Russia and the Cult of State Security

This book explores the mythology woven around the Soviet secret police
and the Russian cult of state security that has emerged from it.
Tracing the history of this mythology from the Soviet period through to
its revival in contemporary post-�Soviet Russia, the volume argues that suc-
cessive Russian regimes have sponsored a ‘cult’ of state security, whereby
security organs are held up as something to be worshipped. The book
approaches the history of this cult as an ongoing struggle to legitimize and
sacralize the Russian state security apparatus, and to negotiate its violent
and dramatic past. It explores the ways in which, during the Soviet period,
this mythology sought to make the existence of the most radically intrusive
and powerful secret police in history appear ‘natural’. It also documents
the contemporary post-�Soviet re-�emergence of the cult of state security,
examining the ways in which elements of the old Soviet mythology have
been revised and reclaimed as the cornerstone of a new state ideology.
The Russian cult of state security is of ongoing contemporary relevance,
and is crucial for understanding not only the tragedies of Russia’s
twentieth-Â�century history, but also the ambiguities of Russia’s post-Â�Soviet
transition, and the current struggle to define Russia’s national identity and
future development. The book examines the ways in which contemporary
Russian life continues to be shaped by the legacy of Soviet attitudes to
state–society relations, as expressed in the reconstituted cult of state secur-
ity. It investigates the shadow which the figure of the secret policeman
continues to cast over Russia today.
This book will be of much interest to students of the KGB, Intelligence
studies, Russian history and politics and IR in general.

Julie Fedor is a Research Associate on the project ‘Memory at War: Cul-

tural Dynamics in Poland, Russia and Ukraine’, in the Department of Sla-
vonic Studies at the University of Cambridge. She has taught modern
Russian history at the Universities of Birmingham, Cambridge, Melbourne
and St Andrews, and has a PhD from King’s College, Cambridge, where
she was a Gates Scholar.
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International Intelligence Russia and the Cult of State
Cooperation and Accountability Security
Edited by Hans Born, Ian Leigh and The Chekist Tradition, from Lenin
Aidan Wills to Putin
Julie Fedor
Improving Intelligence Analysis
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scholarship and practice
Stephen Marrin
Russia and the Cult
of State Security
The Chekist Tradition,
from Lenin to Putin

Julie Fedor
First published 2011
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© 2011 Julie Fedor

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been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
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Contents

Acknowledgements x
A note on transliteration and translation xi
List of abbreviations xii

Introduction 1

PART I
Soviet chekism 9

1 Dzerzhinsky’s commandments 11
2 Late Soviet chekism: the changing face of repression under
Khrushchev and beyond 30
3 Screening the historical chekist 58
4 Screening the contemporary chekist 87

PART II
Post-�Soviet chekism 117

Introduction 119
5 Re-�inventing chekist traditions 121
6 The cult of Andropov 139
7 Securitizing the Russian soul 160
Conclusion 182
Glossary 184
Notes 185
Bibliography 250
Index 279
Acknowledgements

I am deeply indebted to my PhD supervisor Professor Christopher Andrew

(Corpus Christi, Cambridge) for years of generous support and
encouragement.
Funding for this study was provided by the Gates Cambridge Trust and
King’s College, Cambridge.
Chapter 2 is re-�printed here with the permission of Taylor & Francis
Books (UK). It has also been published under the title ‘The Changing
Face of Repression under Khrushchev’, in Melanie Ilic and Jeremy Smith,
eds, Soviet State and Society under Nikita Khrushchev (Routledge: 2009),
pp.€142–61.
A note on transliteration and
translation

This book uses a modified Library of Congress transliteration system.

Initial ‘iu’, ‘ie’ and ‘ia’ are rendered as ‘yu’, ‘ye’, and ‘ya’.
Where established English conventions for certain proper names exist,
these have been given preference (hence for example Dzerzhinsky, Gorky,
Yeltsin, Chechnya).
Translations are mine unless otherwise indicated.
Abbreviations

CPSU Communist Party of the Soviet Union

FSB Federal Security Service
GPU State Political Directorate
KGB Committee for State Security
NKVD People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs
RF Russian Federation
SVR Foreign Intelligence Service
TsOS Centre for Public Links
UFSB Directorate of the Federal Security Service
VChK (or All-�Russian Extraordinary Commission for the Struggle with
Vecheka) Counter-�Revolution and Sabotage
Introduction

On 20 July 1936, the Soviet newspaper Izvestiia ran a panegyric marking

the tenth anniversary of the death of Feliks Dzerzhinsky (1877–1926),
chief of the Soviet republic’s first security and intelligence agency, the
Cheka (1917–22).1 In the article, the author wondered how future genera-
tions would look back on Dzerzhinsky from the perspective of the twenty-�
first century. He speculated that:

For our distant descendants, perhaps, much in the history of the

socialist revolution will be unclear and difficult to understand. .â•›.â•›.
They will come to the Pantheon of the revolution, they will rise,
bowing their heads before the grey, majestic, wonderful walls of the
Kremlin, and will look long upon the marble of funeral slabs, at the
bronze death masks and bas-�reliefs which, with time, will decorate the
sepuchral bays.2

The author was convinced that, despite the gulf separating the present
from the imaginary future human being, the latter would be spellbound
by the figure of Dzerzhinsky. Bourgeois attempts to slander his name with
false accounts of the Cheka’s Red Terror were powerless to change histo-
ry’s ultimate verdict. Posterity would redeem Dzerzhinsky. When the
future child of the twenty-�first century gazed into the eyes of Dzerzhinsky,
‘the whole history of humanity’ would be ‘lit up for them by the flame
which Feliks Edmundovich carried within him’, and Dzerzhinsky’s image
would remain ‘imbued with the light which he radiated in life’. The future
human being would draw the right conclusion. Contemplating Dzerzhin-
sky’s image, he would sigh, and murmur ‘Life was beautiful in those
years!’.3
From our perspective, this prediction, reaching us across the decades –
a message from the distant world of Stalinist Russia – seems far-Â�fetched
and ludicrous. Yet in important ways, elements of this bizarre prophecy
have come to pass. Against heavy odds, Dzerzhinsky’s legacy has endured.
The figure of Dzerzhinsky continues to loom large on the symbolic land-
scape of early twenty-�first century Russia, and the Soviet state-�sponsored
2╇╇ Introduction
mythology woven around him continues to shape popular historical con-
sciousness. This book traces the fates of the extraordinary cult surround-
ing Dzerzhinsky and the secret police which he created: the cult of the
chekist.
‘Chekist’ is the generic term derived from the title of Dzerzhinsky’s ori-
ginal Cheka, created in late 1917. While the Soviet and post-�Soviet state
security organs would go through multiple incarnations and be known
under many different titles (most notoriously, the KGB after 1954, and the
NKVD of the Stalin era), the term ‘chekist’ has remained constant, and
has been used since 1917 to designate employees of the Soviet, and now
the post-�Soviet, security apparatus.
Throughout the Soviet period and beyond, the secret police has main-
tained a strong corporate identity which self-�consciously traces its roots to
the founding myth of the Cheka. The Soviet regime had a large invest-
ment in glorifying the traditions of the Cheka, and mobilized massive
resources to this end, propagating a cult of the Cheka through a variety of
media at multiple levels, ranging from popular culture to official histori-
ography. This was a cult that had its own pantheon of saints, sacred sites,
sacraments and scripture, and its own iconography, which played a key
role in legitimizing and romanticizing political terror.
In the final days of the Soviet Union, this image of the idealized chekist
crumbled. In August 1991, the chekist was demonstratively banished from
the Russian symbolic landscape, with the toppling of the massive statue of
Dzerzhinsky in central Moscow, the climax of Russia’s democratic revolu-
tion. Revelations about the mass murders committed by the Soviet state
security organs were at the centre of public attention, as the security
archives were briefly opened and their contents published freely for the
first time. The security organs and their history were subjected to unprece-
dented criticism and condemnation. But this period of disgrace proved to
be shortlived. Since the mid-�1990s, the cult of the chekist has undergone a
remarkable revival. Elements of the Soviet chekist heritage are now being
claimed as the cornerstone of a new mythology seeking to justify the
unprecedented ascendancy of the security apparatus in contemporary
Russia, and the figure of the chekist has been recast as the hero and
saviour of Russian statehood, via an ongoing official public relations cam-
paign aimed at rehabilitating and celebrating the chekist, and redefining
and affirming the values which he represents.
The book traces the history of the ongoing struggle to legitimize and
sacralize the Russian state security apparatus. First and foremost, this strug-
gle has entailed negotiating the heavy historical baggage of that institu-
tion’s violent past, under which chekists have laboured practically since
the inception of the Cheka.4 The book follows this struggle across both the
Soviet and the post-�Soviet periods, examining successive attempts to shape
and manipulate perceptions of the past in order to further contemporary
political ends. Representations of the Cheka’s ‘golden age’ have always, of
 Introduction╇╇ 3
course, spoken more eloquently of the present than of the past. To para-
phrase the ethnographic historian Greg Dening, these historical narratives
and the oppositions they set up are ‘both history and cosmology’5 – they
are stories that serve to create and sustain a moral universe. It is the histor-
ical narratives constructed around the Cheka that have provided the key
categories and models used to justify the practices of later incarnations of
the secret police, presented as the continuators of the Cheka’s ‘glorious
traditions’.
While numerous studies of the Soviet and post-�Soviet state security
organs have been conducted in recent years,6 the mythology surrounding
them has received relatively little attention to date.7 Various scholars have
noted the existence of a cult surrounding the Cheka, but this has not been
the major focus of the works in question.8 By the same token, studies of
Soviet heroic discourses and propaganda, with which the book will inter-
sect, have tended to overlook the figure of the chekist, perhaps partly
because of the difficulties involved in gaining access to the security organs’
archives.9 The book seeks to fill this gap in the literature. It does so using a
wide lens which takes in both the Soviet and post-�Soviet periods, this
broader historical sweep enabling a view to be gained on the discursive
continuities present, and on the ways in which the Soviet cult has been
revised and selectively reconstituted with a view to creating a useable past
for the current Russian regime.
This gap in our knowledge is something which is beginning to be recog-
nized by contemporary historians working on the history of the security
apparatus in the Soviet bloc and seeking to exploit the new sources
opened up by the collapse of communism. At a 2005 Warsaw international
conference of historians of the Soviet state security system as imposed
upon Central and Eastern Europe,10 a whole series of participants observed
the need for new research into chekist discourses,11 with a view to negotiat-
ing the very specific difficulties involved in working with archival materials
produced by the Soviet secret police and its filials in Central and Eastern
Europe. One cannot hope to ‘translate’ these texts without an understand-
ing of the filters through which the chekist viewed the world, and the
idiom in which he described it. This book seeks to make an initial contri-
bution in this direction, by mapping out and glossing some of the key
terms and categories through which the chekist universe operated.
Finally, the Russian cult of state security is also a topic of ongoing con-
temporary relevance by virtue of its connection to current developments
in Russia. The figure of the chekist features prominently in the emergent
Russian state ideology. Ongoing attempts to define the chekist’s role in
Russia’s past and present are an important aspect of the struggle to define
Russia’s national identity and future development. A detailed and histori-
cally grounded reading of the cult of the chekist and the values which it
propagates thus has the capacity to shed new light on important ambigui-
ties inherent in the reform process in Russia’s transition.
4╇╇ Introduction
History’s mirror
The concern with the historical record, with the ultimate judgement of
history, evinced by the 1936 Izvestiia article with which I opened this intro-
duction, was present from very early on. Posterity loomed large in the
minds of the early Soviet leaders. The belief that they would be vindicated
morally and looked upon favourably by future generations was important
to them. Lenin reassured his followers that ‘The cruelty of our life, neces-
sitated by conditions, will be understood and justified. Everything will be
understood, everything’.12
Bukharin’s claim that Dzerzhinsky never ‘looked into the mirror of
history’ notwithstanding,13 it is clear that Dzerzhinsky, too, worked with an
eye to the future historical record. While Dzerzhinsky expressed the view
in 1926 that it was too early to write the history of the Cheka,14 he was nev-
ertheless keen that chekists should already take measures to assume
control of how they would be represented by ‘future historians’, and to
this end in 1925 he issued an appeal to chekist veterans to take up
memoir-Â�writing in order to ensure that the Cheka’s historical role would
not be illuminated in a ‘one-Â�sided manner’ (that is, only from the point of
view of the Cheka’s opponents).15
Such concerns arose partly in response to the chorus of voices raised in
condemnation of the Cheka’s appalling record of atrocities, especially in
connection with the official Red Terror instituted in the autumn of 1918.
The resulting ‘sea of filthy slander’ threatened to engulf Dzerzhinsky and
his men,16 making it even more necessary to inculcate a correct under-
standing of the state security organs, to shape historical consciousness and
memory in the right directions. It was with this aim in mind that the texts
which I examine in this book were created.

The chekist: an elusive category

At the IX Party Congress in April 1920, Lenin famously stated that ‘A good
communist is at the same time a good chekist, too’.17 This book will
explore what it has meant to be a ‘good chekist’ at particular historical
moments. I interrogate the category ‘chekist’ and sketch out a genealogy
of the changing meanings that have been invested in it over time, provid-
ing definitions of some key chekist values and concepts along the way,
from active humanism, to profilaktika, through to spiritual security. My
focus is on the ways in which the figure of the chekist has functioned as a
vehicle for ideological messages.
In recent years, since the rise to power of Vladimir Putin and many of
his former KGB colleagues, the Russian term ‘chekist’ has been making its
way into English. ‘Chekist’ has been migrating into English together with
its post-Â�Soviet cousin, ‘silovik’ (plural: siloviki). Both terms are often used
in English-�language media commentary to denote individuals connected
 Introduction╇╇ 5
with the security apparatus, and, in the case of siloviki, the military and
foreign affairs elites, in contemporary Russian politics; a group who might
also be described as ‘violence specialists’, or ‘masters of violence’, to use
the formulas suggested by Alexander Etkind.18
This linguistic migration reflects the fact that these terms are both
indispensable for describing contemporary Russia, and untranslatable. As
Svetlana Boym has argued, untranslatable terms can serve as special
windows onto cultures.19 In the case of the term ‘chekist’, the term is
untranslatable because it says something about the nature of the Russian
state security apparatus which is not captured by the available English
equivalents.
When the Cheka was created in December 1917, it was proclaimed as
qualitatively different to all other institutions of its kind, past and present.
Soviet official rhetoric sought to present the Cheka as unique, and unprec-
edented. Throughout the Soviet period, it was insistently presented as sui
generis – a ‘state security organ of a new type’.20 The creation of the Cheka
had marked the dawning of an entirely new era in state policing of society.
Originally the term was brought into use primarily in order to distin-
guish the Soviet security organs from their predecessors, on the one hand,
and their capitalist counterparts, on the other. Dzerzhinsky’s men were
not secret policemen, they were chekists – and this was an absolutely
crucial distinction. Importantly, the new term enabled the erasure of asso-
ciations with the tsarist Okhrana, thereby dispensing with the basic contra-
diction and tension between the declared emancipatory aim of October,
and the existence of a Soviet secret police.21
Try to define the term beyond this, however, and you soon run into
difficulties. For all its centrality in Soviet and now post-�Soviet official dis-
course and public life, the actual content of the term has always been neb-
ulous. The term ‘chekist’ is at once loaded and heavily suggestive, on the
one hand, and exceptionally vague, and difficult to define, on the other.
An incident recounted in the memoirs of Filipp Bobkov, the former head
of the KGB’s anti-Â�dissident Fifth Directorate, can serve to illustrate this
point.22 Bobkov recalls a key conversation with Andropov, in which Andro-
pov offered Bobkov a leading post in the KGB’s newly created Fifth Direc-
torate. Outlining his vision of the new Directorate, Andropov told Bobkov
that ‘The new directorate must combat ideological expansion directed
from abroad, it must become a reliable shield against it. And here the role
of chekist methods of work is very important’. Bobkov does not tell us how
he responded aloud to this statement, but his mental response is telling:
‘â•›“Chekist methods? What does he mean?” – I thought.’23 In other words,
the actual content of the ‘chekist’ category could be opaque and obscure
even for leading and experienced chekists well-�versed in chekist
scripture.24
In fact, the category ‘chekist’ has always contained an element of
mystery. The chekist was never just a neutral agent of the state. From the
6╇╇ Introduction
outset, the chekist was invested with sacred attributes, with anagogical
meaning, with an aura of mystery, seemingly derived partly from the chek-
ist’s proximity to violence, partly from the cult of revolution.25 This image
of the chekist was a collective product whose authors included various
prominent early Soviet poets and writers, many of whom were morbidly
fascinated by the newly created Soviet security apparatus. The writer Isaac
Babel famously described chekists as ‘sacred people’;26 and the poet
Velimir Khlebnikov imagined a chekist as part Jesus, part Nero, giving
people a ‘spiritual bath in death’27 – to give just a couple of examples.
The elusiveness of the meaning of this category arises partly out of the
fact that the term chekist is heavily ringed around with taboo.28 The narra-
tives constructed around the Cheka could not be sustained without the
reinforcement of a set of firm prohibitions against mentioning those
aspects of the Cheka’s past that might give the lie to or conflict in any
sense with the central tenets of the myth, thereby calling into question the
legitimacy of the whole Soviet project and its claims to be firmly grounded
in popular support. The resultant ellipses are almost palpable in the liter-
ature. These ‘blank spots’ appeared very early on, and the degree to which
the Soviet regime feared alternative accounts of the history of the Cheka is
clear from the vigour with which it set about silencing the authors of works
on the Red Terror, the single most sensitive episode of the Cheka’s
history.29 In my investigation of the term, I shall unpack the meanings and
associations that have adhered to the term, but equally, I shall look for
what the category disavows.
One of the over-�arching themes of this study concerns the relation
between chekism and issues of morality – a relation which has always been
close, complicated and fraught. In selecting this theme as my initial point
of enquiry, I follow cultural historian Robert Darnton, who has argued
that the best point of entry into another culture is where it is most opaque:
‘When you realize that you are not getting something – a joke, a proverb,
a ceremony – that is particularly meaningful to the natives, you can see
where to grasp a foreign system of meaning in order to unravel it.’30 In the
case of my topic, it was the basic implausibility of Dzerzhinsky’s status as an
emblem of moral purity that originally caught my attention. I was struck
by the degree to which both Soviet and post-�Soviet official representations
of chekists were characterized by frequent references to morality, and to
the concept of ‘moral purity’ in particular.31 My account of the cult
explores the underpinnings of this claim to moral purity, and highlights
the moral dimensions of chekism in particular.

Structure
The book is divided into two parts, looking at the Soviet and post-�Soviet
periods respectively. This structure enables me to highlight the discursive
continuities present, as well as to show the ways in which the Soviet cult has
 Introduction╇╇ 7
been revised and selectively reconstituted with a view to creating a useable
past for the current Russian regime. I have chosen to focus on the Khrush-
chev era and the late Yeltsin-�Putin era because these were both historical
moments at which the cult was reorganized and reasserted in the wake of
periods of intense historical debates challenging the legitimacy of chekism.
Part I examines the Soviet cult of the chekist. In Chapter 1, I sketch out
the basic conventions and motifs of iconography of the chief chekist saint,
Feliks Dzerzhinsky, which remained more or less stable throughout the
Soviet period. The remaining chapters in Part I deal with the Khrushchev
era, the period when a key opposition was set up between the chekist
terror of the early Soviet period, and the Great Terror. In the case of the
former, occasional ‘mistakes’ might have been made, but the basic legiti-
macy was never in question; where the latter was concerned, it was a ques-
tion of conscious and systematic evil. The early violence was ‘beautiful’;
the Stalinist violence was corrupt and repugnant. This basic contrast is one
which has had enduring powerful influence.
In Chapter 2 I describe how, after Stalin’s death, the cult of the Cheka
was briefly challenged, and then vigorously reasserted, as part of the
project to modernize the Soviet state and its repressive apparatus, and to
re-�legitimize the Soviet project. I show how this modernization entailed
the formulation of a series of euphemisms and taboos, aimed at negotiat-
ing the less palatable aspects of the chekist past and present. In Chapters 3
and 4 I discuss concrete examples of how the rehabilitation of the chekist
was effected, through two archival case studies of the making of films
about chekists during the early 1960s. This study of cinematic images of
chekists resonates with the motif of history’s ‘mirror’, as we explore the
ways in which chekists ensured that a flattering self-�portrait be reflected
back at them via screen projections of chekists during this period.32
Part II traces the resurgence of the cult of state security in the late
Yeltsin and Putin eras. It explores the new chekist mythology and its strat-
egies aimed at making the figure of the chekist respectable again in the
wake of the massive damage done to the reputation of the state security
organs in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Chapter 5 examines the newly
invented and re-�invented traditions that have been woven around the FSB
since its creation in 1995. In Chapter 6, I describe the emergence of a
reconstituted cult of Andropov, the primary thrust of which is to create a
respectable pedigree for Putin as an ex-�chekist leader. Finally, Chapter 7
charts the emergence of a new linkage between ‘security’ and ‘spirituality’,
via an introduction to the concept of ‘spiritual security’ and its deploy-
ment in contemporary Russian public life.

Sources
The book draws upon a wide range of primary sources. Part I employs
Soviet archival materials, press and memoir literature, as well as novels,
8╇╇ Introduction
poetry and films. In Part II, I focus on materials produced and/or
endorsed by the FSB, since these offer the most reliable indication of the
official line. I also use the large body of chekist memoir literature which
has been published in the post-�Soviet era, as well as examining the images
of state security circulating in the Russian mass media and popular culture,
and related commentary and public debates.

Conclusion
In a passage from The Gulag Archipelago, Solzhenitsyn drew attention to the
extent to which the chekist presence was taken for granted:

In various parts of our country we find a certain piece of sculpture: a

plaster guard with a police dog which is straining forward in order to
sink its teeth into someone. In Tashkent there is one right in front of
the NKVD school, and in Ryazan it is like a symbol of the city, the one
and only monument if you approach from the direction of Mikhailov.
And we do not even shudder in revulsion. We have become accus-
tomed to these figures setting dogs onto people as if they were the
most natural things in the world. Setting the dogs onto us.33

It was through the mythology created around the figure of the chekist that
the existence of the most radically intrusive and powerful secret police in
history was made to appear ‘natural’ in this way. To paraphrase Barthes,
this mythology transformed history into nature, and made the contingent
appear eternal.34 A similar process is underway in Russia today, as the
chekist is being re-�mythologized and is returning to the Russian landscape
once again. As this study sets out to show, however, the chekist’s domina-
tion of the Russian landscape is a phenomenon that is neither natural nor
inevitable, but one that rests on a mythology that has been painstakingly
created and recreated.
Part I

Soviet chekism
1 Dzerzhinsky’s commandments

In the perception of enemies, trembling at his very name, Dzerzhinsky

figures as some sort of demon, some sort of wizard of Bolshevism .â•›.â•›.
Dzerzhinsky is omnipresent, Dzerzhinsky is everywhere merciless, Dzerzhin-
sky breaks all obstacles on his path. Enemies do not understand, cannot
understand, that Dzerzhinsky’s ‘satanic all-Â�roundedness’, [his] ‘good luck’,
flow from the fact that all the greatness and all the might of our class, its
passionate will to struggle and to victory, its deepest creative forces, were
embodied in Dzerzhinsky.1

This front-Â�page Pravda editorial deriding Dzerzhinsky’s critics for their

primitive fear of his power was published shortly after Dzerzhinsky’s death
in July 1926. I have chosen this passage to open my introduction to the
Soviet cult of Dzerzhinsky, because it conveys some sense of the bizarre
range and mixture of powers and properties that were attributed to
Dzerzhinsky. The cult that surrounded the figure of Dzerzhinsky was a
highly distinctive and vivid leadership cult,2 abundant in apparent contra-
dictions and surprises. In this introductory tour, I shall approach the cult
through what Robert Darnton would call its ‘opaque’ moments: the points
where it is at its most strange and puzzling, the better to grasp hold of it
with a view to unravelling its meaning.3 We shall see the founder of the
Soviet secret police and executor of the Red Terror compared to a
sunbeam; weeping tears of love and compassion; cradling an orphaned
child in his arms; and gazing into people’s souls. Diabolical to his enemies,
a saint to his friends, the figure of Dzerzhinsky seems to have functioned
as a vehicle for all kinds of fantasies and fears. More officially, he served to
represent the ideal chekist, and it is in this capacity – as the incarnation of
the chekist ethos – that I will mostly be concerned with the figure of
Dzerzhinsky here. In this chapter, I provide an introduction to the Soviet
cult of Dzerzhinsky, outlining those conventions and motifs which
remained more or less constant throughout the cult’s existence. This pre-
liminary sketch of the cult’s main contours will set the scene for sub-
sequent chapters in which we shall explore the ways in which this cult was
modified at particular historical moments.
12╇╇ Soviet chekism
The Pravda editorial reproduced above conveys a sense of Dzerzhinsky’s
status as a mythic, larger-�than-life figure. Symbolically, Dzerzhinsky func-
tioned as the emblematic and quintessential chekist. His symbolic status as
the archetypical chekist was underlined insistently in Soviet discourse.
Upon dying, Dzerzhinsky was said to have ‘merged with the ChK, which
became his embodiment’.4 This message was reinforced in poems such as
Bezymenskii’s ‘Feliks’ (extracts of which were published in Pravda to mark
the ninth jubilee of the Cheka in December 1926),5 in which a father
explains to his little son that ‘Feliks’ and ‘the VChK’ are one and the same
thing.6 This status as archetype or prototype was also flagged by one of
Dzerzhinsky’s key sobriquets: ‘the first chekist’. In fact, it is impossible to
detach or disentangle the figure of Dzerzhinsky from the term ‘chekist’,
since the two were practically synonymous. Any examination of the term
‘chekist’ must thus begin with Dzerzhinsky. Dzerzhinsky was absolutely
central to the corporate identity of the institution and insofar as the term
‘chekist’ has meaning, this meaning is derived from and associated with
the figure of Dzerzhinsky.7
The whole semantic universe of Soviet chekism turned on the figure of
Dzerzhinsky. He provided the focus for the vast majority of chekist rites
and traditions. Key dates from Dzerzhinsky’s life punctuated and organ-
ized the chekist official calendar. Thus, for example, new foreign intelli-
gence officers were sworn into the service on the anniversary of
Dzerzhinsky’s birthday (11 September),8 and chekist salaries were paid on
the eleventh of the month.9 Rituals venerating Dzerzhinsky operated in
broader society, too; in the late Soviet period, for example, young people
were mobilized to undertake pilgrimages (agitpokhody) to various sacred
sites related to Dzerzhinsky’s life,10 and Soviet children’s homes often fea-
tured a special ugolok devoted to Dzerzhinsky.11 There was a vast body of
hagiographical literature on Dzerzhinsky, including such works as Soldier of
Great Battles: The Life and Work of F. E. Dzerzhinsky (1961); Knight of the
Revolution (1967); Dzerzhinsky in My Life (1987); and Feliks Means Happy
(1974) – to name but a few. Dzerzhinsky was also the key protagonist in
the Soviet security apparatus’ elaborate foundation myth, as we shall see
below.
One of the most striking features of the Soviet hagiographical literature
on Dzerzhinsky are the ubiquitous but opaque references to his ‘moral
purity’,12 ‘moral beauty’13 and ‘moral talent’.14 This preoccupation with
Dzerzhinsky as first and foremost a moral figure points to the strong con-
nection between the chekist and the new Soviet morality being forged.
This struggle often came to be focused in the figure of the chekist. In the
early Soviet struggle to overhaul morality, the chekist was on the front line.
It was the chekist who manned the camps in which criminals and enemies
underwent ‘reforging’ (perekovka); it was the chekist who, having removed
the priests, now took confession; and it was first and foremost the chekist
who was defying and transgressing the old moral codes, now declared to
 Dzerzhinsky’s commandments╇╇ 13
be defunct. As Nadezhda Mandelstam put it, ‘The Chekists were the avant-Â�
garde of the “new people”, and they had indeed basically revised, in the
manner of the Superman, all ordinary human values’.15 This connection
remained present throughout the whole Soviet period, albeit in somewhat
modified form. The figure of the chekist was central to the new moral uni-
verse being created – the chekist was both embodiment and chief execu-
tor of the new moral code. In what follows, I shall explore some of the
linkages between the figure of the Dzerzhinsky and morality, showing how
and why Dzerzhinsky’s claim to the title of a great humanitarian was sup-
ported and sustained.

The Dzerzhinsky vita

The first official hagiography of Dzerzhinsky appeared immediately after
his death in July 1926. Two days after Dzerzhinsky died, the state publish-
ing house Gosizdat rushed through the publication of a small 32-page
book on Dzerzhinsky, containing reprints of government reports of his
death, obituaries, a brief autobiography and speeches. It was recom-
mended in Pravda that ‘every worker’ in the USSR should obtain a copy of
this book, pending the publication of more comprehensive works.16
After his death, Dzerzhinsky was elevated into the realm of the symbolic
and the elemental. Bukharin’s obituary underlined the fact that Dzerzhin-
sky was more than human, more than a mere mortal: ‘It is as though the
boiling lava of revolution, and not simple human blood, flowed and
seethed in his veins.’17 Other metaphors used made a similar point. One
tribute described Dzerzhinsky as a kind of walking monument, ‘a figure,
seemingly hewn out of a single block of granite’.18
The standard, stylized image of Dzerzhinsky as it subsequently emerged
in Soviet discourse was more icon-�like than that of any other Soviet
leader.19 The Dzerzhinsky cult’s dominant notes of ‘sternness’ and ‘sor-
rowfulness’ recall the saints of Orthodox icons.20 The tenor of the cult
generally has a distinctive mournfulness about it. As Hingley puts it, Soviet
historians presented the Cheka’s actions as conducted ‘in a spirit more of
sorrow than of anger under the inspiration of the saintly Dzerzhinsky’.21
Unlike Lenin or Stalin, Dzerzhinsky is frequently depicted as ‘sad’, ‘tired’;
emotionally drained by the strain of his work. In the Khrushchev era, these
qualities made the Dzerzhinsky cult exceptional amongst Soviet leadership
cults. As Tumarkin has shown, this was a period in which the sorrowful
and the funereal were largely banished from Soviet public life, and from
the Lenin cult in particular, which was refashioned in an ‘upbeat’ style, in
keeping with the tenor of the period.22
The language used to describe Dzerzhinsky is often strikingly religious.
One 1936 tribute to Dzerzhinsky, for example, speaks of the ‘incorruptible
.â•›.â•›. image of Dzerzhinsky, his thin, spiritual face with high cheekbones and
sunken cheeks, with a meek mouth and a burning gaze, saturated with
14╇╇ Soviet chekism
rage and sorrow’, and asserts that ‘the very essence of Dzerzhinsky .â•›.â•›. was
the most profound longing [toska] for the construction of the new life’.23
More than any other Soviet leader, Dzerzhinsky combined the qualities of
the martyr and the ascetic.
The religious elements and tenor of the Dzerzhinsky cult have their
roots partly in Dzerzhinsky’s own biography. He was intensely religious as
a boy and felt a calling as a priest, until he abandoned religion after con-
verting to the revolutionary cause. His writings are permeated by religious
imagery. He wrote, for example, of the ‘sacred spark’ that burned within
him, sustaining him on his revolutionary path and lending him strength
‘even on the bonfire of persecutions’.24 He also wrote that ‘The more hor-
rifying the hell of this life, the most clearly and loudly I hear the eternal
hymn of life, the hymn of truth, beauty and happiness, and there is no
place within me for despair. Life is joyful even when one has to wear leg-�
irons’.25
The marked religious overtones of the Dzerzhinsky cult are further
exemplified by one of its key motifs: that of light – the conventional signi-
fier of the presence of the divine in hagiographic literature. Thus, for
example, for Buikis, ‘There was something bright, something special, in
him [Dzerzhinsky]. It was as though he radiated warmth, penetrating into
the soul’.26 Dzerzhinsky himself once wrote that he aspired ‘To be a bright
ray for others, to radiate light – this is the highest happiness which a
person can attain’, words which Soviet accounts presented as best encap-
sulating his character, as ‘the best commentary to F. E. Dzerzhinsky’s life,
work and ideals’.27 Dzerzhinsky’s connection with the celestial realm was
also depicted visually, in images like the one in the January 1965 issue of
the journal The Borderguard, in which Dzerzhinsky’s face hovers in the
clouds.28
The exceptionally long time which Dzerzhinsky had spent in prisons
and exile before the revolution furnished the cult with a huge store of
material for his vita – passion stories, heroic feats, trials, and acts of sacri-
fice.29 In one of the most frequently quoted stories, during one of his
numerous prison terms, Dzerzhinsky, despite being gravely ill himself, per-
formed the feat of carrying on his back his ailing cell-�mate, who was
unable to walk, out into the prison courtyard each day for months on
end.30
Dzerzhinsky also resembled a saint by virtue of his celebrated sensitivity
and gentleness, exemplified by his fondness for flowers and for nature
more generally, and his appreciation of poetry. Central to the Dzerzhinsky
cult is the notion that he would not hurt a fly; one memoir, for example,
describes how he ‘would bend down and pluck flowers, and I noticed how
carefully he placed his feet, clad in heavy boots, so as not to trample the
beautiful plants or an ant-Â�hill’.31 He displayed such qualities from child-
hood, when he acted as the protector of mistreated animals.32 In general,
‘love’ was said to be a primary force motivating Dzerzhinsky.33
 Dzerzhinsky’s commandments╇╇ 15
Most important in this connection was Dzerzhinsky’s renowned passion-
ate love for children, expressed most famously through his actions in the
sphere of child welfare in the early 1920s.34 This was easily the single most
important and marketable, palatable facet of the Soviet cult of Dzerzhin-
sky. This was the cult’s pride; its showpiece; a ‘bright, unforgettable page
from the history of Soviet chekists’.35 It was in this sphere of work that ‘a
wonderful quality of Feliks Edmundovich’s personality – humanism – was
manifested with special force’.36 More than anything else, it was his work
with children that made it possible to present Dzerzhinsky as a moral
paragon. This theme was also central in particular to what we might call
the ‘children’s cult’ of the Cheka – the books and films about Dzerzhinsky
produced specifically for children.37
There is something fitting in the fact that children’s stories should be
one of the key monuments of the cult, built as it was on a kind of infantili-
zation of the Soviet population. As one 1940 reviewer of a collection of
children’s stories about Dzerzhinsky noted, these stories were not only for
children: they were ‘just as interesting for adults as for children. Children
will learn from this book not only to respect, but also to love Dzerzhinsky,
while for adults, who know a lot about him, about his work, the familiar
countenance will come to life and become more multi-Â�faceted’.38
The Soviet vita usually included a set of standard quotes from Dzerzhin-
sky on the subject of his love of children, such as the famous lines from his
Diary and Letters: ‘I don’t know why I love children, more than anyone else
.â•›.â•›. Often, often it seems to me that even a mother does not love children
as passionately as I do.’39 This was a love that was fully reciprocated, and
the Soviet cult spoke of the hundreds of letters which Dzerzhinsky received
from children, such as a letter from ex-�homeless children of the First
Black Sea Colony who wrote him a letter in which they begged him to
‘Accept our children’s kiss’.40
This articulation of the chekist and child was reinforced via a series of
verbal clichés, such as a series of fixed epithets for Dzerzhinsky, including
the ‘protector’ or ‘patron saint [popechitel’] of children’41 and ‘the friend
of children’.42 Pioneer camps, schools and children’s homes were often
named after Dzerzhinsky,43 and they would often elect him an ‘honorary
pioneer’.44 The connection was also forged through cinematic, fictional
and monumental images. One of the emblematic images employed in the
iconography of the Soviet Dzerzhinsky cult is that of Dzerzhinsky holding
a waif in his arms.45 This was one of the key poses in which Dzerzhinsky
was depicted in monumental form, as well as in stories.46 Such images
recall icons of the Mother of God, who was the intercessor and protector
of the suffering in pre-�revolutionary Orthodoxy.
The Dzerzhinsky cult is also notable for the frequency of the references
which it contains to his weeping publicly. Now, as famously proclaimed by
Mayakovsky, a ‘weeping bolshevik’ was supposed to be unthinkable.47 But
an exception seems to have been made for the chekist, who is generally
16╇╇ Soviet chekism
more emotional than the Bolshevik. There is a sense in which Dzerzhinsky
is the most emotional, even the most feminine or maternal of Bolsheviks.48
Dzerzhinsky is the only leading Bolshevik for whom tears – of mercy, of
compassion – are so central to his official cult.
The most commonly cited occasion of Dzerzhinsky’s weeping comes
after the 1918 attempt on Lenin’s life49 – the incident that served as a
pretext for the declaration of the Red Terror. We might therefore think of
Dzerzhinsky’s tears as integral to the myth of the Red Terror – they purify
and sanctify, providing sanction for the reprisals that were to follow. They
link the Terror to love – it essentially flows out of Dzerzhinsky’s (and by
extension, the proletariat’s) love for Lenin.
Pre-�revolutionary traditions of sentimentalizing the secret policeman
and his work may have helped to shape this aspect of the cult. The motif
of Dzerzhinsky’s tears calls to mind tsarist secret police chief Count Benck-
endorff↜’s famous handkerchief, and Nicholas the First’s injunction that it
be used to wipe away the tears of widows and orphans.50 It also recalls once
again the Mother of God; like Mary, Dzerzhinsky is capable of infinite
compassion.
Yet at the same time, one of the cult’s crucial truisms is that Dzerzhin-
sky’s ‘humanism’ would have been impossible were it not for his opposing
capacity for harshness. Dzerzhinsky ‘had to be severe, so as not to stop
being sensitive’.51 Thus, Dzerzhinsky had two faces: he could be infinitely
gentle and loving, but he could also be harsh and terrifying.52 As one
recent, 2001, hagiography of Dzerzhinsky puts it:

His very face, it seemed, was divided by a border: light and shadow.
The shadow side, turned towards the enemies of the revolution, was
severe, and at times also cruel; the bright side, turned towards the
friends of the narod and the party comrades, radiated love and
solicitude.53

This passage reproduces the clichés of the Soviet cult of Dzerzhinsky

whereby he embodied the integration and reconciliation of extremes. The
device of crude chiaroscuro used to illustrate this in socialist realist works
was more typical of depictions of Dzerzhinsky than of any other Soviet
leader.
This pairing of polar opposites was central to the Dzerzhinsky cult from
its inception. Thus one obituary described the intensity of Dzerzhinsky’s
love for the proletariat as matched by the strength of his hatred for the
bourgeoisie.54 In the same vein, a late Stalinist tribute stated that Dzerzhin-
sky, whose personality was ‘exceptionally integrated’, was incapable of
vague or indeterminate emotions; he ‘did not know how to love by halves
or hate by halves’.55 The metaphor of ‘ice and flame’ was a common
related motif signifying the chekist theme.56
 Dzerzhinsky’s commandments╇╇ 17
The cardinal chekist virtues
One of the most important functions of the Dzerzhinsky cult was as a
vehicle for or exemplar of the cardinal chekist virtues, which Dzerzhinsky
embodied in perfect form. The chekist virtues were laid out not only in
episodes from the Dzerzhinsky vita, but also in the key chekist scripture or
corpus: a series of statements made by Dzerzhinsky on the nature of the
chekist and his work. These were sometimes referred to as Dzerzhinsky’s
‘commandments’.57
By far the most famous of these statements is Dzerzhinsky’s aphorism
that ‘A chekist must have a cool head, a warm heart, and clean hands’.58
Dzerzhinsky is said to have ‘tirelessly’ reminded his comrades-Â�in-arms of
this.59 This motto names the cardinal chekist virtues. These virtues were
further reiterated in lower-Â�order Dzerzhinsky aphorisms (‘A chekist must
be more pure and honest than anyone else’;60 ‘He is not a chekist whose
heart does not engorge with blood and contract with pity at the sight of a
man imprisoned in a prison cell’;61 ‘Those of you who have become
callous, whose heart cannot relate sympathetically and considerately
towards those undergoing imprisonment, [should] leave this institution.
Here more than anywhere else, one must have a kind heart, sensitive to
the sufferings of others’);62 and in countless episodes from the Dzerzhin-
sky vita. It was upon this trinity of virtues that the moral scaffolding of
Soviet chekism rested; this was the chief basis for the chekist claim to
moral purity.
At first glance, this motto might seem relatively uncontroversial and
straightforward. Most governments or police forces, for example, would
ascribe to ‘clean hands’ as a motto, if we take this to mean ‘incorruptibil-
ity’. But in the case of chekism, the meaning of these metaphors extended
further, onto unexpected and unfamiliar territory – the shifting ground of
the history of Soviet morality. Let us pause briefly to attempt a preliminary
chart of this territory.
In order to grasp the meaning of Dzerzhinsky’s moral purity, we need
first to understand another key Soviet concept frequently invoked in con-
nection with the Cheka: that of ‘humanism’. It was the Soviet concept of
humanism that enabled chekist violence to be presented not merely as a
matter of revolutionary necessity, but as an active moral good, as a virtue
to be celebrated in its own right.63 It did so partly by eliding the question
of the morality of an action, and of the relationship of ends to means, and
instead re-�casting the question, reducing the related moral issues to a basic
opposition between action and inaction.
It was the ‘activeness’ of Dzerzhinsky’s humanism that made it beauti-
ful. This is what the writer Yurii German meant, we are told, when he
described Dzerzhinsky as ‘strikingly beautiful’ first and foremost by virtue
of the ‘moral aspect’ of his personality.64 Most often such references to
Dzerzhinsky’s moral beauty are left unexplained in the Soviet literature, as
18╇╇ Soviet chekism
though they were self-�evident. But in this case, we also have a late-�Soviet
commentary glossing German’s statement, which offers a clue as to the
implicit content of this juxtaposition of morality and beauty. The com-
mentator explains that this ‘moral beauty was expressed in action’:
Dzerzhinsky was not an armchair do-Â�gooder, but an ‘active, militant,
humanist’.65
We can follow this thread further by picking it up in other Soviet texts
invoking humanism. A reviewer of the 1939 play The Chekists, for example,
describes Dzerzhinsky as:

the expresser of active, efficacious humanism, which has become the

banner of the people of the revolution, for whom real love for people
is expressed not in idle empathy with the sorrows and hardships of
human life, but in active struggle with their perpetrators.66

This new humanism was contrasted to the ‘old, idle, weak humanism’67
(that is, the humanism in the name of which the Cheka was condemned
by its critics).
Another, late-�Stalinist secondary school text proclaims that the only
true humanism is ‘militant humanism, summoning people to the struggle
for happiness against those who were oppressing them’.68 The author adds
that the most important criterion of this new humanism is hatred: ‘The
humanism of the proletariat demands undying hatred .â•›.â•›. towards every-
thing that causes suffering, towards all those who live on the sufferings of
hundreds of millions of people.’69
An important role in the formulation of this concept was played by
Maxim Gorky, who also spearheaded the initial development and popular-
ization of the notion of the chekist as an agent of moral transformation,
with which the new concept of humanism intersected. Gorky, who would
later be described as ‘the greatest representative of humanism in its
highest form – socialist humanism’,70 reflected on these subjects at length
in his writings, in which he celebrated the chekist’s role in the ‘reforging’
of enemies into heroes of labour, in the camps. He argued over and over
that chekists had been unfairly maligned, because the chekists were ahead
of their time, and their humanism was thus invisible to most people.
Perhaps, he wrote in 1936, in 50 years’ time, art and history would finally
pay proper due to the ‘surprising cultural work of the rank-Â�and-file chek-
ists in the camps’, and to their ‘humanism’.71 Gorky also urged a number
of Soviet writers to take up the chekist theme, with a view to rendering this
humanism comprehensible.72
In such texts, the whole mission of the Cheka was formulated according
to a new moral code which reconciled terror and humanism. For example,
Dzerzhinsky rejected the very notion of ‘punishment’ as a bourgeois
concept;73 instead, the Cheka was engaged in ‘repression’, a term which
had positive content. Repression was a method of struggle.74 Repression
 Dzerzhinsky’s commandments╇╇ 19
75
could be life-�affirming. Repression was the expression of the will of the
proletariat and the peasantry,76 and the Cheka was merely the vehicle for
the direct expression of this will,77 a point hammered home in Soviet his-
tories of the Red Terror, the main thrust of which was to demonstrate that
the impetus for this was a spontaneous mass demand ‘from below’.78 The
chekist was ‘the bone of the bone and the flesh of the flesh of the dictator-
ship of the proletariat in our country’.79 Bourgeois ‘whining’ about chekist
atrocities only confirmed that the Cheka was on the right path.80
This new morality crystallized during the Civil War period, when it was
proclaimed that the Cheka and chekist bloodshed expressed the ‘real,
highest morality .â•›.â•›. the height of Morality and the height of Justice’, as
opposed to the bourgeois morality with its false claims to universality.81
The post-�Stalin era would see a partial retreat from this, as we shall see in
Chapter 2; and yet even today, the cult of the chekist still bears the strong
imprint of its origins, in a period whose morality and whose poetics were
based on what Stites has called ‘the beauty and utility of harshness’.82 This
was the chekist’s birthmark, which has never altogether faded.
Perhaps the most straightforward aspect of the link between the chekist
and morality concerned the chekist’s putative absolute lack of venality.
First and foremost, having ‘clean hands’ meant refusing to be tempted by
bribes or other material rewards. Central to the cult was Dzerzhinsky’s
renowned incorruptibility.83 Again, one might discern religious resonances
here: attempted bribes were depicted as temptations.84
This incorruptibility in turn was linked to Dzerzhinsky’s famed asceti-
cism. Dzerzhinsky was known for sleeping on a bed in his office, under a
simple soldier’s blanket. A typical passage from a memoir account
describes the following scene in Dzerzhinsky’s office:

Dropping into Dzerzhinsky’s office, we found him bent over papers.

On the desk in front of him – a half-Â�empty glass of tea, a small piece of
black bread. It is cold in the office. Part of the office is partitioned off
by a screen, behind it is a bed, covered with a soldier’s blanket. A
greatcoat is thrown over the top of the blanket. Everything made it
evident that Feliks Edmundovich does not sleep as he should, at best
he lies down briefly, without undressing. And once again back to
work.85

Dzerzhinsky was said to own only a single suit, which he acquired reluc-
tantly in 1924 by necessity of his post as chair of the Supreme Council of
the National Economy.86 He moved into the Kremlin in autumn 1918,
again, only unwillingly, preferring his iron bed behind a screen at the
Lubianka office.87 During his time in the revolutionary underground,
when Dzerzhinsky would make calls to workers’ flats, he always refused the
workers’ offers of food, despite the fact that the very aroma was making
him salivate, and that his own stomach was empty.88 Later, during the Civil
20╇╇ Soviet chekism
War, his subordinates at the Lubianka were only able to convince him to
eat some potatoes fried in lard by tricking him, hiding from him the fact
that they themselves would be dining on soup made from boiled horse
meat (a plot idea suggested by Gorky to the writer Yurii German for a
‘short and touching story’ about Dzerzhinsky for children).89 The pathos
of such stories is further heightened by Dzerzhinsky’s own poor health (he
was consumptive).90 An emphasis is also placed on Dzerzhinsky’s modesty,
illustrated by the incident when he attempted to stamp out the practice of
displaying his portrait on the walls of offices.91
Dzerzhinsky was harshest of all on himself; Clara Zetkin said of
Dzerzhinsky that

For him .â•›.â•›. convictions were a sacred object, something untouchable,

an obligation. In their name he, kind and sympathetic by nature,
could and even had to be strict, cruel and implacable with regard to
others, for .â•›.â•›. he was incomparably stricter, crueller and more implac-
able with regard to himself.92

Asceticism was and remains a key feature of the cult of the chekist in
general.93 The chekist must be willing to turn his back on the rewards of
fame and prestige, and to spurn material rewards.
But having ‘clean hands’ meant more than this. We can trace another
link from this metaphor, to the obsessive concern with a set of issues which
can be broadly grouped under the rubric ‘purity’ which was inherent in
Soviet discourse across the board (perhaps most strikingly through the key
metaphor of ‘purges’ [chistki]). This subject has been addressed in various
recent works on Soviet ideology, which have shown the ways in which ide-
ology drew upon related discourses of social hygiene, or pollution, for
example.94
Metaphors of hygiene and surgery were especially characteristic of
chekist discourses. Thus the Cheka was charged with ‘purging Soviet
Russia of all kinds of counter-Â�revolutionary filth’ [nechist’];95 and in a 1929
regional text, the OGPU was compared to ‘the hand of an experienced,
unsleeping surgeon – the OGPU lances these abscesses and, disinfecting
the organism, dispatches the reptiles to their rightful places’.96 This image
of the chekist as surgeon would later soften into the image of the chekist
as a doctor whose domain was not physical but spiritual health, and specif-
ically ‘the purity of [human] souls’.97 The Cheka was also often compared
to a sword which must not be allowed to become rusty or blunt; it must be
kept sharp, enabling it to operate swiftly, with surgical precision and steril-
ity.98 As a recent 2002 tribute to Dzerzhinsky puts it, Dzerzhinsky preserved
power in a state of ‘sterile purity’.99
‘Purity’ is perhaps the single most important topos of the Dzerzhinsky
cult, and of the Cheka’s foundation myth (as we shall see below).
Dzerzhinsky himself would likely have been gratified by his image as a
 Dzerzhinsky’s commandments╇╇ 21
paragon of moral purity: he bitterly resented the tendency amongst intelli-
gentnye party members to look down on chekists and to condemn them on
moral grounds. Dzerzhinsky once recounted to Sverdlov, for example,
how he had invited an old comrade to work in the ChK, an episode which
Dzerzhinsky described as typical: ‘An old revolutionary, we were in prison
together. And suddenly he announces to me: “You know, I’m ready to die
for the revolution, but sniffing out, creeping about after people [vyniukhi-
vat’, vyslezhivat’] – forgive me, I’m not capable of this!”.’ Dzerzhinsky took
this as a personal slur.100
As this incident illustrates, the imperative to ‘purify’ the chekist’s image
can be linked to the revolutionary tradition of contempt for police, and for
political police in particular. To have contact with police was to be tainted.
Dzerzhinsky wrote in his diary that after speaking with a tsarist police offi-
cial, he had felt ‘defiled with human filth’.101 It had been part of the revolu-
tionary code of honour that one should never shake hands with a
gendarme.102 Now that yesterday’s revolutionary had become today’s chekist,
it was important that this tradition be neutralized. This was achieved not
only through the Soviet cult’s insistence on the purity and novelty of the
Cheka, but also through the notion that there existed a vital affinity between
chekist and prisoner. The notion of the chekist’s love for his prisoner was
encapsulated in one of Dzerzhinsky’s famous aphorisms: ‘He is not a chekist
whose heart does not engorge with blood and contract with pity at the sight
of a man imprisoned in a prison cell.’103 In another example, on the fifth
anniversary of the founding of the VChK-�GPU, Dzerzhinsky proclaimed
that: ‘Those of you who have become callous, whose heart cannot relate
sympathetically and considerately towards those undergoing imprisonment,
[should] leave this institution. Here more than anywhere else, one must
have a kind heart, sensitive to the sufferings of others.’104
An important motif related to purity is that of the ‘crystal’. The use of
adjectives derived from ‘crystal’ and ‘crystal-Â�clear’ is one of the key con-
ventions of the Dzerzhinsky cult; Dzerzhinsky is often labelled a ‘crystally
pure person’.105 One admirer recalled that when Dzerzhinsky spoke, the
words seemed to come from the ‘crystalline depths of the soul’;106 and one
of the qualities which Lenin was said to have valued in Dzerzhinsky was his
‘crystal purity’.107 A crystal factory was named after Dzerzhinsky,108 and one
of the Soviet towns chosen to bear his name was a famous centre for crystal
and glass production. We can link this metaphor to the Soviet fantasy of
creating a transparent, fixed and solid (unambiguous) human being,
beautiful in its high degree of regularity of structure, reassuring in its
predictability.

The Cheka’s foundation myth

The story of the creation of the Cheka on 20 December 1917109 was retold
endlessly in Soviet texts. On that day, Lenin sent a note to Dzerzhinsky
22╇╇ Soviet chekism
instructing him to draft a decree ‘on the struggle with counter-Â�
revolutionary saboteurs’; the VChK was created later the same day.110
Soviet chronicles recount this moment – the moment in which Lenin gives
his blessing to the Cheka – in particularly reverent tones, fetishizing the
note itself as a physical object, as the sacred founding text, the source of
the Cheka’s legitimacy.111 It is also the source of Dzerzhinsky’s mandate,
earned by virtue of the trust which Lenin placed in him. Dzerzhinsky treas-
ured Lenin’s ‘historic note’ as a mark of Lenin’s faith in him, and carried
quotes from the note in the pocket of his soldier’s blouse, close to his
heart, on that ‘damp December’s day’.112
The Cheka’s founding narrative reinforces this crucial link between
Lenin and Dzerzhinsky in other ways too. When the Sovnarkom meets to
discuss appointing a leader for the newly created VChK, Lenin’s choice falls
upon Dzerzhinsky, whom he describes as a ‘proletarian Jacobin’, a phrase
which was one of a number of key sobriquets conventionally associated with
Dzerzhinsky.113 Lenin’s designation of Dzerzhinsky as a ‘Jacobin’ provided
another historical layer of legitimacy by forging an additional link back from
Dzerzhinsky, via Lenin, to the broader revolutionary tradition.114 The label
also anticipated, and pointed the way towards, the coming of the Red
Terror, under Dzerzhinsky’s leadership. Later, Bukharin would spell out the
significance of this tag explicitly in his obituary of Dzerzhinsky:

Comrade Lenin said that it was necessary to find a comrade who

would have something of the Jacobin in him. You know that the Jacob-
ins were revolutionaries of the epoch of the French revolution, who,
with sword in hand, by means of merciless terror, repulsed the
counter-�revolutionary enemies.115

There are strong biblical overtones in the Soviet myth of the Cheka’s origins.
Thus, in Kozakov’s story The Proletarian Jacobin (first published 1946),116 in a
scene depicting the meeting held to discuss the formation of the VChK,
Dzerzhinsky figures as a favoured apostle: ‘Vladimir Il’ich, looking around at
all those present, said with a smile: “But after all, there is a real proletarian
Jacobin amongst us!” He did not name his name, but the gazes of all those
present turned towards Dzerzhinsky.’117 Dzerzhinsky’s status as a humble
apostle fulfilling Lenin’s will was further reinforced by a strong emphasis on
the Cheka’s modest beginnings. Thus, for example, Dzerzhinsky himself
‘personally wrote out on a piece of plywood’ the VChK’s first sign and nailed
it to the door of the VChK’s office in St Petersburg.118
The moment in which Lenin sent Dzerzhinsky forth was also amplified
in Semen Sorin’s Comrade Dzerzhinsky (1957); here Lenin’s hand chops the
air ‘sharply, from the shoulder’, as he proclaims:

By the will of the narod of our republic

Let the first chekist be
 Dzerzhinsky’s commandments╇╇ 23
He who is the most pure,
â•… the most fearless,
Ready to die for his narodâ•›.â•›.â•›.
Glass tinkled from a nearby explosion,
As though the ice of the Neva was breaking.—
Comrades!
â•… I propose Dzerzhinsky!
Feliks Edmundovich won’t let us down!119

Again, the style of the language here is biblical (‘let he who is the most
pure’). Meanwhile, the background of exploding glass underlines the
gravity of the situation as warranting extreme and urgent measures. The
metaphor of the breaking of the Neva’s ice suggests that nature itself is
endorsing Lenin’s choice and offering up accompaniment, underscoring
the moment’s divine significance and historic importance. The creation of
the VChK, and the appointment of Dzerzhinsky as its leader, then, are not
arbitrary or questionable decisions made by fallible human beings, but
developments unfolding in accordance with higher laws, part of a larger
design, and of a grand, epic revolutionary tradition. This is an historic
turning point; its consequences will reverberate down through the centu-
ries. It is one of Barthes’ mythic moments, in which the contingent in
human history is made to appear eternal.120
As we shall see in subsequent chapters, the underlying point of this
foundation myth was to salvage and preserve the notion of Dzerzhinsky’s
chekist era as a ‘golden age’, partly in order to provide a counterpoint to
what was to come later. In Chapter 2, we shall examine the specific uses to
which this myth was put in the post-�Secret Speech era.

Dzerzhinsky and the supernatural

The imagined Dzerzhinsky also had a mystical edge, a quasi-�supernatural
aura which was created and actively propagated by the Bolshevik side, as
we saw in the 1926 Pravda editorial with which I opened this chapter.121
Dzerzhinsky’s very name was said to ‘possess an almost magical quality’.122
The supernatural was a key trope of the Dzerzhinsky cult which appears
frequently in the hagiographical literature.
Dzerzhinsky could divine the true; he could perceive that which was
hidden or obscure to ordinary human senses. According to Gorky, Lenin
considered Dzerzhinsky to have ‘a subtle instinct for truth’,123 a statement
that is echoed by Uralov: ‘Dzerzhinsky possessed a rare instinct for recog-
nising the enemy. He knew how to anticipate imminent danger at the
slightest signal.’124 A 1962 tribute declares that ‘This surprising man was
able to see the future!’125
Dzerzhinsky’s clairvoyant powers flowed in part out of what Menzhinsky
described as Dzerzhinsky’s ‘deep understanding of all the zigzags of the
24╇╇ Soviet chekism
human soul’, based among other things on his knowledge of Polish and
Russian literature, and which rendered Dzerzhinsky an ‘incomparable psy-
chologist’.126 This idea of Dzerzhinsky as an expert on human nature and
psychology was extrapolated to chekists more broadly. A 1964 review of a
screenplay about an old chekist describes the hero as follows:

Perhaps, were there to exist a science of human beings, he would

become the most subtle specialist in it. A special gift allowed him to
penetrate into the hearts of people, to understand who was located in
front of him.127

People’s very souls were transparent to the gaze of Dzerzhinsky.

