Inside soviet military intelligence

by Viktor Suvorov

  The fourth faculty, like the first, is not located on the academy premises. Moreover, its individual courses and groups are separated among themselves in conditions of the strictest secrecy. The fourth faculty trains foreigners - Poles, Germans, Czechs, Hungarians, Bulgars, Mongols and Cubans. Naturally, not one of these has ever set foot in the academy buildings and has no idea where the academy is located; equally naturally, the Soviet trainees in the academy must not have even the slightest contact with their 'brothers'.

  For each of these students in the Soviet Army academy, a special personal cover story will have been worked out. Frequently, many of them will study for a year in some normal military academy concerned with tank or artillery studies, for example, before spending their three to four years on secret premises. And these students do not receive diplomas from the Soviet Army Academy. Their diplomas come from, for example, the Tank Warfare Academy. Only a handful of people will know what is hidden under this name.

  The academic courses are something different. These are designed not to provide a complete training, but only partial one, and the period of study is only one year. They are attended principally by the most experienced officers and those with the greatest future prospects, who were chosen for entry to strategic faculties of the academy but then transferred by the GRU into the diplomatic (civil) or overseas trade academy where they completed a full course of study. They are considered on a par with the other civil students and carry out their specialised training in their spare time and receive the same diplomas as the graduates of the two strategic faculties, having already received genuine diplomatic diplomas. This is the most secret part of Soviet intelligence after illegals, for even genuine 'clean' diplomats consider them their own kind and do not suspect their intelligence connections. The academic courses are also attended by graduates of the Military Foreign Languages Institute who have been chosen by the GRU for work abroad. The GRU uses them in residencies mainly for duties with technical and technical-operational services. After a first assignment abroad these may, provided they have served successfully, enter the academy in one of the strategic faculties. Lastly, the academy receives specialists from other fields whom the GRU invites to work in technical services or on information work.

  There is a post-graduate school too, which prepares scientific personnel for the GRU and also instructors for the academy itself. An officer who has completed one of the strategic faculties, and has been abroad on agent work and shown good results, is accepted by the post-graduate school for a period of instruction of two to three years during which he must prepare and defend a scientific dissertation on a subject chosen by himself. The resulting qualification is a scientific degree, Master of Military Science.

  Who is eligible? This is a very complex problem. The candidate who hopes to please the GRU must fulfil the following conditions: racial purity - there must be no Jewish blood as far back as the fourth generation (the KGB has no such restriction); ideological stability and purity; membership of the communist party; the absence of any contact with overseas, excepting the 'liberation' of Hungary and Czechoslovakia and the 'defence of socialism in eastern Europe'. He must have a wife and children of complete ideological and racial purity. He must have strong and reliable family connections, on his own side and his wife's. There must be no compromising material on the files of any of their relatives. None of his relatives may have been either prisoners of war in Germany, nor on Soviet territory under the temporary occupation of German forces. And there must be no signs whatsoever of alcoholism, sexual promiscuity, family problems, corruption and so on, nor must the officer have any prominent distinguishing features or speech defects.

  One of the most difficult things in selecting candidates is to find people who understand the political situation in the world and can clearly see possible future developments without being secret free-thinkers. Obviously anyone who is politically inept is not acceptable to the GRU, but if a man is moderately intelligent, there is always the danger that secret doubts will begin to penetrate his head. Naturally, when this rare creature is found he is instantly made to sit meaningless examinations and, from the very first day, accorded appropriate honours.

  In a classless society, everybody is equal and life is therefore happy and free. All people are friends and brothers and nobody will try to do his neighbour down. People may pursue their ambitions without let or hindrance. Of course, if you live in the country, you cannot move to the city, still less the capital Moscow, without the permission of the Central Committee. Society may be classless, all right, but it is divided, for the good of the people, into parts - you have the right to live in the city or you have not. You may rightly say that you would prefer to live in the city, but you are branded from birth - if you were born in the country, you must stay there and so must your children and grandchildren - for their own good. Unless - unless you do something like become a GRU officer. Immediately, you will find yourself in Moscow, with a permanent residence permit. This is good news for not only you, but your children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren down to the fortieth generation, who will all have Moscow residence permits and will legally reside in Moscow.

  It is as if you had moved onto a higher sphere, as if you and your relations had suddenly been ennobled. You should draw your family tree on the wall of your apartment so that future generations of your family will know who it was who lifted them up to the heights.

