2026-01-19
Intro
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"Everyone needed deep sleep. For that there is a little secret. You lie on your back, stretch out and relax the whole body. Then you shut your eyes and look upwards beneath your eyelids. That is the normal position of the eyes during sleep. In such a position a person will drop off to sleep quickly, easily and deeply."
"There are of course different kinds of beasts: thinking, civilised ones and those that do not think. The first distinguish themselves from the second by the fact that they endeavour to camouflage their animal nature. When we have plenty of food, warmth and female company we can allow ourselves to be kindly and sympathetic. But the moment nature or fate faces us with the question point-blank - who is to die and who is to survive? -- we immediately plunge our yellow fangs into thethroat of our neighbour, brother or mother."
"We are all animals. I certainly am, and I make no effort to conceal it. And the inhabitant of the twelfth planet of the orange body lost in the depths of the galaxy without a name - he is also an animal and also tries to appear good and kindly. The Chief of Intelhgence in the 13th Army Colonel Kravtsov is also an animal. He is a wild beast such as you rarely come across. There he sits at the camp-fire stirring the embers with a stick. Not very tall, very trim, with a handsome young face, slightly disdainful. He has a broad, engaging smile, though the corners of his mouth are always turned down - a mark of his capacity for restraint and precise calculation. His look is devastating and penetrating, forcing anyone who meets it to blink and turn away. He has delicate hands, not proletarian ones. His colonel's epaulettes suit him well. People of his kind sometimes have the strangest habits. Some, I have heard, collect rusty kopeks. I wonder what our colonel amuses himself with? For me and the rest of us he is a puzzle. We know surprisingly httle about him, while he knows all there is to know about all of us. He's an animal. Small, bloodthirsty and deadly dangerous. He knows where he's going and never turns aside from his path. I know what his guiding star is. It is called Power."
"But I don't need helpers who will betray me at the most difficult moment. To achieve that there is only one way: to choose helpers from the very lowest level. You owe everything to me, and if I'm kicked out you will bekicked out too. If I lose everything so will you. I pulled you up, I picked you out of the crowd, not because of your ability but because you are one of the crowd. Nobody needs you. If something happens to me you will find yourself again in the crowd, without any of your power and privileges. This way of choosing assistants and bodyguards is as old as the hills."
"The Aquarium is the central building of the 2nd Chief Directorate of the General Staff, that is, of the Chief Intelhgence Directorate, the GRU. Military intelligence has existed under various names ever since October 21,1918. The Red Army was then already a huge and powerful force, administered by thegeneral staff - the brains of the Army. But the staff reacted too slowly and uncertainly because the organism it commanded was blind and deaf. Information about the enemy was provided by the Cheka. It was just as if the brain was receiving information, not from its own eyes and ears but from the lips ofanother person. What is more, the Cheka people always looked upon reports to the Army as something of secondary importance. It couldn't be otherwise: the secret police has its own priorities; the general staff has different ones. And however much information the general staff received from elsewhere itwould never be enough. Just imagine, if there were some major failure, whowas going to be held responsible? The general staff could always say thatinformation about the enemy was insufficient and that that was the cause ofthe failure. And they would always be in the right, because however muchinformation was collected the chief of the general staff "the chief of the general staff would always be able toask another million questions to which there is no answer. That is why it wasdecided to hand over military intelligence to the general staff and to let theCGS handle it, so that if there was not enough information about the enemy itwould be the fault of the general staff itself."
"*And the KGB never tried to take control of the GRU?'*It was always trying, and it's still trying. Yezhov once succeeded in doingit: he was at the same time head of the NKVD and of military intelligence.Because of that it became necessary to destroy him immediately. He had toomuch power in his hands. He had estabhshed a monopoly over all secretwork, and that was a very alarming monopoly for the top leadership. As longas there are at least two secret organisations fighting each other behind thescenes there is no need to fear a conspiracy within one of them. So long asthere are two organisations the quality of the work is maintained because ofthe competition. The day one organisation swallows the other will mark theend of the Politburo. But the Politburo won't let that happen. The scope of the KGB's activity is limited by the activity of hostile organisations. Within the country the MVD does very good work. The MVD and the KGB are ready to gobble each other up. Apart from that there is yet another secretpolice operating within the country - the People's Control. Stalin became dictator after having been head of that very organisation."
