Secrets of the death of a great power
The birth of the world's most powerful special service
Creation of the KGB of the USSR
And you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.
Inscription on the CIA emblem in the central hall of the headquarters of that organization in Langley (USA, District of Columbia)
" ... Impartial history will render its verdict, more lenient than the condemnation of contemporaries."
Nikolai //. From a letter to the Minister of War
V.A. Sukhomlinov, June 11, 1915
The political decision to separate the structures of the state security agencies from the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs into an independent department was taken in February 1954 on the basis of a memorandum from Minister of Internal Affairs S.N. Kruglov [1] to the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee.
In this letter, in particular, it was emphasized: "The existing organizational structure of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs and its agencies is cumbersome and is unable to ensure the proper level of agent-operational work in light of the tasks set before Soviet intelligence by the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Soviet Government.
In order to create the necessary conditions for improving intelligence and counterintelligence work, we consider it expedient to separate from the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs
the operational-Chekist directorates and departments and, on their basis, to create a Committee for State Security Affairs under the USSR Council of Ministers"[2].
The memorandum went on to set out considerations regarding the structure of the central apparatus of the proposed department and regarding the creation, "for the conduct locally of measures connected with ensuring state security," of its directorates (in the republics, territories and regions, as well as in major industrial centers), Special Departments in military districts, formations and units, as well as the apparatuses of the Committee's Authorized Representatives on the railways and water basins.
In the process of reforming the state security agencies, Kruglov also proposed to reduce the number of their operational staff by 20%, which was to amount to 15,956 staff positions, and which was to yield an annual saving of 346 million rubles.
And in total, taking into account the reduction in the size of the MVD (by 8,839 staff positions), the reform promised a saving in the amount of 860 million rubles.
Let us note at once that as a result of the transformations carried out, 20 directorates and independent departments remained in the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Based on the results of the discussion of this letter and taking into account the proposals and comments expressed during it, on 1 March 1954, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR adopted a Decree on the formation of the KGB under the Council of Ministers of the USSR (approved by the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on 26 April of the same year). The text of the Decree itself was extremely laconic:
To form the Committee for State Security under the USSR Council of Ministers.
The Chairman of the Committee is a member of the Council of Ministers with the right of a casting vote.
Colonel-General Ivan Aleksandrovich Serov[3], who had previously been Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs, was appointed the first chairman of the KGB. Apparently, the main role in Serov's appointment to this post was played by his joint work and acquaintance with N.S. Khrushchev[4] in Ukraine in 1939-1941. In principle, there is nothing unequivocally negative in such a very widespread "protectionism": a leader wants,
- and not without grounds! - to rely on cadres well known to him from previous joint work. The problem is only that
the candidate for a high post should, in his professional, business and personal qualities, correspond to the intended
POSITION.
Without touching upon Serov's personal qualities, about whose rudeness, harshness and willfulness there is considerable evidence, let us note only that on formal personnel grounds and considerations, he was quite suitable for this position. And, in principle, he did not disappoint Khrushchev's expectations regarding the "restructuring" of the work of the state security agencies.
It was precisely during the period when Serov held the post of chairman of the KGB under the USSR Council of Ministers that the beginning of the review of previously instituted criminal cases for "counterrevolutionary crimes" falls, as well as the purge and reduction of the numerical strength of the state security agencies, and also N.S. Khrushchev's delivery
25 February 1956, to the delegates of the 20th Congress of the CPSU, a special report on the cult of personality of J.V. Stalin and its consequences, and many other important events in the history of the country.
At that time, ensuring state security was understood as a broad system of measures carried out by various bodies of the Soviet state, their officials and citizens, including the protection of state borders, state secrets, and others, including emergency measures to protect state security and public order.
In accordance with the Constitution of the USSR, ensuring state security fell within the jurisdiction of the Union of SSR, and in this connection its highest legislative body issued laws in the field of state security, while the Council of Ministers was empowered to direct and coordinate the work of the ministries and departments of the union republics, which were called upon to participate in this process in accordance with their competence.
Certain competence in the sphere of ensuring the state security of the Soviet Union was also established for the ministries of foreign affairs, defense, health care, transport, communications, the MVD and a number of other ministries and departments of the USSR. The KGB under the Council of Ministers of the USSR was, on the rights of a union-republican ministry, the central body of state administration in the sphere of ensuring the state security of the Soviet Union.
It should also be emphasized that, having de facto received the status of a union-republican department, the KGB was not one, just as it did not have the higher status of a state committee, which it acquired only on July 5, 1978, having lost in its official name the prefix "under the Council of Ministers of the USSR." With this circumstance in mind, we shall henceforth use the generalizing acronym KGB of the USSR.
Such a substantial lowering of its state-legal status compared with the ministry of state security that had existed since 1946 is connected with the distrust and suspicion of Khrushchev and other leaders of the country at that time toward the state security bodies and their leaders. The latter circumstances affected both the situation within the KGB of the USSR itself and the fate of the country as a whole, about which we shall say more further on.
This lesson of history shows that the question of the state and the system of measures for ensuring the security of the country requires an impartial, comprehensive and balanced approach. That the distortions and mistakes permitted in resolving it are capable of bringing substantial and irreparable harm to the interests of citizens, society and the state.
It seems that Serov could not but experience a certain slight discomfort from the awareness of the fact that 4 of his immediate predecessors in this post - G.G. Yagoda, N.I. Yezhov, L.P. Beria, V.N. Merkulov were shot as
"enemies of the people," while the fifth - V.S. Abakumov, was still under investigation. That is, in the power of the investigators subordinate to him. Which, apparently, brought Serov, who had himself earlier suffered no little from the arrogant former "People's Commissar of SMERSH," a feeling of secret satisfaction.
According to the decision of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee, the following tasks were assigned to the Committee of State Security under the Council of Ministers of the USSR:
a) conducting intelligence work in the capitalist countries;
b) combating the espionage, sabotage, terrorist and other subversive activity of foreign intelligence services within the USSR;
c) combating the hostile activity of various kinds of anti-Soviet elements within the USSR;
d) counterintelligence work in the Soviet Army and Navy;
e) organizing the ciphering and deciphering business in the country;
f) guarding the leaders of the party and government.
In addition, the party decision also formulated the main task for the KGB: "In the shortest possible time to eliminate the consequences of Beria's hostile activity in the state security bodies and to achieve the transformation of the state security bodies into a sharp weapon of our party, directed against the real enemies of our socialist state, and not against honest people"[5].
By a Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of March 13, 1954, I.A. Serov was appointed chairman of the KGB under the Council of Ministers of the USSR, and K.F. Lunev (first deputy), I.T. Savchenko, P.I. Grigoriev, V.A. Lukshin, P.I. Ivashutin were appointed his deputies[6].
By an order of the chairman of the KGB under the Council of Ministers of the USSR of March 18, the structure of the new department was determined, in which, not counting auxiliary and support subunits, the following were formed:
First Main Directorate (PGU, intelligence abroad - chief A.S. Panyushkin);
Second Main Directorate (VGU, counterintelligence - P.V. Fedotov);
Third Main Directorate (military counterintelligence - D.S. Leonov);
Fourth Directorate (combating the anti-Soviet underground, nationalist formations and hostile elements - F.P. Kharitonov);
Fifth Directorate (counterintelligence work at especially important facilities - P.I. Ivashutin);
Sixth Directorate (counterintelligence work in transport - M.I. Egorov);
Seventh Directorate (external surveillance - G.P. Dobrynin);
Eighth Main Directorate (ciphering and deciphering - V.A. Lukshin);
Ninth Directorate (guarding the leaders of the party and government - V.I. Ustinov);
Tenth Directorate (Directorate of the Commandant of the Moscow Kremlin - A.Ya. Vedenin);
Investigative Directorate (vacancy).
On the whole, this structure reveals the functions and tasks of the new union-republican department.
Among the subsequent changes in the structure of the KGB, one should note, as a consequence of the transfer from the composition of the MVD of the USSR, the formation on September 27, 1954, of the Department of Government "HF" Communications Troops (chief P.F. Uglovsky).
After the transfer of the border troops from the structure of the MVD to the KGB under the Council of Ministers of the USSR, for their management on April 2, 1957, the Main Directorate of Border Troops (GUPV
- chief P.I. Zyryanov) was formed.
The tasks of foreign intelligence, considered one of the most important areas of activity of the special services, were concretized in the decision of the CPSU Central Committee of June 30, 1954, "On Measures to Strengthen the Intelligence Work of State Security Bodies Abroad." It demanded concentrating efforts on organizing work in the leading Western countries, the USA and Great Britain, which had long been a geopolitical rival of Russia, as well as on "the countries used by them to fight against the Soviet Union, - primarily West Germany, France, Austria, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan and Japan."
In the same year, the Council of Ministers of the USSR approved the "Statute on the First Main Directorate of the KGB," which defined its functions, tasks, structure and staff.
In June 1954, for the purpose of "setting out priority tasks," an All-Union conference of leading KGB officials was held, at which I.A. Serov explained the directives of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee for the state security agencies, their role and place in the system of Soviet state administration.
Let us emphasize that the formation of the KGB under the Council of Ministers of the USSR marked a genuinely serious step toward establishing legality in our country, although the very principle of legality is inseparable from the existing system of law and the legislation in place. And the latter, and above all criminal and criminal procedure legislation, also underwent substantial changes in the late 50s, on which we will dwell in more detail below.
Here it seems necessary to note that even now some publicists and researchers erroneously or deliberately identify the KGB with its historical predecessors that left behind an unkind memory - the NKVD-NKGB and the MGB.
In accordance with the Resolution of the CPSU Central Committee "On Measures for the Further Strengthening of Socialist Legality and the Strengthening of Procuratorial Supervision" of January 19, 1955, the Statute on Procuratorial Supervision in the USSR was drafted (approved by a Decree of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet on May 24, 1955). To exercise supervision over the investigation in the KGB agencies, a special department was created in the USSR Procurator's Office.
It should also be emphasized that from the moment of the formation of the KGB under the USSR Council of Ministers, control over its activity was exercised by the CPSU Central Committee, in particular by the Department of Administrative Agencies, to which all complaints and statements by citizens concerning the actions of KGB employees addressed to party instances were sent, and which organized their verification and consideration, by the Council of Ministers and the USSR Procurator General's Office, as well as by certain other state bodies, for example, the Ministry of Finance.
In this connection it is unequivocally inadmissible to equate the KGB of the USSR with its historical predecessors the NKVD-NKGB and the MGB. At the same time, the activity of the KGB organs in the 50s - 60s was not free from the influence of subjectivism and voluntarism on the part of their leadership, although it was precisely in this period that procuratorial and party-state control over their work was established, as will be discussed in more detail below.
It must also be emphasized that the criticism of the activities of the state security agencies in the 30s - 50s, begun in June 1953 and continued in February 1956 in N.S. Khrushchev's report to the delegates of the 20th Congress of the CPSU on Stalin's cult of personality and its consequences, had the most direct impact on the formation, staffing and activities of the KGB agencies, but had both positive and substantially negative consequences.
It is known that N.S. Khrushchev repeatedly officially declared that "the state security agencies had gotten out of the party's control and placed themselves above the party," which does not fully correspond to historical truth and meant yet another mythologization of the history of the state security agencies of the USSR, and indeed of the whole of Soviet history.
It should, however, be emphasized that under the slogan "to exclude the possibility of a return to 1937," in violation of the constitutional principle of the equality of all citizens before the law, the state security agencies were forbidden to collect compromising materials on representatives of the party-Soviet nomenklatura. True, a similar decision had been taken even earlier, in December 1938, but at that time the nomenklatura could not feel safe before the menacing eyes of the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks).
In the opinion of many researchers, this erroneous and unlawful political decision of 1956 laid the foundation for the growth of corruption and the emergence of organized crime in our country, for it removed significant contingents of persons vested with administrative, authority-and-directive, control and economic powers from the control of the KGB of the USSR.
On the one hand, creating a kind of semblance of a caste of the "untouchables," it at the same time contributed to the emergence of "telephone law," which became particularly widespread in the mid-80s - 90s of the past century.
At the same time, this circumstance made it easier for foreign special services to attempt recruitment approaches and operational surveillance of party-state functionaries of various ranks, as a result of which the country's ruling elite found itself without proper counterintelligence cover against the intelligence and subversive influence of the special services of foreign states. And taken together, this decision had the most negative consequences for the fate of the country and the Soviet state.
So what did the State Security Committee of the USSR do, and what did it fight against?
To answer this question, let us use the book by former CIA Director Allen Dulles, "The Craft of Intelligence," which in the West became a kind of "intelligence manifesto," addressed primarily to the ruling elite and intended to open its eyes to the new role of the special services in the modern world.
Since the authors who wrote about the activities of the KGB do not devote due attention to this exceptionally important historical document, it seems necessary to fill this gap for a better understanding by modern readers of the essence and content of the dialectics of the intelligence confrontation between the countries of the capitalist and socialist camps.
Dulles declared his goal to be "to tell - to the extent that this is permissible - about the activities of intelligence as a vitally important element in the structure of our state apparatus in the era we are living through"[?].
Today our fellow citizens can become acquainted with two translations of this book by Dulles, published in Moscow in 1992 and 2000, which contain all the quotations we cite, taking into account the nuances of the translators' style.
We recommend using the edition Dulles A. The CIA against the KGB: The Art of Espionage. (Moscow, 2000). Since the publishers of the first translation of this book by Dulles stipulated that they had made cuts in the text aimed at "eliminating as far as possible the ideological accretions of the 'Cold War' period and obvious anachronisms, which only hinder the perception of what is valuable in the book."
Thus, into the editorial "wastebasket," quite purposefully and consciously, as an "anachronism," were sent the CIA director's views on the goals and tasks of the "secret war" against the USSR. And the political credo that Dulles bequeathed to the continuers of the cause of the "knights of the cloak and dagger." For the "innovative initiative," the team of publishers of Dulles's book deserves a separate, big and sincere thank you from the readers!
Let us emphasize that, in sharing with his readers - and they were representatives of the political establishment of Western states - his thoughts on the necessary strategy of confronting communism, Dulles consciously revealed, striving to make it understandable and justified, the activities of the US intelligence community.
Dulles cited the words of President J.F. Kennedy at the ceremony marking the opening of the new CIA headquarters building on November 28, 1961: "Your successes are never spoken of, while your failures are trumpeted everywhere. It is clear that you cannot talk about those
operations that are going well. Those that are going badly usually speak for themselves."
The US President emphasized: "I am sure that you understand how important your work is and how highly your efforts will be appreciated in the distant future."
It is understandable that A. Dulles's manifesto book could not but contain a considerable share of anti-Sovietism and anti-communism, intended to convince the reader of the "nobility" of the intentions of the American "knights of the cloak and dagger."
Thus, noting that "beginning in 1946, the Soviet Union did not even try to pretend that it was our friend," Dulles did not even mention Churchill's famous speech in Fulton in March of that same year, which marked precisely Great Britain's abandonment of allied positions and contained an analogous appeal to the US administration. Instead, he cites the following words from President H. Truman's address to the US Congress on March 12, 1947, which proclaimed the concept of "Containment of Communism":
"The actions of the communists threaten the security of our country, and we will render assistance to free peoples in their defense against aggressive movements seeking to impose totalitarian regimes upon them."
At the same time, Dulles himself admitted that "We are not 'at peace' with the communist countries and have not been since communism declared war on our way of government and life" - let us not be surprised by the paradoxical "unfamiliarity" of the CIA chief with the peaceful foreign-policy initiatives of the USSR of 1956-1963!
Of course, how, and indeed why, would Dulles, a Western reader, have known about the foreign policy concept of "peaceful coexistence and competition of the two socio-political systems" put forward by the 20th Congress of the CPSU in 1956?!
