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Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria [a] (29 March [O.S. 17 March] 1899 – 23 December 1953) was a Soviet politician and one of the longest-serving and most influential of Joseph Stalin's secret police chiefs, serving as head of the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) from 1938 to 1946, during the country's involvement in the Second World War.
Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov (Russian: Николай Иванович Ежов, IPA: [nʲɪkɐˈlaj ɪˈvanəvʲɪtɕ (j)ɪˈʐof]; 1 May 1895 – 4 February 1940) was a Soviet secret police official under Joseph Stalin who was head of the NKVD from 1936 to 1938, during the height of the Great Purge.
Early NKVD leaders, Genrikh Yagoda, then (1924) 1st deputy head of SOU OGPU Vyacheslav Menzhinsky then head of SOU OGPU and deputy head OGPU, and Felix Dzerzhinsky chief of OGPU, 1924. After the Russian February Revolution of 1917, the Provisional Government dissolved the Tsarist police and set up the People's Militias.
There were a succession of Soviet secret police agencies over time. The Okhrana was abolished by the Provisional government after the first revolution of 1917, and the first secret police after the October Revolution , created by Vladimir Lenin 's decree on December 20, 1917, was called " Cheka " (ЧК).
The Ministry of State Security (Russian: Министерство государственной безопасности, romanized: Ministerstvo gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti, IPA: [mʲɪnʲɪˈsʲtʲerstvə ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ]), abbreviated as MGB (Russian: МГБ), was a ministry of the Soviet Union from 1946 to 1953 which functioned as the country's secret ...
The Cheka, the first in a long succession of Soviet secret police agencies, established the security service as a major player in Soviet politics. It was dissolved in February 1922, and succeeded by the State Political Directorate (GPU). Throughout the Soviet era, members of the secret police were referred to as "Chekists".
According to the transcribed recollections of Nikolay Vladimirovich Veselago, a former Okhrana officer and relative of the director of the Russian police department Stepan Petrovich Beletsky, both Malinovsky and Joseph Stalin reported on Lenin as well as on each other although Stalin was unaware that Malinovosky was also a penetration agent.
Vasily Mikhailovich Blokhin (Russian: Васи́лий Миха́йлович Блохи́н; 19 January [O.S. 7 January] 1895 – 3 February 1955) was a Soviet secret police official who served as the chief executioner of the NKVD under the administrations of Genrikh Yagoda, Nikolay Yezhov and Lavrentiy Beria.