When the internal passport was introduced, at the end of 1932, big cities seemed to be the core of the system. Beside their cleansing, at the moment when passports were delivered, the new system allowed the militia to strengthen the local control of the urban space. However, the perception of the geographical spaces which had to be protected in priority changed steadily, as the number of population groups targeted by repression and prophylactic policies increased. A great malleability characterized the geography of the system, with the increasing incorporation of border regions during the 1930s, as deportations followed one another. At the end of the stalinisst regime, social cleansing is just a part of the internal passport system, with a proliferation of geographical and social categories. At the eve of the war, as particularist measures increase, the bureaucrats at the top level try to reform the system, but in vain.