NKVD

Coordinates: 55°45′38″N 37°37′41″E / 55.7606°N 37.6281°E / 55.7606; 37.6281
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NKVD
People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs
Народный комиссариат внутренних дел
Narodnyi komissariat vnutrennikh del (NKVD)
Main Directorate for State Security (GUGB)
  • Main Directorate of Camps
    • (Gulag)
  • Main Directorate of Militsiya (GURKM)
  • Main Directorate of Border and Internal Security (GUPiVO).

    • The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (Russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, romanized: Naródny komissariát vnútrennih del (NKVD), pronounced [nɐˈrodnɨj kəmʲɪsərʲɪˈat ˈvnutrʲɪnʲɪɣ dʲel]), abbreviated NKVD (НКВД listenⓘ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union.

    Established in 1917 as NKVD of the

    all-union commissariat in 1934.[3]

    The functions of the

    political repression and for carrying out the Great Purge under Joseph Stalin. It was led by Genrikh Yagoda, Nikolai Yezhov, and Lavrentiy Beria.[5][6][7]

    The NKVD undertook mass

    political assassinations
    ).

    In March 1946 all People's Commissariats were renamed to Ministries. The NKVD became the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD).[9]

    History and structure

    Main articles: Cheka and Chronology of Soviet secret police agencies
    Early NKVD leaders, Genrikh Yagoda, then (1924) 1st deputy head of SOU OGPU Vyacheslav Menzhinsky then head of SOU OGPU and deputy head OGPU, and Felix Dzerzhinsky chief of OGPU, 1924

    After the Russian

    Communist
    revolution".

    The Cheka was reorganized in 1922 as the

    OGPU (Joint State Political Directorate), under the Council of People's Commissars
    of the USSR. The NKVD of the RSFSR retained control of the militsiya, and various other responsibilities.

    In 1934, the NKVD of the RSFSR was transformed into an all-union security force, the NKVD (which the

    Main Directorate for State Security (GUGB); the separate NKVD of the RSFSR was not resurrected until 1946 (as the MVD of the RSFSR). As a result, the NKVD also took over control of all detention facilities (including the forced labor camps, known as the Gulag
    ) as well as the regular police. At various times, the NKVD had the following Chief Directorates, abbreviated as "ГУ"– Главное управление, Glavnoye upravleniye.

    Chronology of Soviet
    security agencies
    1917–22 Cheka under Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR
    (All-Russian Extraordinary Commission)
    1922–23 GPU under NKVD of the RSFSR
    (State Political Directorate)
    1920–91 PGU KGB or
    USSR

    (First Chief Directorate)
    1923–34 OGPU under SNK of the USSR
    (Joint State Political Directorate)
    1934–46 NKVD of the USSR
    (People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs)
    1934–41 GUGB of the NKVD of the USSR
    (Main Directorate of State Security of
    People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs)
    1941 NKGB of the USSR
    (People's Commissariat of State Security)
    1943–46 NKGB of the USSR
    (People's Commissariat for State Security)
    1946–53 MGB of the USSR
    (Ministry of State Security)
    1946–54 MVD of the USSR
    (Ministry of Internal Affairs)
    1947–51

    KI MID of the USSR
    (Committee of Information under Ministry
    of Foreign Affairs)

    1954–78 KGB under the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union
    (Committee for State Security)
    1978–91 KGB of the USSR
    (Committee for State Security)
    1991 MSB of the USSR
    (Interrepublican Security Service)
    1991 TsSB of the USSR
    (Central Intelligence Service)
    1991 KOGG of the USSR
    (Committee for the Protection of
    the State Border)
    ГУГБ – государственной безопасности, of State Security (
    GUGB
    , Glavnoye upravleniye gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti)
    ГУРКМ – рабоче-крестьянской милиции, of Workers and Peasants Militsiya (GURKM, Glavnoye upravleniye raboče-krest'yanskoi militsyi)
    ГУПВО – пограничной и внутренней охраны, of Border and Internal Guards (GUPVO, GU pograničnoi i vnytrennei okhrany)
    ГУПО – пожарной охраны, of Firefighting Services (GUPO, GU polaronic okhrany)
    ГУШосДор – шоссейных дорог, of Highways (GUŠD, GU šosseynykh doors)
    ГУЖД – железных дорог, of Railways (GUŽD, GU železnykh dorog)
    ГУЛаг– Главное управление исправительно-трудовых лагерей и колоний, (
    GULag, Glavnoye upravleniye [11]
    lagerey i kolonii)
    ГЭУ – экономическое, of Economics (GEU, Glavnoye ekonomičeskoie upravleniye)
    ГТУ – транспортное, of Transport (GTU, Glavnoye transportnoie upravleniye)
    ГУВПИ – военнопленных и интернированных, of
    GUVPI
    , Glavnoye upravleniye voyennoplennikh i internirovannikh)

