Ministry of Internal Affairs (Soviet Union) in the context of "Internal troops of the Soviet Union"

The Gulag was a system of forced labor camps in the Soviet Union. The word Gulag originally referred only to the division of the Soviet secret police that was in charge of running the forced labor camps from the 1930s to the early 1950s during Joseph Stalin's rule, but in English literature the term is popularly used for the system of forced labor throughout the Soviet era. The abbreviation GULAG (ГУЛАГ) stands for "Glávnoye upravléniye ispravítel'no-trudovýkh lageréy " (Гла́вное управле́ние исправи́тельно-трудовы́х лагере́й or "Main Directorate of Correctional Labour Camps"), but the full official name of the agency changed several times.

The Gulag is recognized as a major instrument of political repression in the Soviet Union. The camps housed both ordinary criminals and political prisoners, a large number of whom were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas or other instruments of extrajudicial punishment. The agency was established in 1930 and initially was administered by the OGPU (1923–1934), later known as the NKVD (1934–1946) and the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) in the final years.

The Committee for State Security (Russian: Комитет государственной безопасности, romanized: Komitet gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti, IPA: [kəmʲɪˈtʲed ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ]), abbreviated as KGB (Russian: КГБ, IPA: [ˌkɛɡɛˈbɛ]; listen to both) was the main security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 to 1991. It was the direct successor of preceding Soviet secret police agencies including the Cheka, OGPU, and NKVD. Attached to the Council of Ministers, it was the chief government agency of "union-republican jurisdiction", carrying out internal security, foreign intelligence, counter-intelligence and secret police functions. Similar agencies operated in each of the republics of the Soviet Union aside from the Russian SFSR, where the KGB was headquartered, with many associated ministries, state committees and state commissions.

The agency was a military service governed by army laws and regulations, in the same fashion as the Soviet Army or the MVD Internal Troops. While most of the KGB archives remain classified, two online documentary sources are available. Its main functions were foreign intelligence, counter-intelligence, operative-investigative activities, guarding the state border of the USSR, guarding the Soviet leadership, preserving the security of government communications as well as combating dissident and separatism within Soviet society.

Sergei Nikiforovich Kruglov (2 October 1907 – 6 July 1977) was the Minister of Internal Affairs of the Soviet Union from January 1946 to March 1953 and again from June 1953 until February 1956. He held the military rank of Colonel General. He was involved in several brutal actions of the Soviet security forces. These actions occurred in the 1940s and were carried out alongside his comrade-in-arms General Ivan Serov.

Kruglov was fluent in several foreign languages, including English, and was awarded the Legion of Merit and created an Honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire for organizing the security of the Yalta Conference and the Potsdam Conference during World War II.

The Vorkuta Corrective Labor Camp (Russian: Воркутинский исправительно-трудовой лагерь, romanized: Vorkutinsky ispravitel'no-trudovoy lager'), commonly known as Vorkutlag (Воркутлаг), was a major Gulag labor camp in the Soviet Union located in Vorkuta, Komi Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. It was in operation from 1932 until 1962.

Vorkutlag was one of the largest camps in the Gulag system. The camp housed 73,000 prisoners at its peak in 1951, containing Soviet and foreign prisoners including prisoners of war, dissidents, political prisoners ("enemies of the state") and common criminals who were used as forced labor in the exploitation of coal mines, coal mining works, and forestry. The camp was administered by the Joint State Political Directorate from 1932 to 1934, the NKVD from 1934 to 1946 and the Ministry of Internal Affairs (Soviet Union) from 1946 until its closure in 1962. The Vorkuta Gulag was the site of the Vorkuta Uprising in July 1953.

The Ministry of State Security (Russian: Министерство государственной безопасности, Russian pronunciation: [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 police. The ministry inherited the intelligence and state security responsibilities of the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) and People's Commissariat for State Security (NKGB). The MGB was led by Vsevolod Merkulov for 50 days from March 15 to May 4 1946, then by Viktor Abakumov from May 4 1946 to July 14 1951, then by Semyon Ignatiev until Stalin's death in March 5 1953, upon which it was merged into an enlarged Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD).

Operation Ring (Russian: Операция «Кольцо», romanized: Operatsia Kol'tso; Armenian: «Օղակ» գործողություն, Oghak gortsoghut'yun), known in Azerbaijan as Operation Chaykand (Azerbaijani: Çaykənd əməliyyatı) was the codename for the May 1991 military operation conducted by the Soviet Army, Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) of the USSR and OMON units of the Azerbaijan SSR in the Khanlar and Shahumyan districts of the Azerbaijani SSR, the Shusha, Martakert and Hadrut districts of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast, and along the eastern border of the Armenian SSR in the districts of Goris, Noyemberyan, Ijevan and Shamshadin. Officially dubbed a "passport checking operation," the ostensible goal of the operation was to disarm "illegal armed formations" in and around Nagorno-Karabakh, referring to irregular Armenian military detachments that had been operating in the area. The operation involved the use of ground troops accompanied by a complement of military vehicles, artillery and helicopter gunships to be used to root out the self-described Armenian fedayeen.

However, contrary to their stated objectives, Soviet troops and the predominantly Azerbaijani soldiers in the AzSSR OMON and army forcibly uprooted Armenians living in the 24 villages strewn across Shahumyan to leave their homes and settle elsewhere in Nagorno-Karabakh or in the neighbouring Armenian SSR. Following this, the Armenian inhabitants of 17 villages across the Shusha and Hadrut regions were forcibly removed. Border villages in the Armenian SSR were also raided. British journalist Thomas de Waal has described Operation Ring as the Soviet Union's first and only civil war and as the "beginning of the open, armed phase of the Karabakh conflict." Some authors have also described the actions of the joint Soviet and Azerbaijani force as ethnic cleansing. The military operation was accompanied by systematic and gross human rights abuses.

Chekism (Russian: Чекизм) was the form of counterintelligence state widely present in the Soviet Union by which secret police, counterintelligence and internal security services (originally the Cheka, hence the name, but most famously the KGB) strongly controlled all spheres of society. Similar circumstances exist in some post-Soviet states, particularly Russia. The term encompasses both the ideological underpinnings justifying often arbitrary repression as well as the political situation where security service members occupy high-level political offices and a lack of civilian control over their activities (in extreme cases, the opposite). The term is sometimes also applied to other Eastern Bloc security services (long-serving East German security chief Erich Mielke was fond of calling himself a Chekist), and, presently, to the federal government of Russia under Vladimir Putin (himself a former KGB officer).

The name is derived from Cheka, the colloquial name of the first in the succession of Soviet secret police agencies. Officers of the succession of security agencies (Cheka, GPU, OGPU, NKVD, GUGB, NKGB, MGB, MVD, and, longest-lasting, the KGB), as well as their Russian successors, the Federal Security Service, are often referred to, both by themselves and by the broader public, as "Chekists".