NKVD Order № 00485

The Polish Operation of the NKVD (1937–38)
First page of one of the copies of the order, archived by the Kharkov branch of the NKVD
Location	Soviet Union, modern-day Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan and others
Date	1937–1938
Target	Ethnic Poles
Attack type	Prison shootings
Deaths	At least 111,091 Poles executed
Perpetrators	NKVD security forces

The Soviet NKVD Order № 00485 issued on August 11, 1937 laid the foundation for the systematic elimination of the Polish minority in the Soviet Union between 1937 and 1938. The order was called "On the liquidation of Polish sabotage and espionage groups and units of the POW" (POW stands for Polish Military Organization, Polska Organizacja Wojskowa) (Russian: О ликвидации польских диверсионно-шпионских групп и организаций ПОВ). It is dated August 9, 1937, was issued by the Central Committee Politburo (VKP b), and signed by Nikolai Yezhov, the People's Commissar for Internal Affairs. The operation was at the center of the national operations of the NKVD, and the largest ethnically-motivated shooting action of the Great Terror.

According to the Order, the entire operation was to be completed in three months. Subject to arrest and immediate elimination were persons of the following categories: "prisoners of war from the Polish army who after the 1920 war had remained in the Soviet Union, deserters and political émigrés from Poland [such as Polish communists admitted through prisoners' exchange], former members of the Polish Socialist Party (PPS) and other anti-Soviet political parties; and the inhabitants of Polish districts in border regions." The order was supplemented by a secret letter from Ezhov, specifying the various accusations to be used against the Polish minority, which were fabricated by the Moscow NKVD executive. The order aimed at the arrest of "absolutely all Poles" and confirmed that "the Poles should be completely destroyed". Member of the NKVD Administration for the Moscow District, A. O. Postel (Арон Осипович Постель) explained that although there was no word-for-word quote of "all Poles" in the actual Order, that was exactly how the letter was to be interpreted by the NKVD executioners.