What is "smersh"

Soviet Army counter-espionage organization begun during World War II, 1953, from Russian abbreviation of smert' shpionam "death to spies." Introduced in English by "James Bond" author Ian Fleming.

SMERSH ( – acronym of "death to spies" – [SMERt' SHpionam]) was an umbrella organisation for three independent counter-intelligence agencies in the Red Army formed in late 1942 or even earlier, but officially announced only on 14 April 1943. The name SMERSH was coined by Joseph Stalin. The main reason for its creation was to subvert the attempts by German forces to infiltrate the Red Army on the Eastern Front.

The official statute of SMERSH listed the following tasks to be performed by the organisation: counter-intelligence, counter-terrorism, preventing any other activity of foreign intelligence in the Red Army; fighting "anti-Soviet elements" in the Red Army; protection of the front lines against penetration by spies and "anti-Soviet elements"; investigating traitors, deserters and self-harm in the Red Army; and checking military and civil personnel returning from captivity.

The organisation was officially in existence until 4 May 1946, when its duties were transferred back to the NKGB. The head of the agency throughout its existence was Viktor Abakumov, who rose to become Minister of State Security in the postwar years.

SMERSH is a fictional Soviet counterintelligence agency featured in Ian Fleming's early James Bond novels as agent 007's nemesis. SMERSH is the acronym of Spetsialnye MEtody Razoblacheniya SHpionov, meaning "Special Methods of Spy Detection", (in Russian Cyrillic СМЕРШ: Специальные Методы Разоблaчения Шпионов).

Fleming's version of SMERSH supposedly was modelled upon the real SMERSH organisation, which existed 1943-1946 (the real name is a portmanteau of two Russian words: "SMERt' SHpionam" [СМЕРть Шпионам, Směrť Špionam] meaning "Death to Spies"). However, the novels portray SMERSH as a massive Soviet counterintelligence organisation, much more resembling the real-life KGB, which aims its operatives abroad in subversion of the West, with the additional goal of killing Western spies, particularly James Bond of SIS. SMERSH's headquarters are variously stated to be in Leningrad or in Moscow, Soviet Union.

In the Bond film series, SMERSH is usually replaced with SPECTRE – a global terrorist organisation.