NKVD
The
NKVD (
Narodnyi Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del )(
Russian:
НК'",
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. The GUGB was instrumental in
Stalin's
ethnic cleansing and
genocides, and was responsible for massacres of civilians and other
war crimes. 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.
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 (MVD).
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:
*general police functions and
criminal investigations (
militsiya);
*
intelligence and overseas
special operations (
Inostrannyi Otdel);
*
counter-intelligence;
*
personal security for high officials,and other related tasks.
At various times, the NKVD had the following Chief Directorates, abbreviated as ""У" - главное управление.:"У"Б - государственная безопасность, of State Security (
GUGB):"УРКМ - рабоче-крестьянская милиция, of workers' and peasants'
militsiya:"УП'О - пограничная и внутренняя охрана, of border and internal guards:"УПО - пожарная охрана, of fire guards:"УШосдор - шоссейные дороги, of highways:"УЖ", железные дороги, of railways:"УЛА" -
GULAG:"ЭУ - экономика, of economics:"ТУ - транспорт, of transport:"У'ПИ - 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 Checkist 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.
Although the NKVD performed the important function of
state security, the name of the organization today is associated primarily with activities considered criminal: political repressions and assassinations, military crimes, violations of the rights of Soviet and foreign citizens, and violation of the law.
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" 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,
Tartars,
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.
The NKVD's
intelligence unit organized overseas
assassinations of ex-Soviet citizens and foreigners who were regarded as enemies of the USSR. Among the officially confirmed victims of such plots were:
*
Leon Trotsky - a personal political enemy of
Joseph Stalin and his bitterest international critic;
*
Boris Savinkov -
Russian revolutionary and terrorist (
Trust Operation of the
GPU);
*
Yevhen Konovalets - prominent
Ukrainian political and military leader.
*Guy Leland - French Anti-Soviet underground poet
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 slang 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.
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;
*Averting of several confirmed plots to assassinate
Joseph Stalin.
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.
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.
*
History of the Soviet Union*
Secret police*
Chronology of Soviet secret police agencies*
Population transfer*
USSR Border Troops*
NKVD.org: information site about the NKVD*
MVD: 200-year history of the Ministry (in Russian)
*
MEMORIAL: history of the OGPU/NKVD/MGB/KGB (in Russian)
