The Origins of the Cheka

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The NKVD had a chief directorate responsible for state security, this was the GUGB(1934-1941).
In February of 1941 it was removed from the NKVD and made into a seperate entity called People's Commissariat, the NKGB(1941-1946).
During the war years the NKGB conducted Soviet espionage and countrespionage(until 1943), it was responsible for the prisoner-of-war camps which in 1940 had 10.000.000 political prisoners in the Gulag Archipelago with a death rate of 10-30% per year, it also excercised political supervision of the armed forces and was generally responsible for internal security. In March of 1943, the NKVD was organized into the SMERSH.

SMERSH, from the Russian word Smert' Shplonam or "Death to Spies", was more of a gift for the military for their heroic actions at Stalingrad during the war.
SMERSH was active in occupied Eastern Europe in tracking German Nazis and Nazi collaborators and to collect Nazi materials and valuables. It was also responsible for recieving Soviert POW's and repatriated citizens, after the war ended the SMERSH was disbanded and reformed into the MGB who had Merkulov as its leader. Merkulov was replaced by the new head of the MGB(1946-1953) Viktor Abakumov, while Sergey Kruglov took over from Beria as head of the MVD. The ruthless MGB controlled the the Soviet bloc with arrest, imprisoment and execution without the right of the accused to be heard; by dominating the Eastern Bloc's police agencies and destroying any dissident groups the MGB created a rigid structure which came to be known as the "Iron curtain". Any individual suspected of not conforming to current political thought was liable to be arrested and imprisoned. One such example was the Leningrad Affair of 1948 in which supporters of A.A. Zhdanov were severly dealt with by imprisoments or executions; in 1953 there was a purge of medical doctors who were accused of plotting against the govenment, this came to be known as the Doctor's Plot. According to a secret speech given by Nikita Krushev in 1956, the so called "Doctor's Plot" was non-existent but it was actually going to be used by Stalin as an excuse to bring about a massive purge at the top levels of his government. These constant purges drove Krushev to say taht when he was summoned by phone to the Kremlin, he wasn't sure whether this meant promotion or death; this statement revealed the main purpose of Stalin's main purpose and that was to create uncertainty and fear.

[Taz]

MVD stands for Ministerstvo Vnutrennih Del - Ministry of Interior Affairs, in the USSR and nowadays Russia.

In the Soviet era, the Minstry of Interior Affairs also functioned as a secret police. In March 1946 the NKVD was renamed to MVD. (All People's Commissariats (NK) were redesignated Ministries (M). Thus the NKVD became the MVD and the NKGB became the MGB.)

MGB stood for Ministerstvo Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti - Ministry of State Security, in the USSR.

It was a predecessor of the KGB (secret police).

[Taz]

Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria - NKVD - 1938-1941.

Vsevolod Nikolayevich Merkulov - NKGB - 1941 (feb.-july).

Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria - NKVD - 1941-1943.

Vsevolod Nikolayevich Merkulov NKGB/MGB - 1943-1946.

Viktor Semyonovich Abakumov - MGB - 1946-1951.

Sergey Ogoltsov - MGB - 1951 (aug-dec).

Semyon Denisovich Ignatyev - MGB - 1951-1953.

[Taz]

Was born on October, 25th 1895 in. Zakataly (Dagestan) into a military family.
In 1913 he finished Tiflisskuju grammar school with a gold medal and continued learning at the physical and mathematical faculty of the Petersburg university.
1921 - 1922 - Inspector of the Transport department Georgian CHK.
1925 - 1931 - Chief of Confidential-operative management and vice-president GPU Adzharistana.
1931. on party work.
1938 - comes back to work in the bodies of state security.
1938 - deputy chief GUGB People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the USSR.
1938-1941 - the assistant narkoma People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs. During the period from February, 3rd 1941. to July, 20th 1941. and from July, 20th 1943. to 1946. - narkom state securities of the USSR.
During the period 1941-1943. - assistant narkoma.

In 1953 he was executed.

[Taz]

Was born on April, 11th 1908. in Moscow to a workers family.
1930 - Member VKP with г.
1932 - In body of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs.
Joined the NKVD in 1935, from 1942-46 became a friend and worked tightly with Beriya. He is known for plundering post war areas.
1941 - he is appointed the assistant narkoma People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the USSR.
1941-1943 - head of department of Special departments of People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the USSR.
1943 - chief of Central administrative board NKO.
1946 - 1951 - minister of a state security of the USSR. As a general-colonel
In 1950, he replaced Kruglov in the head of the MGB because Kruglov lost Stalin's trust. However, Beriya saw Abakumov as a huge threat to his own position and so he collected necessary "evidence" of Abakumov's prepared revolution. Abakumov was sent to a work camp in 1951, where he probably died later. Although some sources say that he was executed in 1954.

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Born on September, 1st 1904 in the village of Karlovka, Kherson province.
Soviet politician.
1920 - in bodies VCHK, on Komsomol and trade-union work.
1928 - Member VKP.
1935 - on party work.
1935 - ended All-Union industrial academy.
1951 - 1953. - minister of state security of the USSR.

