On March 7, 2017, one of the main Russian daily newspapers Moskovsky Komsomolets published an interview of Anna Rudakova who worked as a secretary of the Soviet military counterintelligence service SMERSH during WWII. At the time of the interview, Rudakova was 100 years old. The interview was conducted by a well-known journalist Eva Merkacheva who frequently writes on intelligence topics and is a recipient of the SVR annual literary award. Below is my English translation available only on this blog.
Eva Merkacheva: The Revelations of a 100-year-old SMERSH Secretary Anna Rudakova - “I Prepared Secret Documents for Stalin”
Moskovsky Komsomolets March 7, 2017
Among the staff members of the legendary SMERSH (the acronym of WWII military counterintelligence service, abbreviated from “Death to Spies"), there were many women. Anna Rudakova is one of them, and she is a living legend herself. Lieutenant Rudakova personally typed secret reports for Stalin and Beria and delivered top secret messages to the frontline leadership.
The same age as the Revolution (she was born in 1917 and recently celebrated her 100th birthday), Anna Ilynichna worked first as a typist, then as a secretary at Lubyanka. Even now, she is reluctant to answer many questions: “I signed a nondisclosure agreement. It has no time limit. "
On the eve of March 8, the journalist of Moskovsky Komsomolets visited her home, the home of a staff member of the most mysterious counterintelligence service in the world.
From the files of Moskovsky Komsomolets: “During the years of the Great Patriotic War, about 30,000 spies and saboteurs entered the territory of the USSR. With their help, Hitler intended to turn the tide of the war. The “secret war” waged by these spies in the rear could have done more harm than all losses on the front lines. In order to neutralize this danger, in the spring of 1943, a new intelligence service was created in the system of the People’s Commissariat of Defense - the Main Directorate of Counterintelligence, or SMERSH. It was headed by Viktor Abakumov, who reported directly to Stalin.”
Anna Rudakova lives in a house on Tverskaya Street, where many state security officers were given apartments - a hundred steps from the Kremlin and five minutes from the Lubyanka headquarters. She begins our conversation with an unexpected confession:
- I used to avoid the KGB building like everyone else. The very word “Lubyanka” inspired fear in me. I never thought that I would work there.
- Was it scary to go there for the first time?
- Of course. I thought that I was summoned because of my boss (that he did something wrong). I then worked at the Goznak plant, I was only 22 years old [This was in 1939]. At that time, many were summoned [to the Lubyanka] and never returned. So, I warned my aunt: “If I’m not back by 10 pm, tell Dad.”
I went to the reception room, said who I was, and I was immediately scheduled for an interview. They offered me a job. How could I refuse? They showed that they trusted me! I agreed, of course. They assigned me a salary of 400 rubles, not a whole lot even in those days. But when they gave me an envelope with money [a salary] for the first time, I counted 900 rubles; I went to the accounting department and said: “You made an error. There’s a lot of money here!” It turned out that they had just raised our salary. Now that was the amount of money one could live well on.
We were allowed (considering how busy we were) to place orders [for products] in a special store without having to go there. And during the war years, we were given very good [food] rations. In general, there were a lot of pluses in my line of work.
- The building on Lubyanka has been shrouded in gloomy mystique. What was it like working there?
- There was nothing mysterious. There were always a lot of people, everyone was in a hurry. They were going from one office to another. The work did not stop even at night. At first I had a break from 4 PM to 8 PM. During the break, I went to the cinema or to the dances at our club named after Dzerzhinsky [the first VChK-a chief]. And after 8 PM, I would return and work into the night.
In general, in 1938 and 1939, it was like this: while Beria was still at Lubyanka, the entire operational staff must remain there, too. As soon as he left, they would also let us go home.
- Was his office next to yours?
- No. We were even on different floors. But he sometimes came down to us. Or, when he walked by, he dropped in to say hello. And by the way, only while he was in charge, every day at 11-11.30 AM, they brought us the breakfast: sandwiches, tea or coffee. He needed us and he took good care of us.
- Were you afraid of him? What kind of person was he?
- I won’t say that we were afraid. His appearance was rather pleasant. As far as hypnotic stares and threatening language go, he did not use it with us, typists and secretaries. We just did our job, which was purely technical: we typed up a document, we registered it, we took it where it was needed, then picked it up from there. Nothing significant. What would be a reason to frighten us?
- Tell me about your working day.
- When I was a typist under Beria, I spent the whole day sitting at the office desk. Sometimes the officers came to me and dictated their reports. I typed very quickly, I didn’t have to look, I learned this in special courses. My fingers were strong, dexterous, they seemed to be able to type the required text without my conscious participation (maybe that’s why I can still do any work with my hands despite my age!). Blots were allowed but were frowned upon. If I typed the wrong letter, I carefully cut a hole in the sheet and glued another letter in its place.
The most difficult thing was to type intelligence reports for Stalin. The requirements were special: the best paper (white, thick), wide margins and not a single correction. I prepared a lot of secret materials for the General Secretary...
When I worked in the secretariat of the SMERSH Directorate, I often acted as a carrier of classified documents. I had an ID card that allowed me free access anywhere without being searched. I carried the classified material in a special briefcase. A car (mostly the GAZ-M passenger car was used) with a driver was always at my disposal, and I also had bodyguards.
