Loyal Comrades, Ruthless Killers: The Secret Services of the USSR 1920's to the PresentThe secret services of the Soviet Union were intimately involved in all the great conflicts of the 20th century from 1970-1991; and even since the break up of the Soviet Empire; their inheritors in Russia have played a key role, and continue to do so into the fight against international terror in the early 21st century. No other institution in modern history has had such a deep involvement in international affairs. Loyal Comrades, Ruthless Killers presents us with a fresh slant on the history of the modern world. We can look at the great crises of modern times from the real point of view of the leaders of the Soviet Union, and reappraise shadowy figures such as Beria, the man who ran the purges for Stalin and was himself shot on the orders of Krushchev. We can see what the KGB thought of its opponents in the CIA; and trace the involvement of Soviet agents in European political parties during the Cold War. Interestingly, although the Soviet Union was a closed society, there will almost certainly never be the same amount of information available covering the operations of the CIA over the same period. |
Common terms and phrases
Abakumov accused American Andropov arrested assassination atomic became Beria Bolshevik bomb Brezhnev British bureaucrats Cambridge Five camps Central Committee centre Cheka chief codename Colonel commanders Communist Party counter-intelligence coup death defected deputy diplomatic Directorate dissidents Dzerzhinsky Eitingon Embassy émigré enemy espionage executed exiled Felix Dzerzhinsky forces foreign former Genrikh Yagoda German head Ignatiev imprisoned intelligence officers intelligence services Internal KGB officers Khrushchev killed knew Kremlin kulaks later Lavrenty Beria leaders Lenin Leningrad Marshal military intelligence Minister Moscow Narkom nationalists Nazi NKGB NKVD Nosenko nuclear OGPU OMSBON operations organized People's Commissar Political Bureau prison Purge recruited Red Army regime reported residentura revolutionary Russian scientists secret service sent sentenced Serov shot SMERSH Socialist Soviet agents Soviet intelligence Soviet secret service Soviet Union spies Stalin Sudoplatov took trial troops Trotsky Trotskyite tsarist Tukhachevsky Ukraine units USSR Yagoda Yezhov