"They were ready to obey any officer put in charge of them, but they did not respect every one, and a Spetsnaz soldier, with his animal cunning, had thousands of ways of letting his commander know whether he respected him ornot. So why did they respect Kravtsov? Because he did not conceal or try toconceal his animal nature. The troops were convinced that human nature was basically vicious and incorrigible. They had good reason. Every day they risked their lives and every day they had an opportunity to observe people onthe brink of death. So they divided everybody into the good and the bad. Agood person in their eyes was one who did not conceal the animal seated within him. But a person who tried to appear good was dangerous. The most dangerous were those who not only paraded their good qualities but who also believed within themselves they were indeed good people. The most loathsome disgusting criminal might kill a man, ten men or even a hundred. But a criminal will never kill people by the million. Millions are killed only by those who consider themselves good. People like Robespierre do not grow out of criminals but out of the most worthy and most humane types. The guillotine was invented not by criminals but by humanists. The most monstrous crimes in the history of mankind were committed by people who did not drink vodka, did not smoke, were not unfaithful to their wives and fed squirrels from the palms of their hands."
"The men whose corn we were then eating were quite sure that a humanbeing could be good only up to a certain point. When life gets difficult good people become bad and it can happen at the most awkward moment. If you don't want to be caught napping it is better not to have anything to do with good people. Better have dealings with those who are now seen to be bad. You will at least know what to expect from them when your luck turns. In that sense Colonel Kravtsov was one of them. For example, if a shapely girl came down the street, with buttocks bouncing around like melons in a bag, the Spetsnaz soldiers would at least rape her visually, if in no other way. But Colonel Kravtsov did the same, quite unashamedly, andthey respected him for it. The dangerous man is the one who does not stare after women and who tries to give the impression that he is not interested in such things. It's among those people that you find secret sadists and murderers."
"What we call a * puppet' is actually a man. A special kind of man for training purposes. For example, you can hit him. But, unlike your partner in a match or your instructor, a 'puppet' also puts up a fight and may even kill you. That's the whole point of using them. Our work is very risky and exceptionally responsible. Just imagine that in time of war a group of Spetsnaz who have the task of slitting the throats of some sleeping enemy soldiers hesitate because they are not used to killing or simply because they suddenly experience feelings of compassion, charity or humanity. They wouldn't carry out their task andthey might perish themselves and wreck a most important operation whichmight cost the lives of thousands of our soldiers. To prevent that happening, they invented the 'puppets'. They invented them a long time ago and havebeen using them in various organisations for more than half a century. In the Cheka they are called 'gladiators', in the NKVD Volunteers' and in Smersh 'Robinsons'. A 'puppet' is a criminal who has been condenmed to death. Those who are weak, old, sick, especially dangerous or who know too much are executed immediately after sentence has been passed. But others have their life extended by the "state and are used for a variety of purposes. The whole of our nuclear industry has been built by such prisoners and is maintained by them. And the longer the sentence a man gets, the more dangerous the work. A person condemned to death is given the most dangerous work. But it is not only there that such people are employed. They are also used as training material. It suits everybody. They get their lives prolonged, and we have an opportunity for real-life training. There used to be enough 'gladiators', 'volunteers' and 'Robinsons' for everybody. Now there's a shortage. Today the number of death sentences passed in the whole country is not more than two or three thousand a year. Half the people sentenced are disposed of without being put to any useful purpose. At the same time the number of organisations that have a use for people in death row is considerable: the VPK (the armaments industry), the GCh service (for fitting and servicing warheads), the Fleet (for replacing the active zones ofthe reactors in nuclear-powered submarines), the KGB, the MVD, the GRU, and Spetsnaz."
