Today’s objectives

 

  1. Identify: missions and priorities of security services
  2. Distinguish: group vs. individual administrative procedures
  3. Discuss: post-Soviet and Putin-era reforms to secret police

Where are we?

Lubyanka #2

Cheka to KGB

Alphabet soup of state security

  1. 1917-1922: All-Russian Extraordinary Commission (VChK, or Cheka)
  2. 1922-1923: State Political Directorate (GPU) within People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD)
  3. 1923-1934: Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) within Council of People’s Commissars (SNK)
  4. 1934-1943: Main Directorate for State Security (GUGB) in NKVD
  5. 1941: NKVD split into People’s Commissariats for Internal Affairs (NKVD) and State Security (NKGB)
  6. 1941-1943: NKGB and NKVD re-merged into NKVD
  7. 1943-1946: NKVD re-split into NKGB, NKVD
  8. 1946-1954: People’s Commissariats renamed Ministries of Internal Affairs (MVD), State Security (MGB)
  9. 1954-1991: Committee for State Security (KGB)
  10. 1991-1993: KGB split into Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Main Administration of Protection (GUO), Ministry of Security (MB)
  11. 1993-1995: MB becomes Federal Counterintelligence Service (FSK)
  12. 1995-Now: FSK becomes Federal Security Service (FSB)

Mission:
preserve, protect Russian (Soviet) regime

  • investigate, arrest, punish, deter all those who “threaten the [public] order”

Command and control

  1. Act on orders from supreme political authorities (TsIK, Politburo, President)
  2. Broad local discretion to interpret/implement orders

Mandate

  1. State security functions
  2. Administration of camps (\(\to\) FSIN)
  3. Counterintelligence
  4. Border control
  5. Fire service
  6. Civil policing
  7. Protection of state leaders (\(\to\) FSO)


 

 

 

Goyda!

 

Who was repressed in this way?
“Socially malign” actors

  1. Foreign agents (suspected)
    1. persons educated abroad
    2. persons with family abroad
    3. persons with contacts abroad
    4. POWs from WWI, WWII
    5. political immigrants
    6. members of national diasporas
  2. Political rivals (perceived)
    1. those who served Tsarist regime
    2. former Whites
    3. Mensheviks, SRs, Trotskyites
  3. Class enemies
    1. cultural elites (clergy, academia)
    2. economic elites (kulaks, merchants)
  4. Marginalized groups
    1. criminals, sex workers, “vagrants”


 

 

All enemies

Shifting repression priorities

  1. 1917-1923
    1. members of former ruling class
    2. cultural elites
    3. Cossacks
  2. 1923-1934
    1. religious elites
    2. opponents of collectivization
    3. political rivals
  3. 1934-1938
    1. political and military elite
    2. ethnic groups with “foreign ties”
  4. 1939-1953
    1. residents of western borderlands
    2. ethnic groups who “collaborated”
    3. returning POWs, enslaved workers
    4. Jews
  5. Throughout
    1. second-hand repression
      (children, families of repressed)


 

 

Iron Feliks

 

 

How to target “enemies”

  1. Individual basis
    1. follow standard investigative, (quasi-)judicial proceedings
    2. separate criminal case in each arrest
    3. specific charges filed
    4. extensive case documentation
    5. note: individual \(\neq\) selective
  2. Group basis
    1. large administrative proceeding
    2. no individual cases or charges
    3. no or little paper trail


 

 

“Due process”

Group targeting: Resettlement in Western Ukraine

Background: Western Ukraine

  1. 1919-1921:
    Ukraine split between Poland (Galicia, Volhynia), Soviet Union (center, east)
  2. 1929:
    Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) forms in Poland
  3. 1939-1941:
    Soviets occupy West Ukraine,
    OUN splits into moderate (OUN-m) and militant (OUN-b) factions
  4. 1941:
    OUN-b declares Ukraine independence, Germans crack down on OUN-b
  5. 1942:
    OUN-b forms Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) to counter Soviet partisans
  6. 1944-1955:
    Soviets re-occupy Ukraine, start long counter-insurgency vs. UPA


 

NKVD-VV unit

OUN-UPA cell

1943

  • Fighting starts when country still under German occupation.
  • UPA launches campaign vs. suspected Soviet collaborators.

1944

  • Campaign reaches peak in 1944-1945, when Soviets return.
  • Soviets, starved of intelligence, rely on indiscriminate violence.

1945

  • NKVD begins campaign of mass population resettlement.
  • Resettlement ostensibly targets families, supporters of UPA members.

