“Mass” Operations of the NKVD in 1937–1938 аgainst Criminal and “Declassed Elements”

Abstract

In the context of studying mass political repressions in the USSR, an attempt was made to look at the role of terror in order to radically transform a marginal and transitional society into a socialist society. The processes of politicization of common crimes and social anomalies, and the intensification of extrajudicial repressions in the 1930s against criminal and deviant segments of the population are shown. For the first time, the materials of extrajudicial “Kulak” and “Militia” troikas in the Kazakh SSR and the processed data of protocol statistics are introduced into scientific circulation. The evolution and specifics of extrajudicial bodies are demonstrated, an in-depth analysis of the contingent of the repressed is carried out. The purpose of the article is to study the scale of social purge among criminal, marginal and deviant groups of the population in the Kazakh SSR during the implementation of the two large-scale repressive campaigns of the Great Terror period, namely, the “Kulak” and “Militia” operations of the NKVD of the USSR. It has been established that during the period of the most massive repressive campaign of the Great Terror, known as the “Kulak” operation, almost 27 thousand people were repressed in Kazakhstan, including almost 3.7 thousand people as “criminals”, and a third of them were shot. In total, during 1937–1938 in the Kazakh SSR, more than 15 thousand people were repressed by extrajudicial bodies as criminal and declassed elements. It is concluded that the politicization of the status of marginals made it possible to exaggerate their social danger, which led to mass repressions against them.