On December 19, military counterintelligence officers of the Russian Federation celebrate their professional holiday. This year the date is very memorable - after all, the Day of Military Counterintelligence is celebrated in honor of its creation on December 19, 1918. A hundred years ago, the young Soviet state began to think about the need to centralize the security forces responsible for security in the armed forces.
1918 - the height of the Civil War. Soviet Russia confronts white armies, foreign interventionists, numerous insurgent and openly bandit formations. Naturally, in such a situation, the state desperately needed an effective military counterintelligence system. The decision to create it was made by the Central Committee of the RCP (b). Military counterintelligence received the name of the Special Department of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission under the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR. The structure of the Special Department included the previously scattered Extraordinary Commissions for Combating Counter-revolution and military control bodies.
Of course, military counterintelligence existed until 1918. In the Russian Empire, the question of the need to create such a structure arose sharply at the very beginning of the twentieth century, when our country was threatened by the aggressive aspirations of Japan, Germany, and Great Britain.
On January 20, 1903, the Minister of War of the Empire, Adjutant General Alexei Nikolaevich Kuropatkin, presented a project to create a special structure that would be responsible for the search and capture of foreign spies, as well as traitors in their own ranks.
In the project, the structure was called "exploration department". It is interesting that it was created behind the scenes, in an atmosphere of the strictest secrecy. Kuropatkin believed that if the department was officially established, the meaning of its secret existence would be lost. Even the head of the military intelligence department was called "at the disposal of the chief of the General Staff."
Captain Vladimir Nikolaevich Lavrov became the first head of military counterintelligence. Before being transferred to the Ministry of War, he served as the head of the Tiflis security department. That is, it was mostly a professional detective, a highly qualified operative. The number of his subordinates was also small. From Tiflis, along with Lavrov, arrived a senior observer agent, the provincial secretary, Pereshivkin, and two observant agents - extra super-urgent non-commissioned officers Zatsarinsky and Isaenko. A little later, the number of the intelligence department increased to 13 people.
However, such a small structure could not meet the growing needs of the Russian Empire. Therefore, the country's leadership discussed the possibilities of further improving the service. In April 1911, the law "On the release from the state treasury of funds for secret expenditures of the War Ministry" was adopted.
On June 8, 1911, the Regulation on counterintelligence departments was approved. Military counterintelligence was subordinated to the Quartermaster General's Department of the Main Directorate of the General Staff. Branches were created under the command of military districts - Petersburg, Moscow, Vilenskoe, Warsaw, Odessa, Kiev, Tifliss, Irkutsk and Khabarovsk. Thus, it was only in 1911 that the beginning of the formation of an extensive system of military counterintelligence was laid. In this, Russia, by the way, managed to get ahead of even Germany, which took care of the creation of military counterintelligence a little later.
However, after the February and October revolutions took place in the country in 1917, practically the entire counterintelligence system had to be created from scratch. Professional revolutionaries - Mikhail Kedrov, Felix Dzerzhinsky, Vyacheslav Menzhinsky - stood at the origins of Soviet military counterintelligence. It was to these people that Soviet Russia was obliged to promptly create a counterintelligence structure, which quickly began to demonstrate an extremely high degree of efficiency.
The first head of the Soviet military counterintelligence - the Special Department of the Cheka - was Mikhail Sergeevich Kedrov, a member of the RSDLP since 1901, a well-known revolutionary who, even during the years of the First Russian Revolution, was engaged in supplying workers' squads with weapons and was responsible for underground activities in a number of party organizations. Kedrov had significant experience in illegal work, so he quickly got used to the new type of activity.
In 1919, Mikhail Kedrov was replaced as head of military counterintelligence by Felix Dzerzhinsky himself, who served as chairman of the Cheka under the SNK of the RSFSR. This circumstance only emphasized the special importance of military counterintelligence for the Soviet state, since it was headed by the head of the main Soviet secret service himself. From July 1920 to July 1922 The special department of the Cheka was headed by Vyacheslav Rudolfovich Menzhinsky, another prominent figure of the Soviet special services, who then headed the OGPU of the USSR.
The main thing that the leaders of the Special Department of the Cheka faced in 1918-1919. - lack of qualified employees. This was not surprising, since there was nowhere to take them - the tsarist counterintelligence officers and intelligence officers were unequivocally viewed as elements hostile to the Soviet regime, and the number of revolutionaries with experience of underground work was not so great, and most of them occupied serious positions in the party hierarchy. Nevertheless, the personnel shortage was resolved - experienced Bolsheviks - front-line soldiers and people from the working class loyal to the new government - were recruited into the Special Departments of the Cheka.
During the Civil War, special departments ensured many victories of the Red Army, identified enemy agents, and also fought against counter-revolutionary elements and criminals, including among the Red Army. After all, it is no secret that during the war years a variety of people were recruited into the active army, and among them there were enough real criminals, and enemy agents, and simply unscrupulous people. The Chekists from special departments fought all of them.
