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

guilt with regard to the sudden German attack. In October he was appointed
plenipotentiary of the Council of People's Commissars on Questions of the
Repatriation of Soviet Citizens. At the same time as he was occupied with
this task several of the former residents of the GRU in Europe were assigned
to him. He acquitted himself again with great credit and, being able to
count on the help of the GRU, succeeded in returning to the Soviet Union
several million people who were practically all shot on arrival. Golikov's
career was on the up and up, and he eventually reached the rank of Marshal
of the Soviet Union.
In the autumn of 1941, after Golikov had relinquished his post, the GRU
was divided into two. One of the newly-created organisations was directly
answerable to Stalin and entitled the Chief Intelligence Directorate of the
Supreme High Command. In the hands of this organisation was concentrated the
agent network controlled by illegals and undercover residencies of the GRU
in a small number of Soviet embassies. The 'other' GRU was subordinated to
the general staff and preserved its former name of Chief Intelligence
Directorate of the General Staff. But now this junior branch of the GRU
co-ordinated the efforts of intelligence officers on all Soviet fronts in
action against Germany. This new set-up was fully justified at that time.
The GRU general staff was freed from having to make decisions on global
problems which at that moment had lost their importance for the Soviet Union
and instead was able to concentrate all its attention on carrying out
intelligence operations against German forces. In order to distinguish
between the two GRU's; the term 'strategic intelligence' was introduced for
the first time and applied to the GRU of the Supreme Command, and the new
title of 'operational intelligence' was given to the Intelligence
Directorate of Fronts and the GRU of the general staff which controlled
these directorates. Both the strategic and operational intelligence services
of the Red Army conducted themselves with great distinction in the course of
the war. The finest achievements of the strategic agent network were of
course the penetration of the German general staff through Switzerland (via
the illegal residency 'Dora') and the theft of American atomic secrets by
way of Canada (through the residency 'Zaria'). Operational intelligence
meanwhile developed activities unparalleled in scale. Besides its agent
intelligence, a very large role was allocated to diversionary intelligence.
Groups of guard-minelayers were formed in the intelligence units of the
fronts and armies whose basic purpose was to hunt down the German military
staff. Parallel with these diversionary elements of the GRU, analogous
groups of NKVD men were in action at the rear of German forces. Between
these two groups the traditional enmity fostered by the Party continued.
x x x
After the war, military intelligence was once again fused into one
organisation, GRU General Staff, which independently carried out strategic
intelligence and directed operational and tactical intelligence. At this
time the Party and Stalin took care to weaken the Army and the Ministry of
State Security, both of which had strengthened their positions during the
war to such an extent that they had stopped acknowledging the civil
leadership, i.e. the party. The leading commanders, headed by Zhukov, were
dismissed from the Army and Beria was also deprived of the leadership of the
Tchekists. It would obviously not be a simple matter to expel him, so Stalin