Operation "Priboi" (Operation "Coastal Surf") or
March deportation was the code name for the Soviet mass deportation from the Baltic states on March 25–28, 1949. Some 90,000
EstoniaEstonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by the Russian Federation...
ns,
LatviaLatvia , officially the Republic of Latvia is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , and to the southeast by Belarus . Across the Baltic Sea to the west lies Sweden...
ns and
LithuaniaLithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the southernmost of the three Baltic states. Situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, it shares borders with Latvia to the north, Belarus to the southeast, Poland, and the Russian exclave of...
ns, labeled as
enemies of the peopleThe term enemy of the people is a fluid designation of political or class opponents of the group using the term. Its usage is derogatory, and meant to imply that the "enemies" are acting against society as a whole. It is similar to the notions of "public enemy" and "enemy of the state". The term...
, were deported to inhospitable areas of the
Soviet UnionThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
. It was one of the most complex deportation operations engineered by the Soviets in the
Cold warThe Cold War was the continuing state of political conflict, military tension, and economic competition existing after World War II , primarily between the USSR and its satellite states, and the powers of the Western world, including the United States...
era.
While portrayed as "
de-kulakisationKulaks were a category of relatively affluent peasants in the later Russian Empire, Soviet Russia, and early Soviet Union. The word kulak originally referred to independent farmers in the Russian Empire who emerged as a result of the Stolypin reform which began in 1906...
", the operation was intended to facilitate the forced
collectivisationCollective farming is an organization of agricultural production in which the holdings of several farmers are run as a joint enterprise. A collective farm is essentially an agricultural production cooperative in which members-owners engage jointly in farming activities...
of rural households and to eliminate the support base for the insurgency by the
Forest BrothersThe Forest Brothers were Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian partisans who waged guerrilla warfare against Soviet rule during the Soviet invasion and occupation of the three Baltic states during, and after, World War II...
against Soviet occupation.
Operation "Priboi" (Operation "Coastal Surf") or
March deportation was the code name for the Soviet mass deportation from the Baltic states on March 25–28, 1949. Some 90,000
EstoniaEstonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by the Russian Federation...
ns,
LatviaLatvia , officially the Republic of Latvia is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , and to the southeast by Belarus . Across the Baltic Sea to the west lies Sweden...
ns and
LithuaniaLithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the southernmost of the three Baltic states. Situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, it shares borders with Latvia to the north, Belarus to the southeast, Poland, and the Russian exclave of...
ns, labeled as
enemies of the peopleThe term enemy of the people is a fluid designation of political or class opponents of the group using the term. Its usage is derogatory, and meant to imply that the "enemies" are acting against society as a whole. It is similar to the notions of "public enemy" and "enemy of the state". The term...
, were deported to inhospitable areas of the
Soviet UnionThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
. It was one of the most complex deportation operations engineered by the Soviets in the
Cold warThe Cold War was the continuing state of political conflict, military tension, and economic competition existing after World War II , primarily between the USSR and its satellite states, and the powers of the Western world, including the United States...
era.
While portrayed as "
de-kulakisationKulaks were a category of relatively affluent peasants in the later Russian Empire, Soviet Russia, and early Soviet Union. The word kulak originally referred to independent farmers in the Russian Empire who emerged as a result of the Stolypin reform which began in 1906...
", the operation was intended to facilitate the forced
collectivisationCollective farming is an organization of agricultural production in which the holdings of several farmers are run as a joint enterprise. A collective farm is essentially an agricultural production cooperative in which members-owners engage jointly in farming activities...
of rural households and to eliminate the support base for the insurgency by the
Forest BrothersThe Forest Brothers were Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian partisans who waged guerrilla warfare against Soviet rule during the Soviet invasion and occupation of the three Baltic states during, and after, World War II...
against Soviet occupation. Thus the Soviets specifically targeted anti-Soviet nationalists, supporters and kin of the
Forest BrothersThe Forest Brothers were Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian partisans who waged guerrilla warfare against Soviet rule during the Soviet invasion and occupation of the three Baltic states during, and after, World War II...
, veterans who served in the
GermanNazi Germany and the Third Reich are the common English names for Germany between 1933 and 1945, while it was led by Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Worker's Party . The name Third Reich refers to the state as the successor to the Holy Roman Empire of the Middle Ages and the German...
military and relatives of those already held in the Soviet
GulagThe Gulag or GULAG was the government agency that administered the penal labor camps of the Soviet Union. The term is infamous for its association with remote places where prisoners were kept and sometimes disappeared...
for alleged anti-Soviet activities. The deportation fulfilled its purposes: within a few following weeks, almost all of the rural households had submitted to the terror and "voluntarily" accepted collectivisation.
Due to the high death rate of deportees during the first few years of their Siberian exile, caused by the failure of Soviet authorities to provided suitable clothing or housing at the destination, whether through neglect or premeditation, some sources consider these deportations an act of
genocideGenocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group.While precise definition varies among genocide scholars, a legal definition is found in the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of...
. Based on the
Martens ClauseThe Martens Clause was introduced into the preamble to the 1899 Hague Convention II – Laws and Customs of War on Land.The clause took its name from a declaration read by Fyodor Fyodorovich Martens, the Russian delegate at the Hague Peace Conferences 1899 and was based upon his words:The...
and the principles of the Nuremberg Charter, the
European Court of Human RightsThe European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg is an international judicial body established under the European Convention on Human Rights of 1950 to monitor respect of human rights by states...
has held that the March deportation constituted a
crime against humanityCrimes against humanity, as defined by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Explanatory Memorandum, "are particularly odious offences in that they constitute a serious attack on human dignity or grave humiliation or a degradation of one or more human beings...
.
Decision
In response to the activities of various resistance groups such as the
Forest BrothersThe Forest Brothers were Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian partisans who waged guerrilla warfare against Soviet rule during the Soviet invasion and occupation of the three Baltic states during, and after, World War II...
and their supporters, Alexsandr Mishutin, Procurator of the Latvian SSR wrote a secret report to
MoscowMoscow is the capital and the largest city of Russia. It is also the largest metropolitan area in Europe, and ranks among the largest urban areas in the world. Moscow is a major political, economic, cultural, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the world, a...
on September 21, 1948, in which he reported that "counter-revolutionary" elements—including "kulaks", underground resistance groups, and other "enemies of the people"—were rife in Soviet Latvian society. The top secret decision, No. 390-1388ss, was taken by the USSR Council of Ministers on January 29, 1949, approving the deportation of "kulaks", "nationalists", "bandits", their supporters, and their families from Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. On February 28, 1949, Viktor Abakumov, the minister of State Security (
MGBThe Ministry of State Security was the name of a Soviet secret police agency from 1946 to 1953...
), signed the USSR MGB order No. 0068 for the preparation and execution of the mass deportations by the USSR MGB Interior Forces under Lieutenant-General Burmak's command. From this additional orders were drafted, USSR MGB order No. 00225 that ordered various branches of the USSR Interior Ministry to assist the MGB, as well as republic level orders, for example the Latvian SSR Council of Ministry decision No. 282ss and 297ss of March 24 (one day before the deportations began) authorizing the confiscation of the properties of the deportees.
Planning
Due to the immense scale Operation Priboi, which spanned across three Soviet republics, considerable resources were involved.
The following command staff were assigned with the task of deporting 30,000 families from the Baltic states:
- Chief of Staff Lieutenant-General Burmak (head of the USSR MGB Interior Forces Chief Administration);
- Lieutenant-General Golovko (head of Interior Forces Baltic District);
- Major-General Leont'ev (commander of Interior Forces stationed in Riga);
- Head of Communications Lieutenant-Colonel Kotov;
- Head of Transportation Lieutenant-Colonel Spektor;
- Quartermaster Colonel Sakharov;
- Colonel Rizhov (special representative of the USSR MGB Interior Forces Chief Administration).
In addition to the troops already stationed in Latvia and Estonia, an additional 8850 soldiers were deployed to Estonia and Latvia from other parts of the Soviet Union to take part in the operation, 4350 to Estonia:
| Additional MGB Interior troops |
| USSR MGB Interior Forces Unit |
To Estonia |
To Latvia |
| 1st Motorised Infantry Division (Moscow) |
850 |
2,000 |
| 13th Motorised Infantry Division (Leningrad), one regiment |
700 |
| 7th Division (Minsk), one regiment |
1,000 |
|
| 4th Division (Lithuania), one regiment |
|
1,000 |
| Officers' Corp Training School (Sortavala, Karelia) |
400 |
|
| Military Specialised Secondary School (Saratov) |
|
1,000 |
| Security Corps sergeants |
1,400 |
500 |
| Total |
4,350 |
4,500 |
Telecommunications was a vital component to ensure smooth running of the operation, thus the MGB commandeered all civilian telephone exchanges for the duration. Due to the scope of the operation an extra 2,210 MGB communications personnel were brought in. A total of 8,422 trucks were organised. 5,010 civilian trucks were commandeered and the remaining vehicles were military origin, including 1,202 imported from the
Leningrad Military DistrictThe Leningrad Military District is a military district of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. As the Russian Military of Defence site officially states, it traces its history from the Petersburg Military District of Imperial Russia...
, 210 from the Byelorussian Military District and 700 from MGB Interior Forces. Some 1,250 tons of fuel was stockpiled for use in the operation. These additional vehicles were stationed just outside the border of the Baltic Republics in advance so as not to raise suspicion and sent in at the start of the operation.
Execution
| Personnel involved |
Number |
Proportion (%) |
| State security personnel |
8,215 |
10.8 |
| USSR MGB Interior Forces troops |
21,206 |
27.8 |
Republican MGB Destruction BattalionDestruction battalions were the paramilitary combat units in the Soviet Union consisted of conscript battalions formed from the local communists to fight against Anti-Soviet partisans, Selbstschutz who attempted to liberate parts of the country ahead of the arrival of German troops or Abwehr...
troops |
18,387 |
24.1 |
| Communist Party activists |
28,404 |
37.1 |
| Total |
76,212 |
100.0 |
Deportation was to be physically performed by small nine–ten man operative teams, which included three USSR MGB agents ("troika"), two republican MGB Extermination Battalion soldiers and four or five local Communist Party activists who were armed by the MGB.
