Smersh: Stalin's Secret Weapon: Soviet Military Counterintelligence in WWII

by Vadim Birstein

  49. Data from Table 1 in The White Book: Losses Inflicted on the Estonian Nation by Occupation Regimes, 1940–1991 (Tallinn: Estoniam Encyclopedia Publishers, 2005), 37.

  50. A. E. Gur’yanov, ‘Pol’skie spetspereselentsy v SSSR v 1940–1941 gg.,’ in Repressii protiv polyakov i polskikh grazhdan, edited by A. E. Guriyanov, 114–36 (Moscow: Zven’ya, 1997) (in Russian); figures for all deportations from the Baltics and other territories, in Alfred J. Rieber, ‘Civil Wars in the Soviet Union,’ Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, 4, no. 1 (Winter 2003), 129–62.

  51. Figures from Istoriya stalinskogo GULAGa. Tom 5, 56.

  52. Agreements between the USSR and Germany, dated January 10, 1941. Document Nos. 641 and 642, in Dokumenty vneshnei politiki. Ministerstvo inostrannykh del Rossiiskoi Federatsii, T. 23 (2, pt. 1) (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya, 1998), 303–17 (in Russian).

  53. Published in Izvestia, June 27, 1940. Details in Bochkov’s report, dated December 16, 1940. Document No. 117, in Istoriya stalinskogo GULAGa. Tom 1, 411–4.

  54. Figures from Document Nos. 131 and 229, in Istoriya stalinskogo GULAGa. Tom 1, 446–8 and 623–4.

  55. However, this decree concerned mostly the workers. The majority of peasants, forced to be members of kolkhozes (collective farms) could not leave their villages because the administration of kolkhozes kept their passports.

  56. Read and Fisher, The Deadly Embrace, 510–33.

  57. Beria’s reports to Stalin, dated January 1941 and February 3, 1941. Document Nos. 146 and 150, in Lubyanka. Stalin i NKVD, 224–6, 233.

  58. The number of prisoners in 1941 from Oleg V. Khlevnyuk, The History of the Gulag: From Collectivization to the Great Terror (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004), 328.

  59. V. I. Vernadsky, ‘Korennye izmeneniya neizbezhny… Dnevnik 1941 goda,’ Novyi mir, no. 5 (1995) (in Russian), http://victory.mil.ru/lib/books/memo/vernadsky_vi/01.html, retrieved September 5, 2011.

  60. Joint Decree of the Central Committee and Council of Commissars, dated February 8, 1941. Document No. 155, in Lubyanka. Stalin i NKVD, 240–2.

  61. NKVD/NKGB Order No. 00151/003, dated February 12, 1941. Document No. 142 in Kokurin and Petrov, Lubyanka (2003), 608–9.

  62. Joint decision of the Central Committee and Council of Commissars, dated February 8, 1941. Document No. 155 in Lubyanka. Stalin i NKVD, 240–2.

  63. On the Red Army structure, see Roger R. Reese, The Soviet Military Experience: A History of the Soviet Army, 1917–1991 (London: Routledge, 2000).

  64. Politburo decision P31/132, dated April 19, 1941. Document No. 162, in Lubyanka: Stalin i NKVD, 262–63.

  65. NKVD Order No. 00232, dated February 28, 1941. Document No. 143, in Kokurin and Petrov, Lubyanka (2003), 609–14.

  CHAPTER 6

  On the Verge of the War

  Apparently, with the acquisition of new territories and having implemented a new structure of security services aimed at better ruling the enlarged country, Stalin did not expect that the war with Germany would come soon. He initiated a new wave of purges against the military, especially those officers who recently fought in Spain and showed independence from Moscow in their professional decisions. At the same time, Stalin made preparations for a future offensive war by making himself head of the government (Chairman of the Council of Commissars), which would allow him to declare and lead a war if necessary.

