Stalin was determined to punish those peoples he saw as collaborating with Germany during the war and to deal with the problem of nationalism , which would tend to pull the Soviet Union apart . Millions of Poles , Latvians , Georgians , Ukrainians and other ethnic minorities were deported to Gulags in Siberia . ( Previously , following the 1939 annexation of eastern Poland , thousands of Polish Army officers , including reservists , had been executed in the spring of 1940 , in what came to be known as the Katyn massacre . ) In addition , in 1941 , 1943 and 1944 several whole nationalities had been deported to Siberia , Kazakhstan , and Central Asia , including , among others , the Volga Germans , Chechens , Ingush , Balkars , Crimean Tatars , and Meskhetian Turks . Though these groups were later politically " rehabilitated " , some were never given back their former autonomous regions
Katyn massacre
Katyn massacre
History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)