Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War Powers to withdraw from North Russia and Siberia in 1920, though Japanese forces occupied parts of Siberia until 1922 and the northern half of Sakhalin until 1925. In 1917, Russia was in a state of political strife, and public support for World War I and the Tsar was dwindling. The country was on the brink of revolution. The February Revolution changed the course of the war; under intense political pressure, the Tsar abdicated and the Russian Provisional Government was formed, led initially by Georgy Lvov and later by Alexander Kerensky. The Provisional Government pledged to continue fighting the Germans on
Special Council of the NKVD was abolished in September 1953, shortly after the death of Joseph Stalin. Special Council of the NKVD Special Council of the USSR NKVD (Особое Совещание при НКВД СССР, ОСО) was created by the same decree of Sovnarkom of July 10, 1934 that introduced the NKVD itself. By the decree, the Special Council was endowed with the rights to apply punishments "by administrative means," i.e., without trial. In other words, the term "by administrative means" actually refers to extrajudicial punishment. The following types of punishment were put at the disposal of the Special Council by this decree: banishment (высылка) (from the