By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 6 August 2023

The head of the Soviet NKVD, Nikolai Yezhov, issued Prikaz (Order) Number 00447 on 30 July 1937, a secret instruction soon signed-off by Joseph Stalin, which vastly expanded the scope and scale of the Great Terror within the Soviet Union. The 2008 book, The Road to Terror: Stalin and the Self-Destruction of the Bolsheviks, 1932-1939, by J. Arch Getty and Oleg V. Naumov, as translated by Benjamin Sher, contains nearly the full text of the order (pp. 473-80), which is reproduced below.

A few clarifying notes:

The Terror or Yezhovshchina was a process of State persecution in the Soviet Union—purges, torture, confinement to the GULAG concentration camps, and judicial murder—that began in 1936, built to the peak represented by this Order in 1937, and ran until the end of 1938. The whole thing was orchestrated and entirely controlled by the General Secretary of the Communist Party, Joseph Stalin (r. 1922-53). Yezhovshchina is often remembered for the show trials, where broken men publicly confessed to literally incredible crimes as part of a non-existent effort to overthrow the Soviet system in a conspiracy with elements outside the country, particularly Leon Trotsky, the leader of the Bolshevik army during the civil war who had been declared a heretic and deported in 1929. Behind this public dimension overseen by the infamous judge Andrey Vyshinsky—later a leading figure in the Nuremberg “trials”—there was a remorseless, secret bureaucratic machinery, which Order 00447 put into high gear. Roughly one million people were murdered directly by Yezhovshchina (usually shot by the NKVD) and seven million people were sent to the GULAG in 1937-38, where two million of them perished because of the inhuman conditions.

The People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) was the then-current incarnation of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission (VČK or VChK), better known as the Cheka, founded the month after the Bolshevik coup of November 1917. The various version of the Cheka—the OGPU, NKVD, NKGB, MGB, and KGB—are often called the Soviet “secret police”, and that was, indeed, one of their roles. But the Soviet system should not be misunderstood as a synonym for “the Russian government”: it was a transnational movement—a Revolution—that happened to hold Russia as one of its pieces of territory on the way to bringing the whole world under Communism. The Cheka was “the sword and the shield” of the Revolution, charged with the defence of those areas already under Communist rule and the expansion of this zone wherever possible. As such, neither the neat conceptual distinctions of Western intelligence services (domestic and foreign, defensive and offensive), nor the operational distinctions (recruitment, propaganda, counter-intelligence, sabotage, assassination) applied: the Cheka was all of these things simultaneously.

The copy of the document from the Soviet archives that Getty and Naumov reproduce has a memo attached to the front, which is written by Mikhail Frinovsky, Yezhov’s deputy at the NKVD, and it is addressed to Alexander Poskrebyshev, Stalin’s personal secretary, formally the head of the “Special Sector” of the Central Committee, one of the most important instruments used by Stalin to assert his will over the State. Frinovsky was asking for Yezhov’s order to be approved by the Politburo. The Politburo members—never numbering more than fifteen men—were Central Committee members. In theory, the Politburo was to act as a rapid-action, deliberative policy-making body for the Central Committee when its full 140 members were not in session. In reality, the Politburo wielded supreme power within the Soviet system, and even within the Politburo the theory of “democratic centralism” was generally by-passed: the General Secretary ruled. This was especially true under Stalin and at this time: two months earlier, with the arrest of Janis Rudzutaks, Yezhovshchina had begun consuming Politburo members. The Politburo’s approval of 00447 on 5 August—the date specified as the start date of the order—is, therefore, to be understood as Stalin rubber-stamping something he had demanded in the first place.

In terms of the content of Order 00447, the primary target is the “former kulaks who had earlier been subjected to punitive measures and who had evaded them, who had escaped from camps, exile, and labour settlements”, and who are now said to be stirring up trouble in the countryside, along with bandits and habitual criminals. There are also various elements said to have “infiltrated enterprises of industry, transport, and construction” in urban zones to sabotage them (“wreckers”, as they would come to be called). The subtext is a confession that the Soviet regime has been unable to gain control of the peasants in the rural areas after the upheaval created by the collectivisation and dekulakisation policies that Stalin began in 1929, and that the industries in the cities are likewise malfunctioning.

The singling out of the kulaks—the peasants from Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and elsewhere who had already survived being starved, uprooted, and imprisoned in concentration camps—has led to 00447 being called the “kulak order” and its consequences the “kulak operation”. But the terrifying thing about 00447 is that it opened the way to imprisoning and murdering anyone.

