NKVD

Much has been brought to light in recent decades regarding the oppressive excesses of Joseph Stalin's secret police, the NKVD.  Despite the enormous oeuvre of 1 NKVD was an acronym for Narodnyy Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del or People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs. As a law enforcement body, it was responsible for a variety of duties related to state security, which included foreign intelligence and counterintelligence operations, border security, control of local police, and regulation of prisons. The NKVD's covert activities also involved kidnappings, assassinations, deportations, and mass executions.

Artykuł został poświęcony jednemu z kresowych kapłanów aresztowanemu i więzionemu przez władze sowieckie w latach 1941-1942. Po zwolnieniu z więzienia wstąpił do Polskich Sił Zbrojnych w ZSRR, z którymi został ewakuowany na Bliski Wschód. Brał udział w kampanii włoskiej II Korpusu PSZ na Zachodzie. Po II wojnie światowej osiadł w Wielkiej Brytanii, gdzie założył pierwszą polską parafię.

Text about priest from Eastern Poland, that was arrested by Soviet authorities and deported to prison in deep USSR. After amnesty of 1941, he joined Polish Army in USSR and was evacuated to the Middle East. As a soldier of 2nd Polish Corps participated in "Italian campaign of 1944". After WWII he came to UK, where organized the first Polish parish.

Tyurma-Lager Tost. The History of the NKVD Camp in Toszek in 1945. During the Second World War the Germans organised camps for prisoners of war (western and Soviet) and the so called Ilag - an internment camp for eastern European civilians - in the mental hospital building in Toszek (Tost). In January 1945, facing the frontline approach, the camp became deserted, and on the 23rd of January 1945, Toszek was taken over by the Red Army. As soon as three weeks later the Soviets kept - for a short time - about 500 of interned Upper-Silesians in the hospital, who were then deported for forced labour to the USSR. In the meantime, in the territories of the former German Reich occupied by the Soviet army, NKVD started arresting people suspected of hostile activities: members of Nazi organisations, public o^cial, workers, police oncers, people known for their anti-communist views. This was the so called "clearing the rear" action. It was also done in the territory of the Soviet Occupation Zone in Germany (later on: German Democratic Republic), and in the eastern part of Germany, which then became part of Poland. Its goal was to create a network of camps for civilians, where about 140 thousand people were placed. There were ten large camps in East Germany, known as special labour camps, over 30 camps in Poland. One of the biggest special camps was established by the Soviets in Bautzen in Saxony, in the premises of a prison known as "Yell- low Misery" ("Gelbes Elend"). As the prison cells were soon full, they decided to transfer some of the prisoners to one of the camps in the east. They chose Toszek.
NKVD established the camp in Toszek some time at the end of May and the beginning of June 1945 in the premises of the former mental asylum. The camp was known as "tyurma-lager Tost" - i.e. "Toszek prison and labour camp", though the Soviets used the German name of the place. At the beginning they put about 800 interned civilians there, mainly from Lower Silesia, particularly from Wroclaw, and from Upper Silesia. The latter group included people who were previously kept in a prison in Bytom. Meanwhile, from mid-June until mid-July, three transports of over one thousand people each were sent from Bautzen to Toszek. Altogether, there were 3654 prisoners brought from Bautzen to Toszek. There were about 4.5 thousand prisoners placed in that camp at the same time, mainly the inhabitants of Saxony, also from Saxony-Anhalt, Brandenburg and Sudeten- land, Lower and Upper Silesia. They were arrested on various charges, some were former Nazi party o^cials, but for others the reasons for internment cannot be determined. All the more so, given that the prisoners were never indicted for anything in particular. Most of the interned were middle-aged and older males (40-60 years of age); there were about 60 women and a pretty large group of minors, too. Some account state that there were also about 30-40 Poles - the Home Army soldiers - kept in the camp.