He held regional posts in the secret police in the 1920s and in the party in the next two decades before becoming minister of state security in 1951. As such he was responsible for investigating the so-called "Doctors' Plot." As Nikita Khrushchev revealed at the 20th Communist Party Congress in 1956, Ignatyev had been ordered to obtain confessions from a group of Kremlin doctors, most of whom were Jews, under threats from Stalin that his own life would be taken if he failed. The doctors were alleged to have murdered Stalin's henchman Andrey Zhdanov in 1948 and to have tried to destroy the health of other leading figures. Two of the doctors died during interrogation and the others were released soon after Stalin's death when, as Khrushchev later confirmed, it was accepted that the case had been "fabricated from beginning to end." Ignatyev himself, who was reported to have suffered a heart attack, lost his post immediately after Stalin's death (March 1953) when Lavrenty Beria became head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, with which the Ministry of State Security was merged. He was made a secretary of the Central Committee, but was removed already in April 1953 for having shown "political blindness and gullibility" in the doctors case. Rehabilitated by Khrushchev, he became party chief in the Bashkir republic in 1954 and was shifted to the adjoining Tatar republic in 1957, which he led until his retirement in 1960. In 1974, on his 70th birthday, he was awarded the Order of the October Revolution.
Died on November, 27th 1983.

[Taz]

On March 6 of 1953, the day after Stalin died, Beria reunited the MVD (1953-1954) and the MGB into one body, the MVD. The post-Stalin leaders had the power hungry Beria executed and on March of 1954 the unified MVD was separated and reformed into the KGB and the MVD, a series of trials and executions did away with Beria's senior associates. Mercifully for the long suffering Soviet people, millions of political prisoners were relased from the labour camps during a period of civility wich occurred after the death of Josef Stalin, the MVD was mercifully abolished in 1960 but this only gave the KGB more power and a chance to carry on Stalin's vision of a "just" society.

[Taz]

Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria - 1953 (mar-jun).

Sergei Nikiforovich Kruglov - 1953-1954.

[Taz]

Was born in 1907. in a village on the Mouth of the Tver province to a family of peasants.
1928 - Member VKP.
1931 - worked in agriculture.
1931-1934 - student of institute him. K.Libknehta, and then student of the Moscow institute of oriental studies.
1935-1937 - student of Institute of Red professorate.
October 1937 - otvetstvenyj organizer ORPO Central Committee VKP.
1938 - under the decision of Central Committee VKP, he was directed to work for the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the USSR.
1945 - assistant narkoma (minister) of internal affairs of the USSR.
March 1953 - March 1954 - Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR (the incorporated Ministries of Internal Affairs and MGB of the USSR )
The general-colonel died in 1977.

Kruglov in Lithuania
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The Kremlin sent General Sergei Nikiforovich Kruglov, "one of the most cruel and merciless executioners," to Lithuania in September 1944, to strengthen the Soviet hold over the "liberated countries". Calling a top-secret organizational meeting of his officers in Panevėžys, he ordered the intensification of the effort to "liquidate" resistance in Lithuania.To organize this, Kruglov, Deputy Director of Soviet counterintelligence (SMERSH – Smert’ shpionam, "Death to Spies") established a special NKVD Department for "Bandit" Affairs (OBO – Osobi banditskii otdel).
In a technique used to seed dissention between resistance groups and the public, Kruglov ordered the formation of istrebiteli, or "destroyer" groups (stribai) of up to thirty troops. Lithuanian civilians would be told that joining stribai would exempt them from being drafted into the Red Army. The purpose of the stribai, namely to wage war against the partisans, would not be revealed to the people joining them. The stribai caused considerable tension between the populace and the resistance, as partisans would sometimes even find that friends and family members had joined them.
In addition to the eight regular Red Army divisions, Kruglov’s OBO added at least 70,000 NKVD troops to fight the partisans in 1948. These troops, forming razvedovatelno poiskovaya gruppi – reconnaissance-search groups of 15 to 20 NKVD soldiers, were given orders to conduct "state searches" (gosudarstvenoye proverkii), combing the forests for "bandits," with permission to shoot anyone who attempted to run away, even people who were unarmed. The methods used to suppress the partisans were brutal: Extreme forms of torture, quartering, tongue-cutting, eye-gouging, burying heads down in ant hills, etc., were employed to break the fighters. Mutilated corpses were dumped in town squares – and reactions of passerby were surreptitiously observed in an attempt to identify relatives and friends of "bandits".
The proverkii were effective in encircling the partisans, who often lived in concentrated underground bunkers. Usually conducting searches during the day, the groups would seek out partisans for battle in the open, or even in villages. As described in the Burlitski testimony:
It was like beating the forests for wild game, except that the game was human. Day after day we formed long lines and combed the forests and the swamps, arresting, shooting, burning...Even my well-disciplined soldiers were sickened by their jobs. Often after a particularly grim manhunt I would find them in their quarters half-mad with drink; whatever was left of their human feelings was drowned in alcohol.
In many cases, NKVD troops would desert their divisions in disgust, as was the case for the NKVD 2nd and 4th Special Task Divisions during the 1950-1951 repression.
Kruglov also introduced efforts to create fake partisan groups composed of NKVD agents trained at a special NKVD school in Vilnius.148 In some cases, NKVD agents donning partisan uniforms would be sent out to murder civilians in an attempt to convince people that the partisans were merely bandits.
These "pseudo-guerrilla" groups were also used to infiltrate the partisan cadres themselves. NKVD agents posing as partisans would go into the woods to retrieve intelligence. Towards the end of the battle, NKVD agents even impersonated American and British agents to lure partisans.