Stalin and Yezhov did not always send outsiders from Moscow to carry out such jobs. To speed up the process across the country, the NKVD also organized troikas, operating inside the camps as well as outside them. A troika was just what it sounds like: three men, usually the regional NKVD chief, the Chief Party Secretary of the province, and a representative of the prosecutor’s office or of the local government. Together, they had the right to pass sentence on a prisoner in absentia, without benefit of judge, jury, lawyers, or trial.46