The conditions of work in the camp were very harsh. The prisoners would sleep in hospital rooms and in the chapel, on the ^oor. For the first weeks they could not wash themselves and they were deprived of even the basic personal hygiene. In order to get rid of louse, their heads were shaved and kerosene was rubbed into them. Each day they were woken up at 5.00 in the morning. After the morning calls and serving meals, the so called work commands were given and the prisoners were sent to work. They would mainly work on the surrounding felds where they would remove weeds, collect cereal and cut trees in the woods. Specialists were used to work in the water and gas station. Some labour groups were sent to other towns e.g. to collect coal from sunken barges in the area of Kozle. The work lasted until 8.00 p.m. The daily food ratio was composed of one loaf of bread per four prisoners, watery low-calorie soup and half a litre of warm liquid in the morning and in the evening. The meals did not satisfy the needs of the prisoners, especially those who performed hard physical work. Low calorific value and lack of vitamins resulted in abrupt weakening of their bodies, diseases and ultimately deaths of the people kept in the camp.
The prisoners were tortured in many ways. The guards would beat them with rubber hoses flled with sand and with wooden truncheons. Other painful forms of harassment included all kinds for "plays", such as e.g. putting a mouse in one's trousers and tying the legs, pouring water in the shoes, forcing one to eat live frogs. Another form of tormenting the prisoners was organising races in the basement of the facilities. A prisoner would sit on the back of another prisoner being on all fours. The guards would rush such dyads with whips. The race would last until the prisoner dropped from exhaustion. Women were better treated in the camp than men. They worked in the kitchen, in the laundry and in the lazaretto or as servants for the Soviet oncers' families. The guards would not beat them nor abuse them.
Horrible living and sanitary conditions, low-calorie food, overworking, physical and mental abuse of the prisoners and finally insu^cient medical care led to exhaustion of their bodies and resulted in a number of incidents of typhus, dysentery, tuberculosis, erysipelas, phlegmon and skin diseases. Camp doctors did not have enough measures to help the patients. Every week there were more and more deaths.
The corpses would be taken away by a wagon and buried in mass tombs located outside the camp: in the Jewish cemetery and in the sand mine (today: Wielowiejska Street). The corpses were buried naked. They were put in layers and covered with lime and soil.
The camp functioned until about 25th of November 1945. Then, some of the prisoners who were still alive - about one thousand people - were transported to the NKVD camp in Grudziqdz and some were left free. Very few prisoners were kept in Toszek until the end of December 1945. It is certain that the number of people who died in the camp is over 1.3 thousand as the list of the deceased with this number of names is preserved. However, it is assumed that the real number could be as high as three thousand deaths.
After 1945 a veil was drawn over the events that took place in the labour camp in To- szek. The families of the deceased, living in Germany, tried to look for any traces of their kin. After the breakthrough of 1989 the inhabitants of Toszek also reclaimed remembrance of the crimes committed in the camp. There was a meeting of former prisoners and the kin of the victims with the inhabitants of Toszek. On the 23rd of November 1991 a cross with a bilingual plate was unveiled near the place of the mass tomb of the victims. The event was attended by the inhabitants and by guests from Germany. On the 28th of June 1991 the Regional Commission for the Investigation of Crimes against the Polish Nation in Katowice initiated an investigation on "deprivation of liberty of German citizens, combined with extreme cruelty" in the period form January to September 1945 in the NKVD camp in Toszek. In course of the investigation a huge amount of evidence was collected. Based on the findings the investigators could ascertain that NKVD oncers in Toszek committed crimes against humanity and the crime of homicide. It was also established that the goal of the camp was "to turn people into slaves, and there were no criminal nor investigation procedures carried out against the prisoners". However, it was impossible to find those who were guilty of the crimes committed in the camp, therefore in November 1998 the proceedings were discontinued. At that time a new monument was erected in the place of the mass tomb, and there are regular ceremonies commemorating the victims organised there. In the very same year of 1998, Sybille Kragel - the daughter of one of the camp victims - and Siegfried Petschel who was imprisoned in Toszek when he was 15 years old, published the first book about the camp in German, which is a mine of knowledge on the subject. This work is the first book on the NKVD Tost prison and labour camp in Polish.

