After the Russian February Revolution of 1917, the Provisional Government dissolved the Tsarist police and set up the People's Militias. The subsequent Russian October Revolution of … See more

In 1935–1945, the Main Directorate of State Security of NKVD had its own ranking system before it was merged into the Soviet military standardized ranking system.
Top-level commanding staff See more

The main function of the NKVD was to protect the state security of the Soviet Union through massive political repression, including authorized murders of many thousands of politicians and citizens, as well as kidnappings, assassinations, and mass deportations. See more

The agency was headed by a people's commissar (minister). His first deputy was the director of State Security Service (GUGB).
• 1934–1936 Genrikh Yagoda, both people's commissar of Interior and director of State Security See more

Andrei Zhukov singlehandedly identified every single NKVD officer involved in 1930s arrests and killings by researching a Moscow archive. There are just over 40,000 names on the list. See more

• Soviet Union portal
• Bibliography of Stalinism and the Soviet Union § Terror, famine and the Gulag
• Poison laboratory of the Soviet secret services
• 10th NKVD Rifle Division See more

See also: Bibliography of Stalinism and the Soviet Union § Violence and terror and Bibliography of Stalinism and the Soviet Union § Terror, famine and the Gulag
• Hastings, Max (2015). The Secret War: Spies, Codes and Guerrillas 1939–1945 (paperback). … See more