    Yezhov era

    Until the reorganization begun by Nikolai Yezhov with a purge of the regional political police in the autumn of 1936 and formalized by a May 1939 directive of the All-Union NKVD by which all appointments to the local political police were controlled from the center, there was frequent tension between centralized control of local units and the collusion of those units with local and regional party elements, frequently resulting in the thwarting of Moscow's plans.[12]

    During Yezhov's time in office, the Great Purge reached its height. In the years 1937 and 1938 alone, at least 1.3 million were arrested and 681,692 were executed for 'crimes against the state'. The Gulag population swelled by 685,201 under Yezhov, nearly tripling in size in just two years, with at least 140,000 of these prisoners (and likely many more) dying of malnutrition, exhaustion and the elements.[13]

    On 3 February 1941, the 4th Department (Special Section, OO) of GUGB NKVD security service responsible for the Soviet Armed Forces military counter-intelligence,[14] consisting of 12 Sections and one Investigation Unit, was separated from GUGB NKVD USSR.

    The official liquidation of OO GUGB within NKVD was announced on 12 February by joint order No. 00151/003 of NKVD and NKGB USSR. The rest of GUGB was abolished and staff were moved to the newly created People's Commissariat for State Security (NKGB). Departments of former GUGB were renamed Directorates. For example, the foreign intelligence unit known as Foreign Department (INO) became Foreign Directorate (INU); GUGB political police unit represented by Secret Political Department (SPO) became Secret Political Directorate (SPU), and so on. The former GUGB 4th Department (OO) was split into three sections. One section, which handled military counter-intelligence in NKVD troops (former 11th Section of GUGB 4th Department OO) become 3rd NKVD Department or OKR (Otdel KontrRazvedki), the chief of OKR NKVD was Aleksander Belyanov.

    After the German invasion of the Soviet Union (June 1941), the NKGB USSR was abolished and on July 20, 1941, the units that formed the NKGB became part of the NKVD. The military CI was also upgraded from a department to a directorate and put in NKVD organization as the Directorate of Special Departments or UOO NKVD USSR). The NKVMF, however, did not return to the NKVD until January 11, 1942. It returned to NKVD control on January 11, 1942, as UOO 9th Department controlled by P. Gladkov. In April 1943, Directorate of Special Departments was transformed into SMERSH and transferred to the People's Defense and Commissariates. At the same time, the NKVD was reduced in size and duties again by converting the GUGB to an independent unit named the NKGB.

    In 1946, all Soviet Commissariats were renamed "ministries". Accordingly, the Peoples Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD) of the USSR became the

    Ministry of State Security
    (MGB).

    In 1953, after the arrest of

    Lavrenty Beria
    , the MGB merged back into the MVD. The police and security services finally split in 1954 to become:

    • The USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD), responsible for the criminal militia and correctional facilities.
    • The USSR Committee for State Security (
      political police
      , intelligence, counter-intelligence, personal protection (of the leadership) and confidential communications.

    Main Directorates (Departments)

    • State Security
    • Workers-Peasants Militsiya
    • Border and Internal Security
    • Firefighting security
    • Correction and Labor camps
    • Other smaller departments
      • Department of Civil registration
      • Financial (FINO)
      • Administration
      • Human resources
      • Secretariat
      • Special assignment

    Ranking system (State Security)

    In 1935–1945 Main Directorate of State Security of NKVD had its own ranking system before it was merged in the Soviet military standardized ranking system.

