Special Council of the USSR NKVD (Особое Совещание при НКВД СССР, ОСО) was created by the same decree of Sovnarkom of July 10, 1934 that introduced the NKVD itself. By the decree, the Special Council was endowed with the rights to apply punishments "by administrative means," i.e., without resorting to deliberations in the court. In other words, the term "by administrative means" actually refers to extrajudicial punishment.
The following types of punisment were put to the disposal of the Special Council by this decree: banishment (высылка) (from the place of residence), exile (ссылка) (to remote regions), corrective labor camps up to 5 years and deportation (высылка) from the USSR.
Since 1936 (the onset of the Yezhovshchina), the Special Council applied 25 years of labor camps and death sentence. At the same time, because of the overwhelming amount of cases, Special Councils were created at regional offices of NKVD.
However, the NKVD apparatus was overwhelmed by functions inherited directly from the Imperial MVD, such as the supervision of the local governments and firefighting, and the new proletarian workforce was largely inexperienced.
Although the NKVD performed the important function of state security, the name of the organization today is associated primarily with activities considered criminal: political repressions and assassinations, military crimes, violations of the rights of Soviet and foreign citizens, and violation of the law.
Cooperation of NKVD and Gestapo: In March 1940 representatives of NKVD and Gestapo meet for one week in Zakopane, for the coordination of the pacification of resistance in Poland.
It was signed by Nikolai Yezhov acting both as chief of NKVD and General Commissar of State Security (chief of GUGB).
All cases were to be considered by the SpecialCouncil of the NKVD.
According to this order a number of specialized labor camps were installed, for different categories of relatives: for wives, for breast-feeding wives, for elderly wives, for children.
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