At the very same time, justifying the right of the United States to preventive actions, now becoming established under the name of "humanitarian intervention," examples of which the whole world saw in March 1999 in Serbia and in 2003-2008 in Afghanistan and Iraq, Dulles frankly wrote: "For our part, we must do much and are doing not a little to strengthen the positions of weak countries and not give the communists the opportunity to seize them into their own hands. Of course, we cannot limit ourselves merely to defensive actions; in a number of cases we
take the initiative into our own hands, forcing the communists to retreat (emphasis mine - O.Kh.), and there should be more such cases."
One can, of course, say that such views on the purpose of intelligence have already sunk into oblivion, just as the "Cold War" policy that gave rise to them has sunk there. However, cautioning against such hasty conclusions, one would like to advise listening more attentively and thinking more attentively about very many of the voices and appeals coming from across the ocean today as well.
Which, in particular, was also confirmed by the voices heard in August 2008 in Washington, "condemning Russia's attack on Georgia(?)!"
Noting that "...spontaneous revolutionary actions of an unarmed (emphasis mine - O.Kh.) people in our age are ineffective and often lead to catastrophe," Dulles constructed an entire theory of "humanitarian intervention." He emphasized: "The West, for its part, can openly provide assistance in one way or another."
However, Western intelligence services "...must fulfill their role in the initial stages of the struggle, when subversive actions (meaning - "communist special services" - O.Kh.) are only just being planned and organized," and also "have ready special means, both overt and covert, for combating the conspiracy."
In many cases, Dulles modestly admitted, "in a far greater number than is known, we had successes, and some of them substantial. However, it is perhaps not yet time to publicize these actions or those means that were used."
Let us highlight for the reader the following passage, extremely important for understanding the philosophy of the American intelligence service's actions, from the work of the former CIA chief:
"We ourselves must determine when, where and in what manner we must act (presumably, with the support of other leading countries of the free world, which will be able to provide assistance), taking into account the requirements of our own national security. An important role must be played by the intelligence services with their special methods and means. This is something new for the present generation, yet very important for the success of the cause."
Let us note that this was written only 2 years after the failure of the landing of an anti-government Cuban "contra" force in Cuba at the Bay of Pigs, and a year after the subsequent failure of the CIA operation "Mongoose," which also envisaged instigating an anti-Castro uprising, which most clearly demonstrated precisely what kind of "actions" were meant by the former chief of the US CIA.
An example of such a "US initiative" is the overthrow of the legitimate president of Chile, Salvador Allende, in September 1973, which, on the one hand, testifies to the fact that "Dulles's behests" continued to be put into practice in subsequent years as well.
Revealing the global character of the intelligence conducted by the United States, the former CIA director emphasized that "Nowadays intelligence is compelled to maintain constant surveillance in all regions of the world, regardless of what the attention of diplomats or the military is drawn to at a given moment. The duty of intelligence," Dulles emphasized, "is to warn of emerging dangers so that the government can take proper measures. In the search for information it is now no longer possible to limit oneself to the framework of only certain countries. The arena of our conflict is the whole world... Our government must be warned in advance and armed. The vigilance of intelligence, its advance warning of danger, could in itself already be one of the most effective means of restraining the warlike appetites of a potential adversary... Intelligence analysis must be conducted on all countries where our interests may be affected. Naturally, the political, economic and social situation in various countries may be of significance to us. The duty of intelligence is to sound the alarm before the situation acquires a crisis character."
Dulles's work also abounds in clearly complimentary characterizations of the Soviet special services: "In the person of the Soviet Union we have before us an adversary who has raised the art of espionage to unprecedented heights....The information that the Soviet intelligence service was able to obtain by means of secret operations during the Second World War contributed to the military efforts of the Soviets and represented material of the kind that is the object of dreams for the intelligence service of any country."
Moreover, the names of Soviet intelligence officers mentioned by Dulles who operated in the West in the 50s - 60s - Abel, Lonsdale, the Krogers, Philby, Fuchs and others - also testify to the highly effective work of the PGU of the KGB of the USSR[8].
Paying tribute to the technical achievements of the computers that appeared at that time, Dulles emphasized that "what would have required a week of searching and studying archival materials for an analyst, a machine can now accomplish in a matter of minutes. Science will continue to be the most important means of intelligence. We are in the most intense competition with the communist bloc, and especially with the Soviet Union, in the field of the development of science and must take care to preserve (emphasis in Dulles - O.Kh.) primacy for ourselves."
"Although the aims of counterintelligence are defensive," wrote Dulles, "it nevertheless operates predominantly by offensive methods. Its ideal aim (here and below emphasis mine - O.Kh.) is to uncover the plans of enemy intelligence at their earliest stage, and not after they have begun to be carried out and to cause harm. To accomplish this task, counterintelligence strives to penetrate into the inner spheres of the adversary's intelligence services right up to the very highest level - to where operation plans are drawn up, where agents are selected and trained; and if this is achieved, then the aim becomes to win over "insiders" from the enemy camp."
The following passage, revealing the technology of the work of Western special services with defectors from socialist states, is also undoubtedly interesting:
"After the Hungarian revolution of 1956, more than a quarter of a million refugees crossed over to the West. They supplied us with the most important information on all aspects of technical, scientific and military progress in Hungary and gave us an excellent forecast for the years ahead." Leaving to the author's conscience the reference to the number of Hungarian emigrants, let us emphasize only the high assessment that he gave to the "brain drain" and to the questioning of emigrants as a factor and method of obtaining intelligence information.
Let us also emphasize the extremely important circumstance that Dulles, addressing the political elite of the West, considered it his duty to acquaint it objectively with the realities of the secret war. At least, with that part of it as he understood it. In this connection, the following characterizations of defectors from the socialist states are extremely interesting, and, indeed, perhaps have not lost their significance even today:
"I do not claim that all the so-called deserters (dezerters) fled to the West for ideological motives. Some took this path because they had suffered a failure in their work, others did so out of fear that in the next shake-up of the state apparatus they might be demoted or might have even worse troubles; there were also those who were attracted by the physical temptations of life in the West - both moral and material.
Life in the communist world became loathsome to them, and they yearn for something better. That is why, with regard to such people, I use the term "deserter" very cautiously and apologize in advance. I prefer to call them "volunteers."
Addressing his Western colleagues, diplomats and statesmen, Dulles shared his innermost thoughts, although these maxims of his also attracted the attention of the head of the KGB:
"Behind the Iron Curtain there are many discontented people unknown to us who seriously think about fleeing their country... Such people can be helped by convincing them that they will be warmly received and will find security and a happy life with us. Whenever a newly arrived political defector, speaking on a Voice of America broadcast, says that he is already with us and that he is well treated, other people behind the Iron Curtain who are contemplating the same step will gain resolve and will again begin to think about how to obtain an assignment abroad...".
From the government officials to whom, in essence, this book of Dulles's was addressed, the author did not consider it necessary to conceal that "Some of the defectors from the communist side turn out to be not at all what they might be taken for. Some, for example, worked for a long time behind the Iron Curtain as our agents "in place" and defected to the West only after they (or we) concluded that it had become too dangerous for them to remain in the country any longer....
The defection of a career intelligence officer of the opposing side is, naturally, a great stroke of luck for counterintelligence. After all, from the standpoint of the quantity and content of the information obtained in this way, such a source is equivalent to direct penetration for some period into the enemy's intelligence headquarters. One such volunteer intelligence officer can literally paralyze for several months the work of the intelligence service he has left. The United States will always welcome those who no longer want to work for the Kremlin. In every communist country there are many people who have suffered at the hands of state agencies or who have suffered among those close to them. Such people often need only a slight push for them to agree to engage in espionage against a regime that they do not respect, that has wronged them, or in which they have become disillusioned."
But at the same time, the experienced intelligence officer Dulles could not fail to understand that "Among the people who take up espionage, some do it because they are experiencing financial difficulties, have debts they cannot pay, or have embezzled state funds. A person counting on escaping criminal liability in this way entangles himself in the web of espionage and will probably work well for intelligence, since he sees no other way out. In the end, intelligence can always find a way to expose him at any time before his authorities."
Let us note that Dulles said nothing at all about a possible ideological and political basis for a Soviet citizen's cooperation with US intelligence, evidently knowing well the value of such defectors.
Chapter 15 of A. Dulles's work, entitled "The Role of Intelligence in the Cold War," deserves the reader's particular attention.
In it Dulles revealed his own vision of the content of the global confrontation and struggle:
"In elections, a far greater number of people who share communist ideas but have not formalized their membership vote for the communists. The most numerous communist parties outside the communist bloc are in France, Italy, India and Indonesia, but the figures in this case by no means reflect the true state of affairs.
For conducting subversive activity, the presence of a solid core of dedicated and disciplined activists may prove a more important factor than a high party membership....
Unfortunately, communist parties in many countries have turned into the largest political organizations in opposition to the ruling regimes. Therefore they attract to themselves - not necessarily as members, but as sympathizers,
- masses of voters, using both nationalist slogans and the slogans of movements for temperance, reform, or against atomic weapons....
When an election campaign begins, the apparatchiks of the communist party gather under their banners all these people and many others who await change and naively believe that this change can be achieved only with the help of the communists. The World Peace Congress, various youth and women's organizations and creative unions are also among the disguised communist structures. They try to draw into their ranks the trusting and credulous, speaking from positions of solidarity and decency and using the slogans of "defense of peace" and "the ban on the atomic bomb."
Further, as "subversive" actions, Dulles described the holding of Youth and Student Festivals, "communist penetration" into trade union movements, and USSR radio broadcasting, while saying nothing about the external propaganda activity of the radio stations Radio Liberty and Radio Free Europe, which at that time were secretly financed by the US CIA.
«Gathered together,» continued the ideologue of American intelligence, «these organizations can constitute, so to speak, a Moscow "orchestra of subversion" of the system existing in a given state. Many of its instruments individually, and sometimes the entire orchestra at once, begin to act at the wave of the conductor's baton from Moscow, in order to exert pressure on the country chosen as the object of subversive activity. Such an "orchestra" plays even in those states where the process of the "burial of capitalism" is foreseen, even by the Kremlin's own estimates, in a very distant future (for example, in the USA).
This is what the apparatus of subversive actions, which we now confront in the "cold war" imposed on us by the communists, looks like.»
Let us leave such passages about the might of the notorious "hand of Moscow" to the author's conscience, but at the same time let us note that such pronouncements could not, of course, fail to influence part of the population of the capitalist states, including their elites, and could not fail to contribute to the growth of anti-communist hysteria.
Far more important are Dulles's prescriptions for saving the Western world:
«The active means against this threat include, first, the foreign policy we proclaim, for which the State Department and the president bear full responsibility.
Second, by taking a defensive position one can convince the free world that we and our allies are strong enough and ready to respond decisively to Soviet military threats.
The third positive factor is the contribution made by the intelligence service. It must:
1) Provide the government in a timely manner with information about which countries the communists have designated to begin subversive actions;
2) Infiltrate agents into important structures of their subversive apparatus,... provide the government with an analysis of the means employed, as well as data on the adversary's trusted persons who have penetrated into the government;
3) Help the countries of the free world, insofar as possible, to create their own defensive structures against communist infiltration and to warn the governments of these countries in advance about the nature and scale of the threat, as well as to provide support to their security services.
In those cases where it is possible,» Dulles continued, «we must help governments that have found themselves in situations of this kind and support their aspiration to resist and their confidence that they will be able to withstand totalitarianism.
As soon as we are given the opportunity to provide assistance, we provide it and support the aspiration of the free countries
to resist. And we do this long before the communists manage to penetrate into government circles and the process of dismantling the system becomes irreversible.
Western intelligence services must begin to carry out their tasks considerably earlier than the military structures take this up, that is, when the Soviets' subversive actions are still only being prepared. In order for us to begin active military operations, we need to have reliable intelligence data about the conspiracy and the conspirators and to have at hand the required means for open or covert countermeasures.»
Having reasoned on the theme of "certain limits on the use of force," which must be "authorized at the highest political level," that is, by the US president, Dulles at the same time emphasized that "we ourselves must determine when, where and in what manner we are to act, if possible together with other leading states of the free world that are ready to provide such support."
A fundamentally new direction of the activity of the KGB of the USSR was the establishment of cooperation with the state security agencies of the socialist states, which naturally proceeded in the general mainstream of the foreign policy of the USSR.
Major General A.M. Sakharovsky, who from May 1955 performed the duties of chief of the PGU of the KGB, noted that representational work is a complex, specific direction of activity requiring tact, self-restraint, political maturity and operational instinct.
Returning directly to the subject of our examination, it should be said that, of course, in the work of the KGB, and above all of intelligence, along with obvious but unpublicized achievements, there were also failures. These include the defections of intelligence officers to the West.
After all, the sharp change in the socio-political situation in the Soviet
Union could not fail to affect the moral and psychological state of persons working abroad.
Thus, in February 1954, P. Deryabin, an officer of the USSR MVD residency, requested political asylum at the US embassy in Vienna[9].
In April 1954, N.V.Khokhlov[1 O] in Germany and the Petrovs, a married couple, in Australia defected to the West — we have already become acquainted earlier with the reasoning on this matter of former CIA Director A.Dulles.
These defections led both to a complication of the conditions of activity of Soviet intelligence officers abroad and to the exposure of a number of valuable Soviet sources of information in these countries.
Certain defectors from the KGB in those and subsequent years - P. Deryabin, A. Golitsyn, O. Gordievsky, O. Kalugin - were actively used by the special services of foreign states in attempts to discredit the state security agencies of the USSR.
On the whole it should be said that the setbacks and failures in the activity of intelligence and counterintelligence are a consequence of the objective circumstance that they operate under conditions of unceasing conflictual confrontation with a real adversary who strives both to conceal and mask his true goals and intentions and conducts special disinformation and diversionary campaigns, active measures.
This is also accompanied by those subjective circumstances that in recent years have come to be called the "human factor." Moreover, what is meant here is both unconscious miscalculations and mistakes and deliberate betrayal.
The scale of the damage inflicted by betrayal on the interests of the security of the state and of the state security agencies is evidenced by the mere fact that the treason of only one Vetrov led in 1981 to the exposure of the names of about 70 informants in 15 countries and 450 active officers of Soviet intelligence[11].
Betrayal cannot have any justification. And therefore the perplexity is entirely appropriate regarding the fact that certain domestic media try to "sculpt noble" images of the deserter-defector V. Rezun, who has hidden under the pseudonym "V. Suvorov," and of other traitors like him from among Soviet citizens.
But "the true motives of betrayal are revealed gradually. They can never be heard from the traitor himself. After all, even the basest creature wants to look in the eyes of others, and in his own eyes, like a noble and suffering person," L.V. Shebarshin wrote about them[12].
D.P. Prokhorov, the author of a number of books on the history of Russian intelligence, in one of his latest works lists the names of 155 people who betrayed Soviet intelligence in various periods of its existence[13].
To gain a more objective understanding of this phenomenon as it applies to the organs of the KGB of the USSR (1954-1991), the following circumstances should be taken into account.
First, from the list presented by D.P. Prokhorov, which is the most complete to date, one should exclude the defectors to the opposite camp from among the agents of the state security organs of the USSR.
Second, from it one should exclude the employees of the military intelligence (GRU) of the Ministry of Defense of the USSR.
Taking these corrections into account, it turns out that during the existence of the KGB, from March 1954 to October 1991, 52 of its employees committed treason, including 37 employees of foreign intelligence.
Unlike intelligence, which seeks to penetrate the secrets of the states and entities being targeted, the activity of counterintelligence subunits is directed at combating the intelligence and subversive activity of the special services of foreign states.
The classic goals of any counterintelligence, wrote A. Dulles, are the detection of the enemy, his identification and neutralization.