    Top-level commanding staff
    • Commissioner General of State Security (later in 1935)
    • Commissioner of State Security 1st Class
    • Commissioner of State Security 2nd Class
    • Commissioner of State Security 3rd Class
    • Commissioner of State Security (Senior Major of State Security, before 1943)
    Senior commanding staff
    • Colonel of State Security (Major of State Security, before 1943)
    • Lieutenant Colonel of State Security (Captain of State Security, before 1943)
    • Major of State Security (Senior Lieutenant of State Security, before 1943)
    Mid-level commanding staff
    • Captain of State Security (Lieutenant of State Security, before 1943)
    • Senior Lieutenant of State Security (Junior Lieutenant of State Security, before 1943)
    • Lieutenant of State Security (Sergeant of State Security, before 1942)
    • Junior Lieutenant of State Security (Sergeant of State Security, before 1942)
    Junior commanding staff
    • Master Sergeant of Special Service (from 1943)
    • Senior Sergeant of Special Service (from 1943)
    • Sergeant of Special Service (from 1943)
    • Junior Sergeant of Special Service (from 1943)

    NKVD activities

    The main function of the NKVD was to protect the state security of the Soviet Union through massive political repression, including authorised murders of many thousands of politicians and citizens, as well as kidnappings, assassinations and mass deportations.

    Domestic repressions

    NKVD chief Genrikh Yagoda (middle) inspecting construction of what was then called the Moskva-Volga Canal, 1935. Behind him is Nikita Khrushchev
    See also: Political repression in the Soviet Union

    In implemention of Soviet internal policy towards perceived enemies of the Soviet state ("

    NKVD Order no. 00486
    .

    The purges were organized in a number of waves according to decisions of the

    Gas vans were used in the Soviet Union during the Great Purge in the cities of Moscow, Ivanovo and Omsk[15][16][17][18]

    A number of

    Soviet Republics
    were still the majority of NKVD victims.

    The NKVD also served as an arm of the Russian Soviet communist government for lethal mass persecution and destruction of ethnic minorities and religious beliefs, such as the

    Roman Catholic Church, Greek Catholics, Islam, Judaism and other religious organizations, an operation headed by Yevgeny kTuchkov.[citation needed
    ]

    International operations

    Stalin (in background) and Stalin's daughter Svetlana

    During the 1930s, the NKVD was responsible for political murders of those Stalin believed opposed him. Espionage networks headed by experienced multilingual NKVD officers such as Pavel Sudoplatov and Iskhak Akhmerov were established in nearly every major Western country, including the United States. The NKVD recruited agents for its espionage efforts from all walks of life, from unemployed intellectuals such as Mark Zborowski to aristocrats such as Martha Dodd. Besides the gathering of intelligence, these networks provided organizational assistance for so-called wet business,[22] where enemies of the USSR either disappeared or were openly liquidated.[23]

    The NKVD's

    intelligence and special operations (Inostranny Otdel) unit organized overseas assassinations of political enemies of the USSR, such as leaders of nationalist movements, former Tsarist officials, and personal rivals of Joseph Stalin
    . Among the officially confirmed victims of such plots were:

    Prominent political dissidents were also found dead under highly suspicious circumstances, including Walter Krivitsky, Lev Sedov, Ignace Reiss, and former German Communist Party (KPD) member Willi Münzenberg.[24][25][26][27][28]

    Pro-Soviet leader

    Hoja-Niyaz were among the 435 alleged conspirators in the plot. Xinjiang came under Soviet influence.[29]

    Spanish Civil War

    In the

    Trotskyist POUM and his colleagues were tortured and killed in an NKVD prison in Alcalá de Henares.[33]

    World War II operations

    See also: Gestapo–NKVD conferences

    Before the German invasion, to accomplish its own goals, the NKVD was prepared to cooperate even with such organizations as the German Gestapo. In March 1940, representatives of the NKVD and the Gestapo met for a week in Zakopane to coordinate the pacification of Poland. The Soviet Union allegedly deported hundreds of German and Austrian Communists to Nazi territories as unwanted foreigners. According to the work of Wilhelm Mensing, no evidence exists that the Soviets specifically targeted German and Austrian Communists or others who perceived themselves as "anti-fascists" for deportations.[34] Furthermore, many NKVD units later fought the Wehrmacht, for example the 10th NKVD Rifle Division, which fought at the Battle of Stalingrad.

    After the German invasion, the NKVD

    Internal Troops were used for rear area security, including preventing the retreat of Soviet army divisions. Though mainly intended for internal security, NKVD divisions were sometimes used at the front, for example during the Battle of Stalingrad and the Crimean offensive.[35] to stem desertions under Stalin's Order No. 270 and Order No. 227 decrees of 1941 and 1942, which aimed to raise troop morale through brutality and coercion. At the beginning of the war the NKVD formed 15 rifle divisions, which grew by 1945 to 53 divisions and 28 brigades.[35] Unlike the Waffen-SS, the NKVD did not field any armored or mechanized units.[35]

    In enemy-held territories, the NKVD carried out numerous missions of sabotage. After the fall of Kiev, NKVD agents set fire to the Nazi headquarters and various other targets, eventually burning down much of the city center.[36] Similar actions took place across the occupied Byelorussia and Ukraine.

