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

by Vadim Birstein

18. Report of Vadis to Babich, dated September 21, 1945, quoted in SMERSH. Istoricheskie ocherki, 248.

  19. Ibid., 249.

  20. Cited in Yurii Tsurganov, ‘I na Tikhom okeane svoi zakonchili pokhod,’ Posev, n. 9 (2005), 34–39 (in Russian).

  21. A photo of Abakumov’s report to Beria, dated August 28, 1945, in SMERSH, 248.

  22. Details, for instance, in N. I. Dubinina and Yu. N. Tsipkin, ‘Ob osobennostyakh dal’nevostochnoi vetvi rossiiskoi emigratsii (na materialakh Harbinskogo komiteta pomoshchi russkim bezhentsam),’ Otechestvennaya istoriya, No. 1 (1996), 70–84 (in Russian); G. Melikhov, Belyi Harbin. Seredina 20-kh (Moscow: Russkii put’, 2003) (in Russian).

  23. On the Russian fascist movement see John J. Stephan, The Russian Fascists: Tragedy and Farce in Exile, 1925–1945 (New York: Harper & Row, 1978).

  24. Cited in Anton Utkin, ‘Duche iz Blagoveshchenska,’ Sovershenno sekretno, No. 47 (2003) (in Russian).

  25. K. Rodzaevsky, Zaveshchanie russkogo fashista (Moscow: FERI-V, 2001) (in Russian).

  26. In June–August 1942, A. A. Vonsiatsky (1898–1965) and five of his co-defendants were convicted in a federal court in Connecticut (USA) on the charge of espionage for Germany. Vonsiatsky was sentenced to a five-year term in a federal penitentiary and assessed a fine of $5,000. Details at http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/history/famous-cases/vonsiatsky-espionage, retrieved September 9, 2011.

  27. S. Onegina, ‘Buro po delam rossiiskoi emigratsii v Manchzhurii,’ Problemy Dal’nego Vostoka, No. 5 (1996), 141–6 (in Russian).

  28. Vadim Abramov, Abakumov—nachal’nik SMERSHa. Vzlet igibel’ lyubimtsa Stalina (Moscow: Yauza-ksmo, 2005), 150–1 (in Russian).

  29. N. A. Ablova, Istoriya KVZhD i rossiiskoi emigratsii v Kitae (pervaya polovina XX veka) (Moscow: Russkaya panorama, 2004), Chapter 4 (in Russian), http://asiapacific.narod.ru/countries/china/n_e_ablova/4.4.htm, retrieved September 9, 2011.

  30. Utkin, ‘Duche iz Blagoveshchenska.’

  31. S. Onegina, ‘Pis’mo K. V. Rodzaevskogo I. V. Stalinu: Vstupitel’naya stat’ya,’ Otechestvennaya istoriya, No. 3 (1992), 92–96 (in Russian).

  32. Chapter 4 in Ye. A. Gorbunov, Skhvatka s Chernym Drakonom. Tainaya voina na Dal’nem Vostoke (Moscow: Veche, 2002), http://militera.lib.ru/research/gorbunov_ea/index.html, retrieved September 9, 2011.

  33. Viktor Usov, Poslednii imperator Kitaya Pu I (1906–1967) (Moscow: Olma-Press, 2003), 193–200 (in Russian).

  34. Onegina, ‘Pis’mo K. V. Rodzaevskogo.’

  35. On the imprisonment of N. A. Ukhtomsky in Rechlag (Vorkuta) see L. P. Markizov, Do i posle 1945: Glazami ochevidtsa (Syktyvkar, 2003 [no publisher]), 101–12 (in Russian).

  36. A photo of Abakumov’s report, dated September 28, 1945, in SMERSH. Istoricheskie ocherki, 248.

  37. On the Bryner/Brynner family and its enterprises, see Rock Brynner [son of Yul], Empire & Odyssey: The Brynners in Far East Russia and Beyond (Hanover, NH: Steerforth Press, 2006).