Фёдоров А.Ю. НКВД в Гражданской войне в Испании. Часть 1// Латиноамериканский исторический альманах. 2018. №20. С.317-337

Аннотация: В истории испанской гражданской войны 1936-1939 гг. до сих остается немало плохо изученных проблем, а многие эпизоды продолжают оставаться окутанными мифами и домыс-лами, имеющими мало общего с реальностью. Одной из таких тем является роль в испанской гражданской войне советской резидентуры НКВД. В данной статье сделана попытка воссо-здать роль и место данной организации в событиях тех лет.

(Note: this is a paper from 2019 for an undergraduate research conference) In 1940 the Soviet Union occupied the nations of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, signaling the start of the "Forest Brother" insurgency that saw nationalist partisans fighting to free their occupied nations. This research examines how influence from the German Reich, and later the United States and other Western countries, played an important role in this insurgency, providing material support and intelligence services to these partisans to further their own foreign policy goals. This research is based on Soviet and Western security documents along with eyewitness accounts.

«THEIR BROTHERS’ KEEPERS»: SOVIET INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES AGAINST THE UKRAINIAN GREEK-CATHOLIC CHURCH IN GALICIA IN 1939–1941. Unlike in 1944–1946, during the first Soviet occupation of Galicia the NKVD-NKDB agent-operational activities, in line with pre-war Soviet religious policy, were directed at “disintegrating” the Church by fomenting internal conflicts and splits, of which the conversion of some Uniates to Orthodoxy – both in its Russian and Ukrainian autocephalous forms – was to be but one element. Other directions of “disintegrative” work included attempts to exacerbate the conflicts between the “Easterners” and the “Westerners” among the clergy and between Metropolitan Sheptytsky and Bishop Khomyshyn, to create oppositional groups within each eparchy, and to compromise leading Church dignitaries. The cases analyzed include the intelligence mission of Alexander Kurtna, the infiltration of the agent “Literator” into the metropolitan’s residence, the attempts to recruit as NKVD agents bishop Ivan Liatyshevsky, Fr. Havryil Kostelnyk, Fr. Hrytseliak and other prominent Church figures.
Keywords: Soviet security services, NKVD, NKGB, Greek-Catholic Church, Andrey Sheptytsky, agent operations, agent recruitment

This article deals with the structure of the so called “special/checkup-fltration” NKVD camps during the
Great Patriotic War. It contains data about the staff and sources of its recruitment in the camps, reveals conflicts between counter-intelligence services and camps administration, and dwells upon the struggle among
Soviet ministries for employment of people from the camps. The author gives an assessment to the efficiency
of the special checkup.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) pursues missions both domestic and foreign, chief of which are to maintain the power of the Islamic Republic of Iran and to expand Iran's prestige throughout the world. This article explores the wide-ranging political and military capabilities of the IRGC, including its export of Iran's Islamic Revolution to neighboring countries; its antagonism toward Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United States; its command of a multinational, multidivision Shia Liberation Army; and its financial support for numerous proxy terrorist groups that are active in the Greater Middle East region.

Eric J. Schmaltz.  “Preface” (in English) in Samuel D. Sinner, The Open Wound:  The Genocide of German Ethnic Minorities in Russia and the Soviet Union, 1915-1949 and Beyond/Der Genozid an Russlanddeutschen 1915-1949.  Additional preface (in German) by Dr. Gerd Stricker.  Fargo, ND:  Germans from Russia Heritage Collection, North Dakota State University Libraries, 2000.  Pp. xi-xxiv.

Related links:

https://library.ndsu.edu/grhc/order/general/sinner.html

https://library.ndsu.edu/grhc/order/general/sinnerreview2.html

Фёдоров А.Ю. НКВД в Гражданской войне в Испании. Часть 2 // Латиноамериканский исторический альманах. 2019. №21. С.207-233.

