“Now tell me,” Serov said, his hand still resting on the stack of denunciation letters, “do you have confidence that you can handle this matter?”
“Yes, Comrade Major Ivan Alexandrovich,” Viktor replied as he rose to his feet.
“I do.”
“Good.”
Serov gave a satisfied nod.
“In that case, let’s move on to the real reason I asked you to come.”
He reached to the right side of his desk, picked up a thick red document folder, and slid it across the polished wood until it stopped in front of Viktor.
“Read it.”
Viktor sat back down immediately.
Taking the folder with both hands, he broke the seal and withdrew a document nearly a centimeter thick.
Stamped across the cover beneath the emblem of the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs was a single title:
Operational Plan – Lviv
He opened the file and began reading.
It quickly became clear that Moscow had already completed a detailed operational plan for the coming campaign against Poland.
The document before him dealt specifically with the responsibilities of the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs before, during, and after the occupation of Lviv by the Red Army.
Nearly twenty minutes passed before Viktor finished his first reading.
Closing the file halfway, he silently organized its contents.
Broadly speaking, the plan consisted of three major phases.
The first concerned the period immediately before the Soviet offensive.
State Security personnel were to infiltrate Lviv in advance and cooperate with the attacking forces by securing nine key bridges on the city’s outskirts.
At the same time, they were to prevent the retreating Polish forces from demolishing two hydroelectric power stations and more than a dozen strategically important industrial facilities before withdrawing.
The second phase focused on operations during the battle itself.
Working alongside advancing Red Army units, State Security detachments were expected to seize the city’s radio station, municipal administration, and other critical government facilities before they could be destroyed or evacuated.
The final phase began after Lviv had fallen.
It was by far the largest section of the document.
Page after page contained lists of names—well over a thousand in total.
According to the accompanying instructions, these individuals were to be located, arrested, and quietly eliminated after Soviet control had been established.
Some were identified as Ukrainian nationalists, others as uncompromising Polish anti-Soviet activists, while still others were Soviet citizens who had fled across the border into Poland in earlier years.
Viktor continued turning the pages until he reached the final order attached to the operation.
It bore the signature of Comrade Stalin himself.
The order authorized Major General Serov to recruit personnel from the Border Guard, regular Red Army units, military academies, and the People’s Militia throughout western Ukraine to form a regiment-sized Internal Guard directly subordinate to the State Security Main Directorate.
This force would be responsible for carrying out security operations in the Lviv region immediately after its occupation.
When Viktor finally closed the folder and placed it back on the desk, Serov spoke again.
“There’s no point pretending otherwise,” he said calmly.
“This is an exceptionally demanding assignment.
For anyone entrusted with it, it will be a severe test.”
He leaned forward slightly, his eyes fixed on Viktor.
“So I’ll ask you one more question.”
“Do you have the confidence to take it on?”
Viktor hesitated.
This assignment was nothing like the anti-partisan operations he had been directing around Shevchenko.
Suppressing guerrillas, difficult as it had been, was ultimately a tactical problem: locate the enemy, isolate them, and destroy them.
The Lviv Operation was something else entirely.
It demanded strategic planning, coordination between multiple branches of the military, and the ability to oversee an operation on a regional scale.
As he thought back over the document, Viktor realized that Lviv was only one part of a much larger campaign.
The overall offensive in western Ukraine had been divided into three major operations: Operation Lviv, Operation Carpathians, and Operation Kovel–Novovolynsk.
Each corresponded to one of the Red Army’s principal axes of advance.
Successfully organizing even one of those operations would prove that an officer was capable of independent command within the State Security Main Directorate.
When Viktor remained silent for several seconds, Serov’s expression darkened.
“What I need,” he said coldly, “is not an officer who hesitates when faced with responsibility.”
Viktor lifted his head and met the major general’s eyes.
“I have confidence, Comrade Major Ivan Alexandrovich.”
His voice was steady now.
“I believe I can complete the assignment.”
“Good.”
Serov nodded once.
“Then get out of my office.”
His tone left no room for discussion.
“I want an operational plan on my desk as soon as possible.
Your confidence means nothing to me.
What matters is whether you can give me confidence in you.”
“Yes, Comrade Major General.”
Viktor stood immediately, put on his cap, saluted, gathered the classified folder, and left the office without another word.
As the door closed behind him, Serov’s irritated voice drifted into the corridor.
“Send the next one in.”
A brief pause followed.
“Damn it…
why am I surrounded by so many fools?”
Viktor never returned to the Soldiers’ Club.
Instead, the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs assigned him temporary quarters inside headquarters itself.
There were two reasons for the decision.
First, Serov wanted the operational plan completed as quickly as possible.
Second, the classified documents relating to the Lviv Operation were not permitted to leave the building under any circumstances.
The accommodations were considerably better than those at the Soldiers’ Club.
Hot water was available at all hours, the meals were surprisingly generous, and for the first time in months Viktor found himself eating fresh fruit alongside meat and vegetables instead of the endless potatoes that had become routine in Shevchenko.