Another director of the CIA of the USA in 1973-1975, William Colby, wrote about the tasks of intelligence as follows: "Technical means supplement but do not replace agent intelligence. They free up the agent network and allow it to concentrate attention on other, higher priorities. Agents should be used (here and below emphasis is mine - O.Kh.) where technology is powerless, in order to find out what leaders are planning, how decisions are made and what political forces are taking shape"[14].
But acquiring such agents is a complex, lengthy and labor-intensive matter. And therefore, various categories of foreign citizens who visited the USSR, including foreign tourists, were also drawn into the collection of intelligence information.
It should be noted in this connection that if in 1959 the USSR was visited by 34 thousand foreign tourists, then in 1967 - 130 thousand, in
1969 - 273, in 1971 - 471 thousand. In the 70s, the annual number of foreign tourists visiting our country exceeded 500 thousand people.
In 1954 alone and the first half of 1956, among American, English and French citizens visiting the USSR as tourists and participants in various kinds of delegations, more than 40 representatives of the intelligence services of the said states were identified[15].
In the same 50s-60s, the KGB of the USSR exposed a number of both employees of embassy intelligence residencies in Moscow and agents from among Soviet citizens working for them, including military servicemen. Thus, in 1958, GRU Lieutenant Colonel P. Popov was arrested, and in October 1962, Colonel O. Penkovsky. At the same time, a number of highly valuable agents of the enemy's special services remained unexposed, for example the FBI agent "Cylinder" (D. Polyakov)[16].
The betrayal of Polyakov - who worked "under the cover" of a military representative of the Armed Forces of the USSR at the UN - led to the suicide, during an attempt to arrest her by FBI agents, of the GRU illegal Maria Dmitrievna Dobrova (operational pseudonym "Macy")[17].
However, today one can hardly say that the degree of scale and reality of the threat of intelligence and subversive activity of foreign special services was adequately perceived and assessed by the then leadership of the Soviet Union and its state security organs.
Although the Report of the Central Committee of the CPSU to the Extraordinary 21st Party Congress (January 27 - February 5, 1959) stated that "... the state security agencies must be strengthened, whose spearhead is directed above all against the agents and designs of the imperialist states"[18].
For the sake of objectivity, one cannot fail to mention that something similar was repeated in our country at the turn of the 90s of the last century, the bitter fruits of which we are still reaping today.
The intelligence and subversive activity of foreign states includes the conduct by their specially authorized state organs of overt and covert operations and actions both to obtain information about other states and to exert hidden influence on their positions and policies on particular issues, in particular geographic zones and regions of the planet.
On the whole, the system of intelligence and subversive activity of foreign states, which the counterintelligence organs are called upon to combat, includes both the foreign policy attitudes of the governments of foreign states, the structure of their special services (intelligence, counterintelligence, sabotage-terrorist, etc.), their forces and means, forms and methods, techniques and "corporate style" of their activity, specific operations and measures, and their executors.
From the mid-50s, as a result of the "doctrine of liberation" officially adopted by the D. Eisenhower administration, the role and significance of intelligence in the implementation of US foreign policy steadily increased, which could not but affect the scale and intensity of its activities with respect to the USSR, and which could not but influence the activities of the Soviet security organs.
One should also touch upon the activity of the 4th Directorate of the KGB, called upon to wage the struggle against the anti-Soviet underground, nationalist bandit-insurgent formations and attempts by foreign special services to use them for their own purposes.
As is known, in a number of western regions of the USSR - in Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic republics - in the post-war years armed "insurgent" separatist groupings continued to exist, at times quite numerous, and the struggle against them was of a cruel, uncompromising, and at times bloody character.
The large-scale reorganization of the work of the security organs that took place in March 1954, however, did not affect the effectiveness of the day-to-day operational work of the Chekists.
Thus, already on May 11, 1954, on the territory of the Estonian SSR, CIA agents Toomm and Kukk, who had been parachuted in for the purpose of creating an illegal residency, were detained, and on the territory of Latvia, Brombergs (operational pseudonym Andy), a former instructor at the American intelligence school in the city of Kempten (FRG), who had been dropped from the same aircraft, was arrested.
A little later, during the operational game that began after the arrest of the aforementioned agents, a fast boat was seized off the coast of Lithuania that had delivered another consignment of military cargo for the "forest brothers" - individual bandit-insurgent groups continued to exist until the end of the 50s.
On May 23, 1954, in Ukraine, the "commander-in-chief" of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), V. Kuk[19], was detained, which marked the completion of one of the large-scale operations to eliminate the nationalist underground in Ukraine.
It seems necessary to acquaint the reader with some of the results of the work of the KGB of the USSR in the first years of its existence.
In a note to the CPSU Central Committee dated June 22, 1957, on the results of the KGB's work since its formation, I.A. Serov noted that 2,508 information reports received from the PGU residencies abroad had been sent to N.S. Khrushchev personally alone, and 2,316 reports had been sent to the Council of Ministers of the USSR. Intelligence information was also sent by the KGB to the CPSU Central Committee departments for international relations and for relations with the people's democracies, and to the ministries of defense, foreign affairs, foreign trade, medium machine building, and health.
The note also specified that over the same period, on certain matters of the KGB's operational activity, on questions of the political, economic, and military situation of the capitalist countries, and on certain questions of the situation in the people's democracies, 4,504 documents had been sent to the CPSU Central Committee and 1,750 to the Council of Ministers.
At the same time, it should be emphasized that out of the total number of the documents indicated, 907 addressed to the CPSU Central Committee and 330 addressed to the Council of Ministers of the USSR required decisions by the authorities on the specific matters raised in them.
And behind these dry figures stands the everyday painstaking, intense, and dangerous work of Soviet intelligence officers.
At the same time, in a letter from I.A. Serov to the CPSU Central Committee it was emphasized that "over the past year the apparatus of the Council of Ministers has often evaded the questions raised by the KGB, recommending that they be addressed for resolution to the CPSU Central Committee"[20].
Somewhat later, reporting on the work done, the chairman of the KGB under the Council of Ministers of the USSR, Serov, reported to the CPSU Central Committee in June 1957:
"... Carrying out the decisions of the CPSU Central Committee on the restructuring and elimination of shortcomings in the work of the state security agencies, the Committee, with the help of the CPSU Central Committee and local party bodies, strengthened the chekist apparatus with tested and trained cadres, organized systematic control over the work of the KGB of the republics and the UKGB of the krais and oblasts, and issued the necessary orders and instructions on matters of operational and investigative work. It held 2 All-Union conferences of the heads of state security agencies, at which the shortcomings still existing in the work were exposed and ways to eliminate them were outlined....
The qualitative composition of the state security agencies has improved significantly. At present about 80 percent of the employees have higher and secondary education.
The attention of the entire leadership and of the party organizations of the state security agencies is at present directed toward instilling in operational workers high discipline and selflessness in carrying out special assignments, and toward the constant improvement of their chekist skills, which are necessary for the struggle against the enemies of our Motherland."
Directly concerning the activity of the "main enemy," this document reported:
"For its intelligence purposes, American intelligence uses numerous émigré organizations, including the so-called "National Labor Union" (NTS), the "Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists" (OUN), and other anti-Soviet organizations [21].
Directing anti-Soviet émigré organizations into the struggle against the USSR and the people's democracies, American intelligence spends enormous funds on their maintenance. As is known, the USA annually appropriates more than 100 million dollars for subversive activity against the socialist countries.
Over the past three years, the security agencies, with the active help of the Soviet people, have caught on Soviet territory dozens of spies who had infiltrated by illegal means (by sea, by air, across land borders), from whom radio stations, weapons, cameras, means of secret writing, poisons, forged documents, and considerable sums of Soviet money and foreign currency were seized.
From the documents seized from these spies and from their personal testimony, as well as from materials obtained by us from other sources, it is evident that the intelligence services of the capitalist states strive with all their might to obtain information about our armed forces, about new technology and the achievements of Soviet science, and try to penetrate important industrial centers of the country and defense-related and atomic industry facilities.
Along with sending specially trained agents into the territory of the Soviet Union, enemy intelligence services take active measures to collect intelligence data through their intelligence officers arriving in the USSR under the guise of diplomats, tourists, and members of various delegations.
For these purposes they use not only travel around the country but also the latest technology designed to obtain secret data of great state importance...
Organizing subversive work against the Soviet Union, American intelligence counts on using individual enemy elements inside our country and creating with their help an anti-Soviet underground.
Over the past three years the state security agencies have uncovered a number of anti-Soviet groups that carried out subversive work and maintained contact with certain foreign embassies in Moscow.
In conditions of the worsening international situation and the rampage of reaction in the countries of imperialism, and of the revival of the anti-people activity of counterrevolutionary elements in certain people's democracies, the capitalist intelligence services have intensified hostile activity against the Soviet Union, widely using for these purposes all the possibilities at their disposal, including various spy-émigré centers.
Under the influence of international reaction, the pitiful remnants of anti-Soviet elements in our country are here and there trying to raise their heads, using for their vile purposes the difficulties and shortcomings that still exist, slandering the policy of the party and government, and spreading provocative rumors.
The materials available to the state security agencies testify that the intelligence services of the imperialist states, along with intensifying espionage and sabotage activity, have unleashed frenzied propaganda against the foundations of the political system in the USSR and the people's democracies."
Let us interrupt here the quotation of this historical document for one necessary remark concerning its further content.
It should be noted that there were indeed certain objective grounds for such propaganda. And they were contained, in particular, in N.S. Khrushchev's report to the delegates of the 20th Congress of the CPSU, the content of which became widely known both in our country and abroad.
The resolution of the CPSU Central Committee "On the Cult of Personality of Stalin and Overcoming Its Consequences," adopted in July of that same year, 1956, was of a rather contradictory character and did not fully answer many pressing and topical questions, which could not but give rise to various kinds of rumors as well as bewilderment and indignation, which was skillfully stimulated and instigated by Western radio propaganda.
It was precisely the half-heartedness of the party decisions adopted that gave rise in the intellectual circles of society to a discussion about Stalinism and the paths of further social development, which became the leitmotif, the main theme of spiritual and creative quests, and the cause of the emergence in subsequent years of the "democratic" and
"human rights" movements in the Soviet Union.
Let us, however, continue quoting the Serov memorandum to the CPSU Central Committee that we interrupted:
"The hostile actions and hostile propaganda of the intelligence services of the capitalist states have aroused hope for the restoration of the capitalist system among the hidden enemies of socialism, who after the Hungarian events became somewhat more animated and stepped up their activity.
Particularly active are former participants in Trotskyist-nationalist and other hostile organizations, as well as certain anti-Soviet elements, who are conducting work against the party, using for these purposes unstable and politically immature persons from among the workers, the intelligentsia, and the youth, calling on them to struggle against Soviet power.
The revival of anti-Soviet activity after the Hungarian events was to a significant extent facilitated by hostile elements from among persons who had returned from places of confinement, who had been serving sentences for counterrevolutionary crimes. These persons are attempting to group around themselves politically unstable
citizens with the aim of drawing them into hostile subversive work.
The state security organs, with the help of party, Komsomol and trade union organizations, vigilantly monitor the intrigues of hostile elements and, in accordance with the laws of Soviet power, promptly suppress their criminal actions>>.
This memorandum also stated that in order to strengthen the intelligence subunits of the KGB, more than 800 people who had graduated from the country's leading higher educational institutions, including the Institute of International Relations, the Military-Diplomatic Academy and others, had been sent to them. This contributed to the achievement of certain results "... in obtaining high-quality information, which enabled the State Security Committee to inform the Central Committee and the Soviet government in a timely manner about certain hostile plans and intentions of the heads of the imperialist powers on international questions))[22].
Another source of personnel replenishment for the state security organs was the Higher School of the KGB of the USSR. In 1954 the Higher School switched to a three-year term of training for staff, and in November of that same year a postgraduate program was established under it for the training of highly qualified specialists.
It should also be noted that under I.A. Serov work began on forming a new "image" of the Soviet security organs and on increasing the population's trust in them.
Books devoted to the history of the Cheka-OGPU were published in massive print runs: "Essays on the History of the Cheka" (1956) by P.G. Sofinov; "Pages from the Life of F.E. Dzerzhinsky" (1956).
The following year saw the publication of F.E. Dzerzhinsky's "Diary and Letters" and a two-volume collection of his selected works.
In 1958 the first collection of documents was published, "From the History of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission (1917-1921))."
Among the most important events relating to the period of Serov's tenure as chairman of the KGB is the loss, as a result of an explosion on 29 October 1955 in Sevastopol Bay, of the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet, the battleship "Novorossiysk" (the former Italian battleship received by way of reparations from Italy,
the "Giulio Cesare"), which gave rise to a version about a possible sabotage operation by foreign intelligence services). The mystery of the loss of the "Novorossiysk," which claimed the lives of more than 600 members of its crew, has not been solved to this day.
In April of the following year, on the territory of East Berlin, together with the organs of the Ministry of State Security of the GDR, a large-scale joint SIS and CIA intelligence operation "Gold" was thwarted, though from the very first days of its implementation it had been under the control of the KGB of the USSR. The most important political milestones of Serov's leadership of the state security organs are undoubtedly the beginning of the processes of cleansing them of persons guilty of violations of legality, as well as the rehabilitation of unjustifiably repressed citizens.
We will dwell in more detail on these areas of the activity of the KGB organs, taking into account both the fact that they are still little known to our fellow citizens and, on the other hand, that they represent far more than merely historical interest.
The burdened heredity of the state security organs
The formation of the KGB under the Council of Ministers of the USSR was accompanied by a severe "birth trauma" - the disclosure and exposure of numerous violations of legality committed by its historical predecessors - the NKVD - MGB of the USSR in the late 30s - early 50s.
Paradoxical as it may seem, the struggle against violations of legality by employees of the MGB of the USSR was begun in March 1953 by none other than... L.P. Beria himself.
After the formation on 5 March 1953 of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR, which also included the subdivisions of the abolished Ministry of State Security, S.N. Kruglov, B.3. Kobulov, and I.A. Serov were appointed as deputies of Minister L.P. Beria[1]. (In addition, Beria was Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and a member of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee).
As is well known, on 27 March 1953 the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on amnesty, adopted on the initiative of L.P. Beria, was published.
In total, under this decree, 1,201,738 people were released under the amnesty (about 45% of those convicted), as a result of which the camp
"population" of the GULAG as of 1 April 1954 amounted to 1,360,303 prisoners[2]. However, this amnesty did not affect those convicted of "counterrevolutionary crimes," that is, under Article 58 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR of 1926.
Incidentally, these were not the first amnesties and rehabilitations carried out on his initiative: having replaced N.I. Yezhov as People's Commissar of Internal Affairs on 8 December 1938, Beria came forward with an initiative to release those repressed during the years of the "Great Terror."
In total, in 1939-1940, 223,800 convicts were released from the camps, and a further 103,800 exiles from the special settlement colonies (that is, more than 327 thousand people)[3].
In total, as Doctor of Legal Sciences V. V. Luneev noted on the basis of official statistics from the USSR KGB, the Russian Federation's Ministry of Security, the Federal Counterintelligence Service and Russia's FSB, 827,692 people convicted between 1917 and 1953 had been rehabilitated by 1954 alone. However, rehabilitation scarcely extended to those convicted on serious charges. Of all those rehabilitated, only 1,128 people, or 0.14%, had been sentenced to death[4].
On March 11, 1953, Beria sent a letter to the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, G.M. Malenkov, and the First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, N.S. Khrushchev, in which he gave a disheartening characterization of what had been happening in the MGB in recent years, where, among other things, it was stated: "A significant portion of the Chekist cadres who have experience have been destroyed... It will be necessary to review the material on the arrested Chekists and, depending on the results, take a decision on using them in work in the MGB"[5].
An investigative group was formed to review a number of especially important cases: the "doctors' case," the "arrested MGB employees," and the "arrested MGB of the Georgian SSR group of local workers" (the so-called "Mingrelian case").
