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Soviet Defectors page size 234 x 156mm but follows EUP PPC jacket Hires CMYK pdf from Indesign CS6 17mm 3mm Intelligence, Surveillance Riehle Kevin P. Intelligence, Surveillance and Secret Warfare and Secret Warfare Series editors: Richard J. Aldrich, Rory Cormac, Michael S. Goodman and Hugh Wilford ‘Kevin Riehle has written a valuable study, based on much original research, of defectors to the West from Soviet Intelligence Agencies in the Stalin era. His book expands our knowledge of who fled West and why. It SOvIet will be of considerable value to historians of intelligence and international relations in the period when Joseph Stalin ruled the Soviet Union.’ Paul Maddrell, Loughborough University DeFeCtORS Analyses the insider information and insights that over 80 Soviet intelligence officer defectors revealed during the first half of the Soviet period When intelligence officers defect, they take with them privileged information and often communicate it to the receiving state. This book identifies a group of those S defectors from the Soviet elite – intelligence officers– and provides an aggregate O analysis of their information to uncover Stalin’s strategic priorities and concerns, v I and open a window into his impenetrable national security decision-making. This et De book uses their information to define Soviet threat perceptions and national security anxieties during Stalin’s time as Soviet leader. 234mm • Identifies 88 Soviet intelligence officer defectors for the period 1917 to 1954, F representing a variety of specialisations; the most comprehensive list of Soviet e intelligence officer defectors compiled to date. C • Shows the evolution of Soviet threat perceptions and the development of the ‘main t ORS enemy’ concept in the Soviet national security system. • Shows fluctuations in the Soviet recruitment and vetting of personnel for sensitive national security positions, corresponding with fluctuations in the stability of the Soviet government. • Compiles, for the first time, corroborative primary sources in English, Russian, French, German, Finnish, Japanese, Latvian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish. .Kevin P. Riehle is an Associate Professor at the National Intelligence University. He has spent over 28 years in the US government as a counterintelligence analyst Revelations of Renegade studying foreign intelligence services. Intelligence Officers, ISBN 978-1-4744-6723-0 1924–1954 edinburghuniversitypress.com Cover image and cover design: www.richardbudddesign.co.uk Kevin P. Riehle 3mm 17mm 2mm 2mm 17mm 3mm 156 mm 156mm 3mm 17mm spine 21 mm Soviet Defectors Revelations of Renegade Intelligence Officers, 1924–1954 Kevin P. Riehle Edinburgh University Press is one of the leading university presses in the UK. We publish academic books and journals in our selected subject areas across the humanities and social sciences, combining cutting- edge scholarship with high editorial and production values to produce academic works of lasting importance. For more information visit our website: edinburghuniversitypress.com © Kevin P. Riehle, 2020 Edinburgh University Press Ltd The Tun – Holyrood Road, 12(2f) Jackson’s Entry, Edinburgh EH8 8PJ Typeset in 11/14 Sabon by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire and printed and bound in Great Britain. A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 1 4744 6723 0 (hardback) ISBN 978 1 4744 6725 4 (webready PDF) ISBN 978 1 4744 6726 1 (epub) The right of Kevin P. Riehle to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, and the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003 (SI No. 2498). The views expressed in this book are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Defense or any US government agency. Contents List of Figures and Tables vi Acknowledgements vii Introduction 1 1. Early Defectors, 1924–1930 11 2. Yezhovshchina-Era Defectors, 1937–1940 45 3. World War II-Era Defectors, 1941–1946 100 4. Early Cold War Defectors, 1947–1951 170 5. Post-Stalin Purge Defectors, 1953–1954 214 Conclusion 263 Appendix: Organisational Changes in Soviet Intelligence and State Security, 1918–1954 285 Bibliography 286 Index 319 Figures and Tables Figures 1.1 Lives of Early Defectors, 1924–1930 15 1.2 Non-Returnees from the Soviet Union during the 1920s 36 2.1 Origins of Yezhovshchina-Era Defectors, 1937–1940 48 2.2 Lives of Yezhovshchina-Era Defectors, 1937–1940 50 3.1 Lives of World War II Defectors, 1941–1945 108 4.1 Lives of Early Cold War Defectors, 1947–1951 177 5.1 Lives of Post-Stalin Purge Defectors, 1953–1954 219 5.2 Political Cartoon: ‘After the Petrov Affair’ 253 6.1 Average Ages of Defectors in Each Group 273 Tables 1.1 Early Defectors, 1924–1930 12 2.1 Yezhovshchina-Era Defectors, 1937–1940 46 3.1 World War II-Era Defectors, 1941–1946 101 4.1 Early Cold War Defectors, 1947–1951 171 5.1 Post-Stalin Purge Defectors, 1953–1954 215 vi Introduction Defectors are a phenomenon that governments both fear and seek. They repudiate the system from which they came, and, if they held a position of trust, they reveal to the