  New Mass Purges

  Just two months before the war, the NKO 3rd Directorate began to uncover a new military ‘plot’, this time in the air force and the armaments industry. The investigation was triggered by an extraordinary event. On April 9, 1941, thirty-year-old Pavel Rychagov, head of the Air Force Directorate and a deputy Defense Commissar, dared to confront Stalin at a Politburo meeting. Rychagov, a flying ace who had fought in both Spain and China, was distraught about a spate of plane crashes caused by mechanical problems. At the meeting, he blurted out: ‘The accident rate is high and will continue to be so because you force us to fly in coffins!’1 After a pause, the dictator responded: ‘You should not have said that.’ Rychagov was dismissed instantly, but, in keeping with the usual ritual, not immediately arrested.2

  Two days later came the arrest of the first ‘plotter’, and more arrests continued until the beginning of the war with Germany (Appendix I, see http://www.smershbook.com).3 As head of military counterintelligence, Mikheev was in charge of the arrests. Among the sixteen leading air force generals and officials arrested between April and June 1941 was Aleksandr Loktionov, recent commander of the successful Soviet military occupation of the Baltic States.4 Yakov Smushkevich, deputy head of the General Staff in charge of the Air Force, who was awarded the Star of the Hero twice—for his service in Spain (where his nom de guerre was ‘General Douglas’) and later for commanding the air force group during a short military action against Japanese troops in 1939 near the Khalka River—was arrested in a military hospital after a serious operation and brought to Lubyanka Prison on a stretcher. Because almost all those arrested were Spanish Civil War heroes, the operational name for the case was ‘The Plot of Heroes’.

  Rychagov was finally arrested on June 24, 1941 two days after the Nazis began their invasion.5 Arrested on the same day were his wife, Maria Nesterenko, a legendary female pilot and deputy commander of a special aviation corps, and afterwards, five more commanders. Arrests continued through July 1941.

  After severe beatings, almost all of those arrested ‘confessed’ to having been plotters.6 The only ones who did not sign confessions were Loktionov and Nesterenko. Investigative journalist Arkadii Vaksberg, who had access to the investigation files, later wrote: ‘I do not have the strength to describe the kinds of torture the investigators applied to this remarkable woman [Nesterenko].’7

  As usual, Stalin personally supervised the investigation and read the interrogation transcripts.8 The senselessness of arresting experienced air force officers at this time underscores Stalin’s extreme fear of any military challenge to his power. The investigation was interrupted only by the lightning advance of German troops toward Moscow.

  Just Before the War

  On May 4, 1941, the Politburo appointed Stalin chairman of the Council of Commissars (Sovnarkom or SNK), demoting Molotov to Stalin’s deputy.9 Previously, Stalin was only a Party secretary—officially not a governmental position. As Sovnarkom chairman, Stalin merged the work of the Sovnarkom with that of the Politburo. He created the Bureau of Sovnarkom in which he included all Politburo members (except Kalinin), and the Bureau made all major decisions regarding industry, agriculture, and the economy. From this time onwards, Politburo meetings in Stalin’s office began as Bureau of Sovnarkom meetings and then continued as Politburo meetings. Nikolai Voznesensky became Stalin’s deputy in charge of Sovnarkom questions, and Georgii Malenkov was in charge of the Party questions. However, Stalin made all decisions. Yakov Chadaev, Sovnarkom’s Secretary who wrote down transcripts of Bureau of Sovnarkom meetings, recalled in his memoirs: ‘Stalin’s comrades-in-arms had a great reverential attitude toward him and had never contradicted him.’10

  Now, as head of the government, Stalin could lead the war, if necessary. 11 The day after his appointment as Sovnarkom chairman, Stalin indirectly mentioned a plan to ‘fight for our land on foreign soil’ at a Kremlin banquet following a graduation ceremony for Military Academy students. He proposed a toast: ‘Only a war against Fascist Germany, and winning that war, can save our country. I want to drink to the war, to offensive efforts in that war, and to our victory in that war!’12

