Operation North

Operation North (Russian: Операция "Север") was the code name assigned by the USSR Ministry of State Security to massive deportation of Jehovah's Witnesses and their families to Siberia in the Soviet Union on 1–2 April 1951.

There were almost no Jehovah's Witnesses in the Soviet Union until its annexation of the Baltic States, Western Belarus, Western Ukraine, Bessarabia, and Northern Bukovina; most of them were located in the Moldavian SSR and Ukrainian SSR. Jehovah's Witnesses came into the conflict with the Soviet power, primarily because of their refusal to join the military. Their teachings were soon regarded as anti-Soviet. Members of religious groups, including Jehovah's Witnesses, qualified as religious elements considered a potential danger for the communist regime. In November 1950, Viktor Abakumov reported an idea to Stalin about their deportation, and Stalin suggested to plan this for March–April 1951.

On February 19, 1951, Abakumov delivered a secret notice to Stalin, detailing plans for the deportations of Jehovah's Witnesses to Tomsk Oblast and Irkutsk Oblast. It said, in particular, that during 1947-1950, 1048 Jehovah's Witnesses leaders and activists had been arrested, 5 underground print houses had been uncovered, and large amounts of printed matter confiscated. The deportees were permitted to take a maximum of 150 kilograms of property; the remaining property was to be confiscated "to cover the obligations of the deportees before the state". Abakumov's notice listed the following planned numbers of deportees:

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