 He also initiated "national operations", the ethnic cleansing of non-Soviet ethnic groups—among them Poles, Germans, Latvians, Finns, Greeks, Koreans, and Chinese—through internal or external exile.During these years, approximately 1.6 million people were arrested, 700,000 were shot, and an unknown number died under NKVD torture.Stalin initiated all key decisions during the Terror, personally directing many of its operations and taking an interest in their implementation.