NKVD

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The NKVD (Narodnõi Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del listen (help·info)) (Russian: НКВД, Народный комиссариат внутренних дел) or People's Commisariat for Internal Affairs was a government department which handled a number of the Soviet Union's affairs of state.

The NKVD is best known for the Main Directorate for State Security (GUGB), which succeeded the OGPU and the Cheka as the secret police agency of the Soviet Union. Many consider the NKVD to be a criminal organization, mostly for the activities of GUGB officers and investigators, as well as supporting NKVD troops and Gulag guards. The NKVD was also responsible for administering Stalin's foreign intelligence service and overseas 'special operations'. These NKVD sub-branches were responsible for the recruitment of spies and gathering of political, military, and economic intelligences from other countries, the liquidation of political enemies residing outside the Soviet Union, subversion of foreign governments, and enforcing Stalinist policy within Communist Party movements in other countries.

In addition to its state security and police functions, however, some of its departments handled other matters, such as transport, fire guards, border guard (NKVD Border Troops), etc., the tasks that were traditionally assigned to the Ministry of the Interior (MVD).

NKVD Headquarters on Lubyanka Square were designed by Aleksey Schusev.
NKVD Headquarters on Lubyanka Square were designed by Aleksey Schusev.

Contents

[edit] Evolution of the NKVD structure and tasks

After the October Revolution of 1917, the Bolsheviks dissolved the old police and sought the creation of Workers and Peasants' Militsiya under the supervision of the NKVD of the RSFSR. However, the NKVD apparatus was overwhelmed by functions inherited directly from the Imperial MVD, such as the supervision of the local governments and firefighting, and the new proletarian workforce was largely inexperienced.

Realizing that it was left with no capable security force, the Council of People's Commissars of the Russian SFSR created a secret political police, the Cheka, led by Felix Dzerzhinsky. It gained the right to undertake quick non-judicial trials and executions, if that was deemed necessary in order to "protect the revolution".

The Cheka was reorganized in 1922 as the State Political Directorate or GPU of the NKVD of the Russian SFSR. Upon the formation of the Soviet Union in 1923, the GPU was transformed into 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, as well as various other responsibilities.

In 1934, the OGPU was incorporated into the newly-created NKVD of the USSR, becoming the Main Directorate for State Security; the NKVD of the Russian SFSR ceased to exist and was not resurrected until 1946 (as the MVD of the RSFSR). As a result, the NKVD also became responsible for all detention facilities (including the forced labor camps, known as the Gulag) as well as for the regular police.

Other NKVD departments dealt with:

and other related tasks.

At various times, the NKVD had the following Chief Directorates, abbreviated as "ГУ" - главное управление.

ГУГБ - государственная безопасность, of State Security (GUGB)
ГУРКМ - рабоче-крестьянская милиция, of workers' and peasants' militsiya
ГУПВО - пограничная и внутренняя охрана, of border and internal guards
ГУПО - пожарная охрана, of fire guards
ГУШосдор - шоссейные дороги, of highways
ГУЖД, железные дороги, of railways
ГУЛАГ - GULAG
ГЭУ - экономика, of economics
ГТУ - транспорт, of transport
ГУВПИ - военнопленных и интернированных, of POWs and interned persons

On February 3, 1941, the Special Sections of the NKVD (responsible for counter-intelligence in the military) became part of the Army and Navy (RKKA and RKKF, respectively). The GUGB was removed from the NKVD and renamed the NKGB. Following the outbreak of World War II, the NKVD and NKGB were reunited on July 20, 1941 and counter-intelligence was returned to the NKVD in January 1942. In April 1943 it was again transferred to the Narkomat of Defence and Narkomat of the Navy, becoming SMERSH (from Smert' Shpionam or "Death to Spies"); at the same time, the NKVD was again separated from the NKGB.

In 1946, the NKVD was renamed the MVD and the NKGB was renamed the MGB. Following yet another merger with the MVD in 1953, after the arrest of Lavrenty Beria the Chekist forces were finally removed from the MVD in 1954 to finally become the KGB. According to the 1996 radio documentary by the Russian Service of the Radio Liberty the MGB was reduced in its role from ministry to committee because of the fear of the communist leaders of the role the MGB might play if the purges would resume. The police force was finally split into two independent agencies:

  • MVD (Ministerstvo Vnutrennikh Del; Ministry of the Interior), responsible for the criminal police, correctional facilities and fire rescue.
  • KGB (Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti; Committee of State Security) - responsible for the political police, counter-intelligence, intelligence, personal protection and confidential communications.

The 20th Communist Party of the Soviet Union Congress in 1956, and the "Personality Cult" speech, has finalized the role the two agencies would play until the breakup of the Soviet Union.

