Perpetrators of the Crime

Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)

From its establishment, the Politburo of the Bolshevik Party — known during the period in question as the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), or VKP(b)—served as the highest governing body of both the Party and the Soviet state. The decision of 5 March 1940 ordering the liquidation of prisoners from Kozelsk, Ostashkov and Starobelsk, as well as detainees held in prisons in “Western Ukraine” and “Western Belarus”, was therefore a state decision.
The officials who signed the resolution—Joseph Stalin (de facto dictator of the Soviet Union), Lazar Kaganovich, Mikhail Kalinin, Anastas Mikoyan, Vyacheslav Molotov and Kliment Voroshilov—represented the entire Communist Party leadership and, by extension, the Soviet state itself. The document was drafted by Lavrentiy Beria.

NKVD Special Board (the so-called “Central Troika”)

The execution orders were formally issued by the NKVD Special Board, also known as the NKVD “troika” (an extrajudicial body empowered to issue political sentences in the USSR). It consisted of Leonid Bashtakov, Bogdan Kobulov and Vsevolod Merkulov (Deputy People’s Commissar for Internal Affairs), who also supervised the overall implementation of the operation.

Soviet Political Police

In the communist system, the political police formed a fundamental pillar of state power, with responsibilities far exceeding those of similar services in non-totalitarian countries. A key feature of this system was the existence of its own armed units, separate from the regular army and navy.
Since its creation in 1917 (initially as the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage, known as the Cheka—short for Chrezvychaynaya Komissiya, or “Extraordinary Commission”), the political police functioned as an instrument of mass terror used by the Communist Party against society.
Throughout the history of the Soviet Union, the organisation underwent several name changes: Cheka (until 1922), the State Political Directorate (GPU, 1922–1923), the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU, 1923–1934), and the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD, 1934–1946). These changes were primarily administrative and propagandistic in nature and did not alter the essential functions or character of the political police.
Regional NKVD directorates (UNKVD), to which prisoner transports from Kozelsk, Ostashkov and Starobelsk were sent for “liquidation”, possessed experienced personnel, including staff trained in executions and the concealment of bodies. In Kalinin (now Tver), where prisoners from Ostashkov were murdered, Moscow sent a special unit led by Vasily Blokhin (1895–1955), the Kremlin’s chief executioner.
This may have been due to the fact that Dmitry Tokarev, head of the local NKVD, had only recently been transferred from the border troops and lacked experience in carrying out executions. Blokhin remains the only known Soviet officer serving as an executioner who reached the rank of Major General. He is believed to have personally carried out between 20,000 and 40,000 executions during his career, retiring in 1953. He was also the designer of a special uniform used during executions.
General Tokarev later recalled: “Then I saw the full horror of it. We arrived there. After a few minutes Blokhin put on his special clothing: a brown leather cap, a long brown leather apron, and brown leather gloves with cuffs above the elbows. It made a tremendous impression on me—I saw a real executioner.”
General Vasily Zarubin was also present at the Kozelsk camp, acting as an operational officer tasked with interrogating and analysing Polish prisoners of war. None of the perpetrators was ever held accountable for their role in the Katyn crime.

List of Perpetrators

The Soviet political leadership involved approximately 2,000 NKVD officers of various ranks in the Katyn operation.
On 26 October 1940, 125 NKVD officers who had taken part in the preparation and execution of the massacre were rewarded by Lavrentiy Beria under secret Order No. 001365 of the USSR NKVD for the “successful fulfilment of special tasks”.
Among them were: