The Compatriots

by Andrei Soldatov

  We are deeply grateful to Olga Romanova, Alexei Kozlov, Vladimir Kara-Murza Jr., and Vadim Prokhorov for their patience in the face of our never-ending questions. Thanks also to Evgeny Kiselev, one of the founders of NTV, now working in Ukraine—another Russian compatriot who was forced to leave the country.

  We would like to thank the officers, veterans, and relatives of intelligence officers in Russia and in the United States whose help was crucial but whose names cannot be named. The book Rezident, by former FBI agent Robert K. Baker—a thorough and detailed research into the spy career of Vasily Zarubin—was of great help to us.

  We are grateful to Natella Boltyanskaya for very generously sharing her research notes on the Jackson-Vanik amendment and to David Hoffman for reading chapters and offering suggestions.

  Our friends Mindy Eng, Nick Fielding, and Marina Latysheva have always been supportive of us. We want to thank Katya and Egor, who tolerated us at their lively wooden dacha in the green hills sixty miles from Moscow in the summer of 2018—not an easy thing, given that we were fighting (sometimes very loudly) over every chapter.

  We are also very grateful to Ivan Krastev for giving us the opportunity to spend December at IWM in Vienna—at exactly the moment when we needed a quiet place in which to turn our collection of outlines into a manuscript.

  We also want to thank Evan Osnos, an incredible journalist at the New Yorker. In a way, it was Evan who gave us the idea for this book when, while treating us to lunch at the legendary Tabard Inn in Washington, he said, “Guys, you did a book about security, and then you did a book about technology. Now it’s time to do a book about people.”

  We are deeply indebted to Evan’s father, Peter Osnos, founder of PublicAffairs, who has been supportive of us since he agreed to read the proposal for our first book, The New Nobility, exactly ten years ago.

  This book would have been impossible without Clive Priddle, publisher of PublicAffairs, who never flagged in his trust in us, even at a rather tricky moment in spring 2019.

  We are immensely grateful to Athena Bryan at PublicAffairs and Lisa Kaufman, our editor, for helping us frame the manuscript on rather short notice!

  And, as always, we thank Robert Guinsler at Sterling Lord Literistic, our agent and our friend.

  Discover Your Next Great Read

  Get sneak peeks, book recommendations, and news about your favorite authors.

  Tap here to learn more.

  Credit: Irina Borogan

  Credit: Konstantin Zavrazhin

  Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan are cofounders of Agentura.ru and authors of The Red Web and The New Nobility. Their work has been featured in the New York Times, Moscow Times, Washington Post, Online Journalism Review, Le Monde, Christian Science Monitor, CNN, and BBC. The New York Times has called Agentura.ru “a web site that came in from the cold to unveil Russian secrets.” Soldatov and Borogan live in Moscow.

  ALSO BY ANDREI SOLDATOV AND IRINA BOROGAN

  The New Nobility: The Restoration of Russia’s Security State and the Enduring Legacy of the KGB

  The Red Web: The Kremlin’s Wars on the Internet

  NOTES

  A NOTE ON SOURCES

  We are grateful for the help of many people who spoke to us on condition that we protect their identities. For that reason, while we have documented our interviews with those people, we have elected not to provide detailed citations for readers, since information such as the date or location of the interview or the source’s position or title increases the risk that they might be identified.

  In addition, for dramatic purposes, we have taken the liberty in a very few instances of re-creating dialogue based on sourced information about the substance of a spoken conversation; in other cases, quoted dialogue represents our translation into English of conversation conducted in Russian. In all cases, we have attempted to represent the content of the conversation accurately, as the source conveyed it.

  INTRODUCTION

  1. Mike Eckel, “Chiefs of Three Russian Intelligence Agencies Travel to Washington,” Radio Free Europe/Liberty, February 1, 2018, https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-spy-chiefs-washington/29010324.html.

  2. Natalia Portyakova, “Dukhovno-Kulturny Center v Parizhe otkroyet diplomat” [The Spiritual-Cultural Center in Paris will be opened by a diplomat], Izvestia, August 7, 2017, https://iz.ru/627990/nataliia-portiakova/oplot-russkoi-kultury-i-dukhovnosti-v-parizhe-poluchit-glavu.

  3. Vladimir Putin, “Opening Address at the World Congress of Russians Abroad” (English transcript), Kremlin, October 24, 2006, http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/23861.

  4. Kremlin, interview with Vladimir Putin by Russkaya Mysl [in Russian], November 23, 2006, http://kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/23919.

