Inside soviet military intelligence
Viktor
Suvorov
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Copyright (c) 1984 by Viktor Suvorov
ISBN 0-02-615510-9
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Viktor Suvorov. Inside soviet military intelligence
To the memory of Oleg Vladimirovich Penkovsky
Introduction
PART
1 The Triumvirate
2 History
3 The Pyramid
4 The GRU and the Military Industrial Commission (VPK)
5 But Why is Nothing Known about it?
6 The GRU and the 'Younger Brothers'
7 The GRU and the KGB
8 The Centre
9 The Procurement Organs
10 Fleet Intelligence
11 The GRU Processing Organs
12 Support Services
PART TWO
1 Illegals
2 The Undercover Residency
3 Agents
4 Agent Recruiting
5 Agent Communications
6 The Practice of Agent Work
7 Operational Intelligence
8 Tactical Reconnaissance
9 The Training and Privileges of Personnel
Conclusion
For GRU Officers Only
Appendix A: Leaders of Soviet Military Intelligence
Appendix B: The GRU High Command and Leading GRU Officers
Appendix C: Some Case Histories of GRU Activities
Index
There is but one opinion as to which country in the world possesses the
most powerful secret intelligence service. Without the slightest doubt that
country is the Soviet Union, and the name of the monstrous secret organisation
without precedent in the history of mankind is the KGB. But on the question as
to which country possesses the second most powerful secret organisation, the
opinions of specialists differ. Strange as it may seem, the country to which
this organisation belongs is also the Soviet Union, and the organisation itself
is called the Chief Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff.
This book was written in order to confirm this simple fact.
At first it was conceived as an instructional manual for a narrow circle
of specialists. Subsequently it was revised by the author for a wider public.
The revision was confined mainly to the excision of certain definitions and
technical details which would be of little interest. Even after this, there
remained in the book many details of a technical nature, which may sometimes
make for difficult reading. But though I may apologise, there is nothing to be
done. In order to understand a disease (and the desire to understand a disease
implies a desire to fight against it), one must know its pathology as well as
its symptoms.
***
For one of their very first chosen myths, the communists decided to
record that the organs of enforcement of the new State were not created until
the nineteenth of December 1917. This falsehood was circulated in order to
prove that Soviet power, in the first forty-one days of its existence, could
dispense with the mass executions so familiar to other revolutions. The
falsehood is easily exposed. It is sufficient to look at the editions of the
Bolshevist papers for those days which shook the world. The Organs and
subsequent mass executions existed from the first hour, the first minute, the
first infantile wail of this Soviet power. That first night, having announced
to the world the birth of the most bloodthirsty dictatorship in its history,
Lenin appointed its leaders. Among them was comrade A. I. Rikov, the head of
the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs which sounds less innocuous in
its abbreviation, NKVD. Comrade Rikov was later shot, but not before he had
managed to write into the history of the Organs certain bloody pages which the
Soviet leadership would prefer to forget about. Fifteen men have been appointed
to the post of Head of the Organs, of which three were hounded out of the
Soviet government with ignominy. One died at his post. One was secretly
destroyed by members of the Soviet government (as was later publicly admitted).
Seven comrades were shot or hanged, and tortured with great refinement before
their official punishment. We are not going to guess about the futures of three
still living who have occupied the post. The fate of the deputy heads has been
equally violent, even after the death of comrade Stalin.
The paradox of this endless bloody orgy would seem to be this. Why does
the most powerful criminal organisation in the world so easily and freely give
up its leaders to be torn to pieces? How is the Politburo able to deal with
them so unceremoniously, clearly not experiencing the slightest fear before
these seemingly all-powerful personalities and the organisations headed by
them? How is it that the Politburo has practically no difficulties in
displacing not only individual heads of State Security but in destroying whole
flocks of the most influential State Security officers? Where lies the secret
of this limitless power of the Politburo?
The answer is very simple. The method is an old one and has been used
successfully for thousands of years. It boils down to the principle: 'divide
and rule'. In the beginning, in order to rule, Lenin divided everything in
Russia that was capable of being divided, and ever since the communists have
continued faithfully to carry out the instructions of the great founder of the
first proletarian state.
Each system of governing the State is duplicated and reduplicated.
Soviet power itself is duplicated. If one visits any regional committee of the
Party and then the Regional Executive Committee one is struck by the fact that
two separate organizations having almost identical structures and deciding
identical problems nevertheless take completely contradictory decisions.
Neither one of these organisations has the authority to decide anything
independently.
This same system exists at all stages and at all levels of the
Government. If we look at the really important decisions of the Soviet
leadership, those which are published in the papers, we will find that any one
of them is taken only at joint sessions of the Central Committee of the Party
and the Council of Ministers. I have in front of me as I write the last joint resolution
on raising the quality and widening the range of production of children's toys.
Neither the Council of Ministers of the gigantic State structure nor the
Central Committee of the ruling Party is able, since neither has the power and
authority, to take an independent decision on such an important matter. But we
are not talking here just about Ministers and First Secretaries. At all lower
levels the same procedure is to be observed. For example, only a joint decision
of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of a republic and the Council
of Ministers of the same republic, or the Provincial Committee and the
Provincial Executive Committee, is valid. At these levels of course, such
crucial problems as the quality of children's toys are not decided; but the
principle remains that no separate and independent decisions can be taken. In
shape and form, Soviet power is everywhere duplicated, from the planning of
rocket launchings into space to the organisation for the burial of Soviet
citizens, from the management of diplomatic missions abroad to lunatic asylums,
from the construction of sewers to atomic ice-breakers.
In addition to the governing organs which give orders and see that they
are carried out, there also exist Central Control Organs which are independent
of the local authority. The basic one of these is of course the KGB, but
independently of the KGB other powerful organs are also active: the
innocent-sounding People's Control for example, a secret police organisation
subordinated to a Politburo member who exercises almost as much influence as
the Chief of the KGB. In addition to the People's Control, the Ministry of the
Interior is also active and this is subordinated neither to the KGB nor to
Control. There is also the Central Organ of the press, a visit of which to a
factory or workshop causes hardly less anger than a visit of the OBHSS, the
socialist fraud squad. On the initiative of Lenin, it was seen as essential
that each powerful organ or organisation which is capable of taking independent
decisions be counter-balanced by the existence of another no less powerful
bureaucratic organisation. The thinking goes: we have a newspaper Pravda, let's
have another on a similar scale — Izvestia. Tass created, as a
counter-balance to it,
The creation of a system of parallel institutions began with the
creation of the Tcheka, an organisation called into existence to
counter-balance the already growing powers of the People's Commissariat for
Internal Affairs. During the course of the whole of the civil war these two
bloody organisations existed independently, and as rivals, of each other. Their
influence grew to immense proportions, and Lenin suggested the creation of yet
another independent organ to carry out the task of control and retribution, the
Rabkrin. This organ, known today as the People's Control, is still waiting for
somebody to research into its history. The Rabkrin was Lenin's love-child,
remembered by him even on his deathbed. The Rabkrin or, more formally, the
Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate was not created as an organ of repression
for the whole population, but as an organisation for the control of the ruling
Bolshevik elite and, above all, the Tcheka and the People's Commissariat for
Internal Affairs.
In the meantime the tentacles of the Tcheka had spread out over the
frontiers and the Bolkshevik leaders were forced to create yet another parallel
organisation to the Tcheka, capable of counterbalancing its external
activities. Neither the People's Commissariat nor the Rabkrin was able to
fulfill this role. On the personal order of the indefatigable Lenin on 21
October 1918, an external intelligence service, completely independent of the
Tcheka, was created under the meaningless title of the Registered Directorate
of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army. At the present time it is called the
Chief Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Soviet Army, and
also known by its military classification as 'unit 44388'. In history there is
a number of examples of similar organisations within repressive regimes. The
most obvious of these is of course Hitler's Germany. The SS and the SA and, on
the front, the Wehrmacht Divisions and the Divisions of the SS, all existed
under the same duplication principle, as did the two Intelligence Services, the
Gestapo and the Abwehr.
This multiplication of institutions can only be explained by the desire
of the ruling class to guarantee the stability of its regime. It is important
to clarify this, so that one can understand the role of Soviet military
intelligence in Soviet society and in the international arena, and, in
addition, the reason why this organisation has remained throughout Soviet
history largely independent from the KGB, in spite of the many ordeals it has
been subjected to.
PART
Chapter
One
The
Triumvirate
The Party, the KGB and the Army form the triumvirate which rules the
Soviet Union. All other institutions and organisations, including those which
appear officially to wield State power, occupy a subordinate position. But no
single one of the three holds absolute power. They are all interdependent and
have to share power with their rivals. There is a constant underlying struggle
between these three forces, with attacks and retreats, bloody skirmishes,
victories, defeats, armistices, secret alliances and permanent treachery.
