The World Was Going Our Way (48 page)
Read The World Was Going Our Way Online
Authors: Christopher Andrew
Tags: #Biographies & Memoirs, #True Accounts, #Espionage, #History, #Europe, #Ireland, #Military, #Intelligence & Espionage, #Modern (16th-21st Centuries), #20th Century, #Russia, #World
In India, as elsewhere in the Third World, KGB active measures were intended partly for Soviet domestic consumption - to give the Soviet people, and in particular their leaders, an exaggerated notion of the international esteem in which the USSR was held. The New Delhi residency went to considerable lengths to give the Soviet political leadership an inflated sense of its own popularity in India. Before Brezhnev’s official visit in 1973, recalls Shebarshin,
Together with the Embassy, the ‘Novosti’ [news agency] representatives and the Union of Soviet Friendship Societies, the Residency took steps to create a favourable public atmosphere in the country immediately before and during the visit, and to forestall possible hostile incidents by the opposition and the secret allies of our long-standing Main Adversary.
We had extensive contacts within political parties, among journalists and public organizations. All were enthusiastically brought into play.
22
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The priority given to KGB operations in India is indicated by the subsequent promotion of some of the leading officers in the New Delhi residency. A decade after Shebarshin left India, he became head of the FCD. Vyacheslav Trubnikov, who also served in New Delhi in the 1970s,
23
went on to become head of the post-Soviet foreign intelligence service, the SVR, with direct access to President Yeltsin.
24
He later also became a confidant of President Putin, serving successively as Deputy Foreign Minister and, from August 2004, as Russian ambassador in New Delhi. Trubnikov’s return to India was attributed by Russian press commentators to the mutual desire of Russia and India ‘to upgrade their strategic partnership’.
25
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went on to become head of the post-Soviet foreign intelligence service, the SVR, with direct access to President Yeltsin.
24
He later also became a confidant of President Putin, serving successively as Deputy Foreign Minister and, from August 2004, as Russian ambassador in New Delhi. Trubnikov’s return to India was attributed by Russian press commentators to the mutual desire of Russia and India ‘to upgrade their strategic partnership’.
25
Within the Muslim areas of Asia, the KGB’s chief priority before the Afghan War was to monitor the loyalty to Moscow of the Soviet republics with predominantly Muslim populations. From the Second World War onwards the cornerstone of Soviet policy to its Muslim peoples, as to the Russian Orthodox Church,
26
was the creation of a subservient religious hierarchy. Despite the KGB’s extensive penetration of and influence over the official hierarchy of Soviet Islam, however, the greater part of Muslim life remained outside the Centre’s control. Islam was less dependent than Christianity and Judaism on official clergy. Any Muslim who could read the Quran and follow Islamic rites could officiate at ceremonies such as marriage and burial. Soviet rule in the Muslim republics was a politically correct facade which concealed the reality of a population which looked far more to Mecca than to Moscow, ruled by a corrupt political élite whose Marxism-Leninism was often little more than skin-deep. Even the local KGB headquarters were, in varying degree, infected by the corruption. The war in Afghanistan, as well as turning world-wide Muslim opinion against the Soviet Union, also undermined Moscow’s confidence in the loyalty of its Muslim subjects. The Central Asian press switched from propaganda celebration of the supposed ‘friendship’ between Soviet Muslims and their Russian ‘Elder Brother’ to emphasizing the ability of the ‘Elder Brother’ to eliminate ‘traitors’ and maintain law and order.
27
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was the creation of a subservient religious hierarchy. Despite the KGB’s extensive penetration of and influence over the official hierarchy of Soviet Islam, however, the greater part of Muslim life remained outside the Centre’s control. Islam was less dependent than Christianity and Judaism on official clergy. Any Muslim who could read the Quran and follow Islamic rites could officiate at ceremonies such as marriage and burial. Soviet rule in the Muslim republics was a politically correct facade which concealed the reality of a population which looked far more to Mecca than to Moscow, ruled by a corrupt political élite whose Marxism-Leninism was often little more than skin-deep. Even the local KGB headquarters were, in varying degree, infected by the corruption. The war in Afghanistan, as well as turning world-wide Muslim opinion against the Soviet Union, also undermined Moscow’s confidence in the loyalty of its Muslim subjects. The Central Asian press switched from propaganda celebration of the supposed ‘friendship’ between Soviet Muslims and their Russian ‘Elder Brother’ to emphasizing the ability of the ‘Elder Brother’ to eliminate ‘traitors’ and maintain law and order.
