MVD
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The Ministerstvo Vnutrennikh Del (MVD) (Министерство внутренних дел) was the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the imperial Russia, late USSR, and still bears the same name in the Russian Federation.
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Russian Empire
Created by Alexander I in 1802 in the process of government reforms to replace the aging colleges of Peter the Great, the MVD was one of the most powerful governmental bodies of the Empire, responsible for the police forces and Internal Guards and the supervision of gubernial administrations. Its initial reponsibilies also included penitentiaries, firefighting, state enterprises, the state postal system, state property, construction, roads, medicine, clergy, natural resources, and nobility; most of them were transferred to other ministries and government bodies by the mid-1800s.
Following the growth of the revolutionary movement and assassination of Tsar Alexander II, the Department of State Police inherited the secret police functions of the dismissed Third Section and transferred the most capable Gendarmes to the Okhranka. By World War I, the Department had spawned a counter-intelligence section.
After the February Revolution of 1917, the Gendarmes and the Okhranka were dismissed as anti-revolutionary.
Soviet era
Having won the October Revolution, the Bolsheviks dismissed the tsarist police forces and formed all-proletarian Workers' and Peasants' Militsiya under NKVD of the Russian SFSR.
In March 1946, all of the People's Commissariats (NK) were redesignated as Ministries (M). The NKVD was renamed the MVD of the USSR, along with its former subordinate, the NKGB which became the MGB of the USSR. The new Union Republics acquired during World War II also created their own Ministries of Internal Affairs. The MVD functioned for a time as the secret police, after Lavrenty Beria merged the MGB into the MVD in March 1953. Within a year Beria's purge caused the MVD to be split up again; after that, the MVD retained its "internal security" (police) functions, while the new KGB took on "state security" (secret police) functions.
In his efforts to fight bureaucracy and maintain 'Leninist principles', Nikita Krushchev, as the Premier of the Union, called for the dismissal of the All-Union MVD. The Ministry ceased to exist in January 1960 and its functions were transferred to the respective Republican Ministries. The MVD of the Russian SFSR was renamed the Ministry for Securing the Public Order in 1962.
Leonid Brezhnev again recreated the All-Union Ministry for Securing the Public Order in July 1966 and later assigned the infamous Nikolay Shchyolokov as Minister; the RSFSR Ministry was dismissed for the second time, the first being at the creation of the NKVD of the USSR. The MVD regained its original title in 1968.
The most controversial role of the reformed MVD was to combat economic crimes, that is to suppress private business which was largely prohibited by socialist law. This fight was never successful because of the deficiencies of the planned economy which resulted in shortages of goods and thus allowed high-margin speculation.
By the mid-1980s, the image of the people's militsiya was largely compromised by the corruption and disorderly behaviour of both enlisted and officer staff (the most shocking case was the robbery and murder of a KGB operative by a gang of militioners stationed in Moscow Metro in 1983). Many high-ranking MVD officers, including the Minister himself, were revealed to be routinely bribed by illegal shadow business and criminals.
Russian Federation
The Russian MVD was recreated as the MVD of the Russian SFSR in 1990, following the restoration of the republican Council of Ministers and Supreme Soviet, and remained when Russia gained independence from the Soviet Union. It currently controls the Militsiya, the road police (GAI), and the internal troops. Since the dismission of the Tax Police, it also investigates economic crimes.
The long-time additional duties of the Imperial MVD and NKVD, such as the Firefighting Service and Prisons Service, were recently moved to the Ministry of Extraordinary Situations and the Ministry of Justice respectively. The last reorganization abolished Main Directorates inherited from the NKVD in favor of Departments.
External links
- Ministry of the Interior of Russia (http://eng.mvdrf.ru/), official homepage
- Timeline of MVD, 1801-1997 (http://www.mvdinform.ru/index.php?docid=361) (in Russian)
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