Internal troops of the Soviet Union
Internal troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs were military formations, which were intended to ensure law and public order and internal security of the Soviet Union, protect state facilities and ensure public safety. Formed in the aftermath of the October Revolution of 1917, the original internal troops, known as the Internal Security Forces of the Republic were created as combat detachments of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission. Numbering approximately 260,000 men in the 1980s, they were one of the largest formations of special troops in the Soviet Union. From September 1, 1939 to March 21, 1989, the internal troops were an integral part of the Soviet Armed Forces but were subordinate to the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
History
Internal troops existed throughout Soviet history, the earliest being the Internal Security Forces under the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission, or Cheka, founded by Lenin’s right hand man Felix Dzerzhinsky. The Cheka was conceived as a temporary wartime organ, with the new provisional government dissolving the Okhrana, the Tsarist security police, seeking to create its own internal military force. By the order of the Central Executive Committee, the ‘People’s Militias’ were established following the October Revolution. Armed troops under the People’s Militias were entrusted mainly with consolidating the government’s power and eliminating opposition. During the Russian Civil War, the internal troops of the Cheka and the Red Army practiced the terror tactics of taking and executing numerous hostages, often in connection with desertions of forcefully mobilized peasants. According to Orlando Figes, more than 1 million people deserted from the Red Army in 1918, around 2 million people deserted in 1919, and almost 4 million deserters escaped from the Red Army in 1921. Around 500,000 deserters were arrested in 1919 and close to 800,000 in 1920 by Cheka troops and special divisions created to combat desertions. Thousands of deserters were killed, and their families were often taken hostage. According to Lenin's instructions:After the expiration of the seven-day deadline for deserters to turn themselves in, punishment must be increased for these incorrigible traitors to the cause of the people. Families and anyone found to be assisting them in any way whatsoever are to be considered as hostages and treated accordingly.
In September 1918, in just twelve provinces of Russia, 48,735 deserters and 7,325 brigands were arrested: 1,826 were executed and 2,230 were deported. A typical report from a Cheka department stated:
Yaroslavl Province, 23 June 1919. The uprising of deserters in the Petropavlovskaya volost has been put down. The families of the deserters have been taken as hostages. When we started to shoot one person from each family, the Greens began to come out of the woods and surrender. Thirty-four deserters were shot as an example.
Estimates suggest that during the suppression of the Tambov Rebellion of 1920–1921, around 100,000 peasant rebels and their families were imprisoned or deported and perhaps 15,000 executed. This campaign marked the beginning of the Gulag, and some scholars have estimated that 70,000 were imprisoned by September 1921. Conditions in these camps led to high mortality rates, and "repeated massacres" took place. The Cheka at the Kholmogory camp adopted the practice of drowning bound prisoners in the nearby Dvina river. Occasionally, entire prisons were "emptied" of inmates via mass shootings prior to abandoning a town to White forces. On June 13, 1918, the Cheka Collegium decided to unite all armed detachments in the capital and in the provinces into the Cheka Troops Corps with headquarters in Moscow. On May 28, 1919, by the decree of the Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defense "On auxiliary troops", the Internal Security Troops of the Republic were created on the basis of the Cheka troops, which included all auxiliary troops that were at the disposal of economic departments - the People's Commissariat of Food, etc. By the same decision, the Headquarters of the Cheka troops was renamed the Headquarters of the VOKhR troops, and in June - the Main Directorate of the VOKhR troops. VOKhR sectors were created according to territorial responsibility: Moscow, Kursk, Petrograd, Eastern, Kiev. A new branch was created to oversee all internal security troops in the USSR, known as the Internal Service Troops.. By 1921, the Cheka and its VOHR troops numbered more than 200,000.
