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

by Vadim Birstein

  Shcherbakov continued: ‘An additional practice was the presence of investigators of the Special Departments at the trial [to intimidate the defendants], which was not necessary.’6 In the 1930s, NKVD investigators routinely rehearsed defendants before the open court trials, telling them what they should say during the trial and threatening to beat them severely after the trial if they did not follow instructions. Obviously, SMERSH investigators used similar methods, and their presence at the military tribunal sessions was meant to remind the defendants of their threats. Shcherbakov also emphasized that ‘another defect in the work of the punishment organs of the 7th Army was the complete lack of supervision by the prosecutor during the investigation’.7

  Stalin immediately reacted to these points in Shcherbakov’s report. On May 31, 1943, he signed Order of the NKO Commissar No. 0089ss, handing down various punishments for SMERSH officers and prosecutors of the 7th Independent Army.8 The head of the SMERSH Department, Dobrovolsky, and the Military Prosecutor of the army received strict Party reprimands, while one of the investigators was to be tried and sentenced to five years in the labor camps. Three other investigators were to be discharged and sent to a punishment battalion. Finally, the Deputy Prosecutor of the Army responsible for supervising SMERSH Department work was demoted in rank.

  However, it is unlikely that these fairly mild measures affecting one army represented a serious attempt to change SMERSH’s conduct. Besides, Stalin’s order did not address the general conclusions Shcherbakov placed at the end of his letter: ‘There are many inexperienced and semiliterate officers in the Special (currently, SMERSH) Departments. This defect should be corrected by transferring a few thousand political officers to [military] counterintelligence.’9

  The last recommendation was clearly Shcherbakov’s attempt to place his own people, political officers, in Abakumov’s SMERSH. Political officers constantly complained about SMERSH operatives and commanding officers.

  Transferring thousands of political officers who had no legal training would not have made SMERSH departments more professional, but would have increased GlavPURKKA’s influence within SMERSH, which Stalin definitely did not want. He needed SMERSH to remain under Abakumov’s sole control, thus ensuring that, through Abakumov, SMERSH would be under his own exclusive control.

  Denouncing High Commanders

  In 1943, 60 percent of trials in the tribunals of the Leningrad Front involved charges of ‘anti-Soviet propaganda’ (Article 58-10).10 For most of convicts terms of five to ten years in the labor camps were commuted to service in punishment battalions and companies. For convicted officers, three months in a penal battalion was equivalent to a ten-year prison term. Even generals were arrested at the front for ‘anti-Soviet propaganda’ or treason (Appendix I, see http://www.smershbook.com). Here are a few examples.

  In May 1943, SMERSH arrested Lieutenant General Vladimir Tamruchi, commander of tank troops at the Southwest Front, just after he left hospital. He was charged with treason and spent the next seven years in the inhuman Sukhanovo Prison in solitary confinement.11 In October 1950 he died, still awaiting trial.

  Before long, another general became a long-term prisoner of Sukhanovo. In December 1943, Lieutenant General Ivan Laskin arrived in Moscow, ostensibly to be appointed to a new position. Head of the HQ of the Northern Caucasian Front, Laskin was an internationally known figure. On January 31, 1943, he headed the military operational group that took prisoner the staff members of Field Marshal von Paulus’s 6th Army in Stalingrad, and Paulus himself surrendered personally to Laskin.12 In Moscow, Aleksei Antonov, head of the General Staff, informed Laskin about his new appointment as HQ head of the 4th Ukrainian Front. Before going to this front, Laskin was sent to the sanatorium Arkhangelskoe near Moscow, supposedly to rest and relax for a few days. However, the very next day a major came to Laskin’s room, saying that he had been sent to bring Laskin to the Military Intelligence (RU) HQ in Moscow. This was a lie: the major and two other officers who accompanied him were actually SMERSH operatives, and a car brought Laskin and the officers not to the RU, but to Lubyanka Prison. In his memoirs, Laskin recalled what happened next:

  The officers took my handgun away from me and searched my pockets… I was brought to a huge room without windows, where my general’s shoulder boards were pulled off, then military orders were removed from my chest. Two guards, after grabbing my wrists, pulled me along an iron stair to… Colonel General Abakumov.