Аннотация: История участия НКВД в испанской гражданской войне 1936-1939 годов до сих является политизированной темой, за частую представляющей возможность для искажений и спекуляций. В связи с этим историография данного вопроса полна неточностей и ошибок, а иногда и исторических мифов. В первой части данной статьи мы осве-тили ряд важных вопросов по данной теме, таких как майские событи-ях 1937 г. и проблему политических убийств. Во второй части затра-гиваются такие темы как операция по вывозу в СССР части испанско-го золотого запаса, создание диверсионных групп для работы в тылу франкистов, участие СССР в создании органов спецслужб Испанской Республики, а также участие в политических репрессиях.

Die KgU gehörte bis in die Mitte der fünfziger Jahre "zu den härtesten Widersachern der sowjetischen Besatzungsmacht und des SED-Regimes". Ihre angeblichen und tatsächlichen Angehörigen in der SBZ/DDR wurden mit großer Härte verfolgt. Der Beitrag zeichnet die Verfolgungs- und Urteilspraxis von sowjetischen Militärtribunalen gegen die KgU nach.

Yuliya Yurchuk, Andreas Umland: Introduction: Studies in the Course and Commemoration of the OUN’s Anti-Soviet Resistance.
Grzegorz Motyka: NKVD Internal Troops Operations against the Ukrainian Insurgent Army in 1944–45.
Oksana Myshlovska: History Education and Reconciliation: The Ukrainian National Underground Movement in Secondary School Curricula, Textbooks, and Classroom Practices (1991–2012).
Marian Luschnat-Ziegler: Observing Trends in Ukrainian Memory Politics (2014–2019) through Structural Topic Modeling.

Вопреки утверждению А. И. Солженицына, лингвиста Эр. Хан-Пиры и авторов некоторых словарей, слово «зэк» (расшифровка графической косолинейной аббревиатуры «з/к») – производное не от существительного «заключённый», а от словосочетания «заключённый каналоармеец», обозначавшего узников, трудившихся на Беломорканале (так у Жака Росси, да и многих других). Вкратце прослежена раннесоветская терминология, обозначавшая места лишения свободы и самих заключённых.

The analysis of new archival records from the "KGB archives" in Ukraine, made it possible to further study the deportation policy of the USSR in occupied Western Ukraine in 1940-1952. Along with campaigns and operations, there is a need to single out such a method of persecution by the Soviet special services as day-today deportations. It can be verified that there were three such deportation campaigns carried out in Western Ukraine. The first and third campaigns were carried out to clear the territory from "hostile elements" of the Polish population and the local elites of the Second Polish Republic, as well as the class enemies of the communist regime-the kulaks (well-to-do farmers). The second campaign was launched in response to the activity of the OUN resistance. During 1941 and 1944-1952, two deportation operations were carried out (22 May 1941, and Operation "Zapad" ("West"), 21-23 October 1947), and two campaigns of deportation in the format of the day-today activity of the Soviet special services (1944-1946 and 1948-1952). During the deportation campaign against the OUN family members, 66,448 families (or 205,938 persons) were exiled from Western Ukraine. The main purpose of the forced expulsion was the complete elimination of the Ukrainian anti-Soviet insurgency.

Pierwszy obóz pracy Urząd Bezpieczeństwa Publicznego (resort bezpieczeństwa publicznego Polskiego Komitetu Wyzwolenia Narodowego) założył w podlubelskim Krzesimowie w październiku 1944 r. pod nazwą Obóz Pracy Przestępców Politycznych i Podejrzanych. Fot. Dolina Krzyży – miejsce symbolicznych metalowych krzyży.
Jeden z nich jest poświęcony właścicielowi majątku – Kazimierzowi Dreckiemu, który został zamordowany w Katyniu.

В статье рассматривается положение консульств Китайской Республики в СССР в 1937–1938 гг. В период «большого террора» китайские консульства оказались в двойственной положении. С одной стороны, они являлись представительствами дружественной страны и не были закрыты, как многие другие иностранные консульства в это время. С другой стороны, НКВД обвиняло многих сотрудников в работе на японскую разведку, а действия консульств по защите граждан своей страны интерпретировалась советской стороной как враждебные.

