And here are the documents themselves, and the numbers:
Order of the NKVD dated 1937-30-07 No. 00447
Main article: Order of the NKVD No. 00447
I. CONTINGENTS SUBJECT TO REPRESSION.
1. Former kulaks who returned after serving their sentence and continue to conduct active anti-Soviet subversive activities.
2. Former kulaks who fled from camps or labor settlements, as well as kulaks hiding from the dispossession of kulaks, who conduct anti-Soviet activities.
3. Former kulaks and socially dangerous elements who were members of the rebel, fascist, terrorist and bandit formations, who served their sentences, hid from repression or fled from prison and resumed their anti-Soviet criminal activities.
4. Members of anti-Soviet parties (Socialist-Revolutionaries, Gruzmeks, Musavatists, Ittihadists and Dashnaks), former whites, gendarmes, officials, punishers, bandits, bandits, ferrymen, re-emigrants who fled from repression, fled from places of detention and continue to conduct active anti-Soviet activities.
5. The most hostile and active participants in the currently liquidated Cossack-White Guard insurgent organizations, fascist, terrorist and espionage-sabotage counter-revolutionary formations, exposed by investigative and verified intelligence materials.
Also subject to repression are elements of this category who are currently in custody, the investigation of whose cases has been completed, but the cases have not yet been considered by the judicial authorities.
6. The most active anti-Soviet elements from the former kulaks, punishers, bandits, whites, sectarian activists, churchmen and others, who are now being held in prisons, camps, labor settlements and colonies and continue to conduct active anti-Soviet subversive work there.
7. Criminals (bandits, robbers, recidivist thieves, professional smugglers, recidivist swindlers, cattle stealers) who conduct criminal activities and are associated with the criminal environment.
Also subject to repression are elements of this category who are currently in custody, the investigation of whose cases has been completed, but the cases have not yet been considered by the judicial authorities.
8. Criminal elements in camps and labor settlements and carrying out criminal activities in them.
9. Repression is subject to all the above contingents who are currently in the countryside - in collective farms, state farms, agricultural enterprises and in the city - in industrial and commercial enterprises, transport, in Soviet institutions and in construction.
II. ON MEASURES OF PUNISHING THE REPRESSED AND THE NUMBER OF REPRESSED. 1. All repressed kulaks, criminals and other anti-Soviet elements are divided into two categories: a) the first category includes all of the most hostile elements listed above. They are subject to immediate arrest and, upon consideration of their cases in troikas - SHOT.
b) the second category includes all the other less active, but still hostile elements. They are subject to arrest and imprisonment in camps for a term of 8 to 10 years, and the most malicious and socially dangerous of them are subject to imprisonment for the same terms in prisons according to the definition of the troika.
Certificate of the 1st special department of the NKVD of the USSR on the number of those arrested and convicted during the period from October 1, 1936 to November 1, 1938.
No earlier than November 1, 1938 *
Total information
DeputyHead of the 1st Special Department of the NKVD of the USSR, Captain of State Security Zubkin
Head of Section 5, Senior Lieutenant of State Security Kremnev
Interesting data are given in one of the tables of the Summary 1936-38, reflecting the situation on July 1, 1938 (excluding the DCK):
(CA FSB RF. F. 3. Op. 5. D. 572. L. 74)
And now here's what's interesting: the kulaks in Russia have been "dispossessed" since 1918, and one must distinguish between pre-revolutionary (usurer) kulaks and Soviet kulaks (strong bosses who did not want to go to collective farms!). Many of the former have long since changed their place of work and were quite loyal to the new government. Oh yes, it was a fight against the "fifth column". But … did she give the result? No, because more than 1 million Soviet citizens, mostly of CONCERNED AGE, in one way or another went over to the side of the Nazis and fought with them.
Decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) No. P65 / 116 of November 17, 1938
116. About arrests, prosecutor's supervision and investigation.
(Resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the CPSU (b)).
Take the following decision (see appendix).
[Application]
People's commissars of internal affairs of the union and autonomous republics, chiefs of the NKVD of territories and regions, chiefs of district, city and district offices of the NKVD.
Prosecutors of union and autonomous republics, territories and regions, district, city and district prosecutors.
Secretaries of the Central Committee of the National Communist Parties, Territorial Committees, Regional Committees, District Committees, City Committees and District Committees of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks).
ABOUT ARRESTS, PROSECUTOR'S SUPERVISION AND INQUIRY.
Resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the CPSU (b).
The Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) note that in 1937-38, under the leadership of the party, the NKVD organs did a great job of defeating the enemies of the people and clearing the USSR of numerous espionage, terrorist, sabotage and sabotage cadres from Trotskyists, Bukharinites, Socialist-Revolutionaries, Mensheviks, bourgeois nationalists, White Guards, fugitive kulaks and criminals, who were a serious support of foreign intelligence services in the USSR and, in particular, intelligence services of Japan, Germany, Poland, England and France.
