Spetsnaz: The Inside Story of the Soviet Special Forces Read online

  Unshlikht were expected to do no more than put the spark to the powder keg.

  There were many reasons why the plans came to nothing. But there were

  two especially important ones: the absence of a common frontier between the

  USSR and Germany, and the split in the German Communist Party. The lack of a

  common frontier was at the time a serious obstacle to the penetration into

  Germany of substantial forces of Soviet subversives. Stalin understood this

  very well, and he was always fighting to have Poland crushed so that common

  frontiers could be established with Germany. When he succeeded in doing this

  in 1939, it was a risky step, since a common frontier with Germany meant

  that Germany could attack the USSR without warning, as indeed happened two

  years later. But without a common frontier Stalin could not get into Europe.

  The split in the German Communist Party was an equally serious

  hindrance to the carrying out of Soviet plans. One group pursued policy,

  subservient to the Comintern and consequently to the Soviet Politburo, while

  the other pursued an antagonistic one. Zinoviev was `extremely displeased by

  this and he raised the question in the Politburo of presenting Maslov one of

  the dissenting German Communist leaders with an ultimatum: either he would

  take a large sum of money, leave the party and get out of Germany, or

  Unshlikht would be given orders to liquidate him.'^2 <#fn_4_2>

  ___

  At the same time as preparations were being made for revolution in

  Germany preparations were also going ahead for revolutions in other

  countries. For example, in September 1923, groups of terrorists trained in

  the USSR (of both Bulgarian and Soviet nationality) started causing

  disturbances in Bulgaria which could very well have developed into a state

  of general chaos and bloodletting. But the `revolution' was suppressed and

  its ringleaders escaped to the Soviet Union. Eighteen months later, in April

  1925, the attempt was repeated. This time unknown persons caused a

  tremendous explosion in the main cathedral in Sofia in the hope of killing

  the king and the whole government. Boris III had a miraculous escape, but

  attempts to destabilise Bulgaria by acts of terrorism continued until 1944,

  when the Red Army at last entered Bulgaria. Another miracle then seemed to

  take place, because from that moment on nobody has tried to shoot the

  Bulgarian rulers and no one has let off any bombs. The terror did continue,

  but it was aimed at the population of the country as a whole rather than the

  rulers. And then Bulgarian terrorism spread beyond the frontiers of the

  country and appeared on the streets of Western Europe.

  The campaign of terrorism against Finland is closely linked with the

  name of the Finnish Communist Otto Kuusinen who was one of the leaders of

  the Communist revolt in Finland in 1918. After the defeat of the

  `revolution' he escaped to Moscow and later returned to Finland for

  underground work. In 1921 he again fled to Moscow to save himself from

  arrest. From that moment Kuusinen's career was closely linked with Soviet

  military intelligence officers. Kuusinen had an official post and did the

  same work: preparing for the overthrow of democracy in Finland and other

  countries. In his secret career Kuusinen had some notable successes. In the

  mid-1930s he rose to be deputy head of Razvedupr as the GRU was known then.

  Under Kuusinen's direction an effective espionage network was organised in

  the Scandinavian countries, and at the same time he directed the training of

  military units which were to carry out acts of terrorism in those countries.

  As early as the summer of 1918 an officer school was founded in Petrograd to

  train men for the `Red Army of Finland'. This school later trained officers

  for other `Red Armies' and became the International Military School -- an

  institute of higher education for terrorists.

  After the Civil War was over Kuusinen insisted on carrying on

  underground warfare on Finnish territory and keeping the best units of

  Finnish Communists in existence. In 1939, after the Red Army invaded

  Finland, he proclaimed himself `prime minister and minister of foreign

  affairs' of the `Finnish Democratic Republic'. The `government' included

  Mauri Rosenberg (from the GRU) as `deputy prime minister', Axel Antila as

  `minister of defence' and the NKVD interrogator Tuure Lekhen as `minister of

  internal affairs'. But the Finnish people put up such resistance that the

  Kuusinen government's bid to turn Finland into a `people's republic' was a

  failure.

  (A curious fact of history must be mentioned here. When the Finnish

  Communists formed their government on Soviet territory and started a war

  against their own country, voluntary formations of Russians were formed in

  Finland which went into battle against both the Soviet and the Finnish

  Communists. A notable member of these genuinely voluntary units was Boris

  Bazhanov, formerly Stalin's personal secretary, who had fled to the West.)

  Otto Kuusinen's unsuccessful attempt to become the ruler of Communist

  Finland did not bring his career to an end. He continued it with success,

  first in the GRU and later in the Department of Administrative Organs of the

  Central Committee of the CPSU -- the body that supervises all the espionage

  and terrorist institutions in the Soviet Union, as well as the prisons,

  concentration camps, courts and so forth. From 1957 until his death in 1964

  Kuusinen was one of the most powerful leaders in the Soviet Union, serving

  simultaneously as a member of the Politburo and a Secretary of the Central

  Committee of the Party. In the Khodynki district of Moscow, where the GRU

  has its headquarters, one of the bigger streets is called Otto Kuusinen

  Street.

  In the course of the Civil War and after it, Polish units, too, were

  formed and went into action on Soviet territory. One example was the 1st

  Revolutionary Regiment, `Red Warsaw', which was used for putting down

  anti-Communist revolts in Moscow, Tambov and Yaroslav. For suppressing

  anti-Communist revolts by the Russian population the Communists used a

  Yugoslav regiment, a Czechoslovak regiment, and many other formations,

  including Hungarians, Rumanians, Austrians and others. After the Civil War

  all these formations provided a base for the recruitment of spies and for

  setting up subversive combat detachments for operating on the territory of

  capitalist states. For example, a group of Hungarian Communist terrorists

  led by Ferenc Kryug, fought against Russian peasants in the Civil War; in

  the Second World War Kryug led a special purpose group operating in Hungary.

  Apart from the `internationalist' fighters, i.e. people of foreign

  extraction, detachments were organised in the Soviet Union for operating

  abroad which were composed entirely, or very largely, of Soviet citizens. A

  bitter battle was fought between the army commanders and the secret police

  for control of these detachments.

  On 2 August 1930 a small detachment of commando troops was dropped in

  the region of Voronezh and was supposed during the manoeuvres to carry out

  operations in the rear of the `enemy'. Offici
ally this is the date when

  Soviet airborne troops came into being. But it is also the date when

  spetsnaz was born. Airborne troops and spetsnaz troops subsequently went

  through a parallel development. At certain points in its history spetsnaz

  passed out of the control of military intelligence into the hands of the

  airborne forces, at others the airborne troops exercised administrative

  control while military intelligence had operational control. But in the end

  it was reckoned to be more expedient to hand spetsnaz over entirely to

  military intelligence. The progress of spetsnaz over the following thirty

  years cannot be studied in isolation from the development of the airborne

  forces.

  1930 marked the beginning of a serious preoccupation with parachute

  troops in the USSR. In 1931 separate detachments of parachutists were made

  into battalions and a little later into regiments. In 1933 an osnaz brigade

  was formed in the Leningrad military district. It included a battalion of

  parachutists, a battalion of mechanised infantry, a battalion of artillery

  and three squadrons of aircraft. However, it turned out to be of little use

  to the Army, because it was not only too large and too awkward to manage,

  but also under the authority of the NKVD rather than the GRU. After a long

  dispute this brigade and several others created on the same pattern were

  reorganised into airborne brigades and handed over entirely to the Army.

  To begin with, the airborne forces or VDV consisted of transport

  aircraft, airborne regiments and brigades, squadrons of heavy bombers and

  separate reconnaissance units. It is these reconnaissance units that are of

  interest to us. How many there were of them and how many men they included

  is not known. There is fragmentary information about their tactics and

  training. But it is known, for example, that one of the training schools was

  situated in Kiev. It was a secret school and operated under the disguise of

  a parachute club, while being completely under the control of the Razvedupr

  (GRU). It included a lot of women. In the course of the numerous manoeuvres

  that were held, the reconnaissance units were dropped in the rear of the

  `enemy' and made attacks on his command points, headquarters, centres and

  lines of communications. It is known that terrorist techniques were already

  well advanced. For example, a mine had been developed for blowing up railway

  bridges as trains passed over them. However, bridges are always especially

  well guarded, so the experts of the Razvedupr and the Engineering

  Directorate of the Red Army produced a mine that could be laid on the tracks

  several kilometres away from the bridge. A passing train would pick up the

  mine which would detonate at the very moment when the train was on the

  bridge.

  To give some idea of the scale of the VDV, on manoeuvres in 1934 900

  men were dropped simultaneously by parachute. At the famous Kiev manoeuvres

  in 1935 no less than 1188 airborne troops were dropped at once, followed by

  a normal landing of 1765 men with light tanks, armoured cars and artillery.

  In Belorussia in 1936 there was an air drop of 1800 troops and a landing of

  5700 men with heavy weapons. In the Moscow military district in the same

  year the whole of the 84th rifle division was transferred from one place to

  another by air. Large-scale and well armed airborne attacks were always

  accompanied by the dropping in neighbouring districts of commando units

  which operated both in the interests of the security of the major force and

  in the interests of Razvedupr.

  In 1938 the Soviet Union had six airborne brigades with a total of

  18,000 men. This figure is, however, deceptive, since the strength of the

  `separate reconnaissance units' is not known, nor are they included in that

  figure. Parachutists were also not trained by the Red Army alone but by

  `civilian' clubs. In 1934 these clubs had 400 parachute towers from which

  members made up to half a million jumps, adding to their experience by jumps

  from planes and balloons. Many Western experts reckon that the Soviet Union

  entered the Second World War with a million trained parachutists, who could

  be used both as airborne troops and in special units -- in the language of

  today, in spetsnaz.

  ___

  A continual, hotly contested struggle was going on in the General Staff

  of the Red Army. On what territory were the special detachments to operate

  -- on the enemy's territory, or on Soviet territory when it was occupied by

  the enemy?

  For a long time the two policies existed side by side. Detachments were

  trained to operate both on home territory and enemy territory as part of the

  preparations to meet the enemy in the Western regions of the Soviet Union.

  These were carried out very seriously. First of all large partisan units

  were formed, made up of carefully screened and selected soldiers. The

  partisans went on living in the towns and villages, but went through their

  regular military training and were ready at any moment to take off into the

  forests. The units were only the basis upon which to develop much

  larger-scale partisan warfare. In peacetime they were made up largely of

  leaders and specialists; in the course of the fighting each unit was

  expected to expand into a huge formation consisting of several thousand men.

  For these formations hiding places were prepared in secluded locations and

  stocked with weapons, ammunition, means of communications and other

  necessary equipment.

  Apart from the partisans who were to take to the forests a vast network

  of reconnaissance and commando troops was prepared. The local inhabitants

  were trained to carry out reconnaissance and terrorist operations and, if

  the enemy arrived, they were supposed to remain in place and pretend to

  submit to the enemy, and even work for him. These networks were supposed

  later to organise a fierce campaign of terror inside the enemy garrisons. To

  make it easier for the partisans and the terrorists to operate, secret

  communication networks and supplies were set up in peacetime, along with

  secret meeting places, underground hospitals, command posts and even arms

  factories.

  To make it easier for the partisans to operate on their own territory a

  `destruction zone' was created, also known as a `death strip'. This was a

  strip running the length of the Western frontiers of the Soviet Union

  between 100 and 250 kilometres wide. Within that strip all bridges, railway

  depots, tunnels, water storage tanks and electric power stations were

  prepared for destruction by explosive. Also in peacetime major embankments

  on railway lines and highways and cuttings through which the roads passed

  were made ready for blowing up. Means of communication, telephone lines,

  even the permanent way, all were prepared for destruction.

  Immediately behind the `death strip' came the `Stalin Line' of

  exceptionally well fortified defences. The General Staff's idea was that the

  enemy should be exhausted in the `death strip' on the vast minefields and

  huge obstacles and then get stuck on the line of fortifications. At the same

  time
the partisans would be constantly attacking him in the rear.

  It was a magnificent defence system. Bearing in mind the vast

  territories involved and the poor network of roads, such a system could well

  have made the whole of Soviet territory practically impassable for an enemy.

  But -- in 1939 the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact was signed.

  The Pact was the signal for a tremendous expansion of Soviet military

  strength. Everything connected with defence was destroyed, while everything

  connected with offensive actions was expanded at a great rate, particularly

  Soviet sabotage troops and the airborne troops connected with them. In April

  1941 five airborne corps were formed. All five were in the first strategic

  echelon of the Red Army, three facing Germany and two facing Rumania. The

  latter were more dangerous for Germany than the other three, because the

  dropping of even one airborne corps in Rumania and the cutting off, even

  temporarily, of supplies of oil to Germany meant the end of the war for the

  Germans.

  Five airborne corps in 1941 was more than there were in all the other

  countries of the world together. But this was not enough for Stalin. There

  was a plan to create another five airborne corps, and the plan was carried

  out in August and September 1941. But in a defensive war Stalin did not, of

  course, need either the first five or the second five. Any discussion of

  Stalin's `defence plans' must first of all explain how five airborne corps,

  let alone ten, could be used in a defensive war.

  In a war on one's own territory it is far easier during a temporary

  retreat to leave partisan forces or even complete fighting formations hidden

  on the ground than it is to drop them in later by parachute. But Stalin had

  destroyed such formations, from which one can draw only one conclusion;

  Stalin had prepared the airborne corps specifically for dropping on other

  people's territory.

  At the same time as the rapid expansion of the airborne forces there

  was an equally rapid growth of the special reconnaissance units intended for

  operations on enemy territory.

  The great British strategist and historian B. H. Liddell Hart, dealing

  with this period, speaks of Hitler's fears concerning Stalin's intentions,

  referring to `a fatal attack in the back from Russia'.^3 <#fn_4_3> And moves by the