BLOODLANDS CHAPTER TEN: ACCUSATIONS of SOVIET CRIMES NEAR the WAR'S END

Expulsion of German Colonists - Like Soviet Expulsion of Polish Osadnicy ("Settlers")

Snyder says, of the Germans expelled from Poland at the war's end:

Perhaps 1.5 million of them were German administrators and colonists, who would never have come to Poland without Hitler's war. They lived in houses or apartments that they had taken from Poles expelled (or killed) during the war or from Jews who had been killed. (314)

But the same had been true of the Polish imperialist "settlers" (Polish "osadnicy") sent by the Polish state after 1921 to "polonize" Western Ukraine and Belorussia, the areas seized by Poland from Soviet Russia by military conquest but in which Poles were a minority. Echoing Snyder's words they were indeed "Polish administrators and colonists, who would never have come to Western Belorussia and Western Ukraine without Pilsudski's war."

These lands were east of the Curzon Line. It is impossible to understand the history of this period and region without reference to the Curson Line. But Snyder never mentions it even once in Bloodlands. He writes of these areas as though they were "naturally" part of Poland, and therefore that there was something "unnatural," unjust, etc., that they should be reunited with Eastern Belorussia and Eastern Ukraine within the USSR. In reality Poland had conquered these lands through an imperialist war and treated their Ukrainian, Belorussian, and Jewish populations like colonial subjects in an imperialist - that is, brutal and racist, manner.

Poles Murdered Polish Jews

There were also many cases of Poles murdering Jews during the war to take their property and of Poles blackmailing Jews not to turn them into the Germans until the Jews ran out of money, and then turning them in. The cruelty and greed of these szantażysty or szmałcowniki (blackmailers) is commonly portrayed in accounts by Jews who hid in Poland during the war.

This is yet another way in which capitalist Poland resembles Nazi Germany. The Soviet Union was completely different. No one, not even Snyder, has ever accused the Soviet Army or Soviet citizens of acting in this way against Soviet Jews.

After the war was over there were many cases of Poles murdering Jews in order to keep the property they had taken from them while the Jews had been in hiding. The Polish Home Army, now underground "freedom fighters," and other Polish bands and gangs, killed a great many Jews, sometimes for their property, sometimes because, like the Nazis, many Polish nationalists equated Judaism with communism, sometimes because they did not consider Jews to be Poles and wanted Poland judenrein, "cleaned of Jews," just as the Nazis did.

Since he cites a number of the works produced by the researchers at the Research Center for the Holocaust ("Centrum Badań nad Zagładą Żydów") Snyder must know about them, and Snyder remains silent about them.

Rapes of German Women by Red Army Soldiers

During the march on Berlin, the Red Army followed a dreadfully simple procedure in the eastern lands of the Reich, the territories meant for Poland: its men raped German women and seized German men (and some women) for labor. The behavior continued as the soldiers reached the German lands that would remain in Germany, and finally Berlin. Red Army soldiers had also raped women in Poland, and in Hungary, and even in Yugoslavia, where a communist revolution would make the country a Soviet ally. Yugoslav communists complained to Stalin about the behavior of Soviet soldiers, who gave them a little lecture about soldiers and "fun." (316)

Source (n. 7 p. 498): "...Yugoslav quotation: Naimark, Russians, 71."

Snyder does not tell his readers the source here, which is Milovan Djilas's book Conversations with Stalin. Published in 1961, it appeared long after (a) the events described; (b) the very hostile break between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union; and (c) Djilas's own rejection of communism.

So Djilas's account, published 17 years after the fact, might be inaccurate because of his bias - Djilas hated Stalin, and by 1961 had come to hate communism - because the passage of time had reshaped his memory of events; or because he had fabricated it. Or, it might be accurate. We can't know. The historical principle of "Testis unus, testis nullus" - means that a single "witness," or piece of evidence to an event, is not enough to establish that the event actually occurred. (1)

This short passage illustrates why good historians insist upon source criticism - an examination of the source of the evidence. Any lawyer knows the importance of sources. If a defendant, or a witness, claims that a third party made a certain statement, opposing counsel is sure to ask: "What is your source? How do we know that statement is genuine?" But Snyder doesn't do this. He never does when it might call into question an otherwise perfectly good anti-Stalin or anticommunist statement.

So did Stalin say this? Given the source, we can't be sure. But one thing is certain: Stalin's alleged statement had nothing whatsoever to do with any rapes in Germany. Djilas states that it was made during his trip to Moscow "during the winter of 1944-1945" (p. 93). The war against Hitler was far from over and allegations of rape against German women had not yet been made.

Bottom line: We don't know whether Stalin made this statement - i.e. whether Djilas was reporting the truth or writing anticommunist propaganda. But we know it was not made with reference to Red Army rapes in Germany. Neither Naimark nor Snyder point this fact out.