  [Abakumov] looked at me from my feet up to my face and demanded in a fierce voice:

  ‘Tell me about your crimes.’

  I strongly answered that I had never committed or even thought about committing any crime against the Motherland…

  He continued to shout at me:

  ‘Already in 1938 we wanted to arrest you…and it’s a pity that we didn’t. And since then you have tried to escape our organs. Now you’ll find out who we are!’13

  The ‘organs’ was a typical way the Chekists referred to themselves. Laskin was charged with treason (Article 58-1b) and kept in Sukhanovo Prison. Ironically, on December 31, 1943 the American government awarded him the Distinguished Service Cross ‘for extraordinary heroism in connection with military operations against an armed enemy, an action against our common enemy, Germany, in World War II’.14 Clearly, the Western Allies highly valued the capture of Field Marshal Paulus.

  It wasn’t until December 1952 that the Military Collegium sentenced Laskin, now charged with not following his military duty (Article 193-1a), to ten years’ imprisonment. Allegedly, he violated his military oath in 1941, when, while he and his unit were surrounded by the Germans, he destroyed his Communist Party ID, got rid of his gun and exchanged his uniform for civilian clothes. Obviously, these ridiculous charges were trumped up to conceal the fact that Laskin had already spent almost ten years in Moscow investigation prisons without having committed any crime. The same December, Laskin was released.

  Soon after Stalin’s death, during the process of rehabilitation, it was discovered what lay behind Laskin’s case: Mikhail Belkin, head of the UKR of the Northern Caucasian Front, denounced Laskin to Abakumov. Belkin greatly desired the Order of Lenin, and he asked Laskin to officially recommend him for that award. Laskin refused because he did not know Belkin well enough. Laskin’s arrest and the whole ‘case’ were a direct result of Belkin’s vengeance. In 1953 Laskin was rehabilitated, but only in 1966 did Soviet authorities present him with his Distinguished Service Cross.

  The case of Major General Boris Teplinsky, head of the Operational Department of the Air Force of the Siberian Military District, was more personal for Abakumov. General Teplinsky was arrested in connection with his friend, high-ranking NKVD/NKGB official Viktor Il’in. According to some memoirs, Il’in confronted Abakumov with compromising information about one of Abakumov’s love affairs.15 However, Sudoplatov claimed that Il’in was arrested because he had notified Teplinsky about the preparations for his arrest in the GUKR SMERSH, and Abakumov used this as a reason for complaining about Merkulov and Beria and their subordinates to Stalin. Most probably, both events took place.

  Anyway, on April 28, 1943 Abakumov personally arrested Teplinsky, and on May 3, 1943, Il’in was arrested in Merkulov’s office. Teplinsky and Il’in were accused of treason, conspiracy, and anti-Soviet propaganda. This was one of the cases that were without movement for years. During interrogations Teplinsky was tortured, and on eleven separate occasions he declared a hunger strike.16 It wasn’t until February 1952 that the OSO MGB sentenced Il’in to eight years of imprisonment for anti-Soviet propaganda, and he was then released because he had already spent this term under investigation. In March 1952, the Military Collegium sentenced Teplinsky to a 10-year imprisonment; he was released after Stalin’s death. Both were soon rehabilitated due to the lack of evidence that they had committed any crime.

  On April 1, 1944, Abakumov presented Stalin with a long summary of reports from his subordinates concerning the Western Front headed by Vasi
lii Sokolovsky:

  I report to you that agents of the Main Directorate SMERSH and the Counterintelligence Directorate of the Western Front reported to me that recently generals and officers of the Red Army General Staff and the Western Front have repeatedly stated that the Commander of the Western Front, Army General Sokolovsky, and his Head of Staff, Lieutenant General [Aleksandr] Pokrovsky, have not guided military operations appropriately.