To assist with the planning process, headquarters opened its archives to him.
Maps, intelligence summaries, transportation surveys, engineering reports, and reconnaissance photographs were delivered to his room throughout the afternoon.
Anything connected with the Lviv region could be requested.
The intelligence itself painted a complicated picture.
Lviv’s population now approached four hundred thousand.
More than sixty percent of its inhabitants were ethnic Poles, the result of years of government-sponsored resettlement following the First World War.
Jews made up roughly a quarter of the city’s population, while Ukrainians had become the third-largest ethnic group after many had been relocated elsewhere under Polish rule.
The political situation was no less complicated.
In Soviet-controlled western Ukraine, many Ukrainian nationalists opposed Moscow and looked to Poland for support.
Yet across the border, within Polish territory, other Ukrainian nationalist organizations regarded Poland as the greater enemy and quietly cooperated with Soviet intelligence.
According to reports supplied by military intelligence, more than twenty anti-Polish partisan groups were currently operating around Lviv.
Most maintained some level of contact with Soviet handlers.
Viktor paused over that paragraph.
Those guerrillas might prove to be one of the most valuable assets available to him.
Even with the support of those underground groups, however, Viktor knew it would never be enough.
The partisan organizations could assist with reconnaissance, sabotage, and limited operations behind Polish lines, but they lacked the strength to secure the dozens of strategic targets identified in the operational plan before the Red Army reached Lviv.
If those objectives were to be protected, he would need far more manpower—or another solution altogether.
His temporary quarters inside the Committee building were brightly lit despite the late hour.
Maps covered nearly every available surface, spilling from the large desk onto the carpeted floor.
Viktor sat cross-legged beside the bed, his hair disheveled, a notebook balanced on one knee.
Frowning, he wrote rapidly with his fountain pen, pausing every few moments to stare blankly at the wall as another idea formed—or fell apart.
After filling half a page, he suddenly stopped.
Rising to his feet, he crossed to the desk, dug through a pile of files until he found the document he wanted, and returned to the bedside while flipping through its pages.
Barely a minute later, he sighed, tore the page from the notebook, crushed it into a ball, and tossed it onto the growing pile of discarded drafts before beginning again from the top.
He had been locked away in this room for two full days.
During that time he had done little besides read reports, study maps, and draft one operational proposal after another.
He had managed to solve several tactical problems and had already worked out a number of practical details, but the operation as a whole still refused to come together.
When he had stood before Major General Serov, he had confidently declared that he could handle the assignment.
Now he was beginning to doubt his own words.
Serov had never been interested in confidence alone.
What he wanted was a complete operational plan—one detailed enough to convince him that the mission could actually succeed.
Without that, Viktor would never be entrusted with command.
At the moment, he had nothing capable of doing that.
It wasn’t that he lacked ideas.
The real problem was that several crucial pieces simply refused to fit together.
The greatest obstacle was manpower.
According to the operation order, dozens of key bridges, power stations, government buildings, and industrial facilities had to be secured before the main Soviet forces entered the city.
Viktor simply didn’t have enough trained personnel to accomplish that.
Even if the men could somehow be found, another problem remained.
Weapons.
Supplying an additional force with rifles, ammunition, explosives, and communications equipment was a logistical challenge well beyond his current authority to solve.
A sharp knock at the door broke his concentration.
Before he could answer, the door opened and a young woman’s voice came from the hallway.
“Comrade Lieutenant Viktor Viktorovich, Major General Serov requests your presence immediately.”
There was a brief pause.
“Bring your operational plan.”
The door closed again.
Viktor let out a slow breath.
Supporting himself against the edge of the bed, he climbed stiffly to his feet.
His muscles protested after two days spent almost entirely indoors.
Gathering the scattered notebooks from the floor, he slipped on his jacket, tucked the documents under one arm, and hurried into the corridor.
The building was almost completely silent.
As he stepped outside his room, he glanced at his wristwatch.
2:08 a.m.
A wry smile crossed his face.
“Does this man ever sleep?” he wondered as he made his way down the dimly lit corridor toward Serov’s office.
It was the same office Viktor had entered two days earlier.
When the secretary showed him inside, he found Major General Serov sitting behind his desk with his trouser legs rolled up.
A round wooden washbasin stood at his feet, and the general appeared to be completely unconcerned with appearances as he soaked his large, hairy feet in warm water.
He didn’t even look up immediately.
Instead, he casually picked up a cigarette from the desk, struck a match, and lit it before finally turning his eyes toward Viktor.
“It’s been two days, Comrade Lieutenant Viktor Viktorovich,” he said calmly, taking a slow drag on the cigarette.
“I gave you forty-eight hours.”
A thin stream of smoke drifted toward the ceiling.
“Now I want to see the operational plan you’ve prepared.”
Viktor felt his scalp tighten.
Without saying a word, he walked to the desk, withdrew the stack of handwritten notes he had managed to assemble over the past two days, and placed them in front of Serov.
They were little more than a rough draft—an outline of precautionary measures and several incomplete operational concepts rather than the comprehensive plan Serov had demanded.