And indeed, many Chekists arrested under V.S. Abakumov and S.D. Ignatyev were released from arrest and returned to work[6], which, incidentally, had a detrimental effect on the fate of some of them after the "exposure of the Beria gang" in June of that same year.
And already on April 3, Beria reported the results of the conducted review to the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee. On the basis of his report, a decision was adopted on the full rehabilitation and release of the accused "in the doctors' case" and their family members (37 people in all). Somewhat later, other releases from arrest and from charges followed.
Beria assured the Presidium of the Central Committee that in the MVD "... measures are being carried out that exclude the possibility of any repetition in the future of such distortions in work."
Later the Presidium of the Central Committee decreed that "in view of the serious mistakes committed in the leadership of the former MGB" it was impossible to leave S.D. Ignatyev[?] in the post of Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee.
Paragraph IX of the Resolution of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee dated 10 April 1953 stated:
- To approve the measures carried out by Comrade Beria L.P. to uncover the criminal actions committed over a period of years by the former MGB of the USSR, consisting in the fabrication and falsification of cases against honest people, as well as the measures to correct the consequences of violations of Soviet laws, bearing in mind that these measures are aimed at strengthening the Soviet state and socialist legality[8].
We have cited these facts in order to emphasize once again that the review of the investigative cases of the former NKGB-MGB began long before the 20th Congress of the CPSU.
However, the situation in the state security organs, in light of the documents cited, continued to remain difficult.
And on June 26, 1953, at a session of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee in the Kremlin, the arrest followed of the Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers and Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR, L.P. Beria.
Simultaneously with Beria's arrest, a number of deputy ministers and a group of leading MVD officials were arrested; their trial took place in December 1953, and the majority of the accused were sentenced to the "highest measure of social protection" (shooting) (Abakumov's "henchmen" faced the same fate a year later).
The official announcement of Beria's arrest and the appointment of S.N. Kruglov as the new Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR was published only on June 29.
Appended to the minutes of the session of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee of June 26, 1953, "On the decision of the question concerning Beria," was a draft report by G.M. Malenkov containing a whole series of accusations, including the following: "The enemies wanted to place the MVD organs above the party and the government. The task is to place the MVD organs in the service of the party and the government, to take these organs under the control of the party.... The task is to prevent abuse of power."
However, documents testify to what we specifically emphasized earlier, that the highest party body - the CPSU Central Committee - in the early 50s was not only informed about the activities of the MGB agencies, but also took a direct part in shaping their policy. Although real control over the activities of the MGB of the USSR was to a significant extent personalized, that is, concentrated in the hands of the General Secretary of the Central Committee, J.V. Stalin[9].
Later this fact of the awareness of the leaders of the party Central Committee about specific MGB "cases" was hushed up by the highest party leadership with the aim of removing themselves from possible criticism, which became the basis and cause of the concealment of many facts, which inevitably led to a distortion of historical truth.
On July 13, 1953, the Minister of Internal Affairs, S.N. Kruglov, submitted to the Chairman of the Council of Ministers, G.M. Malenkov, a memorandum on the reaction of the population to the arrest of Beria and his deputies.
It cited a statement by one of his contemporaries:
"... I am convinced that there will be more. However strong the machine may be, the collapse has begun. The scandal is big and vile. Now we shall wait and watch what happens next, whose turn it is." The same source also contained the following assessment of the events that had occurred: "The regime here does not change with a change of leadership. It was and is, in essence, a police regime. I do not believe in any ideological motives in the actions of not only Beria, but of others as well. This is an open struggle for power. In my opinion, the division of power has only just begun. One way or another, the collapse of this structure is inevitable sooner or later"[1 O].
It should be especially emphasized that immediately after the announcement of the arrest of L.P. Beria as an "enemy of the people," numerous statements and complaints from convicts and their relatives began to arrive at the procurator's offices and the CPSU Central Committee concerning the review of criminal cases and the use of unlawful methods in the course of conducting investigations.
In a memorandum to the Presidium of the Central Committee dated March 19, 1954, the Procurator of the USSR, R.A. Rudenko, and the Minister of Internal Affairs, S.N. Kruglov, noted that in the camps, colonies and prisons there were 467,946 persons convicted of counterrevolutionary crimes, a considerable share among whom were traitors, punitive officers and accomplices of the German-fascist occupiers, and that a further 62,462 persons were in exile after serving their main sentence for counterrevolutionary crimes.
Thus, on the basis of a joint directive of the Procurator's Office and the MGB of the USSR of October 26, 1948, No. 241/66ss, out of 45,048 persons previously convicted of "counterrevolutionary crimes" and released after serving their sentence, 12,081 persons were arrested by MGB organs and sent into exile "to remote areas of Siberia and the Far North."
Let us note, however, that this directive was issued in implementation of the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of February 21, 1948, on exile to settlement in remote areas of former spies, saboteurs, terrorists, Trotskyists, "Rightists," Mensheviks, Socialist Revolutionaries, anarchists and nationalists released upon completion of their sentences from camps and prisons after the end of the Great Patriotic War[11].
Of course, such genuinely voluntarist decisions constituted a gross violation of the principles of the administration of justice and of the constitutional rights of citizens, as a result of which there were indisputable legal grounds for the rehabilitation of persons who had become victims of lawlessness and legal arbitrariness.
In the said memorandum, R.A. Rudenko and S.N. Kruglov also emphasized that from August 1953 to March 1, 1954, the procuratorial bodies had received 78,982 appeals from citizens with petitions for rehabilitation, in connection with which it was proposed to create a special commission to review the cases of convicted persons[12]. The CPSU Central Committee was also informed that, in an extrajudicial manner, the Special Conference under the People's Commissar/Minister of Internal Affairs and State Security (the OSO) had, in 1934-1953, convicted 442,531 persons, most of them on "political charges" (these persons were included in the previously indicated total number of convicted persons, but this circumstance was specially singled out separately in connection with the special circumstances of the pronouncement of sentences). In 1941-1944, the OSO also
considered the cases of exposed agents of the German special services, fascist punitive forces and accomplices of the occupiers.
Of this total number of those convicted by the Special Conference over the 19 years of its existence (it was abolished on September 1, 1953), 1О 101 people were sentenced to capital punishment, 360 921 to imprisonment for various terms, and 67 539 people to exile and banishment[13].
On the basis of a proposal by USSR Prosecutor R.A. Rudenko and Minister of Internal Affairs S.N. Kruglov, set out in a memorandum of March 19, in May 1954 the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee decided to establish a Central Commission for the review of complaints and petitions of citizens convicted of "counter-revolutionary" crimes (Article 58 of the 1926 Criminal Code of the RSFSR. This article had 1О parts - various elements of crimes - from espionage, sabotage, wrecking, and terrorism to anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda - Article 58-1О).
This commission was vested with the right to review the sentences of persons convicted of counter-revolutionary crimes by the Collegium of the OGPU, as well as by the Special Conference (OSO) of the NKVD - MGB of the USSR.
On April 29, 1955, R.A. Rudenko reported to the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee on the results of the work of the Central Commission, namely that the commission had reviewed the criminal cases of 237,412 persons, while 125,202 persons involved in them had been refused a mitigation of punishment.
At the same time, sentences were annulled or criminal cases were terminated in respect of 8,973 persons, which meant their partial rehabilitation; 21,797 persons were released from places of deprivation of liberty, and exile was annulled for 1,371 convicted persons. In addition to this, the terms of punishment were reduced for 76,344 convicted persons, and in respect of 2,891 of them the charges were reclassified to less serious elements of crimes[14].
In addition to this, Visiting Commissions of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR were formed (a total of 97 of them were formed), vested with the right to declare amnesty in respect of convicted ordinary citizens and communists, but not nomenklatura party workers.
On the basis of the numerous facts of violation of the norms and principles of conducting investigations revealed by the Central Commission, similar commissions were created in the KGB under the Council of Ministers of the USSR, the KGB of the union and autonomous republics of the Union of the USSR, and the KGB administrations for territories and regions, for the review of investigative and criminal cases with the participation of procuratorial workers, vested with the right to review the decisions of the extrajudicial "dvoikas" and
"troikas" formed under the district and territorial administrations of the NKVD[15]. As a result of the work of these commissions, numerous facts were uncovered of violations of legality in the course of investigations and of the unjustified subjection of citizens to criminal liability, which entailed the review of their cases, the dropping of charges or the mitigation of the wording of the charge with the early release of the convicted persons.
But there were examples of a different kind as well, as evidenced by the fates of Generals P.A. Sudoplatov, N.M. Eitingon and Colonel Ya.I. Serebryansky[16].
In connection with the numerous facts of violations of socialist legality revealed in the process of reviewing criminal cases, at the end of 1955, a special Commission was formed in the CPSU Central Committee headed by Central Committee secretaries P.N. Pospelov and A.B. Aristov to assess the activities of the agencies of the NKVD-NKGB-MGB-MVD of the USSR in the 30s - 50s[17].
Thus, the process of rehabilitating unjustly convicted citizens began long before the 20th Congress of the CPSU.
Let us also emphasize the following important circumstances.
On the basis of the circumstances uncovered in the process of reviewing criminal cases in 1954-1957, as well as on the basis of the results of investigations in respect of high-ranking workers of the state security bodies, the identification and prosecution of persons guilty of violations of socialist legality began.
In the spring of 1954, the CPSU Central Committee also formed a commission under the chairmanship of K.E. Voroshilov to consider the cases of "special settlers," the result of whose work was the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of July 5, 1954, "On the Removal of Certain Restrictions in the Legal Status of Special Settlers" - which freed from the special settlement regime the families of dekulakized peasants, Russian Germans and Greeks.
This was the beginning of the revision of many legislative acts that determined the punitive policy of the Soviet Union.
As early as September 1, 1953, by a Resolution of the CPSU Central Committee and the Council of Ministers of the USSR, the Special Conference (OSO) under the MVD was abolished.
On April 19, 1954, the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee adopted a resolution
"On the Release from Exile to Settlement of Persons Previously Convicted of Anti-Soviet Activity" - persons sentenced to terms of up to 5 years. On August 3, 1954, by a Resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, the restriction on special settlers-kulaks was lifted.
On September 17, 1955, the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet (PVS) of the USSR "On the Amnesty of Soviet Citizens Who Collaborated with the Occupiers during the Great Patriotic War" was issued, in accordance with which servicemen of the Red Army and Navy convicted of surrender into captivity were subject to release from punishment.
On October 29, 1955, a month after the establishment of diplomatic relations with the Federal Republic of Germany, as a "gesture of good will," the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR issued a Decree "On the Early Release and Repatriation of German Prisoners of War Convicted of War Crimes."
Naturally, a new wave of petitions for the review of criminal cases surged after information appeared in March 1956 about the report by First Secretary of the Central Committee N.S. Khrushchev exposing the cult of personality of I.V. Stalin, which we will discuss further. And this, in turn, gave rise to new checks and "purges" among the ranks of KGB officers, new exposures of lawlessness and punishments.
The "review of archival criminal cases" became for several years one of the main areas of activity of the KGB agencies, incidentally, possibly to the detriment of other areas of work.
The subsequent steps and measures to eliminate and eradicate the consequences of violations of legality during the period of the cult of personality were worked out after the 20th Congress of the CPSU (14-24 February 1956), which became the starting point of a new stage in our country's history. The "Thaw," as publicists soon dubbed it.
N.S. Khrushchev's report of 25 February on the cult of personality of J.V. Stalin, unexpected for the congress delegates, split Soviet society and then the international communist movement. The ambiguity of the perception and assessment of the results of the 20th Congress of the CPSU is also shown by the polemic that manifested itself in materials devoted to the half-century anniversary of this event[18].
By virtue of a whole series of circumstances unknown to today's generation of our young fellow citizens, the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which began its work in the Grand Kremlin Palace on 14 February 1956, truly became an epochal event of world significance.
Meanwhile, at this congress new principles of the USSR's foreign policy were made public. The principle of peaceful coexistence of states with different social and political systems was made more concrete by the statement of the possibility of renouncing wars and preventing them.
At the same time, the inevitability of a sharp ideological struggle between the two social systems was noted
- the world of socialism and the world of capitalism. Let us recall that the United States of America in that period openly guided itself in the foreign policy sphere by the doctrine of "Rollback of communism."
It should be especially emphasized that the foundations of the USSR's foreign policy approved by the congress did not remain merely political declarations, but were consistently implemented in the diplomatic and political actions of the Soviet government.
For example, already a month after the congress concluded its work, on March 27, 1956, the Soviet representative submitted for consideration by the Subcommittee of the UN Disarmament Commission proposals on the limitation and reduction of conventional armaments and armed forces of all states. They provided, in particular, for the reduction, under international control, of the armies of the USSR, the USA and the PRC to 1-1.5 million people, of England and France to 650 thousand servicemen, of the armies of the remaining countries to 150 thousand, as well as the cessation of nuclear weapons tests and a reduction of military budgets.
But this and other peace initiatives of the USSR, including the large-scale reduction of the Armed Forces in 1955-1960, were not adequately appreciated by the leading foreign states. Which is demonstrated with complete obviousness by the rhetoric of the fortieth US president, R. Reagan[19].
Without in any way diminishing the international significance of the foreign policy initiatives of the Soviet Union first made public at the 20th Congress of the CPSU, it should be noted that the greatest interest, as well as lively, at times harsh discussions and polar assessments, both in our country and abroad, were and still are caused by questions of domestic policy.
As Ray Cline, who was at that time deputy director of the US Central Intelligence Agency, recalled about this, "Khrushchev's speech became an event of historical significance, for, having documented and exposed Stalinism as a political evil of unprecedented dimensions, he was forced to move to milder forms of totalitarian administration of the country"[20].
Let us note that in the Report of the Central Committee of the CPSU to the congress, criticism of Stalin's cult of personality and of the errors it engendered in state construction and administration was heard only in the third part of the report, and even then in a rather vague manner.
In particular, N.S. Khrushchev emphasized:
- Experience shows that at the slightest weakening of socialist legality the enemies of the Soviet state try to use it for their vile, subversive work. This is how the Beria gang, exposed by the party, acted, which tried to remove the state security agencies from the control of the party and the Soviet government, to place them above the Party and the Government, to create in these agencies an atmosphere of lawlessness and arbitrariness. For hostile purposes this clique fabricated false accusatory materials against honest leading officials and ordinary Soviet citizens.
The Central Committee checked the so-called "Leningrad case" and established that it had been fabricated by Beria and his henchmen in order to weaken the Leningrad party organization and discredit its cadres. Having established the groundlessness
of the "Leningrad case," the Central Committee of the party also checked a number of other dubious cases."
Let us state at once that here, as in certain places in the report on Stalin's cult of personality, Khrushchev allows inaccuracies, since it was not Beria who was the initiator of the "Leningrad affair," but the Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, G.M. Malenkov. Let us, however, continue quoting the Report of the Central Committee to the 20th Party Congress.
"The Central Committee took measures to restore justice. On the proposal of the Central Committee, people who had been unjustly convicted were rehabilitated. From all this the Central Committee drew serious conclusions. Proper control by the Party and the Government over the work of the state security agencies has been established. Considerable
work has been carried out to strengthen the state security, court and procurator's agencies with verified cadres. Procuratorial supervision has been fully restored in its rights and strengthened.
It is necessary that our party, state and trade-union organizations vigilantly stand guard over Soviet laws, expose and bring to light anyone who encroaches on socialist law and order and the rights of Soviet citizens, and severely suppress the slightest manifestation of lawlessness and arbitrariness.
It should be said that in connection with the review and annulment of a number of cases, a certain distrust of the officers of the state security agencies began to manifest itself among some comrades. This, of course, is wrong and very harmful. We know that the cadres of our Chekists in their overwhelming majority consist of honest workers devoted to our common cause, and we trust these cadres.