[edit] NKVD Organization in 1939

Since it creation in 1934 People's Commisariat for Internal Affairs of the USSR, under went many orgnizational changes. Only beetwen 1938-1939 NKVD's structure was change 3 times.

The Organization of NKVD for December 1939

NKVD MANAGEMENT

DEPUTYS

  • for NKVD troops – Ivan Maslenikov
  • for Militsiya – Vasyli Chernyshov
  • for Staff - Sergei Kruglov

SECRETARIATS AND ITS APPARATUS

  • NKVD Secretariat - Stepan Mamulov
  • Secretariat of Special Council of the NKVD – Vladimir Ivanov
  • Special Technical Bureau - Valentin Kravchenko
  • Special Bureau – Pyotr Scharia
  • NKVD Inspection Group – Nikolai Pavlov
  • Special Plenipotentiary – Aleksei Stefanov
  • Secretariat of the First Deputy for GUGB Task - Vsevolod Merkulov
  • Inspection Group - Vsevolod Merkulov
  • Special Secretariat - Vasyli Chernyshov
  • Section for Organization of Labor Force - Vsevolod Merkulov
  • Permanent Technical Committee - ?
  • Section for Repair Work – Pyotr Vainschtein
  • Suplly Section – M. Mituschyn
  • Department of Railroad Transportation and Water - ?

DIRECTORATES AND DEPARTMENTS

  • Main Directorate of State Security (GUGB) - Vsevolod Merkulov
  • 1st Special Department – Leonid Baschtakov
  • 2nd Special Department – Evgeny Lapishin
  • 3rd Special Department – Dmitry Shadrin
  • 4th Special Department – Mikhail Filimonov
  • 5th Special Department – Vladimir Vladimirov
  • Department of Mobilization – Ivan Scherediega
  • Department of Staff - Sergei Kruglov
  • The Chief Directorate of Economics (GEU) - Bogdan Kobulov
  • The Chief Directorate of Transportation (GTU) – Solomon Milshtein
  • The Chief Directorate of Prision (GTU) – Aleksandr Galkin
  • The Chief Directorate of Administration (AChU) – J.Schumbatov
  • The Chief Directorate of Archive (GAU) – Yosif Nikitynsky
  • The Chief Directorate of fire guards (GUPO) – Nikolay Istomin
  • The Chief Directorate of Militsiya (GURKM) – Pavel Zujev
  • The Chief Directorate [or Administration] of Corrective Labour Camps and Colonies (GULAG) - Vasyli Chernyshov
  • The Chief Directorate of Highways (GUShOSDOR) - Vsevolod Fedotov
  • Directorate of Kremlin Commander - [[Nikolai Spyrydonov]
  • The Chief Directorate of Border Troops (GUPW) - Grigori Sokolov
  • The Chief Directorate of NKVD Troops for Railroad Protection - Aleksandr Guliev
  • The Chief Directorate of NKVD Troops for Escort - Vladimir Sharapov
  • The Chief Directorate of NKVD Troops for Protection of Industrial Enterprise - I. Kozik
  • The Chief Directorate of NKVD Operative Troops - P. Ariemyev
  • The Chief Directorate of Military Provision - Aleksandr Wurgaft
  • The Chief Directorate of Military Construction - Ivan Luby
  • Directorate for Prisoners of War - Pyotr Soprunienko
  • Directorate for Construction in the Far East - Ivan Nikishev
  • Main Fanacial Department - Lazar Bierienzon
  • Main Department for Civil Status - Fyedor Sokolov

[edit] NKVD activities

Picture of Dzerzhinsky during a parade in 1936
Picture of Dzerzhinsky during a parade in 1936

Although the NKVD performed the function of state security, the name of the organization today is associated primarily with its criminal activities: political repressions and assassinations, military crimes, violations of the rights of Soviet and foreign citizens, and violation of the law.

[edit] Repressions and executions

See Category:Political repression in the Soviet Union for detailed articles on the issue.

Implementing Soviet internal politics with respect to perceived enemies of the state ("enemies of the people"), the agency conducted arrests and executions of Soviet and foreign citizens. Millions were rounded up and sent to GULAG camps and hundreds of thousands were executed by the NKVD. Formally, most of these people were convicted by NKVD troikas ("triplets") - special courts martial. Evidential standards were very low; a tip off by an anonymous informer was considered sufficient grounds for arrest. Usage of "physical means of persuasion" (torture) was sanctioned by a special decree of the state, which opened the door to numerous abuses, documented in recollections of victims and members of the NKVD itself. Hundreds of mass graves resulting from such operations were later discovered throughout the country. Documented evidence exists that the NKVD committed mass extrajudicial executions, guided by secret "plans". Those plans established the number and proportion of victims (officially "public enemies") in a given region (e.g. the quotas for clergy, former nobles etc., regardless of identity). The families of the repressed, including children, were also automatically repressed according to NKVD Order no. 00486.

