There are few testimonies and fewer photographs left about the life of Soviet disabled front-line soldiers after the war. This is a consequence of the near-total purge of the information by the NKVD: images and texts compromising the Soviet government were removed from everywhere, including personal correspondence.
Even casual students of the history of the Soviet Union and its contributions in World War II will have heard the stories of how the USSR mistreated its war invalids. The government didn’t properly take care of its veterans, specifically those who were physically unable to fully care for themselves. Many such war veterans found themselves homeless, and had to take to the streets to beg for spare change. Some survived this ordeal, some did not. But Soviet authorities would have preferred they’d simply disappear.
Some ways to deal with the disabled veterans were extreme (Google the words “Valaam” and “disabled veterans” for an example), and some were more subtle. Soviet postal censors, for example, were directed to remove photographs of disabled veterans that were deemed “objectionable” from the mail they were opening and reading.
The following translation is that of a Top Secret decree dated 26 January 1945 of the USSR NKGB [People’s Commissariat for State Security], Department “V” – the department which inspects (that is, intercepts, reads, and censors as needed) all correspondence and telecommunications.
It speaks to the Soviet government that such a decree, as you will read, would suggest the possibility of such photographic material being planted in correspondence by malicious actors. Such was the Soviet view of its war wounded.
Top Secret
APPROVED
DEPUTY PEOPLE’S COMMISSAR FOR STATE SECURITY
Commissar for State Security 2 Rank KOVULOV
TO THE HEADS OF THE “V” DEPARTMENTS AND BRANCHES OF THE NKGB-UNKGB
AND HEADS OF THE MILITARY CENSOR DEPARTMENTS AND BRANCHES OF THE NKGB OF THE FRONTS, ARMIES, FLEETS, AND FLOTILLAS
On removing photographs of Patriotic War-crippled invalids from letters
Recently we have noted instances of inclusion in letters of individual and group photographs of invalids from the Great Patriotic War, crippled by severe injuries at the front.
Since we have not ruled out the possibility of these photographs of war invalids being sent by hostile elements for purposes of provocation, the following guidelines must be followed:
1. Photographs of war invalids demonstrating disfigurement received as a result of serious injuries at the front (amputated extremities, facial disfigurement, blindness, etc.) are to be removed from the correspondence, although the letters themselves can proceed as addressed, as long as they are not of a negative nature.
2. In the event of the malicious distribution of objectionable photographs, these letters must be subject to confiscation and, along with the photographs, they are to be sent to the NKGB elements or SMERSH Counterintelligence for tactical inferences regarding malicious actors.
3. Removal of photographs from the letters must be recorded in case complaints are registered regarding their loss.
DEPUTY CHIEF OF DEPARTMENT “V” OF THE USSR NKGB
Lieutenant Colonel of State Security GUTERMAN
26 January 1945
Moscow
Translation © 2025 by Michael Estes and TranslatingHistory.org
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