Part V. The Birth of SMERSH

CHAPTER 16

The Birth of SMERSH

At the beginning of 1943, the situation at the fronts started to change. After the success in Stalingrad, Soviet troops began advancing into the southern part of Russia. With the tide of war now turned in the Soviets’ favor, desertions among their troops decreased considerably. Stalin’s attitude toward the army, especially toward officers, also started to change.

The Turning Point: Spring 1943

To increase patriotism among the troops, in January 1943 Stalin opened a propaganda campaign to remind servicemen of Russia’s past military glory during the imperial period. At first, shoulder boards similar to those used by the czar’s army officers and soldiers were introduced.¹ Now the color, insignia, number, and size of the stars on the shoulder boards identified the troop type and rank.

On January 28, 1943, Marshal Georgii Zhukov and 22 generals were awarded the newly introduced Order of Suvorov of the 1st Class for the victory in Stalingrad. This was one of three orders named after the historical Russian military heroes, Generalissimo Aleksandr Suvorov (1730–1800), General Mikhail Kutuzov (1747–1813), and Prince Aleksandr Nevsky (1221–1263). The movie Aleksandr Nevsky had already attracted public attention to this Russian hero who fought German knights in the thirteenth century. Filmed by the famous director Sergei Eisenstein, it was a blockbuster in 1938 and became even more popular in 1941, when on Stalin’s order it was shown again after the German invasion. Later Stalin personally edited film scripts that glorified Suvorov as a great warrior and Kutuzov as a savior of Russia from Napoleon’s troops. Stalin gave a copy of the film Kutuzov to Winston Churchill, who courteously wrote him back: ‘I must tell you that in my view this is one of the most masterly film productions I have ever seen.’²

The Order of Suvorov was given to commanders for a successful offensive, the Order of Kutuzov for the successful planning of an operation by staff members, and the Order of Nevsky for personal courage. They were established on July 29, 1942, the day after Stalin signed the infamous Order No. 227 ‘No Step Back!’—apparently, to show that commanders would be not only punished, but also awarded.³ However, the first orders were given only at the end of December 1942–January 1943. The Order of Nevsky directly appealed to the czar’s time, when the Order of Saint Aleksandr Nevsky had been given since 1725. No historical image of Prince Nevsky existed, and in 1942 the designer depicted on the order a portrait of the actor who played Nevsky in the movie.

In July 1943, the word ‘officer’ was also introduced.⁴ Until then, it was not officially used in the Soviet Union because it immediately created a mental association with White Guard officers. The Red Army officers were called ‘commanders’ and only after July 1943 did they become ‘officers’. In August 1943, a propaganda brochure entitled The Heroic Past of the Russian People was published mostly for the army politruki. Now Russia was considered the leading nation among the many nations inhabiting the Soviet Union.

In the meantime, by 1943 Soviet intelligence and counterintelligence knew little about the complexity of the German intelligence and security services. This knowledge came later, as a result of the interrogations of numerous captured German intelligence officers, as well as German-trained Russian agents who voluntarily surrendered to the Soviets. Even so, it became evident that military counterintelligence needed to concentrate on fighting against the German enemy rather than focusing its attention on its own servicemen. After realizing this, Stalin ordered the creation of a real counterintelligence service, called SMERSH, which reported personally to him.

Stalin’s New Secret Service

In March 1943, the reorganization of security services began. Vsevolod Merkulov, a man with ‘an athletic figure and a splendid head of thick dark hair flecked with grey’, who Stalin put in charge of the transition, gathered the OO heads of several fronts and armies in Moscow.⁵Abakumov’s closest subordinates, Pavel Zelenin, Nikolai Khannikov, Mikhail Belkin, and Isai Babich, were among the participants. Merkulov told the assembled leaders that ‘the Central Committee and Comrade Stalin’ had asked the OOs to increase their efforts so ‘no spy, agent, or terrorist would escape the attention of the special departments’.⁶ It is likely the changes were discussed at a late-night meeting of the GKO, which both Merkulov and Abakumov attended on March 31 at 11:30 p.m.⁷

In April, Merkulov presented Stalin with three different drafts for the revival of the early 1941 NKGB.⁸ In the first two versions, the new NKGB would include military counterintelligence under the name ‘Smerinsh’, that is, ‘Smert’ inostrannym shpionam’ or ‘Death to foreign spies’. The third version proposed two separate organizations, the NKGB and Smerinsh, as a directorate within the Defense Commissariat (NKO). This draft and other relevant documents were discussed at a GKO meeting that began at 10:05 p.m. on April 13.⁹ Leading NKVD and OO officers were invited—Merkulov, Abakumov, Lavrentii Tsanava, Nikolai Selivanovsky, Nikolai Korolev, Khannikov, Babich, and Nikolai Mel’nikov (deputy head of Sudoplatov’s 4th NKVD Directorate)—and all of them would end up being affected by the changes. General Filipp Golikov, the newly appointed deputy defense Commissar for Red Army personnel, and Aleksandr Shcherbakov, head of the GlavPURKKA, also attended. By 11:30 p.m. most of the participants had left, although Stalin, Molotov, Beria, and Malenkov continued their discussion until after midnight.

