NKVD (Soviet People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs)

NKVD (Soviet People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs) A ministry in the USSR which included and reorganized all the security forces in 1934, including OGPU, Cheka's successor organization. Its responsibilities included political surveillence, internal security, supervision of political trials, administration of Gulags and other prison camps, and border security. Under Yezhov, it was the main instrument for Stalin's Great Purge 1936–8, as well as for the general terror of the 1930s and 1940s. Under the leadership of Beria, in 1946 it became part of the MVD (Ministry of Internal Affairs), which controlled all police forces in the Soviet republics. It was also linked to the MGB (Ministry of State Security), as a result of which it became active in the build-up of the police and security forces in satellite countries, as well as in the Communist purges there before Stalin's death. After Beria's fall the NKVD was placed under the KGB.