On pp. 316-318 Snyder expatiates upon the widespread story of mass rapes of German women by Red Army soldiers. There are many Russian responses to this accusation, most of them defensive, some of them quoting accounts of exemplary treatment of German women by Red Army soldiers. There are also accounts of the rape of German women by Red Army soldiers who were then tried and shot or imprisoned. None of them have the kinds of well-founded total numbers that we would like to have.

The whole question has become so ideologically charged that it is hardly possible to get objective information. Nazi propaganda claimed a great many rapes, in order to strengthen resistance to the Red Army. Anticommunist propaganda since the war has made the claim of massive rape a central focus.

So, what was the situation? Were there "more rapes than could be expected" by Red Army men of German women? Most people want simple answers. But there aren't any simple answers here. The "massive rape" story is mainly spread by professional anticommunists who are not objective about anything else, so there's no reason to think they are objective in this matter either.

It has never even been established that there was a higher rate of rape by Red Army men - number of confirmed rapes divided by the number of soldiers - than there was in the other Allied armies. Also, the Red Army occupied areas that had sided with the Nazis and participated in the unprecedented slaughter of civilians and murder of Red Army prisoners, whereas much of the areas occupied by the Allies were anti-German. Other factors: German women could get abortions by claiming rape by a Soviet soldier, which must have led to some false claims. Allied soldiers could pay for sex with desperate women with food, cigarettes or other goods. Such arrangements were not considered "rape" though women in desperate need often had no choice.

The question of widespread rape by American soldiers, evidently encouraged by U.S. Army propaganda - moreover, in "friendly" countries such as France, rather than in pro-Nazi countries whose soldiers had participated in enormous atrocities in the USSR like Hungary, Rumania and Germany - has only recently begun to attract some attention. (2) The issue seems to be that publicity about rape by Red Army soldiers started some years earlier than that about rape by American soldiers and has been vigorously promoted for anticommunist purposes, as Snyder is doing.

Was there a high incidence of rape in the liberated USSR? I have attempted to survey the Russian-language literature on this question. As far as I can tell no one has alleged that this was the case. That tends to make me suspect that anger and resentment towards Germans and their allies were a major factor in whatever rapes occurred. So in one respect this is part of the anticommunist "numbers game" - to fabricate or multiply alleged Soviet atrocities.

On the other hand, given the unprecedented level of atrocities and destruction inflicted on the USSR by the German armies it would be surprising if there were not a higher level of rape of German, Hungarian, Rumanian etc., women by Red Army men than there were among Allied soldiers. But it is impossible to get any precise figures.

So we really do not know. Historians ought to admit ignorance on the basis of lack of good evidence, which is very often the case. But lack of evidence does not stop ideological anticommunists from drawing the conclusions they desire and then using their own fictions to moralize, in the manner of Josef Goebbels' diaries.

As so often, Stalin's crimes were enabled by Hitler's policies. (318)

"As so often" what? What "crimes"? Snyder has yet to establish a single "crime" of Stalin's. This is Snyder's anticommunism in overdrive again. It seems clear that Snyder will stoop to any propaganda technique to dishonestly associate the Soviet Union with Nazi Germany.

Snyder Barely Refers to the Real Genocide: the "Volhynian Massacres"

The Germans had killed about 1.3 million Jews in the former eastern Poland in 1941 and 1942, with the help of local policemen. Some of these Ukrainian policemen helped to form a Ukrainian partisan army in 1943, which under the leadership of Ukrainian nationalists cleansed the former southwest Poland - which it saw as western Ukraine - of remaining Poles. The OUN-Bandera, the nationalist organization that led the partisan army, had long pledged to rid Ukraine of its national minorities. Its capacity to kill Poles depended upon German training, and its determination to kill Poles had much to do with its desire to clear the terrain of purported enemies before a final confrontation with the Red Army. The UPA, as the partisan army was known, murdered tens of thousands of Poles, and provoked reprisals from Poles upon Ukrainian civilians.(326) (03)

Sources (n. 34, p. 500):

"Documentation of the UPA's plans for and actions toward Poles can be found in TsDAVO 3833/1/86/6a; 3833/1/131/13-14; 3833/1/86/19-20; and 3933/3/1/60. Of related interest are DAR 30/1/16=USHMM RG-31.017M-1; DAR 301/1/5=USHMM RG-31.017M-1; and DAR 30/1/4=USHMM RG-31.017M-1. These OUN-B and UPA wartime declarations coincide with postwar interrogations (see GARF, R-9478/1/398) and recollections of Polish survivors (on the massacre of 12-13 July 1943, for example, see OKAW, II/737, II/1144, II/2099, II/2650, II/953, and II/775) and Jewish survivors (for example, ŻIH 301/2519; and Adini, Dubno: sefer zikaron, 717-718). The fundamental study is now Motyka, Ukraińska partyzantka. See also Il'iushyn, OUN-UPA, and Armstrong, Ukrainian Nationalism. I sought to explain this conflict in "Causes," Reconstruction, "Life and Death," and Sketches.

This page contains the only reference in Bloodlands to the Volhynian Massacres of 50,000-100,000 or more Polish civilians by Ukrainian Nationalist forces armed by the Germans but acting on their own initiative. Snyder has researched these important and neglected mass murders and has published on them in the past. Yet he neglects them in Bloodlands. Why?

This was true genocide: an attempt to kill so many Poles that survivors would flee and rid the Ukraine of Poles completely. Even if the Soviet NKVD or army had been guilty of killing all the "Katyn" Poles - and we can now be certain that the "official version" of the Katyn massacre is false - that would be less than ½ to less than ¼ of the number of Poles murdered by the Ukrainian Nationalists. (4) Yet the Volhynian massacres are scarcely ever discussed! Snyder himself spends only one-half of one paragraph on it. Why?

Snyder follows contemporary Polish nationalist practice in virtually ignoring the Volhynian massacres in Bloodlands. The reason for this neglect seems to be that it is highly embarrassing to today's Ukrainian Nationalists, who heap praise upon the Ukrainian Nationalist forces as anti-Bolshevik "freedom fighters" despite the fact that they fought on the side of the Nazis and murdered, at the very least, hundreds of thousands of Jews and Poles. The state of Ukraine has periodically declared the same forces who were guilty of these horrific and massive atrocities - the OUN-Bandera, the 14ᵗʰ SS Division "Galizien," later renamed the "Ukrainian Insurgent Army" (Ukraïns'ka Povstans'ka Armiia) - to be "heroes."

It can hardly be a coincidence that the Volhynian massacres are also neglected in today's right-wing, capitalist Poland. Poland follows what is often called the 'Giedroyc doctrine," named for anti-communist political theorist Jerzy Giedroyc who proposed that the mass murders by Ukrainian nationalists by "forgotten" in the interests of good relations with post-Soviet Ukraine, while the "Katyn massacres" be emphasized as a political toll against Russia. According to Polish historian Bogumił Grott:

Do dziś pamiętam, jak Jerzy Giedroyć w radiowym wywiadzie, dokładnie dwa tygodnie przed śmiercią, problem mordów UPA na Polakach skwitował krótkim: „należy zapomnieć."

Translated:

I still remember how Jerzy Giedroyc in a radio interview given just two weeks before his death, briefly summed up the problem of the UPA murders of Poles: "We must forget them." (5)

Since Snyder follows this practice we note that he expresses his gratitude towards Jerzy Giedroyc:

The late Jerzy Giedroyc, ...helped me to ask some of the right questions. (421)

In the immediate post-Soviet period Polish researchers finally began to publish lengthy, well-documented accounts of the really hair-raising atrocities committed by Ukrainian nationalist soldiers against Polish civilians in order to drive them out of Western Ukraine. This brought attention to these horrific mass murders for the first time and caused a lot of embarrassment between anticommunist Poland and anticommunist Ukraine.

In 2003 the two highly anticommunist states organized a sort of "reconciliation" conference. Since that time the Polish side has relented somewhat. Both sides agreed that "It was a long time ago and everybody who did it is dead" - not true, of course, even today, much less a decade ago. They evidently want to bury the hatchet about all these mass murders, including retributive killings of perhaps 10,000-20,000 Ukrainian civilians by Polish forces, so they could get back to their primary business - blaming Stalin, communism, the Soviet Union, and Russia for all bad things. This attempt at coverup has been under way for the past decade.

The more publicity the Volhynian massacres got, the worse the anticommunist Ukrainian and Polish forces seem. Even the "Katyn massacre" pales in comparison! And this tells us something about the enormous publicity and propaganda given in today's Poland to Katyn. Clearly this is not at all about the victims but about anti-communism, and also about keeping anti-Russian sentiment alive. Polish nationalism is largely based on anti-Russian propaganda. This is a plausible hypothesis to explain why Snyder devotes less than a paragraph to these massacres.

Snyder asserts that the book by his friend Grzegorz Motyka, Ukraińska partyzantka 1942-1960 is "now the fundamental study." Hardly! Motyka's book is only partly about the Volhynian massacres. Much of the rest of it is about the "heroic" struggle of Ukrainian nationalist - and fascist - partisans against the Soviets.

Motyka has been a member of the "Instytut Pamięti Narodowej," the Polish "Institute of the People's Memory," a fanatically nationalist research-propaganda group funded by the Polish government and innocent of any aim of objectivity. The IPN's President takes an oath "to the Polish people." This is reminiscent of Nazi practice - who is to define what constitutes "loyalty to the people?" And who are "the people" anyway? Moreover, historians are supposed to be loyal to the truth, not to their own Volk.

Imagine what American historians would think of an organization name "Institute of the American People's Memory." It would be immediately recognized as a far-right nationalist effort and scorned by all respected historians. The IPN is primarily anticommunist and anti-Soviet. No objective historian would associate with it, just as no objective historian would associate with the Hoover Institution in Palo Alto, California, a similar anticommunist propaganda mill in the guise of a "research center."

