On July 30, 1937, the NKVD's emergency troikas were given the power to impose death sentences on "enemies of the people."
The NKVD's extraordinary "troikas" were given the right to pass death sentences on "enemies of the people."
The order on "troikas" was signed by the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs Nikolay Yezhov. The very next day, the Politburo approved the order without any changes.
The state security organs are faced with the task of mercilessly crushing the gang of anti-Soviet elements, protecting the working Soviet people from their counter-revolutionary machinations, and finally, once and for all, putting an end to their vile subversive work against the foundations of the Soviet state.
The practice of "troikas" within the NKVD had de facto existed even before the order—it merely formalized the repressive mechanisms. But, unlike the open show trials of the Soviet elite, this time the case reached ordinary citizens—peasants, workers, and clergy.
In all republics, territories and regions, begin an operation to repress former kulaks, active anti-Soviet elements and criminals
A "kulak" operation led by Yezhov's deputy and the country's chief KGB officer Mikhail Frinovsky lasted almost a year and a half.
From August 1937 to November 1938, the NKVD arrested about 1,7 million people. Of these, the “troika” decided to shoot 390 thousand people, and send 380 thousand to the Gulag camps (according to other estimates, the number of those shot was higher – up to 445 thousand people).
The judicial process in the "troikas" (consisting of the regional NKVD chief, the regional committee secretary, and the prosecutor) operated like a conveyor belt. For example, the Leningrad "troika" handed down 658 death sentences in just one day, the Karelian troika 629, and the Omsk troika 937.
There was usually no evidence of guilt; sometimes letters from friends abroad or calendars with the Tsar's portrait might be attached to the case.
The repressions were accompanied by a struggle for high local indicators. Omsk The chairman of the "troika" already on August 1, 1937, asked the Lubyanka to increase the limits and boasted of the "Stakhanovite" pace - by that time he already had more than 3 thousand people arrested.
The approved figures are approximate. However, the People's Commissars of the republican NKVD and the heads of the regional and provincial NKVD departments do not have the right to exceed them on their own. Any unauthorized increases in the figures are not permitted.
(clause II.3 of the NKVD order No. 00447)
The operation was supposed to be completed within six months, but the deadline was extended. At the height of the repressions, cautious proposals were made to stop the work of the "troikas."
Working with troikas is easy, uncomplicated work; it trains people to deal with enemies quickly and decisively. But living with troikas for long periods of time is dangerous. Because under these conditions, people rely on minimal evidence and become distracted from the main thing—undercover work.
(People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Belarusian SSR Boris Berman)
In January 1938, the second phase of the operation began: the "troikas" were given additional execution limits of 48 and the camps 9,2. Stalin asked Yezhov to intensify the persecution of former Socialist Revolutionaries.
The "kulak operation" and mass arrests ended only in November 1938, following a purge within the NKVD itself. The work of the "troikas" was discontinued, and cases were transferred to regular courts.
The NKVD was held responsible for the operation's errors and "violations of revolutionary legality." The main perpetrators, Yezhov and Frinovsky, were executed in 1940. Many members of the "troikas" were also repressed: 47 NKVD representatives, 67 party members, and two prosecutors were sentenced to death.
A gross violation of legally established procedural rules, which were often skillfully exploited by enemies of the people who had infiltrated the NKVD and the Prosecutor's Office. They deliberately distorted Soviet laws, committed fraud, and prosecuted people on trivial grounds.
(from the directive of the Council of People's Commissars, November 17, 1938)
Information about the “kulak operation” was completely classified until the 1990s.
American explorer Paul Gregory He called the "troika" order the most brutal state order of the 20th century. Other historians call the mass repressions of 1937-1938 a "political Holocaust" and suggest equating it with genocide.