  5. UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, International Migration Report 2017: Highlights (New York: United Nations, 2017), http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/publications/migrationreport/docs/MigrationReport2017_Highlights.pdf: “In 2017, India was the largest country of origin of international migrants (17 million), followed by Mexico (13 million). Other countries of origin with large migrant populations include the Russian Federation (11 million), China (10 million), Bangladesh (7 million), Syrian Arab Republic (7 million) and Pakistan and Ukraine (6 million each).”

  CHAPTER 1: TALENT SPOTTING

  1. Robert K. Baker, Rezident: The Espionage Odyssey of Soviet General Vasily Zarubin (Bloomington, IN: iUniverse, 2015).

  2. Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan, “Vladimir Bukovsky: Rossia raspadetsa na sem chastey” [Vladimir Bukovsky: Russia will split up on seven parts], Versyia (November 2003).

  3. F. E. Dzerzhinsky, “Zapiska V.R. Menzhinskomy o borbe s emigrantskimi terroristichikimi gruppami” [A note to Menzhinsky on fighting with the émigré terrorist groups], March 30, 1924 (no. 895):538, predsedatel VChK-OGPU, Rossia—XX vek (Moscow: Fond Demokratia, 2007).

  4. Nicolas Ross, Koutiepov: Le combat d’un général blanc: De la Russie à l’exil (Geneva, Switzerland: Editions de Syrtes, 2016), 131.

  5. The description of the romance is based on conversation with Alexei Kozlov, great-grandson of Zarubin, in March and April 2018, and the family chronicle written in 2012 by Petr Zarubin, son of Vasily Zarubin.

  6. Ervin Stavinsky, Zarubiny: Semyeynaya rezidentura (Moscow: Olma, 2003).

  7. Joseph Stalin, “October Revolution and the Tactics of the Russian Communists,” first published as a preface to the book On the Road to October in December 1924. Available online, https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1924/12.htm.

  8. Eduard Sharapov, Naum Eitingon—karayushy mech Stalina [Nahum Eitingon—a punishing sword of Stalin] (Moscow: Neva, 2003).

  9. Sharapov, Naum Eitingon.

  10. Stavinsky, Zarubiny.

  CHAPTER 2: IDENTIFYING TARGETS

  1. Sharapov, Naum Eitingon, 17; see also Mary-Kay Wilmers, The Eitingons: A Twentieth-Century Story (London: Verso, 2012), 147.

  2. Evgeny Zhirnov, “V podvalnom pomeshenii Sovkonsulstva proiskhodilo sobranie” [In a cellar of the Soviet consulate, there was a meeting], Kommersant, June 8, 2009, https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/1176117.

  3. “Politichesky carnaval, Moskva, Iun 1929” [Political carnival, Moscow, June 1929], https://cocomera.livejournal.com/267225.html.

  4. “OGPU: Obzor politicheskogo sostoyania SSSR za iun 1929” [Overview of the political situation of the USSR, June 1929], http://istmat.info/node/25817.

  5. V. K. H. Khaustov, V. P. Naumov, and N. C. Plotnikova. Lubyanka. Stalin I VchK-OGPU-NKVD Yanvar 1921–Dekabr 1936 [Stalin and Lubyanka organs: VChK-OGPU-NKVD January 1921–December 1936] (Moscow: Fond Demokratia, 2003), 180–181; the full transcript of the conversation between Bukharin and Kamenev in Yuri Feltshinsky, Razgovori s Bukharinim [Conversations with Bukharin] (Moscow: IGL, 1993), 33, http://lib.ru/HISTORY/FELSHTINSKY/buharin.txt.

  6. Vyacheslav Menzhinsky was head of the Soviet secret police OGPU from 1924 to 1936.

&
nbsp; 7. Khaustov et al., Lubyanka.

  CHAPTER 3: THE COST OF LOVE

  1. Christopher Andrew, The Secret World: A History of Intelligence (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2018), 285.

  2. Khaustov et al., Lubyanka, Blyumkin’s testimony, 193–212.

  3. Oleg Goncharenko, Izgnannaya Armia [Exiled army] (Moscow: Veche, 2012), 188–193.

  4. “K Istorii Chetvertogo Internatsionala” [To history of the fourth international], the online archive of the bulletins of the opposition, http://iskra-research.org/FI/BO/index.shtml.

  5. Khaustov et al., Lubyanka, Blyumkin’s testimony, 208–209.

  6. Grigory Agabekov, OGPU:The Russian Secret Terror (New York: Brentano, 1931), 221.

  7. Evgeny Matonin, “Partiynaya lubov Yakova Blyumkina” [A party love of Yakov Blyumkin], Rodina, March 1, 2016, https://rg.ru/2016/03/15/rodina-blumkin.html.

