| Министерство внутренних дел СССР Ministerstvo vnutrennih del SSSR | |
.svg){kind=icon} Badge of the Ministry of Internal Affairs | |
 | |
.jpg) Ministry of Internal Affairs headquarters inMoscow | |
| Agency overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | 15 March 1946; 79 years ago (1946-03-15) |
| Preceding agency |
|
| Dissolved | 26 December 1991; 33 years ago (1991-12-26) |
| Superseding agencies | |
| Type | Interior ministry Secret police andIntelligence agency (1953-1954) |
| Jurisdiction | Soviet Union |
| Headquarters | Zhitnaya St. 16,Moscow,Russian SFSR,Soviet Union 55°43′51″N37°36′50″E / 55.73083°N 37.61389°E /55.73083; 37.61389 |
| Minister responsible | |
| Child agencies | |
TheMinistry of Internal Affairs of the USSR (MVD;Russian:Министерство внутренних дел СССР (МВД),romanized: Ministerstvo vnutrennikh del SSSR) was theinterior ministry of theSoviet Union from 1946 to 1991. The MVD was established as the successor to theNKVD during the reform of thePeople's Commissariats into theMinistries of the Soviet Union in 1946 as part of a broader restructuring of the government. The MVD did not include agencies concerned withsecret policing unlike the NKVD, with the function being assigned to theMinistry of State Security (MGB), which had been established during the Second World War. The MVD and MGB were briefly merged into a single ministry from March 1953 until the MGB was split off as theCommittee for State Security (KGB) in March 1954.
This resulted in a system where one agency was responsible for domestic and foreign intelligence gathering, espionage, surveillance and secret police functions, and another responsible for the regular civilian police forces, fire departments and internal security troops. The MVD was headed by the Minister of Internal Affairs and responsible for many internal services in the Soviet Union such as theMilitsiya, the national police force, theInternal Troops, which served as the USSR's nationalgendarmerie, theOMON riot control units,Traffic Safety, prisons, theGulag system as well as the successivepenal colonies, and theinternal migration system. From 1966-1968, it was briefly known as theMinistry of Public Order Protection. The MVD was dissolved upon thedissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991 and succeeded by its branches in thepost-Soviet states, the largest being theRussian MVD, which inherited its predecessor's functions, though itsInternal Troops would later become their own independent service - theNational Guard.
| Chronology of Soviet security agencies | ||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
  .svg)  | ||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||
The Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR was created on 15 March 1946 from thePeople's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD), theinterior ministry of theSoviet Union since 1934, when all thePeople's Commissariats (the Soviet equivalent to agovernment ministry) were rebranded and transformed into theMinistries of the Soviet Union. The main change was the removal ofsecret police functions, as the responsibilities of theMain Directorate of State Security of the NKVD were transferred to the newMinistry of State Security (MGB) as a completely separate ministry.
On 15 March 1953, the MGB was incorporated into the MVD, re-creating a structure similar to the NKVD, but just under a year later on 13 March 1954 the MGB's functions were again transferred to a separate state committee, theCommittee for State Security (KGB).[1][2]
The MVD was originally established as aunion-republic ministry with headquarters inMoscow, but in 1960 the Soviet leadership underNikita Khrushchev, as part of its general downgrading of the police, abolished the central MVD, whose functions were assumed by republic ministries of internal affairs. On August 30, 1962, the Presidium of theSupreme Soviet of the RSFSR reorganized the Republican Ministry of Internal Affairs into the Ministry of Public Order Protection of the RSFSR (Министерство охраны общественного порядка (МООП); Ministerstvo okhrany obshchestvennogo poriadka — MOOP). The same was done in allUnion andautonomous republics of the Soviet Union. This name change implied a break with the all-powerful MVD created byLavrentiy Beria, as well as a narrower range of functions. The changes were accompanied by increasing criticism of the regular police, themilitsiya, in theSoviet press for its shortcomings in combating crime.[3] Accordingly, theInternal Troops of the Soviet Union were distributed among the Union Republics and are subordinated to the republican ministries of internal affairs on a regional basis.
