CHAPTER 1.2
Soviet Population Evacuation into the North Caucasus, 1941–19421
1. WARTIME EVACUATION OF THE POPULATION IN THE SOVIET UNION
When a central government initiates the partial or complete evacuation of a civilian population from territory threatened by an enemy, that initiative should be regarded as a part of its war strategy. In this sense, the evacuation envisioned and implemented by the Soviet government during the Soviet-German War had to take into account several considerations. On the one hand, the “scorched earth” policy with the complete removal of the population from the areas about to be seized had some advantages. It ensured that the Soviets would keep their human resources intact, whereas the Germans would have to count only upon their own scarce manpower in order to run the newly conquered regions. On the other hand, the complete depopulation of abandoned areas had serious disadvantages: it was hardly feasible on a practical level and it would leave no-one behind to wage a partisan war in the territory overrun by the enemy. In addition, it made sense to leave some of the population under the enemy’s sway in order to capitalize on the inevitable friction between this population and the occupying power as time went on.
Particularly acute was the timing of any evacuation. The Soviets aimed at maintaining a probably impossible equilibrium: they tried to manage a gradual evacuation and, at the same time, keep the semblance of a normal life in order to avoid panic among the inhabitants and continue industrial production, including military industries, until the last moment. The evacuations were usually carried out until the position of the Soviet forces became indefensible.2 Finally, there was the danger that massive evacuations would play into the Germans’ hands, giving them an opportunity to bring German settlers who could fill the empty territories.
The decision of the Soviet government to start evacuating the general population during the War could be seen against the background of its prewar resettlement policies, which were applied to a number of Soviet nationalities and professional groups during the 1930s.3 It may be said, cautiously, that, on a quantitative and geographic scale, the prewar population evacuation planning could not cope with the challenges as compared to the challenges presented by the actual German invasion. As with the industrial relocation plans,4 the Soviet strategists failed to take into account that such a significant part of the country could possibly fall under the enemy’s control.5 It is noteworthy that, during the War, the Soviet authorities also tried to analyze and take into account the experience of Imperial Russia with respect to the eviction of the general population from the threatened areas during World War I.6
These considerations, compounded by a rapidly deteriorating strategic situation, guided the Soviet government when it made decisions to withdraw human resources from the Germans’ reach, soon after the beginning of the War. The complete removal of the population was never under consideration. Rather, the government formulated its evacuation policy solely with regard to specific groups, which were singled out for their significance to the country’s war effort and the survival of the Soviet regime. According to the directives, the evacuation of the general population was aimed first and foremost at safeguarding the lives of functionaries affiliated with the Communist Party, the Soviet government, and security agencies of all levels, together with their families. The next priority was to evacuate agricultural and industrial (mainly military-industrial) facilities together with their workers. Transferring all possible human resources away from the Germans’ reach was the last item in the order of importance.7 In addition, special emphasis was placed on the evacuation of children and elderly people,8 although their relocation may be considered a humanitarian action, apparently not designed as part of the war efforts, however broadly they may have been interpreted.9 Most organized evacuees fell into the third category.
There was also a considerable number of unorganized or independent refugees, who fled eastwards on their own initiative.10 Many of them chose to escape because they feared that they would suffer under German rule. This group consisted of three major subgroups: Jews; members of the Communist Party, the Komsomol youth organization, and other Soviet functionaries; and families of officers of the Red Army.
The wartime evacuation of the population in the USSR was slated to be a highly centralized process. It was coordinated by the Council for Evacuation, created on June 24, 1941 in accordance with the joint decision of the Soviet government, called Sovet Narodnykh Komissarov (SNK or Council of the People’s Commissars), and the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party.11 The head of the Soviet Trade Unions and Politburo Member Nikolai Shvernik was placed in charge of the Council.12 This body was empowered to authorize the evacuation of all population groups, with the exception of residents in areas that were close to the front lines, in which case the evacuation fell under the jurisdiction of the military command.13 The decisions of the Council for Evacuation were binding for the local administrations and all-Union ministries.14 Overall, the Council presided over the evacuation eastwards of more than ten million Soviet citizens in 1941, as indicated in the report drawn up at the end of 1941 by Konstantin Pamfilov, the Deputy Chairman of the Council, in charge of the population evacuation.15
Following the military successes of the Red Army during the winter of 1941–1942, the Soviet leadership assumed that the stage of war-related evacuation was over. This prompted the liquidation of the Council for Evacuation and its replacement by a department of the RSFSR Council of the People’s Commissars for the maintenance of the evacuated population on December 25, 1941.16 The central government even sanctioned a partial return of the evacuees (reevakuatsiia) into the central regions (Moscow, Tula, Kalinin) in the first half of 1942. However, when the German armies swept into the North Caucasus in summer 1942, the State Committee of Defense established on June 22 a new Komissiya po evakuatsii (Commission for Evacuation) staffed by the members of the disbanded Council for Evacuation and headed by Shvernik. This points to a continuity of Soviet evacuation thinking and policies, but the Commission appears to have enjoyed a lower status than the disbanded Council and certainly it was set up too late to effectively organize further civilian evacuation from the Caucasus. Nevertheless, according to the official Soviet data, more than eight million people were evacuated in summer and fall 1942, thus bringing the total number of evacuees during the War to about twenty-five million people.17
The organized evacuation of the population in the wartime USSR was carried out at the initiative of the central government. Local administrations could submit their proposals on the character and timing of the evacuation, but specific decisions always had to be made by the center. This was a bureaucratic process that took time, even when the situation on the ground looked critical. The resulting delays could seal the fate of “last-minute” refugees.
Local administrations found it very difficult to accommodate masses of refugees and provide them with food, heating, and employment, all within a very short space of time. Like all projects not directly related to the war effort, the evacuation was underfunded, and local authorities had to find ways to fund it from local resources. These processes inevitably led to tension between the central government, on the one hand, and