"I just didn't know what was the matter with me. Something was wrong. I would wake up in the night and stare for ages at the ceiling. If they were to send me somewhere to die for some cause or other I would become a hero. I would not mind giving up my Hfe -1 had no further use for it. I would then lapse into ashort restless sleep. I would feel as though I was being carried somewhere,flying high above the earth. Away from Kravtsov. Away from Spetsnaz. Awayfrom the tough fighting. I was ready to fight, to strangle people. But what was the point of it all? Fighting for power is not at all the same as fighting for one's country. But would fighting for my country really console me? I had alreadybeen defending my country's interests in Czechoslovakia - not a very pleasantbusiness, to tell you the truth. I flew ever higher in my dreams. From unattainable ringing heights I looked down on my unfortunate country, mymother-country. It was really very sick, but I couldn't make out what it wassuffering from. Sheer madness, perhaps, or schizophrenia. And I didn't knowhow I could help. Somebody had to be killed, but I didn't know who. Wherewas I flying to? To God, perhaps? But there was no god. All the same - the Lord preserve me."
"But whether we could understand what they weresaying or not, an activity chart was kept for such stations and every time theywent on the air they were recorded. Every station had its own character, its ownhandwriting. Some stations worked in the daytime, others at night, still othershad days off, while "others did not. If every transmission was recorded andstudied it soon became possible even to forecast what it was going to do."
"They were checking up on me. All my life they would be checking up on me. Itwas part of the job. They checked up on my self-control, my stamina, my mentalreactions and my loyalty. But I was not alone in this. Everybody was being71screened all the time. Who you smiled at and who you didn't smile at, who youdrank with and who you slept with. And if you didn't drink or sleep withanybody there was a further question: why not?"
all spies were surveilled and tested at all times
spetznaz seems to do a lot of psychological training - conquering fear of heights, blood, death, murdering others, snakes and frogs, etc. also loyalty testing to superiors, surveillance of your relationship choices etc
there's a specific drinking tradition when someone is promoted to captain or above - who sits where, who drinks, break the glass after drinking, etc
"Come on, marshal - what are you waiting for? All of us here are with you.We're all fighting to go. Come on, let us off the leash. We'll make the whole ofRussia run with blood. Just give us the order. We won't kill them all, of course,not all of them. Anyone with a big country house and a big car we'll leave alone.There's no harm in having big cars and houses. And those who talk about socialjustice we'll also leave alone. That's a fault, but not a very big one. People goastray, and what can you take from them, from the crazy ones? We shall kill,marshal, only the men who link these two things together into one: the menwho talk a lot about social justice and go around in big cars. They are the onesfor the lamp posts and the telegraph posts. They are the cause of all ourcountry's misfortunes. So let us off the leash, marshal! Of course you can't doit, though, can you? Hurrah - a - ah!"
"There were no breaks. To go to the toilet you had to ask permission eachtime. The request might be approved immediately, but sometimes one had toask two or three times. The food was brought directly into the classroom.Sometimes it was a magnificent repast which made you sleepy; sometimes for awhole day they would 'forget' to bring food and water, yet questioning went onthe whole time."
". At the same time a tape recorder wasswitched on which bellowed in your ear something completely different, like' "R" cross out, "A" underline, "U" encircle with a red ring/ Tou have threeminutes to add up all the 3's on this sheet of paper on which are simply writtenhundreds of different numbers. Don't pay any attention to what my colleagueis doing. Begin.' Then the colleague began to shake the table, make faces,shout obscenities in your ear, catch hold of you by the hand, strike your legsand shake the chair. But you were advised not to pay any attention to all this."
"In the space of a week they got to know practically everything there was to knowabout me. They established the extent of my knowledge in every field whichinterested them. Apart from that they assessed my capacity for work, mymemory, my resourcefulness, my ability to orientate myself, my honesty, thepresence or absence of a sense of humour, my stamina, my reactions to varioussituations, my abiUty to remember faces, names, numbers and titles, myability to take independent decisions, and a lot more besides."
"We were taken to watch future Olympic champions in training. There werefifteen-year-old boxers, five-year-old gymnasts and three-year-old swimmers.Look at the expression on their faces. Wait until the final moments of the day'straining, when you can see on a child's face the grim determination to beat hisown record of the day before. Just study them! One day they will bring home anOlympic gold to offer to our red flag with the hammer and sickle on it. Just lookat that face: so much tension, so much pain! That's the road to glory. That's thepath to success. To work only at the very limit of your capacity. To work at thebrink of collapse. You can become a champion only if you are the sort of personwho, knowing that the bar is about to fall and crush him, nevertheless heaves itupwards."