The Party cannot exist without a continuous repression of the people, in
other words without the KGB. The KGB in turn cannot exist without a continuous
fanning of the flames of communist fanaticism and the deception of the people,
in other words without the Party. Each of the two considers its own function to
be the important one and the function of its rival merely supplementary. Thus the
Party and the KGB are striving for undivided rule, but with this in mind each
understands that it is not possible to kill off its rival. Too much depends on
the continued existence of that rival. Both the Party and the KGB need the
Army, which plays the part of a performing crocodile, ensuring a quiet life for
the other two. In the triumvirate system the Army is the most powerful element
but it is also the most deprived as regards its rights. Unlike the Party and
the KGB, the Army has never played the leading role in the trio. Should this
ever happen, the Party and the KGB would be swiftly destroyed. The fact is that
this crocodile does not need either the Party or the KGB. Its natural state is
a free life in a swamp, enjoying the ability to gobble up whatever it wishes.
Both the Party and the KGB are Perfectly well aware that they, in the role of
trainers of the performing crocodile, would be its first victims should the
crocodile ever be set at liberty. So why has the crocodile never gobbled up its
trainers?
The Party and the KGB hold the crocodile firmly in check by means of two
strong leashes. The Party leash is called the Political Department, that of the
KGB the Special Department. Every organ of the Army is penetrated by the
Political Department of the Party and the Special Department of the KGB. On
those occasions when the Army has attacked the Party, which has happened
several times, beginning with the military opposition of the twenties, the
Tchekists of the KGB have come into action and quickly gained control over
dissident elements in the Army. When the Army has attacked the KGB, as happened
after the death of Stalin, the Party has gone into action against it. And at
times when the KGB has been plotting against the Party, the Party has invariably
allowed the crocodile to take a bite at the Tchekists, but not a bite to the
death. After such incidents the situation has returned to normal -the
crocodile's trainers have manipulated their leashes in such a way and from
different sides that it is impossible for any quarrel to have a conclusion.
They have even been able to give the crocodile a few kicks and, if necessary,
to direct it to another side, as it is said 'against any aggressor'. Its
dependent situation notwithstanding, the Army is sufficiently strong sometimes
to pull its two trainers after it. Thus it is not possible for the Army to be
left out of the triumvirate. None of the remaining inhabitants of the Soviet
Union has any independent part to play in the concert. They fulfil an auxiliary
role. They supply food to the trainers and the crocodile, put on their make-up
for the show, announce the different acts and collect money from the terrified
spectators.
The general staff of the Soviet Army is the brain of the crocodile, and
military intelligence is its eyes and ears. The GRU is a part of the general
staff, in other words a part of the brain. In fact it is that part which
analyses what the eyes see and the ears hear, the part which concentrates the
unblinking eyes of the crocodile onto the most interesting targets and trains
its ears to hear with precision every rustle of the night. Although the
crocodile is firmly tied to the Party and the KGB, the general staff and the
integral GRU are practically independent of external control. Why this should
be is explained by the Party's experience. In the period before the war, the
Party supervised the general staff so carefully, and the Tchekists insisted
strongly on the observance of every minute directive of the Party, that the
general staff completely lost the ability to think independently. As a result
the crocodile, despite its enormous size, completely lost its presence of mind,
its speed of reaction and any capability to think and take independent
decisions All this brought the system to the edge of catastrophe, as the Army
became practically incapable of fighting. The Party learnt from this sad
experience and realised that it must not interfere in the working of the
crocodile's brain, even if this brain had ceased to think along Party lines.
The Party and the KGB preferred, for purely practical reasons, to keep only the
body of the crocodile under control and not to interfere with the work of its
brain, of its sharp ears and piercing eyes.
Chapter
Two
History
Soviet military intelligence [The Russian version of the English
'intelligence' — razvedka — has wider significance and includes
everything we understand by the terms 'intelligence', 'reconnaissance',
'surveillance' and all activity governing collection and processing of
information about actual or potential enemies.] and its superior organ, the
GRU, are an integral part of the Army. The history of Soviet intelligence can
therefore only be surveyed in the light of the history of the development of
the Army and consequently in the light of the continuous struggle between the
Army, the Party and the KGB. From the moment of the creation of the first
detachment of the Red Army, small intelligence groups were formed within these
detachments quietly and often without any order from above. As the regular army
developed into newly-formed regiments, brigades, divisions, army corps and
armies, so these intelligence organs developed with it. From the outset,
intelligence units at all levels were subordinated to the corresponding staffs.
At the same time the superior echelons of intelligence exercised control and
direction of the lower echelons. The chief of intelligence of an army corps,
for example, had his own personal intelligence unit and in addition directed
the chiefs of intelligence of the divisions which formed a part of his army
corps. Each divisional intelligence chief, in his turn, had his own
intelligence unit at the same time as directing the activities of the
intelligence chiefs of the brigades which formed his division. And so on down
the scale. On 13 June 1918 a front was formed, for the first time in the
composition of the Red Army. This front received the name of the Eastern Front,
and in it there were five armies and the Volga military flotilla. On the same
day there was created a 'registrational' (intelligence) department in the
Eastern Front. The department had the intelligence chiefs of all five armies
and the flotilla reporting to it. These intelligence chiefs of the front
possessed a number of aircraft for aerial reconnaissance, some cavalry
squadrons and, most important, an agent network. The agent network for the
Eastern Front was first formed on the basis of underground organisations of
Bolsheviks and other parties which supported them. Subsequently the network
grew and, during the advances of the Eastern Front in the Urals and in Siberia,
agent groups and organisations intervened in the rear of the enemy before the
main forces attacked. Subsequent to the formation of the Eastern Front, new
fronts were added to the Red Army: the Southern, Ukrainian, Northern, Turkistan
and, later, Caucasian, Western, South- Eastern, North-Eastern and others. The
intelligence set-up for each front was organised in the same way as that for
the Eastern Front. There were also some independent and separate armies which
did not form part of the fronts, and these, as a rule, had their own
independent networks.
In the spring of 1918, besides the agent, aerial and other types of
intelligence services, the diversionary intelligence service came into being.
These diversionary detachments reported to the intelligence chiefs of fronts,
armies, corps and sometimes divisions, and were called the 'cavalry of special
assignments'. Formed from the best cavalrymen in the Army, they dressed in the
uniform of the enemy and were used to carry out deep raids in the enemy's rear,
to take prisoners — especially staff officers — to collect
information on enemy positions and activities and to undermine and sometimes
physically destroy the enemy's command structure. The number of these
diversionary units and their numerical strength constantly increased. In 1920,
on the Polish Front, on the staff of the Soviet forces, there was a separate
cavalry brigade for 'special assignments' with a strength of more than two
thousand cavalrymen, and this was on top of several regiments and separate
squadrons. All these units were dressed in Polish uniform. Much later these
diversionary units received the name Spetsnaz, now given to all special forces
of the GRU.
>From its inception, military intelligence suffered the greatest
Possible antagonism from the Tchekists. The Tcheka had its own central agent
network and an agent network in local areas. The Tchekists jealously guarded
their right to have secret agents and could not resign themselves to the idea
that anyone else was operating similar secret networks. The Tcheka also had
units of 'special assignments' which carried out raids, not in the enemy's
rear, but in its own rear, destroying those who were dissatisfied with the
communist order.
During the civil war the Tcheka strove to unite all special assignment
units under its own control. Several cases are recorded of the Tchekists trying
to take over organs of military intelligence. One such attempt occurred on 10
July 1918 when the Tcheka shot the whole staff of the Eastern Front
intelligence department, which had been in existence for only twenty- seven
days, together with the entire staff of the front and the commander himself, M.
A. Muravev, who had been trying to intervene in favour of his intelligence
department. The whole of the agent system of military intelligence passed into
the control of the Tchekists, but this brought the front to the very edge of
catastrophe. The new commander, I. I. Vatsetis, and his chief of staff had no
intelligence service of their own, and were unable to ask for the necessary
information. They could only request information in a very tactful way, being
well aware of the Tcheka's attitude to those it disliked. (As regards Vatsetis
the Tchekists did indeed shoot him, but much later.)
Naturally while the agent network was under the control of the Tcheka,
its own work was given priority, and any tasks set it by the Army Command were
given very low priority. This of course brought the forces very near to
complete defeat. If the army intelligence service is separated from the army
staff, then the brain becomes nothing more than the brain of a blind and deaf
man. Even if the blind man receives essential information from one source or
another, his reaction will still be slow and his movements imprecise. The
leader of the Red Army, Trotsky, placed an ultimatum before Lenin: either give
me an independent military intelligence service or let Dzerzhinsky lead the
Army with his Tchekists.
