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Operational Order No. 00486 of the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR: "On the Operation to Repress Wives and Children of Traitors to the Motherland"

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By People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR, People's Commissar of Internal Affairs SSSR Yezhov, Nikolai Ivanovich

Children of the Gulag

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Operational Order No. 00486 of the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR: "On the Operation to Repress Wives and Children of Traitors to the Motherland," Informatsionnyi biulleten' Pravelenia Mezhdunarodnogo istorikoprosvetitel'skogo, blagotvoritel'nogo i pravozashchitnogo obshchestva "Memorial" No. 12, 1999: 19-21, in Deti GULAGa, 234-38.

15 August 1937

Upon receipt of this order, begin the repression of wives of traitors to the Motherland, members of right-Trotskyite espionage-diversionary organizations, convicted by the Military Collegium and military tribunals in the first and second categories, beginning from August 1, 1936.

In the execution of this operation, act according to the following: Preparing the Operation

1) In relation to every family designated for repression, a thorough verification

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shall be carried out, additional fundamental data and compromising materials shall be gathered.

On the basis of the materials gathered, there shall be composed:

a) a detailed general description of the family, indicating:

the last name, first name and patronymic of the convicted head of the family, for what crime, when, by whom and to what punishment he is subjected; a list of the names of the rest of the family (including also all persons who are dependents of the convict and who live with him), detailed basic data on each member of the family; materials compromising the wife of the convict; a profile of the degree of social danger posed by children older than 15 years of age; data on the presence in the family of very elderly parents in need of care, data on the presence of children who require care because of their physical condition;

b) a separate short description of children over 15 years of age who are socially dangerous children and capable of anti-Soviet activity;

c) lists of the names of children under 15 years of age of preschool and school ages respectively.

2) These descriptions shall be reviewed as appropriate by the People's Commissars of Internal Affairs of the Republics and the Directors of the NKVD Administration of the region and districts.

The latter:

a) Shall sanction the arrest and searching of wives of traitors to the Motherland;

b) Shall determine the measures to be taken in regard to parents and other relatives dependent on the convict and living with him.

Carrying Out the Arrests and Searches

3) Those designated for repression shall be arrested. The arrest shall be carried out with a warrant.

4) Wives legally married to or in a de facto marriage with the convict at the time of his arrest shall be subject to arrest.

Wives divorced from the convict at the time of his arrest shall be subject to arrest nonetheless if they:

a) are party to the convict's counterrevolutionary activity;

b) hid the convicted person;

c) knew about the convict's counterrevolutionary activity, but did not report this to the appropriate organs of power.

5) Those not subject to arrest:

a) pregnant women; convicts' wives who have nursing children, who are seriously ill or suffering from an infectious disease; those of advanced age.

With respect to such persons measures shall be temporarily restricted to

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taking a signed statement to remain in place and establishing observation of the family;

b) convicts' wives who unmasked their husbands and reported information to the organs of power that served as the basis for working up a case against their husbands and for their husbands' arrest.

6) Simultaneously with the arrest a thorough search shall be conducted. During the search the following shall be confiscated: weapons, cartridges, explosive and chemical materials, military equipment, copying equipment (carbon copiers, glass lithograph copiers, typewriters, etc.), counterrevolutionary literature, correspondence, foreign currency, precious metals in the form of ingots, coins and manufactured objects, personal documents and financial documents.

7) All the property belonging personally to the arrested parties (except for necessary underwear, inner and outer garments, shoes, and bedding, which the arrested parties shall take with them) shall be confiscated.

The apartments of the arrested parties shall be sealed.

In those cases when adult children, parents and other relatives live with the arrested parties, there shall be left to their use, beyond their personal effects, the necessary: living space, furnishings, and house wares of the arrested parties.

8) After the search, the arrested convicts' wives are to be conducted to prison under escort. Simultaneously, following the instructions below, the children are also to be taken away.

Case Documentation Format

9) An investigative case file shall be opened for each arrested party and for each socially dangerous child older than fifteen years of age, in which, in addition to the documents listed above, there shall also be placed the separate descriptions (see points "a" and "b" Art. 1) and a short bill of indictment.

10) Investigative files shall be sent for review to the Special Board of the USSR NKVD [ . . . special instructions for certain geographic regions]

Case Review and Forms of Punishment

11) The Special Board shall review the cases of wives of convicted traitors of the Motherland and those of their children older than fifteen years of age who are socially dangerous and capable of committing anti-Soviet acts.

12) Wives of convicted traitors of the Motherland shall be subject to internment in camps for terms not less than 5-8 years, depending upon the level of social danger they represent.

13) Socially dangerous children of convicts, depending upon their age, their level of danger, and the potential for correction, shall be subject to internment in camps or NKVD corrective labor colonies or to settlement

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in special regime orphanages of the People's Commissariats of Enlightenment of the Republics [ . . . details about reporting and storing case files]

Implementation of Sentences

16) Wives of traitors to the Motherland convicted by the Special Board shall be sent to serve their sentences to the special division of the Temnikov correctional labor camp by individual order from the GULAG of the USSR NKVD.

