SMERSH (short for SMERt' SHpionam (СМЕРть Шпионам), or "Death to Spies") was the name of a specialized counterintelligence department in the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff GRU of the Soviet Union. Operating under various names since the beginning of the GRU, it was given its most notorious name SMERSH during the years immediately preceding World War II. The direction of SMERSH was to secure the rear of the active Red Army from partisans, saboteurs, and spies, on the front to investigate and arrest conspirators and mutineers, "traitors, deserters, spies, and criminal elements", and support the General Staff's strategic operations by carrying out global assassination of elements considered subversive to the military stability of the Red Army.

SMERSH (in capitalised letters) is a Soviet counterintelligence agency that was featured in Ian Fleming's early James Bond novels and films as 007's nemesis. СМЕРШ (SMERSH) is an http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/acronym acronym of two Russian words: "SMERt' SHpionam", (СМЕРть Шпионам, Směrt Špionam), which means "Death to Spies". Though Fleming's SMERSH was supposed to be modelled on the real SMERSH organization, the novels had SMERSH as a massive Soviet counterintelligence operation aimed at sending operatives abroad to subvert the West with an additional goal of killing Western spies, particularly Bond. SMERSH is headquartered in Leningrad.