Before hopping into the Khrushchev era, which had a complicated relationship with the death penalty and criminal justice reform, we should discuss the death penalty under Stalin to get a sense of what was being reformed.

The Stalinist regime has a rightly deserved reputation for liberally applying the death penalty. From 1929-1953 it is believed that the state security bodies executed 832,759 individuals, based on recently accessed materials from their archives.(1) Another dataset, provided by the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) chief S.N. Kruglov in December 1953, put the number executed by the security services during the same period as 778,173.(2) The former is considered more complete and less affected by political bias than the 1953 report.(3)

These numbers should be considered floors, not ceilings, because many forms of state execution are excluded. The Katyn Massacre, with 21,768 victims, is excluded, as are executions which occurred in 1939-1940 and 1944-1953 in the regions annexed by the USSR. (4) Extrajudicial executions during the Second World War (1941-1945) of political prisoners are also left out.(5) Various other forms of death resulting from interrogation and torture, deaths during arrest, and informal killings without an arrest (Primarily during collectivization, 1928-1933 and the Second World War) are not included either.

During the Stalin-era, political death sentences were issued through several different official bodies depending on the year. Until 1932 all sentences under the political police came from the OGPU Collegium, the OGPU Special Board, and OGPU Troikas.(6) The latter were 3-man plenipotentiary bodies dealing with a set of crimes depending on which OGPU department it was under - they handled most cases.(7) Important cases or ones which involved the regular justice system (Procuracy) were handled by the other two bodies.(8) All convictions by these bodies were carried out without witnesses or defense counsel and usually in absentia.(9)

From 1934-36 there was a period of experimentation and reorganization. In 1933 the Special Board handled all cases, in 1934 regular judicial courts and Troikas handled over 90% of cases equally, and in 1935-36 Troikas handled the majority of sentences with the Special Board taking the remainder.(10) In 1934 the OGPU was abolished and the civil and political police secretly (And unconstitutionally) combined under a single All-Union NKVD (People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs). The NKVD abolished the Collegium and relied solely on the Special Board for important cases.

While initial regulations approved on November 5, 1934 did not give the NKVD Special Board the right to pass death sentences, as early as November 28 exceptions began to be given for the Special Board and Troikas.(11)

After the assassination of Sergei Kirov on December 1, 1934, simplified procedures were enacted for cases of “terrorism” tried within the judicial system by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court.(12) These simplified procedures were expanded to other counterrevolutionary crimes (Sabotage, etc.) in 1937.(13) From 1937-1938, the Great Terror, the NKVD was granted the authority to convict and sentence to death with a number of bodies.(14)

Most executions were carried out by a new set of Troikas with the power to sentence convicts to death without appeal, usually by signing off on large “albums” of cases simultaneously with limited, if any, review.(15) However, death sentences were also ordered by Special Collegiums of the Gulag and the Special Board.(16)

Following the organized chaos of the Great Terror, from 1939-1953 the process was once again returned to something resembling normalcy. The NKVD Special Board was retained with the power to sentence administratively, but not to issue capital punishment. This power was given solely to general district courts and other civil judicial bodies.

During the Second World War, however, the ability to issue death sentences was requested on November 15 by L.P. Beria and re-issued to the Special Board on November 17, 1941, along with authorization to immediately execute without appeal 10,645 individuals sentenced judicially to death.(17) Troikas were also instituted in a limited number of cases, and executions of prisoners without trial by the NKVD – with and without orders – were widespread.(18) During the war the NKVD was split into the NKVD for internal security, civil policing, and camp management and the NKGB for state security, each with their own Special Board.

1 - The state security materials are currently held by the Federal Security Service (FSB). From Mozokhin, O., Статистические сведения о деятельности органов ВЧК – ОГПУ –НКВД – МГБ (1918–1953 гг.), Page 14.

2 - Artizov, A., Iu. Sigachev, I. Shevchuk, and V. Khlopov, eds., Реабилитация: как это было. Документы Президиума ЦК КПСС и другие материалы in 3 volumes, Volume 1, Pages 76-77.

3 - For a discussion about the two datasets, see Wheatcroft, Stephen, "The Great Terror in Historical Perspective: The Records of the Statistical Department of the Investigative Organs of OGPU/NKVD" in Harris, James, eds., The Anatomy of Terror: Political Violence under Stalin

4 - Mozokhin, Статистические сведения, Page 14. From 1944-January 1953, 153,223 were killed in Western Ukraine by Soviet forces. The numbers don’t distinguish between those killed in combat, executed, etc. See Украинские националистические организации в годы Второй мировой войны in 2 Volumes, Volume 2. For more on the counterinsurgency and related deaths see Statiev, Alexander, The Soviet Counterinsurgency in the Western Borderlands

5 - Mozokhin, Статистические сведения, Page 14.

6 - Реабилитация*, Pages 201-205.

7 - Mozokhin, O, Право на репрессии: Внесудебные полномочия органов государственной безопасности (1918-1953), Pages 43 for the Special Board and 83-85 for the OGPU Troikas.

8 - Ibid., 85.

9 - Ibid., 105.

10 - Реабилитация, Pages 201-205.

11 - Mozokhin, Право на репрессии, Pages 101-103.

12 - See the law of December 1, 1934, “"Об упразднении Особого совещания при Министре внутренних дел СССР" here

13 - Solomon, Peter, Soviet Criminal Justice Under Stalin, Page 236.

14 - Binner, R., and Iunge, M., et. al., «Через трупы врага на благо народа». «Кулацкая операция» в Украинской ССР 1937-1941 гг. in 2 Volumes, Volume 1: 1937, Pages 99-115.

15 - Binner, R., and Iunge, M., et. al., «Через трупы врага на благо народа». «Кулацкая операция» в Украинской ССР 1937-1941 гг. in 2 Volumes, Volume 2: 1938, Pages 175-198 for a description of the “Album Method” and a copy of one such album.

16 - Реабилитация, Pages 201-205.

17 - Khaustov, V, Naumov, V, and Plotnikova, N, Лубянка. Сталин и НКВД - НКГБ - ГУКР "Смерш" 1939-март 1946, Pages 318-320 for Beria’s request, RGASPI f. 644, op. 2, d. 25, ll. 142-143, can be viewed here for the State Defense Committee Resolution of November 17.

18 - Budnitskii, Oleg, “The Great Terror of 1941: Toward a History of Wartime Stalinist Criminal Justice”, Pages 468-470.