Restructuring the Wartime Security Services

NKVD Chief and from 1943-45 Commissar General of State Security
Lavrentiy Beria wearing the shoulder boards pictured below.

When the momentum shifted in favor of the Allies in the latter part of the Great Patriotic War (WWII), powers were once again redistributed among the Soviet security services. Moreover, in April 1943 a new secret service, one of the most notorious security branches - SMERSH - was created as a hybrid of military counterintelligence and the NKVD. Such was the nature of SMERSH that the mere existence of the organization was denied by the Soviets and then for decades by the military and government of the Russian Federation.

People's Commissar of State Security
General Viktor Abakumov

The decision to split the all-powerful Soviet security apparatus under Lavrentiy Beria into three sections was as much political as it was expedient. It is widely believed that Beria - in his height of power - had eyes on Stalin's position; however, Stalin had no plans to abdicate his rule. The first of the three bodies was the NKVD, which was still headed by Beria but with significantly less authority, at least officially. The second was the reincarnation of the NKGB, headed by Vsevolod Merkulov, who also ran it when it existed briefly in 1941. When the NKGB was absorbed by the NKVD, Merkulov was a deputy to Beria. The third organization was what would eventually be known as SMERSH, headed by People's Commissar of State Security Viktor Abakumov, who had also formerly been a deputy of Beria in the NKVD. Beria, Merkulov and Abakumov reported independently and directly to Stalin.

Prototype shoulder board for what would have been the position of Marshal of State Security of the USSR.
As the only head of all Soviet state security, Beria sought the creation of this title for himself, but before that
could happen, Stalin and the State Defence Committee split the security services into three organization.
In 1945, and only because police and security ranks were converted to be uniform with military rank titles 
and Beria's title was converted to Marshal of the Soviet Union.

Beria maintained a great deal of power by having supporters, if not friends, strategically placed in positions within the government and the military who he expected to be able to count on for favors when needed. He was also a founding member of the Stalin-led State Defense Committee, the most powerful political body in the Soviet Union during wartime, more influential even than the Politburo. Shortly before the NKVD was converted to the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) in 1946, he resigned as its chief and moved more toward his political posturing as Deputy Prime Minister and Curator of the Organs of State Security and maintained a certain amount of indirect control from this new political position, but these machinations will be addressed in more detail in a later chapter when the security services underwent another series of name changes before the eventual creation of the infamous KGB.  

Actual shoulder boards of Beria as the last chief of
the NKVD. Beria is wearing these in the photo 
of him above. The boards are behind glass.

At the same time in 1943 when Stalin was reassigning some of the powers of the NKVD, the NKGB - People's Commissariat for State Security - was reestablished on April 19 as the Soviet "secret police" as well as its civil (non-military) foreign and counter-intelligence service. The NKVD was left to concentrate on "internal affairs" including the USSR's infrastructure of militia and firefighters, while maintaining some counterintelligence operations. However, the bulk of the "affairs" addressed by the NKVD more often than not included the widespread repression and elimination of political dissents with an ever-growing number of casualties. The NKVD remained the tool Stalin (and several members of Stalin's State Defence Committee) used to eliminate opposition, either organized or on the individual level. 

SMERSH was not simply the third branch of the wartime Soviet

intelligence system, it was a vast network of enforcers of Stalin's will as well as that of other elite members of the security services who regularly abused their authority. The list of atrocities attributed to members of SMERSH - both under orders and acting alone - rivals that of the 1930s NKVD. 

The leading or administrative branch of SMERSH was the Main Counterintelligence Directorate of the People's Commissariat of Defence of the USSR (abbreviated as GUKR-NKO or simply SMERSH). This section of SMERSH was headed by Abakumov. As director of GUKR-NKO SMERSH, Abakumov reported directly to Stalin. Beria remained in control of the NKVD branch of SMERSH while People's Commissar Nikolai Kuznetsov headed the NKF, or People's Commissariat of the Navy, SMERSH. Each SMERSH section leader answered to Stalin alone, which created a new degree of responsibility. Any errors or failures could no longer be blamed on other departments and/or their leadership. Beria, Abakumov and Kuznetsov were each responsible for their respective organizations and their corresponding SMERSH units. It is widely held that one of the main reasons for Stalin to break up SMERSH into additional components with different leaders, was to check the powers of Beria, who had begun demonstrating ambitions toward succeeding Stalin, possibly challenging him one day. But the focus of the Soviet Union and its leadership was on the war since the survival of the Soviet Union depended upon defeating Hitler and Nazi Germany. Maintaining order and organization was essential for survival, and personal motivations or aspirations had to be reigned in as long as the war continued. Additionally, the sudden change of title and powers caused a welcome degree of confusion in the Abwehr, the Nazi military intelligence organization, for the Soviet leadership.

Temporary award document for the Soviet Medal for Military Merit to Capt. Ivan Ryabov authorized by SMERSH head
Colonel-General Abakumov in 1945.

The responsibilities of each of the three branches of the state security apparatus overlapped each other to some degree and the lines between each organization are blurred, to say the least, and one of the most infamous missions of all of SMERSH was to vet the Red Army (RKKA) from the bottom up. 

