Is it true that during WW2 the Soviet authorities enforced collective punishment on certain minority ethnic groups due to collaboration with Nazis? (Specifically Crimean Tatars) I’ve heard about this from leftist circles and from reactionary circles. The claim, at least on surface level, seems pretty damming.
If this happened, then why? And was it a mistake or was it a necessary evil?
The USSR did deport ethnic minorities due to confirmed or suspected collaboration with the Nazis, and while this obviously wasn’t a great thing, most of the time it made some kind of sense and was because of what I call “the cold calculus of war/suffering”
Despite it being horrible, it’s “better” for 5-10 percent of the population that’s deported to die on the way, than for 40 percent or more for the population to be murdered by the nazis.
I also think that the fact that the USSR didn’t help or actively stalled and prevented people from returning to their homelands was disgusting and wrong, but I’m wary of those statements since they come from neoliberal sources.
I don’t want to dismiss claims because they come from neoliberals, because I have integrity, but I also don’t think we should trust every claim they make.
I think that out of all the ethnic deportations, the Tatars went too far the most. Neoliberals do downplay the nazi infiltration and intimidation that was done to the tatars, but I’ve read that the Stalin primarily wanted the Black Sea region for geographical purposes, which the Tatars and other groups were part of him.
This isn’t to say that the neoliberal accusations are completely true, I don’t buy that, and this isn’t to forget the memory of tens of thousands of heroic Tatar Soviet soldiers.