Internal troops
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).
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 the mergers and splittings of Soviet state security services and ended up under the control of the police-like MVD.
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 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 the cause of the people.
[6] This campaign marked 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).
On February 2, 1939, 6 separate departments were created within the Main Directorate of Border and Internal Troops within the NKVD of the USSR: On September 1, 1939, the law "On General Military Duty" was adopted.
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 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.
Large VV units also stayed in 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)[17] and the railway installations guarded by the 14th Railway Facilities Protection Division NKVD.
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.
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 the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, internal troops personnel were among the cleanup crews ('liquidators'), engaged in security and emergency management activities;[21][22] 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 a reporting agency of the MIA after years as a part of the Ministry of Defense.
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.
During Cold War 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.
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.
[28] Despite being subordinated to a civilian police authority, internal troops are a military force with centralized system of ranks, command and service.
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).