Propaganda postage stamp using the "Not one step back!" slogan.* 

In order to gain control over the mass desertions of Red Army personnel in the face of overwhelming numbers of better equipped German soldiers, Stalin issued the infamous Article № 227 on 28 July 1942, which was later widely known by its line: "Not one step back!" In fact, the phrase (Ни шагу назад! in Russian) was widely used by NKVD and Red Army propagandists and would have fallen on the ears of terrified soldiers as they prepared to launch an assault or attack against German lines. The direct implications of Article № 227 was that anyone attempting to flee the battlefield or desert the Red Army was to be shot on the spot. The next step was to create "blocking" or "barrier battalions" which would set up machine guns and riflemen in the rear of a Red Army unit preparing for an attack. Member of the barrier battalions (originally made up of NKVD rifle regiments, and later taken over by SMERSH) were ordered to shoot anyone deemed a "coward" by moving in any direction other than towards enemy lines. These barrier battalions were created along with the order preventing retreat, under Article № 227, which required commanders of the various "fronts" along the lines with Germany to utilize "penal battalions" created from middle to high ranking officers and "penal companies" that had been created from NCOs and privates. Both units were comprised of soldiers who had been found guilty - correctly or not - of a crime or cowardice. They were to be deployed in the areas of the heaviest fighting and could be "rehabilitated" or re-earn their stripes through direct combat. Casualties in these penal ranks were considered acceptable. In fact, being killed under these circumstances could merit posthumous reinstatement of former rank and constituent privileges for the surviving family members. Though the creation and use of blocking battalions was officially discontinued in November of 1944, SMERSH had executed an unknown number of RKKA personnel under the guise of "patriotism."

Verification of powers of SMERSH Lt. Mikhail Ivanovich Yerokhin from 7 May 1943. The document gives Yerokhin the to  power to question, detain and arrest suspected spies or saboteurs - which could be determined at the judgement of the agent. The document also grants him freedom of movement throughout the North-Caucuses Front military district without 
having to answer to military commanders. The identity document-pass was authorized by Deputy Head of SMERSH, 
North-Caucuses Front Commissar of State Security M.I. Belkin.

60th anniversary of SMERSH badge
commissioned in 2003 by a non-government
organization of veterans of SMERSH. It is
in the standard sword and shield design of the
Soviet-Russian security services.

SMERSH agents had many of the same rights to detain and arrest civilians and military personnel as well as demand identification papers of the same. One of the prominent problems facing SMERSH and the other security agencies was that of German-forged documents for Nazi intelligence officers, recruited local saboteurs, "bandits" and members of organized anti-Soviet rebel groups especially in Ukraine and the Baltic States. Some of these groups were formed as far back as the Bolshevik Revolution as counterrevolutionaries. Identification documents were exceptionally important because signed and stamped papers were the only method of identifying individuals during the chaotic times of wartime border changes. German military and political police personnel who occupied regions of Ukraine and the Baltic States were often helped and joined by members of rebel groups to fight against their long-standing enemy - the Red Army. As the lines on the war maps moved back toward Germany, Nazi military and political intelligence organs left behind agents to infiltrate the Red Army and disseminate false information. The Red Army officers knew this was likely and one of the main reasons SMERSH was created was to combat these sorts of enemy spies and saboteurs. 

"Don't chatter" (Не Болтай) a common propaganda phrase which can be interpreted also as "gossip" is roughly
equivalent to the U.S. wartime propaganda expression, "Loose lips...." The rest of the above text says, "Strictly
keep military and state secrets." Behind the soldiers is a spy eavesdropping on them. A common tactic of the
Soviet propaganda machine was to portray spies as living and working throughout the USSR in all forms
of average citizens.   

The political propaganda generated by the Soviet government was pervasive and was backed up by the threat of arrest, prison or even execution. This was true for civilians as much as for military personnel. It was this same fervor over rooting out real and imagined spies and saboteurs (also "wreckers" in Russian) that often led to the disgracing arrest and execution of many formerly high-ranking Soviet officials. Being close to Stalin was as dangerous as the Icarus myth. On July 12, 1951, Abakumov, along with General Mikhail Belkin (Commissar of State Security who authorized the identity document/pass above) and a three others in the state security services were arrested on Stalin's order. Abakumov's trial began on 12 December 1954 and a week later, on the 19th, he was executed in Leningrad. He was charged loosely with conspiring with Beria against Stalin. By this point, Beria had already been tried and executed in similar fashion. On July 19, 1945, Abakumov was promoted to the (military) rank of Colonel General. In May of 1946, the NKGB was renamed the Ministry for State Security (MGB) and Abakumov was named as its head. Within a few days of the creation of the MGB, SMERSH was merged with it thus ending all departments of SMERSH. 

Abakumov's arrest photos from 1952.

The end of SMERSH and the elimination of the main players in the functioning of the organization was not coincidental. After Stalin's death on 5 March 1953, a powerful "de-Stalinization" feeling swept the USSR, catching up many of the most prominent figures from leading positions in the Soviet government and military. People who once had the tentative confidence of Stalin and/or were his political appointments were suddenly targeted by members of the Communist Party and the Politburo who were seeking to distance themselves as much as possible from Stalin and his regime, with the ardent approval of the majority of the population of the post-war Soviet Union. However, the controversial and far too often nefarious deeds of most of Stalin's innermost circle made charging and prosecuting these men relatively easy under the anti-Stalin political and public climate. This popular opposition sentiment helped pave the way for Stalin's ultimate successor, Great Patriotic War hero Nikita Khrushchev, who later denounced his predecessor on two public occasions in 1956 and 1962 when the Cold War tensions between the USSR and the USA were at some of their worst. However, the attempts to undo some of what Stalin did within the borders of the Soviet Union persisted beyond the end of the country in 1991, and some people argue that certain segments of Soviet history still require re-editing to reverse Stalin's revisions in order to reach the objective truth.   


