Soviet naval radio communications intelligence in the period of the Civil War and military intervention in Russia (1917-1922): practical importance of past lessons.

Naval activities connected with the defense of and support for the Russian Federation's national interests and security fall in the category of top-level state interests. Military security goals are achieved through a set of measures, including a continuous surveillance of naval activities of states and military blocs in contiguous seas and strategically important oceanic areas, a timely build-up of surveillance task forces in accordance with the situation as it shapes, preemptive naval deployments, and security of civilian vessels and facilities in oceanic and sea areas. These measures can hardly be implemented if the naval forces lack intelligence support in the shape of shore surveillance and reconnaissance data, including radio communications intelligence.

The experience of past wars is rich in factual material whose study and scientific generalization serves further development of the military theory under the present-day circumstances. This relates in full measure to the experience of development and combat utilization of Soviet naval radio communications intelligence during the Civil War and military intervention in Russia (1917-1922).

The Civil War and military intervention in Russia radically changed the state of Russian naval radio communications intelligence. In the course of World War I, the Baltic Fleet created within its Surveillance and Communications Service (SCS) a sufficiently powerful and efficient radio communications intelligence service which controlled a special-purpose radio unit, ten peripheral radio interception units and ten radio direction finders. Administratively these elements were part of the Baltic Fleet's SCS areas located in the territory of Estonia, Latvia and Finland.

February 18, 1918 was when the German forces, upon occupying Estonia and Latvia, started an offensive on Petrograd. The Baltic Fleet SCS personnel were retreating with the rest of the Russian forces towards Revel (Tallinn). On February 25, the Baltic Fleet carrying on board, among others, radio intelligence men from the SCS Southern Area made a passage from Revel to Helsingfors (Helsinki). At this stage, the Baltic Fleet's SCS Southern Area actually went out of existence. As the German forces forged east, the SCS Western and North Western Areas were phased out. (1)

On March 12, in keeping with a Soviet governmental order, the Baltic Fleet started what is known as its ice cruise from Helsingfors to Kronstadt. The Baltic Fleet radio communications intelligence ceased to exist following the handover of control over all the Baltic Sea naval forces to the Tsentrobalt in December 1917 and the completion of the ice cruise on May 2, 1918. (2) The SCS areas were disbanded; what remained were Kronstadt, an independent station, New Holland radio station in Petrograd, and the telegraph terminal at the Naval General Staff.

Nevertheless, the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic accepted the decision, as early as November 1918, to set up four communications areas of the Baltic Fleet: Kronstadt, Petrograd, Schliesselburg, and Onega. But their functions were somewhat reduced. The encryption was handed over to a specialized encoding section, and New Holland alone could engage in radio interception, sending all data directly to the staff.

While the military intervention mounted by U.S., British and French expeditionary corps was being repelled, radio intelligence posts aboard some Soviet Baltic Fleet ships only occasionally intercepted enemy radio exchanges. Thus, the Baltic Fleet's radio communications intelligence was actually nonexistent in the period of the Civil War and military intervention: only one shore-based radio station engaged in limited radio communications intelligence; naval ships went in for radio interception in the Gulf of Finland only from time to time; no radio direction finding was practiced vis-a-vis intelligence facilities. As a result, this kind of radio intelligence activities was in effect more in the nature of radio surveillance than radio communications intelligence.

This notwithstanding, the Baltic Fleet's experience of radio communications intelligence was used by the other fleets of the Soviet Republic. In the Black Sea, the Civil War started right after power in Sevastopol went to the Military Revolutionary Committee. On November 26, 1917, White Guard units seized power in Rostov. Approximately at the same time, a Crimean reactionary government was formed in Simferopol, which began raising armed forces of its own. The Soviet government decided in this connection to transfer all combatant ships and auxiliary vessels from Sevastopol to Novorossiisk. However, there, too, the fleet was in danger of being captured by a German intervention force which went on with its offensive in the North Caucasus. As a result, the decision was approved to scuttle the ships of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet. Under these circumstances, any radio intelligence activities were practically terminated at the Black Sea Fleet. (3)

In early 1920, a decision was adopted to rebuild the Black Sea Fleet. Among other things, it was deemed necessary to form a Surveillance and Communications Service, with S.A. Kasatkin appointed as its chief. SCS Odessa, Ochakov, Kherson and Mariupol areas were created. The SCS Main Directorate included the following: a command and control element, and an operational department that maintained communications alert duty and had four communications clerks and two translators, which points to radio interception of foreign radio exchanges being conducted. In consequence, not fewer than 25 surveillance posts, as well as six intermediary and main telegraph stations were established in the Black Sea Fleet from April to June 1920.

Radio communications intelligence was pursued by the Volga Caspian Naval Flotilla. Sporadic interception of enemy radio exchanges was practiced by the Volga Flotilla, which began to be formed in spring 1918 on the basis of odd detachments of armed tug steamers and barges whose crews were mostly made up of former Baltic Fleet sailors and Volga river sailors. In early October 1918, the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic sent S.E. Saks, its special representative and flotilla commander, to Astrakhan. S.E. Saks' October 13 order officially announced the creation of the Astrakhan-Caspian and Volga naval flotillas, and their merger in July 1919 formed the Volga-Caspian Naval Flotilla.

