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143-696: Perhaps the most prominent example, since the Soviet era have been the Russian Внутренние войска Министерства внутренних дел (ВВ) Vnutrenniye Voiska (VV) Ministerstva Vnutrennikh Del, or "Internal Troops of the Ministry for Internal Affairs" (MVD) (until 2016). Other countries that have had such forces include: Ukraine (until 2014), Georgia (until 2004), Kazakhstan (until 2014), Kyrgyzstan , Azerbaijan , Belarus , Bulgaria (until 1991) , Turkmenistan , and Tajikistan . Mongolian internal troops are officially

286-558: A "civil war." The greens were driven by the ideal of the SR "black division", "a division of all lands according to the number of mouths to be fed in each family", not for the broader nationalization and collectivization of the lands as presented by the Bolsheviks. In Lenin's eyes there was nothing socialist about this measure, believing the plan of the SRs would be to establish capitalism in

429-484: A "nation in arms" and failed. There were just over a million red soldiers at the end of 1918, 3 million in 1919, 5 million at the end of 1920, and 6 million in 1921. They were mainly forcibly recruited peasants. There was resistance among the Communists to the massive recruitment of peasants. For many, their army of loyal workers would become a force largely made up of an element that was alien and hostile to them,

572-688: A centralized system of ranks , command, and service. The Chief Commander and Staff of the troops reported only to Ministry of Internal Affairs, maintaining their separate chain of command. The Chief Commander was concurrently First Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs. VV units in the Soviet Union were predominantly formed up of conscripts drafted by the same system as for the Soviet Army . Modern Internal Troops in Russia, as in Ukraine , experienced

715-758: A combination of mass terror, propaganda and flooding rebel areas with troops. Some scholars credit the Green movement with indirectly forcing the Communist Party to change its economic strategy in 1921 (see New Economic Policy ), and yet, while the Greens certainly contributed to changes in Bolshevik policy, the extent of their influence is open to debate. It is far less contestable that the New Economic Policy – along with increased rainfall – quelled

858-687: A decision of the USSR's government, the NKVD of the USSR is charged with forming fifteen rifle divisions [10 regular and 5 mountain]. 1. Lieutenant General I. I. Maslennikov is entrusted with the task of forming fifteen rifle divisions of NKVD forces... 3. Begin forming and deploying the [following] divisions immediately: 243rd Rifle Division , 244th Rifle Division , 246th Rifle Division , 247th Rifle Division , 249th Rifle Division , 250th Rifle Division , 251st Rifle Division , 252nd Rifle Division , 254th Rifle Division , 256th Rifle Division ... 4. To form

1001-640: A few hundred to 50,000 fighters. Apart from the weapons that Red deserters brought with them, the Greens stole war material from defeated Bolshevik soldiers, from Bolshevik supply buildings, and from abandoned garrisons of the former Imperial Russian Army . They incited armed resistance to Bolshevik institutions in nearby villages and towns, bragging of peasant victories and recruiting new soldiers, sometimes by force. They formed guerrilla bands, which conducted highly mobile guerrilla warfare , attacking Bolshevik communication systems, mills , railways and factories. They also organized detachments numerically comparable to

1144-662: A force of internal suppression, especially after the disastrous Afghan War . The MVD was finding itself having to extinguish increasingly frequent and violent hot spots and to cope with growing and increasingly well organised and equipped criminals. For this the MVD needed more fire power. On 21 March 1989, the Presidium decided to take the Internal Troops out of the Armed Forces and the Ministry of Defense and give them to

1287-474: A group of soldiers through the countryside, enlisting village inhabitants and deserters from the Red Army along the way. The leaders would enter a village and make an announcement, employing simple messages and vague, reactionary goals in their rhetoric to rouse enthusiasm. They often exaggerated Bolshevik weakness and opposition victories as a means to convince listeners to join. By keeping the objectives simple,

1430-549: A higher level of organization than most peasant uprisings. For instance, Aleksandr Antonov 's Green army in Tambov had a medical staff, reinforcement brigades, and a complex system of communication and intelligence that employed women, children, and the elderly. Notable Green movements also developed in the regions of Novgorod , Tula , Ryazan , Tver , Voronezh , Kostroma , Syzran , Gomel , Kursk , Bryansk and Oryol , among many others. Estimations of Green forces ranged from

1573-458: A more strategic than ideological effort against the Reds. White deserters joined their cause and came to lead bands of peasants, which served as a pretext for the Bolsheviks to exaggerate the relations between the two elements. More likely to follow aggressive rhetoric and promises of violent revenge, peasants tended to reject leaders with purely political or more moderate goals, that is, any close to

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1716-802: A new organization named the National Guard of Russia (Rosgvardiya). Differently from the old Interior Troops, the Rosgvarsyia is not subordinated to the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD), but under the Security Council of Russia , which in practice puts it under direct control of the President of Russia . Despite being subordinated to a civilian police authority, internal troops are a military force with centralized system of ranks , command and service. The chief commander and staff of

1859-679: A peak strength of 350,000, and had experienced a shortage of officers since 1998. The final commander-in-chief of the Internal Troops was Colonel General Viktor Zolotov from 2014 to 2016. The Internal Troops claimed descent from the Special Corps of Gendarmes of the Russian Empire founded in 1811 and entered their modern form as a paramilitary of the interior ministry of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in 1918. It

2002-527: A period of up to one month. The federal law also detailed the important role that the Russian Ministry of Defense played in the affairs of the MVD's Internal Troops when crises arose. For example, MOD was responsible for providing airliners for supporting Internal Troop activities during emergency situations, and conditions of armed conflicts ; carrying out the stockpiling and echelon armaments and military equipment, ammunition, fuel and supplies for

2145-659: A popular uprising against the Bolsheviks to obtain victory, but usually most of the population was hostile to both sides and indifferent to who won the war. Wrangel was the only White general to realize the mistake. He knew that the war would not be won without successfully winning over the peasants, workers and national minorities to their side. Despite this, his subordinates in Crimea behaved like an occupying army, perpetrating all manner of arbitrariness and institutionalizing corruption. The Greens collaborated several times with other opposition groups, such as anarchists and SRs, in

2288-607: A possible enemy. According to the British historian Orlando Figes , at the climax of the civil war Lenin played pragmatically into the Red Army's advantages, in the form of a better organized but smaller army. Optimally disciplined, equipped and supplied, the force exerted less pressure on Rural areas by demanding less requisitions or levies and causing fewer peasant rebellions. They would also put less pressure on factory workers. Furthermore, it would not be made up mainly of peasants but rather workers, more loyal and motivated to fight for

