Serov Instructions
세로프 지령
A top-secret document signed by Ivan Serov, Deputy People’s Commissar for State Security of the Soviet Union, setting the procedure for the mass deportations of 13–14 June 1941 from Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia; its full title was “On the Procedure for Carrying out the Deportation of Anti-Soviet Elements from Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia”.
In depth
The instructions required the deportations to be carried out as secretly, quietly and speedily as possible and limited each family to 100 kilograms of clothes, food and kitchenware. Heads of families were sent to Gulag labour camps and the other members to forced settlements in remote areas; in practice, witnesses testified, those seized were often abused and robbed.
The original bears no date or number. Dates from 1939 to 1941 have been cited, but the NKGB was created only on 3 February 1941, and a copy found in Šiauliai was stamped as received on 7 June, so the document must date from February–June 1941. It is often confused with NKVD Order No. 001223, signed by Beria on 11 October 1939, apparently because a US House select committee report printed the full text of the instructions under that heading.