Lenin knew what the Tcheka was capable of but he also knew that its
capabilities were extremely one-sided. He therefore ordered Dzerzhinsky not to
interfere in matters of military intelligence. In spite of this, the Tcheka's
attempts to swallow up military intelligence went on, and these efforts still
continue on a reduced scale up to the present day.
Towards the end of 1918 the organisation of military intelligence from
regimental staff level up to the level of front staff had been virtually
completed. There remained only one staff which as deprived of its own
intelligence service of the Republic, the staff of the Red Army (at that time
called the Field Staff, later the General Staff). For this reason the general
staff remained blind and deaf, obtaining information indispensable to its work
at secondor third-hand. In addition to this, the absence of a superior
intelligence organ meant a complete lack of co-ordination of the front
intelligence services. Military intelligence had acquired a pyramid structure,
but the top of the pyramid was missing. The Chief of the Army and in charge of
all military production, Leon Trotsky several times approached Lenin with the
demand that he should create such a superior military intelligence organ.
Understanding the necessity for the creation of such an organ, but realising
that this would inevitably mean a strengthening of the position of Trotsky,
Lenin prevaricated and repeatedly refused Trotsky's suggestion. At the
beginning of autumn, the position of the communists worsened sharply.
Production, fuel and political crises became more acute. Armed uprisings were
taking place against the communists. There was an attempt on the life of Lenin
himself. In order to save the regime the communists decided on a desperate
measure. In each town and village they would take hostages and, in the case of
the slightest manifestation of discontent among the inhabitants, these hostages
would be shot. The Soviet state was saved, by mass executions. Then another
problem arose. The Tcheka, released from its restraints and drunk with blood,
got out of control. In Tver and Torzhok the Tchekists, together with the
hostages, destroyed communist leaders who displeased them. One threat to the
stability of the state had been replaced by another, far worse. Lenin, not yet
completely recovered, immediately resumed day-to-day leadership. Without
restricting the terror, he took a number of steps to control it. The most
important of his decisions were, firstly, to give to the People's Commissariats
(i.e. the ministries), the provincial and town committees the right to take
part in court cases against arrested communists. A communist would be declared
not guilty if two members of the Party Committee testified in his favour.
Secondly, Lenin directed his attention to the annulment of the Tcheka's
monopoly of secret activity. He finally accepted Trotsky's proposal and on 21
October 1918 signed a decree, creating a superior organ of Soviet military
intelligence which was to be called the Registrational Directorate of the Field
Staff of the Republic.
The newly created directorate did not increase or decrease the
importance of the front and army intelligence services, it merely co- ordinated
them. But at this time the directorate began the creation of a new network of
agents which could be active in countries all over the world, including those
where the front networks already had active agents. The organisation created in
1918 has, in principle, survived to the present day. Certainly the founding
rules are fully applicable to our own time. These are, firstly, that each
military staff must have its own independent intelligence set-up. Secondly, the
intelligence set-up of subordinate staffs is to be fully under the command of
the intelligence of superior formations. Thirdly, the agent network must be
part of the composition of the general staff intelligence network and part of
the composition of the front and fleet intelligence services. (In peace-time
this means military districts and groups of forces.) Fourthly, diversionary
intelligence is subsidiary to agent intelligence. It must be found on front or
fleet level, military districts and groups of forces and also at the level of
armies and flotillas. And, fifthly and most importantly, military intelligence
must be quite separate from the organs of enforcement and their intelligence
services. Since 1918, each one of these rules has been broken at least once, if
not more often, but invariably the mistake has been summarily corrected.
The creation of the GRU [The GRU, like the KGB, has been through several
name changes in its history; at this time it was called 'Registraupr', later
'Razvedupr'. For our present purposes the name GRU will be used consistently.]
was not only an act of self-preservation on Lenin's part from the ravages of
the Tcheka, but also a concession to Trotsky. Having entrusted this weapon to
Trotsky and the Army, Lenin was careful to equip it with a safety device by the
name of Simon Ivanovich Aralov, who came from the V. Tcheka. On becoming chief
of the registrational directorate, Aralov formally remained a member of the
collegium of the Tcheka. This step was taken in the interests of subterfuge,
and even up to the present day has confused many researchers. Remaining
formally within the Tcheka, Aralov, from the first day of his work in military
intelligence, had to become a rival and consequently enemy of the Tchekists.
This had entered into Lenin's calculations; he had not been slow to see that it
would be impossible for Aralov to avoid daily skirmishes with the Tchekists on
the most mundane questions, and that this would inevitably lead to a
confrontation which would preclude any possibility of Aralov being exploited as
a trusted Tchekist. But this was not all. In the case of any agreement with the
Army, not one of the Army's chiefs would dare to trust Aralov. The GRU would be
a part of the Army but the Army would not be able to make use of the GRU in the
struggle against the Party and the Tcheka.
Lenin's calculations proved themselves sound remarkably quickly. In the
spring of 1919 the reinforced army under Trotsky's leadership openly came out
against the Party's meddling in the affairs of the Army. A united group of Army
delegates, the so-called 'Military Opposition', at the eighth congress of the
Party in March 1919, demanded de facto independence of the Army from Party
influences. At that time it was still permitted to express personal opinions at
party conferences, and more than 100 delegates out of 269 declared themselves
in favour of the military programme. There were widespread abstentions and the
Party and the Tcheka found themselves in a minority at their own conference.
Only a few votes were necessary to secure the complete and legal victory
of the Army, but at this point the delegates from the military intelligence
service, knowing the heavy hand of Aralov, maintained an icy silence and strict
neutrality. Then at the most dramatic moment of the session Aralov spoke
critically of the military opposition, after which the delegates of the
military intelligence service with one voice supported the Party. The number of
supporters of the military opposition shrank to ninety-five, a clear defeat.
The session closed with a victory for the Party. The military opposition
crumbled and many of its members never again took any action against the Party.
The Army had learnt a lesson. In the struggle against the Party, never count on
the support of the military intelligence service. Emboldened by victory, the
Tcheka renewed its penetration of the Army. Many unrepentant members of the
military opposition were arrested and shot. The humiliation of the Army
inevitably affected military intelligence too, and on 13 May 1919 the Tchekists
executed members of the staff of military intelligence in the 7th Army who had
displeased them. Military intelligence naturally objected sharply to the
Tcheka's taking the law into its own hands, and from that time on it was its
sworn enemy. Lenin was delighted. Military intelligence henceforth was an
inseparable part of the Army, but its chief was the personal enemy of both the
Army and the Tcheka. Another unwritten rule was established in the organisation
of the GRU, too, which was that the chief of the GRU must be appointed only
from among the senior officials of the Tcheka secret police (historically known
as the V. Tcheka, GPU, OGPU, NKVD, NKGB, MGB, MVD and KGB and unofficially as
'the Organs'). This rule has also been broken several times, but the Party has
always been able to correct its mistake in time.
The agent network of the GRU was reinforced at almost lightning speed.
There are several reasons for this. Firstly, inside Russia after the
Revolution, in her central provinces alone, there were more than four million
foreigners: Germans, Austrians, Hungarians, Poles, Slovaks, Czechs, Koreans,
Bulgars, Serbs, Croats and others. Most of them were former prisoners of war.
More than three hundred thousand of them voluntarily enlisted in the Red Army.
There was no need to recruit such people. The overwhelming majority of them
were convinced, fanatical communists. Military intelligence simply sent them
off to their own countries as GRU agents. Secondly, after the Revolution Moscow
became the Mecca of communism, and after the foundation of the Comintern,
communists from all countries flocked to Moscow. The Comintern openly declared
as its aim the destruction of capitalism, and in this manifesto it was helped
from all sides, the Tcheka and the GRU in particular developing their espionage
activities. On the orders of the Comintern [The Communist International,
grouping together the communist parties of the world and declaring itself as
'the headquarters of the worldwide communist revolution'.], thousands of
communists spread into foreign states worldwide under the control of the Soviet
intelligence organisations. Some of these, like the German communists Richard
Sorge and Karl Ramm, the Finnish communist Otto Kusinien, the Hungarian Sandor
Rado, are now well known to history, but thousands more remained unknown,
activists labouring strenuously to fulfil the will of Soviet intelligence.
Thirdly, after the Revolution millions of emigres appeared from Russia, all
over the world. Any Soviet intelligence officer who had undergone the most
elementary linguistic training could move about freely from country to country
without attracting the slightest suspicion.
