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 (this number excludes those in several camps in regions that were in revolt, such as Tambov). 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 (VOKhR) 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. (VNUS). 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 (VNUS). 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 (GPU) 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 (OGPU) 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 (for example, the NKVD of the RSFSR). 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 (the wording "OGPU troops" was also often encountered) 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 (platoon, company, battalion, regiment). 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 (depending on their defensive significance) 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 (1944), 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 (NKVD). 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 (GUPVO NKVD) was renamed the Main Directorate of Border and Internal Troops of the NKVD of the USSR (GUPVV). 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 On September 1, 1939, the law "On General Military Duty" was adopted. For the first time, the law stated that the internal troops are an integral part of the
Red Army. On November 20, 1939, by Order of the NKVD, the "Regulations on the escort troops of the NKVD of the USSR" were adopted. It stipulated the tasks of escorting persons in custody and the procedure for external security of individual prisons. The same Regulations set the wartime tasks of the internal troops to escort and protect
prisoners of war. In the pre-war years, the internal troops guarded 135 government facilities. They also escorted to 156 judicial institutions and served on 176 railway routes. The number of personnel of the convoy troops on January 1, 1940, reached 34,295 people (one division, 9 brigades, 2 separate regiments and 2 junior command schools). On March 4, 1941, the Directorate of Operational Forces of the NKVD of the USSR was created. In 1941, the Directorate of Convoy Troops of the NKVD was disbanded and merged with the Directorate of Internal Troops of the NKVD. The main tasks for this department: participation in hostilities, guarding reception centers for prisoners of war, guarding trains, and escorting prisoners. In June 1941, the NKVD had two convoy forces security divisions and seven brigades totaling 38,311 personnel to carry out convoy missions. Railway security forces totalled 62,100, comprising nine divisions and five brigades securing 1,700 sites. Operational forces, the direct forerunners of the internal troops, included 11 regiments stationed in the western military districts, seven regiments and three battalions in the internal districts, and the
F. E. Dzerzhinsky Independent Special Designation Division in Moscow (transferred from the OGPU in 1934). In October 1940, a specialised NKVD force had also been formed to assist with local air defence for important areas. By June 1941 this new Main Directorate for Local Antiaircraft Defence had three regiments, including in Moscow, and four battalions, all engineer-anti-chemical units. Another division and five brigades totalling just under 30,000 men were in the process of formation. During
World War II, most units of the NKVD internal troops were engaged alongside
Red Army forces against
Axis troops. On the first day of
Operation Barbarossa, the joined the defence of
Brest Fortress,
losing its standard in the process. On the basis of units of the internal troops, sabotage units and instructors in military affairs were trained for deployment to partisan detachments in the enemy rear. 1,000 border guards and fighters of the internal troops, including 95 commanders, were allocated to staff the partisan detachments. In October 1941, the special forces troops of the NKVD of the USSR, which had been formed at the very beginning of the war, were reformed into the (OMSBON), which in October 1943 became the Separate Special Purpose Detachment of the NKGB of the USSR (OOON). During the frontline battles and operations behind enemy lines during the war, its servicemen were responsible for over 1,400
