non-Russians in Stalin's NKVD

WHO HEADED THE NKVD (Kto rokuvodil NKVD) is the title of a Russian-language book authored by Nikita Vasilevich Petrov and Konstantin V. Skorkin. It begins with information on the kinds of NKVD leadership positions, and who specifically held them through the 1930's. The heart of this book (pp. 80-464) is biographical information on several hundred NKVD leaders. This includes photos of them, dates of birth and death, their nationalities, the offices they held, etc.

The most fascinating part is Table 4. (p. 495). It apportions NKVD leaders by nationality-in terms of relative numbers as well as percentages. In 1934-1937, there were more Jews as heads of the NKVD than any other nationality-including Russians! In terms of percentage, Jews constituted 37-39% of all NKVD leaders. (To keep this in perspective, Jews were only about 2% of the population of the USSR).

Poles and Latvians were also overrepresented in the leadership of the NKVD but nowhere comparable to the overrepresentation of the Jews In 1934-1937, Latvians were 7-8%, and Poles were 4-5%, of leadership positions in the NKVD, as compared with the 37%-39% Jews.

amazon.com/Kto-Rukovodil-NKVD-1934-1941-Spravochnik/dp/5787000323/ref=cm_cr-mr-title

And ??? we all know that indeed Jews represented a significant proportion among the top organs of the defunct Soviet Communist party, including NKVD. But today is the same with Russian oligarchs (many are of Jewish background) and more generally in global capitalism (think Rothschilds..). Similarly, if you have a peek at the list of Nobel prize winners, you will find that Jews are overrepresented. All this proves is that Jewish people are on average more successful at what they do than many others..

Probably a lot to do with the culture of focusing on hard work and not getting involved with things that can distract them.

Polonius, rather than talking about Jews, it would be interesting to know why so many Poles were in the NKVD.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Operation_of_the_NKVD_(1937-38)

When will Netanyahu finally apologize?

IMO, it has more to do with the fact that most Nobel Prize winners came (and still come) from highly developed countries with good education systems. Faith doesn't really matter.

So what. Makes no difference either way to anything.

Truth to tell, I hadn't been aware of the percentage until I saw this book. I knew about Polish renegade aristocrat "bloody" Feliks Dzierżyński and red Polish *** Kołłątaj who promtoed "free love" in the early Bolshevik party, but not that they were in 3rd place behind Jews and Latvians. I reckon that's something Poles are not proud of and therefore have neglected to write much about.

But I agree that as a whole Jews have been prominent and successful in diverse fields -- from capitalism to communism, finance, arts, culture, science, and most everything else in between.

Could it be that the statistics are skewed by some people (such as Belarusians) being represented as "Poles"? It seems very hard to believe otherwise. It might not have suited them to acknowledge the existence of the Belarusian minority - and their self consciousness didn't really develop until after WW2 too.

(mods, could you perhaps change the topic to "non-Russians in Stalin's NKVD? It's an interesting discussion...)

Yes, until quite recently the Belarusian minority were cultrually underdeveloped and to some extent still is. Many Belarusians passed for Russians or Poles. There were also many Polish-Belarusian mixed marriages. My quesiton is why disproportionately so many Latvians?

I wondered the same as well - even at a push, you might assume that the reason for putting Poles into the NKVD was that they would've happily carried out an anti-Russian agenda (although it's a very flimsy reason - I'm inclined to believe that Ukrainians and Belarus were included as Poles) - but where do Latvians come into it?

The only logical explanation I can think of is that Stalin had ideas about annexing Poland and Latvia, and thus he needed them to help carry out his plans.

There was talk of Poland as the 17th republic of the USSR. Thta option was surely mulled at some point. But Stalin was extremely suspicous of Poles. His own stupidity and insubordination enabled Poles to beat back the Bolsheviks in 1920. He once compared establishing socialism in Poland to trying to saddle a cow.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latvian_Socialist_Soviet_Republic

There was probably a lot of Latvian and Polish communists who escaped to Soviet Union after Polish-Bolshevik war.

Polonus3 : "But I agree that as a whole Jews have been prominent and successful in diverse fields -- from capitalism to communism, finance, arts, culture, science, and most everything else in between."

As a whole they (the Jews) have been prominent and successful in diverse fields from capitalism to communism, but not in everything else in between

The music, painting and literature created by Jews is not so prominent as it is often speculated (especially in jewish controlled mass media ).
Read for example Judaism in Music by Richard Wagner, the same goes for all other types of art created by Jews.
They (the Jews) made an attempt to immitate european arts on a large scale relatively not so long ago and so far there are no great names to talk about.

The situation in science is perhaps a little better, but Einstein's theory of relativity relied heavily on the giants of science who came before him.

Who else ? Marx or Freud and their outdated theories ?

By the way, the most difficulat science is't physics

Malopolanin "There was probably a lot of Latvian and Polish communists who escaped to Soviet Union after Polish-Bolshevik war."

Both Latvians and Polish Jews were deeply envolved into communist movement long before the so called Russian revolution broke out , though
they were not so numerous as Jews