17. Pages in Artemyev et al., Political Controls, 9–15.
18. Georgii Arbatov, ‘Nastupali po gogolevskim mestam,’ Novaya gazeta, no. 86, November 13, 2006 (in Russian), http://www.novayagazeta.ru/data/2006/86/37.html, retrieved September 6, 2011.
19. For example, memoirs by Mikhail Baitman, former military intelligence officer, interview on September 22, 2008 (in Russian), http://www.iremember.ru/razvedchiki/baytman-mikhail-ilich.html, retrieved September 6, 2011.
20. Interview with Georgii Minin, former mortar man, July 4, 2006, http://www.iremember.ru/minometchiki/minin-georgiy-ivanovich.html, retrieved September 6, 2011.
21. Recollections of Elya Gekhtman, former infantryman, May 7, 2009 (in Russian), http://www.iremember.ru/pekhotintsi/gekhtman-elya-gershevich.html, retrieved September 6, 2011.
22. Viktor Astafiev’s letter to V. Kondratiev, dated December 28, 1987, in ‘Tol’ko prestupniki mogli tak sorit’ svoim narodom,’ Novaya Gazeta, no. 46, May 6, 2009 (in Russian), http://www.novayagazeta.ru/data/2009/046/00.html, retrieved September 6, 2011.
23. Roman Kolkowicz, The Soviet Military and the Communist Party (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1967), 76–77.
24. Joint Order of the NKO and NKMF, dated July 13, 1941. From August 1941 onwards, the 2nd NKVD Special Department was responsible for censorship, but the OOs continued to perform operational censorship of army correspondence. Abramov, SMERSH, 64–65.
25. David Samoilov, ‘Lyudi odnogo varianta. Iz voennykh zapisok,’ Avrora, nos. 1–2 (1990), 68 (in Russian).
26. Reports in Lubyanka v dni bitvy za Moskvu. Po rassekrechennym dokumentam FSB RF, edited by V. K. Vinogradov et al., 291–360 (Moscow: Zvonnitsa, 2002) (in Russian).
27. Report of the OO deputy head of the Kalinin Front to Milshtein, dated February 13, 1942, in ibid., 320–3.
28. For instance, Report No. 2397/6 by the OO of the Kalinin Front to the NKVD in Moscow, dated March 4, 1942, in Organy gosudarstvennoi bezopanosti SSSR v Velikoi Otechestvennoi voine. T. 3. Kn. 1. Krushenie ‘Blitskriga.’ 1 yanvarya—31 iyulya 1942 goda (Moscow: Rus’, 2003), 10–60 (in Russian).
29. Fedorenko’s report to Stalin, dated October 21, 1941. Document No. 37 in ‘Voina 1941–1945,’ Vestnik Arkhiva Presidenta, 85.
30. An order to the troops of the Southwestern Front No. 0029, dated December 12, 1941, in Skrytaya pravda voiny, Chapter 4, http://www.rkka.ru/docs/spv/SPV4.htm, retrieved September 6, 2011.
31. GKO Decision No 562ss, dated August 22, 1941. Mentioned in NKO Order No. 0320, dated August 25, 1941. Document No. 58, in Russkii arkhiv. Velikaya Otechestvennaya. Prikazy narodnogo komissara oborony SSSR (1943–1945 gg.), T. 13 (2-2) (Moscow: TERRA, 1997), 73 (in Russian).
32. GKO Order 1227s, dated May 11, 1942, cited in NKO Order No. 0373, dated May 12, 1942. Document No. 188, in ibid., 228. Also, GKO Order No. 2507s, dated November 12, 1942, cited in NKO Orders No. 0883, dated November 13, 1942, and No. 031, dated January 13, 1943, Document No. 289, in ibid., 365–6, and Document No. 16 in Russkii arkhiv. Velikaya Otechestvennaya. Prikazy, T. 13 (2-3), 28.
33. GKO Order No. 1889s, dated June 6, 1942, cited in NKO Order No. 0470, dated June 12, 1942. Document No. 289, in ibid., 251–2.