Yezhov says the NKVD is taking on the “task of mercilessly crushing this entire gang of anti-Soviet elements”, which includes kulaks and other “socially dangerous elements who were members of insurrectionary, fascist, terroristic, and bandit formations”; “anti-Soviet political parties”, including various national minorities, “Whites” (those who fought the Bolsheviks in the civil war) and “Cossack-White Guard insurrectionary organizations”, bureaucrats from the former Imperial Government, Russian Orthodox Church officials, “sectarians” (i.e., Protestants and other small Christian sects), and “fascist, terroristic, and espionage-saboteur counterrevolutionary formations”; and “criminals”: “bandits, robbers, recidivist thieves, professional contraband smugglers, recidivist swindlers, cattle and horse thieves”.

The Order then gets to what to do about this: the First Category of the “most active of the above-mentioned elements” are “to be shot”; the Second Category of “less active but nonetheless hostile elements” are to suffer “confinement in concentration camps for a term ranging from eight to ten years”. To make these decisions, 00447 creates the “troikas”, the three-man panels of NKVD officers. The order also sets out quotas for people in various regions who are to be shot and imprisoned.

The operation initiated by Order 00447 was supposed to last for four months and apply to a little over a quarter-of-a-million people, murdering 76,000 of them and sending 193,100 people to the GULAG. In reality, the operation lasted fifteen months—running until November 1938—and involved the slaughter of nearly 400,000 people, with another 350,000 sent to the Soviet concentration camps.

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Below is a translation of Order No. 00447, written by NKVD chief Nikolai Yezhov and dated 30 July 1937, as produced by Getty and Naumov in ‘The Road to Terror’ (pp. 473-80).

To Comrade Poskrebyshev,

I am sending you operational order No. 00447 concerning the punishment of former kulaks, criminals, and other anti-Soviet elements. In addition, I am sending you the decree. I ask that you send the decree to members of the Politburo for their vote, and please send an extract of relevant items to Comrade Yezhov.

Frinovsky

30 July 1937 …

[TOP SECRET] Copy no. 1.

OPERATIONAL ORDER of the people’s commissar for internal affairs of the USSR. No. 00447 concerning the punishment of former kulaks, criminals, and other anti-Soviet elements.

30 July 1937. City of Moscow.

It has been established by investigative materials relative to the cases of anti-Soviet formations that a significant number of former kulaks who had earlier been subjected to punitive measures and who had evaded them, who had escaped from camps, exile, and labour settlements, have settled in the countryside. This also includes many church officials and sectarians who had been formerly put down, former active participants of anti-Soviet armed campaigns. Significant cadres of anti-Soviet political parties (SRs [Socialist-Revolutionaries], Georgian Mensheviks, Dashnaks [Armenians], Mussavatists [Azeris], Ittihadists [Turks, refers to the ideology of the Committee of Union and Progress], etc.), as well as cadres of former active members of bandit uprisings, Whites, members of punitive expeditions, repatriates, and so on remain nearly untouched in the countryside. Some of the above-mentioned elements, leaving the countryside for the cities, have infiltrated enterprises of industry, transport, and construction. Besides, significant cadres of criminals are still entrenched in both countryside and city. These include horse and cattle thieves, recidivist thieves, robbers, and others who had been serving their sentences and who had escaped and are now in hiding. Inadequate efforts to combat these criminal bands have created a state of impunity promoting their criminal activities. As has been established, all of these anti-Soviet elements constitute the chief instigators of every kind of anti-Soviet crimes and sabotage in the kolkhozy [collective farms] and sovkhozy [state farms] as well as in the field of transport and in certain spheres of industry. The organs of state security are faced with the task of mercilessly crushing this entire gang of anti-Soviet elements, of defending the working Soviet people from their counterrevolutionary machinations, and, finally, of putting an end, once and for all, to their base undermining of the foundations of the Soviet state.

Accordingly, I therefore ORDER THAT AS OF 5 AUGUST 1937, ALL REPUBLICS AND REGIONS LAUNCH A CAMPAIGN OF PUNITIVE MEASURES AGAINST FORMER KULAKS, ACTIVE ANTI-SOVIET ELEMENTS, AND CRIMINALS. …

The organization and execution of this campaign should be guided by the following:

I. GROUPS SUBJECT TO PUNITIVE MEASURES.

1. Former kulaks who have returned home after having served their sentences and who continue to carry out active, anti-Soviet sabotage.

2. Former kulaks who have escaped from camps or from labor settlements, as well as kulaks who have been in hiding from dekulakization, who carry out anti-Soviet activities.

3. Former kulaks and socially dangerous elements who were members of insurrectionary, fascist, terroristic, and bandit formations, who have served their sentences, who have been in hiding from punishment, or who have escaped from places of confinement and renewed their anti-Soviet, criminal activities.

