Special Council of the USSR NKVD (Особое совещание при НКВД СССР, ОСО) was created by the same decree of

Sovnarkom The Councils of People's Commissars (SNK; russian: Совет народных комиссаров (СНК), ''Sovet narodnykh kommissarov''), commonly known as the ''Sovnarkom'' (Совнарком), were the highest executive authorities of ...

of July 10, 1934 that introduced the

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union. ...

itself. By the decree, the Special Council was endowed with the rights to apply punishments "

by administrative means By administrative means (В административном порядке, "V administrativnom poryadke") was a term used in the Soviet Union when some actions which would normally require a court decision were left to the decision of executive ...

," i.e., without trial. In other words, the term "by administrative means" actually refers to

extrajudicial punishment Extrajudicial punishment is a punishment for an alleged crime or offense which is carried out without legal process or supervision by a court or tribunal through a legal proceeding. Politically motivated Extrajudicial punishment is often a fe ...

. The following types of punishment were put at the disposal of the Special Council by this decree:

banishment Exile is primarily penal expulsion from one's native country, and secondarily expatriation or prolonged absence from one's homeland under either the compulsion of circumstance or the rigors of some high purpose. Usually persons and peoples suf ...

(высылка) (from the place of residence),

exile Exile is primarily penal expulsion from one's native country, and secondarily expatriation or prolonged absence from one's homeland under either the compulsion of circumstance or the rigors of some high purpose. Usually persons and peoples suf ...

(ссылка) (to remote regions), corrective labor camps up to five years and

deportation Deportation is the expulsion of a person or group of people from a place or country. The term ''expulsion'' is often used as a synonym for deportation, though expulsion is more often used in the context of international law, while deportation ...

(высылка) from the

USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

. In 1937 during the

Great Purge The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Yezhov'), was Soviet General Secret ...

the Special Council was allowed to sentence to imprisonment up to eight years. In November 1941 after the beginning of the war with Germany the Special Council was allowed to sentence to imprisonment up to 25 years or to

death Death is the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain an organism. For organisms with a brain, death can also be defined as the irreversible cessation of functioning of the whole brain, including brainstem, and brain ...

. After the end of the war the Special Council was not allowed to sentence to death, the maximum available punishment was 25 years of imprisonment. When NKVD was renamed, the Special Council remained within the corresponding organization, e.g., as Special Council of MGB, etc. It was abolished in September 1953, shortly after the death of

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet Union, Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as Ge ...

.ОСОБОЕ СОВЕЩАНИЕ В РОССИИ И СССР (1881—1953)

References

NKVD {{Soviet-stub

See also

References