On the evening of December 15, when the sun sets, all Greeks whose relatives fell into the millstone of the «Greek Operation» of 1937-1938 were arrested for political reasons before or after, lighting memorial candles in their houses and apartments.
The result of the «Greek operation» was the execution of almost 20 thousand people. All of them, as well as those who were sent to death camps, were rehabilitated today. But the burial places of the vast majority of Greeks, whose descendants do not even know where to bring two carnations, are still unknown.
In Russia, the time of the 1930s was turbulent. Young Soviet Russia had not yet recovered from the horror of revolution and civil war, and Stalin, at the helm of power, saw the threat to the USSR both from other countries and within the Soviet Republic itself. Therefore, the 1930s went down in the history of the country not only through mass dispossession, but also through «national purges».
The sword of Damocles also hovered over the Greeks living in the USSR. In the early 1930s, they were arrested en masse and sent to camps. The number of repressed people numbered in the thousands.
On August 7, 1932, the «Law on the Protection of Socialist Property» (also known as the «Decree Seven Eighth» and the «Law on Five Spikelets») came into force, according to which even minor thefts were carried out by execution or ten years in camps. And when, on the recommendation of Comrade Stalin, the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs was headed by Comrade Yezhov, replacing his insufficiently active comrade Yagoda, the repressive machine finally gained momentum.
By the decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) «On anti-Soviet elements» dated July 2, 1937, Comrade Yezhov, secretaries of regional committees, regional committees and the Central Committee of the National Party were sent a telegram in which it was ordered to submit within five days a list of all hostile elements living in accountable areas involved in anti-Soviet and sabotage protests, the number of people subject to execution and expulsion.
Based on the responses received, Yezhov prepared order «On the operation to repress former kulaks, criminals and other anti-Soviet elements», which contained planned figures for those subject to repression in individual territories. A total of 259,450 people. Of these, 72,950 people must be shot (first category), the rest (second category) – must be sent to camps for a period of 8—10 years.
The approved figures were indicative; a «motivated request to » was allowed to increase the figures of those repressed (no one demanded evidence of guilt). As a result of the «motivated petition», the initial figures increased by 200 thousand people.
Thus, on December 11, 1937, Yezhov’s directive was received by all republican, regional and regional departments of the NKVD, in which the date — was determined to be December 15, when it was necessary « simultaneously in all republics, territories and regions to arrest all Greeks suspected of espionage, sabotage, rebel and nationalist anti-Soviet work», and also determined the categories of citizens subject to «withdrawal».
Over the next two weeks, the demographic situation in places densely populated by Greeks throughout the country changed radically. Greeks « were taken» both before and after this fateful date, but it was during these two weeks that a huge number of people of this nationality were repressed.
The specificity of any totalitarian regime is repression against dissidents. The specificity of the Stalinist regime also turned out to be the active propaganda of the idea that there are — enemy states around the country of the Soviets. And within the country there are — enemy spies. Therefore, the Greek operation of the NKVD, in fact, differed little from similar operations against other nationalities — Poles, Estonians, Koreans and others – and was the thirteenth in a row. All national operations in the USSR of those years were prepared and implemented according to the same scenario.
Based on materials from the book by I. Juha «Greek operation: History of repression against the Greeks in the USSR».