27
The decision to invade Afghanistan in December 1979 to ensure the survival of the Communist regime there was essentially taken by the four-man Afghanistan Commission - Andropov, Gromyko, Ponomarev and the Defence Minister, Marshal Ustinov - which obtained the consent of the ailing Brezhnev at a private meeting in his Kremlin office. Gromyko’s influence on the decision, however, was clearly inferior to that of Andropov and Ustinov. KGB special forces played a more important role in the invasion than in any previous conflict and were charged with the assassination of the supposedly traitorous President Hafizullah Amin.
28
‘The Kremlin fantasy’, recalls one senior KGB officer, ‘was that a great breakthrough [in Afghanistan] would demonstrate [Soviet] effectiveness, showing the world that communism was the ascendant political system.’
29
The fantasy, however, originated with Andropov rather than with Brezhnev.
28
‘The Kremlin fantasy’, recalls one senior KGB officer, ‘was that a great breakthrough [in Afghanistan] would demonstrate [Soviet] effectiveness, showing the world that communism was the ascendant political system.’
29
The fantasy, however, originated with Andropov rather than with Brezhnev.
Andropov’s emergence as the most influential member of the Politburo was demonstrated by his election as Party leader in 1982 after Brezhnev’s death. By then, however, Afghanistan had become, in the words of one KGB general, ‘our Vietnam’: ‘We are bogged down in a war we cannot win and cannot abandon.’
30
In the end, as Gorbachev recognized, abandonment was the only solution. But, whereas the US defeat in Vietnam had resulted in only a temporary loss of American self-confidence in world affairs, the Afghan war helped to undermine the foundations of the Soviet system. Many Soviet citizens took to referring to Afghanistan as ‘Af-gavni-stan’ (‘Af-shit-stan’).
31
Disastrous though the war was, it demonstrated, once again, the central role of the KGB in Soviet Third World policy. Just as the KGB’s enthusiasm a generation earlier for Fidel Castro had helped to launch the Soviet forward policy in the Third World, so the disastrous military intervention in Afghanistan, for which the KGB leadership bore much of the responsibility, brought it to a halt.
30
In the end, as Gorbachev recognized, abandonment was the only solution. But, whereas the US defeat in Vietnam had resulted in only a temporary loss of American self-confidence in world affairs, the Afghan war helped to undermine the foundations of the Soviet system. Many Soviet citizens took to referring to Afghanistan as ‘Af-gavni-stan’ (‘Af-shit-stan’).
31
Disastrous though the war was, it demonstrated, once again, the central role of the KGB in Soviet Third World policy. Just as the KGB’s enthusiasm a generation earlier for Fidel Castro had helped to launch the Soviet forward policy in the Third World, so the disastrous military intervention in Afghanistan, for which the KGB leadership bore much of the responsibility, brought it to a halt.
15
The People’s Republic of China
From ‘Eternal Friendship’ to ‘Eternal Enmity’
From ‘Eternal Friendship’ to ‘Eternal Enmity’
Collaboration between Soviet intelligence and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) went back to the 1920s. A police raid on the Soviet consulate at Beijing in 1927 uncovered a mass of documents on Soviet espionage in China, the involvement of the CCP and instructions to it from Moscow ‘not to shrink from any measures, even including looting and massacres’ when promoting clashes between Westerners and the local population.