4. Members of anti-Soviet parties (SRs, Georgian Mensheviks, Dashnaks, Mussavatists, Ittihadists, etc.), former Whites, gendarmes, bureaucrats, members of punitive expeditions, bandits, gang abettors, transferees, re-émigrés, who are in hiding from punishment, who have escaped from places of confinement, and who continue to carry out active anti-Soviet activities.

5. Persons unmasked by investigators and whose evidence is verified by materials obtained by investigative agencies and who are the most hostile and active members of Cossack-White Guard insurrectionary organizations slated for liquidation and fascist, terroristic, and espionage-saboteur counterrevolutionary formations. In addition, punitive measures are to be taken against elements of this category who are kept at the present under guard, whose cases have been fully investigated but not yet considered by the judicial organs.

6. The most active anti-Soviet elements from former kulaks, members of punitive expeditions, bandits, Whites, sectarian activists, church officials, and others, who are presently held in prisons, camps, labour settlements, and colonies and who continue to carry out in those places their active anti-Soviet sabotage.

7. Criminals (bandits, robbers, recidivist thieves, professional contraband smugglers, recidivist swindlers, cattle and horse thieves) who are carrying out criminal activities and who are associated with the criminal underworld. In addition, punitive measures are to be taken against elements of this category who are kept at the present under guard, whose cases have been fully investigated but not yet considered by the judicial organs.

8. Criminal elements in camps and labour settlements who are carrying out criminal activities in them.

9. All of the groups enumerated above, to be found at present in the countryside—i.e., in kolkhozy, sovkhozy, on agricultural enterprises—as well as in the city—i.e., at industrial and trade enterprises, in transport, in Soviet institutions, and in construction—are subject to punitive measures.

II. CONCERNING THE PUNISHMENT TO BE IMPOSED ON THOSE SUBJECT TO PUNITIVE MEASURES AND THE NUMBER OF PERSONS SUBJECT TO PUNITIVE MEASURES.

1. All kulaks, criminals, and other anti-Soviet elements subject to punitive measures are broken down into two categories:

a. To the first category belong all the most active of the above-mentioned elements. They are subject to immediate arrest and, after consideration of their case by the troikas, to be shot.

b. To the second category belong all the remaining less active but nonetheless hostile elements. They are subject to arrest and to confinement in concentration camps for a term ranging from 8 to 10 years, while the most vicious and socially dangerous among them are subject to confinement for similar terms in prisons as determined by the troikas.

2. In accordance with the registration data presented by the people’s commissars of the republic NKVD and by the heads of territorial and regional boards of the NKVD, the following number of persons subject to punitive measures is hereby established:

4. The families of those sentenced in accordance with the first or second category are not as a rule subject to punitive measures. Exceptions to this include:

a. Families. members of which are capable of active anti-Soviet actions. Pursuant to the special decree by the three-man commission. members of such families are subject to being transferred to camps or labor settlements.

b. The families of persons punished in accordance with the first category, who live in border areas, are subject to expulsion beyond the border area within the republics or regions.

c. The families of those punished in accordance with the first category who live in Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, Tbilisi, Baku, Rostov-on-the-Don, Taganrog, and in the districts of Sochi, Gagry, and Sukhumi, are subject to expulsion from these centers to other regions of their choice, except for districts near the border.

5. All families of persons punished in accordance with the first and second categories are to be registered and placed under systematic observation . …

IV. ORDER FOR CONDUCTING THE INVESTIGATION.

1. Investigation shall be conducted into the case of each person or group of persons arrested. The investigation shall be carried out in a swift and simplified manner. During the course of the trial, all criminal connections of persons arrested are to be disclosed.

2. At the conclusion of the investigation, the case is to be submitted for consideration to the troika. …

VI. ORDER OF IMPLEMENTATION OF SENTENCES.

1. The sentences are to be carried out by persons in accordance with instructions by the chairmen of the three-man commissions—i.e., by the people’s commissars of the republic NKVDs, by the heads of governing boards, or by the regional departments of the NKVD. … The basis for the implementation of the sentence shall be the certified extract from the minutes of the troika session containing an account of the sentence regarding each convicted person and a special directive bearing the signature of the chairman of the troika, which are to be handed to the person who carries out the sentence.

2. The sentences included under the first category are to be carried out in places and in the order as instructed by the people’s commissars of internal affairs, by the heads of governing boards, or by the regional departments of the NKVD. … Documents concerning the implementation of the sentence are attached in a separate envelope to the investigative dossier of each convicted person.

3. The assignment to camps of persons condemned under the second category is to be carried out on the basis of warrants communicated by the GULAG of the NKVD of the USSR.