Возможность войны с Японией рассматривалась руководством Советского Союза как одна из важнейших угроз безопасности страны.  Предотвращение подобной угрозы стало предлогом для проведения массовой операции против китайцев на Дальнем Востоке СССР. А вскоре «китайская операция» была развернута по всей стране.

Во второй половине XIX века в результате заключения Айгунского (Айгуньского) и Пекинского договоров к Российской империи отошли земли Приамурья и Приморья. Вскоре после присоединения новых территорий российская администрация столкнулась с тем, что проживающие в регионе китайцы зачастую игнорировали российские законы, а жизнь диаспоры упорядочивалась внутренними правилами и порядками различных организаций взаимопомощи. Теневая деятельность китайских обществ и организаций, так же как и пронизывающие диаспору связи побратимства, вызывали беспокойство у ряда отечественных исследователей региона и у официальных лиц. Ситуация коренным образом не изменилась и с приходом советской власти, которая воспринимала неподконтрольные ей китайские тайные общества и братства как препятствие для интеграции китайцев в советское мироустройство. К периоду «большого террора» 1937‒1938 гг. традиционные китайские формы личной и корпоративной взаимопомощи рассматривались как «реакционные». Это дало повод дальневосточным чекистам использовать сложившийся образ китайских братств и тайных обществ в качестве обоснования необходимости проведения репрессий против китайцев.

The article deals with the activity of a special sabotage–Intelligence group of the Soviet NKGB, working under the cryptonym „Arsenal” and dropped in Central Poland in the autumn of 1944. The group’s fundamental task consisted of destroying „means of communication deployed by the opponent for transporting equipment, people, and ammunition” along the Łódź–Końskie rail line and the Piotrków Trybunalski–Radom arterial road. The realization of this task was considered strategic for an offensive of the 1st Belorussian Front. The article is based on 14 volumes of the „Arsenal” group documentation in the archive of the SBU State Archives in Kyiv. The documents in question include, i.a. personal files of agents working for the Ukrainian NKGB, who formed the group in question, and detailed operation material pertaining to its activity, including plans, dispatches, cryptograms, accounts, and reports by group members. These vast and unique sources make it possible to reconstruct the sabotage and Intelligence work performed by the concrete special group, including the disclosure of the personal data of its agents. In addition — and this is of particular importance — they facilitate following the specificity of the arrangement and organization of Soviet sabotage groups during the end stage of the war, when responsibility for their activity lay with the 4th Department of the NKGB. It is specifically interesting that the preserved material shows also the actual attitude of the Soviet authorities towards the Polish military Underground (both communist and pro–independence). Such documents unquestionably allow us to confront and supplement our state of knowledge about the scale of the sabotage and the methods deployed by the Soviet special services in occupied Poland during the Second World War.

This short article deals with linguistic issues of designation of soviet former POWs. It reveals ideological and political basis for some designations, also different strategies of marking depending on situation. Observations connect with relations to captivity in Soviet Union and place of former POW in society.

Есть мнение, что знание вредно. Рецензия на книгу: Ирина Флиге. Сандормох. Драматургия смыслов. СПб., Нестор-история, 2019, 208 с. ISBN: 978-5-446-91564-4
Ирина Флиге объясняет, почему с таким трудом до населения и властей РФ доходят масштаб  личности Юрия Дмитриева - защитника места захоронения сотен граждан СССР - жертв сталинского (советского) террора в  Сандормохе (Сандармохе).