  38. Alvin D. Coox,’L’Affaire Lyushkov: Anatomy of a Defector,’ Soviet Studies 19, no. 3 (January 1968), 405–20; Alvin D. Coox, ‘An Intelligence Case Study: The Lesser of Two Hells: NKVD G. S. Lyushkov’s Defection to Japan, 1938–1945. Part I,’ The Journal of Slavic Military Studies 11 (1998), no. 3, 145–86; Alvin D. Coox, ‘An Intelligence Case Study: The Lesser Two Hells: NKVD G. S. Lyushkov’s Defection to Japan, 1938–1945, Part 2,’ ibid., 11 (1998), no. 4, 72–110.

  39. Details in N. L. Pobol’ and P. M. Polian, Stalinskie deportatsii 1928–1953 (Moscow: Demokratiya, 2005), 80–97, and 101–4 (in Russian).

  40. Yoshiaki Hiyama, ‘Plany pokusheniya na Stalina,’ Problemy Dal’nego Vostoka, No. 5 (1990), 109–11 (in Russian).

  41. Boris Sokolov, Okhota na Gitlera, okhtta na Stalina. Tainaya bor’ba spetssluzhb (Moscow: Veche, 2000), 22–23 (in Russian).

  42. On the trial, see, for instance, Boris G. Yudin, ‘Research on humans at the Khabarovsk War Crimes Trial: A historical and ethical examination,’ in Japan’s Wartime Medical Atrocities: Comparative Inquiries in Science, History, and Ethics, edited by Jing-Bao Nie et al., 59–78 (NY: Routledge, 2010).

  43. V. A. Bobrenev and V. B. Ryazantsev, Palachi i zhertvy (Moscow: Voenizdat, 1993), 146–69 (in Russian).

  44. Hal Leith, POWs of Japanese Rescued!: General J. M. Wainwright (Trafford Publishing, 2004), 76.

  45 Major R. Lamar, ‘Survey of the Mukden Area Situation,’ September 11, 1945, quoted in Ronald H. Spector, In the Ruins of Empire: The Japanese Surrender and the Battle for Postwar Asia (New York: Random House, 2007), 33.

  46. Vice Admiral Andrei Stetsenko and Major General of Aviation Nikolai Voronov were the other two Soviet representatives. L. Poritsky, ‘Na bortu linkol’na “Missuri”,’ Zerkalo nedeli, No. 36 (309), September 16–22, 2000 (in Russian).

  47. Na prieme u Stalina, 463.

  48. Innokentii Pasynkov, ‘Stalinskie “nabory” za granitsei,’ ‘Karta,’ no. 22–23 (1999) (in Russian), http://www.hro.org/files/karta/22-23/p66.jpg, retrieved September 9, 2011.

  49. Usov, Poslednii imperator, 257–65; Vereshchagin and Gordeev, ‘Voennaya kontrrazvedka Zabaikal’ya.’

  50. Usov, Poslednii imperator, 266–99.

  51. Ibid., 297.

  52. Pu Yi, The Last Manchu: The Autobiography of Henry Pu Yi, Last Emperor of China, translated by Kuo Ying Paul Tsai (London: A. Barker, 1967).

  53. Bobrenev and Ryazantsev, Palachi i zhertvy, 137–69. Also, prisoner cards from Vladimir Prison of the Japanese diplomats Yoshio Higashi, Kumasaburo Nakamura, Toshio Hoshiko, and Saburo Asada, head of the 2nd Department, HQ of the Kwantung Army.

  54. V. P. Galitsky, ‘Yaponskie voennoplennye i internirovannye v SSSR,’ Novaya i noveishaya istoriya, no. 3 (1999), 18–33 (in Russian).