  But Hitler ruined all of Stalin’s plans. In the early hours of June 22, 1941, German troops invaded Soviet territory, and the Great Patriotic War, as World War II is known in Russia, began.13 The Germans claimed it was a preemptive measure: ‘Due to the enormous threat to the eastern German border created by the massive concentration and preparation of all kinds of Red Army troops, the German government has been forced to take immediate military counter measures.’14 Tho
ugh Hitler had planned the invasion of the Soviet Union for some time, his fears of a Soviet military build-up were not unfounded. At the time of the German attack, the Red Army had 5.4 million servicemen, and the Soviet Union was clearly superior in manpower and weaponry.15

  Soon after the attack, 550 million copies of detailed Soviet maps held in military warehouses became German trophies.16 Interestingly, these maps showed only the area bordered by the cities of Petrozavodsk–Vitebsk–Kiev–Odessa on the East, and Berlin–Prague–Vienna–Budapest–Bucharest on the West. According to Stalin’s prewar plans, these would be the areas of future battles, to the west of Soviet territory. Military maps of Soviet regions to the east of the Petrozavodsk–Vitebsk–Kiev–Odessa line were not produced before the war, and a few days after the German attack Soviet commanders found themselves in regions for which they had no maps at all.17 Only in early 1942, after gigantic efforts, did the Soviet troops begin to receive newly printed maps.

  Preparations on June 21, 1941

  A day before the German invasion, Stalin was still denying the possibility of an attack. On June 21, 1941, the Soviet military attaché to France, Major General Ivan Sousloparov, reported that the Germans would attack the next day.18 Stalin replied: ‘This information is an English provocation. Find out who the author is, and punish him.’ Fortunately for Sousloparov, as he had predicted, the war began the next day.

  By the evening of June 21, Stalin could no longer hide from the truth. The Soviet naval attaché to Germany, Mikhail Vorontsov, who had just arrived from Berlin, was summoned to the Politburo meeting at 7:05 p.m.19 According to the Navy Commissar Nikolai Kuznetsov, Vorontsov spent fifty minutes describing the imminent German attack.20 Apparently, after his report, Stalin and the Politburo finally realized that the country was on the verge of a military catastrophe.

  The Politburo immediately ordered the organization of two new fronts, the Southern and the Northern.21 The usage of the word ‘fronts’ in the Politburo decision, as during the war, instead of ‘military districts’, as it should be in peacetime, means that Politburo members understood that war had become inevitable. Georgii Zhukov, who had replaced Shaposhnikov as Chief of the General Staff, was appointed commander of both the Southwestern and Southern fronts, while deputy defense Commissar Kirill Meretskov became commander of the Northern Front. After this Timoshenko, the NKO Commissar, and Zhukov sent a directive to the Leningrad, Baltic, Western, Kiev, and Odessa military districts to be on alert for a German attack.22

  Additionally, the Politburo reinstated Lev Mekhlis as head of the Main Political Directorate of the Red Army, the GlavPURKKA.23 The GlavPURKKA was a directorate within the Party Central Committee responsible for ideology and morale within the armed forces, while Mekhlis was one of Stalin’s most loyal men, having served as his personal assistant from 1924 to 1930. Later, during the 1937–38 purges, Mekhlis monitored the Red Army through GlavPURKKA’s network of political commissars. His predecessor at this post, Yan Gamarnik, shot himself in 1937 while expecting to be arrested. Despite Mekhlis’s devotion, Stalin liked to play jokes on him, and Mekhlis told his friends: ‘He is a cruel man. Once I told him straight: “I’ve never heard a good word from you.”’ In this new crisis, Stalin turned to Mekhlis again.

