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 Classified information is material that a government body deems to be sensitive information that must be protected. Access is restricted by law or regulation to particular groups of people with the necessary security clearance and need to kn ...

document, signed by General

Ivan Serov Ivan Alexandrovich Serov (russian: Ива́н Алекса́ндрович Серóв; 13 August 1905 – 1 July 1990) was a Russian Soviet intelligence officer who served as the head of the KGB between March 1954 and December 1958, as well as ...

, Deputy People's Commissar for State Security of the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

(

NKGB The People's Commissariat for State Security (russian: Народный комиссариат государственной безопасности) or NKGB, was the name of the Soviet secret police, intelligence and counter-intelligence fo ...

). The instructions detailed procedures on how to carry out the mass deportations to Siberia of June 13–14, 1941, which occurred throughout Lithuania, Latvia and

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...

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 The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= was the government agency in ...

labor camps, 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 Šiauliai (; bat-smg, Šiaulē; german: Schaulen, ) is the fourth largest city in Lithuania, with a population of 107,086. From 1994 to 2010 it was the capital of Šiauliai County. Names Šiauliai is referred to by various names in different la ...

, 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, a completely different document that was signed by

Lavrenty Beria Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria (; rus, Лавре́нтий Па́влович Бе́рия, Lavréntiy Pávlovich Bériya, p=ˈbʲerʲiə; ka, ლავრენტი ბერია, tr, ; – 23 December 1953) was a Georgian Bolshevik ...

on October 11, 1939, which was prepared by the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (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) Article 58 of the Russian SFSR Penal Code was put in force on 25 February 1927 to arrest those suspected of counter-revolutionary activities. It was revised several times. In particular, its Article 58-1 was updated by the listed sub-articles and ...

. 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.

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

Dating and confusion

See also

References