Dzerzhinsky’s wife recalled that at their first meeting, ‘He looked at me
intently, and it seemed to me that he saw right through me’.128 A strikingly
penetrating or ‘burning’ gaze was one of the key elements of the stylized
Dzerzhinsky of the Soviet cult,129 as exemplified by the still of an actor
playing Dzerzhinsky in a 1939 play about the Cheka.130 Dzerzhinsky was
sometimes referred to as ‘the vigilant eye’ of the revolution.131
Related metaphors were also used with regard to the Cheka itself. From
the 1920s, the image of the ‘all-Â�seeing eye’ of the VChK became common-
place. On 20 December 1922 Pravda ran a poem by Bednyi, giving thanks
for the chekist’s ‘unsleeping, all-Â�seeing eye’,132 and quoted Dzerzhinsky’s
claim that ‘The VChK’s sharp-Â�sighted eye penetrated everywhere’.133
These metaphors are not merely a matter of convention or rhetorical
flourish. As Geertz and others have shown, metaphors shape ideological
thinking.134 The ubiquity of these images can be linked to the inherent
mystery surrounding the chekist, inspiring a kind of sacred awe or dread,
as well as to the drive to present the new security apparatus as omniscient
and all-�powerful.135
Dzerzhinsky’s supernatural associations were reinforced by poetry using
imagery drawn from necromancy, depicting Dzerzhinsky as a ghostly appari-
tion, such as Iosif Utkin’s poem, published in Pravda the day after Dzerzhin-
sky’s death,136 and Eduard Bagritskii’s poem, ‘TVS’, written in 1929.137 In
each of these cases the poet, in a moment of exhaustion late at night, is
visited by the spectre of Dzerzhinsky, who embodies the spirit of the age.138
This mythical Dzerzhinsky of the 1920s was an altogether darker figure
than the Dzerzhinsky of the late Soviet period.139 At this stage, Dzerzhin-
sky’s domain was the night; his connection with death was much rawer; he
often appeared as a spectral figure. Later, during Khrushchev’s Thaw,
much of the darkness would be banished from the Dzerzhinsky cult; but
resonances lingered in, for example, the late Soviet metaphor of the ‘invis-
ible front’, used to refer to the sphere in which the chekist operated, fight-
ing the Cold War intelligence wars unwitnessed by ordinary citizens.
However sanitized he became, the chekist always remained a figure who
moved, wraith-�like, in a different order of space.140
 Dzerzhinsky’s commandments╇╇ 25
Echoes of this theme of the uncanny still hang around Dzerzhinsky
today. In 2004, the head of the Belarusian KGB Sukhorenko used a highly
evocative image when he proclaimed, paraphrasing the famous aphorism
about Russian literature as emerging from Gogol’s Overcoat, that ‘all chek-
ists came out from under .â•›.â•›. the greatcoat of Feliks Edmundovich’.141
There is something eerie about this image of Dzerzhinsky, spider-�like,
spawning millions of miniature versions of himself to spread throughout
the country and do his bidding. It resonates with the solemn pledges made
by children in the Soviet era to transform themselves into ‘thousands of
dzerzhintsy’,142 and it also captures something about the past’s ability to self-Â�
replicate, such that the traumas of the Soviet period continue to make
themselves felt today. It is not incidental that it is primarily the Dzerzhin-
sky statue which is most frequently invoked in contemporary Russian com-
mentaries reflecting on the inability to come to terms with the Soviet
past.143
An atmosphere of portent and menace hung not only over Dzerzhin-
sky, but over the whole institution of the Soviet state security organs, and
here too, it was actively cultivated. The acronym VChK acquired a special
aura very early on. Official rhetoric held that the mere sound of these
letters could strike fear into the hearts of enemies; the acronym itself was
conceived as a kind of psychological weapon. When Zinoviev addressed a
gathering held in the Bolshoi Theatre in December 1922 as part of the
lavish celebrations of the fifth anniversary of the VChK’s founding, he
boasted that when foreign proletarians thought of the VChK, they ‘sali-
vated’, whereas the bourgeoisie ‘trembled, upon hearing those three
awesome letters’. In keeping with the festive tone of the occasion, Zinoviev
allowed himself a witticism: he noted that the three letters ‘GPU’ made no
less of an impression on foreign capitalists. The crowd laughed ‘merrily
and genially’, and Kamenev joined in the fun, adding: ‘Let’s wish the capi-
talist West the VChK squared!’144
This rhetorical use of the acronym VChK and its derivatives as a sym-
bolic object of the fear and hatred of the revolution’s enemies became a
commonplace in early Soviet discourse. In 1927, for example, the Moscow
party committee proclaimed defiantly on the pages of Pravda, ‘Let the
word “chekist” remain the most hateful word for the enemies of the prole-
tarian dictatorship’.145
Early Soviet poetry further reinforced the incantatory flavour of these
‘three awesome letters’. This was a key motif in the works of proletarian
poet Aleksandr Bezymenskii, for example, whose poetry explored and cel-
ebrated the mysterious powers of the acronym ‘VChK’, often with a gro-
tesque edge to it. In Bezymenskii’s poem ‘Feliks’ (1926), a father teaches
his little son to spell out using blocks the letters ‘VChK’, three letters in
which, Bezymenskii writes, ‘blood and rain gush .â•›.â•›. darkness and a sea of
light’.146 The father makes a silent wish that his son, should he find room
in his heart for ‘the joy and pain of struggle’, the ‘sweetness and bitterness
26╇╇ Soviet chekism
of passions’ and the ‘rage and love of the machine’, might one day come
to learn what these letters meant.147
Bezymenskii followed this motif up in ‘VChK’ (1927), published in
Pravda to mark the Cheka’s tenth jubilee.148 Here the acronym VChK func-
tions as a kind of mantra, hypnotizing the enemy, inducing a trance-�like
state. A frock-�coated bourgeois mutters the acronym spitefully through
whitened lips, with clenched fist; another with oily pomaded hair whispers
the acronym in bad faith, ‘with a crooked smile’, with transparent
duplicity.149
In ‘VChK’ Bezymenskii attributes a range of magical properties to the
acronym VChK:

.â•›.â•›.â•›this word,
So short,
Like a gun-�shot,
Killing an enemy.
This word
One need only pronounce it –
People will tremble, seething and burning,
This word
Cannot be spoken indifferently,
This word
Cannot be spoken in vain.150

Ordinary language, Bezymenskii writes, is inadequate for capturing or

conveying the magnitude and intensity of the experience of the revolu-
tionary struggle, past, present or future, and of the struggle against the
revolution’s enemies; except, that is, for

One
Word.151

That is, Bezymenskii treats the title ‘VChK’ as a kind of mysterious catch-Â�
all, capable of holding all kinds of secret and deep meanings, of express-
ing the ineffable.
Such poetry was typical of the early Dzerzhinsky cult: often graphic in
its violence, and redolent with motifs drawn from black magic, invoking
dark mysterious forces. After Stalin’s death this image of Dzerzhinsky was
diluted and modified, but it never really lost its strange, sanguinary, enig-
matic edge. Likewise, the term ‘chekist’ has never entirely lost the magical
associations which it acquired during the early Soviet period, the years of
Red Terror and Civil War; in many ways it remains an arcane and impen�
etrable category today, as we shall see in subsequent chapters.
Dzerzhinsky’s X-Â�ray vision was most useful, of course, for ‘recognizing
the enemy’,152 however well-Â�disguised. The figure of the enemy was an
 Dzerzhinsky’s commandments╇╇ 27
essential element of the Dzerzhinsky cult; chekist iconography had its
counterpoint in an elaborate demonology. Always lurking in the back-
ground of the Dzerzhinsky cult were shadowy ‘enemies’. Consider, for
example, the Pravda coverage of the 1922 celebrations of the VChK’s fifth
jubilee, which describes at great length the GPU troops parading on Red
Square, but then segues into a minor key, after an ominous note is struck,
marring the triumph: NEPmen are waiting nearby for the celebrations to
end so that they might regain access to their black market.153
These enemies, in fact, were constitutive of the chekist.154 It was in the
image of the counter-�revolutionary bourgeois enemy: often physically
repulsive, fat-�bellied, balding, whining;155 hypocritical, weak;156 shape-�
shifting, able to take on any number of guises157 – that the virtues of the
chekist: discipline, purity, restraint, steadfastness – found their antithesis.
And of course, the enemy provided the chekist’s whole raison d’être.
Without the existence of the enemy, the chekist is unthinkable, and
unjustifiable.
The need for constant vigilance in the face of these enemies was a
central message of chekism, and Dzerzhinsky functioned as the symbolic
personification of such vigilance. The imperative to keep these enemies
always in mind was another of Dzerzhinsky’s commandments: a Pravda edi-
torial appearing shortly after Dzerzhinsky’s death defined his ‘covenant’ as
‘always to remember the enemies of the revolution’, enemies who were
‘lying in wait for us all the time’.158
This aspect of the Dzerzhinsky legend dramatized and gave expression to
a key feature of Soviet political culture: a strong tendency towards conspira-
torial thinking, manifest particularly in the drive to root out supposedly
omnipresent enemies camouflaged as loyal Soviet citizens, eating away at
the polity from within.159 This was a regime that felt deeply threatened by
the possibility of disjuncture between the external and the internal; a regime
that was characterized by what we might think of as an obsession with
‘authenticity’, suffering from a persistent fear that its citizens might be simu-
lating their loyalties. We might thus link Dzerzhinsky to fantasies of control,
which are threatened drastically by the human ability to dissimulate.160
While the Soviet regime was permanently on its guard against any per-
ceived dissimulation or insincerity, there was one category of citizen who
enjoyed official sanction to mask and cloak their authentic selves: the staff
of the secret police. It was the secret policeman who policed the bounda-
ries between outward behaviour and inner thoughts, between real and
false friends; he was chief executor of the Soviet fantasy of creating a new
human being, free from artifice, in whom all ambiguity and conflict would
finally be erased. Unlike ordinary citizens, the secret policeman enjoyed
the privilege to cross borders. He was amphibious – he was permitted to
move between different worlds in different guises; in the early decades of
Soviet power, to move among the members of the dying classes, monitor-
ing and hastening their demise. In fact, this was seen as one of the perils
28╇╇ Soviet chekism
of the job – the possibility of being contaminated or polluted by contact
with the ‘filth and vileness of the old world’, as one 1936 Soviet newspaper
article on the heroism of the chekist put it.161 The chekist was on the front-
line in the struggle with these enemies; as Krzhizhanovskii put it, Dzerzhin-
sky spent his life ‘on the vanguard posts face-Â�to-face with the sworn
enemies of the revolution’.162 It fell to the chekist to fulfil Lenin’s pledge
not to fear the ‘capitalists, spies and speculators’, but to re-Â�make them;
and as a result it was the chekist’s lot to work in close proximity to this
‘material’, this ‘hell and filth of the world’.163 This proximity to the enemy
made it all the more necessary to affirm the purity and integrity of the
chekist.
This Soviet fantasy of a human being free from artifice and ambiguity,
incapable of dissimulation, can also be linked to Dzerzhinsky’s famed love
for children. Dzerzhinsky loved children because, unlike adults, they were
uncorrupted, and they would not disappoint by proving to be other than
what they seemed. As his widow put it, ‘Feliks loved children passionately
for the purity of their soul, for their directness, because they do not know
the fraudulence and hypocrisy often inherent to adults in a capitalist
society’.164 He loved them because he believed that they were incapable of
dissimulation; he wrote to his sister in 1902 that he dreamt of finding a
child who would ‘love me with that children’s love in which there is no
falsity’.165 The company of children provided Dzerzhinsky with a refuge
from the world of uncertainty and suspicion. He said of the children in
one of the labour communes that they were his ‘best friends. Amongst
them I find rest .â•›.â•›. they would never betray one another’.166

Conclusion
The figure of Dzerzhinsky was absolutely central to the new Soviet, revolu-
tionary morality. The essential drive behind the cult was to justify moral
transgression and bloodshed, by rendering them sacred and pure. We can
read Dzerzhinsky’s much-Â�lauded ‘moral beauty’ as a taboo. The opaque-
ness of the references to his moral beauty alerts us to the presence of a
taboo, to the basic tension always present in Soviet representations of the
Cheka. The Dzerzhinsky cult comprised an elaborate justification for the
creation of a secret police much more powerful and radically intrusive
than the tsarist Okhrana had ever been, by a party that had taken power in
the name of ending police oppression. The stylized, whitewashed icon of
Dzerzhinsky protects some of the key taboos at the heart of Soviet ideology
– taboos which had bearing on the legitimacy of the whole Soviet project,
touching upon its most sensitive and contested aspects.
In this chapter, I have sketched out the constant, static features of the
cult. While the cult of Dzerzhinsky emerged quite early on with a view to
justifying the existence of the Soviet repressive apparatus, it became espe-
cially important in the post-�Stalin era. In the next chapter, I examine how
 Dzerzhinsky’s commandments╇╇ 29
the cult was updated and reinforced in the wake of the potentially shatter-
ing revelations about chekist crimes following Stalin’s death.
The idea of a fallible, flawed human being wielding unlimited power
can be terrifying, abhorrent, and open to moral condemnation; but if that
man is part-�human, part-�machine, part-�element, then it becomes awe-�
inspiring, mysterious, and perhaps easier to deal with psychologically. This
seems to have been so in the case of the writer Isaac Babel, one of the
many writers for whom chekists seem to have exerted a fascination.167
Perhaps it was Babel’s convinction that chekists were ‘sacred people’168
that enabled him to witness chekist executions with equanimity, as he
claimed to be able to do.169
The notion that the Cheka was under the strict control and surveillance
of Dzerzhinsky, a morally irreproachable leader who did not hesitate to
punish severely any unlawful acts committed by his men, seems to be
crucial to legitimizing the violence of the Cheka. Dzerzhinsky stands guard
over the boundary between (legitimate) force – which, to follow Mayer’s
definition, is conceived as ‘organized, controlled, and limited’ – and (ille-
gitimate) violence, perceived as ‘frenzied, shapeless, and disorderly’.170
The elevation of the chekist into the realm of the elemental, the symbolic,
is one of the key ways by which Soviet state violence was legitimized,
because rendered sublime – transmuted into something pure, high,
mysterious and inevitable.
2 Late Soviet chekism
The changing face of repression
under Khrushchev and beyond

At the XXII Party Congress in October 1961, Aleksandr Shelepin, chair of

the KGB, summed up the recent reforms of the KGB. Shelepin asserted
that as a result of the reforms, the KGB’s work was now based on ‘com-
plete trust in the soviet person’, and that ‘Now chekists can look into the
eyes of the party, into the eyes of the soviet people, with a clear con-
science’.1 This speech exemplified the mixed messages sent by the Khrush-
chev regime with regard to the newly created Soviet security organs. On
the one hand, the fact that Shelepin saw fit to justify the security apparatus
and to proclaim a ‘clear conscience’ marked a dramatic departure from
Stalinist attitudes towards the Soviet security apparatus. But read from
another angle, the speech can also be seen to mark the effective rehabili-
tation of the security apparatus in the wake of its unprecedented stigmati-
zation during the Thaw. While purporting to acknowledge and condemn
the crimes of the secret police, Shelepin’s speech sent a signal that the
period in which it had been acceptable to discuss the Great Terror and to
criticize the secret police, had come to an end; the subject was effectively
closed.
Shelepin’s speech, with its inherent ambiguity, typifies the equivoca-
tion, prevarication and ongoing uncertainty of the Soviet leadership
during this period as to the role and position of the new KGB, which was
created in the spring of 1954. The Khrushchev era was a time of flux as far
as the Soviet security apparatus was concerned, complicated in particular,
of course, by the resonances of Khrushchev’s 1956 Secret Speech con-
demning the secret police’s role in Stalin’s Great Terror.
In the institutional memory of the Russian security apparatus, the evalu-
ation of this period is unequivocally negative: in the related literature, the
Khrushchev era figures strongly as a time of humiliation and catastrophe
for the security apparatus. A recent article in Spetsnaz Rossii, to cite just
one example, describes the ‘moral traumas’ that ‘thousands of worthy
officers’ suffered as a result of Shelepin’s 1956 re-Â�classification of KGB
officer ranks.2
It is indeed the case that a strong stigma adhered to the security organs
during the early Khrushchev era, such that the term ‘chekist’ – previously
 Late Soviet chekism╇╇ 31
a label designating purity and untouchability – effectively became a ‘dirty
word’, as far as the party leadership was concerned. A pair of anecdotes
from the memoir literature will help to illustrate what I mean here.
In his memoirs, Vladimir Semichastnyi (KGB chair 1961–7) gives an
account of his conversation with Khrushchev in 1961 in which the latter
informed him that he had been appointed chair of the KGB. According to
Semichastnyi, when he began to protest that he was no chekist, Khrush-
chev interrupted him sharply:

That’s enough! We had plenty of ‘chekists’ there!â•›.â•›.â•›. Shelepin started

to clear [the organs] out .â•›.â•›. so you continue this. For us it’s important
to have at the head of the organs not so much a specialist, as a person
who understands why these organs exist, and conducts party policy in
them.3

In a similar vein, ex-�chekist Mikhail Liubimov has recalled a KGB gather-

ing in 1960 at which ‘some refractory general suddenly began talking from
the tribune about the “glorious chekist traditions”. “What traditions?!” –
Shelepin interrupted him sternly. – “The bloody traditions of the ChK
have been condemned by the party congresses!”â•›’.4
At this point, then, the mere mention of the word ‘chekist’ could
provoke sharp rebukes, whereby the leadership was effectively com-
municating the fact that the content of this category had now changed
dramatically. The acceptability of set phrases like ‘glorious chekist tra-
ditions’ – previously a standard cliché – could no longer be taken for
granted.
This period in which the term ‘chekist’ was out of official favour was
shortlived, however. By the time Yurii Andropov was appointed head of
the KGB in 1967, the term ‘chekist’ had already been definitively rehabili-
tated. The same year, for example, it was proclaimed unequivocally in the
Soviet press that:

It is no accident that the honourable term ‘chekist’ enjoys deep

respect amongst our narod. When a person is called a ‘chekist’, then it
is considered that this is a person of crystal purity, of selfless dedica-
tion to the party’s cause, fearless in the struggle with enemies.5

The apotheosis of the Soviet security apparatus after Stalin’s death is

usually associated with the period of Andropov’s chairmanship of the KGB
(1967–82), and the KGB’s assault against dissent during the Brezhnev era.
Yet it was precisely during the Khrushchev period that the term ‘chekist’
was ‘repurified’, and the reputation and prestige of the security apparatus
gradually restored. In this chapter I trace the process of the demonstrative
reassertion of party control over the security organs under Khrushchev,
followed by the transition to the restoration of the prestige of the security
32╇╇ Soviet chekism
apparatus, as the Dzerzhinsky cult described in Chapter 1 was reconsti-
tuted to meet the ideological needs of the post-�Stalin era. I will show the
ways in which elements of Brezhnev-Â�era ‘high Chekism’ – the period of
the full-Â�blown cult of the Cheka – can already be discerned in the Khrush-
chev era.
The history of the security apparatus under Khrushchev is a topic which
has received little scholarly attention, largely because it has been overshad-
owed by the Great Terror, on the one hand, and the KGB’s suppression of
dissent during the Brezhnev era, on the other. Where the fate of the secret
police under Khrushchev is mentioned in the related scholarship, the dis-
cussion is generally limited to an account of the sharp decline in the secret
police’s status, power and morale during this period.6 Studies of the
Khrushchev era have tended to focus on liberalization and de-�Stalinization
during this period, but recently declassified archival materials indicate the
need to introduce quite substantial correctives into the traditional view of
the Khrushchev era. We now know, for example, that 41.5 per cent of all
convictions for anti-Â�Soviet agitation and propaganda during the 1956–87
period were brought down in 1957–8 – that is, precisely the period in
which the repressive apparatus was ostensibly being reined in.7
The rehabilitation of the security apparatus involved the creation of a
new set of discursive associations, aimed at effecting a symbolic break with
the Stalinist past. During the Khrushchev era, the term ‘chekist’ was recon-
stituted, and filled with new content. The newly created KGB adopted an
arsenal of practices and euphemisms designed to underline the fact that it
had been reformed, and to prettify and bolster its new image. As a KGB
internal history put it, as a result of the XX Party Congress, the chekist
‘style’ of work had changed.8 Or as Sakharov would later put it, after the
XX Party Congress the KGB ‘became more “civilised”, with a face that was,
if not quite human, then in any case, not a tiger’s face’.9
In this chapter, I explore this change of style and rhetoric through a
study of the new buzzwords and euphemisms used to describe the KGB’s
work during the respective tenures of KGB chairs Shelepin (1958–61) and
Semichastnyi (1961–7). I focus more on this latter period, as opposed to
the chairmanship of Ivan Serov (1954–8), because it was Shelepin and
Semichastnyi who were most closely associated with the campaign to
reform and ‘rebrand’ the security apparatus during the Khrushchev era.
As Semichastnyi put it in his memoirs, it was he and Shelepin who suc-
ceeded in erasing the Lubianka’s image as a ‘house of horrors’ during the
Khrushchev era.10 In particular, I will focus on the chairmanship of Shel-
epin, the new broom brought in by Khrushchev in late 1958 to carry out a
demonstrative purging of those chekists deemed to bear responsibility for
the Terror. I look at the ways in which the KGB set about defining its role
in the post-Â�Stalin era, at a time when Khrushchev’s revelations surround-
ing the secret police’s role in Stalin’s Great Terror were still resonating so
strongly.
 Late Soviet chekism╇╇ 33
One of the main sources for this chapter is a 1977 KGB classified in-�
house history of the Soviet security organs, which was used for training
senior officers.11 This source offers insights into the nuts and bolts of par-
ticular elements of the KGB’s work (such as the use of secret informers),
and the timing of particular decrees and shifts in KGB policy, as well as
the internal rationale of the KGB’s activities. I use this book in conjunc-
tion with open-�source materials: the Khrushchev-�era press; and mass
culture (particularly films), as well as more recent memoir literature and
new Russian research on this period.

Serov: the transitional phase

The initial stage in the process of demonstratively reasserting party control
over the security organs after Stalin’s death was marked by the trial and
execution of ex-�security chief Lavrentii Beria and various members of his
entourage in 1953. The charges levelled against the accused – spying for
foreign intelligence services, and so on – represented no departure from
the Stalinist paradigm, and these events were also accompanied by a
Stalinist-Â�style press campaign of demonization.12 At this point, Stalin’s
image remained untouched. Until the XX Party Congress in 1956, Beria
was to function as the scapegoat for the Great Terror.13
Next, in the spring of 1954, the state security organs were separated out
from the Ministry for Internal Affairs and transformed into a new Commit-
tee for State Security (KGB), formally subordinate to the Council of Minis-
ters. In addition to reflecting the downgrading of the chekists’ power, the
word ‘Committee’ (as opposed to ‘Ministry’) was intended to underline
the collegial principle of decision-�making in the new body.14
The first head of the newly formed KGB was Ivan Serov. An old
comrade of Khrushchev’s from the latter’s time in Ukraine, Serov had also
played a key role in some of the most notorious repressive operations
under Stalin, such as the Katyn massacre,15 and the deportations of the
‘punished peoples’ in 1944.
In February 1954 the party’s Central Committee had resolved to cut the
personnel of the newly formed state security organs by 20 per cent,16 and
Serov was tasked with instituting these cuts. The stated aim was to reassert
party control over the security organs by purging them and reducing their
numerical strength. By June 1957, Serov had dismissed around 18,000
chekists, including 2,000 from the central apparatus.17
As KGB head, Serov also helped to pave the way for Khrushchev’s offen-
sive to distance the new leadership from the crimes of the Stalin era.18 In
particular, he reportedly presided over the mass destruction of chekist
archives in 1954–5, on Central Committee instructions.19 Serov claimed
that these files were destroyed in order to remove ‘the stain of political
mistrust’ from those wrongly convicted of political crimes, but it is difficult
not to conclude that this move was designed to protect the perpetrators,
34╇╇ Soviet chekism
not the victims.20 Simultaneously, Serov is now known to have played a key
role in preparing Khrushchev’s ‘Secret Speech’.21
Serov also presided over the above-�mentioned wave of political arrests
in the wake of the Secret Speech, and the suppression of the Hungarian
uprising. This wave of repression also demonstrated the highly conditional
nature of the regime’s rehabilitation of political prisoners.22 In a speech to
the December 1956 Central Committee plenum, Khrushchev used the
word ‘impure’ with reference to those who had been rehabilitated, and
spoke of mistakes that had been made in connection with the rehabilita-
tion process.23 A key role of the newly formed KGB was to keep ex-�political
prisoners firmly within its sights. Newly released documents show that this
group was later earmarked for continued surveillance and possible re-�
arrest (and for recruitment as KGB informers, as we shall see below).
Overall, Serov played a crucial role during the initial post-�Stalin trans-
ition, in consolidating Khrushchev’s position in the mid-Â�1950s, helping
the latter to destroy the ‘anti-Â�party group’, and to put down uprisings in
Poland and Hungary. But in 1958 he was removed from his post as KGB
chief. Some commentators have speculated that the skeletons in Serov’s
chekist past ruled him out as a long-�term leader of the new KGB, espe-
cially after the revelations of 1956 and given the new image which the
regime sought to project.24 At any rate, it seems clear that as far as the
KGB was concerned, what was now required was a clean symbolic break
with the Stalinist past.

Shelepin: drawing a line under the past and creating a new

face for the KGB
The appointment of Aleksandr Shelepin to replace Serov as the new chair
of the KGB in December 1958 coincided with the unveiling of the centre-
piece of the revived cult of chekism: the massive, ‘majestic’ statue of Felix
Dzerzhinsky,25 in the centre of Dzerzhinsky Square, opposite the Lubianka
in Moscow. The statue was sculpted in bronze, ‘the metal of the immor-
tal’.26 The unveiling was a major event, front-Â�page news in both Pravda and
Izvestiia. Press coverage emphasized the fact that thousands (and accord-
ing to the Izvestiia commentary, tens of thousands)27 of Muscovites from all
walks of life (‘workers, office-Â�workers, scholars, writers, artists, teachers,
doctors, students, school children. And also Soviet chekists’)28 attended
the ceremony, held on 20 December 1958 to mark the forty-�first anniver-
sary of the founding of the Cheka.29 Even after dusk fell, Pravda reported,
people kept coming, ‘bringing in their hearts warm love for the hero of
October, the fearless knight of the proletarian revolution’.30
There would be, then, no monument to the victims of the Great
Terror;31 instead, Dzerzhinsky would symbolize the purity of the Lubian-
ka’s origins. Untainted by any involvement in the Great Terror, Dzerzhin-
sky would stand watch over the chekists, a symbolic guarantee of their
 Late Soviet chekism╇╇ 35
32
incorruptibility. From his new position, Dzerzhinsky, the patron saint of
Soviet children, now faced the huge ‘Children’s World’ shopping complex
– the showcase of the Khrushchev regime’s new emphasis on providing
consumer goods to the population, constructed in 1954–7 directly oppos-
ite the Lubianka building.33
We might think of all of these changes in topography as the symbolic
transformation of the Lubianka as a lieu de mémoire.34 In the 1950s and
1960s, there was a conscious drive on the part of the party and KGB leader-
ship to erase the negative associations of this most symbolically charged of
Moscow’s districts – the nerve centre of Stalin’s terror. As Semichastnyi
put it, the aim was to eradicate the Lubianka’s image as a ‘house of
horrors’.35 This attempted transformation of the Lubianka as a lieu de
mémoire was complete when Semichastnyi closed down the Lubianka’s
internal prison, which had been perhaps the single most notorious symbol
of the Great Terror.36
As the new chair of the KGB, Shelepin was hailed as the rightful heir of
‘Iron Feliks’ Dzerzhinsky, a connection flagged by his nickname, ‘Iron
Shurik’. In general, the Khrushchev era was marked by a decisive revival
and reconstitution of the cult of Feliks Dzerzhinsky. In addition to the
most famous statue described above, Dzerzhinsky’s life was commemo-
rated in new ways elsewhere throughout the Soviet Union during the late
1950s. In September 1957, for example, a Dzerzhinsky museum was
opened in his home town in Belarus;37 and in September 1959 a Dzerzhin-
sky museum was also opened in Vilnius, where Dzerzhinsky had lived as a
student.38
Meanwhile, even before Shelepin’s appointment, there were signs of
the incipient rehabilitation of chekism. The 1957 press coverage of Chek-
ist’s Day remained subdued, especially for a jubilee year, but it contained
new notes.39 One Izvestiia article criticized ‘slander’ of the Soviet security
organs, citing Lenin’s 1918 defence of the Cheka against such attacks.40
Another placed a renewed emphasis on ‘enemies’ (for example, in con-
nection with the events in Hungary), and hence on the need for vigi-
lance.41 One can also discern a preoccupation with separating
Dzerzhinsky’s legacy from that of the NKVD of the late 1930s, when the
security apparatus had been taken over by ‘provocateurs’ and ‘careerists’,
in Serov’s words.42
Overall, the gradual official restoration of the security organs’ credibil-
ity during the Khrushchev era rested upon the painstaking establishment
of a strong linkage between the KGB and Dzerzhinsky’s original Cheka,
bypassing the intervening period, or dismissing it by scapegoating Beria as
an individual and thus rescuing the honour of the security apparatus as a
whole. Just as de-Â�Stalinization was presented as a return to ‘Leninist prinÂ�
ciples’, enabling the Stalinist era to be conceptualized as a temporary aber-
ration, so the self-Â�conscious tracing of the KGB’s roots to the ‘golden age’
of the Cheka was used to construct a new narrative of Soviet history, in
36╇╇ Soviet chekism
which the Great Terror represented a betrayal of the original ‘chekist’
ideals.43 Continuity had now been restored, and the KGB entrusted with
reviving and furthering the work of Dzerzhinsky’s first chekists. Hence-
forth, it would be mandatory for historians to draw a sharp dividing line
between the Cheka and the NKVD. Great pains would be taken to dismiss
the idea of any causal link or continuity between Dzerzhinsky’s Red Terror
and the Great Terror.44
Dzerzhinsky’s early death, and his consequent lack of direct culpability
for the Great Terror, made him an exceptionally useful historical figure in
the Khrushchev era and beyond.45 When Khrushchev wanted to rein in the
intelligentsia, it was to the example of Dzerzhinsky that he turned (to the
incredulity of many), as in his May 1959 address to the Soviet Writers’
Congress in which he cited Dzerzhinsky’s methods of vospitanie as
exemplary.46
The newly reconstituted cult of Dzerzhinsky placed particular emphasis
upon Dzerzhinsky’s actions in the sphere of child welfare in the early
1920s. As we saw in the previous chapter, this had always been easily the
single most important and marketable, palatable facet of the Soviet cult of
Dzerzhinsky. But it was especially well-�suited to the Khrushchev era, with
the latter’s new focus on humanizing socialism, and on creating a softer
image for the Soviet regime.47 Thus, for example, the film A Pass for Life
(1931), one of the most famous Stalinist works on this theme, in which
chekists successfully reform juvenile delinquents, was remastered and re-�
released under Khrushchev.48
In general, during this period and beyond, much was made of the fact
that Dzerzhinsky also held posts in a variety of other spheres of the early
Soviet government, in addition to his role as head of the VChK. Dzerzhin-
sky served as People’s Commissar for the Interior (from March 1919);
People’s Commissar for Communications (from April 1921); and Chair of
the Supreme Council of the National Economy (VSNKh) (from early
1924), as well as a candidate member of the Politburo (from June 1924).
The Khrushchev-Â�era shift in emphasis onto Dzerzhinsky’s non-Â�security
posts entailed rearticulating Dzerzhinsky as a symbolic figure, making him
easier to ‘sell’. Thus, for example, according to the memoir literature, the
original design for the Dzerzhinsky statue at the Lubianka had Dzerzhin-
sky brandishing a Mauser and wearing a holster, but it was later deemed
expedient to remove these attributes of ‘revolutionary severity’, which
were no longer in vogue during the Khrushchev era.49
On the one hand, then, the appointment of ‘Iron Shurik’ as head of
the KGB pointed back to the Leninist/chekist origins of the Khrushchev
regime’s legitimacy. But on the other, the regime’s new face was also
turned towards the future. A key feature of Khrushchev’s leadership style
was the high stake which he placed on ‘youth’. This was exemplified by
key high-�profile initiatives like the Virgin Lands campaign, which involved
mass mobilization of young people by the Komsomol; the 1957 World
 Late Soviet chekism╇╇ 37
�
Festival of Youth and Students in Moscow; and the institution of an official
annual Day of Soviet Youth in February 1958.50 Khrushchev devoted a
great deal of attention to the Komsomol, and its membership expanded at
a rapid rate under his leadership.51 Khrushchev mentioned the Komsomol
in almost every speech on ideological matters, and he made a point of
showing that the party leadership took the Komsomol seriously.52 In a
sense, the Khrushchev Thaw itself was synonymous with ‘youth’, both liter-
ally and figuratively.53
This is the context of Khrushchev’s appointment of Shelepin, ‘the
leader of Soviet youth’ – for it was as head of the Komsomol that Shelepin
had made a name for himself – to head up the new KGB.54 This was in
keeping with the KGB’s new image, aimed at creating assocations with the
forces of renewal and revitalization. The heads of the new KGB not only
came from Komsomol backgrounds, but were themselves also exception-
ally youthful: Shelepin was only 40 years old at the time of his appoint-
ment as KGB chair, while his successor Semichastnyi was 37 years old.55
The appointment of non-�chekist Shelepin broke the previous pattern
of the career paths of Soviet security chiefs. Serov and most of his prede-
cessors had come from solid ‘chekist’ backgrounds;56 but Serov was to be
the last state security head to emerge from the security organs themselves
for almost three decades.57 Subsequently, it was the Komsomol that served
as the launching pad for the careers of the next three KGB chairs: Shel-
epin, Semichastnyi and Andropov.58
Appointing non-�chekists to run the new KGB appears to have been a
matter of conscious policy on Khrushchev’s part. As we have seen, this was
certainly how he presented the matter to Semichastnyi in 1961, for
example. One of the key tasks of the new KGB leadership was to reassert
party control over the security organs. As a professional ‘chekist’, Serov
had perhaps had too much institutional loyalty to the security organs; he
apparently objected, for example, to additional personnel cuts that
Khrushchev was planning.59 Shelepin appears to have had no such qualms.
Shelepin and Semichastnyi continued and intensified the purging of
KGB personnel that Serov had begun.60 On 24 February 1959, Khrushchev
publicly announced his intentions to carry out a ‘rational reduction’ of the
KGB’s staff. Shelepin responded in April 1959 by sending the Central Com-
mittee a plan outlining proposed cutbacks.61 In January 1963, Semichastnyi
reported to the party leadership that over 46,000 KGB officers had been
dismissed since 1954, with almost half of these dismissals relating to the
Shelepin–Semichastnyi era.62 But while the overall number of KGB person-
nel decreased during this period, there were also moves to recruit new
chekists to replace those who had been dismissed (especially after the
Novocherkassk events of July 1962, which prompted moves to increase KGB
personnel, especially in counter-�intelligence), and these new recruits were
drawn primarily from the Komsomol pool.63 During the substantial person-
nel changes instituted by Shelepin after his appointment as KGB chair, he
38╇╇ Soviet chekism
brought in many other ex-�colleagues from the Komsomol, appointing them
to high-Â�ranking posts, to the chagrin of the long-Â�standing ‘professional’
chekists.64
The rise of the Shelepin-�era Komsomol chekists was reflected in the new-�
style chekist heroes in movies produced from the early 1960s onwards:
young, clean-�cut, and dressed in suits.65 This was a marked change from the
preceding period, when the key semantic marker of the chekist had been the
leather jacket, or kozhanka, symbolizing the masculine virtues of the Civil War
and War Communism, and the harsh, ‘extraordinary’ conditions in which
the chekists were forced to operate. Now, chekists were no longer ‘leather
men in leather jackets’, as the writer Boris Pil’niak had described them, but
were legitimate, respectable, and fully integrated into the Soviet state system
– representatives of a state institution like any other.66 As we shall see in
Chapter 4, these new films showcasing the new generation of chekists during
this period were hailed by KGB cinema consultants for showing ‘chekists of
the new formation’, and thus bringing ‘joy to Soviet viewers’.67
This shift exemplified the push during the late 1950s and early 1960s to
create a new image of the Soviet secret policeman as ‘cultured’. An empha-
sis on the intellectual attributes of the chekist was to become obligatory as
the 1960s progressed. An editor reviewing the manuscript of Kozhevnikov’s
novel The Shield and the Sword (1965), which was to become a major chekist
icon, noted approvingly that the intelligence officer in the novel was
depicted as ‘highly intellectual’.68 Later, too, the rising educational levels of
chekist personnel continued to be affirmed, especially in materials issued
annually on the anniversary of the founding of the Cheka. Thus, for
example, on the occasion of the Cheka’s sixtieth jubilee, a Leningradskaia
pravda article asserted that ‘Today the absolute majority of employees of the
Committee for State Security have a higher education, [and] many know
one or several foreign languages’, as compared to the situation in 1921,
when only 1.3 per cent of chekists were tertiary educated; 19.1 per cent
were educated to the secondary level; and 1.5 per cent were illiterate.69
To a degree, the new emphasis on the educated chekist reflected
reality. Statistics now available show that the educational levels of chekists
were rising under Khrushchev.70 As Papovian points out, however, the stat-
istics on the rising educational levels of KGB investigation staff cited by
Serov and others in 1958 seem to have involved some fudging; for
example, one such document described 60 per cent of the KGB’s investi-
gation staff as having ‘higher education and incomplete higher educa-
tion’.71 The rising educational levels were also partly a result of the fact
that illiterate and ‘backward’ chekists were amongst those categories tar-
geted for dismissal during Serov’s purge of the mid-Â�1950s.72
When it came to crafting the image of the new cultured chekist, it
would appear that, again, the tone was set by Shelepin: unusually for a
Soviet security chief, Shelepin was tertiary educated; even more unusually,
his education was in the humanities. Films produced in this period
 Late Soviet chekism╇╇ 39
�
featured chekists with similar educational backgrounds, as we shall see in
Chapter 4.
The push to produce mass culture with a chekist theme during the
Khrushchev era was also a conscious and systematic reaction to the per-
ceived harmful influences of Western bourgeois mass culture, to which
young people were said to be especially susceptible.73 The threat posed by
bourgeois mass culture had risen in the late 1950s and early 1960s, as a
result of the unprecedented influx of foreigners and foreign influences,
most notably during the youth festival in the summer of 1957; during suc-
cessive international film festivals in Moscow;74 and after the 1958 US–
Soviet film cultural exchange agreement, which led to the screening of
American films in the USSR.
The situation was further exacerbated by the new ‘youth’ culture which
was beginning to filter into the USSR from the second half of the 1950s.
The opening up of the USSR and the resultant increase in the importa-
tion of Western movies, for example, happened to coincide both with the
‘discovery’ of the ‘teenager’ in the United States, and with a reorientation
of Hollywood towards this new ‘teen’ audience.75 For the first time, adoles-
cence came to be conceptualized – by sociologists, psychologists, market-
ing executives – as a distinct category. These new Western understandings
of adolescence, and its associated cultural products, were viewed by the
Soviet leadership as potentially explosive, and concerted attempts were
made to attribute the problem of Western youth alienation to a crisis of
capitalism, to present it as a symptom of capitalism’s ideological bank-
ruptcy and impending collapse.76
Meanwhile, there was a growing recognition that Soviet culture was
failing to entertain, and that Soviet readers were turning to Western detec-
tive and espionage novels as a result. In April 1958, a Central Committee
resolution acknowledged this situation formally, complaining about Sher-
lock Holmes’ popularity in the Soviet Union.77 Komsomol’skaia pravda
responded later that month by calling for Soviet writers to take up the
chekist theme as a counterweight to Sherlock Holmes.78 In August that
year, the Central Committee’s Section for Propaganda and Agitation in
the Union Republics and Section for Culture reported that:

Library staff note that in recent times, in connection with the penetra-
tion of the book market by a large quantity of detective literature, the
demand for classical works and the best works of soviet writers has
fallen somewhat in libraries. According to data from the Moscow City
Youth Library, almost a third of readers (senior-�class schoolchildren,
working-�class youth) are borrowing exclusively detective literature in
the library.79

The draft resolution produced on the strength of this report acknow-

ledged that there was a need for writers and film-�makers to respond to the
40╇╇ Soviet chekism
younger generation’s clear demand for adventure literature and films. It
specified that such works should combine exciting plot-�lines with an
emphasis on the importance of ‘vigilance’ and other Soviet values – a task
to which the chekist theme was ideally suited.80
Later, it was further recognized that the production of Soviet chekist-�
theme films would also be useful for foreign propaganda purposes. A
March 1964 article in Komsomol’skaia pravda noted the genre’s potential as:

a mighty means of propaganda of the Soviet way of life, of the new atti-
tude of our society towards the people guarding its peace, as towards
people of the most humane, chivalrous profession. Thanks to its extra-
ordinary popularity, adventure literature has the capacity to become
one of our most active ambassadors on the international book arena.81

Again, we can note the moral thrust and emphasis here. This was primarily
a moral genre, edifying through its depiction of the ‘humane, chivalrous’
chekist.82
During this period, films about chekists were commissioned by the KGB
in direct response to a wave of anti-�Soviet films produced in the West,83
and also specifically to the Bond phenomenon. While Bond films were not
screened in the USSR, they were clearly perceived as a serious threat, and
were criticized repeatedly in the Soviet press as shamelessly materialistic,
morally reprehensible, and generally indicative of the decadent state of
Western capitalism.84 One author described Bond as having the ‘psychol-
ogy of a Nazi’,85 for example, while another wrote of Bond’s pistol as
loaded with poisoned bullets aimed at cinema audiences.86
According to Oleg Gordievsky, the Bond films and novels were the
object of careful study by the KGB.87 In fact, the Bond phenomenon
appears to have been one of the factors that finally prompted the KGB to
reveal previously classified details of Richard Sorge’s career in 1964, after
an official commission set up to consider such a move noted that the
English had been especially skilful in creating an heroic image for their
intelligence services – surely an allusion to Bond.88
The creation of the Sorge commission came about after Khrushchev
viewed a foreign film about Richard Sorge,89 and resolved to launch a
propaganda campaign based on Sorge’s story.90 Reportedly Khrushchev
was taken in particular by the element of the story that Stalin had dis-
trusted Sorge and had ignored his warnings of Hitler’s plans to invade – a
feature that dovetailed neatly with the aims of de-�Stalinization.91 Khrush-
chev ordered that a commission be set up to gather and study materials
connected to the Sorge case, including the memoirs of participants.92 The
commission brought down its findings in October 1964. The findings are
worth reproducing in some detail, since they shed light on the reasoning
behind the shift in the official position on publicizing the history of Soviet
intelligence operations. The commission concluded that:
 Late Soviet chekism╇╇ 41
1 It seems to me that the time has come to talk publicly about the
intelligence officers who perished during the period of the cult of
personality. They have all been rehabilitated, but since they
worked in such a sphere as intelligence, we do not say anything
about them in the newspapersâ•›.â•›.â•›.
2 Sorge has now become a kind of symbol of the Soviet razvedchik’s
courage. A mass of people, especially young people, are thirsting
for materials about him. Meanwhile, however, our press is feeding
readers re-�prints from foreign books, in which there is much bald-
erdash, sometimes far from inoffensiveâ•›.â•›.â•›.
It seems to me that an outright necessity to write our own
Soviet book about Sorge has come to a head.
3 By widely propagandizing Sorge’s feat, we have begun to talk
about Soviet intelligence at full volume for the first time. Is it not
worth considering conducting a planned propaganda campaign
now, which would explain to young people what Soviet intelli-
gence is, and how honourable its tasks are? All the capitalist coun-
tries are engaged in this, having created an aureole around their
intelligence officers (the English do this especially skilfully). We,
on the other hand, have been saying nothing about our razved-
chiks, who are contributing not to capitalist brigandage, but are
helping to struggle for communism. Now, in connection with the
Sorge case, the situation is changing.
Has the time not come to carefully plan and launch propa-
ganda of Soviet intelligence? After all, in the struggle for com-
munism, against the forces of imperialism, more great deeds still
lie ahead of our intelligence services, and after all many, many
razvedchiks will be required for this.93

The decision to lift the taboo was thus based partially on the need to recruit
new chekists, and partially on the reasoning that it was better that informa-
tion on Soviet intelligence be produced at home, so that it could be control-
led and presented in the correct ideological form. This (together with
considerations related to recruiting new agents in the West) was also report-
edly the rationale behind the decision to allow Philby to publish his memoirs
in the West in 1968.94 Overall, during this period the Soviet authorities
arrived at the realization that since Soviet intelligence operations were bound
to be discussed, it was preferable that they manage the representations of the
history of Soviet intelligence themselves. While it is not mentioned by the
1964 Sorge commission, it would seem probable that the decision to launch
a propaganda campaign praising Soviet intelligence was also intended to
counter the damaging effects of a series of high-�profile defections and arrests
of Soviet intelligence officers and agents during this period.95
The commission’s recommendations on the need to propagate Soviet
intelligence would appear to have been put into practice, for subsequently
42╇╇ Soviet chekism
the taboos were lifted on a number of Soviet intelligence operations (such
as Operation TREST)96 and individual officers (such as Rudolf Abel97 and
Yan Buikis98). In general, during this period previously declassified mater-
ials on the activities of Soviet foreign intelligence officers were increasingly
made available to favoured writers, film-�makers and historians, especially
in connection with the twentieth jubilee of Victory Day in May 1965. All of
these Khrushchev-�era propaganda campaigns dealing with previously clas-
sified intelligence operations and officers would later be presented as
chekist public relations officials as a mark of glasnost’, and a facet of de-Â�
Stalinization.99
Throughout this process, a conscious effort was made to distance the
Soviet exemplars of this genre from their Western counterparts. As one
author asserted in 1987:

The stories about them, these internationalist-�heroes [a euphemism

used to justify acts of violence carried out beyond the borders of Soviet
territory without formal declaration of war; the example cited in the
text is that of Richard Sorge], have nothing and can have nothing in
common with the espionage pulp flooding the book markets of the
West.100

The inherent pulpish tendencies of the genre were also often offset, espe-
cially from the late 1960s, by basing such works, whether literary or cine-
matic, on historical documents, which served not only to make them more
‘serious’ but to enhance their authority.101 Semenov was the most famous
practitioner of this genre, the ‘documentary novel’.
Meanwhile, the rapid growth of the Soviet cinema industry under
Khrushchev brought its own dangers. The relative newness of cinema as
an art form meant that censorship functionaries had less experience in
reading screen language, and were hence particularly prone to jumpiness
about possible Aesopian references, especially those aimed at breaking the
taboo on chekist violence and terror. A case in point is the film Il’ich’s Gate,
singled out for attack by Khrushchev in 1963. The film’s director, Khutsiev,
has recounted his initial bemusement over the fact that when he ran into
trouble over Il’ich’s Gate, one of the questions consistently asked of him by
all the high-�ranking party officials and others grilling him over the film
was why the footsteps were so loud in the film. Khutsiev was puzzled by
their fixation on this point, and tried to explain simply that footsteps are
generally louder at night than in the daytime; one of his questioners even-
tually responded: ‘At night, people ought to be sleeping’, and then bent
over and added that it is usually in prison that footsteps sound so loud.102
Such hypersensitivity also reflected the fact that anti-�Soviet cinema was
seen as potentially more dangerous than anti-�Soviet literature. This was
not simply because cinema reached larger audiences, but because of the
nature of the medium: its immediacy and vividness. There is a world of
 Late Soviet chekism╇╇ 43
�
difference between a stylized representation of a peasant on a poster, and
the same peasant living and breathing on screen. Put simply, it was harder
to lie convincingly on film than on paper, or canvas, for that matter. This
contrast is illustrated by Anatolii Kuznetsov’s account of problems he
encountered pushing through a film based on his screenplay, At Home,
after objections to the film were raised by Mosfil’m Studios director
Vladimir Surin.103 Kuznetsov attempted to counter Surin’s demands for
major revisions by arguing that:

all this had already appeared in print. Surin shrieked: ‘Published

where? In Novy mir?104 What difference does that make anyway? Thou-
sands read what’s published, but millions see a film; the impact of the
cinema is far greater. If you write that he is dressed in filthy foot-�rags,
that’s one thing, but when you show them on the screen in all their
glory it’s a different matter.’105

The new prominence of cinema and its great propaganda impact made it
all the more essential that extra care be taken to craft a flawless image of
the new Soviet chekist.
The KGB’s new image projected in the new films and novels produced
during this period was built upon an arsenal of new or revised practices and
euphemisms. Below I give an overview of the most prominent of these.

Restoring trust
One of the cornerstones of the KGB’s new image was the concept of
‘trust’. More broadly, the need to restore trust was one of the Soviet
leadership’s key preoccupations during this period, illustrated by symbolic
actions such as the opening of the Kremlin to the public in 1955.106
According to Aleksandr Yakovlev, Khrushchev had raised the issue of trust
even before the XX Party Congress. Yakovlev cites Khrushchev as having
said in this connection that ‘We are spending up the accumulated capital
of the narod’s trust in the party very extravagantly. We cannot exploit the
narod’s trust indefinitely. Each of us communists must, like a little bee, cul-
tivate the narod’s trust’.107 The issue of trust was especially acute when it
came to the security organs.
This was not the first time that the Soviet security organs had been dem-
onstratively purged, or a ‘revival of socialist legality’ been declared – this
was standard practice each time a successive head of the organs fell from
the mid-�1930s onwards. But this time around the rhetoric was different.
Consider again, for example, Shelepin’s speech to the XXII Party Con-
gress in October 1961. Shelepin summed up the situation as follows:

The state security organs have been reorganized, significantly reduced,

released from anomalous functions, cleansed of careerist elements. .â•›.â•›.
44╇╇ Soviet chekism
All the activities of the KGB organs now take place under the constant
control of the Party and the Government, [and] are built on complete
trust in the Soviet person, on respect for his rights and dignity.108

Not only did Shelepin invoke the concept of ‘trust’ (not to mention
‘rights’ and ‘dignity’), but he also implicitly acknowledged the fact that
this trust must run in both directions. Thus Shelepin also declared that:

The state security organs – this is already not a bugaboo [pugalo], such
as enemies – Beria and his henchmen – tried to make it in the recent
past, but genuinely narodnye political organs of our party in the direct
sense of this word. .â•›.â•›. Now chekists can look into the eyes of the party,
into the eyes of the soviet narod, with a clear conscience.109

Shelepin’s use of the word ‘conscience’ was also symptomatic of the times.
Early Soviet discourse had either dispensed with ‘conscience’ (together
with the concept of ‘sin’),110 or had reinvested conscience in the state.
Shelepin’s use of the term ‘conscience’ in his speech would suggest that
Nadezhda Mandelstam was right: the idea of ‘conscience’ and other
related moral values were re-�emerging with a vengeance during the
Khrushchev era, such that the regime could no longer afford to ignore
them.111
The following year, in December 1962, Semichastnyi’s Chekist’s Day
address also emphasized the fact that the KGB had won the trust of the
party and the narod.112 Henceforth, these ritualized pledges of trustworthi-
ness were to become traditional elements of the annual Chekist’s Day pro-
ceedings.113 ‘Trust’ would also become an important motif in chekist cinema
produced during this period. In summer 1964, for example, the writer Yurii
German described his latest screenplay about a chekist who achieved mira-
cles in his work precisely because he put his trust in his comrades, even if
they had dubious pasts. German identified the film’s main motif as ‘trust’,
which he says was so ‘unfashionable’ during the Stalin period.114
The new emphasis on ‘trust’ was further reflected in the winding down
of KGB domestic ideological counter-�intelligence under Shelepin. The
new KGB created in March 1954 had included a Fourth Directorate
dealing with domestic ideological counter-�intelligence. Formally respons-
ible for ‘the struggle with the anti-Â�Soviet underground, nationalist forma-
tions and hostile elements’,115 in practice the Fourth Directorate was
effectively charged with surveillance of the intelligentsia. Under Shelepin,
however, in February 1960, the Fourth Directorate was closed down and
merged with several other counter-�intelligence directorates, into a single
Second Chief Directorate.116 This reform signalled, at least formally, a shift
away from the old suspicious attitude towards the intelligentsia (a shift
which would be reversed, of course, with the creation of Andropov’s
notorious Fifth Directorate in 1967).
 Late Soviet chekism╇╇ 45
The link with the narod
The new relationship of mutual trust between the security apparatus and
Soviet society was encapsulated and celebrated in the concept of the
KGB’s ‘link with the narod’ (sviaz’ s narodom). From the Khrushchev period
onwards, this phrase was used mechanically and ubiquitously in connec-
tion with the KGB.117 It appears to have been practically obligatory to make
reference to this ‘link with the narod’ in texts dealing with the chekist
theme. In 1963–4, during the production of one of the first feature films
showcasing the new KGB, for example, the KGB consultants assigned to
oversee the film’s production returned to this question again and again, to
the point where their repeated insistence on the need to improve the
film’s depiction of the ‘link with the narod’ comes across as obsessive.118
The KGB’s 1977 in-Â�house history presented the expansion and strength-
ening of the KGB’s link with the narod from the mid-Â�1950s as constituting
a revival of Leninist principles.119 But elsewhere in the same volume the
concept was also linked to the revival of ‘the glorious traditions of the
VChK’.120 And indeed, underpinning Shelepin’s propaganda campaign
was the important supposition that the Terror had been the result of the
demise of chekist traditions, not their triumph or apotheosis; and that these
traditions must thus be reasserted with fresh vigilance as a vouchsafe
against a resurgence of mass terror. This supposition was also reflected in
the KGB’s in-Â�house history which seems to present the use of informers as
a kind of antidote or alternative to terror (as opposed to a practice that
helped to make the Great Terror possible).121
In keeping with longer traditions of exploiting the concept of the narod
for ideological ends, this concept of the chekist’s link with the narod func-
tioned as the cornerstone of the chekist and Soviet claim to legitimacy.122
This was said to be the crucial feature distinguishing Soviet state security
organs from their counterparts in tsarist Russia and in the West – the
Soviet organs were ‘genuinely narodnye organs’, in contrast to the FBI, for
example, which was labelled the ‘okhranka’.123 The chekist’s link with the
narod was contrasted to the relations between the security apparatus and
the population said to be characteristic of Western capitalist systems,
which were lambasted in Soviet propaganda.124 We might say that it was
precisely this link with the narod that made the Soviet organs ‘organic’.
Underlying this notion of the narod was also an implicit condemnation
of the antithesis of the narod (and the antithesis, too, of Dzerzhinsky’s
beloved pure children, incapable of dissimulation) – the slippery, duplici-
tous intelligentsia, over-�civilized, to the point of corruption, and incapable
of giving spontaneous, unquestioning love to the chekists. And this posed
a problem, not least because while it was the narod’s adoring mirror that
the chekist wished to see held up before him, by necessity it was the crea-
tive intelligentsia who had to be entrusted with producing the stories and
films designed to nurture and deepen the narod’s love for the chekist. In
46╇╇ Soviet chekism
Chapters 3 and 4 we shall examine some of the interaction between the
creative intelligentsia and the chekist keepers appointed to supervise their
production of the depictions of chekists.
In the Khrushchev era, increased glasnost’ was said to be a vital precon-
dition for facilitating expansion and strengthening of the link with the
narod, and a new emphasis on glasnost’ was another one of the hallmarks of
this era.125 Under the banner of glasnost’, the KGB reached out to the
public in unprecedented ways during this period. Thus, for example, in
May 1959, Pravda ran the first press article containing details of the KGB’s
work;126 and leading chekists and chekist veterans were sent out to address
workplaces and educational institutions, with a view to raising awareness of
the work and struggle of the security organs.127 Again, this policy was
traced to Dzerzhinsky: glasnost’ was said to have been one of his key prior-
ities.128 This foreshadowed, incidentally, the spin that would be put on
chekist history during the Gorbachev era; one Gorbachev-�era official
history of the Cheka, for example, presented the public announcements
of Cheka executions in the press not as an instrument of terror, but as
evidence of the Cheka’s open relationship with the narod, even as a ‘vivid
manifestation of glasnost’ in the VChK’s work’.129
The link with the narod had always been a crucial element in the legiti-
mization of chekist terror. From very early on, leading chekists sought to
present themselves as the mere instruments of the narod’s will, as the
beloved ‘child of the narod’ (detishche naroda – a phrase frequently used by
Dzerzhinsky with reference to the security apparatus).130 The chekists were
inseparable from the narod; by definition, there could be no conflict
between their aims and interests. According to Menzhinsky, this ‘merging’
had been one of Dzerzhinsky’s achievements. Dzerzhinsky had managed
to:

merge the cause of the ChK with the cause of the working class itself,
so that constantly, all these years, both in days of victory and days of
anxiety, the working mass perceived the chekist cause as its own, and
accepted the ChK inside itself [nutrom] as its own organ, the organ of
the proletariat, of the dictatorship of the working class.131

It was precisely this concept of the Cheka’s link with the narod that enabled
Dzerzhinsky’s famous definition of the Red Terror as ‘nothing other than
the expression of the will of the poorest peasantry and the proletariat’.132
Lenin also made numerous statements to this effect. He declared, for
example:

For us it is important that the chekas are realizing the dictatorship of

the proletariat directly and in this respect their role is invaluable.
There is no other path to liberation of the masses, other than suppres-
sion of the exploiters by means of violence. This is precisely what the
 Late Soviet chekism╇╇ 47
chekas are engaged in, this is where their merit before the proletariat
lies.133

Or, as Lenin put it in a statement that would be cited by Andropov in his

inaugural annual address as KGB chair, it was important that repression
be ‘merciless, swift, immediate’ and, crucially, that it rest ‘on the sympathy
of workers and peasants’.134
So far, so obvious and predictable; but perhaps more unexpectedly, the
renewed post-Â�Stalinist emphasis on the KGB’s link with the narod was not
just a legitimizing device; there was an additional layer of meaning to this
phrase. ‘The link with the narod’ also functioned as a euphemism for the
KGB’s reliance on informers amongst the general population. On this
account, informing and collaborating were manifestations of the pro-
found, almost mystical bond existing between the narod and the secret
police. It was important, therefore, that such practices be represented as
entirely voluntary and spontaneous, as we shall see in Chapter 4.
This link with the narod was dramatized in a fable which was a peren-
nial in the chekist hagiography, with endless variations produced in fic-
tional and dramatic forms.135 The bare bones of the fable are as follows:
not long after the Cheka was founded, in January 1918 (or in autumn
1919, in some versions),136 a Red Army soldier notices that a girl has
dropped something on the street; he picks it up intending to give it back
to her, but then notices that it is a folded-�up sheet of paper with
suspicious-�looking marks on it, and so he turns the girl and the map in to
the local Cheka. The chekists instantly recognize the paper as a map of
Lenin’s car’s routes through Petrograd, as well as the location of military
units.137 In other versions she drops a bundle containing ‘espionage’
papers which lead the Cheka to the girl’s father, a French spy resident in
Russia.138 Here again, one of the morals of this story is that Soviet inform-
ers acted on a voluntary basis. Furthermore, the narod’s detection of the
spy here arises out of a simple act of gallantry, not out of morbid suspi-
ciousness, or the desire to settle personal scores; and the soldier’s
decision to go straight to the Cheka is similarly based on pure and
unquestioning trust in the Cheka.
One biographer of Dzerzhinsky comes close to acknowledging how
clichéd this story had become, when he apologizes for including this
episode, which was ‘now so widely known’, but justifies this on the grounds
that it was nevertheless ‘difficult to pass by [this story] in silence, insofar as
it vividly characterizes F. E. Dzerzhinsky’s deep faith in the support of
rank-Â�and-file Soviet people’.139 The story demonstrated that Dzerzhinsky
knew from experience that the only way to succeed was ‘to rely on the
masses, to maintain the link with party organizations, Soviets, trade unions
more closely. To seek help and support from them’.140 At the climax of the
story, the captured spy taunts Dzerzhinsky: ‘If not for chance, you would
not have caught me.’
48╇╇ Soviet chekism
‘You are mistaken’, Dzerzhinsky answered calmly. ‘If not for the vigi-
lance of an ordinary Red Army soldier, the accidental loss of the
papers would not have harmed you. And this vigilance of the rank-�
and-file Red Army soldier is not chance, but the strength of the
ChK.’141

The insistence that the Cheka’s detection of spies on the basis of informa-
tion provided by the narod was not random or coincidental is another
common motif of this and other stories relating similar cases. In this sense
the link with the narod is not only organic but zakonomerno: law-�governed,
in the Marxist sense: objective, scientific and inevitable.142
Lenin made the same point in his December 1919 defence of the
VChK, when he posed the rhetorical question: when bourgeois plots
against the Soviet regime were discovered, were they discovered ‘by acci-
dent’? He went on ‘No, not by accident. They are discovered because the
plotters are forced to live amongst the masses, because they cannot do
without the workers and peasants in their plots’, and that ultimately they
always came into contact with people who were willing to turn them in to
the Cheka.143 In other words: again, the message is that the Cheka IS the
narod, and vice versa – they were merging, in an inevitable, law-Â�governed
process, which would continue until they became indistinguishable, once
chekist values had been definitively internalized by the Soviet population.
Bourgeois observers were incapable of comprehending the Cheka’s link
with the narod. Their horror at the Cheka’s cruelty was based on a funda-
mental (class-�based) failure of imagination or understanding. Thus, in a
1929 version of the same story printed in a regional chekist publication, a
counter-�revolutionary captured by the Cheka boasts that he had only been
caught by chance, and the author comments:

Our class enemy-�bourgeois will not understand, that the strength of

the ChK-�OGPU is precisely in these Red Army soldiers, in workers,
peasants – in all honest people, of whom there are many, who see all,
who are welded to ‘the terrible cheka’ by strong unbreakable bonds.144

The KGB’s ‘trusted individuals’

One concrete manifestation of this aspect of the link with the narod as it was
developed and reconstituted under Khrushchev was a new policy aimed at
expanding the recruitment of a special category of KGB informers: so-�called
doverennye litsa – a label which can be linked semantically with the new insist-
ence on ‘trust’ (doverie) characteristic of this period.145 From July 1954, after
a KGB order on the recruitment of doverennye litsa was issued, the use of dov-
erennye litsa increased steadily.146 In 1959 it was further resolved to expand
‘in all possible ways’ (vsemerno) the practice of recruiting informers on a
doveritel’naia (or confidential) basis, and in 1960 this was followed up by a
 Late Soviet chekism╇╇ 49
KGB order officially defining a doverennoe litso for the first time.147 Again, the
concept of the ‘link with the narod’ was explicitly invoked here to justify this
practice; the KGB in-�house history describes the use of doverennye litsa as a
form of the link between the organs and the toilers.148
Doverennye litsa differed from other informers and agents in a number of
ways. They were not assigned pseudonyms;149 they were not required to sign
a written undertaking to act as informers;150 no personal file was opened for
them;151 they were not listed on the centralized register;152 and they reported
to their handlers in oral form, producing written statements only in excep-
tional cases and only after consenting to do so.153 They were recruited, then,
with a minimum of documentation; and indeed, the fact that no written
agreement was involved meant that many doverennye litsa were unaware that
they were regarded as such by the KGB, according to Albats.154
The contact between the doverennoe litso and the chekist was, as the KGB
in-Â�house history put it, a matter of glasnost’, but the true nature of this
contact was to remain secret.155 In other words, the meeting itself would
take place openly, but its purpose would be disguised. Thus,

Unlike [meetings with] agents, received, as a rule, in conspiratorial

and reporting [yavochnykh] apartments, meetings with doverennye litsa
were carried out in locations convenient for this, guaranteeing the
possibility of a chat with them dealing directly with [po sushchestvu] the
assignments.156

In fact, it was expressly forbidden to receive doverennye litsa at conspirato-

rial or ‘safe’ apartments.157 From the firsthand accounts of ex-Â�informers, it
appears that the offices of Personnel or Cadres Departments of workplaces
and educational institutions most often served as the ‘convenient loca-
tions’ for such meetings.158
This arrangement presumably made it easier for informers to avoid
detection and exposure. Another KGB handbook offers a clue to the
rationale behind this new policy; the handbook defines such doveritel’nye
otnosheniia as follows:

A type of intelligence relationship between intelligence officers who,

as a rule, conceal the fact that they belong to Intelligence, and indi-
viduals bound in some way to Intelligence on the basis of ideological
and political affinity, material interest, friendly relations or other
grounds, who confidentially carry out from time to time in a form and
within limits which they find acceptable [my emphasis], requests and
assignments from intelligence officers which are of an intelligence
nature but which have been given a plausible cover story.
Depending on the interests of Intelligence, confidential relations
may be a stage leading an individual towards agent relations, or it may
be the final stage of the individual’s cultivation and exploitation.159
50╇╇ Soviet chekism
In other words, the institution of this new type of relationship appears to
reflect a desire to reassure informers, and a sense that it was necessary to
take care not to push them too far. The new emphasis on doverennye litsa
may thus be a sign of the regime’s jumpiness as far as the issue of secret
informers was concerned. This was an extremely fraught and sensitive
issue during this period. Feelings were running high – survivors were
returning from camps and exile and confronting the informers who had
sent them there, and the taboo against questioning the Stalinist practices
of denunciation and informing was tottering. Just as ‘conscience’ was re-Â�
emerging, so was public feeling turning against secret informers in some
circles.160 There was even acknowledgement by leading chekists of the
damage which the imperative to inform had inflicted on the integrity of
Soviet artists.161 Meanwhile, in the literary world, there were calls for justice
to be meted out against informers in the name of their victims.162 It must
have been a frightening time for the authorities, and for informers, who
may have felt abandoned by the state, which was sanctioning unprece-
dented open discussion of such questions, through publication of One Day
in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1962), for example. Ultimately, the regime
survived this crisis; large-�scale reprisals against informers were avoided, for
example. But official glorification of informers nevertheless subsequently
became more tentative. The KGB continued to rely upon secret informers,
but more subtle methods were now required.
The decision to rely more heavily on doverennye litsa also reflects a rec-
ognition that the informer network more broadly needed to be over-
hauled. This was the thrust of a Central Committee resolution issued on
12 March 1954, which described the state of the informer network
recruited during the Stalin era as ‘abnormal’.163 In particular, the resolu-
tion concluded, there were far too many agents;164 and procedures of
selection, vetting, training and running of agents were unsatisfactory.165
Furthermore, as a KGB order concluded in July 1954, many chekists had
failed to absorb the message of the resolutions of the July 1953 Central
Committee Plenum and to take appropriate measures accordingly.166 As a
result of the March 1954 Central Committee complaints, the agent appar-
atus was purged of those agents who did not inspire trust; or lacked the
personal qualities or the ‘counter-Â�intelligence possibilities’ to help the
organs; or who had a record of ‘deception, falsification of materials,
double-Â�dealing and provocational acts’.167 It seems, however, that chekists
were too zealous in responding to these demands, to the point where too
many agents were purged, resulting in a situation where many operational
staff were left with either too few informers or with none whatsoever.168
KGB in-�house histories and the regular historiography alike tend to
present a picture of an overall trend towards a sharp reduction of the
number of informers during the Khrushchev era. Yet this was by no means
a linear, straightforward or consistent process. If one examines the various
orders issued in this connection through the mid-�to-late 1950s, it becomes
 Late Soviet chekism╇╇ 51
clear that ‘improving’ agent work could sometimes mean not only improv-
ing training and recruitment procedures, but also reversing the effects of
previous de-�Stalinization measures, though it was not explicitly couched in
these terms.169 In late 1956, in particular, recruitment of informers
amongst the creative intelligentsia and the younger generation was
stepped up, and the need to target these two groups for more active
recruitment of informers was also flagged at the 1957 Second All-�Union
Meeting of leading chekists.170
On other occasions, when the emphasis was on reducing the number of
informers, we should not automatically assume that this was being done
for the purposes of liberalization or de-�Stalinization; the rationale was
often quite ambiguous. For example, KGB Order No. 00225 issued on 15
July 1959 in the wake of the XXI Party Congress mentioned not just redu-
cing the number of agents, but ‘cleansing [the agent apparatus] of indi-
viduals not deserving of political trust’.171
Furthermore, the political amnesties of the Khrushchev era often
offered the KGB the opportunity for fresh recruitments. Ex-�prisoners
appear to have been viewed as an especially promising pool of potential
recruits, presumably at least partly because of their vulnerability to black-
mail and the threat of re-Â�arrest. According to the KGB’s own statistics, for
example, over 60 per cent of agents recruited in Ukraine in 1956–7 com-
prised ex-�internees of camps returning home.172

Profilaktika
While the use of doverennye litsa was not a matter of public discussion,
another innovation in the KGB’s work during this period was trumpeted
in the media. Perhaps the most important new buzzword in the Shelepin
propaganda campaign and beyond was profilaktika – a much-Â�used but only
vaguely defined term covering a range of preventive or precautionary
measures employed by the KGB.173
The KGB 1977 in-�house history tells us that profilaktika could take
glasnye (open or public) and neglasnye (secret) forms. The former included
public discussions of the given transgression at the perpetrator’s work-
place, for example, prompted by the KGB;174 or media discussions; while
neglasnye forms included measures making use of agents and doverennye
litsa, of ‘chats’ with chekists.175 In general, the cornerstone of profilaktika
was the ‘chat’ (beseda). This (as opposed to ‘interrogation’) was now the
preferred term.176 Such chats – cosy heart-Â�to-hearts with chekists at once
paternal and erudite, with twinkling eyes, which left one feeling relieved,
unburdened, reassured and enlightened – were depicted on screen in
chekist films from the period such as A Shot in the Fog and State Criminal (as
we shall see in Chapter 4).
The term profilaktika was also used euphemistically. Often, profilaktika
effectively meant ‘ex-Â�judicial repressions’, involving, for example, the
52╇╇ Soviet chekism
destruction of the career prospects of the individual in question.177 The
KGB file of Azadovskii, for example, states that he had rebuffed a recruit-
ment approach in 1967, and further notes that ‘In 1969 he was prophylac-
ticated via obshchestvennost’ and expelled from postgraduate studies’.178
According to some of the dissident memoir literature, the term profilaktika
was also used as a euphemism for particular methods of psychological
torture in the prison system.179 We might therefore think of profilaktika as
representing a concealed form of political repression. Aleksandr Cher-
kasov of Memorial has estimated that the ratio of prison/camp sentences to
cases of profilaktika was roughly 1:100 in the late Soviet period.180
The KGB’s 1977 in-Â�house history describes profilaktika as an important
focus of the KGB in the mid-Â�to-late 1950s181 and as an ‘organic part of all
agent-Â�operational activities’.182 Profilaktika remained a consistent focus of
KGB policy for the remainder of the Khrushchev era, too. For example, an
all-�union gathering of KGB staff was held in May 1959 on prophylactic
work;183 and in the summer of 1964 the KGB Collegium issued a resolu-
tion and then an order on profilaktika.184
The turn towards profilaktika was very much a response to the Soviet
Union’s new openness to the outside world. This is flagged metaphorically
by the word itself, with its associations with guarding against infection and
contamination.185 This element was made explicit in related documents
issued by the KGB Collegium in the summer of 1964, which noted that
one of the key aims of the policy of profilaktika was to fence Soviet citizens
off from bourgeois ideology.186 In general, the abandonment of Stalinist
cultural isolationism during this period presented a whole set of new chal-
lenges, which required creative, more sophisticated responses.187 It meant
operating in a new propaganda environment, and negotiating the pitfalls
of increased openness to the rest of the world. (Shelepin, incidentally, had
acquired considerable experience in this environment in his earlier career
in the Komsomol and as deputy chair of the World Federation of Demo-
cratic Youth,188 and appears to have had a keen awareness of the impor-
tance of public relations and propaganda).189
The highly publicized policy of profilaktika was a crucial element of the
process of official rehabilitation of the figure of the chekist, now said to be
fundamentally benevolent. Thus, chekists were merciful with regard to
those whose misdemeanours stemmed from insufficient political
consciousness, and made wide use of preventive and educational
(vospitatel’nye) measures with regard to such citizens, as opposed to simply
punishing or repressing them.190 Profilaktika can also be linked to the
desire to improve the Soviet Union’s international reputation more
broadly, and thus, in turn, to Khrushchev’s famous declaration, made at
the XXI Party Congress in 1959, that there were no more political prison-
ers in the Soviet Union. This claim exemplified the regime’s new concern
with projecting a liberal face.191 At the XXII Party Congress, Khrushchev
further asserted that the correct response to those expressing dissenting
 Late Soviet chekism╇╇ 53
opinions should be ‘not repressions, but Leninist methods of persuasion
and clarification’.192 Henceforth, in fact, whenever possible, political
repression was to be re-�packaged and re-�labelled. According to some com-
mentators, indeed, the introduction of the policy of profilaktika was a
measure ordered directly by the Central Committee to bring down the
arrest statistics.193 Others, such as Chebrikov, claim that, on the contrary,
this was a KGB initiative, pushed through in the face of resistance from
the party leadership, with a view to giving the KGB the opportunity to lead
people away from crime without pressing charges. As Chebrikov put it:

Were it not for Andropov’s firm position, many more people would
have been condemned .â•›.â•›. Many of the country’s leaders continued to
think that all problems are resolved by force. Andropov on the other
hand wanted to work in accordance with the law. Now one can dispute
[whether these were] good laws or bad, but they were laws .â•›.â•›. The
emphasis was placed on profilaktika. It is no accident that the number
of arrests went down sharply.194

By the same token, profilaktika was also about co-Â�opting other ‘public
forces’ to play a role in social control and to take over some of the tasks
previously fulfilled by the security apparatus. This shift was a key theme of
the XXI Party Congress, at which Shelepin hailed the passing of many
state functions away from the KGB and other bodies to public organiza-
tions as a sign that the Soviet Union was moving closer to communism.195
This shift was explicitly flagged at an all-�Union gathering of chekists held
in the wake of the XXI Party Congress in May 1959, which reiterated that
the KGB’s domestic punitive functions were to be reduced and increas-
ingly taken over by public organizations.196 As the KGB’s 1977 in-Â�house
history put it, during this period there was a new emphasis on making use
of ‘public forces’ (sily obshchestvennosti) for security purposes.197 It noted
further that the role of obshchestvennost’ was particularly important when it
came to prophylactic work, and that this role grew significantly in the early
1960s.198
The Komsomol was one of the key organizations tasked with assisting
the KGB here.199 As we have seen, during this period there was an influx
of Komsomol cadres into the KGB. Meanwhile, the Komsomol was taking
over many of the secret police’s traditional functions, acting as a kind of
‘soft’ punitive arm of the regime. Kuzovkin has demonstrated the ways in
which Komsomol and party organizations were used during the Thaw to
take on some aspects of the KGB’s ‘dirty’ work, as part of a process of mod-
ernizing the regime’s repressive functions. Thus, for example, these bodies
could be used to carry out everyday surveillance and social control, avoid-
ing the need for potentially politically inconvenient or embarrassing judi-
cial procedures.200 The memoirs of Armen Medvedev (Komsomol secretary
at the cinematography institute VGIK in the late 1950s) also recount
54╇╇ Soviet chekism
�
episodes in which the KGB would send a ‘signal’ to the VGIK Komsomol
for a campaign against particular students, for example.201 Finally, the
Komsomol also spearheaded many of the regime’s attacks on individual
artists during this period. For example, according to Semichastnyi,
Khrushchev instructed him to make his famous attack on Boris Pasternak
at the celebrations marking the Komsomol’s fortieth jubilee in 1958.202
The Komsomol’s increased role as an agency of social control was paral-
leled by other developments in the late 1950s involving the appropriation
of certain aspects of traditional policing by new ‘popular’ (narodnye) insti-
tutions such as volunteer militia-�type squads like the druzhiny and the
brigadmily.203 At the XXI Party Congress in early 1959 – a landmark in the
development of the regime’s new approach to domestic repression204 –
institutions such as the new druzhiny were hailed as evidence that the
Soviet Union had entered a new stage in its development and was now
firmly and irreversibly on the path to building communism.205
In general, the emphasis on the preventive strain in the KGB’s work
became especially marked and elaborate during Andropov’s tenure as
KGB chair. In 1972–3, for example, various procedures for issuing ‘official
cautions’ in the interests of profilaktika were laid down.206 For example, on
25 December 1972 the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet issued a
decree giving the KGB the right to issue official warnings as a method of
profilaktika. This was introduced in the hope of rendering profilaktika more
effective as a deterrent. An important difference was that receiving such
an official warning meant that it was attached to a criminal file and
acquired the force of judicial evidence in the event that the individual
later committed a crime harming the interests of state security.207
Profilaktika was a mark of the regime’s love, benevolence and mercy
towards political criminals, who were said to have been ‘led astray’ by pro-
vocateurs acting as proxies of the West, and who could be saved and
returned to the ‘rightful path’ by the regime’s spiritual shepherds – the
chekists. We might thus think of profilaktika as a new, softer approach to
heresy. The discourse of profilaktika often used religious-�style metaphors,
in particular, that of the ‘correct’ or ‘righteous path’, with those who
strayed from the path being described in the language of apostasy.208
All of the above innovations were emphatically presented as constitut-
ing a return to the essence of the tradition of Dzerzhinsky, and by exten-
sion, to Leninist principles.209 Thus, for example, a 1967 article in
Pogranichnik noted that:

Nowadays, as previously under Dzerzhinsky, the conduct of preventive

measures against political crimes has entered the practice of the work
of the state security organs. The staff of the organs invite in for chats
.â•›.â•›. individuals who as a result of their political illiteracy, conduct
unhealthy conversations, [and] disseminate cock-�and-bull stories, [or]
harmful rumours.210
 Late Soviet chekism╇╇ 55
Finally, the turn towards profilaktika represented an attempt to deal specifi-
cally with problems related to the younger generation in Khrushchev’s
USSR. For the first time in its history, the Soviet regime was facing a gen-
eration of critics who could no longer be dismissed as ‘remnants’ of the
old regime, since they were themselves the product of the Soviet system,
having grown up under socialism. Later, Andropov would pinpoint this
problem explicitly: as he put it, hitherto enemies had been vestiges of the
tsarist system; but now it fell upon chekists to deal

on the whole with people who have grown up in the conditions of

Soviet reality, but who .â•›.â•›. for one reason or another have embarked
upon an incorrect path. Consequently, we are talking about a differ-
ent task, a different approach, different methods of struggle.211

Under Khrushchev, the problem was not couched expressly in these terms,
but we can discern a growing preoccupation with the underlying problem.
Khrushchev’s demonstrative paternal concern for young people masked
a growing anxiety that the post-�war generation had been lost to the Soviet
project. This anxiety was expressed in the early 1960s in a series of out-
bursts by Khrushchev on the topic of the ‘generation gap’. During the
1920s, the Soviet leadership had capitalized on generational conflict,
explicitly encouraging adolescents to oppose their parents, for obvious
reasons.212 Such a strategy was no longer appropriate, and under Khrush-
chev, the task of ensuring the loyalty and obedience of young people
without resorting to terror, and of maintaining generational continuity,
became especially urgent – hence, presumably, Khrushchev’s extreme sen-
sitivity to any suggestion that there was such a thing as a generation gap in
the Soviet Union.213 His vehement denial of the existence of a Soviet gen-
eration gap was also a response to Western observers, who were showing a
keen interest in the literature and cinema being produced by the rising
generation in the Soviet Union, watching closely for signs of rebellion and
alienation.214
When it came to responding to the emergence of this new generation
of Soviet citizens, whose life experience was so radically different from that
of their parents, the regime resorted once again to the figure of Dzerzhin-
sky. Dzerzhinsky was held up as the ideal model to be emulated by Soviet
citizens, and by children and young people in particular. As Sinyavsky has
argued, Dzerzhinsky had special significance as a role model insofar as it
was considered sacrilegious for ordinary mortals to aspire to resemble
Lenin. It was perfectly acceptable, on the other hand, to enjoin regular
Soviet citizens to model their lives on that of Dzerzhinsky.215
Mayakovsky had famously enjoined young people to build their lives on
Dzerzhinsky’s example, and this poem now came to be quoted ubiqui-
tously in speeches and articles glorifying the Cheka.216 It was cited, for
example, in the 1958 ceremony unveiling the Dzerzhinsky statue at the
56╇╇ Soviet chekism
Lubianka, by a female school teacher, representing the Moscow intelli-
gentsia. She described Dzerzhinsky as a ‘bright model’ for all Soviet
people, and an ‘inspiring example’ for Soviet youth, and she pledged pub-
licly on behalf of Soviet teachers to vospityvat’ Soviet youth with the ‘high
moral-Â�political qualities’ that Dzerzhinsky possessed.217 Later, youth agit-
pokhody to sacred sites from Dzerzhinsky’s life were also organized.218
The new discourse of profilaktika was especially useful when it came to
coping with the problem of rebellious young people. This discourse made
it possible to depict such individuals as driven not by genuine political or
moral grievances, but by ‘political immaturity’,219 and/or because they had
been misled by foreign enemies.220 As one 1967 article in Komsomol’skaia
pravda put it, taking the ‘incorrect path’ could be a result either of ‘insuf-
ficient political maturity’ or ‘the influence of hostile propaganda’; and the
duty of the chekist was ‘to prevent crime, to caution the human being who
has embarked on an incorrect path, in a timely fashion’.221 The author
cites an example, of two young men who begin by simply listening to
Radio Liberty; but this proves to be a slippery slope, and they end by being
drawn into anti-�communist activities. The moral of the story is that young
people’s idealism can be exploited by foreign enemies; but that the KGB is
merciful in such cases, understanding in its wisdom that the young men
are misguided and misled – victims, rather than perpetrators.222 As Andro-
pov reportedly used to repeat, underlining the fundamental benevolence
of the KGB’s policy of profilaktika, ‘We .â•›.â•›. must not blame the opponent’s
victims, that’s not our method’.223 To cite another typical example: one
1967 Pogranichnik article noted that Soviet citizens ‘might, under particu-
lar circumstances, without wishing it themselves, swallow the bait of enemy
razvedchiks. And it is to prevent this from happening that prophylactic
work is conducted with them’.224
In other words, opposition was not a sign that the Soviet system had
serious internal problems that needed to be addressed; it was merely a
manifestation of youthful foolishness and/or a regrettable side-�effect of
the regime’s new openness to the outside world. Furthermore, this was a
manageable problem – the chekist, in his wisdom, guided by his calling to
help those that had strayed to return to the ‘correct path’,225 and assisted
by helpers from the narod, had the tools to nip the problem in the bud,
erasing it with surgical precision, and without resorting to terror. In other
words, the discourse of profilaktika could be usefully invoked in order to
explain away the existence of dissent – an imperative which was becoming
especially urgent during the Khrushchev era.

