Repression- Secret police under the Communists Flashcards
When was the Cheka established?
1917
Who headed the Cheka?
A polish communist Dzerzhinsky.
What was the specific role of the Cheka?
To deal with Counter-revolutionaries. (specifically left wing SR’s after their assassination attempt) on Lenin.
Who did the Cheka tend to victimise?
-people for who they are rather than actions.
What was the red terror implemented by Trotsky during the time of the Cheka?
-enforcement of war communism
-targeting Kulaks.
-labour code
-Labour camps.
When was the Cheka disbanded?
After the civil war
What was the Cheka replaced with?
The state police administration GPU and then later the OGPU (still as awful as the Cheka).
When was the NKVD formed?
1934.
Who headed the NKVD?
Yagoda.
What were the roles of the NKVD?
-permeant form of terror.
-purges
-gathering evidence against high ranking communists.
Who was a high ranking communist that the NKVD targeted?
-Trotsky
What was Gulag and how many people were held there during the Stalinist regime? (under the NKVD)
-Prison camps
-40 Million
Why was the NKVD replaced?
-suspected conspiracy
-such as Yezhov suspected anti-purge campaigns in 1938.
Who was Yezcov replaced with (NKVD)
Beria- who subsequently arranged Yezcov’s execution.
How many people in the NKVD itself had been purged by WW1?
20,000.
When was the NKVD replaced by the NKGB?
1946.
What was the NKBG split into? (1946)
-MGB
-MVD
What was the MGB responsible for? (1946)
-Ensuring the general population was kept in line.
What was the MVD responsible for (1946)
Another version of the NKVD
What eventually happened to the two branches of NKBG (MVD and MGB)
Just continued as the MVD.
Who ordered Beria’s execution?
Khrushchev
How was the MVD reorganised?
split into 2
-MVD and KGB.
What was the MVD responsible for under Khrushchev?
-‘ordinary criminal acts and civil disorder’
What did the KGB do under Khruschev?
-internal and external security during the cold war
Who were the MVD and the KGB controlled by under Khrushchev?
-The party rather than an individual.
Under Khrushchev’s secret police?
-political arrests decrease
-Gulags largely disappeared
How many counterrevolutionaries in captivity during the 1960s?
-11,000