    The NKVD (later the

    Katyń massacre.[37] On 26 November 2010, the State Duma issued a declaration acknowledging Stalin's responsibility for the Katyn massacre and the execution of intellectual leaders and 22,000 Polish POWs by Stalin's NKVD. The declaration stated that archival material "not only unveils the scale of his horrific tragedy but also provides evidence that the Katyn crime was committed on direct orders from Stalin and other Soviet leaders."[38]

    NKVD units were also used to repress the prolonged partisan war in

    Armia Krajowa
    .

    Postwar operations

    After the death of Stalin in 1953, the new Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev halted NKVD purges. From the 1950s to the 1980s, thousands of victims were legally "rehabilitated", i.e. acquitted with their rights restored. Many of victims and their relatives refused to apply for rehabilitation, either from fear or lack of documents. The rehabilitation was not complete: in most cases the formulation was "due to lack of evidence of the case of crime". Only a limited number of persons were rehabilitated with the formulation "cleared of all charges".

    Very few NKVD agents were ever officially convicted of a particular violation of anyone's rights. Legally, those agents executed in the 1930s were also "purged" without legitimate a criminal investigation or court decision. In the 1990s and 2000s, a small number of ex-NKVD agents in the Baltic states were convicted of crimes against the local population.

    Intelligence activities

    These included:

    Soviet economy

    The extensive system of labor exploitation in the Gulag made a notable contribution to the Soviet economy and the development of remote areas. Colonization of Siberia, the Far North, and the Far East were among the explicitly stated goals in the very first laws concerning Soviet labor camps. Mining, construction works (roads, railways, canals, dams, and factories), logging, and other functions of the labor camps were part of the Soviet planned economy, and the NKVD had its own production plans.[citation needed]

    The most unusual part of the NKVD's achievements was its role in

    The First Circle
    on his experiences there.

    After World War II, the NKVD coordinated work on Soviet nuclear weaponry, under the direction of General Pavel Sudoplatov. The scientists were not prisoners, but the project was supervised by the NKVD because of its great importance and the corresponding requirement for absolute security and secrecy. The project also used information obtained by the NKVD from the United States.

    People's Commissars

    The agency was headed by a people's commissar (minister). His first deputy was the director of State Security Service (GUGB).

    Note: In the first half of 1941 Vsevolod Merkulov transformed his agency into separate commissariat (ministry), but it was merged back to the people's commissariat of Interior soon after the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. In 1943 Merkulov once again split his agency this time for good.

    Officers

    Andrei Zhukov singlehandedly identified every single NKVD officer involved in 1930s arrests and killings by researching a Moscow archive. There are just over 40,000 names on the list.[39]