References: 

Parrish, Michael. The Lesser Terror: Soviet State Security, 1939-1953. Praeger Publishers, United States, 1996; electronic publication address: https://books.google.com/books?id=NDgv5ognePgC&pg=PA114&lpg=PA114&dq=Commissar+Belkin+of+SMERSH&source=bl&ots=nvwwopI4Pr&sig=UxhXfz69RQMU9_J2Xpgh3fhEbs4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=p-0zVd-5GImegwSb7YHIDg&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Commissar%20Belkin%20of%20SMERSH&f=false 

Raoul Wallenberg: Report of the Swedish-Russian Working Group; Ingrid Palmklint and Daniel Larsson, eds. Stockholm, Sweden. Ministry for Foreign Affairs: Department for Central and Eastern Europe, 2000; electronic publication address: http://www.raoulwallenberg.net/wp-content/files_mf/2836.pdf

World War II Database: Viktor Abakumov. Lava Development, LLC. Copyright 2004-2015; http://ww2db.com/person_bio.php?person_id=730

Personal Misuse of Security Services

How the First Two Leaders of the Soviet Union Abused the Cheka/OGPU and the NKVD/MVD for Personal Gain

The obelisk monument in Volgograd to the Cheka. Volgograd was known during the Soviet Era as Stalingrad - the location of some of the greatest losses of human life during the Great Patriotic War (WWII) and the site of the first major military defeat of the Nazis at the hands of the Red Army. The monument is topped with a soldier holding a sword pointed at the sky and the lower section has a large, probably brass or bronze, sword and shield motif that became synonymous with both branches of the Soviet State Security organizations at the time - the NKVD and the NKGB which was the foreign intelligence component of the NKVD during the war. After the war's end, the NKGB was given its independence again as a foreign intelligence service soon known as the MGB or "Ministry of State Security" for a few years until the final and most well-known name was given as the Ministry was reduced to Committee status ("Komitet") in 1954 from fear on the part of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union that the seemingly omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent NKVD had become under Stalin and Beria (the latter was tried and executed not long after the former's death).



This section will serve as a brief refresher on the early security services (i.e. Cheka through MGB) which were the most directly controlled by the leaders of the Soviet Union at the time - in particular, Lenin and then Stalin. 

Lenin

*

Below is a short, almost "note" with a deadly order scribbled on it by Lenin himself. It was displayed earlier in a prior chapter, but the significance bears showing it again. The handwritten letter very clearly establishes that the leadership in the Bolsheviks was not concerned with the rights of non-Russians together with a handful of adopted members of other regions that were either joining the USSR and becoming the first of the original 10 republics, as Lenin and his immediate successor Josef Stalin (See "The Spread of Chekist Ideas and Ideals at a High Moral Cost, Part I: The Fear of the 'Disappearing' Citizen" April of 2011). The letter is a hand-written example of an order to Chekist troops and possibly a few soldiers drawn in to aid them in a massacre. The following is an English translation of the text of the letter provided by Smithsonian translators:
Send to Penza to Comrades Kuraev, Minkin, and other Penza communists

     Comrades! The revolt by the five kulak* volosts** must be suppressed without mercy. The interests of the entire revolution demands this, because we have now before us our final decisive battle [with the kulaks]. We need to set an example.
1. You need to hang (hang without fail, so that the public sees) at least 100 notorious kulaks, the rich, and the bloodsuckers.
2. Publish their names.
3. Take away all of their grain.
4. Execute the hostages - in accordance with yesterday's telegram.
     This needs to be accomplished in such a way that people for hundreds of miles around will see, tremble, know and scream out: let's choke and strangle those bloodsucking kulaks.
     Telegraph us acknowledging receipt and execution of this.

Yours,
Lenin

P.S. Use your toughest people for this.”

[Note: *A "kulak" is Russian derogatory slang for a peasant who had accumulated some manner of modest wealth. **A “volost” was a territorial/administrative unit consisting of a few villages and surrounding land.]

This is a photostatic copy of a handwritten letter from Lenin in 1918 to authorities in the Penza Province about 600 miles southeast of Moscow and a grain farming region. Lenin's letter orders the hanging of 100 "Kulak farmers" to set an example for others who opposed his plans.

Above is a photostatic copy from the U.S. Smithsonian Institution's collection of declassified Soviet material that was part of a traveling exhibit in 1998.

The language used in this order is strikingly similar in its vulgar brutality to some of the ones jotted down in thick, sometimes colored pencil over typed intelligence reports by Stalin when he disagreed from paranoia, denial and or delusion with what the sources of the reports had observed.

Lenin issued the decree which officially created the Cheka (VCheka) on December 20, 1917 as an "emergency" (i.e. temporary) body to combat counter-revolutionary activities and saboteurs that might jeopardize the stability of the newly formed Bolshevik Communist government. Lenin chose Polish-born Bolshevik radical Felix Dzerzhinsky to head the Cheka and under his reign the suppressive activities of the Cheka grew to include a practically ever-widening set of people who might be in opposition to the government and included money or goods speculators and wealthy land-owners and merchants. To the Bolsheviks and later the Soviets, "wealthy" was defined as anyone owning more than 10,000 Rubles worth of property of any kind, which would include the aforementioned kulaks.

Others on the "potential" enemy of the state list created by the Cheka in 1918 included all members of the Russian Orthodox clergy, anyone in military or civil service that was suspected of secretly working for the former Imperial government (White Russians) or anyone in the worker-peasant category who showed any sign of not supporting the Soviet government. Obviously, this sort of loosely defined set of potential counter-revolutionaries left the door wide open for agents of the Cheka to operate with impunity in deciding who was a threat to the new government. Moreover, with the powers of arrest, trial and execution, Cheka agents were susceptible to all sorts of abuse of power and corruption. Most likely, there will never be an accurate count of the number of people wrongfully imprisoned and/or executed at the hands of the Cheka and the subsequent security agencies - especially the NKVD during Stalin's reign and his campaigns of terror.

