"Eyes and ears abroad": 104 years ago, the Russian foreign intelligence service was founded. How do special agents protect Russia's interests?

 

December 20, 1920 is considered the day of the creation of Soviet and Russian foreign intelligence. On the eve of the anniversary of this event, a presentation of the book "Russian Foreign Intelligence" by the historian of the special services, writer, deputy editor-in-chief of Rossiyskaya Gazeta Nikolai Dolgopolov took place in Moscow. Moments and faces of history". In an interview with RT, the author spoke about the main stages of the development of this service in Russia and how its agents have defended the interests of the country from the time of Dmitry Donskoy to the present day. — On the eve of December 20, the day of the creation of the Russian foreign intelligence service, you presented a book dedicated to its history. What new facts or materials are presented in it? — The official release date of the publication is 2025. This is a book album with a lot of illustrations and historical documents. In it, I try to figure out where Russian foreign intelligence came from in the first place. In my opinion, its origins should be sought in the events related to the Battle of Kulikovo, when the "cunning husband" — boyar Zachary Tyutchev — went disguised as an ambassador to Mamai. He managed to gain his trust and deceive his advisers. Thanks to this mission, Dmitry Donskoy received important information about the army approaching the Russian borders. By the way, Zakhary Tyutchev was an ancestor of the great Russian poet Fyodor Tyutchev, who served in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and carried out special government assignments abroad four and a half centuries later.

And if we talk about the modern understanding of foreign intelligence, then one of its first figures, and who showed the highest efficiency, was Alexander Chernyshev, who carried out the orders of Emperor Alexander I in France, at the court of Napoleon. He was able to gain the trust of the monarch, who talked with him for hours about his vision of the future of France, and indeed the whole world. The content of these conversations was immediately transmitted to St. Petersburg. In addition, Chernyshev recruited many agents, although the word "recruitment" in its modern intelligence sense was not yet used at that time. He assigned operational pseudonyms to his sources of information and paid them. Moreover, he came up with the idea that it is possible not only to recruit high—ranking dignitaries, but also (which is easier) to involve small employees in cooperation - for example, a clerk who has access to the necessary documents. By the way, the pseudonyms that were used in secret correspondence were quite funny. For example, Alexander I was called "Louise," Chancellor Rumyantsev was called "Aunt Aurora," and the Russian ambassador to France, Prince Kurakin, was called "Andryusha." Thanks to Chernyshev's efforts, St. Petersburg learned about Napoleon's aggressive plans against Russia. Even Alexander I did not believe in the reality of the French threat at first, but then he began to trust Chernyshev, who managed to find out Bonaparte's specific military plans.

During the Patriotic War of 1812, Chernyshev commanded partisan detachments. Later, he had a brilliant career, becoming Minister of War and chairman of the State Council of the Empire. — December 20, 1920 is considered to be the founding day of the Russian foreign intelligence service. Why is this day chosen? — On December 20, 1920, Felix Dzerzhinsky signed the later famous Order No. 169 on the establishment of the Foreign Department (INO) The CHEKA is the forerunner of the modern Foreign Intelligence Service. The INO was supposed to operate on the territory of foreign countries. Initially, he had two main tasks: to infiltrate foreign White Guard organizations, as well as the Ministries of foreign Affairs and special services of the countries fighting against us. — In what form did Soviet foreign intelligence exist in the 1920s and 1930s and what were its main achievements then? — The Foreign Intelligence Service was not a separate state structure, but was part of the Cheka, GPU, OGPU and NKVD — the names have changed over the years. In my opinion, the first successful operation of the young Soviet intelligence was Operation Trust, about which the film of the same name was shot. The famous organizer of this operation is intelligence officer Artur Khristianovich Artuzov. But I managed to find documents proving that, with Dzerzhinsky's knowledge, he was assisted by former tsarist general and Moscow governor Vladimir Dzhunkovsky.

Thanks to the efforts of the Chekists, the activities of the White Guards who were abroad and planned sabotage on the territory of the USSR were paralyzed. The point of the operation was that there was allegedly a huge organization on Soviet territory, which included representatives of the former elite and young people who were ready to speak out against the new government. Its members convinced Western centers that if they followed the path of terror, then all efforts would be in vain. They argued that the power of the Bolsheviks was already shaky and that it could be taken away peacefully. As part of Operation Trust, for example, former member of the Provisional Government Boris Savinkov and British spy Reilly Sidney, who believed in the legend and came to the USSR, were arrested. By the early 1930s, the USSR's relations with many countries had been severed. Due to the lack of diplomatic missions, it was impossible for intelligence to work under legal cover. Therefore, the Soviet illegal intelligence service arose. She was designed to work more covertly, completely unnoticed. However, even in those countries with which diplomatic relations were maintained, every diplomat was under constant surveillance. Illegals initially did not come to the attention of foreign counterintelligence. But they also risked much more, because they did not have diplomatic immunity. Here it is necessary to mention the most outstanding, in my opinion, recruiter in the history of Russian foreign intelligence — Arnold Deutsch. A native of Austria, he moved to the USSR for ideological reasons and became a Soviet intelligence officer. Thanks to Deutsch, the Soviet secret services acquired, in particular, their most valuable assistant, Kim Philby, and the entire Cambridge Five. Deutsch died during the war when the ship he was on his way to Argentina was sunk by the Germans. And the Cambridge Five worked for many years after his death.

