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Vladimir Putin and Russia's Newest Association of Former Intelligence Officers The Intelligencer Journal of U.S. Intelligence Studies 7700 Leesburg Pike Ste 324, Falls Church, VA 22043. Volume 22 • Number 2 • $15.00 single copy price Fall 2016 From AFIO's The Intelligencer Web: www.afio.com. Email: [email protected] Journal of U.S. Intelligence Studies Volume 22 • Number 2 • $15 single copy price Fall 2016 © 2016 AFIO - Association of Former Intelligence Officers, All • Karl Bauman – tried in 1937 and shot. Rights Reserved AAcAcAcAcAcctctcctttiiiivvvveveveveveveeeMMMeeeeeeaeaeaaasssssuuurrerererereeeeesssss • Grigory Sokolnikov (member first Politburo)– CoCouunntnttteeringring FFFaaalsselsehoodslsehohooooodsodss,,, DDiissttotoorrtrttteeedd Meeessssssaaagggeesess, arrested in 1937 (“Trial of 17”). 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Stalin’s Disciple • Nikolai Bukharin (original Politburo member) – tried in 1938 and shot. Vladimir Putin and • Aleksei Rykov (original Politburo member, Russia’s Newest “Wet Affairs”1 former premier) – tried in 1938 and shot. • Yan Rudzutak – tried in 1938 and shot. • Vlas Chubar – presumed executed in 1938. Peter C. Oleson • Stanislav Koslor – shot in 1938. • Sergei Syrtsov – believed died in 1938, details n January 21, 1924, Vladimir Lenin died. A unknown. power struggle ensued between the members • Andrei Bubnov (member first Politburo) – of the Soviet Politburo – Nikolai Bukharin, Lev Arrested Oct 1937, shot in 1938. O • Andrei Andreyev – date and manner of death Kamenev, Alexei Rykov, Josef Stalin, Mikhail Tomsky, Leon Trotsky, and Grigori Zinoviev. Using his position unknown. as general secretary of the Communist Party of Soviet • Pavel Postyshev – executed in 1939. Union Central Committee, Stalin eventually consoli- • Robert Eikhe (Eihe) – executed in 1940. dated his power and eliminated his rivals. • Leon Trotsky (founder of the Red Army and By the late 1920s, many of the old Bolsheviks Stalin’s last living rival) – assassinated in 1940 argued that continued dictatorship was unnecessary in Mexico City by NKVD agent. and were opposed to Stalin’s policies and corruption. • Nikolai Yezhov (head of the secret police 1936- His collectivization campaign following the 1928 1938 and chief executioner during the Purges) grain shortages was widely opposed and resulted – executed in 1940. in the famines with widespread death in 1932-1933. • Lavrentij Beria (head of the NKVD 1941-1953) Migration of peasants to the cities led to fear of – shot in 1953.3 uprisings. Factions led by Leon Trotsky and Niko- • Grigori Petrovsky – removed from his position lai Bukharin challenged Stalin. His reaction was a in 1939, life spared, died 1958.4 long-lasting and bloody purge of any perceived oppo- A series of show trials began in August 1936. In nent. The igniting spark was the December 1, 1934 the initial trials, Zinoviev and Kamanev “confessed.” assassination of Sergei Kirov, a popular potential rival After the January 1937 show trial “Trial of the 17,” 2 to Stalin, on Stalin’s orders. Most of the Politburo Karl Radek, Yuri Piatakov, Grigori Sokolnikov, and members subsequently were shot or forced to commit ten others were executed; four others were sent to the suicide during the Great Purge. Gulag, where they died. A secret trial of Red Army • Valerian Kuibyshev – died of unknown causes commanders in June 1937 wiped out much of the in 1935. higher ranks. The March 1938 show trial “Trial of • Lev Kamenev (original Politburo member) – the 21” convicted, among others, Nikolai Bukharin; tried in August 1936 show trial and shot. Alexei Rykov; and Genrikh Yagoda, the disgraced head • Grigori Zinoviev (Comintern chairman and of the NKVD. original Politburo member) – tried in August 1936 show trial and shot. 3. The Soviet secret service went through a number of changes from 1917: 1917 – Cheka, 1922 – NKVD-GPU, 1923 – OGPU, 1934 – GUGB, • Mikhail Tomsky (original Politburo member) – 1941 – NKGB, 1946 – MGB, 1953 – MVD, 1954 – KGB. In 1991 the forced to commit suicide in 1936. service was divided into three parts: SVR – Foreign Intelligence Ser- vice, FSB – Security Service, and FSO – Protective Service. Robert W. • Nikolai Uglanov – shot in 1937. Pringle. “Guide to Soviet and Russian Intelligence Services,” Guide to the Study of Intelligence, Association of Former Intelligence Officers, 1. “Wet affairs” are killings. 