The purges were organized in a number of waves according to the decisions of the Politburo of the Communist Party (e.g. the campaigns among engineers ("Shakhty Case"), party and military elite ("fascist plots"), and medical staff ("Doctors Plot"). Distinctive and permanent purging campaigns were conducted against non-Russian nationalities (including Ukrainians, Tatars, Germans and many others, who were accused of "bourgeois nationalism", "fascism", etc.) and religious activists. A number of mass operations of the NKVD were related to the prosecution of whole ethnic categories. Whole populations of certain ethnicities were forcibly resettled. Despite this, it is important to note that Russians still formed the majority of NKVD victims.

NKVD agents became not only executioners, but also one of the largest groups of victims. The majority of 1930s agency staff (hundreds of thousands), including all commanders, were executed.

During the Spanish Civil War, NKVD agents, acting in conjunction with the Communist Party of Spain, exercised substantial control over the Republican government, using Soviet military aid to help further Soviet influence. The NKVD established numerous secret prisons around Madrid, which were used to detain, torture and kill hundreds of the NKVD's enemies. In June 1937, Andres Nin, the secretary of the anti-Stalinist POUM, was tortured and killed in an NKVD prison. Cooperation of NKVD and Gestapo: In March 1940 representatives of NKVD and Gestapo meet for one week in Zakopane, for the coordination of the pacification of resistance in Poland. The Soviet Union delivered hundreds of German and Austrian communists to Gestapo, as unwanted foreigners, together with their documents.

During World War II, NKVD units were used for rear area security, including stopping desertion. In liberated territory, the NKVD and later NKGB carried out mass arrests, deportations and executions, including prosecutions of anti-Nazi resistance movements like the Polish Armia Krajowa. They were also responsible for executing thousands of Polish politicial prisoners.

The NKVD's intelligence and special operations (Inostrannyi Otdel) unit organized overseas assassinations of ex-Soviet citizens and foreigners who were regarded as enemies of the USSR by Joseph Stalin. Among the officially confirmed victims of such plots were:

After the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953, the new Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev began a campaign against the NKVD purges. Between the 1950s and 1980s, thousands of victims were legally "rehabilitated" (i.e. acquitted and had their rights restored). Many of the victims and their relatives refused to apply for rehabilitation due to fear or lack of documents. Still, the rehabilitation was ineffective: in most cases the formulation was "due to lack of evidence of the case of crime", a Soviet legal jargon that effectively said "there was a crime, but unfortunately we cannot prove it". Only a limited number of persons were rehabilitated with the formulation "cleared of all charges".

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

At present, living former agents receive generous pensions and privileges established by the government of the USSR and later confirmed by all the CIS countries. They are not persecuted in any way, although some have been identified by their victims.

"Black Ravens" by Boris Vladimirski, a depiction of the cars used by NKVD agents. Curiously, this painting was approved by Stalin's censors.
"Black Ravens" by Boris Vladimirski, a depiction of the cars used by NKVD agents. Curiously, this painting was approved by Stalin's censors.

[edit] Intelligence activities

These included:

  • Establishment of a widespread spy network within the Comintern;
  • Successful infiltration of Richard Sorge, the "Red Orchestra" and other agents who alerted Stalin of the forthcoming Nazi invasion of the USSR and later assisted the Red Army during World War II;
  • Recruitment of dozens of other agents who showed their worth in the Cold War intelligence operations of the MGB-KGB;
  • Spying the nuclear-bomb activities of the US and Great Britain (Project Manhattan)
  • Averting of several confirmed plots to assassinate Joseph Stalin.

[edit] The NKVD and the 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 North and Far East was 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 Soviet scientific and arms development. Many researchers and engineers which were arrested and tried for political crimes, were placed in privileged prisons (much more comfortable than GULAG), which were colloquially known as sharashkas, where they were forced to work within their speciality. Continuing their studies there and later released, some of them became world leaders in science and technology. Among such sharashka members were Sergey Korolev, the head designer of the Soviet rocket program and first human space flight mission in 1961, and Andrei Tupolev, the famous airplane designer.

After the world war NKVD coordinated work on Soviet nuclear weaponry, under the direction of General Pavel Sudoplatov. Scientists were not prisoners, but the work was coordinated by NKVD because it was closely connected with intelligence service and it was needed to ensure security and secrecy of the works.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

[edit] External links

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