External circumstances favoured communism too. After the First World War
the world veered sharply towards communist doctrines. Communist parties were
strong and united. In Germany and Hungary there were communist revolutions. The
heat of the conflagration was felt in Spain, France and China. Soviet
intelligence skilfully exploited the situation which was unfolding. The First
World War also left behind a legacy of despair — the world had given way
and there were many people who had lost their hopes and ideals. Embittered and
depressed, their recruitment presented no difficulty whatsoever. In one of the
early GRU instruction manuals there is the following advice: 'If you need a
facilities agent (a radio operator, owner of a safe house or transmission
point) find a tall handsome man who has lost a leg or an arm in the war.'
One last, but by no means negligible factor, is that Russia has always
possessed too much gold. After the Revolution, mountains of gold from millions
of people killed in the torture chambers of Soviet power were added to the
State Treasury. In addition to this, communists plundered churches all over
Russia which from ancient times had been famous for their wealth. Great profit
was harvested from the domes of the richest cathedrals, for these were roofed
with solid gold. In looting the churches, the communists said, 'For the needs
of the world revolution.' What they meant was, 'For the needs of espionage.'
***
There were many elementary errors and failures in the work of these
early field officers who had no experience whatsoever. For example, the
counter-intelligence officers of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, which at the
time were independent states, simply told any suspicious person who claimed to
be a fugitive Russian officer, or engineer or doctor, to tie a necktie. In
1920, by this method alone, more than forty GRU agents were unmasked in these
three small countries. The GRU was unperturbed by these failures, however, its
philosophy being that if it could not have quality it would go for quantity. It
was an astute calculation. If one agent in a hundred sent abroad showed himself
to be talented, and his natural talent made up for his lack of education, then
that was enough. Nobody was worried about the agents who were discovered. Let
them get out of the mess if they could. The Soviet Union will never admit that
the people it sends out belong to Soviet intelligence.
This large-scale attack was highly successful. Out of the thousands of
intelligence agents sent abroad, some dozen began to give positive results. The
help of communists abroad also began to tell. Gradually quality began to creep
into the work of the GRU. One of the first outstanding successes was the
creation of the so-called 'Mrachkovski Enterprises' or, as it was officially
called in GRU documents, 'the network of commercial undertakings'. Jacob
Mrachkovski (his brother was a member of the Central Committee) was sent to
Germany where he organised a small shop and then a small factory. Subsequently
he bought, in fictitious names, several factories in France, Great Britain,
Canada, the United States and finally China. The money put into these
undertakings quickly grew and, after several years, the Mrachovski undertakings
began to show profits of tens of millions of pounds. The money earned was used
by the GRU as its chief source of 'clean' money, that is, money which had never
been on Soviet territory and consequently could be used for agents' operations.
In addition to obtaining money the Mrachkovski undertakings were widely used
for the legalisation of newly posted intelligence officers who by now were
beginning to be better trained. Journeying from country to country, they found
help and support from the Mrachkovski network. They got themselves jobs and
after some months received the most laudatory references and went off into
other countries where the same thing took place. This went on until the agent
was able to stand on his own two feet. The security of the network was so tight
that no undertaking ever suspected the existence of another. Mrachkovski
himself travelled all over the world, buying up new enterprises, installing one
or two of his own people and obtaining perfectly legal and highly lucrative
licences and patents.
Relations with the Tchekists were gradually stretched to their limit.
The Party was striving to inflame the hostility between the GRU and the Organs
of State. Lenin made a great success of this, as did his successors. The next
conflict broke out in the spring of 1920. Both Lenin and Trotsky considered themselves
outstanding thinkers, theoreticians and practical men; men of deep knowledge as
regards military affairs and international relations. Naturally neither one nor
the other took any notice of evaluated intelligence. They both demanded that
the intelligence material should be laid before them 'grey' and unevaluated:
they would then draw their own conclusions and analyse the material on the
basis of Marxist doctrine. But Marxism had very precisely and categorically
foretold that there would be a world war in Europe which would be the last war
of mankind. The imperialist war would develop into a worldwide revolution,
after which a golden age would begin. Yet the war had finished two years before
and no worldwide revolution had happened. Intelligence reported that there were
no signs of this revolution coming about, so both Lenin and Trotsky were either
compelled to admit that Marxism was wrong or to take measures to bring the
revolution about. They decided to trigger off a revolution in Europe, starting with
Poland. Intelligence assessments were ignored, and naturally the adventure
ended in complete failure. Both the organisers immediately started to hunt for
a scapegoat. The only possible explanation for the scandal was that the
intelligence service had done its work badly. Lenin announced to the rank and
file of the Party, 'We have suffered this defeat as a result of the negligence
of the intelligence service.' But the GRU was a completely unknown entity, even
to some of the highest representatives of the Soviet bureaucracy, and much more
so to the rank-and-file Party members. All eyes turned towards the Tchekists.
Their unpopularity among the people, even before this, was evident. After
Lenin's announcement their authority finally fell. Dzerzhinsky caused a scandal
in the Kremlin and demanded explanations from the Politburo. In order to calm
the Tchekists and to support his own version of the story, Lenin permitted the
Tchekists to purge the GRU. The first bloody purge took place in November 1920.
On Lenin's orders hundreds of intelligence officers who had allegedly failed to
evaluate the situation correctly were shot.
Up to this time there had been no need to account for the GRU's
activities, but now information was made available to some Party members. This
has led some specialists to the mistaken conclusion that the GRU did not exist
until this time.
However, the GRU did not take long to recover from the 1920 Purge. This
may be explained mainly by the fact that the overseas organs of the GRU were
practically untouched, and this for eminently sound reasons. Neither Lenin nor
Trotsky had any idea of shooting the intelligence officers who were overseas,
not only because they were manifestly innocent, but also because their deaths
would have absolutely no salutary effect on others since nobody would hear
about them, not even the many members of the Central Committee. The other
reason for the quick recovery of the GRU was that its agent intelligence
network in the military districts was also left untouched. At the end of the
civil war, the fronts were tranformed into 'military districts', but the chain
of command in the new districts did not undergo any essential changes. A
'registration' department was included on the strength of the staff of each
district which continued in peace-time to carry on agent intelligence work in
countries where the district would have to carry out military activities in any
future war. Up to the time of the 1920 purge there were fifteen military
districts and two fleets in the Red Army. They all carried out, independently
from each other, agent intelligence work of a very intensive nature.
The internal military districts were no exception. Their intelligence
centres were moved out to the frontiers and it was from there that the direction
of agents was undertaken. Each internal military district also has its tasks in
wartime, and its intelligence work is based around these tasks. The direction
of activities of a frontier district is very precisely defined; at the same
time the internal district, independent of circumstances, may operate in
different directions. Consequently its agent network in peacetime operates in
different directions, too. For example, in 1920 agents of the Moscow military
district operated on the territories of Poland, Lithuania (at that time still
independent) and Finland. This system has prevailed in all respects, except
that the districts and fleets have become more numerous, as also has money
available for intelligence. We are richer now than we were then.
***
After 1927 Soviet military intelligence began to blossom. This was the
year in which the first five-year plan was drawn up, which aimed (as all
subsequent five-year plans have) exclusively at the growth of the military
potential of the country. The plan stipulated the creation and speedy growth of
the tank, ship-building, aviation and artillery industries. The Soviet Union
set itself the target of creating the most powerful army in the world. The
Soviet leadership made haste and demanded from its designers not only the
creation of new kinds of weaponry and military technology, but also that Soviet
armaments must be the best in the world. Monumental sums of money were spent to
attain this aim: prac-tically the whole of Russia's gold reserves was thrown
into the task. At Western auctions the Soviet authorities sold off Russian corn
and wood, pictures by Rembrandt and Nicholas II's stamp collection. A tidy sum
of money was realised.
All GRU residents received book-length lists of foreign military
technology which they would have to steal in the near future. The lists
included equipment for bombers and fighters, anti-aircraft and anti-tank guns,
howitzers and mortars, submarines and torpedo boats, radio valves and tank
engines, the technology for the production of aluminium and equipment for
boring out gun barrels. Yet another GRU tradition first saw the light of day in
this period: that of stealing analogous kinds of armaments at the same time in
different countries and then studying them to select the best. Thus, at the
beginning of the 1930s, Soviet military intelligence succeeded in stealing
samples or plans of torpedoes in Italy, France, the United States, Germany and
Great Britain. It was hardly surprising that the Soviet torpedo, manufactured
in the shortest possible time, conformed to the highest international
standards. Sometimes Soviet copiers selected the best assemblies and components
and constructed out of them a new type which often turned out to be the very
best in the world. Luck too was on the side of Soviet military intelligence.
Nobody took very seriously the efforts of the Soviet Union in the military
sphere, and few countries went to great pains to hide their secrets from it.
Communists the world over were obsessed by the idea of helping Soviet intelligence,
Soviet residents were able to throw their money round, and finally the great
depression threw into the arms or Soviet intelligence thousands of opportunists
who feared losing their factories, workshops or offices. Soviet intelligence,
by the beginning of the 1930s, had attained unprecedented heights of power.
