Day of military counterintelligence. Day of the Russian military counterintelligence. Help December 19 fsb holiday

The modern history of the state security organs in the troops in Russia began in July 1918. At first, these were the scattered bodies of the Military Control, created by the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic, as well as emergency commissions to combat counter-revolution, formed by the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR on the Eastern and other fronts.

On December 19, 1918, by the decision of the Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), the front and army Chekas were merged with the military control bodies, and on their basis a new body was formed - the Special Department of the Cheka under the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR. This day is traditionally celebrated as a professional holiday for employees of the military counterintelligence agencies of the Federal Security Service of Russia.

Later, with the formation of special departments of the fronts, military districts, fleets, armies, flotillas and special departments under the provincial Cheka, a unified centralized system of security agencies in the troops was created.

From the very first days, special departments have always carried out their activities in close cooperation with the military command. This approach to organizing the activities of military counterintelligence later became one of the fundamental principles of their work. At the same time, another principle of military counterintelligence was born, the significance of which has never been questioned by anyone: close ties with the personnel of military units, employees of military facilities, headquarters and institutions that are in operational support of the security agencies in the troops. These principles are strictly followed today.

The organs of military counterintelligence largely contributed to the victories of the Red Army during the civil war.

The Great Patriotic War became a serious test for military counterintelligence officers. On April 19, 1943, by a decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, the Main Directorate of Counterintelligence of the NPO "Smersh" ("Death to Spies") was formed. He, among the paramount ones, was entrusted with the task of combating espionage, sabotage, terrorist activities of foreign intelligence services and taking measures together with the command to exclude the possibility of enemy agents passing through the front line with impunity. Thanks to well-established work behind the front, army security officers often had detailed information about enemy agents even during their training in intelligence schools. The Smersh authorities identified 1,103 enemy agents.

In total, during the years of the Second World War, military counterintelligence officers neutralized more than 30 thousand spies, about 3.5 thousand saboteurs and more than 6 thousand terrorists.

Many military counterintelligence officers have been combat-hardened, ensuring the security of a limited contingent of Soviet troops in Afghanistan. The combat readiness of the military Chekists was also confirmed in the course of their participation in the counter-terrorist operation in the North Caucasus. Repeatedly, military counterintelligence officers participated in the implementation of special operations, withdrew personnel from the encirclement and did everything possible to reduce losses among soldiers and officers.

The activities of military counterintelligence agencies are not limited to combat zones. Regardless of their location, they carry out constant work to identify and neutralize intelligence and other subversive aspirations of foreign intelligence services, foreign extremist organizations against Russian troops, fight against illegal trafficking in weapons and drugs, and assist the command in increasing the combat readiness of formations and units. As a result, dozens of employees of military counterintelligence were awarded state awards for military distinctions and success in operational work.

Currently, military counterintelligence is part of a single centralized system of bodies of the Federal Security Service and is directly subordinate to the FSB of Russia. Its tasks, as well as its purpose, composition, legal foundations, principles and directions of activity, powers, forces and means, are defined by the law "On the Federal Security Service" of April 3, 1995, with appropriate amendments and additions, as well as the "Regulations on directorates (departments) of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, other troops, military formations and bodies (security bodies in the troops)”, approved by Decree of the President of the Russian Federation of February 7, 2000 No.

Military counterintelligence officers are military personnel serving under a contract in the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation. Military counterintelligence officers can become military personnel and persons from among civilian youth who have undergone special selection and training in educational institutions of the FSB of Russia.

To successfully perform official tasks, a military counterintelligence officer must be observant, able to analyze events, be able to notice and capture the external manifestations of the inner world of people, understand their feelings, experiences, motives, motives and goals, recognize the mental properties of a person.

Military counterintelligence officers often have to work in extreme conditions that require great personal courage, resourcefulness, perseverance, good memory, the ability to make decisions quickly and calmly, a high level of self-organization and emotional stability.

Very little is said about counterintelligence officers who are at the forefront of the fight against terrorism, intelligence agencies of foreign states, criminal individuals and groups. Among the legendary counterintelligence officers are Lieutenant General Ivan Lavrentievich Ustinov, Alexander Ivanovich Matveev, Major General Leonid Georgievich Ivanov and others.

