NKVD
Proper noun
Meaning
NKVD
The People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs — the Soviet interior ministry known for its secret police, forerunner of the KGB
Examples
"If it works, he'll take the credit," Bokov warned once they were safely outside NKVD headquarters. "Oh, sure," Shteinberg agreed. "But he'd do that anyway." Bokov laughed, not that his superior was joking- or wrong.
According to declassified Soviet archives, in 1937 and 1938, the NKVD arrested more than one and a half million people, of whom 681,692 were shot.
According to open Soviet archives, he had committed "dozens" of sexual assaults during the years he was NKVD chief.
Although Stalin described the NKVD (People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs) regiments that moved forward with the tactical fighting units as a “gendarmerie” (military police force), they rarely intervened in the lawlessness.
After the murder of Kirov, top functionaries of the Leningrad NKVD were relieved of their duties and were given very light sentences, but in 1937 they were shot.
After two years of investigations the working team of the Yakovlev commission concluded that: 'in this affair no materials objectively support Stalin's participation or NKVD participation in the organisation and carrying out of Kirov's murder.