The Great Terror

AbstractThe greatest number of people arrested as “spies” during the Great Terror is represented by Polish and Japanese “spies” followed by German ones. There is a reason for this. During the 1920s and 1930s (and even during WWII when, after Pearl Harbor, Poland and Japan were technically at war), Polish and Japanese intelligence services collaborated closely against the Soviet Union. Of course the Soviet Union knew of this and infiltrated the Japanese and Polish services (the extent is naturally not easy to determine). Still Polish-Japanese undercover work was serious enough to concern Stalin deeply. Iagoda, a past master of counterintelligence, carried out “Trest”-like operations in the Far East, right up until the Great Terror, i.e., until he was replaced by Ezhov. Ezhov attacked Iagoda’s operations and decimated his foreign intelligence cadres. This is little known background to the Great Terror. It is not that there were many spies (in fact there were not many) or that the Great Terror struck actual “spies” (probably very few if any), but the fact of the matter was that the Great Terror took place against the backdrop of fierce international intelligence battles. German connections are sometimes mentioned, but Polish-Japanese connections are not, even though they appear to have been more important than the German ones. This partially explains the greater number of people executed as Polish and Japanese spies.