2016, 51. For simplicity in this article, “NKVD” will be used for the pe- 2. Encyclopaedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/biography/ riod of Stalin’s reign and “KGB” for the post-Stalin period until 1991. Sergey-Mironovich-Kirov. Retrieved September 12, 2016. 4. http://www.cyberussr.com/rus/polit-hist.html. Fall 2016 Intelligencer: Journal of U.S. Intelligence Studies Page 19 According to declassified Soviet archives, during 1978 assassination of Bulgarian critic Georgi Markov, 1937 and 1938, the NKVD detained 1,548,366 persons, who was shot with a ricin pellet from an umbrella on of whom 681,692 were shot – an average of 1,000 Waterloo Bridge in London.10 There were no politi- executions a day.5 These included writers, poets, sci- cal assassinations under Gorbachev or Boris Yeltsin entists, 85% of the Russian Greek Orthodox clergy, according to Gordievsky.11 The New York Times reported American communist immigrants to the USSR, and that there were more than 500 contract killings in other intelligentsia. Added to the internal purges fol- Russia in 1994. Despite Gordievsky’s judgment the lowing the Nazi-Soviet 1939 invasion of Poland, the 1995 death of banker Ivan Kivelidi, head of the Rus- NKVD made over 143,810 arrests and shot 111,000, sian Business Roundtable and a corruption fighter, including at the infamous Katyn Forest massacre.6 and his secretary, from cadmium poisoning, likely About Stalin, Soviet secret services expert Robert placed in a telephone handset, has the hallmarks of a Pringle wrote: professional Federal Security Service (FSB, one of the “In his last years, Stalin was increasingly para- successor organizations to the KGB) assassination.12 noid. By early 1953, there were more than 5,000,000 The Yeltsin period was a disaster for Russia. people in the Gulag or internal exile. In 1950, several Resentment in Russia grew in the 1990s as the of the Party’s young stars were purged, and in 1952- country tottered toward collapse. Organized crime 1953, Stalin turned against the country’s Jews. The ran rampant. The oligarchy plundered and hoarded MVD (renamed NKVD) concocted the Doctors’ Plot to the country’s wealth. Financial schemes defrauded implicate thousands of leading Jews as Anglo-American millions. Foreign groups plucked up strategic Russian spies. Stalin’s death on March 1, 1953, saved many assets…. Yeltsin’s leadership eroded as he struggled with of these people.”7 his own alcoholism, the various political parties in the Given Stalin’s known extraterritorial assassina- legislature and his family’s feuds with political parties, tions, questions remain whether some of the Soviet security services and oligarchs…. sympathizers/spies who were unmasked in the US died In 1998, a dangerous financial crisis sent the coun- of natural causes, as initially reported. A case in ques- try into a nosedive. Inflation reached 84 percent. The tion is the 1948 supposed suicide of State Department government could not pay pensions and defaulted on employee and NKVD agent Laurence Duggan, who fell foreign debt. The currency was repeatedly devalued… to his death from the window of his 16th-floor office Mass strikes erupted across the country… the $5 billion in New York City with one overshoe on and the other relief package doled out by the World Bank and Inter- national Monetary Fund never made it into the system in his office. – it was stolen upon arrival…”13 Most assassinations Former KGB London rezident (chief of station) during this period were contract criminal activity.14 and defector to Britain, Oleg Gordievsky, wrote that Nikita Khrushchev (1955-1964), Leonid Bre- zhnev (1964-1982), and Yuri Andropov (1982-1984) The Disciple avoided ordering political killings if they could be Vladimir Putin served as a KGB officer from 1975 tied to Moscow. There were exceptions. One was the to 1991. From March 1997 to May
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