Stalin

• The NKVD - the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs - was formed in 1934
• The NKVD created a permanent form of terror and was headed by Yagoda
• The NKVD was crucuial to the imposition of purges and was notable for gathering vidence against high-ranking communists such as Kamenev, Zinoviev and Trotsky
• The NKVD helped to administer the Gulags; over 40 million people were sent to these prison camps during the Stalinist regime