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 resorting to deliberations in the court. In other words, the term "by administrative means" actually refers to extrajudicial punishment.

The following types of punisment were put to the disposal of the Special Council by this decree: banishment (высылка) (from the place of residence), exile (ссылка) (to remote regions), corrective labor camps up to 5 years and deportation (высылка) from the USSR.

Since 1936 (the onset of the Yezhovshchina), the Special Council applied 25 years of labor camps and death sentence. At the same time, because of the overwhelming amount of cases, Special Councils were created at regional offices of NKVD.