The next day the Politburo ordered the NKVD to be divided into two parts, and the revived NKGB became a super-agency handling foreign intelligence, counterintelligence within the USSR, and so forth (Figure 16-1).¹⁰ Merkulov was appointed NKGB Commissar while Beria remained the head of NKVD. The responsibilities that the NKVD was left with—the organization of slave labor, police work, control of the system of POW camps, and NKVD troops—were far less important and glamorous than the intelligence and counterintelligence work that the NKGB now took on.¹¹ Although this may seem a huge diminution of Beria’s power, in actuality he retained much of it through his control of his close associate Merkulov.

Abakumov was summoned to Stalin’s office on April 15 and 18, and the final decision was made on April 19, 1943, at a Politburo meeting attended by Abakumov and Merkulov.¹² As usual, the draft of the Politburo decision said that the decision was made jointly by the Party’s Central Committee and Sovnarkom (Council of Commissars). However, Stalin crossed out the words ‘the Central Committee’ with a blue pencil and signed the document as Sovnarkom’s chairman.¹³ The document was registered as Sovnarkom Resolution No. 415-138-ss; the two letters ‘ss’ (sovershenno sekretno) mean top secret, although members of the Sovnarkom had not seen it yet. The resolution ordered the NKVD’s UOO to be split into three separate military counterintelligence directorates within the NKO, Navy Commissariat, and NKVD, respectively, as had been done in early 1941.

Two days later Abakumov was called to Stalin’s office again and the document finalizing the creation of SMERSH was signed.¹⁴ It had a singularly long, awkward title: ‘GKO Decision No. 3222-ss/ov [the letters “ov” mean “of special importance”] on the Responsibilities and Structure of the Main Directorate of Counterintelligence (GUKR) SMERSH (Smert’ shpionam).’ ¹⁵ Thus, in the final version the name ‘Smerinsh’ or ‘Death to foreign spies’, became ‘Smersh’, meaning ‘Death to spies’. The original, with Stalin’s signature, was sent to Abakumov.

On April 29, Abakumov was again in Stalin’s office.¹⁶ Apparently, during this half-hour visit, Stalin signed a document specifying appointments for high-level positions within GUKR SMERSH, including heads of departments, which Abakumov had prepared two days earlier.¹⁷ Nikolai Selivanovsky became Abakumov’s first deputy, while Pavel Meshik and Isai Babich became deputies.

Figure 16-1

THE REORGANIZATION OF THE NKVD INTO THE NEW NKGB AND THE NKO’s SMERSH APRIL 1943 TO MAY 1946

Abakumov was appointed deputy Commissar of the NKO, reporting directly to Stalin. Although he was relieved of the NKO post a month later, Abakumov’s removal as deputy Commissar was not a slight against him. Stalin simply wanted to reduce the number of NKO deputies. He promoted Marshal Georgii Zhukov to be first deputy, and replaced sixteen deputy commissars, including Abakumov, with only one, Marshal Aleksandr Vasilevsky, head of the General Staff.¹⁸ In any case, as head of GUKR SMERSH, Abakumov continued ‘to be subordinated directly to the People’s Commissar of Defense [Stalin] and to follow only his orders’, as Decision 3222-ss/ov mandated.

On May 4, the Directorate of the NKVD Troops for Guarding the Rear of the Red Army (‘rear guard troops’) was promoted to a separate Main Directorate and given the responsibility of providing support for SMERSH’s activities.¹⁹ On December 1, 1944, Lt. General Ivan Gorbatyuk replaced Leontiev as head of this Main Directorate. These troops, now numbering 163,000 men, continued to capture German soldiers, spies, and paratroopers in the rear of Soviet combat units. The rear guard troops existed until October 13, 1945.

The same order that created GUKR SMERSH within the NKO created a parallel organization within the Navy Commissariat, the NKVMF, which was simply a reorganization of the 9th Department of the UOO that dealt with the navy.²⁰ This organization was known as the Navy UKR SMERSH. A month later the 6th Department of the UOO, in charge of monitoring NKVD troops such as the Border Guards and rear guard troops, was reorganized into a third counterintelligence unit, the OKR Smersh, which remained within the NKVD.²¹ At the time, the NKVD troops grew into a separate army: in 1942, the number of servicemen in these troops was 420,000, and by January 1945, it reached 800,000.²²

The Navy and NKVD counterintelligence units were smaller and therefore less significant than the NKO’s SMERSH. This is evident from the fact that they were organized as a UKR and an OKR, respectively. In all Soviet acronyms, ‘G’ at the beginning means ‘Main’; ‘U’ means ‘Directorate’; ‘O’ means ‘Department’; and ‘KR’ means ‘Counterintelligence’. A ‘Main Directorate’ is a larger organization than a ‘Directorate’, and a ‘Directorate’ is bigger than a ‘Department’. UKRs were subordinated to the GUKR, and each of the UKRs was comprised of departments. In typed documents of the NKVD’s OKR Smersh, only the ‘S’ in ‘Smersh’ was capitalized, while in NKO and NKVMF documents, SMERSH was spelled in all capital letters. UKRs were always comprised of one or more OKRs.

The Navy UKR SMERSH was headed by Pyotr Gladkov and two of his deputies, Aleksei Lebedev and Sergei Dukhovich. It consisted of four departments, along with an investigation unit, a ciphering section, an operational equipment section, and some miscellaneous units. It was given its own building in a central part of Moscow and moved out of the Lubyanka building. Besides the main headquarters in Moscow, each of the four fleets—the Baltic, Northern, Black Sea, and Pacific—had its own field OKR or Department of Counterintelligence that reported to the Navy UKR SMERSH in Moscow.

