Among other power structures that have left a mark in the history of our Motherland, a special place is occupied by the one that is forever imprinted in the people's memory with the letters of the NKVD. The decoding of the USSR, the RSFSR and many other frequently encountered, but obsolete abbreviations does not cause any difficulties for anyone, however, the abbreviated names of individual public services have to be explained. This is especially true for the younger generation. And it is even more important to tell them about what the NKVD is.
Creation of a new state body
According to the decree of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR of July 10, 1934, a central body was formed to manage all the structures involved in the fight against crime and the maintenance of public order. It was designated by four letters - the NKVD. The decoding of the abbreviation was as follows: People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs.
Along with the newly formed units, it also included the personnel of the Main Political Directorate, which had lost its independence, but was not abolished. Thus, an organization was born that became a symbol of the genocide carried out by the Stalinist regime againstown people.
What is the NKVD?
The newly created structure had an unusually wide scope of responsibility, but at the same time, incomparable powers. So, her competence included control over the activities of state bodies related to public utilities, construction and almost all industries.
In addition, the NKVD officers were engaged in political investigation, foreign intelligence, guarding the state border, serving in the penitentiary system and army counterintelligence. In order to successfully fulfill their duties, the NKVD was given the right to extrajudicially impose any sentences, including the death pen alty. According to the decision of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR, they were not subject to appeal and were enforced immediately.
Arbitrary special triplets of the NKVD
Such unprecedented powers, which allowed this structure to operate outside the legal field, caused one of the most terrible tragedies experienced by our Motherland. In order to fully imagine what the NKVD is, one should recall the mass repressions of the thirties, the main culprit of which was this body. Millions of Soviet citizens who became prisoners of the Gulag and were shot on trumped-up charges were convicted by the so-called special troikas.
This extrajudicial structure included: the secretary of the regional party committee, the prosecutor and the head of the regional or city department of the NKVD. Determination of the guilt of the defendants, as a rule, was not carried out, and sentences onThe cases under consideration were taken out not on the basis of the current legislation, but only in accordance with their personal desire, which everywhere became the result of arbitrariness.
Deportation of peoples and cooperation with the Gestapo
In addition, the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs has stained itself with such a form of political repression as the deportation of persons on ethnic grounds. During the years of Stalinism, entire peoples were forcibly moved from their places of historical residence to the regions of the Far North and Siberia. According to reports, the NKVD carried out the deportation of ten nationalities. These include: Chechens, Crimean Tatars, Germans, Koreans, Ingrian Finns, Ingush, Karachays, Meskhetian Turks, Kalmyks and Balkars.
In the fifties, in the wake of the exposure of Stalin's personality cult and the rehabilitation of many victims of his regime, numerous facts became public, testifying to the pre-war cooperation of the NKVD with the Gestapo. In the press of those years, the names of dozens of German and Austrian anti-fascists appeared who sought political asylum in the Soviet Union, but were recognized as "undesirable elements" and handed over to the German authorities.
The first leaders of the punitive structure
From the first days of the creation of the NKVD (the abbreviation is given above), the newly appointed People's Commissar of Internal Affairs G. G. Yagoda became the head of this body. After serving in this post for two years, he himself became a victim of the system he leads. In September 1936, he was removed from his post and arrested on trumped-up charges. After spending two years under investigation, the first head of the all-powerful commissariat was shot.
Immediately after the dismissal and arrest of G. G. Yagoda, a new people's commissar was appointed in his place. They became a candidate member of the Politburo of the CPSU (b) N. I. Yezhov. It is with his name that the implementation of the infamous "Great Terror" launched by Stalin in 1937-1938 is associated.
However, he did not manage to bypass his predecessor in the length of his career. At the end of December 1938, he was also arrested on the then standard charge of high treason and, having also spent two years under investigation, lost his life as a result of the death sentence imposed on him.