The article deals with the activity of a special sabotage–Intelligence group of the Soviet NKGB, working under the cryptonym „Arsenal” and dropped in Central Poland in the autumn of 1944. The group’s fundamental task consisted of destroying „means of communication deployed by the opponent for transporting equipment, people, and ammunition” along the Łódź–Końskie rail line and the Piotrków Trybunalski–Radom arterial road. The realization of this task was considered strategic for an offensive of the 1st Belorussian Front. The article is based on 14 volumes of the „Arsenal” group documentation in the archive of the SBU State Archives in Kyiv. The documents in question include, i.a. personal files of agents working for the Ukrainian NKGB, who formed the group in question, and detailed operation material pertaining to its activity, including plans, dispatches, cryptograms, accounts, and reports by group members. These vast and unique sources make it possible to reconstruct the sabotage and Intelligence work performed by the concrete special group, including the disclosure of the personal data of its agents. In addition — and this is of particular importance — they facilitate following the specificity of the arrangement and organization of Soviet sabotage groups during the end stage of the war, when responsibility for their activity lay with the 4th Department of the NKGB. It is specifically interesting that the preserved material shows also the actual attitude of the Soviet authorities towards the Polish military Underground (both communist and pro–independence). Such documents unquestionably allow us to confront and supplement our state of knowledge about the scale of the sabotage and the methods deployed by the Soviet special services in occupied Poland during the Second World War.

Abstract: The overarching task of this article is to directly present the main crucial venues – a prototype road map of Russia’s study of Persia in the context of foreign policy – to the students of Russia and its relations with Persia, as well as, more specifically, to researchers of Russia’s late Imperial and early Soviet policy towards Middle East and Oriental studies therein. Simultaneously, taking into consideration the equivocal and quite often controversial nature of conducting archival research in Russia, it is worth knowing that a scholarly activity, seemingly conventional and rather straightforward in the West, can turn into an adventurous quest in present-day Russia, hampered by various factors. So the article also touches upon the current condition of the archival industry in present-day Russia, with the emphasis on the traditionally most burning issue in this field, namely the unjustifiably excessive secrecy, underpinned by the discourse of protecting Russian state interests, which can turn out to be an unexpected obstacle to research into a period even dating back a hundred years.

Celem opracowania jest przedstawienie stanu badań nad komunistycznym aparatem represji w PRL, ze szczególnym skupieniem się nad aparatem bezpieczeństwa (Resort Bezpieczeństwa Publicznego PKWN, Ministerstwo Bezpieczeństwa Publicznego, Komitet do Spraw Bezpieczeństwa Publicznego, Ministerstwo Spraw Wewnętrznych) w latach 1944–1989. Jest to kolejna próba tego typu. Z pewnością wymagająca – w obliczu ukazujących się nowych opracowań, edycji źródłowych, zestawień bibliograficznych – uwzględnienia krytycznych uwag i uzupełnień.

Between 1942 and 1991, law enforcement and security authorities in the Soviet Union employed an evolving set of edicts to prioritize their investigation and prosecution of citizens for individual activities during the German occupation. Particularly during postwar processes, the breath-taking effectiveness with which security organs identified, located and tried citizens under Article 58 of the Soviet criminal code represented the most thorough accountability effort undertaken by any European power. With very few exceptions, the proceedings were closed and secret; after 1960, occasionally the outcome would appear in a short press account. Yet for the government, the pursuit of individual accountability remained of sufficient domestic and international importance to justify commitment of resources, Union-wide, until the demise of the Soviet Union. A representative subset of the many hundreds of thousands of Article 58 prosecutions were the cases brought against Soviet citizens who participated in "Operation Reinhard" (AR), the Nazi's effort to murder all the Jews in Poland. Soviet investigations and trials against men who served in the so-called Trawniki system, named for the training camp where all were inducted, trained, and deployed to AR sites, demonstrate the comprehensiveness of state security's efforts and the potential high value of those records for completing a modern historical reconstruction of the crimes committed during "Reinhard" between 1941 and 1945.

В статье на основе воспоминаний М.И. Вальберга рассматриваются обстоятельства визита эскадры Морских сил Балтийского моря в Польшу в сентябре 1934 г. Дается краткий анализ внешнеполитических причин заграничного плавания, приводится программа пребывания советских моряков в городах Польши. Особое внимание уделено содержанию подготовительных мероприятий и их результатам. Даются самые полные на данный момент материалы о побеге советского моряка в польском порту.

