WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.000 Welcome to the Deep Dive. We are really glad 00:00:03.000 --> 00:00:04.379 you could join us today. Yeah, it's great to 00:00:04.379 --> 00:00:06.459 have you here. If you're tuning in, it means 00:00:06.459 --> 00:00:09.099 you're the kind of person who really likes to 00:00:09.099 --> 00:00:11.640 look past the surface level headlines. You want 00:00:11.640 --> 00:00:13.519 to get into the actual gears of history. Right. 00:00:13.679 --> 00:00:15.880 You want to know how things actually work, even 00:00:15.880 --> 00:00:18.399 when the subject matter is, well, pretty difficult. 00:00:18.579 --> 00:00:22.820 Yeah. And today, our mission is to do exactly 00:00:22.820 --> 00:00:27.050 that. We're unpacking a single incredibly detailed 00:00:27.050 --> 00:00:31.350 historical compilation about a massive yet surprisingly 00:00:31.350 --> 00:00:35.469 overshadowed event. We're talking about the Polish 00:00:35.469 --> 00:00:38.250 operation of the NKVD, which took place in the 00:00:38.250 --> 00:00:43.030 Soviet Union between 1937 and 1938. It is a profoundly 00:00:43.030 --> 00:00:45.929 heavy topic, but an absolutely crucial one if 00:00:45.929 --> 00:00:47.710 you want to understand the machinery of the 20th 00:00:47.710 --> 00:00:50.369 century. We are looking at a period during the 00:00:50.369 --> 00:00:52.890 Great Purge, but zooming in on a very specific 00:00:53.530 --> 00:00:56.070 targeted campaign. And to give you a sense of 00:00:56.070 --> 00:00:58.109 the sheer scale we are dealing with right out 00:00:58.109 --> 00:01:00.130 of the gate, many people are familiar with the 00:01:00.130 --> 00:01:03.090 Great Purge as a broad concept of political repression 00:01:03.090 --> 00:01:04.569 under Joseph Stalin, right? Sure. This is the 00:01:04.569 --> 00:01:07.590 classic example of state terror. Exactly. But 00:01:07.590 --> 00:01:09.549 what often gets lost in that broader narrative 00:01:09.549 --> 00:01:11.650 is that there were specific national operations. 00:01:12.030 --> 00:01:14.930 The Polish operation was the largest ethnic shooting 00:01:14.930 --> 00:01:17.810 and deportation action of that entire campaign. 00:01:18.109 --> 00:01:21.079 Wow. Yeah. Victims of this specific operation 00:01:21.079 --> 00:01:24.739 accounted for nearly 45 % of all the people executed 00:01:24.739 --> 00:01:27.019 during the various ethnic operations of that 00:01:27.019 --> 00:01:29.519 era. Almost half. That is just staggering. It 00:01:29.519 --> 00:01:31.500 really is. So we're going to explore how the 00:01:31.500 --> 00:01:34.180 Soviet secret police engineered the mass execution 00:01:34.180 --> 00:01:39.269 of over 111 ,000 people. Our goal today is to 00:01:39.269 --> 00:01:41.049 help you understand not just what happened on 00:01:41.049 --> 00:01:44.709 paper, but how a massive state bureaucracy was 00:01:44.709 --> 00:01:48.129 essentially mobilized to erase a specific group 00:01:48.129 --> 00:01:50.629 of people. And how modern historians debate the 00:01:50.629 --> 00:01:53.030 labeling of this atrocity today, which is a whole 00:01:53.030 --> 00:01:55.909 other layer. Right. OK, let's unpack this, because 00:01:55.909 --> 00:01:59.049 this is a dark but vital piece of history that 00:01:59.049 --> 00:02:01.290 you really need to know to truly understand the 00:02:01.290 --> 00:02:03.549 mechanics of state -sponsored terror. It wasn't 00:02:03.549 --> 00:02:05.670 just chaos, right? It was terrifyingly organized. 00:02:05.849 --> 00:02:08.270 Highly organized. So where does a targeted operation 00:02:08.270 --> 00:02:11.949 of this magnitude actually begin? Well, it officially 00:02:11.949 --> 00:02:15.150 kicks off with a directive known as NKVD Order 00:02:15.150 --> 00:02:20.169 No. 00485. Okay. This was signed by Nikolai Yesov, 00:02:20.349 --> 00:02:23.689 the head of the NKVD, which was the Soviet secret 00:02:23.689 --> 00:02:26.789 police, and the brutal enforcers of Stalin's 00:02:26.789 --> 00:02:31.659 will in August 1937. And the language surrounding 00:02:31.659 --> 00:02:34.080 this order from the very top of the Soviet leadership 00:02:34.080 --> 00:02:37.300 is just chilling. I read that Joseph Stalin himself 00:02:37.300 --> 00:02:39.419 