Within Soviet territory the GRU had practically no political influence. In the
international sphere it did not very much seek to enter into the political life
of parties and states, but in the field of clean espionage the GRU already
clearly occupied the leading position in the world, having by far overtaken the
political intelligence work of the OGPU. At the beginning of the 1930s the GRU
budget was several times larger than the overseas budget of the OGPU. This
situation remains true today.
The system in use today of recruitment and running of agents had already
fully developed by the end of the 1920s. In agent organisations directly
subordinated to the GRU the recruitment and running of agents was in the hands
of 'illegals', that is, GRU officers posted abroad undercover with forged
documents and offices, posing as Soviet diplomats, consuls, trade
representatives, correspondents and so on. In agent organisations subordinated
to military districts and fleets the recruitments of agents was carried out
from the territory of the Soviet Union. Only rarely did certain officers of the
intelligence directorates of districts travel abroad with forged documents for
short periods. Before diplomatic recognition of the Soviet Union, emphasis was
concentrated on the activities of illegals, but after its recognition,
undercover residencies were added to the numerous illegal residencies. The GRU
illegals and undercover residencies acted independently from each other but in
the pre-war period the communications of illegals from GRU residencies with the
Centre were frequently accomplished through the Soviet embassies. This was a
very serious mistake. With the beginning of the war when the embassies were
closed or blockaded, the communication with illegals was disrupted. The mistake
was subsequently rectified. Military district intelligence always operated
independently of the GRU illegals and Soviet embassies, and for this reason at
the beginning of the war it was practically unharmed. Gradually a tendency
became noticeable in the operations of military district intelligence services
to limit the use of Soviet officers even for short trips abroad. Faced with
wartime conditions the military district intelligence services began to recruit
and run their agents only from Soviet territory. The recruitment of new agents
was carried out either on Soviet territory or on the territory of neighbouring
countries by means of agents who had been recruited earlier.
There is an interesting story to be told about the recruitment of agents
at this time, whose moral holds as true today. In the pre-war period,
recruitment took up little time. The Comintern simply made a decision and
immediately scores, sometimes hundreds of communists became Soviet secret
agents. In the interests of successful agent work, the GRU always demanded from
them that they should publicly resign from the communist party. The vast
majority accepted this without demur. After all, it was only a camouflage, a Bolshevik
manoeuvre to help defeat the lass enemy. Sometimes however, there were
communists who were unwilling. In Germany, one group agreed to the GRU's
demands only on condition that it was accepted into the Communist Party of the
Soviet Union. The demand was a simple one, for it is not difficult for the GRU
to write out a dozen new party cards, and as the new agent group was working so
successfully, the GRU did not want to refuse. At a routine meeting the GRU case
officer, an employee of the Soviet embassy in Berlin, informed the group's
leader that their demands had been met. He congratulated the group on becoming
members of the CPSU and informed them, in conclusion, that the General
Secretary of the Party himself, comrade Stalin, had written out the party cards.
As an exceptional case, the German communists had been accepted without going
through the candidacy stage. Their party cards were naturally to be kept in the
Central Committee.
At this news the group's productivity redoubled. It was supposed to
receive a certain sum of money for its work, but the group members refused to
accept the money. More than that, they began to hand over to their case
officers sums of their own money, in order to pay their membership fees to the
Soviet communist party. Punctually they handed over to their case officers all
documents and payslips concerning their earnings together with their party
subscriptions. This took up a great deal of time during the agent meetings, but
the Germans were working very productively and nobody wanted to offend them.
Some time later, the Gestapo got on their trail, but all the members of
the group managed to escape into Austria, then to Switzerland and finally
through France to Spain where the civil war was going on. From Spain they were
brought to Moscow, Terrible disappointments awaited them in the capital of the
Proletariat of all the world, the chief of which was that nobody into at any
time written out their party cards, or accepted them into the Soviet communist
party. The GRU officials had of course assumed that the agents would never set
foot in the Soviet Union on that therefore it would be very easy to dupe them.
However, on their arrival in Moscow, the first thing the agents did was to
declare a hunger strike and demand a meeting with the higher leadership of the
GRU. The meeting took place and the GRU leadership did all in its power to help
the Germans join the party, after going through the candidate stage, naturally.
But foreigners can only be accepted in the CPSU through the Central Committee,
and the natural questions arose: 'Were you ever members of the communist party?
Why did you leave it?' The fanatics told exactly what had really happened but
were damned out of their own mouths. To burn one's party card is a cardinal
sin — and the Central Committee threw out their application. The Germans
again declared a hunger strike and demanded a meeting with Stalin in person. At
this point the NKVD offered its help to the Central Committee, but the GRU
intervened, being in no way desirous that its agents should fall into the hands
of the NKVD. So the ex-agents ended up in the GRU cellars.
In the meantime, the political situation had changed sharply. Hitler had
become Stalin's best friend and the communists likewise friends of the
fascists. There ensued an exchange of gifts — the most up-to-date German
military aeroplanes for Stalin (including the top secret ME109, JU87, JU88,
DO217, HElll and even the ME110) in exchange for the surrender of all German
communists who had taken political asylum in the Soviet Union. Hitler's
calculation was very simple. In the short time before war broke out, the
Russians would not be able to copy the planes, but he would have the heads of
his political opponents. It was a fruitful deal for Stalin too. He was bored
with the German communists and now he would be able to give them to the Gestapo
in exchange for the best German aeroplanes. In addition to the ordinary
members, there were members of the German Central Committee and the Politburo,
together with the editors of the communist newspaper. These were not taken to
Germany, but the Gestapo was told it could shoot them in situ, in the Moscow
area. However, as far as the former GRU agents were concerned, the decision had
been taken not to hand them over. They knew too much. The German embassy in
Moscow was informed that they had all died in Spain and had never got as far as
Moscow. The fascists did not object but suggested they would present one more
aircraft at the same price. Unfortunately, the former agents, not knowing
anything about the bargaining that was going on, again declared a hunger
strike, and this decided their fate. The Soviet side now admitted to the
fascists that they were in Moscow and proposed a compromise. The fascists could
shoot their victims in the Soviet Union without talking to them. The execution
took place among the huge coal bunkers of the Kashierski Electric Power
Station. Beforehand, the Gestapo men had personally identified each of the
people to be executed and photographed them; then, under cover of protracted
whistling of locomotives, they shot them all. Afterwards, joint detachments of
the GRU, the Central Committee of the Soviet communist party and the Gestapo
burnt the bodies in the furnaces of the power station.
The Germans' mistake was threefold: they believed too quickly in the
promises of the GRU; they insisted too strongly on the GRU's fulfilling its
promises; and they forgot that if somebody puts a high enough price on the head
of an agent, however good he may be, the GRU will sell him without hesitation.
***
In the meantime the Party, under the leadership of Stalin, arrived face
to face with the ultimate necessity of subjugating all layers of Soviet society
and utterly eradicating dissension. The decision was taken by the Party to
purge the whole country of potential dissidents. Today we have irrefutable
proof that the 'Great Terror' was carefully planned and prepared. On the
testimony of A. Avtorhanov the Central Committee of the Party had, as long ago
as 13 May 1935, taken the decision to create a special security commission for
carrying out mass repressions in the country, which took place in 1937 to 1938.
For almost two years the Special Commission prepared the most bloody
page in the history of mankind. Its members were Stalin, Zhdanov, Yezhov,
Shkiriatov, Malenkov and Voyshinski. It is interesting to note that the then
head of NKVD, Yagoda, was not a member of the Commission, and this was a
sensible move. Before carrying out its massive blood- letting of the whole of
society, the Party took pains to purge the surgical instrument itself, the NKVD
organs. The purge began secretly as early as 1935 and at that stage concerned
only the organs and the overseas residencies of the NKVD. In order not to
frighten anybody, it was carried out secretly and without public trials.
Naturally it was the GRU which was entrusted with the task of purging the NKVD
overseas organs. In 1935 Yan Karlovich Berzin, the GRU's chief, travelled to
the Far East with special powers and a group of trusted helpers. Secret orders
appointing one I. S. Unshlikht and later S. T. Uritski as chief of the GRU were
issued. But no order was issued for Berzin to relinquish his post. In other
words, the appointment of Uritski was simply a cover-up for the long absence of
Berzin. In the Far East Berzin and his assistants secretly liquidated the
leading illegals of the NKVD. In the following year Berzin, with his
assistants, appeared in Spain. His official job was Chief Advisor to the
Spanish Government, a post in which he was extremely active. Firstly, he
endeavoured to direct the activities of the Spanish Government along lines
favourable to Moscow. Secondly, he personally ran from Spain the whole of the
overseas network of the GRU. And finally, he did not forget his most important
task. The head of the Foreign Directorate of the NKVD, Slutski, was also in
Spain, also personally supervising the activities of all his overseas agents.