    See also

    References

    1. ^ Semukhina, Olga B.; Reynolds, Kenneth Michael (2013). Understanding the Modern Russian Police. CRC Press. p. 74.
      ISBN 978-1-4822-1887-9
      .
    2. ^
      ISBN 978-1-4008-5451-6
      .
    3. ISBN 978-1-4398-0349-3
      .
    4. ^ Khlevniuk, Oleg V. (2015). Stalin: New Biography of a Dictator. Yale University Press. p. 125.
      ISBN 978-0-300-16694-1
      .
    5. ^ Yevgenia Albats, KGB: The State Within a State. 1995, page 101
    6. ISBN 978-1-4000-4005-6
      p. 460
    7. ISBN 978-0-14-200063-2
      p. 200
    8. ^ Viola, Lynne (207). The Unknown Gulag: The Lost World of Stalin's Special Settlements. New York: Oxford University Press.
    9. ISBN 978-0-521-76833-7
      .
    10. ISBN 978-1-897984-00-0
      , p. 7
    11. ^ ispravitelno-trudovykh
    12. ^ James Harris, "Dual subordination ? The political police and the party in the Urals region, 1918–1953", Cahiers du monde russe 22 (2001):423–446.
    13. ISBN 978-0-8050-7461-1
      , p. 234.
    14. ^ GUGB NKVD. Archived 2020-10-08 at the Wayback Machine DocumentsTalk.com, 2008.
    15. ^ Человек в кожаном фартуке. Новая газета – Novayagazeta.ru (in Russian). 2010-08-02. Retrieved 2019-01-21.
    16. ISBN 978-0-674-58749-6 p. 286
    17. ^ Газовые душегубки: сделано в СССР (Gas vans: made in the USSR) Archived August 3, 2019, at the Wayback Machine by Dmitry Sokolov, Echo of Crimea, 09.10.2012
    18. ^ Григоренко П.Г. В подполье можно встретить только крыс… (Petro Grigorenko, "In the underground one can meet only rats") – Нью-Йорк, Издательство «Детинец», 1981, p. 403, Full text of the book (Russian)
    19. ISBN 978-0-521-19196-8
      . p. 217.
    20. ISBN 978-1-59420-168-4: Many of the Americans asking to return home were communists who had voluntarily moved to the Soviet Union, while others moved to Soviet Union as skilled auto workers at the recently constructed GAZ automobile factory built by the Ford Motor Company
      . All were U.S. citizens.
    21. ISBN 978-1-59420-168-4
    22. ^ Barmine, Alexander, One Who Survived, New York: G.P. Putnam (1945), p. 18: NKVD expression for a political murder
    23. ^ John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999)
    24. ^ Barmine, Alexander, One Who Survived, New York: G.P. Putnam (1945), pp. 232–233
    25. ISBN 978-1-903608-05-0
    26. ISBN 978-0-465-00312-9
      , p. 75
    27. ^ Barmine, Alexander, One Who Survived, New York: G. P. Putnam (1945), pp. 17, 22
    28. ^ Sean McMeekin, The Red Millionaire: A Political Biography of Willi Münzenberg, Moscow's Secret Propaganda Tsar in the West, 1917–1940, New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press (2004), pp. 304–305
    29. ^ Andrew D. W. Forbes (1986). Warlords and Muslims in Chinese Central Asia: a political history of Republican Sinkiang 1911–1949. Cambridge, England: CUP Archive. p. 151.
      ISBN 978-0-521-25514-1
      . Retrieved 2010-12-31.
    30. ^ "4. The Spanish Civil War (1936–1939)", Secret Wars, Princeton University Press, p. 115, 2018-12-31,
      S2CID 227568935
      , retrieved 2022-02-07
    31. ^ {{cite book author=Robert W. Pringle|title=Historical Dictionary of Russian and Soviet Intelligence |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=J9RQCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA288 |year=2015 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |pages=288–289 |isbn=978-1-4422-5318-6 }}
    32. ^ Christopher Andrew (2000). The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB. Basic Books. p. 73.
      ISBN 978-0-465-00312-9
      .
    33. ^ David Clay Large (1991). Between Two Fires: Europe's Path in the 1930s. W.W. Norton. p. 308.
      ISBN 978-0-393-30757-3
      .
    34. ^ Mensing, Wilhelm (2006). "Eine "Morgengabe" Stalins an den Paktfreund Hitler? Die Auslieferung deutscher Emigranten an das NS-Regime nach Abschluß des Hitler-Stalin-Pakts – eine zwischen den Diktatoren arrangierte Preisgabe von "Antifaschisten"?". Zeitschrift des Forschungsverbundes SED-Staat (in German). 20 (20).
      ISSN 0948-9878
      .
    35. ^ a b c Zaloga, Steven J. The Red Army of the Great Patriotic War, 1941–45, Osprey Publishing, (1989), pp. 21–22
    36. ^ Birstein, Vadim (2013). Smersh: Stalin's Secret Weapon. Biteback Publishing.
      ISBN 978-1-84954-689-8
      . Retrieved 4 June 2017.
    37. ISBN 978-1-134-30299-4
      .
    38. ^ Barry, Ellen (26 November 2010). "Russia: Stalin Called Responsible for Katyn Killings". The New York Times. Retrieved 17 November 2020.
    39. ^ Walker, Shaun (6 February 2017). "Stalin's secret police finally named but killings still not seen as crimes". The Guardian.

    Further reading

    See also: Bibliography of Stalinism and the Soviet Union § Violence and terror and Bibliography of Stalinism and the Soviet Union § Terror, famine and the Gulag

    • Hastings, Max (2015). The Secret War: Spies, Codes and Guerrillas 1939–1945 (paperback). London: William Collins.
      ISBN 978-0-00-750374-2
      .

    External links

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