approved the operation with a handwritten note, 00:02:39.479 --> 00:02:41.680 right? Yes, a very specific handwritten note. 00:02:41.719 --> 00:02:44.520 He wrote, very good. Dig up and purge this Polish 00:02:44.520 --> 00:02:47.319 espionage mud in the future as well. Destroy 00:02:47.319 --> 00:02:50.620 it in the interest of the USSR. Polish espionage 00:02:50.620 --> 00:02:53.580 mud. That phrasing alone tells you so much about 00:02:53.580 --> 00:02:56.099 the mindset at the top. But to roll out an operation 00:02:56.099 --> 00:02:58.560 across an entire empire, I mean, you can't just 00:02:58.560 --> 00:03:00.180 rely on a handwritten note. No, you definitely 00:03:00.180 --> 00:03:01.740 can't. You have to sell it to the lower level 00:03:01.740 --> 00:03:04.800 bureaucrats and the public. So how did they justify 00:03:04.800 --> 00:03:07.159 targeting a specific ethnic group on such a massive 00:03:07.159 --> 00:03:09.680 scale? What's fascinating here is the entirely 00:03:09.680 --> 00:03:12.840 fabricated justification used to sell this operation 00:03:12.840 --> 00:03:15.639 to the Soviet apparatus. They didn't just issue 00:03:15.639 --> 00:03:17.939 a blanket order to arrest people of Polish descent. 00:03:18.159 --> 00:03:21.139 They built an elaborate narrative. The Soviet 00:03:21.139 --> 00:03:23.599 state claimed they were targeting a massive fifth 00:03:23.599 --> 00:03:27.580 column, a secret network of spies and saboteurs 00:03:27.580 --> 00:03:30.219 actively working to undermine the Soviet Union 00:03:30.219 --> 00:03:33.490 from within. So they needed a boogeyman. Exactly. 00:03:33.669 --> 00:03:36.629 They specifically pointed the finger at an organization 00:03:36.629 --> 00:03:40.430 called the Polish Military Organization. Yezhov 00:03:40.430 --> 00:03:43.229 even sent out a 30 -page secret letter, along 00:03:43.229 --> 00:03:46.050 with the arrest order, detailing all the supposed 00:03:46.050 --> 00:03:48.990 fascist, terrorist, and espionage activities 00:03:48.990 --> 00:03:51.110 this group was coordinating across the country. 00:03:51.349 --> 00:03:53.509 But wait, historians like Timothy Snyder have 00:03:53.509 --> 00:03:55.409 pointed out a massive flaw in that narrative, 00:03:55.530 --> 00:03:57.810 haven't they? Oh, a huge one. The Polish Military 00:03:57.810 --> 00:04:00.669 Organization had actually been disbanded in 1921. 00:04:01.340 --> 00:04:04.020 It didn't even exist by 1937. Not at all. The 00:04:04.020 --> 00:04:06.259 Soviet secret police simply pretended it was 00:04:06.259 --> 00:04:09.080 still an active, sprawling network. They resurrected 00:04:09.080 --> 00:04:11.439 a ghost to serve as their primary antagonist. 00:04:11.639 --> 00:04:14.139 But did anyone within the Soviet leadership actually 00:04:14.139 --> 00:04:16.639 believe that a defunct military group was secretly 00:04:16.639 --> 00:04:19.160 running the country? Or was everyone just playing 00:04:19.160 --> 00:04:21.540 along to survive the political climate? It's 00:04:21.540 --> 00:04:24.500 a textbook example of totalitarian scapegoating. 00:04:24.620 --> 00:04:27.620 The Soviet Union was dealing with massive internal 00:04:27.620 --> 00:04:30.899 crises at the time. The most notable was the 00:04:30.899 --> 00:04:33.240 necessity to deflect blame for the Holodomor. 00:04:33.379 --> 00:04:36.720 The famine in Ukraine. Yes. The catastrophic 00:04:36.720 --> 00:04:39.600 state engineered famine that starved millions 00:04:39.600 --> 00:04:43.360 of people to death due to disastrous Soviet agricultural 00:04:43.360 --> 00:04:46.259 policies. Right. When millions of your own citizens 00:04:46.259 --> 00:04:48.139 are starving because of your government's decisions, 00:04:48.439 --> 00:04:51.259 you cannot admit catastrophic failure. You need 00:04:51.259 --> 00:04:53.639 a villain. You have to tell the starving masses 00:04:53.639 --> 00:04:56.819 we are failing because foreign spies are sabotaging 00:04:56.819 --> 00:04:59.699 our crops and our factories. Wow. Okay. So a 00:04:59.699 --> 00:05:02.639 top Soviet official named Dostoevsky basically 00:05:02.639 --> 00:05:05.860 chose this defunct Polish military organization 00:05:05.860 --> 00:05:08.540 to be the boogeyman. I want you to just imagine 00:05:08.540 --> 00:05:10.899 that for a second. Imagine the sheer calculated 00:05:10.899 --> 00:05:14.699 paranoia of a state that literally brings a defunct 00:05:14.699 --> 00:05:17.699 organization back to life on paper just so it 00:05:17.699 --> 00:05:19.980 has a convenient target to blame for its own 00:05:19.980 --> 00:05:22.860 catastrophic domestic failures. Yeah. It's a 00:05:22.860 --> 00:05:25.500 terrifying level of state -sanctioned gaslighting. 