__NOTOC__ The Main Administration for Affairs of Prisoners of War and Internees () was an

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (, ), abbreviated as NKVD (; ), was the interior ministry and secret police of the Soviet Union from 1934 to 1946. The agency was formed to succeed the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) se ...

(later MVD) department in charge of handling of foreign civilian internees and

prisoners of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of war for a ...

(POWs) in the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

during and in the aftermath of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

(1939–1953). GUPVI was established as a part of the NKVD under the name "Administration for Affairs of Prisoners of War and Internees (UPVI) in September 1939, after the

Soviet invasion of Poland The Soviet invasion of Poland was a military conflict by the Soviet Union without a formal declaration of war. On 17 September 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Second Polish Republic, Poland from the east, 16 days after Nazi Germany invaded Polan ...

. The qualifier "main" was added in January 1945. The legal foundation for its creation was the

Sovnarkom The Council of People's Commissars (CPC) (), commonly known as the ''Sovnarkom'' (), were the highest executive authorities of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR), the Soviet Union (USSR), and the Soviet republics from 1917 ...

Decree of July 1, 1941 "Regulations on Prisoners of War" ("Положение о военнопленных"), updated by the September 29, 1945 "Regulations on Use of Labor of Prisoners of War" (Положение о трудовом использовании военнопленных). In many ways, the GUPVI system was similar to

GULAG The Gulag was a system of Labor camp, forced labor camps in the Soviet Union. The word ''Gulag'' originally referred only to the division of the Chronology of Soviet secret police agencies, Soviet secret police that was in charge of runnin ...

. Karner, Stefan, ''Im Archipel GUPVI. Kriegsgefangenschaft und Internierung in der Sowjetunion 1941-1956.'' Wien-München 1995.
book review
English) *Russian translation: 2002, Its major function was the organization of foreign

forced labor in the Soviet Union Forced labour was used extensively in the Soviet Union and the following categories may be distinguished. Obligatory labour of the early Soviet Russia The Bolshevik government began centralizing labor policies and restructuring workforce regula ...

. Top GUPVI leadership came from the GULAG system. Conditions in the two camp systems were similar: hard labor, poor nutrition and living conditions, high

mortality rates Mortality rate, or death rate, is a measure of the number of deaths (in general, or due to a specific cause) in a particular population, scaled to the size of that population, per unit of time. Mortality rate is typically expressed in units of d ...

."Internment: A Form of Soviet Repression of Poles and Polish Citizens"
One major difference with the GULAG system was the absence of convicted criminals in GUPVI camps. Another was that GUPVI camps provided a major source of recruitment of future

communist Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...

activists for

communist state A communist state, also known as a Marxist–Leninist state, is a one-party state in which the totality of the power belongs to a party adhering to some form of Marxism–Leninism, a branch of the communist ideology. Marxism–Leninism was ...

s such as the

German Democratic Republic East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from Foundation of East Germany, its formation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on ...

and the

Polish People's Republic The Polish People's Republic (1952–1989), formerly the Republic of Poland (1947–1952), and also often simply known as Poland, was a country in Central Europe that existed as the predecessor of the modern-day democratic Republic of Poland. ...

, as well as for various "democratic committees" made up of nationals such as Japanese and Austrians."GUPVI Archipelago"
an article in '' Arguments and Facts'', no. 49, December 2004Japanese POV in Krasnoyarsk Krai
by M. Spiridonov Significant efforts were made to "ideologically reforge" (''идеологическая перековка'') prisoners, and numerous clubs, libraries and local radio stations were created. During the GUPVI's fourteen-year existence, it administered over 500 POW camps in the Soviet Union and abroad, housing over four million prisoners.

Chiefs

*1939-1943: Pyotr Soprunenko, major of state security *1943-1945: ,

lieutenant general Lieutenant general (Lt Gen, LTG and similar) is a military rank used in many countries. The rank traces its origins to the Middle Ages, where the title of lieutenant general was held by the second-in-command on the battlefield, who was norma ...

*1945-1947: Mikhail Krivenko (Krivenko Mikhail Spiridonovich, 1904–1954) *1947-1949: Taras Filippov, lieutenant general *1949-1950: I.A. Petrov, lieutenant general (deputy chief, until his discharge for health reasons on November 21, 1950) *1950-1953: Amayak Kobulov, lieutenant general (1950-1951: NKVD GUPVI, 1951-1953: MVD UPVI)

Chiefs

See also

Notes

References

Further reading