Yet Motyka appears to disagree with Snyder on the question of Volhynian massacres. Motyka wrote a long essay in Gazeta Wyborcza titled "Forget About Giedroyc: Poles, Ukrainians, and the IPN." (6) He takes the position that the Ukrainian massacres of Poles were "one of the bloodiest Polish episodes of the Second World War and must not be forgotten." Motyka does not shrink from calling these massacres "genocide" (ludobójstwo). Motyka also admits that "some actions of the Polish underground could also be called genocide", such as the murders of dozens of Belorussians in 1946 or murders of 200 Ukrainians in June 1945, both after the war.

According to Motyka there are very few memorials concerning these horrific mass murders in Poland today:

To wstyd, że do takich miejsc jak masowy grób w wołyńskiej Parośli można dotrzeć tylko leśnym duktem zrytym przez dziki.

Translated:

It is shameful that places like the mass grave in Parośla, Volhynia, can only be reached only by a forest path cut through wilderness. (7)

Motyka makes the gesture of mentioning Soviet "crimes" and falsely claims that the Soviets wanted to "annihilate class enemies" - something the Soviets never advocated. These are general remarks apparently obligatory for Polish historians today. If the Soviets, or pro-Soviet partisans, had ever done anything remotely resembling the mass murders carried out not only by Ukrainian nationalist forces but by the Polish Home Army and NSZ underground "in response" to the Ukrainian mass murders, the whole world would have known about it for decades. There would be many large, expensive memorials to the victims, a library of books exposing the "communist atrocities," and no doubt lawsuits for damages before the European Court of Human Rights.

The reality is that there is no such evidence that the Soviets and pro-Soviet forces ever did anything like this. This is another reminder that it is the Polish and Ukrainian "freedom fighters", rather than the Soviet Union, who most resemble the Nazis.

The point, though, is that Motyka does not advocate downplaying Ukrainian massacres, as in practice Snyder does. The fundamental study of these horrendous events remains that by Władysław and Ewa Siemaszko. (8) A number of books are available in Russian. For a brief English introduction see the Internet page "Genocide Committed by Ukrainian Nationalists in Occupied Poland." (9)

The eagerness of Polish and Ukrainian nationalist elites to "bury the hatchet" over 50,000 to 100,000 or more atrocious murders contrasts with the Polish elite's never-ending complaints about the Katyn massacres with comprised 1/4 or 1/7 the number of victims. Moreover, as we have discussed in a previous chapter the "official" version has now been definitively disproven. In like manner Snyder devotes less than a paragraph to these horrifying massacres while inventing Soviet "atrocities" left and right.

More False Numbers of "Victims"

Between 1944 and 1946, for example, 182,543 Ukrainians were deported from Soviet Ukraine to the Gulag: not for committing a particular crime, not even for being Ukrainian nationalists, but for being related to or acquainted with Ukrainian nationalists. At about the same time, in 1946 and 1947, the Soviets sentenced 148,079 Red Army veterans to the Gulag for collaboration with the Germans. There were never more Soviet citizens in the Gulag than in the years after the war; indeed, the number of Soviet citizens in the camps and special settlements increased every year from 1945 until Stalin's death. (328)

Sources (n. 36 p. 500):

* "On the 182,543 Ukrainians deported from Soviet Ukraine to the Gulag, see Weiner, "Nature," 1137." 

* "On the 148,079 Red Army veterans, see Polian, "Violence," 129." 

* "See also, generally, Applebaum, Gulag, 463."

In an article published since Bloodlands Snyder claimed even more:

At war's end, the Ukrainian nationalists were defeated by the Soviets, who killed tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians and deported hundreds of thousands more to concentration camps. (2011-3)

This is all false. Snyder presents no evidence whatsoever that any Ukrainian civilians were killed, much less "tens of thousands."

According to the authoritative collection of Soviet documents published by the highly anticommunist "Memorial" society in 2005 the number of all persons deported from the Ukraine between 1944 and 1948 inclusive is 131,935. This number includes 16,996 persons from the following groups: German repatriates, family members of convicted traitors, convicted German citizens of the USSR (e.g. Volga Germans, called "Fol'ksdoich"), and those who had served in the German military or police formations. Subtracting these, the total number of Ukrainian nationalists is 114,969 (another possible total number from the same report is 114,936). (Stalinskie Deportatsii 630-1) These people were not sent to "camps" but were "exiled" (ssylka) to the Eastern USSR.

Snyder cites an article by Amir Weiner published in 1999. The citation and its footnote may be found in the Appendix to this chapter. (10) As usual, the "devil is in the details" - the evidence.

