Troika (NKVD)
A troika ( Russian тройка ; also судебная тройка, "court troika ") was a commission of three people in Soviet history that could impose sentences on people arrested. Hundreds of thousands of death sentences were imposed during the Great Terror . The troikas were not organs of the judiciary, but belonged to the executive branch, usually to the Interior Ministry of the USSR (NKVD), so they imposed administrative penalties.
The chairman of the troika was the head of the respective NKVD administration. Usually, the Troika further consisted of the public prosecutor of the republic , the region or the area or his representative as well as the secretary of the corresponding regional party level of the CPSU (then WKP (b) or Communist Party of the Soviet Union ).
Great terror
By the NKVD Order No. 00,447th of 30 July 1937 (Russian: О репрессировании бывших кулаков, уголовников и других антисоветских элементов , German: "Over the repression of former kulaks , criminals and other anti-Soviet elements"), signed by Nikolai Yezhov and approved by the Politburo of the CPSU , the operational troikas were deployed during the Great Terror on all administrative levels: in the Soviet republics, governorates, Krajs and oblasts . The investigations and punishments were to be carried out by operational groups "in a quick and easy way," and those arrested were referred to the troikas for decision.
Minutes of the troika meetings were sent to the appropriate operational groups for the enforcement of the judgments. Troikas of this type existed until about mid-1938.
By resolution of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the WKP (b) on November 17, 1938, these troikas formed by special order of the NKVD were dissolved, as were the troikas in the militia administration in the oblasts, krais and Soviet republics. They were replaced by special committees of the NKVD (Russian Особое совещание при НКВД СССР). They represented the Central Committee of the party, people's commissariats and ministries as well as the public prosecutor's office. They also imposed administrative penalties, without public approval, often without presenting the accused personally on the basis of the files, and they could also impose the death penalty.
Red Army
There were also troikas of the NKVD in the Red Army . These served as military courts .
So in 1945 returning officers and soldiers of the Red Army, which in German prisoner of war found themselves accused of Troika and condemned as "traitors" to death or to several years because of "cowardice" labor camp condemned. These troikas consisted, for example, of two NKVD officers and a political commissar .