Conclusion: the paranoid underbelly of chekist propaganda

For all their talk of clear consciences, trust, and the harmonious connec-
tion with the narod, one has the sense, when reading the texts cited in this
chapter, that their authors were protesting too much. Throughout the
 Late Soviet chekism╇╇ 57
Khrushchev era and beyond, chekist propaganda continued to betray a
fundamental unease, one of the roots of which was the nagging fear that
while the narod might love them, the crafty and duplicitous intelligentsia
was laughing at them behind their backs. Chekists were warned explicitly
to watch out for this. At a countrywide gathering of KGB investigation staff
in June 1958, the acting head of the USSR KGB’s Investigations Directo-
rate related the case of an interrogation during which ‘the arrestee was
mocking the investigator, but the latter, obviously, did not notice this’.226
This extraordinary sensitivity arose partly out of an awareness of the
intelligentsia’s superior education. Chekists often feared that they were
being laughed at for their lack of culture. Dzerzhinsky himself appears to
have suffered from this complex: Radek recalled that Dzerzhinsky was
visibly wounded and ‘shrank’ after his fellow chekists dissolved into laugh-
ter upon his voicing his desire to head up the People’s Commissariat for
Enlightenment once the Civil War was over.227 As we have seen, chekists
might also be laughed at for their failure to pick up on disguised Aesopian
references to the repressive apparatus, especially in cinema, and they had
to be doubly vigilant in order to prevent this. This paranoia became
endemic in the post-�Stalin era, when greater artistic freedom offered new
scope for hidden or indirect criticism of the regime.
These fears, of course, were often all too well-�founded. This is beauti-
fully illustrated by a Soviet joke mocking the regime’s paranoia about cine-
matic allusions. The joke defined an ‘allusion’ as follows: ‘That’s when, for
example, you’re sitting in a cinema, watching some kind of travel film, you
see, let’s say, some Caucasian mountains, snow-Â�covered peaks, clouds, and
you think “But Brezhnev’s a bastard all the same”.’228 This joke dramatizes,
among other things, the inherent limitations of propaganda, and its ulti-
mate inability to intrude upon the individual’s inner world – a world which
would, moreover, remain forever opaque to others, no matter how power-
ful the secret police seeking to penetrate this world and render it
transparent.
The chekist might demand that writers, historians and film-�makers hold
up a mirror reflecting a pure and noble visage, but he could never be
absolutely certain that the flawless image reflected back at him did not
conceal a mocking grin. In the end, what most characterized the propa-
ganda produced by the Soviet security apparatus was the deep-�seated inse-
curity which it betrayed.
3 Screening the historical chekist

In the previous chapter we examined the changing discourse and new rhe-
torical devices employed to represent chekists in the Khrushchev era and
beyond. In the next two chapters I shift the focus to look at these proc-
esses from close-�up, via twin in-�depth case studies of the making of two
chekist films produced in the early 1960s, The Chekist (Sotrudnik ChK)
(1962–3) and A Shot in the Fog (1961–4). We will see how the imperative to
hold up a flattering mirror reflecting and projecting the new image of the
chekist was enforced by KGB consultants, and on occasion intuited, chal-
lenged or negotiated by the creative intelligentsia.
The chapters comprise close readings of the related archival docu-
ments from the Mosfil’m studios collection held in the Russian State Art
and Literature Archive (RGALI) in Moscow. These files contain an extra-
ordinary level of detail, which means that much of the usual guesswork
that goes into source interpretation is eliminated. For example, the files
contain successive drafts of the screenplays. This makes it possible to
compare the different versions with a view to tracking which aspects of
the screenplay were changed, how, when, and often why (when one
examines the drafts of the screenplay in conjunction with the minutes of
the editorial meetings held to debate the draft). The stenograms of these
editorial meetings supplement the actual drafts of the screenplays, often
telling us exactly who was pushing for which changes and on what
grounds. To a certain extent, these stenograms allow the researcher to be
a fly on the wall at the discussions as they took place at the time. They
offer highly specific information that is otherwise unavailable or undocu-
mented, about, for example, the taboos governing what could be said
publicly about chekists during this period. Finally, the files contain the
relevant correspondence with the KGB consultants assigned to oversee
the production of the films, as well as with the KGB leadership. All of this
makes it possible to reconstruct in considerable detail the process
whereby the revisionist impulses of the Thaw were gradually stifled and
muffled, ultimately giving way to the new euphemistic discourses outlined
in the previous chapter as the new party line on the Cheka was put into
operation.
 Screening the historical chekist╇╇ 59
These documents offer insights into how members of the Soviet cul-
tural establishment attempted to negotiate shifting and uncertain ideo-
logical ground, at a time when the old taboos and unwritten rules were, to
a large extent, in a state of flux. The discussions are frequently heated
(particularly where they relate to the NKVD’s role in the Great Terror),
and at times remarkably free and frank – though this tone shifts quite
abruptly in late 1962, along with the changing political and cultural
climate as the Thaw drew to an end.

The making of The Chekist

The subject of our first case study, The Chekist (dir. Boris Volchek;
Mosfil’m, 1963) is set during the Civil War, in Zarech’e, a small town in
Southern Russia. It recounts the moral journey of a youth, Aleksei Mikha-
lev, as he grows into a man and a chekist, along the way ‘liquidating’ a
White plot, under the guidance of an older, experienced chekist (called
variously Silin, Brokman and Berzin in different drafts of the screenplay).1
Aleksei, the hero, is contrasted to the character of Illarionov, a chekist
who is indiscriminate in his search for counter-�revolutionaries and willing
to use any means to achieve his end. As one contemporary reviewer put it,
the film’s drama was built on a basic conflict: between the different ways
in which two chekists, Mikhalev and Illarionov, understood ‘the specific
nature and methods of work in the ChK’.2
The film was originally intended as a groundbreaking work. Though an
historical piece dealing with the early Soviet period, it aspired to be a
showpiece of de-�Stalinization that would depict in dramatic form some of
the lessons learned after Khrushchev’s Secret Speech. The aim was quite
ambitious: to project Khrushchev’s moral condemnation of Stalin’s NKVD
back into the past, to seek out the origins of Stalin’s terror in the early
years of the Soviet Cheka. With the benefit of hindsight, and given the
trends to revive the official Dzerzhinsky cult which were already visible in
the early days of the film’s production, such an aim might be seen as not
only ambitious but audacious or foolishly naïve. At the time, the film’s
authors and production team do not seem to have realized how inherently
problematic such an approach was, so exhilarated were they by the idea of
making a brave new film, and by the sense of new possibilities which the
Thaw had opened up.
The project was close to the hearts of the authors and director. The
film’s director, Boris Volchek, had initiated the project himself, gathering
a team of authors to write the screenplay before obtaining an agreement
with Mosfil’m – a practice that was unusual at the time, and indicates a
high level of commitment to the project.3 The team’s enthusiasm (at least
initially) would appear to be linked precisely to the fact that the film
offered an opportunity to condemn the NKVD’s Great Terror and to offer
up a fresh and honest interpretation of how it had come about.
60╇╇ Soviet chekism
The project was also close to the heart of the security organs. When
Volchek tells his colleagues in December 1962 that ‘quite solid organiza-
tions’ had interests in the screenplay, it is clear from the context that he is
referring to the KGB.4 In addition, one of the co-�authors of the screen-
play, Aleksandr Lukin, was himself an ex-�chekist (who would later go on to
write other screenplays, articles and books on the chekist theme).5
This case study is based on a close reading of two main sets of archival doc-
uments: the stenograms of pre-�production discussions conducted by the
Artistic Council of Mosfil’m studio’s Artistic Production Team No. 4, in May,
July and December 1962; and the successive drafts of the screenplay upon
which these discussions were based, and which were amended on the basis of
these discussions.6 Judging from the archival register, I was the first researcher
ever to have requested these files. I examine these files in conjunction with
the final version of the film itself, as well as contemporary press reviews.
Two of the most interesting files in the collection (at least when read in
conjunction with one another) comprise two different versions of the ste-
nogram of a meeting held to discuss the literary screenplay, in May 1962.
One of these files contains the first, original draft of the stenogram, while
the second file comprises a subsequently revised version of the stenogram,
with amendments and excisions marked by hand on the text. It is likely
that the revised version was produced for publication in Mosfil’m’s weekly
newspaper, which was common practice at the studio in the 1960s.7 This
record-�keeping practice makes it possible to compare the two versions with
a view to identifying and tracing through the rewordings, insertions and
deletions, and thus to examine how the text – a verbatim transcript of a
relatively spontaneous discussion – was edited so as to bring it more closely
in line with Soviet official discourse.
Most of the changes that had been made to the text here were a matter
of fixing the odd, relatively rare and minor slip. But these slips are telling.
They make it possible for us to gain some insights into the meta-�text, in
addition to the text itself (even if the considerations prompting the exci-
sions must ultimately remain opaque to us, since by necessity the conclu-
sions we reach can only be speculative ones).
In some cases, text may have been earmarked for excision because it
was too flippant in tone, lacking in the requisite gravitas. For example, in
a discussion over whether or not to kill off the film’s heroine, one partici-
pant commented:

we are talking about work in the ChK, extraordinarily dangerous work,

for which people pay with their lives. But here it turns out that people
are working in the ChK, but basically they’re all alive [at the end of
the film].8

In the revised version of the stenogram, the first sentence was left intact,
while the second was cut, presumably because it did not reflect a
 Screening the historical chekist╇╇ 61
sufficiently serious attitude to the idea of sacrificial death in the name
of the revolution.
In other cases, the deletions seem intended to avoid offending particu-
lar individuals (especially high-�up individuals). Thus, for example, another
excision from these files involved a fairly lengthy passage in which one
speaker had discussed at a level of what was apparently considered to be
unseemly detail, a recent meeting and informal conversation with the First
Secretary of the Komsomol’s Central Committee. For example, the
speaker says ‘I had to use quite big efforts and to make use of [First Secret-
ary] Pavlov’s good attitude towards me in order to persuade him to view
the film, since he had other business’.9
Elsewhere in the files, ideological objections have been marked on the
drafts of the screenplays by hand. The first draft of the literary screenplay,
for example, contains a voice-�over towards the beginning of the film:
‘Thus on an April night of 1918 Aleksei left his native town. There was
neither a great hatred not a great love in his soul at the time. Only a blind
boyish faith in the revolution.’ Here someone has underlined ‘blind
boyish faith’ and written in the margin ‘Why blind?’.10 We shall examine
other such examples in more detail throughout the chapter.
In the most drastic of the amendments to the stenogram of the May
1962 meeting, an entire page had simply been torn out of the revised
version. The page in question was one that had caught my attention as I
read through the original draft of the stenogram. Specifically, the reflec-
tions expressed by one of the speakers, Vol’pin,11 had struck me as
located far beyond the bounds of ideological acceptability. Vol’pin had
posed the rhetorical question: ‘What were people saying about chekists at
the time? How did people in Zarech’e imagine chekists at the time?’ He
went on to say: ‘Chekists were considered trigger-Â�happy killers
[rasstrel’shchiki],12 rabid bandits. And here Dina meets with a real chekist,
[and] entices him, but what we should have shown is how she trembled.’13
It should come as no surprise that someone evidently decided it was best
simply to tear the relevant page out of the file – though the purpose of
this damage-�control measure would seem to have been defeated by the
fact that both versions were subsequently preserved in the archives, of
course.
But while asserting that chekists were feared by the population was
clearly beyond the pale, the edited stenograms do contain other state-
ments on the Cheka that would be almost as shocking if made during the
Brezhnev era, yet were evidently seen as acceptable in the early 1960s,
since they were left intact in the stenograms. Most striking, and perhaps
unexpected, are the attempts to draw a direct line of continuity between
‘bad’ elements in Dzerzhinsky’s original Cheka, and the type of chekist
who eventually rose to power in the NKVD and carried out the mass kill-
ings of 1937–8, a theme which comes through in debates over how to
handle the character of Illarionov, to which we shall now turn.
62╇╇ Soviet chekism
Failed portrait of a ‘bad’ chekist
At the May and July 1962 meetings of the Artistic Council, it was repeat-
edly made explicit that Illarionov was intended as a ‘proto-Â�image of that
band which existed later during the time of Yezhov and Beria’,14 as the
‘embryo of the future distortions’.15 At one point Polianovskii, one of the
screenplay’s authors, went so far as to assert that ‘He [Illarionov] has to be
condemned. Had we condemned him, everything would have been differ-
ent, 1937 would not have happened’.16
As far as time on screen is concerned, Illarionov is a relatively minor
character in the film. But the Artistic Council devoted more time to dis-
cussions of Illarionov than to any other single issue. The files contain
repeated references to the fact that Illarionov was the ‘most important’,
and simultaneously the ‘most complex’ character in the film.17 This is
because he represents the Great Terror – events which are not mentioned
explicitly in the film, but which provide the unspoken subtext to much of
the action, at least in the early drafts of the screenplay.
It is this baggage attached to Illarionov, and to the theme of the secret
police in general, that made him such a problematic character to create
and define. As the members of the Artistic Council were all too aware, the
topic of the Cheka was extremely loaded at the time. Members of the
Council referred on several occasions to the impossibility of making a film
about the Cheka ‘just like that’ in the current climate.18 In the discussions,
they often made mention of the ‘contemporary resonances’ of the film,
and the psychological impossibility of contemplating the Cheka without
drawing a connection to the Great Terror.19 They also asserted that ‘this is
a very responsible matter, to make a picture about the ChK now’.20
On occasion the authors explained the contradictions and problems
involved in Illarionov’s characterization by pleading that these historical
resonances had, for understandable reasons, momentarily clouded their
judgement. At the July 1962 meeting, for example, several speakers com-
plained that Illarionov’s characterization was two-Â�dimensional and primi-
tive. As one speaker put it:

He is a fop, he is a fool. All that ideology which you insert into him,
which could resonate in a serious way, because the phrase ‘when you
chop down a forest, chips fly’, or ‘history is not made in gloves’ were
spoken in 1937–40 by completely serious people, but [here the ideol-
ogy] has been put into the lips of a primitive person, a braggart and a
fop – this is not terrifying, but grotesque.21

The author Polianovskii responded to these objections as follows:

Why do you have such an impression? Because we were unable to

conceal our attitude towards Illarionov. And this, evidently, was
 Screening the historical chekist╇╇ 63
stronger than we were. .â•›.â•›. This is very complex. We see these people,
who lived 10 years ago, from the point of view of today.22

The authors hoped that the film’s allusions to the Great Terror and its
roots would make it a groundbreaking work. In July 1962 Polianovskii
explained that:

We considered that we were acting bravely, because there have been

no [characters like Illarionov] in cinematography to date, if one
doesn’t count the militiaman in the film ‘The Rumiantsev Case’.23 We
haven’t met with such an image in the organs of power. Therefore this
image [of Illarionov] is dear to us, there is a freshness about it.24

As the Council moved into deeper discussions of the characterization of

Illarionov, however, problems began to emerge. This became especially
marked during the July 1962 meeting, at which the playwright Mikhail
Shatrov (who went on to become one of the most famous playwrights of
the Gorbachev era) was present. Shatrov praised the authors for their
noble intention of ‘trying to raise a series of problems with contemporary
resonances’, which, he seemed to imply, involved at least in part the issue
of continuity between the Cheka and the NKVD.25 But Shatrov raised one
quite serious criticism of the way in which Illarionov had been handled:

I am categorically opposed to the fact that everything that diverges from

the party line in the image of the chekist Illarionov, all this comes from
idiotism and stupidity. One thinks constantly: perhaps all this was the
result of stupidity? Perhaps it was only fools who did this? After all, he’s
an obvious fool, a cretin .â•›.â•›. and I don’t like this. â•›.â•›.â•›. It would be much
more interesting if there was not a fool standing behind Illarionov, but
if his point of view was that .â•›.â•›. it’s better this way.26

Shatrov’s comments prompted a long and tortuous discussion which inevi-

tably led to the underlying question of the sources of the Great Terror.
The discussion was drawn out because the Council found it difficult to
agree upon how Illarionov should be drawn. Should his villainy be hinted
at subtly, or played up? Should he have any redeeming or sympathetic fea-
tures at all? Should he be given any convincing lines or arguments justify-
ing his position?
Shatrov seemed to call for a harsher indictment of Illarionov, hinting
delicately at the underlying thrust of the screenplay as he read it:

It is possible to prove that what Illarionov does in Zarech’e is a revolu-

tionary necessity. â•›.â•›.â•›. It is possible to prove that he’s correct. For me,
this is not enough. It seems to me that you here agree that he’s not
correct. That’s the impression I have.27
64╇╇ Soviet chekism
Timofeev, on the other hand, argued that some ‘human features’ had to
be found for Illarionov (presumably in order to render him more plausi-
ble and life-�like as a character).28
As a result of their inability to agree on what message Illarionov carried,
the Council also found it very difficult to cast an actor to play him. In May
1963 a meeting was held to discuss recent screen tests. While most charac-
ters had been cast by this point, the Council was unable to agree on an
actor to play Illarionov. The Council argued at great length over whether
Illarionov should look more like a worker, or an intellectual; a fanatic, or
a cynic; sincere or calculating?29 As one speaker commented, ‘The whole
trouble and differences of opinion flow from one thing, the fact that for
all of us, the director and the authors, it is not clear who Illarionov is.’30
Another agreed, commenting that:

Even the authors have different points of view on Illarionov. We need

to sort this out. The role of Illarionov takes on huge significance pre-
cisely in our days. Who is he, what did he do? Why did he appear? I
cannot put words in to the authors’ mouths, but we must express our
own credo, how we look on the Illarionov of those days from the posi-
tions of today.31

Ultimately these questions were left hanging in the air; we shall see below
how they were finally resolved, or rather dispensed with.
The Council’s discussion of Illarionov continuously skirted around the
heart of the matter: the nature of the underlying cause of the Great
Terror. Speakers could agree only that this was not simply a matter of the
stupidity of the NKVD’s officers. But the real source was evidently some-
thing that could not be named. The closest anyone came to the root of the
matter was to draw a distinction between ‘cruelty’ (which was admissible in
certain circumstances), and ‘something more’ (which was not).32
These discussions seem to indicate that people simply did not have a
vocabulary to describe or evaluate these events, at least not in a way that
would be acceptable in this kind of setting. Consider, for example, the fol-
lowing extract from the stenogram:

I absolutely agree that this needs to be traced through, so as to render

visible the terrible roots of what a section of these [officers] came to.
We need to show the horror of this, without hushing anything up. We
shouldn’t make allowances for stupidity, this is worse than stupidity.
We have to show this!33

Here the speaker (G. P. Khoreva) could do nothing but return repeatedly
to the demonstrative pronoun ‘this’, without once articulating or specify-
ing exactly what it referred to or what was actually being discussed. There
is something halting and painful about this inarticulateness.
 Screening the historical chekist╇╇ 65
This incoherence surely reflects the fact that the standard Soviet vocab-
ulary for describing terror and ‘repression’, with its elaborate system of
euphemisms, taboos and stock phrases, had been so destabilized by this
period. Now that people no longer had automatic recourse to the old con-
ventions, they were left tongue-�tied, incapacitated. On other occasions, as
we have seen, when the euphemisms were abandoned – that is, when
speakers made direct reference to chekist violence and the fear which it
inspired amongst ordinary people – the page was simply ripped out of the
file, and thus erased from the official historical record. Either way: ulti-
mately the members of the Artistic Council lacked a language to describe,
discuss, explain or make moral evaluations of chekist terror with any
degree of spontaneity, that is, without simply falling back mechanically on
the tired conventions of the Dzerzhinsky cult.
The faltering and fragmentary way in which these issues were discussed
can also be linked to a Pandora’s box which Khrushchev had opened with
his Secret Speech: it was impossible to genuinely condemn the NKVD of
the Great Terror without rendering Dzerzhinsky’s Cheka vulnerable to
precisely the same kind of criticism. This dilemma would surface again
under Gorbachev, with fatal consequences for the regime’s legitimacy. At
this stage, as we saw in the last chapter, the regime succeeded in managing
this problem, but at great expense. The methods adopted to keep Khrush-
chev’s de-Â�Stalinization deeply partial in nature, and to compartmentalize
Dzerzhinsky’s Cheka, bracketing off the Stalin era as an historical anomaly
bearing no relation to what came before or after, made it inevitable that
the language of de-�Stalinization would soon degenerate into cant. The
story of the making of The Chekist – of the difficulties with which the
makers of the film had to grapple, of the final product which resulted –
shows clearly the trajectory of this process of degeneration.
The difficulty experienced by the Council in finalizing its approach to
the Illarionov character can also be attributed to the fluidity of the ideo-
logical situation at the time, which meant that it was difficult to gain a firm
sense of the party line on this issue. There was clearly encouragement
from above to condemn Stalin’s cult of personality, the careerists who had
infiltrated the NKVD leadership, and so on. But when it came to making
more profound or complex analyses of how and why the Great Terror had
become possible – of where the Soviet project had ‘gone wrong’, effect-
ively – the ground became much less certain.
In fact, the only firm source of ideological guidance and authority cited
in the course of the discussions is the KGB itself. As we shall see, members
of the Council made reference to the KGB on several occasions in order
to defend the film from attack. The KGB’s authority was also the trump
card that Volchek played when the feasibility of the entire project came
under threat. Thus, in December 1962, when some members of the Artis-
tic Council suddenly called for drastic revisions of the screenplay, Volchek
responded with what looks something like a veiled threat:
66╇╇ Soviet chekism
I must inform you that this screenplay has been approved. I don’t
want to take advantage of this, so as to exert pressure on anyone’s
opinion and try to change it .â•›.â•›. [but] this screenplay has been
read€ in the organs of state security, they responded to it very
attentively.34

He followed this up immediately with the assurance that ‘this, of course,

does not rule out your criticism’35 – a comment that is ultimately, of
course, impossible to read without a sense of the tone in which it was pro-
nounced, or of the sort of person that Volchek was.
This was one of a number of cinema projects in which the KGB was
involved during this period. In some cases, the KGB reportedly commis-
sioned or at least initiated the production of films on related topics. In
early 1963, for example, the KGB set in motion preparations for a film
about honest chekists who had fallen victim to the Great Terror (its theme
symptomatic of the trends described here, as the KGB increasingly
regained control over its image).36
Official firsthand documentary evidence of the KGB’s interventions in
the making of The Chekist is rather thin (compared to the richer and more
detailed documents available for A Shot in the Fog, which we shall examine
in the next chapter). One of the few items of documentary evidence of the
KGB’s intervention in this particular project comprises a handwritten note
scrawled on the back of the title page of one of the files, headed ‘[Meas-
ures to be taken] In response to the KGB’s conclusion’. The note reads as
a catalogue of the clichés that had now become obligatory for any work
dealing with the Cheka: there should be more mention of ‘socialist legal-
ity’; of the Cheka’s ‘link with the narod’, especially with workers; of the
leading role played by the party in governing the Cheka’s activities; and so
on. In other words: the KGB consultants assigned to The Chekist appear to
have been playing things by the book, merely reciting the canonical ele-
ments of the new reconstituted cult of the Cheka as outlined in the previ-
ous chapter.37

Screening Dzerzhinsky’s ‘moral idea’

The thematic counterpoint to the film’s implied indictment of the Great
Terror is a celebration of the ‘glorious traditions’ and ‘moral idea’ of the
Cheka of Lenin and Dzerzhinsky, as embodied in the character of Aleksei,
who functioned as a ‘collective [sobiratel’nyi] image of a young dzerzhinets-Â�
chekist’.38 As one speaker put it:

The criterion – the moral idea, which is expressed in one historical

image: Felix Dzerzhinsky. â•›.â•›.â•›. After all, this is his young guard, and the
whole sum of the entrusted missions, standing before the punishing
sword of the revolution, is expressed here in this boy.39
 Screening the historical chekist╇╇ 67
Various members of the Council expressed the opinion that this moral
dimension of the film was the real key to the film, more important than its
‘adventure’ elements. What, then, did this ‘moral idea’ consist of? In this
section, I attempt to decipher and unpick the moral messages which the
authors sought to convey through their depictions of a young chekist from
the Dzerzhinsky era.
The authors’ concept or vision was further elaborated by Lukin:

When we began the screenplay, we thought that the main idea was the
formation of a young chekist-�dzerzhinets. And, in the second place, we
want to show the sources of two principles: Dzerzhinsky’s principle,
and the principle which could be glimpsed and [then] took hold and
in 1936–37 showed itself very badly. We know that Dzerzhinsky strug-
gled with a whole range of such manifestations, when there was a
whole range of sanctions for rudeness in prisons etc. Therefore we
had the idea of showing not just the formation of a chekist, but the
formation of a struggle between two principles.40

This was also a ‘rite of passage’ film, intent on ‘showing the formation of
chekists, showing .â•›.â•›. how a boy is transformed into a human being,
capable of heroism’.41 As originally conceived, Aleksei’s coming of age was
to be brought about by two events: two executions of enemies conducted
by the Cheka, defined by Polianovskii as ‘two landmarks in the formation
of a chekist’42 – landmarks in Aleksei’s journey as he grew into a chekist,
following the difficult but noble path laid down by Dzerzhinsky. This was
first and foremost a moral journey. It was a journey that involved overcom-
ing conventional bourgeois moral qualms in order to attain a higher state
of consciousness and true responsibility with regard to other human
beings. Like Dzerzhinsky, Aleksei too was forced to struggle against his
essentially gentle nature in order to carry out the task assigned to him by
the Revolution.
In the cases of both executions, the victims were women. The first was a
German teacher, Grevenets, who was caught spying for the Whites early
on in the film, shortly after Aleksei joined the ChK. The second case was
less straightforward. Here, the victim was Dina, a young girl who had a
good heart, but had been seduced and misled by the superficial romance
of the White movement.
The scene in which Aleksei witnesses Grevenets being dragged off to be
executed by chekists comprises a pivotal moral moment in the first draft
of the screenplay. The screenplay notes advised that witnessing this scene
was the ‘most painful thing that Lyoshka had had cause to experience in
recent times’.43 He was ‘deafened by the beating of his own heart, with a
presentiment of something terrible which is about to happen, he has
squeezed the butt of his rifle with such force that his knuckles have
gone€white’.44 Even though he is aware that she has betrayed many Soviet
68╇╇ Soviet chekism
intelligence officers to the Germans, sending them to their deaths,45 he
spontaneously responds with horror to the sight of physical force being
used against a woman. The voice-Â�over records: ‘In these moments Lyoshka
completely forgot that this woman was an enemy .â•›.â•›. now he saw only a
weak woman, insane from fear, struggling in the arms of a hefty soldier.’46
Aleksei rushes to the woman’s defence, attempting to beat the chekists
away from her. He is eventually restrained, and later receives kindly but
firm guidance from an older chekist, Silin, who explains, in a crucial mon-
ologue which ‘decides Aleksei’s fate’,47 why such executions are
necessary.48
In the first version of this scene, Aleksei asks to be released from the
Cheka, saying ‘I can’t do things like this!’. Silin, suddenly gloomy, asks
‘What do you mean “like this”?’

Aleksei:╇ ‘Well, like this, like

today!â•›.â•›.â•›. This is not for me! I can’t!â•›.â•›.â•›.’
Silin:╇ ‘So that’s how it is!â•›.â•›.â•›.
You can’t .â•›.â•›. And you think I can? And Com-
mandant Vashchenko can? And what about the others? You think they
all enjoy this? No-Â�o, brother, there’s not much to enjoy here, and
don’t you expect it! What – today! That was nothing! The bourgeoisie
won’t hand Russia over to us just like that. Every bourgeois looks
daggers at us, tries to stab us in the back, you could see for yourself. In
Petrograd an Extraordinary Commission for the Struggle with
Counter-�Revolution [i.e. the Cheka] has been organized, you under-
stand: an Extraordinary Commission! The struggle is going to the
death, to the end, and there’s no place for dumping this [respons-
ibility] onto others. Take out everything you have and put it down!’49

At first, the Council members do not seem to have seen anything incon-
gruous in the fact that the key scene in a (children’s!) film condemning
chekist terror should show how a young man becomes desensitized to exe-
cutions (and show it approvingly, at that). On the contrary, initial
responses to the scene praised it precisely on moral grounds. Consider for
example the comments of Sergei Yermolinskii50 in May 1962:

I must say that when I read that place in the screenplay where they led
this same baroness to execution and when your hero Aleksei is horri-
fied, I suddenly saw a very necessary theme of this piece. .â•›.â•›. This, of
course, was extraordinarily attractive, i.e. the moral theme of the piece
lies precisely here. â•›.â•›.â•›. It seems to me that this is the most interesting
and burning [theme] of the piece.51

Yermolinskii complained only that ‘this wonderfully presented theme’ had

not been exploited fully in the screenplay.52
Another member of the Council, Timofeev, described this as a ‘very
brave scene’, but precisely what made the scene brave for him is something
 Screening the historical chekist╇╇ 69
of a puzzle. His comments highlight the difficulties involved in analysing
Soviet texts about revolutionary violence. Timofeev summarized the scene
as follows:

Lyoshka is in horror that [they are] arresting and will execute Zhenia,
he throws himself [at her attackers] and manifests here all his spine-
lessness. This scene is very convincing in terms of humanity. This is
very important for the character of the screenplay. If it is removed
then the screenplay takes on the character of an ordinary detective
movie.53

At first glance, the reader might assume that Timofeev saw the scene as
brave because it showed a young man standing up against the state in
order to protect a fellow human being. Such an interpretation might be
possible had Timofeev spoken simply of Aleksei’s ‘weakness’, for example;
but instead, he used the term miagkotelost’, which I have translated here as
‘spinelessness’, but might equally have rendered as flabbiness, or feeble-
ness. This term, with its strongly implied contempt for Aleksei’s action,
alerts us to the fact that the concept of ‘humanity’ which Timofeev was
invoking here is the Soviet version, linked to the ‘active humanism’ which
we examined in Chapter 1, of which the chekist was the most radical and
perfect embodiment. On this account, it was the unflinching dispenser of
violence who had attained the highest state of humanity and who could lay
claim to the moral high ground, to moral ‘purity’. Aleksei, on the other
hand, is impure in his squeamishness, and only eventually purified by
overcoming it, and thereby attaining a state of more complete humanity.
As Heller has pointed out, this new Soviet code of morality represented a
radical departure from the pre-�revolutionary traditions of Russian literat-
ure whereby defence of the humiliated and the wretched was valued above
all. For the first time in the history of Russian culture, it was the prison-
guard, not the prisoner, who had become the hero.54
The Council’s discussion of this and other scenes reflects the power of
the myth of the 1920s as a period of romance and innocence. This period
is one of the most heavily mythologized in Soviet history.55 This myth has
particular relevance for perceptions of Dzerzhinsky, since he is one of the
most iconic figures associated with the early revolutionary period, espe-
cially since many of his contemporaries, such as Yagoda, were subsequently
written out of the narrative.56 Writers such as Nadezhda Mandelstam and
Dmitrii Likhachev, who lived through this period, have commented on the
power of the myth of the 1920s and attempted to debunk it in their
memoirs;57 but it remains the primary template for views on this era. To
this day, the mythologized narrative of the 1920s exerts a powerful hold
on the popular imagination and historical consciousness, as reflected in
Russian public opinion polls measuring perceptions of Dzerzhinsky.58 The
continued reverence for Dzerzhinsky has been enabled at least in part by
70╇╇ Soviet chekism
the idealized images of Dzerzhinsky produced during the Soviet era, rein-
forcing the mythologized narrative of the chekist golden age, especially
the cinematic images, which seem to have left the deepest traces, such
that, as historian Kirill Kobrin commented in 2002, ‘for the majority of
former Soviet citizens, Dzerzhinsky is a person from the movies, from
Soviet movies’.59
Later, various members of the Council became uneasy about the execu-
tion scene, and as we shall see, the scene would be edited beyond recogni-
tion by the time the final version of the screenplay was in place.
This theme is continued via the Dina subplot: the second landmark in
Aleksei’s moral journey, when he is required to take the hard decision to
send a young girl, who happens also to be an enemy of the people, to
certain death. Polianovskii described the point of the Dina plot-�line as
follows:

We have two landmarks in the formation of a chekist: the first land-

mark – the woman who is murdered in front of his eyes. The second
landmark – a girl, unbalanced, perhaps, rapturous, perhaps pure from
some point of view, there’s something about her that he likes in a
human sense, but he’s already an adult with a formed sense of duty,
with responsibility before the country, before the party, before the
narod, and he, clenching his heart, pitying her, brings her in to the
ChK.60

Aleksei’s moral dilemma here was an issue which prompted a certain

amount of debate, with the director suggesting that the outcome be sof-
tened, such that Aleksei successfully pleaded Dina’s case with Brokman.
Polianovskii’s comment on the question of whether or not Dina should
be executed was to point out that ‘Lenin understood the need for sever-
ity, and not only severity, but cruelty at certain moments. This was dic-
tated by the revolutionary situation and there was nothing bad in this’.61
Polianovskii mentioned on a separate occasion that he had received a
letter about this scene from an ‘old chekist’, who commented: ‘How
understandable Aleksei is, when he brings her in and puts her before the
tribunal.’62
The screenplay was nevertheless revised accordingly, after the May 1962
discussions. The second draft had Aleksei making an appeal to Brokman
on Dina’s behalf, and appeared to leave open the question of her ultimate
fate. At the July meeting, the Council applauded the way in which the
authors had resolved this problem, thereby bringing about a very timely
shift in the general tone of the piece from ‘cruelty’ to ‘humaneness’
(gumannost’). One speaker welcomed the fact that Aleksei was now acting
out of a ‘highly conscious kindness’, rather than the ‘physiological fear of
pain and death’ that had characterized his response to Grevenets’
execution.63
 Screening the historical chekist╇╇ 71
It was not only the fact that Dina was executed that was a source of
unease here; several members of the Council were also disturbed by Alek-
sei’s duplicity in his dealings with Dina. He does not tell her that he is a
chekist, and in fact gains her trust under false pretences, allowing her to
believe that he sympathizes with the Whites. Several members of the
Council criticized this aspect of the screenplay.
The criticism reflected the received stereotype of the chekist as noble
and chivalrous. Would a true chekist betray a young girl, even if she was an
enemy of the people, asked one speaker? Ryss argued that this element of
the plot might ‘compromise the film’;64 and that it was unethical to depict
such betrayal in a film for children.65
Zhuravlev protested that ‘the chekists of those years, these were people
who would not have embarked on a provocation’.66 The sharp response to
the idea of Aleksei acting as a provocateur may have been connected with
the official party line which maintained that the Cheka had not made use
of agents provocateurs, since Dzerzhinsky famously disapproved of the
practice. In March 1918 the VChK had officially banned the use of provo-
cateurs in its work,67 but this ban appears to have been largely declarative
in nature. In reality, agents provocateurs were central to several of the
Cheka’s most celebrated operations, though this element of the opera-
tions was handled very carefully in the related propaganda.68
There had always been a basic tension between the ideal chekist who,
like the ideal worker, was characterized by complete integrity, honesty and
transparency; and the real chekist, whose work often depended precisely
on subterfuge, deception and theatricality. In this connection, it is surely
significant that the character of Illarionov was originally conceived as an
ex-�actor-turned-�chekist (a type which was apparently quite common in the
real world; acting skills were valued by the security organs and ex-�actors
were often recruited).69 In the first draft of the screenplay, he was
described as follows:

Illarionov is a former actor. This is a handsome man with a nervous

energetic face and a dashing shock of wavy yellowish hair brushed off
his face. In his looks and in his manner of holding himself there is a
certain theatricality.70

As Polianovskii put it, ‘Illarionov was an actor in the past, a poser, a

person who knows how to talk beautifully, who knows how to make beau-
tiful gestures’.71 Or as Khmelik elaborated, ‘Obviously, this is not a
former actor, but an actor in life. He likes taking on a pose.’72 This is a
distinction which is critical to differentiating between the good chekist
of the Dzerzhinsky era and the post-�Stalin era, and the evil impostor-�
chekist of the Stalin era: Dzerzhinsky never ‘acts’, whereas Yezhov and
Beria, like enemies of the state more generally, with their masks and
�posturing, do nothing but.
72╇╇ Soviet chekism
Diplomatic issues
There were other elements of the screenplay that presented problems. In
one of the opening scenes of an early draft of the screenplay, the Cheka
raids a foreign consulate suspected of harbouring spies. As written in the
original screenplay, this is a Soviet setpiece, complete with a physically
unprepossessing Western bourgeois villain, the foreign vice-�consul,
described as ‘a tall, skinny person in a quilted robe. He has a thin arrogant
face, slicked back hair, a thin-Â�lipped mouth’.73 These familiar conventions,
however, appear to have no longer been automatic, for several members
of the Artistic Council expressed misgivings about this scene. It is possible
that issues related to the territorial integrity of Western embassies were
especially touchy at the time, in the wake of the 1960 scandal surrounding
the Soviet bugging of the US Embassy.74
In the ensuing discussion related to this scene, the members of the
Artistic Council appear to have been trying to grope their way towards a
sense of the current party line on depicting relations with Western diplo-
matic missions. Were Western diplomats operating on Soviet territory ‘fair
game’ at this particular historical conjuncture? Or did the changing style
of Soviet diplomacy call for a different tone to be adopted?
Some members of the Council were in favour of replacing this scene
with a ‘softer’ version. Liudmila Golubkina,75 for example, suggested that
all references to the foreign consulate be removed altogether, and that the
scene be set instead in an ordinary courtyard. In her criticism of the scene,
she argued that the episode was too similar to a scene from a previous
film, The Unforgettable Year of 1919 (1952, dir. Mikhail Chiaureli).76 Now,
Golubkina and her colleagues would undoubtedly have been aware that
The Unforgettable Year had been singled out by Khrushchev for criticism in
his Secret Speech as an example of Soviet cinema ‘lacquering reality’, and
it thus seems likely that this was part of the subtext to her comment.77 In
other words, she may have been hinting that the scene was too ‘Stalinist’
(as we shall see below, she also made a further comment to this effect,
which was excised from the amended version of the stenogram).
Kirill Zamoshkin78 supported Golubkina, expressing his agreement that
the consulate scene was ‘highly discomfiting’ (itself an interesting choice
of words).79 But he placed a slightly different emphasis: on the Soviet
state’s wisdom and tactfulness in matters of international relations. He
went on to point out that a consulate represented the territory of a foreign
state, and to argue that even though this was an historical film dealing
with the early Soviet period, nevertheless ‘this is quite a dangerous thing,
all the more so since an analogy may be drawn here with the contempor-
ary period. Meanwhile, we know the policy of our state, which takes a deli-
cate and cautious attitude to such matters’.80 This last was perhaps a
reference to Khrushchev’s peaceful coexistence policy, which had been
announced in 1961.
 Screening the historical chekist╇╇ 73
Golubkina and Zamoshkin were opposed by other members of the
Council, including the film’s editor Tsitsina and director Volchek, both of
whom defended the scene. They did so, first, by invoking the KGB’s
authority. Tsitsina pointed out in response to Golubkina and Zamoshkin
that the screenplay had been approved by the KGB, and that no criticism
or comments had been made by the KGB on this particular scene.81 Later
in the same meeting, Volchek brought up the KGB again, this time point-
ing out that far from disapproving the consulate scene, the KGB had
instructed him that the scene should in fact be rendered more sharply and
on a grander scale.82
In his defence of the scene, Volchek also drew the Council’s attention
to a recently published book, Vladislav Minaev’s Tainoe, kotoroe stanovitsia
yavnym (1962), detailing subversive activities conducted in foreign embas-
sies in the early Soviet period. Volchek also reminded the Council of the
Lockhart Plot in particular (also sometimes known as ‘The Ambassadors’
Plot’, or ‘The Case of the Three Ambassadors’, uncovered by chekist pro-
vocateurs in the summer of 1918).83 We might (together with Volchek)
think of the changing prominence of the Lockhart Plot as serving as a
kind of barometer indicating the current levels of antagonism and assert-
iveness in Soviet foreign policy. At certain historical moments, the VChK’s
clash with foreign diplomats in the course of the Lockhart Plot was pressed
into service as a useful parable of Western bourgeois treachery and the
contempt shown by the West for Russian sovereignty. The recent publica-
tion of Minaev’s book on the subject had apparently indicated to Volchek
that the barometer needle was quivering again.
These files thus open a window onto the ways in which ideological issues
were resolved and ideological points scored during this period. The different
speakers were aiming to identify the current contours and limits of what was
permissible. The files give us insights into, for example, where they took their
cues from in doing so. The speakers defended their positions canonically, by
citing precedents and higher authorities, or by referring more obliquely to
indications of the party line given in the form of cues contained in high-�level
speeches. In almost all cases, the underlying drive was fundamentally self-�
protective. The Council was aiming to cover itself by ensuring that each ideo-
logical decision had been grounded in precedent in some form.
To turn to the ‘meta-Â�textual’ dimension of these files: all of the above
dialogue was apparently considered ideologically sound, since it was left
intact in the amended version of the stenogram. There was one line,
however, that was excised: a comment made by Golubkina that ‘There is
something familiar in the theme of our clash with foreign powers, it does
not adorn this piece’.84 Why, then, was this line singled out for excision? It is
impossible to answer this question with certainty, but we can offer some pos-
sible tentative interpretations of this excision. When Golubkina uses the
phrase ‘something familiar’, she is using a euphemism, and the ‘something’
to which she is referring has to do with Stalinism. Perhaps these words were
74╇╇ Soviet chekism
cut because she was going too far, or was too hasty in writing off this theme
of the Soviet clash with foreign powers as a Stalinist anachronism; perhaps it
was too early to condemn this theme out of hand. In any event, it seems
clear from the discussion and its subsequent editing that there was some
uncertainty about what was the right stance to be adopted with regard to
foreign diplomats. Ultimately, it would seem that Volchek’s political instincts
were truer than Golubkina’s here: the wind was just about to change in
favour of a more aggressive line on foreign diplomats, and as we saw in the
previous chapter, the lifting of taboos previously governing the story of the
Cheka’s uncovering of the Lockhart Plot, as well as other intelligence opera-
tions, was in the offing.

The Council’s moral journey

There is one file which indicates that the Artistic Council underwent
something of a crisis: the stenogram of a meeting held on 18 December
1962 to discuss the director’s version of the screenplay. This file is espe-
cially rich and warrants discussion in greater detail.
The atmosphere of this meeting, as far as can be gauged from the tran-
script, was strikingly different from that of the previous meeting in July. At
the July meeting, the general consensus was that the most important ideo-
logical problems had been ironed out, and that the screenplay was well on
the way to being completed. Apart from the debates over Illarionov, the
tone was one of mutual back-�slapping and general satisfaction.
All this changed, however, in December, when a number of members
of the Council raised objections to the screenplay, and battle-�lines were
suddenly drawn. Several individuals registered strong reservations about
the film, and even seemed bent on dissociating themselves from the
project to some degree. Vol’pin asserted that:

[A]s early as [at the stage of] the first draft [of the screenplay] I sug-
gested to the authors that they clarify what they were planning to
write, an .â•›.â•›. adventure film, not touching deeply on the problems
which, perhaps, are not even appropriate for the child viewer, because
everything that you are saying now about the ChK, about the mistakes
of 1937, right up to 1956 – this is hardly a theme which we should put
before the judgement of children at full strength.
.â•›.â•›.â•›It seems to me .â•›.â•›. that the current situation with the screenplay is
unfortunate. I cannot take the responsibility upon myself. I only had the
first draft .â•›.â•›. and .â•›.â•›. I feel pure, I foresaw this .â•›.â•›. I completely supported
[the idea of] postponing launching the screenplay into production and
[of] carrying out additional comprehensive work on this screenplay.85

As the authors and director justly pointed out, this quite dramatic change
of heart on the part of several Council members was curious, given that,
 Screening the historical chekist╇╇ 75
on the one hand, the authors had already incorporated all the corrections
proposed by the Artistic Council at previous meetings;86 and on the other,
no ideological concerns had been raised with regard to the original story
on which the screenplay was based, and which had been published in the
USSR and translated into several foreign languages.87
In general, the transcript of the December 1962 meeting leaves one
with the distinct impression that certain members of the Council had been
rattled. In order to understand why, we must turn now to a series of events
that had taken place in the Soviet cultural and political world outside, in
the intervening period between the July and December meetings.
First, on 28 July 1962, Pravda had run a leading editorial criticizing the
state of Soviet cinema. This was expanded upon by a Central Committee
resolution in August 1962, which also noted various shortcomings of the
Soviet film industry.88 The resolution ‘armed cinema workers with a con-
crete programme of struggle for identifying serious flaws in cinematic art,
for raising the ideological-Â�artistic level of films’, a development described
in Sovetskii ekran as ‘new wonderful testimony to the party’s paternal care
for the development of art’.89
The first half of December 1962 had also been a turbulent time in
terms of Khrushchev’s relations with the Soviet cultural establishment,
beginning with the notorious incident at the Manege art exhibition on 1
December, and continuing with Khrushchev’s launching of a ‘crackdown’
on art and literature on 7 December.90 Finally, the day before the Mosfil’m
meeting, on 17 December, a high-�level conference between representa-
tives of the party, the government and the creative intelligentsia had been
held in the Kremlin. The conference was a turning point in relations
between the party leadership and the cinema industry.91 This was the first
of a series of such conferences, the second of which, in March 1963, at
which Tarkovsky and others were publicly hounded, and Khrushchev
made his famous call for all foreign spies to leave the hall, is often
described as marking the end of the Thaw.92
The conference on 17 December included a ten-�hour speech by Leonid
Il’ichev, chair of the Central Committee’s newly created Ideological Com-
mission.93 Il’ichev said that where ideology was concerned there could be no
question of peaceful coexistence.94 He criticized in particular recent signs of
‘reconciliation with bourgeois ideology’ in Soviet art, specifying that

This finds expression, in particular, in a false interpretation of “human

nature”, in the propaganda of abstract humanism, a kind of evangel-
ical all-�forgiveness, as though there were no hostile classes, no capital-
ism in the world, and no struggle for communism!95

Perhaps most significantly for our purposes, Il’ichev also noted specifically
that several ideologically flawed films had been erroneously let through
because of irresponsible and overly liberal appraisals of films.96
76╇╇ Soviet chekism
The cinema industry, and the Mosfil’m studios specifically, appear to
have been particular targets of Khrushchev’s crackdown. The cinema
dramatist A. Lavrov who was involved in the subsequent Central Commit-
tee Ideological Commission hearings held to investigate measures taken
by Mosfil’m to improve its performance in the wake of the party-Â�
intelligentsia meetings, has recalled that ‘After N. S. Khrushchev’s visit to
the artists’ exhibition which enraged him [on 1 December 1962], it was
the cinematographers’ turn’, and the Ideological Commission was threat-
ening high-Â�level sackings at Mosfil’m.97 This is another development which
surely helps to explain the atmosphere at the December 1962 meeting of
the Artistic Council. These were the events that would shape the context
and atmosphere in which the subsequent reworking of the screenplay
would be conducted throughout early 1963.98
It was at this point that some members of the Council made various
proposals apparently aimed at neutralizing those aspects of the screenplay
deemed to be ideologically sensitive or questionable. Vol’pin raised the
possibility of relocating the film’s setting onto foreign soil, presumably on
the grounds that the struggle against foreign enemies was relatively
uncontroversial and easy to legitimize, but this was rejected out of hand by
Polianovskii and Volchek. Polianovskii pointed out that there were plenty
of films dealing with the militia, which also operated domestically and
fought against enemies at home,99 while Volchek again made reference to
the KGB, asserting that had the film been set on enemy territory, it would
never have been passed by the KGB.100
Another set of concerns raised at the December meeting related to
the film’s title. Some speakers suggested dropping all mention of the
Cheka from the title, and renaming the film, for example, ‘Aleksei
Mikhalev’.101 In putting her case for a change of title, Paramonova rea-
soned that this would have two (interrelated) advantages. In the first
place, it would send a signal to the audience that they should expect ‘an
adventure piece, not a sharp piece requiring de-Â�coding’.102 Second, drop-
ping ‘ChK’ from the title would help to minimize unwelcome foreign
attention and scrutiny. Otherwise, she argued, ‘Just as soon as the
announcement “The Chekist” appears, all the embassies will come
running to see what we understand by this’.103 This comment constitutes
a tacit admission of precisely how nebulous this category was, its defini-
tion practically a matter of state secrecy! Clearly, there was still a linger-
ing hesitancy and confusion with regard to the question of whether and/
or how to use the term ‘chekist’.
Volchek retorted that this was a straightforward matter, and that in the
KGB he had been told that it was clear that when people said ‘chekist’,
they had in mind Feliks Dzerzhinsky, and he noted again that they were
after all showing Dzerzhinsky’s features through the character of Aleksei.104
In other words, Paramonova was wrong (or behind the times) to suggest
that the category of ‘chekist’ was in any way unstable or ambiguous. The
 Screening the historical chekist╇╇ 77
elementary formula whereby ‘chekist’ was shorthand for and equated with
‘Dzerzhinsky’ was still firmly in place.
Not all of the members of the Artistic Council were panicking. Several
individuals came out strongly in support of the film, and some even called
for a harder line to be taken with regard to Illarionov. Ryss, for example,
complained that the attitude taken towards Illarionov in the screenplay
resembled the attitude which one might take towards a lazy janitor who
had failed to fix a leaky roof:

This is not good and sometimes this reaches the point of absolute
absurdity, when there is talk about the fact that he had imprisoned
lots of people for no reason. As though he had just hurt people’s feel-
ings, nothing more.
What on earth is this about? What, in 1937, too, was this simply a
matter of people’s feelings being hurt? We’re prepared to do this
from the point of view of our time, that means we must deal with Illar-
ionov in a literary way, we must say that this is a bandit, a scoundrel,
and we consider that he is working incorrectly and that he needs to be
corrected. This also relates to the ethical side of the film and seems to
me extraordinarily serious.
This is my main objection and I am perfectly convinced of it.105

Others took a slightly different line, arguing, for example, that as it stood
the screenplay was confused, and that a firm choice needed to be made
between two options: making a standard film praising the Cheka, or
making a braver film that pushed the parallel with 1937 much further:

[E]ither get rid of Illarionov and make only a romantic film about the
ChK of the Dzerzhinsky period, when the ChK was carrying the every-
day, moral burden. In this case one would need to make it a bit differ-
ent, with the ChK evacuating children somewhere, organizing a
zhenotdel [women’s department of the party] .â•›.â•›. Or otherwise there
should be a tendency which, as a result of the fact that Illarionov
remained alive and well, developed [into 1937].106

Often the criticism of the screenplay took unexpected directions. Con-

sider, for example, the lengthy speech made by Paramonova outlining her
objections to the film. In a statement that chimed with the new line on pro-
filaktika, she argued that the Cheka’s mission was not just about punishing
people, but also about fighting for human beings:

If we don’t take this line, then there is no point making a picture now
about the ChK. This is my civic feeling. If we say once again that the
ChK’s purpose is the capacity to recognize the enemy, this would be
incorrect.
78╇╇ Soviet chekism
.â•›.â•›.â•›We haven’t gone any further than [the film] ‘Dzerzhinsky’ [dir.
Kalatozov; Mosfil’m, 1953]. Because Dzerzhinsky helped the narod, a
theme which sounds very common now, but this is a fact.
Whereas here is a punitive organ, concentrating within itself dry,
rationalistic people, capable of acting in accordance with a principle
which is alien to us, that all means are good for the end. This aspect
disturbs me a great deal.
[As a viewer], I should be not so much coming to love, but coming
to understand the fact that tragic things happened in [the civil war]
years, but this organ was born not only as a punitive organ, and I
should understand from the whole of this screenplay that at the begin-
ning the Cheka was joined by the most bright, the most noble people,
who did cruel things. And an Illarionov could also come into being
there, for he did more [than this]. But you are making a piece about
the ChK and you are showing things which cannot instil any hope.
This aspect frightens me most of all.107

This speech was applauded by Zhuravlev, who agreed that: ‘the situation is
very serious, and I support the [film’s] critics. I was amazed by Kira Kon-
stantinova’s speech. She captured this epoch so correctly and profoundly
that this moved me.’108
Paramonova seems to have viewed it as her civic duty to produce a
positive film showing the possibilities for a future in which the secret
police would be a humane organization operating within the confines of
the law. In a sense, then, she might be said to have been attempting to
reform the system from within by setting a positive example through film.
This passage is instructive as an example of the perhaps unexpected, but
evidently quite commonly held late Soviet belief that the beneficial results
of producing an idealized narrative of the history of the Cheka out-
weighed any duty to historical truth, to expose the Cheka’s abuses, and so
on. This was the rationale followed by writers such as Yulian Semenov,
who lent their services to the security apparatus during the Brezhnev
period and beyond. The case of Semenov, incidentally, also illustrates the
extent to which the mythology created around the Cheka had come to
stand for historical truth. According to his friend Arkadii Vaksberg,
Semenov:

became the Lubianka’s nightingale, sincerely believing that he was

furthering a useful cause. He counted himself part of [the Lubianka’s]
‘liberal’ wing, [and] believed that by praising the glorious chekist past
he would return our special services to the untainted roots of iron
Feliks .â•›.â•›. where clean hands, a warm heart and a cool head are
required.109
 Screening the historical chekist╇╇ 79
The final product
In earlier versions of the screenplay, the question of Illarionov’s ultimate
fate was left open. Illarionov was reprimanded by the local Cheka’s chair,
Brokman, but the scene ended somewhat weakly and inconclusively, with
Brokman telling Illarionov ‘This isn’t the last you’ll hear from me about
this!’.110
Substantial changes have been made in a later version of the screen-
play. First, Illarionov gives a long speech outlining his position:

‘Yes, I consider that in certain circumstances mass arrests are essen-

tial!â•›.â•›.â•›. I consider that it’s better to grab a few extra [prisoners] than
to let a single enemy slip by!â•›.â•›.â•›. And how could it be otherwise, com-
rades? Are we to stand on ceremony with narrow-�minded people? I
don’t intend to trust anybody! I’m under no obligation to do so! We
have other organs for this! My business is to expose [enemies]! You
know the saying – when you chop down a forest, chips flyâ•›.â•›.â•›.’
He pauses to catch his breath.
Silence. Nobody looks at Illarionov.
‘Is that all you have to say?’, asks Brokman.
‘That’s allâ•›.â•›.â•›.’, says Illarionov.
‘I think, comrades, that with Illarionov everything’s clear,’ says
Brokman. ‘He cannot work in the ChK.’
‘It’s clear’, says Burkashin [another chekist]. ‘It’s clearer than clear.’
‘Axes, comrade Illarionov, make chips fly .â•›.â•›. A chekist is not an ax,
a chekist is a human being .â•›.â•›. But you’ve probably forgotten about this
.â•›.â•›. or perhaps you didn’t know .â•›.â•›. Sit down, comrade Illarionov. This
is the last operational meeting you will attend.’111

In the final version as it appears in the film, Brokman’s final monologue

has been put into the mouths of the whole collective instead. They all
respond spontaneously with outrage to Illarionov’s defence of indiscrimi-
nate arrests. Each chekist essentially takes a line from Brokman’s
monologue:

‘An ax makes chip fly! But a chekist is first and foremost a human
being! You’ve forgotten about this!’
‘He never thought about this!’
‘The people avoid you on the streets!’
‘He’s shaming us!’
‘You should be driven out of the ChK!’

Illarionov:╇
‘Driven out? Who should be driven out, Illarionovâ•›.â•›.â•›.?!’
Chekists:╇
‘The people didn’t give us extraordinary rights for chekists
to become gendarmes!’
80╇╇ Soviet chekism
Illarionov:╇ ‘I fought the gendarmes myself! And what is the Cheka if
not the punishing sword of the revolution!’

The senior chekist then calls for order, and makes a longer concluding
speech:

That’s enough, Illarionov! So, when you chop down a forest, chips fly
.â•›.â•›. I’ve had my eye on you for a long time, Illarionov. I thought, this
person’s not coping. But you have a whole philosophy. And who needs
us with this philosophy? The Cheka is the flesh of the flesh of the
soviet regime. And a small part of this regime, the most just, the most
humane, must be in every one of us. Much has been given to us, and
much will be asked of us. Yes, the Cheka is the punishing sword of the
revolution! And it must be in reliable, and true hands!â•›.â•›.â•›. In the
Cheka, you shouldn’t rattle your sabre, but work with your head! And
nobody will forgive us ten excess [arrests]. This is subtle work, Illari-
onov, and you’re not up to it. And Burkashin is right. The Cheka is no
place for you.

