# Regarding the Procedure for carrying out the Deportation of Anti-Soviet Elements from Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia

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Original reference: US Congress. House. Report of the Select Committee to Investigate Communist Aggression and the Forced Incorporation of the Baltic States into the USSR. Third Interim Report, pp. 464-68. Washington: G.P.O., 1954. (original, US House of Representatives, files of Baltic Committee, Exhibit 16-H of 12.X.53.)
Regarding the Procedure for carrying out the Deportation of Anti-Soviet Elements from Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.
STRICTLY SECRET.
1. General Situation
The deportation of anti-Soviet elements from the Baltic Republics is a task of great political importance. Its successful execution depends upon the extent to which the district operative "troikas" and operative headquarters are capable of carefully working out a plan for executing the operations and for anticipating everything indispensable.
Moreover, care must be taken that the operations are carried out without disturbances and panic, so as not to permit any demonstrations and other trouble not only on the part of those to be deported, but also on the part of a certain section of the surrounding population hostile to the Soviet administration.
Instructions as to the procedure for conducting the operations are given below. They should be adhered to, but in individual cases the collaborators engaged in carrying out the operations shall take into account the special character of the concrete conditions of such operations and, in order correctly to appraise the situation, may and must adopt other decision directed to the same end, viz., to fulfill the task entrusted to them without noise and panic.
2. Procedure of Instructing
The instructing of operative groups by the district "troika" shall be done as speedily as possible on the day before the beginning of the operations, taking into consideration the time necessary for travelling to the scene of operations.
The district "troika" shall previously prepare the necessary transport for conveyance of the operative groups in the village to the scene of operations.
On the question of allocating the necessary number of motor-cars and wagons for transport, the district "troika" shall consult the leaders of the Soviet party organized on the spot.
Premises for the issue of instructions must be carefully prepared in advance, and their capacity, exits and entrances and the possibility of intrusion by strangers must be considered.
Whilst instructions are being issued the building must be carefully guarded by operative workers.
Should anybody from amongst those participating in the operation fail to appear for instructions, the district "troika" shall at once take steps to replace the absentee from a reserve which shall be provided in advance.
Through police officers the "troika" shall notify to those assembled a division of the government for the deportation of a prescribed number contingent of anti-Soviet elements from the territory of the said republic or region. Moreover, they shall briefly explain what the deportees represent.
The special attention of the (local) Soviet party workers gathered for instructions shall be drawn to the fact that the deportees are enemies of the Soviet people and that the possibility of an armed attack on the part of the deportees cannot be excluded.
3. Procedure for Acquisition of Documents
After the general instructions of the operative groups, documents regarding the deportees should be issued to such groups. The deportees' personal files must be previously collected and distributed among the operative groups, by communes and villages, so that when they are being given out there shall be no delays.
After receipt of personal files, the senior member of the operative group shall acquaint himself with the personal affairs of the families which he will have to deport. He shall, moreover, ascertain the composition of the family, the supply of essential forms for completion regarding the deportee, the supply of transport for conveyance of the deportee, and he shall receive exhaustive answers to questions not clear to him.
Simultaneously with the issuing of documents, the district "troika" shall explain to each senior member of the operative group where the families to be exported are situated and shall describe the route to be followed to the place of deportation. The roads to be taken by the operative personnel with the deported families to the railway station for entrainment shall be indicated. It is also essential to indicate where reserve military groups are stationed, should it be necessary to call them out during trouble of any kind.
The possession and state of arms and ammunition of the entire operative personnel shall be checked. Weapons must be in complete battle readiness and magazines loaded, but the cartridge shall not be slipped into the rifle breech. Weapons shall be used only as a last resort, when the operative group is attacked or threatened with attack or when resistance is offered.
