By the end of my last year, when I was seventeen, I had become head of the Komsomol organization within the school. The girl who took over from me when I left was supposed to write a recommendation for me to take to college and, in due course, she did so — but because there was so little to be said about Komsomol affairs, she inflated one small item out of all proportion to its worth. During my last month at school a decision had been taken in principle to set up a radio system, which would make broadcasts in the breaks between lessons. Planning had begun, and I was enthusiastic about the idea, but I left before the equipment arrived. Nevertheless, the girl wrote a long paragraph about how active I had been in the school broadcasting organization — an out-and-out exaggeration, entirely typical of Soviet life.
One incident from that year has haunted me ever since. A knock on the door of our flat: a man standing there — a man of my father’s age (then fifty-nine), but looking older, very thin, and dressed in strange clothes made of poor cotton, with a rucksack on his back. He said he was an old friend of my father (who was at work), from the days before the Bolshevik revolution. Speaking carefully, and almost in riddles, he gave us to understand that he had recently been released from a concentration camp for political prisoners and altogether had spent eighteen years in camps or exile. He seemed thrilled that my father was still alive, but when he learnt that he was in the KGB — which had ruined and wasted his own life — he went quietly away, never to reappear.
When my father came home that evening, he was dreadfully agitated — almost in a panic — over the return from the dead of this old friend whom the system had treated so cruelly. The man’s sudden arrival was worse than the visitation of a ghost, for my father was still serving in the KGB, and still afraid of being associated with an Enemy of the People, no matter how thoroughly any crime had been expiated. Even when his former comrade showed compassion and joy at finding him again, he was terrified.
Chapter Four – Coming of Age
I left school in June 1956 and, after a summer holiday, went to college in September, a few weeks before my eighteenth birthday. The building, with the imposing name of the Institute of International Relations, was near the Krimsky Most, one of the most attractive bridges over the Moscow river, near Gorky Park; it had once been a hotbed of Bolshevism, for in the years after the revolution it had been the Institute of Red Professors, the elite academy for Marxist ideologues. First Trotsky and his associates, then Bukharin had studied, taught and argued there, but in the end most of them proved too clever for their own good. The students at the college in the 1920s and 1930s paid lip service to Stalin and his leadership, but he saw that they were more interesting people, more imaginative and inventive, than his own clique. When he realized that they were becoming a threat to him, he dissolved the academy and had more than half of them imprisoned or shot.
The Red Institute closed down, and for several years the building stood empty. Then, at the end of the war, the government decided that a new college was needed specifically to bring on students as future members of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Before the war the Ministry had lost many of its people during the purges, so that it needed rebuilding; but Stalin and the leadership also saw that, with the Soviet Union becoming a superpower, they would need a larger diplomatic service than in earlier years. The Institute of Foreign Affairs was opened and, because of its special role, came under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, rather than under the Ministry of Higher Education.
To gain entry, I had to sit one examination, in German, and one interview. The exam was no problem, and I got a good mark, but during the interview I made a couple of elementary mistakes — giving wrong dates, for instance, for the reign of Peter the Great (they should have been 1689-1725). My interviewer was Mr Gonionsky, a leading specialist in Spanish and the history of South America, and head of the Western Department in the college.[8] He noticed my errors, but luckily did not take them seriously: he merely grinned and said, ‘I see dates aren’t your strong point.’
I liked the Institute from my first day: everything there suited me, not least because I arrived to find the place seething with excitement over Khrushchev’s denunciation of Stalin. His secret speech, given to the Twentieth Party Congress in March, still seemed incredibly powerful six months later. Until his revelations burst on them, people had known so little about the true scale of the Great Terror that Khrushchev’s words made a tremendous impact, particularly on the creative intelligentsia who, of course, included students. The country was flooded by new hope: all through that spring and summer the atmosphere in Moscow was one of relaxation and renewal, as people talked and argued with a freedom they had never known.
At the Institute this sense of spiritual and cultural liberation was exhilarating, infectious. We could criticize, print leaflets, organize rallies, put up posters, make speeches. Numerous meetings were held, particularly by the older students in their fourth, fifth and sixth years, who were, of course, more experienced, knowledgeable and eloquent than us. Until then the only posters displayed in public places had carried State propaganda: now all sorts of irreverent notices appeared, touting revolutionary ideas. We youngsters watched with admiration, often carried away, especially by the evenings of sketches on stage, which included much political satire. I particularly remember Gonionsky — who was clever, Jewish and probably liberal at heart — joking and laughing as he sat on the platform and answered accusations. Yet even he had to be careful, and although he did not discourage the students, he could not encourage them much either.