December 19 is the day of military counterintelligence in Russia. The date was chosen due to the fact that it was on this day in 1918 that a special department appeared in Soviet Russia, which later became part of the military counterintelligence of the GPU. Special departments of military counterintelligence were created on the basis of the decision of the Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (b). According to this decree, the army Chekas were united with military control bodies, and as a result, a Special Department of the Cheka was formed under the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR.

The system was constantly improved, and over time, special departments of fronts, districts and other military formations became part of a unified system of state security organs in the troops.

Military counterintelligence initially set itself the task of identifying provocateurs operating in the ranks of the army, as they said at that time - "counters", agents of foreign intelligence who ended up in various military positions in the army of Soviet Russia. Due to the fact that in 1918 the army of the new post-revolutionary state was just being formed, the military counterintelligence officers had more than enough work to do. The work was complicated by the fact that the military counterintelligence system itself was actually written from scratch, since it was decided to neglect the existing experience of pre-revolutionary Russia in terms of counteracting destructive elements in the army. As a result, the formation and structuring of a special department went through numerous thorns and left its mark on the effectiveness of certain stages in the creation of a monolithic Red Army.

However, as a result of carrying out a truly gigantic amount of work, primarily on the selection of personnel, the effective activities of military counterintelligence were debugged, and in some respects debugged, as they say, to the smallest detail.

Operational officers of special departments (special officers) were attached to military units and formations (depending on rank). At the same time, the special officers had to wear the uniform of the unit to which they were "assigned". What official range of tasks was assigned to operational officers of military counterintelligence at the initial stage of its existence?

In addition to monitoring the morale of the military personnel of the unit and their political views, military counterintelligence officers were tasked with identifying counterrevolutionary cells and persons engaged in destructive agitation. The special officers were supposed to identify persons who were engaged in the preparation of sabotage as part of the Red Army units, espionage in favor of certain states, and showed terrorist activity.

A separate function of representatives of special departments was to conduct investigative work on crimes against statehood with the transfer of cases to military tribunals.

Memories of participants in the Great Patriotic War regarding the activities of representatives of military counterintelligence can hardly be called exclusively positive. In wartime conditions, there were also outright excesses, when military personnel fell under the tribunal, who were charged with counter-revolutionary activities, for example, for improperly winding footcloths, as a result of which the fighter rubbed his legs to monstrous wounds during foot marches and lost the ability to move as part of the unit during the offensive / retreat. For modern lovers of picking, in such cases they are a truly tasty morsel, with which you can once again spin the flywheel of "human rights activities" and publish another "profound work" about the Stalinist repressive machine. In fact, excesses and unfair decisions are by no means what can be called a trend in the actions of professional military counterintelligence officers.

The trend is that with the help of representatives of special departments, entire networks of enemy agents were really revealed, who acted under the guise of officer epaulettes and not only. Thanks to the activities of military counterintelligence officers, it was often possible to raise the morale of the unit at a time when the fighters were panicked and intended to randomly leave their positions, jeopardizing the conduct of a particular operation. Many cases were noted during the Great Patriotic War, when it was the employees of special departments who led the units (although this function was certainly not part of the responsibilities of military counterintelligence employees), for example, in the event of the death of the commander. And they were by no means led behind the backs of the soldiers, as adherents of "free history" sometimes like to assert.

Since the Great Patriotic War, the name of the SMERSH counterintelligence organizations has been heard, which got its name from the abbreviation of the phrase “death to spies”. The Main Directorate of Counterintelligence, established on April 19, 1943, was directly subordinate to the People's Commissar of Defense I.V. Stalin.

The need to create such a structure was argued by the fact that the Red Army began to liberate the territories occupied by the Nazis, where accomplices of the Nazi troops could (and remained) remain. SMERSH fighters have hundreds of successful operations on their account. A whole line of activity is counteracting Bandera gangs operating on the territory of Western Ukraine.

Viktor Semenovich Abakumov, who after the end of World War II was appointed to the post of Minister of State Security, headed the Main Directorate of Counterintelligence SMERSH. In 1951, he was arrested on charges of "high treason and a Zionist conspiracy", and on December 19, 1954, he was shot on a modified charge of fabricating the so-called "Leningrad case" as part of, as they said then, "Beria's gang." In 1997, Viktor Abakumov was partially rehabilitated by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation.