The OKR Smersh consisted of six sections, a special group (used for secret operations), a group for the registration of informers, and a Secretariat. Its head reported directly to NKVD Commissar Beria. Besides the Moscow headquarters, there were numerous branches of OKR Smersh: an OKR in the NKVD rear guard troops at each of the twelve fronts; two OKRs in the interior NKVD troops (in Ukraine and on the Northern Caucasus); ten Smersh departments in each of the border guard groups; and a department in the First Motorized NKVD Division and the Special Motorized NKVD Brigade.²³ As with the other two SMERSH organizations, there was a vertical, centralized command structure in which each OKR reported to the next higher OKR level. Also, there were OKR Smersh departments in four big industrial cities: Moscow, Kuibyshev (now Samara), Novosibirsk, and Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg).

The work of the NKVD’s Smersh was based entirely on reports from informers. During 1943 and 1944, it arrested 293 alleged traitors to the Motherland, 100 espionage suspects, 76 ‘German supporters’, and 356 deserters among the NKVD troops.²⁴Additionally, in 1944 almost 10,000 servicemen, including 450 officers, were transferred from the NKVD troops (which were considered elite units compared to the military) to the Red Army because of ‘compromising materials’ the OKR Smersh had collected on them.

Besides its primary function of spying on NKVD troops, the NKVD OKR also kept an eye on the activities of Abakumov’s SMERSH. For example, NKVD counterintelligence reported to Beria on SMERSH officials who had sent looted property from conquered European territories to the Soviet Union. If arrested, SMERSH officers and their informants were tried by military tribunals of NKVD troops, not of the Red Army.²⁵

Similarly, SMERSH officers reported to Abakumov on the false information that investigators of the rear guard troops extracted from arrested locals by beatings and torture. At the same time, there was also cooperation between the NKVD’s Smersh and Abakumov’s SMERSH. If the NKVD’s Smersh captured German paratroopers dropped behind Soviet lines, they were transferred to Abakumov’s SMERSH for full investigation.

Of the three military counterintelligence organizations, the NKO’s GUKR SMERSH became the most important and powerful agency by far. For simplicity’s sake, from this point on, this organization will be referred to as SMERSH.

The Structure and Function of SMERSH

A separate attachment to GKO Decision No. 3222-ss/ov detailed the organization of SMERSH and its branches in the army:

The ‘Smersh’ organs are a centralized organization. At the fronts and military districts the ‘Smersh’ organs (the NKO ‘Smersh’ directorates at fronts and NKO ‘Smersh’ departments at the armies, corps, divisions, brigades, military districts, and other units and organizations of the Red Army) are subordinated only to their higher organs…

The ‘Smersh’ organs inform Military Councils and commanders of the corresponding units, troops, and organizations of the Red Army on the matters of their work: on the results of their combat with enemy agents, on the penetration of the army units by anti-Soviet elements, and on the results of combat against traitors of the Motherland, deserters, and self-mutilators. ²⁶

Compared to its predecessor, the UOO, SMERSH was mostly focused on enemy spies, although Red Army servicemen were still under suspicion. The rules for arrests of servicemen were also detailed in the same GKO Decision:

a) The arrest of a private or a junior officer should be approved by a prosecutor;

b) [The arrest] of a mid-level commander should be approved by the commander and prosecutor of the military unit;

c) [The arrest] of a high-level commander should be approved by the Military Council [of the front] and a prosecutor;

d) [The arrest] of a commander of the highest level should be authorized by the People’s Commissar of Defense [Stalin].²⁷

Abakumov kept Stalin updated on all high-ranking commanders, and according to Merkulov, Abakumov reported to Stalin almost every day ‘on the behavior of a number of leading military officers’.²⁸

In general, the organization of SMERSH repeated the structure of the UOO within the NKVD. The headquarters, GUKR SMERSH, was located on the fourth and sixth floors of the NKVD/NKGB building in the center of Moscow at No. 2 Dzerzhinsky (Lubyanka) Square with the entrance from Kuznetsky Most Street. Abakumov’s huge office was on the fourth floor.

GUKR SMERSH directed the work of the field directorates assigned to the fronts, which hereinafter will be referred to as UKRs SMERSH to distinguish them from the GUKR SMERSH in Moscow. Whenever both organizations are meant, they will be referred to simply as SMERSH. On the whole, fifteen UKRs were established at the fronts in April 1943 (Table 16-1). All heads of front UKRs remained at their posts until the end of the war or until the front was disbanded.