My own academic unit of twelve was divided into two language groups of six students apiece. Within our group four of us formed a nucleus: myself, Stanislav ‘Slava’ Makarov from Astrakhan, Valentin Lomakin from Kuybyshev, and a girl called Ada Kruglyak. Working intensively at my German in the language laboratory, with tape recorders, I conceived the idea of recording a speech of my own, about freedom, democracy and other such heady topics. As soon as I had finished it, I called the group together to hear it, not in any expectation of winning praise but in the hope that it would provoke discussion. The experiment proved disastrous: the tape lasted only five minutes or so, but as my colleagues sat listening, their expressions grew increasingly grim. I saw terror steal over their faces, and before my eyes they became almost paralysed by fear. When the tape finished, Slava Makarov, the only one who could speak, whispered, ‘Oleg, destroy it immediately!’ Feeling like a pricked balloon, I sensed my friends’ terror spreading to me and I did as they ordered, erasing my revolutionary words before they could do serious damage.
It was a sobering moment. Son though I was of a KGB colonel, I had not realized the extent to which that organization had penetrated the college. The KGB were watching us on two levels: on one, for potential recruits to their own ranks, and on another, for any sign of dissidence or reactionary, pro-Western ideas. My colleagues were wiser and understood the system better than I did. It was not until six years later, when I was entering the KGB, that I knew how lucky I had been. At one point the officer who interviewed me consulted his file and asked, ‘What are your views on abstract art?’ I managed to concoct some harmless answer, but with a chill feeling inside: someone must have denounced me at college where, for a while, I had expressed decadent approval of avant-garde painting. I held my breath to see what further questions might follow but it seemed that, by the grace of God, nobody had reported my foray into tape-recording.
In any case, within a few days our new-found freedom was abruptly curtailed: in the last week of October Hungary rose in revolt against Soviet oppression, only for the rebellion to be brutally crushed by tanks rolling into the heart of Budapest. It was hard for us to discover exactly what had happened, since the official propaganda was overwhelming. The Soviet press reported that there had been a Fascist rebellion and that, in an action of fine proletarian solidarity, Soviet troops had gone in to help the long-suffering Hungarian people. The scraps of genuine news which I managed to pick up on our primitive shor
twave radio told a different story, but it was impossible to form a coherent picture of events.
Nevertheless even in Moscow it was soon apparent that a terrible disaster had occurred, for our temporary release from censorship ended overnight. The atmosphere changed entirely: all warmth disappeared, and an icy wind set in. Life, in other words, returned to normal: we had gone back into the cold, and all the thousands of Homo sovieticuses[9] carried on as they had before, toeing the Party line.
After that dramatic start, my career at the Institute settled into an enjoyable and satisfactory pattern. Besides 120 Russian students, there were sixty foreigners, and the college was divided into two main departments, Western and Oriental. In those days the majority of the home students had gained their places through honest effort. Later, official corruption became ramp-ant, as the KGB, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Central Committee, Ministry of Defence and other bodies all put in their lists, and places went to the names on them, regardless of merit; in my time perhaps only 10 or 15 per cent were admitted because they had special connections. One such was the adopted son of General Agayants, a powerful KGB official. The father was a clever, imaginative Armenian, who founded and ran the Department of Disinformation, but his son had no brains or will to work. When I heard the answers he gave in his final exam in international law, in 1962, I could scarcely believe my ears: it was clear that in six years he had learnt nothing. He had evidently thought that because he was the son of somebody important he could cruise through college without making any effort. He was awarded Mark 3, which was just enough for a pass but even that was a travesty for he had no clue about his subject.
The system was heavily loaded against girls, who were outnumbered ten to one, because the authorities knew that it was almost impossible to provide jobs for women in the diplomatic service. For the sake of appearances, they had to have girls in the college, but it was only a token presence. One of the lucky few was Ada Kruglyak. How she gained admission, we never knew, but she was a nice character and got married at the age of twenty-one to a history teacher of thirty-four. To us that seemed ancient, and we wondered if the union could possibly work —but it did, for ten years anyway. By a curious chance Ada’s husband later played an interesting role in my life in Denmark.[10]
Although the Institute’s building was old, its facilities were far better than those at school. It had a language laboratory, with individual cabins and tape recorders, three separate libraries — for academic titles, foreign language books and newspapers — and a much bigger sports hall. The sports facilities were incomparably superior, and at last I began to realize some of my potential as an athlete, playing basketball and, above all, running.
I had wasted so much time earlier that at the beginning I achieved little, not least because I tried to compete in races too short for me. For a while 800 and 1500 metres seemed my best distances, but then I grew to enjoy cross-country, and the 3000-metre steeplechase became my favourite.
One advantage of the Track and Field Club was that it put me in close touch with some outstanding Czech and Slovak students, who were by far the liveliest of the East European contingent. After only eight years of Communism at home, their individuality had not been stifled: they were normal students, with the ebullience and casually nonconformist outlook of intelligent young people in the West. Prominent among them was Jan Handoga, an exceptional middle-distance runner, active, energetic, always laughing, a man who embraced life with both hands and was full of zeal, always wanting to change things. So good was he that we did something definitely not recommended by the authorities: we elected him chairman of the club, and he held office successfully for a couple of years.
Another leader in his field was Standa Kaplan, outstanding at the 400 metres — and as a man. Dark, good-looking — a killer among the girls — and always fun, he became one of my closest friends. In May every year we held a traditional relay race round the Institute building. Each circuit was about 400 metres, and some people ran one lap, some two. I generally went off as No. 1 in our team, but Standa always took the last slot, and was so fast that he could snatch victory for us even if he had a lot of ground to make up.