In other words: the issue of continuity between the Cheka and the NKVD
has been effectively sidestepped, since here the bad apple has been identi-
fied and weeded out in good time. We might also note here the repeated
pointed references to chekists as ‘human beings’; and the firm but civi-
lized way in which Illarionov is treated by his fellow chekists. The clear
message of the scene is that the Cheka (and, by extension, the KGB) is
perfectly able to cleanse itself from within; it is essentially a healthy collect-
ive, adhering to socialist legality and basic human principles. This aspect
of the film’s message was picked up in a newspaper review which noted
approvingly that ‘it is highly revealing that Illarionov’s methods of intimi-
dation and lawlessness receive a severe rebuke from the chekists’.112
The softer stance on Illarionov in the final version is compounded by a
scene in which a crowd of wounded soldiers gather round Illarionov and
treat him as a hero, tossing him in the air, in recognition of his assistance
in sorting out a dispute involving meat rations at the local hospital.113 Illar-
ionov had not featured in previous versions of this scene; instead, the
problem had been handled by Aleksei and another local chekist. Volchek
justified the inclusion of this new scene in which the people demonstrated
their love for Illarionov by the fact that Illarionov was, after all, ‘a repre-
sentative of the ChK, who, speaking in terms of essences, does embody
some kind of good principle’.114
At the December 1962 meeting Volchek elaborated upon this apparent
decision to move away from a representation of Illarionov as foreshadow-
ing 1937. He pointed out that this was, after all, a film about the Civil War,
not the 1930s – a statement which seems more than a little disingenuous
given the discussions earlier in the year. Others, too, backtracked at this
 Screening the historical chekist╇╇ 81
point, arguing that it would be wrong to superimpose 1937 onto the events
shown in the film, with one Council member arguing that ‘One can create
an image which hints [at this], [but] this should not be done casually’.115
Volchek made his case as follows:

Illarionov needs to be punished. Polianovskii has already spoken on

this, and I completely agree with my co-�authors: all the same, we must
remember that this is a picture about the Civil War, this is a picture
about the epoch of the ’20s, and since we’re making such a film, if we
make Illarionov one of those [men] who made up the cadres of 1937
and the most recent period, if we expose him completely, it seems to
me we would be making a very crude miscalculation.116

Volchek appears to have been motivated here at least in part by a desire to

avoid smearing the names of chekist veterans and also, presumably, of the
current generation of chekists with whom he had been engaged in discus-
sions of the film. He said that:

[A]ll the time in working around this person [Illarionov], we’ve been
trying to control ourselves, because it’s very easy to go to the opposite
extreme, and instead of exposing a scoundrel, we’d be doing a wrong
to good people. Therefore it seems to me that the place which he now
occupies in the screenplay is correct.117

In the final version of the screenplay, both of the landmarks in Aleksei’s

journey have been transformed in very significant ways.
First, the scene involving Grevenets and her execution was almost com-
pletely rewritten. All references implying that she was to be executed were
cut, and all traces of physical violence removed. In the final version,
Aleksei intervenes on her behalf out of simple chivalry, after Illarionov
speaks rudely to her in his presence. Unlike in the earlier versions, Aleksei
is unaware that she is a spy responsible for the deaths of many people, or
that she is about to be executed. He is suitably chastened when he eventu-
ally learns that she is a traitor working for the Whites.118 Essentially, the
moral of the scene now pivots on a question of good manners, rather than
of life and death. Meanwhile, Aleksei’s horror and his almost physical
revulsion to violence, his moment of weakness or ‘spinelessness’, previ-
ously so central to his development as a character and to the moral thrust
of the film, has now simply been removed – together with the genuine and
difficult questions that it raised. The files do not tell us directly why this
was done, but we might speculate that this scene had problematized and
muddied to an unacceptable degree the film’s basic moral contrast
between Aleksei and Illarionov. The intention had been for the NKVD’s
atrocities to resonate only in the figure of Illarionov, but using the execu-
tion of a woman as the catalyst for a kind of epiphany for Aleksei may have
82╇╇ Soviet chekism
called up uneasy associations which the Council ultimately decided to
avoid.
The crucial monologue of the older chekist which leads to Aleksei’s rec-
onciling himself to the need for executions was also drastically revised.
This monologue came in for criticism by Ryss at the December 1962
meeting. Ryss defined the point of this scene as follows: Aleksei ‘under-
stands after this conversation that – yes, one must go through this and
come out on the other side’.119 But Ryss was critical of the way in which the
topic was handled in the old chekist’s monologue, which he said was too
dispassionate and matter-�of-fact when it came to the subject of executing
people: ‘this is a dramatic scene, and it demands dramatic dialogue .â•›.â•›. not
the calm exposition of arguments in favour of the idea that one can
execute people, and that this is a completely simple matter.’120
Cutting the references to the woman’s execution made it possible to
avoid this topic in the old chekist’s monologue. In the final version Aleksei
is troubled not by the violence or by doubts that he will have the stomach
for it but by fears that he will not have the skills to recognize an enemy so
well-�disguised. He confesses to Berzin:

I want to tell you honestly. I don’t know whether I’ll be able to work in
the ChK. In the war it was simpler. I knew the enemy by face, but
here. â•›.â•›.â•›. Probably some kind of special instinct is needed here, it
seems.121

In other words, his moral aversion to the chekist’s work has been com-
pletely removed. As a result, the old chekist no longer resents Aleksei’s
implied moral judgement, as he did in the earlier verson. Instead he
patiently explains that the woman is an active enemy, and outlines her
crimes. He also explains to him that chekists are made, not born, and he
persuades Aleksei to persevere and stay on.
In general, this scene exercised the Council greatly, and went through
multiple revisions. One set of revisions are especially telling. In one
version of this scene, the old chekist explains to Aleksei: ‘Our work is diffi-
cult, dirty work, something like latrine-Â�cleaners’ work.’ In the file, the
word ‘latrine-Â�cleaners’ has been underlined by hand, and ‘dirty’ has been
double-�underlined.122 Both references were subsequently cut, and in the
final screenplay used in the film, the text has been rewritten as ‘A chekist’s
work is difficult, subtle work. And the whole secret lies in the fact that it
must be done with clean hands’. In other words, the authors ultimately
reached again for the conventions of the Dzerzhinsky cult in their struggle
to find the right words here. Holding up the ideal, pure chekist became
the final message of the scene.
The moral complexities of Aleksei’s relationship to Dina’s execution
were dispensed with in similar fashion. At the December 1962 meeting
Vol’pin suggested that the authors ‘rescue the screenplay’s ideological
 Screening the historical chekist╇╇ 83
line’ by having Dina come to her senses and renounce the White cause.123
The authors went along with this suggestion, and in the final version,
instead of being betrayed by Aleksei, Dina sees the light, comes over to the
Bolshevik cause, and turns herself in to the Cheka. Moreover, it is strongly
suggested that her life will be spared, since Aleksei has undertaken to
vouch for her basic goodness.124
The resolution of the Dina problem also focuses on the ideas of trust,
conscience and profilaktika, chiming with the KGB’s new image outlined in
the previous chapter. Aleksei makes a private appeal to Berzin on Dina’s
behalf, pleading that ‘The girl has got herself into a mess’. He says,
‘Comrade Berzin: you taught me yourself – a chekist is not allowed to
make mistakes. But he’s always obligated to believe in people, right?’ And
Berzin agrees to find a way to solve this problem acting on the dictates of
conscience [po sovesti]. Indeed, for Berzin, ‘conscience’ is a watchword,
key to both this scene and the interrogation of Grevenets, when he suc-
ceeds in persuading her to share information by appealing to her ‘con-
science’, a method which is contrasted to Illarionov’s brutality, which fails
to produce any results.
Meanwhile, the overall look and aesthetic of the film had also been
changed in order to fit in with Khrushchev’s recent pronouncements on
the ‘optimism’ of the 1920s. The Soviet myth of the 1920s as a time of
purity, romanticism and high ideals – so important, as we have seen, for
salvaging the Soviet project in the post-Â�Stalin era – had recently come
under attack from various directions,125 and Khrushchev was now coming
to its defence. In May 1963, the Council discussed the film set, and how
dilapidated or devastated the town should look. Zarkhi reminded the
meeting at this point of Khrushchev’s recent comments on the need for
internal optimism, ‘when he said that in the ’20s, lice-Â�ridden, hungry,
barefoot, we fought with huge merriment, with optimism, i.e. he wanted
to say that strength of morale, optimism, faith created a mood of large
optimism’.126
Just how far the final version of the film had departed from the Coun-
cil’s original intentions is illustrated by a review of the film in
Komsomol’skaia pravda. The reviewer noted that the chekist theme had
always had special appeal for young Soviet readers and viewers in particu-
lar. He praised this film specifically as a ‘genuinely young’ film, its ‘youth’
residing primarily in the heroes’ ‘bright, pure’ worldview, ‘imbued by
deep faith in the future’. The reviewer summarized the film’s message as
follows:

[A]lthough the film The Chekist recounts events and days long past, it
is indisputably contemporary – contemporary in its ideological line, in
its artistic resolution of the main characters. The film educates the
youth in the spirit of Soviet patriotism, it resurrects the Komsomol
youth of our fathers and mothers, who grew up in the flame of class
84╇╇ Soviet chekism
battles, who gave up their youth, love, and even life to the struggle for
the happiness of future generations.127

Like the film-Â�makers themselves, this reviewer focused on the ‘contempor-

ary’ nature of the film. But he used the term ‘contemporary’ to mean
something altogether different. By this point (the spring of 1964), ‘con-
temporary’ was no longer a code word for ‘anti-Â�Stalinist’. By now, what
made this film contemporary was the fact that it inculcated patriotism, and
specifically because it was in line with the current emphasis on genera-
tional continuity, which had been a key focus of Khrushchev and Leonid
Il’ichev’s 1962–3 speeches on questions of ideology and art.128 The figure
of Dzerzhinsky was frequently invoked in connection with this idea of gen-
erational continuity. It was as though he had passed the torch of his pure
revolutionary ideals through time to the current young generation, and
symbolically, he served to mend the rupture of the Stalin era. Chekists
were the carriers and embodiments of these original ideals, and, as
another reviewer put it, the older chekist ‘was not only teaching them
[Aleksei and the other young chekists] the chekist profession, he was also
teaching them a more complex science: [the science of] life’.129 Mean-
while, the other element of the film’s original intended message – the
lessons to be learned from the Great Terror – is completely absent.
The Khrushchev-Â�era buzzword ‘contemporary’ was used in a different
but equally noteworthy way in another review of the film, in the cinema
journal Sovetskii ekran. Here, the depiction of Illarionov was singled out for
criticism in what was otherwise an almost entirely positive review. The
reviewer argued that the actor playing Illiarionov, Oleg Yefremov, had pre-
sented the audience with a mere caricature, flaunting his personal distaste
for the character, or more generally for ‘those who preached suspicious-
ness, universal distrust and the theory “when you chop down a forest –
chips fly”â•›’. The reviewer went on, ‘It seems to me that in places, the
talented actor plays the role without a sufficient sense of measure and tact,
on the strength of a falsely understood “contemporary relevance” of the
image’.130 This somewhat odd criticism may possibly flag disapproval of
Yefremov’s activities in his capacity as the founder of the Sovremennik
Theatre in Moscow, which had been at the forefront of the Thaw. Yefre-
mov had been connected with earlier controversies on similar themes
involving the breaking of taboos, for example with regard to the Sovre-
mennik’s 1959 production of a play which hinted at the existence of the
camps.131
An earlier, 1963 article in Sovetskii ekran conveys some sense of the new
atmosphere that was to reign henceforth. The article, about the state of
Soviet cinema, stated that the XXII Party Congress had

passed over the whole country like a cleansing storm. The XX and
XXII Party Congresses have restored Leninist principles in party and
 Screening the historical chekist╇╇ 85
public life. A life-�affirming atmosphere surrounds us today, people
have gained certainty in tomorrow, they have become more sociable,
more trusting, they have begun to smile more often and sing songs
more willingly. Gone forever is the time when socialist legality was
flouted, when people were contemptuously called ‘little screws’
[vintiki] and ‘little people’.132

Clearly, the subject was closed. These issues were no longer to be exposed
to the light of day, and only ‘life-Â�affirming’ themes were permissible.

Conclusion
The discussions of the content of The Chekist began at an historical
moment when the script had momentarily been thrown aside, and it
seemed possible to speak with new frankness about the Soviet past and
present. While the makers of this film began with quite ambitious plans
to take advantage of the window of opportunity opened up by the Thaw
and to present a radically new interpretation of chekist history with poten-
tially important ramifications for the present and future, they ended by
reverting to the traditional and safe stock phrases of chekism. As the doc-
uments show, however, this was by no means a foregone conclusion. Nor
is this a straightforward story of liberal versus conservative tendencies in
the Soviet arts establishment. Examination of the Mosfil’m in-Â�house
debates over the screenplay show that opinion was often divided along
quite unexpected and complicated fault-�lines, and resistant to simple
categorization.
The stenograms of the deliberations connected with the making of The
Chekist open a window onto the ideological juggling, guess-�work and
tightrope-�walking in which members of the Soviet cultural establishment
were forced to engage. On the one hand, this was a period in which the
opportunities for artistic expression, criticism and historical interpretation
were immeasurably greater than under Stalin. And as the stenograms
show, many members of the Mosfil’m Artistic Council in charge of this
project appear to have taken seriously the responsibility placed upon them
to take advantage of this opportunity. At the same time, it is clear that they
were aware that a false step could mean jeopardizing the whole project,
and indeed their own careers.
At this point, the Council members were still feeling their way with
regard to producing films about the KGB and its predecessors. It was
unclear which taboos were still in place, which had been discarded only
temporarily, and which forever. Meanwhile, taboos were already setting
and coagulating into what would later, during Brezhnev’s stagnation,
become the very rigid and fixed standard clichés and formulae for this
genre. As we shall see in Chapter 6, under Andropov’s chairmanship, the
KGB’s interventions in the creative arts would also become much more
86╇╇ Soviet chekism
institutionalized, whereas at this point these activities were still relatively
ad hoc and improvised.
This case study has traced the evolution of the screenplay as it passed
through successive revisions before arriving at the final product: a some-
what confused, often half-�baked, and largely conventional treatment of its
subject matter. The final version of the screenplay bears hardly any trace
of the initial ambitions to use the film as a vehicle for condemning those
original chekists who abused their positions and went on to perpetrate the
atrocities of the Great Terror. The end product amounts to little more
than a standard reassertion of the distinctness of Dzerzhinsky’s Cheka
from Stalin’s NKVD. Dzerzhinsky’s ‘moral idea’ turned out to be more dif-
ficult to handle than anticipated; or more precisely, it turned out that this
was not a moral idea that could stand up to any kind of genuine scrutiny,
analysis or questioning. The problems associated with deviating from this
line without calling into question the legitimacy of the Soviet regime itself
proved too difficult to handle, and caution carried the day. Ultimately, the
message of the film is that, as co-�author Polianovskii put it, the good
chekist was ‘the cornerstone of the Soviet regime’.133
4 Screening the contemporary
chekist

This second case study examines the making of A Shot in the Fog (dir. Ale-
ksandr Seryi and Anatolii Bobrovskii; Mosfil’m studios; released 1964) –
the first Soviet film to depict the newly created KGB. A Shot in the Fog is a
Soviet Cold War adventure movie, in which the KGB foils the attempts of
Western intelligence agencies to steal Soviet scientific research secrets.
The two main characters are a physicist, Yevdokimov, head of a top-�secret
research facility working on defence-�related technology, and a KGB
officer, Lagutin, who has been assigned to protect Yevdokimov and his
secret research from foreign agents.
This film’s conception was in sharp contrast to that of The Chekist. If The
Chekist was originally conceived as an attempt to represent a ‘bad’ chekist
on screen for the first time, A Shot in the Fog was planned as a less complex
adventure piece and, officially at any rate, it was billed as a tribute to the
KGB. One of its directors, Aleksandr Seryi, described the film in a press
interview as ‘dedicated to the chekists, people of rare valour, of great civic
courage’, and the directors aimed to schedule the film’s release to coin-
cide with the anniversary of the founding of the Soviet secret police on 20
December, in order to underline this message.1 One might expect that a
film explicitly designed to showcase the new KGB and its heroism would
be a more straightforward enterprise, but in fact this film proved to be
equally problematic in terms of the ideological dilemmas it posed. In this
chapter, I examine the difficulties encountered in the course of the film’s
production, and trace through the processes whereby these problems were
negotiated and finally resolved. As we shall see, even though this was a film
about the present, ghosts from the past were often getting in the way.
Since the late Stalin era, the chekist theme had been almost entirely
avoided in Soviet cinema. A Shot in the Fog was the first post-�Stalinist film to
take up this theme again.2 The very fact that the film was made at all points
to a shift: the contemporary state security organs were no longer a taboo
subject. In this sense the film was a landmark, and both Mosfil’m studios
and the KGB were highly conscious of this. A Mosfil’m precis of the film
noted that this was ‘the first work of cinema for many years to be devoted
to the work of chekists’;3 and one of the KGB consultants assigned to
88╇╇ Soviet chekism
oversee the film’s production noted that ‘this is the first time that the
activities of the state security organs are to be shown on the wide screen’.4
Because of the film’s subject matter, the script and the finished version
of the film itself were subject to KGB scrutiny and vetting at all stages of
production. In the case of the making of The Chekist, we had access to the
KGB’s interventions only secondhand, as reported back by members of
the Artistic Council. The files pertaining to A Shot in the Fog contain much
more detailed evidence of the actual concrete interventions made by the
KGB.
The film represents an early instance of the practice of assigning KGB
‘consultants’ to work closely with writers, journalists and film-Â�makers
dealing with chekist themes. This practice began in the early 1960s with
the creation of a small group of consultants comprising Andrei Bachurin,
Vladimir Kravchenko and Ivan Rozanov. This group also liaised with KGB
archivists, who worked jointly with Bachurin and Kravchenko on projects
dealing with historical events.5
Two KGB consultants, Bachurin and P. N. Maksimenko, were assigned
to oversee the project and liaise with the film studios on the KGB’s behalf.
In addition, another chekist, I. I. Shmelev, sat in on some of the editorial
discussion (though not formally as a ‘consultant’ of the KGB).6 The files
contain direct transcripts of Bachurin and Maksimenko’s comments and
participation in debates, as well as copies of their written correspondence.
The files also contain correspondence with KGB General-�Major V. S.
Belokonev (previously chief of the KGB’s Moscow Directorate,7 who also
handled correspondence on KGB approval procedures with the Commit-
tee for Cinematography8 and with Mosfil’m),9 and with the KGB’s deputy
chair Aleksandr Perepelitsyn. The memoirs of Bobrovskii, one of the film’s
directors, also offer an additional, personal perspective on the official files,
giving us some feel for how the KGB’s interventions were experienced and
handled by the Mosfil’m team, as well as affording the occasional glimpse
into what James C. Scott has called the ‘hidden transcripts’, that is, the cri-
tique of power spoken behind the back of the dominant.10
Another dimension of chekist involvement in the film’s production was
the fact that, like The Chekist, A Shot in the Fog was also co-�authored by an
ex-Â�chekist. A veteran of Pavel Sudoplatov’s notorious Fourth Directorate,
Mikhail Makliarskii had re-�made himself as a writer of screenplays about
chekists, and by the time A Shot in the Fog was produced, Makliarskii was
director of the prestigious Highest Screenwriting Courses in Moscow.
According to Golovskoy, ex-�chekists were often used as screenwriters,
because they were deemed to be ‘especially qualified to write scenarios on
these topics with a minimum of ideological error’, helping to minimize
the level of KGB intervention required to assure ideological purity.11 In
the case of Makliarskii, things do not seem to have worked in quite this
way; as we shall see, he often featured as one of the strongest adversaries
of the KGB consultants.
 Screening the contemporary chekist╇╇ 89
A question of ‘international tact’
The first objections raised by the KGB consultants related to a basic
element of the film’s plot. The plot was centred on the premise that a
foreign intelligence service had targeted Yevdokimov for assassination, in
order to prevent him from completing his research. Initially, in fact, it was
the NATO high command that was plotting to kill Yevdokimov, in order to
thwart the Soviet Union’s secret plans to achieve world peace (Yevdokimov
was developing a new type of weapon aimed at putting an end to war
itself↜). The scene in question showed a secret NATO meeting in which the
commanders were briefed on the unbridgeable gap separating Western
from Soviet science, which left them only one option: ‘not to allow the
qualitative supremacy of the Russians, to reduce their intellectual poten-
tial’12 – that is, to target individual Soviet scientists for assassination.
This and other scenes with foreign settings were cut from subsequent
drafts of the screenplay, after Ivan Pyr’ev, chair of the Artistic Council and
head of Mosfil’m’s Artistic Production Team No. 2, which was making the
film, complained in this connection in October 1962, that: ‘In the screen-
play the stock phrases [shtampy] of past pictures are still present. One
would like the screenplay to have a more contemporary ring to it, for the
human principle to be sensed in it more clearly’ [original emphasis].13
Here again, we can note the preoccupation with making the film ‘con-
temporary’, which at this point, in the autumn of 1962, was still a synonym
for ‘anti-Â�Stalinist’, denoting a cluster of things including, as flagged by
Pyr’ev, ‘the human principle’.
We cannot know for sure, but it seems probable that it was Makliarskii’s
input that was responsible for the heavy Stalinist feel of the NATO scene
and others in the early versions of the screenplay. Under security chief
Vsevolod Merkulov’s patronage, Makliarskii had co-Â�written the screenplays
for two Stalin-Â�prize winning films, the smash-Â�hit The Razvedchik’s Feat (1947;
about a Soviet intelligence officer operating in occupied Vinnitsa) and The
Secret Mission (1950; about treacherous Allied attempts to negotiate a sepa-
rate peace with Germany).14 The latter made such extreme claims that it
aroused diplomatic protests from the United States and UK after it was
released in August 1950.15 Perhaps Makliarskii’s own background as a
member of Sudoplatov’s Fourth Directorate (notorious for its role of car-
rying out assassinations abroad) and as the original recruiter of the film
actor Nikolai Khokhlov, who would later be tasked with assassinating the
émigré National Labour Alliance (NTS) leader Georgii Okolovich and
who would himself be the victim of a failed KGB assassination attempt in
1957, had also influenced his ideas about how such themes could be rep-
resented.16 In any event, it was precisely Makliarskii who appears to have
been the most wedded to these scenes; he responded to Pyr’ev’s call to cut
the foreign scenes by pleading that at least one scene depicting a terrorist
school abroad be retained.17
90╇╇ Soviet chekism
The October 1962 meeting was to be the last time that concerns of this
nature would be raised; subsequently, the Council was entirely preoccu-
pied with a set of new (and ongoing) complaints made by the KGB. The
KGB’s objections with regard to the assassination plot line were first raised
in December 1962.18 Previously, the assassination plot line had attracted
no criticism or comment.19 The subsequent course of events as it emerges
from the files is somewhat difficult to reconstruct,20 but what is clear is that
in June 1963 the KGB issued official approval for shooting to commence.21
Strikingly, it was only after shooting had begun that the KGB again raised
objections to this plot line, this time more forcefully, now demanding
unequivocally that all references to assassination plots be cut.
In his memoirs, director Bobrovskii recalls that the whole Artistic
Council was not only dismayed but puzzled by this sudden change of atti-
tude on the part of the KGB. Bobrovskii writes: ‘One thing was clear,
someone at the top was playing it safe [perestrakhovyvalsia]. But why? What
were the motivations? After all, we had already been given the “go-Â�ahead”
in all senses.’22
From our perspective, this shift looks less baffling. We have already seen
in Chapter 3 similar difficulties arising at precisely the same period (late
1962 through 1963) in the case of the making of The Chekist, as the regime
moved to reassert party control over the arts, and over the cinema industry
in particular, during those months. But in the case of A Shot in the Fog, it
also seems reasonable to hypothesize that these sudden and unexpected
objections were linked to an additional event that had taken place in the
intervening period: the trial of KGB assassin Bogdan Stashinskii in
October 1962, for the murders of two Ukrainian nationalist émigré leaders
in 1957 and 1959. Stashinskii defected in August 1961, and then under-
went a highly publicized trial in West Germany in October 1962, in which
the judge declared that the Soviet government had institutionalized polit-
ical murder.23
The Stashinskii trial focused unwelcome attention on the KGB’s
ongoing use of assassination, compounding the damage done earlier by
the equally sensational defection of Nikolai Khokhlov in April 1954.24
Obviously, this bad publicity was a blow for the new post-�Stalin KGB, which
had gone to such great lengths to demonstrate that it had been reformed
and had mended its ways, abandoning the use of coercion and terror. The
Stashinskii scandal gave the lie to the notion that Shelepin’s appointment
as KGB chair had ushered in a new era, and Western critics were quick to
point this out. Thus, for example, a Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty report
of 18 November 1961 argued that the case showed that:

The spirit of Beria is still very much alive in the Foreign Administra-
tion of the KGB, and the hypocrisy of using his methods while
denouncing him in every speech, and then blundering in addition is
the most striking aspect of the Khokhlov-�Stashinsky cases.25
 Screening the contemporary chekist╇╇ 91
(The report also drew a direct connection to Shelepin, pointing out that
Shelepin had decorated Stashinskii in December 1959.)26
At first glance it may seem somewhat odd that the KGB should object
precisely to references made to foreign intentions to assassinate Soviet sci-
entists (as opposed to suggestions, say, that the KGB itself was engaged in
such activities). But presumably the fallout from the Stashinskii scandal
was still so recent that it was deemed safer to avoid this topic altogether,
particularly since, as the consultants would have been aware, the Stashin-
skii scandal had led to numerous sackings within the KGB.27 Later, in
December 1963, KGB officer Shmelev congratulated the film’s production
team for having successfully solved this problem, which he referred to as a
matter of ‘international tact’.28
In general the KGB representatives showed a marked sensitivity to any
hints at legal transgressions by the KGB. This is an example of the ways in
which ideological constraints hamstrung the makers of Soviet adventure
films in particular. Unlike the makers of the Bond films, post-�Stalinist
Soviet film-�makers were required to demonstrate unfailing chekist adher-
ence to ‘socialist legality’ (a catchphrase since the XX Party Congress, and
almost a kind of mantra punctuating chekist leadership addresses in par-
ticular). Shmelev complained that ‘the image of [the chekist] Kiselev .â•›.â•›.
was at first a little sharp, a little crude, and even slipped into the violation
of legality’.29 The instances which he listed in this connection comprised
quite minor transgressions that would pass unnoticed in Western espio-
nage adventure films. He objected, for example, to the fact that Kiselev
broke ‘international law’ by entering a quarantine ward without
authorization.30
Like many of the KGB’s interventions, the demand that the assassina-
tion plot-�line be cut created serious problems for the screenwriters. The
fact that Yevdokimov was in danger of being assassinated by a foreign intel-
ligence agency was crucial to the coherence of the film’s plot. Once this
basic element of the plot was removed, one of the central scenes had to be
completely rewritten from scratch, and this is in turn meant that many
other scenes in the film ceased to make any sense.31 Apart from anything
else, cutting the assassination plot rendered the title of the film nonsensi-
cal, since the film took its name from a scene in which a foreign assassin
shoots at Yevdokimov during a fog, and his KGB minder takes the bullet
for him. The KGB consultants’ interventions and constant demands for
changes reached the point where certain aspects of the plot became
unrecognizable, and Pyr’ev asked in despair: ‘Where’s the fog and where’s
the shot?’32

Science and security in harmony

The excision of the assassination plot-�line only led on to additional objec-
tions from the KGB consultants, who would later complain that it looked
92╇╇ Soviet chekism
bad for Yevdokimov to be constantly shadowed by a KGB officer when his
life was not in danger. The threat of assassination was, after all, the reason
why a KGB officer had been assigned to ‘look after’ Yevdokimov in the
first place. Thus the KGB had introduced an effectively unresolvable
contradiction in the plot, and this gave rise to another set of problems in
the summer of 1963 in connection with the issue of how to depict the rela-
tionship between Soviet science and the KGB.
At one level, the screenwriters’ ideological task was a relatively simple
one. An important point of the film was clearly to demonstrate Soviet sci-
entific superiority. This element of the film’s message was emphasized in a
synopsis of the screenplay produced in October 1962 which proclaimed
that ‘The Soviet Union’s ever-Â�growing successes in the fields of defence-Â�
related science are arousing the fury of the imperialist circles of the
western powers, and the activization of the activities of their intelligence
services’.33 This was a standard theme of Soviet films of the period, when
the figure of the scientist, and the physicist in particular, had become
especially prominent in the Soviet pantheon of heroes, in connection with
Khrushchev’s Scientific-Â�Technological Revolution.34
But the film’s primary ideological message concerned the harmonious
relationship between Soviet science and the KGB, as dramatized in the
relationship between the film’s two main characters, Yevdokimov and
Lagutin. This relationship was the fulcrum of the film. The same synopsis
issued by the film studio in October 1962 described this relationship:

The main heroes of the screenplay .â•›.â•›. are the head of one of the
special scientific centres, Yevdokimov, and an [officer] of the State
Security organs, Lagutin. These images – of a scientist and his body-
guard – are drawn in an interesting and vivid way. Between these two
gifted, spiritually generous people, sympathy and genuine male friend-
ship arises.35

Note in particular the last line of the paragraph, one of the underlying
points of which is surely to suggest a parallel and an affinity between these
two heroes: the scientist and the chekist. From the very early stages, the
screenwriters were instructed to emphasize the fact that both of these
characters were ‘outstanding’ human beings.36 The pathos of their
heroism arises out of the fact that they are both nameless Soviet heroes,
even martyrs, forced to remain out of the spotlight in the higher interests
of state security.37
But the depiction of this relationship proved to be highly problematic,
and it came to exercise the KGB consultants greatly. Objections in connec-
tion with this aspect of the film were first raised by the KGB consultants in
the summer of 1963 (again, after shooting had already commenced). The
consultants objected in particular to the fact that Lagutin was shown to be
‘guarding’ Yevdokimov.
 Screening the contemporary chekist╇╇ 93
The underlying problem here was surely the fact that this theme
clashed with another imperative of the time: to show that Soviet science
was not only superior, and outstripping the West, but had entered a new
era of freedom and openness, appropriate to the country’s new progres-
sive image. Khrushchev’s grandstanding and bluffing of the late 1950s and
early 1960s on the subject of Soviet scientific and military superiority also
emphasized the fact that in the new era, Soviet science was free.38 This
meant, first and foremost, freedom from the oppressive control of the
state security apparatus which had characterized the Stalin era.39 But estab-
lishing the acceptable contours of the new relationship between the KGB
and Soviet science proved to be a less than straightforward matter, espe-
cially given the fundamental contradiction here between the imperative to
show that Soviet science was free, and the film’s key drama, which was pre-
cisely that of the fate of the un-�free scientist operating under constraints
of high-�level secrecy.
In certain respects it was easy enough to display the new freedom of
Soviet science. Thus, for example, in the film, Yevdokimov is permitted to
travel to the West to attend a scientific conference. Furthermore, it is
painstakingly underlined that he owes this freedom to the magnanimity
and selflessness of Soviet chekists, who willingly take on the stress and
overwork that such foreign trips create for them, because of their devotion
to Soviet science. Thus, at one point, the young KGB officer Kiselev
expresses the view that Yevdokimov ought not to have been permitted to
travel abroad. The general responds: ‘Of course, that would be simpler
and more peaceful for us. But it was essential for him to attend the
conference.’40
One of the most extreme manifestations of secret police control of
Soviet science had been the special prison camps known colloquially as
sharashki, administered by the security apparatus. From such camps,
prisoner-Â�scientists – most famously Korolev, Tupolev and Solzhenitsyn
(who popularized the term sharashki in his novel In the First Circle) – con-
tinued to serve the Soviet state.
There was no place for sharashki in the new post-�Stalinist Soviet Union.
After Stalin’s death, the sharashki were officially disbanded, together with
(on 30 March 1953) the fourth spetsotdel of the MVD SSSR which had for-
merly administered them. Many imprisoned scientists were then released
in the late 1950s, although some sharashki reportedly continued to operate
for several years. The old sharashki were mostly transformed into closed
laboratories which were now to be known by the new euphemism, ‘post-Â�
office boxes’ [pochtovye yashchiki] (so-Â�called because they were identified
only by post-�office box numbers).41 It was precisely in one of these new
‘post-Â�office boxes’ that Yevdokimov worked.
Meanwhile, however, the Soviet state’s fundamental mistrust of its sci-
entists was still evinced in the Khrushchev-�era practice of attaching KGB
minders to top scientists. In his memoirs, Andrei Sakharov writes of the
94╇╇ Soviet chekism
armed KGB guards who were assigned to him from 1954 to November
1957, and who lived next door to him (just as Lagutin lived next door to
Yevdokimov in A Shot in the Fog). Sakharov recalls that the guards were
instructed not only ‘to protect my life, but also to prevent undesirable con-
tacts’, and that they made no attempt to conceal the latter of their func-
tions.42 In other words: the KGB’s guarding of scientists was as much a
matter of controlling and monitoring the scientists as of protecting them
from foreign enemies. The line between the role of bodyguard and effect-
ive prisonguard was a thin one. The complaints made by the KGB consult-
ants with regard to this issue demonstrate that the KGB was sensitive to
this ambiguity.
The KGB’s nervousness may have been further inflamed by the fact that
the damage inflicted on Soviet science by the security apparatus was a
theme that was emerging in literature during this period. It had been
raised in Thaw-Â�era novels such as Vladimir Dudintsev’s Belye odezhdy, which
dealt with the KGB persecution of geneticists;43 and Daniil Granin’s Zubr,
which described an atomic scientist working under NKVD supervision.44
Clearly, then, this was a contentious issue.
As a result of the KGB’s criticism of this element of the film, as the
Artistic Council reported to the Mosfil’m leadership in October 1963, the
scenes depicting Lagutin and Yevdokimov’s interaction had to be rewrit-
ten, and also the scenes in the KGB.45 The Council attempted to solve this
problem partly by adding emphasis to the personal connection between
Yevdokimov and Lagutin. Thus, for example, in one version of the screen-
play, when Yevdokimov is asked by Kiselev to give his opinion of Lagutin,
Yevdokimov becomes angry, and says he cannot talk about Lagutin ‘offi-
cially’ – that Lagutin is his friend.46 On another occasion, it is argued that
‘Yevdokimov and Lagutin should also know how to laugh, to joke’.47 An
emphasis was also placed on the bond which they shared through their
passion for hunting.48
The accentuation of the affection that the two men feel for one another
is overdone at times. Consider, for example, this section of dialogue which
was inserted in response to the KGB consultants’ comments in 1963:

General:╇ (To Lagutin) – Well, do you have anything else of importance?

Lagutin:╇ No, comrade general.
General:╇ Then set off for Zarechensk straight away, do everything to guar-
antee complete secrecy .â•›.â•›. And say hello to comrade Yevdokimov for
me (smiles). After all, you and he are friends, it seems.
Lagutin:╇ .â•›.â•›.â•›(embarrassed) – What are you saying, comrade general! It’s
just that I love and respect Igor’ Matveevich [Yevdokimov] very
muchâ•›.â•›.â•›.49

Overall the emotional tenor of the relationship is quite intense, and the
model is very much a paternalistic one. The chekists resemble the weary,
 Screening the contemporary chekist╇╇ 95
long-�suffering but patient parents of their charges. In one scene, for
example, Yevdokimov escapes Lagutin’s supervision, and disobeys instruc-
tions by going to Moscow to visit his girlfriend, thereby earning Lagutin a
reprimand, as well as worry over Yevdokimov’s safety. Lagutin tracks Yev-
dokimov down in Moscow, and scolds him mildly. Yevdokimov realizes that
he has caused trouble for Lagutin, and offers to defend Lagutin to his
superiors, explaining that he alone was to blame; but Lagutin responds:
‘It’s me that answers for everything that happens to you.’ The screenplay
notes specify that Lagutin says this ‘without spite’ [bezzlobno]; that is, he
bears no grudge against Yevdokimov for the latter’s selfishness or for the
heavy responsibility placed on his shoulders. Lagutin’s goodness seems to
shame Yevdokimov. The screenplay notes specify that their eyes meet; Yev-
dokimov finally lowers his, and murmurs ‘Forgive me, Koliaâ•›.â•›.â•›.’ Lagutin
smiles suddenly, sighs, nods in an understanding way, and leads Yevdoki-
mov home.50
There are other occasions too, on which the KGB officers in the film
sigh over the naïveté and foolishness of their charge. In an early draft of
the screenplay, the KGB general recounts how he tried to warn Yevdoki-
mov of the danger facing him, telling him about the NATO memorandum
targeting Soviet scientists and explaining the international situation to
him; but Yevdokimov only laughed it off. ‘And just you try telling him that
he was harming the state’s interests!’, the general sighs.51
A sharp contrast is drawn at various points between the heavy burden of
responsibility borne by the chekist and the irresponsibility of the intellec-
tual. At one point, the suggestion was even made at Mosfil’m that Lagutin
should die as a result of Yevdokimov’s character flaws and failure to take
Lagutin’s work seriously: ‘Perhaps, Lagutin’s death should be the indirect
result of Yevdokimov’s somewhat frivolous attitude towards those functions
which his friend fulfils by the nature of his work.’52
The revised version of the screenplay, rewritten with a view to down-
playing Lagutin’s role as a ‘guard’, met with renewed criticism from the
KGB consultants in December 1963, though from a new perspective. Now,
one of the KGB consultants complained that Yevdokimov was overly polite
to Lagutin, and that this was implausible:

Yevdokimov comes out and says to Lagutin, – I’m sorry, I held you up.
Lagutin is not a person before whom a scholar has to apologize. He
might say, – I’m sorry, I held you up. We [in the KGB] would take this
as having been said ironically. Lagutin has been sent there to fulfil his
functions and when the scholar apologizes to him this doesn’t sound
very true to life.53

This intervention seems somewhat inconsistent and capricious when

one€ considers that the script had been rewritten, after all, precisely at
the€ request of the consultants, with a view to showing that Lagutin was
96╇╇ Soviet chekism
something more than just a guard to Yevdokimov. The comment also
seems to reflect a certain degree of insecurity and sensitivity vis-Â�à-vis the
intelligentsia, betrayed by the assumption that any courtesy shown towards
a chekist must have ‘ironic’ undertones. Yet ultimately, the root of the
problem surely lies in the fact that the consultants were themselves uncer-
tain as to how a contemporary relationship between a scientist and a
chekist should be depicted.
V. I. Tolstykh, a member of the Mosfil’m team, responded to this com-
plaint by arguing that even if Yevdokimov’s courtesy to Lagutin was not
entirely realistic, it should be retained on the strength of its didactic value,
as an exemplar of the desirable level of civility in personal relations
between the intelligentsia and chekists:

[Y]ou say it’s incorrect that Yevdokimov apologizes to Lagutin. It’s

possible that this will grate on 90% of your comrades, but as a viewer
this suits me, because it shows the ethical side, the nature of the rela-
tionship between the chekist and the scientist. If everything in life is
not the same as in cinema – so much the worse for life. I would like it
if in [real] life too the scientist related [to the chekist] in a friendly
way, in a comradely way, more ethically. And, perhaps, the film will lay
a path for more correct relations between scientists and chekists.54

(Tolstykh appears to have made this point successfully, for the line was
retained in the final version of the film.)
Meanwhile, somewhat ridiculously, the KGB representatives continued
doggedly to deny the existence of the practice of guarding Soviet scien-
tists. In his summing-�up of the film in December 1963, KGB representative
Shmelev found it necessary to note that:

This kind of guarding of scientists does not take place in our country,
but in the given case it became necessary to do this when it was learnt
that a foreign intelligence officer was hunting for secret X, which was
in the hands of Yevdokimov.55

The KGB and private life

A broader set of problems arose in December 1963 in connection with
another contentious area of KGB work: surveillance; and with the new
ambiguity surrounding the Soviet catchphrase of ‘vigilance’. Vigilance had
always been a key chekist catchword. In fact, it was vital for justifying the
chekist’s existence, since it presupposed the existence of omnipresent
enemies camouflaged as loyal Soviet citizens or friendly tourists or
diplomats.
The need for vigilance was an important part of the film’s message. A
Mosfil’m precis of the film asserted that: ‘This film will play a definite
 Screening the contemporary chekist╇╇ 97
positive role in the matter of instilling into Soviet people a sense of patri-
otism, high political vigilance, and also respect for staff of the State Secur-
ity organs.’56 At the December 1963 meeting, Tolstykh noted approvingly
that a ‘substantial achievement’ of the film was the fact that it showed con-
vincingly that important scientists ‘may be the object of intense attention
from foreign intelligence’.57 This theme of Scientific and Technical (S&T)
intelligence – of enemies stealing Soviet scientific discoveries – had been a
prominent vehicle for inculcating vigilance in Soviet cinema since the
1920s.58 Again, this theme would seem to be quite straightforward; yet
here again, the production team ran into ideological difficulties thrown
up by the new context of the Khrushchev era. How to balance the need
for ‘vigilance’, on the one hand, and ‘trust’, on the other? Should it be
assumed that strangers were enemies, or friends? Which should be the
default position?
We can trace through attitudes to the depiction of surveillance by exam-
ining an example of how one particular scene from the film, identified by
the KGB as especially sensitive, was drafted and re-�drafted in order to
render it ideologically acceptable. The successive drafts of the screenplay,
together with stenograms of the related editorial meetings and corres-
pondence, enable us to follow these changes in minute detail.
In the scene in question, a KGB general and his subordinate, Kiselev,
are discussing the guests who were present at the birthday party of Yev-
dokimov’s girlfriend, Marina. Yevdokimov is not the scientist’s real name –
for some years he has been living under an assumed name in order to
throw the Western intelligence services off the scent; his real name is Pan-
teleev. The guests at Marina’s birthday party have come into the KGB’s
sights because Yevdokimov was recognized and his true identity revealed
at the party, and the KGB has reason to believe that foreign intelligence
agencies were alerted to this soon afterwards, raising the possibility that
one of the Soviet citizens present at the party was a traitor, spying for
foreign intelligence services. In this scene, the general and Kiselev are dis-
cussing how best to proceed.
An early 1962 draft of the screenplay contains the following version of
the scene:

The General to colleagues: – Who was at Mironov’s place that

evening?
– Only the staff from his institute.
– Well then, each of the guests will have to be warned: the name ‘Pan-
teleev’ [i.e. Yevdokimov’s real name] must be forgotten. You may go.
The officer leaves.
The General to Kiselev, who is holding several thick files: – Well
well, not every writer could boast of such productivity!â•›.â•›.â•›.
[Kiselev sets the files before the general. Each has a photograph on
it.]
98╇╇ Soviet chekism
Kiselev:╇ All of them have arrived in Moscow over the past three
months.59

At this stage, then, the KGB general takes a relatively hard line, issuing
orders for each of the guests to be warned that they should ‘forget’ Yev-
dokimov’s real name. In addition, the viewer learns that the KGB appar-
ently keeps detailed files on regular Soviet citizens.
In a subsequent revised draft the dossiers no longer appear, and the
notion that each guest should be warned to keep Yevdokimov’s identity
secret is no longer expressed by the general, but by the younger officer.
That is, the scene employs a standard device whereby the more hard-�line
view is expressed by a young, well-�meaning but inexperienced officer,
whereupon an older and wiser officer sets him straight:

the general:╇ .╛.╛.╛Who is this Pavel Pavlovich? Has this been clarified?
Kiselev:╇ Professor Shlykov. A permanent resident of Leningrad. He grad-
uated from university there together with Igor’ Matveevich [Yevdoki-
mov]. [His] character references [have been] completely positive.
The othersâ•›.â•›.â•›.
the general:╇ You’ve briefed me on them.
Kiselev:╇ .╛.╛.╛Vladimir Petrovich, perhaps we ought to warn all the guests
who were at Mironova’s place, to make sure that they don’t disclose
[Yevdokimov’s true identity]?
the general:╇ .â•›.â•›.â•›I’m afraid that wouldn’t do any good at this point. On
the contrary, it would only attract even more attention to Yevdokimov.
They have a .â•›.â•›. saying in the East, Aleksei Nikolaevich: ‘Don’t tell your
secret to a friend, for your friend has a friend too.’60

But the KGB was still unhappy with the revised draft. At a meeting held
after a viewing of the rough cuts of the film in December 1963, KGB con-
sultant Bachurin complained that:

In a series of places expressions such as ‘surveillance’, ‘checking’, etc

are expressed. Evidently this will also put [people] on guard some-
what. For example, the general asks, Have the guests been checked?61
For the Soviet viewer this sounds somewhat alarming.62

KGB officer Shmelev, also present at the same meeting in December

1963, displays a similar sensitivity to language. Shmelev echoed
Bachurin’s objections to the use of terms such as ‘surveillance’ and
‘checking’, on the unconvincing grounds that such terms were ‘special’
[spetsial’nye] (a word which in Soviet parlance had additional connota-
tions linked to covert or extreme measures carried out by the security
apparatus or military, much as in the English phrase ‘special forces’).
Shmelev argued that:
 Screening the contemporary chekist╇╇ 99
The word ‘surveillance’ should be replaced by the word ‘studying’ .â•›.â•›.
What’s the point of offending the ears of chekists and non-Â�chekists
with this specialist term? The Russian language is very rich and one
can get by without this word.63

The KGB representatives were highly sensitive, then, to the labels used
to describe chekist activities. They were concerned above all with how
these activities were packaged. This is consistent with the KGB’s broader
preoccupation during this period with public relations and with surface,
the appearance of liberalization being the most important priority.
Makliarskii’s response to this criticism was spirited and seemingly sar-
castic in places:

We have a law of Russian language. Every milieu speaks the language

engendered in this profession. Grain-�growers speak their own lan-
guage, physicists speak their own language. There is even such a thing
as the concept of professionalism.
Today I suddenly heard and was completely dumbfounded, that the
word ‘surveillance’ is discriminatory, alarming, a breach of security.
One can replace this word, but would this be correct?64

The subtext to the KGB’s objections to this terminology becomes clearer

in the light of additional comments made by Shmelev at the December
1963 meeting:

The checking of Marina’s guests: forgive me, I was sitting there and
thinking, and the Soviet person who will watch this film, will think:
the personality cult, one can’t go to pay a visit [to a friend], it will
instantly become known who you were visiting, what you did, how
you danced, etc. Instead of the word ‘checking’ the general might
instruct [them as follows]: get to the bottom of it, find out. This can
be easily done, and the tone of the picture will be completely
different.65

In other words: avoiding creating the impression of excessive chekist intru-

siveness was ultimately deemed more important than the film’s message
about the need for ‘vigilance’. This is indicative of the fact that the
demands placed on ordinary Soviet citizens were now less rigorous; vigi-
lance was no longer always and everywhere appropriate as a matter of
course. It had to be legitimized. For the first time in Soviet history, the
notion of the right to a ‘private life’ was emerging as a given, and the KGB
representatives here were responding and adapting to this, at least in the
sense that they were prepared to pay lip-�service to this idea. Above all else,
most important here was to strike the right ‘tone’, in keeping with the
upbeat, bright optimism of the Khrushchev era.
100╇╇ Soviet chekism
Crucially, nothing about the KGB’s activities should arouse any associ-
ations with the Great Terror, referred to here by Shmelev delicately in
passing as ‘the personality cult’. This phrase, coined by Khrushchev, had
quickly passed into cant. By this point it had become a cliché used as a
kind of catch-�all term for the abuses of the Stalin era, or, in this case,
effectively as a euphemism for the all-�pervasiveness of the Stalinist security
apparatus. Instead, various lines in the film serve to flag, albeit obliquely,
just how much the KGB has departed from the practices and attitudes of
the NKVD.
In early 1964, the above-�described discussion was followed up by a
written request from the KGB’s deputy chair proposing that the scene in
question be whittled down to the following:

the general:╇ About the guests who visited Mironova on her birthday, has
everything been clarified?
Kiselev:╇ Yes sir.66

In other words, the dialogue was to be as vague as possible, almost to the

point of meaninglessness.
The final version of the dialogue as it appears in the film itself would
seem to be a compromise option. The dialogue is longer than the three-�
line version proposed by the KGB, but all ‘special’ terms have been cut. It
runs as follows:

The General to Kiselev:╇ And who is Pavel Pavlovich?

Kiselev:╇ Pavel Pavlovich? Shlykov .╛.╛. A CPSU member since 1945, resides
permanently in Leningrad. He graduated from the institute together
with Yevdokimov. The rest –
general:╇ You’ve told me about the rest.
Kiselev:╇ Perhaps all the same we ought to warn everyone who was visiting
Mironova not to disclose what happened?
general:╇ No, this would attract even more attention to Yevdokimov.
Events are taking a turn for the worse .â•›.â•›. The incident at Mironova’s
place became known immediately to those who are interested in this.
Kiselev:╇ You think it was one of the guests?
general:╇ That possibility can’t be ruled out. It’s essential for you to get to
the bottom of this urgently, comrade Kiselev.67

Similar problems arose in connection with the KGB’s surveillance of a

foreign spy, the villainous Binkle, operating in Moscow under diplomatic
cover. The screenplay originally included several scenes in which a KGB
officer was shown training a cine-�camera on Binkle and tracking his move-
ments. Here again, the KGB consultants objected to these scenes, arguing
that they showed the KGB’s operational methods in too much technical
detail and hence constituted a security risk.
 Screening the contemporary chekist╇╇ 101
At the December 1963 editorial meeting, KGB consultant Bachurin
announced:

we have grave concerns that at various points the film reveals the
methods of our work. This may arouse a certain reaction. In particu-
lar, first of all, we let it be understood absolutely unambiguously that
we conduct surveillance, and even cine-�surveillance.68

At this point Pyr’ev interrupted him, and said (evidently in exasperation):

‘You’re not the only ones who conduct surveillance, the whole world con-
ducts such surveillance.’69
In response, Bachurin acknowledged that similar activities had been
shown in other recent Soviet films, but argued that such matters had to be
decided on a case-Â�by-case basis, and at the ‘very highest level’ of the KGB.
He said that a viewing of the film would have to be organized for the KGB
leadership in order to reach a decision on this question.70
This exchange makes it clear that, first, the KGB took extremely seri-
ously the issue of how it was represented on screen. The fact that the high
leadership of the KGB devoted close and detailed attention to this film is
confirmed by other documents on file, many of which bear the signature
of the deputy chair of the KGB. Second, the KGB consultants were unwill-
ing to take decisions without checking back with their superiors; and
finally, the KGB consultants themselves lacked a firm grasp of where the
current boundaries of acceptability lay when it came to depicting concrete
activities carried out by the KGB. Which functions were appropriate in the
contemporary situation? Whom should the KGB be targeting? What
methods were acceptable? None of these questions had clear answers at
this particular historical moment.
Bachurin was pessimistic about the film’s prospects. He went on:

The producer comrades were duly warned that they should make sure
there was [another] version in reserve. We don’t take upon ourselves
the courage to say whether or not it can be left in such a form, without
the film being shown to our Committee. This is the main problem
which will have to be resolved. The Committee’s opinion will probably
be expressed negatively.71

Certain members of the production team attempted to argue against the

KGB representatives. Tolstykh attempted gently to point out that the only
aspects of KGB tradecraft shown in the film were ‘elementary methods,
which every schoolboy knows about’.72
But what appears to have been really at stake here was not the technical
methods used by the KGB, but questions surrounding the basic legitimacy
of KGB surveillance. In this case, the concern was not only with domestic
reception, but also with possible foreign responses to such scenes. Thus,
102╇╇ Soviet chekism
KGB officer Shmelev (perhaps wishing to avoid a repeat of the embarrass-
ing diplomatic protests sparked by the release of Makliarskii’s last film)
postulated that the scenes depicting surveillance of Binkle might create

an unpleasant aftertaste in relations between the representatives of

our country, especially in the diplomatic line, and the [foreign] diplo-
matic corps. People will watch this and will say: this is how we’re forced
to work in the country of progress!73

Here again, then, another late Soviet ideological dilemma is highlighted:

between the imperatives of presenting a ‘progressive’ face to the rest of
the world, on the one hand, and of boosting domestic ‘vigilance’, on the
other, in order to counter the dangers caused by increased openness to
the outside world.
Part of the background to this anxiety about the KGB’s foreign image
and its treatment of diplomats in particular were the ongoing periodic
espionage scandals of this period, from which both sides attempted to gain
the maximum propaganda mileage and moral high ground. Thus, for
example, the US Ambassador to the UN’s public display in May 1960 of
the so-�called Seal bug, which the KGB had concealed inside a wooden
replica of the Great Seal presented to the US Ambassador by Soviet school
children, was timed to compensate for the damage caused by the shooting
down of Gary Powers earlier that month (the bug had in fact been discov-
ered in 1952).
Makliarskii was impatient with the consultants on this point. He
attempted to convince them that surveillance of Binkle was entirely justi-
fied, since it was clear to the viewer that Binkle was actively engaged in
espionage. He made his case with some force:

It’s known that Binkle is a spy and this is completely as it should be!â•›.â•›.â•›.
After all we are talking about surveillance over a given concrete spy. It
is made clear to the viewer from the very beginning: this is a spy, this
is a son of a bitch, this is a scoundrel. And it is correct that the security
organs are watching him.
On the subject of the checking of the guests. Why has a conversa-
tion arisen about the checking of the guests? Because data have
appeared [indicating] that there may be a spy amongst these guests.
In that case the guests, naturally, ought to be studied.
Of course, we’ll take another look, we’ll correct it again, but right
now I’m at a loss. If one discards what you’re proposing from the
picture, then there is no picture. The life of the picture is lost.74

At root, the trouble which the team had agreeing on how to depict KGB
surveillance was linked with the difficulty of adapting to the new ideo-
logical environment. The film’s stated ideological messages were in many
 Screening the contemporary chekist╇╇ 103
ways standard Soviet motifs: vigilance, secrecy. But in the Khrushchev era,
new ways had to be found to propagate these values, avoiding Stalinist
overtones.

Secrecy
The importance of state secrets in the life of our socialist state is
exceptionally great.
(From a 1960 book published by the Soviet Defence Ministry’s
publishing house75)

‘Secrecy’ was another related Soviet motif whose relevance could no

longer be taken for granted. The ability to keep state secrets had always
been a key Soviet virtue, and a key chekist virtue in particular. Yet like the
motif of vigilance, the motif of ‘secrecy’ now proved to be ambiguous, as
far as the KGB consultants were concerned.
One of the film’s central dramatic conflicts turned on the pathos of the
individual who was forced to make private sacrifices because of the higher
state demand for secrecy. This was dramatized in Yevdokimov’s relation-
ship with his girlfriend and later wife Marina, and the problems that arose
in this relationship because of the fact that he was forced to keep secrets
from her. This theme was highlighted in a synopsis of the film:

Soon after completing university [Yevdokimov] moved into that field

of science about which one must not speak even to the closest people
– parents, wife, girlfriend, friends. The institute in which he works is
called ‘Post-Â�office box number such-Â�and-such’.
And this essential condition of the activities of a scientist working in
the field of defence comprises the main essence of the film’s dramatic
conflict.76

Yet this motif, too, had evidently been destabilized, judging by KGB con-
sultant Bachurin’s comments on the subject in December 1963. Bachurin
complained about the fact that the KGB general referred to ‘secrecy’ in a
conversation with Yevdokimov’s wife, in which he explained to her the
constraints under which Yevdokimov was operating by virtue of the top-�
secret nature of his research. Bachurin called again for the phrasing be
changed, suggesting that ‘The general could say a different phrase,
without placing the emphasis on secrecy’.77
Bachurin’s criticism of the scene is rather rambling, comprising vague
phrases such as ‘There are certain secrets, we know how to keep them’.78
This incoherence, viewed together with the solution which he offers –
namely, simply to avoid mentioning the word ‘secrecy’ – suggests a certain
hesitancy. It seems most likely that Bachurin was conscious of the fact that
too strong an emphasis on secrecy was no longer wholly appropriate,
104╇╇ Soviet chekism
though equally, it was not to be discarded altogether or condemned out-
right. The solution which he offered was seemingly convenient precisely
because it made it possible for him to avoid adopting a clear or firm
stance.79
Such evasion appears to have been a most common strategy adopted in
such situations; we have seen examples of this in both case studies. This was
one way of dealing with the growing contradictions of late Soviet ideology.
The result was that the ‘blank spots’ of history – aspects of the Soviet past
that had to be circumvented, obscured, camouflaged, studiously ignored –
proliferated to the point where official discourse was altogether deadened
(and would eventually collapse altogether) under their weight.

Chekists of the ‘new formation’

This was the first film to showcase the new image of the cultured, edu-
cated chekist described in Chapter 2. Much emphasis is placed on the fact
that the KGB officers in the film are highly educated in a variety of disci-
plines. The chekist hero Lagutin is (in one draft) a poetry buff,80 while the
KGB general holds a doctorate in philosophy.81 Lagutin’s cultural capital
brings him closer to Yevdokimov. Lagutin is also a budding scientist of
some promise,82 and Yevdokimov and Lagutin discuss equations together
at one point in the film.83
In fact, the emphasis on the erudition of the chekist characters is so
heavy-�handed that in the stenographic records of the editorial board meet-
ings, one member of the Artistic Council pleaded for this to be toned
down:

It seems to me that we have overdone it in the sense of the education

.â•›.â•›. of the KGB staff – they really are simply too educated, they’ve pene-
trated into all spheres of science (the general is a doctor of philo-
sophy). This is simply embarrassing. It needs to be made more
subtle.84

For the most part, however, it was precisely this element of the film that
attracted high praise. One member of the team, Shitova, applauded the
characterization of Lagutin, noting that ‘There are very few films where
people of this profession look so well brought up, calm, with their own
inner world .â•›.â•›. This has turned out well’.85
This was also the aspect of the film that came in for the most praise
from the KGB representatives. In December 1963 Shmelev was effusive in
his praise for the depiction of the chekists in the film:

As a representative of the special auditorium, on whose behalf I was

speaking, I cannot but say thank you [now], without waiting until the
picture is shown on the screen.
 Screening the contemporary chekist╇╇ 105
The images of the chekists cannot fail to make one happy. And the
image of the general has grown significantly, has become more
mature: this person has become more self-�disciplined, more attentive,
more active, and more convincing. He is not lacking in rough edges,
but this is not so important.
.â•›.â•›.â•›Lagutin’s image has become more beautiful. One senses the
future scientist in this personâ•›.â•›.â•›.
The images of soviet chekists cannot fail to bring joy to Soviet
viewers. They are seeing chekists of a new formation. These are people
who, in the name of their narod, carry out their party and state duty
self-�sacrificingly.86

Pyr’ev agreed that the image of the chekist projected by the film was to be
applauded: ‘It’s very good that Kiselev and Lagutin are pure, simple, spir-
itual, contemporary, not secret policemen [syshchiki].’87
While the consultants were generally pleased with the depiction of
chekists in the film, they had strong reservations about the characteriza-
tion of the KGB general. In October 1963 Mosfil’m paraphrased another
of the KGB consultants’ recent complaints as follows:

The KGB consultants expressed sharp and categorical disagreement

with the actor’s interpretation by Yu. A. Shevkunenko of the image of
the general. They consider that his manner of comporting himself
and [his] inter-�relations with subordinates do not correspond to the
norms customary in this milieu in a workplace setting.88

In response to these complaints, the screenwriters attempted to soften up

the characterization of the KGB general. Shevkunenko was also replaced
by another actor, Maiorov, and all the KGB scenes re-�shot.89 Through the
successive drafts of the screenplay, one can observe the general becoming
steadily more paternal, jovial and gentle.
The general’s benevolence and wisdom is on display in particular in a
scene in which the KGB general intervenes in Yevdokimov’s marital prob-
lems, summoning Marina for a ‘chat’. He receives her in civilian dress
(unlike in other scenes); he makes an effort to put her at her ease. The
ensuing dialogue is quite bizarre and worth quoting in full.

general:╇ You see, Marina Aleksandrovna, when it comes to a husband

and wife, a third person is always superfluous. But in this case, the
third person is the state.
marina:╇ I don’t understand you very wellâ•›.â•›.â•›.
general:╇ Do you see, Marina Aleksandrovna, the personal and the state
[elements] are very closely intertwined in your husband.
marina:╇ Ah, I understand – you mean Igor’ works in a post-Â�office box?
But I know that already.
106╇╇ Soviet chekism
general:╇ Yes, but you don’t know that Igor Matveevich is one of our out-
standing scientists.
marina:╇ Igor’, an outstanding scientist?!
general:╇ He has been decorated with medals on several occasions, but he
doesn’t wear them. His name has not appeared on the pages of scient-
ific journals for over twelve years now. True, there was a case when
one of his works was published, and thereby [they] brought a certain
damage to the interests of our state.
marina:╇ How stupid I am! I thought Igor was hanging around in
Zarechensk out of laziness. You know, I even tried to persuade him to
move to Moscow to work with my brother.
general:╇ [chuckles] Well then, that’s why we decided to have a talk with
you.
marina:╇ But why didn’t he tell me himself?
general:╇ Well, secrecy, Marina Aleksandrovna, secrecy. Otherwise he
would definitely have told you. After all, Igor Matveevich loves you
very much.
marina:╇ [smiling] I see that personal secrets are kept less carefully than
state onesâ•›.â•›.â•›.
general:╇ No no no no no, he has nothing to do with this.
marina:╇ Well, who does then, the Holy Spirit?
general:╇ If Comrade Lagutin looks like the Holy Spirit!90

Marina leaves the general’s office relieved and happy and the couple’s
marital problems cease from this point on.
The general’s comments on the role of the state as the ‘third person’ in
the Yevdokimovs’ marriage were evidently intended as light-Â�hearted and
comedic; but one can still discern an underlying ideological message here.
There was still a place for the state in private life in Khrushchev’s Soviet
Union; but the role to be played here was an entirely benign one. In this
scene, chekists are depicted not as the enforcers and monitors of state
secrecy, but as benevolent figures with a privileged, higher perspective and
insight into the troubles which the demands of konspiratsiia created for mere
mortals, and who descend from time to time into the sphere of ordinary
Soviet people in order to smooth over these troubles and restore harmony.
Elsewhere, too, Lagutin functions as a kind of guardian angel watching
over Yevdokimov and Marina and their love. In another scene, for example,
Marina is hurt after Yevdokimov loses his temper with her seemingly for no
reason. Lagutin acts as peacemaker, whispering to her that she should not be
offended, and that Yevdokimov was upset because a colleague had been killed
at work in an accident.91 Secrets might be occasionally revealed to wives, then,
in the interests of domestic harmony – but only at the state’s discretion.
After a series of revisions, the KGB representatives finally conceded that
the characterization of the general had been improved and was now essen-
tially acceptable, even if it still contained ‘rough edges’.92 The studio’s
 Screening the contemporary chekist╇╇ 107
final evaluation of the film in December 1963 echoed these complaints,
noting with regret that ‘Unfortunately, the actor Maiorov’s execution of
the role of the general is somewhat traditional’ – traditional being a
euphemism for ‘Stalinist’, in this case.93

Profilaktika and ‘the struggle for the Soviet person’

At various points the KGB interventions were geared towards bringing the
film in line with the new discourse of profilaktika outlined in Chapter 2. In
September 1963, for example, the KGB consultants specifically intervened
to change the word ‘interrogation’ to ‘chat’. They also made additional
suggestions as to how this chat should proceed:

In the frames .â•›.â•›. where the meeting between Kiselev and the girl takes
place, it is desirable to give their conversation the form of a chat,
rather than an interrogation. The beginning of the chat, in our view,
should be preceded by Kiselev calling the girl by her first name and
introducing himself to her.94

The KGB consultants were so sensitive to any possible allusions to chekist

brutality that it made it very difficult for any chekist actions to be depicted
on screen. For example, a meeting stenogram records the KGB’s objection
to one scene in the film where a spy was caught red-�handed and then
arrested by a KGB officer:

[KGB OFFICER (Shmelev)]: It seems to me that we need to take a

look at the [Mezentsev arrest scene] where Kiselev places his hands on
Mezentsev’s shoulders and says: – Let’s go. Is it really possible that
such a large creative collective can’t come up with a replacement of
this scene? We need to have a think about how to do this. As a viewer
this scene bothered me. I think that I won’t be the only one. This is a
special question.95
Pyr’ev drew attention to the absurdity of this criticism:
Let’s say, for example, I’ve received an assignment from the [KGB]
to arrest a citizen .â•›.â•›. who is in fact subject to arrest under the law.
What ought I to say to him? – How’s life, old man?

Shmelev avoided giving Pyr’ev a straight answer, instead shifting the

responsibility for finding a more appropriate means of depicting a KGB
arrest back onto the Artistic Council:

The struggle for the Soviet person obligates us to consider this ques-
tion once again. This may prompt an undesirable reaction. My duty is
to indicate and speak of those doubts which I have, but it’s up to you
to resolve [them].96
108╇╇ Soviet chekism
The phrase ‘the struggle for the Soviet person’ represents another linkage
to the new discourse of profilaktika. The idea that one must fight for here-
tics, not against them; that one must fight for the salvation of every Soviet
person, had become the new orthodoxy in chekist discourse.