  55. See text at http://www.ndl.go.jp/constitution/e/etc/c06.html, retrieved September 9, 2011.

  Part IX. SMERSH After the War: 1945–46

  CHAPTER 27

  In Europe and at Home

  Although SMERSH existed for only a year after World War II, this was a time of fundamental changes. In Eastern Europe, the Soviet military formations known as fronts were reorganized into four groups of occupational troops, each with its own SMERSH counterintelligence directorate. These directorates, which in mid-1946 became MGB counterintelligence directorates, played a considerable role in the Sovietization of the occupied countries, as well as in the intelligence and counterintelligence fight against the former Western Allies. Romanov, a SMERSH officer, recalled the words of Colonel Georgii Yevdokimenko, a SMERSH/MGB official in Hungary: ‘For some people, perhaps, the war was over, but for us, [the] Chekists… the real war, to bring about the final destruction of the capitalist world, was only just beginning.’1

  Demobilization

  With the end of the war in Europe, the Soviet Union began the partial demobilization of its enormous 11.5-million-man army. The older soldiers were demobilized first. A veteran recalled: ‘When the first soldiers were demobilized and sent back from Germany, they were put in small train cars, two persons per car… Each aged serviceman took a cow, a huge bag of sugar, a bag of flour, some clothes, and so on. The second group of demobilized servicemen…didn’t have cows, but brought bags of foodstuffs. The third group brought even less.2

  While secretly sending some of the troops to the Russian Far East in preparation for the war with Japan, the Soviets transformed the remaining troops in Europe into four groups of occupation forces (Table 27-1). SMERSH controlled the demobilization and changes. Before demobilization began, on GUKR’s instructions the third OKR departments within UKRs made an evaluation of every field officer and decided which officers should be sent to the reserve, which officers should be demoted to lower posts, and so on.3 Then special commissions, attached to the HQs of the four groups of forces in charge of demobilization, were created. Officers of the 1st OKR departments represented SMERSH in these commissions. The commissions made one of three decisions: ‘demobilize from the army’; ‘transfer to less important work
’; or ‘be left on active service.’ All officers whose relatives were arrested in the 1930s or had participated in the ROA were demobilized into the reserve at once.

  TABLE 27-1. HEADS OF COUNTERINTELLIGENCE DIRECTORATES AND INSPECTORATES IN EUROPE, 1945–46¹

  Along with checking all enlisted men, the GUKR also decided the fates of colonels, generals, and even marshals. Romanov recalled two coded messages from Moscow. One was from Abakumov: ‘Refrain from demobilizing into the reserve, personnel holding the rank of general or colonels serving as acting generals, unless you receive special instructions from us. Abakumov.’4 The second was from Nikolai Selivanovsky, Abakumov’s first deputy: ‘The following persons are to be demobilized either into the reserve or on to the retired list, according to the appended instructions.’ For some unknown reason, Romanov called Selivanovsky ‘Chernyshov’ in his book. Possibly, ‘Chernyshov’ was Selivanovsky’s alias during the war.

  The changes covered also the field SMERSH units. The most capable operatives and investigators were transferred to the GUKR in Moscow, the rest were sent into reserve. Nikolai Mesyatsev, a SMERSH field operative now assigned to the 2nd GUKR Department, recalled: ‘In Lubyanka… my former co-workers at the Investigation Department had already been promoted to lieutenant colonels and colonels. Some of them looked at me in a haughty matter: I had left for the front as a captain and came back as a captain.’5

  Under these circumstances, the war of Abakumov and Beria for the total control of UKRs in Europe intensified and Beria made his final, unsuccessful, attempt to subordinate SMERSH to the NKVD.

  Abakumov Regains Control

  On June 22, 1945, two weeks before Stalin and Beria arrived in Berlin to attend the Potsdam Conference, Abakumov wrote a long letter to Beria, complaining about Ivan Serov, Beria’s deputy and a deputy head on the matters of civilian administration of the Soviet Military Administration in Germany or SVAG headed by Marshal Georgii Zhukov.6 Serov constantly ordered the taking under NKVD control of important detainees arrested by SMERSH operatives, which Abakumov described as ‘acts of hooliganism’ against SMERSH. Abakumov also informed Beria of his instruction to Aleksandr Vadis, head of the UKR SMERSH of the 1st Belorussian Front, and his deputy Grigorii Mel’nikov, not to follow Serov’s orders without his (Abakumov’s) approval, as a countermeasure against Serov, and asked Beria to reprimand Serov.

