Viktor Suvorov - Inside soviet military intelligence

Great Britain simultaneously expelled 105 (the entire staff of the GRU and KGB residencies). There was no comeback. If you take similar action against Soviet spies I guarantee that your diplomats in Moscow will be safe. I guarantee that your diplomats will be greatly respected, and that the Soviet leadership will look for opportunities to improve its relations with you. The Soviet leadership understands and acknowledges strength. But only strength and nothing else. The Soviet Union can respect the sovereignty of any country, no matter how small it looks on the map. But the Soviet Union respects the sovereignty only of those nations who respect their own sovereignty and defend it.

I was condemned to death by the Military College of the Supreme Court according to article 64a. My crime - betrayal of the homeland. I still plead not guilty as charged. The betrayers of the homeland are those who are now in the Kremlin. The betrayers of the homeland are those who shot millions of the best Russian farmers. Russia has always grown wheat. Grain was its most important export. Those who have made of Russia an importer of grain -they are the betrayers who should be sentenced under article 64. On the eve of war the communist leaders shot the best marshals and generals. They were motivated not by the interests of the homeland, but by the desire to hold on to their power. They should be tried in a court of law. For the deaths of the marshals and generals, my people paid the price of tens of millions of lives. Those who are guilty of that should be tried. Those in the Kremlin who have brought my people to complete moral and physical degradation - they are the traitors. These people are driving my comrades to their deaths in Afghanistan, demanding the deaths of innocent people - they are the criminals.

If they at some future time should be judged and given their just deserts, and if, then, my country then considered me to be a traitor also for deserting it, then I am ready to take my punishment, but only after they have taken theirs.

When I was in the GRU I could see two ways to protest: either I could commit suicide; or I could escape to the West, explain my disagreement with the communists and then commit suicide. I chose the second way, which is not a whit easier than than the first. It is an agonising way. If any GRU officer now finds himself in the same dilemma to go or to stay I advise him to think over his decision a hundred times, and then again. If he is thinking of fleeing to the West, then my advice to him is - don't do it. Article 64 will be waiting for him, as will the shameful epithet 'traitor', and an agonising death, maybe even on the frontier itself. My advice would always be - don't go. He shouldn't go until such time as he is certain why he is going. If you want an easy life -don't go. If you like long, luxurious motorcars - don't go, it is not worth it for the sake of a car. If you are attracted to Western women - don't go, theirs are really no better than ours. If you think that in the West it is good, and at home in Russia bad, then you are mistaken - ours is a beautiful country. Don't go for the sake of foreign beauties and wonders.

Only if you know there is no other way for you, if you consider your leaders as criminals, if you yourself do not wish to be a criminal - then you should go. If you are prepared to risk your life for one minute of freedom - then go. If you don't feel yourself a traitor by going - go. If, by going, you can bring nearer the moment when the communists are judged by the people of our country, if you can help your people, if you are then ready to stand before the people and await their decision on your fate - then you must go. You will dream of Mother Russia every night, but go for the sake of her future and I promise you that you will be happy.

I soon realised that a history of the GRU would be a very fraught undertaking. It is clear that the very shortest history of the GRU would fill several massive tomes and could only be written after the fall of communist power. The history written in this book consists only of isolated details, only vague outlines of a continent shrouded in the mists. The picture may be made clearer by studying the destiny of those individuals who have held the highest power in Soviet military intelligence. In their destinies the whole history of the organisation is reflected.

ARALOV, Simon Ivanovich: 18.12.1880 - 22.5.1969.

He was born in Moscow to rich merchant parents and educated to follow his father's profession. In 1905 he joined the Tsar's army and served in WWI as a major in military intelligence. A participant in the October Revolution he was one of the creators of the Tcheka. In January 1918 he became chief of the Operational Department of the Moscow military district. Rapidly promoted, in October 1918 he became the first chief of military intelligence until July 1920. In 1920 he moved down to chief of intelligence, 12th Army, and then regained ground commanding intelligence of the S.W. front. After 1921 he was a deputy of the chief of military intelligence, working in Turkey, Latvia and Lithuania as undercover ambassador and later was responsible for setting up residencies in the United States, Germany and Japan. In 1937, dismissed from all posts, he was employed as a deputy director of the Literature Museum. Arrested in 1938, he spent three years under interrogation. In 1941 he was serving as a private in a penal battalion. Four years later, he was a colonel, and when the war was over he was taken back into the GRU. Then, arrested in 1946, he spent ten years in a concentration camp. On his liberation he was immediately appointed deputy to the chief of the GRU. In 1957 he was again dismissed in the Zhukov/ Shtemyenko purge, but lived quietly until his death.

STIGGA, Oskar Ansovich: 1894 - 29.7.38.

Born in Latvia, he served in WWI and became a communist after the Revolution, and a leader of the Red Latvian Riflemen. He engaged in suppressing counterrevolutionaries in Moscow and became a private bodyguard of Lenin. In October 1918 he was a deputy of the chief of military intelligence and immediately moved as an illegal into Poland, Lithuania and Latvia. In 1919 he became chief of intelligence of the Western front, and in August 1920 became chief of military intelligence. Reduced to deputy status after 1922, he travelled extensively as an illegal to create new networks until his recall to Moscow in 1938, when he was shot.

NIKONOV, A.M. (Nikonson): ? - 29.7.38.

It remains uncertain whether this was his real name or simply a party pseudonym like Lenin, Stalin, Trotski, Zinoviev and others. His date of birth is unknown. He was chief of military intelligence after Stigga, but it is not known whether Berzin took over from him or from another, so far unidentified, chief of military intelligence. He too was executed in the great terror of 1938.

2nd Grade Army Commissar BERZIN, Yan Karlovich (real name Kyuzis Peteris): 13.11.1889 - 29.7.38.

Born in Latvia, Berzin joined the Social-Democratic Party in 1904. He was conscripted into the army in the First World War but deserted and went underground. He took part in the October Revolution and afterwards he worked in the central apparatus of the NKVD and in the NKVD in Latvia. One of the main organisers of the 'Red Terror', he initiated the hostages system. He was also a fervent supporter of the establishment of a communist dictatorship in Latvia and one of the organisers and leaders of the Latvian Red Army (subsequently the 15th Army). He was head of a special department of this army and played a part in the suppression of the Russian sailors' mutiny at Kronstadt. He particularly distinguished himself in the course of the pursuit and liquidation of captured sailors. >From April 1921 he was Deputy Head of Intelligence Directorate (GRU) but, from his first days in military intelligence, he was, de facto, its head. With effect from March 1924 he became its head legally as well. He was one of the most talented, industrious and successful heads of intelligence, the creator of the most powerful and successful intelligence organisations in existence anywhere. He personally recruited and ran the most outstanding intelligence officers - Yakov Mrachkovski (Gorev), Moshe Milstein (Mikhail M), Ruth and Rolf Werner, Richard Sorge, Lev Manevich, Sandor Rado, Karl Ramm, Aino Kuusinen, Ignati Reis and the most eminent intelligence officer of the 20th century, Konstantin Efremov. In 1936 Berzin transferred the Soviet military intelligence command post from Moscow to Madrid, where he carried out his most notable recruitments while he was working under cover, officially designated as chief military adviser to the Republican Government. In order to sustain this cover story his deputies Uritski and Unshlikht carried out his duties in Moscow. On returning from Spain he continued to lead military intelligence. On 13 May 1938 he was arrested and on 29 July he was shot.