On September 1, 1920, the Council of Labor and Defense adopted a resolution on the creation of the . They included the VOKhR troops, guard troops, railway defense troops, railway police and water police. On September 17, 1920, the Council of Labor and Defense issued a Resolution equating all Cheka employees to the Red Army servicemen. On January 19, 1921, all units and detachments of the Checka were transformed into a special branch of the military — the VChK troops. On February 6, 1922, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee abolished the Cheka and in its place established the State Political Directorate under the NKVD of the RSFSR. On March 1, 1922, an order was issued by the Chairman of the GPU on the reorganization of the Checka troops into the GPU troops. On March 27, by the Resolution of the STO, the border guard and escort guard were included in the GPU troops. On November 15, 1923, in connection with the formation of the Soviet Union, a resolution was adopted on the reorganization of the GPU under the NKVD of the RSFSR into the Joint State Political Directorate under the Council of People's Commissars, a little later enshrined in Chapter IX "On the United State Political Administration" of the first 1924 Constitution of the Soviet Union, the basic law of the state. By order of the OGPU, the "Regulation on the Headquarters of the OGPU Troops" was announced. During this period, which began after the Civil War, the young Soviet state was solving problems in the fight against crime and the protection of state borders. In July 1924, the Convoy Guard was transferred from the OGPU to the control of the People's Commissariats of Internal Affairs of the Union Republics. On August 29, 1924, the Council of Labor and Defense adopted a resolution "On the formation of the escort guard of the USSR and the organization of the Central Directorate of the escort guard in Moscow."
According to the resolution, the escort guard acquired the status of an independent branch of the armed forces. In the territory of Central Asia and Kazakhstan, the escort guard troops together with the border guard troops and units of the Red Army participated in the fight against the Basmachi movement for a long time On October 30, 1925, the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, in accordance with the resolution "On the escort guard of the USSR", created the Central Directorate of the escort guard of the USSR, which reported directly to the Council of People's Commissars. The issues of staffing the escort guard, as well as the logistical supply, were assigned to the bodies of the People's Commissariat for Military and Naval Affairs. The organizational structure of the convoy teams was reduced to that of the Red Army. In this order, the troops of the Convoy Guard were reduced to 2 divisions and 6 separate brigades with a total personnel of 14,802 people. On November 6, 1926, by order of the OGPU, the Main Directorate of border guard and OGPU troops of the USSR was created, which carried out direct command of the troops.
1930s
On December 1, 1931, it was decided to transfer all departmental paramilitary guards of industrial enterprises to the OGPU. It was assumed that the protection of facilities would be carried out by police forces and newly formed OGPU military units, and the paramilitary guard would be liquidated during 1932. On December 4, 1931, the Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Union assigned the OGPU troops with the protection and defense of railway facilities. The rifle guard units of the People's Commissariat of Communication Routes were reorganized into military units guarding railway structures. Thousands of trained People's Commissariat of Communication Routes of the Soviet Union rifle guard officers continued to serve in the OGPU, including in command positions. For example,, a future Soviet military leader, lieutenant general, who served in the NKPS USSR guard from 1923 to 1932, NKVD USSR Colonel N. V. Solodov, and others.On July 10, 1934, the Central Executive Committee of the USSR decided to create the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs. By the same decree, the OGPU troops were divided into the border and internal guard of the NKVD USSR. With the beginning of the process of dispossession and collectivization, social tensions began to arise throughout the territory of the USSR, ranging from riots and mass unrest to armed resistance to the authorities, which increased the burden on the formations that escorted large numbers of people across the country. In connection with this, in August 1934, the personnel of the escort troops was increased by 20 thousand people. In 1937, the Main Directorate of Border and Internal Security was renamed the Main Directorate of Border and Internal Troops of the NKVD of the USSR. On April 20, 1938, the number of NKVD troops, including military units of convoy troops, was established at 28,800 people. On February 2, 1939, 6 separate departments were created within the Main Directorate of Border and Internal Troops within the NKVD of the USSR:
- Main Directorate of Border Troops
- Main Directorate for the Protection of Railway Facilities
- Main Directorate for the Protection of Particularly Important Industrial Enterprises
- Main Directorate of Convoy Troops - jointly manned by the Red Army and the NKVD. The directorate's mission was to convoy the "condemned, military prisoners of war, and persons subject to deportation, and also to provide external security for prisoner-of-war camps, prisons, and some objectives in which the work of 'special contingents' was employed."
- Main Directorate of Military Support
- Main Military Construction Directorate