33. Viktor Usov, Poslednii imperator Kitaya Pu I (1906–1967) (Moscow: Olma-Press, 2003), 193–200 (in Russian).
34. Onegina, ‘Pis’mo K. V. Rodzaevskogo.’
35. On the imprisonment of N. A. Ukhtomsky in Rechlag (Vorkuta) see L. P. Markizov, Do i posle 1945: Glazami ochevidtsa (Syktyvkar, 2003 [no publisher]), 101–12 (in Russian).
36. A photo of Abakumov’s report, dated September 28, 1945, in SMERSH. Istoricheskie ocherki, 248.
37. On the Bryner/Brynner family and its enterprises, see Rock Brynner [son of Yul], Empire & Odyssey: The Brynners in Far East Russia and Beyond (Hanover, NH: Steerforth Press, 2006).
38. Alvin D. Coox,’L’Affaire Lyushkov: Anatomy of a Defector,’ Soviet Studies 19, no. 3 (January 1968), 405–20; Alvin D. Coox, ‘An Intelligence Case Study: The Lesser of Two Hells: NKVD G. S. Lyushkov’s Defection to Japan, 1938–1945. Part I,’ The Journal of Slavic Military Studies 11 (1998), no. 3, 145–86; Alvin D. Coox, ‘An Intelligence Case Study: The Lesser Two Hells: NKVD G. S. Lyushkov’s Defection to Japan, 1938–1945, Part 2,’ ibid., 11 (1998), no. 4, 72–110.
39. Details in N. L. Pobol’ and P. M. Polian, Stalinskie deportatsii 1928–1953 (Moscow: Demokratiya, 2005), 80–97, and 101–4 (in Russian).
40. Yoshiaki Hiyama, ‘Plany pokusheniya na Stalina,’ Problemy Dal’nego Vostoka, No. 5 (1990), 109–11 (in Russian).
41. Boris Sokolov, Okhota na Gitlera, okhtta na Stalina. Tainaya bor’ba spetssluzhb (Moscow: Veche, 2000), 22–23 (in Russian).
42. On the trial, see, for instance, Boris G. Yudin, ‘Research on humans at the Khabarovsk War Crimes Triaclass="underline" A historical and ethical examination,’ in Japan’s Wartime Medical Atrocities: Comparative Inquiries in Science, History, and Ethics, edited by Jing-Bao Nie et al., 59–78 (NY: Routledge, 2010).
43. V. A. Bobrenev and V. B. Ryazantsev, Palachi i zhertvy (Moscow: Voenizdat, 1993), 146–69 (in Russian).
44. Hal Leith, POWs of Japanese Rescued!: General J. M. Wainwright (Trafford Publishing, 2004), 76.
45 Major R. Lamar, ‘Survey of the Mukden Area Situation,’ September 11, 1945, quoted in Ronald H. Spector, In the Ruins of Empire: The Japanese Surrender and the Battle for Postwar Asia (New York: Random House, 2007), 33.
46. Vice Admiral Andrei Stetsenko and Major General of Aviation Nikolai Voronov were the other two Soviet representatives. L. Poritsky, ‘Na bortu linkol’na “Missuri”,’ Zerkalo nedeli, No. 36 (309), September 16–22, 2000 (in Russian).
47. Na prieme u Stalina, 463.
48. Innokentii Pasynkov, ‘Stalinskie “nabory” za granitsei,’ ‘Karta,’ no. 22–23 (1999) (in Russian), http://www.hro.org/files/karta/22-23/p66.jpg, retrieved September 9, 2011.
49. Usov, Poslednii imperator, 257–65; Vereshchagin and Gordeev, ‘Voennaya kontrrazvedka Zabaikal’ya.’
50. Usov, Poslednii imperator, 266–99.
51. Ibid., 297.
52. Pu Yi, The Last Manchu: The Autobiography of Henry Pu Yi, Last Emperor of China, translated by Kuo Ying Paul Tsai (London: A. Barker, 1967).