In the GUKR, thirteen assistants to Abakumov with their staffs were responsible for the UKRs:

Name29	Front Responsibility	Dates
A. A. Avseevich	Northwestern	Apr 29, 1943–Jul 9, 1943
G. S. Bolotin-Balyasnyi	Volkhov/3rd Belorussian	Apr 29, 1943–May 22, 1946
I. P. Konovalov	Southern/4th Ukrainian	Apr 29, 1943–May 27, 1946
S. F. Kozhevnikov	Leningrad	Apr 29, 1943–Jun 4, 1946
N. G. Kravchenko	Bryansk/2nd Baltic	May 26, 1943–Jul 1944
A. P. Misyurev	Kalinin/1st Baltic	Apr 29, 1943–May 27, 1946
F. G. Petrov	Southwestern/3rd Ukrainian	May 26, 1943–Dec 28, 1943
K. L. Prokhorenko	Voronezh/1st Ukrainian	Apr 29, 1943–Oct 4, 1944
V. P. Rogov	Western/3rd Belorussian	Apr 29, 1943–May 27, 1946
N. A. Rozanov	Northwestern/2nd Belorussian	Oct 10, 1943–May 4, 1946
I. T. Rusak	Karelian	Apr 29, 1943–May 27, 1946
V. T. Shirmanov	Central/1st Belorussian	May 26, 1943–Mar 23, 1944
P. P. Timofeev	Steppe/2nd Ukrainian	Sep 23, 1943-May 22, 1946

They were not only in constant contact with the front UKR staffs, but also personally visited the front UKRs, bringing orders and instructions from the GUKR. Another assistant, Major General Ivan Moskalenko, was responsible for general matters and personnel. One of the assistants, Vyacheslav Rogov, became very close to Abakumov, and after the war Abakumov appointed him head of the 4th MGB Directorate (specializing in searching for suspects).

Colonel Ivan Chernov, former head of a section in the UOO, was appointed head of the GUKR SMERSH Secretariat, while Yakov Broverman, former head of the UOO Secretariat, became Chernov’s deputy.

GUKR in Moscow consisted of eleven operational and three nonoperational departments (Figure 16-2), a total of 646 men (for comparison, in 1942 the UOO staff in Moscow consisted of 225 men). Not all departments corresponded to their UOO predecessors. With the new focus on the Germans and other foreign enemies, two departments, the 3rd and 4th, were transferred from the NKVD/NKGB. The 3rd Department was in charge of capturing German spies in the rear and organizing ‘radio games’ with their help, and the 4th Department was in charge of counterintelligence measures behind the front line. Five of the departments, the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 6th, were involved directly in investigation.

TABLE 16-1. HEADS OF UKR SMERSH DIRECTORATES IN APRIL 1943¹

Figure 16-2

THE STRUCTURE OF SMERSH WITHIN THE DEFENCE COMMISSARIAT APRIL 1943 TO MAY 1946

The UKR SMERSH of a front directed the subordinated SMERSH departments (OKRs) within the armies and units. Three SMERSH officers were attached to each rifle regiment, while the OKR at the division level consisted of 21 men, including a head, his deputy, a ciphering officer, investigators, a commandant, and a platoon of guards.³⁰ The OKR of each army included 57 men, while the size of a front UKR depended on how many armies the front was comprised of. If the front consisted of five armies, its UKR included 130 officers; if there were fewer armies, the UKR had 112 officers.³¹ The UKRs of military districts, of which the Moscow Military District was the biggest, consisted of 102–193 officers. For operational work, such as guarding prisoners, the Red Army provided SMERSH with field formations made up of regular servicemen. SMERSH front directorates were provided with a battalion, SMERSH army departments, a company, and SMERSH departments at the regiment, division, or brigade level, a platoon.

The positions and responsibilities of the personnel and departments in the UKR SMERSH and OKR SMERSH were very similar. Here is the typical structure of a UKR SMERSH:

	Position/Unit	Duties
	Head	Commanding
	Secretariat	Secretarial work
	Personnel Department	In charge of the cadres
	1st Department	Overseeing the staff of the headquarters
	2nd Department	Counterintelligence in the rear, catching German agents, interrogation of German POWs, vetting Soviet POWs
	3rd Department	Guidance of subordinated units and combating enemy agents, anti-Soviet elements, traitors to the motherland, military criminals
	4th Department	Investigation
	Komendatura	Guarding prisoners; executions
	Records Section	Making and keeping records

The only difference was the that OKR SMERSH organizations had ‘sections’ instead of ‘departments’ and the responsibilities of the 3rd Department in UKR SMERSH units was divided between the 3rd and 4th sections in OKR SMERSH units with investigations being carried out by a separate Investigative Section.

The 1st Department of the GUKR SMERSH was in charge of counterintelligence within the Red Army command. Operational officers were assigned to all military units from the battalion level upward.³² The 1st Department coordinated all the information from secret informers and also controlled the political officers within the Red Army. Colonel Ivan Gorgonov, head of the 1st Department, previously headed the 10th UOO Department, which administrated the work of the front OOs.

The 2nd Department was in charge of working with foreign POWs and of ‘filtering’ Soviet servicemen who had been POWs.³³ Its head, Colonel Sergei Kartashov, who had been working in military counterintelligence since 1937, was extremely efficient; he had a phenomenal memory and remembered hundreds of detainees’ names and all the details of their cases. The department was also responsible for collecting intelligence and sending SMERSH agents to areas immediately behind enemy lines.

To identify important people among prisoners, especially intelligence officers among German POWs, operatives of the 2nd departments depended on German informers. Nicola Sinevirsky wrote that ‘the Germans informed on one another very willingly. In our work with POWs we learned that even by offering them cigarettes and promising them liberty, one in ten would do a job for us’.³⁴ Sinevirsky gives an example: ‘Hans had been a driver in the Abwehr of the Middle Group Army Headquarters. He could identify a number of German spies, which explained why SMERSH had dragged him from one stockade to another… The first day, he recognized and identified seven spies. By SMERSH standards, he did an excellent job and was rewarded with generous rations of tinned meat, white bread, and chocolate.’