  In capitalist societies, where everybody is naturally out for each other's blood, people move around chaotically, causing untold social problems. These could all be eradicated with the introduction of residence permits on the Soviet model. The Moscow residence permit, logically, is the first privilege of a GRU officer. There are others, of course. For example, an ordinary general staff officer is unable to buy a car during the whole of his life unless of course he steals or is sent abroad. A GRU officer may in three years buy not only a car, but also an apartment. Drawing another distinction, it is often asked how much more a GRU officer abroad earns in comparison with the same officer in Moscow. It is impossible to answer this question sensibly, because in Moscow the officer spends money which is to all practical purposes incapable of buying anything except food of rather inferior quality and equally inferior clothes. He who is sent abroad, however, receives foreign currency and can buy everything he needs both while he is abroad and at home in the Soviet Union in the special foreign currency shops. In possessing foreign currency a GRU officer becomes a man of completely different class, very sharply distinguished from all those who do not have it. Special shops and restaurants are open to him, where he can buy anything he wants, without queueing. The ordinary Soviet citizen, including the general staff officer or even the GRU officer who does not serve abroad, may not even enter these shops.

  So Soviet society is as racial as it can possibly be, only race is not determined by the colour of your skin but by whether you have the right to travel abroad or not. Imagine any country, France perhaps, putting up outside shops the announcement that: 'Nobody of French nationality is allowed to enter this shop. Only those on the list of the Central Committee of the Communist Party are admitted.' But in the Soviet Union there are everywhere shops, hotels, restaurants which Russians may not enter, because they are Russian. Life for a GRU officer possessing foreign currency is on an infinitely wider scale than for the 270 million who are deprived of the right to hold foreign currency. And once he has become a representative of the upper class, he becomes inordinately jealous of his right, fearing above anything the loss of the privilege which allows him to travel abroad. This is why he defends himself against any revelation about his own person, against any, even the most insignificant, contacts with the police. This is why he tries to hide from his superiors even the smallest shortcomings. This is why he is capable of any dirty trick upon anybody, including his own comrades, when what is at stake is whether he should remain another year in a hot, humid, subtropical posting - or return early to Mosc
ow.

  Conclusion

  For a GRU officer, there are countries in which he dreams of working. There are also countries in which he would rather not work. There are cities he dreams of, and cities he sees in nightmares.

  The dream city for a GRU officer is Peking. Its infernal counterpart Tokyo. This might appear strange, because for the top brass of the GRU quite the reverse is true: Tokyo is heaven, Peking hell. But the interests of a GRU officer are directly opposed to the interests of the top brass. The top brass desire high productivity, while the work force has rather different aims.

  Imagine that you are lucky and are posted to China. What awaits you? A vast, splendid embassy behind high walls. Chit-chat with colleagues from other embassies, gossip about the state of health of the Chinese leaders and the Ambassador's wife. After five years your return home, obviously without having recruited any agents. But nobody will bawl you out for it, you will not have your epaulettes torn off, no one will call you lazy or a coward. Everyone understands that you have been in hell, where serious work is impossible....

  And now imagine that you are an unlucky spy and the GRU post you to Tokyo. Both you and the GRU top brass know that there are no laws against spying there, that conditions for spying are ideal. So what awaits you? Exhausting stressful work, fifteen to seventeen hours a day, with no rest days and no feast days. No matter how many secrets you manage to acquire it will never be enough. No matter how many agents you recruit it will never be enough. Your paradise will be snowed under with cipher cables from Moscow addressed to the resident saying: 'You have seventy operational officers! Where's your productivity? What you managed to get yesterday we have already received from Hong Kong! From Berlin! From illegals! Where are the secrets!!!???' You may rest assured that this question is put by the GRU daily to the resident who will in turn ask you the same question, pounding the table with his enormous fist. He will fight for the kind of productivity that can only be achieved through merciless competition. If your output is not up to scratch you will simply be sent home and your career broken.

  Personally I have never been to Tokyo, but I have had to work in a country which was considered 'paradise' by the GRU top brass. Understandably, for us it was 'hell'. A weak police system in that country meant that the other residents continually used it as an intermediate base for their operations, and it was a busy crossing point for GRU illegals, too. All of them had to be taken care of and helped. Acting as a supply base for agent network operations is rather like serving in a signals unit during a war: as long as communication lines are maintained nobody remembers you, but should communications be interrupted the signaller is sent to a penal battalion forthwith, charged with the failure of the entire operation. The difference between us and the signals boys lay in the fact that no matter how well we maintained supplies, how successful our own work was, we also had to recruit agents. After all, we were living in 'paradise', where the police was weak and Soviet diplomats were never expelled.

  I'd like to beg all who are responsible for the security of the West: be human. Do expel Soviet spies occasionally. By expelling one you enable others to reduce their frantic activity. A spy is a human being. He bears on his shoulders the immense pressure of the gigantic GRU establishment, and he has no excuse for any lapses. He needs one, so be human.

  Who should be expelled first? The answer is obvious: the resident. The expulsion of the resident is equivalent to clearing the King off the chess-board: it spells checkmate to the 'residentura', no matter how aggressive and successful it is. Usually the local police know who he is. He is easy to identify. He has already served abroad for twelve to fifteen years, he has been very active and, judging by the signs, successful. Now here he is serving abroad again, in a senior diplomatic post, and hardly ever leaving the embassy, but sitting there motionless, like a spider. Clearly it is against him that all forces must be mobilised. This is not easy. He breaks no laws, does not speed up and down the motorways day and night, carries no stolen secrets in his car. But he is more dangerous than all his officers put together.