2431-602: A reporting agency of the MIA after years as a part of the Ministry of Defense. On 1 October 1989, the Ground Forces' 14th Tank Division at Novocherkassk ( Rostov Oblast ) was transferred into the MVD as the 100th Motorised Division for Special Use VV MVD SSSR. Prior to the 1990s, there were 180 regiments (of varying size) of internal troops, of which 90 were mainly guards of correctional institutions, important public facilities and public order. Some of them became engaged in

2574-748: A reserve force in the Mongolian Armed Forces . These forces were introduced during the Soviet era, initially to provide armed, tactical responses for the militsiya – literally " militia ", but a close equivalent of the major police organizations found in other countries. Over time, internal troops also gained responsibility for waging civil war, safeguarding of highly-important facilities (like nuclear power plants ), large-scale crowd control and prison security (except in Russia). As such, these forces have been involved in major wars as well as combating insurgencies and other civil unrest, including

2717-579: A similar unit or the Volkspolizei-Bereitschaft ("People's Police Alert Units") was created in 1955. These units were created for a further reason as well: to have additional ground troop capacities in the event of a war, that did not show up at armaments negotiations, because those internal troops were not part of the military and still had suitable and compatible equipment. There were also internal troops in Bulgaria. During Cold War

2860-663: A slow transition to the contract personnel system. VV officers were trained in both own special academies and the Army's military academies. The main kinds of Internal Troops were field units, various facility-guarding units, special motorized units, riot control and patrol units, and special forces like Rus . Since the 1980s, spetsnaz units were created within the VV to deal with terrorism and hostage crises. Fields units were essentially light motorized infantry , similar to respective regular army units by their organization and weapons. They and

3003-512: A town to White forces. In 1937, the Main Directorate of Border and Internal Security (GUPVO NKVD) was renamed the Main Directorate of Border and Internal Troops of the NKVD of the USSR (GUPVV). On April 20, 1938, the number of NKVD troops, including military units of convoy troops, was established at 28,800 people. On February 2, 1939, 6 separate departments were created within the Main Directorate of Border and Internal Troops within

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3146-491: A universal rationing system to focus the entire economy on supporting the war effort. It was a way of fighting their opponents on the "home front". Among the new measures was the dispatch of officials to the farms of central Russia to collect supplies for the Red Army and start the construction of the socialist economy, by any means necessary. The aim was to requisition grain , cattle and horses , recruit young people to

3289-602: Is entitled "On the Russian Federation Ministry of Internal Affairs Internal Troops". When supporting a state-of-emergency regime, Internal Troops were paid salary increases and additional monetary payments according to federal laws and other legal acts approved by the Minister of Internal Affairs. Article 38 granted senior operational commanders the right to call in subunits of special motorized formations and military units outside their deployment areas for

3432-552: The Battle of Warsaw , where Lenin's project to expand the revolution to Berlin or Budapest and then further west by military invasion was ultimately fruitless. Westerners wanted to surround Russia with a belt that prevented the further spread of Marxist and Leftist fervor, with a strong independent Poland being key in that plan and acting as one of the causes of the Polish-Soviet war : first encouraging Polish expansionism to

3575-612: The Chernobyl disaster in 1986, internal troops personnel were among the cleanup crews ('liquidators'), engaged in security and emergency management activities; hundreds of servicemen were exposed to heavy radiation and dozens died. By 1989, with the increasing popular discontent nationwide that had begun to manifest in the USSR, the internal troops of the MVD, on orders from the Presidum of the Supreme Soviet, officially became

3718-632: The Democratic Republic of Georgia , while Bolshevik influence rapidly grew. The peasants were overwhelmingly in favour of the SR. In some cases, as in Western Siberia in 1920–1921, the rebellious peasants began their revolts without any proposal or plan more complex than overthrowing the Bolsheviks (consequently, Bolsheviks who fell into their hands were assassinated and government or Party buildings razed). Only as some successful movements became more complex and territorially broad did

3861-670: The Green Army (Зелёная Армия) or Greens (Зелёные), were armed peasant groups which fought against all governments in the Russian Civil War from 1918 to 1922. The Green armies were semi-organized local militias that opposed the Bolsheviks , Whites , and foreign interventionists , and fought to protect their communities from requisitions or reprisals carried out by third parties. The Green armies were politically and ideologically neutral, but at times associated with

4004-725: The Imperial Russian Army . The Corps evolved into a uniformed security police agency responsible for law enforcement and state security for most of the 19th century and a small part of the 20th century. The Corps also fell under the command of the Ministry of Police of the Russian Empire and the Guberniya . The modern Internal Troops of Russia were raised in 1918 by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee , one of

4147-821: The Livny rebellion , easily put down during August 1918 . Also included is the Izhevsk–Votkinsk Uprising of that year and what is considered the first true vostante , the Chapan rebellion , which broke out on the banks of the Volga, in the districts of Karsun , Syzran , Sengilei and Stavropol in 1919. It should be mentioned that the Kuban and Don Cossacks and the tribes of Caucasus rose up in 1920, forming their own peasant guerrillas. The latter reached more than 30,000 rebels in arms. They remained very active until

4290-668: The Petropavlovskaya volost has been put down. The families of the deserters have been taken as hostages. When we started to shoot one person from each family, the Greens began to come out of the woods and surrender. Thirty-four deserters were shot as an example. Estimates suggest that during the suppression of the Tambov Rebellion of 1920–1921, around 100,000 peasant rebels and their families were imprisoned or deported and perhaps 15,000 executed. This campaign marked

4433-601: The Reds ( Bolsheviks ) and the Whites ( Royalists ). In reality, beyond the military confrontations between the Red Army and the various units that made up a fairly heteroclite white army , the most important thing was what happened in the rear of the most important front lines. The Bolsheviks initially believed that they could easily defeat the Greens, treating them as a hopeless cause both in their propaganda and in their military strategies. Instead of focusing armed attention on

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4576-591: The Russian Civil War , World War II , mass repressions of Stalinist era , and the Chechen Wars . During wartime, internal troops fall under armed forces military command and fulfill the missions of local defence and rear area security. The Russian internal troops were formed in 1919 under the Cheka (later NKVD , and were known as "NKVD Troops", formerly the "Internal Security Forces" (Russian: Voyska vnutrenney okhrany Respubliki or VOHR)), remained there with all

4719-621: The Russian Provisional Government of 1917. "They prefer to fight a desperate and lonely war on their own, rather than to help the oppressors of the past [the Whites] defeat the oppressors of the present [the reds].” A union network emerged in the villages, replacing the Soviets and helping provide supplies to the rebels. Each village was responsible for mobilizing, feeding and equipping their own units. The Church and

4862-608: The Socialist-Revolutionary Party . The Green armies had at least tacit support throughout much of Russia. However, their primary base, the peasantry, were largely reluctant to wage an active campaign during the Russian Civil War and, with an impending Bolshevik victory, dissolved in 1922. The Russian peasantry lived through two wars against the Russian state, the product of revolutions that ended with state victory: 1905-1907 and 1917-1922 . At