derailed enemy trains with manpower, equipment, ammunition, fuel, etc., over 300 destroyed railway and highway bridges, about 700 km of disabled cable and telegraph lines, about 350 blown up industrial enterprises and warehouses, about 150 destroyed tanks, armoured vehicles and more than 50 aircraft, over 130,000 destroyed enemy soldiers and officers, including about 90 liquidated prominent representatives of the Nazi occupiers and more than 2,000 fascist agents and accomplices of the enemy. In addition, about 50 guns, mortars and machine guns, more than 850 rifles and machine guns, over 20 tanks, self-propelled guns and tractors, over 100 motorcycles and bicycles were captured as trophies. More than 20 OMSBON/OOON fighters were awarded the title
Hero of the Soviet Union. Raising of new NKVD forces for the front began in the
Moscow Military District with an order of June 26:In accordance with a decision of the USSR's government, the NKVD of the USSR is charged with forming fifteen rifle divisions (10 regular and 5 mountain). • Lieutenant General
I. I. Maslennikov is entrusted with the task of forming fifteen rifle divisions of NKVD forces. • Create an operational group under Lieutenant General Maslennikov consisting of Colonel Miroshichenko,
Kombrig I. S. Sheredeg,
Kombrig M. N. Shishkarev, and Lieutenant Colonel S. I. Frolov. • Begin forming and deploying the [following] divisions immediately:
243rd Rifle Division,
244th Rifle Division,
246th Rifle Division,
247th Rifle Division,
249th Rifle Division,
250th Rifle Division,
251st Rifle Division,
252nd Rifle Division,
254th Rifle Division,
256th Rifle Division, 15th Mountain Rifle Division, 16th Mountain Rifle Division, 17th Mountain Rifle Division, 26th Mountain Rifle Division, 12th Mountain Rifle Division. • To form the divisions designated above, assign 1,000 soldiers and non-commissioned officers and 500 command cadre from the NKVD's cadre to each division. Request the Red Army General Staff to provide the remainder of personnel by calling up all categories of soldiers from the reserves. • Complete concentrating the NKVD cadre at the formation regions by 17 July 1941... These divisions, in addition to NKVD border troops, participated in the defense of
Moscow,
Leningrad, the
Brest Fortress,
Kiev,
Odessa,
Voronezh,
Stalingrad (
10th Internal Troops Rifle Division), the
North Caucasus and were heavily engaged during the
Battle of Kursk; some fought through to Berlin, although by that time, as regular Red Army divisions, they had little remaining connection to their founding NKVD cadres. in
Petrozavodsk Convoy forces were increased in strength throughout the war. In August 1942 there were four divisions (35th–38th) and five brigades (41st, 43rd, 44th, 45th, 47th; the 42nd and 46th had disappeared). Numbers reached 44,000 in July 1943 and 151,000 in August 1945. Typically, NKVD internal troops were defensive in nature, although they played a particularly instrumental role during the
Battle of Moscow, the
Siege of Leningrad, and the
Battle of Stalingrad where the
10th NKVD Rifle Division suffered almost 90% casualties during the battle. Large internal troops units also stayed in the rear to maintain order, fight enemy infiltrators and to guard key installations (such as the armament manufacturing complex at
Tula, protected by the 156th NKVD regiment in 1941) and the railway installations guarded by the
14th Railway Facilities Protection Division NKVD. Altogether, more than
53 internal troops divisions and 20 internal troops brigades were on active duty during the war, among them the
10th,
1st and the
4th NKVD Rifle Divisions. Of those, 18 units were awarded battle honors (
military decorations or
honorary titles). A total of 977,000 servicemen were killed in action. More than 100,000 soldiers and officers received awards for gallantry in the face of the enemy, and 295 servicemen were awarded the "
Hero of the Soviet Union" title.
