Organization of encrypted communication in the NKVD border districts of the Far East in the initial stage of the Great Patriotic War

The research centers around the organization of encrypted communication on the eve and in the first months of the Great Patriotic War in the Far East. Encryption or cryptography was vital to make information transfer inaccessible to the enemy. In many respects, the quality and speed of transmission of encrypted information ensured the success of various military operations. The authors analyzed the mechanism of providing and organizing encrypted communication in the Far East border districts on the eve of the war, based on a general assessment of encryption or cryptography. It noted that the change of ciphers just before the war, difficulty in deciphering, absence of necessary cipher tables and encryption pads resulted in an almost complete lack of communication for the border troops in the Far East at the beginning of the war. To support the thesis, the reports of the Border Force Department heads of the Khabarovsk and Primorsk districts are provided, which reveal the complexity and duration of decoding. The specific features of the Far East and the technical capabilities of the 1940s are noted in terms of a bigger amount of time required for document delivery compared to the western borders. The analysis of recently declassified code cables from the FSB Central Archive shows that the organization of cipher communications, as one of the components of the control system on the eve of the war, did not fully comply with the requirements imposed on it. One of the main causes was a severe shortage of specially trained encryption experts in the troops having in-depth understanding of the essence of the encryption process. All these would call for advanced knowledge of mathematics, which only a few of the wire crew in the border troops had. Difficulties in decryption resulted in information leakage, including the cipher keys, quite often caused by officers who neglected security measures. Although this was only one of the numerous complex tasks that required immediate tackling of the Soviet government on the eve and in the first months of the war, it was not a minor one. The lack of precise instructions and disinformation gained, caused great difficulties in the command and control over the border troops in the Far East as well. In this region, this did not have such a devastating impact as on the western borders, but substantially hampered the command and control over the troops in these territories. This problem was so obvious that the Supreme Command made every effort to ensure and establish communications throughout the Great Patriotic War. The conclusion stresses the importance of ensuring proper encrypted communications for command and control over the troops, especially on the eve and during the Great Patriotic War.