The article, based on the memoirs of M. I. Valberg, examines the circumstances of the visit of the Baltic sea Naval Forces squadron to Poland in September 1934. A brief analysis of the foreign policy reasons for overseas navigation is given, the program of stay of Soviet sailors in the cities of Poland is published. Special attention is paid to the content of the preparatory activities and their results. The most complete materials on desertion of the Soviet seaman in the Polish port are given at the moment.

Book Review by Dr. Eric J. Schmaltz of Jon K. Chang. Burnt By the Sun: The Koreans of the Russian Far East. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2016.  Pp. x + 273.  ISBN#:  978-0-8248-5678-6.  Hardcover. 

Appeared in:  Civitas:  The Journal of Citizenship Studies, Vol. IV (2015-2017): pp. 125-128.  Published by Northwestern Oklahoma State University, 2018.

The articles uses previously unknown sources to analyze the issues of confrontation between the Special Office for Trade with Foreigners on the territory of the USSR (shortly – “Torgsin”) and the Unified State Political Directorate (later – People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs). Torgsin is an understudied feature in the history of the Soviet Union of the first half of the 1930s. While closed distribution centers, cooperatives, commercial stores, the “black” market, and the card rationing system operated, the Torgsin network stores were by far the only examples of open state trade where every citizen could purchase the commodities s/he needed and the network itself was the most successful industrialization-oriented trade organization. The article defines the role of the USPD in the life of Torgsin; it pinpoints key controversies between the organizations that intensified confrontation between them; and compares their efficiency. The timeline of the research is the period between 1930 and 1936, from the moment of establishment of the Office to its liquidation

Eric J. Schmaltz.  “Foreword:  Stalinism Exported Abroad” in Ulrich Merten, The Gulag in East Germany:  Soviet Special Camps, 1945-1950.  Amherst, NY:  Cambria/Teneo Press, 2018. 

Author Ulrich Merten's Website for the book:  https://thegulagineastgermany.com/

Much has been brought to light in recent decades regarding the oppressive excesses of Joseph Stalin's secret police, the NKVD. Despite the enormous oeuvre of 1 NKVD was an acronym for Narodnyy Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del or People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs. As a law enforcement body, it was responsible for a variety of duties related to state security, which included foreign intelligence and counterintelligence operations, border security, control of local police, and regulation of prisons. The NKVD's covert activities also involved kidnappings, assassinations, deportations, and mass executions.

At the end of the Second World War, British Intelligence Struggled to enforce strict limits imposed on Jewish Immigration to Palestine. Holocaust Survivors and Jews wishing to escape communism in Eastern Europe flooded the western Zones of occupation in Germany and Austria, while the Zionist movement worked to bring them to Palestine. Illegal Immigration to Palestine was the key policy dispute between Britain and the Zionist movement, and a focus for British intelligence. Britain sought both overt and covert means to prevent the boarding of ships at European ports which were destined for Palestine, and even to prevent the entry of Jewish refugees into the American zones. This article highlights Britain’s secret intelligence gathering efforts as well as its covert action aimed to prevent this movement. It highlights a peculiar episode in the ‘special relationship’ between Britain and the United States, during which cooperation and partnership was lacking. British intelligence promoted a rumour that Soviet agents were using Jewish escape lines to penetrate Western Europe and the Middle East in order to persuade American authorities to prevent the movement of Jewish refugees. Instead, this article argues, American intelligence secretly cooperated with the Zionist organizers of the escape routes so to expose Soviet agents. Britain’s attempt at deception backfired, and provided effective cover for the movement of hundreds of thousands of Jews during a critical period. Meanwhile its intelligence had dramatically improved, but policymakers failed to reassess Britain’s ability to sustain immigration restrictions and the indefinite detention of tens of thousands of illegal migrants.