It must not be forgotten that the enemies have always tried, and will continue to try, to hinder the great cause of building communism. The capitalist encirclement sent many spies and saboteurs to us. It would be naive to suppose that now the enemies will abandon their attempts to harm us in every way. Everyone knows that subversive activity against our country is openly supported and publicized by reactionary circles in a number of capitalist states. It is enough to say that the USA has been allocating, starting in 1951, 100 million dollars annually for subversive activity against the socialist countries. Therefore we must in every way raise revolutionary vigilance among the Soviet people and strengthen the organs of state security."
Among the most important tasks, the Report of the CPSU Central Committee demanded:
"To vigilantly watch the machinations of those circles which are not interested in the easing of international tension, and to expose in good time the subversive actions of the opponents of peace and the security of peoples.
To take the necessary measures for the further strengthening of the defense might of our state, to keep our defense at the level of modern military technology and science that ensures the security of our socialist state"[21].
But nevertheless, the main event of the 20th Congress, which gave it not only truly world-historical significance but also a certain mysterious-detective element, was N.S. Khrushchev's closed report on Stalin's cult of personality, delivered after the congress had already concluded its work, not previously indicated on its agenda.
Since we will have to turn more than once in what follows to the content of this historical document, it seems advisable to briefly acquaint the reader with certain provisions of this report.
In preparing the text of the report, Khrushchev relied on materials submitted to him by the USSR Procurator's Office, the KGB under the USSR Council of Ministers, the Commission of P.N. Pospelov and A.B. Aristov, and the Party Control Committee of the CPSU Central Committee.
In the report on the work of the latter for the period from October 1952 to March 1, 1956, it was noted:
" ... As a result of the CPSU Central Committee's exposure of the Beria gang and its accomplices, it became clear that they, abusing power, committed flagrant arbitrariness and grossly violated socialist legality - without any grounds they enrolled honest and devoted Party workers among the enemies of the people, and tried to place the state security organs above the Party.... The CPC conducted an investigation and examination of the cases of NKVD-MGB workers who had permitted the falsification of investigative materials... it was established that the former leadership of the USSR Procurator's Office (Comrade Safonov) and of the Main Military Procurator's Office (Comrade Vasilyev) did not fulfill their first Party and state duty
- the highest supervision over the observance of socialist legality by the judicial and investigative organs. In giving sanctions for the arrest of Soviet citizens on political charges, they blindly believed the materials of the NKVD-MGB investigation and subsequently did not exercise control or supervision over the investigation in these cases, and rubber-stamped the indictments drawn up by falsifiers.
The Military Collegium of the USSR Supreme Court... did not go deeply into what concrete materials and evidence these charges were based on, did not study the circumstances of this or that case, as a result of which unjust sentences were handed down... In a number of cases sentences were handed down by the Military Collegium
in absentia, the defendants' statements of innocence were not taken into account, cases were considered within 1O - 15 minutes, witnesses were not questioned ...»[22].
It must be emphasized at once that the text of Khrushchev's report itself, without being published in the press, was after the Congress sent out as a closed document of the Central Committee of the CPSU to all Party organizations and was read out at Party and Komsomol meetings. The leadership of foreign communist parties was also acquainted with it.
Despite the fact that the text of the report was confidential in nature, already in June 1956 its content, namely the most serious accusations against the "leader of all peoples," became widely known throughout the world: a photocopy of the report was handed over in Warsaw to an employee of the Shabak (the Israeli "General Security Service," i.e. the country's counterintelligence) by the correspondent of the PAP agency Wiktor Grajewski[23].
The US Secretary of State and the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, the brothers John Foster and Allen Dulles, had a direct hand in the wide publication of the text of Khrushchev's report on the cult of personality in the West: on June 4, 1956, it was simultaneously published in the USA by the State Department and the newspaper "New York Times," and was then read out in broadcasts of the radio stations controlled by the CIA,
"Svoboda" and "Free Europe."
Later, in his book "The Craft of Intelligence" in 1963, A. Dulles wrote: "I have always regarded this case as one of the greatest intelligence operations during my time in intelligence. Since the report was fully published by the State Department, obtaining its text was also one of those few feats of which one could speak openly, provided that the sources and methods of acquiring the document continued to remain secret"[24].
Despite the fact that in the Soviet Union the identity of the published text was not confirmed, it was included in many foreign collections of speeches and interviews of N.S. Khrushchev with the note "in accordance with the text transmitted for the acquaintance of delegations of foreign communist parties"[25].
The bitter and heavy truth of Khrushchev's report was so impressive that already in 1988 and 1989 the Teleks publishing house in the USA issued the second and third editions of the pamphlet in Russian,
"Khrushchev on Stalin," providing it with an afterword-commentary from the "Memoirs" of the former General Secretary of the Central Committee. (In order to avoid possible doubts and speculation on this matter, let us note at once that the excerpts from Khrushchev's memoirs are identical to their Russian edition.)
Officially in our country, the text of N.S. Khrushchev's report to the delegates of the 20th Congress of the CPSU "On the Cult of Personality of J.V. Stalin and Its Consequences" was first published only in March 1989 in the journal "Izvestia of the CPSU Central Committee" (No. 3(4).
Naturally, many provisions of the report or their interpretations were actively used in anti-Soviet and anti-communist propaganda both abroad and in the USSR itself and in other socialist countries, which led to serious political crises in the autumn of 1956 in the Polish People's Republic and the Hungarian People's Republic.
I should also state at the outset that I am, of course, familiar with the book by the American professor Grover Furr, "Anti-Stalinist Villainy," which gained a certain popularity in our country and was published in England in 2006, the year of the fiftieth anniversary of the Twentieth Congress of the CPSU. (In the English-language version its title is even more categorical: "Khrushchev Lied!" (Khrutchev Lied).
However, one should not frivolously take on faith his words that "of all the assertions of the 'closed report' to the party that exposed Stalin or Beria, not a single one turned out to be true"[26].
But what can be explained and forgiven in a foreign author cannot but surprise us in some of our own compatriots. A considerable share of Ferre's objections and "exposés" concerned groundless accusations against Beria, whereas in reality other persons were involved in these actions - Yagoda, Yezhov, Zakovsky, Abakumov, etc., which does not change their criminal essence, and to no lesser degree - the role of Stalin himself in the repressions of the 30s - 50s.
In the memoirs he dictated in the late 60s, N.S. Khrushchev said of him: "In everything concerning Stalin's personality, one encounters both the good and the correct, and the wild, which fits neither
framework whatsoever. One must examine all sides of this complex personality"[27] ....
In our view, we should also touch upon the question of the motives behind Khrushchev's speech - a man undoubtedly personally implicated in the repressions - with a report exposing them. Khrushchev himself wrote about this quite frankly: "... despite the fact that I had long doubted the justice of the accusations against many 'enemies of the people,' on the whole I did not distrust Stalin. I believed that excesses had occurred, but that basically everything had been done correctly." And a little further on he admitted no less frankly: "By the turn of the 50s I had formed the opinion that when Stalin died, everything must be done to prevent Beria from assuming a leading position in the party"[28].
Direct data on N.S. Khrushchev's personal involvement in carrying out the repressions are given in the memorandum of the Commission of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee for the additional investigation of the repressions that took place in the period of the 30s - 40s and the beginning of the 50s in the CPSU Central Committee, dated 25 December 1988[29].
The letters received by the CPSU Central Committee after the arrest of L.P. Beria and his entourage from the repressed and their relatives, and the materials of their verification by the procurator's bodies in 1953-1954, revealed numerous facts of abuses by investigators and of the groundlessness and lack of proof of the accusations brought.
"I felt a need," wrote N.S. Khrushchev, "to lift the curtain and find out how the investigation had actually been conducted, what arrests had taken place, how many people had been arrested in all, what initial materials had existed for an arrest, and what the investigation of these cases subsequently showed ... Gradually everyone (the members of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee - O.Kh.) agreed that an investigation had to be conducted, and a Commission was created, headed by Pospelov."
The answer to this question was presented to the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee in the reports of the 1st Special Department of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs dated 11 December 1953. Let us cite excerpts from these documents.
Statistical data on the number of those arrested and convicted according to the materials of the bodies of the VChK - OGPU - NKVD - MGB of the USSR in 1921-1953.
It must be especially emphasized that out of the total number of 1,115,427 persons convicted of counterrevolutionary crimes in the period 1939 - the first half of 1953, the years of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 account for 476,617 convicted persons.
Out of the total number of those convicted according to the materials of the state security bodies, 799,455 persons were sentenced to the supreme measure of punishment, the rest to deprivation of liberty, exile, banishment, or other measures of punishment (expulsion abroad, compulsory treatment, corrective labor, suspended sentences)[31].
Besides those convicted of "counter-revolutionary crimes" in criminal cases by courts and by the extrajudicial bodies of the NKVD - NKGB - MGB of the USSR, from 1940 to 1952 approximately 2 million 300 thousand people were deported (sent into exile) throughout the country[32]. We emphasize in particular that however bitter these figures may be, already in 1988 they were at the disposal of the special Commission of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee for the additional study of materials connected with the repressions that took place in the period of the 30s - 40s and the beginning of the 50s, headed by A.N. Yakovlev, but were not then made public officially, giving rise to a mass of all kinds of conjectures and political speculations that had the most negative effect on the moral and political situation in society.
It is necessary to speak about these dramatic pages of our history and to know the truth because, as our well-known compatriot N.M. Karamzin said - History is the only science that turns a person into a citizen! Let us recall that history does not give grades for lessons left unlearned; it merely punishes for not knowing them!
The report of the Commission of P.N. Pospelov and A.B. Aristov, presented to the Central Committee Presidium in January 1956, shook the narrow circle of its readers - even the most informed, the most "long-standing" members of the top party leadership were hardly likely to have had any idea before this of the true picture of the repressions, but they, naturally, were not eager to make these facts public, reasonably
assuming that questions about their personal awareness, participation, and so on would inevitably arise.
Whatever the motives by which Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev was guided in proposing to publicize the circumstances that had come to light before the members of the Central Committee Presidium, this was, indisputably, a courageous, principled political decision.
Persuading his colleagues in the party leadership, Khrushchev said:
- When the party learns the truth from former prisoners, we will be told: allow me, how is this: the Twentieth Congress took place and nothing was told to us there. To say that we knew nothing would be a lie: after all, we now know the whole truth, both about the repressions, which were in no way justified, and about Stalin's arbitrariness.
Objecting, the former People's Commissar of Defense K.E. Voroshilov warned of the inevitable consequences of a speech about the repressions:
- Rumors about what happened under Stalin will become public knowledge, and then we will be called to account. How will we be able to explain what we did under Stalin?!
Nevertheless, the majority of the members of the Central Committee Presidium voted for the decision that N.S. Khrushchev personally deliver the corresponding report.
Khrushchev was right when he said that "the majority of listeners learned the truth about the tragic events for the first time: the delegates were struck by the account of the atrocities that had been committed against honored people, old Bolsheviks and young people ..... It was a tragedy for the party and for the delegates of the congress"[ZZ].
Alas, the tragedy also lay in the fact that the party leadership had not thought through what should follow on its part after the report on the crimes of the previous era?
As a consequence of this, the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee and Khrushchev lost the initiative: let us recall that the Central Committee Resolution on overcoming the consequences of the cult of personality of Stalin appeared only on July 5, 1956, a month after the content of the report became known abroad, and it began to be read out on the airwaves of radio stations broadcasting to the USSR and the countries of people's democracy in the languages of the peoples inhabiting them....
Was the publication of the bitter truth inevitable? - Absolutely!
And on February 25, addressing the delegates of the congress, N.S. Khrushchev prophetically foretold:
- What is at issue now is a question of enormous significance both for the present and for the future of the party.
The First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee emphasized the need to "seriously examine and correctly analyze this question in order to exclude any possibility of a repetition of even any semblance of what took place during Stalin's lifetime, who displayed complete intolerance toward collectivity in leadership and work, and permitted crude violence against everything that not only contradicted him but seemed to him... to contradict his positions."
And whoever tried to prove his point of view, "that person was doomed to exclusion from the leading collective with subsequent moral and physical annihilation." In the period 1935-1938, rang out from the rostrum of the party congress, "a practice took shape of mass repressions along the state line, first against opponents of Leninism, and then also against many honest communists, against those cadres of the party who had borne on their shoulders the civil war, the first most difficult years of industrialization and collectivization. This led to flagrant violations of revolutionary legality, to the fact that many people suffered who were completely innocent of anything, people who in the past had spoken out for the party line."
It is entirely natural that at the party congress Khrushchev spoke about repressions against members of the VKP(b), although unjustified political repressions directly affected many of our non-party fellow citizens as well. This entirely understandable and explicable inconsistency and incompleteness on Khrushchev's part subsequently gave rise to no small number of questions, discussions and disputes.
To combat "dissent," the speaker continued, a convenient formulation devoid of legal content was invented for imaginary and genuine crimes - "enemy of the people."
Arbitrarily interrupting Khrushchev's speech here, it unfortunately must be noted that later as well, during the years of "perestroika," we again encountered a recurrence of this primitive-confrontational thinking in times of the search for hidden "enemies": of perestroika,
"progress" and "democracy."
Stalin, the First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee stated, discarded
"the Leninist method of persuasion and education, and went over to the path of administrative pressure, to the path of mass repressions, to the path of terror. He acted ever more broadly and persistently through the punitive organs, often violating in the process all existing norms of morality and Soviet laws. The arbitrariness of one person encouraged and permitted the arbitrariness of others....
The mass arrests and exiles of thousands upon thousands... engendered uncertainty in people, evoked fear and even bitterness. If in this struggle (with the "deviationists" from the party line - O.Kh.) a Leninist approach had been displayed, a skillful combination of party principle with a sensitive and attentive attitude toward people, a desire not to push people away, not to lose them, but to win them over to one's side, then we probably would not have had such a crude violation of revolutionary legality, the application of methods of terror against many thousands of people...".
Khrushchev informed the congress that the CPSU Central Committee's examination in 1953-1955 of a number of criminal cases concerning repressed persons "revealed an unsightly picture of crude arbitrariness connected with Stalin's improper actions."
Those acknowledged as "enemies of the people" in reality had never been enemies, spies, wreckers, etc.... But they were slandered, and sometimes, unable to endure savage tortures, they themselves informed on themselves (at the dictation of falsifying investigators) with all manner of grave and incredible accusations....
A significant portion of these cases is now being reviewed and a large number of them are being terminated as unfounded and falsified.
It suffices to say that from 1954 to the present the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court has already rehabilitated 7,679 persons, and many of them have been rehabilitated posthumously....
The repressions, the mass arrests, the speaker concluded, "inflicted enormous damage on our country, on the cause of building socialism, and all manner of slanderers and careerists became more active ....
In recent years, when we freed ourselves from the vicious practice of the cult of personality and outlined a number of measures in the area of domestic
and foreign policy, everyone sees how literally before our eyes the activity of the broad masses of working people is growing, their creative initiative is developing, how beneficially this is beginning to tell on the results of our economic and cultural construction....
We must resolutely, once and for all, debunk the cult of personality and draw the appropriate conclusions both in the area of ideological-theoretical and in the area of practical work."
For this, the following was specifically proposed:
- to eradicate the cult of personality as alien to the spirit of Marxism-Leninism and incompatible with the principles of party leadership and the norms of party life, and to wage a merciless struggle against all and every attempt to revive it in one form or another;
- to conduct consistently and persistently the work of most strictly observing in all party organizations from top to bottom the Leninist principles of party leadership and above all the highest principle - collectivity of leadership, of observing the norms of party life enshrined in the CPSU Charter, of unfolding criticism and self-criticism;
- to restore the Leninist principles of democratism expressed in the USSR Constitution, and to wage struggle against the arbitrariness of persons abusing power.
