The study of the investigation files showed that the repressions carried out by the NKVD Order number 00447 were targeted. The choice of victims was determined by their belonging to the “socially alien” “contingent, subject to repression”, specified in the order, and marginalized groups “at risk”. The objects of the repressive policies were also the people that demonstrated in their current (at the time of the repressive campaign) activities disloyalty to the authorities and socio-economic system, formed as the result of the reforms of the 1930s (in rural areas — the collective farm system). The arbitrariness and randomness in the selection of victims of repression were determined by increasing the scale of repression as the result of having to perform “limits” on the arrests and convictions as well as the actions of the population to take advantage of the conditions of terror to solve their problems and achieve their own interests. The Great Terror was a complex and multidimensional phenomenon, the content of which was determined by the aspirations and actions of the central leadership, regional and local authorities, as well as various social groups.