Transit to the camps shall be conducted according to the appropriate regulations.

17) Convicted wives of traitors to the Motherland not subject to arrest because of illness or responsibility for sick children shall be arrested as soon as the illness passes and sent to a camp.

Wives of traitors to the Motherland who have nursing children, shall be arrested after the sentence has been handed down and sent immediately to the camp without being taken to prison.

Convicted wives of advanced age shall be treated in like manner.

18) Convicted children who are socially dangerous shall be sent to camps, to NKVD correctional labor colonies or to special regime orphanages run by the People's Commissariats of Enlightenment of the Republics, by personal orders from the GULAG of the NKVD for the first and second groups, and from the USSR NKVD Administrative-Economic Division for the third group.

Placing Convicts' Children

19) All child-orphans remaining after convictions shall be placed as follows:

a) children aged from 1-1.5 years up to three full years of age—to orphanages and nurseries run by the People's Commissariats of Health of the Republics at convict residential centers;

b) children from three full years to fifteen years of age—to orphanages run by the People's Commissariats of Enlightenment of the Republics, region and districts (according to their assigned distribution) and outside Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, Tbilisi, Minsk, coastal and border cities.

20) The cases of children over age fifteen shall be decided individually. Depending upon their age, their ability to support themselves independently by their own labor or to live as dependents with relatives, such children may be:

a) sent to orphanages run by the People's Commissariats of Enlightenment of the Republics in conformity with Art. 19, pt. "b:"

b) sent to other Republics, region and districts (to centers excluding those cities listed above) to be placed in jobs or to study.

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21) Nursing children shall be sent with their convicted mothers to camps, from which, when they reach the age of 1-1.5 years, they shall be transferred to orphanages and nurseries run by the People's Commissariats of Health of the Republics.

22) Children from three to fifteen years of age shall be supported by the government.

23) In the event that other relatives who have not been repressed wish to take on the orphans who remain as their full dependents, this shall not be hindered.

Preparing for the Reception and Distribution of Children

24) In every city where this operation is being carried out, there shall be specially equipped:

a) Reception-distribution points, to which children shall be taken immediately after their mothers' arrests, and from which children will then be sent to orphanages;

b) Accommodation shall be specially organized and equipped in which socially dangerous children shall be held prior to decisions of the Special Board of the NKVD.

For the children listed above, child receivers in the divisions of NKVD labor colonies shall be used where they exist.

25) [ . . . instructions about personnel of orphanages.]

26) Directors of NKVD organs shall determine in which orphanages and nurseries of the People's Commissariats of Health children up to 3 years of age can be placed, and shall ensure the swift reception of these children without any refusals.

27) [ . . . distribution of lists of the children's names and ages, etc.] In the lists children shall be indicated in groups, constituted so as to ensure that no children who know each other or are related to each other shall land in the same orphanage.

28) [ . . . communications among NKVD offices and orphanages]

29) During the arrest of convicts' wives, children shall be taken away from them together with their personal documents (birth certificates, school documents) [ . . . ]

Procedure for Sending Children to Orphanages

30) Children shall be received at the receiver-distributor by the head of the center or the Director of the child NKVD Department of Labor Colonies receiver and a specially assigned operational worker (male or female) from the State Security Administration of the USSR NKVD.

Every child admitted shall be registered in a special book, and their documents shall be sealed in a separate envelope.

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The children shall then be grouped according to their assigned destinations and shall be sent in groups, accompanied by specially selected workers, to the orphanages of the People's Commissariats of Enlightenment, where they will be handed over with their documents to the head of the orphanage, who shall sign personally for them.

31) Children up to 3 years of age shall be handed over personally to the heads of orphanages or nurseries run by the People's Commissariats of Health, who shall sign personally for them. The children's birth certificates shall be handed over together with them.

32)-34) [ . . . articles on reporting on progress of the operation and supervision of children's political attitudes]

Accountability

34) [ . . . ]

35) The operation to repress wives of traitors to the Motherland who have already been convicted shall be completed by October 25 of this year.

36) Henceforth, all wives of traitors to the Motherland who have been unmasked [and] of right-Trotskyist spies shall be arrested simultaneously with their husbands, in accordance with the procedures established by this order.

People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR

Commissar General of State Security YEZHOV

Transcription

Document Details

Document TitleOperational Order No. 00486 of the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR: "On the Operation to Repress Wives and Children of Traitors to the Motherland"

AuthorPeople's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR, People's Commissar of Internal Affairs SSSR; Yezhov, Nikolai Ivanovich

RecipientN/A

RepositoryN/A

ID #N/A

DescriptionN/A

Date1937 Aug 15

AOC VolumeChildren of the Gulag

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