An ailing Lenin sitting with Joseph Stalin in 1922.***

Lenin finally died on January 21, 1924 at the age of 54. He had survived two failed assassination attempts (the second resulting in a bullet wound to the neck) which only served to enhance his cult of personality status among his supporters. He subsequently suffered three strokes before succumbing to his poor health. However, when he could still speak, Lenin made it clear to those closest to him that Stalin, who had been the Communist Party General Secretary since 1922. In compiled papers dictated during his final years and published as Lenin's Testiment, "Lenin reported [of Stalin] that the 'unlimited authority' concentrated in him was unacceptable, and suggested that 'comrades think about a way of removing Stalin from that post.' His phrasing, 'Сталин слишком груб,' implies 'personal rudeness, unnecessary roughness, lack of finesse,' flaws 'intolerable in a Secretary-General.'"** Unfortunately, Stalin had other plans.

This is presumably the last photo taken of Vladimir I. Lenin before he died. At this point in his life, Lenin was struck mute by his third stroke in 1923 and was confined to bed.****

 1924: Pallbearers escort the body of Lenin with Felix Dzerzhinsky at the front of the procession.

NOTE: For video footage taken during the time Lenin's body was first "on viewing," please follow this YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oStHN2xwWeE

Stalin

"Under the leadership of the great Stalin - forward towards Communism!" One of thousands of pro-Stalin propaganda posters drawn up to make Stalin seem more like a "man of the people."

Despite, or possibly because of his broken but compelling personality, Stalin began to trust only himself and his initial ideas and thoughts. People "close" to Stalin in the form of his favored people of the military and government were most certainly wondering even in the smallest recesses of their minds whether their dictator would get angry with them - meaning death or arrest, and given the conditions and life expectancy in a Siberian forced labor camp, death might have been welcome. It is difficult to tell how much of a "cult of personality" Stalin had or how much most people feared for their own lives and those of their friends' and families'. After the person most responsible for the Red Army's victory over Germany, Marshal Zhukov, was sent to a command post over 800 miles from Moscow, the Central Committee and the rest of the millions in the city who admired him as the "Hero who saved the Soviet Union" were left to look upon Stalin or look upon death.

Stalin was overly concerned about being the center of any praise and glory in his Moscow. In fact, he was so wrapped up in the notion that he was actually in control of the military as the Red Army and Navy's commander and chief only by accident of self-appointment, that he ignored intelligence from both the Red Army's GRU and agents of the OGPU that warned of the impending initial attack on the USSR by German soldiers massing at the western border in 1941. According to a BBC documentary, War of the Century, a declassified intelligence report from someone with the last name Merkloff was typed up and sent straight to Stalin saying that the Germans were "poised to attack at any moment." Stalin scribbled in colored crayon or what are often called "grease pencils" over the type: "Comrade Merkloff, you can send your source from the headquarters of the German Air Force to his fucking mother. He is not a source. He is a disinformant"  (BBC).

Stalin was known by his followers in the general public as an eloquent spokesman, behind closed doors, he was just as vulgar as any common man. 

The first page of a memo from the head of the NKVD, Lavrenti Beria, in March of 1940 to "Comrade Stalin" proposing the use of the armed military branch of the NKVD to execute Polish Army officers and members of the Polish national police department who are suspected (by Beria) of being sympathetic or even members of the Nazi Party, or simply being "anti-revolutionary" themselves. At the very beginning of the letter, Beria begins by saying that "In NKVD POW camps in the USSR and in particular in the "...prisons in the western regions of Ukraine and Belarus, there are a large number of former Polish Army officers and policemen..." - many of whom belong to "rebel organizations." The document bears the letterhead of the NKVD (top left corner), the Russian text for "Top Secret" (upper right corner) and the signatures of Stalin and possibly other high-ranking members of the Soviet regime over the original text to indicate they had read it. This is likely the starting point for what was later referred to as the Katyn Massacre of 1940 in which about 4000 Polish personnel were executed and buried in a mass grave in the Katyn Forest after being taken prisoner during the Soviet invasion of Poland in support of the Nazi attack on the same country. According to a comment posted below, "The signatures on the Katyn order from Beria are from top to bottom: Stalin, Voroshilov, Molotov, and Mikoyan." Kliment Voroshilov was a Marshal of the Soviet Union and one of Stalin's top advisors. Vyacheslav Molotov and Anastas Mikoyan were also in Stalin's "inner circle" (at least at the time of this memo). In addition, the two smaller signatures in the left margin of the document are those of Mikhail Kalinin and Lazar Kaganovich, two of the longest surviving original members of the Bolsheviks who had come to power after the October Revolution. Many of these early members did not survive Stalin's "purges." 

Stalin always stood in the shadow of Lenin and perhaps that is what fueled his paranoid insanity and homicidal nature. Whatever the cause, the result of shifting the security services around during the 1930s was that the line between the OGPU and the NKVD blurred. By the original decree (or Указ, pronounced "Ukaz"), the OGPU strictly handled foreign intelligence and the NKVD had control of internal affairs and counterintelligence (the meaning of the last two letters of the acronym which stood literally for People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs). 

For a short documentary excerpt from a Discovery Channel piece: Stalin's Secret Police with rare footage regarding the beginning of the Cheka and the eventual abuse of its successor, the NKVD by Stalin, see the following YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtWkn5IhfqU

"For the Motherland!, For Stalin!, For Peace! [trans.: or "For the World!"], For Communism!" Another propaganda poster linking a vote for Stalin as a vote for all the things good Soviet citizens were supposed to support and favor in their current lives. Considering the elections were a sham, this had a secondary effect of letting the people continue under the delusion that their individual votes mattered in such elections.