Additional 5,025 submachine guns and 1,900 rifles were brought in to ensure that these operative teams were sufficiently armed to carry out the operation. Unlike the
June deportationJune deportation was the first mass Soviet deportation of tens of thousands of people from the Baltic states, Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova starting June 14, 1941. The procedure for deporting the "anti-Soviet elements" was approved by Ivan Serov in the so-called Serov Instructions...
in 1941, the families deported in 1949 were not separated. Since the people had already experienced mass deportations, they looked out for arrival of fresh troops, vehicles, trains and attempted to hide. Therefore, the Soviets later organized smaller actions to locate those that escaped the first Operation Priboi in March.
Results
Some 72% of the 94,000 deportees were women and children under the age of 16. Kruglov, the USSR Interior Minister, reported to Stalin on May 18 that 2,850 were "decrepit solitary old people", 1,785 children without parents to support them and 146 invalids.
| Summary of results of Operation "Priboi" |
| Republic |
Families |
People |
Freight trains |
| Estonian SSR |
7,702 |
19,827 |
15 |
| Latvian SSR |
13,537 |
41,811 |
31 |
| Lithuanian SSR |
8,012 |
25,951 |
20 |
| Total |
29,251 |
87,589 |
66 |
|
| Gender and age of deportees |
|
Absolute number |
Proportion (%) |
| Men |
25,708 |
27.1 |
| Women |
41,987 |
44.3 |
| Children (16 or under) |
27,084 |
28.6 |
| Total |
94,779 |
100.0 |
|
Aftermath
The deportees were required to sign a document upon their arrival, officially designating them with the status of "special settlers" with no right of return to their home, with the penalty of twenty years hard labour for attempted escapes. Deportees were not permitted to leave their designated area and were required to report to the local MVD commandant once a month, failure of which was a punishable offense. The following table shows the locations the deportees were sent.
| Location of "special settlements" for deported Balts |
| Region of USSR |
Number of families |
Number of people |
Average family size |
% of total deportees |
Amur OblastAmur Oblast is a federal subject of Russia , situated about east of Moscow on the banks of the Amur and Zeya Rivers. It shares its border with the Sakha Republic in the north, Khabarovsk Krai and the Jewish Autonomous Oblast in the east, People's Republic of China in the south, and Zabaykalsky...
|
2,028 |
5,451 |
2.7 |
5.8 |
Irkutsk OblastIrkutsk Oblast is a federal subject of Russia , located in south-eastern Siberia in the basins of Angara River, Lena, and Nizhnyaya Tunguska Rivers...
|
8,475 |
25,834 |
3.0 |
27.3 |
Krasnoyarsk KraiKrasnoyarsk Krai is a federal subject of Russia . It is the second largest federal subject after the Sakha Republic, occupying an area of , which is 13% of the country's total territory...
|
3,671 |
13,823 |
3.8 |
14.6 |
Novosibirsk OblastNovosibirsk Oblast is a federal subject of Russia . Its administrative center is the city of Novosibirsk.-Overview:...
|
2,028 |
5,451 |
2.7 |
5.8 |
Omsk OblastOmsk Oblast is a federal subject of Russia , located in southwestern Siberia. It has an area of 139,700 km² and a population of with 1.1 million living in Omsk, the administrative center.-Geography:...
|
8,475 |
25,834 |
3.0 |
27.3 |
Tomsk OblastTomsk Oblast is a federal subject of Russia . It lies in the southeastern West Siberian Plain, in the southwest of the Siberian Federal District. Viktor Kress has been governor of the oblast since 1991....
|
3,671 |
13,823 |
3.8 |
14.6 |
| Total |
30,630 |
93,779 |
3.1 |
99.0 |
Awards
By decree of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet, orders and medals for the successful completion of Operation Priboi were to be granted. 75 people were awarded the
Order of the Red BannerThe Soviet government of Russia established the Order of the Red Banner , a military decoration, on September 16, 1918 during the Russian Civil War. The first recipient was Vasily Blyukher on September 28, 1918. It was later titled the Award of the Soviet Government of the Soviet Union...
, their names published in
PravdaPravda was a leading newspaper of the Soviet Union and an official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party between 1912 and 1991....
on 25 August, 1949. On 26 August, Pravda published the names of 17 people awarded the Order of the Great Patriotic War, First Class for courage and heroism displayed during the operation.
Further reading
- Eesti rahva inimohvrid Nõukogude ja Saksa okupatsioonide ajal 1940–1953 by Peep Varju. Tartu
For the French captain, see Jean-François TartuTartu is the second largest city of Estonia. In contrast to Estonia's political and financial capital Tallinn, Tartu is often considered the intellectual and cultural hub, especially since it is home to Estonia's oldest and most renowned university....
, 1997.