"We searched for these dead drops in all our spare time. We hunted for themin the woods on the outskirts of Moscow, in the parks, on patches of wastelandand in abandoned buildings. We searched in the snow and mud. We needed alot of usable sites. And anyone who learns to find such places in Moscow canalso do it in Khartoum, Melbourne or Helsinki."
spies found hundreds of dead drops
spies have training of memory of faces using electric shock
"But you are now working as a back-up for other people. Thatsupport work is difficult, dangerous and thankless. Someone else gets a medalwhile you are risking your whole career carrying out the dirtiest and mostdifficult jobs. Remember: nobody will take you off that work. Any commanderof our organisation abroad who receives a fresh group of young officers usesthem on back-up operations and they quickly fade out. They get arrested andare thrown out of the country and they spend the rest of their lives in the GRU'sinformation service or working in one of our 'fraternal' countries. But if youshow yourself to be really keen and start looking for people to recruit,the commander will soon take you off back-up work and, on the contrary,someone else will be covering your tail and taking risks to promote yoursuccess. That's the way to look at it. "
"An exhibition is a place where real specialists gather together. It is a club forfanatics. And a fanatic needs an audience. He needs someone who will listen tohis wild talk and quietly nod his head. That's why exhibitions are organised.Anyone who is prepared to hsten to a real fanatic and agree with what he says ishis friend, and the fanatic will trust him. Believe me, fanatic. My work is suchthat I need to be trusted. I am Hke a friendly little spider. Trust me, and you'llnever get out of my clutches."
"In less than seven minutes with him I had got across to him a lot of importantfacts. I had used the most ordinary sentences, but from them it was clear that:--we were official representatives of the Soviet Union;--we were interested in the most up-to-date military electronics, and in hisa apparatus in particular;--we were ready to pay well for them and he now knew exactly the pricewe'd pay;--we worked under cover, skilfully and cautiously, without putting onpressure or making demands;--we did not need many samples of an instrument but just one for copying.From all of which he could himself conclude that:--we were not competitors for his firm;--if the production of such an instrument were organised in the USSR hewould lose nothing by it, but would only gain, because the demand for hisapparatus would grow and armies in the West might even order somethingeven more expensive, something even more highly advanced;--having sold us only one sample of the apparatus, he could easily concealthe fact from the authorities and the police: it was not like selling a hundred or athousand;--finally, our proposals were perfectly clear to him; he knew what we wantedand so he was not afraid of us; he reahsed that the sale of the apparatus could betreated as industrial espionage for which the penalties in the West were forsome reason lighter.All aspects of the deal were clear to him. In a single proposition I hadinformed him of our interest, conditions and what[...]"
"And the West really does pay well.But once he's got his Mercedes and his own swimming pool, the traitorsuddenly realises that all the people around him also have nice cars and pools.He suddenly feels like an ant in a crowd of equally rich ants. He loses the sense161of superiority over those around him. He becomes an ordinary person, like therest. Even if the enemy intelhgence service gives that traitor a job he will stillnot recover his feeling of superiority over others, because to work in intelh-gence in the West is not regarded as a great honour and is not highly esteemed.You're just a civil servant, a httle insect, that's all.''I had never thought of it that way.' Well, think about it, and keep thinking about it. Wealth is relative. InMoscow if you drive around in a Lada you have all the pretty girls looking atyou. he pretty girls looking atyou. But if you drive round Paris in a Citroen, however big it is, nobody looksat you. It's all relative."