In all probability Slutski was aware that Berzin and the GRU had some
connection with the mysterious disappearance of NKVD illegals. Evidence has
been preserved which shows that Slutski and Berzin had clashes practically
every day in Spain. However, at the same time, the intelligence chief of the
NKVD was finding himself increasingly subject to the chief of Soviet military
intelligence. At the end of September 1936 the NKVD chief, Yagoda, was
dismissed from his post and the secretary of the Central Committee of the
Party, Ezhov, was appointed in his place. Ezhov himself began a most cruel
purge of the NKVD — and he no longer required the assistance of the GRU.
More than 3,000 Tchekists were shot on Ezhov's orders, including Yagoda and
Slutski themselves. It is interesting to note that Yagoda's death followed an
open trial, but Slutski was murdered secretly, in the same way as his best
illegal residents had been executed previously. After the Party, in the person
of Ezhov and with the help of the GRU, had purged the NKVD, the time came for
the Army to be dealt with. This purge began with the liquidation of the general
staff — and the complete destruction of the GRU. Among those military
leaders first executed together with Marshal Tukhachevski were army commanders
Yakir and Uboreevich and Corps Commander Putna, the Soviet military attache in
London. As might be expected, all military attaches are GRU officers; but Putna
was not simply a military attache. Until his appointment to London he had been
deputy chief of the GRU. His execution served as an extra excuse for the NKVD
to carry out a special purge in the ranks of the GRU. Hatred which had been
collecting for many years at last came out into the open. In the course of the
purge first the acting head of the GRU, Uritski, was arrested and shot, and
after him all the rest. The NKVD and GRU now exchanged roles. NKVD men with
special powers went around the world destroying both GRU illegals and also
those intelligence officers of the GRU and NKVD who had refused to return to
the Soviet Union and certain destruction. In the course of the 1937 purge the GRU
was completely destroyed- even down to the lavatory attendants and cooks on its
payroll. Berzin, back from Spain, had to re-create the GRU from scratch.
***
By the autumn of 1937, by a special effort of the Comintern
-particularly in Spain with the help and coercion of the International
Brigades — the GRU had somewhat recovered its strength. A year later
Soviet military intelligence had returned to its stormy activities. But in the
summer of 1938, in the course of a second wave of terror, the GRU was again
destroyed, losing its entire strength. This time Berzin himself, one of the
cleverest and most successful leaders the GRU has had, was among the victims.
The blow delivered automatically meant a blow to all organisations
subordinate to the GRU, that is to the intelligence directorates of the
military districts. Here the death-dealing whirlwind came twice, literally
destroying everything. During the pre-war years, in the areas of western
military districts the intelligence directorates had extended the existing
reserves of underground armies in case of the occupation of these areas by an
enemy. Secret depots and stores of weapons and explosives had been established,
radio sets had been secreted and refuges for partisans and intelligence
officers had been set up. In the terror, all this was destroyed, and tens of
thousands of trained partisans and saboteurs, ready to meet the enemy, were
shot or perished in prisons and concentration camps. Military intelligence
ceased to exist. And not only military intelligence; the Army had been bled
white, and military industry, too. But Ezhov, the head of the NKVD, had made a
fatal mistake in taking Berzin's place when he was executed on 29 July 1938.
The very next day, Stalin received only one report on both GRU and NKVD
activities, instead of the usual two. The implication was clear: a monopoly of
secret activity had begun, and Stalin now had no way to balance the power of
the NKVD. With his customary precision and deliberation he realised that his
control of Soviet intelligence was slipping away and the same day, 30 July, he
set in train the events which would lead to Ezhov's removal and execution.
In the winter of 1939/40 there occurred an improbable scandal. The Red
Army, whose strength at the moment of the attack was more than four million
men, was unable to crush the resistance of the Finnish Army, whose strength was
only 27,000 men. Reasons for this were quickly found. Of course there was the
cold. (The German Army's right to claim the same reason for its defeat in the
winter of 1941 was unanimously denied.) The second reason was the intelligence
service. In all Soviet historical works (which may be published only with the
permission of the Propaganda Department of the Party Central Committee), even
to this day, the cold and poor intelligence are the reasons always given. The
Party forgets to specify that from 1937 to 1939 Soviet military intelligence
was practically non-existent, at the Party's own wish.
After the Finnish scandal, Stalin did not order a purge of the GRU. It
is probable that at that time there was nobody to purge, but he still ordered
the execution of General Proskurov, the new head of the GRU, and his staff
because of Proskurov's disagreement with him over the Hitler-Stalin pact. In
June 1940 General Filipp Golikov was appointed chief of the GRU. Under Golikov
the GRU was reborn amazingly quickly into an effective intelligence force.
There has been much speculation about this period. Did the GRU know of the
plans for Germany's attack on the Soviet Union or not? The best answer to the
question must lie in Golikov's own survival. Seven leaders before him and two
after him were murdered, yet he went on to become Stalin's Deputy of Personnel
and Marshal of the Soviet Union. The political leadership may not take the
right decision, even with the best information that Golikov could give, but it
will not bite the hand that feeds it.
The war had begun with a catastrophic defeat for the Soviet Union. In
the first few hours the German Army succeeded in securing a strategic
initiative. Thousands of serviceable aircraft were destroyed on their airfields
and thousands of tanks burned in their own parks.
It may have been that Stalin spared Golikov in order to give him a
testing assignment. He was certainly told to take himself abroad and revive and
renew the GRU agent network which had been cut off immediately. He went first
to England and then to the United States and, to give him his due, this time he
succeeded in carrying out his work in an exemplary manner. For his visits to
Great Britain and the United States he naturally did not use faked documents.
He came, with a numerous entourage, as the head of an official Soviet military
delegation to obtain American and British armaments. For the chief of the GRU
and his colleagues the doors of secret factories and laboratories were
opened — the very places Soviet intelligence had been trying for decades
to penetrate. This historical visit was the beginning of intense penetration by
Soviet military intelligence of the armaments industries of America and
Britain. Golikov also succeeded, albeit only temporarily, in establishing
communications with GRU illegals who were functioning on territory occupied by
Germany; but this also signalled the beginning of GRU penetration of the German
general staff from many different quarters. The consequences of this were that,
beginning with Stalingrad, even top secret plans of the German High Command
were known to Soviet front-line generals before they were known to the German
field commanders. And the Soviet military leadership was equally enlightened as
to the plans of its allies, the Americans and the British. Churchill bears
witness to the fact that Stalin enumerated several points as to the contents of
British top secret plans, though he attributes such enlightenment to Stalin's
genius in foreseeing the future. The only thing that is not clear is why Stalin
did not display a similar clairvoyancy with regard to Hitler's intentions in
1941 and the beginning of 1942.
In the autumn of 1941 Golikov returned from the United States, an
another exceptionally successful visit. He could not, of course, expect to keep
his post, but he stayed alive, and even kept his General's rank. On 13 October
he was relieved of the command of the GRU and appointed commander of the 10th
Army.
Later, in 1944, Stalin gave Golikov yet another chance to expiate his
guilt with regard to the sudden German attack. In October he was appointed
plenipotentiary of the Council of People's Commissars on Questions of the
Repatriation of Soviet Citizens. At the same time as he was occupied with this
task several of the former residents of the GRU in Europe were assigned to him.
He acquitted himself again with great credit and, being able to count on the
help of the GRU, succeeded in returning to the Soviet Union several million
people who were practically all shot on arrival. Golikov's career was on the up
and up, and he eventually reached the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union.
In the autumn of 1941, after Golikov had relinquished his post, the GRU
was divided into two. One of the newly-created organisations was directly
answerable to Stalin and entitled the Chief Intelligence Directorate of the
Supreme High Command. In the hands of this organisation was concentrated the
agent network controlled by illegals and undercover residencies of the GRU in a
small number of Soviet embassies. The 'other' GRU was subordinated to the
general staff and preserved its former name of Chief Intelligence Directorate
of the General Staff. But now this junior branch of the GRU co-ordinated the
efforts of intelligence officers on all Soviet fronts in action against
Germany. This new set-up was fully justified at that time. The GRU general
staff was freed from having to make decisions on global problems which at that
moment had lost their importance for the Soviet Union and instead was able to
concentrate all its attention on carrying out intelligence operations against
German forces. In order to distinguish between the two GRU's; the term
'strategic intelligence' was introduced for the first time and applied to the
GRU of the Supreme Command, and the new title of 'operational intelligence' was
given to the Intelligence Directorate of Fronts and the GRU of the general
staff which controlled these directorates. Both the strategic and operational
intelligence services of the Red Army conducted themselves with great
distinction in the course of the war. The finest achievements of the strategic
agent network were of course the penetration of the German general staff
through Switzerland (via the illegal residency 'Dora') and the theft of
American atomic secrets by way of Canada (through the residency 'Zaria').
