, Stalin took control of the situation and in August 1944 personally met with the First Secretaries of the Party Committees of the Baltic Republics. Later, specific work was delegated to Andrei Zhdanov, Georgi Malenkov and Mikhail Suslov, while Stalin was in charge of the activities of the bureaus.

Economic plans for reconstruction had already begun in the rear before the Red Army had even returned to the Baltic states, but it was clear that such a plan would follow the overall framework of the Soviet Union. Destroyed infrastructure — power stations or bridges — must first be rebuilt. Then vigorously develop heavy industry and energy industry. As for the reconstruction of housing, food production and consumer goods production, they have only been put in the back of the economic reconstruction plan, which is why the recovery of the Estonian population after the war has been so slow. In fact, due to famine in other parts of the SOVIET Union and the effects of agricultural policies, Estonia's food supply and nutrition standards in 1946-1947 were worse than during the war. 【50】

Economic transformation, post-war reconstruction, and measures to eliminate "hostile elements" are intertwined, especially the policy of the Second Agrarian Reform (1944-1947). For example, Edgar Tõnurist, chairman of the Tartu County Executive Committee, announced in January 1945 that more than 800 farms for "enemies of the people" and "collaborators" in his district alone had been reduced to 5-7 hectares. Tunurist complained: "The class struggle against the enemy in the countryside has not yet been fully unfolded. ”【51】

Party organizations send plenipotentiaries to the countryside to work with activists to hunt down "active collaborators," usually at public meetings. [52] A total of 123,000 hectares of land belonging to 9,000 families were confiscated. [53] Of course, there is also the view of a certain Comrade Jike, who believes that "collaborators" are connived and should be punished more severely. [54] Many families were later victims of mass deportations in 1949. Two-thirds of the 20,600 people expelled were "collaborators" and belonged to the category of "enemies of the people." In September 1945, the Soviet government ordered the confiscation of the houses, farm implements, livestock, and personal property of families whose heads fled with the Germans or whose family members had participated in armed anti-Soviet guerrilla warfare. 【55】

After the liberation of the Baltic States by the Red Army, the operational brigades began to operate. Members of the Estonian Provisional Government, headed by Otto Tiff, and related persons were arrested. In October 1944, Tallinn began a purge and 196 people were arrested. The People's Council of State Security of the USSR ordered all relevant agencies to hand over documents from the German occupation to facilitate the search for lurking hostile elements. In December 1944, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Estonia decided that all citizens' passports must be replaced, thus screening the urban population of the entire country. It was not until early 1946 that a total of 280,000 new passports were issued after a thorough screening of passport holders. In January 1945, 4,200 people were already in custody in Estonian prisons. 【56】

In April 1944, the Estonian Central Committee, still in Leningrad, issued a decision on the re-establishment of a fighter battalion composed of party members and members of the Komsomol, local activists and members of the party and security apparatus. They were established in liberated territories between 1944 and 1945, and the headquarters of the fighter battalion was personally headed by nikolai Karotam, the first secretary of the Patriotic Communist Party. [57] The battalion had 1,653 members on January 1, 1945, and 5,804 a year later. [58] The officers and men of the fighter battalion joined "voluntarily" and without compensation, serving as militia organizations in counter-guerrilla warfare, in coordination with the National Security People's Committee and the auxiliary units of the Ministry of the Interior people's commissars. Initially, the Soviet Union used specialized security forces to encircle and suppress the guerrillas. However, after suffering setbacks, tactics changed, and from 1945 onwards the Soviet Union preferred to use fighter battalions. Their military value is actually small, their members tend to have a low level of discipline, and some are involved in theft, robbery and intimidation of the local population, as many other soldiers and members of the security forces. 【59】

In early May 1945, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Estonia, in a part of its report to Stalin, listed the ranking of the party's current main political affairs:

The main work of the Estonian Party is to further purge the hostile elements within the Republic, strengthen the local Party and state organs, educate cadres, restore the economy, carry out agricultural reforms and improve the political education of the population:

1. Purging the bourgeois nationalist antagonists lurking in the territory of the Republic

As previously reported, a large number of Estonian military-fascist and a large number of active participants in bourgeois nationalist organizations failed to flee to Germany, Sweden or Finland ...

According to the report, from October 1944 to April 1945, a total of 8,909 people were arrested for political reasons. Amnesty is mentioned for those who fled into the forest to avoid conscription. Among the Estonian soldiers who reported to the Soviet recruitment office, those who had served in the German army were sent to serve in labor camps or construction camps. [60] Importantly, while the report emphasizes the priority of purging, it also reveals the elements of a policy of compromise, namely amnesty.

