SECRETS OF RUSSIA'S SECURITY POLICE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP73B00296R000500140007-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 20, 2005
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: September 13, 1970
• Content Type: NSPR

TAT
Approved For Release 2005/11/21 : CIA-RDP73600296R000500140007-5
Approved For Release 2005/11/21 : CIA-RDP73600296R000500140007-5
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Approved For Release 2005/11/21 : CIA-RDP73600296R000500140007-5
THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH
SEPTEMBER 13, 1970
A DEFECTOR FROM THE K.G.B. TELLS HIS STORY
Secrets of
Russia's
Security
Police
by YURI KROTKOV
ITURI KROTKOV, a gay, handsome
Russian, was well known in
Moscow in the 'Fifties and 'Sixties
as a writer and witty raconteur and
one of the few Soviet citizens who
was ready to meet and mix freely
with Western diplomats [writes
DAVID FLOYD]. Although the
ease with which he accepted
invitations from foreigners made
him suspect to the harder-headed
members of the diplomatic corps,
many a Western embassy remained
open to him.
Western suspicions of Krotkov were
fully justified. Throughout the
period when he was circulating
among Westerners in Moscow he
was operating under the direct
supervision of the Soviet secret
police. From 1946, when he was
first " co-opted " into the service of
the Soviet intelligence agency, to
the moment in 1963 when he suc-
ceeded in "choosing freedom" in
London his every contact with
foreigners was carefully planned
and directed by senior officers of
the Soviet State Security organs.
In those 17 years he played an im-
portant part in many operations
against prominent Western diplo-
mats, including French and Indian
ambassadors.
He was so deeply involved in fact that,
even after he had been granted
asylum in the West, the intelligence
agencies ot the Western powers
would not permit him to tell his
story in public. Only in the last
few weeks has he been released
from his vow of silence to tell for
the first time from the inside how
the Soviet secret police organises its
supervision of all foreigners in the
Soviet Union.
Even while he was involved in plots
and intrigues among Moscow's
foreign colony Krotkov was also
busy writing his novels and film
scenarios in the hope that he could
one day fulfil his ambition to make
a career as a writer. Since his
arrival in the West, apart from
writing the story of his involvement
with the secret police in Russia,
Yuri Krotkov has made his name as
the author of brilliant satirical
studies of the Stalin period
published in Russian ?gr?iterary
reviews.
Other defectors to the West have told
the story of what it is like to live
in the Soviet police state. Yuri
Krotkov is the first to be able to tell
the story from the point of view of
a secret police agent himself work-
ing in Moscow.
Early-morning knock on the
door that began a life of treble deception
IT happened in the summer of 1946
I. in Moscow. Early one morning I
heard a knock on the door of the room
I occupied in a " communal " flat, in
which there were 11 rooms and some-
thing like 20 occupants. I opened the
door and found a young man of
medium height and wearing civilian
clothes standing in the corridor. He
smiled. I asked him what he wanted.
Without uttering a word he showed
ma a little red warrant card with the
three letters M.G.B. printed clearly in
gold. I knew very well they stood for
the Ministry of State Security, now
known as the Committee of State
Security, or K.G.B. He told me to get
dressed and join him outside, and he
said it in a half-whisper so that my
neighbours should not hear what he
was saying. Of course I put my clothes
on at once, and we went down from
the third floor and out on to the street.
Even there I did not have the
courage to demand what was going on.
And he. still smiling agreeably,
announced that we had to go to a
certain place. A certain place. I knew
of one place from which visitors
seldom returned home. That was called
the Lubyanka, the secret police head-
quarters in the middle of Moscow. But
to my relief we went by underground
train to a quite different station, and
the kindly smile of the young man,
who introduced himself as Volodya,
also helped to put my mind at rest.
(Volodya was a lieutenant in the
M.G.B., still under training and only
just out of special college.)
In a big block of flats on Chaplygin
Street, in a two- or three-roomed flat
which was simply furnished but well
concealed, we were greeted by a tall,
fair-haired, blue-eyed man of about 30.
He gave his name as Rumyantsev?
Sergei Ivanovich. His real name was
Yegorov and at the time he was a
major in the M.G.B.
We talked for a couple of hours.
At Rumyantsev's request I told him all
about myself, while he listened with
apparent attention and understanding.
Then Rumyantsev and Volodya started
to talk about the supreme importance
of intelligence work in the Soviet
Union. They spoke of "enemies of the
people ", of foreign spies, of diplomats
who were out to cause trouble, of the
intrigues of capitalist agents, and so
on and so forth. They emphasised, of
course, that it was the duty of every
Soviet patriot to help the M.G.B.
