The expulsion of the families of the "enemies of the people" from the Soviet Far East in the late 1930's as a form of mass deportation

The article deals with character and the scale of the campaign of expelling the families, the heads of which were subjected to repressions in the years of Great Terror, from the Soviet Far East. The total number of such families surpassed 10,000 in 1937-1938. Basing on archive documents and memoirs the author draws a conclusion that the campaign was a form of mass Stalinist deportations aimed at social "purge" of the frontier region under the threat of war with Japan.