The link with the narod

The KGB consultants also hammered home the point that the film must
show the KGB’s ‘link with the narod’. For example, in December 1963,
Shmelev complained that it was disturbing that,

The film is made without the narod. One doesn’t see how the narod is
helping [the KGB] .â•›.â•›. This question was raised when the screenplay
was being read on Dzerzhinsky Square, but the requisite attention has
not been paid to it.97

Makliarskii responded to Shmelev:

on the subject of the narod. This is a fair comment. We didn’t succeed

here. But by way of self-�justification, even though I consider the
comment a fair one, I want to pause on one brief example. Gospolitiz-
dat has just published a book about the Penkovskii trial with a print-�
run of 600 thousand copies. I’ve read this book from cover to cover.
This is a stenographic record. A curious detail: although this is a trial,
it doesn’t say anywhere that he was caught by the narod. It is shown
there in black and white that he was caught as a result of the active
work of the state security organs.98

Makliarskii commented further that it would be desirable

to find a real, deep, interesting form of the link with the narod, as in
the famous story with the exposure of the plot in 1918, when a woman
dropped a bundle, a Red Army soldier found it, and passed it to
Dzerzhinsky. This is one classic case from the ChK’s [history].99

Ultimately, at the request of the KGB leadership, a scene was included

in the film in which the link with the narod was dramatized on screen to
the KGB’s satisfaction. In the original version of the screenplay, villagers
were summoned to the local chekist headquarters. In early 1964, the
deputy chair of the KGB pressed for this scene to be rewritten, recom-
mending that it be made clear that they had ‘not been summoned, but
have come in on their own initiative, wishing to help in the conduct of the
investigation’.100 Once again, the main point was to demonstrate the
�voluntary and spontaneous nature of help provided to the KGB.
 Screening the contemporary chekist╇╇ 109
Controlling the representation of ‘Soviet reality’
In his memoirs, director Bobrovskii writes that ‘nobody was brave enough
to argue with that institution’ (the KGB);101 but this does not seem to be
an entirely fair assessment. We have seen several examples of the ways in
which members of the Artistic Council argued against the KGB consult-
ants in this chapter. In fact, both sides refused to give way beyond a certain
point, and the prolonged discussion at the December 1963 meeting seems
to have resulted in something of a stalemate, which could only be resolved
by appealing to authorities at a higher level. Thus, when Pyr’ev summed
up the debate at the end of the meeting in his capacity as chair, he
declared that:

Some of the comrade consultants’ suggestions were correct, others

were debatable.
One correct suggestion was made here – let the Committee for
State Security view this picture. And let the Committee for State Cine-
matography view this picture. Let both your Committee and our Com-
mittee view it!102

A screening of the film was duly organized for the KGB leadership, and
subsequently, in January 1964, the deputy chair of the KGB Perepelitsyn
provided the film studio with substantial written comments. He reiterated
several of the criticisms already made by the KGB consultants, but with a
somewhat different slant, focusing on the way in which the film reflected
‘Soviet reality’. Perepelitsyn wrote that despite the team’s efforts,

nevertheless certain aspects of Soviet reality and of the work of the

state security organs have not been reflected truthfully. Therefore the
release of the film onto the screen in such a form may arouse an incor-
rect understanding on the part of Soviet viewers, as well as providing
bourgeois propaganda with a pretext for slanderous fabrications.103

No mention was made here, then, of censorship, or secrecy; instead, the

rationale for the KGB’s intervention here ostensibly had to do with truth-
fulness. The failure to represent the KGB truthfully had two distinct sets of
ramifications. First, Soviet viewers might be led astray. The underlying
assumption was that, innocent and trusting, the narod existed in a state of
vulnerability, and must hence be protected from incorrect or potentially
confusing or disturbing information, for its own sake, and in order to
avoid jeopardizing the ‘link with the narod’.
Second, foreign bourgeois audiences would be liable to seize upon any
inaccuracies and exploit them, with a view to damaging the USSR’s inter-
national reputation and hence ultimately the cause of the revolution. On
the international front too, then, information must be filtered in order to
110╇╇ Soviet chekism
render the image of the KGB (and hence of the USSR) secure and
watertight.
The KGB leadership recommended a number of measures to be taken
with a view to eliminating the film’s shortcomings. First, they repeated the
point that, in the interests of the USSR’s international reputation, the film
should contain no suggestion that surveillance of diplomats was conducted
as a matter of course:

In the film the reasons why the state security organs are actively study-
ing the diplomat BINKLE are insufficiently emphasized. The viewers
may form the incorrect opinion that work like that which is being con-
ducted with regard to BINKLE is carried out by the KGB with regard
to all foreign diplomats. This may be presented by bourgeois propa-
ganda in a manner which is politically disadvantageous for us.104

The fact that Binkle was a spy operating under diplomatic cover needed to
be shown ‘more expressively’.105
Second, it was emphasized again that it should be made clear that
Lagutin did not interfere in Yevdokimov’s private life:

The scholar YEVDOKIMOV is presented in the film in such a way that

the impression is created for the viewers of a certain oppression of
him in [his] private life as a result of the KGB employee LAGUTIN’s
care of him. Meanwhile such a depiction has nothing in common with
reality, either with regard to the living conditions of Soviet scientists,
or in terms of attributing an uncharacteristic function to the state
security organs.
It would be more correct to show LAGUTIN not in the role of YEV-
DOKIMOV’s bodyguard, but as a counter-Â�intelligence officer, carrying
out an assignment to guarantee the preservation of state secrets at the
installation headed by YEVDOKIMOV, in connection with the fact
that the opponent’s intelligence service has shown interest in the
problem which the scientist is working on.106

Henceforth, this was the formula to be used in describing Lagutin’s role,

and the necessary changes were duly made. For example, the files contain
one synopsis of the film in which the word ‘guarding’ has been crossed
out by hand and replaced with ‘guaranteeing the secrecy of Yevdokimov’s
work’.107 Scenes depicting Lagutin and Yevdokimov’s relationship were
reworked with a view to meeting this requirement to avoid the possibility
that Lagutin might be seen as interfering in Yevdokimov’s ‘private life’. In
one episode, for example, Lagutin makes a great show of tact, leaving Yev-
dokimov to have a conversation in private.108
Third, the film should reflect more clearly two additional tenets of the
new orthodoxy as described in Chapter 2: the fact that the KGB’s work was
 Screening the contemporary chekist╇╇ 111
governed by partiinost’; and the KGB’s link with the narod.109 Meanwhile,
there was no need to emphasize ‘non-Â�typical moments’ in the KGB’s work,
such as interfering in a scientist’s private life, or preventing scientists from
travelling abroad (the script included a scene in which the KGB banned
the scientist Mezentsev – suspected of being in cahoots with Binkle – from
taking a foreign trip).110
Next, scenes showing chekist methods should be reduced to a
minimum. In particular, the scenes in which Binkle is filmed by cine-�
camera, and in which Binkle is followed by operational cars, should be
cut.111 The scene showing the scientific tests should be re-�done in such a
way ‘so as not to create the impression that the explosion of an atomic
bomb was being conducted’.112 This request was reiterated in another
letter in February 1964, in which the deputy chair of the KGB repeated
the request to ‘please remove .â•›.â•›. the final frames creating the impression
of the formation of a mushroom-�shaped cloud, peculiar to a nuclear
explosion’.113 This request came in the wake of the Partial Test Ban Treaty
that came into force in October 1963, prohibiting nuclear tests in all envi-
ronments except underground, and would seem to be another example of
how anxious the KGB was to be seen to be adhering to international law.
Finally, after a viewing of the revised version in February 1964, the KGB
signed off on the film and approved it for general release.114 However,
while the film did manage to make it through to Soviet screens, it had
been seriously undermined by the KGB’s unfavourable reception, and it
remained under something of a cloud. The KGB’s criticism appears to
have had serious consequences for the film’s subsequent fate. When it
came time to submit the film to Goskino, the State Committee for Cine-
matography, for assessment and categorization, a process upon which the
scale of the film’s distribution would depend, Mosfil’m gave only a luke-
warm endorsement of the film, and pointed out several shortcomings
which echoed the KGB’s complaints. The studio’s final evaluation of the
film in December 1963 noted that, for example, ‘Unfortunately, the actor
Maiorov’s execution of the role of the general is somewhat traditional’.115
According to Bobrovskii, this evaluation was the studio’s way of showing
the KGB that it had taken its criticism on board.116 The KGB also submit-
ted a report on the film to Goskino, warning that the film ‘distorted
reality’.117 Consequently, Goskino assigned the film to the ‘third category’,
a classification which indicated that the film had not met with favour at
the top.118 According to Golovskoy, a third-�category classification was a
method frequently used in this fashion in order to bury a film quietly
without the scandal that an outright ban would cause.119
The studio also failed to support the film vis-Â�à-vis the party, and indeed
effectively disowned it when the time came to account for themselves
before the party ideologues. In January 1964, Mosfil’m’s general director
Vladimir Surin listed A Shot in the Fog as one of several unsatisfactory films
produced by the studio in 1963, in his report to a session of the Central
112╇╇ Soviet chekism
Committee’s Ideological Commission.120 The film would later be con-
demned by the leading party ideologists as ‘worthless’ and ‘primitive in
the ideological-Â�artistic sense’.121
This official disfavour had, in turn, additional consequences in the
form of negative reviews in the Soviet press. Yet in spite of its negative crit-
ical reception (or perhaps, precisely because of it)122 the film proved
extremely popular with cinema audiences, and was viewed by 27 million
people.123

The KGB consultancy process

In some respects A Shot in the Fog seems to have been viewed as a sort of
test case, as far as the KGB consultancy process was concerned. KGB con-
sultant Maksimenko summed up the problems that had been encountered
during the making of the film, and emphasized that this experience would
be used to refine the consultancy procedures in future, suggesting in par-
ticular that the KGB consultancy process should begin at an earlier stage,
before the initial drafting of the screenplay.124 In Chapter 6, we shall look
at the further institutionalization of these procedures, after Andropov set
up the KGB Press Bureau in June 1969.
At one level, we might think of these Khrushchev-�era consultants as
filling the large gap which Stalin’s death left in the cinema production
process. Stalin used not only to personally vet all films (a less daunting
task than it might sound, when one considers that in the late Stalin period,
the Soviet cinema industry was producing an average of only six or seven
pictures per year),125 but also intervened at every stage of the production
process of every individual film.126
The KGB consultants monitoring the Soviet cinema industry appear to
have fulfilled three main roles. First and foremost, their job was to ensure
that chekist characters were depicted in a positive light, and especially that
they be shown to be intelligent. This would appear to have been one of the
consultants’ chief preoccupations. Anecdotal evidence from the memoir liter-
ature suggests that this was quite representative of the broader picture. Soviet
film director Igor Yeltsov, for example, recalling his dealings with a KGB
cinema consultant, described the latter’s role as follows: ‘His chief concern
was to see that the main character, a chekist, was presented in a positive and
sympathetic light and that the chekisty were not made to look stupid.’127
The second, official part of the KGB consultants’ role was to provide
assistance in terms of ensuring authenticity, arranging access to relevant
classified or archival materials to this end where appropriate. In the case
of this film, for example, the KGB consultants arranged for the film’s dir-
ectors to be granted access to classified newsreel footage of the unmasking
of foreign spies in Moscow.128
In the case of this film at least, the expertise and assistance provided by
the KGB consultants in this area appears to have been negligible. The
 Screening the contemporary chekist╇╇ 113
KGB consultants organized for the film’s team to make a trip to the new
scientific facility at Dubna, for example, but according to Bobrovskii this
trip was an utter waste of time.129 Meanwhile, it would appear from the
files that the consultants failed to help the team to gain access to the Kur-
chatov Institute, where they had wanted to shoot certain scenes (permis-
sion was refused by the State Committee for Atomic Energy).130
Finally, in conjunction with the other bodies involved in the Soviet cen-
sorship machinery, the consultants’ role was to enforce taboos. This could
be a tricky business since the taboos were themselves secret, if you like;
their actual existence could not be acknowledged openly. As we have seen
here, this meant tiptoeing around the minefield that was chekist history.
Only the chekist cult with its firmly established conventions provided the
equipment necessary to negotiate this terrain safely. Furthermore, as we
have seen, the consultants appear to have been themselves uncertain of
the current status of certain taboos, of what could and could not be said.
Director Bobrovskii’s memoirs offer another perspective on these
events, and on how the film’s creative team tried to interpret, make sense
of and respond to the KGB’s interventions. Bobrovskii refers to the KGB’s
initial unexpected criticism as a ‘complete catastrophe’ which changed
everything, and meant that he and co-�director Seryi lost all artistic
freedom on the project.131 Bobrovskii recounts how the team went to great
lengths to try to come up with ways of appeasing the KGB consultants,
such as making Lagutin into a hero buried in the Kremlin Wall.132
Bobrovskii’s memoirs also confirm that, as we might expect, relations
between the Artistic Council and the KGB consultants were characterized
by mutual dislike and adversariality. Bobrovskii recalls that Makliarskii
mocked the KGB consultants behind their backs to the rest of the Artistic
Council;133 and Bobrovskii’s impression was that the consultants were ‘very
satisfied’ after the December 1963 meeting in which they had voiced a
great deal of criticism and expressed highly pessimistic views about the
film’s chances of approval. Bobrovskii writes, ‘I heard one say to the other
in the corridor, “In my opinion, they are completely demoralized”â•›’.134
Clearly, it was Bobrovskii’s assumption that the consultants were there not
to help, but to intimidate.

Conclusion
It was not just the Soviet cinema industry, of course, that was producing
films with this kind of subtext during the Cold War. For example, various
British films of the period also carried a message that enhancement of the
national security apparatus was justified.135 Nor was the KGB the only intel-
ligence agency to take a keen interest in cinema during this period. Ameri-
can propaganda policy also assigned a key role to cinema, and the
production of the animated feature film of Animal Farm was the brainchild
of the American secret services, for example.136 But nowhere else was this
114╇╇ Soviet chekism
intervention so invasive, or the results as dire, as in the Soviet case, and
consequently the Soviet film industry encountered great difficulties in its
attempts to produce adventure films capable of competing with its
Western rivals.
At one editorial meeting held to discuss the script one team member
lamented in despair that ironically enough the only character left in the
film with any life to him was that of the villain, the foreign agent Binkle.
All the positive characters were so constrained by ideological concerns
that they ended by being absolutely wooden. Pyr’ev said: ‘The only living
person is Binkle. In him there is humanity, a good business-�like quality,
quickness of wit. He is brave. Strangely enough, it is him, precisely him,
that we sympathize with, and not our people.’137 The makers of The Chekist
faced similar problems in their endeavour to create suspense without
moving beyond the realm of ideological acceptability. During Mosfil’m
discussions of The Chekist screenplay, Soviet film director Yutkevich
attempted to explain patiently that:

clever bourgeois films make detective [films] in such a way, that they
place their agents into a difficult, sometimes catastrophic situation,
when it is unclear how one can extricate oneself from this situation,
and when they get themselves out, then you, together with them,
experience the final outcome – the victory over the enemy – in an
extraordinarily emotional way .â•›.â•›. I’m not saying this to reproach this
film. I am thinking, what weapon should we use to fight with movies
that are hostile to us?138

Soviet attempts to compete with Hollywood were also hampered by the

imperative that they cut many of the very elements that gave the genre its
mass appeal. Most notably, in comparison with the Bond films in particu-
lar, there was to be no sex in Soviet chekist cinema. The same went for
chekist novels. The original manuscript of Vadim Kozhevnikov’s novel The
Shield and the Sword, the film version of which famously inspired Putin to
become a chekist, was criticized heavily by early reviewers from puritanical
positions. Reviewers’ reports from early 1965 on Kozhevnikov’s manuscript
held in RGALI contain numerous complaints in this vein, referring vari-
ously to the fact that the action took place ‘against a background of the
heroes’ constant sexual experiences, as though such experiences com-
prised an inseparable part of the life of chekists behind the frontline’;139
that ‘The artistic devices used to describe Zubov’s relations with the
German woman give cause to think of him as an unclean [nechistoplotnyi]
person’;140 and that overall ‘There is too much talk about sex. In these
conversations Belov comes across as a crude cynic’.141
Once the sex had been removed, then, only the vicarious glamour of
‘foreign’ settings (usually the Baltic states),142 and of the trappings of the
secret world of intelligence and espionage itself, was left. Perhaps the
 Screening the contemporary chekist╇╇ 115
�
Stalinist ideologues were right – this was an inherently and irredeemably
bourgeois genre.143
Perhaps the primary reason why Soviet propaganda was so crude,
however, was that the KGB insisted on being so intimately involved at every
stage of the creative process. This is neatly encapsulated by the comments
of KGB officer Shmelev during the December 1963 meeting. Shmelev said:
‘We [that is, the KGB] wanted to be present at the birth of this child [i.e.
this film], to make sure that it is born more beautiful, and more interest-
ing.’144 But the KGB made a poor midwife, and the shadow it cast over
Soviet culture was a long one.
Part II

Post-�Soviet chekism
Introduction

The most emblematic image associated with the dying days of the Soviet
Union is that of the massive statue of Dzerzhinsky with a noose looped
around its neck, floodlit and suspended mid-�air by a crane, during the defeat
of the August 1991 attempted coup. One Russian journalist has commented
that this was Russia’s equivalent of the image of the plane hitting the World
Trade Center. It was an image that captured a defining moment, a moment
when the world changed: ‘the footage of iron Felix with a steel noose on his
neck will now be run on Russian TV channels for all eternity – this is our new
symbol, just as the plane slicing into the skyscraper is for America.’1
The toppling of the Dzerzhinsky statue marked the definitive collapse
of the symbolic universe described in Part I of this book; the chekist had
been banished from Russia’s symbolic landscape. Less than a decade later,
however, in March 2000, a man who openly took pride in his past as a
‘chekist’ was elected President of Russia,2 and chekist values and symbols
had made a triumphant return. Part II of the thesis examines this revival
of the cult of state security in Russia.
Since the mid-�1990s, Russian public life has increasingly been pervaded
by celebration of the state security apparatus. As one journalist put it,
Russia is in the throes of a ‘second romance’ with its state security appar-
atus.3 This romance has been expressed and encouraged via an extensive
campaign of public relations and cultural production which has rivalled
the ‘KGB literary renaissance’ initiated by Andropov in the late 1960s and
1970s. For over a decade, there has been a push to create a new mythology
around the figure of the chekist. It has been a period of intense activity in
terms of the production of new narratives of the history of state security in
Russia, and of mythic images of today’s chekists and their mission.
In the final three chapters of this book, I provide an introduction to the
ways in which a cult of state security is returning to Russia’s symbolic land-
scape, and sketch out its contours. I do so primarily by focusing on new
and reconstituted narratives, looking at them as attempts to refashion his-
torical consciousness and memory, and to build up a new sense of national
identity which is closely bound up with the idea of a sacralized security
apparatus.
120╇╇ Post-Soviet chekism
The subject of chekism is one that tends to polarize academic opinion.
The prevalence of hyperbole in some ‘anti-Â�chekist’ commentary has meant
that other scholars have reacted by going to the opposite extreme of dis-
missing or at least strongly downplaying the relevance of the chekist
legacy.4
I should make it clear that it is not my intention to suggest here that the
growing ascendancy of the security apparatus or the rehabilitation of the
chekist past is part of any orchestrated conspiracy or master plan. It should
also be noted that the above-�outlined recrudescence of chekism has not
gone uncriticized or unchallenged in Russia itself.5 There are also strong
countervailing discourses present in Russian public life, and we should
certainly not assume that the official rhetoric documented in this book is
accepted unquestioningly by the population it targets.
This book does not set out to demonstrate that Russians are hard-�wired
for authoritarianism, or are forever doomed to live under a police state.
These stereotypes of the conventional wisdom on Russia and the discourse
of Russian evil which are now being perpetuated in mainstream Western
media commentary on Russia, for example in connection with the
Litvinenko murder, have to some degree provoked the kind of defensive
rhetoric which I document in Part II of this book. The two positions are
mutually constitutive, and they also resemble one another. The ravings of
Russian ultra-�nationalist writers exalting the chekist as the sacred embodi-
ment of Russian statehood chime strangely with what Irina Ilovaiskaia has
called Richard Pipes’ thesis concerning Russia’s ‘mystically determined
striving toward a police regime’.6
Clearly, there is a need for research which takes full measure of the resur-
gent cult of the Russian security apparatus and places it in its context. The
mythology and ethos of the Russian security apparatus is something which is
often missing from or only partially understood in related studies. For
example, the foremost specialist on contemporary Russian politics Richard
Sakwa, while he acknowledges the formative influence of Andropov-�era
chekist cinema on the young Putin, downplays the significance of this, on
the grounds that such propaganda represented a ‘relatively non-Â�ideological
patriotism’.7 In fact, such texts are highly ideological, as I aim to show, and
analysing and contextualizing the ideological underpinnings of chekism can
enhance our understanding of contemporary Russia.
There is certainly some truth in the charge that Western commentators
often apply double-�standards to Russia, particularly when it comes to the
issues of security and defence, on the one hand, and of coming to terms
with the historical traumas of the twentieth century, on the other. Yet the
quest for objectivity and even-�handedness should not mean that we fail to
engage critically with chekist ideology. We cannot afford to ignore those
elements that make the Russian security apparatus and its corporate ethos
a highly distinctive case which cannot be compared readily to its Western
counterparts or studied in isolation from the cult which surrounds it.
5 Re-�inventing chekist traditions

The cult of the chekist faced its most serious challenge in the wake of
August 1991. The KGB was publicly disgraced, and KGB chair Vladimir
Kriuchkov was arrested and replaced by Vadim Bakatin, who was charged
with conducting wholesale reforms. In his memoirs, Bakatin explains that
he focused his efforts specifically on tackling head-�on what he called the
‘ideology of “chekism”, lacquered and licked clean by .â•›.â•›. generations of
CPSU ideologues and publicists, parasitizing on “criminal-Â�patriotic”
romantika’.1
Bakatin was criticized bitterly for daring to touch and sully the image of
the chekist in this way.2 Kriuchkov expressed his outrage in his memoirs:

The employees of the state security organs have always called them-
selves chekists, linking this with the name of Dzerzhinsky .â•›.â•›. a crystally
pure, unselfish, ideologically convinced person. But in Bakatin’s
opinion, ‘the traditions of the chekists must be eradicated, chekism as
an ideology must disappear’â•›.â•›.â•›.
.â•›.â•›.â•›[W]hat, were all the traditions of the chekists really bad? Were
the covenants bequeathed to us by Dzerzhinsky really worthless?3

Ultimately, Bakatin failed in this endeavour. From the middle of the

1990s, various elements of Soviet chekism began to be reasserted and
adapted to suit the new conditions. Far from vanishing from Russian
public life, the chekist and his ‘glorious traditions’ underwent an extra-
ordinary revival, in what was presented as a kind of rebirth of national
pride, and a revolution in historical memory.
In this chapter, I examine elements of the reconstituted post-�Soviet cult
of the chekist as an example of what Eric Hobsbawm has called ‘invented
traditions’. Hobsbawm argued that ‘invented traditions’ are especially
useful forms of historical evidence since they constitute ‘important symp-
toms and therefore indicators of problems which might not otherwise be
recognized, and developments which are otherwise difficult to identify
and date’; and secondly because they throw ‘light on the human relations
to the past .â•›.â•›. all invented traditions, so far as possible, use history as a
122╇╇ Post-Soviet chekism
legitimator of action and cement of group cohesion’.4 Since the mid-Â�
1990s, a variety of chekist traditions have been invented, and these tradi-
tions have the capacity to illuminate the changing ideological climate in
Russia, and the ambiguities of Russia’s democratic transition in particular,
from a new perspective. The new cult of state security offers an indication
of the new values being promoted by the state, and is an important feature
of the emergent state ideology in Russia.
In the first section of this chapter, I provide an account of the emer-
gence and articulation of this new version of chekism, identifying the key
milestones its revival from the mid-�1990s through into the twenty-�first
century. I then go on to present an outline of the key representational
techniques employed to project the image of the contemporary chekist.
We shall see how history is being invoked in an attempt to surround the
contemporary chekist with an aura of romance and power.

Establishing a pedigree for the new FSB

The process of inventing new chekist traditions can be traced to 1995, the
year when the FSB was created.5 The preceding years were marked by
ongoing chaos and humiliation for the Russian security apparatus. It went
through seemingly endless name changes and reorganizations,6 and its
public standing was at an all-�time low; hence it also suffered mass resigna-
tions of personnel, especially in the aftermath of the failed coup of August
1991.7 But with the creation of the FSB in 1995, things began to stabilize.
It is from this point onwards (that is, under Yeltsin, and not, as it is often
suggested or assumed, only when Putin came to power) that we can
observe a steady recovery and growth of confidence and assertiveness on
the part of the security apparatus.
When Yeltsin created the FSB in 1995, he also allocated it a new symbol:
the ‘shield and sword’, the traditional symbol of the Soviet secret police,8
was now to be combined with the tsarist double-�headed eagle. FSB public
relations chief Aleksandr Zdanovich9 described this new symbol as a ‘syn-
thesis at the symbolic level of pre-�October Russia and the symbol of the
special service of the Soviet epoch’,10 a synthesis which he described else-
where as ‘a fundamental [printsipial’nyi] moment’ in terms of the FSB’s
attitude towards its own past.11 In 1999 FSB head Nikolai Patrushev further
explained that the decision to form a ‘unified whole’ from these two
symbols reflected the fact that ‘The roots of the native special services go
back into the depths of the centuries, to the times of the birth and forma-
tion of the centralized Russian state’.12
This dramatically expanded time-�frame of chekist history, its beginning
now shrouded in the ‘mists of time’, is one of the features of the new post-Â�
Soviet state security narratives that distinguish them from their precursors.
While Soviet-�era histories began with the founding of the VChK in 1917,
positing a sharp break between the pre- and post-�October security
 Re-inventing chekist traditions╇╇ 123
�
agencies, the latest histories reach as far back into the past as possible.13
There have been a number of high-�profile publications in recent years
laying the foundations of this new genealogy of the Russian security and
intelligence organs. In the 1995 official history edited by intelligence chief
Yevgenii Primakov, for example, the history of Russian intelligence is
traced back to the Scythians (‘our distant ancestors’).14 In a 1997 tribute
to the security apparatus Yeltsin chose Tsar Aleksei as the starting point.15
Most recently, in 2007, Patrushev traced the FSB’s history back to Ivan III’s
wife Sophia Paleologue (niece of the last Byzantine Emperor).16 A new
chekist history posted on the Yaroslavl’ UFSB official website suggested
that it was impossible to pinpoint the origins of the Russian security ser�
vices, because ‘Their historical roots go back to the times of the formation
of the Russian state’.17
The new narratives also seek to ‘rebrand’ the Lubianka district itself in
similar fashion. In January 1999 Zdanovich acknowledged the symbolic
importance of the Lubianka building, describing it elsewhere as a ‘visual
image of the [Russian] special services’.18 Just as this space was re-Â�purified
in the Khrushchev era, so it has been undergoing a kind of symbolic re-�
purification in the wake of August 1991, aimed at erasing negative associ-
ations and setting up new ones. On this new account, the Lubianka, far
from being a popular synonym for Soviet state terror, represents a kind of
primeval cradle of Russian statehood. The glossy coffee-�table book, No. 2
Lubianka, launched in the FSB Club in Moscow in April 1999,19 emphas-
izes Lubianka Square’s status as an ‘ancient’ site.20 No. 2 Lubianka contrives
to link the Moscow district of Lubianka with a series of crucial turning
points in Russian history. The district is shown, for example, to have pro-
vided the setting for a string of famous battles in which foreign invaders
were repulsed, including Minin and Pozharskii’s expulsion of the Poles,
and the defeat of Napoleon in 1812 – both exceptionally significant and
emotionally charged moments in Russian history.21 The effect is to sacral-
ize the FSB’s current occupation of the site, lending it an aura of timeless-
ness, of inevitability.
This new image offers us a Lubianka whence chekists emerge in times
of crisis to take the helm of the country, reminiscent of the bogatyri, the
heroic knights-�errant of the Russian medieval oral epics, protectors of the
homeland.22 Indeed, as we shall see in Chapter 7, the most famous bogatyr’,
Il’ia Muromets, now functions as a kind of patron saint of the FSB.
Yet alongside this new expanded genealogy, the old Soviet chekist myth
of origins persists, contradictory as this might seem.23 This is exemplified
particularly by the most prominent of the newly invented FSB traditions:
the annual celebrations of Chekist’s Day. Yeltsin issued a presidential
decree officially establishing Chekist’s Day as the annual professional
holiday for staff of the security apparatus in December 1995.24 Strikingly,
he chose to retain the Soviet date: 20 December, the date when Lenin
founded the Cheka in 1917, is a central moment of the Soviet founding
124╇╇ Post-Soviet chekism
myth of the Cheka, as we saw in Chapter 1. As one leading FSB public rela-
tions official put it, Yeltsin’s choice of 20 December was ‘no accident’.25
There is a basic tension here and elsewhere, in other newly invented FSB
traditions, between the Soviet chekist myth of origins, and the new ‘prime-
val’ or ‘ancient’ myth of origins, but various discursive strategies and rhe-
torical devices have been adopted by the FSB and its supporters in order
to resolve or gloss over the contradictions, thereby sustaining the new his-
torical ‘synthesis’.
Yeltsin’s declaration of Chekist’s Day as a holiday was in fact not so
much a regressive step as an unprecedented development: this marked the
first time in history that the Russian state security apparatus had its own
officially sanctioned professional holiday. Strictly speaking, unlike
members of the other Soviet professions, chekists had never had their own
official professional holiday. As FSB director Patrushev stated in an inter-
view, for decades Chekist’s Day had been celebrated ‘unofficially’.26
Various ceremonies had been held annually from 1922 onwards (with the
brief exception of the immediate post-�Stalinist years and then again in
1991)27 to mark the anniversary of the founding of the VChK on 20
December. Yet even at the height of the Soviet cult of chekism, Chekist’s
Day was never included in the exhaustive calendar of official professional
holidays introduced in the late Soviet period.28 Arguably, this reticence
reflected an underlying unease; unease which surfaced fully after the col-
lapse of the USSR, when, in 1992, an outright ban was placed on open cel-
ebrations of 20 December, and there was talk of making this date the
professional holiday for Education Ministry employees instead.29
Yeltsin’s 1995 decree establishing Chekist’s Day was welcomed heartily
by security service heads. FSB director Patrushev hailed the decision as a
mark of recognition of the ‘social significance’ of the security apparatus.30
Zdanovich described the development as ‘deeply symbolic .â•›.â•›. it is as
though, at a new turning point in historical development, a previously
existing unwritten tradition has received a second wind’.31
Other chekist commentators also placed a marked emphasis on ‘tradi-
tion’ in greeting this decision. Thus, for example, head of the UFSB for
Moscow and Moscow region Viktor Zakharov described Yeltsin’s action as
a concession to a tradition that had formed ‘over the course of decades’.32
As we shall see, the idea of respect for tradition is one that has been
invoked very often to justify the renewed glorification of the chekist.
Respect for tradition was also the primary rationale for the rehabilitation
of the chekist past effected through official historical texts produced by
the security apparatus from the mid-�1990s onwards.33 In the preface to one
of the first of these official histories, published in 1995, Yevgenii Primakov
proclaimed that respect for their history was an inherent distinguishing
feature of the Russian special services: ‘One of the particularities of
Russian intelligence is continuity, loyalty to the best traditions of the .â•›.â•›.
services preceding it.’34 In the context of the heated historical debates that
 Re-inventing chekist traditions╇╇ 125
had taken place in the late 1980s and early 1990s, such assertions of
‘loyalty’ to chekist traditions are quite pointed.
In one press interview with chekist veteran and Moscow City Duma
deputy Sergei Goncharov,35 marking Chekist’s Day in 2002, a detailed jus-
tification for the choice of the Soviet date was provided. The interviewer
began by identifying an apparent paradox: the fact that in ‘democratic
Russia’, ‘tens of thousands of people through the whole country’ cele-
brated this Soviet holiday, and still used the word ‘chekist’, even though it
would seem to be anachronistic. Goncharov resolved this contradiction by
arguing that the term ‘chekist’ was a kind of eternal category. His defini-
tion of this category encapsulated several of the elements typical of the
newly created mythic image of the chekist and his place in history. Gon-
charov asserted that the category of chekist transcended normal time and
ephemeral trivial political interests:

The concept ‘chekist’ has long moved beyond the historical frame-
work within which it first appeared. Governments come and go, but
the universal civilization under the title of Russia remains. The people
who call themselves chekists have been programmed to carry out
defence of her fundamental interests.36

Goncharov also explained that the choice of 20 December reflected the

fact that the carriers of Soviet and KGB traditions were still alive, as were
the traditions themselves, ‘despite’, he noted darkly, ‘all the attempts in
the ’90s to destroy the very system of the country’s state security’. He also
noted that these traditions would live on after the last Soviet generation
died, because ‘Traditions presuppose, first and foremost, reproduction of
a particular system, based on corporate and ethical values’.37 Here again,
then, it was primarily the ethical or moral elements of chekism that were
being emphasized.
Yeltsin’s declaration of Chekist’s Day in 1995 was not an isolated event.
This was one of a number of symptoms of authoritarian drift marking that
year. Federal troops had invaded Chechnya in December 1994, and in
March 1995 the parliament dismissed Sergei Kovalev as Human Rights
Commissioner. New legislation put in place that year governing the FSB’s
activities replaced the relatively liberal laws that had been passed in 1992
and increased the power while decreasing the accountability of the secur-
ity organs.38 A whole range of invented traditions and symbolic actions
reflected this trend. The new Russian official calendar began to take
shape: a new series of Days of Martial Glory (Victory Days) were added, as
was Chekist’s Day, and pre-Â�revolutionary traditions of Orthodox warrior-Â�
saints began to be reasserted. The medals and decorations awarded by
Yeltsin in 1995 tell a similar story. In 1995 Yeltsin decorated a psychiatrist
notorious for using psychiatry against dissidents in the Soviet period, and
he also made the spy Morris Cohen a posthumous Hero of the Russian
126╇╇ Post-Soviet chekism
Federation. Later, in 1996, he ‘rehabilitated’ the Soviet ‘Victory Banner’,
which could now be flown on certain key military dates alongside the
Russian state flag.39 Finally, it was also in 1995 that the first of a series of
high-�profile espionage cases was launched by the FSB. One Russian civic
activist speculated that in 50 years’ time, 1995 might be remembered as
the year of ‘the gagging of mouths’ in Russia.40
Yeltsin’s authoritarian drift during this period can be linked partly to
his waning popularity and power, which eventually led him to rely increas-
ingly heavily on the security apparatus towards the end of his first term.41
This trend became more marked in Yeltsin’s second term. In 1996, Yeltsin
appointed ex-�intelligence chief Yevgenii Primakov foreign minister,
putting an end to the ‘Kozyrev era’ of Russian foreign policy.42 The finan-
cial crisis of August 1998 was another important landmark, ushering in a
run of ex-�siloviki prime ministers: Yevgenii Primakov, Sergei Stepashin,
and finally Vladimir Putin.

December 1997: an end to ‘demonization’

The above events were paralleled by a gradual shift in terms of the official
position on the Soviet past and, most relevant for our purposes, on the
chekist past in particular. This process reached a peak in December 1997,
on the eve of the celebrations of the eightieth jubilee of the founding of
Soviet state security organs, when Yeltsin delivered a landmark radio-�address
signalling a paradigm shift in the official attitude towards the Soviet past.43
This speech was hailed and has been remembered ever since by chekists as a
watershed in the restoration of the prestige of the security apparatus.
The speech was greeted by chekists as marking an end to the ‘demoni-
zation’ of their history. This point was encapsulated in a key section of
Yeltsin’s speech, frequently cited by chekist commentators:44

As the state was, so were its special services. But looking back, I see: we
might have bent the stick a little too far in exposing the crimes of the
security organs. After all, their history includes not only black periods,
but also glorious pages, of which one can indeed be proud.45

Matveev and Merzliakov, in an article posted on the FSB’s official website,

highlighted this passage of the speech as an historic admission which had
now ‘rung out for the first time’, as a long overdue but nevertheless
welcome ‘unambiguous political evaluation of the Soviet Lubianka’. They
went on to argue that this phrase,

one might say, put an end to the period of the intentional or uninten-
tional demonization of [the security organs’] history. Now the time
has come to begin, in a balanced way, without extremes, either in one
or the other direction, to ‘populate’ the FSB’s contradictory legacy
 Re-inventing chekist traditions╇╇ 127
with forgotten names, to comprehend the causes of the destruction of
the fates of those who ended up in the epicentre of the past century’s
secret battles.46

Yeltsin’s 1997 Chekist’s Day speech was interpreted by others, too, as a ral-
lying cry. The speech gave official sanction to a wave which had been gath-
ering momentum since the mid-�1990s: an upsurge of chekist public
relations and cultural production, including an extensive publications pro-
gramme, focused on reappraising and rehabilitating the chekist past. The
materials produced in this connection have included a rapidly growing
body of memoir literature produced by chekist veterans; official histories
published under the auspices of the FSB; museum exhibitions showcasing
chekist history;47 musical, cinematic and artistic tributes to chekists,
rewarded in the form of annual prizes; television documentaries and
serials; and various other events, such as the annual conference ‘Historical
Readings at the Lubianka’.48
This wave of chekist grafomaniia is about chekists fighting back. By their
own account, many of the chekist authors of these texts were moved to
write them in order to provide a sorely needed counterweight to the anti-�
chekist memoir literature and media commentary that characterized the
late 1980s and early 1990s. The outpouring of public criticism of the KGB
during this period made it a traumatic one for the security apparatus. One
FSB historian describes the early 1990s as a time of a ‘mighty attack’ on
the KGB, when

it became fashionable to link all of the state’s misfortunes with the

activities of its special services. Many publicists, writers, [and] journal-
ists strove to present the KGB as an institution whose only purpose was
repressions and the suppression of dissent.49

For leading ex-�chekist Filipp Bobkov, this was a period in which criticism
of the KGB took on ‘monstrously hypertrophied forms’.50 Other chekist
veterans go so far as to describe media criticism of the KGB in the early
1990s as a ‘disinformation’ operation.51
For many chekists, this disinformation campaign is still underway today.
In December 2004, Colonel-�General Viktor Cherkesov, one of the leading
representatives of the Soviet and now the Russian security apparatus,52
warned on the pages of Komsomol’skaia pravda (Russia’s biggest-Â�selling daily
newspaper) that an anti-Â�chekist ‘information campaign’ was gathering
momentum:

The scale of the campaign rules out its spontaneity. We are dealing
with a war, declared upon ‘chekism’ as the new enemy. [We are
dealing with] a campaign, completely comparable in terms of its scale
with the anti-Â�communist war which was waged in the late ’80s.53
128╇╇ Post-Soviet chekism
The alleged existence of this information warfare campaign has been cited
frequently to justify calls for tighter controls over media representations of
chekists, for example. In January 1999, Zdanovich spoke in this vein,
announcing that the period of ‘indiscriminate smearing’ of the security
apparatus was now in the past, and that both the mass media and the cultural
intelligentsia had a duty to contribute to the rebuilding of trust, for example
via ‘reasonable and correct’ media coverage of the security apparatus.54
Yeltsin’s 1997 speech marked the definitive end of the revolution in his-
torical memory that had steadily gained momentum under Gorbachev.55
The toppling of the Dzerzhinsky statue had been the symbolic climax of
this historical revolution. The demonstrators were rejecting not just the
Soviet regime, but also, explicitly and specifically, the chekist historical
mythology outlined in Part I.56
The past decade or so, in contrast, has seen historical memory invoked
for very different ends. The healing of Russia’s historical memory, for
example, has been a major rationale cited by those calling for the return
of the Dzerzhinsky statue to Lubianka Square. On this account, the top-
pling of the statue represented not the resurgence of historical memory,
but a crime against the nation’s historical memory. This was one of the
arguments advanced in justification of Moscow Mayor Luzhkov’s 2002 pro-
posal to restore the Dzerzhinsky statue, for example. According to Luzhk-
ov’s press secretary, this proposal reflected Luzhkov’s belief that the time
to destroy the past was over, and that the time had come ‘to create and
restore – temples, churches, and our history’.57 A journalist writing in
Moskovskii komsomlets in 2002 made the same point, drawing a parallel
between the destruction of Dzerzhinsky’s monument and the destruction
of churches, and bemoaning the toppling of the statue as an instance of a
national malaise that must be overcome: ‘Destroying symbols of the past is
one of the ugliest and most stable Russian traditions.’58
Appeals to historical memory have become a common strategy
employed in various chekist historical projects.59 As Zdanovich put it in
2003, the time had come ‘to restore historical justice’ in the field of
chekist history.60 Matveev and Merzliakov also hailed Yeltsin’s speech as
marking the beginning of the restoration of memory, including this
history among Russia’s ‘spiritual-Â�symbolic resources of historical memory’,
which must be ‘activated for the good of the country’.61
Effectively, the use of such rhetoric amounts to an appropriation of a
key slogan and impetus of Russia’s democratic movement: the demand
that historical memory be restored. This constitutes a quite ingenious and
audacious move whereby chekists are seeking to reposition themselves as
the champions and custodians of historical memory. Meanwhile, those
responsible for the brief opening of the KGB archives in the early 1990s
(an action which was obviously undertaken with a view to restoring
memory) are accused of having thereby destroyed the country’s heritage.
Thus Bakatin has been labelled ‘The Herostratus of the Lubianka’62 and
 Re-inventing chekist traditions╇╇ 129
‘mad, like Herostratus’ in the chekist memoir literature.64 In a curious
63

discursive inversion, the period of the early 1990s with its calls to condemn
or renounce chekist history has even been categorized in one new chekist
history as a ‘relapse of Bolshevik intolerance’.65
The line taken in recent chekist histories has often amounted to con-
structing a new narrative in which the security services lay claim to the role
of martyr. Far from being implicated in the Great Terror, the chekists
were its victims. For example, in 1997 the head of the UFSB for Krasnodar
region pointed out with regard to the Great Terror that

the state security organs were not the initiators of these repressions.
They were carrying out someone else’s will [chuzhuiu voliu]. Moreover,
over 20 thousand chekists shared the fate of the victims of the Stalinist
tyranny: proportionally speaking we lost practically more than any
other social stratum of our society.66

On the one hand, they suffered disproportionately at the hands of the

state, a pattern that originated at the time of Ivan the Terrible’s
oprichnina,67 and culminated in the Stalinist repressions. On the other
hand, the security services had been maligned and misunderstood by their
own narod, most notably during the Gorbachev era.68

State security as an ‘idea’

There was an additional sense in which Yeltsin’s December 1997 speech
marked an important turning point in the evolution of the new discourse of
state security in Russia. In the concluding section of his speech, Yeltsin said
that today’s security organs were staffed by ‘genuine patriots’, and added
that: ‘These people work not for glory and decorations, but – I will not shy
away from this word – for an idea.’69 What Yeltsin was signalling was that the
post-Â�Soviet security apparatus would not, in fact, be a ‘neutral’ state mechan-
ism; like the Soviet one before it, it would be devoted to an Idea. In other
words, after a brief period in abeyance, the Idea had returned to Russian
political life, and to the realm of state security in particular.
The notion of Russian statehood and nationhood as based on an Idea
has a long pedigree. Vera Skvirskaya writes of the:

underlying understanding or expectation that the Russian policy

should have an Idea about itself, its own unique civilization .â•›.â•›. Russian
statehood is deemed incomplete and fragile without an Idea .â•›.â•›. There
is a perception that without an Idea, state and nation may lose their
ontological stability and legitimacy.70

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, this notion was explicitly challenged by
various prominent ex-�dissidents and liberals in Russia. In their critiques,
130╇╇ Post-Soviet chekism
they highlighted the dangers of this idea, linking it to the tragedies of the
Soviet period. They also set out to remodel state–society relations, to build
a new Western-�style state, with obligations towards its citizens, and to
remove the emotional component, the imperative to worship the state
unquestioningly. Sergei Kovalev, for example, contrasted the ‘civilized’
idea of the state as ‘nothing more than a mechanism, called upon to guar-
antee the interests of society’ to the traditional Russian model of the state
as ‘a kind of mystical essence .â•›.â•›. outside society and above society’.71
Valerii Borshchev made the same point: that the state should be viewed as
a mechanism and nothing more, that is, not as something that one loves
or does not love.72 The currency of such positions subsequently dropped
drastically, and indeed the current wave of statism in Russia can be seen
partly as a backlash against such attempts to drain the idea of the state of
its ‘mysterious energy’ (the phrase comes from the scholar Aleksandr
Panarin, in an article lamenting the damage done by liberals to the tradi-
tional mystique of the Russian state).73
Yeltsin’s December 1997 speech thus sealed a paradigm shift which had
been underway since the middle of the decade, not only in terms of deter-
mining the type of historical consciousness that was now to be officially fos-
tered in Russia, but also in terms of attitudes towards the Russian state.
Growing reverence for the security apparatus reflected a broader trend
towards reverence for strong statehood in Russia.74 As Shokhina put it in
2004, a kind of ‘etatist temptation’ was ‘thickening in the air’, and a ‘â•›“music
of the time” .â•›.â•›. which demands love for the NKVD, the ChK, the GPU’.75
The beginnings of this paradigm shift were noted with satisfaction as
early as 1995 in the White Book of the Russian Special Services (a book which
has been publicly endorsed by a senior researcher of the FSB Academy).76
The authors write that while the early 1990s were characterized by
‘attempts to depart from the priority of the state’s interests over the inter-
ests of the individual and of society .â•›.â•›. already today, despite mighty resist-
ance, one can observe a process of a return to our traditional priorities’.77
Insofar as Yeltsin went on to define this ‘idea’ for which chekists were
working, the definition he provided was fairly bland, vague and uncontro-
versial (‘For the security of the state. For the peace and calm of our cit-
izens’).78 But if Yeltsin was less than forthcoming on this subject, chekist
commentators were more keen to articulate this idea and to fill it with
content. From around the period that Yeltsin made this speech, chekist
commentators began to speak publicly about the importance of ideo-
logical underpinnings of their work, though they often used the euphe-
mism ‘spiritual’ for this, since ‘ideological’ was still taboo, especially when
it came to the security apparatus.79 This appears to have become a matter
of official policy from 1999. In that year, Patrushev proclaimed that ‘mater-
ial stimulae alone will never be able to replace the spiritual, semantic
[smyslovuiu] component’ in the work of the Russian state security appar-
atus.80 In Chapter 7, we shall explore what he meant by this.
 Re-inventing chekist traditions╇╇ 131
In the remaining two sections of this chapter, I provide a basic chrono-
logy of the rise of chekism as manifested in newly invented traditions,
before closing with a brief investigation of the new image of the chekist as
projected by the FSB from roughly 1999 onwards.

High chekism
The Yeltsin epoch is ending with the apotheosis of chekism. The most
significant attempt at democratic reforms in the history of Russia is
ending with the apotheosis of chekism.
(Sergei Kovalev (2000))81

Yeltsin’s 1997 speech marks the beginning of what we might call the
period of ‘high chekism’. We can track the increasing hallmarks of high
chekism through the ever-�growing scale of official celebrations of Chek-
ist’s Day from this point onwards, a development which was paralleled by
the rising career of Vladimir Putin. In 1998 at the end of his first year as
director of the FSB, Putin made a televised address to mark Chekist’s Day.
He praised the Cheka in his speech, making no mention of its role as an
instrument of terror.82 Next year, in 1999, by now the heir apparent, Putin
marked Chekist’s Day by restoring the plaque of Andropov outside the
FSB headquarters in Moscow, a plaque which had been torn down in
1991.83
In the year 2000, Putin became the first Russian President ever to
attend the Cheka celebrations personally.84 Indeed, the festivities held to
mark Chekist’s Day in the year 2000 were the most large-Â�scale of their kind
since the time of Andropov. As during the Soviet period, the proceedings
included the presentation of prizes for works depicting the security serv-
ices in a positive light.85 In subsequent years, these awards would be
expanded, culminating in the re-�invention of the tradition of the KGB
prizes initiated by Andropov, as of 2006, as we shall see in more detail in
Chapter 6. Chekist’s Day in 2000 also sparked offshoots such as the release
of a CD of chekist songs, Our Service is Both Dangerous and Difficult.86 In sub-
sequent years, Chekist’s Day has occasioned tributes to chekists in verse,
notably by Aleksandr Kombatov, whose 2003 poem about Chekist’s Day
covered terrain familiar from the Soviet cult, hailing chekists as ‘pure in
deed and thought’.87
Ever since 2000, celebrations of Chekist’s Day have been lavish, and
have received substantial media coverage. One 2004 Moskovskii komsomolets
article entitled ‘The Motherland Begins With the Cheka’ went so far as to
assert that Chekist’s Day had become a kind of de facto professional
holiday for the leaders of the Russian state, now that so many ex-�chekists
were in positions of power.88
The high chekist period has been punctuated by disasters such as
Dubrovka (October 2002) and Beslan (September 2004). Despite the
132╇╇ Post-Soviet chekism
brutal and incompetent way in which they were handled, each of these
events served to strengthen chekist positions, and was followed by an
upsurge of pro-�chekist propaganda.89 Pro-�chekist moods were further
intensified in the wake of the Beslan massacre in particular, which
prompted public soul-�searching and speculation that the Russian intelli-
gentsia bore indirect responsibility for the massacre insofar as it had com-
promised Russian security through its excessive and prolonged moral
condemnation of the Soviet security organs during the Gorbachev and
Yeltsin eras. Years of public and unbridled criticism of the KGB and its
informers had stigmatized the security apparatus, it was asserted, and this
in turn had prompted mass resignations and dismantling of the old agent
networks, thereby depriving the Russian security apparatus of vital sources
of information.90 These post-�Beslan debates were led by Patrushev, who
responded to the massacre by calling for a change in social attitudes
towards informers, to be effected via cultural popularization of positive
images of secret informers.91 The head of the UFSB for Yaroslavl’ region
had commented on this issue the previous year:

We have lost the most important weapon, with whose help we used to
receive information from the camp of the enemies. I would call these
people our helpers. .â•›.â•›. And this is precisely what [people] wanted to
castrate from the KGB. Someone wanted this very much.92

How much real interest the Russian population takes in the annual Chek-
ist’s Day celebrations is another matter. The issue of the public reception
of chekism is an important question, which lies beyond the scope of this
book.93 For our purposes, these celebrations are significant in any case in
their own right, as examples of Hobsbawm’s ‘invented traditions’, that is,
as an indication of the values which the state seeks to promote. The offi-
cial state calendar provides a useful barometer here. For the historian, the
calendar of such dates is of special interest, since the calendar also gives
the most direct indication of which historical narratives the state wishes to
privilege.
The Soviet official calendar of holidays and rituals was itself, of course,
the quintessential ‘invented tradition’, invented and imposed artificially
and consciously over a brief period of time. The Bolshevik takeover in
1917 was followed by wholesale calendar reform, explicitly designed not
only to bring Russia in line with the modern world but also to change
popular consciousness, as shaped and expressed through traditional reli-
gious holidays, for example.94 The process of creating a new set of Soviet
official holidays and festivals was also a legitimizing practice. As one 1983
Soviet text on the topic put it, these holidays constituted the Soviet
rodoslovnaia – the pedigree or genealogy of the birth and development of
the Soviet state.95 Initially this genealogy was discarded in post-�Soviet
Russia, but elements of it have selectively been reinstated and adapted.
 Re-inventing chekist traditions╇╇ 133
Now we have a situation involving what we might think of as nested
invented traditions. As we have seen, the new genealogy of chekism oper-
ates under a curious twin-�track chronology, tracing its roots simultaneously
to the distant origins of the Russian state and to Lenin’s creation of the
Cheka in December 1917.
We might also think of the inclusion of Chekist’s Day into the Russian
official state calendar as part of what James Scott has called the ‘public tran-
script’ of authoritarian regimes, that is, ‘the symbolization of domination by
demonstrations and enactments of power’.96 This is not just a top-Â�down
process; increasingly, Chekist’s Day has also involved public displays of genu-
flection from below. In 2005, when Chekist’s Day reached new heights in
terms of its conspicuous celebration in public life, some sections of the
Russian business community used the day as an opportunity to advertise
their support of chekists while simultaneously marketing themselves. The
most ostentatious of such shows of support were a series of congratulatory
banners displayed across Moscow’s Garden Ring Road and elsewhere in the
capital by the Krost construction company.97 Another company, Wine World
holding, circulated a release congratulating ‘friends and colleagues with the
88th anniversary of the formation of the VChK-Â�KGB-FSB’.98
In addition to the official state calendar, the state has a number of
other methods and tools at its disposal in order to propagate and foster its
vision of national identity. The revival of Chekist’s Day was paralleled by
manifold other initiatives likewise aimed at inventing chekist traditions
and refashioning Russian historical consciousness. Thus, several series of
postage stamps celebrating chekist heritage and heroism were issued
during this period.99 Changes to the chekist parade uniform introduced in
August 2006 also served to reflect and underline the new official attitude
towards the security apparatus.100
Many of the new FSB traditions have enlisted the Russian Orthodox
Church, and involve various rituals aimed at sacralizing and blessing the
FSB’s work. Some of these traditions reach back to medieval folklore
imagery for their symbols, as we shall see in Chapter 7. Finally, new chekist
traditions have also taken the form of a series of annual awards and deco-
ration ceremonies. The site for most of these rituals is Andropov’s former
office at the Lubianka, which has been invested with strong symbolic value
by the FSB. These will be outlined further in Chapter 6.
We can also track the resurgence of the cult of the chekist by compar-
ing different official pronouncements made on Dzerzhinsky over the
course of the past decade. Towards the beginning of the chekist renais-
sance, official FSB accounts of the toppling of the Dzerzhinsky statue at
the Lubianka were tightlipped. In No. 2, Lubianka (1999), the statue’s
removal is played down, prefaced with an account of the laying of the
foundation stone for a monument to victims of repression on Lubianka
Square in late 1990: ‘And after several months the monument to F. E.
Dzerzhinsky was removed from the centre of the square. For a couple of
134╇╇ Post-Soviet chekism
years its pedestal remained here, and then the flower bed was broken
up.’101 The use of the passive form, ‘was removed’, is striking – by whom?
When, exactly? And why?
A partial explanation for the dismantling of the statue is implied in an
earlier passage, which states that the late 1980s and early 1990s were

a complex time in [Russian] history, when habitual views and under-

standings were changing, [and] new phenomena were emerging in
the social and economic life of the country. These changes were also
reflected in the external appearance of Dzerzhinsky Square, which as
of 1990 came to be called Lubianskaia once more.102

Again, these events are described in the vaguest way possible.

By 2007, the lingering ambiguity characterizing official evaluations of
Dzerzhinsky had largely subsided. This was a jubilee year, marking the
one-Â�hundred-and-Â�thirtieth anniversary of Dzerzhinsky’s birth, and various
celebrations were organized in this connection. At the annual FSB prizes
ceremony on Chekist’s Day in 2007, an encouragement diploma was
awarded to the director of the ‘Dzerzhinovo’ museum-Â�estate in Belarus for
creating an exhibition devoted to Dzerzhinsky’s life and work.103 The
Central Museum of the Great Patriotic War in Moscow ran an exhibition
celebrating Dzerzhinsky’s one-Â�hundred-and-Â�thirtieth jubilee in 2007, at
the opening of which the museum’s director proclaimed that ‘The VChK
organs always demonstrated moral purity, and I find it heartening that the
FSB is the glorious successor of this organization’.104
The regional UFSB in Volgograd also organized an exhibition and
other events marking the jubilee, and a local chekist boasted in a press
interview that Volgograd was ‘the only city in Russia where not a single
monument to F. Dzerzhinsky was dismantled. There are seven of them in
our city’.105 A series of books were also published to mark the jubilee,
including a collection of Dzerzhinsky’s love letters, entitled I Love
Youâ•›.â•›.â•›.,106 new editions of Dzerzhinsky’s diaries and other related docu-
ments, as well as a ‘gift edition’ of a book of photographic portraits enti-
tled F. E. Dzerzhinsky.107 The FSB’s website now includes reproductions of
Soviet hagiographies of Dzerzhinsky, such as Yurii German’s tribute ‘Ice
and Flame’; an article presenting Dzerzhinsky as an opponent of Stalin
and Beria;108 and other materials in a similar vein. The Union of State
Security Veterans launched a new charity programme entitled ‘Dzerzhin-
sky and Children’, aimed at reviving the chekist tradition of helping
homeless children and also to ‘preserve the memory of this wonderful
person in our “operation to serve the Good”â•›’.109 Chekist veteran journals
proclaimed trimphantly that at last sanity had prevailed, and Dzerzhinsky
had become respectable again: ‘It is heartening to see that time has
restored everything to its rightful place and today the figure of Dzerzhin-
sky has once again become an example for our citizens and for a new
 Re-inventing chekist traditions╇╇ 135
110
generation of chekists.’ Meanwhile, a major sociological study of
Russian historical consciousness found in 2007 that contemporary atti-
tudes towards Dzerzhinsky were largely positive. The influence of the
Soviet myth was obvious: 71 per cent of respondents considered that
Dzerzhinsky ‘strove to bring order to the country’; 46 per cent that ‘he
strove to improve the lives of simple people’; and 35 per cent saw him as
‘a noble dreamer, a knight of the revolution’.111 As we shall see in the
next section, this motif of the ‘nobility’ of the chekist is one that has
been taken up as a key element of the new chekist identity.

The chekist as aristocrat

In 1999 Patrushev proclaimed that the previously unwritten tradition of
celebrating Chekist’s Day had been ‘filled with new content’.112 What,
then, was the nature of this new content?
First and foremost, the new chekist public relations seeks to create a
new image for today’s chekists, to mark them out as an elite. In 2000, FSB
director Patrushev also declared that today’s chekists represented a ‘neo-Â�
aristocracy’ (neo-Â�dvoriane).113 Other leading chekists have made similar
statements. In early 2001, for example, Shul’ts proclaimed that chekists
constituted ‘I won’t shy away from this word – the real elite of society’.114
There are several possible ways of interpreting and approaching these
claims. In the first place, the notion of a chekist ‘neo-Â�aristocracy’ should
be seen in the context of the mass influx of chekists and former chekists
into positions of power in contemporary Russia.115 From the late 1990s,
the Russian liberal media increasingly carried reports on what was dubbed
the ‘chekists’ march to power’.116 FSB public relations efforts during this
period were aimed explicitly at assuaging fears aroused by such reports.117
In a 2000 interview, Patrushev criticized the fact that some mass media had
‘willingly seized upon’ the thesis that chekists were taking over the
country, and that this represented:

an attempt to ‘demonize’ former SVR [Foreign Intelligence Service]

and FSB employees who have come into the power structures. The
aim is clear – to create the image of a certain ‘dark force’, defending
not universal-�national [interests], but its own narrow-�corporate inter-
ests, and thereby to weaken the resource of the narod’s trust in the
country’s new leadership.118

The notion that chekists constituted an elite of a special kind, worthy of

this position by virtue of certain inherent distinguishing qualities that they
allegedly possessed, offered a means of justifying the chekists’ rise to
power.
This justification had a number of different elements. As Patrushev’s
quote above indicates, one important purpose of FSB public relations
136╇╇ Post-Soviet chekism
commentary on this issue was not merely to mark chekists out as an elite,
but to establish their patriotic credentials. Chekists were not an ambitious,
grasping clique who had seized power in order to enrich themselves; they
were motivated only by the interests of the nation, and not by personal
privilege. They had taken on responsibility for Russia’s future. Their
primary aim was to bring about the country’s recovery and reconstruction.
Parallels were frequently drawn with Dzerzhinsky’s activities after the Civil
War, in which he worked to rebuild the Russian economy. The fact that
Dzerzhinsky was not only a Pole, but a fierce internationalist, is elided in
such accounts. One 2007 tribute to Dzerzhinsky in a chekist veterans’ his-
torical journal went so far as to describe Dzerzhinsky as a patriot above all
else, making the claim that: ‘This is the main idea of his whole life – saving
his “home” – his country, his fellow citizens.’119 Likewise, the first deputy
director of the FSB, Sergei Smirnov, proclaimed that ‘love for and devot-
edness to the Motherland and to their narod’ was the FSB’s ‘most import-
ant tradition’ of all.120 Thus, the new chekist discourses invoke alleged
chekist ‘traditions’ of patriotism, harnessing chekism to national identity.
The narratives contained in FSB public relations materials also affirm
emphatically that chekists are capable of re-�making themselves. They have
this in common with the emphasis placed in the latest wave of Dzerzhinsky
hagiographies on the transformation that Dzerzhinsky underwent after
the Civil War had ended. Thus,

upon the end of the Civil War, Dzerzhinsky managed to go through a

kind of catharsis and to go from being a fierce overturner of every-
thing old to become a creator, an organizer of the rebirth of industry,
transport, an active supporter and devotee of NEP.121

It is precisely this flexibility, this ability to re-�make himself, that is consistently

highlighted and celebrated in the literature. Dzerzhinsky, like today’s chek-
ists, and indeed like Russia itself, is the phoenix rising from the ashes. Like
Dzerzhinsky, chekists may take different shapes according to the demands of
the time, but their essence is unchanging.122 Again, this point serves to legiti-
mize political power for chekists. The parallel is made explicit in one article
which draws a parallel between Putin, Dzerzhinsky and Andropov, all chek-
ists who re-Â�made themselves when they were ‘called upon to govern the
country and the national economy from the Lubianka’, and ‘turned out to
be reformers with a plus sign and supporters of market relations’.123
The commentary proclaiming the existence of a new chekist elite seeks
to establish a lineage for this elite by reaching for precedents from Russian
history. In a 2001 article justifying high-�level government appointments of
chekists, Leonov drew a parallel between contemporary chekists and the
pre-�revolutionary Russian service aristocracy. He wrote of the chekists that
they were distinguished by certain innate qualities reminiscent of those
characterizing the old nobility, namely:
 Re-inventing chekist traditions╇╇ 137
a special care for the Motherland, a special understanding of patriot-
ism, a special pain about their narod. Here one recalls the role of the
Russian nobility in the former, pre-�revolutionary Russia, when the
nobles served the throne, especially when they took up military
service.124

Central to propaganda celebrating this chekist neo-�aristocracy is the

notion that membership of this elite is defined by the ideal of service. A
strong emphasis is placed on the notion of chekists as humble and devoted
‘servants’ of the state. As Patrushev put it chekists were people who had
‘preserved, despite everything, “the spirit of state service”â•›’.125 For
Cherkesov, ‘Where there is no idea of serving, there is no chekist’.126 Or to
cite Leonov once more: ‘We think of the State constantly. This is an idea
pursuing us relentlessly: “We are the Fatherland’s servants”.’127 Again, this
is clearly a recycled version of the Soviet cult of Dzerzhinsky as selfless,
driven only by duty.
The notion of a chekist neo-�aristocracy grounded in pre-�revolutionary
Russian tradition was further elaborated by Dobroliubov, writing in Spetsnaz
Rossii in 2007. Dobroliubov presented the resurgence of chekism under
Putin as constituting the rebirth of Russia’s ancient traditions of an aristo-
cratic military service estate. This service estate had existed in Russia for cen-
turies, ‘since the ancient princely druzhiny’, but broke down in the nineteenth
century, until it was reborn in the form of the Cheka.128 This notion of the
FSB as the latest incarnation of Russia’s traditional service class is also a recur-
ring theme of the chekist memoir literature, with Alidin describing FSB offic-
ers as ‘representatives of Russia’s contemporary service estate’.129
Another important element of the chekist’s mission is the restoration of
Russia’s dignity on the world stage. This point was spelled out in Dobro-
liubov’s article, which hailed the return of ‘chekism’ as finally enabling
Russia to hold its head high internationally. Dobroliubov asserted that the
announcement that Putin was Time man of the year had aroused ‘a real fit
of fury’ amongst Western Cold Warriors, who

suddenly became aware that the Russians were back. They were back
in the toughest form – not as humiliated beggars and not as hunted
losers, but as calm, confident victorsâ•›.â•›.â•›.
Today chekism is returning, returning together with Putin. Today
Russia has once again strengthened its positions on the international
arena, the situation inside the country has stabilized significantly, and
the world once again sees with horror the three terrible letters ‘K-Â�G-B’
in the eyes of Russia’s national leader.130

In this way the chekist’s quest for respectability has become a joint,
national quest, inseparable from the Russian quest for a new national
identity, and for international dignity.
138╇╇ Post-Soviet chekism
Conclusion
At the time, the August days of 1991 seemed the most likely candidate for
the cornerstone for a new national myth of liberation. Here, it seemed,
was the Soviet Union’s equivalent of the fall of the Berlin Wall. But this is
not how things eventuated. As one 2002 article which is available on the
FSB’s official website, for example, puts it:

‘Iron Feliks’, nowadays standing modestly under a spreading maple

tree in the park at Krymskii Val, is waiting. Gazing intently somewhere
into the distance, it is as though he, now speechless, is waiting for help
and protection from the slanderers and insolent liars who have settled
upon him.131

The fate of Dzerzhinsky’s statue, and the empty pedestal it left behind at
the Lubianka, have become key symbols of an ongoing fundamental
ambivalence related to questions of the memory of the Soviet past, and its
relation to Russian national identity.132 In important ways, Dzerzhinsky
remains ‘suspended’, and the moral questions which he represents,
unresolved.
6 The cult of Andropov

In December 1999, shortly before he became Acting President of Russia,

Vladimir Putin restored the Andropov memorial plaque at the Lubianka
in honour of the eighty-�second anniversary of the founding of the Cheka.
The plaque had been removed after the August days of 1991, during
which the crowd had poured paint over it, and defaced Andropov’s face
with a swastika.1 By returning the Andropov plaque to its original place,
Putin was publicly enacting a restoration of respect for Andropov.2 This
marked the beginning of a broader trend whereby Andropov emerged as
an important figure in the new Putin-�era version of chekist mythology and
the chekist pantheon.
This process reached a peak in the lead-�up to the ninetieth anniversary
of Andropov’s birth in June 2004, when a number of official initiatives
were launched to celebrate his legacy, including the establishment of an
FSB Andropov Prize;3 a contest to design a major monument to Andropov
in Petrozavodsk;4 and renewed discussions on erecting a monument to
Andropov in Moscow.5 These were accompanied by a number of high-�
profile TV specials on Andropov;6 a wave of new biographies;7 and a prolif-
eration of press articles with titles such as ‘A Politician, a Chekist, a
Romantic: Yu. V. Andropov in the Reminiscences of Intelligence Veter-
ans’.8 Paying public tribute to Andropov was apparently de rigueur for
members of the Russian political establishment at the time – Moscow
Mayor Luzhkov, for example, published a panegyric which is typical of the
genre.9 The attention paid to Andropov was not merely a function of the
fact that two major Andropov jubilees – the ninetieth jubilee of his birth
on 15 June 1914, and the twentieth anniversary of his death on 9 February
1984 – happened to fall in 2004. Clearly, there was some selection involved
here; as FSB director Patrushev pointed out, ‘the interest in this person in
our days is far from accidental’.10 As another commentator put it in the
journal Lubianka, many of Andropov’s ideas, ‘beginning from 1991 and
even earlier’, had been consigned to oblivion for reasons related to the
political circumstances of that period; but the time had now come to
revisit these ideas.11 Andropov has thus been adopted as one of the
banners of the chekist crusade. This chapter explores the significance of
140╇╇ Post-Soviet chekism
the new cult of Andropov via an analysis of its manifestations, placing
these in the context of what we might call chekist revisionist narratives of
late Soviet history. I examine the ways in which the period of Andropov’s
chairmanship of the KGB has come to function as another ‘golden age’ in
chekist history, especially useful for making sense of the collapse of the
Soviet Union and the subsequent rebirth of the state security organs.

Andropov and Putin

Where the revised myth of Andropov was most relevant and useful for con-
temporary purposes was in terms of establishing a respectable genealogy
for Putin, as exemplified by the title of a 2002 book co-�authored by ex-�
chekist Yurii Drozdov: Yurii Andropov and Vladimir Putin: On the Path to Re-�
birth.12 As one critic of the growing cult of Andropov put it, we were being
asked to believe that ‘Putin is Andropov Today’ (‘Putin – eto Andropov segod-
nia’ – an ironic reference to the slogan ‘Stalin – eto Lenin segodnia’).13
Andropov provided the historical link necessary to present Putin as part of
the ‘organic’ flow and continuity of Russian history, which had now been
restored following the temporary rupture caused by the aberration that
was the Gorbachev and Yeltsin periods. In this sense, Putin represented a
‘return to tradition’.
In some cases the policies attributed to Andropov were somewhat
anachronistic, and transparently geared towards legitimizing the current
policies of the Putin government. Thus, for example, Andropov was
described as an advocate of strong state power along the whole ‘vertical’,
for example – a Putin buzzword.14 In a similar vein, FSB director Patrushev
praised Andropov’s anti-Â�terrorist stance.15

Andropov and the narod

The cult of Andropov is based on the claim that Andropov enjoyed – and
continues to enjoy – the deep respect and love of the narod.16 It is a com-
monplace in media tributes to Andropov to describe him as the most
popular Russian leader of all time.17 Evidence is rarely presented to support
such assertions, and when it is, it is often spurious – for example, Luzhkov
claimed that for him, the sole deciding factor indicating Andropov’s impor-
tance was the fact Andropov was so deeply respected by the narod (a respect
which Luzhkov attributed partly to Andropov’s tough stance on security
issues). The only sociological data which Luzhkov offered by way of evid-
ence for this claim was a hypothetical opinion poll. Luzhkov speculated: ‘If
one were to conduct a sociological poll amongst people of the older and
middle generation on the theme “When did you feel more secure – under
Andropov or now?”, the result would be discomfiting.’18
In fact the sociological data on Andropov’s popularity and historical sig-
nificance are mixed.19 It seems plausible that his anti-�corruption campaign
 The cult of Andropov╇╇ 141
targeting the Brezhnev-�era elite would have had broad popular appeal;
and the same is true of the cheap brand of vodka which he brought in as
General Secretary, known colloquially at the time as ‘andropovka’.
But whether or not Andropov is popular with the narod, there can be
no doubt of his status within the FSB, for obvious reasons. As FSB public
relations official Vladimir Shul’ts puts it, Andropov presided over the
KGB’s evolution to become ‘one of the most powerful and respected
special services of the world’.20 For chekists, the Andropov era was a
‘golden age’, and hence, for example, FSB decoration ceremonies are still
held for sentimental reasons in Andropov’s old office at the Lubianka.21

Andropov and ‘order’

Andropov’s contemporary appeal and political usefulness is explicable
first and foremost in terms of his association with discourses of order and
discipline. As many commentators have pointed out, and for understand�
able reasons, lack of ‘order’ is one of the key concerns of Russians and
one of the dominant motifs in Russian politics today.22
Yet concrete examples of Andropov’s actual policies or achievements
on this count are seldom offered, and what these actually entailed is rarely
interrogated. If anything, Andropov is most likely to have gone down in
the popular memory for the notorious raids which he instituted as General
Secretary, in which truant workers were ‘rounded up’ at bath-Â�houses and
cinemas. The pettiness of this policy would hardly have endeared him to
the narod, especially as this ‘truancy’ was itself often caused by shortcom-
ings of the Soviet economy which made it necessary to queue for long
periods for basic goods or to engage in ‘shadow’ economic activities such
as barter. This is the case even if it is true, as Luzhkov says, that the policy
itself was basically sound, but executed with excessive zeal by the lower
ranks keen to impress Andropov.23 Other commentators such as Bobkov
now deny that these raids were an Andropov initiative.24

Andropov and destiny

There is a strong millenarianist strain discernible in much of the Russian
pro-�Putin literature, evincing what Cohn described as the phantasy of a
saviour capable of restoring the national fortunes.25 This phantasy is bol-
stered by links to Orthodoxy. In 1999, for example, there were various
media reports about the ‘sign’ that Putin was said to have received when
his dacha burnt to the ground, leaving only his Orthodox cross, which
miraculously survived the fire.26
The figure of Andropov provides an important anchor legitimizing the
notion that Putin’s rise was pre-Â�ordained. Andropov is said to have ‘fore-
seen’ this, supposedly prophesying the rise of ‘people from the Lubianka’
to run the country.27
142╇╇ Post-Soviet chekism
The concept of destiny, as manifest in History, is frequently invoked to
legitimize a leadership role not just for Putin, but for chekists more
broadly in contemporary Russia. As Cherkesov puts it:

[I]f I am correct, if chekists and our current Russia have turned out to
be historically linked, then what a huge responsibility such a link
places on us. .â•›.â•›. History has decreed .â•›.â•›. that the burden of preserving
Russian statehood has to a large extent fallen upon our shoulders.28

In this Cherkesov echoes retired KGB General-�Lieutenant Leonov, who

declared in a 2001 interview that: ‘History has recruited them [i.e. the ex-Â�
chekists now taking up governmental posts in Russia] for .â•›.â•›. a special oper-
ation for the rebirth of our Great Power.’29
Clearly, then, we are back in the realm of the grand historical epic here;
practically in the realm of eternity.