00:05:25.560 --> 00:05:28.019 But if the organization didn't exist, how did 00:05:28.019 --> 00:05:31.300 they find... members to arrest. Through brutal, 00:05:31.360 --> 00:05:34.740 systematic torture. The secret police would arrest 00:05:34.740 --> 00:05:37.480 individuals, perhaps someone with a known connection 00:05:37.480 --> 00:05:40.420 to Poland, and torture them until they confessed 00:05:40.420 --> 00:05:42.939 to being part of this fake organization. Unbelievable. 00:05:43.279 --> 00:05:45.300 But the key to the torture was that the victim 00:05:45.300 --> 00:05:48.300 had to name names of other spies to stop the 00:05:48.300 --> 00:05:51.100 pain. This generated a self -fulfilling loop 00:05:51.100 --> 00:05:54.160 of fabricated evidence. The state created a demand 00:05:54.160 --> 00:05:56.959 for Polish spies, and the torture rooms manufactured 00:05:56.959 --> 00:05:59.329 the supply. And this paranoia infected other 00:05:59.329 --> 00:06:01.569 institutions as well. Didn't the Communist International 00:06:01.569 --> 00:06:04.170 get involved? They did. The Communist International, 00:06:04.410 --> 00:06:07.089 or Comintern, was essentially the global network 00:06:07.089 --> 00:06:09.949 of communist parties directed by Moscow. When 00:06:09.949 --> 00:06:11.970 this order came down, they started frantically 00:06:11.970 --> 00:06:14.149 digging through their own internal personnel 00:06:14.149 --> 00:06:17.170 files. Looking for who? Looking for Polish members 00:06:17.170 --> 00:06:19.709 to offer up to the secret police as further evidence 00:06:19.709 --> 00:06:22.490 of infiltration. It was a race to prove your 00:06:22.490 --> 00:06:25.029 loyalty by sacrificing your own people. Which 00:06:25.029 --> 00:06:27.769 brings us to exactly how the Soviets state process 00:06:27.769 --> 00:06:30.930 that massive supply of human lives. Here's where 00:06:30.930 --> 00:06:33.800 it gets really interesting. Because the way the 00:06:33.800 --> 00:06:36.379 secret police handle the logistics of this operation 00:06:36.379 --> 00:06:39.100 is almost as horrifying as the motive itself. 00:06:39.319 --> 00:06:41.379 Absolutely. When you have a mandate to arrest 00:06:41.379 --> 00:06:44.019 and execute tens of thousands of people, you 00:06:44.019 --> 00:06:46.639 inevitably run into a bureaucratic bottleneck. 00:06:46.660 --> 00:06:49.420 You simply can't hold trials for that many people. 00:06:49.560 --> 00:06:52.040 So the state created what they call the album 00:06:52.040 --> 00:06:55.259 procedure. The album procedure. It sounds almost 00:06:55.259 --> 00:06:57.360 quaint, like flipping through a family photo 00:06:57.360 --> 00:07:01.209 album. But the reality is deeply macabre. I find 00:07:01.209 --> 00:07:03.550 the mechanics of this particularly striking because 00:07:03.550 --> 00:07:06.629 it shows how state terror becomes institutionalized 00:07:06.629 --> 00:07:09.529 and completely divorced from human empathy. To 00:07:09.529 --> 00:07:11.850 give you a modern analogy, imagine working in 00:07:11.850 --> 00:07:14.170 a massive corporate office. Your department manager 00:07:14.170 --> 00:07:16.889 sits at a desk at the end of the week, mindlessly 00:07:16.889 --> 00:07:19.389 rubber stamping a huge stack of expense reports. 00:07:19.610 --> 00:07:22.189 They aren't looking at the individual line items. 