The so-called Serov Instructions (full title: On the Procedure for Carrying out the Deportation of Anti-Soviet Elements from Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia) was an undated
top secret document, signed by General
Ivan Serov, Deputy
People's Commissar for State Security of the
Soviet Union (
NKGB). The instructions detailed procedures on how to carry out
the mass deportations to Siberia of June 13–14, 1941, which occurred throughout
Lithuania
Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...
,
Latvia
Latvia ( or ; lv, Latvija ; ltg, Latveja; liv, Leţmō), officially the Republic of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas Republika, links=no, ltg, Latvejas Republika, links=no, liv, Leţmō Vabāmō, links=no), is a country in the Baltic region of ...
and
Estonia during the
first (1940-1941) Soviet occupation of the three Baltic countries.
The instructions specified that the deportations would be carried out as secretly, quietly and speedily as possible. Families were restricted to taking of their belongings (clothes, food, kitchenware). The heads of the families were sent to
Gulag labor camp
A labor camp (or labour camp, see spelling differences) or work camp is a detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor as a form of punishment. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons (especi ...
s, and other members were transported to
forced settlements in remote areas of the Soviet Union.
Dating and confusion
While the original document is undated, sources provide various dates from October 11, 1939 to January 21, 1941.
[Museum of the Occupation of Latvia]
However, the NKGB was created only on February 3, 1941 and so could not have issued documents earlier.
[
A copy of the instructions, found in Šiauliai, had a stamp that the document was received on June 7.][ Therefore, the instructions must have been written sometime between February and June 1941.
The Serov Instructions are often confused with ]NKVD Order No. 001223
The NKVD Order No. 001223, also known as ''Об оперативных мерах против антисоветских и социально враждебных элементов'', erroneously: ''О высылке антисоветских ...
,[ a completely different document that was signed by Lavrenty Beria on October 11, 1939,][ which was prepared by the ]People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union.
...
(NKVD) and listed various groups of people (anticommunists, former military or police personnel, large landowners, industrialists etc.) to be targeted by Soviet security structures according to the Article 58 (RSFSR Penal Code).[ The original Serov Instructions had no date or number.][ The confusion possibly originates from the Third Interim Report by the United States House Select Committee to Investigate the Incorporation of the Baltic States into the U.S.S.R., which published the full text of the Instructions under a misleading heading as Order № 001223.][
]
See also
* Population transfer in the Soviet Union
From 1930 to 1952, the government of the Soviet Union, on the orders of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin under the direction of the NKVD official Lavrentiy Beria, forcibly transferred populations of various groups. These actions may be classified ...
References
{{Authority control
Government documents of the Soviet Union
1941 in Estonia
1941 in Lithuania
1941 in Latvia
1941 in the Soviet Union
Forced migration in the Soviet Union
World War II documents
1941 documents