Weiner's figure of 110,825 "nationalists killed" (see the first quotation in the Appendix to this chapter) comes from a secondary source written by a Ukrainian nationalist, as does the figure of 182,543 deported between 1944 and 1952. The number from Nikolai Fiodrovich Bugai, the leading Russian scholar on deportations, covers the years 1939 to 1945, meaning all the Polish "settlers" deported from the Western Ukraine in 1939-1940, as well as during the war. Bugai also explicitly includes deportations of Germans and others from this area (Bugai 12, 13). It tells us nothing about the period from 1944 onward.

Weiner claims the Soviets "emphasized almost total annihilation" since they "repeatedly failed to mention prisoners taken alive." This is false. Weiner is in error. Bugai is the acknowledged Russian specialist on deportations and is conveniently anticommunist and anti-Stalin. In the Appendix to this chapter the reader will find primary source evidence printed by Bugai with emphasis added at the passages referring to the large numbers of prisoners taken. Bugai cites primary sources - Beria's reports to Stalin - that speak of tens of thousands of prisoners and those who have turned themselves in.

Elsewhere Weiner uses and cites Bugai's work. So how can Weiner - Snyder's source here - state that "the campaign against nationalists" was "a war without prisoners"? How can he talk about "NKVD reports" failing "to mention prisoners taken alive, emphasizing almost total annihilation"? The answer appears to be that Weiner doesn't use Bugai here. Instead he cites Ukrainian nationalist historians. Ukrainian nationalists (like Polish, Baltic, etc. nationalists) have every reason to falsify and exaggerate Soviet "atrocities." This is the only way they have to try to excuse, or at least explain, the important role Ukrainian nationalist forces played in the Holocaust of the Jews and in the Volhynian massacres of 50,000 to 100,000 or more Polish civilians.

The Soviets did indeed "kill tens of thousands" in the Ukraine: not civilians, as Snyder falsely claims, but OUN-UPA fighters. No country would fail to combat armed bands within its own territory. Moreover, these forces had fought on the Nazi side and helped carry out the Holocaust, to say nothing of the mass murders of Polish and Soviet civilians.

As for the number deported, Snyder's claim of "hundreds of thousands" "deported to concentration camps" is fallacious. Sovetskie deportatsii, the collection of primary sources cited above, published in 2005, give the figure of 37,145 persons during 1944-1946.

Polian, "Violence," 129, cites the same number - 148,079. Here is the passage:

En 1946-1947, 148 079 "Vlassoviens," furent exilés pour une durée de six ans avec le statut de "colons de travail" dans les regions les plus inhospitalières de l'URSS. (129)

Translated:

In 1946-1947, 148,079 "Vlassovites" were exiled for a period of six years with the status of "labor colonists" to the most inhospitable regions of the USSR.

Polian's source is a Russian study published in 1992 by Guboglo and Kuznetsov. However, it's just as likely that Polian just copied this from the end of the twelfth chapter of the notorious Black Book of Communism, since both the same number and same reference are given.

Snyder, remember, said that these were "Red Army veterans," and then referred to Polian. But his own source Polian calls them "Vlassoviens," men who had been recruited to Nazi armies, such as the Vlasov army. Snyder has lied about this to make it look to the reader as though Red Army soldiers were sent to the Gulag.

Applebaum, Gulag, 463 contains no information of relevance to this paragraph.

Snyder continues: 

In a few days in October 1947, some 76,192 Ukrainians were transported to the Gulag. (329)

Sources (n. 38 p. 501): Motyka, UkraiÅ„ska partyzantka, 535. 

Motyka, Ukraińska partyzantka, 535 does give number 76,192. But Snyder has falsified what occurred. In fact, they were not sent to the Gulag - that is, to camps - but were exiled. The relevant document - by Kruglov, Minister of the MVD (Ministry of Internal Affairs, successor to the NKVD) may be found in the Appendix to this chapter.

Snyder Cares About "Elites." About Other People? Not So Much...

Snyder:

Men of elite families were killed at Katyn and other sites... (380)

Let's set aside for a moment the fact that Snyder has not even tried to establish what happened at Katyn, nor to inform his readers of the scholarly controversy that exists over this event. (11) Once again, it is revealing that Snyder cares about "elites" so much. It is an example of Snyder's deeply reactionary way of thinking.

Of course it is a historical truism that all progressive social and political upheavals and revolutions target "elites." Slave revolts and peasant revolts throughout history; the English Revolution of the mid-17áµ—Ê° century; the American Revolution; the French Revolution; the United States' defeat of the Confederacy in the American Civil War; the Russian Revolution, the Yugoslav, Chinese, and Vietnamese revolutions, and many others - all disproportionately targeted "elites" because those "elites" were the exploiters or their agents. History shows that the common working people can do without the wealthy "elites" very well indeed!

Leading about 120,000 special forces, he {Lavrentii Beria} rounded up and expelled 478,479 people in just over a week... Because no Chechens or Ingush were to be left behind, people who could not be moved were shot. Villages were burned to the ground everywhere; in some places, barns full of people were burned as well. (330)

Sources (n. 41 p. 501):

* "See Polian, Against Their Will, 134-155, for all of the cited figures." 