5005-503: The West German Bundesgrenzschutz /BGS (Federal Border Guard) was a paramilitary police with infantry units as well, for a short period there was even a mandatory service in force. After the fall of Soviet Union in 1990–91, local internal troops units were resubordinated to the respective new independent states, except for the three Baltic countries. Azerbaijan ( Internal Troops of Azerbaijan ), Kazakhstan,

5148-790: The ethnic conflicts that occurred during the Dissolution of the Soviet Union . Their activities during this period included the 1989 violent incident in Tbilisi when VV servicemen used entrenching shovels to decimate a crowd of unarmed Georgian civilians. The pattern of internal troops was copied by many countries of the Warsaw Pact . In 1945 in Poland the Internal Security Corps was established, in East Germany

5291-632: The left SRs , although only at the beginning because later they were also repressed following the Left SR Uprising . According to the anarchists, both sought to subjugate the people through the state. Lenin also ordered the Bolshevik Party itself to be purged to get rid of potentially unfair or useless elements. In parallel there was an exorbitant growth of the Party, distancing the bases from its leaders. The first purge took place in

5434-748: The secret police agencies of the RSFSR and later the Soviet Union . On 28 July 1988, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet issued a decree "On duties and rights of the Internal Troops of the USSR MVD when safeguarding public order", clarifying its role in the cracking Soviet regime. However, the Internal Troops were still a part of the Soviet Armed Forces and this state of affairs pleased no one. The Armed Forces did not want to be seen as

5577-539: The "populicide" of Vendée , which found its climax in the " infernal columns ". The Red Terror was much more systematic, widespread and effective than the White Terror . Any opposition, real or potential, was mercilessly repressed, setting the tone for future civil wars of the 20th century. The prison population of the Chekas were "a reduced version of society itself", they included all kinds of people and there

5720-399: The 1980s, the several special forces units that developed within the VV, were created to deal with terrorism and hostage crises. Fields units are essentially light motorized infantry , similar to respective regular army units by their organization and weapons. Soviet prison security units ( Russian : конвойные войска, konvoinyie voyska ; criminal slang: vertuhai ) originally consisted of

5863-573: The 42nd and 46th had disappeared). Numbers reached 44,000 in July 1943 and 151,000 in August 1945. Typically, NKVD Internal Troops were defensive in nature, although they played a particularly instrumental role during the Battle of Moscow , the Siege of Leningrad , and the Battle of Stalingrad where the 10th NKVD Rifle Division suffered almost 90% casualties during the battle. Large VV units also stayed in

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6006-473: The Bolshevik state's central influence. The greens were always hostile to the Whites, which is why their uprisings against the reds only became massive after ensuring the defeat of the Whites. Many White officers were members of the former Tsarist Nobility, and had lost the land they had or could inherit in the peasant revolution of 1917. With deeply entrenched classism against the peasants they once ruled over,

6149-410: The Bolsheviks were forced to withdraw from a region by guerrilla harassment they tended to take hostages in towns and cities and execute them once they were safe in territory under their rule. On the other hand, the Reds did not hesitate to suppress them with machine guns , tanks , armored cars , armored trains , heavy cannons , observation airplanes and poison gases leftovers from the arsenals of

6292-470: The Bolsheviks were holding out with 120,000 soldiers in the Urals (eastern front), 180,000 in the Chernozem region (southern front), 35,000 in Pskov (northern front) and 130,000 in Belarus (western front). In July 1918, there were 40 to 50 thousand "international combatants", made up of Chinese , Romanian , Polish , Czech and Austro - Hungarian leftists, not including the Latvian Rifles . The Bolshevik forces were militarily fragile, as proven after

6435-550: The Directorate of Operational Forces of the NKVD of the USSR was created. In 1941, the Directorate of Convoy Troops of the NKVD was disbanded and merged with the Directorate of Internal Troops of the NKVD. The main tasks for this department: participation in hostilities, guarding reception centers for prisoners of war, guarding trains, and escorting prisoners. In June 1941, the NKVD had two convoy forces security divisions and seven brigades totaling 38,311 personnel to carry out convoy missions. The 13th NKVD Convoy Forces Security Division

6578-456: The Great War . In addition to flooding rebel areas with troops and propaganda. Quickly, the communists learned that: "Conventional armies, however well armed, are ill equipped to fight against a well supported peasant army." A lesson they would learn again much later in Afghanistan . The Bolshevik government tried to build an anti-revolutionary , anti-communist image for the Green armies. Provincial Communist officials announced to locals that

6721-522: The Green armies were a subsection of the villainous White movement, despite the fact that Green armies were generally just as hostile to the Whites as they were to the Reds. The Bolsheviks also exaggerated the influence of the kulaks in Green armies, who were undoubtedly involved, but hardly the driving force of the movement. These massive uprisings, which shook Soviet power in Eastern Ukraine , Tambov , and Siberia in 1919-1921, involved more than 100,000 guerrillas and millions of peasant supporters. In

6864-419: The Green armies with White leadership, such a designation overemphasizes the political aspects of the movement. In a broad sense, the Green armies were spontaneous manifestations of peasant discontent rather than of any specific ideology. By 1920, the Bolsheviks had secured victory over the Whites. The peasant soldiers of the Red Army, outraged at the prospect of continuing to violently oppress their own class in

7007-438: The Green movement by improving rural conditions and thus damaged the Green armies’ foundation for successful recruitment – peasant discontent. By the summer of 1922, as the Bolsheviks were securing their victory in the civil war, the Green troops had all but disappeared. The demise of these movements was in large part caused by the famine of 1921-1922 , which affected 29 million people in total and killed about five million, being

7150-424: The Greens as a whole, the Reds treated each peasant army as a specific instance of unrest, suppressing harshly and further angering the peasant population. By the time that Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks realized the strength of the Green movement, it had grown into a serious social and military threat to Bolshevik power. The small units sent to subdue them many times defected demoralized, so they were replaced by

7293-410: The Greens present a political program, an adaptation of SR ideas. Russia rapidly polarized during 1917. Very soon, large masses of the population were in favor of smaller and less organized revolutionary groups than the Bolsheviks, the anarchists and Left SRs . The Great War had encouraged the peasants and workers to follow a revolutionary path, so Lenin proposed to turn the "imperialist war" into

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7436-417: The Greens to gain the support of the population. If the peasants successfully overwhelmed Bolsheviks, they cruelly punished soldiers and officials, often mutilating bodies, torturing families or burying victims alive . No more than 6,000 men, evenly distributed, fought in the first battles between the Whites of Lavr Kornilov and the Reds of Rudolf Sivers . Because of the small number of men involved and

