Schedule

As an extraordinary decree, Order 00447 set aside existing criminal laws for the period of the campaign. Given the size of the Soviet Union and transport difficulties, the campaign could not start everywhere at once. Ezhov set the starting date for August 5 for the central regions and an ending point four months later. Also, instruction had to be given on which enemies to attack first; namely, the most dangerous "first category.” A notable feature of the Order is Ezhov's

Use of the first person, establishing his personal role and instructing NKVD subordinates to contact him directly for orders. In the language of 00447:

In connection with this, i order: to begin in all republics, regions and provinces operations for the repression of former kulaks, active antiSoviet elements and criminals on August 5, 1937. Operations will begin in Uzbek, Turkmen, Tadzhik and Kirgiz republics on August 10, and in the Far Eastern and Krasnoyarsk regions and in Eastern Siberia on August 15. Operations should end within a four-month period.11

Contingents of the second category are not to be repressed until special instructions are issued. In cases where a commissar of the republican NKVD, or a head of an administration or of a provincial department, having completed first-category operations, considers it possible to begin operations on the second category, he is required to ask my permission and only after that to start the operation.12