L. P. Beria and S. N. Kruglov
L. P. Beria spent the longest time at the head of the NKVD. Taking up this post on December 25, 1938, he only in 1946 gave it up to his successor - S. N. Kruglov. Having gone to work in the Politburo of the USSR, Beria remained one of the key figures in the government until the death of Stalin. However, the sad fate of his predecessors and he could not avoid. Arrested in 1953, he soon received, by the verdict of the Supreme Court, his well-deserved bullet.
Of all the four leaders of the NKVD, abolished in March 1946, only S. N. Kruglov was relatively lucky. Fate granted him to live to a ripe old age. However, he did not die a natural death. As a participant in mass repressions, in 1959, by a court decision, the former general was deprived of his pension, as well as an elite apartment in the center of the capital. Living at a station near MoscowPravda, July 6, 1977, he ended his life under the wheels of a train.
The role of the NKVD in the fight against fascism
However, in order to fully answer the question of what the NKVD is, one cannot limit oneself only to the gloomy role that this structure played in the history of our country. It would be an unforgivable mistake to discount her merits in the fight against criminality, as well as against the Nazi invaders during the Great Patriotic War.
According to archival data, in June 1941, the NKVD troops included fourteen divisions, eighteen brigades, and more than twenty regiments for various purposes. From the first days of the war, these forces were thrown into battle and played a significant role in defeating the enemy.
It should also be noted that not only the employees themselves served the cause of the Victory over fascism, but also almost a million of our fellow citizens from among the former prisoners of the Gulag, protected by them and amnestied at the request of the NKVD leadership in order to be sent to the front. This measure was especially effective in the first - the most difficult years of the war.
Border and internal troops
One cannot underestimate the role of the NKVD in protecting the state border of our country. At the end of the thirties, the border troops subordinate to him numbered 167 thousand people. Their task included both preventing the penetration of various kinds of spies, saboteurs and smugglers into the territory of the USSR, as well as combating violators of the border regime. The names of many heroes-border guards forever entered the history of the Armed Forces.forces of the Soviet Union.
The statistics reflecting the work carried out by the internal troops of the NKVD during the war years looks very impressive. According to available data, in terms of combating banditry alone, they carried out over 9.5 thousand operations, which made it possible to neutralize about 150 thousand criminals. Along with them, the border troops managed to liquidate 829 different gangs, which included 49 thousand criminals.
The role of the NKVD in the economy of the war years
Modern researchers and a number of public organizations are trying to assess the impact that the work of Gulag prisoners had on the development of the country's economy. As the well-known human rights organization Memorial points out, the NKVD in the late thirties launched such a violent activity that as a result of it, about 1,680,000 able-bodied men were behind bars at the beginning of the war, which accounted for 8% of the country's total labor force at that time.
As part of the mobilization plan adopted by the government, enterprises created in places of detention produced a significant amount of ammunition and other products necessary for the front. This, of course, affected the provision of the army, but at the same time, it should be recognized that the productivity of such forced labor was very low.
Post-war years
As for the post-war years, even during this period the role of the NKVD in raising the country's economy can hardly be considered noticeable. On the one hand, the placement of Gulag camps in sparsely populated areas of the north of the country, Siberia andFar East contributed to their development, but on the other hand, the inefficient labor of prisoners became an obstacle in the implementation of many economic projects.
This fully applies to attempts to use forced labor of scientists and designers, who in many cases became victims of mass repressions of the Stalinist period. It is known that the NKVD created special prisons, popularly called "sharashek". In them, representatives of the scientific and technical elite, convicted on trumped-up charges by the very “special troikas” mentioned above, were obliged to engage in scientific development.
Among the former prisoners of such "sharashkas" were such well-known Soviet design scientists as S. P. Korolev and A. N. Tupolev. The result of attempts to introduce forced technical creativity was very small and showed the complete inexpediency of this undertaking.
Conclusion
In the fifties, after Stalin's death, a broad process of rehabilitation of the victims of the regime he created in the country began. The crimes that were previously presented as a fight against the enemies of the people received a due assessment both from government bodies and in public opinion. The activities of the structure, called the NKVD, were also exposed, the decoding, history and activities of which became the subject of this article. In 1946, this notorious department was transformed into the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs.
