How did the NKVD arrest and execute top military figures in the former USSR?

Question

This may sound weird, but how was it that Marshal Blyucher was arrested and executed by the NKVD? Where was the Red Army? and did the NKVD have the authpurity to enter military camps and arrest the Marshals and Generals in front of their soldiers?!!!

Was there a military branch in the NKVD?

Answer 1

The NKVD is a secret police organization which operated separately from the Red Army. The NKVD is under the control of Lavrenti Beria who directly reported to Stalin. During the Second World War, NKVD officers were embedded within the Red Army battalions as political commisars of the Communist Party, to monitor the conduct and indoctrination of Red Army troops. Any Red Army soldier or officer suspected of acting against the Communist Party doctrine and agenda can be arrested and tried by the NKVD. In short, even the marshalls and generals in the Red Army are not exempted from NKVD arrests.

The NKVD is the equivalent of the Gestapo in the German military.

Answer 2

The short answer is to maintain the balance of power between the Communist Party and the Military. There is a "three legged stool" analogy that is used to illustrate the point where one leg is the communist party, on leg is the military and one leg is the Secret Police (NKVD). If one leg starts getting too big, the other two tend to gang up on it. In the case of Blyucher, the Party and the NKVD "ganged up" on him.

There is no Military arm to the NKVD, that would be the GRU.

Answer 3

Because they were part of the internal government sort of like the CIA in America only the NKVD were "secret police".

The NKVD (Naro:dnõi Komissaria:t Vnutrennih Del listen (help·info)) (Russian: НКВД, Народный комиссариат внутренних дел) or People's Commisariat for Internal Affairs was a government department which handled a number of the Soviet Union's affairs of state. Many consider the NKVD to be a criminal organization, mostly for the activities of GUGB officers and investigators, as well as supporting NKVD troops and Gulag guards. The NKVD was also responsible for administering Stalin's foreign intelligence service and overseas 'special operations'. These NKVD sub-branches were reponsible for the recruitment of spies and gathering of political, military, and economic intelligences from other countries, the liquidation of political enemies residing outside the Soviet Union, subversion of foreign governments, and enforcing Stalinist policy within Communist Party movements in other countries.

In addition to its state security and police functions, however, some of its departments handled other matters, such as transport, fire guards, border guard (NKVD Border Troops), etc., the tasks that were traditionally assigned to the Ministry of the Interior (MVD).

Complete information including the evolution of the NKVD:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NKVD
http://www.nkvd.org/
http://www.britannica.com/eb/topic-416682/NKVD
http://www.mosnews.com/feature/2005/07/15/bomba.shtml
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Katyn_Order_of_Execution_by_Stalin