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Before delving deeper, it’s important to contextualize the NKVD within the broader history of Soviet state security. The KGB, which became infamous as the Soviet Union’s main intelligence and secret police agency, wasn’t the first. The MGB (Ministry of State Security) followed the MGB in 1946, but prior to these organizations, the NKVD had already solidified its grip on Soviet life. Its predecessors include the Cheka from 1917 and the OGPU in the early 1930s, both of which laid the groundwork for a bureaucratic system designed to eliminate dissent through fear and brutality.