* "See also Naimark, Fires, 96"; 

* Lieberman, Terrible Fate, 206-207"; 

* Burleigh, Third Reich, 749.

Snyder is wrong again. There is no evidence that anyone "who could not be moved" was "shot"; nor that any "villages were burned to the ground," much less "everywhere"; nor that "barns full of people were burned as well." The story about one barn of people being burned alive - not multiple barns, as Snyder claims - is a forgery, probably American in origin due to the clumsy literal translation of into Russian of American "intelligence slang." It is thoroughly discussed and refuted in the two works cited in this footnote. (12)

Snyder fails to inform his readers about this research. Does he even know anything about this issue? If not, why write about it - except to make anticommunist propaganda?

Lieberman, Terrible Fate 206-7 quotes a Chechen nationalist source that records only that some people did die on the journey. It does not record the number, for which see below.

Nikolai Bugai is the most authoritative Russian expert on deportations, and an anti-Stalinist to boot. Here is what he has written:

Operation Chechevitsa, which began on 23 February, was completed sometime during the third week of March. NKVD records attest to 180 convoy trains carrying 493,269 Chechen and Ingush nationals and members of other nationalities seized at the same time. Fifty people were killed in the course of the operation, and 1,272 died on the journey. 

Other reports indicate that during the Cheka military actions and the resettlement 2,016 Chechen and Ingush anti-Soviet elements were arrested, and 20,072 firearms and 479 submachine guns were confiscated. (13) (Emphasis added, GF.)

Naimark, Fires of Hatred 96, agrees with Bugai: "the NKVD reported only sporadic cases of resistance." (14)

The "Numbers Game" Again, Falsified Once More

Snyder writes:

In all of the civil conflict, flight, deportation, and resettlement provoked or caused by the return of the Red Army between 1943 and 1947, some 700,000 Germans died, as did at least 150,000 Poles and perhaps 250,000 Ukrainians. At a minimum, another 300,000 Soviet citizens dead during or shortly after the Soviet deportations from the Caucasus, Crimea, Moldova, and the Baltic States. If the struggles of the Lithuanian, Latvian, and Estonian nationalists against the reimposition of Soviet power are regarded as resistance to deportations, which in some measure they were, another hundred thousand or so people would have to be added to the total dead associated with ethnic cleansing. (332)

Sources (n. 43 p. 501):

* "Weiner ("Nature," 1137) notes that the Soviets reported killing 110,825 people as Ukrainian nationalists between February 1944 and May 1946. 

* "The NKVD estimated that 144,705 Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, and Karachai died as a result of deportation or shortly after resettlement (by 1948); see Lieberman, Terrible Fate, 207."

Snyder gives no source at all for his figures of the deaths of 700,000 Germans, "at least" 150,000 Poles, and "perhaps 250,000 Ukrainians." Nor does he give any evidence for his blaming the Red Army for whatever deaths did occur. Weiner's fraudulent claim of "110,825 people killed" has been refuted above.

Snyder gives no evidence for the deaths of 100,000 Baltic nationalists. Nor does he tell his readers that Nazi collaborators in the Baltics and Baltic participants in the Holocaust described themselves as "nationalists," hoping that the word "nationalist" would "justify" their anti-Soviet terrorism. We should recall that all fascists justified their fascism as "nationalism."

As for this claim of Snyder's:

The NKVD estimated that 144,705 Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, and Karachai died as a result of deportation or shortly after resettlement (by 1948); see Lieberman, Terrible Fate, 207.

This too is a falsification. We have seen that Bugai published the NKVD report that 50 Chechen and Ingush died during deportation. We have no way of knowing how many of the 493,000 who were deported would have died during the same time period had they remained in their villages. Surely some would have, so the 1272 who "died on the journey" cannot all be persons who would not have died as a result of the deportation.

During 1946-47 there was a serious famine in the USSR. The famine was caused by catastrophic weather conditions. No doubt it was made even worse by the massive destruction of the war. Nor was the famine not confined to the USSR. According to Stephen Wheatcroft, who has written the latest study of the Soviet famine of 1946-1947:

The World Food Crisis of 1946-1947 was the most serious global food shortage of modern history, when famine simultaneously threatened Central and Eastern Europe, India, Indo-China, and China, and bread rationing was introduced in Britain for the first time ever. The British and American governments had requested food aid from Stalin to ease the World Food Crisis before they became aware of the situation in the USSR. The international context of the Soviet famine of 1946-1947 was strikingly different to 1921, when America had been able to provide large amounts of relief grain to Russia. (15) 

Claiming that the deaths of whatever number "by 1948" were "a result of deportation" is plainly dishonest. As Snyder notes, Lieberman makes this claim on page 207 of his book. His source is an early book of Bugai, who cites the number 144,704. Bugai wrote:

According to the NKVD Department on Special Settlements, among all deported Chechens, Ingush, Balkarians (1944) and Karachai (1943) during 1944-1948, 144,704 persons died (23.7%), i.e. in Kazakhstan, - 101,036 Chechen, Ingush and Balkarians; in Uzbekistan, - 16,052 (10.6%) persons (during a 6-month stay); in 1948 - 13,883 persons (9.8%). (16)

In this same article Bugai also says that between 1944 and 1946 "1468 deported people died in Kazakhstan." This refutes the accusation that those who died "by 1948" died as a result of deportation. Neither Lieberman nor Snyder mentions this fact. Nor do they calculate the number of deaths above the normal mortality rate for the large population there. Bugai also discusses the extra provisions allotted by the Soviet state to deportees (pp. 117ff).

