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Monday, March 25, 2013

SMERSH and SMERCH


I found this ad for a Russian Rocket Launcher on The Dead District, a Georgian blog. Well, it's written in Georgian anyway. I was able to figure that out by copying some of the unfamiliar looking  text and asking Google to translate it.
    Isn't SMERCH an awful lot like SMERSH, James Bond's nemesis? Only to an American. They are completely different words. SMERSH, it turns out, was not just a fictional organization, but was also a real-life WW2 Soviet operation:
In its counter-espionage and counter-intelligence roles, SMERSH appears to have been extremely successful throughout World War II. SMERSH actions resulted in numerous captures, desertions, and defections of German intelligence officers and agents, some of whom SMERSH turned into double agents. Indeed, the Germans began to consider missions where their losses were less than ninety percent “satisfactory.” According to German sources, the Soviets rendered approximately 39,500 German agents useless by the end of the war.
No telling how many Russians they rendered useless. Stalin was in charge then.

Smersh was James Bond's enemy only in the  novels.
Film versions of novels where SMERSH appears substituted either SPECTRE or independent villains in order to avoid fomenting hatred of the Soviets, and so contributing to unstable relations with the USSR.[citation needed] 
I vaguely remember SMERSH from the novels. It's been decades since I read them. But now we have Hollywood, fulfilling our craving for violence through the use of fictional villains. I feel much better now.

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