SMERSH

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For James Bond's fictional nemesis based on the real Soviet department, see: SMERSH (James Bond).

SMERSH (acronym of SMERt' SHpionam, Russ: СМЕРть Шпионам, Eng: Death to Spies) were the counter-intelligence departments in the Soviet Army created in 1943. [1]

Its threefold purpose was:

  1. securing the Red Army's operational rear from partisans, saboteurs, and spies
  2. investigating and arresting conspirators and mutineers, "traitors, deserters, spies, and criminal elements" at the combat front, and
  3. supporting general staff strategic operations.

On February 3, 1941, the Special Sections (osoby otdel) of the NKVD (responsible for Military counterintelligence of the Soviet Army) became part of the Army and Navy (RKKA and RKKF, respectively). The GUGB was separated from the NKVD and renamed the "People's Commissariat for State Security" (NKGB), with the Counter-Intelligence (CI) sections assigned to it. Following the outbreak of World War II, the NKVD and NKGB were reunited on 20 July 1941 and CI was returned to the NKVD in January 1942.

As the requirements of war expanded and the Soviet armies began their conquest of previously occupied German territory, the complexities of counter-espionage, counter-insurgency, and occupation were sufficiently large to encourage Stalin to consolidate all of SMERSH under his direct control.On April 15, 1943, CI was again transferred to the People's Commissariats of Defense (NKO) and the Navy (NKF), becoming SMERSH within NKO. The full name of the head entity was Главное управление контрразведки СМЕРШ Народного комиссариата обороны СССР, or USSR People's Commissariat of Defense Chief Counterintelligence Directorate "SMERSH". The organization was headed by Viktor Abakumov, who was a subordinate of Lavrenty Beria. Therefore, SMERSH belonged to the state security apparatus rather than to the Red Army.

As the war wound down, the need for a strategic directorate focused on counter-espionage wet operations and counter-insurgency pacification operations which answered directly to Stalin was no longer viewed as necessary. Thus, on March 1946 SMERSH Chief Directorate was resubordinated to the People's Commissariat of Military Forces (Наркомат Вооруженных Сил, НКВС). Additionally, as a period of increased scrutiny by Western powers was expected as well as a new Soviet propaganda offensive at political subversion of Western anti-communist resistance, the Soviets further sought to purge the image of SMERSH and the HKBC was latter reorganized into the Ministry of Military Forces (МВС) soon thereafter, and officially discontinued in May, 1946. However, the elements and organs of SMERSH remained structured and glimpses of the organization remained as late as the 1950s, particularly during the Korean War and the late 50s Cold War.

Some high-profile assassinations or disappearances of individuals that would historically have been under the writ of SMERSH also continued. These include Louis Adamic, Noel Field and his entire family, and hundreds of people accused of being Field's agents. Additionally, numerous suspected GRU German agents as well as a number of Allied agents (even intelligence officers) disappeared in Berlin and other parts of occupied Europe well into the 1950s.

SMERSH had functioned as an organization to mobilize youth in national defense, and some of its promising young members, such as Yuri Modin, were recruited into the KGB.

Contents

[edit] Domestic and the Eastern Front activities

Since the writ of SMERSH was targeted against traitors, the Soviet Union's national security organs were structured as a counter-intelligence apparatus, and SMERSH primarily originated as a battlefield counter-intelligence group, it was at home in the military ranks that most large scale activities of SMERSH were conducted.

Organized principally to carry out special activities against dissidents within the military including arresting and executing mutineers, it performed a similar function to the Red Army's Punishment Battalions. Some divisions, almost all Corps, and all Armies had punishment battalions attached to them at various times during the war.

Additionally, the punishment battalions other activities was in securing areas of combat by establishing a killing zone in which even Soviet troops were killed if they fled the battlefield. The punishment battalions would begin forcing Soviet soldiers forward to ensure they didn't break upon assaults on the enemy or flee from a defensive position when assaulted. Investigating potential mutineers or those who refused to properly implement orders and then carrying out their executions in this area was the final role of SMERSH.

As Soviet armies began their advance upon occupied German territory, it was foreseen that a substantial period of insurgency against Soviet arms would begin. Most of the Baltic populations and many Western Ukrainians were opposed to the Soviet Union. Large armies had in fact been recruited by the Germans to aid in their war against the Soviets at the front and in the rear against the Red Partisans. To secure the supply lines, effect military order, and establish Soviet power it was viewed necessary to utterly smash any opposition or dissidence to Soviet rule. Therefore, it was concluded that SMERSH needed to be reinforced with substantial new assets including legal standing within the Soviet power structure. It was these new requirement which caused the previously shadowy SMERSH to come out from clandestine operations under military service commands to strategic authority under Stalin's direct command.

