The Gromyko Commission, officially titled the State Commission for Consideration of Issues Raised in Applications of Citizens of the USSR from Among the Crimean Tatars () was the first state commission on the subject of addressing what the dubbed "the Tatar problem". Formed in July 1987 and led by Andrey Gromyko, it issued a conclusion in June 1988 rejecting all major demands of Crimean Tatar civil rights activists ranging from right of return to restoration of the Crimean ASSR.
Background
In May 1944 the Crimean Tatar people was deported from Crimea on blanket accusations of mass collaboration with Nazi Germany. Most were sent to the Uzbek SSR and scattered around various oblasts within the Uzbek SSR, but some were sent to other areas such as the Mari ASSR. Those who did not collaborate with the Nazis were not spared deportation. Even the families of Heroes of the Soviet Union where the head of the household was Crimean Tatar were subject to deportation. Crimean Tatars who were members of the Communist Party and in leadership positions in the Crimean ASSR government, as well Crimean Tatars serving in the Red Army and even Tajfa Crimean Tatar Holocaust survivors were subject to exile. As special settlers in diaspora they had few civil rights and were forbidden from leaving a small radius of the village or city they were assigned to, punishable by 20 years in prison.Указ Президиума Верховного Совета СССР № 123/12 от 26 ноября 1948 года «Об уголовной ответственности за побеги из мест обязательного и постоянного поселения лиц, выселенных в отдаленные районы Советского Союза в период Отечественной войны». (Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR No. 123/12 of November 26, 1948 “On criminal liability for escapes from places of compulsory and permanent settlement of persons evicted to remote areas of the Soviet Union during the Patriotic War.”)
The Crimean ASSR was dissolved on 30 June 1945, and a campaign of mass detatarization of Crimea followed: Crimean Tatar books were burned, "Crimean Tatar libraries were closed and plundered, valuable books were burned, and numerous historical-cultural monuments in Crimea were destroyed, while others survived precariously" villages with Crimean Tatar names were renamed, and Crimean Tatar cemeteries were not only destroyed but the gravestones used as building materials. Crimea was quickly resettled by waves of ethnic Russian and Ukrainian immigrants, many of whom were given houses and property of deported Crimean Tatars.
In 1956 other nations deported with accusations of mass treason were permitted to return and their titular republics were officially restored - such as the Chechens and Ingush, Kalmyks, Balkars, and Karachays.Постановление Центрального Комитета КПСС от 24 ноября 1956 года «О восстановлении национальной автономии калмыцкого, карачаевского, балкарского, чеченского и ингушского народов» (Resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU of November 24, 1956 “On the restoration of the national autonomy of the Kalmyk, Karachay, Balkar, Chechen and Ingush peoples”) The deported Caucasian peoples heavily resisted their exile, "К несчастью для крымских татар, они не были в 1956 году так хорошо организованы, так сплочены, как чеченцы и ингуши. Если бы они начали массовое самовольное возвращение в Крым, то, вероятно, добились бы своего. В ноябре 1956 года, в связи с событиями в Венгрии и других странах Восточной Европы, советское руководство очень опасалось осложнений в собственной стране и вынуждено было бы пойти крымским татарам на уступки. Но этого не произошло, и крымские татары надолго утратили свой исторический шанс." ("Unfortunately for the Crimean Tatars, in 1956 they were not as well organized, as united, as the Chechens and Ingush. If they had begun a mass unauthorized return to Crimea, they would probably have achieved their goal. In November 1956, due to "With the events in Hungary and other countries of Eastern Europe, the Soviet leadership was very afraid of complications in its own country and would have been forced to make concessions to the Crimean Tatars. But this did not happen, and the Crimean Tatars lost their historical chance for a long time.") many participating in a prolonged guerrilla war against the NKVD in the mountains of the Caucasus. Abreks, like Akhmed Khuchbarov and Laysat Baisarova became folk heroes of those deported peoples. In contrast, Crimean Tatars put up considerably less resistance to exile, "The Crimean Tatars filled the construction, mining, and factory jobs in Uzbekistan’s industrial towns shunned by the Uzbeks. Between May 20, 1944, and July 1, 1948, the proportion of Crimean Tatars working in such occupations in Uzbekistan increased from 15 to 70 percent. The NKVD noted that they had a “positive attitude” toward labor and that many of them overfulfilled their assigned work quotas by substantial margins, thus qualifying them as Stakhanovites. In 1945, the NKVD noted that 50 to 60 percent of Crimean Tatar workers at the Fergana Textile Combine, construction sites in Fergana, Ozakerit mines in Fergana, and silk factories in Margilan had exceeded their assigned quotas by 200 to 300 percent. The same report also commended the work ethic of Crimean Tatar workers in the Samarkand and Namagan oblasts. The Crimean Tatars became prized workers in the undesirable and thus difficult-to-fill jobs in Uzbekistan’s underdeveloped industrial economy." but still had a strong desire to return. The decree rehabilitating the aforementioned deported peoples of the Caucasus in 1956 did not restore the Crimean ASSR, and said that Crimean Tatars who wanted a national autonomy could "reunite" with the Volga Tatars of the Tatar ASSR.