According to incomplete statistics from a research group led by Leo Õispuu on the period between 1944 and 1945, at least 13,700 political arrests occurred, accounting for 37 percent of the total number of Stalinist decades of rule in the Baltic states. A total of 381 death sentences were recorded, and 2,600 arrested people were not spared. From 1946 to 1953, only 178 death sentences were registered, compared with 1874 deaths from 1940 to 1941, due to the temporary abolition of death sentences between May 1947 and January 1950. [61] Thus, the post-war purge was not as brutal as the destruction of the Estonian elite before it. Nevertheless, the scale of the arrests was so large that, according to reports on popular sentiment, they were asked about at public meetings. 【62】

Soviet security services searched for alleged and genuine collaborators and war criminals among Estonian servicemen who had served in the German army, often in prisoner-of-war or labor camps, screening camps or in the Soviet army. According to the october 1943 directive of the People's Commissar of the Interior of the USSR Beria and the People's Commissar of State Security Merkulov, all baltic servicemen who had served in the German army must at least be screened, and soldiers and officers who committed war crimes must be arrested. [63] For example, in special screening battalion 0316 of the General Directorate of Hoeing and Rape in Põllküla, a total of 15,937 persons, of whom 13,340 had been soldiers, were detained before 22 November 1945. Soviet soldiers who deserted to the Germans were usually punished by six years of forced labor in special settlements. It is clear that thousands of Estonians have been subjected to similar punishments. [64] Nevertheless, we can conclude that a considerable number of Estonians who had served in the German army went directly to the Red Army, labor camps or construction battalions without any screening, and some of them were later brought out and punished.

With the passage of time, there have been more and more purges against "bourgeois nationalists". At the Fifth Congress of the Communist Party of Estonia in early December 1944, warnings had been issued against any so-called estonian peculiarities. Subsequently, the arrest of Estonian intellectuals began. 【65】

In the spring of 1945, the First Secretary of Estonia, Nikolai Karotam, explained the wave of arrests to local cadres: "When someone is arrested, it is necessary to explain the necessity of the arrest action, to explain that it is a request of the people. We receive anonymous letters, sometimes signed and sometimes not, accusing some of the enemy elements of a certain village of how rampant they are. [66] Of course, there are complaints from the population, but the main initiative for the cleansing came from the Kremlin, and there is no archival evidence that the arrests received broad popular support. In fact, the Soviet authorities in Estonia encouraged the denunciation of the hostile elements and published corresponding articles in newspapers. A decree of 17 June 1945 issued by the Estonian People's Committee stipulates how complaints and reports should be dealt with by local governments, which must be registered in a timely manner and investigated within three days. In Soviet power, special report boxes, equipped with paper and pencils, were set up in conspicuous places. 【67】

In addition to the "collaborators", the "bourgeois nationalists", "bandits" (anti-Soviet guerrillas), "enemies of the people" and "elements of the old regime" were all suspected and removed from important posts. For example, the proposals made by KPA Hansen and Deputy People's Commissar Yoggi were rejected by the CENTRAL COMMITTEE of the IACP because they allowed too many former shopkeepers or restaurateurs to work in the socialist trading system. The Central Committee of the Patriotic Communist Party holds the "elements of the old regime" responsible for all commercial problems caused by alcoholism, fraud, corruption and corruption. 【68】

(To be continued)

【31】Urmas Usai, ed., Eestlasedtööpataljonides 1941-1942. Mälestusi ja dokumente. Esimene raamat [Estonians in Labour Battalions 1941-1942. Memories and Documents. FirstBook] (Estonians in Labor Camps 1941-1942 Memories and Archives, First Edition) (Tallinn: Olion, 1993), 5-18.

[32] Olaf Kuuli, Sotsialistid jakommunistid Eestis 1917-1991 [Socialists and Communists in Estonia 1917-1991] (Tallinn: O. Kuuli, 1999), 88-89; Olev Liivik, “Keskkomitee [Central Committee],” in Enn Tarvel, ed., Eestimaa Kommunistliku Partei Keskkomitee organisatsioonilinestruktuur 1940-1991 [The Organisational Structure of the Central Committee of the Estonian Communist Party] (Organizational Structure of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Estonia) (Tallinn: Kistler-Ritso Eesti Sihtasutus, 2002), 35.

[33] Meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ireland was held on December 24 and 28, 1943, ERAF 1-4-97, 85-86.

【34】Gottlieb Ney, “Teadlasest tshekistiks [From Scientist to Chekist],”in Richard Maasing, ed.,Eesti riik ja rahvas Teises maailmasõjas. Punane aasta [The Estonian State andNation in the Second World War. The Red Year], vol. 3 (The Red Age of estonian states and nations during World War II, vol. III) (Stockholm: EMP, 1956), 154.

【35】Svodnyi ochet otdela sekretnykh fondov, 25 December 1942, ERAFR1490-1-1, 13; Margus Lääne, Valdur Ohmann, “Kuidas komprat koguti? NKGBinfoallikad 1941 aastast osaliselt säilinud operatiivandmete põhjal [HowKompromat was collected? The Information Sources of NKGB in 1941 on the Basisof partly preserved Operation Data], " 1941 NSC Based on Partially Saved Operational Data Information Sources) Tuna 10, 4 (2007): 86-88.