All this dreary talk was largely
wasted on me. They knew very well
from the outset that I was in no
position to turn down their " pro-
posals " or that I had very little hope
of doing so. From the very beginning
they felt themselves on top of the
situation, because their weapons in-
cluded the force of fear, or rather a
force which evokes fear in human
beings. Nevertheless they wanted to
observe the proper forms. I was
supposed to give my agreement, so to
speak, voluntarily and not under
duress.
In this way I was invited to
collaborate with the M.G.B. It was
actually at the beginning a rather
vague invitation, a sort of general
proposal. I was given to understand
that my work would be extremely
interesting and that it would benefit
me as a writer.
Of course Rumyantsev- Yegorov
already knew my life story?the whole
of it, so he thought?that I had studied
at the literary institute of the Soviet
Writers' Union, that I had worked for
TASS and Moscow Radio, that I had
'been writing articles not only for the
Soviet Information Bureau but also on
a sort of freelance basis, as well as
plays and film scenarios, although so
far none of my works had yet had any
success.
One thing Yegorov did not know,
to the later sorrow of the M.G.B..
K.G.B., was that in the depths of my
soul I dreamt of writing sometime my
own "War and Peace"without listen-
ing to anyone else's orders or instruc-
tions.
Yegorov hinted to me that my work
would be mainly connected with
foreigners and that it was quite likely
that I should have to travel abroad. I
came to the conclusion that I had
fallen into the clutches of the Foreign
Department of the M.G.B., probably
because I spoke a little English and
because, as a correspondent of the
Anglo-American section of Moscow
Radio, I had often met foreigners. In
particular I had acted as guide to
[Lady] Clementine Churchill on her
official visit to the U.S.S.R. in March,
1944.
I wondered who could have recom-
mended me to Yegorov. After much
thought I decided that it must have
been an announcer in the Anglo-
American section of Moscow Radio, Jo
Adamov, with whom I had been friendly
and who was reputed to be tied up
with the M.G.B. I used to see him
in the company of Americans and
English outside Moscow Radio.
I mention Jo Adamov, whose voice
I still hear today on Moscow Radio,
because later on I was myself respons-
ible indirectly for bringing people into
the K.G.B. network. I provided. K.G.B.
officers with the names of people who
seemed to me to be suitable candidates,
both men and?especially?women.
That was one of the essential func-
tions of a person " co-opted " into the
K.G.B.
The only real deviation from the
standard procedure on such occasions
in the course of our " chat " was the
fact that Yegorov learnt from me that
my late father had been a well-known
artist in Georgia and was the man who
had painted the " famous " portrait of
Lavrenti Beria, who had been the
second or third man after Stalin in the
Russia of the time.
I let Yegorov know that my father
had been a visitor to Beria's country
house near Tbilisi (Tiflis), had made his
sketches from real life, and that our
whole family had been on friendly
terms with Vsevolod Merkulov, Beria's
right-hand man and no more and no less
than the head of the M.G.B.
This set Yegorov back a little. He had
not known it. With a wry grin he said:
"Oh dear, we shall have to be careful
with you. Otherwise you'll be complain-
ing to the Minister. .. ."
I suppose I could have exploited this
circumstance to get out of the invitation.
But f didn't.
I was ordered at once to provide
myself with a secret nickname. I chose
the word " Suliko," which means in
Georgian "darling." It was at the same
time the name of a Georgian song, then
popular in the country and, according to
the evidence of people in the know, liked
by Stalin himself.
At the end of our interview I had
to sign a paper saying that everything
we had discussed and the fact of my
recruitment was a state secret to be
disclosed to no one.
Yegorov ,gave me his telephone
numbers and from that moment I
became in fact a co-opted member of
the Soviet secret service, combining that
work with less painful and less shameful
activity in the field of literature. My
life became a treble deceit.
It is difficult for a foreigner, an
outsider, to imagine the extent of the
network of " co-opted " members of
the K.G.B. which operates in my
country.
Everyone who has any experience
of life in the Soviet Union knows, of
course, that the K.G.B. has its com-
mittees, offices and departments in
each of the 15 republics which make
up the U.S.S.R. It also has its offices
and representatives in every provincial
centre, in every district, in every city
and town and village, and in every
Soviet institution and enterprise, big
or small.
Devilish system
As Soviet citizens we long ago
became accustomed to living with the
leather-padded doors, the little peep-
holes and the notices: "No Entry
Unless Authorised ". Most employees
In the Soviet Union have been forced
to accept the presence everywhere of
the usually grim and uncommunicative
people who work in those "Special
Departments ", whose numbers must
run into millions. But apart from them
there are also the "personnel officers
who are also tied up with the K.G.B.