Regardless, Stalin used the NKVD as his private security service throughout the globe, ordering assassinations of Soviet expatriates and in the case of some like Leon Trotsky "enemies of the state." During the same time period, it is well known that the NKVD directly trained certain aspects of the Nazi Gestapo and was the model on which the German secret police was formed. During the 1930s as the Nazi military machine grew ominously in secret, many NKVD agents worked and collaborated with the fascist security service when seemingly innocuous tasks were requested such as arrest and extradition back to Germany of wanted persons, execution of deserters from the German Army crossing into Soviet territory and complicity in a myriad of other joint operations, some included the execution of Jews simply on the word of Gestapo agents.

The reality behind all the propaganda was that Soviet citizens were publicly hung at Stalin's orders (much as Lenin had ordered of the kulak classes) as "bandits" and any number of other names while avoiding calling them "counter-revolutionaries" directly for fear of additional anti-Soviet sentiment among the populace which might cause more rebellions and further problems for the security services of the Soviet Union.

Another photo similar to the previous one in which unfortunate, and possibly innocent souls were about to be hung for trumped-up crimes by officers of the Stalin-controlled state security services.

These two agencies had a strong link well into the actual war, and a significant number of neutral people claim the NKVD helped  thousands of Nazi war criminals disappear by giving them new identities and even forged visas (official ones were available to Argentina where many Nazis fled to the welcoming arms of Juan and Eva (Evita) Perón). Some of these former Nazis proved useful to the Central Committee and the Red Army as the leaders of the country sought the technology and know-how to make their own atomic bomb. Both the leaders of the United States and of the Soviet Union - and to a lesser degree the United Kingdom - sought out either defectors or in rarer cases abducted German scientists and put them to work immediately under new identities as the Cold War was unofficially underway. 


For original, color footage from the above parade - 1938 "Blooming Youth Sports Parade," click the following YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QtILBeOMYI Take note of the people marching behind the image of Felix Dzerzhinsky and of the Chekist symbol of the shield and sword - the two items each of the marchers is equiped with to represent the Cheka-OGPU-NKVD. This is some very rare footage.

 Since the NKVD were omnipresent in all life and travel documentation within the Soviet Union and by extension through customs the issuing of international passports (with approval stamps of the NKVD), they were able to generate new birth certificates and/or death certificates for Nazis who needed to be "executed" and "reborn" depending on how infamous the original name was. Moreover, if someone needed a non-Russian identity, there were departments of the NKVD that specialized in foreign documents for any number of reasons and was especially busy from 1945 to about 1953 as demand tapered and post-war "de-Stalinization" after the dictator was officially announced dead from a stroke on March 5 of that year.

In 1945-46, most people fleeing Germany and the Eastern European countries which had been caught between the fascists from the West and the communists from the East. From drafted soldiers stuck in Berlin as the Red Army stormed it to high-ranking members of the Nazi party/military, both sought the "golden ticket" available to many of the aimless people wandering around attempting to separate their original identities from their newly assumed identities. This "golden ticket" was the Red Cross temporary passport. A birth certificate was all people really needed to quickly get a special post-war Red Cross Passport that listed them as refugees and was accepted by nearly every country.

The NKVD printed and maintained all birth and death certificates in addition to all other necessary travel documents for citizens of the Soviet Union. With the masses of people shifting around in all parts of Europe, including hundreds of thousands of Jews trying to get to the newly recreated Israel in the midst of Palestine and the millions of other people simply left homeless by one side or both, identity documents were more important to many than food. The irony is that falsified documents from a number of Eastern European countries under the temporary operation of the NKVD's border troops were typically fairly easy to come by. However, Stalin had to make a public example of fascists still on Soviet soil just as he was quietly doing to his own troops captured by the Germans and shipped back, very much against their will in most cases, to the USSR after fighting ceased in 1945. They had been told what awaited many of them upon returning to the Soviet Union where many would be tried as traitors, found guilty and imprisoned or executed simply because they had been captured. To Stalin these POWs were all potential "enemies of the state" who had been turned by their fascist captors.

This line of thinking is consistent with Stalin's irrational fear of Lenin's shadow and anyone who had exposure to Western culture without the proper training beforehand. When the Soviet Union officially claimed that there were no more prisoners of war remaining on Soviet soil, the fate of those kept behind was sealed - prison, death or service in the USSR for advancement in the battle with the new "Main Adversary" - the United States of America and its fledgling Central Intelligence Agency - the first non-military foreign intelligence agency in that country. By "service," the Soviets did as the United States had done in utilizing former German scientists (along with a great deal of successful espionage into the "Manhattan Project") to help them to create their own atomic/nuclear weapons.

Stalin in his death pose before burial; photographed by Dmitri Baltermants*****

"It has been suggested that Stalin was assassinated. His Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov claimed that Beria had boasted to him that he poisoned Stalin: 'I took him out.'" Khrushchev wrote in his memoirs that Beria had, immediately after the stroke, gone about "spewing hatred against [Stalin] and mocking him," and then, when Stalin showed signs of consciousness, dropped to his knees and kissed his hand. When Stalin fell unconscious again, Beria immediately stood and spat. Later autopsies found that Stalin ingested a flavorless and powerful rat poison. Indeed, Stalin's death arrived at a convenient time for many who feared an imminent purge."*****

Stalin died on March 1, 1953.







