NKVD

American  

1. in the U.S.S.R., the government's secret-police organization (1917–30; 1934–46).

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NKVD British  

abbreviation

1. (formerly) People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs: the Soviet police and secret police from 1934 to 1943: the police from 1943 to 1946

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Etymology

Origin of NKVD

From Russian N(aródnyĭ) K(omissariát) V(nútrennikh) D(el) “People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs”

Example Sentences

An agent for the NKVD, the Soviet Union’s secret police, arranged an introduction between Mercader and Sylvia Ageloff, a left-wing social worker from Brooklyn, N.Y., whose sister had once been Trotsky’s secretary.

From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 27, 2026

To understand Russia today, it is necessary to reach back to Stalin’s Great Terror, when the secret police were called NKVD.

From Washington Post • Jul. 31, 2022

They were sent by the NKVD, the secret police, to their boss, Lavrentiy Beria, in late 1944.

From BBC • Apr. 30, 2015

In this he is similar to Stalin, whose security commissariat, the NKVD, moved against whole swaths of Soviet society that might oppose him, particularly pre-revolutionary elites.

From Time • May 27, 2011

“If you worked for the NKVD, Mother, would they give you food?” asked Jonas.

From "Between Shades of Gray" by Ruta Sepetys