Troiki

The troiki received extraordinary powers: to impose sentences even to death, without supervision, and to oversee the implementation of their decisions.

In searching out ‘anti-Soviet elements’, troiki were enjoined to capture escaped kulaks, ex-Mensheviks, ex-Socialist-Revolutionaries, priests, pre-revolutionary policemen and former members of non-Russian parties.

In 1933 he [Robert Eikhe] waged a fierce struggle against the regime’s opponents, petitioning the Politburo in July 1933 to retain the power of the troiki in West Siberia to impose the death penalty.

They were given a five-day period within which to form special troiki to administer the cases and to carry out a survey of the numbers to be shot and exiled.