For twenty years, the government maintained that their national issue had been "solved" by the decree in 1967 which proclaimed that "people of Tatar nationality formerly living in Crimea" [sic] were "rehabilitated". The decree, published selectively in newspapers where Crimean Tatars lived for them to see, "Finally, and perhaps most ominously, the decree was not published widely and loudly as originally promised by Andropov; it was published selectively, in those regions of the USSR where the Tatars had "taken root." For the vast majority of Soviet citizens, nothing had changed, and the views about the Tatars with which they had been indoctrinated for twenty-three years remained unrevised. In the years that followed, this fact caused the Tatars untold harm, for they were unable to persuade many non-Tatar Soviet citizens of the justness of their cause. " showed that the state no longer recognized Crimean Tatars as a distinct ethnic group, through the use of the euphemism "people of Tatar nationality formerly living in Crimea". "With the stroke of a pen the Crimean Tatars' dream of returning to their homeland had been once again crushed and instead they were said to have spontaneously 'taken root' (ukorenilis') in Uzbekistan. In addition, the very existence of the Crimean Tatar nationality had been refuted by the wording of the decree which referred not to the 'Crime-an Tatars' but to the 'Tatars who had formerly been living in the Crimea.'From this time forward the Crimean Tatars of Central Asia were, for all official purposes,(i.e. passports, censuses etc.), considered to be a sub-section of the Volga Tatars. The real meaning of this decree was clear for all to see for, as Alan Fisher pointed out, "a people without a nationality has no homeland to which to return." After twenty years of mass-based nationalization during the korenizatsiia period, which saw the construction of the Crimean Tatars as the 'primordial, rooted people' in the Crimean Peninsula, the Soviet government had apparently reversed itself and hit upon the idea of 'de-rooting' this nation and simply transplanting it in Central Asia by administrative caveat. " "Практически полстолетия крымские татары были лишены права этнической самоидентифи- кации — этноним «крымские татары» был изъят из переписей населения, научного и правового использования, культурного обихола." (For almost half a century, the Crimean Tatars were deprived of the right of ethnic self-identification - the ethnonym “Crimean Tatars” was removed from population censuses, scientific and legal use, and cultural life.) "Second, the decree of 1967 did not speak of Crimean Tatars at all, but rather of "Tatars resident in the Crimea," or "citizens of Tatar nationality who lived in the Crimea." This implicitly denied the existence of their nationality itself. Thus, there could be no need to return to the Crimea—a people without a nationality has no homeland to which to return. In addition, the decree described the Tatars as having taken root in the areas to which they had been deported, implying that they did not want to return. Although the decree mentioned their national language, this reference clearly meant the language spoken and read by Tatars in general, not by those of the Crimea in particular." The decree did not answer any of the requests of Crimean Tatar rights activists at the time, specifically official rehabilitation by the state restoration of the Crimean ASSR with a Crimean Tatar national district, the right to return to Crimea. "Prior to 1967, when making their demands for redress of grievances, the Crimean Tatar leadership had concentrated on three areas: (1) complete rehabilitation of their nationality, to be officially announced by government authorities; (2) restoration of property illegally seized at the time of the deportation; and (3) the right to return to their homeland in the Crimea, with the re-creation of the Crimean ASSR. In their euphoria just after the issuance of the decree in September, the Tatars temporarily forgot these demands. But not for long. It did not take a high degree of sophistication to realize that the wording of the "rehabilitation" left two of their demands completely unanswered and only partially dealt with the third." As more and more tried to return to Crimea, the government made it even harder for Crimean Tatars to return to Crimea by issuing decrees in the 1970s tightening the passport regime in Crimea. "On 22 February 1974, and 1978, the regime issued further decrees named “additional measures for strengthening the passport regime in Crimea” to make the registration and resettlement of Crimean Tatars in Crimea almost impossible and to enable re-deportation of those who attempted to return by the police."
Because they were not a recognized ethnic group and lumped into the Tatars in censuses despite being a completely separate ethnic group of a different origin, it was very hard to determine what the Crimean Tatar population was in the Soviet Union during the struggle for the right of return.