Immediately after the paragraph above Bugai adds the sentence:

The number of sources for this study is very poor.

Neither Lieberman nor Snyder mention that either. In fact, this short book by Bugai, published in English in 1996, is the translation of an article published in 1989 - that is, before the end of the USSR. (17) Better documentation began to appear after the end of the USSR in 1991. In 1998 Bugai and his associate Gomov wrote the account quoted above. It appears that he does not repeat the death figures he cited in 1989. Lieberman (206-7) repeats undocumented stories of many deaths during the deportation. Bugai relates some of them too. But he also reports the official accounts, above.

As others have suggested, it is very likely that the official, and very low, estimates of the deaths are accurate. There would certainly have been a head count at the end of the journey. Discrepancies would have raised the suspicion that, for example, NKVD men might have let some persons escape in exchange for bribes. Therefore it is unlikely that many - if indeed any - persons died and were buried along the route, in addition to those reported.

In his 1992 book Ikh nado deportirovat' Bugai quotes selections of a "report of the section of special resettlement of the MVD of the USSR concerning work among those resettled" and dated April 10, 1953 where the same number of those who died, 144,705, is also cited.

(...) С момента расселения до настоящего времени на спецпоселении родилось 82 391 чел., в том числе: детей бывших кулаков- 22 209, немцев- 22 210, чеченцев, ингушей, балкарцев, карачаевцев- 26 002, других контингентов- 11 970.

(...) Из общего числа умерших 309 100 чел. умерло после высылки на спецпоселение: чеченцев, карачаевцев, ингушеи, балкарцев- 144 704, немцев- 42 823, спецпоселенцев из Крыма- 44 887, калмыков- 16 594, турок, курдов, хемшинов- 14 895, членов семей оуновцев- 10 384, бывших кулаков- 30 194, других контингентов- 5958 чел. 

Наибольший процент смертности имелся среди спецпоселенцев, переселеиных в 1944 г. Так, из общего количества переселенцев в этом году до настоящего времени умерло: чеченцев, ингушей, балкарцев, карачаевцев- 23,7%, крымских татар, болгар, греков, армян- 19,6%, калмыков- 17,4%, турок, курдов, хемшшюв- 14,6%. - pp. 264-5.

Translated:

(...) From the moment of resettlement {February 1944} to the present time in the special settlements 82,391 people have been born, including: children of former kulaks, 22,209, Germans, 22,210, Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, and Karachai 26,002, others 11,970... 

The greatest per centage of mortality is among those special resettled persons who were resettled in 1944. Of the total number of persons resettled in that year to the present time there have died: Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, Karachai - 23.7%; Crimean Tatars, Bulgarians, Greeks, Armenians - 19.6%, Kalmyks - 17.4%, Turks, Kurds, Khemshshiuv - 14.6%... (Emphasis added.)

It appears as though the relevant figures are for the period between "the moment of resettlement" - i.e., of deportation - "to the present time": that is, between 1944 and 1953. (18) This would contradict Bugai's earlier statement that the period in question was 1944-1948.

Why Did Stalin Reject Marshall Plan Aid?

In 1947 it {the United States} offered economic aid, in the form of the Marshall Plan, to European countries willing to cooperate with one another on elementary matters of trade and financial policy. Stalin could reject Marshall aid and force his clients to reject is as well,... (335)

The Soviet Union did reject Marshall Plan aid - because it appeared to be an attempt to subvert its influence in Europe. Geoffrey Roberts writes:

Although the Americans were thinking mainly in terms of Western Europe, the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe were not excluded from the proposed aid programme. Indeed the British and French governments responded to Marshall's Harvard speech by inviting the Russians to a conference in Paris to discuss a European response to the plan. In Moscow, however, the Soviets were in two minds. On the one hand, they welcomed the possibility of American loans and grants, for themselves and for their East European allies. On the other, they feared that the Marshall Plan was an economic counterpart of the Truman Doctrine - a means of using American financial muscle to build an anti-Soviet alliance in Western Europe. 

At the Paris conference in July 1947 Moscow's worst fears were realized. The British and French insisted (in accordance with Marshall's express wishes) that any American aide programme had to be co-coordinated and organized on a pan-Europe basis. This was seen by the Soviets as a western device for interference in the economic and political life of the East European countries. Such interference was completely unacceptable to Stalin. Consequently the USSR withdrew from all negotiations concerning the Marshall Plan and insisted its East European allies did not participate either. (19)

Did Non-Collectivized Agriculture "Save" the Ukraine from Famine?