Andropov as a precedent for chekist power

Andropov is also an especially useful element in these new narratives
because he provides an historical precedent which can be marshalled in
order to assuage or counter concerns being raised about the dangers of
secret police rising to positions of power. Andropov’s brief tenure as an
ex-�chekist General Secretary is put forward as the ultimate answer to anti-�
chekist scare-�mongering and hysteria in the liberal press. As one journalist
put it:

It would be incorrect to say that Putin is unique [in being a chekist

leader]. .â•›.â•›. He has historical predecessors in Russian history who, like
Putin, were summoned to run the country and the economy from the
Lubianka. And like Putin, they .â•›.â•›. turned out to be reformers .â•›.â•›. and
supporters of market relations.30

The author cited two such predecessors: Dzerzhinsky (who qualified by

virtue of his role as head of VSNKh, the Supreme Soviet of the National
Economy), and Andropov, who was supposedly trying to find a way to
bring in limited market reforms. He went on: ‘Such are the predecessors
of the current master of the Kremlin, recruited by history from the chekist
milieu to carry out special assignments in the Kremlin and several key min-
istries.’31 The new cult of Andropov seeks to legitimize specifically the
current generation of chekists in power, who joined the KGB during the
period of Andropov’s chairmanship. As Duma deputy Mitrofanov pointed
out in September 2002, ‘It was precisely under [Andropov] that many of
the leaders of our state began their career in the Commitee for State
Security’.32 The notion of the Andropov-Â�era cohort of chekists as a distinct
generation was also flagged by Spetsnaz Rossii journalist Yevdokimov, who
 The cult of Andropov╇╇ 143
noted in 2001 that ‘now people from the System are emerging, moreover
representatives of the young generation who came to the KGB in the ’70s:
Putin, Ivanov, Cherkesov, Patrushev, and others’.33
As a result, the depiction of this specific period of chekist history is
especially sensitive. In 1999, for example, Zdanovich deplored the fact that
in the late 1980s, the previous practice of demonizing the NKVD and
using it as a scapegoat for party crimes was extended and directed also
against the generation of chekists who joined the organs during the
Andropov period.34 It is not so much the reputation of Andropov himself
as of the ‘Andropov generation’ of chekists that FSB propaganda seeks to
rehabilitate.

Andropov as a blander version of Dzerzhinsky

Andropov is frequently paired with Dzerzhinsky. In 2001, for example,
FSB deputy director Shul’ts named Dzerzhinsky and Andropov as the two
most important chekist leaders.35 Dzerzhinsky is still too sensitive and
potentially divisive a figure to stand alone as a positive historical role
model, even in the whitewashed form in which he is often offered up to
the Russian public. Overall, in recent years there has been a clear trend
towards de-�centring Dzerzhinsky in the chekist pantheon. Controversial as
he is in a number of respects, Andropov still offers a more acceptable link
to the Soviet past, and point of orientation.36
In some respects, what we are being offered is just a paler, more
anodyne version of the Soviet-�era Dzerzhinsky cult. Many basic elements
of the current Andropov cult are already familiar from the standard Soviet
representations of Dzerzhinsky. Thus, for example, Dzerzhinsky’s refusal
to accept gifts, illustrating his famed incorruptibility,37 has its parallel in
the well-�worn anecdote about Andropov contemptuously returning to his
deputy Semen Tsvigun a crate of cognac which the latter sent to Andropov
to mark the Cheka’s fiftieth jubilee in December 1967.38 In the same vein,
accounts of Andropov’s asceticism and indifference to public fêting and
medals recall endless similar stories from the Dzerzhinsky cult.39 More
broadly, all these qualities represent generic chekist traits, encapsulated in
Dzerzhinsky’s injunction that every chekist have ‘a cool head, a warm
heart, and clean hands’. These anecdotes are used to illustrate the fre-
quently made assertion that the KGB was the least corrupt institution in
the late Soviet period.40 Some opinion polls indicate that this image of
incorruptibility has been successfully transferred to the FSB in the percep-
tion of the population.41
Andropov is literally the next best thing to Dzerzhinsky, featuring as
second in a list of top ten chekists cited by Shul’ts in 2001.42 As Duma
deputy Mitrofanov put it, when arguing in 2002 for a monument to Andro-
pov to be erected on Lubianka Square, Andropov was less ‘contradictory’
as a figure than Dzerzhinsky.43 Putin’s restoration of the Andropov plaque
144╇╇ Post-Soviet chekism
at the Lubianka in 1999 in the wake of persistent attempts to float the idea
of returning Dzerzhinsky’s statue to the Lubianka is just one of numerous
instances in which Andropov seems to function as the compromise option
– blander, more low-Â�key, but still symbolically loaded.

Andropov as blank slate

The notion that Andropov was the ‘most mysterious’ of all the Soviet
leaders has become a very tired cliché in the relevant literature.44 It is true
that there are blank spots and uncertainties in his biography,45 and his
alleged views and tastes provoked speculation and rumours during his life-
time, too. Andropov’s life and character thus represent such useful myth-Â�
making material precisely because there is so little substance there. In
contrast to Dzerzhinsky, for example, Andropov left no memorable apho-
risms.46 To a certain degree Andropov is a blank slate, onto which all kinds
of intentions and qualities can be projected. Much is made, for example,
of what Andropov was allegedly planning to do. One 2004 panegyric by
FSB director Patrushev, for example, was dramatically titled ‘Andropov’s
Secret’. Patrushev speculated that Andropov had ‘a secret’, which has yet
to be uncovered; he hinted that this involved Andropov’s plans to reform
and thus save the Soviet Union.47

Andropov as the true author of perestroika

This claim that Andropov was a ‘reformer in his soul’ is one of the corner-
stones of the new mythology being woven around the figure of Andropov.
Ex-Â�KGB chair Chebrikov, for example, asserts that ‘What began in ’85, all
that was [Andropov’s] ideas. .â•›.â•›. Democratization began with the KGB’;48
while Sharapov claims that Andropov was ‘the first to use the words “glas-
nost’â•›” and “perestroika”â•›’.49
The standard narrative runs as follows: Andropov, even as early as
during his chairmanship of the KGB, could see that disaster was coming.
He proposed various measures to avert the threat – measures which could
have set a course towards ‘democratization of the party, democratization
of the whole life of society’50 – but these were waved aside by the party
leadership, who indicated that the KGB should not interfere in matters
outside its purview.51 Then, when Andropov finally became General Sec-
retary and was in a position to push through reforms himself, his untimely
death prevented him from carrying this out. Thus, as Bobkov would have
it, Andropov was the true author of perestroika, but alas, fate gave him too
little time and he never managed to execute his ‘grandiose plan’.52
The concrete evidence cited in support of this narrative is generally
slight, speculative and/or unverifiable, and the details consistently vague
in the extreme. Such assertions seem to be based almost entirely on
Andropov’s actions during a brief period in the early 1960s, when he
 The cult of Andropov╇╇ 145
� opted a group of young intellectuals who later went on to join Gor-
co-�
bachev’s reform team; and on the fact that Gorbachev was his protégé.
It is true that Andropov did use the word ‘glasnost’â•›’, but he did so pri-
marily in order to justify anti-�Western and anti-�dissident propaganda cam-
paigns. Thus, for example, he asserted that

glasnost’ in chekist work was an important means of winning the trust

of the masses. The Soviet people must be more and better informed
about the subversive activities of foreign intelligence services, of
foreign anti-�Soviet centres, and also about the subversive activities of
anti-�Soviet elements within the country. Soviet people must know
more about the difficult and complex work of the chekist organs.53

There are some variations on this narrative of Andropov as the original

architect of Gorbachev’s reforms. Some commentators seek rather to dis-
sociate Andropov from perestroika altogether; Sidorenko, for example, a
retired KGB general-�major, asserts instead that perestroika was created by
the CIA.54 Others elide the issue, emphasizing only that Andropov’s
reforms would have had very different outcomes to Gorbachev’s, if only
because the KGB was ‘the only institution well-Â�informed enough to realize
on the basis of Russian history, that democratic reforms could not be
rushed in Russia’.55 Luzhkov, for example, writes that:

People say that Andropov was a forerunner of the democratic transfor-

mations in our country. I think that this is a simplification .â•›.â•›. for some
reason it seems to me that Gorbachev took a completely different
path, not the one along which Andropov was planning to goâ•›.â•›.â•›.
.â•›.â•›.â•›I don’t know whether we would have capitalism now [had Andro-
pov lived longer], but we definitely would not have had bandit
capitalism.56

This highlights another aspect of Andropov’s convenience: the fact that

he died early, thereby enabling the construction of new narratives of late
Soviet history in which Andropov and the security apparatus take the
credit for everything positive (such as the initial impulses towards demo-
cratization and liberalization), while avoiding responsibility for any of the
negative outcomes (such as the Soviet collapse itself↜).

The KGB and the Soviet collapse: new narratives of August

1991
After Andropov’s death, the standard chekist narrative continues, it fell to
the KGB to continue his attempts to avert the ultimate disaster: the col-
lapse of the state. To this end, the KGB made repeated valiant attempts to
warn the Soviet political leadership of the impending catastrophe, but in
146╇╇ Post-Soviet chekism
vain – the party leadership refused to listen.57 In Shironin’s 1996 memoirs,
this period is compared with Stalin’s failure to listen to warnings from
Sorge and other spies of Hitler’s coming invasion.58 Shironin describes the
party leadership as maintaining a ‘strange silence’ in response to KGB
reports of the coming danger, and says that corridor talk in the KGB at
the time held that Gorbachev had effectively ceased to listen to the KGB
by the summer of 1991.59
In this way, KGB chief Kriuchkov’s leadership of the bungled attempted
coup in August 1991 can be transformed into an heroic last-�ditch attempt
to prevent the impending collapse of the country.60 Thus,

It was precisely in the KGB, earlier than in other structures of the

regime, that an understanding of the necessity of reforms appeared.
And, of course, it must be said, that the state security chief V. Kri-
uchkov and his subordinates became more keenly aware than others
of the terrible danger of the collapse of the USSR and the impending
countless disasters for its peoples. It is precisely for this reason that
they took active part in organizing an attempt to save the country in
August 1991. It was too late, however: the process of disintegration of
the CPSU, of all the power structures in the USSR, including the KGB,
had progressed too far.61

This enables an additional new slant on what, as we have seen, is amongst

the most traumatic periods in chekist history.
This narrative has the additional advantage of simultaneously reinforc-
ing the myth of the KGB’s omniscience, and potentially for justifying the
need for greater powers to be granted to the contemporary security appar-
atus in order to avert future crises of such magnitude.

Putin as a ‘second chance’

One of the central arguments made in the new chekist literature on
Andropov is that had Andropov lived longer, he would have prevented the
collapse of the Soviet Union. A 2002 Moskovskii komsomolets article entitled
‘The Saviour from the Lubianka’ speculated about this,62 and Bobkov has
described it as ‘perfectly obvious’.63
In this context, Putin offers a kind of ‘second chance’. Thus, for Nikolai
Leonov, Putin is ‘a loner, an officer of the Russian special services. A
product of the System’, who is ‘beginning to put in order the .â•›.â•›. chaotic
disorderly pile into which the great power had been transformed’ in the
early 1990s.64
If a second crisis is to be averted, however, it will be essential that this
time around, the enemies are recognized in good time, and the chekists
heeded, especially as it is the chekists who are the chief target of the
enemies plotting to destroy Russia. This is the thrust of one article written
 The cult of Andropov╇╇ 147
by leading FSB public relations official and poet Vasilii Stavitskii, declaring
that media criticism of the FSB was backed by ‘someone’ in the West
intent on destroying the young Russian democratic state, which the FSB
was striving to defend:

Someone very ‘wise’ in the West has skilfully used a PR campaign in

order to devastate the power structures .â•›.â•›. Often the media, especially
the Western [media], pour buckets of filth on a daily basis over those
who at the price of their own lives are striving to defend the young
democratic state .â•›.â•›. The impression is created that someone very ‘wise’
again wishes through the hands of journalists to suffocate the new
democratic state.65

The Soviet collapse as conspiracy and vindication

Conspiracy thinking offers a possible form of defence against humilia-
tion,66 and many chekists have turned to conspiracy theories as a way of
making sense of the events of August 1991, and of the late Soviet and early
post-�Soviet periods more broadly.67 A typical example is ex-�counter-
intelligence officer Viacheslav Shironin’s assertion that August 1991 and
October 1993 (when Yeltsin sent in tanks to dissolve parliament) were just
two points of a coordinated CIA plan to bring about the ‘dismemberment’
of the Soviet Union.68
The most common conspiracy theory is that the collapse was engi-
neered by ‘agents of influence’ – a term first used by Andropov in a 1977
report to the Central Committee, in which he warned of CIA operations
underway to subvert Soviet ideology by recruiting agents within the USSR
itself. Later, KGB chair Kriuchkov made these accusations formally in June
1991, in a famous speech to a closed session of the Supreme Soviet in
which he announced the existence of a Western plan to engineer the col-
lapse of the USSR, and for the first time declared that foreign intelligence
services were using ‘agents of influence’.69 Kriuchkov subsequently elabo-
rated further upon this theory in his memoirs, extracts of which were pub-
lished in the newspaper Sovetskaia Rossiia in February 1993.70
The ‘agents of influence’ conspiracy theory rests on a conveniently
vague definition, whereby an ‘agent of influence’ is someone who adheres
to certain abstract categories such as democracy, and universal human
values.71 The propagators of the agents of influence theory have con-
stantly threatened to produce documentary evidence, but have never
done so; they speculate that Bakatin may have systematically destroyed all
evidence of these agents (who are said to include high-�ranking figures in
Gorbachev’s entourage such as Aleksandr Yakovlev), on higher orders
during his brief tenure as KGB chair. The theory rests, then, on Androp-
ov’s speech of 1977, together with the sole piece of documentary evid-
ence cited in support of the theory: the so-Â�called ‘Dulles Plan’ – a text
148╇╇ Post-Soviet chekism
attributed to Allen Dulles, writing (or, in some accounts, speaking at a
secret meeting) in 1945, outlining a grand plan to destroy Russian civili-
zation. The text is an obvious forgery, but one which has gained credence
in recent years through the power of sheer repetition, such that it may
now qualify as a dangerous legitimating myth enabling populist paranoia
to become a serious force in Russian public life.72
According to the Dulles Plan conspiracy theory, the Dulles Plan suc-
ceeded, and this is the key to understanding the events of the past few
decades. On this account, the collapse of the USSR is ingeniously trans-
formed into the ultimate vindication of Andropov’s persecution of dissent;
of the attempted coup of August 1991; and potentially, for the stifling of
civil society in Russia today.
For Cherkesov, Western support of dissidents during the Cold War was
not a matter of ideology. For the ‘alien hand’ manipulating and control-
ling Soviet dissidents, ‘ideological conflict [was] a screen, a pretext for the
settling not of ideological accounts, but of other ones. [Accounts which
are] in a certain sense eternal, fundamental, definitive’.73 Once again,
then, we find ourselves back in the realm of eternity. On this account,
Western actions during the Cold War were nothing less than an attempt to
wipe out Russian civilization itself. Again, Andropov was the only leader
with the foresight to recognize this, as reflected for example in his initi-
ative to create the Fifth Directorate.74

Co-�opting the cultural intelligentsia

In his December 2004 ‘chekist manifesto’, Cherkesov noted with satisfac-
tion that the ‘KGB’ was currently ‘in fashion’, and that the chekist hero
had made a comeback to Russian culture.75 As we have seen, this point was
confirmed by critics of this process.76 This cultural ‘fashion’ is also linked
closely with another important element of Andropov’s legacy: his model of
collaboration between the KGB and the cultural world.
Some prominent figures in the cultural establishment have been
actively calling for a restoration of Soviet-�style collaboration between the
FSB and the cultural world when it comes to the depiction of chekists. For
example, in December 2002 the newspaper Literaturnaia gazeta hosted a
Soviet-�style meeting between FSB director Patrushev and representatives
of the intelligentsia. In the course of this meeting, writer and editor-�in-
chief of Literaturnaia gazeta Yurii Poliakov recalled the positive chekist hero
of the Soviet period:

A great deal, including the authority of a structure, depends on how

its employees are reflected in books, films. .â•›.â•›. In the Soviet period
there was the chekist hero, in certain films, perhaps, [he was] card-
board, but certainly, positive – this was a knight of the state’s
interests.77
 The cult of Andropov╇╇ 149
Poliakov went on to suggest the revival of closer links between the creative
intelligentsia and the FSB, along the lines of the Soviet model, which
involved ‘close contact between your [the security apparatus’] structures
and the creative unions’, as well as prizes for the best books and films.
Patrushev agreed, and pointed out that there was ‘no need to invent any-
thing new’, since the mechanisms and experience were already in place.
The meeting wound up with a classic Soviet chekist motif: a female singer
thanked Patrushev on behalf of the Moscow Children’s Charity Founda-
tion for the FSB’s support of needy children78 – standard practice in
Soviet-�era reportage on chekist themes.
When Patrushev said that there was ‘no need to invent anything new’,
he must surely have had in mind the institutions and practices that were
put in place during the 1960s and 1970s, what we might call the ‘Andro-
pov model’ of relations between the security apparatus and the cultural
intelligentsia. It is precisely this Andropov model, to be outlined below,
which is currently being re-�invented and revived.
Ever since the revolution, the Bolsheviks had sought to transform rela-
tions between the security apparatus and the intelligentsia, and specifi-
cally, as we have noted, to break with the traditional Russian model
whereby resistance to the secret police was idealized and idolized by the
intelligentsia. The revolution, it was said, had put an end to this traditional
antagonism; it had brought relations between the secret police and the
intelligentsia to a completely new stage, whereby they operated in
harmony with one another.79 We might think of Andropov’s KGB chair-
manship as the culmination of this Soviet project aimed at transforming
relations between the security apparatus and the creative intelligentsia.
During this period, this new relationship was formalized and regulated by
a set of new institutions, and it was manifested and celebrated in the so-�
called ‘KGB literary renaissance’ which flowered in the late 1960s.
It would be more accurate to call this the ‘KGB cultural renaissance’,
since its most famous products were films as well as novels. The popularity
of the classics of this genre, such as Seventeen Moments of Spring, continues
to endure in contemporary Russia, many of them enjoying cult status.80
This ‘renaissance’ was ushered in by steps taken during the Brezhnev
era to encourage writers and artists to tackle specific chekist-�related
themes. In July 1968, for example, the inaugural Union-�wide Confer-
ence on fictional literature about border troops, prepared jointly by the
USSR Writers’ Union and the Border Troops’ Political Directorate, was
held in Brest.81 By the early 1970s, the chekist was firmly established
among the reformulated new-�generation pantheon of Soviet heroes who
enjoyed a privileged status, reflecting the regime’s new priorities. As the
writer Vil’ Lipatov put it in his address to the III Russian Writers’ Union
Congress in April 1970, the chekist-�razvedchik had replaced the old
heroes of Soviet literature (the milkmaids, tractor-�drivers and war
heroes).82
150╇╇ Post-Soviet chekism
Once again, there was a strong moral component present here. The
new chekist hero was part of a broader trend of creating a new positive
hero designed to act as an antidote to ideas about ‘universal humanism’.
This hero was defined at the III Russian Writers’ Union Congress in April
1970: ‘This hero must be a firm person, he must move towards the goal
without hesitation or doubts, he must not know pity towards enemies.’83
During Andropov’s chairmanship, two major innovations aimed at facil-
itating increased collaboration between the creative intelligentsia and the
KGB with a view to creating new chekist heroes in Soviet popular culture:
the KGB Press Bureau; and the annual KGB prizes. Both were revived and
modified in the Putin era, as we shall see below.

The KGB Press Bureau

The Soviet security organs had always played a role in monitoring and cen-
soring screenplays and manuscripts touching upon chekist themes, but in
the early 1960s, particularly with the revival of cinema under Khrushchev,
and the renewed drive to make films on the chekist theme, the flow of
such manuscripts being handled by the small group of KGB consultants
increased to the point where it was no longer manageable, and they began
to call for a more formal structure to be put in place to coordinate such
activities.84 This appears to have been a pet project of deputy KGB chair
Semen Tsvigun, who was known for his literary leanings and pretensions.85
Eventually, in June 1969, Andropov responded to these proposals by
creating the KGB Press Bureau, with Tsvigun as curator.86 This Press
Bureau would become the engine-Â�room of the KGB’s cultural renaissance:
the interface between the KGB, on the one hand, and the media and crea-
tive intelligentsia, on the other.
One of the Press Bureau’s primary stated aims was to change the way
that people viewed chekists. In general, the persistent negative image that
adhered to chekists appears to have been a source of ongoing frustration
for Andropov. In 1975, for example, Andropov, addressing a KGB confer-
ence, noted that a ‘prejudice’ against helping the KGB still existed, and
that this reflected a lack of ‘trust in the humanism of the Cheka’.87
When Andropov set up the Press Bureau, he defined its mission as
three-�fold: to increase the political vigilance of the Soviet population; to
boost the authority of the state security organs in the eyes of the masses;
and to create an atmosphere in which negative phenomena would not be
tolerated.88 To these ends, the Press Bureau was to fulfil the following
tasks: to popularize a positive version of the KGB’s history; to expose
hostile activities, disinformation and anti-�Soviet slander; to determine the
suitability of cultural materials dealing with chekist themes (including
plays, television shows and fiction); and to liaise with and assist local KGB
organs in organizing illumination of the chekist theme in local press, film,
radio and television.89
 The cult of Andropov╇╇ 151
Creating an atmosphere in which negative phenomena would not be
tolerated meant encouraging a kind of ‘peer group pressure’ to be exerted
in every sphere of Soviet life.90 As the author of an article in the newspaper
Komsomol’skaia pravda entitled ‘Knights of the Revolution’, marking the
Cheka’s jubilee in December 1967, put it:

The timely intervention of the public, comradely support and criti-

cism, the patient elucidation of their errors to those who have strayed,
has always helped people to rid themselves of such shortcomings as
scatter-�brainedness, complacency, excessive tolerance, loss of vigi-
lance. Amongst Soviet people there can be no indifferent, passive,
standing to one side from the ideological struggle. And compromises
here are inadmissible.91

We might see some of these objectives – encouraging vigilance, for

example, and intolerance of ‘negative phenomena’ – as interlinked with
and mirroring those of the Fifth Directorate, a rough contemporary of the
Press Bureau (the Fifth Directorate was created in July 1967). Both new
subsections of the KGB can be seen as responses to increasing dissident
activities and moods.
The Press Bureau also aimed at ensuring that, as Andropov put it,

our actions, our steps .â•›.â•›. be understandable to the masses. We must

strive to attain a situation whereby the toilers understand every one of
our campaigns, are conscious of their necessity, and render us the req-
uisite support. This does not happen of its own accord. Serious
explanatory work is required. It needs to be conducted more actively
than we have been doing to date. .â•›.â•›. We need to think about how one
or another step will be perceived by Soviet people. We need to think
and to take all possible measures in order that our campaigns receive
the support of the masses.92

Later, further steps were taken to fine-�tune and formalize relations

between the KGB and individual spheres of Soviet culture. For example,
in February 1971, Andropov sent a secret document to the Central Com-
mittee calling for procedures to be put in place governing the use of con-
sultants in cinema production, with a view to preventing the leaking of
state secrets and ensuring adherence to konspiratsiia.93
Andropov’s KGB Press Bureau survived the changes of the past decades.
In 1990 it was renamed the Centre for Public Links as part of the
Gorbachev-Â�era KGB PR push.94 The FSB’s Centre for Public Links (hence-
forth TsOS FSB) and, to a lesser extent, its counterpart, the SVR’s Press
Bureau, have spearheaded the current public relations campaign and pub-
lication programme of chekist materials, particularly through the FSB’s
official website, which was launched in 2000. Continuity with Andropov’s
152╇╇ Post-Soviet chekism
Press Bureau is a point of pride which is emphasized in materials pro-
duced by TsOS FSB.95

KGB literature and cinema prizes

The second major initiative in this direction was the introduction of KGB
literature and cinema prizes, created in March 1979, and awarded on
Chekist’s Day each year from then until the Gorbachev period (the last
prizes were awarded in 1988).96 While the introduction of these prizes
tends to be attributed to Andropov, they appear to have been a Central
Committee initiative. In fact, Andropov is said to have questioned the
value of these prizes as a genuine incentive to cultural figures. Upon being
informed of the Central Committee’s decision to institute the KGB prizes,
Andropov is rumoured to have expressed scepticism as to whether the
recipients would wear their decorations openly.97 In a recent memoir,
former secretary of the USSR KGB Prize Commission Vasil’ev disputes this
point, citing an incident in which the actor Kikabidze, who won a KGB
award for his performance in the television serial TASS is Authorized to
Announce (1984), reportedly used the award to extricate himself from an
‘unexpected life situation’. Vasil’ev interprets this story not as an example
of the fear inspired by the KGB (which enabled Kikabidze to use his award
to intimidate), but as proof that ‘respected people of the country wore the
laureate badge of the KGB USSR with pride’.98 In fact, as we might expect,
many saw these KGB prizes as the kiss of death for any serious writer or
actor. The writer Vasilii Aksenov has recalled that the prizes placed their
recipients in awkward situations.99

Contemporary revival of prizes

The post-�Soviet revival of Andropov-�style annual prizes for the depiction
of chekists began quite modestly around the turn of the century. Since
the year 2000, annual Chekist’s Day celebrations have included the
announcement of prizes for the creative intelligentsia.100 Two new prizes
were created in 2001: the Artuzov Prize (here the criteria are quite broad
and winners can include public figures making a contribution to ‘raising
the prestige and authority’ of the security apparatus); and the ‘Duty,
Honour, Dignity’ contest (for the best play depicting the work of the
chekists, interior troops or the military). The latter contest is also an offi-
cial part of the government’s patriotic education programme, and is sup-
ported by Putin, the Moscow government authorities, and writers’
unions.101
But by far the most high profile of such prizes is the FSB prize in the
sphere of cinema, literature and art, which was created in 2006.102 These
prizes are awarded annually on Chekist’s Day, across six categories: TV
and radio; fiction and journalism; art; film; acting; and music.
 The cult of Andropov╇╇ 153
FSB official and other promotional materials on the contest have explic-
itly celebrated the creation of this contest as a revival of Andropov’s KGB
prizes for literature and cinema. The head of TsOS FSB RF Oleg Matveev
described the prizes as ‘a return to the experience of past years. From
1978 through 1988 there was a USSR KGB prize in the sphere of art’.103
But in the same breath, a contemporary spin was also put on the prizes,
which were presented as having been designed to develop and strengthen
links with ‘civil society’.104
The FSB prizes are also explicitly aimed at combating negative repre-
sentations of chekists. As Matveev explained it in 2006:

Now, when in cinemas, in serials, in detektivy, a negative image of the

staff of the special services is manifested more often, we have decided
to revive this contest and to decorate those who do not discredit the
special services staff, but who are creating a positive image of
defenders.105

The prizes would also appear to be designed with the purpose of co-�
opting and appropriating popular or respected cultural figures so as to
enhance the FSB’s prestige by association. The jury panel for the 2006
prize comprised leading figures from the worlds of television, cinema and
literature,106 and first prize in the music category was awarded to Nikolai
Rastorguev, the lead singer of the group Liube, popular for its military-�
patriotic songs such as Let’s Drink To .â•›.â•›. and Through the Tall Grass (dedic-
ated to the FSB’s elite counter-Â�terrorist Al’fa group).107
It is unclear how voluntary the process of entering the contest was; in
the first year that the contest ran, some recipients of the prizes reportedly
only learned that they were entrants upon receiving a telephone call from
the FSB on the very eve of the awards ceremony.108
There are various elements of the new awards ceremonies and their
coverage which strongly resemble the style of late Soviet events of this
kind. The rhetoric used by some of the prize-�winners as they genuflect
before the FSB harks back to that of Soviet-�era KGB laureates, though with
a new admixture of nationalism. Aleksandr Marshal, for example, who
won second prize in 2006 in the music category for his military-�patriotic
songs, including The Invisible Front, commented that he interpreted the
prize as confirmation that he was ‘on the correct path’:

Soldiers of both the ‘visible’ and ‘invisible’ front have always been the
heroes of my songs. .â•›.â•›. It is very pleasant for me that such a serious
structure as the FSB has encouraged me. This prize is one of the most
important decorations for me. Since I have received this prize, I am
on the correct path and really doing good with what I create. I am
glad that this contest has been renewed. This means that in Russia
there are people who sincerely love their country.109
154╇╇ Post-Soviet chekism
All of the above-�mentioned contests have consistently been announced
precisely as a revival of Andropov traditions. This has been made explicit
in the relevant publicity, as we saw earlier; and has also been deliberately
underlined by the relevant ceremonies. The connection was highlighted,
for example, at the inaugural prize-�giving ceremony for the winners of the
‘Duty, Honour, Dignity’ contest in May 2002, authors of the best plays
depicting the work of Russian law enforcement organs. The inaugural
prize-Â�giving ceremony in May 2002 was held in Andropov’s former office.
As FSB public relations official Zdanovich explained, it was in this office
that awards were traditionally presented to FSB staff.110 In general, strong
symbolic value has been invested in Andropov’s office at the Lubianka,
which has become the site for many of the new ceremonies and traditions
that the FSB has invented since its creation in 1995.111
Cinema has been especially prominent in the current chekist revival
produced under this revived model of collaboration between the FSB and
the cultural world. Two post-�Soviet blockbuster films exemplify this trend:
Countdown, and The Apocalypse Code.
Countdown (released in Russia under the title Lichnyi nomer) (dir. Yevge-
nii Lavrent’ev, 2004) is one of the more bizarre manifestations of the
current chekist renaissance. In many ways this is a conventional
Hollywood-�style action film, but what is extraordinary about it is the details
of the plot. In a weird merging of real life and fiction, it purports to show
the true version of two events of great significance for the FSB’s image: the
1999 apartment bombings; and the 2002 Dubrovka hostage siege (re-�
staged in the film at the Moscow Circus).112 The film showcases an ‘arche-
typical image of a true Russian hero’ in the shape of FSB officer Smolin,113
and also the latest generation of ‘enemies’: an exiled oligarch has the hero
kidnapped, drugged and tortured by Chechen hirelings, and forces him to
make a false confession to blowing up Russian apartment buildings in
1999 with the aim of blackening the name of chekists, or gebisty, as he calls
them, using the pejorative term. In the film, ultimately Russia effectively
saves the Western world from international terrorist forces, despite NATO
officials’ clear indifference towards Russia’s fate (‘They’ve already had one
Chernobyl’â•›’, one of them comments at one point). The film purports to
be based on real events: on the fate of special forces officer Aleksei Galkin
who was captured by Chechens and later went on to be decorated as a
Hero of Russia.
Countdown was commissioned by the Russian Federal Agency for
Culture and Cinematography, and by a chekist veterans’ association; and
its premiere in December 2004 was attended by Putin and Patrushev. But
the final product does not seem to have been wholeheartedly endorsed by
the FSB; it only won an Encouragement prize at the annual FSB prize
awards in 2006. Perhaps this was the kind of thing that Cherkesov had in
mind when he complained in 2004 that even positive depictions of chek-
ists in some cases were too ‘western’, and too ambiguous, sometimes even
 The cult of Andropov╇╇ 155
lending a ‘clear criminal tinge’ to the image of the chekist hero in such
films.114
The second film, The Apocalypse Code (dir. Vadim Shmelev, 2007), was
produced with the support of a new body, the Foundation for the Support
of Patriotic Cinema. This Foundation was created in 2004 with the partici-
pation of the Presidential Administration, the State Duma, the FSB, and
other state bodies. Its director Sergei Bazhenov has listed three main pri-
ority themes for the foundation: sport, ballet and the special services. The
latter was the subject of the Foundation’s first project, Apocalypse Code, a
film which went on to pick up several prizes in the 2007 FSB award
ceremonies.115
The Foundation for the Support of Patriotic Cinema has a close rela-
tionship with the FSB. Deputy FSB director Viacheslav Ushakov sits on the
foundation’s board of trustees, and he also acted as official consultant
during the production of Apocalypse Code. In a media interview in Novem-
ber 2007, Foundation director Bazhenov explained that ‘disrespectful’
depictions of the militia and special services in Russian cinema had pro-
vided the impetus for the production of Apocalypse Code, which was
intended to act as a counterweight to James Bond.116 Bazhenov’s summary
of the most important lessons that he had learned in the process of
making Apocalypse Code convey some sense of the new cultural environ-
ment now taking shape in Russia: ‘The most valuable thing that we
acquired during work on this film is mechanisms. We have learned to
combine the tasks of state policy with the market.’117
The voices calling for a revival of the Andropov model of relations
between the worlds of culture and security were strengthened further in
the wake of the September 2004 Beslan massacre. As we saw in Chapter 5,
FSB director Patrushev responded to the massacre by calling for a change
in social attitudes towards informers, to be effected via the cultural popu-
larization of positive images of secret informers.118 Here again he was rein-
forcing the message that the security apparatus had a leading role to play
in guiding cultural production in the correct direction, and that the crea-
tive intelligentsia had an obligation to take up the themes suggested by
the security apparatus in the interest of shaping public consciousness for
the greater good.

New narratives of the KGB’s struggle against dissent

As far as domestic events are concerned,119 Andropov is most vulnerable
when it comes to his record on dissent. In this connection, for most
people, Andropov is associated primarily with the prolonged onslaught
against ‘ideological subversion’ spearheaded by his creation, the KGB’s
Fifth Directorate, during his chairmanship of the KGB.120 But the latest
panegyrics paint a very different picture of Andropov’s relations with the
heroes of the dissident movement.
156╇╇ Post-Soviet chekism
Andropov as crypto-�liberal
The Putin-�era cult of Andropov seeks to re-�invent Andropov as a kind of
secret patron and protector of certain key dissidents and heroes of the
liberal intelligentsia, whom he shielded from party leaders pushing for
harsher repressions.121
The image of Andropov as a crypto-�liberal is not new; during Androp-
ov’s lifetime, rumours that Andropov had interceded on behalf of indi-
viduals such as Aleksandr Zinov’ev had helped to gain him the reputation
of being a ‘liberal’, as Bukovskii has pointed out.122 In the West, this image
was further enhanced by media reports of uncertain provenance and relia-
bility, which described Andropov’s tastes as including anti-Â�Soviet political
jokes, socializing with liberal dissidents, collecting abstract art and listen-
ing to jazz.123 But now, this notion has been elevated to the status of one of
the primary and defining features of Andropov’s dealings with the dissi-
dent movement. This emphasis on the benevolent domestic role played by
the KGB harks back to the Soviet notion of the chekist as spiritual shep-
herd, guiding those who seemed to be in danger of straying from the
correct path. The key cases cited in support of this claim are those of
Vladimir Vysotskii and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn – both of whose high pro-
files made them especially difficult to handle.
The claim that Andropov was a secret defender of Solzhenitsyn is
particularly audacious, given that archival materials documenting Androp-
ov’s personal animus towards Solzhenitsyn are now readily available in the
public domain.124 Nevertheless, this was the thrust of a major documentary
on Andropov televised in December 2003, Andropov: The Burden of Power,
in which a new spin is put on the story of Andropov’s relationship with
Solzhenitsyn. In the documentary, ex-�chekist Viacheslav Kevorkov tells the
presenter that Andropov was deeply concerned that Solzhenitsyn might be
the victim of a violent attack because of the level of negative publicity sur-
rounding him (publicity which Andropov himself had in fact orches-
trated), and that Andropov therefore issued an order that Solzhenitsyn be
placed under bodyguards, whom Andropov personally warned that ‘not a
single hair’ was to fall from Solzhenitsyn’s head.125 The viewers are told
that Andropov believed that the Politburo were attempting to push him
into taking a harsher line on Solzhenitsyn in order to drive a wedge
between Andropov and the intelligentsia, with the ultimate aim of discred-
iting Andropov and the KGB.126 This is despite the fact that, on the issue
of how to handle Solzhenitsyn, it was Andropov who was pushing for
deportation, while the Politburo was in fact arguing that Solzhenitsyn
should rather be ‘smother[ed] .â•›.â•›. with embraces’ in an attempt to win him
over.127
The case for Andropov’s supposed liberalism rests mostly on his prefer-
ence for deportation over imprisonment as a method of dealing with dissi-
dents.128 Leaving aside the dubious assertion that Andropov was governed
 The cult of Andropov╇╇ 157
here by ‘liberal’ principles (as opposed to concerns of expediency related
to the Soviet Union’s international reputation, for example), the fact that
it is possible to present forced deportation as a marker of liberalism is
itself indicative of the mindset underlying the new cult of Andropov. Cer-
tainly Aleksandr Zinov’ev, one of those who, reportedly thanks to Androp-
ov’s intervention, was deported rather than sent to a labour camp (Suslov
was calling for him to be sentenced to seven years in the camps, followed
by five years in exile), has taken issue with those who describe this as a
humane act on Andropov’s part.129 Other recent chekist memoirs have
also claimed that Andropov was willing to allow Sakharov to return from
exile in Gor’kii, on condition that Sakharov admitted the error of his ways,
something which, according to ex-�chekist and former Andropov aide
Viktor Sharapov, Sakharov refused to do since ‘it was more profitable for
him to remain a dissident’.130
A similar line is now being peddled on the question of Andropov’s rela-
tions with the bard, poet and actor Vysotskii – the most popular counter-Â�
cultural figure in the Soviet Union at the time, and a cause of deep
concern to the authorities because of his status as a youth idol.131 New
accounts emphasize the fact that the KGB (Andropov) fought to protect
Vysotskii against the party (Suslov), successfully preventing Vysotskii’s
arrest in 1973.132 This may be an accurate account of this particular inci-
dent, but any claim that this represented the whole, or even the most
important part of the story, would be disingenuous. It is true that Vysotskii
avoided arrest, and was even permitted to travel abroad, but he also suf-
fered from constant KGB harassment and pressure,133 and there were
many other ways in which the KGB made life difficult for him – not least
by preventing his songs and poetry from being recorded and published
officially, something Vysotskii found especially painful.134
Apart from the 1973 incident cited above, the other instances of Andro-
pov’s patronage of Vysotskii all relate to the period after Vysotskii was
safely dead.135 The first volume of Vysotskii’s poetry was published officially
shortly after his death in 1980;136 and whereas in 1979 the film Reference
Point was banned for its Vysotskii references,137 by 1985 the main chekist
hero in the film Confrontation was a Vysotskii fan.138 Nowadays, Putin has
also come out as a Vysotskii fan, honouring his memory and supporting an
actors’ initiative to declare 2003 ‘The Year of Vysotskii’.139
Vysotskii’s KGB file remains inaccessible,140 and this combined with the
ambivalence and inconsistency of the KGB’s position on Vysotskii now
makes it possible for chekist commentators to elide the less palatable aspects
of the story. This enabled Bobkov, for example, to quip in 2004 in an article
on Andropov that the only KGB ‘harassment’ of Vysotskii involved trying to
get him to perform for KGB events141 – a claim that sits uneasily alongside
film director Gennadii Poloka’s recollection that, in 1969, Bobkov threat-
ened to ‘rip the heads off↜’ high-Â�ranking cinema bureaucrats if they cast
Vysotskii in the role of a chekist in the film One of Us.142
158╇╇ Post-Soviet chekism
Downplaying dissent
As Kagarlitskii puts it, today’s chekists ‘take pride in their wonderful past,
but they are also a little bit ashamed of it’.143 A sense of this shame can be
discerned in chekist protestations that the extent of the KGB’s persecution
of dissidents has been unfairly exaggerated. Many chekists have expressed
resentment over the fact that this aspect of the KGB’s activities has been
the primary focus of attention, such that a public perception has formed
that the KGB ‘did nothing but look for people to arrest’.144 Various chekist
commentators have asserted that the struggle against dissent in fact occu-
pied a minimal position when compared to the KGB’s other, more import-
ant, activities. Thus, for example, Shebarshin has claimed that less than 1
per cent of the KGB’s resources were in fact devoted to dissidents;145 while
Roi Medvedev asserts that while ‘the dissident theme’ was an ‘excruciat-
ing’ part of Andropov’s work, it occupied only roughly one-Â�tenth of his
workload as KGB chair.146
Much of the new literature on this topic also seeks to challenge the sig-
nificance of the dissident movement in the broader historical scheme of
things. Many of these accounts present the dissidents as having a grossly
inflated sense of their own importance, which has only been encouraged
by the excessive attention which they have received. One of the advantages
of this position is that it strips the dissidents of their heroic mantle; it
enables them to be presented as ultimately irrelevant. Thus, for example,
Sidorenko ridicules the dissidents as deluded in their self-�importance. In
fact, he asserts, Andropov considered most dissidents to be a nuisance,
and nothing more.147
This claim is not borne out by those archival documents which have
come to light in recent years, and which demonstrate just how much time
and attention was devoted by the Soviet leadership to discussing the
problem of dissent. Andropov himself famously declared that the regime
could not afford to ignore a single dissident,148 and in various public
addresses he described the struggle with dissent as one of the KGB’s most
important tasks.149

Dissent as a foreign security threat

In the lead-Â�up to the ninetieth jubilee of Andropov’s birth in summer
2004, the FSB declassified selected documents from Andropov’s period as
KGB chair.150 These were used by the late Boris Prozorov, a social scientist
with a background of 30 years as a chekist,151 as the basis of a book, Declas-
sified Andropov: A View from the Outside and from the Inside, extracts of which
were published in the Russian press in 2004.
Judging by Prozorov’s account, the main thrust of the documents
selected for declassification is to emphasize the importance of the external
security threat posed by the dissident movement during this period.
 The cult of Andropov╇╇ 159
Prozorov’s work is highly polemical, and argues that much of the literat-
ure on dissidents needs to be corrected; dissidents were in fact a genuine
‘fifth column’.152 He is at great pains to show that Andropov focused on
Soviet citizens only when they were linked to Western intelligence serv-
ices.153 This is of course a familiar refrain – Andropov also spoke of dissi-
dents in these terms in, for example, his 1977 speech marking
Dzerzhinsky’s one-Â�hundreth jubilee.154 This trend is essentially a reactiva-
tion of late Soviet discourses linking human rights to security, not demo-
cracy.155 Meanwhile, notorious ex-�dissident hunters continued to hold key
governmental posts under Yeltsin,156 and Putin.157
Even as they denigrate or belittle the dissidents, these new accounts of
late Soviet history confirm the ongoing moral power of the dissident
legacy in spite of themselves. Thus, Sakharov’s famous statement that the
KGB was the only uncorrupt state structure in the Soviet Union is easily
one of the most popular quotations used in the new chekist literature158 –
a tacit recognition of Sakharov’s moral credibility. The same can be said of
the tendency to attempt to enhance Andropov’s reputation by positing a
degree of sympathy on his part for Solzhenitsyn.
Putin, too, has drawn from the reservoir of Sakharov’s moral credibility.
Indeed, certain key moves forward in the progress of the growing Andro-
pov cult were seemingly balanced out by gestures in the direction of the
man whom Andropov labelled ‘Public Enemy Number One’. As Richard
Sakwa points out, Putin followed up restoration of the Andropov plaque at
the Lubianka by laying flowers at Sakharov’s grave a few weeks later.159
Similarly, media reports on plans to build monuments to Andropov and
Sakharov in Moscow in 2003 appeared simultaneously.160

Conclusion
The tenor of the cult surrounding Andropov is more subdued than the
Dzerzhinsky cult, less fervent and emotionally intense. While the iconogra-
phy of Dzerzhinsky is organized around the key theme of the integration
of extremes of hot and cold, darkness and light, flame and ice, representa-
tions of Andropov use the muted palette of the late Soviet landscape, with
its shades of grey and red. The stylized figure of Andropov is the late
Soviet face of the security apparatus: stolid, grey-�suited, with eyeglasses and
a paunch.
On the surface, Putin’s public image, with its flashiness and ostenta-
tious virility, may seem to have little in common with Andropov; but con-
tinuity with the respectable, sober, ‘rational’ leader who was on track to
save the country using ‘chekist methods’ provides an important anchor for
Putin’s legitimacy. Like Dzerzhinsky, the figure of Andropov stands guard
over the boundary between (legitimate) force and (illegitimate) violence.
Putin owes an important symbolic debt to both of his chekist founding
fathers.
7 Securitizing the Russian soul

Problems of security and of society’s spiritual values mutually define one

another.
The White Book of the Russian Special Services (1995)1

In March 2002, a solemn ceremony in central Moscow enacted the

opening of a new stage in the history of the relations between the realms
of spirituality and security in Russia. The ceremony, which was reportedly
the fruit of an initiative of Putin dating to his tenure as FSB director,2 was
the consecration of an Orthodox Church on the territory of the FSB’s
Lubianka headquarters. Its importance was underlined by the participa-
tion of Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Aleksi II and FSB director
Nikolai Patrushev, who engaged in a symbolic exchange of gifts.3 This
event represented a kind of dramatized consummation of an alliance
which had been in the making for some time. It exemplified the emer-
gence of a new paradigm of security in contemporary Russia, whereby spir-
ituality and security go hand-�in-glove.
This new paradigm was encapsulated by a phrase used by the Patriarch
during his address at the consecration ceremony, when he spoke of the
need for concerted actions to combat the threats posed to Russia’s ‘spirit-
ual security’.4 He said: ‘It is important to preserve not only external secur-
ity, but also spiritual [security].’5 In using the phrase ‘spiritual security’,
the Patriarch was in tune with an important but little-�studied strain of the
prevailing Russian Zeitgeist, and one which is also closely linked with the
chekist quest for moral purity and respectability which this book describes.
The new concept of spiritual security occupies an important position on
the ideological landscape in contemporary Russia, yet it has generally
been overlooked in the Western commentary on post-�Soviet Russia to
date.6 This chapter provides an introduction to this new concept and the
ways in which it has been deployed in contemporary Russian public life, as
well as exploring some of its ramifications.
Since the late 1990s, the putative interests of spiritual security have
been invoked by a range of political actors in Russia, in a range of
 Securitizing the Russian soul╇╇ 161
�
contexts. The essential vagueness of the category of ‘spiritual security’
gives it broad appeal, making it a flexible term that can be put to all kinds
of uses. ‘Spiritual security’ can be used to refer to practically any aspect of
life, in fact.7 While the concept of spiritual security is often defined in
quite bizarre ways, it is by no means confined to the fringes of Russian pol-
itics (though it is certainly very prominent there too).
A growing body of literature on spiritual security is being generated by
figures located along many points of the political spectrum. Spiritual
security has become a focus of the writings of Russian patriotic ideologues
of all persuasions, including Dmitrii Rogozin,8 Aleksandr Dugin9 and
Aleksei Podberezkin.10 The Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox
Church refers frequently to the concept, and the Russian Orthodox Uni-
versity’s Law Faculty now offers a course in ‘Spiritual Security’.11 The term
has become an academic buzzword, presumably useful for securing the
allocation of state funding for related research.12 It has been much dis-
cussed especially in the context of the education and vospitanie of young
Russians, and of Russian soldiers in particular.13
The ideologues of spiritual security have also been taking their cue
from the Kremlin. Spiritual security was treated as an important subset of
national security in a number of official policy documents adopted by
Putin, including the National Security Concept of the Russian Federation
(adopted January 2000),14 and the Information Security Doctrine of the Russian
Federation (adopted September 2000),15 and other legislation. Putin’s plen-
ipotentiary representatives in the regions emphasized the importance of
the concept, apparently on Putin’s express instructions.16 Moscow Mayor
Luzhkov and Russian Security Council Secretary Rushailo also both used
the phrase in recent years.17 The Security Council has also organized
various initiatives aimed at boosting and providing ‘scientific grounding
for the significance of the spiritual factor as a crucial component of the
military security of the Russian Federation’, to cite the title of an official
meeting on this subject held in Moscow in December 2002.18 As indicated
by the use of the phrase ‘scientific grounding’ here, the Russian state has
been supporting efforts to lend academic respectability to this emergent
discourse.
Spiritual security is a concept that has quite liberal origins. Its begin-
nings can be traced to the March 1992 Russian federal law on security,
whose adoption represented a pointed rejection of the old Soviet para-
digm of security, expressed first and foremost in the new law’s emphasis
on the primacy of the individual over the state.19 At the time, an emphasis
on the importance of ‘spiritual values’, which were mentioned in the first
article of the law,20 was intended to flag a shift away from Soviet militant
atheism and from state persecution of religious believers. Subsequently,
however, this linkage of security and spirituality has been taken up and
used as a weapon for ends which are far removed from the principles
guiding the legislators who drafted this law.21 Just how far is illustrated by
162╇╇ Post-Soviet chekism
the fact that, incongruous as it might seem, the Communist Party has now
also taken up the notion of spiritual security as part of its ideological
arsenal.22 In June 2003, for example, it was a Communist Party initiative
that led to Russian parliamentary hearings being held on spiritual
security.23

The FSB and spiritual security

Deputy FSB director Vladimir Shul’ts hailed the consecration of the
church at the Lubianka in 2002 as a ‘truly emblematic event’,24 and
indeed, the complex and dramatic history of relations between the secret
police and the Orthodox Church meant that multiple layers of associ-
ations and meanings could be read into this ceremony. In this section, I
shall outline the most important of these.
First and foremost, this ceremony underlined the FSB’s connection to
Orthodoxy. In this respect, as we have seen, it was only one instance of a
broader ongoing push to formulate and justify the FSB’s mission in new
terms, to provide new ideological and intellectual underpinnings for the
Russian security apparatus with a view to restoring its prestige, moral cred-
ibility and morale. As we saw in Chapter 5, from 1999 onwards the FSB
leadership began to proclaim the importance of a ‘spiritual’ component
underlying and guiding the FSB’s work. The imperative to create a spirit-
ual justification for the FSB has also been noted by chekism’s critics, such
as the writer Viktor Yerofeev, who pointed out in 2004 that in order to
legitimize itself, chekism needed ‘a beautiful moral screen of spiritual
[dukhovnykh] and emotional [dushevnykh] hues’.25 At the same time, this
relationship between the FSB and the Church is one that has benefits for
both parties, as we shall see below.
The 2002 consecration ceremony set the seal on the special relation-
ship inhering between the FSB and the Russian Orthodox Church
(Moscow Patriarchate). It ratified a marriage which had been taking shape
from the mid-�1990s. The broader trend towards expanding cooperation
between the Church, on one hand, and security and military structures,
on the other, can be traced as far back as July 1995, when a Synodal
Section of the Moscow Patriarchate for Cooperation with Armed Forces
and Law-�Enforcement Institutions was set up.26
The Church has offered official sanction to the security apparatus via
other ceremonies, too. In July 2005 the Patriarch decorated FSB director
Patrushev and SVR director Lebedev for their contributions to promoting
Church–state cooperation,27 and in 2006 he awarded Cherkesov the order
of the holy martyr Trifon for his work in fighting the narcotics trade and
furthering the ‘spiritual-Â�moral healing of society’.28 Regional UFSB heads
have been decorated or praised publicly by Church hierarchs for their
assistance in retrieving Church property and returning it to the Church.29
Church authorities also reportedly lent their support to the political
 Securitizing the Russian soul╇╇ 163
campaigns of several regional UFSB chiefs during regional gubernatorial
elections.30 The abbot of the church at the Lubianka also sits on the FSB’s
newly created ‘Public Council’, tasked with conducting public oversight of
the FSB’s activities.31
Meanwhile, the Church has been cooperating in the construction and
popularization of a new pantheon of Orthodox saints linked to particular
branches of the FSB. The saints protecting special purpose troops, for
example, are listed in a 2008 FSB-�prize-winning book authored by Arch-
priest Nikolai Pogrebniak.32 This is part of a broader trend whereby the
‘spiritual traditions of Russian warriorhood’ have been undergoing a
revival throughout the military, too.33
The relationship has also been enacted via invented traditions taking
the form of symbolic actions undertaken jointly by the Church and the
security apparatus from the mid-�1990s. Sites linked to the Russian Federa-
tion’s state borders have provided the setting for many of these. In 1995,
an agreement was signed between the Orthodox Church and what was
then called the Federal Border Service (FPS) on the spiritual nurturing of
border guards.34 In the Khabarovsk diocese, representatives of the Church
made systematic visits to almost all the border posts in this connection.35
A number of the newly invented traditions woven around the state borders
invoke the figure of Il’ia Muromets, the most famous of the bogatyri, the
heroic knights-�errant of the Russian medieval byliny (oral epic narrative
poems), protectors of the homeland. As of 1999, largely thanks to the initi-
ative of the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, Il’ia Muromets has
been the patron saint of Russian border guards (who are now part of the
FSB).36 The Moscow Patriarchate has described Il’ia Muromets as manning
Russia’s first border post, and now serving as the intercessor of modern-Â�day
border guards, their ‘invisible brother-Â�in-arms and heavenly prayerbook’.37 In
2003, a capsule containing particles of Il’ia Muromets’ relics was laid at the
foundation of a new chapel for border troops at Petropavlovsk-�Kamchatskii.38
The focus on joint ceremonies sanctifying the border and the FSB’s cus-
todianship of the border surely reflects the fact that the task of preserving
Russia’s integrity by policing the country’s borders is one of the most sellÂ�
able and least controversial of chekist roles. It also reflects a more general
preoccupation with borders characteristic of both Soviet and post-�Soviet
discourse, though for different reasons.39 If the inviolability of the Soviet
border was fetishized,40 the current borders are often seen as ‘unreal’,41 as
well as dangerously porous and in need of reinforcement.42
Il’ia Muromets also functions as a kind of patron saint of the FSB more
broadly. The abovementioned FSB church at the Lubianka, for example,
features an icon depicting Il’ia Muromets.43 The Church and the security
apparatus have also cooperated in the construction of new churches hon-
ouring Il’ia Muromets. In 2003, FSB and MVD veterans funded the con-
struction of one such church in Krasnodar. Another capsule containing
particles of Il’ia Muromets’ relics was brought to the consecration.44
164╇╇ Post-Soviet chekism
Il’ia Muromets is a figure who has been pressed into service for various
different purposes at different points in Russian history. Successive tsars,
patriarchs and ideologues have emphasized different things about him in
order to further their own interests and their own visions of Russian
history and Russian national identity.45 At various historical moments, the
figure of Il’ia Muromets has been central to debates over Russian national
identity, particularly with regard to Russia’s relations with the outside
world, and the nature of Russian imperialism or expansion. Il’ia Murom-
ets was proclaimed by Slavophile Konstantin Aksakov to be the incarnation
of the ‘Russian type’, on the grounds that his strength was defensive, not
aggressive. This argument is frequently used by Russian extreme national-
ists today, who assert that,

The Russian narod is a peace-�loving one. Of this there is no need to

convince anyone who is at least a little acquainted with the inner, spir-
itual visage of the average Russian .â•›.â•›. And all the same, despite its
natural love for peace, the Russian narod has been forced to wage war
endlessly.46

It is perhaps in this connection that Il’ia Muromets is most useful for

chekism, helping to reinforce the idea of the chekist as fundamentally
benevolent, as mobilizing only in the face of external enemies and threats,
of using force only reluctantly, and so on. Journalists have helped to
cement this association between the chekist and Il’ia Muromets. The Smo-
lenskaia oblast’ UFSB Chief-Â�turned-Governor Viktor Maslov was dubbed
‘Il’ia Muromets’ by the regional press, for example.47
Thus, a spiritual dimension has been added to security. Meanwhile, on
the obverse side of these discourses, the spiritual or religious sphere has
been undergoing ‘securitization’, as defined by Buzan et al.48 That is, the
concept of security is being expanded to extend to this sphere, which is
not traditionally considered to belong within the realm of security con-
cerns. It is to this securitization of the religious sphere that we shall now
turn.

Spiritual security and religious freedom

The aim of all totalitarian sects .â•›.â•›. is to come to powerâ•›.â•›.â•›.
They are investing funds, cultivating their influence,
and preparing to seize power.
(Aleksandr Dvorkin from his brochure Ten Questions to Ask Pushy
Strangers, or a Guide for Those Who Do Not Want to Be Recruited, published
by the Moscow Patriarchate in 1995)49

In his speech at the FSB church consecration ceremony in 2002, the Patri-
arch elaborated on the subject of spiritual security:
 Securitizing the Russian soul╇╇ 165
Today the spiritual security of Russia has come under threat, because
forces are breaking into our life, which are crippling people’s souls
and trying to fill the spiritual vacuum which has formed in hearts as a
result of seventy years of atheist upbringing.50

This statement highlights what are perhaps the most direct and obvious
ramifications of the new preoccupation with spiritual security: those con-
cerning religious life and religious freedom in Russia. In this section, I
shall provide the context for the Patriarch’s comments, and outline some
of the ways in which the Church and the FSB have worked together in this
sphere.
The religious landscape in Russia has undergone massive transforma-
tions over the past two decades. The October 1990 liberal law ‘On
Freedom of Religious Denomination’ was adopted in an atmosphere of
euphoria.51 By the mid-Â�1990s, critics were calling for the law’s abolition,
describing it as a ‘law of the United States of America, operating on the
territory of Russia’,52 and a strong anti-Â�cult movement, focused in the
Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church, had begun to
gather momentum. This anti-�cult movement was one of the key forces
pushing spiritual security onto the public agenda, and in the process clash-
ing periodically with defenders of the right to freedom of conscience and
with various minority religious groups. According to Yasmann, xenopho-
bic forces in the Supreme Soviet drew specifically on the relatively liberal
1992 Law on Security, and its spiritual component in particular, in draft-
ing legislative amendments passed in 1993 limiting the activities of foreign
religious confessions on the grounds that the nation’s spiritual values were
a subject of state security.53
The struggle over how to handle ‘non-Â�traditional’ religious groups
came to a head in the mid-�1990s, and culminated in the passage of a new
federal law ‘On Freedom of Conscience and on Religious Associations’ in
September 1997. This law is anti-�constitutional. The 1993 Russian Consti-
tution declares the Russian Federation to be a secular state, in which all
religious associations are separate from the state, and equal before the law.
The 1997 law, however, formalized a privileged status for the Orthodox
Church, and introduced a hierarchy of remaining religions, together with
various restrictions making it more difficult for ‘non-Â�traditional’ religions
to obtain permission to operate on Russian territory.54
It is true that aggressive foreign missionaries have been a problem in
many parts of Russia since the collapse of the USSR. But the responsibility
for the increasing religious tensions during this period must also be
shared by the anti-�cult movement, and by leading anti-�cult crusader Alek�
sandr Dvorkin in particular. Dvorkin has been the key agitator populariz-
ing the new term ‘totalitarian sects’, thereby furnishing the would-Â�be
defenders of Russia’s spiritual security with one of their chief bugbears.
Dvorkin first began using the term ‘totalitarian sects’ in 1994. The term
166╇╇ Post-Soviet chekism
was soon picked up by the Moscow Patriarchate of the Orthodox Church,
some representatives of the Roman Catholic Church and several Protes-
tant Churches,55 as a convenient and suitably sensationalist and emotive,
even ‘politically correct’, catch-Â�all term for the multitude of new religious
movements, many of them foreign, that had become active in Russia in
the early 1990s. Alarmist and unsubstantiated statistics provided by
Dvorkin on the prevalence of totalitarian sects throughout Russia and the
number of people they had recruited gained credibility through repetition
by journalists.56 Similarly, the Moscow Patriarchate endorsed Dvorkin’s
inaccurate and frequently outlandish writings on the subject. Meanwhile,
the use of the adjective ‘totalitarian’ to describe new religious movements
enabled anti-�sectarians to present themselves as standing for the defence
of the human rights of the members of sects – hence, for example, the
title of a January 1996 conference held in St Petersburg: ‘Totalitarian Sects
(Destructive Cults) and Human Rights.’
The use of the Cold War ‘totalitarian’ label in order to justify what
amount to totalitarian policies and principles is one of the paradoxes of
the post-�Soviet Russian political scene. The psychological mechanisms at
work here have been pinpointed by Yurii Savenko, president of the Inde-
pendent Psychiatric Association in Russia, who has written of anti-
‘totalitarian sect’ hysteria that:

The interest in unorthodox religions was perceived not as an accepta-

ble natural feeling but as a consequence of a secretive evil technology.
This is how the self-�projection of the lingering totalitarian mentality
identified itself, for which everything is controllable, governable, and
its own practice of such kind represents itself as universal. The widely
used term ‘totalitarian sects’ is not only illiterate from the theological
standpoint; it is in itself a product of totalitarian consciousness.57

This usage of the term ‘totalitarian’ is one of several examples of discur-

sive inversion in post-�Soviet Russia. In this case, a Western Cold War term,
originally applied to the USSR by scholars hostile to that system, subse-
quently largely rejected by Western academia, and then – to the chagrin of
many Western academics – enthusiastically embraced in Russia in the Gor-
bachev period and beyond to describe the Soviet period, has now been
applied as a label for religious sects in order to mark them as located
beyond the pale and to justify their suppression.
It has never been made quite clear precisely what constitutes a ‘totali-
tarian sect’. As many of Dvorkin’s critics have pointed out, attempted defi-
nitions of the term put forward by Dvorkin and others are so vague as to
be effectively meaningless. Most serious religious scholars reject the term
in any case.58 Such criticism failed to deter Dvorkin, who tirelessly led a
campaign lobbying for official recognition that the problem of ‘totalitar-
ian sects’ existed, and for inclusion of the term in federal legislation
 Securitizing the Russian soul╇╇ 167
59
dealing with religious issues. Despite ongoing criticism from liberal
democratic forces and from new religious groups, the campaign enjoyed
some success. For example, the Russian parliament used the term ‘totali-
tarian sects’ in a resolution adopted in December 1996.60 The term was
also used in the official National Security Concept (adopted December 1997)
and in the Information Security Doctrine (adopted September 2000). The
latter lists ‘totalitarian religious sects’ as one of the threats posing ‘the
greatest danger in the sphere of spiritual life’.61

Spiritual security and the war in Chechnya

The campaign against totalitarian sects as a function of spiritual security
was consonant with the Putin government’s efforts to link the war in
Chechnya and associated terrorist acts in Russia with the US-Â�led ‘war on
terror’ and Al Qaeda.62 The counter-Â�terrorist dimension to spiritual secur-
ity was heavily implied, for example, in the title of a high-�profile round�
table, ‘Totalitarian Sects: A Weapon of Mass Destruction’, held in Moscow
in October 2003 in the wake of the Nord-�Ost theatre hostage siege. It was
claimed by one participant of the roundtable that totalitarian sects had
now become ‘suppliers of personnel for terrorist organizations’.63 In a
similar vein, in October 2004 Dvorkin argued that totalitarian cults were
no longer merely a social phenomenon, but a matter of international
security.64
The linkages being forged here between religion and state security
should also be viewed in the context of the concomitant drive to present
the conflict in Chechnya as a religious war, indeed as a crusade. This tend-
ency was emblematized by the campaign to canonize as a religious martyr
the Russian conscript Yevgenii Rodionov, killed in Chechnya in the winter
of 1996. Yevgenii was reportedly tortured and beheaded by Chechen
rebels after he refused to remove the Orthodox cross from around his
neck. He has become the focus of a popular cult spanning across Russia.
Icons depict Saint Yevgenii in camouflage gear, with a nimbus around his
head.65 Miracles are said to have occurred in which these icons have begun
to weep myrrh,66 and Yevgenii’s grave has become a site of pilgrimage.67
The fact that Yevgenii served in the bordertroops (which are now part of
the FSB) has made him even more symbolically important.
To a significant degree, the cult surrounding Yevgenii Rodionov has
been a spontaneous phenomenon emerging at the popular grassroots
level. In particular, his story has provided a point of focus for widows and
especially mothers of Russian soldiers killed in Chechnya, giving them
comfort and helping them to make sense of the deaths of their loved ones.
But while to a certain degree this is a genuine popular movement, the
campaign to canonize Yevgenii, and hence to present the war in Chechnya
as a religious war, is also very much the product of a patriotic media cam-
paign spearheaded by the television programme Russkii dom, which first
168╇╇ Post-Soviet chekism
picked up and publicized Yevgenii’s story,68 and the newspaper Zavtra.69
Meanwhile, soldiers’ mothers’ groups which are critical of the war in
Chechnya have been excoriated in the press and in 2004 were facing inves-
tigation for suspected espionage.70

The FSB versus sects

During the March 2002 consecration of the FSB church, Patriarch Aleksi
made reference to ‘totalitarian sects’, noting the danger posed by their
‘spiritual aggression’.71 Given the speech’s context and audience, the clear
implication was that the FSB had a part to play in combating the influence
of non-Â�Orthodox ‘totalitarian sects’. The Moscow Patriarchate now seems
to be relying increasingly openly upon an alliance with the FSB in its
efforts to maintain its position, and to legitimize its claims that non-�
Orthodox religions pose a threat not to the Orthodox Church, but to the
security of Russian society and culture as a whole.72
There are various indications that the FSB has become increasingly
active on the religious front, harassing and on occasion persecuting altern-
ative religious organizations.73 Such actions have reportedly sometimes
involved the revival of old familiar KGB methods, such as fabricating crim-
inal cases, putting pressure on witnesses, or feeding kompromat and/or dis-
information to the media.74 Since 1998, the FSB has also been conducting
outreach activities with schools and universities in collaboration with the
state education authorities, aimed at raising awareness of the dangers of
sects.75 The extreme suspicion with which the FSB views such religious
organizations is illustrated by one Moscow chekist’s description of the Sal-
vation Army: ‘Officially an evangelical Protestant branch of the Christian
church, it is, in essence, a militarized formation with a strict hierarchical
subordination.’76
The current level of interference in spiritual life by the security appar-
atus would have been anathema in the Russia of the early 1990s. The
extent to which the political atmosphere in Russia had changed by the late
1990s is illustrated by the comments of an FSB officer working on ‘totali-
tarian sects’ in Siberia’s Altai region. In a press interview in early 1999, the
officer lamented the fact that the ‘old’ (that is, KGB) methods of dealing
with sectarianism had ‘gone to the dogs’ [poshli prakhom], but noted with
satisfaction that at last they were now being restored. He dated the begin-
ning of this turnaround to 1997, when a ‘more or less respectable concept’
to govern such work had appeared,77 and a team assembled.78
‘Scientific’ justifications for greater state intervention in the spiritual
sphere have been provided by commentators such as ex-�chekist Nikolai
Leonov and Dmitrii Rogozin. Both Leonov and Rogozin have affirmed the
existence of spiritual security as a component of national security.79
Leonov traces a long genealogy for the concept, viewing it primarily
through the prism of traditional relations between individual–society and
 Securitizing the Russian soul╇╇ 169
80
individual–state. For Leonov, 1991 marked a catastrophic and unprece-
dented rupture, when the Russian state renounced its role as the preserver
of spiritual security: ‘For the first time in the history of Russia the state
absolved itself of any responsibility for the narod’s material and spiritual
life’ and that ‘It was publicly declared and constantly postulated that the
individual had priority over the interests of society and state’.81 Thus the
discourse of spiritual security is aimed at justifying the paradigm shift in
state–society relations described in Chapter 5, namely, the return to the
primacy of the state over the individual.
The FSB’s activities in this area have been conducted with the coopera-
tion of sections of the Orthodox Church. Such cooperation has com-
prised, for example, providing the FSB and other state bodies with advice
on non-�traditional religious organizations.82 It is clearly often figures
within the Orthodox Church who are providing the impetus for a closer
relationship with the FSB and other state bodies in stamping out non-�
traditional religions.83
The Russian saying ‘What people are thinking in Moscow, they’re doing
in the regions’ is apt when it comes to measures aimed at protecting spirit-
ual security. Religious minorities and non-�Orthodox missionaries appear
to be especially vulnerable in Russia’s regions. Many regional administra-
tions have passed their own laws on spiritual affairs (often contradicting
the Russian Constitution and federal laws), generally aimed at banning or
restricting foreign missionary activities.84
Most often, actions taken against non-�Orthodox religious groups have
involved allegations or suggestions of espionage activities. As an ex-�staff
member of the Moscow UFSB put it in his memoirs, it is the FSB’s mission
to stop spies, ‘even if these spies garb themselves in priests’ frocks or hide
behind the shield of pure science’.85 In fact, the distinction between reli-
gious sects and foreign intelligence services has been almost entirely
blurred in much of the relevant commentary. The two issues are fre-
quently grouped together as a matter of course, as in, for example, a
meeting of members of the North-�Western regional council of FSB organs
held in Pskov in 2000 to discuss operations aimed at ‘counteracting the
activities of western special services and foreign totalitarian sects’, as it was
reported in the regional media.86 Again, such anti-�espionage campaigns
have been more aggressive in the regions (presumably partly because for-
eigners are more novel and rare outside the main metropolitan centres),
as evinced by the chekist proclamation used as a headline for a June 2003
article on the subject: ‘It’s Time to Put These Sects in Their Place.’ In this
article, the deputy head of the FSB in the Republic of Bashkiriia again
blurred the boundaries between religious activities and espionage, assert-
ing that ‘various foreign centres and organizations’ were continuing their
attempts to use non-�traditional religious associations operating in Russia
to subvert and destabilize the political situation, to gather intelligence
material of various kinds, and to cultivate Russian citizens ideologically.87
170╇╇ Post-Soviet chekism
In some cases the level of surveillance over religious activities is in some
respects reportedly even greater than during the Soviet period. Thus, for
example, it is now apparently common practice in several regions for local
justice officials to demand lists of all individual members of Protestant
Churches (over and above the numerous other forms of detailed docu-
mentation which religious organizations are required to provide in order
to register with the Justice Ministry). The head of the Protestant Churches
in Russia, Bishop Sergei Riakhovskii, stated in an interview in March 2004
that,

In the event of refusal to provide a list of members of the church the

pastors are summoned to the FSB, they demand collaboration, they
threaten to close down the church. .â•›.â•›. The methods of work with the
list are also well-�known: prominent people are summoned to the
leadership and presented with an ultimatum ‘either work, or faith’;
whereas the so-�called centres for the rehabilitation of victims of sects,
and FSB staff, ‘work’ with the simple people according to the list.88

As this quote indicates, despite the professed focus on new ‘totalitarian’

sects, the established mainstream churches are also suffering discrimina-
tion. In spring 2002, for example, four prominent Roman Catholic priests
based in Russia, including the Bishop of Irkutsk, were told, upon attempt-
ing to return to Russia from abroad, that their names appeared on a black-
list prepared by the Russian security apparatus, and they were consequently
refused entry visas. While no official justification for this was given by the
Russian authorities, representatives of the special services hinted, at least
in the case of Father Stefano Caprio, the first Catholic priest to be effect-
ively deported in early April 2002, that he may have been involved in espi-
onage.89 These cases illustrate one key point at which the interests of the
Church and the FSB converge.

