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Russia, 1917–91: From Lenin to Yeltsin

The secret police

  • 3 things to know
  • Paper 1

Overview

Recall questions on the Cheka and its successors, Yagoda, Yezhov and Beria, the Yezhovshchina, and Andropov's treatment of dissidents.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Your recallNot started
Who and when

How did repression change after 1953?

Who and when

Who were the three NKVD chiefs linked to the Terror?

Numbers

What was the Cheka?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    What was the Cheka?

    Model answer

    The first Bolshevik secret police, founded in 1917 under Dzerzhinsky.

  2. 2

    Which secret police carried out the 1930s purges?

    Model answer

    The NKVD.

  3. 3

    Who were the three NKVD chiefs linked to the Terror?

    Model answer

    Yagoda, Yezhov and Beria.

  4. 4

    What did Andropov's KGB do between 1967 and 1982?

    Model answer

    Suppressed dissidents and monitored popular discontent.

  5. 5

    How did the secret police change names across the period?

    Model answer

    Cheka, then GPU and OGPU, then NKVD under Stalin, then MGB, and from 1954 the KGB.

  6. 6

    What was Yagoda's role?

    Model answer

    Head of the NKVD from 1934, he organised the first show trials, was then dismissed as insufficiently ruthless, and was himself tried and shot in 1938.

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