Spetsnaz: Russia’s Special Forces

The Soviets had long considered the possibility, even the likelihood, of an invasion from the West. Back in 1921 the revolutionary military theorist Mikhail Frunze had written about the potential need to prepare to fight guerrilla actions supported by specialized regular units. However, the initial stages of the German invasion of June 1941 notoriously caught the Kremlin by surprise, and with much of the Red Army shattered in the early weeks of war the need for regular front-line troops was such that the VDV were essentially deployed simply as light infantry. Likewise, many of the earlier preparations for partisan war, including caches of weapons, had been abandoned or neglected.

This state of affairs would soon be rectified. Both the NKVD and GRU ran their own partisan operations, often deploying specially trained commanders, demolition experts, and snipers to provide training and operational support for the resistance groups behind Axis lines; in the case of the NKVD, these were often veterans of the Border Guards. The so-called Partisan Directorate (officially, the Central Staff of the Partisan Movement under the Supreme High Command, CHQPM) both managed its own separate groups, and was also meant to provide overall coordination for the resistance⁴.

“Hail the heroic partisans, who destroy the fascists’ rear.” This wartime poster emphasizes the sabotage activities that NKVD and GRU advisors encouraged the guerrillas to carry out: cutting telephone wires, blowing bridges, and destroying supply depots. Russian culture was rich in legends of heroic peasants rising against foreign invaders such as Napoleon’s Grande Armée, but partisans required qualities that were not politically acceptable in the rigidly conformist USSR of the 1930s. The previous assumption that the early stages of any war would be fought on Soviet soil was officially abandoned, and when Stalin broadcast a call for guerrilla resistance on July 3, 1941 such preparations as had been made were long neglected.

The specialists were drawn from field operators who had worked in the Spanish Civil War (many of them foreigners), from intelligence officers who had traveled in the West, and also from the pick of the regular military. Such individuals often had extraordinary ranges of skills and experiences. For example, Stanislav Vaupshasov was a military intelligence officer who had worked undercover in Polish-occupied Belorussia in the 1920s. Later he was deployed to Spain as “Comrade Alfred,” where, amongst other triumphs, he successfully intercepted the messages of his German counterparts. During the war with Finland in 1939–40 he commanded a deep-penetration unit of ski troops, and then worked undercover again in Finland and Sweden. During the war he was assigned to the NKVD; returning to Belorussia, he spent two years behind Axis lines organizing and commanding the local partisans.

The real precursors of the Spetsnaz, however, were the military’s diversionary and reconnaissance forces, most often known as razvedchiki, “scouts.” They sometimes worked directly with partisan groups, but also operated independently. They were administered by the GRU but were operationally subordinated to the Fronts, the largest field commands. Detachments from the NKVD’s Independent Special Purpose Motor Rifle Brigades (OMSBON) also helped train partisans, and provided extra professionalism and firepower for especially important missions.

The unsung heroes were the GRU’s Independent Guards Sapper Battalions (OGBM), which were attached to each of the Fronts, with an additional brigade held as a strategic reserve subordinated directly to the high command. Drawn from physically tough volunteers, hunters and sportsmen, and dedicated members of the Communist Party or Young Communist League, these “miners” were trained not only in demolition operations of every kind but also in parachute insertion, cross-country orienteering, and radio communications. Before the July 1943 Smolensk offensive, for example, nine teams with a total strength of 316 sappers were inserted simultaneously behind Axis lines to cut railroads to a depth of some 200 miles. Likewise, when the Soviets launched their Manchurian campaign against the Japanese in August 1945, storm detachments from the 20th Assault Engineer Sapper Brigade infiltrated the Japanese lines to seize vital tunnels, while other units were airlifted behind enemy lines – sometimes simply flown into unprotected airfields – to cut their lines of supply and communication.

Perhaps the most strikingly rapid and impressive emergence of special forces from the crucible of war was to be found in the Naval Infantry, the Soviet marines. Special units were particularly a creation of the Northern Fleet, whose area of operations included the Baltic and Scandinavian waters. There had been some limited long-range reconnaissance operations in this region in the 1930s, but with the onset of war Northern Fleet commander Adml Arseny Golovka soon realized the need for an independent onshore scouting and raiding capability.