1
The arrest in 1931 of the Comintern representative in Shanghai, Jakov Rudnik (alias ‘Hilaire Noulens’), led to the capture of many more files on Soviet intelligence operations and the Communist underground. A British intelligence report concluded that the files ‘afforded a unique opportunity of seeing from the inside, and on unimpeachable documentary evidence, the working of a highly developed Communist organization of the illegal order’. Among the documents which attracted particular attention were a large number of letters from ‘the notorious Annamite Communist, Nguyen Ai Quac’, later better known as Ho Chi-Minh. But the ‘most outstanding’ document, in the view of British intelligence, was a CCP report on the killing of members of the family of an alleged Communist traitor, Ku Shun-chang, carried out under the direction of Mao Zedong’s future Prime Minister, Zhou Enlai.
2
In 1933 Mao’s security chief, Kang Sheng, arrived in Moscow as deputy head of the Chinese delegation to the Comintern and spent the next four years learning from the example of the NKVD during its most paranoid phase. Kang proved an apt pupil. During the Great Terror, he founded an Office for the Elimination of Counter-Revolutionaries and purged the émigré Chinese Communist community with exemplary zeal for its mostly imaginary crimes. Late in 1937 he returned on a Soviet plane to the base established by Mao after the Long March in Yan’an, where he continued the witch-hunt he had started in Moscow and began the creation of China’s gulag, the
laogai
(an abbreviation of
laodong gaizao
, ‘reform through labour’). To his subordinates he became the ‘Venerable Kang’; to others he was ‘China’s Beria’. Though a connoisseur of traditional Chinese art and a skilful, ambidextrous calligrapher, Kang surpassed even Beria in personal depravity, taking sadistic pleasure in supervising the torture of supposed counter-revolutionaries.
3
As well as helping Mao polish his poetry and prose, Kang also contributed to his personal collection of erotica.
4
1
The arrest in 1931 of the Comintern representative in Shanghai, Jakov Rudnik (alias ‘Hilaire Noulens’), led to the capture of many more files on Soviet intelligence operations and the Communist underground. A British intelligence report concluded that the files ‘afforded a unique opportunity of seeing from the inside, and on unimpeachable documentary evidence, the working of a highly developed Communist organization of the illegal order’. Among the documents which attracted particular attention were a large number of letters from ‘the notorious Annamite Communist, Nguyen Ai Quac’, later better known as Ho Chi-Minh. But the ‘most outstanding’ document, in the view of British intelligence, was a CCP report on the killing of members of the family of an alleged Communist traitor, Ku Shun-chang, carried out under the direction of Mao Zedong’s future Prime Minister, Zhou Enlai.
2
In 1933 Mao’s security chief, Kang Sheng, arrived in Moscow as deputy head of the Chinese delegation to the Comintern and spent the next four years learning from the example of the NKVD during its most paranoid phase. Kang proved an apt pupil. During the Great Terror, he founded an Office for the Elimination of Counter-Revolutionaries and purged the émigré Chinese Communist community with exemplary zeal for its mostly imaginary crimes. Late in 1937 he returned on a Soviet plane to the base established by Mao after the Long March in Yan’an, where he continued the witch-hunt he had started in Moscow and began the creation of China’s gulag, the
laogai
(an abbreviation of
laodong gaizao
, ‘reform through labour’). To his subordinates he became the ‘Venerable Kang’; to others he was ‘China’s Beria’. Though a connoisseur of traditional Chinese art and a skilful, ambidextrous calligrapher, Kang surpassed even Beria in personal depravity, taking sadistic pleasure in supervising the torture of supposed counter-revolutionaries.
3
As well as helping Mao polish his poetry and prose, Kang also contributed to his personal collection of erotica.
4
Nikolai Leonov later claimed that during the 1930s and 1940s Soviet intelligence had built up ‘a very extensive and well-formed information network on Chinese soil’.
5
In the summer of 1949, however, on the eve of the victory of Mao’s forces over the Nationalist Kuomintang, led by Chiang Kai-shek, a high-level CCP delegation in Moscow complained, probably with considerable exaggeration, that a large part of that network had been penetrated by Chiang and the Americans. Due at least in part to his addiction to conspiracy theory, Stalin took the complaint seriously. ‘The situation’, he declared, ‘requires us to unify the efforts of our intelligence bodies, and we are ready to start this immediately . . . Let us act as a united front.’
