35114 NKVD MAJOR - WINTER

NKVD stands for the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the USSR, to which the Soviet secret political police was subordinated from 1934. The NKVD was, in essence, an authority in the Soviet state, at the central level, which continued the bloody traditions of the Cheka and the OGPU. The heads of the NKVD (starting in 1934) were, in turn, Genrich Yagoda, Nikolai Yezhovo and Lavrenty Beria, who was also the last head of this criminal institution. The main tasks of the NKVD included fighting real and imaginary opponents of the communist regime inside the USSR, intimidating Soviet society, as well as implementing the so-called The purge of 1934-1940. It was also the NKVD who most often provided people to perform the functions of political officers in the Red Army. It should also be remembered that in the course of World War II there were also separate NKVD units (often in the strength of divisions!), Which were responsible, for example, for the deportation of people from the given areas or played the role (especially in the period 1941-1943) of the role of barrage troops which were to prevent a possible retreat of the Red Army. Moreover, until 1943, Siersz, i.e. military counterintelligence, dealing with breaking up espionage networks operating in the USSR and areas occupied by the Red Army, existed in the NKVD.