Now, contrary to the orthodox beliefs, the Great Purge affected mainly the NKVD (i.e., old name of KGB) and not the Red army. Reading through one of the more recent FSB self-published book called Lubyanka 2, that stands for the address on Lubyanka square (ex-Djerdjinsky square) No.2 in Moscow, where the main KGB and now FSB building is located, I stumbled upon some interesting numbers concerning the purge among the NKVD during those years.
Here is the numbers published on page 204, which concern the GUGB of NKVD, which was the highest division responsible for the security of the government, among other tasks. They were so special, that even their military ranks were higher than the normal military ranks. So as of 1 October 1936 up to 1 January 1938 there were 5898 officers executed, out of total 24500 of which constituted the staff of GUGB.[1] That is a
I am sorry there are no further numbers for the rest of the NKVD, but we know that more of its staff was arrested and executed after January 1938, a lot more in fact, including its boss the Narkom Ezhov. This is something that historians should be looking into and describing as decapitation of, not the Red army. In fact a lot of the officers executed during the Great Purge and who were then serving in the Red army, were actually NKVD people, who’s job had nothing to do with the military side of things, they were military prosecutors, political commissars etc. Hence, they were people, who in fact deterred the military work of the Red army, and thus by their cleansing from the army, Stalin in fact strengthened and enforced the fighting capability of his army.
As I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, there was not a real purge in the Red army, as often believed. Here are the exact numbers, for the disbelievers:
As of February 1937 the total number of officers in the Red army was 206000.[2] The number of discharged officers for 1937 was 20643, and those for 1938 were 16118. From the discharged in 1937 we have 5811 who were arrested, and from those discharge in 1938 we have 5057 who were arrested.[3] Among those discharged were simply officers who went into retirement, or were discharged for health reasons or for crimes, etc. reasons which are normal in any army.
From a report by vice-Narkom of the defense Shchadenko, we also learn that by 1 May 1940 all officers who were unjustly discharged from the army were reinstated back and their number was 12461.[4] Hence, they reinstated not only discharged but also discharged and arrested officers back in the Red army. We also know that large number of arrested and imprisoned officers were released in the first half of 1941 and were reinstated as commanders of the newly formed Gulag armies, also known as the “black armies”, since they used their black Gulag clothes. So, let us do the calculations here: we have 10868 officers who were arrested during the Great Purge, out of 206000 total officers staff, which is roughly 5.3%, and then few months later we have 12461 officers reinstated back in the army, which probably included most of the originally 10868 arrested officers, since those who went into retirement, were not arrested, and could not have been reinstated as being too old. Part of the arrested officers who were charged with actual crimes, also remained behind bars, so at the end I would even doubt if even a full 1% of the total officers’ staff of the Red army was actually executed. Especially when we keep in mind that large numbers of officers were released and reinstated in the first half of 1941!
How are we supposed to believe the historians who tell us about the bloody Great Purge which decapitated the Read army, and left the rest of the officers in fear? Fear which was so great that they were unwilling to fight the German aggressor three years later! Well, we simply do not believe them, and instead continue to research into the issue of the first hours of the German invasion, to find the real reasons for what had actually happened.
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