* Photo from: http://motorcitytimes.com/mct/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/vladimir-lenin.jpg
** From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Lenin
*** Photo from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lenin_and_stalin_crop.jpg
**** Photo from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lenin-last-photo.jpg 
***** Photo from: http://iconicphotos.wordpress.com/2010/01/14/stalin-is-dead/ 

Photos of Early Soviet State Security Service Personnel

Part 1: The Beginnings

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Above is a grainy photo from 1921 of the members of the Cheka Presidium which included (from left) Yakov Peters, Jozef Unszlicht, A. Ya Belensky, the infamous Felix Dzerzhinsky and Vyacheslav Menzhinsky. As can be seen by the names, not everyone was of strict Russian origin. Dzerzhinsky, himself, was of Polish noble origin. Many people were welcomed by the Bolsheviks in the first couple decades after the October Revolution so long as they were in idealistic agreement with the new Soviet regime. There were many who came from what is now called the UK, the US and numerous countries bordering the Soviet Union. At the very outset of the construction of the Cheka and its agents, there was no specific uniform and many of the new recruits simply wore black tunics to emulate the ones almost always worn by Dzerzhinsky himself (see photo above). There are rumors that the Checkists in 1917 wore more or less what they pleased with an armband - if they wanted to be identified - while design decisions and manufacturing of a more universal uniform were being carried out.


[Note: Many of the following photos were contributed by a very active and knowledgeable member of the Soviet Military Awards Page Forum: http://soviet-awards.com/forum/ (and in the column on the right side of this page. This is an invaluable forum filled with an enormous amount of information and rare photographs. In order to see the photos so many of the members are talking about, registration is required - which is free of charge). This member goes by the moniker "slava1stclass" which are the transliterated words for the Order of Glory, 1st class and was one of the highest awards given to the rank and file soldiers. Officers were ineligible to receive any of the three classes of this award which were given mostly during WWII. He has been kind enough to lend his photos anonymously and I extend my gratitude.]


If a photo did not come from him, it will be noted as such.

The above officer is wearing, besides the Cheka fifth ("V") badge, an early form of the Order of the Red Banner (the first award to be created by the Soviets after they had discontinued the practice of awards all together because some thought it hearkened too much back to Imperialist Russia's class system in which heavily decorated officers were among the higher echelons of power and influence in the aristocratic society even though they might not be of noble birth. Typically, however, no one rose to the highest ranks of the Tsarist military unless they had exceptional skills on the battlefield or were born among the wealthy and/or nobility.

The Cheka officer above is also wearing an award that is considered by most collectors to be one of the rarest and most difficult to find - the so-called "Tractor Lenin." The design only existed a few years and was given its nickname because a tractor is displayed prominently in the background of the obverse of the order. All later models were gold with elaborate enamel work whereas this one was made from silver with a small amount of gold plating and enamel. This, together with the 5-year Cheka anniversary badge dates the photo as no earlier than 1922. It is likely he was awarded the Order of Lenin and Order of the Red Banner (which at the time were presented together) as an award for efforts in the Russian Civil War.


It was very common for servicemen and women of all branches - military and security services - to have their photos taken in full dress uniform, usually after a graduation, promotion or in honor of some occasion or even for their official personnel file. The organization calling for or taking the picture would typically write who the photo was of, his or her rank and was generally signed and/or stamped by the same organization. 

Disclaimer: I do not know the person's name, nor to whom this picture might belong - it was sent anonymously in an email with a simple typed note asking if I could use this photo for this website. So if anyone knows anything about the current owner of the actual photograph and either wants it removed or given credit, simply show me the reverse in context (such as near a current date on a newspaper) and give contact information and the deal will - whichever - be done.

In the photo above, a young OGPU officer leans to one side for his photo as a member from Azerbaijan SSR. Though this was taken likely prewar, notice the unique sleeve, rather than what would be come the international standard use of shoulder boards as rank insignia.


One of the most notable aspects of the uniform is the unusual, almost corduroy-looking, material it seems to be made from, but this could be simply a number of things including lighting and stitching. The other remarkable thing about the uniform is the enormity of the buttons on the jacket. Also worth noting is the cloth belt. Regulation Red Army belts were leather with a large rectangular single- or double-tong buckle with regular waist belts and some with over-the-shoulder straps. Another variety came along a bit later and were buckles that were more square and had the hammer, sickle and star with "rays" motif but it was usually reserved for officers in all army belts. (See photos below for examples.) 

The belt above is a variation of the previous photo but it is unclear as to what the country of origin it is - whether USSR, a republic or simply another East European country on the side of the Soviet Union during The Great Patriotic War. The point is that it is made identically to the definitely Soviet version. There is a brass stud that comes up from the lower layer of the belt and pushes through the top layer to hold it in place. This design was eventually done away with all together.
  
Early Chekist-GPU uniforms varied from region to region and often differed from the All-Union Chekist official versions based on a number of reasons from regional customs to distance from Moscow which would cause regulation uniforms to take longer to reach Far-Eastern republics and some areas simply kept the style they had before for preference.

Ultimately, any effective political police officer would never appear in public wearing any uniform save the standard army clothing. The use of Royal Blue (sometimes referred to as "corn silk blue") as a symbolic color of the security services did not come into regular, widespread use until the late 1920s - early 1930s.   

Images of an Emerging New World II

Here are a few more propaganda posters that were used to keep the spirits and patriotism of the Soviet citizens high during WWII (Great Patriotic War), much like the US had plastered in areas of high foot traffic such as outside cinemas, concert halls and metro stations.

"Gossip[ers] - A great prize for the enemy"
One of many such posters warning the
public to watch what they say because
they never know who might be listening.
(Note the surreptitious eavesdropping
man behind the red-nosed, drunken speaker
on the phone.) Ironically, regularly listening
in on Sovietcitizens' - and especially foreign
tourists' and dignitaries' telephone
conversations would become standard practice
for the KGB during the Cold War years - a 
practice still used by the FSB today in the
Russian Federation where telephone operators
 are encouraged and rewarded for reporting
"suspicious" conversations they happen to be
listening in on during the course of their jobs.

Another propaganda poster designed to bolster the morale of the citizens and soldiers. In this case, the medal for "The Defense of Leningrad"
is shown. This medal, like other "campaign medals" produced to honor those who helped defend and/or defeat invading German armies was awarded to soldiers,naval personnel,
civilians and members of thearmed troops of the NKVD (internal security service during
The Great Patriotic War). 