receiving side information about the inner workings of their former country. For the losing side, this can be catastrophic, while for the receiving side it can be a unique and valuable source of information. This book explores defectors from a closed political system ­­– the­­ Soviet Union of the 1920s to 1950s – determining the insights they gave into a notoriously opaque Soviet decision-making process. For the purposes of this book, a defector is a person who renounces allegiance to one state or cause in exchange for alle- giance to another, in a way that the losing side considers ille- gitimate. While the phenomenon of defection is not unique to states and may affect any organisation, such as a political party or a corporation, this book focuses on defectors from a state, especially a state with a closed political system. A closed politi- cal system is one that allows little or no transparency into the decision-making process that governs it. In a closed political system, the authority to change the system is reserved only for a ruling elite; the elite has power over the whole society, leaving no group immune from its control; and laws are constructed to satisfy the demands of the elite.1 Typically, those outside the elite have little influence on or visibility into the elite’s plans, which is accentuated for those outside the system entirely. The domestic and international goals and objectives of a closed political system are known only to a privileged few. Hence, when such a system interacts on the international stage, it obscures its strategies and plans that are focused largely on the interests and survival of the 1 Soviet Defectors elite. This book examines how the compounded revelations of one category of the Soviet elite, intelligence officers, opened a window into Soviet national security decision-making. When defectors leave their home and relocate to a new state, they take with them the information they possessed before defec- tion and often communicate it to the receiving state. This is par- ticularly true of intelligence officer defectors, who have privileged access to sensitive information that a government takes great care to keep secret. Intelligence services are an authoritarian leader’s direct instrument for answering his highest-priority ques- tions and for protecting the ruling elite. An aggregate analysis of a closed system’s intelligence activities as revealed by knowledge- able defectors can uncover the leader’s strategic priorities and concerns. Michael Warner stated that, in developing a framework for analysing intelligence systems, ‘What the leadership is trying to accomplish or prevent dictates the targets and tempo of intelli- gence collection and operations.’2 It is that leadership–intelligence nexus that this book derives from the information revealed by and the characteristics of intelligence officer defectors. A Soviet intelligence officer enjoyed privileges, freedoms, and access to information that other professionals did not. During the Soviet era, a badge indicating affiliation with the People’s Commissariat for Internal Security (Народный Комиссариат Внутренних Дел; NKVD) or later, Ministry of State Security (Министерство Государственной Безопасности; MGB), implied authority well beyond the superficial rank of the person carrying it. Both military and civilian intelligence officers profited from the advantage of travelling abroad and the freedom to operate in foreign environments unknown to even Soviet diplomats. Several intelligence officer defectors attested to the special access to both comfort items and information that they enjoyed.3 In the Soviet system, the relationship between Soviet leaders and their intelligence services existed in two contradictory dimen- sions. First, their activities reflected the priorities of the Party and the state and they acted as a direct instrument of domestic and foreign policies. Hence, Soviet leaders assigned them the most sensitive and important missions to further those policies. On the other hand, Soviet leaders feared the intelligence ser- 2 Introduction vices and deterred them from becoming an independent force outside their direct control.4 On both levels, Soviet leaders kept the intelligence services very close, ensuring that they applied their powerful capabilities only to missions that were in the direct interests of the ruling elite. While the intelligence services enjoyed some independence in their day-to-day operations, Stalin person- ally determined the general direction of their activities inside the USSR and abroad.5 One defector, Samuel Gershovich Ginzberg (better known as Walter Germanovich Krivitsky; see Chapter 2), described the relationship between Stalin and his state security chief: ‘Any question of policy [Nikolay Ivanovich Yezhov]6 took up with Stalin at once, and whatever the big boss said, he repeated word for word, and then translated into action.’7 When defectors broke free from the intelligence services, they took with them knowledge of those interests and direction and often passed it on to the receiving country.
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