  Instead of answering Abakumov, on that same day Beria sent Stalin a plan for the reorganization of the work of NKVD plenipotentiaries.7 Beria proposed to keep Serov (and his staff) at Marshal Zhukov’s headquarters in Berlin and to appoint Abakumov’s deputy Pavel Meshik Plenipotentiary to Marshal Konev’s group of troops in Austria, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia, and Selivanovsky, Plenipotentiary to Marshal Rokossovsky’s troops in Poland. Major General Aleksandr Pavlov, head of the NKVD Rear Guard Troops at the 3rd Ukrainian Front, would be Plenipotentiary to Marshal Fyodor Tolbukhin’s troops in Romania and Bulgaria. The new plenipotentiaries would be responsible for all NKVD–NKGB–SMERSH routine work, would command the NKVD troops in their military areas, and would be in charge of all POWs and their transportation to the Soviet Union.

  Stalin wrote on Beria’s report: ‘To Com.[rade] Beria. I agree. J. Stalin.’ But something went wrong, and only Serov was reappointed Plenipotentiary. The staffs of the other plenipotentiaries were disbanded on July 4, 1945, and their members were assigned to their previous jobs.8

  As a consequence of Serov’s new appointment, the UKR SMERSH in Germany became subordinate to Serov. The embarrassed Abakumov, who deeply hated Serov (and the feeling was entirely mutual), ordered the head of this directorate, Vadis, to establish a network of SMERSH operational groups in Germany.9 Despite Serov’s protest to Beria, SMERSH departments were created under SVAG in all German counties, provinces, regions, and cities.10 These departments conducted surveillance of Soviet personnel, while the NKVD units were in charge of actions against the German population.

  On July 9, 1945, the heads of all security structures received military ranks. Beria was promoted to marshal, while Abakumov was given the rank of colonel general, as were Beria’s three deputies (Serov, Sergei Kruglov, and Vasilii Chernyshev) and Bogdan Kobulov, NKGB first deputy Commissar.11 Vsevolod Merkulov became an army general.

  In August, Abakumov continued his attack on Serov and Beria, and made a direct appeal to Stalin.12 Knowing Stalin’s sensitivity on the question of Party leadership, Abakumov cited a report to him from Vadis that was strongly critical of both Zhukov and Serov. Vadis had left Germany; he was beyond their reach and, therefore, could write openly. He claimed that Zhukov and Serov had tried to control the political structures of SVAG, while they should have been controlled from Moscow by the Main Political Directorate. Vadis also reported that Zhukov had awarded Serov the Gold Star for Hero of the Soviet Union, the highest military award, for making him a favorite. Abakumov’s statement that ‘many consider Zhukov to be the top candidate for Defense Commissar’ was, of course, aimed at showing Zhukov’s desire to replace Stalin as Defense Commissar, which obviously would not be well received by Stalin.

  After this letter, Stalin likely spoke to Beria about Serov because the next day Beria sent a letter to Stalin defending Serov, saying that SMERSH operatives should be subordinate to Serov.13 But it was too late. Apparently, Stalin had already chosen Abakumov, and not Beria, to head state security in the near future. On August 20, 1945, Stalin signed one of the last GKO orders (No. 9887) appointing Beria chairman of the secret State Committee No. 1, thus making him head of the Soviet atomic bomb project.14 Later Beria was also responsible for State Committees No. 2 (jet engines) and No. 3 (radio location equipment).15 Stalin needed Abakumov and his men as watchdogs. Soon Abakumov started collecting compromising materials on Marshal Zhukov, the conqueror of Berlin and ruler of Germany.