"The rank which you have on the surface is not important. It's just forshow. In fact we take care to keep our leaders and more talented officers in thebackground and out of the limehght, and we push on to the stage those whoenjoy showing off. Behind the scenes we have our own ranks, our own relativeimportance and our own scale of values. "
hierarchies among spies - actual ranking of spies is separate from the outside world positions, someone whose outside world position is a senior diplomat might actually be a junior spy doing backup work, and vice versa
Guzenko affair reduced the freedom of cipher clerks in the GRU, as per suvorov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_Gouzenko
KGB versus GRU rivalry https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2o086y/comment/cmithrj/
"There was no gainsaying it: it was an interesting museum. What I like mostof all was a machine for manufacturing money. Students at the Moscowtechnical college had made it and sold it to some Georgians for 10,000 roubles,saying, We need real money: we can always make another counterfeitingmachine.' The students showed the Georgians where to put the colour, how toput the paper in and where to pour the spirit. The machine produced beautifulcrisp ten-rouble notes which no expert could distinguish from genuine ones.The students warned the Georgians not to let themselves be carried away:greed ruined the priest! And not to let the machine get too hot, because thatwould cause the design to run. And off the Georgians went to Georgia, wherethe started printing money in the evenings. But then the machine broke downand a mechanic had to be brought into the gang. He opened the machine andwhistled. They had been tricked. The machine was not capable of printingfalse money. A hundred real notes had been put into it. When you turned thehandle a brand new 10-rouble note popped out. But there were only a hundredof them. Once they had all popped out there were no more. The Georgianswent to the police, and the students were caught and each given three years inprison for swindling. But the Georgians got ten years apiece. For their effortsand determination to produce counterfeit money. And that was right: the187students had only tricked the Georgians, while the Georgians had tried to trickthe workers' and peasants' state.People with such rich imaginations have all the luck. So what could I thinkup?"
"If the Communists didn'ttrick me up against a wall and shoot me, I thought, if they didn't burn me in acrematorium or drown me in an overcrowded barge, but put me in charge of aconcentration camp, I would set aside a special section for such volunteersupporters and forget to feed them. Let them eat each other first. As rats in aniron barrel eat the weakest first and then the progressively stronger ones.... Iwould let them establish each day who was the weakest. Let each of them bescared of falling asleep, lest he should be killed and eaten while he slept.Perhaps they would understand then that there is and can be no harmony onthis earth. That everyone is obliged to fight for himself. My God, if they wouldonly put me in charge of a camp."
"The rules of the GRU categorically forbid anything about the work of oneofficer to be revealed to other officers, about either successes or failures.Navigators keep strictly to the rules. They know that no one should know morethan he needs to know to carry out his duties. But in that case, how was it217possible to maintain an atmosphere of fierce competition inside the secretorganisation? That was why residents devised all sorts of tricks to evade therules and to demonstrate to the whole company their approval of some peopleand their dissatisfaction with others. They always found ways of doing it."
"Another feature of the Soviet embassies throughout the world at weekends isthe special shops which are open and sell goods at remarkably low prices. Thewhole Soviet colony flocks to the shop to buy. And again, on Sundays there arelectures. Again they crowd into them, not because they Hke the lectures butbecause you get a good mark if you attend. Nobody forces you to attend thelectures: it's your own business. But if it should appear to someone that IvanNikonorovich, for example, appears rather apathetic and isn't particularlyinterested in politics, he is likely to be sent home - evacuated. Suddenly onenight there's a ring on his doorbell and a message: your father is very ill andwants to say goodbye to you. An escort steps up to Ivan Nikonorovich and,whether he wants to be at his father's deathbed, or not, he is on his way to theplane.They also show films in Soviet embassies on Sundays. Recent ones andothers not so recent. Again people turn up in great numbers. Attendance is a223sign of high poUtical awareness and unbreakable ties with your socialistmotherland."
"A black Mercedes went down the street with a man in the backseat dressed in white robes: the representative of some poor country on his wayto a meeting to demand money from richer countries. Diplomats from richcountries were also on their way to meetings. But the richer ones had moremodest cars - they drove Fords and Volkswagens. The experts say that in thefuture the gap between the rich and the poor countries will get bigger. Theyshould know. A bigger gap will mean that the diplomats from the poorercountries will travel in Rolls-Royce limousines, while the diplomats from thericher countries will probably switch to bicycles to save money."
the ending of the book is nicely planned, just after the british call him back saying they're ready to meet with him
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