4. Procedure for Carrying out Deportations
If the deportation of several families is being carried out in a settled locality, one of the operative workers shall be appointed senior as regards deportation in that village, and under his direction the operative personnel shall proceed to the villages in question. On arrival in the villages, the operative group shall get in touch (observing the necessary secrecy) with the local authorities; the chairman, secretary or members of the village soviets, and shall ascertain from them the exact dwelling-place of the families to be deported.
After this the operative groups, together with the representatives of the local authorities, who shall be appointed to make an inventory of property, shall proceed to the dwellings of the families to be deported. Operations shall begin at daybreak. Upon entering the home of the person to be deported, the senior member of the operative group shall assemble the entire family of the deportee into one room, taking all necessary precautionary measures against any possible trouble.
After the members of the family have been checked in conformity with the list, the location of those absent and the number of sick persons shall be ascertained, after which they shall be called upon to give up their weapons. Irrespective of whether or not any weapons are delivered, the deportee shall be personally searched and then the entire premises shall be searched in order to discover hidden weapons.
During the search of the premises one of the members of the operative group shall be appointed to keep watch over the deportees.
Should the search disclose hidden weapons in small quantities, these shall be collected by the operative groups and distributed among them. If many weapons are discovered, they shall be piled into the wagon or motor-car which has brought the operative group, after any ammunition in them has been removed. Ammunition shall be packed together with rifles.
If necessary, a convoy for transporting the weapons shall be mobilized with an adequate guard.
In the event of the discovery of weapons, counter-revolutionary pamphlets, literature, foreign currency, large quantities of valuables etc., a brief report of search shall be drawn up on the spot, wherein the hidden weapons or counter-revolutionary literature shall be indicated. If there is any armed resistance, the question of the necessity of arresting the parties, showing such armed resistance, and of sending them to the district branch of the People's Commissariat of Public Security shall be decided by the district "troika".
A report shall be drawn up regarding the deportees in hiding or sick ones, and this report shall be signed by the representative of the Soviet party organization.
After completing the search of the deportees they shall be notified that by a Government decision they will be deported to other regions of the Union.
The deportees shall be permitted to take with them household necessities not exceeding 100 kilograms in weight.
1. Suit. 2. Shoes. 3. Underwear. 4. Bedding. 5. Dishes. 6. Glassware. 7. Kitchen utensils. 8. Foods, an estimated month's supply for a family. 9. Money in their possession. 10. Trunk or box in which to pack articles. It is not recommended that large articles be taken.
If the contingent is deported from rural districts, they shall be allowed to take with them small agricultural stocks-axes, saws, and other articles, so that when boarding the deportation train they may be loaded into special goods wagons.
In order not to mix them with articles belonging to others, the Christian name, patronymic and surname of the deportee and name of the village shall be written on the packed property.
When loading these articles into the carts, measures shall be taken so that the deportee cannot make use of them for purposes of resistance while the column is moving along the highway.
Simultaneously with the task of loading by the operative groups, the representatives of the Soviet party organizations present at the time prepare an inventory of the property and of the manner of its protection in conformity with the instructions received by them.
If the deportee possesses his own means of transport, his property shall be loaded into the vehicle and together with his family shall be sent to the designated place of entrainment.
If the deportees are without means of transport, carts shall be mobilized in the village by the local authorities, as instructed by the senior member of the operative group.
All persons entering the home of the deportee during the execution of the operations or found there at the moment of these operations must be detained until the conclusion of the operations, and their relationship to the deportee shall be ascertained. This is done in order to disclose persons hiding from the police, gendarmes and other persons. After verification of the identity of the detained persons and establishment of the fact that they are persons in whom the contingent is not interested they shall be liberated.
If the inhabitants of the village begin to gather around the deportees' home while operations are in progress, they shall be called upon to disperse to their own homes, and crowds shall not be permitted to form. If the deportee refuses to open the door of his home, notwithstanding that he is aware that the members of the People's Commissariat for Public Security have arrived, the door must be broken down. In individual cases neighbouring operative groups carrying out operations in that locality shall be called upon to help.
