1941

1941 3 February
The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR issues a decree transforming the State Directorate of State Security (GUGB) of the NKVD into a separate People's Commissariat of State Security (NKGB).
14 May
In a secret note the People's Commissar of State Security of the USSR Vsevolod Merkulov informs Stalin, Molotov, and Beria that, “beginning in the second half of April this year a number of employees of the German embassy are sending members of their families and in particular valuable items from the USSR to Germany.”
24 June
The Soviet Information Bureau (Sovinformbiuro) is created in Moscow. In 1944 a newly created special bureau responsible for propaganda directed at Western countries is attached to it.
24 June
In Moscow the newspapers Krasnaia zviezda and Izvestiia publish a poem by Lebediev-Kumach, “Arise, immense country…”, which is set to music by the composer Oleksandrov.
29 June
According to a joint command issued by the NKGB, NKVD, and the General Prosecutor's Office of the USSR, all prisoners of war are to be regarded as traitors of the fatherland.
30 June 1941
On the very day that the Germans occupy Lviv, members of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists proclaim the restoration of the territorial administration of the Ukrainian state (a local government headed by Yaroslav Stetsko), without informing the Germans. After the leader of the Ukrainian nationalists Stepan Bandera refuses to comply with the Germans' demands to revoke the proclamation of the Ukrainian state, the members of the territorial leadership, including Stetsko and Bandera, are arrested and send to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. 12 July
The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR approves a decision concerning the early release of certain categories of prisoners (those charged with absenteeism, ordinary, official, and economic crimes) and their enlistment in the ranks of the Red Army. In 1941 the GULAG [State Camp Administration] supplied 420,000 prisoners for the Red Army.
14 July
Soviet rocket launchers (“Katiushas”) are first committed to battle at Orsha. The inventors of this weapon, Georgii Langemak, Ivan Kleimonov, and others are shot before the war.
27 July
Under conditions of the utmost secrecy the body of Vladimir Lenin is transported from his mausoleum in Moscow to Tiumen.
30 July
The USSR establishes diplomatic relations with the Polish ?migr? government in London and comes to an agreement concerning mutual support in the war against Germany and the creation of Polish military formations on Soviet territory.
12 August
The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR approves a decree on an amnesty for “all Polish citizens who are held prisoners today on Soviet territory as prisoners of war or on other sufficient grounds.”
17 November
A resolution of the State Defense Committee no. 903ss expands the rights of the Special Board of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the USSR. Now it is authorized to mete out punishment, including execution. This right is upheld until 1 September 1953, i.e., until the liquidation of the Special Board.

In 1939-1941 mass burials of victims of the Communist terror take place in Dem'ianiv Laz, a forest tract near the city of Ivano-Frankivsk. The first searches were carried out only in 1989, thanks to the efforts of the cultural and scholarly society “Rukh.” A group of activists, including Roman Krutsyk, B. Vintoniak, the investigator M. Danyliv, forensic medical experts headed by O. Levytsky, and others, located the remains of more than 500 people buried in three pits. Among the items found are prison documents: court sentences, protocols of searches, and letterheads inscribed “NKVD Prison of Stanyslav.” It has been determined that sentences were carried out by a military tribunal of the 12th Army of the Kyiv Special District. The names of nine NKVD staffers who were guilty of torture and executions have been identified.

What official propaganda will call the “liberation march” and the “golden September” is drawn up in utmost secrecy, in the guise of training maneuvers. Beria's top-secret directive dated 15 September 1939 lists the population categories that are subject to repressions.

In December 1939 preparations are made to deport the population of Western Ukraine and Belarus to remote regions of the Soviet Union. The first residents are deported in February 1940, together with families of Polish military colonists and forest wardens. The second deportation, in April 1940, included families of repressed individuals. The third and fourth deportations, which took place in June 1940 and May-June 1941, respectively, affected mostly refugees. Altogether nearly 320,000 people were deported. In addition, thousands of prisoners and prisoners of war were executed in the first days of the Soviet-German war.

After the new government is established in the new territories, arrests and detentions do not cease, although the prisons are overflowing. On 5 March 1940 Beria sends the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party(b) a memorandum asking for permission to shoot “implacable enemies of the Soviet government” who, in his opinion, “are only waiting to be released in order to be able to join the struggle against the Soviet government.” These enemies include Polish officers, policemen, gendarmes, prison wardens, secret agents, landowners, officials, and colonists who are interned in three huge prisoner of war camps. The list also includes inmates of prisons in Western Ukraine and Belarus, a total of 21,857 people. Beria's request is granted.

Stalin carries out the agreements concluded with the Ger-mans virtually until the beginning of the German invasion of the USSR.
On 21 June 1941 Beria reports to Stalin: “I am again insisting on the recall and punishment of our ambassador in Berlin Dekano-zov, who as usual is bombarding me with “disinformation” about some kind of attack by Hitler on the USSR. He has reported that this “attack” will begin tomorrow…But, Joseph Vissarionovich, my people and I well remember your wise instruction: in 1941 Hit-ler will not attack us!”
On 22 June 1941 the “leader of nations” and his supporters are given a sobering lesson.