Fiction meets reality -- again.
Smersh, Stalin's brutal military counter-espionage service, immortalised in the James Bond novels, is being celebrated in Moscow with an exhibition to mark the 60th anniversary of its founding.Posted by Alan at May 28, 2003 08:35 PMSmersh - a contraction of Smert Shpionam (death to spies) - is depicted in today's Russia as a patriotic band of heroes who fought valiantly against foreign intelligence agencies. In reality, the organisation was a widely hated branch of Soviet state terror. It was charged with weeding out spies, interrogating returning Soviet prisoners of war and executing front-line soldiers accused of spreading "defeatism" in the ranks.
Stalin set up Smersh in 1943, when he was paranoid that the country was being infiltrated by German and Allied spies. He wound it up three years later when it was integrated into the NKVD secret police, which later spawned the KGB. At its height, Smersh had one informer for every 10 soldiers fighting in the Red Army.
According to official records, it arrested 121,000 soldiers for "belonging to counter-revolutionary groups", 135,000 for "desertion" and 84,000 for "anti-Soviet agitation". Many were shot.
Smersh is best-known in the West as one of the arch-enemies of Ian Fleming's 007 agent, James Bond.
Many Russians are nostalgic for the communist era. The authorities tend to gloss over some of the more ignominious chapters of the Soviet regime in official pronouncements.