"Viktor Suvorov. Inside soviet military intelligence (англ) " - читать интересную книгу автора

factories in France, Great Britain, Canada, the United States and finally
China. The money put into these undertakings quickly grew and, after several
years, the Mrachovski undertakings began to show profits of tens of millions
of pounds. The money earned was used by the GRU as its chief source of
'clean' money, that is, money which had never been on Soviet territory and
consequently could be used for agents' operations. In addition to obtaining
money the Mrachkovski undertakings were widely used for the legalisation of
newly posted intelligence officers who by now were beginning to be better
trained. Journeying from country to country, they found help and support
from the Mrachkovski network. They got themselves jobs and after some months
received the most laudatory references and went off into other countries
where the same thing took place. This went on until the agent was able to
stand on his own two feet. The security of the network was so tight that no
undertaking ever suspected the existence of another. Mrachkovski himself
travelled all over the world, buying up new enterprises, installing one or
two of his own people and obtaining perfectly legal and highly lucrative
licences and patents.
Relations with the Tchekists were gradually stretched to their limit.
The Party was striving to inflame the hostility between the GRU and the
Organs of State. Lenin made a great success of this, as did his successors.
The next conflict broke out in the spring of 1920. Both Lenin and Trotsky
considered themselves outstanding thinkers, theoreticians and practical men;
men of deep knowledge as regards military affairs and international
relations. Naturally neither one nor the other took any notice of evaluated
intelligence. They both demanded that the intelligence material should be
laid before them 'grey' and unevaluated: they would then draw their own
conclusions and analyse the material on the basis of Marxist doctrine. But
Marxism had very precisely and categorically foretold that there would be a
world war in Europe which would be the last war of mankind. The imperialist
war would develop into a worldwide revolution, after which a golden age
would begin. Yet the war had finished two years before and no worldwide
revolution had happened. Intelligence reported that there were no signs of
this revolution coming about, so both Lenin and Trotsky were either
compelled to admit that Marxism was wrong or to take measures to bring the
revolution about. They decided to trigger off a revolution in Europe,
starting with Poland. Intelligence assessments were ignored, and naturally
the adventure ended in complete failure. Both the organisers immediately
started to hunt for a scapegoat. The only possible explanation for the
scandal was that the intelligence service had done its work badly. Lenin
announced to the rank and file of the Party, 'We have suffered this defeat
as a result of the negligence of the intelligence service.' But the GRU was
a completely unknown entity, even to some of the highest representatives of
the Soviet bureaucracy, and much more so to the rank-and-file Party members.
All eyes turned towards the Tchekists. Their unpopularity among the people,
even before this, was evident. After Lenin's announcement their authority
finally fell. Dzerzhinsky caused a scandal in the Kremlin and demanded
explanations from the Politburo. In order to calm the Tchekists and to
support his own version of the story, Lenin permitted the Tchekists to purge
the GRU. The first bloody purge took place in November 1920. On Lenin's
orders hundreds of intelligence officers who had allegedly failed to