6
On Stalin’s instructions, the names of all those in the Soviet intelligence network in China were given to the CCP leadership.
7
Simultaneously the CCP demanded that all Chinese who had worked for Soviet intelligence should declare themselves to the Party.
8
5
In the summer of 1949, however, on the eve of the victory of Mao’s forces over the Nationalist Kuomintang, led by Chiang Kai-shek, a high-level CCP delegation in Moscow complained, probably with considerable exaggeration, that a large part of that network had been penetrated by Chiang and the Americans. Due at least in part to his addiction to conspiracy theory, Stalin took the complaint seriously. ‘The situation’, he declared, ‘requires us to unify the efforts of our intelligence bodies, and we are ready to start this immediately . . . Let us act as a united front.’
6
On Stalin’s instructions, the names of all those in the Soviet intelligence network in China were given to the CCP leadership.
7
Simultaneously the CCP demanded that all Chinese who had worked for Soviet intelligence should declare themselves to the Party.
8
Yuri Tavrosky, a leading Sinologist in the International Department of the CPSU Central Committee, later described Sino-Soviet relations during the generation after the foundation of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in October 1949 as falling into two starkly contrasting phases: a decade of ‘eternal friendship’ between the world’s two largest socialist states, followed from the early 1960s by the era of ‘eternal enmity’.
9
For most of the decade of ‘eternal friendship’ there was close collaboration between Soviet and Chinese intelligence. On Khrushchev’s instructions, the KGB continued to provide its Chinese allies with details of its Chinese intelligence networks.
10
Until 1957 a series of KGB illegals of Chinese, Mongolian, Turkic and Korean ethnic origin were given false identities in the PRC, mostly with the co-operation of the Chinese Ministry of Public Security, before being sent on their first foreign missions.
11
Khrushchev’s visit to Beijing in 1958, however, witnessed a visible chill in the ‘eternal friendship’. Though Mao had to a degree been prepared to defer to Stalin, he was not in awe of Khrushchev, whose revolutionary experience he regarded as inferior to his own. As his Chinese hosts were doubtless aware, Khrushchev was a non-swimmer and he was made to look foolish during ‘photo opportunities’ in Mao’s swimming pool. More importantly, Khrushchev’s proposals for a joint Russian-Chinese fleet under a Russian admiral and for Russian listening posts on Chinese soil were angrily rejected.
12
The future KGB Chairman Yuri Andropov, then responsible for relations with foreign Communist parties, later complained to the Chinese that they had failed to warn Khrushchev during his visit that they had decided to begin shelling two off-shore islands in the Taiwan Straits still held by Chiang Kai-shek almost as soon as he left Beijing.
13
9
For most of the decade of ‘eternal friendship’ there was close collaboration between Soviet and Chinese intelligence. On Khrushchev’s instructions, the KGB continued to provide its Chinese allies with details of its Chinese intelligence networks.
10
Until 1957 a series of KGB illegals of Chinese, Mongolian, Turkic and Korean ethnic origin were given false identities in the PRC, mostly with the co-operation of the Chinese Ministry of Public Security, before being sent on their first foreign missions.
11
Khrushchev’s visit to Beijing in 1958, however, witnessed a visible chill in the ‘eternal friendship’. Though Mao had to a degree been prepared to defer to Stalin, he was not in awe of Khrushchev, whose revolutionary experience he regarded as inferior to his own. As his Chinese hosts were doubtless aware, Khrushchev was a non-swimmer and he was made to look foolish during ‘photo opportunities’ in Mao’s swimming pool. More importantly, Khrushchev’s proposals for a joint Russian-Chinese fleet under a Russian admiral and for Russian listening posts on Chinese soil were angrily rejected.
12
The future KGB Chairman Yuri Andropov, then responsible for relations with foreign Communist parties, later complained to the Chinese that they had failed to warn Khrushchev during his visit that they had decided to begin shelling two off-shore islands in the Taiwan Straits still held by Chiang Kai-shek almost as soon as he left Beijing.
