Polish Operation of the NKVD

Polish Operation of the NKVD
Part of Polish Genocide in the Soviet Union
Yezhov and Stalin, USSR, 1937
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 Polish Operation of the Soviet NKVD security service in 1937–1938 was a mass operation of the NKVD carried out against purported Polish agents in the Soviet Union during the period of the Great Purge. It was ordered by the Politburo against the so-called "Polish spies" and customarily interpreted by the NKVD officials as relating to "absolutely all Poles". It resulted in the sentencing of 139,835 people, and summary executions of 111,091 ethnic Poles, as well as those accused of working for Poland. The operation was implemented according to NKVD Order № 00485 signed by Nikolai Yezhov. The majority of the victims were ethnically Polish but not all, according to Timothy Snyder, who gives a conservative estimate of 85,000 confirmed Poles executed simultaneously across the country. The remainder were 'suspected' of being Polish, without further inquiry.

In order to speed up the process the NKVD personnel reviewed local telephone books and arrested persons with Polish-sounding names. In Leningrad alone, almost 7,000 citizens were rounded up this way. A vast majority of such nominal "suspects" were executed within 10 days of arrest.

The Polish Operation was the largest ethnic shooting and deportation action during the Great Terror campaign of political murders in the Soviet Union, orchestrated by Nikolai Yezhov.

The top secret NKVD Order No. 00485, called "On the liquidation of the Polish diversionist and espionage groups and POW units," was approved on August 9, 1937 by the Party's Central Committee Politburo, and was signed by Nikolai Yezhov on August 11, 1937. It was distributed to the local subdivisions of the NKVD simultaneously with Yezhov's thirty-page "secret letter," explaining what the "Polish operation" was all about. The letter was entitled, "On fascist-resurrectionist, spying, diversional, defeationist, and terrorist activity of Polish intelligence in the USSR". Stalin demanded the NKVD to "keep on digging out and cleaning out this Polish filth."