Spiritual security and historical amnesia

Under this new paradigm, then, non-Â�Orthodox priests are ‘spies’, and the
chekist mission is based on a strong ‘spiritual’ component, safeguarding
Russia’s spiritual resources in the face of an onslaught of ‘totalitarian’
forces. The terms in which these charges are framed are especially ironic
in light of the Soviet-�era record of the state security organs in their deal-
ings with the religious sphere, as well as the historical actions of leading
Orthodox hierarchs, and of the late Patriarch Aleksi II in particular.90 For
many Russians, the consecration of the FSB church would surely have
served as a reminder of the revelations regarding Patriarch Aleksi’s own
past as a KGB agent – something which the Church has continued to deny
officially, flying in the face of conclusive documentary evidence from the
KGB archives.91
 Securitizing the Russian soul╇╇ 171
Theoretically, at least, the consecration of the FSB church at the Lubi-
anka in 2002 provided an opportunity to stage a symbolic ceremony of for-
giveness and reconciliation, celebrating the beginning of a new chapter in
relations between the Russian security apparatus and the Church. Yet
instead both sides kept silent, just as though the historical atrocities perpe-
trated against the Church by the FSB’s predecessors had never hap-
pened.92 With some exceptions (including, notably, the statement by FSB
public relations official Shul’ts that the consecration of the church repre-
sented ‘also, to a certain degree, repentance for many injustices commit-
ted in preceding years’),93 this has generally been the strategy adopted on
this issue.94
The first evidence of the Patriarch’s links to the KGB came to light in the
aftermath of the failed hard-�liner coup of August 1991. Public outrage over
the attempted coup and the KGB’s role in these events was so strong that
for a brief period it was impossible for the KGB to retain its habitual strict
control of access to its archives, which it was forced to open up to various
parliamentary commissions set up to investigate the coup. The work of one
of these commissions, headed up by Lev Ponomarev and Gleb Yakunin, rep-
resented the first (and final) serious attempt on the part of the Russian
authorities to unravel and examine the KGB’s infiltration of the Russian
Orthodox Church. In the course of his work on the commission, Yakunin,
ex-�prisoner of conscience, Orthodox priest,95 and long-�time outspoken critic
of the KGB’s penetration and manipulation of the Church,96 discovered and
made public archival documents showing that members of the Orthodox
hierarchy had been acting as KGB agents.97 The issue of KGB penetration of
the Orthodox Church hierarchy had already been raised in samizdat publi-
cations and later in press articles published during the late Gorbachev
period. This was the first time, however, that the claims had been supported
by documentary evidence from the KGB archives.98
Of course, great caution needs to be exercised in identifying and
passing judgement on collaborators and informers, especially on the basis
of secret police files. We know for example that files were often opened
on individuals ‘who had no idea that the KGB regarded them as agents’.99
Such practices might be used, for example, to inflate statistics and meet
quotas, or even with a view to compromising individuals in the future, out
of spite and vengefulness.100 It is a mark of just how murky these issues
have become that some media commentators even warned that the allega-
tions were being spread by the KGB itself, as a means of further discredit-
ing the Church in the new political environment.101 In the case of
Patriarch Aleksi, however, the situation appears to be relatively clear-�cut.
As late as 1988 he received a KGB prize for outstanding services, for
example,102 and KGB documents subsequently leaked to the press also
indicate that he was an especially diligent and valued agent.103
The defenders of Soviet-�era Orthodox collaborators, adherents of the
so-Â�called ‘Sergianstvo’ line or Sergianism (after the first ‘Soviet’ Patriarch
172╇╇ Post-Soviet chekism
Sergii [Starogorodskii], who issued a Declaration of loyalty to the Soviet
state in 1927), associated with the trade-�off of independence in exchange
for legalization of the Church, argue that such compromises were neces-
sary in order to ensure the Church’s survival. However understandable
this position might be given the historical circumstances of the time, the
Moscow Patriarchate’s refusal to address this issue openly has com-
pounded the considerable damage done to the moral credibility of the
Church.104 In 1992, at the height of the related scandal, Christian activist
Zoia Krakhmal’nikova memorably described the Church’s failure to
address this past as ‘a national moral catastrophe .â•›.â•›. a spiritual
Chernobyl’.105
These are difficult issues. Ex-�communist countries in Central and
Eastern Europe have struggled with the question of how to handle ex-�
secret informers and ex-�secret policemen for almost two decades now,
with varying degrees of success. Perhaps unexpectedly, former dissidents
such as Adam Michnik have been among the most vocal opponents of lus-
tration,106 which Michnik has labelled ‘anti-Â�communism with a Bolshevik
face’.107 At the same time, for all the failings of lustration processes in
Central and Eastern Europe, much of the scholarship identifies some form
of adequate lustration policy as vital to the consolidation of democracy in
these countries.108 In any event, the kind of reconciliation that voices like
Michnik’s are calling for in Central and Eastern Europe can scarcely be
possible in the absence of open debate on such questions – debate which
has been noticeably absent from mainstream Russian public life since the
question of lustration more or less disappeared from the agenda in the
mid-�1990s. The prospect of a Russian law on lustration of ex-�chekists now
seems unthinkable. Quite to the contrary: it has become fashionable and
advantageous to invent a chekist past for oneself where none exists.109
Meanwhile, there have been vociferous campaigns for professional bans
and restrictions to be placed on members of ‘totalitarian sects’ instead.110

Spiritual security and civil society

The ramifications of the emergent discourse of spiritual security are not
limited to the religious sphere. The new paradigm of security which this
discourse defines is wide-�ranging, and resonates across many fields of life.
In this section, I examine the ways in which this paradigm has broadened
out into a generalized anti-�oppositional discourse.
In 2003, then communist parliamentary deputy Viktor Zorkal’tsev gave
a number of speeches on the subject of spiritual security, in which he sug-
gested more far-�reaching implications of the concept, with bearing on
other civic rights and liberties.111 In June 2003, Zorkal’tsev, in his capacity
as chair of one of the key parliamentary committees responsible for liais-
ing with religious organizations and civil society, offered the following
remarkable definition of spiritual security:
 Securitizing the Russian soul╇╇ 173
Freedom of conscience is only freedom when this is the freedom not
only to believe, but to act. However, freedom of conscience has
boundaries. .â•›.â•›. And these boundaries can be defined by a single
expression – spiritual securityâ•›.â•›.â•›.
Spiritual security .â•›.â•›. is, if you like, one of the conditions of a civil
society.112

This statement exemplifies the ways in which liberal human rights dis-
courses are being appropriated and inverted in contemporary official par-
lance in Russia. Despite its poor record in terms of its treatment of Russian
grassroots and international non-�governmental organizations operating
on the ground in Russia, typified by the notorious statement Putin made
shortly before his appointment as prime minister in July 1999, in which he
described ecologists and members of non-�governmental organizations as
foreign spies,113 the Putin regime also often employed high-�sounding rhet-
oric emphasizing its support for ‘a strong civil society’. In September 2003,
for example, speaking at Columbia University, Putin went so far as to
assert that ‘special services should not stick their nose into civil society’.114
Yet in practice, it is increasingly becoming clear that this vision of a civil
society differs in crucial ways from the conventional definition. The gov-
ernment seems set on replacing the old independent human rights move-
ment with surrogates, sanctioned by and dependent upon the state – what
has been hailed by one of the Putin government’s top human rights offi-
cials as the ‘new wave’ of human rights activists.115 Some of these activists
have explicitly defined the discourse of spiritual security, whereby human
rights are articulated first and foremost with spiritual values, as a conscious
strategy to be used in order to counter Western human rights discourse.116
In 2004 Putin warned civil society that it was too dependent on foreign
grants, stating in one of his famous soundbites that Russian foreign-�funded
organizations could not ‘bite the hand that feeds them’.117 This top-Â�level
suggestion of inappropriate connections between local civil society groups
and foreign governments would appear to have emboldened ultra-�
nationalist politician Viktor Alksnis to make his attack on the Union of
Committees of Soldiers’ Mothers, when he demanded, shortly after Putin’s
comments, that the Union’s funding sources be investigated.118 Later, this
linkage between civic and humanitarian activism and espionage was most
firmly reinforced by the high-Â�profile ‘spy rock’ scandal of January 2006, in
which the FSB accused Russian NGOs of being in the pay of the British
secret services.119
This articulation of spies and NGOs has enabled demonization of
human rights and other civic and humanitarian activists in Russia, particu-
larly in the writings of one vocal theoretician of spiritual security, retired
KGB General-�Lieutenant Nikolai Leonov. While Leonov no longer repre-
sents the security apparatus in an official capacity, his public persona is
very much built on his identity as a chekist. Leonov has been described in
174╇╇ Post-Soviet chekism
the journal Spetsnaz Rossii as the quintessential contemporary chekist, as
‘the face’ of the chekist system, expressing ‘its spirit, its principles’.120 In
addition, Leonov might be said to personify the current convergence of
spirituality and security in Russian public life which this chapter describes.
For these reasons, it is worth pausing briefly to examine his recent biogra-
phy, before proceeding to examine his writings.
By his own admission, Leonov, who worked in foreign intelligence for
over three decades, rising to become deputy head of foreign intelligence
before resigning in disgust in late 1991, went into a sort of state of shock
after the collapse of the Soviet Union.121 When he recovered, he re-�
invented himself and pursued several new career paths simultaneously. He
began to lecture at the most prestigious international relations institute in
Moscow; he wrote his memoirs, which were published in 1995;122 and he
was also, in 1996, baptized into the Russian Orthodox faith.123 Around the
same time, he began a career in television, appearing as a commentator
on the controversial weekly television programme Russkii Dom,124 an
extreme nationalist television vehicle screened on Moscow regional televi-
sion from 1992 until its closure in 2004.125 Russkii Dom itself is another
instance of the new alliance emerging between the security apparatus and
the more conservative hard-�line sections of the Russian Orthodox Church.
In addition to Leonov, the programme also featured Orthodox priest
Father Tikhon (Shevkunov), who became famous in late 1999 and 2000
when rumours broke in the press that he was Putin’s confessor.126 It was
via Russkii Dom that Leonov launched a career in politics, after he decided
to run for parliament in 1999.127 His subsequent political successes were
owed at least in part to his public profile as an ex-�chekist; as we have seen,
his fans see him as the embodiment of the ethos of the Russian security
apparatus.
Leonov’s writings on spiritual security focus not so much on sects as on
the threat posed by human rights activists, or rights-�defenders, as they are
known in Russia. His tirades against such activists are often grounded in
considerations of ‘spiritual security’. His writings on this subject exemplify
the way in which rights-�defenders have increasingly been viewed through a
chekist lens, with a new ‘spiritual’ veneer. A typical example is Leonov’s
September 2003 article ‘Who the “Rights-Â�Defenders” in Russia Are
Working For’, published in the journal of the Moscow Patriarchate’s site
Radonezh. In this piece, Leonov described rights-�defenders not only as
reliant on foreign funding from the West and from traitorous oligarchs,
but also as unequivocally supporting NATO and US foreign policy; defend-
ing Chechen rebels; and being indifferent to the human rights of
Russians.128
Other hard-�line Orthodox anti-�sect crusaders have regularly levelled
accusations of espionage at human rights groups expressing concern over
violations of religious freedom in Russia. The Moscow Helsinki Group, for
example, was labelled ‘a whole legal network of informers’ by one
 Securitizing the Russian soul╇╇ 175
�
commentator writing for the Radonezh site. She argued that, ‘In essence,
this is legalized espionage. It is difficult to choose another word for
describing these international activities’.129
This kind of spymania – directed at both domestic human rights organi-
zations, and various foreign humanitarian and other groups – has become
increasingly prevalent and virulent. It has been creeping out of the
margins and into mainstream and official discourse in recent years. This
attitude was manifested in the shape of an agreement concluded in 2002
between the FSB’s Directorate for Moscow and the Moscow Region and
the Moscow Education Department. Under this agreement, FSB officers
visited schools to inform and warn pupils about the dangers of extremist,
religious and other groups. A November 2002 article in one Moscow
regional newspaper made the linkage between such groups and espionage
clear. The journalist’s report on the FSB’s cooperation with the Education
Department segued into a tirade against the American Peace Corps:

Incidentally, it’s not only Russian extremists and other illegals who are
penetrating the education system. Paradoxically enough, the ‘Ameri-
can spies’, long forgotten by us, are also peeping in that direction.
And in particular: representatives of the foreign American Peace
Corps. Moreover if non-�traditional organizations are penetrating edu-
cational institutions for the most part by illegal means, the volunteer-�
Yanks are doing so on the most lawful grounds. In the capacity of, let’s
say, teachers of English language or the foundations of business .â•›.â•›.
under the guise of teaching many of them are engaged in seeking
information about where and as what the parents of their charges
work, they infiltrate families or, even worse, industrial enterprises,
where they scoop up the necessary data and pass it practically to the
CIA.130

The author noted with satisfaction that a series of Russian regions had
expelled the Peace Corps that year, and speculated that the Moscow
region might well follow suit, ending with the line ‘So gud bai, America, –
my sami s usami’ [lit. we’ve got moustaches too; that is, we are old enough
to look after ourselves].131
This article reflected the official position. A month later, in December
2002, in his annual Chekist’s Day report to the press, Patrushev reported
that entry visas had been refused to 30 US Peace Corps workers that year.
Patrushev repeated the charge that the Peace Corps contained ‘individuals
who were engaged in gathering information about the socio-�political and
economic situation in Russian regions, about the staff of the organs of
power and government, about the course of the elections and so on’.132
Some of the most insidious insinuations have been those linking rights
defenders with terrorism. For example, according to Moscow Helsinki
Group chair Liudmila Alekseeva, Pushkov on Channel 3 stated that rights
176╇╇ Post-Soviet chekism
defenders were financed by terrorist organizations.133 This has been going
on since the mid-�1990s, most famously in the campaign against Human
Rights Commissioner Sergei Kovalev during the first Chechen war.134 Such
allegations have perhaps done more damage than any other charge lev-
elled at rights-�defenders.

Spiritual security and state psychiatry

The rise of the discourse of spiritual security also intersects in important
ways with current trends in the field of state psychiatry. This is another
sphere presently undergoing securitization, as reflected in the title of the
First National Congress on Social Psychiatry, held in Moscow in December
2004: ‘Psychic Health and Security in Society.’135 Like ex-Â�chekists, who
escaped the lustration that their colleagues faced in East Germany and
elsewhere and who have now recovered from the temporary loss of face in
the early 1990s, some of the leading psychiatrists responsible for the puni-
tive psychiatric treatment of dissidents in the Soviet period, who were con-
sidered pariahs in the early 1990s, have now been rehabilitated and have
returned to prestigious and powerful positions.136 Moreover, since the
mid-�1990s, some of them have presided over a partial revival of the use of
state psychiatry for non-�medical purposes. In particular, Professors Yurii
Polishchuk and Fedor Kondrat’ev have re-Â�invented themselves as defend-
ers of spiritual security and experts in the psychiatric issues surrounding
totalitarian sects, in which capacity they are able to re-�apply the techniques
developed for use against dissidents in the Soviet era, now rejigged as cult
de-�programming techniques. This gradual restoration of old Soviet-�era
alliances between the security apparatus and state psychiatry is taking
place under the banner of spiritual security, with psychiatrists contributing
to laying ‘scientific’ foundations for the concept.
Both Polishchuk (head of the Clinical Department of the Russian
Health Ministry’s Moscow Scientific Research Institute of Psychiatry) and
Kondrat’ev (head of the Expertise Department of the Serbskii Centre,137
previously the notorious Serbskii Institute which played a central role in
Soviet-�era psychiatric abuses) have been actively involved in policy-�making
on religious matters.138 They both also regularly act as media comment-
ators on this theme. Kondrat’ev specializes in grisly stories of Satanist
ritual murders, and ‘brainwashing’.139 Meanwhile, Polishchuk has emphas-
ized that the advent of sects into Russia is ‘a planned and coordinated
action, directed at subverting the spiritual influence of the Russian Ortho-
dox Church’,140 and ‘merely part of a general plan for the spiritual enslave-
ment of Russia’.141 These statements have been echoed in detailed reports
in the media alleging that the export of cults abroad is a matter of con-
scious strategy and policy on the part of the US government and intelli-
gence agencies.142 In 2004 Andrei Khvylia-�Olinter,143 Orthodox Deacon
and ex-�MVD colonel specializing in sects, made similar allegations about
 Securitizing the Russian soul╇╇ 177
foreign missionaries on Sakhalin, linking them to a plan to split Russia up
into a number of smaller countries.144
In addition to his commentary on religious matters, Polishchuk also
uses psychiatric concepts to back up calls for increased media censorship.
In September 2002, for example, at a roundtable held in Moscow to
discuss issues related to media coverage of crisis situations, Polishchuk
linked negative media images with mental health issues. His argument was
peppered with alarmist ‘statistics’. For example, he asserted that every
third Russian was in need of psychiatric assistance, and that 80 per cent of
Russians suffered from ‘heightened suggestibility’.145
Child and adolescent mental health is said to be especially under risk,
and this is often linked to national security. Here the linkage runs via con-
cerns about demographic issues, the ‘gene pool’, and defence capability,
insofar as the latter is linked to the cohort of youths available to perform
compulsory military service. In 2001, the chief child psychiatrist of the
Ministry for Health Protection, Vladimir Voloshin, lamented the sharp rise
in child psychiatric problems in the course of the 1990s, and stated that:
‘The end result of all this is alarming: the country’s gene pool – one of the
most important components of national security – is under attack.’146
The current political climate is such that leading state psychiatrists now
feel emboldened to disavow completely the established historical record
of Soviet-Â�era psychiatric repression of dissidents. Thus, Kondrat’ev has not
only denied accusations that he was ever personally involved in Soviet-�era
psychiatric abuses; he has asserted publicly that the very notion of the
existence of Soviet ‘punitive psychiatry’ was nothing more than: ‘the
fantasy [vymysel] of the very same people who are now defending totalitar-
ian sects. This is slander, which was [previously] used for anti-�Soviet ends,
but is now being used for anti-Â�Russian ends’.147
State psychiatry has been used not only against religious groups. More
recently and notoriously, Kondrat’ev and other Serbskii Centre staff pro-
duced the psychiatric evaluation of Colonel Budanov which was used to
absolve Budanov of criminal responsibility for the unlawful arrest, rape
and murder of an 18-year-�old Chechen girl, in what has become a cause
célèbre.148 The psychiatric report produced by Kondrat’ev’s team was sys-
tematically criticized by independent psychiatrists as overwhelmingly
biased and containing numerous inconsistencies and inaccuracies.149
Finally, state psychiatrists have also been active in providing commen-
tary on the so-Â�called ‘colour revolutions’ in the near abroad. Such com-
mentary has frequently suggested that the participants in these events were
being ‘controlled’. For example, at a major national psychiatric congress
in Moscow in December 2004, Ukrainian Professor Anatolii Chuprikov
called the Ukrainian Orange Revolution a ‘consciousness manipulation
operation: four out of five “oranges” are not aware that they are being con-
trolled’.150 In 2006 Tat’iana Dmitrieva (Academician and director of the
Serbskii Centre)151 drew a connection between mental illness and the
178╇╇ Post-Soviet chekism
‘colour revolutions’ in Ukraine and Georgia. Dmitrieva described the
colour revolutions as an example of psychologically healthy people using
mentally ill people in order to realize their political ambitions. She
appears to have meant this literally, and said that ‘on my TV I saw my
patients actively involved abroad during the colour revolutions’.152 Such
discourses are reminiscent of the discourse of profilaktika, with their depic-
tion of oppositionists as the dupes and victims of hostile foreign forces.

Spiritual security and the survival of Russia

A distinguishing feature of securitizing moves posited by Buzan et al. is a
specific rhetorical structure whereby the issue in question is presented as
a matter of ‘existential threat’.153 The rhetoric of existential threat is a
central feature of current Russian discussions on spiritual security under-
pinning the discourses described above. An important underlying
assumption is that the rest of the world actively wants to see Russia disap-
pear. This belief that Russia’s very right to exist is in dispute has come to
govern decisions taken at high levels. In 2000 the head of the RF Armed
Forces’ Chief Directorate for Educational Work made the striking decla-
ration that it was imperative to inculcate Russian servicemen not only
with religious faith, but with faith in Russia’s right to exist.154
Warnings are frequently issued in this connection that the first stage in
destroying Russia will be to attack her spiritual security. As Rogozin put it
in 2004: ‘The tragedy of peoples and states, as a rule, begins with the
destruction of their spirituality, with the inculcation into the people’s con-
sciousness of alien ideas and values, and unacceptable means of their
attainment.’155 Or to quote Metropolitan Ioann of St Petersburg and
Ladoga: Russia’s enemies know that ‘to kill Russia one must start by defil-
ing her soul’.156 Spiritual security is thus the front-Â�line; the state’s first line
of defence. Once the soul has been destroyed, then the enemies will move
on to Russia’s body, violating Russia’s physical integrity, ‘dismembering’
Russia, as the phrase often goes.157
As far as official chekist commentaries are concerned, this sense of exis-
tential threat is exemplified most plainly by leading chekist Viktor
Cherkesov’s 2004 programmatic Komsomol’skaia pravda article. Cherkesov’s
article focuses among other things on the vulnerability of Russia’s borders,
and on ‘the question of the most painful and important thing – of the
integrity of the Russian Federation’.158 He argues that even though Rus-
sia’s territory has already shrunk dramatically, ‘even this truncated state of
the borders does not stop very, very many from successive attempts at
encroachment on our territorial integrity and national sovereignty’. He
goes on:

In many respects, quite the opposite, in fact. There are those who
are€ not appeased, but inflamed by the problematic nature of our
 Securitizing the Russian soul╇╇ 179
�
existence today, by the truncated state of our territory, which is
unprecedented from the viewpoint of recent centuries. The real target
is not any particular regime, but the country. And we must be aware of
this. We must look into the eyes of this terrible truth – the truth about
the possibility of another state collapse, the second after the disinteg-
ration of the USSR. Perhaps, the final one. The one, after which our
historical existence will prove to have been exhausted, and we will
move into the category of stateless peoples and ‘dead’ civilizations.159

Cherkesov goes on to sketch out a future scenario in which:

Having lost statehood, all these peoples, and the Russians first and
foremost, will find themselves drawn into a whirlpool of social, mili-
tary, criminal, demographic and even anthropological catastrophes.
As a result the fate of many African countries may await us – to all
intents and purposes, complete annihilation, submergence into chaos
and multi-�tribal genocide.160

He then draws a direct link between this conspiracy to annihilate Russia

and media criticism of chekists:

Everyone who reads at least the materials of native and foreign open
press attentively, everyone who follows new tendencies (and the
chekist hunt that has been declared is one of these), understands that
the problem which I am talking about is not virtual. It is on the agenda
in a completely realistic sense.161

The message is clear: chekists are the only thing standing between Russia
and a nightmarish ‘whirlpool of catastrophes’; and criticizing chekists
amounts to actively supporting Russia’s enemies.

Spiritual security and media freedom

Finally, the notional crisis of spiritual security currently faced by Russia has
supplied fresh arguments for those advocating the reinstatement of cen-
sorship and increased state control over the media. Here again, the issue
is often framed in terms of existential threat. Thus, for example, in July
2004 Aleksandr Dugin, philosopher and head of the Eurasian Movement,
asserted that: ‘All air-Â�time and information space must be subordinated to
spiritual security .â•›.â•›. A genocide of Russian spirituality, of Russian culture is
taking place today .â•›.â•›. The media are directed .â•›.â•›. against our spiritual
identity.’162
Official documents have been couched in terms that are only slightly
less alarmist than Dugin’s rhetoric. The Information Security Doctrine of the
Russian Federation adopted in September 2000 warned that:
180╇╇ Post-Soviet chekism
The greatest danger in the sphere of spiritual life is posed by the fol-
lowing threats to the Russian Federation’s information security: defor-
mation of the mass information system .â•›.â•›. deterioration of .â•›.â•›. Russia’s
cultural inheritance .â•›.â•›. the possibility of violation of social stability, the
inflicting of harm to the health and life of citizens as a result of the
activities of religious associations preaching religious fundamentalism,
and also of totalitarian religious sects.163

Calls for the restoration of censorship are not always made explicit. More
often, the euphemism ‘information security’ is used. For example, at a
conference held in May 2003 to discuss the role of NGOs in protecting
national security, Zorkal’tsev stated that ‘One of the key roles in preserv-
ing public security is played by spiritual security .â•›.â•›. Spiritual security is
closely linked with other forms of public security and, first and foremost,
with information security’.164 Zorkal’tsev, then, saw spiritual security as
linked primarily with ‘information security’ – that is, with the need to
restore state censorship and control of the mass media. The linkage
between information security and spiritual security has also been asserted
by defence theorists from the Russian military.165

Coda
As we noted in Chapter 5, since the late 1990s, references to ‘spirituality’
have proliferated in FSB public relations materials. These have been sup-
plemented by the poetic reflections of FSB Colonel Vasilii Stavitskii. His
lyrical musings on the intersections between spirituality and security are a
fitting place to round off our tour of the new discursive terrain.
As security specialists Andrei Soldatov and Irina Bogoran have docu-
mented, during his tenure as head of FSB public relations in 1999–2001,
Stavitskii published several volumes of poetry with a strong ‘spiritual’ bent,
including Secrets of the Soul (1999); Light a Candle Mamma (1999), a book of
‘spiritual-Â�patriotic’ poems for children;166 and Constellation of Love: Selected
Verse (2000). The latter collection was reviewed favourably in the national-
ist newspaper Zavtra as proof of the fact that chekists were not ‘unfeeling
robots’, but human beings capable of elevated emotions, and of subtle
appreciation of nature’s harmony.167 Many of Stavitskii’s poems have been
set to music and produced as CDs, and are reportedly an obligatory part
of the entertainment at FSB functions.168
The saccharine titles of his books notwithstanding, much of Stavitskii’s
poetry is in the revanchist mode. The poem ‘Aren’t You Ashamed’, for
example, talks of settling accounts with those who have crucified and pros-
tituted Mother Russia, stolen milk from her children, and lied to her
people. While the author does not identify the culprits by name, he is
clearly alluding to the ‘oligarchs’, and the liberal reformers of the early
1990s.169 In others, Stavitskii praises the Cheka, and its holy fight against:
 Securitizing the Russian soul╇╇ 181
.â•›.â•›.â•›our enemy behind a mask – the two-Â�faced Satan.
Around us diplomats, actors, businessmen –
Flatterers talking of friendshipâ•›.â•›.â•›.

and so on, in a similar vein.170 Were it not for the reference to ‘business-
men’, one could be forgiven for dating this poem to the high Stalinist
period. The resonances of such imagery call into question the claim that
the new focus on spiritual security has to do with preserving and strength-
ening ancient traditional Russian Christian values. When viewed in histor-
ical context, the discourse of spiritual security reveals greater affinities
with Soviet-�style attitudes towards ideological subversion.
Stavitskii’s writings highlight the disturbing ways in which the resurgent
cult of the secret police is increasingly intertwined with issues of spiritual-
ity. The danger is that by cloaking itself in spiritual rhetoric, the FSB will
not only attain moral responsibility, but will effectively place itself beyond
the reach of any legitimate criticism, scrutiny or control.
Conclusion

As this book goes to press, the official Russian position on the Soviet past
has entered another cycle of extreme flux. After a prolonged period of
ambivalence punctuated by occasional moves to rehabilitate Stalin and to
downplay or rationalize the Soviet state’s use of terror and coercion, the
Putin–Â�Medvedev tandem has now set a new course for officially sponsored
‘de-Â�Stalinization’, a policy which was announced in late 2010.
It remains to be seen what ramifications this shift in historical policy will
have for the official cult of the chekist. In December 2010 political commen-
tator Andrei Piontkovsky suggested that the collapse of the Putin regime was
imminent; and he linked this specifically to the exhaustion and bankruptcy
of the Kremlin’s public relations project and its failed attempt to project the
‘myth of the young energetic security services officer sending Russian regi-
ments deep into the Caucasus to bring terror and death to the terrorists and
all the enemies of Russia which was once more getting up off its knees’.1
So far, however, the image of the chekist has remained intact. The
Russian leadership’s rhetoric on Stalin has changed quite dramatically
throughout the course of 2010, but the year 2010 also marked a new peak
in the nostalgic cult of Soviet foreign intelligence and public celebration
of its modern-�day heirs. After a Russian spy ring was exposed and deported
from the United States in summer 2010, Putin offered the agents his per-
sonal endorsement and support, joining them upon their return to Russia
in a sentimental rendition of the Soviet patriotic song ‘Where Does the
Motherland Begin’. The most high profile of these spies, Anna Chapman,
was among the celebrities ushering in 2011 with a New Year’s Eve address
to the nation on the major national television station, Channel One.
In the preface to a 1997 book marking the eightieth jubilee of the
VChK-�FSB, the head of the UFSB for the Krasnodar region reflected that:

At times the fate of the current cohort of chekists recalls the flight of a
wounded bird, which is flying above reeds, with such a long way to go
before reaching clear water .â•›.â•›. I believe that the situation in the
country will change, and our Motherland will be a great power. And
in a strong state, there must be strong special services.2
 Conclusion╇╇ 183
This image of the Russian security apparatus as a wounded bird far from
home is a relatively gentle and bucolic instance of the new myth-�making.
More commonly, such texts have grim undertones, hinting at unfinished
business and the prospect of a coming crisis. This is how Cherkesov
described the position of current-�day chekists and ex-�chekists in 2004:

Even now things are not easy for them, and things will become much
harder. But I believe that they will not tremble, they will not renounce
their origins and the rules of behaviour [which have been] established
once and forever.3

If this falls short of qualifying as a chekist call-�to-arms, it certainly comes

close.
The new state security discourses examined in this book are not just
about retrospective vindication, or setting the historical record straight.
They are engaged in creating a new chekist mythology suitable for the
current political climate. These are not just legitimizing discourses; they
are also normative. They tell an open-Â�ended story – one that points for-
wards into the future, as well as backwards into the past.
Glossary

chekist: employee of the Soviet or post-�Soviet Russian security apparatus

doverennoe litso (pl. doverennye litsa): ‘trusted individual’ (see further
Chapter 2)
gebist (pl. gebisty): pejorative term for a chekist
kompromat: compromising materials
konspiratsiia: secrecy
narod: people, folk, nation, masses
partiinost’: party-Â�mindedness
profilaktika: preventive measures (see further Chapter 2)
razvedchik: intelligence operative
silovik: individual connected with the security apparatus, military or
foreign affairs elites
Notes

Introduction
╇ 1 Formally titled the All-�Russian Extraordinary Commission (VChK, or Vecheka).
╇ 2 N. Izgoev, ‘Dzerzhinskii’, Izvestiia, no. 167, 20 July 1936, p.€3.
╇ 3 Ibid.
╇ 4 As Andrew and Gordievsky argued in 1990, ‘The greatest threat to the future of
the KGB is its own past’; Christopher Andrew and Oleg Gordievsky, KGB: The
Inside Story of its Foreign Operations from Lenin to Gorbachev, London: HarperCol-
lins, 1990, p.€642.
╇ 5 Greg Dening, Performances, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996, p.€65.
╇ 6 See for example Yevgenia Albats, KGB: State within a State, trans. Catherine A.
Fitzpatrick, London: I. B. Tauris Publishers, 1995; Andrew and Gordievsky,
KGB; Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, The Mitrokhin Archive: The KGB
in Europe and the West, London: Allen Lane The Penguin Press, 1999; John J.
Dziak, Chekisty: A History of the KGB, Massachusetts/Toronto: Lexington Books,
1988; Martin Ebon, KGB: Death and Rebirth, Westport: Praeger, 1994; Amy
Knight, The KGB: Police and Politics in the Soviet Union, London: Unwin Human,
1988; Amy Knight, Spies without Cloaks: The KGB’s Successors, Princeton: Prince-
ton University Press, 1996; George Leggett, The Cheka: Lenin’s Political Police. The
All-�Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-�Revolution and Sabotage
(December 1917 to February 1922), Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981; and J. Michael
Waller, Secret Empire: The KGB in Russia Today, Boulder: Westview Press, 1994.
The recent Russian literature on this subject is too voluminous to list here; see
further bibliography.
╇ 7 Notable exceptions include the works of Andrei Soldatov and Irina Bogoran
published via the site www.agentura.ru and elsewhere (see further bibliogra-
phy); Gasan Guseinov, ‘Ogosudarstvlennyi chelovek: Chekist v diskurse novoi
russkoi kul’tury’, in Marina Balina, Yevgenii Dobrenko and Yurii Murashov,
eds, Sovetskoe bogatstvo. Stat’i o kul’ture, literature i kino, St Petersburg: Akadem-
icheskii proekt, 2002, pp.€138–56; Richard Popplewell, ‘Themes in the Rhetoric
of KGB Chairmen from Andropov to Kryuchkov’, Intelligence and National Secur-
ity, 6, 1991, 513–47; and Adam Johnson, ‘The Construction of a History of the
KGB in Contemporary Russia’, unpublished MPhil in Historical Studies disser-
tation, St John’s College, Cambridge, 2001.
╇ 8 See for example Andrew and Mitrokhin, Mitrokhin Archive, passim; Ronald
Hingley, The Russian Secret Police: Imperial Russian and Soviet Security Operations
1565–1970, London: Hutchinson, 1970, p.€ 130; Knight, KGB; E. A. Rees,
‘Leader Cults: Varieties, Preconditions and Functions’, in Balázs Apor, Jan C.
Behrends, Polly Jones and E. A. Rees, eds, The Leader Cult in Communist Dictator-
ships, Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004, pp.€10 and 12. This book went to
186╇╇ Notes
press before I had time to consult what promises to be a major work on the
subject: Andrei Soldatov and Irina Bogoran, The New Nobility: The Restoration of
Russia’s Security State and the Enduring Legacy of the KGB (New York: PublicAffairs,
2010).
╇ 9 This theme is not covered in standard works such as Victoria E. Bonnell, Iconog-
raphy of Power: Soviet Political Posters under Lenin and Stalin, Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1997; Katerina Clark, The Soviet Novel: History as Ritual,
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981; Peter Kenez, The Birth of the Propa-
ganda State: Soviet Methods of Mass Mobilization, 1917–1929, Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1985; and Nina Tumarkin, Lenin Lives! The Lenin Cult
in Soviet Russia, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983.
10 The Communist Security Apparatus in East Central Europe, 1944–45 to 1989, 16–18
June 2005, hosted by the Institute of National Remembrance, Poland.
11 In this book, the term ‘discourse’ is used to refer to the processes by which
meaning is produced, reproduced, contested and circulated via established
forms of representation and in particular institutional settings.
12 Cited A. Gurvich, ‘Obraz Lenina v sovetskoi dramaturgii’, Teatr, 1, 1940, 18. A
similar preoccupation is evinced also in Lenin’s statement that ‘If we are guilty
of anything, then this is of the fact that we were too humane, too decent, with
regard to the representatives of the bourgeois-�imperialist world, monstrous in
their betrayal’; cited G. Molchanov, ‘Strazh Oktiabria’, in Dzerzhinets. (Sbornik,
posviashchennyi 12-letnei godovshchine organov i voisk VChK-Â�OGPU). 1917–20 dek.-
1929, Ivanovo-�Voznesensk: Izd. Yubileinoi komissii Ivpromoblasti, 1929, p.€5.
13 N. Bukharin, ‘Feliks Dzerzhinskii umer’, Pravda, no. 165, 21 July 1926, p.€1.
14 See his letter to Yagoda on this topic, 18 June 1926; Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi
Arkhiv Sotsial’no-Politicheskoi Istorii (RGASPI), f. 76, op. 3, d. 385, l. 6.
15 See the appeal issued by Dzerzhinsky on 13 March 1925, reproduced in Ye. M.
Primakov, ed., Ocherki istorii rossiiskoi vneshnei razvedki: V 6-ti tt. T. 2: 1917–1933
gody, Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia, 1996, unnumbered page; from
illustrations between pp.€176 and 177.
16 Krzizhanovskii, ‘Pamiat’ Feliksu’, Pravda, no. 166, 22 July 1926, p.€1.
17 Cited I. S. Unshlikht, ‘O Vladimire Lenine’, in A. I. Kolpakidi and M. L. Seria-
kov, Shchit i mech. Rukovoditeli organov gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti Moskovskoi
Rusi, Rossiiskoi imperii, Sovetskogo Soiuza i Rossiiskoi Federatsii. Entsiklopedicheskii
spravochnik, Moscow and St Petersburg: Olma-�Press and Neva, 2002, p.€685.
18 Alexander Etkind, ‘The Kremlin’s Double Monopoly’, in Hiski Haukkala and
Sinikukka Saari, eds, Russia Lost or Found? Patterns and Trajectories, Helsinki:
Edita, 2009, pp.€199–200.
19 Svetlana Boym, Common Places. Mythologies of Everyday Life in Russia, Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1994, pp.€3–4. The same point has been made by
many others, from Vladimir Nabokov to Salman Rushdie.
20 D. N. Nosyrev, ‘Vernye soldaty partii’, in V. A. Kutuzov et al., Chekisty Petrograda
na strazhe revoliutsii, Leningrad: Lenizdat, 1987, p.€7.
21 The inclusion of the term ‘Extraordinary’ in the Cheka’s original title likewise
served to flag the fact that its existence was only temporary, and not integral to
the nature of the Soviet state.
22 I am grateful to Robert Horvath for drawing this passage to my attention.
23 Filipp Bobkov, KGB i vlast’, Moscow: Veteran MP, 1995, pp.€193–4.
24 Bobkov had become a chekist in 1945.
25 On which see further James H. Billington, Fire in the Minds of Men: Origins of the
Revolutionary Faith, New York: Basic Books, 1980.
26 Cited Eduard Makarevich, ‘Yakov Agranov – chekist, prishedshii k intelligen-
tam’, Dialog, 8, 2000.
27 Velimir Khlebnikov, ‘Predsedatel’ cheki’, Novyi mir, 10, October 1988, 149–50.
 Notes╇╇ 187
28 On taboos in Soviet culture, see Yefim Etkind, ‘Sovetskie tabu’, Sintaksis, 9,
1981, 3–20.
29 Two of the most prominent and courageous figures to resist the imposition of
these taboos were the writer Vladimir Korolenko and the historian Sergei
Mel’gunov, both of whom produced powerful critiques of the Cheka which
were suppressed in the USSR until the late Gorbachev period.
30 Robert Darnton, The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural
History, New York: Basic Books, 1984, p.€5.
31 Most recently, chekist moral purity was invoked at the opening of an exhibition
celebrating Dzerzhinsky’s one-Â�hundred-and-Â�thirtieth jubilee, at the Central
Museum of the Great Patriotic War in Moscow. The museum’s director pro-
claimed that ‘The VChK organs always demonstrated moral purity, and I find it
heartening that the FSB is the glorious successor of this organization’; cited
Viktor Shenderovich, ‘Kommentarii k sobytiiam rossiiskoi zhizni (iiul’-dekabr’
2007)’, Kontinent, 134, 2007. Online. Available at: http://magazines.russ.ru/
continent/2007/134/sh9.html (accessed 22 November 2010).
32 We might also think of this as pointing to what Naiman has called the ‘infantile
narcissism at the heart of Stalinist ideology’; Eric Naiman, introduction to
Evgeny Dobrenko and Eric Naiman, eds, The Landscape of Stalinism: The Art and
Ideology of Soviet Space, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2003, p.€xv.
33 Alexander Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago: 1918–1956. An Experiment in Lit-
erary Investigation I-�II, trans. Thomas P. Whitney, London: Collins & Harvill
Press, 1974, p.€655.
34 Roland Barthes, Mythologies, trans. A. Lavers, London: Vintage, 1993, p.€129.