00:07:22.430 --> 00:07:24.810 They're just stamping the cover page to clear 00:07:24.810 --> 00:07:27.990 their desk for the weekend. Now. Replace those 00:07:27.990 --> 00:07:32.129 expense reports with lists of human lives. That 00:07:32.129 --> 00:07:34.889 is the essence of the album procedure. It's an 00:07:34.889 --> 00:07:37.350 incredibly apt analogy because it was designed 00:07:37.350 --> 00:07:39.750 specifically to remove the individual from the 00:07:39.750 --> 00:07:43.629 process. Under this system, a lower -level, two 00:07:43.629 --> 00:07:47.319 -man secret police team, known as a Dvojka, would 00:07:47.319 --> 00:07:50.160 interrogate victims, extract those false confessions, 00:07:50.279 --> 00:07:53.199 and compile long lists of condemned poles. And 00:07:53.199 --> 00:07:55.860 these lists were the albums? Yes. These names 00:07:55.860 --> 00:07:58.839 were bound into physical albums. Then, instead 00:07:58.839 --> 00:08:01.300 of holding individual trials or reviewing a single 00:08:01.300 --> 00:08:03.899 shred of evidence, these massive albums were 00:08:03.899 --> 00:08:06.160 passed up the chain to mid -range offices. Okay. 00:08:06.589 --> 00:08:08.930 There, a troika, a three -man team consisting 00:08:08.930 --> 00:08:11.670 of a communist official, a secret police leader, 00:08:11.810 --> 00:08:13.930 and a party procurator, which is essentially 00:08:13.930 --> 00:08:16.230 the state prosecutor, would review them. But 00:08:16.230 --> 00:08:17.769 they weren't actually reviewing the individuals, 00:08:17.970 --> 00:08:19.529 were they? Not at all. They were reviewing the 00:08:19.529 --> 00:08:22.829 album as a single unit. With one single stamp 00:08:22.829 --> 00:08:25.430 of approval from the troika, every single person 00:08:25.430 --> 00:08:27.389 listed in that album was condemned. Just one 00:08:27.389 --> 00:08:30.230 stamp? One stamp. Once it hit the paper, the 00:08:30.230 --> 00:08:32.750 executions were carried out immediately. It is 00:08:32.750 --> 00:08:36.279 industrial -scale murder. disguised as administrative 00:08:36.279 --> 00:08:40.279 paperwork. And the pressure from Moscow to fill 00:08:40.279 --> 00:08:43.299 these albums led to some deeply shocking, almost 00:08:43.299 --> 00:08:45.919 absurd methods of finding victims. They really 00:08:45.919 --> 00:08:48.279 did. When you dig into what happened in Leningrad, 00:08:48.440 --> 00:08:51.120 it's absolutely chilling. The secret police agents 00:08:51.120 --> 00:08:53.440 there had quarters to meet, and they simply needed 00:08:53.440 --> 00:08:56.779 more names. So they opened the local city telephone 00:08:56.779 --> 00:08:59.480 books. Literally just the fun books. Yeah, and 00:08:59.480 --> 00:09:01.580 started looking for anyone with a Polish -sounding 00:09:01.580 --> 00:09:05.919 last name. They arrested nearly 7 ,000 citizens 00:09:05.919 --> 00:09:08.480 based on nothing more than the spelling of their 00:09:08.480 --> 00:09:11.080 name in a public directory. It's insane. And 00:09:11.080 --> 00:09:13.019 the vast majority of those nominal suspects were 00:09:13.019 --> 00:09:15.659 executed within 10 days of their arrest. 10 days 00:09:15.659 --> 00:09:18.059 from being a random name in a book to being executed 00:09:18.059 --> 00:09:20.399 by the state. It highlights the absolute chaos 00:09:20.399 --> 00:09:23.980 of the terror. And this rapid, completely arbitrary 00:09:23.980 --> 00:09:26.259 method of selection led to massive collateral 00:09:26.259 --> 00:09:29.200 damage. Because the agents relied so heavily 00:09:29.200 --> 00:09:31.960 on name sounding or historical religious affiliations 00:09:31.960 --> 00:09:34.740 like Catholicism, the victims weren't exclusively 00:09:34.740 --> 00:09:37.960 ethnic Poles. The system was far too clumsy and 00:09:37.960 --> 00:09:40.259 far too bloodthirsty, to be precise. Can you 00:09:40.259 --> 00:09:42.340 break down the demographics of that collateral 00:09:42.340 --> 00:09:44.639 damage? Because it wasn't just a few mistakes 00:09:44.639 --> 00:09:47.240 here and there. Far from it. In the blind hunt 00:09:47.240 --> 00:09:50.080 for Poles, the secret police swept up entirely 00:09:50.080 --> 00:09:52.120 different ethnic groups who just happened to 00:09:52.120 --> 00:09:54.620 be caught in the dragnet. Across the Soviet Union, 00:09:54.899 --> 00:09:58.519 13 .4 % of those arrested during this specific 00:09:58.519 --> 00:10:01.039 Polish operation were actually ethnic Ukrainians. 00:10:01.100 --> 00:10:04.980 Another 8 .8 % were ethnic Russians. And in Belarus, 00:10:05.340 --> 00:10:08.419 the situation was remarkably tragic. Almost half, 00:10:08.559 --> 00:10:12.139 37 .3 % of the Poles arrested were actually ethnic 00:10:12.139 --> 00:10:14.600 Belarusian Catholics. Why so many in Belarus? 