In January 1945, Abakumov proudly wrote to Beria:

From September 1, 1943, to January 1, 1945, the SMERSH organs of the fronts and military districts recruited 697 former enemy agents and used them to search for German spies and saboteurs. They helped to arrest 703 German spies and saboteurs.

At present, the SMERSH organs are using 396 agent-identifiers to find enemy agents… I have already reported to Comrade Stalin on the matter described above.³⁵

Information about the capture and interrogation of important prisoners was cabled to Moscow. Abakumov or his deputy would review the information and decide whether the prisoner should be sent to the capital. These prisoners were investigated by the 2nd Department’s Investigation Unit, but sometimes the 4th Department became involved too. If the case was significant enough for prosecution, the 6th Department would also become involved. Some prisoners were considered so important that they were kept in Moscow investigation prisons until 1951–52, when they were finally sentenced.

In the field, the 2nd departments, which were also known as operations departments, worked in cooperation with the units of the NKVD rear guard troops. They also did the work of the NKGB in liberated Soviet territory before the NKGB staff members arrived. In large formations, these detachments were known as the SMERSH Military Police. ‘The first step always taken by the Operations Department of SMERSH was to arrest all the organized enemies of the Soviet Union,’ wrote Sinevirsky, who worked as a translator in the 3rd Section of the 2nd Department of the UKR SMERSH of the 4th Ukrainian Front.³⁶ ‘This included every leading member of any political party opposing communism…SMERSH men had been ordered also to arrest all active elements in any democratic parties.’

The 3rd Department of GUKR SMERSH was in charge both of identifying German agents working behind the Red Army’s front, and of radio games. In the field, officers or branches of the 3rd Department were assigned to all military units from the corps and higher.³⁷ To find German agents, field officers cooperated with the 2nd departments of UKRs of the fronts and the 4th sections of OKRs of the armies.³⁸ To search for an important German agent, an operational ‘Search File’ was created by the 1st Section of the 3rd GUKR Department in Moscow and sent to field branches.

Colonel Georgii Utekhin, who before the war headed the Counterintelligence Department in the NKGB Leningrad Branch, ran the 3rd GUKR SMERSH Department until late September 1943, when he was appointed head of the 4th Department. Colonel Vladimir Baryshnikov, former head of the 2nd Section in charge of radio games in the 3rd Department, replaced Utekhin. Dmitrii Tarasov, a member of the radio games team, vividly described Vladimir Baryshnikov in his memoirs:

Vladimir Yakovlevich [Baryshnikov] was an example of an armchair analyst or scientist. He was short and…solidly built. However…he was a little bit pudgy and always had a round-shouldered posture. While sitting at the desk, his face appeared to be drowning in papers because he was extremely short-sighted but refused to use eyeglasses. He had a soft and complaisant temper, was benevolent and intelligent, had tact, and doubtless was a man of high principle.³⁹

The 4th Department of GUKR SMERSH was charged with ‘finding the channels of penetration of enemy agents into the units and institutions of the Red Army’⁴⁰ and sending Soviet agents into German territory to collect counterintelligence on training schools for German agents. It consisted of only twenty-five men, divided into two sections. The first section trained agents to be sent behind the front lines and coordinated their work.⁴¹ Its deputy head, Major S. V. Chestneishy, wrote cover stories—‘legends’ in Chekist jargon—for Soviet agents. The second section, headed by Captain Andrei Okunev, collected and analyzed information about Nazi intelligence activity and German schools for intelligence agents. Baryshnikov’s and Okunev’s sections frequently cooperated in conducting radio games.

Colonel Pyotr Timofeev, former head of the 1st Department (capturing German spies) of the 2nd NKVD Directorate (counterintelligence), headed up the 4th GUKR SMERSH Department until late September 1943. Tarasov described Timofeev: ‘Pyotr Petrovich, called “PP” among his subordinates, was a man of medium height, stocky, with a massive shaved-bare head and big features in a long face. He was cheerful and energetic. He was considered an indisputable authority.’⁴² In September 1943, Utekhin replaced Timofeev, who became one of Abakumov’s assistants.

Branches of the 4th Department in the field were responsible for interrogating and investigating newly captured Germans. Their officers, junior and senior investigators, were assigned to all formations from the corps level and above. They also investigated cases of Russian servicemen and repatriated POWs arrested on suspicion of anti-Soviet activity. With the advance of the Soviet army to the West, branches of the 4th Department interrogated more and more German and other foreign prisoners.

The 3rd and 4th GUKR SMERSH departments also collaborated with the 1st (Foreign Intelligence, headed by Pavel Fitin) and 4th (Terror and Sabotage, headed by Pavel Sudoplatov) Directorates of the NKGB. The GUKR SMERSH, the NKVD, the Navy Commissariat, and partisan detachments were obliged to share military intelligence information they obtained in German-occupied territory, as well as information about enemy agents, with the Intelligence Directorate (RU) of the Red Army’s General Staff. This agency was organized on April 19, 1943, at the same time as SMERSH, and was headed by Lieutenant General Fyodor Kuznetsov.⁴³ The RU did not collect foreign intelligence; this remained a function of the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) of the Red Army (headed by Ivan Il’ichev), which received it from such sources as the network of Soviet agents in Switzerland (the Rote Drei group, a part of the Red Orchestra). The other GRU rezidents (heads of spy networks) sent information from England, Turkey, Sweden, USA, and Japan.

