Viktor Suvorov - Inside soviet military intelligence

There is a post-graduate school too, which prepares scientific personnel for the GRU and also instructors for the academy itself. An officer who has completed one of the strategic faculties, and has been abroad on agent work and shown good results, is accepted by the post-graduate school for a period of instruction of two to three years during which he must prepare and defend a scientific dissertation on a subject chosen by himself. The resulting qualification is a scientific degree, Master of Military Science.

Who is eligible? This is a very complex problem. The candidate who hopes to please the GRU must fulfil the following conditions: racial purity - there must be no Jewish blood as far back as the fourth generation (the KGB has no such restriction); ideological stability and purity; membership of the communist party; the absence of any contact with overseas, excepting the 'liberation' of Hungary and Czechoslovakia and the 'defence of socialism in eastern Europe'. He must have a wife and children of complete ideological and racial purity. He must have strong and reliable family connections, on his own side and his wife's. There must be no compromising material on the files of any of their relatives. None of his relatives may have been either prisoners of war in Germany, nor on Soviet territory under the temporary occupation of German forces. And there must be no signs whatsoever of alcoholism, sexual promiscuity, family problems, corruption and so on, nor must the officer have any prominent distinguishing features or speech defects.

One of the most difficult things in selecting candidates is to find people who understand the political situation in the world and can clearly see possible future developments without being secret free-thinkers. Obviously anyone who is politically inept is not acceptable to the GRU, but if a man is moderately intelligent, there is always the danger that secret doubts will begin to penetrate his head. Naturally, when this rare creature is found he is instantly made to sit meaningless examinations and, from the very first day, accorded appropriate honours.

In a classless society, everybody is equal and life is therefore happy and free. All people are friends and brothers and nobody will try to do his neighbour down. People may pursue their ambitions without let or hindrance. Of course, if you live in the country, you cannot move to the city, still less the capital Moscow, without the permission of the Central Committee. Society may be classless, all right, but it is divided, for the good of the people, into parts - you have the right to live in the city or you have not. You may rightly say that you would prefer to live in the city, but you are branded from birth - if you were born in the country, you must stay there and so must your children and grandchildren - for their own good. Unless - unless you do something like become a GRU officer. Immediately, you will find yourself in Moscow, with a permanent residence permit. This is good news for not only you, but your children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren down to the fortieth generation, who will all have Moscow residence permits and will legally reside in Moscow.

It is as if you had moved onto a higher sphere, as if you and your relations had suddenly been ennobled. You should draw your family tree on the wall of your apartment so that future generations of your family will know who it was who lifted them up to the heights.

In capitalist societies, where everybody is naturally out for each other's blood, people move around chaotically, causing untold social problems. These could all be eradicated with the introduction of residence permits on the Soviet model. The Moscow residence permit, logically, is the first privilege of a GRU officer. There are others, of course. For example, an ordinary general staff officer is unable to buy a car during the whole of his life unless of course he steals or is sent abroad. A GRU officer may in three years buy not only a car, but also an apartment. Drawing another distinction, it is often asked how much more a GRU officer abroad earns in comparison with the same officer in Moscow. It is impossible to answer this question sensibly, because in Moscow the officer spends money which is to all practical purposes incapable of buying anything except food of rather inferior quality and equally inferior clothes. He who is sent abroad, however, receives foreign currency and can buy everything he needs both while he is abroad and at home in the Soviet Union in the special foreign currency shops. In possessing foreign currency a GRU officer becomes a man of completely different class, very sharply distinguished from all those who do not have it. Special shops and restaurants are open to him, where he can buy anything he wants, without queueing. The ordinary Soviet citizen, including the general staff officer or even the GRU officer who does not serve abroad, may not even enter these shops.

So Soviet society is as racial as it can possibly be, only race is not determined by the colour of your skin but by whether you have the right to travel abroad or not. Imagine any country, France perhaps, putting up outside shops the announcement that: 'Nobody of French nationality is allowed to enter this shop. Only those on the list of the Central Committee of the Communist Party are admitted.' But in the Soviet Union there are everywhere shops, hotels, restaurants which Russians may not enter, because they are Russian. Life for a GRU officer possessing foreign currency is on an infinitely wider scale than for the 270 million who are deprived of the right to hold foreign currency. And once he has become a representative of the upper class, he becomes inordinately jealous of his right, fearing above anything the loss of the privilege which allows him to travel abroad. This is why he defends himself against any revelation about his own person, against any, even the most insignificant, contacts with the police. This is why he tries to hide from his superiors even the smallest shortcomings. This is why he is capable of any dirty trick upon anybody, including his own comrades, when what is at stake is whether he should remain another year in a hot, humid, subtropical posting - or return early to Moscow.

For a GRU officer, there are countries in which he dreams of working. There are also countries in which he would rather not work. There are cities he dreams of, and cities he sees in nightmares.

The dream city for a GRU officer is Peking. Its infernal counterpart Tokyo. This might appear strange, because for the top brass of the GRU quite the reverse is true: Tokyo is heaven, Peking hell. But the interests of a GRU officer are directly opposed to the interests of the top brass. The top brass desire high productivity, while the work force has rather different aims.

Imagine that you are lucky and are posted to China. What awaits you? A vast, splendid embassy behind high walls. Chit-chat with colleagues from other embassies, gossip about the state of health of the Chinese leaders and the Ambassador's wife. After five years your return home, obviously without having recruited any agents. But nobody will bawl you out for it, you will not have your epaulettes torn off, no one will call you lazy or a coward. Everyone understands that you have been in hell, where serious work is impossible....

And now imagine that you are an unlucky spy and the GRU post you to Tokyo. Both you and the GRU top brass know that there are no laws against spying there, that conditions for spying are ideal. So what awaits you? Exhausting stressful work, fifteen to seventeen hours a day, with no rest days and no feast days. No matter how many secrets you manage to acquire it will never be enough. No matter how many agents you recruit it will never be enough. Your paradise will be snowed under with cipher cables from Moscow addressed to the resident saying: 'You have seventy operational officers! Where's your productivity? What you managed to get yesterday we have already received from Hong Kong! From Berlin! From illegals! Where are the secrets!!!???' You may rest assured that this question is put by the GRU daily to the resident who will in turn ask you the same question, pounding the table with his enormous fist. He will fight for the kind of productivity that can only be achieved through merciless competition. If your output is not up to scratch you will simply be sent home and your career broken.