Political terror conducted by the Bolsheviks affected all layers of society in former Russia. Accusations of counter-revolutionary activities, organizing terrorist acts, espionage, and sabotage were made against both members of the VKP(b) and illiterate peasants, who often could not even repeat the wording of their charges.

On August 15, 1937, the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR N.I. Yezhov signed operational order No. 00486 of the NKVD concerning repressions against the wives and children of "traitors to the Motherland." According to this document, the wives of those convicted of "counter-revolutionary crimes" were subject to arrest and imprisonment in camps for a period of 5 to 8 years, while their children aged from 1-1.5 to 15 years were sent to orphanages.

In every city where operations against the wives of "traitors to the Motherland" were conducted, children's reception centers were established for the children of the arrested. Stay in such institutions could last from several days to several months. Lyudmila Fedorovna Petrova from Leningrad, the daughter of repressed parents, recalls: "We were put in a car. Mom was dropped off at the 'Kresty' prison, and we were taken to a children's reception center. I was 12 years old, my brother was eight. First, they shaved our heads, hung a board with a number around our necks, and took our fingerprints. My brother cried a lot, but we were separated, not allowed to meet or talk. After three months, we were transferred to Minsk."

From the children's reception centers, children were sent to orphanages. Brothers and sisters had almost no chance of staying together; they were separated and sent to different institutions. Anna Oskarovna Ramenskaya, whose parents were arrested in 1937 in Khabarovsk, recalls: "I was placed in a children's reception center in Khabarovsk. I will always remember the day of our departure. The children were divided into groups. A little brother and sister, finding themselves in different places, cried desperately, clinging to each other, and begged not to be separated. But neither pleas nor bitter cries helped... We were put in freight cars and taken away..."

In one of the points of the NKVD order "On the operation to repress the wives and children of traitors to the Motherland," the term "socially dangerous children" is mentioned for the first time.