96. Information released by the Russian participants of the Swedish-Russian Working Group on Raoul Wallenberg on April 14–15, 1993.
97. Nicholas Nyaradi, My Ringside Seat in Moscow (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1952), 221.
98. Details in Krisztián Ungváry, The Siege of Budapest: One Hundred Days in World War II, translated from the Hungarian by Ladislaus Löb (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003), 339–63;
99. Nyaradi, My Ringside Seat, 222. An analysis of atrocities in James Mark, ‘Remembering Rape: Divided Social Memory and the Red Army in Hungary 1944–1945,’ Past and Present, no. 188 (August 2005), 133–61.
100. Report of the Swiss Legation in Budapest in the spring of 1945. Appendix III in John Flournoy Montgomery, Hungary—The Unwilling Satellite (New York: Devin-Adair Co., 1947), http://www.hungarianhistory.com/lib/montgo/montgo21.htm, retrieved September 8, 2011.
101. Letter of Mikhail Vetrov to Vladimir Dekanozov, dated May 24, 1945 (RWDD, RA UD, Stockholm).
102. Special Annex to Bulletin No. XXXII (1945), 8.
103. SMERSH. Istoricheskie ocherki, 159.
104. Cable to ‘Director’ (Ivan Il’ichev, head of the GRU), dated March 2, 1943, quoted in Shandor Rado, Pod psevdonimom Dora (Moscow: Voenizdat, 1973), 203–4 (in Russian).
105. Quoted in Ignác Romsics, István Bethlen: A Great Conservative Statesman of Hungary, 1974-1946 (Boulder, CO: Social Science Monographs, 1995), 385.
106. A report by G. S. Zhukov to the Central Committee, dated April 17, 1944. Document No. 5 in Sovetskii factor v Vostochnoi Evrope. 1944–1963. Tom 1. 1944–1948. Dokumenty, edited by T. V. Volokitina, G. P. Murashko, and A. F. Noskova (Moscow: Rosspen, 1999), 56–58 (in Russian).
107. See Wlodzimierz Borodziej, The Warsaw Uprising of 1944, translated by Barbara Harshow (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2006).
108. Directive of the HQ of the NKVD rear guard troops of the 3rd Belorussian Front, dated August 25, 1944. Quoted on page 198 in P. A. Aptekar’, ‘Vnutrennie voiska NKVD protiv pol’skogo podpol’ya (Po dokumentam Rossiiskogo gosudarstvennogo voennogo arkhiva),’ in Repressii protiv polyakov i pol’skikh grazhdan, edited by A. E. Gur’yanov (Moscow: Zven’ya, 1997), 197–206 (in Russian).
109. Stavka’s directive, dated August 2, 1944. Document No. 9, Chapter 4 in Russkii Arkhiv. Velikaya otechestvennaya. SSSR i Pol’sha: 1941–1945. K istorii voennogo soyuza. Dokumenty i materialy, T. 14 (3–1), edited by V. A. Zolotarev, 334–35 (Moscow: TERRA, 1994) (in Russian).
110. GKO Order on Poland, dated July 31, 1944. Quoted in NKVD i pol’skoe podpol’e (Po ‘Osobym papkam’ I. V. Stalina), edited by A. F. Noskova, 12 (Moscow: Institut slavyanovedeniya, 1994) (in Russian).
111. Nikita Petrov, Pervyi predsedatel’ KGB Ivan Serov (Moscow: Materik, 2005), 21–31 (in Russian).
112. Serov’s report to Beria, dated October 16, 1944. Forwarded to Stalin and Molotov. Document No. 5 in NKVD i pol’skoe podpol’e, 37–42.
113. An excerpt cited as a note to Document No. 5 in ibid., 38.
114. Serov’s report to Beria, dated October 26, 1946. Document No. 9 in NKVD i pol’skoe podpol’e, 55–58.
115. Quoted in Andrei Blinushov, ‘Takikh lagerei predstoit mnogo…,’ ‘Karta,’ no. 2, 5–6 (in Russian), http://www.hro.org/files/karta/02/p05.jpg, retrieved September 8, 2011. A detailed examination of the torture methods used by the Soviet and Polish investigators in Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, ‘The Dialectics of Pain: The Interrogation Methods of the Communist Secret Police in Poland, 1944–1955,’ Glaukopis, 2/3 (2004–2005). One of the victims described 39 methods of torture that he was subjected to.
