carried out without summoning those detained and without bringing
charges.” The verdict in all cases was death by shooting.
The killings took place at several locations in Byelorussia and the
Ukraine, and were carried out by NKVD executionteams. Directing
the execution of the Poles was Petr Soprunenko, who sent a
telegram to Moscow every day, detailing progress in executing Pol-
ish officers and civilians. Beria drafted a special order on 26 October
1940, rewarding every member of Soprunenko’s team with a sum of
money equal to a month’s pay “for the successful execution of spe-
cial assignments.” So carefully were the execution sites hidden that
not all the graves have been found.
Katyn demonstrated the lengths to which the Stalin regime would
go to purge Soviet society and Soviet satellites of suspected enemies
of the people. In a macabre way, it demonstrated the efficiency—as
well as the brutality—of the security service. But its history lives on,
for Katyn and the other massacres continue to poison relations be-
tween Poland and Russia. The duplicity of Soviet leaders from Nikita
Khrushchevto Mikhail Gorbachevstill troubles Poles who lost
family members.KGB (KOMITET GOSUDARSTVENNOI BEZOPASTNOSTI).The
KGB was created on 7 March 1954 as one of Nikita Khrushchev’s
major reforms of the Stalinist system. The complete title of the or-
ganization, Komitet gosudarstvennoi bezopastnosti pri sovete min-
istrov, “Committee of State Security under the Council of Ministers,”
suggested that the security police reported to the government, but in
effect it remained under the tutelage of the Communist Partylead-
ership. Under Khrushchev, the KGB chair was not a member of the
Communist Party leadership; beginning with the appointment of
Yuri Andropov in 1967, senior KGB officers moved into the party
leadership at the national and local level.
Data on KGB staffing are incomplete. In 1991 the KGB was re-
ported to have 486,000 personnel. Of these, approximately one-half
were in the Chief Directorate of the Border Guards. The KGB had
more officers dedicated to internal security and counterintelligence
functions than any other security service, save that of the People’s
Republic of China. There is no reliable information on the number ofKGB (KOMITET GOSUDARSTVENNOI BEZOPASTNOSTI)• 12706-313 G-P.qxd 7/27/06 7:56 AM Page 127