NKVD

From Turtledove

The NKVD (Russian: НКВД, Народный Комиссариат Внутренних Дел Narodnyy Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del listen) or People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the leading secret police organization of the Soviet Union that was responsible for political repression during the Stalinist era. It conducted mass extrajudicial executions, ran the Gulag system of forced labor, suppressed underground resistance, conducted mass deportations to unpopulated regions of the country, guarded state borders, conducted espionage and political assassinations abroad, was responsible for subversion of foreign governments, and enforced Stalinist policy within Communist movements in other countries.

[edit] NKVD in Worldwar

During World War II, and especially during the war against the Race's Conquest Fleet, the NKVD took on an additional military function, with special forces based on those of the German Waffen-SS. Headed by Lavrenty Beria, it also continued its normal secret police functions, and handled both human and Lizard prisoners of war.

After Joseph Stalin's death, the NKVD and Beria continued to serve as the Soviet secret police and took on intelligence duties as well.

In 1963 the NKVD was heavily purged following an unsuccessful attempt by Beria to overthrow General Secretary Vyacheslav Molotov. While it recovered from the purges, many of its duties were filled by the GRU, the Red Army intelligence division, which the NKVD saw as something of a rival.

[edit] NKVD in The Man With the Iron Heart

As an organization with a history of routing and destroying dissent, the NKVD proved to be somewhat more adaptable in dealing with the German Freedom Front over time than did its Western counter-parts. While agents such as Moisei Shteinberg and Vladimir Bokov initially felt overwhelmed by the various terrorist attacks perpetrated by the GFF, as the years passed, they were able to responde with sufficient ruthlessness that the GFF were given pause.