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This gave the go-ahead for the Stalin era’s first mass deportation. In the winter of 1930, more than 550,000 peasants were deported in inhumane conditions. The original quotas, considerably exceeded, confirm that “dekulakisation” was unrestrained. In the major grain-growing areas (Lower and Mid-Volga, Central Black Earth Region, Ukraine and Belarus republics), expropriation turned into petty revenge and plundering. The purge affected most of the middle-income peasantry. Although they were supposed to leave with two months’ worth of provisions, warm clothes and tools, families were woken in the middle of the night, ordered to get ready in half an hour, and sent to the nearest station, where they were loaded onto goods trains for unknown destinations. These methods became a ritual during subsequent deportations.
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