In the latter half of October 1918, the flotilla signalmen intercepted several enemy radio messages regarding the situation in the Galyany area on the Kama river. This enabled the flotilla command to organize a successful cruise to Galyany to liberate imprisoned Red Guards. Radio communications intelligence played a major role after the flotilla sailed to the Caspian Sea. There was practically no landline communications on both the eastern and western coasts of the Caspian Sea, and thus radio communications were of primary importance. This was the reason why a real war for the capture and destruction of radio stations flared up between the White Guards and the Volga-Caspian Flotilla.

A well-known episode in the history of radio communications intelligence was the capture of a radio station at Fort Aleksandrovsky and its use in a radio game. On December 30, 1919, a flotilla squadron came close to Mangyshlak Peninsula on the eastern coast of the Caspian Sea and landed an assault unit which captured Fort Aleksandrovsky by a surprise attack. The White Guards were ignorant of the event for a long time and went on relaying radio messages, to Fort Aleksandrovsky, from Gen. A.I. Denikin's staff to Baku and thence to Admiral A.V. Kolchak in Guryev. N. Chemrukov, signalman from the destroyer Karl Liebknecht, who operated the fort's radio station, intercepted, on May 5, 1919, a radiogram saying that the steamship Leila with a military mission headed by Gen. A.N. Grishin-Almazov on board was on its way from Petrovsk to Guryev. Radiotelegraph operator K. Rovkov intercepted the exchanges between the Leila and the British auxiliary cruiser President Kruger. Soon after the cruiser sailed away from the ship, the latter was seized by the Karl Liebknecht. A package of valuable documents found on board included a plan for a joint offensive on Moscow to be mounted by Denikin and Kolchak forces.

In addition, the radio station at the fort engaged in active disinformation. All intercepted enemy messages were modified by the 11th army staff and relayed to their addressees.

The flotilla practiced radio interception through both its shore and ship radio stations. For example, the Karl Liebknecht intercepted, on April 2, 1920, a message instructing Gen. V.S. Tolstov to get aboard ship the garrison and silver at Fort Aleksandrovsky and await further orders. Based on earlier intelligence, the staff drew the conclusion that the White Guards were preparing to sail to the Persian (Iranian) port of Enzeli (Pekhlevi). (4) At 16:45 on April 4, the Karl Liebknecht spotted and shelled the auxiliary cruiser Milyutin and the gunboat Opyt of the White Guards. The cruiser was damaged and withdrew to the high seas. A sailor assault force landed from the Karl Liebknecht on April 5 took prisoner two Cossack regiments, an artillery battery, a detached Cossack squadron, a company, and a machine-gun element of the Ural Army (two generals, 77 officers and 1,088 rank-and-file Cossacks all in all) and captured spoils, including 1,450 kilos of silver. (5)

In addition to fleet elements, radio communications intelligence in sea and river theaters was conducted, as of November 1919, by the Red Army's front-line radio intelligence elements--direction finders and receivers. In November 1918, the Field Staff of the Revolutionary Military Council set up within its registration directorate the first Soviet radio communications intelligence element, a receiving and control radio station, which was due to intercept radio exchanges between foreign and White Guard stations. In January 1919, fronts started forming direction finding and receiver-information radio stations--front intelligence elements which were also supposed to control Red Army radio transmissions.

South Eastern Front was created in September 1919 to rout Gen. A.I. Denikin's forces. Army receiver-information stations and signals radio stations started conducting radio communications intelligence in its interests. Apart from collecting intelligence in the area of combat operations of the enemy's Ural and Denikin armies, these practiced radio surveillance of ship-based radio stations of the White Guards in the Caspian Sea. In November 1919, for example, the Red Army radio communications intelligence discovered supplies of military equipment and food for the Ural Army being delivered on board the Astrakhan, the Asia, the Europe, the Slava, and the President Kruger, all of which made part of the White Guard Caspian flotilla. Aside from that, in October 1920 the radio intelligence service of the South Western Front spotted the interventionists' ships carrying ammunition, food and equipment for the Russian army of Gen. P.N. Wrangel off the coast of the Crimea in the Black Sea; it also established the presence of radio communications between Gen. P.N. Wrangel's staff and the heads of the Entente Cordiale, and intercepted exchanges between White Guard radio stations in Sevastopol and Paris, Warsaw, Constantinople, Bucharest and Athens. Starting from October 28, 1920, when the Southern Front launched its strategic offensive on the Crimea, the army radio intelligence service obtained information on the movements of the enemy combatant ships and cargo vessels. (6)

Thus, the period of the Civil War and military intervention in Russia was a difficult stage in the history of the Russian Navy's radio communications intelligence--its complete termination by the Russian imperial navy and only occasional activities by the Soviet naval radio intelligence. The fleet radio intelligence service lost its most important component, ground radio communications intelligence, in the wake of radical changes in the Baltic Fleet's basing system and the loss of bases in the Black Sea. Under these circumstances, ship radio intelligence was focused solely on interception and unable to practice direction finding in respect of intelligence targets on account of there being no direction-finding network. Subsequently it took almost 20 years for the Navy's radio communications intelligence to reach the level it was at during World War I. The period was less painful for the army radio intelligence service, which launched systematic intelligence activities as early as 1919. Successful Red Army radio communications intelligence in naval theaters in that period was not a fluke: following the disintegration of the fleets, their numerous ground radio intelligence specialists turned up in Red Army intelligence elements, where their experience proved needed earlier, while their knowledge of radio communications organization accepted in the Russian Navy and retained by the White Guard Navy enabled them to pursue successful radio intelligence against the enemy navy.