On the basis of N.S. Khrushchev's report, the congress instructed the newly elected Central Committee of the CPSU "to consistently carry out measures ensuring the complete overcoming of the cult of personality alien to Marxism-Leninism, the elimination of its consequences in all areas of party, state and ideological work, and the strict implementation of the norms of party life and the principles of collectivity of leadership"[34].
N.S. Khrushchev's report, a contemporary of his noted, "made a downright stunning impression. It was simply impossible to take in at once everything that was said, so heavy and unexpected were the facts, made public for the first time, of such large-scale violations of legality and monstrous repressions ... One had to properly comprehend everything that was said, to understand how such a thing could have happened in a socialist country.... In strategic terms, the chosen course was the only correct one; without it the healthy development of society was impossible. Tactically, however, we made a serious mistake by taking this step without the appropriate propaganda support ... Vast masses of Soviet people, meanwhile, found themselves in the position of being guilty without guilt, experiencing a feeling of bitter disappointment and emptiness"[35].
Let me emphasize at once that, in my conviction, whatever may be said or written about Andropov, Yuri Vladimirovich always was and remained a consistent adherent of the course and decisions of the Twentieth Congress. Which is what earned him a reputation as a "liberal" in certain strata of Soviet society at that time. Paradoxical as it may be, in sometimes diametrically opposed groups - from Party officials of various ranks to the intelligentsia and "dissidents" (we will discuss in more detail further on the peculiarities of the interpretation and perception of the latter term).
The set of measures for restoring legality and historical truth and justice received further concretization in the resolution of the CPSU Central Committee "On Overcoming the Consequences of the Cult of Personality of Stalin," published in the central organ of the Central Committee, the newspaper Pravda, on July 5, 1956.
Let me explain that already in the early 70s of the last century, while studying the history of the CPSU at a Chekist higher education institution, the author of these lines drew attention to the fact that in the official, periodically published multi-volume collection of documents "The CPSU in Resolutions and Decisions of Party Congresses and Plenums of the Central Committee" only a brief fragment of this document was included, and therefore for the modern reader it seems necessary to present it more fully, since it is also most directly connected with the subject of our historical narrative.
In this resolution of the Central Committee, in particular, it was noted that the "important fundamental theoretical propositions advanced by the Twentieth Congress of the CPSU on the peaceful coexistence of states with different social systems, on the possibility of preventing wars in the new era, on the diversity of forms of transition of countries to socialism exert a beneficial influence on the international situation, promote the easing of tensions, and strengthen the unity of action of all forces fighting for peace and democracy."
At the same time it was noted that in the capitalist countries a broad anti-Soviet propaganda campaign had been unleashed in connection with the CPSU's condemnation of the cult of personality of I.V. Stalin. It was emphasized in this connection that "the organizers of this campaign are making every effort to 'muddy the waters,' to conceal the fact that what is at issue is a stage in the life of the Soviet country that has been passed; they want to keep silent about and distort the fact that the consequences of the cult of personality are being eliminated with exceptional persistence and determination...
Unfolding a slanderous campaign, the ideologists of the bourgeoisie are trying to cast a shadow on the great ideas of Marxism-Leninism, to undermine the working people's trust in the world's first socialist country - the USSR, and to sow confusion in the ranks of the international communist and workers' movement.
The Congress instructed the CPSU Central Committee to consistently carry out measures ensuring the complete overcoming of the cult of personality, which is alien to Marxism-Leninism, to eliminate its consequences in all areas of Party, state and ideological work, and to strictly observe the norms of Party life and the principles of collective Party leadership....
The facts of violations of socialist legality and other errors connected with the personality cult of J.V. Stalin made public by the Party naturally evoke feelings of bitterness and deep regret. But Soviet people understand that the condemnation of the personality cult was necessary... The Soviet people see that in recent years the Party has persistently carried out practical measures aimed at eliminating the consequences of the personality cult ...».
The resolution also emphasized that the state security organs had undoubted services to the people and the country, but «the situation changed when control over them by the Party and the government was gradually replaced by Stalin's personal control, and the ordinary administration of the norms of justice was not infrequently replaced by his sole decisions», as a result of which many honest people were slandered and innocently suffered. «The facts show that Stalin is guilty of many lawless acts, which were committed especially in the last period of his life. However, at the same time one must not forget that Soviet people knew Stalin as a man who
always stood up in defense of the USSR against the intrigues of enemies, fought for the cause of socialism ...».
The resolution said that the facts cited explain, but by no means justify, the personality cult and its consequences, which were sharply and justly condemned by the Party:
«The Party firmly stands guard over Leninism, the cause of socialism and communism, the observance of socialist legality and the interests of the people, and the safeguarding of the rights of Soviet citizens.
This is the best proof of the strength and vitality of the Soviet socialist system. At the same time it speaks of the determination to overcome to the end the consequences of the personality cult and not to permit in future a repetition of errors of a similar nature».
Unfortunately, one has to state that the country and the Party could not avoid recurrences of the revival of the «personality cult» of the first leaders of the state in the second half of the past century as well.
The resolution also noted that the condemnation of the personality cult and its consequences «evoked approval and wide responses in all fraternal communist and workers' parties ... Communists of foreign countries regard the struggle against the personality cult and its consequences as a struggle for the purity of the principles of Marxism-Leninism, for a creative approach to the solution of the contemporary problems of the international working-class movement, for the affirmation and further development of the principles of proletarian internationalism...».
At a time, the resolution emphasized, when «the Soviet Union has done and is doing much for the relaxation of international tension, American monopoly capital continues to allocate large sums to intensify subversive activity in the socialist countries. In the midst of
the «cold war», as is known, the American Congress officially (apart from the funds allocated unofficially) allocated 100 million dollars solely for subversive activity in the countries of people's democracy and in the Soviet Union. Now, when the Soviet Union and other socialist countries are doing everything possible to weaken international tension, the supporters of the «cold war» are trying to activate actions condemned by the peoples of the whole world
of the «cold war». This is shown by the decision of the American Senate on an additional allocation of 25 million dollars for subversive activity, which is cynically called «encouragement of freedom behind the «Iron Curtain»[36].
The resolution further emphasized: «We must firmly assess this fact and draw the appropriate conclusions from it. All this shows that carelessness must not be permitted with regard to new intrigues of the imperialist agents seeking to penetrate into the socialist countries in order to harm and undermine the achievements of the working people.
Now, when socialism has become a world system, when fraternal cooperation and mutual assistance have been established between the socialist countries, new favorable conditions have been created for the flourishing of socialist democracy, for the further strengthening of the material and production base of socialism, for the steady rise of the living standard of the working people, and for the all-round development of the personality of the new man - the builder of communist society».
Such was the content of this historical document, which summed up a certain result of the work done to free ourselves from the burden of past errors and crimes, a discussion of which we will have to return to more than once in the course of our narrative.
Comprehension of the picture of the «great terror» that had been revealed required the adoption of measures capable of excluding a repetition of such tragedies.
One of the directions was the repeal of legislative acts that had created the prerequisites for unjustified repressions.
Thus, on April 19, 1956, by a Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet (PVS) of the USSR, the resolutions of the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR of December 1, 1934, «On the procedure for conducting cases concerning the preparation or commission of terrorist acts» and of September 14, 1937, «On introducing changes in the criminal procedure codes of the union republics» were repealed.
On April 28, a Decree of the PVS of the USSR removed the special settlement regime from the peoples of the North Caucasus and the Crimea deported in 1944, which meant the actual rehabilitation of hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens who had become victims of the unlawful application of the principle of objective imputation of a nonexistent «guilt».
On November 24, 1956, the Central Committee of the CPSU adopted a resolution on the restoration of the national autonomy of the Ingush and Chechen peoples, deported in February 1944 (the corresponding Decree of the PVS of the USSR followed on January 9, 1957).
At the same time, the national statehood of the Balkar, Kalmyk and Karachay peoples was restored[37].
In parallel with the review of criminal cases, there was a process of checking the personnel of the KGB organs for involvement in violations of legality - such facts were not infrequently uncovered in the course of reviewing archival cases on complaints and appeals of citizens with requests for rehabilitation.
In this connection, the report of the Commission of Party Control under the Central Committee of the CPSU on its work in 1956 - 1961 noted that it had considered 387 personal cases against those guilty of gross violation of socialist legality, and 347 of them were expelled from the CPSU. Among them - 1О former ministers of internal affairs and state security (union and republican) and their deputies, 77 «responsible workers» of the central, oblast, krai and republican apparatuses of the NKVD-MGB, 72 heads of city and district departments of the MGB[38].
I.A. Serov reported on this matter to the CPSU Central Committee in June 1957 that since the formation of the KGB under the USSR Council of Ministers, that is, since March 1954, "more than 18 thousand people" had been dismissed "from the organs," including "more than 2,300 employees for violations of socialist legality, abuse of official position and official misconduct. About 200 people were dismissed from the KGB's Central apparatus, and 40 were stripped of their general's ranks." He also noted that, compared with 1954, the KGB's personnel strength had been reduced by more than 50%, and in 1955 the personnel strength was additionally reduced by another 7,678 units, and 7,800 officers were transferred to the status of workers and employees[39].
As the chairman of the KGB of the USSR, V.A. Kryuchkov, subsequently informed people's deputies at a session of the USSR Supreme Soviet in July 1989, in 1954-1957 alone, for gross violations of legality that led to unjustified repressions, 1,342 employees of the NKVD-MGB were brought to criminal responsibility, including some of them who were sentenced to be shot, among them a number of former heads of NKVD-MGB organs in the center and in the localities. 2,370 people suffered punishments
in Party and administrative proceedings (dismissed from the KGB organs, expelled from the CPSU, deprived of pensions, military ranks, etc.)[40].
As was subsequently noted in a note from the KGB of the USSR to the Commission of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee for the additional study of materials connected with the repressions that took place in the period of the 30s - 40s and the early 50s, dated 3 June 1988, in total, in 1953-1962, 1 197 847 people were rehabilitated, and by
the end of 1983 - another 157,055 people[41].
The CIA and ideological subversion
"I personally have had my fill of human rights. At one time both we and the CIA and the USA used this idea as a battering ram for destroying the communist regime and breaking up the USSR. This idea has served its purpose, and enough of lying about human rights and human rights activists. Otherwise we might just cut down the branch we are all sitting on."
V.I. Novodvorskaya, a well-known dissident, leader
of the "Democratic Union." The newspaper "Novy Vzglyad," July 1994.
Back in 1955, the authors of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, in the article "Agent Intelligence," emphasized: "Along with espionage, the a[gent]. i[ntelligence]. of the capitalist states is also engaged in economic, political and ideological subversion"[1].
The question of the purpose, essence and content of ideological subversion still gives rise to considerable lively discussion in our country. What is hidden behind this concept?
Some believe that behind this euphemism is hidden the banal "struggle against dissent," against "dissidents." This point of view is presented, for example, in the article by N.V. Petrov "The KGB's Special Structures for Combating Dissent in the USSR. 1954
- 1989))[2].
However, it too not only fails to examine all aspects of the problem, but also has a number of methodological flaws that substantially distort the real picture of the historical process. In this connection, one can hardly agree without any reservations with the author's assertion that "throughout the entire period.... within the state security structures there existed subunits whose tasks included combating 'thought crimes,' i.e., combating all those who in one form or another spoke out against Soviet power." As for the activities of the 5th Directorate of the KGB of the USSR, such an assertion appears especially dubious.
From the subject matter and context of the historical analysis by N.V. Petrov, as well as by A.I. Pozharov, there are excluded the conceptual views of the "main adversary" - the strategists of the USA and other leading imperialist states - on the goals and tasks of foreign-policy confrontation with the USSR, as well as the role and purpose of "psychological warfare."
The aforementioned authors also fail to take into account the evolution, the change of paradigms, of the conceptual views of foreign theorists of geopolitical confrontation with the USSR, which in the second half of the 20th century also underwent a number of substantial transformations. Yet even the foreign-policy doctrines officially proclaimed by the USA - from G. Truman's concept of "containment of communism" (1947 - 1953), D. Eisenhower's "rollback of communism" (1954 - 1963), to L. Johnson's policy of "building bridges" (1964 - 1980) and R. Reagan's "crushing of the evil empire" (1981 - 1988) - clearly demonstrate this.
In our view, without taking into account the real doctrinal, strategic and tactical positions of the "main adversary" in the sphere of "secret warfare," it is impossible to reconstruct and conduct an objective analysis of the activities of the KGB of the USSR as a whole and of its 5th Directorate.
It should be noted that foreign theorists of covert confrontation and intelligence-subversive influence on the Soviet Union regarded ideological subversion not only as an integral part of "psychological warfare," but also as a most important instrument for implementing the policy of "cold war," aimed at achieving victory over a geopolitical rival and competitor.
Let us recall that an integral part of the policy of "building bridges" proclaimed in 1964 was "functional penetration into the Soviet system," which meant a striving to expand intelligence-subversive influence on the USSR, as well as on the socialist states of Europe and Asia.
To sort out the question of the essence of ideological subversion, let us turn to the works of recognized authorities on the activities of special services.
Back in the first domestic scholarly work devoted to questions of intelligence, published in 1911, "Secret Forces (Military Espionage)," Major General V.N. Klembovsky of the General Staff emphasized that the purpose of intelligence activity is the obtaining of information about armies, probable theaters of military operations, the population and the economy.
At the same time, the group "Information about the population" included: the approximate density of the population, its composition by tribes and religious confessions, the mood of the inhabitants, their mores, customs, type of occupations, degree of prosperity, administrative structure, the number and character of populated areas."
Among his general conclusions, Klembovsky pointed out what was subsequently repeatedly echoed by many who wrote about problems of ensuring security: "As long as ideas about universal disarmament and world peace have not emerged from the realm of dreams, every state must be prepared for war with its neighbors." And this preparedness is expressed, among other things, in a careful study of the means of struggle of adjacent states, which sounds no less relevant today. Therefore the author also pointed to
"the necessity of constant awareness of the intentions and forces, both material and moral, of one's neighbors." At the same time, he emphasized the necessity of concealing one's own defensive potential.
In a memorandum submitted in 1915 to the commission for the reorganization of Russian counterintelligence, V.A. Yerandakov, who had previously headed the Petrograd Counterintelligence Department (KRO) for 5 years, emphasized that German intelligence carries out not only the collection of military information about the active army, but also actively conducts diplomatic, commercial-industrial (economic) intelligence, organizes acts of sabotage and diversion, and conducts subversive propaganda[Z].
In one of the first Soviet works, published by the Intelligence Directorate of the RKKA in 1921, a manual by the deputy head of the agent intelligence department of the RU RKKA, Alexander Ivanovich Kuk, "The Framework of Agent Intelligence," 2 most important conclusions were emphasized:
1. Agent intelligence does not distinguish between the concepts of peacetime and wartime.
2. Among the most important political tasks of intelligence is the exercise of purposeful influence on the population of a hostile state through the press, propaganda, the spreading of rumors, the dissemination of certain ideas and views that undermine faith in the authorities of one's own country.
The history of the First World War, especially the activities of German intelligence, provided no small grounds for such a conclusion.
Let us emphasize one extremely important circumstance: similar views on the tasks and role of special services in the future, and on the character and content of "secret warfare," were also expressed by foreign researchers. After all, the lessons of the First World War were drawn by all the countries that participated in it, and corresponding conclusions were drawn from them.
As if echoing Kuk, in 1923 the head of German intelligence during the First World War, Walter Nicolai, prophetically wrote about the future role of intelligence in world politics: "Along the path to future development goes intelligence, striving to discern this path and to influence it .... The secret power of intelligence will in the future be far more significant than it was in the past and is at the present time."
Our compatriot, Major General of the General Staff of the tsarist army N.I. Batyushin, went even further in substantiating the strategy and tactics of secret warfare.