00:10:15.159 --> 00:10:18.580 Well, in the 1920s, during earlier, more tolerant 00:10:18.580 --> 00:10:21.039 census periods, many of them had declared themselves 00:10:21.039 --> 00:10:23.399 to be Poles or were registered as Catholics. 00:10:23.659 --> 00:10:26.539 A decade later, that historical census data became 00:10:26.539 --> 00:10:28.799 a death sentence. Let's ground this conversation 00:10:28.799 --> 00:10:30.980 with the overall human cost. We were talking 00:10:30.980 --> 00:10:33.059 about quotas and percentages, but you need to 00:10:33.059 --> 00:10:35.379 hear the final toll of this bureaucratic machine. 00:10:35.779 --> 00:10:40.759 Based on confirmed archival records, 139 ,835 00:10:40.759 --> 00:10:43.100 people were officially sentenced during the Polish 00:10:43.100 --> 00:10:48.519 operation. Of those, 111 ,091 were summarily 00:10:48.519 --> 00:10:52.240 executed. To put that in perspective, that represented 00:10:52.240 --> 00:10:55.940 22 % of the entire Polish population living in 00:10:55.940 --> 00:10:58.620 the Soviet Union at that time. That's a staggering 00:10:58.620 --> 00:11:01.519 figure. Nearly a quarter of a specific demographic, 00:11:01.820 --> 00:11:04.529 erased in just over a year. And we also have 00:11:04.529 --> 00:11:06.470 to look at the geography of this terror because 00:11:06.470 --> 00:11:08.590 it wasn't just confined to the western border 00:11:08.590 --> 00:11:10.549 regions near Poland. That's what you'd assume, 00:11:10.610 --> 00:11:12.950 right? That it's a border issue. Exactly. While 00:11:12.950 --> 00:11:15.090 it is true that the largest concentration of 00:11:15.090 --> 00:11:17.929 victims came from the West, about 40 percent 00:11:17.929 --> 00:11:20.370 from Soviet Ukraine and 17 percent from Soviet 00:11:20.370 --> 00:11:23.210 by the Russia, the operation reached the absolute 00:11:23.210 --> 00:11:26.490 deepest, most remote corners of the Soviet empire. 00:11:27.149 --> 00:11:29.190 No matter how far you tried to get from Moscow, 00:11:29.350 --> 00:11:31.409 the bureaucracy could reach you. That's one of 00:11:31.409 --> 00:11:33.049 the most striking details. You wouldn't immediately 00:11:33.049 --> 00:11:35.669 associate places deep in Siberia with targeted 00:11:35.669 --> 00:11:37.909 Polish purges? No, you wouldn't. For example, 00:11:38.009 --> 00:11:40.070 in a place called Belostok in the Tomsk Oblast, 00:11:40.250 --> 00:11:42.950 which is deep in the heart of Siberia, 100 men 00:11:42.950 --> 00:11:45.409 of Polish origin were rounded up, executed, and 00:11:45.409 --> 00:11:47.570 their bodies were thrown into the Ob River. The 00:11:47.570 --> 00:11:50.789 terror reached down into the Caucasus, too. Former 00:11:50.789 --> 00:11:53.950 secret police archives in Tbilisi show at least 00:11:53.950 --> 00:11:56.950 89 people in Georgia fell victims specifically 00:11:56.950 --> 00:12:00.350 to this operation. It even reached into Central 00:12:00.350 --> 00:12:03.169 Asia, with archives in Kyrgyzstan showing at 00:12:03.169 --> 00:12:06.250 least 180 poles swept up in the purges there. 00:12:06.389 --> 00:12:09.129 The reach of the state was absolute. So what 00:12:09.129 --> 00:12:10.850 does this all mean for the people left behind? 00:12:10.990 --> 00:12:14.129 When you take away 111 ,000 people, and it's 00:12:14.129 --> 00:12:16.070 crucial to note that almost all of the victims 00:12:16.070 --> 00:12:19.019 of the shootings were men, You don't just erase 00:12:19.019 --> 00:12:21.860 those individuals. You shatter the families and 00:12:21.860 --> 00:12:24.320 the communities they leave behind. And the Soviet 00:12:24.320 --> 00:12:26.620 state recognized this. They didn't view the families 00:12:26.620 --> 00:12:29.000 as tragic collateral damage. They viewed them 00:12:29.000 --> 00:12:31.200 as a secondary problem to be solved. Yes, very 00:12:31.200 --> 00:12:33.360 methodical. This was codified in a follow -up 00:12:33.360 --> 00:12:36.879 directive. Ordinum 00486. This is where the long 00:12:36.879 --> 00:12:39.019 -term demographic destruction becomes incredibly 00:12:39.019 --> 00:12:41.460 apparent. The state recognized that executing 00:12:41.460 --> 00:12:43.659 tens of thousands of fathers and husbands would 00:12:43.659 --> 00:12:46.379 create a deeply resentful population. So the 00:12:46.379 --> 00:12:48.399 wives of the executed men were categorically 00:12:48.399 --> 00:12:50.639 treated as enemies of the state by association. 