SMERSH activities also included "filtering" the soldiers recovered from captivity. It was also used extensively to "filter" the population of the newly gained territories, including Eastern Europe. The SMERSH was directly involved in the collection, interrogation, and execution of tens of thousands of Polish military officers, clerics, and political leaders at the Katyn Forest Massacre. The SMERSH was also actively involved in the capture, of tens if not hundreds of thousands of individuals suspected of disloyalty, anti-Soviets, and White Partisans in the Soviet Union such as forced repatriation, and execution of Soviet citizens who had been active in anti-communist armed groups fighting on the side of Nazi Germany such as the Russian Liberation Army, the Cossack Corps of Pyotr Krasnov, and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. This also included eastern POWs and eastern workers. Finally, SMERSH handled the capture and interrogations and executions of hundreds of thousands of German and Japanese POWs as well as the capture of thousands of American, British, Australian, New Zealand, Dutch, French and Nationalist Chinese soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines, as well as expatriates. Though a few thousand of the German and Japanese PoW's were released after Stalin's death in March, 1953, the "Allied Disappeared" were never seen again. The USSR, and the present Russian Federation, claim to know nothing about these many thousand "Allied Disappeared."[citation needed] The USSR feared these members of the Allies that ended up on the USSR's territory would tell what they saw, and Stalin feared a cessation of the Arctic and Persian supply convoys.[citation needed]

SMERSH was also used to punish those within the NKVD itself; it was allowed to investigate whomever it wished in the NKVD structure; department and directorate heads were not immune from it[citation needed]. SMERSH would also often be sent out to find and kill defectors, double agents, etc.

SMERSH was also used by INO (the NKVD's later KGB FCD, First Chief Directorate, responsible for foreign intelligence operations outside of the USSR) to hunt down "enemies of the people" outside of Soviet territory.

As the war concluded, SMERSH was given the assignment of finding Adolf Hitler and, if possible, capturing him alive or recovering his body. Red Army officers and SMERSH agents found Hitler's partially burned corpse near the Führerbunker after his suicide and conducted an investigation to confirm the events of his death and identify the remains which (along with those of Eva Braun) were reportedly secretly buried at SMERSH headquarters in Magdeburg until April 1970, when they were exhumed, completely cremated, and dumped in a river.

[edit] Organization

                    People's Commissar of Defense 
                    
                                  |
                                  |
                         Chief and deputies 
                                  |
                                  |
                                  |
                             Secretariat 
                                  |
                                  |
                                  |
                                  |
          Section 1 ----------------------------- Section 5
 Counter-intelligence protection  |        Oversight of SMERSH      
of central Red Army institutions  |         organs in military
                                  |               districts        
                                  |
                                  |
          Section 2 ----------------------------- Section 6       
      Work among POWs             |            Investigations
                                  |
                                  |
                                  |
                                  |
          Section 3 ----------------------------- Section 7 
    Counterespionage and          |           Information and
    Conduct radio games           |               statistic
                                  |
                                  |
                                  |
          Section 4 ----------------------------- Section 8
Organization of Counter-                          Codes
  intelligence behind                              and
      front lines                              communications
Org.References - Lubianka 2. Iz istorii otiecziestwiennoj kontrrazwiedki, W.A. Sobolewa Moskwa 1999

[edit] SMERSH in fiction

SMERSH as a separate strategic entity was discontinued in 1946. Although it existed only three years as an independent official directorate, its notorious clandestine history in previous years and into the early cold war were made into works of fiction. The most notable example is Ian Fleming's SMERSH, a nemesis of James Bond. However, in most of the later film adaptations the independent criminal organization SPECTRE was substituted to avoid the connotation of fomenting hate for the Soviet Union and contributing to a destabilization of relations with that nation. SMERSH is mentioned in the early Bond film From Russia with Love, but doesn't play an active role in the plot. A masquerading reactivation of SMERSH appears in Timothy Dalton's first Bond film, The Living Daylights. It is also briefly mentioned in Nobody Lives For Ever and figures in the 1967 Bond spoof Casino Royale.

SMERSH is mentioned (along with a number of other increasingly obscure intelligence agencies) in DC Comics' Young Justice issue #1.

SMERSH is mentioned in the epilogue of Len Deighton's Ipcress File.

SMERSH is mentioned repeatedly in Clive Cussler's Night Probe!

Possibly the best (and most realistic) picture of the SMERSH in literature is given by Vladimir Bogomolov's novel In August of '44. In this narration the main methods of work of the SMERSH are shown along with the difficult conditions in which they had to act (as a Soviet counter-intelligence organization) to achieve their mission goals: to frustrate the leakage of military information and to capture infiltrated German spies and saboteurs.

SMERSH is the subject of the computer game Death to Spies by Russian developer Haggard Games and published by the 1C Company and Atari.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Anton Antonov-Ovseenko Beria, Moscow, ACT, 1999, ISBN 5-327-03178-1, pages 316-330 (Russian edition)

[edit] External links