In general, every SMERSH staff member had a pistol. I kept mine at home, in a safe. I didn’t like weapons. But many of my colleagues at that time had several pistols, and after the war they were distressed by Stalin’s order to surrender all weapons or risk imprisonment.
- Was there a dress code?
- They didn’t tell us anything about the physical appearance. We were always in military uniform so as not to be different from the rest. I wore my favorite military tunic. When I went on an operational assignment, for security reasons, I would put on the uniform of those troops that I was reporting to.
As far as the hairstyle goes, it could have been any type as long as the hair was always neatly tied.
- And personal life was probably frowned upon? Was there even time for it in this line of work?
- That’s where I met my future husband. He worked as the head of the secretariat in the Special Department of the NKVD. We went to the [Dzerzhinsky] club together. We had lunches together. And then we decided to get married. No one from the leadership stopped us, but no one encouraged us either. It was a kind of “do what you want.”
Soon my husband was sent to Mongolia, to [the river] Khalkhin Gol, where the fighting was going on [in 1939]. I asked to go there, too. I was not in the trenches but worked as the clerk of the Special Department of the NKVD in the 2nd Tank Brigade. There I gave birth to a son, and then came back to Moscow, where my daughter was born. And suddenly - the war ...
I left the children with my aunt, and I went back to work in the NKVD. During all that time I never took a sick leave. As soon as the SMERSH was created, I began to work for it. I was good at shorthand. Because of that, I was sent on operational assignments to the front.
- And what did you do there? What did you write down?
- There I met with the agents of military counterintelligence. They dictated their reports to me, which I then delivered to Moscow. There were times when I was present at the interrogations of German spies and wrote down everything they told.
- And what did they usually tell?
- What purpose they were sent for, by whom, when. Some of their stories (this concerned the high-ranking prisoners of war) I was forbidden to write down. I had to memorize everything, every single word, and then orally pass it on to my superiors. I have developed the ability to memorize information for exactly as long as it was necessary - that is, until I conveyed it. And then it was all erased as if my memory were self-cleansed, so to speak. As a result, I really don’t remember a single secret interrogation of spies caught by the SMERSH.
From the files of Moskovsky Komsomolets: “During the war, about 6,000 officers of the SMERSH lost their lives. Many were killed on operational duty. It is noteworthy that the SMERSH officers were engaged in the search for and the capture of the leaders of the German Reich. They also guarded secret materials and valuables found in the basements of the Reich Chancellery.”
-My work for the SMERSH ended on the day when it was disbanded by the order of Stalin.
- That is, SMERSH did not last a day without you?
- It turned out to be so. But I wasn’t a counterintelligence officer, I didn’t catch spies. My job was [only] papers, papers ... However, they sometimes determined the outcome of battles during the Great Patriotic War.
- What kinds of relations did you have with the head of SMERSH, [Viktor] Abakumov?
- What do you mean by “relations”? Working relations. He was the boss, I was one of his many subordinates. In the Main Directorate of the Military Counterintelligence SMERSH, there were approximately 12 departments, each with its own secretariat. I was not in close contact with Abakumov. But I don’t remember him shouting, stamping his feet, or behaving in any improper way. He was reserved, modest, usually in a black suit or military uniform. Sometimes, he would smile when we met in the corridor.
- They say that he was a lady’s man…
- I don’t know anything of that nature for Viktor Semyonovich. He certainly didn’t go after me, and he seemed not to care for anyone else either.
He then fell in love with Smirnova, an employee of our secretariat, and eventually he married her. At one time they even lived in the first section of our apartment building, and then they moved away.
- Were you friends with his wife?
- You see, it wasn’t that friendship as such was not welcome in those days, but we simply had no time for it. The war was going on, everyone was stressed.
- And what kind of relationship did he have with Beria?
- They were friends. We all saw it and knew that was the case. But what happened between them later, I don’t know. I tried to stay away from things like that.
- When Abakumov was arrested, were you afraid for your own freedom?
- We reasoned like this: if he was arrested, then there was a reason for it. Nobody then knew what he was accused of. But I was shocked when he was eventually shot. I always thought: if he made a mistake, then why did they not give him a chance to correct it?
In general, we were all potential targets. We were afraid of denunciations from neighbors. They wrote reports against both me and my husband. I think it was out of envy. There was a case when my sister on the train told a fellow passenger that my aunt’s parents had their apartment building in the center of Moscow (it was later [after October 1917] nationalized). So, she wrote a denunciation to the NKVD: you have the apartment owners and the bourgeois among your staff. As a result, I’ve always tried not to discuss anything with anyone. Nothing at all.
- Did you celebrate March 8 [International Women’s Day] in those days?
- Of course! We were given special certificates. And candy box as a gift.
- Did you smoke?
- I never did. Some of our secretaries and typists smoked, but not me. The building had special rooms for smoking. Are you asking me this to understand the secret of longevity?
- Yes, I am! Is there a secret?
- No. Unless it’s the fact that I always liked to walk. I could walk many kilometers and would not feel tired at all. I never liked to overeat and observed moderation in everything.
In general, everyone in my family died at a young age. I buried my husband 20 years ago and afterwards all my children... Essentially, I am left by myself. But I live on and try not to lose heart.