00:12:50.879 --> 00:12:55.399 By association alone. Exactly. Under Order 00486, 00:12:55.639 --> 00:12:58.240 these women were generally sentenced to deportation, 00:12:58.299 --> 00:13:00.519 often sent to the harsh steppes of Kazakhstan, 00:13:00.899 --> 00:13:03.980 for an average of five to ten years. All of their 00:13:03.980 --> 00:13:06.019 family possessions were confiscated by the state. 00:13:06.159 --> 00:13:09.340 What about the extended family? The elderly Terrence 00:13:09.340 --> 00:13:11.559 of the executed men who relied on their sons 00:13:11.559 --> 00:13:14.019 for support were left with absolutely no means 00:13:14.019 --> 00:13:17.179 of survival. Without food or shelter, their fate 00:13:17.179 --> 00:13:19.679 was essentially sealed as well. And then there 00:13:19.679 --> 00:13:21.940 are the children. When you remove the father 00:13:21.940 --> 00:13:24.779 permanently and exile the mother, you create 00:13:24.779 --> 00:13:27.759 a generation of orphans. Right. The state swept 00:13:27.759 --> 00:13:30.019 up these children who had no remaining relatives 00:13:30.019 --> 00:13:32.179 able to take them in and put them into state 00:13:32.179 --> 00:13:34.809 -run orphanages. But the goal wasn't just to 00:13:34.809 --> 00:13:37.429 house them. It was to deliberately strip them 00:13:37.429 --> 00:13:39.429 of their Polish identity. They were brought up 00:13:39.429 --> 00:13:42.029 as generic Soviet citizens. Completely denied 00:13:42.029 --> 00:13:44.789 any knowledge of their true origins, their parents' 00:13:44.870 --> 00:13:47.330 fate, or their cultural heritage. It was an erasure 00:13:47.330 --> 00:13:49.929 of the future. When you factor in this deliberate, 00:13:50.110 --> 00:13:52.830 methodical destruction of the family unit, the 00:13:52.830 --> 00:13:55.690 wives exiled to labor camps, the elderly parents 00:13:55.690 --> 00:13:58.730 starved, the children culturally erased in institutions. 00:14:00.040 --> 00:14:02.500 Historian Makars Jasiski suggests that a simple 00:14:02.500 --> 00:14:04.960 body count doesn't capture the reality. Because 00:14:04.960 --> 00:14:07.980 the damage is so much wider. Exactly. Statistical 00:14:07.980 --> 00:14:10.480 extrapolation brings the true victim count of 00:14:10.480 --> 00:14:13.580 this operation not just to the 111 ,000 who were 00:14:13.580 --> 00:14:17.279 shot, but to anywhere from 200 ,000 to 250 ,000 00:14:17.279 --> 00:14:19.679 people whose lives were effectively destroyed 00:14:19.679 --> 00:14:23.240 by this single policy. Which brings us to a crucial 00:14:23.240 --> 00:14:25.850 part of our discussion today. Because history, 00:14:25.990 --> 00:14:27.710 for you listening right now, isn't just about 00:14:27.710 --> 00:14:30.429 memorizing what happened in 1937. It is also 00:14:30.429 --> 00:14:32.669 about how we define those events today, how we 00:14:32.669 --> 00:14:34.649 frame them legally and how we understand state 00:14:34.649 --> 00:14:37.570 violence. There is a significant ongoing debate 00:14:37.570 --> 00:14:40.110 among historical scholars over how to classify 00:14:40.110 --> 00:14:42.750 this targeted eradication. Specifically, does 00:14:42.750 --> 00:14:45.370 the Polish operation of the NKVD constitute a 00:14:45.370 --> 00:14:48.269 genocide? This is a highly complex historiographical 00:14:48.269 --> 00:14:51.269 debate. It really hinges on the definitions established 00:14:51.269 --> 00:14:54.710 by international law. specifically the UN Genocide 00:14:54.710 --> 00:14:57.570 Convention, versus the geopolitical intent of 00:14:57.570 --> 00:15:00.090 the perpetrators. Let's look at the argument 00:15:00.090 --> 00:15:03.389 for genocide first. Why do many scholars believe 00:15:03.389 --> 00:15:06.570 this fits the definition perfectly? Several prominent 00:15:06.570 --> 00:15:09.370 historians make a very strong case for the genocide 00:15:09.370 --> 00:15:12.090 label, based on the undeniable targeting of an 00:15:12.090 --> 00:15:15.049 ethnic group. Michael Ellman notes it may qualify 00:15:15.049 --> 00:15:18.320 under the UN Convention. Carol Kerskin argues 00:15:18.320 --> 00:15:20.879 that because the Poles were singled out and eradicated 00:15:20.879 --> 00:15:22.659 based on their ethnicity and their ethnicity 00:15:22.659 --> 00:15:25.299 alone, it meets the legal criteria for genocide. 