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 feature 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.