Introduction
The Soviet surveillance system can be traced back to the Bolshevik revolution when leftist figures dethroned an interim democratic regime, replacing it with a new political culture – socialism – in a bid to mold a new society. Faced with increasing popular opposition, the revolutionaries led by Vladimir Lenin reorganized the intelligence system, bringing it under military control to deal with political enemies and dissidents. The consolidation reached new heights when the Communist Party was formed, and Stalin took power. A conspiratorial culture took root where the party elite implemented nonmarket economic reforms without involving the people. To achieve this goal, a vast intelligence-gathering system was necessary. This paper analyzes the Soviet domestic surveillance, including its operations, the initiatives launched, institutions involved, informant recruitment, and its successes.
Soviet Domestic Surveillance Operations
The formation of the Soviet intelligence apparatus was necessary following Russia’s annexation of new territories forming the Union. The goal was to gather information for the authoritarian regime about the local political-military situation in the annexed lands. In the 1939-1940 period, the Soviet’s premier intelligence agency, the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD), infiltrated the Ukrainian population with communist agents, as it lacked a surveillance network locally (Gaufman 77). In this regard, the NKVD was quite efficient in obtaining information that helped launch successful incursions on new territories.
In Poland, Ukraine, and Belorussia, the agency studied the political and social landscape and organized its personnel before military invasions. Special surveillance teams were established with the task of espionage on the political figures, creating administrative units in Red Army occupied zones and detention of counterrevolutionary activists (Lenihan 5). Thus, small operational groups comprising soldiers were formed to target individuals instead of communism for arrest and detention in Soviet prisons. In the Baltic territories, the surveillance lasted about nine months before they were annexed; the NKVD sent agents to Estonian and Latvian missions to gather information to facilitate occupation (Brechtken et al. 39). Data on the economic status, ethnic demographics, and military strength were gathered to inform the socialist strategy.
Surveillance in hostile environments was a difficult task for the Soviets. They employed different tactics to obtain information that exploited the socioeconomic and political divisions in the targeted states. Individuals aggrieved with the authorities or social classes were supported to retaliate against them, giving the Soviets a platform for their surveillance goals. For example, in Poland, farmers were incited to attack settlers, while in other states, pardoned communist prisoners vowed to support the socialist agenda (Lenihan 11). Thus, thousands of informants were drawn from people unhappy with the political or economic landscape in annexed territories.
Another surveillance tool was an interrogation of key figures and political enemies. The authoritarian regime used this strategy to turn individuals into a state of powerlessness to yield to Soviet authority (Gaufman 77). The interrogators used social isolation and torture to obtain information and confessions and then recruit them as informants that formed a part of the NKVD’s surveillance organs. The Soviets also monopolized the social and economic spheres of countries such as Ukraine and Belorussia. Adults were required to register for passports by providing information about birth, housing, and occupation as well as personal photos (Lenihan 11). The data was useful for surveillance purposes to repress the masses during the Soviet’s westward expansion.
Informant Recruitment
The surveillance system relied largely on blackmailed political figures as informants. Agents in newly acquired territories were also conscripted for various reasons. In Lithuania, ‘Bal chunas,’ a middle-aged peasant farmer and war veteran, was enlisted because his close contacts included officials in the American embassy. At the same time, ‘Algis’ was enrolled, given his military training in Germany, where he had fought against the Red Army (Brechtken et al. 68). Thus, any individual with useful links to foreign missions or familiarity with anti-Soviet intelligence agents was targeted for recruitment. In this respect, the Soviets fostered a truly socialist attribute: a person qualified as informants, irrespective of their political history, sex, or ethnic background.
The management of the surveillance organ involved a complex loop, where agents informed the Soviets about their targets and fellow collaborators. The MGB, the agency involved in domestic intelligence in the 1940s, enlisted Bentsion Aronas, a highly regarded Zionist individual who provided key leads that facilitated the capture of Lithuanian and Belorussian activists (Lenihan 7). This MGB agent recruited informants who were required to spy on him. Thus, the agency appeared like a network of compromised individuals informing the Soviets about each other. The surveillance system succeeded in creating suspicion and coercion across the ranks to support operations in new territories. Informants were trained on how to conduct themselves if they were captured and interrogated by Western intelligence agencies. Their primary role was to identify anti-Soviet activists in countries such as Lithuania for subsequent arrest and detention.