At the same time, the NKVD also did a lot of work to defeat the espionage and sabotage agents of foreign intelligence services transferred to the USSR in large numbers from behind the cordon under the guise of so-called political emigrants and defectors from Poles, Romanians, Finns, Germans, Latvians, Estonians, Harbinians, etc. … Clearing the country of sabotage insurgent and espionage cadres played a positive role in ensuring the further successes of socialist construction.
However, one should not think that this is the end of the task of clearing the USSR of spies, saboteurs, terrorists and saboteurs. The task now is to organize this struggle with the help of more perfect and reliable methods, while continuing the merciless struggle against all enemies of the USSR.
This collection of materials is also on the GARF website.
This is all the more necessary since the massive operations to defeat and root out enemy elements carried out by the NKVD in 1937-1938, with a simplified investigation and trial, could not but lead to a number of major shortcomings and distortions in the work of the NKVD and the Prosecutor's Office. … Moreover, the enemies of the people and spies of foreign intelligence, who made their way into the NKVD organs, both in the center and in the field (emphasis added by the author!), and unjustified arrests, at the same time saving his accomplices from defeat, in particular those who were entrenched in the NKVD.
The main shortcomings revealed recently in the work of the NKVD and the Prosecutor's Office are the following:
Firstly, the NKVD employees completely abandoned intelligence-informative work, preferring to act in a more simplified way, through the practice of mass arrests, without caring about the completeness and high quality of the investigation. The NKVD workers have become so unaccustomed to the painstaking, systematic agent-information work and have become so fond of a simplified procedure for the production of cases that until very recently they have raised questions about granting them so-called "limits" for the production of mass arrests. This led to the fact that the already weak undercover work lagged even further behind and, worst of all, many People's Commissars for Internal Affairs lost their taste (emphasis added by the author!) For undercover activities that play an extremely important role in KGB work.
This, finally, led to the fact that, in the absence of properly organized intelligence work, the investigation, as a rule, was unable to fully expose the arrested spies and saboteurs of foreign intelligence services and fully disclose all their criminal connections.
Such an underestimation of the importance of undercover work and an unacceptably frivolous attitude towards arrests are all the more intolerable since the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in their resolutions of May 8, 1933, June 17, 1935 and, finally, March 3, 1937 gave categorical instructions on the need for properly organize undercover work, limit arrests and improve the investigation.
Secondly, the biggest drawback of the work of the NKVD bodies is the deeply rooted simplified procedure for the investigation, in which, as a rule, the investigator is limited to obtaining a confession of guilt from the accused and does not care at all about supporting this confession with the necessary documentary data (testimony of witnesses, expert reports, material evidence and so on.) Often the arrested person is not interrogated for a month after the arrest, sometimes more. During interrogation of arrested persons, interrogation protocols are not always kept. Often there are cases when the testimony of the arrested person is recorded by the investigator in the form of notes, and then, after a long time (a decade, a month or even more), a general protocol is drawn up, and the requirement of Article 138 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the literal, if possible, fixation of the testimony of the arrested person is not met at all. … Very often, the interrogation protocol is not drawn up until the arrested person confesses to the crimes he has committed. There are frequent cases when the testimony of the accused is not recorded in the interrogation protocol at all, refuting one or another of these accusations.
Investigative cases are drawn up sloppily, drafts, corrected and crossed out by someone unknown, pencil notes of testimony are placed in the case, protocols of testimony not signed by the interrogated and not certified by the investigator are placed, unsigned and unapproved indictments are included, etc. The Prosecutor's Office for its part does not accept necessary measures to eliminate these shortcomings, reducing, as a rule, their participation in the investigation to a simple registration and stamping of investigative materials. The bodies of the Prosecutor's Office not only fail to eliminate violations of revolutionary legality, but in fact legitimize these violations.
This kind of irresponsible attitude to investigative arbitrariness and gross violations of the procedural rules established by law was often skillfully used by enemies of the people who made their way into the NKVD and the Prosecutor's Office - both in the center and in the localities. They deliberately perverted Soviet laws, committed forgeries, falsified investigative documents, bringing to criminal responsibility and subjecting them to arrest on trifling grounds and even without any reason at all, created "cases" against innocent people with a provocative purpose, and at the same time took all measures in order to hide and save from defeat their accomplices in criminal anti-Soviet activities. Facts of this kind took place both in the central apparatus of the NKVD and in the localities.
All these completely intolerable shortcomings noted in the work of the NKVD and the Prosecutor's Office were possible only because the enemies of the people who had made their way into the NKVD and Prosecutor's Office in every possible way tried to tear the work of the NKVD and the Prosecutor's Office from the party organs, to get away from party control and leadership, and thereby make it easier for themselves and to his accomplices the opportunity to continue their anti-Soviet, subversive activities.