34. Interview with Semyon Tsvang, former sergeant in a reconnaissance company of a tank brigade, November 19, 2008 (in Russian), http://www.iremember.ru/razvedchiki/tsvang-semen-ruvimovich.html, retrieved September 6, 2011.
35. Quoted (page 763) in Frank Costigliola, ‘“Like Animals or Worse”: Narratives of Culture and Emotion by U.S. and British POWs and Airmen behind Soviet Lines, 1944–1945,’ Diplomatic History, 28, no. 5 (November 2004), 749–80.
36. NKO Order No. 0063, dated April 5, 1942, Document No. 161 in Russkii arkhv: Velikaya Otechestvennaya: Prikazy, T. 13 (2-2), 193–4.
37. Quoted in Zoya Yershok, ‘My valyalis’ na trave… Voina. Svidetel’skie pokazaniya sarshego leitenanta Petra Todorovskogo,’ Novaya gazeta, April 23, 2010 (in Russian), http://www.novayagazeta.ru/data/2010/043/19.html, retrieved September 6, 2011.
38. Interview with Nikolai Safonov, former infantryman, April 30, 2008, http://www.iremember.ru/pekhotintsi/safonov-nikolay-ivanovich.html, retrieved September 6, 2011.
39. A review of trials of the Red Army commanders in 1943 in Zvyagintsev, Voina na vesakh Femidy, 466–71.
40. Quoted in B. V. Sokolov, Razvedka. Tainy Vtoroii mirovoi voiny (Moscow: AST-Press, 2001), 432–7 (in Russian).
41. Igor Plugatarev, ‘Voevat’, tak s iumorom!’ Nezavisimoe voennoe obozrenie, April 1, 2005 (in Russian), http://nvo.ng.ru/history/2005-04-01/6_humor.html, retrieved September 6, 2011.
42. Interview with Nikolai Chistiakov, former infantryman, July 14, 2006, http://www.iremember.ru/pekhotintsi/chistyakov-nikolay-aleksandrovich.html, retrieved September 6, 2011.
43. The above-cited recollections by Nikolai Safonov.
44. Serov’s letter to Stalin, dated September 8, 1946, in Petrov, Pervyi predsedatel’ KGB, 244–7.
45. Two letters: No. Sh/003778 by Sharashenidze, dated April 4, 1942, and No. 08529/4 by Isai Babich, dated July 9, 1942. Document Nos. 876 and 1006, in Organy gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti, 3 (1), 321, and ibid., 3 (2), 33–40.
46. NKVD Orders No. 00988, dated May 15, 1942, and No. 001854, dated August 30, 1942 (both signed by Abakumov). Documents No. 933, in Organy gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti, 3 (1), 449–51, and No. 1071, in ibid., 3 (2), 183–85.
CHAPTER 11
Alleged New Traitors (Late 1941–Early 1943)
It sounds incredible, but draconian measures against military commanders and their arrests by Abakumov’s men continued on a mass scale during the next two years, which were decisive in turning the course of the war.
Typical Accusations
From autumn 1941 to early 1943, the UOO, including Abakumov personally, continued to arrest generals at the fronts. Most of them were charged with treason and espionage (paragraph 58-1b) (Appendix I, see http://www.smershbook.com). On the whole, from 1941 to 1945, field military tribunals sentenced 164,678 so-called traitors: in 1941, 8,976; in 1942, 43,050; in 1943, 52,757; and in 1944, 69,895.1
Disseminating lies about the Red Army (paragraph 58-10) was the second common accusation. Any criticism of the Red Army or Party leaders, especially discussions about the disastrous period at the beginning of the war, was considered lies and anti-Soviet propaganda. For example, a former secretary of a military tribunal recalled that a colonel received ten years in a labor camp for telling his fellow officers that Marshal Semyon Budennyi, with whom he had attended military academy, could not understand the principles of fractions.2 Among generals alone, twenty were arrested and sentenced from 1941 to early 1943 for anti-Soviet propaganda (Appendix I, see http://www.smershbook.com). Overall, at the end of 1944, prisoners sentenced on 58-10 charges constituted a third of all 392,000 political prisoners in the GULAG.3