Editing Great Purge (section)

=="Ex-kulaks" and other "anti-Soviet elements"==
On 2 July 1937, in a top secret order to regional Party and NKVD chiefs Stalin instructed them to produce the estimated number of "kulaks" and "criminals" in their districts. These individuals were to be arrested and executed, or sent to the gulag camps. The party chiefs complied and produced these lists within days, with figures which roughly corresponded to the individuals who were already under secret police surveillance.<ref name=werth/>

On 30 July 1937, the [[NKVD Order No. 00447]] was issued, directed against "ex-kulaks" and other "anti-Soviet elements" (such as former officials of the [[Russian Empire|Tsarist regime]], former members of political parties other than the communist party, etc.). They were to be executed or sent to Gulag prison camps extrajudicially, under the decisions of [[NKVD troika]]s.

The following categories appear to have been on index-cards, catalogues of suspects assembled over the years by the NKVD and were systematically tracked down: "ex-kulaks" previously deported to "[[Forced settlements in the Soviet Union|special settlements]]" in inhospitable parts of the country ([[Siberia]], the [[Ural Mountains|Urals]], Kazakhstan, and the [[Extreme North (Russia)|Far North]]), former tsarist civil servants, former officers of the [[White Army]], participants in peasant rebellions, members of the clergy, persons deprived of voting rights, former members of non-Bolshevik parties, ordinary criminals, like thieves, known to the police and various other "socially harmful elements".<ref name="werth2-6"/>

However, a large number of people were arrested at random in sweeps, on the basis of denunciations or because they were related to, were friends with or knew people already arrested. Engineers, peasants, railwaymen, and other types of workers were arrested during the "Kulak Operation" based on the fact that they worked for or near important strategic sites and factories where work accidents had occurred due to "frantic rhythms and plans". During this period the NKVD reopened these cases and relabeled them as "sabotage" or "wrecking."<ref>Werth, Nicolas. 2009. ''L'ivrogne et la marchande de fleurs. Autopsie d'un meurtre de masse, 1937–1938''. Paris: Tallandier.</ref>

[[File:Evgeny Miller1.png|upright=0.7|thumb|[[Yevgeny Miller|Yevgeny-Ludvig Karlovich Miller]], one of the remaining leaders of the [[White movement]], was abducted from [[Paris]] by the NKVD in 1937 and executed in [[Moscow]] 19 months later.]]

The [[Russian Orthodox Church|Orthodox clergy]], including active parishioners, was nearly annihilated: 85% of the 35,000 members of the clergy were arrested. Particularly vulnerable to repression were also the so-called "special settlers" (''spetzpereselentsy'') who were under permanent police surveillance and constituted a huge pool of potential "enemies" to draw on. At least 100,000 of them were arrested in the course of the Great Terror.<ref name="sciencespo.fr"/>

Common criminals such as thieves, "violators of the passport regime", etc. were also dealt with in a summary way. In Moscow, for example, nearly one third of the 20,765 persons executed on the [[Butovo firing range]] were charged with a non-political criminal offence.<ref name="sciencespo.fr"/>

To carry out the mass arrests, the 25,000 officers of the State Security personnel of NKVD were complemented with units of ordinary police, and [[Komsomol]] ([[Young Communist League]]) and civilian Communist Party members. Seeking to fulfill the quotas, the police rounded up people in markets and train stations, with the purpose of arresting "social outcasts".<ref name=werth/> Local units of the NKVD, in order to meet their "casework minimums" and force confessions out of arrestees worked long uninterrupted shifts during which they interrogated, tortured and beat the prisoners. In many cases those arrested were forced to sign blank pages which were later filled in with a fabricated confession by the interrogators.<ref name=werth/>

After the interrogations the files were submitted to NKVD troikas, which pronounced the verdicts in the absence of the accused. During a half-day-long session a troika went through several hundred cases, delivering either a death sentence or a sentence to the Gulag labor camps. Death sentences were immediately enforceable. The executions were carried out at night, either in prisons or in secluded areas run by the NKVD and located as a rule on the outskirts of major cities.<ref name="werth2-6">{{cite web|first=Nicolas|last=Werth|author-link=Nicolas Werth|url=http://www.massviolence.org/The-NKVD-Mass-Secret-Operation-no-00447-August-1937?artpage=2-6|title=Case Study: The NKVD Mass Secret Operation n° 00447 (August 1937 – November 1938)}}</ref>

The "Kulak Operation" was the largest single campaign of repression in 1937–38, with 669,929 people arrested and 376,202 executed, more than half the total of known executions.{{sfn|Figes|2007|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=sge44FaZDREC&pg=PA240 240]}}