53. Bobrenev and Ryazantsev, Palachi i zhertvy, 137–69. Also, prisoner cards from Vladimir Prison of the Japanese diplomats Yoshio Higashi, Kumasaburo Nakamura, Toshio Hoshiko, and Saburo Asada, head of the 2nd Department, HQ of the Kwantung Army.
54. V. P. Galitsky, ‘Yaponskie voennoplennye i internirovannye v SSSR,’ Novaya i noveishaya istoriya, no. 3 (1999), 18–33 (in Russian).
55. See text at http://www.ndl.go.jp/constitution/e/etc/c06.html, retrieved September 9, 2011.
Part IX. SMERSH After the War: 1945–46
CHAPTER 27
In Europe and at Home
Although SMERSH existed for only a year after World War II, this was a time of fundamental changes. In Eastern Europe, the Soviet military formations known as fronts were reorganized into four groups of occupational troops, each with its own SMERSH counterintelligence directorate. These directorates, which in mid-1946 became MGB counterintelligence directorates, played a considerable role in the Sovietization of the occupied countries, as well as in the intelligence and counterintelligence fight against the former Western Allies. Romanov, a SMERSH officer, recalled the words of Colonel Georgii Yevdokimenko, a SMERSH/MGB official in Hungary: ‘For some people, perhaps, the war was over, but for us, [the] Chekists… the real war, to bring about the final destruction of the capitalist world, was only just beginning.’1
Demobilization
With the end of the war in Europe, the Soviet Union began the partial demobilization of its enormous 11.5-million-man army. The older soldiers were demobilized first. A veteran recalled: ‘When the first soldiers were demobilized and sent back from Germany, they were put in small train cars, two persons per car… Each aged serviceman took a cow, a huge bag of sugar, a bag of flour, some clothes, and so on. The second group of demobilized servicemen… didn’t have cows, but brought bags of foodstuffs. The third group brought even less.2
While secretly sending some of the troops to the Russian Far East in preparation for the war with Japan, the Soviets transformed the remaining troops in Europe into four groups of occupation forces (Table 27-1). SMERSH controlled the demobilization and changes. Before demobilization began, on GUKR’s instructions the third OKR departments within UKRs made an evaluation of every field officer and decided which officers should be sent to the reserve, which officers should be demoted to lower posts, and so on.3 Then special commissions, attached to the HQs of the four groups of forces in charge of demobilization, were created. Officers of the 1st OKR departments represented SMERSH in these commissions. The commissions made one of three decisions: ‘demobilize from the army’; ‘transfer to less important work’; or ‘be left on active service.’ All officers whose relatives were arrested in the 1930s or had participated in the ROA were demobilized into the reserve at once.
Along with checking all enlisted men, the GUKR also decided the fates of colonels, generals, and even marshals. Romanov recalled two coded messages from Moscow. One was from Abakumov: ‘Refrain from demobilizing into the reserve, personnel holding the rank of general or colonels serving as acting generals, unless you receive special instructions from us. Abakumov.’4 The second was from Nikolai Selivanovsky, Abakumov’s first deputy: ‘The following persons are to be demobilized either into the reserve or on to the retired list, according to the appended instructions.’ For some unknown reason, Romanov called Selivanovsky ‘Chernyshov’ in his book. Possibly, ‘Chernyshov’ was Selivanovsky’s alias during the war.
The changes covered also the field SMERSH units. The most capable operatives and investigators were transferred to the GUKR in Moscow, the rest were sent into reserve. Nikolai Mesyatsev, a SMERSH field operative now assigned to the 2nd GUKR Department, recalled: ‘In Lubyanka… my former co-workers at the Investigation Department had already been promoted to lieutenant colonels and colonels. Some of them looked at me in a haughty matter: I had left for the front as a captain and came back as a captain.’5