The front and army SMERSH units were responsible for holding German POWs for interrogation by the RU investigators. The RU officers also interrogated SMERSH prisoners in Moscow. In turn, the RU was obliged to provide SMERSH with intelligence information about agents who were being prepared, by the Germans, to infiltrate the Red Army. In order to collect intelligence, between May 1943 and May 1945 the RU sent 1,236 groups of agents and terrorists to the enemy’s rear.⁴⁴ Just after the war, in June 1945, the RU and GRU were united, and General Kuznetsov became head of this enlarged GRU of the General Staff.

In addition to two military intelligence agencies, in April 1943 a small group headed by Colonel General Filipp Golikov and subordinated directly to Stalin also began analyzing intelligence information. This group did not include a representative of SMERSH. The whole system of intelligence and counterintelligence became exceedingly complicated, but all their branches were controlled by Stalin as Supreme Commander in Chief, Defense Commissar, or GKO Chairman.

The 5th GUKR SMERSH Department headed by Colonel Dmitrii Zenichev—and, from July 1944, by Colonel Andrei Frolov—was in charge of supervising the UKRs of fronts. It also maintained military field courts. These courts were introduced by a secret decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet issued on April 19, 1943; that is, at the same time as SMERSH’s creation. As with the other documents in the SMERSH package, Stalin approved the text of this decree after several editorial changes.⁴⁵ The decree had a long and awkward title: ‘On Measures of Punishment of the German-Fascist Villains Guilty of Killing and Torturing Civilians and Captured Red Army Soldiers, of Spies and Soviet Traitors to the Motherland, and of Their Accomplices’, and its text was declassified only in 1997.⁴⁶ The possible punishments included death by hanging at a public meeting or being sentenced to ten years of especially hard labor. Separate special hard labor (katorzhnye) sections were created in the Vorkuta, Norilsk, and Dal’stroi labor camps for a total 30,000 convicts sentenced by these field courts.⁴⁷

Each court consisted of the chairman of the Military Tribunal, heads of SMERSH and political departments of the unit, and a military prosecutor. The decision of the court had to be approved by the unit commander. The existence of military field courts was kept secret.

The field courts considered cases immediately after taking over territories previously occupied by the enemy. Because the decree was secret, defendants did not know the exact reason for their conviction. The most active military field courts were within the 1st Ukrainian Front. From May 1943 to May 1945, these courts tried 221 cases against 348 defendants, of whom 270 were sentenced to death and hanged.⁴⁸ From September 1943, military tribunals could also use the April 19, 1943 decree, and it continued to be used to sentence traitors and German collaborators after World War II. The total number of executed is unknown, but the number of collaborators sentenced to especially hard labor (katorga) in 1943–45 was approximately 29,000, of whom 10,000 could not work physically.

Nicola Sinevirsky had an acquaintance who occasionally participated in the field courts:

Despite the excellent food we were given, Mefodi had lost weight. His lean, pale face made him look years older than when I had first met him…

‘My conscience is no longer clear, Nicola,’ Mefodi said abruptly. ‘Frequently, I have to act as the third judge in a military tribunal and I condemn people to death. You can never understand how disgusting the whole business is. The prosecutor reads his charges, then demands capital punishment. Our triumvirate always confirms that sentence and the prisoner is taken out and shot… Under such conditions, anyone would look sick. It would be an easy thing for me to commit suicide…’

The pupils of his eyes were enlarged and there was a near-insane look in them. It was a ghastly thing to see.⁴⁹

The 6th Department or Investigation Unit existed only in the GUKR SMERSH in Moscow. Its investigators commonly worked in coordination with investigators of the 2nd Department. Later, its head and deputy head, Aleksandr Leonov and Mikhail Likhachev, respectively, played important roles in interrogations of the highest level German POWs, and Likhachev headed a group of SMERSH officers sent to the Military International Trial in Nuremberg.

Cases prepared by the 6th Department were tried by the Military Collegium or the OSO of the NKVD. As already mentioned, in May 1943, Abakumov and Merkulov joined the OSO board.⁵⁰ They or their representatives presented cases investigated by SMERSH or the NKGB, respectively.

The 7th GUKR SMERSH Department was in charge of statistics and archival data. It was also responsible for surveillance of high-level military personnel in the Central Committee and the Defense and the Navy Commissariats, as well as those involved in secret work who were sent abroad. Colonel Aleksandr Sidorov, who previously worked at a similar 1st NKVD Special Department, was appointed head of this department. After the war he continued heading the 7th Department (statistics and archival data) of military counterintelligence.

The 8th Department was responsible for ciphering. Later, after 1946, its head Colonel Mikhail Sharikov continued the same work in the MGB.

The 9th Department was in charge of operational equipment. Earlier, in the UOO, its head, Lieutenant Colonel Aleksandr Kochetkov, had overseen the 11th Department that was in charge of surveillance of the engineering, chemical, and signals troops. After the war, in 1946–49, Kochetkov headed the MGB’s Department ‘B’, which was in charge of the use of technical equipment, including the surveillance of phone calls. The 10th Department carried out arrests, searches and surveillance.