Today, the military counterintelligence department operates as part of the Russian Federal Security Service. The department is headed by Colonel-General Alexander Bezverkhny.

The tasks of military counterintelligence today are inextricably linked with the identification of destructive elements in the ranks of the units of the Russian army, including those who, in violation of the statutory requirements and Russian law, have contacts with representatives of foreign intelligence services and organizations supervised by foreign intelligence and their derivatives. This includes activities to identify individuals who publicly publish secret information about new weapons, as well as personal data of Russian military personnel participating in various types of operations, including the anti-terrorist operation in Syria. This, at first glance, invisible work is one of the foundations for the security of the state and the improvement of the combat capability of the Russian army.

Happy holiday, military counterintelligence!

The system was constantly improved, and over time, special departments of fronts, districts and other military formations became part of a unified system of state security organs in the troops.

A separate function of representatives of special departments was to conduct investigative work on crimes against statehood with the transfer of cases to military tribunals.

Memories of participants in the Great Patriotic War regarding the activities of representatives of military counterintelligence can hardly be called exclusively positive. In wartime conditions, there were also outright excesses, when military personnel fell under the tribunal, who were charged with counter-revolutionary activities, for example, for improperly winding footcloths, as a result of which the fighter rubbed his legs to monstrous wounds during foot marches and lost the ability to move as part of the unit during the offensive / retreat. For modern lovers of tinkering with history, such cases are truly a tasty morsel, with which you can once again spin the flywheel of "human rights activities" and publish another "profound work" about the Stalinist repressive machine. In fact, excesses and unfair decisions are by no means what can be called a trend in the actions of professional military counterintelligence officers.

Today, the military counterintelligence department operates as part of the Russian Federal Security Service. The department is headed by Colonel-General Alexander Bezverkhny.

The tasks of military counterintelligence today are inextricably linked with the identification of destructive elements in the ranks of Russian army units, including those who, in violation of the statutory requirements and Russian law, have contacts with representatives of foreign intelligence services and organizations supervised by foreign intelligence and their derivatives. This includes activities to identify individuals who publicly publish secret information about new weapons, as well as personal data of Russian military personnel participating in various types of operations, including the anti-terrorist operation in Syria. This, at first glance, invisible work is one of the foundations for the security of the state and the improvement of the combat capability of the Russian army.

Happy holiday, military counterintelligence!

Photos used: forums-su.com

Military counterintelligence specialists work for the benefit of the state and ensure a peaceful life for citizens. They constantly carry out work to detect and neutralize external intelligence groups, conduct special work to prevent the illegal use of weapons and drugs. Their professional holiday is dedicated to such people - the Day of Military Counterintelligence.

Story

Intelligence in the Russian Empire has been carried out since the creation of the regular army, about three hundred years ago. The main task of counterintelligence at that time was the elimination of intelligence officers and deserters in the ranks of the army and the prevention of fabrications.

In 1812, the Supreme Military Police was created in Russia. At the same time, the first independent intelligence was formed. Later, in 1903, an intelligence department was created at the General Staff, the main function of which was the fight against foreign intelligence services. This branch is considered the prototype of the current counterintelligence. The founder of military counterintelligence is considered to be Aleksey Kuropatkin, who at that time was an adjutant general. It was he who began to talk about intelligence with Nicholas II.

After 9 years, military intelligence departments appear in all combat governing bodies.

In 1918, on December 18, a resolution was adopted by the Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), which refers to the unification of the front and army emergency commissions. The result was a new body - a special department of the Cheka under the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR.

There was a lot of work, since the accumulated pre-revolutionary material was not taken into account. Everyone started from scratch. This left its mark on the formation of a powerful Red Army.

Modern military intelligence performs a large amount of work to ensure the stability of the country, to prevent terrorist attacks that have become more frequent in recent years.

Traditions

On this day, senior management gathers employees for solemn congratulations, awards for special merits. Prizes and valuable gifts are also awarded.

Colleagues gather together to congratulate each other, to honor the memory of those who died in the line of duty.

Relatives and friends congratulate the employees, wish them patience and luck, career advancement.