  For instance, Lieutenant General [A. I.] Shimonaev…said: ‘From 1942 to the present, the Western Front has been using two to three times more ammunition than any other front, but it has not achieved any result… Sokolovsky and Pokrovsky organized intelligence poorly. They did not have a clear understanding of the enemy or its fortifications—knowledge that is crucial in deciding where to break through the enemy’s defense…’

  Col. Alekseev said: ‘On Pokrovsky’s order, Colonel Il’initsky, head of the Front’s Intelligence Department…falsifies estimates of the enemy’s force…’

  In January of this year [1944], based on our information, Comrade [Fyodor] Kuznetsov, head of the Red Army Intelligence Directorate, sent a commission to inspect the Intelligence Department of the Western Front. [Deputy USSR Prosecutor] Lieutenant General [Afanasii] Vavilov headed the commission, which included Major Krylovsky. The commission discovered outrageous facts concerning the work of the Intelligence Directorate…

  Il’initsky, with Pokrovsky’s approval, tried to compromise this Commission and even accused Krylovsky of drinking vodka instead of working. However, the Military Council of the Western Front did not take necessary measures based on the facts revealed [by the Commission].

  On March 25…rocket launchers fired on our own troops, causing enormous losses in the 352nd Rifle Division… Pokrovsky asked that these significant casualties not be revealed to anyone…

  In a conversation with Lieutenant General [Pavel] Zelenin, head of the Counterintelligence Directorate [of the Western Front], [Lev] Mekhlis, a member of the Military Council of the Western Front, said that Sokolovsky…was not happy with some members of the Red Army General Staff, calling them idlers. He was also sarcastic about some of their orders, which he criticized.17

  Stalin ordered a new special commission headed by Malenkov to investigate the situation at the Western Front. Mekhlis handed over an anonymous letter to Malenkov from one of the commanders who complained about Abakumov’s subordinates. Apparently, Mekhlis wanted to clear himself of Abakumov’s accusations that he had not done enough against Sokolovsky and his accomplices. This anonymous letter was written with great passion:

  I ask you, Comrade Stalin, not to judge me harshly.

  The situation…at the Western Front is outrageous… Commanders are not trusted, and, in fact, counterintelligence representatives became the real heads of the military units. Frequently they undermine the authority of the commander…

  They are spying on commanders, secretly watching their every step. If a commander summons someone, after leaving the commander this person is ordered to appear at the counterintelligence department, where he is interrogated about the purpose of the commander’s call and what the commander said…

  All rights and initiative were taken from commanders. A commander cannot make any decision without the approval of the counterintelligence representative. Even women [PPZhs] were taken from commanders, while each counterintelligence officer lives with one or two women.

  Commanders are threatened by the actions of Mekhlis against them, while the majority of the commanders have defended the Motherland, not caring about their own lives…

  Why is this going on? Did the years 1937–38 come back again?

  I do not sign this letter because if I put my name, I will be destroyed.18

  In its long report to Stalin dated April 11, 1944, the Malenkov Commission described facts even more outrageous than those Abakumov had reported. Eleven military operations attempted at the Western Front during that period failed. The losses were enormous: ‘From October 12, 1943, to April 1, 1944, at the site of active military operations alone, 62,326 men were killed, and 219,419 men were wounded… In all…the Western Front lost 330,587 men. In addition, hospitals admitted 53,283 servicemen who needed medical attention.’19 During the same period, German losses at that front totaled approximately 13,000: that is, about five times fewer casualties than the Russian forces sustained.

  The commission concluded: ‘Unsuccessful actions at the Western Front during the past six months, heavy losses, and significant utilization of ammunition were…due…only to the poor leadership of the Front commanders.’ It also recommended the dismissals of Sokolovsky, Pokrovsky, Il’initsky, and some others. It blamed Nikolai Bulganin, a member of the Military Council before Mekhlis, and Mekhlis for not reporting the trouble at the Western Front to the Stavka, and recommended that Bulganin be reprimanded. On April 12, 1944, Stalin signed a Stavka directive to rename the unfortunate Western Front the ‘3rd Belorussian Front’.20 Three armies of the former Western Front were transferred to the newly created 2nd Belorussian Front.

  Despite strong accusations in the Abakumov and Malenkov reports, this time Stalin’s punishment of the Western Front commanders was extremely lenient. Sokolovsky was dismissed, but appointed to the high position of chief of staff of the 1st Ukrainian Front. Pokrovsky continued as head of the Staff of the 3rd Belorussian Front. Only Il’initsky lost his post. Mekhlis became a member of the Military Council of the 2nd Belorussian Front, and Bulganin, a member of the Military Council of the 1st Belorussian Front.