116. Beria’s report to Stalin, dated October 29, 1944. Document No. 10 in NKVD i pol’skoe podpol’e, 58–59.
117. Document Nos. 16, 104, and 128 in N. S. Lebedeva, N. A. Petrosova, B. Woszcynski et al., Katyn. Mart 1940 g.—sentyabr 2000 g. Rasstrel. Sud’by zhivykh. Ekho Katyni. Dokumenty, 66, 219–21 and 275–9 (Moscow: Ves’ Mir, 2001) (in Russian).
118. Cable to Beria, dated September 3, 1944, and Document No. 11 in NKVD i pol’skoe podpol’e, 59–65.
119. The same cable to Beria, dated September 3, 1944.
120. Cable to Beria, dated November 8, 1944. Document No. 12 in NKVD i pol’skoe podpol’e, 65–71.
121. N. Ye. Yeliseeva et al., ‘Katalog eshelonov s internirovannymi polyakami, otpravlennymi v glub’ SSSR,’ in Repressii protiv polyakov, 215–25.
122. Cable to Beria, dated approximately November 13, 1944. Document No. 15 in NKVD i pol’skoe podpol’e, 77–81.
123. Yeliseeva et al., ‘Katalog eshelonov.’
124. O. A. Zaitseva and A. E. Gur’yanov, ‘Dokumenty TsKhIDK ob internirovanii pol’skikh grazhdan v SSSR v 1944–1949 gg.,’ in Repressii protiv polyakov, 226–47.
125. Beria’s cover letter to Abakumov and Tsanava’s report, dated November 14, 1944. Document No. 16 in NKVD i pol’skoe podpol’e, 82–83.
CHAPTER 22
In the Heart of Europe
Within a year of its creation, SMERSH was more powerful than the NKGB and NKVD. The growing power of Abakumov and SMERSH made Beria determined to restore his own power over all security services. On May 5, 1944, Beria was promoted to deputy chairman of the GKO, which made him Stalin’s deputy. He was also chairman of the Operational Bureau of the GKO in charge of routine GKO work. Beria thus became responsible for the work of all branches of the defense industry, the NKVD, the NKGB, and the daily work of the GKO. By 1945, he also received partial control over SMERSH.
Beria Gains Control
On January 11, 1945, the activities of NKVD, NKGB, and SMERSH were newly coordinated under Beria as a system of NKVD plenipotentiaries (upolnomochennye, meaning representatives) and their staffs at the fronts.1 Seven such plenipotentiaries were appointed ‘to cleanse the rears of Red Army fronts of enemy elements.’ High-level officials from the NKVD, NKGB, and SMERSH were chosen to be the plenipotentiaries (Table 22-1).
Abakumov became NKVD Plenipotentiary to the 3rd Belorussian Front, Abakumov’s first deputy, Nikolai Selivanovsky, became Plenipotentiary to the 4th Ukrainian Front, and Pavel Meshik was appointed Plenipotentiary to the 1st Ukrainian Front. Heads of UKRs and of the NKVD rear guard troops at the fronts were automatically made deputy plenipotentiaries. This move subordinated Abakumov, two of his deputies, and the heads of UKRs to Beria. Ivan Serov, Beria’s deputy, was appointed Plenipotentiary to the 1st Belorussian Front, and he soon became one of Abakumov’s principal enemies. Through Serov, Beria controlled events in Poland until April 1945, when Selivanovsky was put in charge of the country.
A Special Operational Group was created in Moscow to coordinate and oversee the activities of the NKVD plenipotentiaries.2 Boris Lyudvigov, deputy head of the NKVD Secretariat and a devoted Beria man, was appointed as its head.