Images of an Emerging New World

As the war drew to an end, Stalin had already decided what he wanted from the spoils of war, even though occupying some Eastern European countries and annexing the Baltic states is still a question of morality and the right to take over countries.

Before I venture into the end of WWII (to the Russians, "The Great Patriotic War"), and the "Cold War" - I thought a few posters and other pictures of propaganda from a War ravaged and politically untrusting government bent on "winning the hearts and minds" with promises for the stomach.

Intentional famines in the southern regions of the Soviet Union by Stalin to force compliance to his collectivisation laws and taxes among the Kulaks (or rather ex-Kulaks) of the agrarian lands well south of Moscow. These minor land-owners, or "wealthy peasants" were a significant problem for both Stalin and Lenin because these land-owning peasants became so because of Russian Imperial reform about 10 years before the October Revolution. They vehemently opposed the entire notion of Leninist-Marxist socialism-communism, especially since they had essentially bought their freedom and managed to create a profit through their work which allowed them to buy the land they worked.

The Kulaks and how they were systematically eradicated by Stalin (though Lenin began the killing with the Cheka) and his NKVD and Smersh troops, along with entire cultural and ethnic peoples will be discussed elsewhere.

The following are a few posters and other political art from the 1930s-1940s.

Please enjoy (those who are old enough - or watched enough old Warner Brothers' Bugs Bunny cartoons may recognize the Soviet Versions of some of our own WWII propaganda posters - like "Rosie the Riveter" and some of those old cartoons themselves).

The Battle of Stalingrad and Hitler's resounding,
and more importantly, humiliating defeat there started
a complete role reversal of battle tactics - namely the
Nazi War Machine had broken down and was loping
back to Berlin without a single significant win when
fighting the Red Army until the Soviets were standing
atop the Reichstag's making the famous replacement
of the Nazi headquarters flag for the USSR hammer
and sickle on that great red field. The rifle has the
word "Stalingrad" and the caption is basically -
"We beat the malicious Fuhrer here, we can beat
him anywhere." 

Propaganda poster for winning of the Battle of Moscow
and a likeness of the actual medal awarded to all those
who were responsible in some capacity for keeping the enemy at the gates out - whether they were bankers given
a rifle or a trained soldier or NKVD trooper.

"The sniper strikes from afar, but he always is certain [acurate - trans.]!"

This propaganda piece alludes to the Non-Agression Pact signed between Germany and the Soviet Union, which Hitler violated brought the full rath of not only the government, but of the public as well. This is reminiscent of the the
Warner Bros' cartoons featuring Bugs Bunny and several anti-Nazi nd pro US Army rediness and dominance cartoons. The newspaper Hitler is hiding behind has a headline about the Non-Agression Pact and the text at the top reads:
"Mercilessly smash and destroy the enemy!"

"Glory to the Partisan Heroes Who Destroy the Enemy's Rear Line [preventing them from leaving spies, mines

or having any other means of escape - trans.]" Partisans from countries with the former "Soviet Sphere of Influence" were greatly admired and given practically a hero status among both the public and the government. Countries like Hungary, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and Poland as well as members of the Baltic States. The most obvious problem with the partisan movements is that some of them, particularly Ukrainians formed resistance groups which before WWII fought the Red Army and the Bolsheviks and many of them continued to refocus their attention on the Soviets, the most prominent was the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) which had arranged and trained itself to be a formidable enemy for the officers and armed troops of the  NKVD, NKGB, MGB and to an extent, the KGB.

Stalin, Hitler and the Treaty of Non-Aggression

While Stalin was busy with having millions arrested, tortured, imprisoned and/or executed, he also turned a blind eye toward Hitler and the Nazi genocide of German Jews. In many ways, the two dictators were operating with similar goals - complete domination of their respective kingdoms - and used similar methods - mass removal of entire populations from their homes to prison camps, or in Stalin's case, relocating the population of a region to another simply to punish their perceived misdeeds. One of the most remembered is the systematic relocation by train of practically the entire population of Chechnya because too many among them refused to bend to his will and turn over the allotted amount of production as a state "tax."

Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov signs the German-Soviet non-aggression pact;
Joachim von Ribbentrop and Josef Stalin stand behind him, Moscow, August 23, 1939**

Hitler despised Stalin as he did all Slavic peoples and Stalin did not trust Hitler, but the two men needed the peace treaty for their own ends, much to the anger and bitter frustration of many of the Baltic States and  especially Poland, the first country Hitler's armies invaded. The peace held until 1941 when Hitler was no longer content with conquering Western Europe and decided he could use his Panzers and Blitzkrieg tactics to take Moscow within a year. He was wrong. Like many other invaders of Russia, including Napoleon, he did not fully take into account the severity of Russian winters and a terrain of Taiga forests that when blanketed with snow provided no sense of direction nor allowed for soldiers and commanders to get their bearings accurately. Despite these major handicaps, the Nazi army eventually came within only about one hundred kilometers of Moscow before they were stopped cold by a brutal arctic blizzard that pounded an army already stretched very thin and without adequate supplies of food and warm clothing. The German invaders had underestimated what both the Red Army and Mother Nature could do to prevent invading soldiers from reaching their goal.

The "Treaty of Non-Aggression" signed by representatives of the Soviet Union and Germany in August of 1939 was touted as a simple extension of the previous neutrality agreement signed between the two countries in 1926. The treaty was nicknamed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact by the average citizens because of the two men who drafted and signed the brief agreement, Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop. The non-aggression treaty, signed during the night of August 23 in Moscow, 1939 asserted that each country would remain neutral in the event either was attacked by a third party. Article II: "In case one of the contracting parties should become the object of war-like acts on the part of a third power the other contracting party will not support that third power in any form."* For Hitler, this meant he did not have to worry about a war on two fronts and could continue his march across Western Europe. For Stalin, it meant that he was free to flush out saboteurs and "wreckers" among the rank and file of the Soviet Union.

