the German intelligence services, to support a partisan movement
behind German lines, and to collect military secrets through human
and technical intelligence means. Within six months of the Nazi in-
vasion, the NKVD played a critical role in the Battle of Moscow in
defeating the Wehrmacht.
As the war progressed, the Soviet services were able to deceive the
Nazi enemy repeatedly because of the mastery of the invisible
front—the intelligence war between the Nazis and the Soviets. Con-
trol of their own rear and penetration of the German military and in-
telligence establishments allowed Stalin’s military commanders to
repeatedly deceive the Nazis: the massive Soviet victory in Operation
Bagrationin June 1944 was one of a number of victories made pos-
sible by strategic deception. The Soviets also made use of
maskirovkaand radio gamesdeception strategies. According to a re-
cent study of Soviet counterintelligence at war: “The Soviets forged
counterintelligence—albeit ruthlessly and certainly not efficiently—
into a formidable strategic weapon.”
Lavrenty Beriaserved as Stalin’s security and intelligence gener-
alissimo during the war. He and his subordinates were also deeply in-
volved in the partisan movement. Stalin and Beria also used the
NKVD to prevent any possible political or ethnic dissent. Deporta-
tionsbegan before the first round of the war: hundreds of thousands
of Soviet Poles and Germans were deported in 1939–1941 to exilein
Siberia by the security service. Moreover, in 1941–1944, more than
2 million Soviet citizens from the Baltic states, the Crimea, and the
Caucasus were deported to Siberia by the security service.
Beria used the security services to punish the incompetent and the
weak. In early 1943, the NKVD took control of the railroad network
behind Marshal Rokossovskiy’s Central Front and executed several
managers for inefficiency, under the guise of “sabotage.” Countless
more Soviet citizens were executed under various pretexts: a docu-
ment submitted to Stalin in the first months of the war indicated that
more than 10,000 people were executed in the summer and fall of- The NKVD also shot hundreds of political prisoners in jails
across the Soviet Union rather than let them fall into the hands of the
advancing Germans. In 1945, with victory in sight, military tribunals
sentenced 135,056 members of the military for “counterrevolutionary
crimes.” Among those condemned were 273 senior officers.
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