Achievements and Failures
The Soviet surveillance system has some successes and flaws in its information-gathering processes. The creation of many investigative commissions with an unprecedented number of informants was a major feat. One such task force formed in 1942 to investigate criminal acts committed by Nazi invaders engaged 32,000 agents who obtained information from 250,000 witnesses (Lenihan 15). The commissions were established through a decree for rural areas that the Soviets found challenging. Individual NKVD-KGB divisions formed local commissions in their regions of operation. Local party officials, Red Army agents, and informants from the media, healthcare, and the church were active in each annexed territory. A large number of local people involved ensured fast information gathering and response.
The Soviets acted on the intelligence gathered swiftly, conducting waves of arrests in occupied areas. Based on informant reports, thousands of individuals known to be collaborators of the Germans and nationalists were arrested in the 1940s. Mass deportations from occupied lands during this period indicate the efficacy of the Soviet surveillance organ. Indigenous people packed the NKVD informant pool, which was initially dominated by agents imported from Russia. Their knowledge largely informed the decision to increase the number of locals in the Soviet surveillance apparatus of the native dialects. The approach helped reverse trends where many targets could not be captured because of language barriers and leaked information.
Mass deportations were possible because the informants were largely locals. The natives of the Baltic lands comprised about 60% of the military involved in mass deportations from these territories in 1949 (Lenihan 12). Thus, the success of the Soviet surveillance organ can be attributed to a predominantly local informant pool. However, given the large number of people involved, leaks were unavoidable. Peasants in Latvia, Estonia, and Moldavia learned of their impending deportation early, allowing them to sell their land and leave the occupied lands (Gaufman 77). Some candidates for extradition were identified through inaccurate registers and tribunal records, raising the possibility that exempted individuals were arrested and repatriated.
Reliability of the Surveillance System
A key issue is the dependability of the Soviet information-gathering apparatus. Initially, the limited knowledge of the indigenous languages made it difficult to infiltrate populations in annexed lands. However, the involvement of local informants enhanced the reliability of the information gathered. Accurate processing of the intelligence became a limiting factor in the surveillance work. The reliability of processed data was a concern during Stalin’s rule, leading to calls to instill professional standards in the informant pool (Brechtken et al. 49). The MGB reduced the workforce at the branches and restructured the recruitment processes. The role of recruiting informants was moved from agents to the more experienced departmental leaders. The changes allowed a more accurate collection and processing of information.
Various flaws in the surveillance system that compromised the quality of information gathered informed the reorganization. The changes led to mass dismissals of agents accused of double-dealing and leaking secrets to enemy camps (Brechtken et al. 51). The reduced numbers allowed the Soviet surveillance agencies to control the system and informants on the ground. After Stalin’s death, surveillance shifted from targeting anti-Soviet activists to safeguarding the socialist economic system and single-party regime (Lenihan 9). In successive governments, espionage activities based on communication technology increased, targeting embittered political figures and activists.
Conclusion
The Soviet surveillance system was remarkable in infiltrating foreign populations in annexed lands, helping meet the revolutionary ambitions and protecting the socialist agenda. The agencies achieved political control using a large pool of local informants. Recruitment involved blackmail and capitalized on social and political divisions in the new territories. However, the language barrier, limited reliability of the information gathered, and leaks by double agents hampered the surveillance operations.
References
Brechtken, Magnus, et al. editors. Political and Transitional Justice in Germany, Poland and the Soviet Union from the 1930s to the 1950s. Wallstein Verlag, 2019.
Gaufman, Elizaveta. “Putin’s Pastorate: Post-structuralism in Post-Soviet Russia.” Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, vol. 42, no. 2, 2017, pp. 74-90.
Lenihan, Denis. “Different Tones of Voice: Versions of Paddy Costello.” Security and Surveillance History Series, vol. 1, 2020, 1-21.