Most of the articles of the treaty favored Germany and Hitler's plans for conquering the planet. In fact, Article IV was worded practically in anticipation of the formation in 1941 of the Allied nations against Nazi Germany which consisted of "The Big Three" - the British Empire, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the United States - as well as 16 other countries including France, Czechoslovakia, Canada, Australia, Greece, Yugoslavia, Poland and Brazil. The article stated that "Neither of the two contracting parties will participate in any grouping of powers which is indirectly or directly aimed against the other party." Of course, the minute Hitler ordered his armies to invade the Soviet Union just after 3 a.m. of June 22, 1941, the treaty was voided. However, Stalin had ignored warnings from intelligence services that such an attack was not only likely, but imminent. Because of this blind blunder the Red Army suffered 4.3 million casualties and three million more were captured in only six months after the initial invasion.

The treaty itself was an initial step on Hitler's part to buy time while he waged war in Western Europe and there is no direct evidence that he ever had any intention of honoring the agreement any longer than it suited him. But the treaty signed by the two foreign ministers was not the only agreement that the two countries decided upon. What no one outside the walls of the Kremlin other than Hitler and his closest advisers was that there was a "secret protocol" attached to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact which divided up Eastern Europe between Germany and the Soviet Union into so-called "spheres of influence." Finland, Latvia and Estonia were assigned to the Soviet sphere while Poland was split between the two countries based on presumed political motives within the country and Lithuania was at first under the German sphere then later shifted to the Soviets. The maps below show the initial intent of the division according to the "Secret Protocol" (left) and the actual division in which the Soviet Union annexed the Baltic States and added them formally as republics of the Soviet Union in 1948 (right), without the consent of the citizens of these countries. At the same time, Finland and the USSR went to war over the Soviet attempt to annex them as well and eventually the Red Army backed down from this venture, although the USSR did gain two small portions of Finland - Karelia and Salla as can be seen below.

Since Hitler's first country of choice to invade was Poland, he did not want opposition from the Soviet Union at this stage of his overall plan. Hitler was allowed to expand the German borders as he wished within Eastern Europe which later included invasions of Hungary, Romania and Greece.

The pact was a treaty of convenience for both parties. Stalin wanted the UK and the US to agree to his wish to annex the Baltic States, but since they would not, he decided it would be better to have a peace treaty with Germany for the meantime until the Allies (in 1939 the "Allies" consisted of the UK, France and the US, even though the US had not officially gone to war yet) were more willing to see things his way.

Another aspect of this treaty with Germany was that the NKVD met with the Gestapo on several occasions in Poland and helped train the SS on tactics for killing large numbers of captives at one time. It is well known that the Gestapo itself was founded in the image of the NKVD by German officers who had trained in the Soviet Union and many other tactics for dealing with rebels and "undesirables" (or as the Soviets termed them, "bandits") because high ranking members of the Gestapo noticed during their collaboration with the NKVD on border areas that the NKVD was far more efficient and effective in carrying out Stalin's murderous plans. It was not uncommon for NKVD officers to capture German Jews who fled from Germany and across the border into a Soviet Sphere of Influence and then turn them over to members of the Gestapo.

Perhaps the most disturbing result of the pact pertained to Poland and the officers and soldiers who fought the Germans when they invaded and/or the Soviet Red Army when it began occupying western Poland (see maps above). In 1939, about 180,000 Polish prisoners of war were turned over to the Red Army which divided them up with the regular soldiers being taken to labor camps and the officers and other ranking leaders who fought the Nazi invasion taken to three "special camps." There was a total of approximately 15,000 men placed in camps at Kozelsk (near Smolensk), Starobelsk (near Kharkov), and Ostashkov (Kalinin district). All three camps were under NKVD control and all of the prisoners were subjected to intense interrogations and Soviet propaganda.

After the USSR reestablished diplomatic ties with the Polish government in exile in London, the Soviets assured the Poles that the prisoners from these three camps would be released and later insisted that they had been released. However, no one outside of the NKVD ever saw any of them again.

In 1943, German soldiers discovered several mass graves in the Katyn Forest near the Kozelsk camp and the Nazis announced the discovery to the world press. At first, the Stalin and the Polit Bureau remained silent while the Germans announced that all of the 4,400 dead in the mass graves had their hands bound behind them and were each shot in the back of the head. When world leaders began demanding answers the Soviet propaganda machine tried to turn the tables on the Nazis saying that it was the German army that had killed these people and tried to label it as another Nazi atrocity.

In 1946, none of the judges would put blame on either party for the Katyn Massacre, even though the Soviets continued to point the finger at the Nazis. It was not until 1990 that two similar sites of mass graves were found near the other two special camps, and the many years of not knowing for certain who was responsible for all of the killings came to an end in 1992 when then president Boris Yeltsin of the Russian Federation turned over documents to the Polish government proving beyond all doubt that the 15,000 people had been executed under Stalin's orders by the NKVD.

Red Arny soldiers escorting Polish prisoners to one
of the "special camps"***

The first page of a letter from Beria to
Stalin suggesting the execution of the
Polish prisoners***

Bodies found after the excavation of one of the mass graves at Katyn***

* http://www.soviethistory.org/index.php?page=article&ArticleID=1939pact1&SubjectID=1939annex&Year=1939page=article&ArticleID=1939pact1&SubjectID=1939annex&Year=1939

** Photo: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MolotovRibbentropStalin.jpg

*** Photos from Wikimedia Commons - public domain