The delivery of the deportees from the village to the meeting place at the railway station must be effected during daylight; care, moreover, should be taken that the assembling of every family shall not last more than two hours.
In all cases throughout the operations firm and decisive action shall be taken, without the slightest excitement, noise and panic.
It is categorically forbidden to take any articles away from the deportees except weapons, counter-revolutionary literature and foreign currency, as also to make use of the deportees food.
All participants in the operations must be warned that they will be held legally accountable for attempts to appropriate individual articles belonging to the deportees.
5. Procedure for Separating a Deportee's Family from the Head of the Family
In view of the fact that a large number of deportees must be arrested and distributed in special camps and that their families must proceed to special settlements in distant regions, it is essential that the operations of removal of both the members of the deportee's family and its head shall be carried out simultaneously, without notifying them of the separation confronting them. After the domiciliary search has been carried out and the appropriate identification documents have been drawn up in the deportee's home, the operative worker shall complete the documents for the head of the family and deposit them in the latter's personal file, but the documents drawn up for members of his family shall be deposited in the personal file of the deportee's family. The convoy of the entire family to the station shall, however, be effected in one vehicle and only at the station of departure shall the head of the family be placed separately from his family in a car specially intended for heads of families.
During the assembling (of the family) in the home of the deportee the head of the family shall be warned that personal male effects must be packed in a separate suitcase, as a sanitary inspection of the deported men will be made separately from the women and children.
At the stations of entrainment heads of families subject to arrest shall be loaded into cars specially allotted to them, which shall be indicated by operative workers appointed for that purpose.
6. Procedure for convoying the Deportees
The assistants convoying the column of deportees in horse-carts are strictly forbidden to sit in the said carts. The assistants must follow alongside and behind the column of deportees. The senior assistant of the convoy shall from time of time go the rounds of the entire column to check the correctness of the movement.
When the column of the deportees is passing through inhabited places or when encountering passers-by, the convoy must be controlled with particular care; those in charge must see that no attempts are made to escape, and no conversation of any kind shall be permitted between the deportees and passers-by.
7. Procedure for Entrainment
At each point of entrainment a member of the operative "troika" and a person specially appointed for that purpose shall be responsible for entrainment.
On the day of entrainment the chief of the entrainment point, together with the chief of the deportation train and of the convoying military forces of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs, shall examine the railway cars provided in order to see that they are supplied with everything necessary, and the chief of the entrainment point shall agree with the chief of the deportation train on the procedure to be observed by the latter in accepting delivery of the deportees.
Red Army men of the convoying forces of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs shall surround the entrainment station.
The senior members of the operative group shall deliver to the chief of the deportation train one copy of the nominal roll of the deportees in each railway car. The chief of the deportation train shall, in conformity with this list, call out the name of each deportee, shall carefully check every name and assign the deportee's place in the railway-car.
The deportee's effects shall be loaded into the car, together with the deportee, with the exception of the small agricultural inventory, which shall be loaded in a separate car.
The deportees shall be loaded into railway-cars by families; it is permitted to break up a family (with the exception of heads of families subject to arrest). An estimate of twenty-five persons to a car should be observed.
After the railway-car has been filled with the necessary number of families, it shall be locked.
After the people have been taken over and placed in the deportation train, the chief of the train shall bear responsibility for all persons handed over to him and for their delivery to their destination. After handling over the deportees the senior member of the operative group shall draw up a report on the operation carried out by him and briefly indicate the name of the deportee, whether any weapon and counter-revolutionary literature has been discovered, and also how the operation was carried out.
After having placed the deportees on the deportation train and having submitted reports of operation results to be thus discharged, the members of the operative group shall be considered free and shall act in accordance with the instruction of the chief of the district branch of the People's Commissariat of Public Security.
Deputy People's Commissar of Public Security of the USSR.
Commissar of Public Security of the third Rank (signed):
SEROV.
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