ACTIVITIES OF THE POLICE OF THE USSR IN NOVEMBER 1941 – MIDDLE OF JANUARY 1942

Abstract

The main aspects and areas of activity of militia bodies in one of the most difficult periods of the Soviet-German war - the end of 1941 - the beginning of 1942 are studied. It was found that the main problem that hindered the activity of the militia in the specified period was the lack of personnel, connected with the difficult military situation at the front, the death, evacuation, stay in the environment, transition to the active army of many militiamen, in including management staff. There was a shortage of personnel among operational officials and inspectors. The biggest was the shortage of personnel among operational officials and inspectors. At that time, there was no reserve that was able to replace the incomplete militia force. The only source of replenishment could be the protection of the military rear of the Southern and South-Western fronts, where the dismissed workers of the Moldavian SSR, Lviv, Chernivtsi, and Kirovohrad regions and a small number of workers from other regions were concentrated. In fact, the apparatus and militia officers of only three oblasts remained under the command of the NKVD of the Ukrainian SSR: Kharkiv, Stalin, and Luhansk. Significant understaffing of militia bodies had a significant impact on the quality of militia activity, both in cities and especially in rural areas. The main areas of militia work at that time were as follows: combating banditry and desertion, identifying evasions from mobilization, which was a mass phenomenon, fighting against looters, robbers, thieves and other criminals, identifying and prosecuting speculators and thieves of state property. A characteristic feature of the cases of banditry that took place at that time was that the gangs were formed, mainly, from deserters who had a criminal past and infiltrated the ranks of the Red Army. The peculiarity of this activity was that all this took place in the conditions of war, changes in the front line, movement of a huge number of the population, which significantly complicated the management of the activities of the militia.