1946

  • To keep up with quotas, resettlement becomes more indiscriminate.
  • “Without discrimination, they grab children, women, the elderly…”

1947

  • Suspected rebels’ families represented 32-59% of resettled households in October 1947… Who were the other 41-68%?

1948

  • UPA insurgency goes on, at lower intensity
  • Soviets briefly pause resettlement program.

1949

  • Soviets’ collectivization of local farms sparks renewed resistance, renewed campaign of resettlement.

1950

  • By 1950, the conflict had become low-intensity.
  • Soviets had mostly established monopoly on use of force.

1943-1955

  • Heavy toll: 266,000 resettled, 127,000 killed.
  • How decisive was forcible resettlement in reducing insurgent violence?

Did resettlement work?

  1. Yes
    1. resettlement had significant suppressive effect on UPA violence
    2. expected number of attacks decreased by 47% on average
  2. And
    1. removal of local popular base changed how UPA fought
    2. UPA violence became less selective, more indiscriminate
  3. But (discussion)
    1. was it worth the cost?
    2. why didn’t NKVD care if they were deporting rebels or civilians?
    3. was there anything outside powers could have done to stop this?


 

Everyone out

All aboard

Individual targeting: Great Terror

Political arrests in Soviet Union per year. Stalin’s rule in red.

Mass repression, in 10 fast steps

  1. Political leadership (Kremlin)
    • approve orders, quotas
      (e.g. Order 00447, 1937)
  2. State Security HQ (Center)
    • relay instructions, regional quotas to each Region
  3. Regional Directorates (Region)
    • send more specific orders, quotas to each District
  4. District Branches (District)
    • fill quota!
    • identify suspects
    • investigate suspects
    • detain, interrogate, obtain confessions
    • prepare charging documents for Region


 

  1. Region
    • review charging documents from District
    • prepare list for Center
  2. Center
    • collate master list
  3. Kremlin
    • (pre-)approve master list
  4. Center
    • send regional lists
  5. Region
    • send regional list for expedited judicial review
      (VKVS, Troikas)
    • no witnesses, no attorneys, no appeals
  6. District
    • carry out sentences

Evidentiary standard
where to find “counter-revolutionaries”?

  1. District database (kartoteka)
    1. grouped by employer, party, class, nationality, family history
    2. initially used to pick suspects
    3. but databases too small to keep up with volume, pace of quotas
  2. Factory lists
    1. to supplement database
  3. “Snowball” method
    1. ask suspects to name “co-conspirators”
  4. Simplified investigative procedures
    1. group arrests, “easy” charges
    2. back-date arrest warrants, with “evidence” collected after arrest
    3. signed confession becomes sufficient for conviction


 

 

Little eyes & ears

Post-Soviet reforms

Security services under Yeltsin

Dismemberment of KGB under Yeltsin

Security services under Putin

Putin renaissance

  1. Leadership purge
    1. Yeltsin-era agency heads replaced
  2. FSB mission expands
    1. Service for Defense of Constitutional Order \(\to\) FSB
    2. border guards \(\to\) FSB
    3. collection/operations in “near abroad” \(\to\) FSB
    4. foreign intelligence \(\to\) FSB
    5. operations abroad \(\to\) FSB
    6. presidential briefings \(\to\) FSB
  3. FSB capture of government agencies
    1. FSB officers \(\to\) presidential administration
    2. FSB officers \(\to\) MOD leadership
    3. FSB officers \(\to\) MVD leadership
    4. FSB officers \(\to\) FSKN leadership
    5. FSB officers \(\to\) army morale


 

 

Back in black

Putin renaissance (continued)

  1. FSB capture of other institutions
    1. FSB \(\to\) Russian Orthodox Church
    2. FSB \(\to\) state energy companies
    3. FSB \(\to\) telecommunications
    4. FSB \(\to\) railroads

Inter-agency competition

  1. FSB vs. SVR (foreign collection)
  2. FSB vs. GRU (active measures)
  3. no national IC coordination/integration center (e.g. ODNI)
  4. no “National Intelligence Estimates”

Discussion:

  1. is the FSB more or less powerful now than it was under ComParty control?
  2. is the FSB still capable of state terror on a 1937 scale?


 

 

Goyda!!!

NEXT MEETING

 

Long-Term Legacy of Violence (Tu, Oct. 15)

  • what happenes after the violence ends
  • things to consider:
    • what trade-offs do you see between short-term and long-term political gains from repression?
    • is “generational trauma” real? what are the mechanisms of inter-generational transmission?