  Notes

  1. Konstantin Simonov, Glazami cheloveka moego pokoleniya. Razmyshleniya o I. V. Staline (Moscow: APN, 1988), 429 (in Russian). A detailed analysis of problems in the Soviet airplane industry in 1938–42 in Mark Solonin, Na mirno spyashchikh aerodromakh… 21 iyunya 1941 goda (Moscow: Yauza-Eksmo, 2006) (in Russian).

  2. Politburo decision P31/132, dated April 19, 1941. Document No. 162, Lubyanka. Stalin i NKVD, 263–4.

  3. A. Pechenkin, ‘Chernyi den’ Krasnoi Armii,’ Nezavisimoe voennoe obozrenie, February 21, 2003 (in Russian), http://nvo.ng.ru/history/2003-02-21/5_redarmy.html, retrieved September 5, 2011.

  4. L. Ye. Reshin and V. S. Stepanov, ‘Sud’by general’skie,’ Voenno-istoricheskii zhurnal [hereafter, VIZh], no. 2 (1993), 4–15 (in Russian).

  5. L. Ye. Reshin and V. S. Stepanov, ‘Sud’by general’skie,’ VIZh, no. 6 (1993), 21–28 (in Russian).

  6. Pages 785–6 in Document No. 2 (appendix), in Reabilitatsiya: Kak eto bylo. Fevral’ 1956-nachalo 80-kh godov, edited by A. Artizov et al., 671–788 (Moscow: Demokratiya, 2003) (in Russian).

  7. Arkadii Vaksberg, Neraskrytye tainy (Moscow: Novosti, 1993), 59 (in Russian).

  8. Merkulov’s report to Stalin, dated May 15, 1941. Document No. 165, in Lubyanka. Stalin i NKVD, 285–87.

  9. Oleg V. Khlevniuk, Master of the House: Stalin and His Inner Circle, translated by Nora Seligman Favorov (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009), 229–45.

  10. Page 467 in G. A. Kumanev, Govoryat stalinskie narkomy (Smolensk: Rusich, 2005) (in Russian).

  11. Document No. 17, in Stalinskoe Politburo v 30-e gg., edited by O. V. Khlevnyuk et al., 34–35 (Moscow: AIRO-XX, 1995) (in Russian).

  12. Stalin’s toasts quoted in A. Pechenkin, ‘Sekretnoe vystuplenie Stalina,’ Nezavisimoe voennoe obozrenie, April 25, 2003 (in Russian), http://nvo.ng.ru/history/2003-04-25/1_stalin.html, retrieved September 5, 2011. For Stalin’s speech on May 5, 1941, see Document No. 437, in 1941 god. Kinga vtoraya, edited by L. Ye. Reshin et al., 158–61 (Moscow: Demokratiya, 1998) (in Russian).

  13. On the general military events in 1941–45, see, for instance, Evan Mawdsley, Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War 1941–1945 (London: Hodder, 2005)..

  14. Notes of the meeting of Molotov with the German ambassador to Moscow, Friedrich Werner von Schullenburg, on June 22, 1941. Document No. 876, in Dokumenty vneshnei politiki. 1940–22 iyunya 1941. T. 23, pt. 2 (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya, 1998), 753–4 (in Russian).

  15. For the updated discussion, see, for instance, Mark Solonin, 22 iyunya, ili Kogda nachalas’ Velikaya Otechestvennaya voina? (Moscow: Yauza, 2005) (in Russian).

  16. A. Sharavin, ‘Velikaya Otechestvennaya voina 1941–1945 gg.: Sovetskie karty byli luchshe nemetskikh,’ VIZh, no. 6 (1999): 16–25 (in Russian).

  17. Report by T. Volsky to Lt. General Ya. N. Fedorenko, in ibid., page 16.

  18. P. I. Ivashutin, ‘Sovetskaya voennaya razvedka dokladyvala tochno,’ VIZh, no. 5 (1990), 56–59 (in Russian).

  19. Records of visitors to Stalin’s office in 1941 in 1941 god. Kniga vtoraya, edited by L. Ye. Reshin, et al. (Moscow: Materik, 1998), 298–301 (in Russian). Surprisingly, many historians ignored Vorontsov’s presence at this decisive meeting and omitted or replaced his name.