13
By the later 1950s Kang Sheng, who had suffered a temporary eclipse during the earlier part of the decade, apparently due to mental illness, had re-emerged as a close adviser of (and procurer of teenage girls for) Mao. The purge of ‘right deviationists’ during the ‘Great Leap Forward’ begun in 1958 replicated many of the horrors of the Great Terror in which Kang had enthusiastically participated in Moscow two decades earlier. According to Mao’s doctor, ‘Kang Sheng’s job was to depose and destroy his fellow party members, and his continuing “investigations” in the early 1960s laid the groundwork for the attacks of the Cultural Revolution to come.’
14
Between 1958 and 1962 perhaps as many as 10 million ‘ideological reactionaries’, real and imagined, were imprisoned in the
laogai
; millions more Chinese citizens died as a result of famine.
15
14
Between 1958 and 1962 perhaps as many as 10 million ‘ideological reactionaries’, real and imagined, were imprisoned in the
laogai
; millions more Chinese citizens died as a result of famine.
15
Kang was the first to bring the Sino-Soviet quarrel out into the open. At a Warsaw Pact conference in February 1960, he made a speech attacking Soviet policy, then had a heated exchange with Khrushchev. ‘You don’t have the qualifications to debate with me,’ Khrushchev shouted at Kang. ‘I am General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union . . .’ ‘Your credentials are much more shallow than mine!’ Kang retorted in ungrammatical Russian. According to one of the Soviet participants, ‘[Kang] could freeze you with his stare. Everyone was afraid of him. On the Soviet side we compared him to Beria. You could see at first glance that he was a very evil and ruthless person.’ Though Kang’s speech was not published in Moscow, it appeared in full in Beijing.
16
In April a series of articles in the Chinese
People’s Daily
and
Red Flag
on the ninetieth anniversary of Lenin’s birth effectively accused Moscow of ‘revising, emasculating and betraying’ Lenin’s teaching. Khrushchev replied in June by publicly denouncing Mao as ‘an ultra-leftist, an ultradogmatist and a left revisionist’.
17
16
In April a series of articles in the Chinese
People’s Daily
and
Red Flag
on the ninetieth anniversary of Lenin’s birth effectively accused Moscow of ‘revising, emasculating and betraying’ Lenin’s teaching. Khrushchev replied in June by publicly denouncing Mao as ‘an ultra-leftist, an ultradogmatist and a left revisionist’.
17
A month later all Soviet experts in China were withdrawn. Over the next few years many of the China specialists in the KGB and the Soviet Foreign Ministry tried to transfer to other work for fear that a continuing reputation as Sinologists would blight their careers.
18
Moscow, however, still hoped to prevent the quarrel with Beijing turning into a major schism which would divide the Communist world. During the early 1960s the USSR and PRC usually limited themselves to attacking each other by proxy. While Moscow denounced Albanian hard-liners, Beijing condemned Yugoslav revisionists. Moscow made a final attempt to paper over the Sino-Soviet cracks by proposing a meeting between senior Party delegations in July 1963. The CCP delegation, led by the future Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, showed no interest in reaching a settlement. The most vitriolic attacks on the Soviet leadership came once again from Kang Sheng, who made an impassioned defence of Stalin against the ‘curses and swear words’ with which he claimed that Khrushchev had defamed his memory:
18
Moscow, however, still hoped to prevent the quarrel with Beijing turning into a major schism which would divide the Communist world. During the early 1960s the USSR and PRC usually limited themselves to attacking each other by proxy. While Moscow denounced Albanian hard-liners, Beijing condemned Yugoslav revisionists. Moscow made a final attempt to paper over the Sino-Soviet cracks by proposing a meeting between senior Party delegations in July 1963. The CCP delegation, led by the future Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, showed no interest in reaching a settlement. The most vitriolic attacks on the Soviet leadership came once again from Kang Sheng, who made an impassioned defence of Stalin against the ‘curses and swear words’ with which he claimed that Khrushchev had defamed his memory:
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