My own athletic improvement was steady rather than spectacular. During my fifth year we took part in a mass-meeting of all the colleges and institutes in Moscow, and my coach entered me for a heat of the 1500 metres which he said was about my level. Off we went, but I found it more than usually difficult to stay with the group. I started to struggle and, try as I might, I fell back over the final 150 metres, finishing in the last three. I was overcome with disappointment, but my coach took me in his arms, laughing, and when I asked what there was to be so pleased about, he said, ‘Haven’t you looked at the times? That was the best you’ve ever done.’ Without telling me, he had put me into the strongest heat. Later, at the KGB school, I won the 3000-metre cross-country, and then, in the KGB itself, came second out of thirty in a cross-country ski race, helping my team to win. That was the extent of my career in track and field events: I was never much of a runner, but the exercise was character-building and good for my physical development.
In purely material terms, life was comfortable enough. I lived at home, travelling in and out by Metro, morning and evening. (Those living outside Moscow were housed in a special block, and it may be that their existence was enriched by the amount of time they had for talk in the evenings — but there was also a great deal of drinking and disturbance, so that the system also had its bad side.) As for grants, the State did us well, paying each student 450 roubles a month. During the summer months anyone who wanted to earn extra was invited to work on the building, doing decoration and repairs. For this we were paid five roubles a day and, if we did overtime, we got three roubles an hour for a maximum of three hours — fourteen in all for an eleven-hour day, which was not as tough as it sounds: all the hard work, such as carrying bricks up ladders, was done in the morning, while not much went on in the afternoons.
By today’s inflated standards those amounts of money seem small but, at the time, prices were so ridiculously low that we were quite well off. A loaf of bread cost twenty kopeks, a bottle of milk eighteen. You could go anywhere you liked on a tram for three kopeks, and fares on trolleybus, bus and Metro — four, five and five kopeks respectively — were so low that public transport was virtually free. Sometimes it was free, because the bus or train was so packed with people that it was physically impossible to buy a ticket. (The minimal rates were, of course, heavily subsidized by the State, which took money from peasants and industrial workers who were paid tiny salaries.) One of our favourite extravagances was to go to a Czech restaurant in Gorky Park where we would buy excellent beer, much better than Russian, and eat thick little Czech sausages, accompanied by bread with large salt crystals on it — a treat that cost us all of eighty kopeks apiece.
Having been through numerous periods of terrible deprivation — the revolution and the civil war, the upheavals of the 1920s, the famines of the 1930s, collectivization, the Second World War and its aftermath — Soviet people regarded poverty as a more or less normal state, and expected intermittent shortages of essential foodstuffs. Yet it was a constant annoyance that the shops had so little for sale. During my first years at college my wardrobe was modest in the extreme. Everyone else was the same, and everyone longed for something better. Then, in the middle of my time, a German student sold me his raincoat, only an old beige trench-coat but made in European style and, therefore, in my eyes a miraculous garment. I wore it until it fell apart. Only when I reached East Germany in 1961 did I manage to buy a couple of shirts and a new suit.
Among the attractions of the Institute was our barber, Grigory Abramovich, a middle-aged man of artistic appearance who was said to have won competitions and to have trained in Germany during the 1920s. Whatever his true background, he was an excellent barber, and generations of students remember him with gratitude; he was also a bit of a wit, and I have never forgotten one exchange that took place while I
was awaiting my turn in the chair.
‘Grigory Abramovich,’ said the student whose hair he was cutting, and who was already going a bit thin on top, ‘can you recommend any effective treatment that will cure baldness?’
‘Young man,’ said the barber, ‘you study international relations, and read foreign newspapers and magazines, do you not?’
‘Why, yes,’ said the student, a bit surprised.
‘Well, then, you’ve seen numerous pictures of Western millionaires. Haven’t you noticed how many of them have lost their hair? And don’t you think that, if there were any cure for baldness, they’d have been glad to pay a million or two to have the treatment?’
During my second year at the Institute I stayed in a winter camp some ninety kilometres north of Moscow, and there I met an exceptionally attractive girl. With her dark curly hair, lovely eyes and easy, natural behaviour, Natasha Afanasyeva appealed to me more strongly than anyone else I had met. When I found that she lived close to me, I thought, Wonderful! It will be easy to meet. But it was not that simple. It turned out that she had a full-time job as a clerk in the office of a factory, and also went to classes in a technical college five nights a week, so that she had practically no time for private life.
In spite of the difficulties, we did meet from time to time, and I remained fascinated by her — not only was she a beautiful girl, but a hard-working and serious one who seemed to enjoy my company. Nevertheless, something seemed to inhibit her — and, after about a year, a bombshell burst.
One evening she telephoned, and in a strange, strained voice, said, ‘Can you come quickly? I need to have a word.’
Next Stop Execution: The Autobiography of Oleg Gordievsky Page 8