The result was the 4th Special Volunteer Sailor Detachment, a unit of some 70 veterans, athletes, and enthusiastic volunteers operating out of the Polyarni naval base. Initially they confined themselves to small-scale reconnaissance operations, platoon-sized insertions by sea or occasionally over land into Finland or, later, Norway. Increasingly, however, the unit – which became the 4th Reconnaissance Detachment under the Northern Fleet central command, and then the 181st Special Reconnaissance Detachment – also began to carry out sabotage missions and raids to snatch prisoners for interrogation.

By the end of 1943 the 181st was being led by Lt Viktor Leonov, one of the most colorful and ferocious of this new elite. After joining the Navy in 1937 he had trained as a scuba diver, serving for a while on a submarine. At the start of the war he volunteered for the 4th Special Volunteer Sailor Detachment, proving his daring and skills and rising to become an effective commander. In October 1944, for example, he led an operation to neutralize a heavily defended German coastal artillery emplacement at Cape Krestovy, whose 15cm guns commanded the entrance to the strategically vital Petsamo Bay on the Kola Peninsula. Earlier attempts to attack the position by air and sea had failed, so Leonov led a company in a secret landing further along the coast before undertaking a two-day cross-country march to Cape Krestovy. There they captured a battery of 8.8cm dual-purpose guns, and used them both to repel a counterattack and to shell the main gun position, forcing the Germans to destroy the coastal guns for fear of their falling into Soviet hands.

Leonov was made a Hero of the Soviet Union following the Cape Krestovy raid, and after the German surrender he volunteered to be transferred to the Pacific Fleet to join the fight against the Japanese. His 140th Independent Recon Detachment was the first to enter a series of enemy cities as the Soviets pushed the Japanese back through China and Korea. At Wonsan, tasked with securing the airport, Leonov and his political commissar simply marched into the Japanese camp with just eight other men. When taken under guard to the Japanese commander, they intimidated him to the extent that by the end of the day the 3,000-strong garrison had surrendered to Leonov’s 150 men.

AEARLY SOVIET SPECIAL FORCES

(1) OGPU cavalry squad leader; Fergana Valley, 1923

The Bolshevik political police played a key role in the struggle against Central Asian basmachi rebels in the 1920s, and this cavalryman from the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) is patrolling the volatile Fergana Valley. He wears the classic budenovka headgear in dark blue, and the Red Army’s recently introduced M22 field uniform with the OGPU’s black insignia and chest tabs with white piping. Note the red triangle of a corporal-equivalent “commander” below the red star on his sleeve tab. His German 7.63mm M1921 Mauser “Bolo” pistol was something of a trademark of the “Cheka” (as successive incarnations of the political police were still popularly called); his saber is of the 1881 cavalry pattern.

(2) NKVD “diversionary” officer behind Axis lines, 1943

The NKVD had a key role in running and supporting the effective partisan movement behind enemy lines during the “Great Patriotic War.” This operator, preparing to spring an ambush, is dressed in largely civilian clothing, but his status is demonstrated by the fact that he carries a brand new 7.62mm PPS-43 submachine gun, as well as a TT Tokarev pistol which uses the same ammunition. The German binoculars are the spoils of war.

(3) Major Ilya Starinov, “Grandfather of the Spetsnaz”; Moscow, 1941

This GRU officer, who is credited with laying the foundations for the modern Spetsnaz, was an energetic leader who had participated in the Russian and Spanish Civil Wars before running partisan operations behind Axis lines in World War II. Here he is shown early in the war, after his appointment as Deputy Chief of Staff of Engineering Troops – but with a special responsibility for blowing up bridges and railroads, rather than building them. Under his M31 bekesha sheepskin-lined winter coat he wears Red Army officer’s winter service dress of a khaki gymnastyorka shirt-tunic and red-piped dark blue breeches with riding boots, with the black collar patches, cap band, and piping of his branch of service. Although he would become one of the most highly decorated soldiers in Soviet history, at this date his highest awards are the Orders of Lenin and the Red Banner.

(4) Stamp commemorating Heinrich Rau

Interwar Soviet special forces operating abroad recruited many foreign-born Communists. One such was Heinrich Rau, a German revolutionary who was trained at the Ryazan Infantry School (which would become the cradle of Soviet airborne troops). In 1937 Rau went to Spain as a political commissar and later a battalion commander in the International Brigades fighting Franco. As much a combat commander as a political activist, he exemplified the qualities the Soviets looked for in their overseas operatives. Here he is commemorated on one of a series of East German (DDR) postage stamps depicting German heroes of the defense of the Spanish Republic.