Following Khrushchev's ouster in 1964, his successorLeonid Brezhnev did much to raise the status of the regular police. In 1966, after placing one of his proteges,Nikolai Shchelokov, in the post of chief, Brezhnev reinstated MOOP as a union-republic ministry called Ministry of Public Order Protection of the Soviet Union, formally by Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR issued on July 26, 1966. Two years later, on November 25, 1968 MOOP was renamed the MVD, an apparent symbol of its increased authority.
In 1971, alaser was used to solve a crime (after the arrest of two suspects, they were found to have 17wristwatch mechanisms in their home... the suspects claimed that these were just acollection of old watch details, but a laser analysis in Moscow revealed that they were actually stolen gold watches without their gold cases, as these criminals had already removed, melted, and sold all the gold parts)[4].
In 1980, a first criminal offense in the USSR was solved with the help of a computer (aVAZ-2101 car that hit a pedestrian on the Moscow Highway inTomsk and fled the scene was found as a result of a comprehensive analysis of all the traces left behind). In the period up to October 17, 1980 alone, computers were used to successfully solve more than 50 various crimes[5].
Efforts were made to raise the effectiveness of the MVD by recruiting better-qualified personnel and upgrading equipment and training. Brezhnev's death in 1982, however, left the MVD vulnerable to his opponents,Yuri Andropov in particular. Just a month after Brezhnev died, Shchelokov was ousted as its chief and replaced by the former KGB chairman,Vitaly Fedorchuk. Shchelokov was later tried oncorruption charges. A similar fate befell Brezhnev's son-in-law,Yuri Churbanov, who was removed from the post of first deputy chief in 1984 and later arrested on criminal charges. After bringing several officials from the KGB and from theCPSU apparatus into the MVD, Andropov sought to make it an effective organization for rooting out widespread corruption;Mikhail Gorbachev continued these efforts.[3]
In January 1986, when Fedorchuk was retired,Aleksandr Vlasov was appointed the chief of the MVD despite having no background in the police apparatus. In September 1988, Vlasov became a candidate member of theCPSU Politburo, and the following month he was replaced as chief of the MVD byVadim Bakatin.[3] Reforms initiated by Gorbachev met opposition by hardliners in government and the party, especially the security apparatus. Interior ministerBoris Pugo was one of the main organizers of the1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, and when the coup failed, he killed himself.[6] Pugo was replaced byViktor Barannikov,[6] who acted as the final interior minister of the Soviet Union. The MVD was effectively dissolved upon thedissolution of the Soviet Union on 26 December 1991, though its branches in the variousSoviet republics have survived as the interior ministries of the now-independentPost-Soviet states.
The MVD had a wide array of duties related to the internal functions and security of the Soviet Union. It was responsible for uncovering and investigating certain categories of crime, apprehending criminals, supervising theinternal passport system, maintaining public order, combatingpublic intoxication, supervisingparolees, managing prisons andlabor camps, providing fire protection, and controlling traffic. Until early 1988, the MVD was also in charge of specialpsychiatric hospitals, but a law passed in January 1988 transferred all psychiatric hospitals to the authority of theMinistry of Health.[3] From 1946 until 1991, it had under its command a large paramilitary gendarmerie-like force known as the MVD Internal Troops (VV SSSR). These were aligned with the Soviet Armed Forces, but under MVD control, and effectively served as its armed wing. Internal Troops units were organized along the lines of conventional motor rifle units, and used the same recruiting system as the Ground Forces. Their main role was to serve as a riot police, crowd control counter-insurgency and internal security force; Internal Troops units were dispersed throughout the country, with most being a battalion size. In larger cities, units were usually at a regiment level due to the larger population size.[7]
As a union-republic ministry under theCouncil of Ministers, the MVD had its headquarters in Moscow and branches in the republic and regional government apparatus, as well as inoblasts and cities. Unlike the KGB, the internal affairs apparatus was subject to dual subordination: local internal-affairs offices reported both to the executive committees of their respective local Soviets and to their superior offices in the MVD hierarchy.[3]
The MVD headquarters in Moscow was divided into several directorates and offices:[8]
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of July 2025 (link)| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Academics | |
| Other | |