Little is known about the activity of the 11th GUKR Department ‘S’, i.e. Special Operations, headed by Colonel Ivan Chertov. According to the recollection of a member of this department, it was responsible for sending intelligence and terrorist groups, similar to those created by Sudoplatov’s 4th NKGB Directorate (terrorism), to the rear of the German troops.⁵¹ Sudoplatov used groups of 15–20 trained saboteurs, many of whom were foreign Communists who had participated in the Spanish Civil War and knew the German language well. Members of the groups formed by the 11th Department were selected from among physically strong men, usually former sportsmen who knew martial arts and were able to use various types of firearms. These intelligence and terrorist groups were sent to the enemy’s rear during the massive Red Army offensive actions. In other words, this was SMERSH’s version of the Abwehr’s Brandenburger saboteurs.

Finally, there was a Political Department in Moscow consisting of only two people: its head, Colonel Nikifor Siden’kov, and a typist.⁵² Later, in the MGB, Abakumov promoted Siden’kov to an important position as deputy head of the Main Directorate for the MGB Interior Troops (former NKVD/MVD Interior Troops).

Of course, SMERSH also had purely administrative personnel, and administration and finance Departments. Ivan Vradii, one of Abakumov’s deputies, headed the Personnel Department. The Administration and Finance Department was headed at first by Lieutenant Colonel Sergei Polovnev, then, from August 1943, by Lieutenant Colonel Maksim Kochegarov, former head of the 1st Moscow GUKR SMERSH School. After the war, Kochegarov was a deputy, and then, from November 1947 till mid-1951, head of the MGB Administration Department.

Notes

1. NKO Order No. 25, signed by Stalin and dated January 15, 1943. Document No. 18, in Russkii arkhiv. Velikaya otechestvennaya. Prikazy Narodnogo Komissara Oborony SSSR, 13 (2–3), 30.

2. Letter to Stalin, dated December 19, 1944, in Winston Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy (New York: RosettaBooks, 2002), 260–1.

3. Politburo decision P38/3, dated July 21, 1942, and Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, dated July 29, 1942.

4. NKO Order No. 258, dated July 30, 1943. Document No. 155, in Russkii arkhiv. Velikaya otechestvennaya. Prikazy, 13 (2-3), 191–2.

5. A. I. Romanov’s description of Merkulov in Nights Are Longest There: A Memoir of the Soviet Security Services, translated by Gerald Burke (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1972), 55.

6. Quoted in SMERSH. Istoricheskie ocherki i dokumenty, edited by V. S. Khristoforov et al., 64 (Moscow: Glavnoe arkhivnoe upravlenie, 2003) (in Russian).

7. Na prieme u Stalina. Tetradi (zhurnaly) zapisei lits, pronyatykh I. V. Stalinym (1924–1953 gg.), edited by A. V. Korotkov, A. D. Chernev, and A. A. Chernobaev, 401 (Moscow: Novyi khronograf, 2008) (in Russian).

8. Merkulov’s letters to Stalin Nos. 334/B, 340/B, and 365/B, dated April 2, 4, and 14, 1943, respectively. The last letter is Document No. 149 in A. I. Kokurin and N. V. Petrov, Lubyanka. Organy VCheKa-OGPU-NKVD-NKGB-MGB-MVDKGB. 1917–1991. Spravochnik (Moscow: Demokratiya, 2003), 621–2 (in Russian).

9. Na prieme u Stalina, 403.

10. Politburo decisions P40/91, dated April 14, 1943. Document No. 234 in Lubyanka. Stalin i NKVD-NKGB-GUKR ‘SMERSH.’ 1939–1946, edited by V. N. Khaustov, V. P. Naumov, and N. S. Plotnikova, 371–2 (Moscow: Demokratiya, 2006) (in Russian).

11. The new NKGB structure in Merkulov’s letter and the Central Committee’s decision, dated April 14, 1943. Document Nos. 149 and 150 in Kokurin and Petrov, Lubyanka, 621–3. The NKVD structure on January 1, 1944, in ibid., 197.

12. Na prieme u Stalina, 404–5.

13. Photo of the document in SMERSH. Istoricheskie ocherki, 67.

14. Na prieme u Stalina, 405.

15. Document No. 151 in Kokurin and Petrov, Lubyanka, 623–6.

16. Na prieme u Stalina, 406.

17. Abakumov’s letter to Stalin No. 103/A, dated April 27, 1943, and NKO Order Nos. 1/ssh and 3/ssh, dated April 29, 1943; signed by Stalin. Photos on pages 72 and 76, SMERSH. Istoricheskie ocherki.

18. GKO Decision No. 3399, dated May 20, 1943. Document No. 32 in Yurii Gor’kov, Gosudarstvennyi komitet oborony postanovlyaet (1941–1945). Tsifry, dokumenty (Moscow: Olma-Press, 2002), 527–8 (in Russian).

19. Kokurin and Petrov, Lubyanka, 79.

20. Page 124 in Aleksandr Kokurin and Nikita Petrov, ‘NKVD–NKGB–SMERSH: Struktura, funktsii, kadry. Stat’ya tret’ya (1941–1943),’ Svobodnaya mysl 8 (1997), 118–28 (in Russian). Details in Vadim Abramov, Abakumov—nachal’nik SMERSHa. Vzlet igibel’ lyubimtsa Stalina (Moscow: Yauza-ksmo, 2005), 88–98 (in Russian).