In particular, in lectures delivered in Bulgaria for military courses for Russian émigrés, he emphasized:
- Just as the army and navy are an instrument of strategy, so
the word, or propaganda in general, is a weapon of politics, whereby
both strategy and political propaganda must work hand in hand, having only one goal - victory over the enemy. Political propaganda pursues the goal... of lowering the morale of one's adversary by direct influence or through neutral countries.
...The methods of political propaganda must be extremely delicate, so that its slogans do not strike the eye by their harshness, but as it were float in the air, imperceptibly creating the moods of the masses, i.e. a popular movement[4].
In 1925 these lectures became the basis of his book, published in the city of Sofia. Drawing on his own counterintelligence experience, Batyushin noted:
- Already the First World War, along with firearms, elevated to a position equal to them the psychological weapon as well - the word, which is a means of political propaganda acting upon the moral element of peoples.
Substantiating this conclusion, Batyushin cited the words of the chief of the German economic staff at the Ministry of War, Colonel Thomas, who wrote more than 70 years ago: "The whole world knows that the future war will be not only a war of weapons, but that the entire people, with all its might, its economy, its capabilities and knowledge, its spiritual and material values, will have to take part in it. (Illustrierte Zeitung, November 26, 1936) [5].
In the preface to a book published in Paris in 1938 about the activities of German intelligence during the First World War, the vice-chairman of the Supreme War Council of France, General Maxime Weygand, also wrote: "Probably never before has so much been said about war as now. In conversations everyone agrees that if the scourge of war again strikes Europe, then this time the war will be 'all-encompassing' ('total'). This means that not only people capable of bearing arms will participate in the struggle, but all the resources of the nation will also be mobilized, while aviation will place the most remote regions under the threat of destruction and death."
Let us recall that this was written a year and a half before the beginning of
the implementation of Hitler's plans for the "expansion of German living space," but when the foreboding of a new
great war had already begun gradually to take hold of the consciousness of the elites of the states bordering Germany.
"Along with open attack on the enemy," Weygand continued, "so-called
"other war" will also unfold on a broad scale - a secret war and likewise an "all-encompassing" one, whose task will include the demoralization of the enemy, the rousing of broad public opinion against him (propaganda), the striving to learn his plans and intentions (espionage), the hindering of supplies (sabotage in the rear)).
Here it should be noted that Maxime Weygand knew well the subject he was speaking about, since before this he had for 5 years headed the French General Staff, to which the famous "2nd Bureau" - the military intelligence of France - was subordinate.
And in the period described he personally conducted negotiations with the Turkish authorities and representatives of the anti-Soviet Caucasian post-revolutionary emigration about organizing intelligence and subversive work on the territory of the USSR.
Giving a general assessment of the work presented, Weygand presciently noted that "such books, by explaining the facts of the past, give the reader the opportunity to some degree to penetrate the secrets of the future"[6].
And in the first domestic textbook on counterintelligence, "Espionage," prepared by the Plenipotentiary Representative of the OGPU for the Western Krai, S.S. Turlo, and published in 1924, attention was drawn to the circumstance that "in the modern era war is waged above all on the economic, political, and diplomatic fronts, and last of all on the military front. Therefore the significance of modern intelligence has grown to enormous dimensions, and along with its significance the sphere of intelligence has also expanded. All the enumerated spheres of the life of states have become closely interwoven with one another, each complements the other and each depends on the other both in peacetime and in wartime. In connection with this, the intelligence service has expanded to gigantic dimensions and has become extremely complicated and needs a solid organization, system and order"[?].
During the period of the world war, S.S. Turlo emphasized, "the sides
no longer limited themselves merely to discovering ... , but upon uncovering secrets they strove in every way, also secretly, to undermine the implementation, the carrying out into life, of these secrets - secret intelligence acquired an active character. This feature of secret intelligence, as bearing the signs of the terrorization and disorganization of the state life and military system of the opposing side, is extremely serious and places secret intelligence on a completely different plane than before the world war" {Ibid., p. 417).
On the significance of this type of intelligence, which he called active intelligence, Stanislav Stepanovich also wrote: "... it is more advantageous to disrupt the enemy's plans by active intervention, to shake his international and undermine his internal political position, to weaken his economic well-being, to destroy stocks of military materials, to introduce decomposition into the ranks of the troops and the command staff, to compromise or, by means of terror, to eliminate state or public figures most harmful to the intelligence-gathering state."
Summing up what had previously been written about active intelligence by A.I. Kuk, Turlo emphasized that active intelligence reveals "... the signs of a new type of war - a secret one; it is more dangerous and more exhausting than open armed clashes."
In the conclusion of the chapter "The Significance of Intelligence," the author prophetically wrote: "In general, the question of secret intelligence, already now extremely serious, has a tendency in the future to unfold in all its breadth, pursuing the goal - already in peacetime, by secret war (emphasized by me - O.Kh.), of so undermining the might of a neighbor that the armed hand of the latter at the decisive moment will remain either motionless, or else the blows of the raised hand will be powerless."
S.S. Turlo forewarned readers that "the sphere of the work of intelligence is very broad and many-sided and embraces almost all aspects of state life.... Intelligence, which has as its goal to facilitate, by exposing the overt and secret circumstances, actions and intentions of the enemy, the struggle of its own state or class with other states or classes, must penetrate into all spheres of their life. And in accordance with this it divides into types: military intelligence, economic, political and diplomatic."
Far ahead of his contemporaries, Turlo presciently noted that "... there also exists psychological intelligence, which is nowadays overlooked by all theoreticians of the intelligence service"[8].
Characterizing the essence and tasks of psychological intelligence, Stanislav Stepanovich wrote: "Every cognition of the enemy has as its goal the discovery in him of qualities dangerous to oneself for the purpose of neutralizing them and at the same time finding his weak sides in order to deal him a decisive and most sensitive blow." At the same time he emphasized that "the psychology of the mass in war plays a decisive role, however it depends on
economic, social, national and other properties of this mass.... In this area, more than in any other, intelligence can, through active operations, achieve maximum results with minimal losses on its own side)).
It is advisable to compare these propositions with the later theoretical propositions of foreign authors and theoreticians
of "psychological)) or "information-psychological warfare)), on which we will dwell further below.
Turlo modestly noted that "the psychological side in the matter of intelligence is not a novelty, not a discovery.... The whole question is that it was not systematized, was not sufficiently scientifically processed ... But at the present time intensive work is under way on organizing this area of work [of the intelligence services, - O.Kh.], on systematizing it."
The tasks of psychological intelligence were formulated by the author as follows:
1)... it strives to study the daily life, worldview, moods, customs, traditions, aspirations, moral qualities, material and family circumstances of the command staff, diplomats, senior officials, political and public figures of various parties and groups, major businessmen, artists, painters, poets, criminals.
2) It ascertains the aspirations and moods of individual nationalities and, taking into account the causes of antagonism, inflames national enmity, artificially maintains autonomous aspirations and encourages strivings for separation.
3) It vigilantly monitors all manifestations of class contradictions, artificially sharpens mutual enmity, pushes classes into struggle against each other, destroying unity, decomposing the masses of the population and the army" (pp. 38-39).
S.S. Turlo defined the main purpose of counterintelligence as follows: "Catching spies is an absolutely necessary matter, but it is even more important to prevent the harmful work of spies. Counterintelligence is obliged to combat every evil that decomposes the rear of the country and to protect the front from attempts by enemy spies, one's own traitors and betrayers." The information obtained by counterintelligence, Turlo emphasized, must forestall events.
Since, "if states that did not devote sufficient attention to the organization of intelligence paid for this at the price of colossal losses, then the same fate will inevitably befall those of them that keep their counterintelligence neglected. ... foreign espionage must be countered with one's own counterespionage. And all the more so now, when espionage is assuming such grandiose dimensions." And for this "it is necessary to have specialists who have studied the counterintelligence business and who relate to it with love... for here one has to operate with the thoughts and intentions of people, very carefully and cunningly concealed, and not with concrete, tangible objects."
Following the well-known logic that "like is cured by like," Turlo explained, "counterintelligence combats espionage by the same means that the latter employs to achieve its goals.... Knowledge of one's adversary is the guarantee of victory, therefore counterintelligence too must study its adversary, his weapons and the ways of using them."
Already in the first open domestic work, published in 1925 in the "Commander's Library" series of Voenizdat, the pamphlet by V. Latynin "Modern Espionage and the Struggle Against It," its author rightly wrote: "Modern war is played out not only on the fields of battle, but in the industrial-economic and political sphere, and such a war is often waged long before the declaration of mobilization."
Moreover, the author emphasized, the peculiarity of modern wars lies in the fact that war is waged not by an army alone, but by the entire people. All citizens "from small to great" participate in one way or another in the struggle against the external enemy. And on this basis both the army and the entire people will be destroyed alike".
On the basis of an analysis of the history of the Russo-Japanese, First World War and Soviet-Polish wars, Latynin noted that many sides in the course of military operations set the tasks of "... creating in the rear
of the enemy conditions that weaken defensive strength," that is, sabotage. This same conclusion would later be reached by foreign specialists in the field of intelligence and counterintelligence struggle.
It should be noted that foreign theoreticians of covert confrontation and intelligence-subversive influence on the Soviet Union regarded ideological subversion not only as a component part of "psychological warfare," but also as the most important instrument for implementing the policy of "cold war," aimed at achieving victory over a geopolitical rival and competitor.
In the opinion of Western intelligence theoreticians,
Psychological warfare is the coordination and use of all means, including moral and physical (excluding the military operations of the regular army, but using their psychological results), by means of which the enemy's will to victory is destroyed, his political and economic possibilities for this are undermined; the enemy is deprived of the support, assistance and sympathies of his allies and neutrals, or the receipt by him of such support, assistance or sympathies is prevented; the will to victory of our own people and its allies is created, maintained or increased; the support, assistance and sympathies of neutrals are acquired, maintained or increased [9].
The views of Western theoreticians on the purpose of ideological and political subversions are set forth in many translated sources, in particular, in chapter 15 of Allen Dulles's book "The Craft of Intelligence."
Let us single out for readers the following fragment of Dulles's work, extremely important for understanding the philosophy of the actions of American intelligence: "We ourselves must determine when, where and in what manner we should act (presumably, with the support of other leading countries of the free world, which will be able to render assistance), taking into account at the same time the requirements of our own national security. An important role must be played by the intelligence services with their special methods and means. This is something new for the present generation, nevertheless very important for the success of the cause."
Let us recall that this was written only a year after the Caribbean crisis and two years after the failure of the landing of the Cuban "contras" on Cuba in the Bay of Pigs.
Let us note at the same time that the transition to the active implementation of ideological subversions against the USSR was carried out within the framework of the US foreign policy doctrine of "building bridges" with the socialist states, which in February 1964 replaced the previous doctrine of "rolling back communism."
Dulles's deputy in the post of CIA director, Ray Cline, later wrote, developing his patron's thoughts: "scientists know that the fates of peoples are shaped by a complex of hard-to-grasp social, psychological and bureaucratic forces. Ordinary people, whose lives - for better or for worse - depend on the play of these forces, rarely understand this, except vaguely and very superficially. One of such forces - from the beginning of the 40s - became intelligence."
Under Truman - we are quoting the Russian-language edition of R. Cline's book "The CIA from Roosevelt to Reagan", published in New York in 1988 - the National Security Council in December 1947 assigned the CIA the conduct of covert operations and acts of psychological warfare, although this task was not specified for the CIA in the law on its establishment, adopted two months earlier[1 О].
And in May 1948, the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC) was created within the CIA to conduct covert actions. An interesting detail: if in 1949 the OPC had 302 employees, then by 1952 already 2,812 people were working in its Washington headquarters alone, not counting 3,142 employees working abroad.
The OPC budget increased from 5 million dollars in 1949 to 82 million dollars in 1952, absorbing the lion's share of the funds allocated for the CIA's work.
In view of the fact that the question of the purpose, essence, content and mechanism of ideological subversion still remains debatable, allow us to express some of our own considerations.
As is known, in military science a diversion is a distracting operation designed to mislead the enemy, to draw his attention and forces to a false object and place, thereby weakening him and making him vulnerable.
In this connection, the actions of ideological subversion, carried out both by the special services of foreign states and the ideological centers connected with them, and supported by state propaganda organs, likewise represented an attempt at such a diversion of attention to a false object, an inducement to commit offenses which, not without grounds, as was shown earlier, were assessed as hostile. In our opinion, ideological subversions represent subversive actions in the sphere of political relations, carried out by the methods and forces of the special services of foreign states. This is a system of interrelated and mutually subordinate intelligence-subversive, political, propaganda and other actions of one state - and in their implementation not only the special services but various other state organs and non-governmental organizations take part - directed against the national interests and goals of another state, at discrediting its policy both within its own country and abroad.
The tactical goals of ideological subversions are the creation of internal political difficulties, the narrowing of the social base of support for the government's policy, while the strategic ones
- are the change of the "undesirable" political course of the state that is the object of influence.
In this connection, ideological subversions - it would even be more correct to call them political subversions - are direct, and at times crude, interference in the internal affairs of another sovereign state. Including with the use of methods prohibited by international law - employees and agents of special services, mercenaries, material incentives for radical opposition forces resorting to violent methods, banal bribery and the like.
However, I do not call for taking on faith the justice of all that has been said. And any reader may attempt to refute what has been said, but for this arguments, facts and knowledge are needed. For, as the Romans said - ignorantum non argumentum est, that is, ignorance is not an argument.
Let us draw attention to only two not unimportant circumstances.
The first of them consists in the fact that the mechanism described above for influencing "undesirable" foreign governments and states has long been known from world history and has been described quite well with concrete examples. Not a few of which, it should be said, we see even today.
The second. The scheme presented excludes any "ideological" component, such as a "crusade against communism" or "class struggle on the international arena." It singles out only the political interests and goals of a concrete ruling elite, which testifies to the fact that this phenomenon of interstate relations will continue to exist in the foreseeable future as well.
However, deliberately not going further into an in-depth examination of questions about the purpose and essence, structure and apparatus of carrying out ideological subversions, which would inevitably lead us far away from the subject under consideration[11], let us also note that the USA in 1976 declassified a document prepared by the CIA back in April 1951 entitled "Psychological Offensive against the USSR. Goals and Tasks"[12].
Let us also cite the testimony of the American historian David Love: "Until the end of the 60s, the sending of advisers, equipment and money to support opposition forces and organizations" in the socialist countries was the main method of ideological war (David Love Idea To Reality: A Brief History of the National Endowment for Democracy,//www.ned.org). When it became clear (and this became public knowledge in the press) that the CIA was involved in this activity, President L.B. Johnson suspended it" [1З], and until the mid-70s there was a search for new methods and approaches in undermining the socialist states (how can one not recall the "bridge-building" doctrine, which D.F. Kennedy initiated! - O.Kh.).
However, despite the proven connection with foreign special
services, one cannot but agree with V.E. Semichastny that "Shelepin began, and I continued, carrying out preventive activity. As for phenomena and events that were qualified as anti-Soviet, anti-party, our task was to warn.
Moreover, more than once, speaking before the public, I said:
"Prison is not the best place for re-education even of our
enemy. People come out of there even more embittered and hostilely disposed." Therefore, hopes that everything can be solved by locking someone up, by increasing the number of those convicted and arrested, are wholly unjustified"[14].
In the order of the KGB under the Council of Ministers of the USSR "On strengthening the struggle of state security organs against hostile manifestations of anti-Soviet elements" No. 00175 of July 28, 1962, it was emphasized that "... in Soviet society there still exist anti-social elements who, under the influence of hostile propaganda from abroad, embark on an anti-Soviet path, heap malicious slander on the policy of the Party and the Soviet state, spread various kinds of provocative rumors with the aim of undermining the people's trust in the Party and the government, and under certain conditions try to use temporary difficulties arising in the course of communist construction for their criminal purposes, while inciting politically unstable people to mass disorders. Despite this, the state security organs do not always take active measures against persons who commit various anti-Soviet manifestations...".