00:15:25.580 --> 00:15:28.419 Terry Martin refers to it as ethnic terror that 00:15:28.419 --> 00:15:31.320 verged on the genocidal. And Timothy Snyder is 00:15:31.320 --> 00:15:33.440 quite explicit in his analysis. What does he 00:15:33.440 --> 00:15:36.279 argue? He argues that when a state shoots the 00:15:36.279 --> 00:15:40.000 fathers, deports the mothers, and actively erases 00:15:40.000 --> 00:15:42.019 the cultural identity of the children in state 00:15:42.019 --> 00:15:45.269 -run orphanages, all while the state's supreme 00:15:45.269 --> 00:15:47.730 leader is openly referring to them as Polish 00:15:47.730 --> 00:15:51.190 filth, that is fundamentally genocidal. The core 00:15:51.190 --> 00:15:53.409 of this argument is that the targeted group was 00:15:53.409 --> 00:15:56.730 defined by their ethnic identity, and the goal 00:15:56.730 --> 00:15:59.289 was their destruction as a cohesive group within 00:15:59.289 --> 00:16:01.429 Soviet borders. That makes complete sense on 00:16:01.429 --> 00:16:03.590 its face. But I want to play devil's advocate 00:16:03.590 --> 00:16:05.450 here because we want you to understand the different 00:16:05.450 --> 00:16:07.789 ways scholars interpret the exact same archival 00:16:07.789 --> 00:16:09.429 evidence. Well, of course. What is the counter 00:16:09.429 --> 00:16:13.090 argument? If a state kills 111 ,000 people of 00:16:13.090 --> 00:16:15.870 a specific ethnicity, how could it not be considered 00:16:15.870 --> 00:16:18.570 a genocide? Well, if we connect this to the bigger 00:16:18.570 --> 00:16:21.070 picture, we have to look at the deeply paranoid 00:16:21.070 --> 00:16:23.409 geopolitical mindset of the Soviet leadership 00:16:23.409 --> 00:16:26.509 at the time. Historians like Oli Sundström, Andrei 00:16:26.509 --> 00:16:28.899 Klitschurchik. and Nicholas Worth represent a 00:16:28.899 --> 00:16:30.860 different school of thought. They bond me that 00:16:30.860 --> 00:16:32.899 the primary driver wasn't cure ethnic hatred, 00:16:33.059 --> 00:16:36.360 but rather a catastrophic security dilemma. A 00:16:36.360 --> 00:16:38.519 security dilemma regarding the borders, right? 00:16:38.679 --> 00:16:41.659 Exactly. The Soviet Union was surrounded by states 00:16:41.659 --> 00:16:45.009 they viewed as hostile capitalist threats. The 00:16:45.009 --> 00:16:47.309 leadership was deeply paranoid about cross -border 00:16:47.309 --> 00:16:50.250 loyalties. The argument here is that the Soviet 00:16:50.250 --> 00:16:52.330 state didn't kill these people because they were 00:16:52.330 --> 00:16:54.929 Polish in a vacuum, but because their Polishness 00:16:54.929 --> 00:16:58.009 tied them in the paranoid conspiratorial minds 00:16:58.009 --> 00:17:01.009 of the secret police to an enemy state right 00:17:01.009 --> 00:17:03.490 next door. It was viewed as a security measure. 00:17:03.769 --> 00:17:06.750 Yes, it was a brutal preemptive strike driven 00:17:06.750 --> 00:17:09.210 by the fear of a fifth column in the event of 00:17:09.210 --> 00:17:12.109 an invasion. To highlight how complex this is, 00:17:12.170 --> 00:17:14.349 the historical record notes a rather bizarre 00:17:14.349 --> 00:17:17.250 contradiction. What's that? Stalin himself actually 00:17:17.250 --> 00:17:19.950 praised Poles as brave fighters, calling them 00:17:19.950 --> 00:17:22.250 the third most dogged soldiers in the world after 00:17:22.250 --> 00:17:24.789 the Russians and Germans. That is a wild contradiction. 00:17:25.069 --> 00:17:27.490 On one hand, you have the state mechanically 00:17:27.490 --> 00:17:30.410 eradicating a population, and on the other, the 00:17:30.410 --> 00:17:32.630 leader of that state is openly praising their 00:17:32.630 --> 00:17:35.809 martial spirit and courage. It really complicates 00:17:35.809 --> 00:17:38.890 the idea of pure, blind ethnic hatred. It does. 00:17:39.799 --> 00:17:42.039 And this raises an important question, one that 00:17:42.039 --> 00:17:44.759 historians and legal scholars wrestle with constantly. 