  Marshal Zhukov and General Serov

  In Germany, Marshal Georgii Zhukov became head of SVAG and commander in chief of Soviet troops.16 The 1st and 2nd Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian fronts were reorganized as the Group of Soviet Occupation Forces in Germany or GSOVG. The UKR of GSOVG, headed by Vadis, reported not to Zhukov as commander in chief, but to Abakumov, as SMERSH’s head. Vadis soon was transferred first to Bulgaria and then to the Transbaikal Front, and Pavel Zelenin, former head of the UKR of the 3rd Belorussian Front, succeeded him (Table 27-1). UKR GSOVG’s headquarters were in Potsdam, a suburb of Berlin.17

  With these reorganizations Abakumov began reporting to Stalin about Zhukov. This was not something new. Since 1939, the NKVD’s OO, then UOO and SMERSH, had been collecting compromising materials involving Zhukov. The operational file was coded ‘Uzel’ (Knot).18 In 1942, Abakumov’s UOO set up listening devices on the telephones at Zhukov’s apartment and dacha; this action required a direct order from Stalin. But in July 1945, after arriving in Berlin, Abakumov began personally arresting Zhukov’s subordinates.19 Most likely, he was acting on Stalin’s order again. However, Zhukov ordered the release of his generals and threatened to arrest Abakumov.

  Abakumov first reported to Stalin on Zhukov’s attempts to stop his troops’ atrocities against German civilians. In June 1945, a joint order from Zhukov and his deputy, Lieutenant General Konstantin Telegin, stated: ‘Local authorities, peasant communities, and individuals continue to complain about numerous acts of violence, rape, and robbery committed by men in Red Army uniforms… Women do not mow hay or work in the fields, for fear of being raped or robbed.’20 Zhukov concluded: ‘If order is not established…within three to five days… I will make serious decisions regarding all military and political personnel.’

  On September 9, Zhukov issued another strong order: ‘Marauding, hooliganism, and violence against the German population have not stopped; on the contrary, crimes committed by servicemen have increased. This behavior… must stop immediately at all costs.’21 Zhukov ordered all commanders to live together with their subordinates and to completely prevent all contact with the local population.

  Stalin d
id not support Zhukov’s measures, and wrote to him eleven days later: ‘Yesterday I learned from SMERSH [i.e., from Abakumov]…about the order of September 9… This order is harmful because it fails to improve discipline, and, on the contrary, breaks it and discredits commanders in the eyes of privates. Furthermore, if this order is seen by foreign army heads, they will judge the Red Army as an army of marauders. I ask that you immediately withdraw your order… I advise you to improve political work within the GSOVG troops and to use the courts of honor more frequently instead of scaring men with your orders to haul officers into the courts as common criminals.’22 Stalin preferred covering up the atrocities to fighting against them.

  Zhukov followed Stalin’s order at once. Of course, measures such as courts of honor could not help, and a month later a plenum of the Supreme Court in Moscow issued a directive with the long, cumbersome title ‘On the responsibility of servicemen of the Occupational Troops for Committing Crimes, According to Wartime Laws.’23 It ordered the court martial of any serviceman who left the barracks for more than three hours without official permission. But the civilian complaints continued, and to stem the flow, a year later Serov simply ordered the organization of several show trials against complainants in each German province with the sentences published in the local press.24 After this, Germans were afraid to report the atrocities.

  Besides the atrocities, in 1945 looting in Germany by Soviet servicemen, including SMERSH operatives, became almost epidemic. Strictly speaking, Stalin’s policy created this problem. In December 1944, Stalin issued the first order regulating the sending of parcels by servicemen from occupied territories.25 A private was allowed to send parcels up to 5 kg in weight each month, while an officer could send 10 kg, and a general, 16 kg. From June 9, 1945 onwards, privates were permitted to take whatever they could carry in their arms, officers could utilize a bicycle or motorcycle, and generals could use a car to transport whatever they wanted.26 Moreover, officers and generals could buy pianos, radios, hunting guns, watches, furs, rugs, cameras, and so on, for almost nothing. Even so, the looting continued. On September 25, 1945, Abakumov ordered: