Abstract
The article presents an analysis of repressive operations conducted in the USSR in 1933 on the example of the Moscow region. The author examines the main repression campaigns of this year using the Communist Party, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the OGPU directives and decrees, which accompanied mass arrests by political reasons. The study of social aspects is based on archival investigative cases stored in the State Archive of the Russian Federation (fund 10035). The analysis shows that the repressive operations clearly followed the instructions of the central authorities. Mass convictions by extrajudicial sentences of the OGPU “troikas” in the Moscow region mostly took place before the signing of the instruction of May 8th, 1933, which ceased mass evictions of peasants and restricted mass arrests. Until that time, the main targets of terror were immigrants from Ukraine, the North Caucasus and the Volga region, and the fact of dekulakization was crucial in sentencing. Workers suffered the most from the repressions. They were yesterday's peasants who fled from dekulakization, often living in Moscow without documents in poverty and in constant need. Their “anti-Soviet agitation” expressed dissatisfaction with the living and working conditions. Young people carried on “anti-Soviet propaganda” in discussions about the current situation in the country. Most of the victims were semi-literate.
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