[36] Report submitted by Bernhard Weimer to Nikkitinsky, Director general of the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Estonian Soviet Republic, and Alexander Reshev, People's Commissar of the Interior of Estonia, "Dokladnaia zapiska o prodelannoi rabote za vremia moego prebyvaniiav Leningrade ot 4/II do 25/VII", 27 July 1944, ERAF 17/1-1-7, 38.

[37] Letter from Gurianov, Deputy Director General of the People's Commissariat of the Interior of the Estonian Soviet Republic, to Weimer, ERA (Eesti Riigiarhiiv — Estonian State Archives), R-2338-1-34, 94.

【38】“Plan raboty Arkhivnogo Otdela NKVD ESSR,” 24 January 1945, ERAR-2338-1-59, 3.

[39] Tõnu Tannberg, "Hilisstalinistlik Eesti NSV [The late StalinistEstonian SSR], (Estonian Soviet Republic of late Stalinism)" Eesti ajalugu VI , 273.

[40] Report of Boris Kumm, Minister of State Security of the Republic of Estonia, to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Estonia, "Dokladnaiazapiska o rabote organov gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti Estonskoi SSR za period1940-1941 gg. i 1944-1948 gg.,” ERAF 1-47-37, 143-144.

【41】 Spruce, Soviet battles of power... , 29

【49】Zubkova, Pribaltika i Kremlin ́..., 141-145.

【50】Mertelsmann, The Stalinist Reconstruction..., 93-99.

[51] Shorthand record of the Meeting of Agricultural Experts of the Republic, January 17-19, 1945, ERAF 1-4-239, 3.

【52】 Feest, "Terror and Violence...,", 663.

[53] Valner Krinal, Otto Karma, Herbert Ligi, Feliks Sauks, Eesti NSVmajandusajalugu[Economic History of the Estonian SSR] (Tallinn: Valgus, 1979), 182.

[54] Protocol of the Estonian Agricultural Conference, 22-23 October 1944, ERAF 1-4-128, 94.

[55] Aigi Rahi, 1949, aasta märtsiküüditamine Tartu linnas ja maakonnas[The March Deportation 1949 in the Town and County of Tartu] (Tartu: Kleio, 1998), 26.

【56】Tannberg, "Late Stalinist Estonian SSR," 275.

【57】Tiit Noormets, Valdur Ohmann, “Saateks [Introduction],” in TiitNoormets, Valdur Ohmann, ed., Hävitajad. Nõukogude hävituspataljonid Eestis1944-1954. Dokumentide kogumik [Destroyers. Soviet Destroyer Battalions inEstonia 1944-1954. Compilation of Documents] (Compilation of Documents of Soviet Fighter Battalions in Estonia 1944-1954) (Tallinn: Riigiarhiiv, 2006), 16-19.

【58】Statiev, Social Conflict and Counterinsurgency…, 221.

【59】 Lembit Raid, “Kas peremees või käsualune? Ülevaade Parteiarhiivimaterjalidest II [Master or Subordinate? Overview of Materials from the Party Archives II], "(Supervisor or subordinate?) Overview of Political Party Archives) Kleio, no. 8 (1993): 42-43.

[60] Report on the Activities of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ireland, 1 January to 1 May 1945, RGASPI (Rossiiskoi gosudarstvennyi arkhiv social ́no-politicheskoiistorii), f. 598, op. 1, d. 2,l. 2-6.

【61】Õispuu, ed., Political Arrests, vol. 2, D5. The number of people actually arrested is obviously higher. The same team identified 25,000 political prisoners arrested between 1944 and 1952, while a Khrushchev report states that 45,000 were arrested at the same time (Zubkova, Pribaltika i Kreml ́..., 332). Khrushchev's figures may also include ordinary criminal offences. Aleksandr Diukov estimated 10,000 arrests between 1944 and 1945, an absolute underestimate, as seen in Aleksandr Diukov, Mif o genocide: Repressii sovetskikh vlastei v Estonii (1940-1953) [TheGenocide Myth: Repression of Soviet Power in Estonia (1940-1953)] (Genocide Myth: Soviet Regime Repression in Estonia (1940-1953)) (M.: Aleksei Iakovlev, 2007), 89.

【62】For example Svodka no. 4, 12 July 1945, ERAF 1-3-115, 14.

【63】“Sovmestnaia direktiva NKVD SSSR i NKGB SSSR No. 494/94,” Diukov,Mif o genocide…, 121-123.

[64] Erich Kaup, "Sõjavangilaagrid Eestis 1944-1949 [POW Camps in Estonia 1944-1949]," Kleio: Ajalooajakiri 2 (1995): 34-35.

【65】 Feest, "Terror and Violence...," 664.

【66】ERAF 1-4-245, 26.

[67] The decree was promulgated. Rahi, 1949, aasta märtsiküüditamine..., 32.

[68] Protocol to the Presidium Meeting of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ireland, 7 June 1945, ERAF 1-4-

189, 33-35.