Stalin's Terror

Lavrentiy Beria's secret police 

• Yezhov resigned as head of NKVD in Nov 1938.
• Beria's first major succeses- Yezhov's arrest 1939 and Trotsky's murder 1940.

The NKVD at War

• NKVD responsible for policing ethnic minorities- groups that Stalin feared would side with USSR's enemies.
• 1942 Beria organied the mass deportation of the Kalmyks from Kalmykia to Siberia- Stalin feared would welcome a German invasion. 
• By 1953 only 53,000 of 130,000 survived due to brutal treatment in Siberia.
• 1944, Beira ordered the deportation to Siberia of 460,000 Chechens within 7 days.
• Chechens who were unwilling were locked in stables and barns and burned alive.
• Deportation resulted…