  8. Khaustov et al., Lubyanka, 213.

  9. The cars were described by several witnesses. One account in English can be found in James E. Hassel, “Russian Refugees in France and the United States between the World Wars,” American Philosophical Society 81, pt. 7 (1991).

  10. Ross, Koutiepov.

  11. “La mystérieuse disparition du Général Koutiepoff,” Journal L’Illustration, no. 4536 et 4537 (February 8 and 15, 1930), http://www.fangpo1.com/Koutiep off.htm.

  12. The abduction account is based on the evidence of this sole witness, twenty-five-year-old August Steinmetz, that he provided to L’Echo de Paris, quoted in Ross, Koutiepov, 275–278.

  13. Miller spent almost two years in Lubyanka prison until he was executed on May 11, 1939. For details, see also Nicolas Ross, De Koutiepov a Miller: Le combat de russes blanc (1930–1940) (Geneva, Switzerland: Editions de Syrtes, 2017), 213–241. See also V. L. Burtsev, Bolshevitskie gangster v Parizhe: Pokhishenie generala Miller I generala Kutepova [Bolshevik gangsters in Paris: Abduction of general Miller and general Kutepov] (Paris: printed by the author, 1939).

  CHAPTER 4: “THE HORSE”

  1. Victor Serge and Natalia Sedova Trotsky, The Life and Death of Leon Trotsky (London: Haymarket, 2016), 226–229.

  2. Dmitry Volkogonov, Trotsky: Demon Revolutsii [Trotsky Devil of Revolution] (Moscow: Yauza, 2017), 518.

  3. V. V. Poznyakov, Sovetskaya razvedka v Amerike: 1919–1941 [Soviet Intelligence in America: 1919–1940] (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnie Otnoshenia, 2015), 450–452.

  4. Baker, Rezident.

  5. American aspects of assassination of Leon Trotsky. Hearings before the committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, Eighty-First Congress, second session, July 26, August 30, October 18 and 19, and December 4, 1950.

  6. His real name was Gregory Rabinowitz. He was an intelligence officer acting under disguise of the head of the office of the Soviet Red Cross in New York. See V. V. Poznyakov, Sovetskaya Razvedka v Amerike 1919–1941 [Soviet Intelligence in America: 1919–1941] (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnie Otnoshenia, 2015), 425–426.

  7. Poznyakov, Sovetskaya Razvedka v Amerike.

  8. E. P. Sharapov, Eitongon—Karaushiy Mech Stalina [Eitingon—Punishing Sword of Stalin] (Moscow: Neva, 2003), 34.

  9. Isaac Deutscher, The Prophet: The Life of Leon Trotsky (London: Verso, 2015), 1395, 1489.

  10. P. Sudoplatov, Spetsoperatsii 1930–1950 godi [Special operations 1930–1950s] (Moscow: Olma, 1997).

  11. Natalia Sedova, “Father and Son,” Fourth International, August (1941): 196–200. https://www.marxists.org/archive/sedova-natalia/1940/misc/x001.htm.

  12. Victor Serge and Natalia Sedova Trotsky, The Life and Death of Leon Trotsky (London: Haymarket, 2016).

  13. Guardian, “Trotsky’s assassination remembered by his grandson” (video), YouTube, August 21, 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pI-arymQl94.

  14. Serge and Sedova, Life and Death.

  15. Deutscher, The Prophet, 1534.

  16. E. P. Sharapov, Eitongon, 42.

  17. Sudoplatov, Spetsoperatsii.

  18. Deutscher, The Prophet, 1538.

  CHAPTER 5: “THE MOTHER”

  1. Wilmers, The Eitingons, 274; authors’ conversations with Alexei Kozlov, December 2017–May 2019.

  2. Sudoplatov, Spetsoperatsii.

  3. He was issued a passport with the name “Frank Jacson”—apparently, Soviet intelligence misspelled the name. See also Harvard University, “American Aspects of Assassination of Leon Trotsky, Hearings before the Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, July 26, August 30, October 18 and 19, and December 4, 1950,” https://archive.org/stream/americanaspects00unit/americanaspects00unit_djvu.txt.

  4. E. P. Sharapov, Eitongon, 40.

  5. Wilmers, The Eitingons.

  6. Deutscher, The Prophet, 1539–1555.

  7. Serge and Sedova, Life and Death, 265.

  8. Serge and Sedova, 267. Mercader spent twenty years in a Mexican prison and then went to the Soviet Union. See Sudoplatov, Spetsoperatsii, 120.