00:17:45.279 --> 00:17:48.200 How much does the intent of the perpetrator matter 00:17:48.200 --> 00:17:51.220 compared to the outcome for the victims? That's 00:17:51.220 --> 00:17:54.059 correct. If a state kills over 100 ,000 people 00:17:54.059 --> 00:17:56.200 of a specific ethnicity because it genuinely 00:17:56.200 --> 00:17:59.380 fears they might act as foreign spies, does that 00:17:59.380 --> 00:18:02.240 political motive override the ethnic reality 00:18:02.240 --> 00:18:04.380 of the victims when we write the history books? 00:18:04.619 --> 00:18:07.319 Does a security paranoia make it political mass 00:18:07.319 --> 00:18:09.839 murder rather than a genocide, even if the result 00:18:09.839 --> 00:18:11.900 is exactly the same for the families destroyed? 00:18:12.400 --> 00:18:14.839 That is exactly the kind of question that makes 00:18:14.839 --> 00:18:17.660 digging into these historical deep dives so profound. 00:18:18.180 --> 00:18:20.640 It forces us to look past the black and white 00:18:20.640 --> 00:18:23.099 narratives and examine the terrifying intersection 00:18:23.099 --> 00:18:26.579 of law, history, bureaucracy, and human tragedy. 00:18:26.779 --> 00:18:28.500 Absolutely. So to summarize what we've covered 00:18:28.500 --> 00:18:31.140 today, we have looked closely at the Polish operation, 00:18:31.440 --> 00:18:34.180 an incredibly lethal, highly organized campaign 00:18:34.180 --> 00:18:36.519 of stave care that accounted for nearly half 00:18:36.519 --> 00:18:39.400 of all ethnic executions during the Great Purge. 00:18:39.799 --> 00:18:42.539 We saw the horrifying cold efficiency of the 00:18:42.539 --> 00:18:45.380 album procedure, where lives were ended with 00:18:45.380 --> 00:18:47.880 the casual stamp of a bureaucrat who never even 00:18:47.880 --> 00:18:50.740 looked a victim in the eye. We learned about 00:18:50.740 --> 00:18:53.380 the tragically absurd methods used to hunt citizens, 00:18:53.599 --> 00:18:56.420 where a name in a directory was enough to secure 00:18:56.420 --> 00:18:59.140 a death sentence in 10 days. And we explored 00:18:59.140 --> 00:19:01.880 the lingering, ongoing debate over whether this 00:19:01.880 --> 00:19:04.339 targeted eradication, which destroyed well over 00:19:04.339 --> 00:19:07.140 100 ,000 lives and fractured countless families 00:19:07.140 --> 00:19:09.819 through deportation and forced assimilation, 00:19:10.140 --> 00:19:12.559 should be legally and historically classified 00:19:12.559 --> 00:19:15.759 as a genocide or an extreme paranoid security 00:19:15.759 --> 00:19:17.880 measure. Before we go, I want to leave you with 00:19:17.880 --> 00:19:20.029 a thought to mull over. We've spent this time 00:19:20.029 --> 00:19:21.809 looking at what a paranoid state could do with 00:19:21.809 --> 00:19:25.049 paper, ink, and a clumsy bureaucracy. But I want 00:19:25.049 --> 00:19:26.549 you to look at the smartphone sitting next to 00:19:26.549 --> 00:19:28.869 you right now. Yeah. Your precise location data, 00:19:29.049 --> 00:19:31.250 your search history, your professional networks, 00:19:31.490 --> 00:19:33.609 your religious affiliations, your private messages, 00:19:33.809 --> 00:19:36.450 they are all seamlessly cataloged in databases, 00:19:36.769 --> 00:19:39.130 infinitely more detailed, permanent, and accessible 00:19:39.130 --> 00:19:41.849 than anything the secret police of the 1930s 00:19:41.849 --> 00:19:44.329 could have ever dreamed of. It's a sobering thought. 00:19:44.630 --> 00:19:46.890 What happens when a modern state decides it needs 00:19:46.890 --> 00:19:49.779 to find a new fifth column? It's something to 00:19:49.779 --> 00:19:52.119 think about the next time you consider the digital 00:19:52.119 --> 00:19:55.599 footprint you leave behind and who exactly possesses 00:19:55.599 --> 00:19:57.960 the power to search it. Thank you so much for 00:19:57.960 --> 00:20:00.519 joining us on this deep dive. Keep questioning 00:20:00.519 --> 00:20:02.579 the history you thought you knew, and we will 00:20:02.579 --> 00:20:03.359 catch you next time.