Soviet State Security Uniforms

[Bill Dienna]

The model 1943 dress uniform tunic of an officer of the NKVD, using the royal blue branch of color.

[Bill Dienna]

The terms "NKVD" and "Justice" do not seem to go together.

Nevertheless, here is the dress tunic of an officer of the NKVD Justice branch.
The royal blue color is present, but with silver tresse, reflecting a non-combat branch. Still, this tunic has on the right breast two holes where screw-back awards were worn. These troops may not have been "combat" in the sense that they were on engaged directly with the Germans. However, the NKVD "Courts" were operating on the front lines, and they did have guns; they just don't seem to have pointed them at the Germans....

[Bill Dienna]

If this gymnastiorka could talk....I'm not certain that I would want to hear what it had to say.

The pullover uniform tunic of a member of the security militia which served as guard personnel in the Soviet Union's concentration camp system, the GULAG (acronym for Glavnoe Upravlenie ispravitel'no-trudovykh
LAGere [Chief Administration for Corrective Labour Camps] ).

Note the sleeve patch, with the "CCCP" designation at the top, and the "GULAG" designation in cyrillic letters at the bottom.

[Bill Dienna]

The pre-war tunic of a General of NKVD Internal Security, with the brick red collar tabs bordered by rasberry colored piping. The officers of this rank were formally known as "senior commanders", since the General's rank had not yet been introduced. This tunic is interesting in that it is set up for two screw-back awards, and the holes for them have been nicely finished off with thread edging, rather that the customary simple push-through-if-you-can-find-it- hole used to wear the awards.

[Bill Dienna]

Here is an early Soviet gynastiorka for a convoy guard. The collar tabs are in the royal blue traditionally used by State Security personnel, bordered in red. The tabs have the stylized letters "KCP", which represents the russian words for the term "Convoy [ of the ] State Republic.

[otlichnik]

Excellent uniforms Bill. Look forward to new posts - sleeve patches. Do the sleeve cuff bars on the M43 parade uniforms have cloth backing?? I have seen ones with no cloth, with royal blue cloth and with maroon cloth!!

Shawn

[LeeG]

Great stuff, Bill! The NKVD tunics and hats could be so "pretty". Hmm, maybe that's not a very appropriate word to describe them, but they really are sharp looking.