  20. N. G. Kuznetsov, Kursom k pobede (Moscow: Golos, 2000), 12–13 (in Russian). Kuznetsov did not mention that the conversation with Vorontsov occurred at the Politburo meeting in Stalin’s office.

  21. Draft of the Politburo decision on June 21, 1941, written by Georgii Malenkov. Document No. 596 in 1941 god. Kniga vtoraya, 413–4.

  22. Directive to the military councils of five military districts, dated June 21, 1944. Document No. 121, in Russkii arkhiv. Velikaya Otechestvennaya. Prikazy narodnogo komissara oborony SSSR, T. 13 (2-1) (Moscow: TERRA, 1994), 283 (in Russian).

  23. Detailed biography of L. Z. Mekhlis (1889–1953) in Yurii Rubtsov, Alter ego Stalina (Moscow: Zvonnitsa, 1999) (in Russian).

  CHAPTER 7

  The Scapegoats: Hunting for Generals

  The German attack on June 22, 1941 provoked total chaos in Red Army troops at the Soviet–German border. The Red Army appeared not to be ready for defense. Soon Stalin ordered that some generals be considered traitors, making them scapegoats for the defeat.

  The War Begins

  The Politburo meeting on June 21, 1941 ended at 11:00 p.m., but even after all preparations had been made Stalin was not psychologically ready for the German attack. Four and a half hours later, at 3:25 a.m., Zhukov woke Stalin up with a phone call and told him about the German invasion. As Zhukov recalled in 1956, ‘Stalin was breathing heavily into the receiver, but for a few minutes he couldn’t say a word. To our [Zhukov and Timoshenko�
�s] repeated questions he answered: “This is a provocation of the German military. Do not open fire to avoid giving them an opportunity to widen their activity.”… He did not give permission to open fire until 6:30 am.’1 Interestingly, this episode disappeared from Zhukov’s later published, refined and smoothed memoirs.

  Three German army groups invaded the Soviet Union. Army Group North went through the Baltic region toward Leningrad, Army Group Center advanced toward Moscow, and Army Group South moved through Ukraine toward Kiev. The Soviet Union’s difficulty in the Winter War had convinced Hitler that the Soviet Union could be quickly conquered, and at first it seemed to be true. The German invaders moved rapidly forward, causing mass fear and chaos among the Soviet troops.

  The German attack and the Soviet military disaster that followed deeply shocked the Soviet population. Almost all Soviet citizens had seen the propaganda movie If War Begins Tomorrow, filmed in 1938 at parades and military training exercises. In the movie, the Red Army destroys a military aggressor in four hours on the enemy’s soil by using all kinds of weapons, including poisonous gas, and the war triggers a rebellion of the proletariat at the enemy’s rear. The lyrics of an extremely popular song from the movie—‘We’ll destroy the enemy on the enemy’s soil / Shedding little of our blood, using a mighty blow’—gave voice to the widely held Soviet opinion that they would win a quick and relatively painless victory against Germany. Stalin was a big fan of this movie; he watched it during and after World War II, even inviting foreign guests to join him in the screening room.

  On June 29, Stalin visited the general staff twice. Beria, Anastas Mikoyan, and Georgii Malenkov accompanied him. These visits were an unpleasant surprise for Georgii Zhukov, head of the General Staff, and Timoshenko, the Defense Commissar. After listening to Zhukov’s report, Stalin yelled at him: ‘What kind of a general staff is this? How is it that a head of the general staff has lost all self-control during the first day of the war, has no communication with the troops, doesn’t represent anybody, and doesn’t command anybody?’2 Stalin spent the next day at his dacha in what was generally believed to be a state of extreme frustration.