In this connection, all commanding and operational personnel were instructed "... without weakening the struggle against the subversive activity of the intelligence services of capitalist countries and their agents, to take measures for a decisive strengthening of agent-operational work to identify and suppress the hostile actions of anti-Soviet elements within the country".
At the same time, the KGB organs were obliged "... to know the processes taking place among young people and the intelligentsia, to determine their character in good time and correctly, so that, together with Party and public organizations, they might prevent political delusions and ideologically harmful errors from growing into anti-Soviet manifestations".
The heads of KGB subunits were obliged to inform Party organs clearly - from the Central Committees of the communist parties of the republics to the district committees of the CPSU - "... about all incoming signals concerning hostile manifestations being prepared and committed, as well as about facts and phenomena that could lead to mass disorders, and to take timely and concrete measures to prevent such excesses"[15].
Not infrequently earlier, and even now, there is talk of the alleged persecution of "dissidents" for dissent, of the infringement of the "rights" to one's own opinion, to freedom of its expression and to the dissemination of information.
However, it should be noted for our compatriots that freedom of speech and the dissemination of information, contrary to a widespread but erroneous opinion, is by no means unlimited.
Part 3 of Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, ratified by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on September 18, 1973, establishes that the exercise of the right to freedom of speech "carries with it special duties and responsibilities. It may therefore be subject to certain restrictions, but these shall only be such as are provided by law and are necessary:
a) for respect of the rights or reputations of others;
b) for the protection of national security or of public order, or of public health or morals"[16].
Even more categorical on this score is part 2 of Article 1O of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, adopted as long ago as 4 November 1950.
This article establishes that the right to freedom of expression, to receive and impart information, "since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary"
It seems necessary to dwell also on the following fundamental question.
Today, many authors, blaming Andropov for the activity of the 5th Directorate of the KGB, which they call "ideological", point to the emergence under Andropov of the so-called "dissidents", who are also not infrequently called "human rights activists".
However, "dissidence" appeared, of course, earlier.
The authors of school textbooks today write about "the dissident movement that grew in the country after 1966"[17].
Without going into lengthy philological and terminological investigations, which are not too important for the subject of our study, let us note, however, that the term dissident itself is by no means an innovation of the socio-political lexicon of the 20th century, but has existed for more than one century.
According to the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, "Dissidents (from Latin dissideo - I disagree, I differ) - persons who depart from the teaching of the dominant church (dissenters)"[18].
However, one of the recently published encyclopedic dictionaries already interprets this concept as follows: “Dissidents (from the Latin dissides, disagreeing) - the name of participants in the movement against the totalitarian regime in the USSR from the end of the 50s (emphasis mine - O.Kh.). D. in various forms advocated observance of the rights and freedoms of man and citizen (human rights defenders), against the persecution of dissent, protested against the introduction of Soviet troops into Czechoslovakia (1968), Afghanistan (1979). They were subjected to repression by the authorities”[19]. For what specifically - the authors naturally keep silent.
In fact, in this definition a substitution of the concept takes place, not without intent narrowing its scope, strictly speaking in logical-philosophical language, when the content of the term is reduced to only one of its meanings.
Now any schoolchild can read that "the movement of dissenters (dissidents) absorbed human rights, national liberation and religious currents". That the activity of national movements in the USSR was supported by foreign émigré centers, such as the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations, various research centers, which provided material support to participants in the movements on the territory of the USSR.[20]. Which N.V. Petrov and A.I. Pozharov forgot to mention.
At the same time, we leave aside a very important and topical and still open question: to what extent do such support and the provision of material assistance conform to generally recognized principles and norms of international law? - after all, its consideration requires a special legal analysis.
But at the end of the 60s the situation naturally looked and was perceived differently.
Again, for the sake of historical truth, let us note that, as very many who have written about the activity of the "dissidents" in the USSR observe, for example, L.M. Alekseeva and O.A. Popov, the circle of these "revolutionaries" was very narrow, and they were extremely far removed from the people, from their everyday needs and concerns. Although they did raise such "pressing problems" as the protection of the rights of gays and lesbians in the Soviet Union!
And indeed, persons who disagreed with the policy of the Soviet government on one or another question of domestic or foreign policy were, in a certain sense of the word, "dissenters."
However, we are categorically opposed to the extension of this term to persons who were brought to criminal liability for specific criminally punishable acts.
Since the basis for bringing them to criminal liability was not convictions, opinions, judgments and assessments, but precisely the commission of specific and definite actions that were recognized at that time by legislative bodies as socially dangerous acts.
A natural question may arise: how should one assess Article 70, which existed in the Criminal Code of the RSFSR of those years and provided for criminal liability for anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda?
Article 70 of the 1960 Criminal Code of the RSFSR established criminal liability for agitation or propaganda conducted for the purpose of undermining or weakening Soviet power or committing particularly dangerous state crimes, for the dissemination, for the same purposes, of slanderous fabrications defaming the Soviet state system, and also for the dissemination, production or storage, for the same purposes, in written, printed or other form, of works of the same content.
And part 2 of this article provided for liability for the same actions committed using monetary funds and other material valuables received from
foreign organizations or persons acting in the interests of these organizations. (This article was removed from the criminal legislation of the USSR only on September 11, 1989.)
In addition, Article 72 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR provided for liability for organizational activity aimed at preparing or committing particularly dangerous state crimes, as well as for creating organizations whose aim was to commit such crimes, or for participation in an anti-Soviet organization.
Also, by a Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR of September 16, 1966, criminal liability was introduced for
"the systematic dissemination in oral form of knowingly false fabrications defaming the Soviet state and social system, as well as the production or dissemination in written, printed or other form of works of such content" (Article 190-1 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR. Removed from the Criminal Code by a Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR of September 11, 1989).
In our personal conviction, any social subject - a citizen, a group of persons on national, religious, racial, professional or any other grounds, as well as a public association, party, public or political institution, and, in the end, the state - must have and does have the right to protection from defamation, as well as from slander and insult.
Let us note, however, an important circumstance. Both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms recognize as permissible the restrictions provided for by law on the exercise of freedom of speech and of the receipt and dissemination of information.
So in essence there was nothing unlawful or anti-democratic in the content of Articles 70 and 190-1 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR. All the more so since their disposition directly indicates the qualifying, that is, the necessary for recognizing a specific act as criminally punishable, elements thereof.
First, the slanderous, that is, knowingly false, character of the disseminated information, data. And its purpose - to defame, to discredit the social and state system, their institutions, which is precisely the content of defamation.
It is another matter that problems could arise and did arise at the stage of law enforcement of these legal norms, that is, at the stage of investigation and trial.
And here, understandably, it was and is extremely important, since cases of slander, or, in modern terminology, of defamation, are by no means rare, but require qualitative and sound, conscientious expert conclusions and assessments. And the latter were no longer within the competence and sphere of activity of the state security agencies.
Having dwelt in detail on the specific question of the legal qualification of the act, we have done so exclusively because the experience of history must teach subsequent generations by the mistakes, delusions and crimes of the past.
At the same time, we are by no means saying that all verdicts under the said articles were unfounded, unlawful or unjust. We have merely pointed to the sources and prerequisites (unconscientious expert conclusions, in particular, the bias of a judge, etc.) of possible legal and judicial errors.
Let us emphasize, however, that the "Instruction on the procedure for applying compulsory measures of a psychiatric nature to mentally ill persons who have committed crimes," which was in force until the end of the 80s, was adopted in 1954. The procedural order of its application was determined by Article 58 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR of 1960. And the "Instruction on the emergency hospitalization of mentally ill persons posing a public danger" was also adopted in 1961[21].
It seems necessary to cite one more highly competent point of view on this question, all the more so since it is expressed by a very well-known former "dissident," O.A. Popov, who left the USSR in 1979 and lived in the USA.
At the end of 2003, in the article "Defenders of Human Rights or 'Agents of Globalism'?", a former active participant in the "human rights movement" in the USSR emphasized: "As for the protection of rights vitally important for the overwhelming majority of Soviet citizens, such as the right to security (here and below emphasized by the author - O.Kh.), to work, to education, to housing, these social rights did not particularly concern the human rights activists, as can be judged from their statements and speeches..." [22].
On the website of the Ford Foundation (www.fordfound.org) any interested reader can read that "from 1950 the Ford Foundation began to support projects oriented toward the Soviet Union and the countries of Eastern Europe. In 1950-1988, about 60 million dollars was allocated for analysis of the key problems of East-West relations, support of freedom of speech, cultural pluralism and observance of human rights. In 1989 the foundation took a decision on direct support of "progressive" organizations in the Soviet Union, Poland, and Hungary, in order to accelerate the process of democratization and economic reform of these states. For these purposes in 1989-1994 approximately 30 million US dollars was directed." Let us emphasize at the same time that what is at issue is the activity and expenditures of only one of the organizations that rendered "assistance" to the socialist countries, while the very content of such "assistance" in the "support of freedom of speech" and so on is not disclosed.
Let us also emphasize that not unimportant circumstance, that V.Ye. Semichastny emphasized that even "in the times of the Khrushchev
"thaw" American strategists began to make attempts to transfer the game onto the territory of the USSR, embarking on the creation of an "organized resistance movement" (emphasis mine - O.Kh.) [23].
Speaking on 26 October 1961 at the XXII Congress of the CPSU, A.N. Shelepin emphasized:
- The ideologues of imperialism, who now speak under the flag of anti-communism, openly proclaim that in the struggle for world domination the subversive activity of their intelligence services is called upon to play a prominent role. The ruling circles of the imperialist powers actively and cynically use the intelligence organs in their foreign policy, giving it an ever more sinister and provocative character[24].
In his memoirs V.Ye. Semichastny not without grounds cited a note of the chairman of the KGB and the Prosecutor General of the USSR R.A. Rudenko to the Central Committee of the CPSU stating that from December 1965 in Moscow cases of speeches demanding revision of the legislation, abolition of Article 70 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR, and release of those detained for distributing anti-Soviet leaflets had become more frequent. At the same time, according to his testimony, "these actions did not have a random character, but were inspired from outside"; he mentions a group of 35 - 40 people connected with the NTS[25].
In this connection, let us quote one of the official documents of the mid-80s that reveals the essence, purpose and content of the activities of foreign special services in instigating the so-called "democratic movement" in the USSR.
"Democratic movement" (historical) - an expression used by the special services of the enemy and by foreign anti-Soviet centers in acts of ideological diversion in 1965-1977 to create the appearance of the existence in our country of an opposition current and to incline individual persons to active hostile actions.
In order to stimulate the "D.m." the CIA, together with the NTS, prepared for distribution in the USSR a "Program of the Democratic Movement of the Soviet Union," which set the task of liquidating Soviet power in the USSR and creating a so-called "union of democratic republics" based on the principles of a bourgeois state.
As a means of exercising practical leadership of the "D.m.," in 1969 the enemy developed the "Tactical Foundations of the Democratic Movement," which contained detailed recommendations on organizing subversive work. One of the main ones was the recommendation to bloc hostile elements with nationalists, including Zionists, as well as with reactionary churchmen and sectarians."
Let us note that the works presently available on the "dissident movement" in our country interpret the history of its emergence somewhat differently[26].
Again, for the sake of historical truth, let us note that the emergence of "dissent" and "dissidence" in the USSR was connected in equal measure both with the propaganda of foreign radio stations and the activity of centers of ideological diversion, and with certain decisions of the XX Congress of the CPSU, which exposed the numerous crimes of Stalinism.
As F.D. Bobkov noted on this matter, "while justly criticizing the cult of personality of Stalin, none of the leaders took care to reflect on the causes that led to it (here and below emphasis mine - O.Kh.). And the criticism led to destabilization in society, gave rise to distrust of the authorities. And this predetermined the appearance in the country of forces on which the centers of the "cold war" that carried out plans to undermine the constitutional order in the USSR and to decompose the socialist social system were able to lean. This problem requires further work on its disclosure.
Distrust of the authorities was also promoted by the fact that, while overthrowing Stalin's cult, his successors took considerable care of themselves, encouraging the growth of their own cults"[27].
At the same time one cannot fail to say also that part of the population perceived with alarm and concern the fact that from the reprinted history textbooks sections devoted to the XX Congress of the CPSU, the criticism of the cult of personality of I.V. Stalin and its consequences disappeared or were shortened, which was perceived as an attempt at "rehabilitation of Stalinism."
It should however be noted that such textual changes can be explained not only by "creeping re-Stalinization," but also by the objective course of historical time, when it seems that the severe "illness" already once experienced has passed and has become an irrevocable possession of the past.
Although, of course, truthful and objective information on so tragic a question for the history of our country was necessary both then and now.
The other thing is that this problem was advantageously played upon by foreign propagandists, while the Soviet party-propaganda apparatus clearly could not compete with them on this question.
Let us also add that, contrary to the widespread but, as often happens, erroneous opinion, many insufficiently informed authors continue to assert that it was precisely A.I. Solzhenitsyn with his book "The Gulag Archipelago" who allegedly became
the "pioneer" of the theme of repressions in the years of Stalinism.
Refuting this assertion, let us refer to the now forgotten book by B.A. Dyakov, "A Tale of What Was Endured," published by the "Soviet Writer" publishing house in 1966. Even today this book is capable of producing an emotional impression on the reader no less strong than the not impeccable creation of A.I. Solzhenitsyn. The other thing is that these authors stand on different ideological and moral positions.
At the same time, the party nomenklatura placed certain obstacles in the way of the development of criticism and self-criticism, the expansion of glasnost, the principles of self-government, and the democratization of public life, which could not fail to cause alarm and concern among part of the country's socially and politically active population. This concern could not fail to find some forms of its external manifestation.
Shortly before the XXIII Congress in 1966, the journalist E. Henry, whom we have already mentioned earlier, warned Academician A.D. Sakharov about an allegedly impending decision on the "political rehabilitation" of Stalin.
The CPSU Central Committee was informed of this by V.Ye. Semichastny on March 15, 1966: "... a letter is being circulated in Moscow, addressed to the First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, signed by 25 well-known representatives of the Soviet intelligentsia (including P.L. Kapitsa, I.M. Maisky, K.G. Paustovsky, V.P. Katayev, K.I. Chukovsky, M.M. Plisetskaya, M.I. Romm, G.A. Tovstonogov, and others), in which concern was expressed over the emerging - in the opinion of the signatories - tendency toward a partial or complete rehabilitation of Stalin, toward a revision in this regard of the decisions of the XX and XXII Congresses of the CPSU.
The authors of the letter expressed the opinion that the "rehabilitation" of Stalin would lead to a split between the CPSU and the communist parties of the West, to serious divergences within Soviet society, would cause unrest among the intelligentsia, and would complicate the situation among young people, as well as in the sphere of international cooperation.
The initiator of the letter and its author is a member of the Writers' Union, S.N. Rostovsky (Ernest Henry)."
Further, the chairman of the KGB under the USSR Council of Ministers emphasized regarding this letter, which later became known as the "Letter of the 13," that the very fact of its appearance "aggravates rumors about an allegedly impending turn toward 'Stalinism' and intensifies a mistaken understanding of certain speeches and articles aimed at restoring an objective, scientific approach to the history of Soviet society and the state, and creates a tense, nervous mood among the population before the congress"[28].
Let us also emphasize the fact that the consideration of and adoption of measures regarding this "letter of the intelligentsia" fell within the competence of the Propaganda Department of the CPSU Central Committee, headed at that time by A.N. Yakovlev.
It was against the background of these events and the materials available in the KGB under the USSR Council of Ministers that the initiative was born to create a new subunit within the structure of the Committee.