Viktor Suvorov - Inside soviet military intelligence

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.

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.