Operational intelligence meanwhile developed activities unparalleled in scale.
Besides its agent intelligence, a very large role was allocated to diversionary
intelligence. Groups of guard-minelayers were formed in the intelligence units
of the fronts and armies whose basic purpose was to hunt down the German
military staff. Parallel with these diversionary elements of the GRU, analogous
groups of NKVD men were in action at the rear of German forces. Between these
two groups the traditional enmity fostered by the Party continued.
***
After the war, military intelligence was once again fused into one
organisation, GRU General Staff, which independently carried out strategic
intelligence and directed operational and tactical intelligence. At this time
the Party and Stalin took care to weaken the Army and the Ministry of State
Security, both of which had strengthened their positions during the war to such
an extent that they had stopped acknowledging the civil leadership, i.e. the
party. The leading commanders, headed by Zhukov, were dismissed from the Army
and Beria was also deprived of the leadership of the Tchekists. It would
obviously not be a simple matter to expel him, so Stalin technically promoted
him, appointing his deputy to succeed him, but in fact this deprived him of
direct leadership of the Organs of State because his title of minister was
taken away. Within the framework of the programme for weakening the Army and
the Ministry of State Security, Stalin decided to remove intelligence from both
the Army and State Security. This plan was put into effect in 1947. The GRU and
the organs of political intelligence of the Ministry of State Security were
joined together in one organisation called the KI: the Committee of
Information. The man closest to Stalin was appointed to lead this organisation,
and this was the activist of the Politburo, Molotov. Thus the Army and Ministry
of State Security were deprived of intelligence. All intelligence work would
henceforth be subordinate to the Party. Such a situation did not suit the Army
or the Ministry of State Security, and they for the first time united against
the Party.
>From its inception the Committee of Information was an utterly
ineffective organisation. The intelligence officers of the Ministry of State
Security and the GRU, who formed the nucleus of the Committee of Information,
strove by all means to return from under the control of the Party back to their
own former organisations. Both sets of officers strove to sabotage the
activities of the Committee of Information. The Ministry of State Security and
the Army, acting in collusion, informed the Central Committee that they could
no longer work effectively since they were receiving their information at
second hand. Then they exerted pressure on their former officers in order to
try to make the Committee of Information collapse from inside. The Central
Committee of the Party made efforts to improve the effectiveness of the
Committee of Information. In less than a year four chiefs were appointed and
dismissed, for the reason that not one of them was able to counter the unified
strength of the Ministry of State Security and the Army. After long struggles
behind the scenes Abakumov, a pupil and favourite of Beria, became Chief of the
Committee of Information.
At a stroke, all the intelligence services passed to the control of the
Ministry of State Security. Stalin immediately saw that a mistake had been
made. In his opinion, the creation of one intelligence service, even if it was
under the leadership of the Party, must sooner or later lead to the Tchekists
seizing power over this organisation, and this would mortally endanger the
Party. There was only one way out of such a situation: immediately to liquidate
the Committee of Information and divide the intelligence service into two
hostile camps — military intelligence to the Army, and political
intelligence to State Security. But the coup was not an easy one. To get round
the problem, the Party naturally found support from the Army which had not been
at all happy with State Security's monopoly of the intelligence service. On the
instructions of Stalin, the first deputy of the chief of the general staff,
General Shtemyenko, made a report to the Politburo on the subject of the 'blind
general staff, after which the GRU was removed from the control of Abakumov and
given to the Army. For his distinguished services, Stalin immediately appointed
General Shtemyenko as chief of the general staff—the senior curator of the GRU.
After two years Shtemyenko and the GRU, seeking to please Stalin, presented
documents about the existence of an agreement among subordinates of Abakumov. Abakumov
was immediately shot, the Committee of Information finally abolished, and the
usual purge carried out in the ranks of State Security.
But the Ministry of State Security did not forgive the general staff and
the GRU for having taken such liberties. 1952 was a year of struggle between
the Politburo and Stalin. The Ministry of State Security presented documents
which they claimed proved the existence of a plot in the ranks of the GRU. This
time it was the turn of the GRU and all the general staff to be purged. Stalin
was opposed to the move, but the Politburo insisted. Shtemyenko was demoted to
Lt-General and expelled from the general staff. The action continued against
the general staff and the GRU, and even against Stalin himself who was removed
as general secretary of the Communist Party later that year.
At the beginning of 1953, immediately after the death of Stalin, there
ensued a fierce squabble among his disciples and comrades at arms for the
distribution of the inheritance. The most dangerous pretender to the throne
was, of course, Beria. The united strength of Army and Party was automatically
against him. Beria was arrested at a joint session of Party and Army leaders
and immediately done away with. After this there began the usual persecution of
the Organs of State. During secret trials, incriminating documents were
produced from the GRU concerning the leaders of the Ministry of State Security
and many of its leaders were shot after frightful torture. The torture was
carried out in the GRU cellars on Gogol Boulevard. At the beginning of 1954 the
Ministry of State Security lost its status as a ministry and was transformed
into a committee.
Simultaneously with the fall of the Ministry of State Security, the Army
acquired more and more weight within the framework of the State. The 'Russian
Bonaparte', Marshal Zhukov, became Minister of Defence, having returned from
his exile under Stalin. After a short time Zhukov also became a member of the
Politburo. He quickly effected the return of all the exiled generals and
marshals and appointed them to key positions. The Ministry of State Security
could not exercise any restraint on Zhukov and he was therefore able to appoint
Shtemyenko to the post of Chief of the GRU, reinstating him as a full general
after his demotion. The GRU became an organisation solely dependent on the
Army. Zhukov's next step was a blow against Party influence in the Army. On his
orders all political workers and Party commissars were expelled from the Army.
He also ordered the Chief Political Directorate of the Soviet Army to stop
interfering any more in Army affairs, and at the same time liquidated all the
special departments of State Security present in the Army. The crocodile was
clearly throwing off its bonds. In Politburo sessions Zhukov openly
contradicted Khruschev and publicly abused him.
The party understood how rashly it had behaved in depriving the KGB of
power, since the Party alone was clearly defenceless against the Army. There
was absolutely no doubt that very soon the Army would become the only master of
the situation. But in October 1957 Zhukov committed a grave error. He went on a
visit to Yugoslavia and in his absence, a plenum of the Central Committee of
the Party was hurriedly convened. Zhukov was secretly removed from the
Politburo and also from his duties as Minister of Defence because of
'bonapartism'. The chief of the GRU, General Shtemyenko, learned about what had
happened and immediately sent a telegram of warning to Zhukov in Yugoslavia,
but it was intercepted by the KGB. Zhukov returned from Yugoslavia straight
into renewed exile. Shtemyenko followed him, again reduced to the rank of
lieutenant- general. (Some survive vicissitudes better than others: under
Brezhnev, Shtemyenko was again reinstated.)
***
Now once more the post of chief of the GRU was held by a member of the
KGB, Ivan Serov. Henceforth everything would go according to Lenin's teachings.
Serov, on his appointment, automatically turned into an arch- rival and enemy
of the KGB, and was not in the least interested in the fusion of these two
organisations. But since he had been a general of the KGB, the Army could not
exploit him against the Party and the KGB. That was not all. In order to
control the Army in the interests of the Party, General Golikov, the former
chief of the GRU, was appointed chief of the Political Directorate of the
Soviet Army. Golikov was a former Tchekist and political worker and he was
ready to serve anybody who desired his services and to report only the data
which would please the leadership. Such a person was eminently suitable as far
as the Party was concerned.
Serov's successor as chief of the GRU was Colonel-General of the KGB,
Petr Ivashutin. General Yepishev, who had been from 1951 to 1953 Deputy
Minister of State Security, succeeded Golikov as chief of the Political
Directorate of the Soviet Army. In a word, the crocodile was again firmly on
the leash.
Chapter
Three
The
Pyramid
If we approach the term GRU in a formal way in order to explain
everything that is covered by those three letters, we shall get a very
impressive picture but one that is far from complete. To look at the GRU in
isolation from its subordinate organisations is to look at Gengis Khan without
his innumerable hordes.
