Thread: Declassified NKVD Document ...

I had a small hiatus! Hi everyone.

Here's a bit of legalese that I'm having trouble translating.

Dmitri Medvedev recently declassified a Soviet-era document (which has actually been floating around on the web since 2005) showing that Beria and Stalin OK'd the execution of some 20,000 Poles.

I've been having trouble, though, translating the passage below into English. Could any advanced Russian speakers, translators, or natives help me with this?

The grammar is a bit ... unclear to me. The verb "suggest" is not conjugated in the first line, I wonder whether this is just a stilted, obscure, legalese convention.

And I was having trouble understanding whether "дела о " can be translated as "in matters pertaining to."

The last line is just completely unclear to me. Or maybe I'm tired. Anyway, thanks in advance for the help!!!

Here's the passage:

I. *Предложить НКВД СССР:*

1) дела о находящихся в лагерях для военнопленных 14700 человек бывших польских офицеров, чиновников, помещиков, полицейских, разведчиков, жандармов, осадников и тюремщиков,

2) а также дела об арестованных и находящихся в тюрьмах западных областей Украины и Белоруссии в количестве 11000 человек членов различных к[онтр]р[еволюционных] шпионских и диверсионных организаций, бывших помещиков, фабрикантов, бывших польских офицеров, чиновников и **перебежчиков –

– рассмотреть в особом порядке, с применением к ним высшей меры наказания – расстрела.**

I. *Предложить НКВД СССР:*

I. To recommend to NKVD USSR.
(According to the previous formulations it should be something like

"I order..." or "It is decided..."
I. To recommend...
II. ...
III. ...

This is enough usual formal way to formulate orders and decisions.)

"дела о "

Cases of

рассмотреть в особом порядке, с применением к ним высшей меры наказания – расстрела.**

to proceed with special procedure and apply to them extreme penalty - the death penalty by firing.

Something like this:
... to make a suggestion to the NKVD of the USSR that
1) the (criminal) cases of the 14700 men - former Polish army officers, bureaucrats, landlords, policemen, intelligence operatives, gendarmes, colonists and jailers stationed at POW camps,
2) and also the cases of other 11000 men – members of various counterrevolutionary, espionage and subversive organizations, former landlords, factory-owners, army officers, bureaucrats and turncoats, arrested and imprisoned in jails of western provinces of Ukraine and Belorussia,
be processed in an exclusive manner, stipulating the use of capital punishment by way of shooting.

Thanks a bunch guys!