  Soon, in November 1944, Bulganin received an enormous promotion to deputy defense Commissar, and inclusion in the GKO. Now the heads of the NKO main directorates reported first to Bulganin, and he reported to Stalin.21 Abakumov and Shcherbakov continued reporting directly to Stalin.

  The reasons behind Stalin’s support and promotion of Bulganin remain unclear. According to some memoirs, Bulganin’s drunkenness and the fact that he kept on staff a harem of young women were legendary among the military at the fronts.22 In addition, while on military councils, he had five adjutants, two telephone operators, a personal cook, and a servant. Among those in Stalin’s circle, Bulganin was considered the military officer with the least amount of professional education.23 Incredibly, during the entire time he held military appointments during the war, Bulganin remained chairman of the Soviet State Bank.

  POW Vetting Continues

  In addition to army investigations, SMERSH continued vetting servicemen who had been taken prisoner or were in detachments encircled by the enemy—previously a task of the OO officers. Such servicemen were collected in the specially organized Collection-Transit Posts (SPP) in the rear of armies or Vetting-Filtration Posts (PFP) of fronts. Here the detainees were kept for five to ten days. From December 1943 on, special commissions that included a SMERSH officer and four army representatives conducted the investigations.

  Generally, it was the same as the previous vetting by OO officers. At first, a detainee gave written testimony, which the SMERSH officers studied carefully. Then the person was interrogated in detail and his answers compared with the testimony. Finally, SMERSH investigators decided the person’s future fate, and a written investigator’s decision was filed. Various decisions were possible: a person could be drafted into the army for a second time; sent to work in the military industry; sent (in the case of a demoted officer) to serve in an assault battalion; or discharged as an invalid or dead person. If SMERSH officers suspected they were dealing with a German agent, a special Record File (Delo-formulyar) was opened for that person.

  Frequently the German agents were caught because their soldier’s passport-sized IDs were made too perfectly. The staples in Soviet soldier IDs were made of iron and rusted spots would appear on the pages of the IDs around the staples. Although the printing work and paper in the forged German-made IDs were almost identical to those in the real IDs, staples in the forged IDs were made of stainless steel and the IDs did not have the rusted spots, and this featu
re was immediately recognized by SMERSH officers.

  After the initial vetting, the person was transferred to a Front Screening-Filtration Camp (called NKVD Special Camps before 1944), where vetting continued for the next two months and the preliminary decision was checked more carefully. There were fifteen such camps in the rear of the 2nd Belorussian Front; thirty each, in the rear of the 1st Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian fronts; ten each in the rear of the 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian fronts; and five in the rear of the 4th Ukrainian Front. Up to 10,000 people were kept in each camp; 58,686 were vetted from February 1 to May 4, 1945 in the camps of the 3rd Ukrainian Front alone, and of these, 376 were arrested. The vetting camps continued operating after the war in Soviet territory and in Eastern Europe, and the last of them were closed only after Stalin’s death in 1953.

  As previously in the OOs, SMERSH officers did not send all those returning from captivity to filtration camps. Some were executed on the spot. Mikhail Shmulev recalled: ‘I ran from the Germans twice. The first time I was unlucky—I was caught and punished. The second time I managed to get to our advancing troops. I was stopped twice by drunken officers who wanted to execute me on the spot as a spy or a Vlasovite before I got to the military komendatura [commandant’s office]. Then I was kept in a SMERSH cell for convicts sentenced to death. For fifteen days I shared a cell with those unfortunates who had failed to convince investigators they had not served the enemy and were not traitors of the Motherland. They were shot.’24

  The story of a woman pilot, Anna Timofeeva-Yegorova, is even more shocking. At the end of 1944, her attack aircraft was shot down near Warsaw and fell to the ground, engulfed in flames. At the last moment she managed to parachute out, but she was taken prisoner and placed in Küstrin (Kostrzyn in Polish), the concentration camp for Allied soldiers (Stalag III-C Alt-Drewitz). Timofeeva had serious burns that were treated by doctor-prisoners in a camp hospital. Bravely, the fellow prisoners managed to salvage her numerous awards (two Red Banner orders, the Red Star Order, the medal ‘For Bravery’, and the medal ‘For Taking over the Caucasus’), as well as her Party ID, risking their lives to do so.