But for many, this was a death sentence. For instance, during June–September 1942, 9,080 Lithuanian deportees, plus ethnic Finns and Germans exiled from Leningrad, were relocated to Yakutia (currently the Sakha Republic within Russia), a Siberian area with an extremely severe climate, as ‘fishermen’. Of these, only 48 per cent could work and 36 per cent were children under 16. The deportees were provided with no housing, food, boats or fishing-gear and were forced to live in dug-outs, each for 60 deportees. Only 30 per cent of them survived.46 By June 1941 Merkulov was able to report to the Central Committee that almost all the members of the intelligentsia of these small countries were in Soviet labor camps, and the number of the arrested and deported was about 66,000.47 However, the current Baltic States consider this number to have been underestimated:
| Country | Total population | Deportees | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Russian sources48 | Baltic sources49 | ||
| Lithuania | 2,879,000 | 28,533 | 35,000 |
| Latvia | 1,951,000 | 24,407 | 35,000 |
| Estonia | 1,133,000 | 12,819 | 15,000 |
Simultaneously, mass purges were organized in the other territories occupied by the Red Army. May 1941 saw the deportations of approximately 12,000 family members of ‘counter revolutionaries and nationalists’ from Western Ukraine, formerly a part of Poland.50 Purges also took place in Bessarabia, previously a part of Romania, now renamed the Soviet Republic of Moldavia. There were deportations from several other areas of Romania and Belorussia as well. On the whole, the number of the deported during 1940-41 was approximately 380,000–390,000, and of them, 309,000–325,000 were former Polish citizens.51
The Soviets had a different attitude toward ethnic Germans in the same states. Special Soviet–German agreements allowed ethnic Germans to move from the Baltic States to Germany, while ethnic Lithuanians, Russians, and Belorussians living in the Polish territory now occupied by Germany were forced to move to Soviet-occupied Lithuania.52 The Soviets even paid substantial sums of money to the Baltic Germans for property losses.
On June 26, 1940, during the Baltic campaign, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet introduced new working rules, apparently in connection with the preparations for a big war. The Presidium’s decree established a seven-day working week and an eight-hour instead of seven-hour working day.53 Now quitting a job without permission of the administration or being late for work by 20 minutes were punished by imprisonment for two to six months. This meant that people became attached to particular working places and could not change jobs. On December 26, 1942 an additional decree increased the punishment to two to five years. Before the war, 2,664,472 perpetrators were sentenced under the June 26 decree, and during the war, their number was 7,747,405.54
In 1941–42, five more decrees introduced additional restrictions. The number of people who fell foul of the working rules during the war reached 8,550,799; of these, 2,080,189 served terms in labor camps, making these convicts a majority among all prisoners. Probably, the feeling of slavery had an impact in the low morale of just-drafted soldiers during the first disastrous period of the war with Germany. The June 26 decree was abolished only in 1956, three years after Stalin’s death; overall, from 1940 to 1956, 14,845,144 perpetrators were convicted under it.55
Three Security Services
After the expansion, Stalin tried to maintain a good relationship with Hitler. In November 1940, Molotov, Merkulov, and Dekanozov arrived in Berlin for economic and political negotiations with the Nazis.56 Not everything went smoothly, but Dekanozov stayed in Berlin as Soviet Plenipotentiary and Bogdan Kobulov’s brother Amayak, who had no experience in intelligence, became NKVD chief rezident (head of a spy network) in the Soviet Legation. These appointments gave Beria and the NKVD a great deal of control over diplomats, especially those who were stationed in Berlin.
With the new workload occasioned by the western expansion, it became clear that the NKVD was too monolithic to function efficiently. In January 1941, Beria proposed separating the intelligence and counterintelligence functions from the more mundane domestic terror organs by removing the GUGB from the NKVD and turning it into the State Security Commissariat, or NKGB.57 The NKGB would include three important directorates: foreign intelligence, domestic counterintelligence, and secret political directorate. From this time onwards, during almost all of the many subsequent reorganizations of the Soviet security services, foreign intelligence was called the 1st (or 1st Main) Directorate, and interior counterintelligence the 2nd (or 2nd Main) Directorate.
GUGB head Merkulov became head of the new NKGB, with Beria remaining head of the now smaller NKVD, whose main function was to manage the countless Soviet labor camps and prisons with a population of 2,417,000 prisoners and an additional population of 1,500,000 people in labor and special settlements, including those transported from the Baltic States and other occupied territories.58 Although not the direct head of the NKGB, Beria still controlled it through Merkulov. On January 30, 1941, with Beria’s promotion to the rank of State Security General Commissar, speculation was rife that he would eventually succeed Stalin.59
The OO, the 4th GUGB Department, was not incorporated into the new NKGB, but instead was split into three parts.60 One part, which handled military counterintelligence in the border guards and other NKVD troops, remained within the NKVD and became its 3rd department.61 In his first affiliation with military counterintelligence, on February 25, 1941 Abakumov became NKVD deputy Commissar in charge of supervising this and several other departments. The second and most significant part went to the Defense Commissariat (the NKO), becoming its 3rd Directorate.62 Now every military district (called fronts in wartime), army, corps, and division had a 3rd department whose heads reported jointly to a 3rd department superior and to their unit’s military commander.63 The third part of the OO became the Navy Commissariat’s (the NKVMF) 3rd Directorate.
But even though two parts of military counterintelligence were formally moved to the NKO and NKMF, Beria still controlled all secret services. The staff of the new 3rd directorates remained on the sixth floor of the NKVD Lubyanka building, and a special Central Council consisting of the NKGB and NKVD commissars, along with heads of the two 3rd directorates and the NKVD 3rd department, coordinated all military counterintelligence. Additionally, new deputy head positions were created within the 3rd directorates and their subordinate departments, which Merkulov filled with members of his staff.64 Finally, the NKGB had the right to transfer any investigation conducted by the 3rd directorates to its own investigation unit. In addition, the NKVD maintained a central archive through which it was able to keep detailed tabs on whatever happened in the other secret services.65