The People's Commissariat for State Security (Russian: Народный комиссариат государственной безопасности, romanized: Narodnyy komissariat gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti) or NKGB, was the name of the Sovietsecret police, intelligence and counter-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).
Separate administration
Changes in Soviet apparatus began in February 1941 with the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet decision. It started with Military Counterintelligence. On 3 February 1941, the 4th Department (Special Section, OO) of GUGB within the NKVD security service responsible for the Red 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.
NKGB tasking
Based on NKVD and NKGB directive number 782/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 and counter-revolutionary organizations;
Department for Administration Economy and Finance (AChFO)
Changes 1941/1943
The Soviet security organizations were merged in July 1941, after the German invasion, with the NKGB Directorates returned to NKVD 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 of Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, eastern Poland, part of Romania (Bessarabia and northern Bukovina). Also, the numbers of apprehensions, deportations, executions and establishments of Gulags 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]
1943 organization
People's Commissar of State Security and his deputies Vsevolod Merkulov
Vadim J. Birstein : SMERSH Stalin's Secret Weapon, Soviet military counterintelligence in ww2 ISBN978-1-84954-108-4
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
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