Cold War After World War II ended, the Internal Troops played an important role in fighting local
anti-Soviet partisans in the
Baltic states (such as the
Forest Brothers) and the
Ukrainian Insurgent Army. In 1953, the internal troops suppressed the
Vorkuta labor camp uprising with gunfire, which resulted in death of at least 100 political prisoners. A series of internal troops districts supervised many divisions, brigades, regiments, and battalions. Among them was the headquarters for internal troops in the Baltic area, which became Directorate Internal Troops NKVD-MVD-MGB
Baltic Military District (Управление ВВ НКВД-МВД-МГБ Прибалтийского округа). This headquarters supervised several internal troops divisions, including the 14th Railway Facilities Protection Division from 1944 to 1951. Other divisions in the Baltic Military District included the 4th, 5th, and 63rd NKVD Rifle Divisions. In the last months of the war and from 1945-1950, units of the internal troops also operated outside the borders of the USSR, ensuring the security of the rear of the active army, order in populated areas in the months of the formation of military and civil authorities after the war, participating in combat operations against the nationalist and anti-Soviet underground. On March 15, 1946, the
NKVD was split into two organizations:
Ministry of Internal Affairs and the
Ministry of State Security. On January 21, 1947, the internal troops of the MVD (operational units) were reassigned to the Ministry of State Security. The escort troops remained part of the MVD of the USSR. On July 10, 1949, the escort units were assigned to escort prisoners to judicial institutions, to exchange points on scheduled railway routes in republican, regional and provincial centers. On May 6, 1951, by the
resolution of the
Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union, the escort guard was assigned the task of transporting prisoners and defendants by scheduled (special) convoys along railway and waterways, as well as moving them from prisons to camps and colonies; also, at the request of the
Prosecutor's Office and law enforcement agencies, they were assigned the task of escorting them to court hearings of the Supreme, regional, provincial courts, military tribunals, and liner courts by rail and water transport; escorting them to train cars at exchange points. Following the
death of
Joseph Stalin and the beginning of the
Khrushchev era and
de-Stalinisation, the internal troops were reduced in size, but retained their pre-war functions. The Internal and Escort Guard was divided into departments, which in turn consisted of detachments, divisions, teams, and groups. By 1957, the number of Internal Guards amounted to 55,715 people, the Escort Guard - 33,307 people, and the formed Escort Guard of places of detention which included 100,000 people. On January 13, 1960, the
Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union abolished the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Soviet Union, transferring its functions to the ministries of internal affairs of the
union republics. Accordingly, the internal troops were distributed among the union republics and subordinated to the republican ministries of internal affairs on a regional basis. On August 30, 1962, the Presidium of the
Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR reorganized the Republican Ministry of Internal Affairs into the Ministry of Public Order Protection of the RSFSR (; Ministerstvo okhrany obshchestvennogo poriadka — MOOP). The same was done in all
Union and
autonomous republics of the Soviet Union. The internal troops were reassigned to the Republican MOOPs. On July 26, 1966, by Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, the central law enforcement agency was restored in the form of the Ministry of Public Order Protection of the USSR (MOOP USSR). The internal troops were included in the MOOP USSR. On November 25, 1968, the MOOP USSR was renamed the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR. The internal troops again found themselves in the structure of the MVD of the USSR. In 1969, the internal troops were managed by the Main Department of Internal Troops MVD of the USSR. By an order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs number 007 of 22 February 1969 on the basis of the internal troops, Internal and Escort of the Interior Ministry of the Ukrainian SSR, the Ukrainian SSR and the Moldavian SSR MVD internal troops directorates were officially established. On December 29, 1977 the (known in its Russian acronym
УРСН) was created. It was the first
spetsnaz unit in the internal troops of the Soviet Union. In this company the traditions of the special forces of the Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs were born and this company served as the foundation for the future creation of all special forces units of the internal troops and subsequently the
internal troops of Russia. It was on the basis of the UchbSpN, after the company was reformed into a battalion, based on which the
Vityaz unit was formed. On September 1986, following the
hijacking of airplane in
Ufa Airport, commander-in-chief of the internal troops, General
Ivan Yakovlev was forced to resign. On March 21, 1989, by decree of the
Presidium of the
Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, the internal troops of the Soviet Union (along with the
Soviet Border Troops and the ) were withdrawn from the
Soviet Armed Forces. By decree of the
President of the RSFSR,
Boris Yeltsin, issued on October 20, 1991, all formations of the internal troops stationed on the territory of the
Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic were accepted under the jurisdiction of the RSFSR and subordinated to the republican MVD. On December 25, 1991, as a result of the
collapse of the Soviet Union, the internal troops of the Soviet Union ceased to exist. Units and formations of the internal troops, depending on their territorial deployment, became part of the respective interior ministries and armed forces of the newly formed
Commonwealth of Independent States member states. In the
Russian Federation, the
internal troops of Russia were the successor of the Soviet internal troops, themselves reformed into the
National Guard of Russia in 2016. ==Combat history==