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ALPHA VIMPEL DOLPHIN SPETSNAZ
A History of Spetsnaz

In order to grasp the history behind spetsnaz it is useful to cast our minds back to the
British Parliament in the time of Henry VIII. In 1516 a Member of the Parliament,
Thomas More, published an excellent book entitled Utopia. In it he showed, simply and
persuasively, that it was very easy to create a society in which universal justice reigned,
but that the consequences of doing so would be terrible. More describes a society in
which there is no private property and in which everything is controlled by the state. The
state of Utopia is completely isolated from the outside world, as completely as the
bureaucratic class rules the population. The supreme ruler is installed for his lifetime. The
country itself, once a peninsula, has after monumental efforts on the part of the
population and the army to build a deep canal dividing it from the rest of the world,
become an island. Slavery has been introduced, but the rest of the population live no
better than slaves. People do not have their own homes, with the result that anybody can
at any time go into any home he wishes, a system which is worse even than the
regulations in the Soviet Army today, in which the barracks of each company are open
only to soldiers of that company.
In fact the system in Utopia begins to look more like that in a Soviet concentration camp.
In Utopia, of course, it is laid down when people are to rise (at four o`clock in the
morning), when they are to go to bed and how many minutes` rest they may have. Every
day starts with public lectures. People must travel on a group passport, signed by the
Mayor, and if they are caught without a passport outside their own district they are
severely punished as deserters. Everybody keeps a close watch on his neighbour:
`Everyone has his eye on you.`
With fine English humour Thomas More describes the ways in which Utopia wages war.
The whole population of Utopia, men and women, are trained to fight. Utopia wages
only just wars in self-defence and, of course, for the liberation of other peoples. The
people of Utopia consider it their right and their duty to establish a similarly just regime in
neighbouring countries. Many of the surrounding countries have already been liberated
and are now ruled, not by local leaders, but by administators from Utopia. The liberation
of the other peoples is carried out in the name of humanism. But Thomas More does not
explain to us what this `humanism` is. Utopia`s allies, in receipt of military aid from her,
turn the populations of the neighbouring states into slaves.
Utopia provokes conflicts and contradictions in the countries which have not yet been
liberated. If someone in such a country speaks out in favour of capitulating to Utopia he
can expect a big reward later. But anyone who calls upon the people to fight Utopia can
expect only slavery or death, with his property split up and distributed to those who
capitulate and collaborate.On the outbreak of war Utopia`s agents in the enemy country
post up in prominent places announcements concerning the reward to be paid to anyone
killing the king. It is a tremendous sum of money. There is also a list of other people for
whose murder large sums of money will be paid.
The direct result of these measures is that universal suspicion reigns in the enemy
country.
Thomas More describes only one of the strategems employed, but it is the most
important:
When the battle is at its height a group of specially selected young men, who have sworn
to stick together, try to knock out the enemy general. They keep hammering away at him
by every possible method - frontal attacks, ambushes, long-range archery, hand-to-
hand combat. They bear down on him in a long, unbroken wedge-formation, the point of
which is constantly renewed as tired men are replaced by fresh ones. As a result the
general is nearly always killed or taken prisoner -unless he saves his skin by running
away.
It is the groups of `specially selected young men` that I want to discuss in this book.
* * *
Four hundred years after the appearance of Utopia the frightful predictions of that wise
Englishman became a reality in Russia. A successful attempt was made to create a
society of universal justice. I had read Thomas More`s frightening forecasts when I was
still a child and I was amazed at the staggering realism with which Utopia was described
and how strikingly similar it was to the Soviet Union: a place where all the towns looked
like each other, people knew nothing about what was happening abroad or about
fashion in clothes (everybody being dressed more or less the same), and so forth. More
even described the situation of people `who think differently`. In Utopia, he said, `It is
illegal for any such person to argue in defence of his beliefs.`
The Soviet Union is actually a very mild version of Utopia - a sort of `Utopia with a
human face`. A person can travel in the Soviet Union without having an internal passport,
and Soviet bureaucrats do not yet have such power over the family as their Utopia
counterparts who added up the number of men and women in each household and, if
they exceeded the number permitted, simply transferred the superfluous members to
another house or even another town where there was a shortage of them.
The Communists genuinely have a great deal left to do before they bring society down to
the level of Utopia. But much has already been done, especially in the military sphere,
and in particular in the creation of `specially selected groups of young men`.
It is interesting to note that such groups were formed even before the Red Army existed,
before the Red Guard, and even before the Revolution. The origins of spetsnaz are to be
found in the revolutionary terrorism of the nineteenth century, when numerous groups of
young people were ready to commit murder, or possibly suicide, in the cause of creating
a society in which everything would be divided equally between everybody. As theywent
about murdering others or getting killed themselves they failed to understand one simple
truth: that in order to create a just society you had to create a control mechanism. The
juster the society one wants to build the more complete must be the control over
production and consumption.
Many of the first leaders of the Red Army had been terrorists in the past, before the
Revolution. For example, one of the outstanding organisers of the Red Army, Mikhail
Frunze, after whom the principal Soviet military academy is named, had twice been
sentenced to death before the Revolution. At the time it was by no means easy to get
two death sentences. For organising a party which aimed at the overthrow of the existing
regime by force, Lenin received only three years of deportation in which he lived well
and comfortably and spent his time shooting, fishing and openly preaching revolution.
And the woman terrorist Vera Zasulich, who murdered a provincial governor was
acquitted by a Russian court. The court was independent of the state and reckoned that,
if she had killed for political reasons, it meant that she had been prompted by her
conscience and her beliefs and that her acts could not be regarded as a crime. In this
climate Mikhail Frunze had managed to receive two death sentences. Neither of them
was carried out, naturally. On both occasions the sentence was commuted to
deportation, from which he had no great difficulty in escaping. It was while he was in
exile that Frunze organised a circle of like-minded people which was called the `Military
Academy`: a real school for terrorists, which drew up the first strategy to be followed up
by armed detachments of Communists in the event of an uprising.
The seizure of power by the Bolsheviks demonstrated, primarily to the revolutionaries
themselves, that it was possible to neutralise a vast country and then to bring it under
control simply and quickly. What was needed were `groups of specially selected young
men` capable of putting out of action the government, the postal services, the telegraph
and telephone, and the railway terminals and bridges in the capital. Paralysis at the centre
meant that counteraction on the outskirts was split up. Outlying areas could be dealt with
later one at a time.
Frunze was undoubtedly a brilliant theoretician and practician of the art of war, including
partisan warfare and terrorism. During the Civil War he commanded an army and a
number of fronts. After Trotsky`s dismissal he took over as People`s Commissar for
military and naval affairs. During the war he reorganised the large but badly led partisan
formations into regular divisions and armies which were subordinated to the strict
centralised administration. At the same time, while commanding those formations, he
kept sending relatively small but very reliable mobile units to fight in the enemy`s rear.
The Civil War was fought over vast areas, a war of movement without a continuous
stable front and with an enormous number of all sorts of armies, groups, independent
detachments and bands. It was a partisan war in spirit and in content. Armies developed
out of small, scattered detachments, and whenever they were defeated they were able to
disintegrate into a large number of independent units which carried on the war on a
partisan scale.
But we are not concerned here with the partisan war as a whole, only with the fighting
units of the regular Red Army specially created for operating in the enemy`s rear. Such
units existed on various fronts and armies. They were not known as spetsnaz, but this did
not alter their essential nature, and it was not just Frunze who appreciated the
importance of being able to use regular units in the rear of the enemy. Trotsky, Stalin,
Voroshilov, Tukhachevsky, inter alia, supported the strategy and made extensive use of
it.
Revolutionary war against the capitalist powers started immediately after the Bolsheviks
seized power. As the Red Army `liberated` fresh territory and arrived at the frontiers with
other countries the amount of subversion directed against them increased. The end of the
Civil War did not mean the end of the secret war being waged by the Communists
against their neighbours. On the contrary, it was stepped up, because, once the Civil
War war was over, forces were released for other kinds of warfare.
Germany was the first target for revolution. It is interesting to recall that, as early as
December 1917, a Communist newspaper Die Fackel, was being published in
Petrograd with a circulation of 500,000 copies. In January 1918 a Communist group
called `Spartak` emerged in the same place. In April 1918 another newspaper Die
Weltrevolution, began to appear. And finally, in August 1919, the famous paper of the
German Communists, Die Rote Fahne, was founded in Moscow.
At the same time as the first Communist groups appeared, steps were taken to train
terrorist fighting units of German Communists. These units were used for suppressing the
anti-Communist resistance put up by Russian and Ukrainian peasants. Then, in 1920, all
the units of German Communists were gathered together in the rear of the Red Army on
the Western front. That was when the Red Army was preparing for a breakthrough
across Poland and into Germany. The Red Army`s official marching song, `Budenny`s
March`, included these words: `We`re taking Warsaw - Take Berlin too!`
In that year the Bolsheviks did not succeed in organising revolution in Germany or even
in `liberating` Poland. At the time Soviet Russia was devastated by the First World War
and by the far more terrible Civil War. Famine, typhus and destruction raged across the
country. But in 1923 another attempt was made to provoke a revolution in Germany.
Trotsky himself demanded in September 1923 to be relieved of all his Party and
Government posts and to be sent as an ordinary soldier to the barricades of the German
Revolution. The party did not send Trotsky there, but sent other Soviet Communist
leaders, among them, Iosef Unshlikht. At the time he was deputy chairman of the Cheka
secret police. Now he was appointed deputy head of the `registration administration`,
now known as the GRU or military intelligence, and it was in this position that he was
sent illegally to Germany. `Unshlikht was given the task of organising the detachments
which were to carry out the armed uprising and coup d`etat, recruiting them and
providing them with weapons. He also had the job of organising a German Cheka for the
extermination of the bourgeoisie and opponents of the Revolution after the transfer of
power.... This was how the planned Revolution was planned to take place. On the
occasion of the anniversary of the Russian October Revolution the working masses were
to come out on the streets for mass demonstrations. Unshlikht`s "Red hundreds" were to
provoke clashes with the police so as to cause bloodshed and more serious conflicts, to
inflame the workers` indignation and carry out a general working-class uprising.` (B.
Bazhanov: `Memoirs of a Secretary to Stalin`, pub. Tretya volna 1980, pp 67-69.)
In view of the instability of German Society at that time, the absence of a powerful army,
the widespread discontent and the frequent outbursts of violence, especially in 1923, the
plan might have been realised. Many experts are inclined to the view that Germany really
was close to revolution. Soviet military intelligence and its terrorist units led by 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.` (Ibid. p. 68)
* * *
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`. Officially 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 enemyterritory 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`. (Strategy. The Indirect Approach, p.241.) And moves by the Soviet
Union in June 1940 did evoke particular nervousness in the German high command.
Germany had thrown all her forces against France at that time, and the Soviet Union
rushed troops into the Baltic states and Bessarabia. The airborne troops especially
distinguished themselves. In June 1940 the 214th Soviet airborne brigade was dropped
with the idea of seizing a group of aerodromes in the region of Shaulyai in Lithuania,
under a hundred kilometres from the East Prussian border. In the same month the 201st
and 204th airborne brigades were dropped in Bessarabia to capture the towns of Ismail
and Belgrad-Dnestrovsky. This was close by the Ploesti oilfields. What would Stalin do
if the German Army advanced further into North Africa and the British Isles?
It is easy to understand why Hitler took the decision in that next month, July 1940, to
prepare for war against the USSR. It was quite impossible for him to move off the
continent of Europe and into the British Isles or Africa, leaving Stalin with his huge army
and terrifying airborne forces which were of no use to him for anything but a large-scale
offensive.
Hitler guessed rightly what Stalin`s plans were, as is apparent from his letter to Mussolini
of 21 June 1941. (`I cannot take responsibility for the waiting any longer, because I
cannot see any way that the danger will disappear.... The concentration of Soviet force is
enormous.... All available Soviet armed forces are now on our border.... It is quite
possible that Russia will try to destroy the Rumanian oilfields.`) Can we believe Hitler? In
this case we probably can. The letter was not intended for publication and was never
published in Hitler`s lifetime. It is interesting in that it repeats the thought that Stalin had
voiced at a secret meeting of the Central Committee. Moreover, in his speech at the
18th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party Stalin had had this to say about Britain
and France; In their policy of nonintervention can be detected an attempt and a desire
not to prevent the aggressors from doing their dirty work . . . not to prevent, let us say,
Germany getting bogged down in European affairs and involved in a war... to let all the
participants in the war get stuck deep in the mud of battle, to encourage them to do this
on the quiet, to let them weaken and exhaust each other, and then, when they are
sufficiently weakened, to enter the arena with fresh forces, acting of course "in the
interests of peace", and to dictate their own conditions to the crippled participants in the
war.` (Pravda, 11 March 1939.) Once again, he was attributing to others motives which
impelled him in his ambitions. Stalin wanted Europe to exhaust itself. And Hitler
understood that. But he understood too late. He should have understood before the Pact
was signed.
However, Hitler still managed to upset Stalin`s plans by starting the war first. The huge
Soviet forces intended for the `liberation` of Russia`s neighbours were quite unnecessary
in the war of defence against Germany. The airborne corps were used as ordinary
infantry against the advancing German tanks. The many units and groups of airborne
troops and commandos were forced to retreat or to dig trenches to halt the advancing
German troops. The airborne troops trained for operations in the territory of foreign
countries were able to be used in the enemy`s rear, but not in his territory so much as in
Soviet territory occupied by the German army.
The reshaping of the whole philosophy of the Red Army, which had been taught to
conduct an offensive war on other people`s territory, was very painful but relatively
short. Six months later the Red Army had learnt to defend itself and in another year it
had gone over to offensive operations. From that moment everything fell into place and
the Red Army, created only for offensive operations, became once again victorious.
The process of reorganising the armed forces for operations on its own territory affected
all branches of the services, including the special forces. At the beginning of 1942
thirteen guards battalions (In the Soviet Army the title of `guards` can be won only in
battle, the only exceptions being certain formations which were awarded the title when
they were being formed. These included spetsnaz detachments.) of spetsnaz were
organised in the Red Army for operations in the enemy`s rear, as well as one guards
engineering brigade of spetsnaz, consisting of five battalions. The number of separate
battalions corresponded exactly to the number of fighting fronts. Each front received one
such battalion under its command. A guards brigade of spetsnaz remained at the disposal
of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, to be used only with Stalin`s personal permission
in the most crucial locations.
So as not to reveal the real name of spetsnaz, the independent guards battalion and the
brigade were given the code name of `guards minelayers`. Only a very limited circle of
people knew what the name concealed.
A special razvedka department was set up in the Intelligence directorate of each front to
direct the work of the `guards minelayers`. Each department had at its disposal a
battalion of spetsnaz. Later the special razvedka departments began recruiting spetsnaz
agents in territories occupied by the enemy. These agents were intended for providing
support for the `minelayers` when they appeared in the enemy rear. Subsequently each
special razvedka department was provided with a reconaissance point of spetsnaz to
recruit agents.
The guards brigade of spetsnaz was headed by one of the outstanding Soviet
practitioners of fighting in the rear of the enemy - Colonel (later Lieutenant-General)
Moshe Ioffe.
The number of spetsnaz increased very quickly. In unclassified Soviet writings we come
across references to the 16th and the 33rd engineering brigade of spetsnaz. Apart from
detachments operating behind the enemy`s lines, other spetsnaz units were formed for
different purposes: for example, radio battalions for destroying the enemy`s radio links,
spreading disinformation and tracing the whereabouts of enemy headquarters and
communication centres so as to facilitate the work of the spetsnaz terrorist formations. It
is known that from 1942 there existed the 130th, 131st, 132nd and 226th independent
radio battalions of spetsnaz.
The operations carried out by the `minelayers` were distinguished by their daring
character and their effectiveness. They usually turned up behind the enemy`s lines in small
groups. Sometimes they operated independently, at others they combined their
operations with the partisans. These joint operations always benefited both the partisans
and spetsnaz. The minelayers taught the partisans the most difficult aspects of minelaying,
the most complicated technology and the most advanced tactics. When they were with
the partisans they had a reliable hiding place, protection while they carried out their
operation, and medical and other aid in case of need. The partisans knew the area well
and could serve as guides. It was an excellent combination: the local partisans who knew
every tree in the forest, and the first-class technical equipment for the use of explosives
demonstrated by real experts.
The `guards minelayers` usually came on the scene for a short while, did their work
swiftly and well and then returned whence they had come. The principal way of
transporting them behind the enemy`s lines was to drop them by parachute. Their return
was carried out by aircraft using secret partisan airfields, or they made their way by foot
across the enemy`s front line.
The high point in the partisan war against Germany consisted of two operations carried
out in 1943. By that time, as a result of action by osnaz, order had been introduced into
the partisan movement; it had been `purged` and brought under rigid central control. As a
result of spetsnaz work the partisan movement had been taught the latest methods of
warfare and the most advanced techniques of sabotage.
The operation known as the `War of the Rails` was carried out over six weeks from
August to September 1943. It was a very fortunate time to have chosen. It was at that
moment when the Soviet forces, having exhausted the German army in defensive battles
at Kursk, themselves suddenly went over to the offensive. To support the advance a
huge operation was undertaken in the rear of the enemy with the object of paralysing his
supply routes, preventing him from bringing up ammunition and fuel for the troops, and
making it impossible for him to move his reserves around. The operation involved the
participation of 167 partisan units with a total strength of 100,000 men. All the units of
spetsnaz were sent behind the enemy lines to help the partisans. More than 150 tons of
explosives, more than 150 kilometres of wire and over half a million detonators were
transported to the partisan units by air. The spetsnaz units were instructed to maintain a
strict watch over the fulfilment of their tasks. Most of them operated independently in the
most dangerous and important places, and they also appointed men from their units to
instruct the partisan units in the use of explosives.
Operation `War of the Rails` was carried out simultaneously in a territory with a front
more than 1000 kilometres wide and more than 500 kilometres in depth. On the first
night of the operation 42,000 explosions took place on the railway lines, and the partisan
activity increased with every night that passed. The German high command threw in
tremendous forces to defend their lines of communication, so that every night could be
heard not only the sound of bridges and railway lines being blown up but also the sounds
of battle with the German forces as the partisans fought their way through to whatever
they had to destroy. Altogether, in the course of the operation 215,000 rails, 836
complete trains, 184 rail and 556 road bridges were blown up. A vast quantity of enemy
equipment and ammunition was also destroyed.
Having won the enormous battle at Kursk, the Red Army sped towards the river
Dnieper and crossed it in several places. A second large-scale operation in support of
the advancing troops was carried out in the enemy`s rear under the name of `Concert`,
which was in concept and spirit a continuation of the `War of the Rails`. In the final stage
of that operation all the spetsnaz units were taken off to new areas and were enabled to
rest along with the partisan formations which had not taken part in it. Now their time had
come. Operation `Concert` began on 19 September 1943. That night in Belorussia alone
19,903 rails were blown up. On the night of 25 September 15,809 rails were destroyed.
All the spetsnaz units and 193 partisan units took part in the operation `Concert`. The
total number of participants in the operation exceeded 120,000. In the course of the
whole operation, which went on until the end of October, 148,557 rails were destroyed,
several hundred trains with troops, weapons and ammunition were derailed, and
hundreds of bridges were blown up. Despite a shortage of explosives and other material
needed for such work, on the eve of the operation only eighty tons of explosives could
be sent to the partisan. Nevertheless `Concert` was a tremendous success.After the Red
Army moved into the territory of neighbouring states spetsnaz went through a radical
reorganisation. The independent reconnaissance units, the reconnaissance posts which
recruited agents for terrorist actions, and the independent radio battalions for conducting
disinformation, were all retained in their entirety. There are plenty of references in the
Soviet military press to operations by special intelligence units in the final stages of the
war. For example, in the course of an operation in the Vistula-Oder area special groups
from the Intelligence directorate of the headquarters of the 1st Ukrainian Front
established the scope of the network of aerodromes and the exact position of the
enemy`s air bases, found the headquarters of the 4th Tank Army and the 17th Army, the
48th Tank Corps and the 42nd Army Corps, and also gathered a great deal of other
very necessary information.
The detachments of `guards minelayers` of spetsnaz were reformed, however, into
regular guards sapper detachments and were used in that form until the end of the war.
Only a relatively small number of `guards minelayers` were kept in being and used behind
the enemy lines in Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. Such a decision was
absolutely right for the times. The maintargets for spetsnaz operations had been the
enemy`s lines of communication. But that had been before the Red Army had started to
advance at great speed. When that happened, there was no longer any need to blow up
bridges. They needed to be captured and preserved, not destroyed. For this work the
Red Army had separate shock brigades of motorised guards engineering troops which,
operating jointly with the forward units, would capture especially important buildings and
other objects, clear them of mines and defend them until the main force arrived. The
guards formations of spetsnaz were used mainly for strengthening these special
engineering brigades. Some of the surviving guards battalions of spetsnaz were
transferred to the Far East where, in August 1945, they were used against the Japanese
Army.
The use of spetsnaz in the Manchurian offensive of 1945 is of special interest, because it
provides the best illustration of what was supposed to happen to Germany if she had not
attacked the USSR.
Japan had a peace treaty with the Soviet Union. But Japan had gone to war with other
states and had exhausted her military, economic and other resources. Japan had seized
vast territories inhabited by hundreds of millions of people who wanted to be liberated
and were ready to welcome and support any liberator who came along. Japan was in
exactly the situation in which Stalin had wanted to see Germany: exhausted by war with
other countries, and with troops scattered over expansive territories the populations of
which hated the sight of them.
Thus, in the interests naturally of peace and humanity Stalin struck a sudden crushing
blow at the armed forces of Japan in Manchuria and China, violating the treaty signed
four years earlier. The operation took place over vast areas. In terms of the distances
covered and the speed at which it moved, this operation has no equal in world history.
Soviet troops operated over territories 5000 kilometres in width and 600-800
kilometres in depth. More than a million and a half soldiers took part in the operation,
with over 5000 tanks and nearly 4000 aircraft. It really was a lightning operation, in the
course of which 84,000 Japanese officers and men were killed and 593,000 taken
prisoner. A tremendous quantity of arms, ammunition and other equipment was seized.
It may be objected that Japan was already on the brink of catastrophe. That is true. But
therein lies Soviet strategy: to remain neutral until such time as the enemy exhausts
himself in battle against someone else, and then to strike a sudden blow. That is precisely
how the war against Germany was planned and that was why the partisan units, the
barriers and defensive installations were all dispensed with, and why the ten airborne
corps were created in 1941.
In the Manchurian offensive the spetsnaz detachments put up their best performance.
Twenty airborne landings were made not by airborne troops, but by special
reconnaissance troops. Spetsnaz units of the Pacific Fleet were landed from submarines
and surface boats. Some spetsnaz units crossed the frontier by foot, captured Japanese
cars and used them for their operations. Worried about the railway tunnels on a strip of
the 1st Far Eastern front, the Soviet high command created special units for capturing the
tunnels. The groups crossed the frontier secretly, cut the throats of the guards, severed
the wires connected to the explosive charges, and put the detonators out of action. They
then held the tunnels until their own forces arrived.
In the course of the offensive a new and very risky type of operation was employed by
spetsnaz. Senior GRU officers, with the rank of colonel or even major-general, were put
in charge of small groups. Such a group would suddenly land on an airfield close to an
important Japanese headquarters. The appearance of a Soviet colonel or general deep in
the Japanese rear never failed to provoke astonished reactions from both the Japanese
high command and the Japanese troops, as well as from the local population. The
transport planes carrying these were escorted by Soviet fighter aircraft, but the fighters
were soon obliged to return to their bases, leaving the Soviet transport undefended until
it landed. Even after it landed it had at best only one high-ranking officer, the crew and
no more than a platoon of soldiers to guard over the plane. The Soviet officer would
demand and usually obtain a meeting with a Japanese general, at which he would
demand the surrender of the Japanese garrison. He and his group really had nothing to
back them up: Soviet troops were still hundreds of kilometres away and it was still
weeks to the end of the war. But the local Japanese military leaders (and the Soviet
officers too, for that matter) naturally did not realise this. Perhaps the Emperor had
decided to fight on to the last man...
In several recorded instances, senior Japanese military leaders decided independently to
surrender without having permission to do so from their superiors. The improvement in
the morale and position of the Soviet troops can be imagined.
* * *
After the end of the Second World War spetsnaz practically ceased to exist for several
years. Its reorganisation was eventually carried out under the direction of several
generals who were fanatically devoted to the idea of spetsnaz. One of them was Viktor
Kondratevich Kharchenko, who is quite rightly regarded as the `father` of the modern
spetsnaz. Kharchenko was an outstanding sportsman and expert in the theory and practice of the use of explosives. In 1938 he graduated from the military electrotechnical
academy which, apart from training specialists in communications, at that time also
produced experts in the business of applying the most complicated way of blowing up
buildings and other objectives. During the war he was chief of staff of the directorate of
special works on the Western front. >From May 1942 he was chief of staff on the
independent guards spetsnaz brigade, and from June he was deputy commander of that
brigade. In July 1944 his brigade was reorganised into an independent guards motorised
engineering brigade.
Kharchenko was working in the General Staff after the war when he wrote a letter to
Stalin, the basic point of which was: `If before the outbreak of war our sportsmen who
made up the spetsnaz units spent some time in Germany, Finland, Poland and other
countries, they could be used in wartime in enemy territory with greater likelihood of
success.` Many specialists in the Soviet Union now believe that Stalin put an end to the
Soviet Union`s self-imposed isolation in sport partly because of the effect Kharchenko`s
letter had on him.
In 1948 Kharchenko completed his studies at the Academy of the General Staff. From
1951 he headed the scientific research institute of the engineering troops. Under his
direction major researches and experiments were carried out in an effort to develop new
engineering equipment and armaments, especially for small detachments of saboteurs
operating behind the enemy`s lines.
In the immediate postwar years Kharchenko strove to demonstrate at the very highest
level the necessity for reconstructing spetsnaz on a new technical level. He had a great
many opponents. So then he decided not to argue any more. He selected a group of
sportsmen from among the students at the engineering academy, succeeded in interesting
them in his idea, and trained them personally for carrying out very difficult tasks. During
manoeuvres held at the Totskyie camps, when on Marshal Zhukov`s instructions a real
nuclear explosion was carried out, and then the behaviour of the troops in conditions
extremely close to real warfare was studied, Kharchenko decided to deploy his own
group of men at his own risk.
The discussions that took place after the manoeuvres were, the senior officers all agreed,
instructive - all except General Kharchenko. He pointed out that in circumstances of
actual warfare nothing of what they had been discussing would have taken place
because, he said, a small group of trained people had been close to where the nuclear
charges had been stored and had had every opportunity to destroy the transport when
the charges were being moved from the store to the airfield. Moreover, he said, the
officers who took the decision to use nuclear weapons could easily have been killed
before they took the decision. Kharchenko produced proof in support of his statements.
When this produced no magic results, Kharchenko repeated his `act` at other major
manoeuvres until his persistence paid off. Eventually he obtained permission to form a
battalion for operations in the enemy`s rear directed at his nuclear weapons and his
command posts.
The battalion operated very successfully, and that was the beginning of the resurrection
of spetsnaz. All the contemporary formations of spetsnaz have been created anew. That
is why, unlike those which existed during the war, they are not honoured with the title of
`guards` units. (Kharchenko himself moved steadily up the promotion ladder. From 1961
he was deputy to the Chief of Engineering troops and from February 1965 he was head
of the same service. In 1972 he was promoted Marshal of engineering troops. Having
attained such heights, however, Kharchenko did not forget his creation, and he was a
frequent guest in the Olympic Village`, the main spetsnaz training centre near Kirovograd.
When he was killed in 1975 during the testing of a new weapon, his citations used the
highest peacetime formula killed in the course of carrying out his official duties`, which is
very seldom met with in reference to this senior category of Soviet officers.).

V.Suvorov.

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