21. NKVD Order, dated May 15, 1943. Kokurin and Petrov, Lubyanka, 79. Details in SMERSH. Istoricheskie ocherki, 293–310.

22. Klim Degtyarev and Aleksandr Kolpakidi, SMERSH (Moscow: Yauza-Eksmo, 2009), 146 (in Russian).

23. Ibid., 147.

24. Vadim Abramov, SMERSH. Sovetskaya voennaya razvedka protiv razvedki Tret’ego Reikha (Moscow: Yauza-Eksmo, 2005), 135 (in Russian).

25. Joint directive of the Justice Commissar and chief USSR Prosecutor, dated August 10, 1943. Vyacheslav V. Obukhov, Pravovye osnovy organizatsii i deyatel’nosti voennykh tribunalov voisk NKVD SSSR v gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny 1941–1945 gg. Candidate of Sciences Dissertation (Moscow: MVD Moskovskii Universitet, 2002), 122 (in Russian).

26. ‘Regulations on the Main Counterintelligence Directorate of the Defense Commissariat (“Smersh”) and its organs,’ approved by Stalin on April 21, 1943. Document No. 151 in Kokurin and Petrov, Lubyanka, 623–6.

27. Ibid.

28. ‘Dokladnaya zapiska V. N. Merkulova na imya N. S. Khrushcheva ot 23 iyulya 1953 g.,’ in Neizvestnaya Rossiya. XX vek. Kniga tret’ya (Moscow: Istoricheskoe nasledie, 1993), 72 (in Russian).

29. N. V. Petrov, Kto rukovodil organami gosbezopasnosti 1941–1954. Spravochnik (Moscow: Zven’ya, 2010), 110 (in Russian).

30. Sergei Osipov, ‘SMERSH otkryvaet tainy. Interv’ev,’ Argumenty i fakty, no. 26 (1331), June 26, 2002 (in Russian), http://gazeta.aif.ru/online/aif/1131/09_01, retrieved September 7, 2011.

31. SMERSH. Istoricheskie ocherki, 75.

32. Romanov, Nights Are Longest, 69–70.

33. SMERSH. Istoricheskie ocherki, 214–5.

34 Nicola Sinevirsky, SMERSH (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1950), 93–94.

35. Abakumov’s report to Beria No. 650/A, dated January 1945. A photo in N. V. Gubernatorov, SMERSH protiv Bussarda (Reportazh iz akhiva tainoi voiny) (Moscow: Kuchkovo pole, 2005) (in Russian), between pages 192 and 193.

36. Sinevirsky, SMERSH, 73.

37. Romanov, Nights Are Longest There, 70–71.

38. SMERSH. Istoricheskie ocherki, 150.

39. D. P. Tarasov, Bol’shaya igra SMERSHa (Moscow: Yauza-Eksmo, 2010), 20–21 (in Russian).

40. SMERSH. Istoricheskie ocherki, 166.

41. Ibid., 186–7.

42. Tarasov, Bol’shaya igra SMERSHa, 20.

43. NKO Order No. 0071, dated April 19, 1943. Document No. 103 in Russkii Arkhiv. Velikaya Otechestvennaya. Prikazy, 13 (2–3), 124–7.

44. Ibid., 242.

45. Andreas Hilger, Nikita Petrov, and Günther Wagenlehner, ‘Der “Ukaz 43”: Entstehung und Problematik des Dekrets des Präsidium des Obersten Sowjets vom 19. April 1943,’ in Sowjetische Militärtribunale, vol. 1, Die Verurteilung deutscher Kriegsgefangener 1941–1953, edited by Andreas Hilger, Ute Schmidt, and Günther Wagenlehner, 181–5 (Cologne: Böhlau Verlag, 2001).

46. The full text of the Decree, dated April 19, 1943, was included in the NKO Order without a number. Document No. 106 in Russkii arkhiv. Velikaya otechestvennaya. Prikazy, 13 (2–3) (1997), 129–30 (in Russian). An excerpt in English is on page 106 in George Ginsburgs, ‘Light Shed on the Story of Wehrmacht Generals in Soviet Captivity,’ Criminal Law Forum 11 (2000), 101–20.

47. NKVD Order No. 00968, dated July 11/12, 1943, and NKVD Instruction No. 311-ss, dated June 16, 1943. Document Nos. 107 and 108 in Istoriya stalinskogo GULAGa. Konets 1920-kh –pervaya polovina 1950-kh godov. Tom 2. Karatel’naya sistema: Struktura i kadry, ed. by N. V. Petrov (Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2004), 220–2 (in Russian).

48. Vyacheslav Zvyagintsev, Voina na vesakh Femidy. Voina 1941–1945 gg. v materialakh sledstvenno-sudebnykh del (Moscow: Terra, 2006), 628 (in Russian).

49. Sinevirsky, SMERSH, 116–7.

50. Beria and Merkulov’s joint report, dated May 20, 1943. Document No. 237 in Lubyanka. Stalin i NKVD, 377.

51. Vyacheslav Shevchenko, ‘“SMERSH” opasnee smercha,’ Leninskaya smena. Ekspress-K, no. 81 (16229), May 11, 2007 (in Russian), http://www.express-k.kz/show_article.php?art_id=8885, retrieved September 7, 2011.

52. Abramov, SMERSH, 264.