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  Memorandum of the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR L.P. Beria to I.V. Stalin on the eviction of Osadniks from Western Belarus and Ukraine

December 2, 1939

Top secret

No. 5332/6

AP RF. F. 3. On. 30. D. 199. L. 3-5. Script.

Central Committee of the CPSU (b)

Comrade STALIN

In December 1920, the former Polish government issued a decree on planting so-called osadniks in the border areas with the USSR.

The osadniks were selected exclusively from former Polish military personnel, were allocated land in an amount of up to 25 hectares, received agricultural implements and settled along the border of Soviet Belarus and Ukraine. Surrounded by attention and care, placed in good material conditions, the settlers were the backbone of the former government of Poland and Polish intelligence.

The bodies of the NKVD recorded 3998 families of settlers in Western Belarus and 9436 in Western Ukraine, and a total of 13,434 families. Of this number, the NKVD arrested 350 people.

In view of the fact that the osadniks provide fertile ground for all sorts of anti-Soviet actions, and in the vast majority, by virtue of their property status, they are undoubtedly enemies of the Soviet government, we consider it necessary to evict them, together with their families, from the areas they occupy.

In this regard, we ask you to approve the following actions:

1. To instruct the NKVD of the USSR to evict all settlers living in Western Belarus and Western Ukraine, together with their families, using them in the forestry developments of the USSR People's Commissariat of Forests in agreement with the latter.

2. The most malicious of the evicted, in respect of which materials will be received about their anti-Soviet and counter-revolutionary activities in the past or present, be arrested with the subsequent transfer of cases about them to a Special Conference.

3. To instruct the NKVD of the USSR within two decades to develop and submit for approval by the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR the procedure for resettling osadniks, providing for:

a) a list of property and small agricultural implements that may be taken by the evicted persons;

b) organization of special settlements for evicted in places of resettlement using the living quarters of the USSR People's Commissariat of Forests;

c) organization of commandant's offices of the NKVD at special settlements;

d) the funds needed to carry out this operation.

4. Establish that the livestock and basic agricultural implements of the deportees remain in place and are placed at the disposal of local authorities.

Instruct the Council of People's Commissars and the Central Committee of Belarus and Ukraine, within a two-decade period, to develop and submit for approval by the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR a procedure for using the real estate of the evicted settlers, their livestock and equipment.

5. The end date for the eviction is February 15, 1940.

People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR L. Beria

AP RF. F. 3. On. 30. D. 199. L. 3-5. Script.