After the end of the Civil War, work continued to improve the military counterintelligence system. During the 1920s - 1930s. the military counterintelligence of the Soviet state went through a series of serious personnel and organizational perturbations. But, at the same time, she coped very well with her main function - protecting the Red Army and the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Fleet from the activities of enemy spies and saboteurs. And the times were serious! What is one Basmach movement worth in Central Asia? Multiple infiltrations of saboteurs across the Soviet borders in the Far East and Eastern Europe? Naturally, among the commanders and commissars of the Red Army there were people inclined to cooperate with enemy intelligence services. They were identified by "special officers" who increasingly played the role of observers of the general moral, moral and political state of servicemen.
The Great Patriotic War became a difficult test for the military counterintelligence agencies, as well as for our entire country. From the very first days of the war, military counterintelligence officers found themselves at the front, as part of active armies, where they honorably performed their duties in the fight against Hitler's spies and saboteurs, with traitors and marauders from among the soldiers of the Red Army, with criminals and deserters.
On April 19, 1943, a decree of the USSR State Defense Committee announced the creation of the Main Directorate of Counterintelligence "SMERSH" ("Death to Spies!"), Which became part of the People's Commissariat of Defense of the USSR. In addition, the SMERSH department was created as part of the People's Commissariat of the USSR Navy, and the SMERSH department was created as part of the USSR People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs. The GUKR was headed by Viktor Abakumov - an ambiguous personality, but strong and extraordinary, who played an important role in the victory over the enemy.
The word "smershevets" became a household word during the Great Patriotic War. Enemy spies and their own traitors feared the Smershevites like fire. It should be noted that the "Smershevites" also took the most direct part in combat operations - both at the front and in the rear. Employees of "SMERSH" actively worked in the territories liberated from the Nazi occupation, where they identified enemy agents, traitors, policemen, and criminals. Many Hitlerite punishers who tried to disguise themselves as innocent civilians and even pretend to be partisans or underground fighters were exposed by the "Smershevites" during the liberation of the occupied territories.
The contribution of "SMERSH" to the identification of persons who collaborated with the Nazi occupiers and who took part in the mass destruction of Soviet citizens, in the protection of concentration camps, murders and violence against civilians is invaluable. After the Victory in the Great Patriotic War, "SMERSH" existed for another year - until May 1946. The duties of the "Smershevites" in peacetime included the study of the personal files of Soviet officers and soldiers returning from captivity, as well as the activities of persons who were in the occupied territories. And, I must say, the Smershevites also coped with these tasks perfectly.
Nevertheless, in peacetime, a somewhat different structure of military counterintelligence was required. Therefore, in May 1946, the SMERSH GUKR was disbanded, and instead of it, all the same special departments were created. Since 1954, they have been part of the system of the 3rd Main Directorate of the KGB under the Council of Ministers of the USSR.
The main functionality of the special departments remained the same - the identification of enemy agents, saboteurs, the fight against potential betrayal in the ranks of their own armed forces. Then the tasks of the military counterintelligence included anti-terrorist activities. It is worth noting that during the Cold War it was no easier for military counterintelligence officers to work than in wartime. Soviet counterintelligence officers continued to identify foreign spies and other hostile elements.
In 1979-1989. The Soviet Union took part in the bloody war in Afghanistan. Naturally, military counterintelligence officers were also part of the limited contingent of Soviet troops operating in Afghanistan. They had to get used to working in new, very unusual conditions and no longer identify spies of the Western powers, but spies and saboteurs from among the Afghan mujahideen. The duties of the military counterintelligence officers also included the fight against the proliferation of criminal offenses within the contingent, including those related to the use of narcotic substances that are quite available in Afghanistan.
Nevertheless, for all the seriousness of its structure, the Soviet military counterintelligence was not free from those shortcomings that were inherent in the Soviet state system and, ultimately, and destroyed the Soviet state. Many military counterintelligence officers, especially from among the representatives of the older generations, were even forced to leave the service, but the main part nevertheless continued to serve the already new country - the Russian Federation.
The experience of military counterintelligence officers was very useful during local armed conflicts in the post-Soviet space, primarily in the First and Second Chechen campaigns. It should also be noted the importance of the work of military counterintelligence officers in countering criminal activity in the armed forces. After all, it is no secret that during the general confusion of the "dashing nineties", the armed forces also experienced hard times. Lack of money and the desire to “live beautifully” forced some servicemen to take the path of criminal activity - to sell weapons to criminals or, conversely, to distribute drugs in units. The fight against such crimes has also become a constant companion of the work of military counterintelligence agencies.
Currently, Russia's military counterintelligence is part of the Federal Security Service. The Department of Military Counterintelligence is organizationally subordinate to the Counterintelligence Service of the FSB of Russia.
The head of the Department of Military Counterintelligence is Colonel-General Nikolai Yuriev. In the last five years alone, his subordinates have prevented four terrorist attacks in the armed forces, seized more than 2 thousand firearms and about 2 million ammunition, 377 pieces of homemade bombs, and more than 32 tons of explosives. Like other units of the FSB of the Russian Federation, the military counterintelligence service responsibly and with dignity serves to protect our country.
On the Day of Military Counterintelligence, we congratulate all employees and veterans of Soviet and Russian military counterintelligence on their professional holiday. The service of the "special officers" is very often kept in great secrecy, but this does not make it less necessary for both Russia and its armed forces.
