STRUCTURE AND STAFFING OF THE NKGB-MGB CITY DEPARTMENTS IN TERNOPIL REGION IN 1944‒1947

Abstract

Summary. The article investigates the structural transformation of the city departments of the People՚s Commissariat for State Security and the Ministry of State Security (hereinafter NKGB-MGB) in Ternopil region on the basis of available historical sources and monographs. The authors give quantitative and qualitative characteristics of the staffing of the NKGB-MGB departments, highlight the main trends and patterns in the selection of employees and analyze the national affiliation and educational level. The purpose of the study is to outline the structure and its transformation, to characterize the staffing of the city departments of the NKGB-MGB in Ternopil, Kremenets and Chortkiv in 1944‒1947. The research methodology is based on the principles of objectivity and historicism. The use of historical-comparative method made it possible to trace and compare the structure of the NKGB-MGB at all stages of transformation and development. As well as methods of statistics, analysis and synthesis, which served for the quantitative and qualitative characterization of personnel and systematization of the results. The scientific novelty is that the structure and staffing of the city departments of the NKGB-MGB in the cities of Ternopil, Kremenets and Chortkiv were studied for the first time. Conclusions – after the restoration of the city departments of the NKGB in 1944, there was an acute shortage of qualified personnel, in some places the departments were filled only by 50%, and people who had completed only a few grades of school were hired. The departments and subdivisions were filled by transfered Ukrainians from the eastern regions of the USSR, Russians and Belarusians. It is worth noting that in 1945 the staffing situation improved, the number of employees increased by an average of two employees in the management staff. In 1946, the USSR NKGB was reorganized into the USSR Ministry of State Security to which Military Counterintelligence Agency "Smersh" was added. After the reorganization, we observed restructuring of the second subdivision which was part of the city departments, where the counterintelligence and search divisions and an operational division were formed. Since 1946, the staffing of departments and subdivisionswas improving, both quantitatively and qualitatively. Vacancies became rare and the educational level of employees increased. The tendency to improve the quality of staff persisted in 1947, therefore employees with only elementary school behind them were no longer on the staff lists.