ThePeople's Commissariat for State Security (Russian:Народный комиссариат государственной безопасности,romanized: Narodnyy komissariat gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti) orNKGB, was the name of theSovietsecret police,intelligence andcounter-intelligence force that existed from 3 February 1941 to 20 July 1941, and again from 1943 to 1946, before being renamed the Ministry for State Security (MGB).

Changes in Soviet apparatus began in February 1941 with thePresidium of the Supreme Soviet decision. It started with Military Counterintelligence. On 3 February 1941, the 4th Department (Special Section, OO) ofGUGB within theNKVD security service responsible for theRed Army military counter-intelligence, consisting of 12 Sections and one Investigation Unit, was separated from the GUGB NKVD. The official liquidation of the OO GUGB and GUGB as organized units within the NKVD was announced on 12 February 1941 by a joint order № 00151/003 of the NKVD and NKGB USSR.
The rest of the GUGB was abolished and staff were moved to the newly created People's Commissariat for State Security (NKGB). Departments of the former GUGB were renamed Directorates. For example, the former Foreign Department (INO) became the Foreign Directorate (INU); political police represented by the Secret Political Department (SPO) became the Secret Political Directorate (SPU), and so on.

Based onNKVD and NKGB directive number782/B265M, from 1 March 1941, the NKGB tasks were:

• Conducting intelligence activities abroad;
• Battling espionage (on both fronts: counter and offensive);
• Battling sabotage and terrorist acts organized by foreign Special Services on USSR territory;
• The penetration, and liquidation, of anti-Soviet parties andcounter-revolutionary organizations;
• Overseeingideology in Soviet society;
• The protection of high party and government officials.

The first head of NKGB wasVsevolod Nikolayevich Merkulov who becamePeople's Commissar of State Security. His first deputy wasIvan Serov, a former Commissar 3rd rank of State Security, and two deputies,Bogdan Kobulov andMikhail Gribov.

The Soviet security organizations were merged in July 1941, afterthe German invasion, with the NKGB Directorates returned toNKVD as separate units. During 1943 changes NKGB was created again as separate Commissariat. Please look at organization changes below)

These organizational changes were never explained. According to historian John Dziak they may have had something to do with the Soviet occupations ofLatvia,Lithuania,Estonia, easternPoland, part ofRomania (Bessarabia and northernBukovina). Also, the numbers of apprehensions, deportations, executions and establishments ofGulags had quickly grown, which required a reorganization of structures and a boost of manpower in the security administration. Other reasons Dziak states are: the shock caused by the German aggression and the fast progress of their army; and when the Soviet victory in Stalingrad had made prospects of the recovery of previous war losses more likely.^[1]

In 1946, other changes followed. ExistingPeople's Commissariats were renamed "ministries."People's Commisariat for Internal Affairs (or NKVD) was renamedMinistry of Internal Affairs (Ministerstvo Vnutrennikh Del) or MVD, and the People's Commissariat for State Security was renamedMinistry for State Security (Ministerstvo Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti) or MGB.

• Bibliography of Stalinism and the Soviet Union
• Chronology of Soviet secret police agencies
• Eastern Bloc politics
• RSHA

• Vadim J. Birstein : SMERSH Stalin's Secret Weapon, Soviet military counterintelligence in ww2ISBN 978-1-84954-108-4
• Piotr Kołakowski –NKWD i GRU na ziemiach Polskich 1939–1945 – (Kulisy wywiadu i kontrwywiadu) –Dom wydawniczy Bellona Warszawa 2002 – (NKVD and GRU on Polish soil 1939–1945 [Intelligence counter-intelligence series] Warsaw, 2002)
• Norman Polmar, Thomas B Allen – Spy Book:The Encyclopedia of Espionage 1997

•   Media related toNKGB at Wikimedia Commons