7579-408: The Internal Affairs Ministry. In 1990, the establishment of the Russian SFSR's MVD meant that the Internal Troops in the SFSR were now subordinated to the republican ministry. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991, the Internal Troops of the Soviet Union were reconstituted in the Russian Federation as the Internal Troops of Russia on 23 January 1992, with their last commander as

7722-401: The Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia since 1991: Internal Troops' equipment included: [REDACTED] This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain . Country Studies . Federal Research Division . Green armies [REDACTED] White Movement The Green armies ( Russian : Зеленоармейцы ), also known as

7865-417: The Internal Troops were removed from the MVD and dissolved, becoming the National Guard Forces ( Войска национальной гвардии , Voyska Natsionalnoy Gvardi ) which now reported directly to the Security Council of Russia and its chairman, the President of Russia . The Federal Law No.27-173 was signed into law on 6 February 1997. The law set the operational standards for the Internal Troops of Russia. The law

8008-429: The Lenin and Stalin governments, to economically develop territories and punish potentially separatist peoples, numerous communities were starved, deported and replaced by Russian settlers. Hence, the resistance and genocide of the Cossacks were called by the Bolshevik leaders themselves as the "Soviet Vendée." Lenin admitted to imitating the tactics devised by François Babeuf , inventor of modern communism , who planned

8151-426: The MVD were: Ten other convoy divisions were formed up to the 1990s; 42nd (Vilnius), 68th Division (Gorky), 75th (Alma-Ata), 86th, 101st, 102nd, 38th, 39th, 48th, 50th and 76th (77th?) Convoy Division (Petrovsky). On January 11, 1978, was established Interior Ministry forces in the Far East and Eastern Siberia. On April 23, 1979, on the basis of Headquarters 89th Convoy Division (Novosibirsk's Military Unit Number 7540)

8294-559: The Ministry for Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation ( Russian : Внутренние войска Министерства внутренних дел (ВВ МВД) , romanized :  Vnutrenniye voyska Ministerstva vnutrennikh del (VV MVD) ) was a paramilitary force of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia from 1991 to 2016. The Internal Troops was a gendarmerie -like force that supported the Russian police , dealt with crowd control during riots and internal conflicts, and guarded highly-important facilities such as nuclear power plants . The Internal Troops

8437-402: The NKVD of the USSR: On September 1, 1939, the law "On General Military Duty" was adopted. For the first time, the law stated that the internal troops are an integral part of the Armed Forces of the USSR. On November 20, 1939, by Order of the NKVD of the USSR, the "Regulations on the escort troops of the NKVD of the USSR" were adopted. It stipulated the tasks of escorting persons in custody and

8580-433: The NKVD. During the Russian Civil War , the internal troops of the Cheka and the Red Army practiced the terror tactics of taking and executing numerous hostages, often in connection with desertions of forcefully mobilized peasants. According to Orlando Figes , more than 1 million people deserted from the Red Army in 1918, around 2 million people deserted in 1919, and almost 4 million deserters escaped from

8723-450: The Police of Armenia and the National Security Service). Georgia detached a militarized branch from its Ministry of Internal Affairs and transferred its former internal troops under the command of the Ministry of Defence in November 2004. The Internal Troops of Kazakhstan was dissolved in April 2014 and was replaced with the National Guard of Kazakhstan . Modern internal troops can partly be compared with riot police forces all over

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8866-431: The Red Army in 1921. Around 500,000 deserters were arrested in 1919 and close to 800,000 in 1920 by Cheka troops and special divisions created to combat desertions. Thousands of deserters were killed, and their families were often taken hostage. According to Lenin's instructions: After the expiration of the seven-day deadline for deserters to turn themselves in, punishment must be increased for these incorrigible traitors to

9009-487: The Reds had no more than 700,000 combatants, less than 500,000 active, with 2,250,000 as reservists in training, 391,000 in reserve units and 159,000 in labor units, wounded, sick or deserters. The greens were always more numerous than the Whites. In concrete figures, Yudenich commanded 30,000 Whites, Kolchak 120,000 and Denikin around 150,000; by comparison, the Greens numbered over half a million during 1919. According to Western intelligence services, in September of that year

9152-523: The Reds, in West Siberia they were even capable of facing them in the open field. The peasants were permanently in need of modern rifles and machine guns, decisive for the war, being forced to obtain them anyway. Crowds stormed the cities, looting and burning the Party offices, the local Soviet, police posts, courts, and propaganda centers. The collective farms were destroyed. Tools, livestock, requisitioned grain, mills, factories, breweries, and bakeries were redistributed. This claim of popular property served

9295-435: The Reds. They preferred to prowl during the day, keeping watch over their enemies and attacking at night. They permanently refused to fight in the open, hiding in hills and forests to ambush and retreat quickly. Their greater mobility made up for their total absence of artillery. In Western Siberia and Central Russia, their guerilla tactics were aided by the wooded terrain of the taiga . When they were defeated they mixed with

9438-431: The Revolution across Europe would spurn on internal debate within the Bolsheviks, with Bukharin and Stalin later formulating the dominant theory of socialism in one country . Within this Red Army, the special units of the Cheka and the "internal defense troops of the Republic" stood out, with 200,000 members in 1921. In the wake of the Revolution, they were the main repressive organs of the fledgling Soviet State. Due to

9581-408: The Russian Federation ( Internal Troops of Russia ), Tajikistan ( Tajik Internal Troops ) and Ukraine ( Internal Troops of Ukraine ) retained the name, organization and tasks of their internal troops. Up until December 2002, Armenia maintained a Ministry of Internal Affairs, but along with the Ministry of National Security, it was reorganised as a non-ministerial institution (the two organisations became

9724-414: The Soviet force, General-Polkovnik Vasily Savvin , becoming their first commander as a Russian one. In 1997, 14 controllers of the Internal Troops were arrested for corruption and collaboration with a local organized crime group for having stolen more than 400 kg of gold from an industry of gold in Kasimov , during the Kasimov war . With the April 2016 foundation of the National Guard of Russia ,

9867-401: The Soviets tended to classify them into two main categories: bunt , a specific, brief revolt with few participants; and vostante , an insurrection of thousands of peasants, capable of conquering cities and giving themselves a coherent political program, usually of a social-revolutionary type, as in Tambov, or anarchist, like the peasant armies of Makhno. Among the initial movements would be

10010-472: The State. With these worries and concerns growing, they began to accept the SR proposals: the end of Bolshevik rule, land redistribution and an end to the civil war. Their opposition to the Bolsheviks was due to, rather than a political plan or national alternative, a desire to protect and preserve their communal land. Interested in defending local interests, these movements took a defensive stance: incapable and unwilling to march on Moscow, they hoped to remove