  9. The decision of Politburo of the Central Committee VKP (b) “About Awarding Mercader K.R., Eitingon N.I., Vasilevsky L.P. and others,” June 6, 1941 (secret). The full list of agents awarded for Trotsky’s assassination consists of Caridad Mercader, Nahum Eitingon (by Lenin’s order); Lev Vasilevsky, Pavel Sudoplatov (by the Order of Red Banner); Iosif Grigulevich, Pastelnyak (by the Order of Red Star). Pastelnyak was an intelligence operative under disguise of a Soviet vice-consul in New York in 1940. Text of the decision is available at https://www.alexanderyakovlev.org/fond/issues-doc/58790.

  CHAPTER 6: OPERATIONS AREA: UNITED STATES

  1. “Syezd kompartii SCHA” [Congress of the Communist Party of the U.S.], Pravda, June 1, 1940, 6, http://istmat.info/files/uploads/43350/1940_g._1_polugodie.pdf.

  2. Pavel Sudoplatov and Anatoly Sudoplatov, A Soviet Spymaster (New York: Little, Brown, 1994).

  3. Wilson Center, “Vassiliev White Notebook #1,” 2009, http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/112564.

  4. Wilson Center, “Vassiliev White Notebook #1.”

  5. Baker, Rezident.

  6. International Wartime Parade in New York, June 13, 1942, Grinberg, Paramaunt, Pather Newsreels, https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/video/overhead-views-of-parade-going-down-a-new-york-city-news-footage/502852465.

  7. Family recollection of Zarubin’s relatives. One of the sons of the prominent White émigré was lured to the Soviet Union and enlisted in the cavalry unit of the Red army. He survived the war and became a close friend of Zarubin’s family.

  8. To the FBI he was known as Benjamin W. Lassen or Lassov. See FBI files on Koval available on the website of FBI online vault.

  9. Yuri Lebedev was Koval’s closest pupil in the Moscow Technical Chemical Institute (Koval resumed his career at this facility after he got back to the Soviet Union). For years, Lebedev was intrigued by Koval’s spy past, and it became his life passion to research Koval’s life in archives and among those who knew him. Much of the account about Koval is derived from Lebedev’s research.

  10. Allen Weinstein and Alexander Vassiliev, The Haunted Wood: Soviet Espionage in America—The Stalin Era (New York: Random House, 1998).

  11. Abram Slutsky headed the Soviet foreign intelligence service from May 1935 to February 1938.

  CHAPTER 7: THE TIDE TURNS

  1. Hearings before the Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, Eighty-First Session, March 31 and April 1, 1949, Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1949.

  2. Baker, Rezident.

  3. FBIHQ file 10-340473: SF report to FBIHQ dated February 14, 1948, quoted in Baker, Rezident. The transcript is also quoted in Gregg Herken, Brotherhood of the Bomb (New York: Henry Holt, 2002), as taken from two contemporaneous FBI reports on Nelson: Ladd to Hoover, April 16, 1943, 1–9, vol. 2; and San Francisco field report, May 7, 1943, 10–22, vol. 1, Steve Nelson file, FBI.

  4. CIA, “Part I: The American Response to Soviet Espionage,” in Venona: Soviet Espionage and the American Response, 1939–1957, Mar
ch 19, 2007 (updated June 19, 2013), https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/venona-soviet-espionage-and-the-american-response-1939-1957/part1.htm.

  5. In the United States, Zarubin acted under an assumed name, Vassili Zubilin, Third Secretary of the Embassy of USSR, and he is referred to by this name in Hoover’s letter.

  6. J. V. Stalin. “The Dissolution of the Communist International: Answer to Reuter’s Correspondent, May 28, 1943,” https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1943/05/28.htm.

  7. The letter named ten Soviet intelligence operatives and two American assets, but nine were specifically named as Zarubin’s closest associates. CIA online library, Part I: American response to Soviet Espionage, Anonymous letter to Hoover, undated (received 7 August 1943), National Security Agency Venona Collection, 54-001, box D046 [Russian original with English translation], https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/venona-soviet-espionage-and-the-american-response-1939-1957/10.gif/image.gif.

  8. Kathryn S. Olmsted, Red Spy Queen: A Biography of Elizabeth Bentley (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 60.

  9. Weinstein and Vassiliev, Haunted Wood, 276.

  10. Weinstein and Vassiliev, Haunted Wood, 276.

  11. N. V. Petrov, “Kto Rukovodil Organami Gosbezopasnosti 1941–1954” [Who headed the organs of state security in 1941–1954] (Moscow: Memorial, 2010), 951.

  12. Authors’ conversation with Alexei Kozlov, Zoya’s grandson.