The NKVD

• Stalin used the communist party's secret police, known in 1934 as the NKVD, to carry out arrests during the purges.
• NKVD officers...

  1. Spied on, intimidated and arrested people.
  2. Forced confessions from those who had been arrested.
  3. Imposed sentences and carried these out - almost always as execution or 10 years hard labour in the Gulag.