VII. ORGANIZING THE OPERATIONAL LEADERSHIP AND MAINTENANCE OF RECORDS.

1. I lay the responsibility for the general directing of the implementation of the operations on the shoulders of my deputy, i.e., Comrade Frinovsky, Corps Commander, head of the main board of state security. A special group is to be formed under him in order to implement the tasks associated with the direction of these operations. …

Thoroughgoing measures are to be taken during the organization and implementation of the operations in order to prevent persons subject to punitive measures from going underground, in order to prevent their escape from their places of residence, and especially beyond the border, in order to prevent their forming groups of bandits and robbers, and to prevent any excesses. Any attempts to commit counterrevolutionary actions are to be brought to light promptly and quickly nipped in the bud.

PEOPLE’S COMMISSAR FOR INTERNAL AFFAIRS OF THE USSR AND GENERAL COMMISSAR FOR STATE SECURITY,

[N. YEZHOV]

Certified: M. Frinovsky

Strictly secret, All-Union Communist Party (Bolshevik) Central Committee

No. P-51/442 31 July 1937.

To Comrade Yezhov: all items; To Comrade L. Kaganovich: #6; To Comrade Ivanov: #8, #9, #10, #15; To Comrade G. Smirnov: #10; To Comrade Arbuzov: #5, #10, #11; To Comrade Voroshilov: #13; To Comrade Propper-Grashchenkov: #14.

Extract from Protocol #51 of the Politburo of the CC, DECISION of 31 July 1937.

442- Re: THE NKVD.

1. To confirm the plan presented by the NKVD of an operational order concerning the imposition of punitive measures on former kulaks, criminals, and other anti-Soviet elements.

2. To commence operations in all regions of the USSR on 5 August 1937; in the Far Eastern territory, in Eastern Siberia region, and in Krasnoyarsk territory as of 15 August 1937; in Turkmen, Uzbek, Tajik, and Kirghiz republics as of 10 August 1937. The entire operation is to be completed within a period of 4 months. …

5. To issue to the NKVD 75 million rubles from the reserve fund of the Council of People’s Commissars (SNK) to cover operational expenses associated with the implementation of the operation, of which 25 million rubles is to be earmarked for payment of rail transport fees.

6. To require the NKPS [People’s Commissariat for Transport and Communications] to grant the NKVD rolling stock in accordance with its demands for the purpose of transporting the condemned within the regions and to the camps.

7. To utilize as follows all of the kulaks, criminals, and other anti-Soviet elements condemned under the second category to confinement in camps for periods of time:

a) on construction projects currently under way in the GULAG of the NKVD of the USSR;

b) on constructing new camps in the remote areas of Kazakhstan;

c) on the construction of new camps especially organized for timber works undertaken by convict labor.

8. To propose to the People’s Commissariat for Forestry that it forthwith transfer to the GULAG of the NKVD the following forest tracts for the purpose of organizing camps for forest works. [List follows] …

9. To propose to the People’s Commissariat for Forestry and to the GULAG of the NKVD of the USSR to determine within a period of ten days which additional forest tracts, other than those enumerated above, ought to be transferred to the GULAG for the purpose of organizing new camps.

10. To commission the State Planning Commission (Gosplan) of the USSR, the GULAG of the NKVD, and the People’s Commissariat for Forestry to work out within a period of 20 days and to present for confirmation to the Council of People’s Commissars (SNK) of the USSR:

a) plans for the organization of timber cuttings, the labor force needed for this purpose, the necessary material resources, the funds and the cadres of specialists;

b) to define the program of timber cuttings of these camps for the year 1938. …

11. To issue to the GULAG of the NKVD an advance of 10 million rubles from the reserve fund of the Council of People’s Commissars (SNK) of the USSR for the purpose of organizing camps and for the carrying out of preliminary works. To consider that in the 3rd and 4th quarters of 1937 convicts will be utilized for the production of preparatory works for the fulfillment of the program for the year 1938.

12. To propose to the regional and territorial committees of the VKP(b) and of the All-Union Leninist Communist Union of Youth (VLKSM) in regions where camps are being organized, to assign to the NKVD the necessary number of Communists and Komsomol members in order to bring the administrative and camp security apparat to full strength (as demanded by the NKVD).

13. To require the People’s Commissariat for Defence to summon from the RKKA [Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army] reserves 240 commanding officers and political workers in order to bring the cadres of the supervisory personnel of the military security forces of newly organized camps to full strength.

14. To require the People’s Commissariat for Health to issue to the GULAG of the NKVD 150 physicians and 400 medical attendants for service in the newly organized camps.

15. To require the People’s Commissariat for Forestry to issue to the GULAG 10 eminent specialists in forestry and to transfer 50 graduates of the Leningrad Academy of Forest Technology to the GULAG.

Secretary of the CC