by Paul Leclercq

Created on: June 01, 2008

The following definition may seem all too familiar to historians and readers alike:

"A vast organisation, operating outside the law, responsible for political repression, espionage, counter-espionage, operating forced labour camps, practising "ethnic cleansing"; for mass murder on an enormous scale, brutal torture, fabrication of evidence, interference in foreign countries and with its own military arm."

This description obviously applies to the Nazi SS, but it applies equally to the Soviet equivalent: Narodnyy Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del, "The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs", known as the NKVD. As with the SS, the total number of deaths attributable to this organisation will probably never be known. Estimates vary but would appear to be in the order of 20 millions. Of course apart from the deaths, many more had their lives ruined irrevocably as a result of the NKVD's activities.

Given this lamentable record, it seems extraordinary to the author that writings about the SS's operations (and indeed the Nazis in general) hugely outnumber those covering the Soviet side.

"Our task is not only to destroy you physically, but also to smash you morally before the eyes of the society."

This is a quotation from Major Wiktor Herer, a superior officer at the Office of Public Security, to a prisoner in1948. A most interesting point is made in the first of my sources listed at the end of this article from which the above quotation is drawn. The writer draws a contrast between the Gestapo and the NKVD. It is pointed out that appalling as the Gestapo were, they abused people in an attempt to get the truth about a particular subject, whereas the NKVD would abuse people to get them to confess to an untruth. To this writer, this depressing observation highlights the essential depravity and moral bankruptcy of the Stalinist regime.

In the early years following the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Soviets established a secret police organisation, called the Cheka, founded by Feliks Dzerzhinsky, which was intended to "protect the revolution". This organisation was renamed in 1922 as the GPU (State Political Directorate) of the NKVD. In subsequent years, numerous reorganisations took place, and gradually the NKVD's remit was expanded to include the activities listed in the first paragraph above.

The NKVD's most infamous period began in 1934 following the assassination of Sergey Kirov, party boss in Leningrad. Many have asserted that the murder was carried out on Stalin's orders

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