It is a devilish system. But I am
not concerned here with the K.G.B.
network itself so much as with the
" unofficial " or part-time agents?the
" co-opted " members. They constitute
a spider's web which covers the whole
of the U.S.S.R. They are an army of
informers, nosey-parkers and provoca-
teurs of all sorts and kinds. And they
are an army which costs the State
nothing, or practically nothing, to keep
going, because its members are re-
cruited primarily on patriotic grounds.
It's a clever scheme. It was, after
all, Lenin who declared that every
Communist should also bt. a " Chekist ".
that is, a secret police agent. Actually
in this connection there is in the Soviet
Union no distinction between people
who are in the party and those who
are not. They have no choice but to
be Communists and to love their Com-
munist country, and Ere therefore
obliged to help it fight its enemies.
And the party knows best who are
enemies and who are friends. Anyone
who tries to shirk his obligations is at
once accused of lack of patriotism.
That is the way life is organised in
the Soviet Union; that is how the
authorities keep track of everything
everyone says and does. That is our
Soviet system. I suppose it is also the
way any totalitarian, police system
works.
Here are a few examples from real
life which illustrate the depths to
which the tentacles of the K.G.B. pene-
trate into people's everyday life:
For nearly 25 years I lived in a flat
in a Moscow block. It was a communal
flat, with every convenience. It had 11
rooms and provided accommodation for
nine families. Apart from that it had one
telephone, one bathroom one lavatory,
four TV. sets, six radio receivers, with-
out short waves, and eight gas-rings in
the kitchen.
And cf the 20 occupants of our flat
four were tied up in one way or the
other with the K.G.B. One was a K.G B.
colonel, working on the security of state
communications, one was a retired
K.G.B. captain (he had been dismissed
for drunkenness), and there were two
" co-opted " members, myself and the
colonel's wife, Anna, who worked in one
of the foreign embassies. And every
Soviet citizen employed in a foreign
embassy?every one, without exception ?
?is certainly a co-opted member of the
K.G.B.
I recall a conversation I had with a
well-known film producer who has since
died, Ivan Pyrev. It was he who made
films of Dostoyevsky's "The Idiot" and
"The Brothers Karamazov." For many
years he was chairman of the organising
committee of the Union of Cinemato-
graph workers. On one occasion I told
Pyrev that, on Khruschev's orders, it had
been decided to put not one but two
families in each of the newly constructed
three-roomed flats.
Pyrev said with a smile: "Quite
rightly, too. Supposing they were to let a
family live on their own in a fiat, who
would know what they were up to, what
they were saying, or what they were
thinking? But if there are two families,
then they can keep an eye on each
other, listen to what's being said and
check up on everything. . . . It's safer
that way, you know."
In 1956 I wrote a scenario for the
Lenfilm studio. I had on several occa-
sions to make changes in it, and on one
occasion the changes were so substantial
that I decided to go off on my own. With
the aid of the K.G.B. I managed to
obtain a ticket on the Molotov, a
steamer which cruises between Moscow
and Astrakhan on the Volga. I had a
large cabin to myself and I tapped away
on my typewriter from morning till
night and did not allow even the clean-
ing woman to come into the cabin for
fear she would mix up my papers.
When the Molotov arrived in Astra-
khan eight days later I was standing in
the stern, watching the ship being
unloaded. Suddenly two men in caps
came up to me and said quietly: "You'd
better come along with us to our cabin,
citizen." I didn't start to argue, guessing
instinctively who they were. In the cabin
they showed me the same little magic
red folder with the three gold letters.
They were actually members of the
waterways section of the K.G.B. (There
are sections for waterways, for railways
and for airlines.)
They had already searched my cabin,
without my permission of course, and
they had started to read my scenario.
They wanted to know who I was and
what I was doing. I showed them my
papers and my contract with Lenfilm.
The two of them sighed with relief.
They even apologised.
It turned out that the captain of the
boat had informed them by radio of a
passenger who was behaving suspici-
ously, who had locked himself in his
cabin and spent the whole day tapping
on his typewriter.
Co-opted 'army
The army of people " co-opted " into
the service of the secret police includes
people of all sorts and stations in life:
ordinary people?the cogs in the
machine, so to speak?as well as people
in very high positions, members of the
Soviet elite, living at the very top of
our hierarchy. The highly-placed people
receive nothing for their services; but
the little people, and especially those of
the female sex. may occasionally be
lucky enough to be thrown a few
crumbs. As an incentive. The highly-
placed people are often so rich them-
selves that they could well pay the
K.G.B.. Here it's a question of a quite
different form of currency: to enjoy the
confidence of the authorities, to have a
certain authority oneself, to be able to
travel abroad, and so forth.
