In these complicated circumstances some military prosecutors tried unsuccessfully to remind commanders and heads of OOs about the law. For example, in October 1941 Boris Alekseev, Prosecutor of the 43rd Army (Western Front), found out that 30 commanders and privates had been executed in a few days without trial, only on the order of the Military Council of this army. He immediately ordered the divisional prosecutors to increase their supervision over such cases. Additionally, he told Major General Stepan Akimov, Commander of the 43rd Army, that he would not tolerate executions without trial, and reported to the Chief Military Prosecutor Nosov, ‘I’ve pointed out to the Army high command and the OO head that it is necessary to follow proper regulations.’44 But Georgii Zhukov, Commander of the Western Front, continued ordering executions without trial. In November 1941, on Zhukov’s order Lieutenant Colonel A. G. Gerasimov and Commissar G. F. Shabalov were shot in front of formation.45
As for Mekhlis, in May 1942, after the defeat of the Red Army in the Crimea (where he represented the Stavka), he lost his posts of deputy NKO Commissar and head of the GlavPURKKA and was demoted to Corps Commissar, two ranks lower. However, Mekhlis remained a member of military councils until the end of the war. With Stalin’s approval, he moved among nine fronts, denouncing commanders and HQ members to Stalin. After visiting the Bryansk Front in 1943, a correspondent for the military newspaper Krasnaya zvezda (Red Star) described Mekhlis: ‘He is feared, disliked, and even hated.’46
Notes
1. GKO Order No. 187ss. Document No. 146, in A. I. Kokurin and N. V. Petrov, Lubyanka. Organy VCheKa–OGPU–NKVD–NKGB–MGB–MVD–KGB. 1917–1991. Spravochnik (Moscow: Demokratiya, 2003), 616–7 (in Russian).
2. NKVD Instruction No. 169, dated July 18, 1941. Quoted in Gosudarstvennaya bezopasnost’ Rossii: istoriya i sovremennost’, edited by R. N. Baiguzin, 554 (Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2004) (in Russian).
3. NKVD Order No. 1024, cited in Aleksandr Kokurin and Nikita Petrov, ‘NKVD–NKGB–SMERSH: Struktura, funktsii, kadry. Stat’ya tret’ya (1941–1943),’ Svobodnaya mysl, no. 8 (1997), 118–28 (in Russian).
4. GKO Decision No. 1120-ss, dated January 10, 1942. Document No. 775, in Organy gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti SSSR v Velikoi Otechestvennoi voine. Tom 3. Kniga 1. Krushenie ‘Blitskriga,’ 1 yanvarya–30 iyunya 1942 goda (Moscow: Rus’, 2003), 27 (in Russian).
5. Politburo decision P34/259, dated July 21, 1941, and the decree of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Council that followed. Document No. 186, in Lubyanka: Stalin i NKVD, 298–9; also, Beria’s report to Stalin, dated July 30, 1941. Document No. 191, in ibid., 306–8.
6. Pages 276–8 in Document No. 27 (NKVD structure on May 20, 1942) in A. I. Kokurin and N. V. Petrov, Lubyanka. VChK–OGPU–NKVD–NKGB–MGB–MVD–KGB. 1917–1960. Spravochnik (Moscow: Demokratiya, 1997), 271–304 (in Russian).
7. Data from V. P. Artemiev et al., Political Controls in the Soviet Army: A Study Based on Reports by Former Soviet Officers (New York: Research Program on the USSR, 1954), 56.
8. See the special State Security (NKVD) ranks and their military equivalents in Appendix III.
9. Zvyagintsev, Voina na vesakh Femidy, 132.
10. Istoriya sovetskikh organov gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti (Moscow: Vysshaya shkola KGB, 1977), edited by V. M. Chebrikov et al., 351 (in Russian), http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~hpcws/documents.htm, retrieved September 5, 2011.
11. Peter Prigov, Why I Escaped (London: The Harvill Press, 1950), 67.
12. Interview with Daniil El’kin, former infantryman, July 28, 2009 (in Russian), http://www.iremember.ru/pekhotintsi/elkin-daniil-arnoldovich.html, retrieved September 5, 2011.
13. Interview with Nikolai Safonov, former infantryman, April 30, 2008, http://www.iremember.ru/pekhotintsi/safonov-nikolay-ivanovich/stranitsa-4.html, retrieved September 5, 2011.
14. Directive No. 0367, Special Department, the Northwestern Front, dated July 22, 1941, in Organy gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti SSSR v Velikoi Otechestvennoi voine. T. 2. ‘Nachalo’, Kniga 1 (22 iyunya–31 avgusta 1941 goda) (Moscow, 2000), 394–5 (in Russian).
15. SMERSH. Istoricheskie ocherki, 27.
16. GKO decree No. 377ss, dated August 2, 1941. Quoted in N. Ya. Komarov and G. A. Kumanyov, Bitva pod Moskvoi. Prolog k velikoi pobede (Moscow: Molodaya gvariya, 2005), 54 (in Russian).
17. Many servicemen from Central Asia and the Caucasus did not understand why they were fighting against the Germans because they even did not speak Russian. GKO decrees, dated October 13, 1943 and October 25, 1944, stated that men from these regions of the Soviet Union should not be drafted. A. I. Vdovin, ‘Natsional’naya politika v gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny,’ Doklady Akademii Voennykh Nauk. Voennaya istoriya, no. 3 (15) (2005), 122–39 (in Russian).
18. Interview with Georgii Minin, former mortarman, July 14, 2006, http://www.iremember.ru/minometchiki/minin-georgiy-ivanovich/stranitsa-4.html, retrieved September 5, 2011.
19. Quoted in Ye. S. Senyavskaya, 1941–1945: Frontovoe pokolenie. Istorikopsikhologicheskoe issledovanie (Moscow: Institut Rossiiskoi Istorii RAN, 1995), 148–9 (in Russian).
20. Interview with Zyama Ioffe, former military prosecutor, February 5, 2009 (in Russian), http://www.iremember.ru/drugie-voyska/ioffe-zyama-yakovlevich/stranitsa-5.html, retrieved September 5, 2011.
21. Interview with Izo Adamsky, an artillery officer, September 12, 2006 (in Russian), http://www.iremember.ru/minometchiki/adamskiy-izo-davidovich/stranitsa-8.html, retrieved September 5, 2011.
22. A. A. Baranov, a member of the SMERSH Department of the 96th Separate Guard Mortar Regiment, quoted in Vadim Abramov, SMERSH: Sovetskaya voennaya kontrrazvedka protiv razvedki Tret’ego Reikha (Moscow: Yauza-Eksmo, 2005), 89.
23. Interview with Ioffe.
24. Details in Anatolii Tsyganok, ‘O kollabortsionizme grazhdan SSSR vo Voroi mirovoi voine,’ Polit.ru, May 4, 2006 (in Russian), http://polit.ru/author/2006/05/04/kollaboracionism.html; N. P. Dembitsky, ‘Sud’ba plennykh,’ Skepsis (in Russian), http://scepsis.ru/library/id_1250.html; Boris Sokolov, ‘Perevypolnenie plena,’ Novaya gazeta. Spetsvypusk ‘Pravda GULAGa,’ no. 05 (26), April 28, 2010 (in Russian), http://www.novayagazeta.ru/data/2010/gulag05/01.html; all retrieved September 6, 2011.
25. Page 14 in B. N. Petrov, ‘O strategicheskom razvertyvanii Krasnoi Armii nakanune voiny,’ VIZh, no. 12 (1991), 10–17 (in Russian).