Viktor Suvorov: Inside soviet military intelligence

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.