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

ranks of the GRU. Hatred which had been collecting for many years at last
came out into the open. In the course of the purge first the acting head of
the GRU, Uritski, was arrested and shot, and after him all the rest. The
NKVD and GRU now exchanged roles. NKVD men with special powers went around
the world destroying both GRU illegals and also those intelligence officers
of the GRU and NKVD who had refused to return to the Soviet Union and
certain destruction. In the course of the 1937 purge the GRU was completely
destroyed- even down to the lavatory attendants and cooks on its payroll.
Berzin, back from Spain, had to re-create the GRU from scratch.
x x x
By the autumn of 1937, by a special effort of the Comintern
-particularly in Spain with the help and coercion of the International
Brigades - the GRU had somewhat recovered its strength. A year later Soviet
military intelligence had returned to its stormy activities. But in the
summer of 1938, in the course of a second wave of terror, the GRU was again
destroyed, losing its entire strength. This time Berzin himself, one of the
cleverest and most successful leaders the GRU has had, was among the
victims.
The blow delivered automatically meant a blow to all organisations
subordinate to the GRU, that is to the intelligence directorates of the
military districts. Here the death-dealing whirlwind came twice, literally
destroying everything. During the pre-war years, in the areas of western
military districts the intelligence directorates had extended the existing
reserves of underground armies in case of the occupation of these areas by
an enemy. Secret depots and stores of weapons and explosives had been
established, radio sets had been secreted and refuges for partisans and
intelligence officers had been set up. In the terror, all this was
destroyed, and tens of thousands of trained partisans and saboteurs, ready
to meet the enemy, were shot or perished in prisons and concentration camps.
Military intelligence ceased to exist. And not only military intelligence;
the Army had been bled white, and military industry, too. But Ezhov, the
head of the NKVD, had made a fatal mistake in taking Berzin's place when he
was executed on 29 July 1938. The very next day, Stalin received only one
report on both GRU and NKVD activities, instead of the usual two. The
implication was clear: a monopoly of secret activity had begun, and Stalin
now had no way to balance the power of the NKVD. With his customary
precision and deliberation he realised that his control of Soviet
intelligence was slipping away and the same day, 30 July, he set in train
the events which would lead to Ezhov's removal and execution.
In the winter of 1939/40 there occurred an improbable scandal. The Red
Army, whose strength at the moment of the attack was more than four million
men, was unable to crush the resistance of the Finnish Army, whose strength
was only 27,000 men. Reasons for this were quickly found. Of course there
was the cold. (The German Army's right to claim the same reason for its
defeat in the winter of 1941 was unanimously denied.) The second reason was
the intelligence service. In all Soviet historical works (which may be
published only with the permission of the Propaganda Department of the Party
Central Committee), even to this day, the cold and poor intelligence are the
reasons always given. The Party forgets to specify that from 1937 to 1939
Soviet military intelligence was practically non-existent, at the Party's