But among the big fish and the
smaller fry there are those who manage
to save on the " operational " expenses
provided by the K.G.B., and put some-
thing into their own pockets. The
K.G.B. knows this and encourages it.
Nobody is ever asked to render an
account for his expenses. There is also
the system by which people are
rewarded by the provision of housing.
Some co-opted members of the K.G.B.
receive free accommodation in return
for special services.
People ask me could I really not
have refused when Yegorov put his
revolting proposition to me? I think it
is better to put the question the other
way round: Why did 1 agree to his
proposal? After all, I was still dream-
ing of writing my modern "War and
Peace ".
Apart from any other reasons I had,
there was a very personal, individual
reason I do not say this because I
wish to win people's sympathy or
minimise my personal responsibility.
That is not possible. But the fact is
that the woman with whom 1 was then
in love was in serious trouble I had
to get her out of it, and it seemed to
me that, if I turned Yegorov down and
the secret police began to have their
suspicions about me, it would
undoubtedly throw suspicion also on that
woman. And the fact that I agreed to
Approved For Release 2005/11/21 : CIA-RDP73600296R000500140007-5
do as he suggested made her situation
easier, I believe, though she knew
nothing about it herself.
Of course, I knew full well what
I was letting myself in for. "First the
saucer, then the cup," as they say. But
I had a great longing to get involved
in what was going on around me, not
to stand aside from all the filth and
ugliness of life but to suck everything
up like a sponge. I was carried along
by this desire and discovered in my
character a great interest in the whole
business of secrets, provocations and
intrigues.
It was enough for me to take the
first step for all that side of the busi-
ness to sweep me off my feet. Never-
theless I do not think I ever lost
control of myself; nor did I lose the
ability to stand aside from myself and
study what I was doing
In the course of time I came to
despise my "second self ". But the
more I despised it the more it seemed
to be part of my character.
Apart from that I have to confess
that there was an element of childish-
ness in the process going an in me. I
seemed to derive a sort of mischievous
pleasure from the consciousness of my
superiority to other, ordinary people.
It was as though my very baseness was
rewarding me with immortality in the
sense that there was more life in me
than in them: I was living two lives,
while they had only one.
There was another factor I had
faith in my future as a writer, and
thought that to write something really
worthwhile I needed food and raw
material. In my position 1 had the
opportunity of observing life in its
true, absolutely real forms, to examine
the medal, so to speak, from both
sides.
'Sold' myself
From time to time a co-opted mem-
ber of the K.G.B. discovers that one of
his friends or acquaintances is in the
same position, perhaps even engaged
on the same " operation ". This can
give rise to some embarrassing or
simply amusing situations.
I recall one occasion when I was
involved in the same operation with a
well-known film producer. Our task
was to win the confidence of a certain
British diplomat. After the most com-
plicated preparatory work we managed
to get ourselves invited to the heme
of a member of the British Embassy
in Moscow, and in the course of the
conversation we tried to outdo each
other in our anti-Soviet opinions. The
Englishman was delighted. We both
flung all the muck we could think of
at the Soviet system, and we found it
came amazingly easy, almost natural.
One argument followed the other,
as if there was no end to them. We
had the permission of the M.G.B. to do
it and we took full advantage of the
opportunity. But occasionally our eyes
would meet and we would both feel
a little scared. Perhaps I've overdone
it, I thought, maybe he'll denounce me
and say in his report that I sounded
too keen, that 1 seemed to enjoy ridi-
culing the holy of holies. By the fright
in the eyes of my companion I realised
that the same thought was passing
through his mind.
More or less the same thing hap-
pened to me in Berlin, where I " sold "
myself to the British intelligence service
and had the right, when I met
foreigners, of expressing my distaste
for Stalin?even for Stalin! I did it
with the greatest pleasure, simply say-
ing what I really thought about him.
All the same, and notwithstanding the
permission of the M.G.B., I had cold
feet.
In the course of 17 years of collab-
oration with the M.G.B.-K.G.B. I came
to the conclusion that the overwhelm-
ing majority of people co-opted into
the Soviet secret police are people who
are, within themselves, opposed to the
Soviet regime. However strange this
may seem to an outsider, I am con-
vinced that it is true that the K.G.B.
knows it. That the service neverthe-
less continues to recruit such people
is probably because genuine patriots
are not the easiest people for the
K.G.B. to work with. A real patriot
can say no, because he's not so scared;
he can even object on the grounds of
his career and his principles, and can
argue about the functions of the secret
police and their limits.
In practice this never happens,
because there are no genuine patriots,
but the K.G.B. still prefers us, that is,
it prefers to build its castle on a sound
foundation of fear and deception.
(e) Ism The Sunday Telegraph
NEXT: Inside No.7Neehtlanova Street:
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