Dealing with “Anti-Soviet Elements”. POLITBURO accepts NKVD request to increase quotas for 1st category (executions) and 2nd category (sent to camps) arrests in 22 Republics and Regions across the USSR [R: 31 January 1938, Pb 57-48]. 2 pp.

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[page one of two]

Return within 24 hours to the Central Committee Special Sector

STRICTLY SECRET

(From Special File)

CENTRAL COMMITTEE

of the All-Union Communist Party (of Bolsheviks)

Pb 57/48, [?31 January] 1938

To Comrade Yezhov, all pages;

[individually] to the relevant Regional and National Committees of Communist Parties

Abstract from the Minutes of meeting No 57 of the Politburo of the VKP (b) Central Committee

---

 Resolution of 31 January 1938

48. Concerning Anti-Soviet elements

1. Adopt the proposal of the USSR NKVD to confirm additional acts of repression [¹] against former kulaks, criminals and active anti-Soviet elements for the following Regions and Republics [²]:

Republic / Region	1st category	2nd category
Armenian SSR	1,000	1,000
Belorussian SSR	1,500 [3]	—
Ukrainian SSR	6,000 [4]	—
Georgian SSR	1,500	—
Azerbaijani SSR	2,000	—
Turkmen SSR	1,000	—
Kirgiz SSR	500	—
Tadjik SSR	1,000	500
Uzbek SSR	2,000	500
Far East Region	8,000	2,000
Chita Region	1,500	500
Buryat/Mongol Region	500	—
Irkutsk Region	3,000	500
Krasnoyarsk Region	1,500	500
Novosibirsk Region	1,000	—
Omsk Region	3,000 [5]	—
Altai Region	2,000	1,000
Leningrad Region	3,000	—
Karelian ASSR	500 [6]	200
Kalinin Region	1,500	500
Moscow Region	1,000	—
Sverdlovsk Region	2,000	—

(see next page)

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[page two]

Workers of All Lands, Unite!

STRICTLY SECRET

(Special File)

Must be returned

CENTRAL COMMITTEE of the All-Union Communist Party (of Bolsheviks)

page 2

Continued

Item No. [48] of [57th] meeting of the Politburo, dated [31 January] 19 [38]

RESOLVED

2. Propose that the USSR NKVD to carry out the entire operation, but that the above-mentioned Regions and Republics complete no later than 15 March 1938, and the Far Eastern Region no later than 1 April 1938.

3. In accordance with this Resolution, prolong the work of troikas [⁷] examining the cases of former kulaks, criminals and anti-Soviet elements in the Regions and Republics listed in item 1.

In all other Regions and Republics the work of the troikas will end no later than 15 February 1938, having finished and examined all cases within the quotas established for these Regions and Republics.

CENTRAL COMMITTEE SECRETARY

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NOTES

For an overall picture of the Great Terror, see “Russia’s Necropolis of Terror and the Gulag” (one such overview was provided in 2009 by Nicolas Werth).

*

1. The naming of “former kulaks, criminals and other anti-Soviet elements” is a reference to Yezhov’s secret Order No. 00447 (30 July 1937). Implemented from August onwards, it marked the beginning of the Great Terror.
   
   Subsequently, the NKVD in the Republics, or the local Party bosses, would ask for further increases in their quotas, as other documents in this archive show: in the Gorky Region (4 February 1938*, No 95/111), in Belorussia, Ukraine and west Siberia’s Omsk Region.
   
   Even after the Terror had ended, Stalin would sanction further random executions: see his pencil-written assent to Krasnoyarsk request, 31 December 1938*.
   ↩︎
2. N.B. Outside the ‘national’ republics the size and extent of many pre-1939 Regions was considerably greater than it would be later, e.g., the ‘Northern’ Region, the (Far) ‘Eastern’ Region.
   ↩︎
3. 17 July 1938 (no number) – Request from Belorussian NKVD. Encrypted telegram from Belorussian SSR to STALIN, YEZHOV and ANDREYEV, to increase quota for executions (2,000) and arrests (3,000) [R: 17 July 1938]. One page.
   ↩︎
4. Ukraine, 17 February 1938* (Pb 58/57). NKVD in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic requests an increase of 30,000 people in Ukraine’s quota for executions and arrests.
   ↩︎
5. 10 May 1938, Pb 61/128 – POLITBURO decision. NKVD request from Omsk (Siberia) to increase quota for executions by a further 1,000 persons [R: 10 May 1938, Pb 61-128]. One page.
   ↩︎
6. In the 1990s Ivan Chukhin and his assistant Yury Dmitriev in Karelia (northwest Russia) gained access to the NKVD execution lists. By painstaking and persistent effort, they were able to establish not only who was killed during the Great Terror and when, but also in many cases where.
   
   The entire progression of the Great Terror in Karelia has been documented and described.
   ↩︎
7. The troika was a local extra-judicial, three-man tribunal (with representatives, typically, from the Party, the NKVD and the Procurator’s Office) that rubber-stamped ready prepared lists of those condemned to imprisonment or execution.
   ↩︎

GENERAL

• 1. Notes and additions by translator and editor are bracketed, thus [ ];
• 2. Text added by hand is indicated in italic script;
• 3. when a handwritten phrase, figure or word has been inserted in a previously typed document it is indicated by underlined italic script.

Translated and annotated by John Crowfoot

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