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Gulag penal units and NKVD blocking units

• Message 1.Β 

  Posted by baz (U14258304) on Wednesday, 17th February 2010

  On the Eastern front in WW2, the USSR used GULag prisoners to clear minefields, by forcing them to run over those minefields at gunpoint.
  Also, Red Army soldiers made suicidal charges against the Nazis, knowing that extremely well-armed NKVD(KGB) 'blocking' units were behind them
  to shoot any 'traitors' who had the audacity to retreat in the face of deadly Nazi fire-power.
  
  I am interested to know more about these penal units, the blocking units, and what became of those who fell into the hands of these blocking units.

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• Message 2

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  Posted by suvorovetz (U12273591) on Wednesday, 17th February 2010

  General (future Marshall) Rokossovsky's 16th Army was almost exclusively comprised of GULAG inmates. Rokossovsky took it under his command in August of 1941, soon after he had been freed from doing hard time himself, interestingly enough. This army had been formed in Zabaykalye (Siberia), where there had been no shortage of GULAG inmates, as you can imagine. For a short period of time it had been headed by another former (and then also future) GULAG inmate General Lukin. This is just one example, of course. These troops were known as 'shtrafbaty' (penal battalions), or black divisions - named after distinct color of their uniform.
  
  Blocking units were comprised of NKVD troops, or SMERSH troops. Interestingly, Russian acronym SMERSH stands for Death to German Invaders, yet their routine task was to kill retreating Red Army troops from the rear.
  

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  Posted by LongWeekend (U3023428) on Wednesday, 17th February 2010

  Thought SMERSH was an acronym for "Death to Spies", in this context with the wider meaning of traitors and saboteurs, hence the focus on backsliding elements of the Red Army rather than the oncoming Wehrmacht?

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  Posted by suvorovetz (U12273591) on Wednesday, 17th February 2010

  Thought SMERSH was an acronym for "Death to Spies", in this context with the wider meaning of traitors and saboteurs, hence the focus on backsliding elements of the Red Army rather than the oncoming Wehrmacht?Β  I stand corrected on the spell-out. But none of the NKVD units had their focus on oncoming Wehrmacht really. Those Red Army troops that were in retreat automatically fell into the traitor category in many cases.

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  Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Thursday, 18th February 2010

  ... which explains to quite some extend why USSR suffered unreasonable losses among combattants. Not that shooting retreating soldiers was any invention of the communists, practically everybody employed it occasionally or systematically. Communists simply had found themselves in the point of no return thus they took to these measures - however it was also seen as a further "cleaning" activity against the ones "not so convinced" by communism and thus did it to really large extend. The current Russian ideology though not communist, does not want to deconstruct wholy the communist myth but rather to combine the legacy of communism with that of previous Imperial Russia and thus in that they portray the war as the great patriotic struggle and such "details" spoil the image, thus tend to be forgotten by Russians nowadays.

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  Posted by suvorovetz (U12273591) on Thursday, 18th February 2010

  I am interested to know more about these penal units, the blocking units, and what became of those who fell into the hands of these blocking units.Β  Perhaps, this not to be, baz.

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• Message 9

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  Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Thursday, 18th February 2010

  Blocking units were comprised of NKVD troops, or SMERSH troops. Interestingly, Russian acronym SMERSH stands for Death to German Invaders, yet their routine task was to kill retreating Red Army troops from the rear.Β 
  
  According to Suvorovetz' favourite historian, Antony Beevor, 13,500 Red Army troops (equivalent to more than a whole division) were executed by their own side (primarily NKVD/SMERSH) at Stalingrad. One might have thought an extra division, even comprising unreliable troops, might have come in handy there. This compares to approximately 300 British and Commonwealth troops shot for cowardice (then only after a trial) during the whole of WWI.
  
  Beevor also estimates that 50,000 Soviet citizens fought on the German side at Stalingrad too. Beevor writes:
  
  "The barely believable ruthlessness of the Soviet system largely, but not entirely, explains why so many former Red Army soldiers fought on the German side...Some had been brutally press-ganged into service through starvation in prison camps; others were volunteers. During the final battles, many German reports testify to the bravery and loyalty of these 'Hiwis', fighting against their own countrymen. Needles to say, Beria's NKVD became frenzied with suspicion when it discovered the scale of the disloyalty."
  
  (A.Beevor, "Stalingrad", pbk.edn. 1999, p.xiv).

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• Message 10

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  Posted by LongWeekend (U3023428) on Thursday, 18th February 2010

  I am interested (admittedly not enough to have researched it) in how the NKVD actually found the manpower for these formations. Presumably there were not enough Party Member volunteers, so other sources had to be found. But could Beria rely on the political reliability of ordinary conscripts?

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• Message 11

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  Posted by suvorovetz (U12273591) on Thursday, 18th February 2010

  I am interested (admittedly not enough to have researched it) in how the NKVD actually found the manpower for these formations.Β  These type of troops were standard for the type of warfare ever since Bolsheviks came to power in Russia, particularly evolving during the civil war. In June 1941 - at the beginning of the war with Germany - there were 171,900 NKVD interior troops deployed, compared to overall 5,774,200 troops, of which - beside the NKVD troops - 4,605,300 were regular ground troops; 475,700 air force personnel; 353,800 navy personnel and 167,600 border guards.

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• Message 12

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  Posted by Spruggles (U13892773) on Friday, 19th February 2010

  It might be helpful if you began by comparing the different culture of the Russian to that of their contemporaries.
  The Russian soldier/peasant, somewhat like the Japanese, were extremely brave, hardy and quite prepared to sacrifice their lives if they were told it was necessary(in their case for Mother Russia).
  The 'punishment brigades' (not exactly an unknown quantity in warfare)were made up, so we are told, by miscreants, criminals and absconders and were used as shock troops - but I'm not sure if pressure to continue the attack was ever present or only if there were signs of reluctance or retreat from the hapless attackers. This form of coercion too is fairly widespread.
  I recall a photograph of an attack by the Russians in their winter camouflage. The caption indicated that those dressed in dark colours were being punished which hardly seems fair to the western mind but who can say what influence it might have had on the hesitant!
  

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• Message 13

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  Posted by George1507 (U2607963) on Friday, 19th February 2010

  Most Soviet soldiers who were captured by the Germans and then made Prisoners of War were executed by the Soviets when they were liberated.
  
  I even recall a story about a group of Soviet nurses who were executed after being liberated.
  
  Fight to the death was the motto.

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• Message 14

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  Posted by suvorovetz (U12273591) on Friday, 19th February 2010

  Hi, Spruggles
  It might be helpful if you began by comparing the different culture of the Russian to that of their contemporaries.
  The Russian soldier/peasant, somewhat like the Japanese, were extremely brave, hardy and quite prepared to sacrifice their lives if they were told it was necessary(in their case for Mother Russia).Β  It might, but I would have to disagree with, or at least, qualify your premise here. Red Army troops had been prepared and deployed to advance the world revolution, but they would not:
  
  "Let's open the "Secrecy label removed" collection of documents once again and see page 152 which reads that the monthly average number of the Acting Army at the start of war was 3,334 thousand men. Many other publications (with a clear intention to demonstrate enemy's advantage in numbers) make the number of servicemen in western districts by the 22nd of June, 1941 even smaller. But even with 3.3 million men taken as basis, we have the number of captives and deserters in 1941 being almost twice as high as the initial numbers of the Acting Army." (Solonin, June 22 (The Cask and the Hoops)):
  
  
  Upon the collapse in the summer of 1941, "Stalin frankly admitted to Roosevelt’s trusted envoy Harriman, who had arrived in Moscow to facilitate assistance, 'We know that the people do not want to fight for the world revolution; they won't fight for the Soviet power either... Perhaps, they will fight for Russia.' (Nikolayevsky, Mysterious Pages of History, Malenkov's Biography)

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