  There is a deep-seated and erroneous belief that known residents should not be allowed into the country. Sometimes they aren't, sometimes they are simply not granted entry visas. This is a mistake. I will try to explain, using my own resident as an example. He was a man of unflinching will and powerful intellect, a true ace of spies: careful, perfidious, calculating and fearless. He was promoted to major-general at the age of thirty-six, and he had a brilliant career in front of him in the upper echelons of the GRU. But all he wanted was to be a resident, and as a result he remained a major-general. Without any doubt the Security Services in the West knew him well. Prior to one of his postings abroad the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs asked for a Belgian visa for him. It was refused. They asked for a French one - again refused. Then a West German one - refused again. Finally a small country with a soft, friendly government agreed to grant him entry. The GRU gave the resident his final briefing, which of course included the names and addresses of the members of the network run by the 'residentura'. As soon as he arrived in the country he started extending the network speedily and vigorously, until it was working successfully against the USA, against Belgium, against France, against all the countries which had refused him entry. In other words, barring a resident from a country does not mean rendering his network ineffective (see Appendix C).

  Now imagine another set of circumstances. Supposing the first country approached, in this case Belgium, had issued the visa. The resident would be briefed, let into all the 'residentura' secrets, and would arrive in the country. However if, three to four months later, Belgium found some reason or other to expel him, the results of this would be threefold:

  1. The resident will have had time to disrupt the existing system of work in the residency but not to build up a new system.

  2. Having to leave the country suddenly, the resident will leave his army without a commanding officer. Time will be needed for the successor's visa application and more time to brief the new resident. In the interim the residency will remain inactive.

  3. The experienced resident, on returning to Moscow, will be completely neutralised. For the following three to four years, visa applications cannot be sent for him either to France or West Germany or any other country that Belgium will have notified as an ally.

  One experienced, authoritative, demanding and merciless resident serving in a neutral country with ten officers under his command can sometimes harm the West more than two hundred very active GRU officers working in the USA, Great Britain, West Germany or France. This is not only a matter of my opinion, it is also the opinion held by Moscow Centre, and it was the opinion held by my first resident, who taught me unforgettable lessons in concentration on target, persistence and mad risk. I am sincerely sorry that he has stayed the other side of the barricade....

  How should one go about the business of expulsion? The short answer is: as noisily as possible. To expel a Soviet spy is of course a victory. But to expel him noisily means that you are making as much capital out of the victory as you can. The silent expulsion of a Soviet spy is an action directed against one man. The noisy expulsion is a slap in the face for the GRU, for the KGB; it is an action directed against all their spies, against thousands of unstable people prepared to listen to the proposals of the Soviet intelligence service. Here is another example encountered during my work.

  I had a reasonably good relationship with a young man who agreed to 'lose' his passport. In return he agreed to 'find' some money. This was the first step towards the morass. Further well-tried steps were planned which would have pushed him deeper in each time; once in, he would never have been able to get out. However, on the day scheduled for a meeting, an insignificant local paper published an item stating that fifty per cent of the Soviet Embassy staff were spies. So at our meeting, instead of losing the money I had with me and finding his passport, I had to spend the time proving to him that the news item was a lie. And it really was a b
arefaced lie, as at that time not fifty but eighty per cent of the Embassy staff were spies. I managed to convince the young man. We remained good friends ... but nothing more. He did not take the crucial step. Should you, young man, be reading my book, my greetings to you. I am glad for your sake, in spite of the fact that at the time I felt my failure deeply. But what can a poor GRU spy do in a situation when the powerful free Western press publishes such items at the least suitable moment?

  Finally the question arises as to how many Soviet spies should be expelled. The only answer is: all. What do you need them for? Why keep them in your country? They are professionals specially selected and trained to destroy your country. If you have the evidence to prove that they are spies - expel them. Sometimes the theory is put forward that it is better to unearth a spy and keep him under surveillance than to expel him, as then a new one will be sent in and we will not know whom to keep under surveillance. That is correct. But every expelled spy represents a nightmare to the new ones, who fear deeply being appointed as replacements. Secondly, intelligence experience is much more valuable than any amount of education, and one experienced spy is a hundred times more dangerous than a young, green one. The more inexperienced spies you have in your country the more mistakes will be made, the easier it will be to watch them.

  But if we expel people, runs the argument, the Soviet Union will retaliate and expel our innocent diplomats from Moscow. That is so. But to that there is an antidote - you must expel large groups of diplomats simultaneously. Look at these statistics: Holland expelled one - the Soviet Union's reply : two. Turkey expelled one - the reply : two. But if you increase the number to five the Soviet reply will be five or fewer. Canada expelled thirteen - the reply : two. France expelled forty-seven - the reply: nil.