Formation of the cadre training system during the reform of the domestic security agencies in the 30's of the 20^th century

The purpose of this article is to analyze some aspects of the formation of the staff training system during the reform of the domestic security agencies in the 1930s. During this period of sharp aggravation of the international situation the task of not only reforming the state security bodies but also of staffing this reform was successfully solved in the USSR. The following works dedicated to activities of the domestic security agencies were the sources for this investigation: Military Counterintelligence. History, events, people. / Editor-in-Chief A.G. Bezverkhny. M.: OLMA, 2008; Human resources department of security agencies: history and modern times. M., 2013; I.D. Goncharov, I.P. Sheshenin. The Soviet military intelligence cadre training unit in 1935-1977. Novosibirsk, 2010; V.V. Kondrashov. Military counterintelligence agencies in WW2. M., 2014. In the course of war preparations in the second half of the 1930s an active reform of the security agencies was taking place in a number of countries. Significant changes had occurred in the security services of Germany and especially in the Abwehr. In the same period, creation of intelligence and counterintelligence services in the United States began. The Soviet Union was no exception in undergoing this process. Starting from 1935, active transformations were taking place in the structures of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD) that related to the system of state security. By the Decree of the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR No. 00306 of August 10, 1935 ten interregional schools were formed in Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, Tiflis, Tashkent, Alma-Ata, Rostov, Gorky, Sverdlovsk and Novosibirsk with the goal of improving the quality of training of officers of the newly-formed Chief department of state security. The problems encountered in the organization of training in the newly established schools were similar in all of them. Examining the activities of the Novosibirsk interregional school in 1935-1940, it can be stated that, first of all, difficulties arose in the recruitment of students and the training of teachers. In the first years of the school, serious attention was paid to additional training of students in Russian and foreign languages as a significant part of the students of the first draft had insufficient general education. According to some documents, this problem was solved within six months from the beginning of study. A network of educational institutions for training domestic security agencies personnel created in the USSR in the middle 1930-s allowed to form a personnel reserve at the outbreak of the War and to train a sufficient number of operatives in a short time.

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