In order to decisively eliminate the above shortcomings and the proper organization of the investigative work of the NKVD and the Prosecutor's Office, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) decide:
1. To prohibit the NKVD and the Prosecutor's Office from carrying out any mass arrest and eviction operations. In accordance with Art. 127 of the Constitution of the USSR, arrests should be made only by a court order or with the sanction of a prosecutor. Eviction from the border strip is allowed in each individual case with the permission of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) on the special proposal of the corresponding regional committee, regional committee or Central Committee of the national communist parties, agreed with the NKVD of the USSR.
2. To liquidate judicial troikas, created in the order of special orders of the NKVD of the USSR, as well as troikas at regional, regional and republican Departments of the RK police. Henceforth, all cases, in strict accordance with the current laws on jurisdiction, should be transferred to the courts or a Special Conference under the NKVD of the USSR.
3. When arresting, the NKVD and the Prosecutor's Office should be guided by the following:
a) approve arrests in strict accordance with the decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of June 17, 1935;
b) when demanding arrest warrants from prosecutors, the NKVD bodies are obliged to submit a reasoned resolution and all materials justifying the need for arrest;
c) the bodies of the Prosecutor's Office are obliged to thoroughly and essentially check the validity of the decisions of the NKVD bodies on arrests, demanding, if necessary, additional investigative actions or the submission of additional investigative materials;
d) the bodies of the Prosecutor's Office are obliged not to admit arrests without sufficient grounds.
Establish that for each wrong arrest, along with the employees of the NKVD, the prosecutor who issued the arrest warrant is also responsible.
4. To oblige the NKVD bodies during the investigation to comply exactly with all the requirements of the Criminal Procedure Codes.
In particular:
a) complete the investigation within the time limits established by law;
b) to interrogate those arrested no later than 24 hours after their arrest; after each interrogation, draw up immediately a protocol in accordance with the requirement of Article 138 of the CCP, indicating the exact time of the beginning and end of the interrogation.
The prosecutor, when familiarizing himself with the protocol of interrogation, is obliged to make an inscription on the protocol about familiarization with the designation of the hour, day, month and year;
c) documents, correspondence and other items taken away during the search should be sealed immediately at the place of the search, in accordance with Art. 184 of the Criminal Procedure Code, compiling a detailed inventory of everything sealed.
5. To oblige the bodies of the Prosecutor's Office to exactly comply with the requirements of the Criminal Procedure Codes for the implementation of prosecutorial supervision over the investigation carried out by the NKVD bodies. In accordance with this, oblige prosecutors to systematically check the compliance of the investigating authorities with all the rules for conducting an investigation established by law and immediately eliminate violations of these rules; take measures to ensure that the accused is granted procedural rights granted to him under the law, etc.
6. In connection with the growing role of prosecutorial supervision and the responsibility assigned to the prosecutor's office for arrests and the investigation carried out by the NKVD, it is necessary to recognize it as necessary:
a) establish that all prosecutors supervising the investigation carried out by the organs of the NKVD are approved by the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on the proposal of the respective regional committees, regional committees, the Central Committee of the National Communist Parties and the Prosecutor of the USSR;
b) oblige the regional committees, regional committees and the Central Committee of the national communist parties to check and submit for approval to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (b) the candidacies of all prosecutors supervising the investigation in the NKVD bodies within 2 months;
c) oblige the Prosecutor of the USSR, comrade Vyshinsky to select from the staff of the central office politically verified qualified prosecutors to oversee the investigation carried out by the central office of the NKVD of the USSR, and submit them for approval to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks within a two-decade period.
7. To approve the measures of the NKVD of the USSR to streamline the investigation process in the NKVD, set out in the order of October 23, 1938. In particular, to approve the decision of the NKVD on the organization of special investigative units in the operational departments. Attaching special importance to the correct organization of the investigative work of the NKVD bodies, to oblige the USSR NKVD to ensure that the best, most politically tested and qualified party members are appointed by investigators in the center and in the localities. To establish that all investigators of the NKVD organs in the center and in the field are appointed only by order of the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR.
8. To oblige the NKVD of the USSR and the Prosecutor of the USSR to give their local authorities instructions on the exact implementation of this resolution.
* * *
The Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) draw the attention of all employees of the NKVD and the Prosecutor's Office to the need to decisively eliminate the shortcomings noted above in the work of the NKVD and Prosecutor's Office and to the exceptional importance of organizing all investigative and prosecutorial work in a new way.
The Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) warn all employees of the NKVD and the Prosecutor's Office that for the slightest violation of Soviet laws and directives of the Party and Government, every employee of the NKVD and the Prosecutor's Office, regardless of the person, will be brought to harsh judicial responsibility.
Chairman of the board
People's Commissars of the USSR Secretary of the Central
Committee of the CPSU (b)
V. MOLOTOV I. STALIN
November 17, 1938
No. P 4387
_
AP RF, f. 3, op. 58, d. 6, l. 85-87;
Yes, it is not the law that is terrible. Terrible is the lawlessness! However, it is said: an injustice committed by one servant of the law, to a certain extent, dishonors the law itself!