Ukrainians returned to a country where famine was raging again. Perhaps a million people starved to death in the two years after the war. It was western Ukraine, with a private agricultural sector that the Soviets had not yet had time to collectivize, that saved the rest of Soviet Ukraine from even greater suffering."

Source (n. 44 p. 501): "Survivors of the famine mention this in their memoirs. See Potichnij, "1946-1947 Famine," 185.

Potichnij's study is published in a right-wing Ukrainian nationalist book and is not referred to by any expert scholars on the subject. The latest study of the 1946-7 famine is that by Stephen Wheatcroft. Snyder offers no evidence that uncollectivized Western Ukraine "saved" the Soviet Union in the famine of 1947 or, indeed, that collectivization had anything to do at all with the famine. As the quotation from Wheatcroft's article cited above shows, there was still a bread shortage in the U.K. although, of course, agriculture was not collectivized there. Wheatcroft says nothing specifically about the harvest in Western Ukraine.

Footnotes

(1) See the explanation here: http://dic.academia.ru/dic.nsf/latin_proverbs/2504/Testis

(2) Jennifer Schluesser, "The Dark Side of Liberation," New York Times May 21, 2013 p. C1.

(3) For a brief overview in Polish see Ewa Siemaszko, "Genocyd Polaków na Wołyniu i w Galicji Wschodniej (1942/1943-1946/1947)" (December, 2009): http://szturman.livejournal.com/260126.html

There is a Russian translation: Геноцид Поляков на Волыни И В Восточной Галици: http://misha18.livejournal.com/35007.html

(4) See the discussion above in Chapter Ten

(5) Bogumił Grott, Wiktor Poliszczuk - historyk przemilczanych zbrodni, '27 Dywizja Wołyńska AK, Biuletyn Informacyjny, nr 1(101), styczeń-marzec 2009 Warszawa, s. 27: : http://ien.pl/index.php/archives/1217

(6) "Zapomnijcie o Giedroyciu: Polacy, Ukraińcy, IPN." Gazeta Wyborcza May 24, 2008.

(7) Parośla is in the Lublin region of Poland almost at the border of Belarus and a little north of the border with Ukraine. The tiny monument can be seen at the Polish Wikipedia page: http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zbrodnia_w_Parośli_I

(8) Ludobójstwo dokonane przez nacjonalistów ukraińskich na ludności polskiej Wołynia 1939-1945 (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo "von Borowiecky" 2000), in two volumes, 1433 pages in length. Motyka's work has been criticized as apologetic towards the Ukrainian Nationalists. See Zbigniew Małyszczycki, Motykowanie historii: http://chomikuj.pl/henrypk/Galeria/KRESY/Motykowanie+historii.pdf

Russian translation, Мотыкование истории: http://poacher.borda.ru/?1-11-0-00000016-000-0-0

(9) At http://electronicmuseum.ca/Poland-WW2/ukrainian_insurgent_atrocities/uia.html The Russian language Wikipedia page is helpful as an introduction: http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Волынская_резня

(10) See Chapter 13 - Appendix at http://tinurl.com/blood-lies-appendix-ch13

(11) In reality, as we have argued earlier in this book, the "official version" of the Katyn massacre cannot possibly be true - a fact that anticommunists try to hide at any cost. See also Furr, Official Version

(12) Pykhalov, Igor'. Mestechkovye strasti v chechnskikh gorakh. In his book (with A. Diukov), Velikaia obolgannaia voina, 2, chapter 2. It may be read online (in Russian) here: http://militera.lib.ru/research/pyhalov_dukov/02.html

Nikita Mendkovich, "Khaibakhskoe delo", in the online history journal Aktual'naia Istoriia (Current History): http://actualhistory.ru/poilemics-haibach

(13) N.F. Bugai and A.M. Gonov. "The Forced Evacuation of the Chechens and the Ingush." Russian Studies in History, vol.41, no.2, Fall 2002, pp.43-61, at p.56

(14) An associate of the Hoover Institution, Naimark is an ideological anticommunist, so he writes: "Anyone who resisted was shot." There is no evidence for this assertion. It is likely that those who offered armed resistance were shot, but they were few.

(15) Wheatcroft, "The Soviet Famine of 1946-1947, the Weather and Human Agency in Historical Perspective." Europe-Asia Studies 64:6 (2012), 1004.

(16) Nikolai F. Bougai. The Deportation of Peoples in the Soviet Union. New York: Nova Science Publishers, 1996, page 98.

(17) Н.Ф. Бугай. "К вопросу о депортации народов СССР в 30-40 годах." История СССР 1989 (6), 135-144.

(18) Because of the excerpted nature of the document Bugai cites it is impossible to be certain what the period of time is.

(19) "Historians and the Cold War," History Review December 2000.