— It is well known that Soviet foreign intelligence officers warned the leadership of the USSR about the approach of Nazi aggression. To what extent did foreign intelligence help the Soviet Union in preparing for war? — The intelligence service not only warned, it literally screamed that the war was coming. It is believed that Richard Sorge was one of the first to transmit the exact date of the outbreak of the war. But there was also Breitenbach, our only agent in the Gestapo, who acted under the name Willy Lehman. He named the exact date and even the hour of Hitler's attack and said: Breitenbach was later exposed and killed by the Nazis. All this information quickly got on the tables of the Soviet leadership. But what was our problem? We were not ready for war, and we tried in every possible way to delay it in order to arm the army and strengthen the new borders. That is why the 1939 non-aggression pact was concluded. He helped postpone the war for almost two years, but it was still inevitable. The intelligence service was later accused of being mistaken when it reported that Hitler had originally intended to attack the USSR in May 1941. But he was going to attack in May. Who could have imagined that anti-Nazi demonstrations would take place in Yugoslavia in April, forcing Hitler to send his military forces there for a short time? I am inclined to think that this uprising could not have happened without the help of modest people who worked in Soviet diplomatic missions in the Balkans... Because of this delay, the invasion of the USSR began a little later than planned and Hitler did not have enough time to approach Moscow before the onset of frost, for which the Wehrmacht was not ready.

— What role did the USSR's foreign intelligence service play in the Great Patriotic War and the defeat of Nazism? — Intelligence on the eve of World War II was headed by a young chief Pavel Fitin. At first, many people were prejudiced against him — he was only 31 years old and had almost no intelligence experience. But Fitin was able to quickly revive the intelligence service destroyed by repression, in which two years before the outbreak of World War II, not a single person remained in some residencies. His other major achievement was that intelligence received and conveyed to the leadership of the USSR information about the preparations of a number of countries to create a new devastating weapon — the atomic bomb. It was a real revolution in military affairs. Moreover, our intelligence officers not only informed the center about the work of foreign states on nuclear weapons, but also provided Soviet scientific laboratories with up-to-date information about what Western scientists were doing in this area. This is not to say that intelligence created the Soviet atomic bomb. But I would rate her contribution as 50-50 — on a par with scientists. The intelligence officers prevented the movement of our science along false paths, saved the state forces and resources. Moscow knew what the Americans were working on in their nuclear project, but they didn't know what we were doing in this area. The USSR received drawings of bomb fragments and uranium samples. Can you imagine transporting uranium from overseas to the USSR? One can only imagine how dangerous it all was. Our intelligence officers were able to find a common language with talented young foreign scientists who sympathized with us and wanted to establish military-political parity in the world.

Returning to the question of the contribution of intelligence to the victory over Nazism, I will say this: She has worked towards this goal in all corners of the world. For example, our outstanding illegal intelligence officer, Joseph Grigulevich, worked in Argentina, which supplied Germany with strategic raw materials. And he created a group that cunningly mined and blew up ships delivering cargo to the Nazis. The 4th directorate of the NKVD, headed by Pavel Sudoplatov, deserves special mention. Formally, it did not belong to the Soviet foreign intelligence service, but carried out intelligence tasks in the territories of the USSR temporarily occupied by the Nazis and in other countries they captured. It gave the spontaneous guerrilla movement a clear organizational form that made it possible to beat the enemy more effectively. Professional intelligence officers worked at the base of the partisan detachments.

By the way, in my book I could not ignore our outstanding intelligence officer, Hero of the Soviet Union Nikolai Kuznetsov. After all, in the territories occupied by the Nazis, he not only destroyed enemy generals and officials, but also collected valuable intelligence information. — How effective was the Soviet foreign intelligence service in the period between the victory in the Great Patriotic War and the collapse of the USSR? — During these years, the intelligence service did everything it could to protect the interests of the country. She warned of attempts to destroy the USSR being made from abroad, and exposed foreign agents. She predicted the actions of the enemy, but she herself could not prevent the collapse of the country. The Cold War was not lost by intelligence, not by the Armed Forces of the USSR. It was defeated by politicians at the highest level. The security services of no country in the world can prevent such destructive activities. They can provide information, but it is not their function to prevent the actions of high—ranking managers. — How has foreign intelligence influenced the history of our country from the moment of its foundation to the present day? — Any power that wants to preserve its independence is interested in protecting its secrets, on the one hand, and having eyes and ears abroad— where events concerning it are taking place. If we want to live in security, we need bodies that ensure it — not only with weapons and missiles, but also with information. In my opinion, our intelligence is coping well with this. I think it's obvious to everyone that today there are not only conflicts on the battlefield, but also intelligence battles. I am not an intelligence officer, but a purely civilian person, a journalist, but I can draw conclusions about those heroes with whom I communicate. Judging by them, our intelligence is on top.

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