10153-559: The Troops report only to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, maintaining their separate chain of command. Soviet VV units were predominantly formed up of conscripts drafted by the same system as for the Soviet Army . Modern troops in Russia and Ukraine are experiencing a slow transition to the contract personnel system. VV officers are trained in both own special academies and the Army's military academies. The main kinds of internal troops are field units, prison security units, various facility-guarding units and special forces like Rus . Since

10296-489: The Whites sought to turn back time and take revenge against every symbol of change. They would never recognize new national realities or the attempts at agrarian revolution. One of the main causes of the White defeat was being identified by the people with the restoration of the old regime, signaled by the treatment that their officers and officials gave to the peasants. With their deeply reactionary positions desire to restore

10439-462: The Whites, the peasants had a duty to serve in their armies, based primarily on the old structure of the Tsarist regime. Due to this, they saw no reason in convincing or aligning those they conscripted. On the other hand, the Bolsheviks knew how to use the symbolism of the revolution, proclaiming themselves the defenders of peasantry and smaller farmers. Paradoxically, many White commanders waited for

10582-480: The armies of Anton Denikin , Nikolai Yudenich and Aleksandr Kolchak , continued requisitioning came to be viewed as more and more unjustifiable. Numerous contingents of peasant soldiers, usually having connections and sympathy with the Peasantry, refused to repress the green uprisings and defected, forming their own "green" guerrillas in the forests. In 1919-1921 most of the guerrillas were deserters, including

10725-408: The army, and punish villages suspected of harboring deserters. The farmers' first reaction was to bury their grain, feed it to cattle, or clandestinely distill it into alcohol . In response, the Bolsheviks organized a 'supply army' of 80,000 men tasked with forcibly requisitioning grain surpluses. Half were unemployed workers from Petrograd who were looking for a fixed salary and to keep some of

10868-420: The beginning of 1918 the Bolshevik Party only controlled a few cities, "unique Bolshevik islets in the middle of a peasant ocean" unwilling to hand over the fruits of their labor and submit to any external authority. The conflict between the cities and a countryside was one of the main edges of the civil war. This resistance was interpreted by many as a mere expression of the "social anarchy" that existed in

11011-610: The beginning of the Gulag , and some scholars have estimated that 70,000 were imprisoned by September 1921 (this number excludes those in several camps in regions that were in revolt, such as Tambov). Conditions in these camps led to high mortality rates, and "repeated massacres" took place. The Cheka at the Kholmogory camp adopted the practice of drowning bound prisoners in the nearby Dvina river. Occasionally, entire prisons were "emptied" of inmates via mass shootings prior to abandoning

11154-594: The best known green movement is the rebellion that broke out on August 19 , 1920 in the small town of Khitrovo, as a rejection of food requisitions in the Tambov Oblast and quickly spread to Penza , Saratov and Voronezh . This was defeated in June 1922 with the death of its leader, Aleksandr Antonov . While it can be difficult to distinguish Green armies from other forms of peasant unrest, they were marked by concentrated leadership and distinct units, displaying

11297-420: The cause of the people. Families and anyone found to be assisting them in any way whatsoever are to be considered as hostages and treated accordingly. In September 1918, in just twelve provinces of Russia, 48,735 deserters and 7,325 brigands were arrested: 1,826 were executed and 2,230 were deported. A typical report from a Cheka department stated: Yaroslavl Province, 23 June 1919. The uprising of deserters in

11440-513: The cities it captured (the guerrillas of Tambov were unable to seize cities but also created a complex administrative network in the countryside); on the contrary, the Makhnovists were present in both countryside and cities, maintaining a loose and autonomous administration in line with Anarchist ideology. At the beginning of 1920, when the Red victory was practically assured after the defeat of

11583-421: The civil population or fled on horses provided by the locals. The Greens formed multitudes of peasants with clogs made of linden bark, they armed themselves with what they found: sticks , pitchforks , tridents , pikes , hoes , axes and clubs . To a lesser extent, also firearms such as shotguns , carbines , hunting rifles , pistols and rifles . Also many greens fought under red flags, symbols of

11726-559: The combatants of all the countries involved for three years in the most deadly and total wars.” More than 2 million of their comrades had perished fighting the Central Powers . Many supported the Bolsheviks in 1917 because they promised an assured peace, but due to the outbreak of the civil war, the peasants were very reluctant to be recruited. During the civil war, the desire for peace in the face of devastation led many communities to declare themselves "neutral republics" to prevent

11869-408: The country. The communist influence on the peasants and workers was negligible. The Bolsheviks controlled some soviets , but without coercive power over the majority of the population, who opposed them in a passive and disorganized way. Between late 1917 and early 1918 there was no serious opposition to the Bolsheviks, who controlled central Russia , Baku and Tashkent . The only opposition force

12012-473: The countryside of the Kiev province, but not the big cities, and had 20,000 armed followers. Another green movement was the brief rebellion of Nykyfor Hryhoriv , ataman of Kherson , and Yuriy Tyutyunnyk . Hryhoriv was an opportunistic leader who knew how to switch sides when it suited him. Admiral Kolchak made the fatal mistake of winning the animosity of peasants eager for agricultural reform by restoring

12155-446: The countryside. This was seen as avoiding concrete Socialist policy, instituting basic programs such as improvements to peasant quality of life and an end to slavery. According to him, it was no more than a bourgeois slogan, just like " land and liberty ", to appeal to the desperate peasantry of rural Russia. Another source of opposition from the population towards the Bolsheviks was the "way of life Communist leaders' feudal system,” with

12298-623: The defense of Moscow , Leningrad , the Brest Fortress , Kiev , Odessa , Voronezh , Stalingrad , the North Caucasus and were heavily engaged during the Battle of Kursk ; some fought through to Berlin, although by that time, as regular Red Army divisions, they had little remaining connection to their founding NKVD cadres. Convoy forces were increased in strength throughout the war. In August 1942 there were four divisions (35th-38th) and five brigades (41st, 43rd, 44th, 45th, 47th;

12441-816: The direct forerunners of the internal troops, included 11 regiments stationed in the western military districts, seven regiments and three battalions in the internal districts, and the F. E. Dzerzhinsky Independent Special Designation Division in Moscow (transferred from the OGPU in 1934). In October 1940, a specialised NKVD force had also been formed to assist with local air defence for important areas. By June 1941 this new Main Directorate for Local Antiaircraft Defence had three regiments, including in Moscow, and four battalions, all engineer-anti-chemical units. Another division and five brigades totalling just under 30,000 men were in

12584-510: The divisions designated above, assign 1,000 soldiers and non-commissioned officers and 500 command cadre from the NKVD's cadre to each division. Request the Red Army General Staff to provide the remainder of personnel by calling up all categories of soldiers from the reserves. 5. Complete concentrating the NKVD cadre at the formation regions by 17 July 1941... These divisions, in addition to NKVD border troops, participated in

