Internal exile with a fixed term

Introduction

An internal exile with a fixed term was usually written out by the so-called "central extra-judicial organs: the OGPU Judicial Collegium (OGPU = USSR United Main Political Administration), the OGPU OSO (OGPU Special Board), the NKVD OSO (Special Board of the People's Commissariate of the Interior), the MGB OSO (Special Board of the Ministery of the Interior). We know about exceptions - convictions by a "special three-member board" in the Siberian and West-Siberian regions in 1930 and convictions by a "special three-member board" in the Far-East Region in 1931. In the 1930s the internal exile with a fixed term was officially called now exile, now "banishment". In the 1920s and even early in the 1930s many convicts did not go into exile under escort, but all by themselves (and at their own cost, of course). Special cases of internal exile with a fixed term are:

• Those determined to six years, as we described under section 7, imposed by the local UNKVD/ UMVD (= provincial Administration of the People's Commissariate of the Interior/ provincial Administration of the Ministery of the Interior) or by the SMERSh (= Special counter-intelligence directorate of the Soviet Armed Forces)
• Those determined to eight years, as described in this chapter (see section 10.5), as well as the "Khrushchov" exile (see section 10.6), which was carried through by a simple order of the local powers (of the district or town).

Besides the streams of exiles with a fixed term (specified below) we name another few isolated ones that were directed into our region. Thus, in 1940-1944, they deported "temporary" exiles from the Moscow region (together with people that had been sentenced to 5 years under Section 58-1 "B", see section 10.4), from West-Siberia and even from the island of Sakhalin. They had ususally been sentenced by the OSO of the NKVD under Section 58-10 to five years' exile. Early in the 1940s arrestees, who had been accused of having connections with the Ukrainian resistance (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, Ukrainian Insurgent Army), were not imposed a camp term, but an exile term instead. Such terms were written out by the Special Board of the Ministery of State Security; they were mostly 10 years' terms.

In addition, the internal exile with a fixed term, as imposed by sentence of the military courts or other judicial organs, sometimes served as an "extra" on the camp term. In some cases the OSO of the NKVD even commuted the rest of the camp term into internal exile. Such commutations were mainly carried through at the time of the "Beriya liberalizations" in 1939-1940. Thus, early in the spring of 1940, they directed a complete transport of women into our region (to the districts north of Kansk), prisoners from the Temlag, sentenced under Section 58-12 ("ChSIR" = Members of the family of an enemy of the people). At the end of the term the were released from exile and received passports. 

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