Imagine black leather overcoats. Imagine people breaking into houses at midnight, taking people away. Imagine the harshest interrogators in the Moscow prisons and in the Gulag. This was Guards Senior Lieutenant Ivan Illych Rijikov.
Senior Lieutenant Rijikov was thirty years old when he joined the Red Army in 1942. Because of his previous membership to the Communist party, and his dedication to the Motherland, he was chosen to become a member of the dreaded ‘SmerSh’. (SmerSh in Russian is an acronym which stands for ‘Death To Spies’.) At the front, he became the Operational Deputy of the Counterintelligence Department, SmerSh, attached to the 24th Guards Kievskaya Artillery Brigade.
His first award was that of the Order of the Red Star, on 03 December 1943, with the following citation:
"Comrade Rijikov, in practical work, demonstrates himself in highly positive ways. Through constant evolutions in the objective in which he was working, he accomplished a one-hundred percent successful liquidation and extermination of deserters, self mutilators and various other anti-soviet demonstrators. Personally oversaw ten cases of desertion. Uncovered, and on 22 June 1943, near the village of Stalichnaya, personally arrested the traitor of the Motherland (Movshovich).
"In every day work, he is highly disciplined, demonstrates initiative for exemplary execution of orders and in his work. Because of these things, Guards Sr. Lieutenant., Comrade Rijikov is nominated for the governmental award, "Order of the Great Patriotic War 2nd Class"."
His second award, the Order of the Patriotic War, Second Class was awarded on 22 May 1945 for:
"Comrade Rijikov has served in the Great Patriotic War since December 1942 as Operational Deputy of SMERSH Counterintelligence, executing a large body of work in support of front line combat commanders, which has assisted greatly in preventing desertions and various other anti-Soviet crimes.
"Especially significant has been his work in filtering out enemy agents and terrorists who had planted themselves among the local population in recently liberated combat areas.
"Comrade Rijikov is exemplary in the execution of his duty and in his initiative. He is devoted to the party of Lenin-Stalin and Socialist Motherland.
"I nominate Comrade Rijikov for the governmental award "Order of the Great Patriotic War 2nd Class"."
He continued his work with the KGB after the War, eventually retiring in the late 1960’s, having a full career tracking and apprehending ‘traitors to the Motherland’.
Additional photos of Rijikov's Group