12727-487: The east, after stoking the Russian nationalism that the Bolsheviks knew how to take advantage of, and finally motivating Lenin to try to break this belt and overwhelm the new order founded in Versailles . The red soldiers were unable to defeat the newborn Polish army, ensuring that they would be unable to compete with the established and powerful industrial countries of central and western Europe. The failure to spread

12870-491: The excesses of Bolshevik leaders in contrast to the horrors of the civil war producing resentment from the impoverished and war-torn peasantry. The ideology of the Greens was very uniform, representing the common aspirations and goals of peasant revolutions in Russia and Ukraine. They wanted to regain the self-government maintained until 1918, seize the nobility's lands, maintain rural market-economies and govern their communities with soviets chosen by them. The peasants rejected

13013-801: The face of the enemy, and 295 servicemen were awarded the " Hero of the Soviet Union " title. After the war's end, internal troops played an important role in fighting local anti-Soviet partisans in the Baltic states (such as the Forest Brothers ) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army . In 1953, the internal troops suppressed the Vorkuta labor camp uprising with gunfire, which resulted in death of at least 100 political prisoners. A series of internal troops districts supervised many divisions, brigades, regiments, and battalions. Among them

13156-483: The factories to their former owners, sparking the hatred and resistance of the workers. The Whites, unable to effectively contain the unrest, resorted to greater repression and terror. Like Kolchak, Denikin failed to create his own local government structure, resorting to repression to try to mobilize the population and its resources under his control. With these being something decisive in any modern civil or total war, he attempted to tap into these possible resources but

13299-461: The fields of Kazan , Simbirsk and Ufa . However, the rapid Bolshevik reaction brought their annihilation the following month. Between the beginning of 1921 and the end of 1922, the West Siberian rebellion took place, the largest green uprising, and perhaps the least studied, both in number of rebels and in size geographic. One of the best known and most organized of these movements

13442-406: The formation of new peasant guerrillas. Besides Soviet records of their oppositional activity, there is very little personal information about the Green leaders, described as "men who acted and wrote not" due to the widespread illiteracy and spontaneous nature of their movement (85% of the population was illiterate in 1917). In order to build substantial forces, a motivated individual would lead

13585-620: The ground. The special commissions ordered by the Cheka with pursuing them captured 500,000 deserters in 1919 and 600,000 to 800,000 in 1920. Thousands were shot and their families deported, but 1.5 to 2 million avoided capture. The mass desertions started much earlier. From the Kerensky Offensive to the October Revolution two million soldiers abandoned their positions and returned to their homes. The Tsarist army that

13728-476: The growing authority that the new state was gaining. Four years after the Revolution they watched as the Soviet state centralized, with the autonomy of their Soviets integrated into the growing organs of the state. Their own small agricultural holdings were replaced by large state collectivizations, with the product produced on their farms requisitioned and the land promised to them in the Revolution occupied by

13871-491: The hundreds. Many were accused of being kulaks but most were poor farmers, the most vulnerable to poor harvests. People fled to the forests with nothing to lose and joined the rebels to defend the "local peasant revolution". Thus, what in most cases began as small revolts against the requisitions, the incompetent and brutal response of the local communists turned into large rebellions. The first collectivizations also generated great resistance due to forced transfers and

14014-423: The interest of the new government, deserted and consolidated in groups in the forests , eventually leading to their "Green" designation. While these groups primarily opposed the Bolsheviks, they often did so without a plan or alternative form of government in mind; rather, they simply wanted to rid the countryside of Bolshevik influence by any means necessary. The revolts varied greatly from one another, however,

14157-709: The internal forces were managed by the Main Department of Internal Troops MVD of the USSR. By an order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs number 007 of 22 February 1969 on the basis of the Internal Troops, Internal and Escort of the Interior Ministry of the Ukrainian SSR, the Ukrainian SSR and the Moldavian SSR MVD Internal Troops Directorates were officially established. At the beginning of 1969 in

14300-419: The leaders, with many in positions of leadership being veterans of the fight against the Whites. Alongside this, White Holdouts described as "little White dabbling" continued to fight until 1922, however were described to be "more like a permanent hindrance than a real threat.” Officially two and a half million soldiers were demobilized in 1921, with many returning to their homes and joining the Greens, worsening

14443-673: The local SRs, mainly from the left, were key in the organization of the movements. For example, in West Siberia the SRs led the revolts and although there was a central authority in Tobolsk , it had little to no control of the Bolshevik-free territory. Because of this, essentially every volost was self-governed. In contrast, the Siberian movement demonstrated a high level of organization and even installed an administration in

14586-446: The loot. The rest were criminals, other unemployed and ex-soldiers. They formed undisciplined troops, known as prodotriady ( Russian : продотряды ), who did not hesitate to steal vital reserves, seed and other possessions from the peasants. The prodotriady were killed at an increasing rate: 2,000 in 1918, 5,000 in 1919, and 8,000 in 1920. The Bolsheviks retaliated by burning villages, confiscating livestock, and executing peasants by

14729-679: The main government bodies of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR), as a paramilitary force attached to of the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs, the interior ministry of the RSFSR. In 1919, it was reorganized into the Internal Security Forces ( Voyska vnutrenney okhrany Respubliki , VOHR) and transferred to the Cheka , then in 1922 into the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) in 1922. The Cheka and OGPU were

14872-470: The main weapon of the regime to regain control over many provinces. Ruthless terror played its part in suppressing the revolts, but the main weapon was hunger. In the opinion of the anarchists: "The basic psychological trait of Bolshevism is the realization of its will by means of the violent elimination of all other wills, the absolute destruction of all individuality, to the point where it becomes an inanimate object." Many local communist officials saw that

15015-529: The mentality of their parents and grandparents and did not hesitate to repress their own people. The resistance of the Cossacks led to a fierce campaign of decossackization , from 1919 to 1920, in which they were repressed with the clear intention of eliminating them "as a social group" -the first of many repressions in Soviet history. Men were shot, women and children deported, their homes burned and their lands repopulated with non-Cossack settlers. During

15158-610: The mergers and splittings of Soviet state security services and ended up under the control of the police-like MVD . The best-known of the internal troops divisions is OMSDON based near Moscow which traces its roots to the " OSNAZ " detachment of the VChK (formerly 1st Automobile Fighting Detachment of the VTsIK ). It was later reorganized into the DON (Special-Purpose Division) of the OGPU and

15301-422: The mobilization deployment of the Internal Troops in wartime; and transferring arms and military equipment free of charge to the Internal Troops through support services based on special decisions of the federal government, and rendering assistance in the repair and restoration of damaged arms and military equipment. Despite being subordinated to civilian MVD authority, Internal Troops were a paramilitary force with

15444-621: The most important political parties were the Social Revolutionary Party , Mensheviks , and Kadets . The first two controlled most of the country's soviets , except the ones in Petrograd and Moscow ; the third were liberals with the support of moderate sectors who wanted to maintain the freedoms won with the revolution. The Mensheviks quickly lost the support of many soviets, except in the Caucasus , and especially in

15587-460: The new ways of life that were imposed. Many units and inspectors exceeded their powers, looting houses and murdering villagers. They harshly repressed any sign of resistance. All of this contributed to widespread resentment against the new regime. The Bolsheviks understood that they had to control the grain supply and, in order not to depend on the small farmers, they tried to found Kolkhoz (cooperatives) and Sovkhoz (state farms). Another source of

15730-468: The old Tsarist social and economic order aggressive repression and rejection of the Peasant base and refusal to carry out even basic reforms demanded by the circumstances The Whites could not take advantage of the countryside's hesitance towards the Reds and win it for their cause. They refused to reform land ownership, stoking the fears of the rural majority against the prior regime and failing to take

15873-569: The ones who had secured the most land from the nobility. According to SR politicians, if Alexander Kolchak had not restored the rights of landowners, he would have won greater support of farmers in the Urals and the Volga . The robberies and massacres at the hands of the Cossack cavalry also contributed to turning the countryside against the White advance in 1919. Denikin proved unable to contain

16016-596: The peasantry's rejection of the Bolsheviks was the abolition of the Committees of Poor Peasants or komitety bednoty ( Russian : Комитеты Бедноты ) in December 1918, but Lenin had foreseen fierce resistance and increased both the size of the prodotriady and the tax requirement. The following season, some 242 million pud of grain was requisitioned. At the outbreak of the February Revolution ,

16159-410: The possibly decisive advantage of rural support. That is why many peasants feared that the Whites would restore the rights of the rural nobility to the land, destroying the autonomy and local representation that they'd won in the Revolution of 1917. Faced with this fear, many peasants joined the reds when the Whites advanced on the districts of Orel and Moscow in 1919. They had through their efforts been

16302-576: The procedure for external security of individual prisons. The same Regulations set the wartime tasks of the internal troops to escort and protect prisoners of war. In the pre-war years, the internal troops guarded 135 government facilities. They also escorted to 156 judicial institutions and served on 176 railway routes. The number of personnel of the Convoy Troops on January 1, 1940, reached 34,295 people (one division, 9 brigades, 2 separate regiments and 2 junior command schools). On March 4, 1941,

16445-621: The process of formation. During World War II , most units of the NKVD Internal Troops were engaged alongside Red Army forces against Axis troops. On the first day of Operation Barbarossa , the 132nd Independent Battalion of the Convoy Troops of the NKVD joined the defence of Brest Fortress , losing its standard in the process . Raising of new NKVD forces for the front began in the Moscow Military District with an order of June 26: In accordance with

16588-623: The rear to maintain order, fight enemy infiltrators and to guard key installations (such as the armament manufacturing complex at Tula , protected by the 156th NKVD regiment in 1941) and the railway installations guarded by the 14th Railway Facilities Protection Division NKVD . Altogether, more than 53 internal troops divisions and 20 internal troops brigades were on active duty during the war. Of those, 18 units were awarded battle honors ( military decorations or honorary titles ). A total of 977,000 servicemen were killed in action. More than 100,000 soldiers and officers received awards for gallantry in

16731-530: The recruitment indiscriminate, and the mood optimistic, Green leaders succeeded in provoking a sense among the peasants that they could make a significant dent in Bolshevik power. They also drew support from disillusioned urban and railroad workers, who had "fled back to the villages" and informed the peasants about the horrendous working conditions of developing industry. Among these atamans were Aleksandr Antonov , Nykyfor Hryhoriv , Danylo Terpylo and Nestor Makhno . Despite Soviet attempts to associate

16874-540: The red or White armies from entering their territories. It's possible that the Reds never gathered more than half a million "equipped soldiers" at any one time. After capturing Kazan in a five-day struggle, the Bolsheviks stopped retreating and began to reap successes thanks to the cemented centralization of command and a mass wave of recruits. It quickly had to face mass desertions between June 1919 and June 1920. About 2,700,000 men were recruited, with almost all of this figure deserting except 60,000 troops. In August 1920,

17017-571: The reds. The massive desertion as a phenomenon that affected the entire Red Army indicates that the peasantry were hesitant to serve in it. With many still having rural farms or villages to return to, many deserted during periods of Harvest, with spikes in desertion being indicated by season. During 1918 more than a million soldiers deserted, the following year the figure increased to 2 million, and in 1921 there were almost 4 million. Between 1919 and 1920 3 million men deserted. In 1919, these fugitive "green deserters" numbered more than one million in

17160-473: The requisition orders starved their own people to death, but "The good comrade did the what was said to him; he was pleased to leave all critical thinking to the Central Committee." That was the discipline the Party advocated. Ironically, many Bolshevik officers were the children of peasants educated in Tsarist military schools. With their minds open when leaving the narrow rural world, they rejected

17303-497: The revolution later appropriated by the communists. The first small units sent by the Bolsheviks to subdue them were easily defeated and practically did nothing more than give them more weapons. Many Bolshevik units, especially in 1918, lacked training and discipline, dispersing after the first shots. For every Red soldier in combat, another eight were inactive due to illness or lack of training, clothing or ammunition. Whites were more disciplined and numerous and better trained. When

17446-439: The rights of landowners. The problem worsened in early 1919. Kolchak resorted to terror to appease them. With his rear weakened by the wear and tear of the guerrillas, the White regime could not stop the Bolshevik advance, which on the other hand, knew how to add local partisans to its forces wherever it advanced. At the beginning of 1920 the " Pitchfork uprising " broke out, led by the "Army of Black Eagles" and spread through

17589-516: The situation for the central government, as there were 250,000 in Tambov alone. However, by that time both Greens and Blacks could only dream of damaging the Red Army, with its experience and size making it a true "military giant", although their armed forces (undermined by desertions) never reached official figures. They claimed; the Bolsheviks had tried to realize the French revolutionary ideal of

17732-528: The small number of regular soldiers at the disposal of all sides, the armies that were in the Russian battlefields were very small - tens of thousands in the largest battles - compared to those used in the World War I . Volunteers were scarce and undisciplined, forcing Soviet commanders to recruit peasants, a social group that Soviet military leadership considered unreliable. This was coupled with increased pressure towards requisitions, which only contributed to

17875-518: The special forces have been heavily engaged in the armed conflicts in Chechnya and the broader North Caucasus . The Russian Internal Troops comprised headquarters, military units, military training institutions and the institutions for Internal Troops activities, and maintenance and administration bodies. The largest units were located in all major cities. Internal Troops districts: Military units under direct subordination: Commanders-in-chief of

