NKVD

NKVD: Purges

The period referred to as the 'Great Terror' began in 1934 and would last around four years. Although its real ending is disputed among historians, they agree that Stalin orchestrated a plot to kill a prominent party official and close friend, Sergei Kirov. Stalin used Kirov's assassination as a pretence for the arrests of hundreds of thousands and blamed the death on a plot by Zinoviev. This was Stalin's ploy to root out the United Opposition. By 1936, both Kamenev and Zinoviev were dead.

Early NKVD leader Genrikh Yagoda did not have the stomach for such merciless killings. He was merely an ideological communist, so Stalin also arrested him and called on Nicolai Yezhov for the culmination of his campaign.

Fig 2. - Yezhov and Stalin in 1937.

The Great Terror (1937-8)

In 1937, the state endorsed torture of 'enemies of the people' without trial through Order 00447. Different groups became the target of the persecution from Yezhov and the NKVD; the intelligentsia, kulaks, clergy members, and foreigners after political prisoners from within and outside the Bolshevik party.

The Soviet army was also purged, but in reality, anyone was a target for the local authorities to meet the quotas set by the central government. It became a period with such a level of paranoia that people refused to keep address books, as NKVD members would use them for inspiration when searching for their next victims.

This approach marked a significant departure from the previous suppression of opposition, whereby executions had to be signed off by party leaders. Historian J. Arch Getty summarises this succinctly:

The NKVD based their torture methods around extracting a confession, regardless of the innocence of the arrested. Some would be abruptly killed, but many were sent to the Gulag.

Fig. 3 - Map of prominent Gulag locations with more than 5000 prisoners

But such was the nature of Stalin; he distanced himself from the men who did his dirty work. He needed to find a scapegoat, and who better than the bloodthirsty Yezhov? Just as he had done with Yagoda, he introduced Lavrentiy Beria as Yezhov's deputy in 1938. Yezhov knew his days were numbered and that he was to be succeeded by Beria. He was a victim of his zealous following of Order 00447 and would be executed. Historian Oleg V. Khlevniuk writes:

The Great Terror formally ended with the assassination of exiled Leon Trotsky in Mexico in 1940 by an NKVD agent. Trotsky's assassination acted as a precursor of the secret police's influence around the world in the coming decades and another vindication of the might of Joseph Stalin.

NKVD: Leader

Yezhov's replacement, Lavrentiy Beria, was the most influential and memorable NKVD leader. He had a personality and an eye for detail that outshone those before him. Under him, Sukhanovka prison in Moscow became the most fearsome place in the country for the highest profile prisoners. Here, guards experimented with bone-breaking instruments and electric shocks.

Beria was every inch the portrait of a villain and a serial rapist who plucked women from the streets for his heinous designs. He presided over the NKVD until the death of Stalin in 1953, after which he was executed during a power struggle by future leader Nikita Khrushchev.

NKVD: WW2

The NKVD was under the stewardship of Beria during World War II, during which they continued their campaigns of terror by murdering any soldiers who deserted them in battle. In addition, races were singled out, such as Muslims, Tatars, Germans, and Poles. In 1940, what was thought of until recently as solely Nazi atrocities was the work of the NKVD in Soviet territory. Stalin and Beria ordered all Polish Army Officers to be killed, along with the intelligentsia. The Katyn Massacre, as it is now known, describes the deaths of 22,000 in the Katyn forest and other locations. The NKVD demonstrated just as much disdain for foreigners as those living in the Soviet Union.

NKVD vs KGB

The longest-standing iteration of the secret police in the Soviet Union was not the NKVD. In fact, the KGB, or Committee for State Security, came into being after Stalin's death in 1953. Let's examine some key differences between these two institutions.

Despite these nuances, each organisation performed the role of serving the state in a variety of matters. Both the NKVD and the KGB were indispensable to Soviet leaders.

NKVD: Facts

Given the secrecy and the relatively recent fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the true extent of the NKVD's impact can't yet be fully determined. However, Michael Ellman has done all he can to give an idea of the figures behind this organisation. We will pick out some of the important ones below.

• The NKVD arrested a conservative estimate of one million people during the Great Terror (1937-8), excluding those who were deported.
• 17-18 million people went to the Gulag between 1930 and 1956. The Gulag was the brainchild of the OGPU.
• It is impossible to say precisely how many people were arrested as the line between 'criminals and politicals (often) blurred'. Further archival research is required for a fuller picture of the number of deaths resulting directly from Soviet regime and the NKVD.³

As more and more is uncovered, you certainly wouldn't bet against future discoveries revealing the terror of the NKVD to an even greater extent.