Historical Dictionary of Russian and Soviet Intelligence

against Nazi Germany. Spain also was a venue for the services to re-

cruit idealistic anti-Fascists for operations in Europe and North

America. One Soviet intelligence officer noted in his memoirs:

“Spain was sort of a children’s playground where we perfected many

of our later espionage techniques.”

SPECIAL DEPARTMENT. Joseph Stalin created a special depart-

ment in the Central Committee secretariat to manage the security

services and the armed forces. The department, occasionally re-

ferred to as Stalin’s personal secretariat, acted as his watchdog over

the secret service. In the early 1930s Nikolai Yezhovestablished

the bureaucracy. For the rest of Stalin’s life, the department was

managed by Aleksandr Poskrebyshev, whom Nikita Khrushchev

sarcastically identified in his Secret Speech as “Stalin’s loyal

shield bearer.” Following Stalin’s death in 1953, Poskrebyshev and

Stalin’s other secret servants were placed under house arrest and

then pensioned off. Most of the functions of the Special Department

were assigned to the Administrative Organs Departmentof the

Communist Party’s Central Committee.

SPETZNAZ(SPESIALNOGO NAZNACHENIYA). Spetznazis short

for Spesialnogo naznacheniya(Special Designation). Early in the So-

viet era, the Soviet military intelligence (GRU) and security services

developed the Special Designation forces to operate deep in the en-

emy’s rear and sow terror and confusion with sabotage and assassi-

nation. In the early 1920s, the Fourth Bureau of the Soviet General

Staff trained terrorists and partisansfrom several nations. German

communists were prepared during this period to seize power. Their

coup in 1923 fizzled as the German working class stayed out of the

fight. Beginning in the 1930s, the Red Army developed a doctrine of

unconventional warfare, featuring the use of Spetznaz troops. During

the Spanish Civil War, GRU and NKVDcadres trained Spanish Re-

publican forces in unconventional warfare with great success.

The GRU’s success in the Spanish Civil War in partisan warfare

convinced senior military officers of the greater need for troops

schooled in guerrilla warfare and terrorism. During the Great Patri-

otic War, Spetznazforces took part in operations on all fronts, and

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