The GRU may formally be described as an immensely powerful intelligence
organisation forming part of the general staff and acting in the interests of
the higher military command of the Soviet Union. On its strength there are more
than five thousand senior officers and generals who have specialist academic
qualifications in intelligence matters. The GRU has its illegal representatives
in every country of the world. In addition, officers of the GRU operate under
cover in every country of the world as diplomats, military attaches, trade
representatives and so on. Both the illegals and the undercover officers
independently from each other carry out the recruitment of agents, who then,
under the direction of the GRU steal top-secret documents, axe governments and
kill statesmen. The central apparatus of the GRU processes espionage
information coming from a thousand secret agents and it also carries out
cosmic, electronic, air and sea intelligence on a global scale.
But we have not mentioned the most important point yet. Up to now we are
talking about Gengis Khan but not his hordes. What is more important is that,
in addition to all this, in addition to carrying out intelligence work in the
interests of the general staff, the GRU is also the superior directing organ of
the gigantic formation called Soviet military intelligence.
Organisationally, the Soviet Army consists of sixteen military
districts, four 'groups of forces' — in Germany, Poland, Hungary and
Czechoslovakia — and four fleets — the Northern, Pacific, Black Sea
and Baltic fleets. On the staff strengths of each district, group and fleet
there are intelligence directorates. In all, these directorates number
twenty-four. They are all subject to the GRU and are, in effect, a GRU in
miniature. Each of these mini-GRU's utilises its own facilities. With all the
forces at their disposal, they gather information on the enemy, both in
peace-time and wartime.
When we speak of an intelligence directorate of a district, group or
fleet as a mini-GRU, this does not in the least mean that the intelligence directorate
is small or weak. We only mean that the intelligence directorates (RU) of
staffs are smaller than the chief directorate of the general staff. But each of
these twenty-four intelligence directorates is sufficiently strong to be able
to recruit agents independently in the territories of countries or groups of
countries which are in the sphere of interest of the given district, group or
fleet. Each intelligence directorate possesses sufficient power to be able,
without assistance, to disrupt life in any contiguous country or group of
countries. There is only one form of intelligence possessed by the GRU which
the intelligence directorates do not possess, and this is cosmic or space
intelligence. At the same time, instead of this, they have a perhaps no less
important means, which are the diversionary Spetsnaz units. In addition to
ordinary agents providing secret information, the intelligence directorates
recruit special agent- terrorists destined to murder statesmen or senior
military officers and to carry out general terror in the country or group of
countries. Thus each district, group of forces or fleet has its own two
independent secret agent networks, the first being the ordinary espionage
network, and the second the espionage-terrorist network called Spetsnaz. To
visualize the strength of one intelligence directorate, it is sufficient to
remember that each one controls an entire Spetsnaz brigade: 1,300 professional
cut-throats continually in readiness to penetrate the territory of a contiguous
state and go to the assistance of the agent-terrorists.
One can best imagine Soviet military intelligence in the form of a
powerful, feudal state — the GRU — with a first-class army. There are
twenty-four lesser satellite states, the intelligence directorates (RU),
subordinated to the head of this state, and each of these in its turn has its
own army, and a strong one at that. But each satellite also has its vassals
each of whom has his own army and his own vassals, also with armies, and so
forth. The only difference as regards this pyramid form of subordination is
that Soviet military intelligence does not operate on the principle that 'the
vassal of vassal is not my vassal'. The GRU fully and without delegating
authority controls every step of the pyramid. These steps need to be examined.
Each military district and group of forces consists ot armies. Each
fleet consists of flotillas which are equivalent to the armies of the land
forces. On the staff of each army there is an intelligence department (RO)
which is in effect a full vassal of the superior intelligence directorate and
the still superior chief intelligence directorate. The intelligence department
(RO) of an army or flotilla does run an agent network of its own. On the
strength of each intelligence department, and there are in the Soviet armed
forces at least fifty, there is a Spetsnaz company. This company, which numbers
115 saboteurs and cut-throats, is capable of penetrating into the enemy's
territory to murder and kidnap people, blow up bridges, electric power
stations, dams, oil pipelines and so on. And these Spetsnaz units are
supplemented by the intelligence department's wide choice of electronic, air
and other types of intelligence.
An army in the Soviet Union consists of from four to six divisions. In
peace-time there are in the Soviet armed forces about 180 tank and motorised
divisions. In the interests of simplification we can omit the eight divisions
of airborne forces (VDV), the brigades of marine infantry belonging to the
fleets and still many more branches of the Soviet Army which have intelligence
units subordinated directly to the GRU of the general staff. On the strength of
the staff of each division there is a chief reconnaissance officer. He has his
own troops, a reconnaissance battalion, and his vassals, the heads of
regimental reconnaissance and their troops. The reconnaissance battalion of
each division, apart from tank and electronic reconnaissance, has a sabotage
company which is also staffed with cut-throats capable of successful operations
in the enemy's rear. In the interests of accuracy it is necessary to add that
not all of the 180 tank and motorised rifle divisions have a full complement of
personnel in peace-time; many of them have a complete technical staff and full
officer strength, but only a partial complement of soldiers and NCOs. However,
this rule does not apply to reconnaissance units. All the Spetsnaz brigades and
companies of the military districts and armies, all the reconnaissance
battalions (180) of the divisions, all the regimental reconnaissance companies
(more than 700), are always kept at full strength and staffed by elite officers
and NCOs.
Everything that we have listed comes under the indivisible control of
the GRU, although none of it is called by this name. The researcher who studies
the GRU but does not take into consideration the GRU's vassals will have
overlooked twenty-four separate espionage organisations, each of which is as
powerful as the intelligence service of one central European country. He will have
overlooked 100,000 elite troops possessing as many fighting vehicles as a
well-equipped Western European country. But even that is not all. In addition
to its official vassals the GRU also has unofficial vassals who carry out the
orders of the GRU as precisely and with as much jealous zeal as do the
intelligence directorates of military districts, the intelligence departments
of armies and the chief reconnaissance officers of divisions and regiments.
These are the military intelligence services of Cuba, Poland, East Germany,
Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Mongolia and a number of other countries.
These countries are satellites and in the full meaning of the word vassals of
the Soviet Union. Their secret police forces are under the complete control of
the Soviet KGB and take the form of a miniature copy of the KGB. Their armies
are in thrall to the Soviet Army and their military intelligence services are
full vassals of the GRU, with all their agents, illegals, military attaches,
sabotage agents, diversionary troops and so on. But of these later.
Chapter
Four
The
GRU and the Military Industrial Commission (VPK)
When we use the term 'army' with regard to the Soviet Army we must have
in mind not only the Ministry of Defence, but also the twelve other ministries
whose sole function it is to produce weapons and military technology. Together
all these ministries form the high-powered monolith headed by the military
industrial commission (VPK). Included in the collegium of the military
industrial commission are: one of the first deputies of the chairman of the
council of ministers, thirteen ministers, and the chief of the general staff
and the chief of the GRU. The military industrial commission is the Army and
the Army is the military industrial commission. When we talk of a struggle
between the Army and the Party and the KGB we have in mind the struggle of the
whole military industrial commission, whose fortunes wax and wane in perfect
harmony with the Army's own.
The economic and financial might of the military industrial commission
can only be compared with the might of the Soviet Union itself. Theoretically
the Soviet Union spends, in the interests of defence, the improbably small sum
of nineteen billion roubles a year. This nineteen billion, however, is the
budget of the Ministry of Defence alone. The budgets of the remaining twelve
ministries which produce armaments are kept secret. The Soviet system is
constructed in such a way that the Ministry of Defence does not buy; it
receives the armaments necessary to it. For example, an aircraft carrier is
under construction in the Soviet Union. The Ministry of Defence does not bear
any of the cost of this. The price of the ship is paid to the Ministry of
Shipbuilding by the Council of Ministers under the debit item shipbuilding
industry'. This Ministry, by the way, has never constructed any non-military
vessels. Non-military vessels are, without exception, bought for the Soviet
Union in Poland, East Germany, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Italy, France, Norway,
Sweden, Denmark — it is difficult indeed to list all of them. It is
probably true that only Switzerland is an exception to this list. The same
thing is true of aircraft, tanks, rockets, nuclear bombs, military electronics,
every item of hardware. Nobody in the Soviet Union knows exactly how much the
military industrial commission swallows up, but in any case it is an
astronomical figure.
At the heart of any Soviet five-year plan for economic development — not the propaganda plan which appears in all the newspapers, but the genuine, secret plan — will be found the military industrial commission's plan. For all the other branches of the Soviet economy, metallurgy, machine tool construction, energy, transport, agriculture, have no independent significance but only provide for the activities of the military industrial commission. Soviet science is another organ providing for the military industrial commission. Officially it is allocated about sixty billion roubles a year, three times more than defence. But what sort of science is it, if the Soviet Union can produce the first automatic satellite destroyer in the world but cannot produce an ordinary compact, small-engined car? The Soviet Union has had to buy all its technology for the production of small cars from Italy. What are Soviet scientists up to if the Soviet Union has first-clas