18018-510: The summer of the following year, when they will be definitively defeated, although small green parties in Kuban, Don and Western Siberia remained active until 1923 . Later, in 1924 , there would be a last revolt in Georgia . It was quickly and harshly repressed. Danylo Ilkovych Terpylo led a Ukrainian nationalist peasant uprising characterized by antisemitic pogroms . He came to control

18161-452: The territory under Bolshevik control alone, and although trace amounts went on to serve with the Whites, most fought in heavily wooded areas near their own homes against authorities from both sides. Detachments were sent to villages near the battlefront and families suspected of harboring deserters were punished with fines, confiscation of livestock and land, the seizure of hostages, executing community leaders and even burning whole villages to

18304-467: The terror proved not to be enough to spurn the territories they held. Alongside this, it was unable to counteract the critical waste and bleed of already present supply. When the Military aid from their western allies was reduced, White soldiers had to loot for supplies, only further stoking the rage and fear of the local populace. Finally, they failed to properly capitalize on the propaganda front. To

18447-704: The tiny territory affected, it is difficult to call this even a civil war. During the entire first year of the war there were only skirmishes and artillery duels with small armies or partisan forces, more concerned with obtaining supplies. Territory continually changed hands, there were no front lines or fixed positions. In the decisive battles of 1919, they mobilized the peasantry by force, to fight in large armies with hundreds of thousands of men facing each other on fronts of hundreds of kilometers and supported with heavy weapons. Their favored activities included blowing up bridges, cutting telegraph lines and raising railways in an attempt to paralyze communications and movements of

18590-482: The units that guard the perimeters of the prisons, and the prisoner transport teams (actually konvoi , literally " convoy "). In post-Soviet countries, some or all of the prison-related tasks were transferred to other agencies. The Guard is a Soviet 1990 drama film, based on the real story of VV soldier who killed his entire prisoner transport unit as a result of dedovschina (brutal hazing system). Internal Troops of Russia The Internal Troops of

18733-519: The violence. The best White troops were from the Kuban, the Don and the Caucasus, as the Cossacks were the main a source of men and resources for the Whites. When they realized that Denikin was defeated, they wanted to return to their homes en masse, seeing greater benefit in negotiating their own autonomy with the communists. Despite everything, Denikin cracked down on the rights of the unions and returned

18876-418: The violent Bolshevik repression of the Cossacks in early 1918 made it possible to win them over to the White cause. After the October Revolution , the new Bolshevik authorities enacted a policy of war communism . This system sought to abolish all private enterprise , maximize state control over distribution and the foreign market, nationalize all heavy industry, requisition agricultural surplus, and impose

19019-458: The words of Vladimir Lenin , it was a "great internal political crisis", the first in Soviet history . These rebellions were recognized by Lenin as "far more dangerous than all the forces of Denikin , Yudenich and Kolchak combined," as he proclaimed on March 8, 1921, in his opening speech at the 10th Party Congress . The civil war in Russia has generally been analyzed as a conflict between

19162-640: The world. In 2014 the Ukrainian internal troops were disbanded due the negative reputation gained during the Euromaidan and as part of a general military and governmental reform. They were reorganized into the National Guard of Ukraine (NGU), which still serves in similar role to the internal troops. In 2016, the Russian internal troops , as well other units under the Russian Ministry of Interior —mainly SOBR and OMON —were transferred and merged under

19305-533: Was 10,000,000 strong had been defeated by shattered morale in its ranks and the weakness of its institutions, with millions returned to their farms. That same year, 1917, a massive demobilization was decreed. Many of these deserters were peasants, "the Imperial Army was a peasant army", who called themselves Marxists, despite lacking knowledge or understanding of the ideology. Their " trenches Bolshevism reflected above all an aspiration for peace, shared by

19448-593: Was created the Directorate of Internal Troops (UVV) MIA Western Siberia (with the inclusion of the 90th and 102nd convoy divisions). On the basis of the 44th Convoy Division the UVV MIA North-West and the Baltic States was created. With the beginning of the Khrushchev era and de-Stalinisation , the internal troops became significantly reduced in size, but retained their pre-war functions. After

19591-651: Was formed from the Russian branch of the Internal Troops of the Soviet Union in 1991 shortly before the dissolution of the Soviet Union . On 5 April 2016, the Interior Troops was officially split from the Ministry of Internal Affairs to form the basis of the National Guard of Russia . The Internal Troops claimed descent from the Separate Corps of Gendarmes of the Russian Empire , which began forming on 27 March 1811 as gendarmerie units of

19734-563: Was in the west of the Ukrainian SSR , the 14th Convoy Forces Security Division was in the Moscow region, plus six separate convoy brigades, including the 41st in the northwest, the 42nd covering the western axis, and the 43rd the southwest. In July 1941, formations of the NKVD were providing security for government installations, railway lines, and industrial centres. Railway security forces totalled 62,100, comprising nine divisions and five brigades securing 1,700 sites. Operational forces,

19877-486: Was involved in all conflicts and violent disturbances in modern Russia, including the First and Second Chechen Wars , where it fell under direct military command during wartime and fulfilled missions of local defence and rear area security. The Internal Troops consisted of both volunteers and conscripts , which caused the number of active service members to fluctuate, with less than 200,000 upon their disestablishment from

20020-399: Was no family that had not suffered the arrest or disappearance of a member. Terror against the workers had begun in 1918 and reached its climax in 1921, with the subjugation of Kronstadt . According to several of the Bolshevik leaders, the terror started by Lenin was the natural consequence of the violent seizure of power and his rejection of democracy. The only allies of the Bolsheviks were

20163-585: Was the Volunteer Army (Russian: Добровольческая армия ), barely 3,000 men, still organized in southern Russia . All the White movement 's hopes were on winning over the Don and Kuban Cossacks , who were initially more interested in obtaining their own independence. For their part, Ukraine and Finland were in the process of becoming independent, but the Whites refused to recognize their secession. Only

20306-676: Was the Makhnovist Revolution led by the Ukrainian anarchists Nestor Makhno , Fedir Shchus and Semen Karetnyk . Its movement was only comparable to that of Tambov due to its magnitude and organization. In a few years the Makhnovist partisans fought against Germans and Austro-Hungarians , Petliura nationalists , a French-led intervention in Berdyansk , and were targets of Denikin, Wrangel and Bolsheviks. Probably

20449-542: Was the headquarters for internal troops in the Baltic area, which became Directorate Internal Troops NKVD-MVD-MGB Baltic Military District (Управление ВВ НКВД-МВД-МГБ Прибалтийского округа). This headquarters supervised several internal troops divisions, including the 14th Railway Facilities Protection Division from 1944 to 1951. Other divisions in the Baltic MD included the 4th, 5th, and 63rd Rifle Divisions NKVD. In 1969,

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