Intelligence in naval theaters became an urgent problem again in the recent period. The disintegration of the Warsaw Treaty Organization and the Soviet Union, and the rapid reorientation of our former allies and closest neighbors to NATO in order to secure for themselves permanent membership in that organization led to radical geostrategic changes in the operational zones of the Baltic and the Black Sea fleets. For example, in consequence of the Soviet pullout from Poland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia in 1991-1992, the Baltic Fleet lost a considerable portion of crucial elements in its basing system, including the majority of shore radio intelligence units. For the same reason as well as in consequence of the military reform, the fleet forces and naval aviation have to do with a considerably reduced tactical reconnaissance capability in the fleet operational zone. In the meantime, the Baltic Fleet is currently in direct contact with NATO's Joint Armed Forces, while following Lithuania's acceptance to NATO the part of fleet forces deployed in the Kaliningrad Region became an exclave of the North Atlantic Alliance. A similar situation in the area of operational and tactical intelligence took shape in the Black Sea Fleet and in the Caspian Flotilla.

Projecting the lessons of the organization of naval radio communications intelligence during the Civil War and the military intervention in Russia to the present and the foreseeable future and taking into account the state of the modern theory of military art, we can draw the following conclusions that are of practical importance in our day and age.

* First, the degree of requirement to intelligence as a whole and radio communications intelligence in particular should be considerably increased. Intelligence forces and assets must be able and ready to tackle missions in naval operational zone against the background of considerable changes in the fleet basing system, both in the conditions of a rapid retreat in a coastal sector, one connected with the abandoning of coastal positions, and an offensive, which means an expansion of the coastal zone. Any fleet radio communications intelligence service can achieve this ability by considerably increasing the mobile component in coastal radio intelligence units (including the number of drones and RPVs), creating organized reserve positions, etc.

* Second, in necessity intelligence tasks (radio intelligence) performed for the navy can be imposed on the reconnaissance forces and assets of the Land Forces as well as the Air Force. Consequently, army and air force reconnaissance forces and assets, whose technical and tactical capabilities make it possible to obtain reconnaissance information in the operational zone of a contiguous naval theater of operations, must be ready and able to pursue reconnaissance in the interests of the navy. A quite justified demand in this context is that the fleet intelligence service be ready and able to operate in the interests of the army and the Air Force. Acquiring these capabilities is possible via the standardization of reconnaissance equipment, improvement of the specialist training system, a high level of coordination between different types of reconnaissance and intelligence agencies of the RF Armed Forces services in the course of combat training, etc.

* Third, coordination of intelligence activities of reconnaissance forces and assets belonging to different services and combat arms of the Armed Forces, ones deployed in coastal theaters (assumed theaters of operations), is carried out by a specially created control agency based in a given military territorial entity.

Generally, one should regard the above analysis as an additional argument in favor of it being expedient to create in the planned strategic sectors (whose territory is to include naval theaters) operational intelligence centers--central intelligence command and control agencies, to which all intelligence forces and assets available in this strategic sector regardless of their affiliation with Armed Forces services and combat arms should be subordinated. (7) This kind of territorial centralization of intelligence control ought to assist high promptness of control over the acquisition, distribution and application of intelligence with the purpose of enhancing strategic mobility and combat flexibility of the stand-by forces in strategic sectors.

NOTES:

1. Radiorazvedka Voenno-Morskogo Flota. Kratkaya istoriya. 1895-1945, ed. by Yu.P. Kvyatkovskiy, Voenizdat Publishers, Moscow, 1990, pp. 43-44.

2. Rossiiskiy gosudarstvennyi arkhiv VMF, rec. gr. 54, inv. 1, f. 4, sheet 18.

3. Radiorazvedka Voenno-Morskogo Flota, p. 45.

4. K. Vostokov, "Rozhdeniye radiorazvedki," Nezavisimoe voennoe obozreniye, No. 30 (203), 2000, p. 5.

5. N. Yu. Berezovskiy et. al., Boyevaya letopis VMF, 1917-1941, Voenizdat Publishers, Moscow, 1992, p. 365-366.

6. Istoriya radiorazvedki Sovetskoi Armii, GSh VS SSSR, GRU, Moscow, 1979, p. 24.

7. See: V.G. Kiknadze, "The Dependence of Sigint Effectiveness on the Intensity of Enemy Radio Traffic," Military Thought, No. 1, 2005, pp. 212-220.

Capt. 3rd Rank V.G. KIKNADZE

Candidate of Military Sciences