1╇ Dzerzhinsky’s commandments

╇╇ 1 ‘Nad grobom Dzerzhinskogo’, Pravda, no. 167, 23 July 1926, p.€1.
╇╇ 2 For an overview of Soviet leader cults, see Rees, ‘Leader Cults’, pp.€3–26.
╇╇ 3 Darnton, Great Cat Massacre, p.€5.
╇╇ 4 Menzhinskii, cited Yulian Semenov, ‘Predislovie’, in I. Ye. Polikarenkov, ed., O
Felikse Dzerzhinskom. Vospominaniia, ocherki, stat’i sovremennikov, 2nd edn,
Moscow: Politizdat, 1987, p.€10. Here and elsewhere in other texts the imagery
suggests that this is virtually a matter of transubstantiation.
╇╇ 5 A. Bezymenskii, ‘V rabote’, Pravda, no. 294, 19 December 1926, p.€4.
╇╇ 6 A. Bezymenskii, ‘Feliks’, in his Izbrannye proizvedeniia v dvukh tomakh. Tom
pervyi. Stikhotvoreniia. Poemy. Komediia v stikhakh ‘Vystrel’, Moscow: Khudozhest-
vennaia literatura, 1989, pp.€252–64.
╇╇ 7 As a recent commentator put it, ‘It was under Dzerzhinsky and thanks to
Dzerzhinsky that the concept “chekist”, which today is still considered a high
title by current staff [of the security apparatus], came into use’; A. G.
Sidorenko, ‘F. E. Dzerzhinskii – stroitel’ novoi ekonomiki Rossii’, Spetsnaz
Rossii, 12, December 2007. Online. Available at: www.specnaz.ru/article/?1197
(accessed 22 November 2010).
╇╇ 8 N. S. Leonov, Likholet’e, Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia, 1994, p.€354.
This was accompanied by a series of rituals such as the laying of wreaths at the
symbolic grave of the ‘unknown razvedchik’, as well as sporting events.
╇╇ 9 Andrew and Mitrokhin, Mitrokhin Archive, p.€30.
╇ 10 G. Vlasenko, ‘Zhivaia sila partiino-Â�revoliutsionnykh traditsii’, Pogranichnik, 23,
December 1967, 21. At one of these sacred sites, the memorial Dzerzhinovo
Museum-�Estate in Belarus, 49 boulders, each symbolizing a year of Dzerzhin-
sky’s life, line the path; Aleksandr Khinstein, ‘Zloi rok sem’i Dzerzhinskikh’,
Moskovskii komsomolets, no. 207, 15 September 2000, p.€4.
╇ 11 See for example S. Dzerzhinskaia, V gody velikikh boev, Moscow: Mysl’, 1964, p.€358.
188╇╇ Notes
╇ 12 Maxim Gorky, cited Yurii German, ‘O Gor’kom’, in Yurii German, ‘Vospomi-
naniia’, in Podpolkovnik meditsinskoi sluzhby. Nachalo. Butsefal. Lapshin. Zhmakin.
Vospominaniia, Leningrad: Leningradskoe otdelenie izdatel’stva ‘Sovetskii
pisatel’â•›’, 1968, pp.€632–3. Yulian Semenov also calls Dzerzhinsky ‘a person of
crystal moral purity’; Semenov, ‘Predislovie’, in Polikarenkov, O Feliks Dzerzhin-
skom, p.€11.
╇ 13 Lidiia Fomenko, ‘Rytsari revoliutsii (Zametki ob istoriko-Â�revoliutsionnoi
proze)’, in S. Mashinskii et al., eds, Literatura i sovremennost’. Sbornik vos’moi.
Stat’i o literature 1967 goda, Moscow: Khudozhstvennaia literatura, 1968, p.€357.
╇ 14 V. Menzhinskii, ‘O Dzerzhinskom’, in A. A. Pavlov, ed., Chekisty: Sbornik
dokumental’nykh rasskazov i povestei, Gor’kii: Volgo-Â�Viatskoe izdatel’stvo, 1986,
p.€ 14. Hence Dzerzhinsky was also known as the ‘party’s conscience’; Ale-
ksandr Khinshtein, Podzemel’ia Lubianki, Moscow: Olma Media Group, 2008,
p.€155.
╇ 15 Nadezhda Mandelstam, Hope against Hope: A Memoir, trans. Max Hayward,
London: Collins & Harvill Press, 1971, pp.€79–80.
╇ 16 Pravda, no. 167, 23 July 1926, p.€2.
╇ 17 Bukharin, ‘Feliks Dzerzhinskii umer’, Pravda, no. 165, 21 July 1926, p.€1.
╇ 18 Yu. Leshinskii, ‘Vozhd’ polskikh rabochikh’, in Polikarenkov, O Felikse Dzerzhin-
skom, p.€40.
╇ 19 The ways in which Soviet leadership cults and heroic discourses more broadly
employed the conventions of Orthodox hagiography have long been noted by
scholars; see for example Clark, The Soviet Novel, pp.€46–8; and Rees, ‘Leader
Cults’, pp.€6–7.
╇ 20 As described in Oleg Tarasov, Icon and Devotion: Sacred Spaces in Imperial Russia,
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004, p.€353 and passim.
╇ 21 Hingley, The Russian Secret Police, p.€130.
╇ 22 Tumarkin, Lenin Lives!, pp.€257 and 259–60.
╇ 23 Izgoev, ‘Dzerzhinskii’, p.€3.
╇ 24 Cited Viktor Baklanov, ‘Slovo Dzerzhinskomu’, Gazeta “Dos’e” (Moscow), 3,
November 2002. Online. Available via FSB official website: www.fsb.ru/fsb/
history/author/single.htm!id%3D10317976%40fsbPublication.html (accessed
22 November 2010).
╇ 25 Cited Yurii Dmitriev, Pervyi chekist, Moscow: Molodaia gvardiia, 1968, p.€43.
╇ 26 Ya. Ya. Buikis, ‘â•›“Trudnosti nado preodolevat’, a ne boiat’sia ikh!”,’ in
Polikarenkov, O Felikse Dzerzhinskom, p.€134.
╇ 27 L. B. Shalyt, ‘Delat’ zhizn’ s kogoâ•›.â•›.â•›.’, in I. Z. Ozerskii, Ye. M. Berdnikova and
A. N. Khmelev, eds, Nravstvennoe vospitanie vo vneklassnoi rabote po istorii i obsh-
chestvovedeniiu, Moscow: Prosveshchenie, 1965, p.€83.
╇ 28 Pogranichnik, 1, 1965, 37.
╇ 29 He spent a total of 11 years in prison, katorga and exile; A. S. Velidov et al.,
eds, Feliks Edmundovich Dzerzhinskii: Biografiia, 3rd edn, Moscow: Politizdat,
1986, p.€4.
╇ 30 Dmitriev, Pervyi chekist, pp.€53–62; Baklanov, ‘Slovo Dzerzhinskomu’, and Yu.
German, Rasskazy o Dzerzhinskom, Leningrad: Detgiz, 1955, p.€60.
╇ 31 Galina Serebriakova, Svet neugasimyi, Moscow: Gospolitizdat, 1962, p.€17.
╇ 32 Velidov et al., Feliks Edmundovich Dzerzhinskii, p.€ 10. The gentleness of the
generic chekist more broadly was also emphasized in Soviet propaganda,
partly to counter, as one article put it, stereotypes of chekists with crazed
bloodshot eyes and dishevelled hair; see Nik Pogodin, ‘Tri bukvy’, in Dzerzhi-
nets, pp.€ 52–3. This author also depicts the chekist as the exemplary family
man.
╇ 33 Fomenko, apparently paraphrasing Yurii German; Fomenko, ‘Rytsari revoliut-
sii’, p.€357.
 Notes╇╇ 189
╇ 34 On Dzerzhinsky’s work as chair of the VTsIK children’s commission estab-
lished in early 1921 see A. V. Lunacharskii, ‘Dzerzhinskii v Narkomprose’, in
Polikarenkov, O Felikse Dzerzhinskom, p.€267; Sheila Fitzpatrick, The Commissar-
iat of Enlightenment: Soviet Organization of Education and the Arts under Lunachar-
sky October 1917–1921, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970, p.€ 231;
and Dzerzhinskaia, V gody velikikh boev, pp.€341–59.
╇ 35 V. Mikhailov, ‘Imia im – chekisty’, Leningradskaia pravda, no. 294, 20 Decem-
ber 1977, p.€3.
╇ 36 Velidov et al., Feliks Edmundovich Dzerzhinskii, p.€6.
╇ 37 The key Soviet writer associated with the Dzerzhinsky theme was Yurii
German, who produced various collections of short stories about Dzerzhinsky
which were published in mass print-�runs from the mid-�1950s and formed the
base for films such as Iron Feliks (1964); I. Chanyshev, ‘Zheleznyi Feliks’, Sovet-
skii ekran, 2, January 1964, 10.
╇ 38 A. Ivich, ‘Ot uproshcheniia k prostote’, Literaturnaia gazeta, no. 41, 28 July
1940, p.€3. The author is referring to one of Yurii German’s books.
╇ 39 F. E. Dzerzhinskii, Dnevnik i pis’ma, Moscow: Molodaia gvardiia, 1956,
pp.€155–6.
╇ 40 A. Malygin, ‘Rytsari revoliutsii’, Komsomol’skaia pravda, no. 295, 20 December
1967, pp.€ 1–2. This letter continues to be cited in modern-Â�day tributes to
Dzerzhinsky; see Baklanov, ‘Slovo Dzerzhinskomu’.
╇ 41 See for example Dzerzhinskaia, V gody velikikh boev, p.€354; and K. Gorozhanin,
‘Delo ne v pamiatnike, a v pamiati’, Trud, no. 126, 23 July 2002, p.€5. In the
latter article, the author argues that for this alone, Dzerzhinsky deserves to be
remembered well.
╇ 42 Dzerzhinskaia, V gody velikikh boev, p.€349.
╇ 43 Ibid., pp.€355, 359.
╇ 44 Ibid., pp.€355–6.
╇ 45 Lenin and Stalin were also depicted with children, but not with homeless
ones; this motif seems to have been acceptable only in connection with
Dzerzhinsky, presumably because homelessness was subsequently said to have
been eliminated. On images of children in the Lenin and Stalin leadership
cults, see Catriona Kelly, ‘Grandpa Lenin and Uncle Stalin: Soviet Leader Cult
for Little Children’, in Apor et al., The Leader Cult, pp.€102–22.
╇ 46 See for example Shalyt, ‘Delat’ zhizn’ s kogoâ•›.â•›.â•›.’, in Ozerskii et al., Nravstvennoe
vospitanie, p.€82. In one such story, Dzerzhinsky finds a boy freezing and uncon-
scious in a cellar, ‘picks the waif up in his arms and carries him out of the stink-
ing building into the open air’; Fomenko, ‘Rytsari revoliutsii’, pp.€356.
╇ 47 See Mayakovsky’s Vladimir Il’ich Lenin (1924). This was not an absolute maxim;
at the funerals of comrades, for example, it was acceptable to shed tears.
Thus, Stalin, wept at Kirov’s coffin, and most famously, Khrushchev (who
appears in general to have been a bit of a weeper) and others wept over
Stalin.
╇ 48 There is an oddly quasi-�marital quality, for example, to his relationship with
and devotion to Lenin; the two of them constantly fret and worry about each
other’s health; they scold one another for working too hard. See for example
a 1956 story in which Lenin and Dzerzhinsky are outside on a windy day, and
Dzerzhinsky deliberately stands on Lenin’s right side, so as to protect him
from the wind; Mikhail Kozakov, ‘Petrogradskie dni, povest’â•›’, Novyi mir, 11,
1957, 150. Later in the same story, when Dzerzhinsky and Lenin come out
onto the street together after a night meeting in 1917, Dzerzhinsky takes off
his raincoat and drapes it over Lenin, ignoring Lenin’s protests; ibid., p.€151.
Lenin was said to be ‘always tender .â•›.â•›. and friendly’ in his dealings with
Dzerzhinsky; Sidorenko, ‘F. E. Dzerzhinskii’ (citing a 1987 Soviet text).
190╇╇ Notes
╇ 49 See for example M. Saiapin, ‘Slovo o Dzerzhinskom. Opyt biograficheskogo
panegirika’, Duel’, no. 26, 26 June 2001. Online. Available at: www.duel.
ru/200126/?26_6_1 (accessed 22 November 2010).
╇ 50 On official attempts to sacralize the tsarist secret police, see Hingley, The
Russian Secret Police, pp.€vii and 130.
╇ 51 Mikhail Kozakov, ‘Muzhestvennyi i svetlyi obraz’, Ogonek, 37, September 1952,
5.
╇ 52 We might link this conjunction of terror and virtue to the tradition of
Robespierre and the Jacobin legacy of revolutionary terror, as encapsulated in
Robespierre’s famous statement on ‘virtue, without which terror is fatal;
terror, without which virtue is impotent’. Dzerzhinsky was often referred to as
‘the Robespierre of the revolution’; see for example Yulian Semenov, ‘Predis-
lovie’, in Polikarenkov, O Felikse Dzerzhinskom, p.€9.
╇ 53 Saiapin, ‘Slovo o Dzerzhinskom’.
╇ 54 B. Shmeral’, ‘U groba vozhdia i bortsa’, Pravda, no. 165, 21 July 1926, p.€2.
╇ 55 Kozakov, ‘Muzhestvennyi i svetlyi obraz’. Or, from another angle: ‘He knew
how to love, just as he knew how to hate’; Yurii German, ‘Zhizn’ otdannaia
revoliutsii’, Agitator, 16, August 1962, 23.
╇ 56 See for example Yurii German, ‘Led i plamen’â•›’, Literaturnaia gazeta, no. 4, 25
January 1967, p.€2.
╇ 57 See for example D. N. Nosyrev, ‘Vernye soldaty partii’, in V. A. Kutuzov et al.,
Chekisty Petrograda na strazhe revoliutsii, Leningrad: Lenizdat, 1987, p.€8.
╇ 58 A literal translation would give ‘cold’ and ‘hot’ rather than ‘cool’ and ‘warm’.
╇ 59 Kutuzov et al., Chekisty Petrograda, p.€ 58. Note that citations of this aphorism
are always vague in terms of when Dzerzhinsky was said to have coined or used
it; I have not been able to trace it to any specific concrete occasion.
╇ 60 Nosyrev, ‘Vernye soldaty partii’, in ibid., p.€8.
╇ 61 Pronounced here by Dzerzhinsky in Semenov’s novel No Password Required; Yu.
Semenov, ‘Parol’ ne nuzhen’, in V. Dudko, ed., Led i plamen’: Dokumental’no-
khudozhestvennyi sbornik, Vladivostok: Dal’nevostochnoe knizhnoe izdatel’stvo’,
1977, p.€34.
╇ 62 Dzerzhinsky, speaking on the fifth anniversary of the founding of the VChK-�
GPU; cited V. A. Sobolev et al., eds, Lubianka, 2: Iz istorii otechestvennoi istori-
ografii, Moscow: Mosgorakhiv and Moskovskie uchebniki i kartolitografiia,
1999, p.€178. In another variant, Dzerzhinsky says that a chekist is made up of
‘three words beginning with the letter “ch” – honesty [chestnost’], sensitivity
[chutkost’], cleanliness [chistoplotnost’]’; cited Serebriakova, Svet neugasimyi,
p.€16.
╇ 63 See Mikhail Geller, Kontsentratsionnyi mir i sovetskaia literature, Moscow: MIK,
1996, p.€289.
╇ 64 Cited Fomenko, ‘Rytsari revoliutsii’, p.€357.
╇ 65 Ibid.
╇ 66 In this case, ‘active struggle’ meant informing on one’s family if called upon
to do so; N. Zhdanov and I. Shneiderman, ‘P’esa o pervykh dniakh VChK’,
Iskusstvo i zhizn’, 1, 1939, 24.
╇ 67 Ibid.
╇ 68 L. I. Timofeev, Russkaia sovetskaia literatura. Uchebnoe posobie dlia 10-go klass
srednei shkoly, 8th edn, Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe uchebno-�pedagogicheskoe
izdatel’stvo Ministerstva Prosveshcheniia RSFSR, 1953, p.€130.
╇ 69 Ibid., p.€149.
╇ 70 Ibid., p.€150.
╇ 71 M. Gor’kii, ‘Ot “vragov obshchestva” – k geroiam truda’, Pravda, no. 25, 26
January 1936, p.€2.
╇ 72 Gorky continued to urge writers to take up this theme until the very end:
 Notes╇╇ 191
‘Right up until his final articles and letters Gorky continued to insist that
writers must glorify chekists (he suggested Makarenko do this in one of his
final letters to him)’; Vs. Ivanov, ‘Pochemu Stalin ubil Gor’kogo?’, Voprosy liter-
atury, no. 1, 28 February 1993, p.€114.
╇ 73 Menzhinskii, ‘O Dzerzhinskom’, p.€13.
╇ 74 Ibid.
╇ 75 See for example the account given of the life of Peters, a comrade of
Dzerzhinsky’s: Valentin Shteinberg, Yekab Peters, Moscow: Izdatel’stvo
politicheskoi literatury, 1989, p.€98.
╇ 76 As the 1925 Soviet Encyclopedia of State and Law put it, the Soviet state’s coercive
power was grounded in ‘the demand for repression .â•›.â•›. experienced by society
itself .â•›.â•›. it is this that constitutes the vital criterion for the necessity of repres-
sions’; reproduced in Yu. G. Fel’shtinskii, ed., VChK-Â�GPU. Dokumenty i materi-
aly, Moscow: Izdatel’stvo gumanitarnoi literatury, 1995, p.€3.
╇ 77 Yurii Andropov, ‘50 let na strazhe bezopasnosti Sovetskoi Rodiny’, Pravda, no.
354, 21 December 1967, p.€3.
╇ 78 See for example a 1983 document collection which makes this point perfectly
clear by reproducing page after page of telegrams and resolutions issued by
local soviets, factories and so on, spontaneously calling for mass terror in the
wake of the attempt on Lenin’s life; N. D. Kostin, ed., Vystrel v serdtse revoliutsii,
Moscow: Politizdat, 1983, pp.€107–29.
╇ 79 ‘Chasovoi revoliutsii’, Pravda, no. 290, 18 December 1927, p.€1.
╇ 80 As Dzerzhinsky put it, ‘The VChK can take pride in the fact that it has been
the object of unprecedented slander on the part of the bourgeoisie’; cited
A. V. Tishkov, Pervyi chekist, Moscow: Voenizdat, 1968, p.€ 20. For additional
references to such ‘whining’ see Menzhinskii, ‘O Dzerzhinskom’, p.€ 10; and
A. S. Velidov, ‘Predislovie ko vtoromu izdaniiu’, in A. S. Velidov, ed., Krasnaia
kniga VChK. T. 1, 2nd edn, Moscow: Politizdat, 1989, p.€18.
╇ 81 From a document produced during the Civil War entitled ‘Red Lines (From a
“Chekist”â•›’s Notebook)’, reproduced in Fel’shtinskii, VChK-Â�GPU, p.€76.
╇ 82 Richard Stites, Revolutionary Dreams: Utopian Vision and Experimental Life in the
Russian Revolution, New York: Oxford University Press, 1989, p.€50.
╇ 83 Archival documents illustrating this feature of Dzerzhinsky’s character were
published in Nedelia, 6, 1961, 5. The example in question is a letter written by
Dzerzhinsky demanding that no gifts be sent to him, and ordering that any
gifts received be forwarded to patients in the VChK sanitary section.
╇ 84 Especially in tributes from Dzerzhinsky’s foreign admirers, such as Louise
Bryant: ‘The temptations of St. Anthony pale beside those of Peters and
Dzerzhinsky. They have been flattered and offered every sort of bribe’; Louise
Bryant, Mirrors of Moscow, Westport: Hyperion, 1923, p.€ 55; and Édouard
Herriot: ‘The gold of all the thrones of the world could not deflect Dzerzhin-
sky from the pre-�designed aim. In the face of his moral purity at times even
his irreconcilable enemies bow their heads’; cited Baklanov, ‘Slovo Dzerzhin-
skomu’. Bryant and other Western champions of Dzerzhinsky are frequently
cited in the Soviet texts. Her book was described in one text as a ‘monument
to the friendship of the best people of America and Russia’; Shteinberg, Yekab
Peters, p.€199.
╇ 85 Baklanov, ‘Slovo Dzerzhinskomu’.
╇ 86 Ibid.
╇ 87 Shteinberg, Yekab Peters, p.€119.
╇ 88 Velidov et al., Feliks Edmundovich Dzerzhinskii, p.€24.
╇ 89 German, ‘Vospominaniia’, p.€632.
╇ 90 See for example A. V. Tishkov, Dzerzhinskii, 2nd edn, Moscow: Molodaia gvar-
diia, 1976, pp.€75 and 78.
192╇╇ Notes
╇ 91 See Dzerzhinskaia, V gody velikikh boev, p.€453.
╇ 92 Cited Kutuzov et al., Chekisty Petrograda, p.€58.
╇ 93 See further Chapter 6.
╇ 94 See for example Eric Naiman, Sex in Public: The Incarnation of Early Soviet Ideol-
ogy, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997; Katerina Clark, ‘Socialist
Realism and the Sacralizing of Space’, in Evgeny Dobrenko and Eric Naiman,
eds, The Landscape of Stalinism: The Art and Ideology of Soviet Space, Seattle: Uni-
versity of Washington Press, 2003, pp.€ 3–18 (on the purification of space);
E. A. Rees, ‘Stalin as Leader, 1937–1953’, in E. A. Rees, ed., The Nature of Sta-
lin’s Dictatorship: The Politburo, 1924–1953, Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan,
2004, p.€ 202 (on the Stalinist terror as social cleansing); and Amir Weiner,
‘Nature and Nurture in a Socialist Utopia: Delineating the Soviet Socio-Â�Ethnic
Body in the Age of Socialism’, American Historical Review (October 1999),
1114–55 (on the Soviet purification drive).
╇ 95 From an April 1921 article in Tashkent Izvestiia, cited Shteinberg, Yekab Peters,
p.€177.
╇ 96 A. I., ‘Pod maskoi revoliutsionera’, in Dzerzhinets, p.€24.
╇ 97 I. Grinberg, ‘Yurii German i yego trilogiia’, in Yurii German, Delo, kotoromu ty
sluzhish’, Moscow: Molodaia gvardiia, 1967, p.€5.
╇ 98 Dzerzhinsky compared callous [cherstvyi] chekists to rusty tools; Menzhinskii,
‘O Dzerzhinskom’, p.€ 13. It was essential that the chekist sword be kept
‘sharp’; see for example ‘Shchit i mech’, Komsomol’skaia pravda, no. 295, 20
December 1967, p.€1.
╇ 99 Baklanov, ‘Slovo Dzerzhinskomu’.
100 Tishkov, Dzerzhinskii, p.€222.
101 Cited Konstantin Shteppa, ‘Feliks Dzerzhinskii: Creator of the Cheka and
Founder of “Chekism”â•›’, in Simon Wolin and Robert M. Slusser, eds, The Soviet
Secret Police, London: Methuen & Co Ltd, 1957, p.€69.
102 According to Nadezhda Mandelstam, this traditional prohibition still oper-
ated during the Soviet era. See her account of her own encounter with a
chekist interrogator; Mandelstam, Hope against Hope, p.€ 40. This was not
limited to revolutionaries; according to Solzhenitsyn, by the early twentieth
century army officers and guard officers also regarded shaking a gendarme’s
hand to be dishonourable; Solzhenitsyn, Gulag Archipelago, p.€458.
103 Cited here from a semi-�fictional representation of Dzerzhinsky by Semenov;
Semenov, ‘Parol’ ne nuzhen’, in Dudko, Led i plamen’, p.€34.
104 Cited Sobolev et al., Lubianka, 2, p.€178.
105 ‘Predislovie’, V. I. Lenin i VChK. Sbornik dokumentov (1917–1922gg), 2nd edn,
Moscow: Politizdat, 1987, p.€x.
106 Academician Ivan Bardin, cited Baklanov, ‘Slovo Dzerzhinskomu’.
107 Kutuzov et al., Chekisty Petrograda, p.€57.
108 The Dzerzhinsky Borisovskii Crystal Factory, in what is now Belarus.
109 7 December under the old calendar.
110 For text of Lenin’s proposal to Dzerzhinsky, see ‘Zapiska F. E. Dzerzhinskomu
s proektom dekreta o bor’be s kontrrevoliutsionerami i sabotazhnikami’, 7
(20) December 1917, reproduced in V. I. Lenin i VChK, pp.€ 19 and 22. See
also ‘Iz protokola No. 21 zasedaniia SNK’, 7 (20) December 1917, reproduced
in ibid., pp.€23–4.
111 The original document is reproduced in ibid., pp.€20–1. See also A. S. Velidov,
‘Predislovie ko vtoromu izdaniiu’, in A. S. Velidov, ed., Krasnaia kniga VChK.
T. 1, 2nd edn, Moscow: Politizdat, 1989, p.€4; and Kutuzov et al., Chekisty Petro-
grada, p.€7.
112 Mikhailov, ‘Imia im – chekisty’, p.€ 3; and N. Zubov, ‘Il’ich o chekistakh’,
Pravda, no. 354, 20 December 1967, p.€3.
 Notes╇╇ 193
113 The other most famous ones were ‘Iron Feliks’, ‘the knight of the revolution’,
and ‘the first chekist’.
114 In general, as many historians have noted, the French revolutionary tradition
provided a kind of blueprint or script which shaped Russian revolutionary
expectations and actions. See further Marian Sawer, ‘The Soviet Image of the
Commune: Lenin and Beyond’, in James A. Leith, ed., Images of the Commune,
Montreal/London: McGill-Â�Queen’s University Press, 1978, pp.€ 245–63; and
Mary McAuley, Bread and Justice: State and Society in Petrograd 1917–1922,
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991, p.€381. This was often a highly self-�conscious
process; Larisa Reisner, for example, is said to declared that ‘We must create
a type of Russian revolutionary woman .â•›.â•›. The French Revolution created its
own type. We must do the same’; cited Mandelstam, Hope against Hope, p.€108.
115 ‘Rech’ tov. N. I. Bukharina’, Pravda, no. 168, 24 July 1926, p.€3.
116 M. Kozakov, ‘Proletarskii yakobinets’, Zvezda, 2–3, 1946, 86–100.
117 M. Kozakov, ‘Proletarskii yakobinets’, in I. I. Shmelev, ed., Soldaty nevidimykh
srazhenii. Rasskazy o podvigakh chekistov, Moscow: Voenizdat, 1968, p.€ 8. Addi-
tional examples in this vein include Tishkov, Pervyi chekist, p.€5; and Kutuzov et
al., Chekisty Petrograda, p.€57.
118 Ibid., p.€66.
119 S. Sorin, Tovarishch Dzerzhinskii, Moscow: Sovetskii pisatel’, 1957, pp.€9–10.
120 Barthes, Mythologies, p.€129.
121 ‘Nad grobom Dzerzhinskogo’, p.€1.
122 Fomenko, ‘Rytsari revoliutsii’, p.€ 355. Fomenko is referring here to 1918,
when the very sound of Dzerzhinsky’s name acted ‘unerringly on soldiers,
sailors, on former chekists, confused by the SRs’.
123 Cited S. S. Dzerzhinskaia, ‘Plamennyi revoliutsioner’, in Polikarenkov, O
Felikse Dzerzhinskom, p.€75.
124 S. G. Uralov, ‘Geroi Oktiabria’, in ibid., p.€110.
125 German, ‘Zhizn’ otdannaia revoliutsii’, p.€24.
126 Dzerzhinsky made use of these skills to ‘smash the counter-Â�revolution’; Men-
zhinskii, ‘O Dzerzhinskom’, reproduced in Pavlov, Chekisty, p.€12.
127 Yurii German, ‘Ya otvechaiu za vse!’, Sovetskii ekran, 13, July 1964, 7.
128 Dzerzhinskaia, ‘Plamennyi revoliutsioner’, p.€59.
129 See for example Shteinberg, Yekab Peters, p.€70.
130 The actor seems to have been made up with a view to showing off this pierc-
ing gaze to maximum effect. The actor’s skill in capturing the power of
Dzerzhinsky’s gaze in this 1939 production was the main focus of a con-
temporary review of the play, which opened as follows:
Intent, insistent, piercing, very strict and knowing, an all-Â�knowing gaze –
such is the initial and very deep impression from the image .â•›.â•›. created by
actor [playing Dzerzhinsky] .â•›.â•›. This gaze expresses a great strength of will,
mercilessness and high standards, and a hidden, restrained energy of explo-
sive force .â•›.â•›. Nothing escapes him, he sees everything.
(Yu. Sergeev, ‘Obraz Dzerzhinskogo na stsene’, Teatr, 4, 1939, 120)
As Karen L. Ryan notes, telepathic powers are often attributed to Stalin, too;
Karen L. Ryan, Stalin in Russian Satire, 1917–1991, Madison: The University of
Wisconsin Press, 2009, p.€150.
131 ‘Nad grobom Dzerzhinskogo’, p.€1.
132 Dem’ian Bednyi, ‘Yubiliaru’, Pravda, no. 286, 17 December 1922, p.€1.
133 Cited N. S. Aksenova and M. V. Vasil’eva, Soldaty Dzerzhinskogo Soiuz beregut.
Rekomendatel’nyi ukazatel’ literatury, Moscow: Kniga, 1973, p.€10. This metaphor-
ical eye was located at the Lubianka; Soviet jokes spoke of ‘the view from the
Lubianka’ (which stretched all the way to Siberia). The Dzerzhinsky statue was
194╇╇ Notes
also frequently imagined as keeping watch. Later, miniature versions of
Dzerzhinsky’s eye were reproduced on a mass scale in the form of the ‘FED’
camera, which took its name from Dzerzhinsky’s initials.
134 For an application of Geertz’s insights here to the Russian context, see Andrey
Zorin, ‘Ideology, Semiotics, and Clifford Geertz: Some Russian Reflections’,
History and Theory, 40:1, February 2001, 57–73.
135 The desire to be seen in this way is not exclusive to the Russian secret police,
of course; for a discussion of the popular image of the Gestapo as a myth
originally propagated by the Gestapo leaders themselves, see Klaus-�Michal
Mallmann and Gerhard Paul, ‘Omniscient, Omnipotent, Omnipresent?
Gestapo, Society and Resistance’, in David F. Crew, ed., Nazism and German
Society, 1933–1945, London and New York: Routledge, 1994, pp.€166–96.
136 Iosif Utkin, ‘Na grob’, Pravda, no. 165, 21 July 1926, p.€2.
137 Cited Andrei Siniavskii, ‘Sviatoi palach’, Demokraticheskaia Rossiia, no. 24, 6–12
September 1991, p.€7.
138 All this might seem incongruous given that this was putatively a regime that
adhered to scientific materialism. But consider also the case of Dora Laz-
urkina who spoke at the XXII Party Congress in 1961, claiming to have
received a vision of Lenin. She told the Congress: ‘Yesterday I took counsel
with Ilich and he stood before me as though alive and said: “It is unpleas-
ant for me to be beside Stalin, who brought such misfortune to the party.”â•›’
The official Congress transcript described this statement as follows by
‘stormy prolonged applause’; R. W. Davies, Soviet History in the Gorbachev
Revolution, Houndmills and London: Macmillan, 1989, p.€259. This was pre-
sented as the impetus for the official decision to remove Stalin from the
mausoleum.
139 Likewise, while the Red Terror was largely avoided in late Soviet histories,
early accounts of Cheka terror were explicit in their violence, employing lurid
imagery of painting the world scarlet with blood, and of ‘victims laying the
path to the Bright Tsardom of Labour, Freedom and Truth’; ‘Krasnyi mech’,
18 August 1991, reproduced in Fel’shtinskii, VChK-Â�GPU, p.€72.
140 Literary counter-�cultural depictions of the chekist and its connection with
taboo and with the supernatural developed this theme; these are beyond the
scope of this study, but see Kevin Moss, ‘Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita:
Masking the Supernatural and the Secret Police’, Russian Language Journal,
38:129–30, 1984, 115–31.
141 Cited Viktor Yanin, ‘Znak diktatury’, Gazeta, no. 88, 26 May 2006, p.€6.
142 From a pledge issued by two pioneer detachments in Moscow after Dzerzhin-
sky’s death; cited Dzerzhinskaia, V gody velikikh boev, p.€357. Dzerzhinsky seems
to have functioned as a mimetic figure, who, unlike Lenin, could be ‘cloned’.
It was said by the famous pedagogue Makarenko that when homeless children
were rescued by chekists the stigma attached to their status was erased and
they were re-Â�made anew as ‘dzerzhintsy’; cited ibid., p.€350.
143 See for example ‘Kak snimali Feliksa’, Yezhenedel’nyi zhurnal, no. 37, 24 Sep-
tember 2002; Semen Faibisovich, ‘O pokaianii’, Vesti.Ru, 28 June 2000.
Online. Available at: http://vesti.lenta.ru/faib/2000/06/index.html (accessed
4 January 2005); Valeriia Novodvorskaia, ‘Totem i tabu’, Novoe vremia, no. 39,
2002. Online. Available at: www.ds.ru/nt/2002/nt0239.htm (accessed 22
November 2010).
144 ‘Na prazdnike GPU’, Pravda, no. 287, 19 December 1922, p.€3.
145 ‘Da zdravstvuet VChK-Â�OGPU, vernyi i mogushchestvennyi strazh proletarskoi
diktatury’, Pravda, no. 251, 18 December 1927, p.€3.
146 Aleksandr Bezymenskii, ‘Feliks’, Izbrannye proizvedeniia v dvukh tomakh, vol. 1,
Moscow: Khudozhestvennaia literatura, 1989, p.€253. This poem was �composed
 Notes╇╇ 195
in the wake of Dzerzhinsky’s death, and advance preview extracts were published
in Pravda in December 1926 to mark the Cheka’s ninth jubilee.
147 Ibid., pp.€253–4.
148 ‘VChK’ was also subsequently reproduced in a book produced by the Cheka’s
Ivanovo-Â�Voznesensk branch to mark the Cheka’s twelfth jubilee in 1929: Bezy-
menskii, ‘VChK’, in Dzerzhinets, p.€54.
149 Ibid.
150 Ibid.
151 Ibid.
152 Uralov, ‘Geroi Oktiabria’, in Polikarenkov, O Felikse Dzerzhinskom, p.€110.
153 ‘Na prazdnike GPU’, p.€3.
154 There is a growing body of literature examining the ways in which insecurity
and threat are discursively constituted. See in particular Jutta Weldes et al.,
eds, Cultures of Insecurity: States, Communities, and the Production of Danger, Min-
neapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999.
155 See for example ‘Bor’ba s vragami naroda’, Pravda, 3 January 1918, no. 220, p.€1.
156 Lenin wrote that:
Self-�interest, the filthy, malicious, rabid self-�interest of the money-�bag, the
timidity and servility of its parasites: this is the real social basis of the current
whining of intelligentiki .â•›.â•›. against violence on the part of the proletariat and
the revolutionary peasantry.
(Cited Timofeev, Russkaia sovetskaia literatura, p.€163)
157 P. Makintsian, ‘Predislovie’, in Velidov, Krasnaia kniga VChK, p.€ 45; from
preface to original 1920 edition.
158 ‘Nad grobom Dzerzhinskogo’, p.€1.
159 Hence, for example, the Soviet obsession with so-Â�called ‘double-Â�dealing’ (dvu-
rushnichestvo), exemplifying the disjuncture between the enemy’s inner and
outer selves; on which see further Igal Halfin, ‘Looking into the Opposition-
ists’ Souls: Inquisition Communist Style’, The Russian Review, 60, July 2001,
332–5. On the enemy’s ability to mimic a loyal citizen and to play on people’s
trust, see Galina Orlova, ‘Levye i ikh demony’, Solnechnoe spletenie, 24–25, 2003.
Online. Available at: www.plexus.org.il/texts/orlova_levie.htm (accessed 22
November 2010). On the Soviet obsession with eliminating ambiguity, see Jan
Plamper, ‘Abolishing Ambiguity: Soviet Censorship Practices in the 1930s’,
The Russian Review, 60, October 2001, 526–44.
160 As Dening observes, authoritarian regimes are inherently distrustful of theat-
ricality and ambiguity; see further Dening, Performances, pp.€110–13.
161 Izgoev, ‘Dzerzhinskii’, p.€3.
162 Cited Dzerzhinskaia, V gody velikikh boev, p.€410.
163 Shteinberg, Yekab Peters, p.€98.
164 Dzerzhinskaia, V gody velikikh boev, p.€341.
165 Cited ibid., p.€341.
166 Cited ibid., p.€349.
167 See Yevgenii Gromov, Stalin: vlast’ i iskusstvo, Moscow: Respublika, 1998,
p.€292.
168 Cited Makarevich, ‘Yakov Agranov’.
169 Babel is famously said to have told Eduard Bagritskii in 1930 that he had
‘learned to watch calmly as people are executed’; cited Semen Lipkin, ‘Zhizn’
i sud’ba Vasiliia Grossmana’, in Semen Lipkin, Kvadriga, Moscow: Agraf,
Knizhnyi sad, 1997, p.€589.
170 Arno J. Mayer, The Furies: Violence and Terror in the French and Russian Revolu-
tions, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000, p.€74.
196╇╇ Notes
2╇ Late Soviet chekism: the changing face of repression under
Khrushchev and beyond
╇╇ 1 Cited Aleksandr Kokurin and Nikita Petrov, Struktura Tsentral’nogo apparata
KGB pri SM SSSR (1954–1967). Online. Available at: www.memo.ru/history/
NKVD/STRU/index.htm (accessed 22 November 2010).
╇╇ 2 Andrei Sidorenko, ‘Zhizn’, otdannaia sluzheniiu otechestvu’, Spetsnaz Rossii, 6,
June 2004. Online. Available at: www.specnaz.ru/article/?522 (accessed 22
November 2010).
╇╇ 3 Cited V. Semichastnyi, ‘Nezabyvaemoe’, Komsomol’skaia zhizn’, 7, 1988, repro-
duced in Yu. V. Aksiutin, ed., Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev: Materialy k biografii,
Moscow: Politizdat, 1989, pp.€52–3.
╇╇ 4 Mikhail Liubimov, ‘Den’ chekista. Tri avtora’, Moskovskie novosti, no. 49, 15
December 1998.
╇╇ 5 N. Zakharov, ‘50 let na sluzhbe Rodine’, Pogranichnik, 23, December 1967, 3.
╇╇ 6 Thus, for example, the KGB was purged; its actions under Stalin condemned;
reforms carried out; celebrations of the annual Chekist’s Day (20 December,
the anniversary of the founding of the Cheka) were muted; and so on.
╇╇ 7 V. A. Kozlov, ‘Kramola: inakomyslie v SSSR pri Khrushcheve i Brezhneve.
1953–1982 gody’, Otechestvennaia istoriia, 4, 2003, 98.
╇╇ 8 V. M. Chebrikov et al., eds, Istoriia sovetskikh organov gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti.
Uchebnik, Moscow: 1977, p.€502.
╇╇ 9 A. D. Sakharov, ‘Neizbezhnost’ perestroiki’, in Inogo ne dano: Sud’by perestroiki.
Vgliadyvaias’ v proshloe. Vozvrashchenie k budushchemu, Moscow: 1988, p.€1123.
╇ 10 ‘Dom na Lubianke – ne dom uzhasov’, Komsomol’skaia pravda, no. 65, 4
November 2002, p.€21.
╇ 11 Chebrikov et al., Istoriia sovetskikh organov. This book was acquired in a Latvian
archive and has been made available on the Internet via the Online Docu-
ment Archive of Harvard University’s Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies.
Available at: www.fas.harvard.edu/~hpcws/documents.htm (accessed 24
December 2010).
╇ 12 See for example ‘Surovo nakazat’ zleishikh vragov nashego naroda’,
Komsomol’skaia pravda, no. 298, 19 December 1953, p.€2.
╇ 13 See further A. V. Pryzhikov, ‘Problema kul’ta lichnosti v gody khrushchevskoi
ottepeli’, Voprosy istorii, 4, 2003, 49.
╇ 14 Andrew and Gordievsky, KGB, p.€431, and A. I. Podberezkin et al., eds, Belaia
kniga rossiiskikh spetssluzhb, Moscow: Obozrevatel’, 1995, p.€39.
╇ 15 Serov was in charge of the related executions in Ukraine; see N. V. Petrov,
‘Pervyi predsedatel’ KGB general Ivan Serov’, Otechestvennaia istoriia, 5, 1997,
25.
╇ 16 Leonid Mlechin, KGB. Predsedateli organov gosbezopasnosti. Rassekrechennye sud’by,
3rd edn, Moscow: Tsentrpoligraf, 2002, p.€441.
╇ 17 Petrov, ‘Pervyi predsedatel’ KGB’, p.€36.
╇ 18 In 1989 Semichastnyi implied that Khrushchev’s close relationship with Serov
must have been based on their complicity in past crimes, the archival traces of
which they then set about destroying in tandem; cited ‘Beseda s Shelepinym
A. N. i Semichastnym V. Ye.’, in V. A. Kozlov et al., eds, Neizvestnaia Rossiia. XX
vek, Moscow: Istoricheskoe nasledie, 1992, p.€272.
╇ 19 Nikita Petrov, ‘Desiatiletie arkhivnykh reform v Rossii’, Indeks/Dos’e na tsen-
zuru, 14, 2001. Online. Available at: www.index.org.ru/journal/14/
petrov1401.html (accessed 22 November 2010). Prisoners in the Lubianka’s
internal prison later recalled that in the autumn of 1954 the windows had to
be kept closed because of the smoke from the paper being incinerated in the
courtyard; Mlechin, KGB, p.€444.
 Notes╇╇ 197
╇ 20 Petrov, ‘Pervyi predsedatel’ KGB’, p.€36.
╇ 21 See Rudol’f Pikhoia, ‘Pochemu Khrushchev poterial vlast’â•›’, Mezhdunarodnyi
istoricheskii zhurnal, 8, March–April 2000. Online. Available at: http://history.
machaon.ru/all/number_08/analiti4/khrushchev/index.html (accessed 22
November 2010).
╇ 22 In May 1954 a commission was created to review the cases of individuals who
had been repressed. Many political prisoners were released under an amnesty
passed in the summer of 1955. Amnesty for Soviet citizens collaborating with
the occupying forces during the War was also declared in September 1955.
╇ 23 See further Gennadii Kuzovkin, ‘Partiino-Â�komsomol’skie presledovaniia po
politicheskim motivam v period rannei “ottepeli”â•›’, in L. S. Yeremina and Ye. B.
Zhemkova, eds, Korni travy. Sbornik statei molodykh istorikov, Moscow: Obshchestvo
‘Memorial’, Fond im. Genrikha Bellia, Zven’ia, 1996. Online. Available at: www.
memo.ru/about/biblio/Book_26.htm (accessed 22 November 2010).
╇ 24 Others also argue that Serov’s dismissal may have been linked with the spate
of defections and double agents during his chairmanship; see Dziak, Chekisty,
pp.€145–7.
╇ 25 ‘Torzhestvennoe otkrytie v Moskve pamiatnika F. E. Dzerzhinskomu’, Pravda,
no. 355, 21 December 1958, p.€ 2. This article describes Dzerzhinsky as
sculpted ‘at full height, in a long, flung-Â�open soldier’s greatcoat. His head is
bare, his gaze fixed on a distant point’; ibid. Another contemporary account
of the unveiling stated that Dzerzhinsky seemed to be addressing Muscovites;
‘Besstrashnomu rytsariu revoliutsii’, Izvestiia, no. 303, 21 December 1958, p.€3.
╇ 26 Ibid. The data on the height and weight of the statue are contradictory. One
account describes the statue as 6 metres tall, on a bronze pedestal of almost
the same height again; ibid. Another says it was 20 metres high, and weighed
15 tonnes; Oksana Yablokova, ‘Bringing Down the Glory of the KGB’, The
Moscow Times, 22 August 2001, p.€1. Yet another describes the monument as
weighing 87 tonnes; Lev Kolodnyi, ‘Sverzhenie zheleznogo Feliksa’, Mosko-
vskaia pravda, no. 128, 14 July 1998.
╇ 27 ‘Besstrashnomu rytsariu revoliutsii’.
╇ 28 ‘Torzhestvennoe otkrytie’.
╇ 29 ‘Besstrashnomu rytsariu revoliutsii’.
╇ 30 ‘Torzhestvennoe otkrytie’, p.€2.
╇ 31 The issue of constructing such a monument was raised at the XXII Party Con-
gress in October 1961, but it was only in 1990 that a monument to the victims
of the Great Terror eventually appeared on Lubianka Square, thanks to the
efforts of the ‘Memorial’ Society.
╇ 32 The idea of erecting a major monument to Dzerzhinsky on Dzerzhinsky
Square in Moscow had been periodically raised since December 1922; see for
example ‘Ob uvekovechenii pamiati tov. Dzerzhinskogo F. E.’, Izvestiia, no.
167, 20 July 1936, p.€1. In 1940, a nationwide contest was held to find the best
design for monuments to Dzerzhinsky and several other revolutionary heroes,
but this was interrupted by the war; see further Nikita Voronov, ‘Pamiatnik na
lzhi’, Kult’ura, no. 26, 13–19 July 2000. Online. Available at: www.kultura-Â�
portal.ru/tree_new/cultpaper/article.jsp?number=126&rubric_
id=200&crubric_id=100445&pub_id=369892 (accessed 22 November 2010).
Otherwise it is unclear why the project was so long delayed, but there are
several additional reasons why it made sense in terms of propaganda to build
such a monument in the late 1950s. In particular, Dzerzhinsky provided a
useful symbol of Polish–Russian friendship in the wake of the 1956 unrest in
Poland, and this angle was emphasized in Soviet newspaper reportage of the
statue’s unveiling in 1958; see for example ‘Besstrashnomu rytsariu revoliut-
sii’, p.€3.
198╇╇ Notes
╇ 33 For a stimulating analysis of this juxtaposition, and of the linkages between
‘security’ and ‘childhood’ which it symbolizes, see Sergei Anufriev, Yurii Lei-
derman and Pavel Peppershtein, ‘Inspektsiia “meditsinskaia germenevtika”â•›’,
Kommentarii, 2, 1993. Online. Available at: www.commentmag.ru (accessed 22
November 2010). For an analysis of the significance of the Dzerzhinsky statue,
see Andrei Zorin, ‘Skul’pturnyi mif russkoi demokratii’, Neprikosnovennyi zapas,
5, 2002. Online. Available at: http://magazines.russ.ru/nz/2002/5/zorin.
html (accessed 22 November 2010). Zorin describes this statue as functioning
symbolically as the ‘embodiment of the unshakeability of the Soviet cosmos .â•›.â•›.
So long as he stood at his post, the world preserved its familiar and unmoving
outlines’. And by the same token, when the statue was toppled, ‘it became
obvious: “the bosses have left”, as Rozanov once expressed it, days of historic
changes had arrived for Russia’.
╇ 34 As defined by Pierre Nora: sites of memory where collective national heritage
is crystallized in symbolic form; see Pierre Nora, ‘From Lieux de mémoire to
Realms of Memory’ and ‘General Introduction: Between Memory and History’,
in Realms of Memory: Rethinking the French Past. Volume 1: Conflicts and Divisions,
New York: Columbia University Press, 1996, pp.€xv–xxiv and 1–20 respectively.
╇ 35 Note that the Khrushchev era was characterized by a preoccupation with the
symbolic power of space on the part of the Soviet leadership, particularly in
connection with Khrushchev’s anti-Â�religious offensive, which included, from
late 1958, an assault against ‘so-Â�called “sacred sites”â•›’, which were systemati-
cally defiled by the authorities. For example, a pig-�pen was built on the site
of one holy spring in the Tambov region; several sacred springs in Ukraine
were blocked up, and others were fenced off and placed under militia
guard; Mikhail Shkarovskii, ‘Russkaia pravoslavnaia tserkov’ v 1958–1964
godakh’, Voprosy istorii, 2, 28 February 1999, 43. In general, the Soviet leader-
ship had always been highly conscious of the symbolic power of space. As
Katerina Clark puts it, the purification or repurification of space was an
obsessive concern of Stalinist culture; see Clark, ‘Socialist Realism and the
Sacralizing of Space’, in Dobrenko and Naiman, The Landscape of Stalinism,
p.€5.
╇ 36 See Aleksandr Vitkovskii, ‘Pamiati Vladimira Semichastnogo’, Parlamentskaia
gazeta, no. 260, 17 January 2001. Gary Powers was reportedly the last prisoner
to be held in this prison; Inga Rostovtseva, ‘Po izvestnomu adresu’, Profil’, no.
2, 22 January 2001. Online. Available at: www.profile.ru/items/?item=5316
(accessed 22 November 2010). The Lubianka’s association with the terror
probably explains why the district was reportedly absent from Soviet textbooks
on Moscow architecture; see Lev Kolodnyi, ‘Mnogoobrazie Lubianki’, Mosko-
vskaia pravda, no. 115, 23 June 1998.
╇ 37 A. F. Khatskevich, Soldat velikikh boev: Zhizn’ i deiatel’nost’ F. E. Dzerzhinskogo, 4th
edn, Minsk: Nauka i tekhnika, 1982, p.€459.
╇ 38 Ibid. Other examples include the publication of hagiographies marking the
85th anniversary of Dzerzhinsky’s birth, such as German, ‘Zhizn’ otdannaia
revoliutsii’, pp.€ 23–5; and of collections of documents related to the early
history of the Cheka, such as G. A. Belov et al., eds, Iz istorii Vserossiiskoi chrezvy-
chainoi komissii. 1917–1921 gg. Sbornik dokumentov, Moscow: Politizdat, 1958.
╇ 39 While coverage was restrained, the press did carry the standard congratula-
tions from the party and state leadership; see ‘Rabotnikam gosudarstvennoi
bezopasnosti Soiuza SSR’, Pravda, no. 356, 22 December 1957, p.€2.
╇ 40 P. Ivashukin, ‘Na strazhe interesov Rodiny’, Izvestiia, no. 301, 21 December
1957, p.€15.
╇ 41 ‘Sorok let na strazhe bezopasnosti Sovetskogo gosudarstva’, Izvestiia, no. 303,
24 December 1957, pp.€1–2.
 Notes╇╇ 199
╇ 42 I. Serov, ‘Sorok let na strazhe bezopasnosti Sovetskogo gosudarstva’, Pravda,
no. 355, 21 December 1957, p.€6.
╇ 43 Andrew and Mitrokhin have drawn attention to this, pointing out that ‘KGB
historians in the post-�Stalin era tended to take refuge .╛.╛. by returning to an
earlier, mostly mythical, Leninist golden age of revolutionary purity’; Andrew
and Mitrokhin, Mitrokhin Archive, p.€30.
╇ 44 Thus, for example, the historian Aleksei Velidov, writing in the Gorbachev
era, condemned
the attempts sometimes undertaken to place in a single row the errors of
the extraordinary commissions [i.e. the Cheka], made during the years of
the civil war, and the violations of legality, the arbitrariness and mass repres-
sions of the ‘30s, consciously committed by the guilt of Stalin and his
entourage.
(Velidov, ‘Predislovie’, p.€15)
╇ 45 In fact, this use of Dzerzhinsky predates de-�Stalinization. The first wave of
what we might call the ‘children’s cult’ of Dzerzhinsky, for example (that is,
the body of children’s literature and films produced about Dzerzhinsky) dates
to the period following Yezhov’s fall from grace, when Dzerzhinsky, the ‘pure’
chekist, was pressed into service as a counterweight to Yezhov, scapegoated for
the NKVD’s atrocities.
╇ 46 ‘Sluzhenie narodu – vysokoe prizvanie sovetskikh pisatelei. Rech’ tovarishcha
N. S. Khrushcheva na III s”ezde pisatelei 22 maia 1959’, Pravda, no. 141, 24
May 1959, p.€2.
╇ 47 This was achieved partly through ‘personalizing’ the cults of Soviet leaders,
leading to a new emphasis, for example, on the private Lenin: Lenin not only
as a thinker, but also as ‘a loving son, a brother, a tender, caring husband’, as
one 1965 textbook put it; Ozerskii et al., Nravstvennoe vospitanie, p.€7.
╇ 48 See V. Shklovskii, ‘Shapka Chapaia’, Sovetskii ekran, 1, January 1964, 1.
╇ 49 Aleksandr Dobrovol’skii, ‘Odnazhdy v Moskve. Slezy Edmundovicha’, Mosko-
vskii komsomolets, no. 237, 21 October 2002, p.€4.
╇ 50 N. M. Zakovich, Sovetskaia obriadnost’ i dukhovnaia kul’tura, Kiev: Naukova
dumka, 1980, p.€73.
╇ 51 Hilary Pilkington, Russia’s Youth and Its Culture: A Nation’s Constructors and Con-
structed, London: Routledge, 1994, p.€70. Khrushchev handled youth matters
in close conjunction with his son-�in-law, Aleksei Adzhubei, editor-�in-chief at
Komsomol’skaia pravda (1957–9). Adzhubei was also closely involved in devel-
oping ideological policy under Khrushchev, through his ex officio position
(by this point as editor-Â�in-chief of Izvestiia) on the Central Committee’s Ideo-
logical Commission, established in November 1962; V. Yu. Afiani, ‘Ideolog-
icheskie komissii TsK KPSS (1958–1964 gg.) v mekhanizme upravleniia
kul’turoi’, in Karl Aimermakher et al., eds, Ideologicheskie komissii TsK KPSS.
1958–1964: Dokumenty, Moscow: ROSSPEN, 1998, pp.€25–6.
╇ 52 See S. Pavlov, ‘â•›“Na smenu pridut drugie – smelee i luchshe nas”â•›’, in Aksiutin,
Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev, pp.€202–8.
╇ 53 The symbolic importance of youth during this period was epitomized by the
hugely successful Soviet film Carnival Night, launched on the eve on 1957 – a
musical comedy dramatizing the triumph of youth, talent and spirit in the
face of stuffy conformism and fear, and symbolizing new beginnings (the
action takes place on New Year’s Eve); see Oleg Volobuev, ‘Posle XX s’ezda:
“Karnaval’naia noch’â•›”â•›’, in S. S. Sekirinskii, ed., Istoriia strany/Istoriia kino,
Moscow: Znak, 2004, pp.€235–9.
╇ 54 Technically speaking Shelepin was not leader of the Komsomol at the time of
his appointment as KGB chair, having been transferred to the Central
200╇╇ Notes
�
Committee’s Party Organs Department in April 1958. But his tenure in this
latter position was shortlived and it was with his previous role as Komsomol
leader that his name was primarily associated in the public arena.
╇ 55 Likewise, Gribanov was aged 41 when he was appointed head of the KGB’s
2nd Chief Directorate, while Bobkov was only 36 when he became one of
Gribanov’s deputies; Kolpakidi and Seriakov, Shchit i mech, p.€ 497. To some
extent, the tendency to appoint young people to responsible posts was a
feature of the Khrushchev era in general, with ‘renewal of cadres’ one of the
themes of the XXI Party Congress in 1959.
╇ 56 Yezhov, whose background was predominantly in party work, was a notable
exception. Serov’s early career was predominantly a military one, followed by
a decade and a half in the security organs before his appointment as KGB
chair. Menzhinskii was a member of the original VChK collegium, though
later he also held various other posts before returning to the organs in Sep-
tember 1919. Yagoda also held other posts before beginning his chekist career
in 1919. Beria had over a decade of experience in chekist work behind him,
though with a break from December 1931 to August 1938. Merkulov also
spent around a decade working in the security organs, then moving into a
party career in the early 1930s before returning to the NKVD to work under
Beria. Abakumov began his career with Komsomol work, but then worked in
the security organs from 1932 onwards. Ogol’tsov was a chekist from 1918
right through to his brief stint as state security minister in mid-Â�1951. Ignat’ev’s
early career was in the Komsomol, and went on to include chekist, party and
trade union posts. Kruglov worked in a variety of different posts before joining
the NKVD in 1938.
╇ 57 His early career was predominantly a military one, followed by a decade and a
half in the organs before his appointment as KGB chair.
╇ 58 This trend was most marked with regard to Shelepin and Semichastnyi, who
had both risen to the very top of the Komsomol. Andropov’s early career
(from the early 1930s onwards) was predominantly in the Komsomol, until he
moved on to party work in 1944. This run ended with Andropov’s successor,
Fedorchuk, whose brief tenure as KGB chair in 1982 followed a long chekist
career. Chebrikov spent the first half of his career as a party functionary,
before being transferred into the KGB in 1967. Kriuchkov’s career also began
in the Komsomol, later switching direction after he trained as a jurist and
began work in the procuratorial apparatus.
╇ 59 See Kokurin and Petrov, Struktura Tsentral’nogo apparata KGB.
╇ 60 On Shelepin’s cuts see ‘Rech’ tovarishcha A. N. Shelepina’, Pravda, no. 36, 5
February 1959, p.€8.
╇ 61 See Oleg Khlobustov, ‘KGB – shagi stanovleniia’, Vlast’, 11, 2004, 65–75.
╇ 62 Cited Pikhoia, ‘Pochemu Khrushchev poterial vlast’â•›’.
╇ 63 See ibid.; and comments made in this connection by Semichastnyi, cited
Yelena Vansovich, ‘Organy ostalis’ bez zubov. Ikh udalili vragi KGB’, Kommer-
sant”, 21 December 2000. Online. Available at: www.kommersant.ru/doc.
aspx?DocsID=166082 (accessed 22 November 2010).
╇ 64 Resentment directed at these new Komsomol chekists is reflected in the post-�
Soviet chekist memoir literature; see for example Vadim Kirpichenko, Raz-
vedka: litsa i lichnosti, Moscow: Geiia, 1998, pp.€160–1, and T. K. Gladkov, Lift v
razvedku. “Korol’ nelegalov” Aleksandr Korotkov, Moscow: OLMA-Â�PRESS, 2002,
pp.€564–6.
╇ 65 Examples include the leading characters in A Shot in the Fog and State Criminal
(both released in 1964).
╇ 66 In this connection, we might also note that leather jackets – now teamed with
imported denim jeans and Dzerzhinsky badges – came into mode again
 Notes╇╇ 201
amongst chekists in the early 1980s, a time when the KGB was flexing its
muscle; see ‘Portret v inter’ere revoliutsii’, Petrovka, 38, 21 July 2004.
╇ 67 Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Literatury i Iskusstva (henceforth RGALI),
f. 2453, op. 4, d. 637, l. 30. The KGB officer here is referring to the film A Shot
in the Fog, produced by the Mosfil’m studios in the early 1960s.
╇ 68 RGALI, f. 618, op. 18, d. 91, l. 1.
╇ 69 Mikhailov, ‘Imia im – chekisty’, p.€3.
╇ 70 See Yelena Papovian, ‘Primenenie stat’i 58–10 UK RSFSR v 1957–1958 gg.’, in
Korni travy. Sbornik statei molodykh istorikov.
╇ 71 Ibid.
╇ 72 See Petrov, ‘Pervyi predsedatel’ KGB’, p.€36.
╇ 73 See Pilkington, Russia’s Youth and Its Culture, p.€67.
╇ 74 The last Moscow International Film Festival had been held in 1935; the Festival
was revived in 1959, and greatly exercised the KGB. For a copy of Semichastnyi’s
secret report to the CPSU Central Committee produced in connection with the
1965 festival, see V. Fomin, Kino i vlast’. Sovetskoe kino: 1965–1985 gody. Dokumenty,
svidetel’stva, razmyshleniia, Moscow: Materik, 1996, pp.€96–7.
╇ 75 See Thomas Doherty, Teenagers and Teenpics: The Juvenilization of American
Movies in the 1950s, revised and expanded edn, Philadelphia: Temple Univer-
sity Press, 2002, pp.€1–14.
╇ 76 See for example Ye. S. Afanas’eva et al., eds, Ideologicheskie komissii TsK KPSS
1958–1964: dokumenty, Moscow: ROSSPEN, 1998, pp.€301–2.
╇ 77 Maurice Friedberg, A Decade of Euphoria: Western Literature in Post-�Stalin Russia,
1954–64, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1977, pp.€329–30.
╇ 78 Ibid., pp.€339–40.
╇ 79 ‘Zapiska otdela propagandy i agitatsii TsK KPSS po soiuznym respublikam i
otdela kul’tury TsK KPSS’, in Afanas’eva et al., Ideologicheskie komissii, p.€77.
╇ 80 Appendix to ‘Postanovlenie Komissii TsK KPSS “O ser’eznykh nedostatkakh v
izdanii prikliuchencheskoi literature’, in ibid., p.€79.
╇ 81 I. Vishnevskaia, ‘Romantike detektiva – zhit’!’, Komsomol’skaia pravda, no. 76,
31 March 1964, p.€4.
╇ 82 Soviet readers saw it this way too. In 1966, one fan wrote to the author Vadim
Kozhevnikov that ‘Reading your novel about the warriors of the invisible
front, the chekist heroes, I am receiving genuine moral satisfaction’, and
praised the novel as ‘edification for those who value peace, happiness, and
everything dear on earth’; RGALI, f. 618, op. 18, d. 132, l. 25.
╇ 83 See Fomin, Kino i vlast’, p.€143. The Western films in question included those
sponsored by the USIA (the United States Information Agency, created in
1953); see Tony Shaw, ‘Martyrs, Miracles, and Martians: Religion and Cold
War Cinematic Propaganda in the 1950s’, Journal of Cold War Studies, 4:2,
spring 2002, 11. Obviously such films were not screened in the USSR, but they
were nevertheless perceived as a threat to the USSR’s international image.
╇ 84 See for example criticism of Dr. No: A. Kukarkin, ‘V pogone za zolotym
tel’tsom’, Sovetskii ekran, 3, February 1964, 19–20.
╇ 85 F. Makhov, ‘Obraz zhizni – nasilie’, Komsomol’skaia pravda, no. 283, 3 Decem-
ber 1967, p.€3.
╇ 86 V. Baskakov, Ekran i vremia, Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1974, pp.€11–13 and 150–1.
╇ 87 According to Sergei Kulida, ‘Kto vy, agent 007?’, Dos’e sekretnykh sluzhb. Online.
Available at: www.agentura.ru/culture007/art/who007 (accessed 22 Novem-
ber 2010).
╇ 88 A. G. Fesiun, ed., Delo Rikharda Zorge: Neizvestnye dokumenty, Moscow: Letnii
sad, 2000, p.€191.
╇ 89 The film Who Are You, Dr Sorge? was produced in the West in the early 1960s,
and would later be screened publicly in Moscow, in December 1964.
202╇╇ Notes
╇ 90 Genrikh Borovik, The Philby Files: The Secret Life of the Master Spy – KGB Archives
Revealed, London: Little, Brown and Company, 1994, pp.€ 359–60. See also
Boris Chekhonin, Zhurnalistika i razvedka, Moscow: Algoritm, 2002, pp.€60–78,
on the beginning of the Sorge PR campaign in autumn 1964.
╇ 91 Ibid., p.€60.
╇ 92 Fesiun, Delo Rikharda Zorge, p.€5.
╇ 93 Findings of Sorge commission, cited ibid., pp.€190–1.
╇ 94 Borovik, The Philby Files, p.€364.
╇ 95 Such scandals included the defection of Anatolii Golitsyn and the arrest of
the George Blake in 1961; the exposure of Oleg Penkovskii in 1962; Yurii
Nosenko’s defection in early 1964; and the testimony of Greville Wynne,
exchanged for Molody/Lonsdale in April 1964.
╇ 96 The taboo was lifted in 1964, and the KGB commissioned what was to be a
hugely popular television series about TREST, based on Lev Nikulin’s ‘docu-
mentary novel’ Groundswell, which would later be used as a teaching aid for
borderguards. Nikulin was yet another writer whom Maxim Gorky had encour-
aged to take up the chekist theme. See A. G. Shavaev and S. V. Lekarev, Raz-
vedka i kontrrazvedka. Fragmenty mirovogo opyta istorii i teorii, Moscow: BDTs-�Press,
2003, p.€244; A. Stenin, ‘Rodine vernye’, Pogranichnik, 22, November 1967, 34;
Lev Nikulin, Gody nashei zhizni. Vospominaniia i portrety, Moscow: Moskovskii
rabochii, 1966, p.€ 53; and Lazar’ Fleishman, V tiskakh provokatsii. Operatsiia
“Trest” i russkaia zarubezhnaia pechat’, Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie,
2003, p.€9.
╇ 97 This campaign capitalized on US media depictions of Abel as a masterspy.
The campaign began in May 1965, when deputy chief of foreign intelligence
Yurii Drozdov appeared on Soviet television praising Abel, and was followed
up by Kozhevnikov’s famous novel and later film Shield and Sword, the hero of
which was based loosely upon (among others) Abel. Later, various writings of
Abel’s were also published, including an autobiographical piece entitled
‘Clean Hands, Cool Head and Warm Heart’; Andrew and Mitrokhin, Mitrokhin
Archive, p.€ 229; Edward Van Der Rhoer, The Shadow Network: Espionage as an
Instrument of Soviet Policy, London: Robert Hale, 1985, pp.€193–4; and Aksen-
ova and Vasil’eva, Soldaty Dzerzhinskogo, pp.€20–1.
╇ 98 Revelations about Buikis’ role as a provocateur in the case of the Lockhart
Plot were publicized widely for the first time in 1965; see ibid., p.€ 12; and
Tishkov, Pervyi chekist, p.€21. This new version of events was published in book
form in 1965, and then serialized in Pogranichnik (1965) and Nedelia (1966),
and an adventure film, The Ambassadors’ Plot (dir. Nikolai Rozantsev, Riga,
1965), with a screenplay by Makliarskii, whom we shall meet in Chapter 4.
╇ 99 See for example Ivan Kononenko, ‘Ot Press-Â�biuro KGB SSSR do TsOS FSB
Rossii’, in Tainoe stanovitsia yavnym. TsOS FSB upolnomochen zaiavit’, Moscow:
LG Informeishn Grup, GELEOS and Izdatel’stvo AST, 2000, p.€6.
100 A. M. Vasilevskii, ‘Zamechatel’nyi primer dlia molodezhi’, in I. Vasil’evich,
ed., Liudi molchalivogo podviga. Kniga 1, Moscow: Politizdat, 1987, p.€9.
101 Yulian Semenov, with his ‘documentary novels’ about chekists and razved-
chiks, was the most famous practitioner of this genre. On dokumental’nost’ in
works about chekists see Aksenova and Vasil’eva, Soldaty Dzerzhinskogo, p.€4.
102 Cited T. Khlopiankina, Zastava Il’icha. Sud’ba fil’ma, Moscow: Soiuz kine-
matografistov SSSR, 1990, pp.€46–7.
103 The film version was titled Vstrechi na rassvete (dir. E. Gavrilov and V. Kremnev,
Mosfil’m, 1968).
104 Novyi mir, the flagship liberal literary journal, most famous for publishing
Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich in the autumn of 1962.
105 Cited ‘Censorship in the Soviet Cinema’, in Martin Dewhirst and Robert
 Notes╇╇ 203
Farrell, eds, The Soviet Censorship, Metuchen: The Scarecrow Press, 1973,
pp.€118–19.
106 Raisa Orlova and Lev Kopelev, My zhili v Moskve: 1956–1980 gg., Ann Arbor:
Ardis, 1988, p.€210.
107 Cited Aleksandr Yakovlev, Omut pamiati, Moscow: Vagrius, 2001, p.€113.
108 Kokurin and Petrov, Struktura Tsentral’nogo apparata KGB.
109 Ibid.
110 Cf. a 1932 article by Tsvetaeva, ‘Art in the Light of Conscience’; M. I. Tsve-
taeva, ‘Iskusstvo pri svete sovesti’, in D. K. Burlaka, ed., A. S. Pushkin: pro et
contra, vol. 2, St Petersburg: Russkii Khristianskii gumanitarnyi institut, 2000,
p.€89. Soviet justice initially aspired to do away with the very concept of guilt;
see Fel’shtinskii, VChK-Â�GPU, p.€7.
111
The values we thought had been abolished forever are being restored, and
they must be taken account of, even by people who could quite well do
without them. This has come as a surprise both to those who never gave up
these values and to those who tried to bury them once and for all. Somehow
or other they lived on underground, taking refuge in all those hushed
homes with their dimmed lights. Now they are on the move and gathering
force.
(Mandelstam, Hope against Hope, p.€331)
‘Conscience’ was later to re-Â�emerge even more strongly under Gorbachev, on
which see Philip Boobbyer, Conscience, Dissent and Reform in Soviet Russia,
London and New York: Routledge, 2005.
112 Pravda, 20 December 1962.
113 See also Shelepin’s 1959 congress address, in which he reassures the Soviet
population that ‘every Soviet person can be certain that this shameful affair –
the violation of revolutionary legality – will never again be repeated in our
country’; ‘Rech’ tovarishcha A. N. Shelepina’.
114 German, ‘Ya otvechaiu za vse!’, p.€7.
115 Kolpakidi and Seriakov, Shchit i mech, p.€488.
116 Ibid., p.€489.
117 See for example ‘Vsesoiuznoe soveshchanie rukovodiashchikh rabotnikov
organov gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti’, Pravda, no. 138, 18 May 1959, p.€ 2;
and ‘Rech’ tovarishcha A. N. Shelepina’.
118 See further Chapter 4.
119 Chebrikov et al., Istoriia sovetskikh organov, p.€502.
120 Ibid., p.€286.
121 Istoriia sovetskikh organov seems to suggest that the mass arrests of the Great
Terror had arisen as an easier alternative to the more complex work of using
informers; ibid., p.€238.
122 On these traditions, see Nicholas Rzhevsky, ‘Russian Cultural History: Intro-
duction’, in Nicholas Rzhevsky, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Modern Russian
Culture, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998, p.€7.
123 Stenin, ‘Rodine vernye’, p.€38.
124 Thus for example, Western literature about police informers and betrayal,
such as Arthur Miller’s A View from a Bridge, was translated into Russian and
published in the Soviet Union in the mid-�1950s. As Friedberg says, this work,
‘which raises the painful moral problem of a police informer, was probably
read eagerly in the USSR: its translation coincided with the release from con-
centration camps of many surviving victims of Stalin’s informers and the
secret police’; Friedberg, A Decade of Euphoria, pp.€197 and 323. The distribu-
tion of works dealing with this theme may, on the other hand, have been a
204╇╇ Notes
way of commenting obliquely on the Soviet regime; an example of so-�called
‘mirror-Â�writing’, whereby Soviet practices could be criticized through works
ostensibly attacking Western practices.
125 Chebrikov et al., Istoriia sovetskikh organov, p.€504.
126 ‘Vsesoiuznoe soveshchanie’. According to Pozharov, this aroused great public
interest; see A. I. Pozharov, ‘KGB SSSR v 1950–1960-e gody: problemy istori-
ografii’, Otechestvennaia istoriia, 3, May–June 2001, 142.
127 See for example Bobkov’s account of the KGB public relations campaign
launched in 1956; Bobkov, KGB i vlast’, pp.€ 257–8. See also Andrew and
Mitrokhin, Mitrokhin Archive, p.€6.
128 See for example V. I. Lenin i VChK, p.€226.
129 Velidov, ‘Predislovie ko vtoromu izdaniiu’, p.€11.
130 Chasovye sovetskikh granits. Kratkii ocherk istorii pogranichnykh voisk, 2nd edn,
Moscow: Izdatel’stvo politicheskoi literatury, 1983, p.€24.
131 Cited Kutuzov et al., Chekisty Petrograda, p.€58.
132 Ibid., p.€183.
133 Cited G. Molchanov, ‘Strazh Oktiabria’, in Dzerzhinets, p.€7.
134 Cited Yurii Andropov, ‘50 let na strazhe bezopasnosti Sovetskoi Rodiny’,
Pravda, no. 354, 21 December 1967, p.€3.
135 The story can be traced back to the time when the first traditions of such
propaganda were laid down, immediately after Dzerzhinsky’s death. The ver-
sions I have come across include: in Feliks Edmundovich Dzerzhinskii, Moscow:
Partizdat, 1926; Molchanov, ‘Strazh Oktiabria’, in Dzerzhinets, pp.€4–7; Mikhail
Kozakov’s play The Chekists (1939) (see Zhdanov and Shneiderman, ‘P’esa o
pervykh dniakh VChK’, pp.€23–4); and his story, ‘Proletarskii yakobinets’, in
Shmelev, Soldaty nevidimykh srazhenii, pp.€5–25; and in biographies of Dzerzhin-
sky, such as Tishkov, Pervyi chekist, pp.€69–70.
136 Ibid., p.€69.
137 The map was intended for Right SR Serebrov.
138 Ibid., p.€70.
139 Ibid., p.€69.
140 Ibid., p.€7.
141 Ibid., p.€70.
142 The importance of the link with the narod in ensuring the Cheka’s success was
also an important point made in D. L. Golinkov, Krushenie antisovetskogo
podpol’ia, Moscow: Politizdat, 1975, recently republished under the new title
The Truth about the Enemies of the Narod, as part of the book series ‘Slandered
Rus’’: Pravda o vragakh naroda, Moscow: Algoritm, 2006.
143 Cited Kutuzov et al., Chekisty Petrograda, p.€409.
144 Molchanov, ‘Strazh Oktiabria’, in Dzerzhinets, p.€7.
145 Not to be confused with doveritel’nye sviazi, or ‘confidential contacts’, the term
used to categorize foreigners recruited in this way. Doverennye litsa were some-
times also referred to as neshtatnye sotrudniki.
146 Chebrikov et al., Istoriia sovetskikh organov, pp.€503 and 508.
147 Ibid., p.€558.
148 Ibid., pp.€503, 508.
149 Ibid., p.€559.
150 Ibid., p.€558.
151 Ibid., p.€559.
152 Ibid.
153 Ibid.
154 Albats, State within a State, p.€58.
155 Chebrikov et al., Istoriia sovetskikh organov, p.€558.
156 Ibid., p.€559. This condition presented particular problems when dealing with
 Notes╇╇ 205
military conscripts, for whom an exception was subsequently made in 1968;
ibid., p.€559n.
157 Ibid., p.€559.
158 See Yurii Shchekochikhin, Raby GB. XX vek. Religiia predatel’stva, Samara: Ros-
siiskii Fond pravovoi i sotsial’noi zashchity zhurnalistov, Izdatel’skii dom
“Fedorov”, 1999, p.€63.
159 Vasiliy Mitrokhin, ed., KGB Lexicon: The Soviet Intelligence Officer’s Handbook,
London: Frank Cass, 2002, p.€33.
160 Kopelev has recalled how people would occasionally exclaim with joy during this
period that ‘we’ve stopped being afraid of informers’; Orlova and Kopelev, My
zhili v Moskve, p.€27. Orlova also says ‘People were drawn to one another. It was as
though cells of a new social structure were taking shape’; ibid.
161 Thus in the late 1950s, the head of the KGB’s Fourth Directorate condemned
the fact that acting as an informer was effectively a compulsory stepping-�stone
to attaining the heights of Soviet culture; see Yevgenii Zhirnov, ‘Odna zhizn’
Filippa Denisovicha’, Kommersant”-Vlast’, 5 December 2000.
162 These issues were especially acute in the literary world; some informers were
expelled from the Writers’ Union, for example, for their past as collaborators.
Calls were also being made for informers to be put on trial and brought to
justice.
163 Chebrikov et al., Istoriia sovetskikh organov, p.€506.
164 Ibid., p.€506. Note, however, that even before Stalin’s death, the party leader-
ship had called, in 1952, for a reduction in the number of agents; ibid. Purges
of the agent network had also been conducted in 1951–2; see Jonathan Brent
and Vladimir P. Naumov, Stalin’s Last Crime: The Doctors’ Plot, London: John
Murray, 2003, p.€153.
165 Chebrikov et al., Istoriia sovetskikh organov, pp.€506–7.
166 Ibid., p.€507.
167 Ibid.
168 See ibid.
169 See for example ibid., p.€508.
170 Ibid.
171 Ibid., p.€557.
172 Ibid., p.€523.
173 The term is still used by the FSB today, and was invoked, for example, in offi-
cial reports on the meetings held with Russian employees of the British
Council in January 2008, which were described as ‘prophylactic chats’.
174 Thus for example, Bulat Okudzhava was ‘prophylacticated’ by the Moscow
Writers’ Organization on the basis of materials provided by the KGB; ‘â•›“Stuk,
stuk, stuk – ya tvoi drugâ•›.â•›.â•›.”â•›’, Argumenty i fakty, no. 11, March 1992, p.€5.
175 Chebrikov et al., Istoriia sovetskikh organov, p.€583.
176 See for example ibid., p.€559.
177 Aleksandr Cherkasov, ‘Den’ Gazonokosil’shchika, ili Kanun Vsekh sviatykh’,
www.polit.ru, 30 October 2003.
178 Cited Shchekochikhin, Raby GB, p.€255.
179 See G. O. Altunian, Tsena svobody: Vospominaniia dissidenta, Khar’kov: Folio,
Radiokompaniia+, 2000, Ch. 19, ‘Profilaktika’.
180 Cherkasov, ‘Den’ Gazonokosil’shchika’.
181 Chebrikov et al., Istoriia sovetskikh organov, p.€503.
182 Ibid., p.€596.
183 Ibid., p.€613.
184 Ibid., p.€584.
185 Profilaktika also resonates with ‘organs’ (the standard shorthand form of ‘state
security organs’, i.e. the KGB).
206╇╇ Notes
186 Chebrikov et al., Istoriia sovetskikh organov, p.€584.
187 At the same time, we might note that these increased cultural contacts with
the West also opened up new opportunities for gathering intelligence. For
example, under Khrushchev joint Soviet–Western cinema productions were
systematically encouraged and used by the KGB as a cover for intelligence-�
gathering operations; see for example Yu. Krotov, ‘KGB v deistvii’, Novyi
zhurnal (New York), 110 (March 1973), 193. Similarly, the new chain of Sovex-
portfilm offices established throughout the West under Khrushchev provided
ideal cover for chekist operatives. Certainly, during the Brezhnev era, Sovex-
portfilm was widely considered in cinema circles to be ‘practically a legal filial
of the Lubianka’, and its foreign offices were said to be staffed exclusively by
KGB officers; Fomin, Kino i vlast’, p.€99. On KGB-Â�Soveksportfil’m links see also
Val. S. Golovskoy with John Rimberg, Behind the Soviet Screen: The Motion-�Picture
Industry in the USSR 1972–1982, Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1986, pp.€9–10.
188 During his time in the Komsomol, Shelepin had played a leading role in initi-
atives such as the biennial international youth festivals held throughout
Eastern Europe from 1947 onwards, sponsored by the World Federation of
Democratic Youth, the Communist Party front organization of which Shelepin
was deputy chair. On these festivals, see Walter L. Hixson, Parting the Curtain:
Propaganda, Culture, and the Cold War, 1945–1961, London: Macmillan, 1998,
p.€ 159. The CIA attempted to counter this Soviet propaganda initiative by
funding alternative youth bodies, such as the International Student Confeder-
ation and the European Youth Campaign; Paul Lashmar and James Oliver,
Britain’s Secret Propaganda War, 1948–1977, Phoenix Mill, Stroud: Sutton, 1998,
p.€133. There are rumours that Shelepin was already secretly a deputy chair of
the KGB at this point; see for example Viktor Suvorov, cited Viktor Lozinskii,
‘Institut “vechnykh rabov” i “tol’ko pomoshchnikov”â•›’, Karta, 3, 1994. These
festivals, and especially the 1957 international youth festival hosted by
Moscow, were an important demonstration to the rest of the world of the
Soviet regime’s new openness, dynamism and optimism. The propaganda
value, combined with the festivals’ genuine popularity with Soviet young
people, must have been deemed sufficiently important to risk the associated
dangers inherent in exposing Soviet young people to Western cultural
influences.
189 According to Dziak, Shelepin was one of the architects of the plan to high-
light the morally pure chekist roots of the KGB; Dziak, Chekisty, pp.€147–8. By
his own account, Shelepin urged Khrushchev on several occasions to expel
Serov from the party and strip him of his military decorations, presumably as
a public condemnation of his role in the Stalinist repressions; cited ‘Beseda s
Shelepinym A. N. i Semichastnym V. Ye.’, in Kozlov et al., Neizvestnaia Rossiia,
p.€272.
190 See for example Velidov, ‘Predislovie’, p.€14; and Kostin, Vystrel v serdtse revo-
liutsii, p.€33.
191 Note that Khrushchev also declared during this congress that it would be
‘stupid and criminal’ to abolish the state security organs; cited Vladislav
Minaev, Tainoe stanovitsia yavnym, Moscow: Voenizdat, 1960, p.€326.
192 Cited L. A. Koroleva, ‘Vlast’ i sovetskoe dissidentsvo: itogi i uroki’, Polemika,
11, 2002. Online. Available at: www.irex.ru/press/pub/polemika/11/korol-
eva (accessed 22 November 2010).
193 See Shchekochikhin, Raby GB. See also Andropov’s comments in this connec-
tion, cited Boris Prozorov, ‘Yurii Andropov. Bez grifa “SEKRETNO”â•›’,
Fel’dPochta, 20, 8 March 2004.
194 Cited Aleksandr Khinshtein, ‘Chlen Politbiuro Viktor Chebrikov: “Ya ne mog
otkazat’ Brezhnevu”â•›’, 23 December 1998. Online. Available at: www.fsb.ru/fsb/
 Notes╇╇ 207
history/author/single.htm!id%3D10318028%40fsbPublication.html (accessed
22 November 2010).
195 ‘Rech’ tovarishcha A. N. Shelepina’. Note that in the same breath Shelepin
proclaimed that the ‘dreams’ of imperialists and revisionists who wished to see
the security organs weakened, would never come to pass; ibid.
196 ‘Vsesoiuznoe soveshchanie’.
197 Chebrikov et al., Istoriia sovetskikh organov, p.€551.
198 Ibid., p.€583.
199 See ‘Rech’ tovarishcha A. N. Shelepina’.
200 Kuzovkin, ‘Partiino-Â�komsomol’skie presledovaniia’, in Korny travy.
201 See Armen Medvedev, ‘Tol’ko o kino’, Iskusstvo kino, 3, March 1999. Other
aspects of the Komsomol’s growing social control role were less ‘discreet’. As
head of the Komsomol, Shelepin had been famous for the campaign which
he led to encourage ‘spontaneous’ reprisals against the stiliagi – the youth
subculture that emerged in major Soviet cities after the war; see Yu. Levada
and V. Sheinis, ‘1953–1964: pochemu togda ne poluchilos’â•›’, in Aksiutin,
Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev, p.€ 175. The term stiliaga was first used in a 1949
Krokodil article, which marked the beginning of the official campaign against
them. Described by Aksenov as ‘the first dissidents’, the stiliagi mounted a
challenge to the regime that was expressed in aesthetic form, involving the
ostentatious and provocative adoption of Western fashion; see ‘Lingua Sovet-
ica. Sovetskii yazyk (2)’, Radio Svoboda, 19 October 2003. Online. Available at:
http://archive.svoboda.org/programs/td/2003/td.101903.asp (accessed 22
November 2010). Shelepin spearheaded the official response to the stiliagi,
organizing brigades of young Komsomol members to patrol the streets for stil-
iagi and slash their trousers and ties.
202 Vitkovskii, ‘Pamiati Vladimira Semichastnogo’.
203 See Darrell P. Hammer, ‘Law Enforcement, Social Control and the Withering
of the State: Recent Soviet Experience’, Soviet Studies, 14:4, April 1963, 379–97;
and Louise I. Shelley, Policing Soviet Society: The Evolution of State Control,
London and New York: Routledge, 1996, pp.€44–5.
204 See further Pryzhikov, ‘Problema kul’ta lichnosti’, pp.€53–5.
205 Hammer, ‘Law Enforcement, Social Control and the Withering of the State’,
p.€379.
206 See further O. M. Khlobustov, ‘Perechityvaia zanovo’, Lubianka: Istoriko-Â�
publitsisticheskii al’manakh, 1, August 2006. Online. Available at:
http://a-�lubyanka.ru/index.php?id=4&pub=41 (accessed 22 November 2010).
Correcting those who had ‘strayed from the path’ was also the official ration-
ale of Andropov’s notorious Fifth Directorate.
207 N. I. Krasheninnikov, ‘Ispol’zovanie rezul’tatov operativno-Â�rozysknykh mero-
priatii s tsel’iu profilaktiki prestuplenii’, Pravovedenie, 6, 2001, available at
Yuridicheskaia Rossiia federal legal portal.
208 Thus for example, speaking to KGB heads in February 1979, Andropov pro-
claimed that it was the chekist’s calling ‘to struggle for every soviet person,
when he has abandoned the faith [otstupilsia], to help him to take up the
correct path’; cited Khlobustov, ‘Perechityvaia zanovo’.
209 For example, Mikhailov writing in Leningradskaia pravda in 1977, links such
measures to Dzerzhinsky; Mikhailov, ‘Imia im – chekisty’, p.€3.
210 Stenin, ‘Rodine vernye’, p.€38.
211 Cited Prozorov, ‘Yurii Andropov’.
212 Kenez, Birth of Propaganda State, p.€186.
213 This issue was the crux of Khrushchev’s famous 1963 attack on the film Il’ich’s
Gate, for example. The film But What If This Is Love? was also criticized by
the€ Central Committee’s Cultural Section for the same reason in 1961;
208╇╇ Notes
�
‘Dokladnaia zapiska Otdela kul’tury TsK KPSS o fil’me Yu. Raizmana “A yesli
eto liubov’?”â•›’, in V. I. Fomin, ed., Kinematograf ottepeli. Dokumenty i svidetel’stva,
Moscow: Materik, 1998, pp.€ 130–1. Film-Â�makers were enjoined instead to
enhance generational continuity by reminding the rising generation of their
duty to carry on the work of their parents in building socialism; see for
example A. Zubov, ‘Boitsy nevidimogo fronta’, Komsomol’skaia pravda, no. 108,
9 May 1964, p.€3.
214 The Central Committee’s Ideological Commission moved to counter such
claims in December 1962 by mobilizing prominent representatives of the new
generation of the Moscow artistic intelligentsia to make a public display of
their loyalty. Thus, the poet Yevtushenko condemned ‘many representatives
of the western press, these prostitutes of capitalism’ who were ‘trying to
slander soviet youth, trying to depict soviet youth as children who are alleg-
edly opposing their fathers’; ‘Iz stenogrammy zasedaniia Ideologicheskoi
komissii TsK KPSS s uchastiem molodykh pisatelei, khudozhnikov, kompoz-
itorov, tvorcheskikh rabotnikov kino i teatrov Moskvy’, in Afanas’eva et al., Ide-
ologicheskie komissii, p.€310. The poet Rozhdestvenskii spoke in the same vein;
ibid., pp.€301–2.
215 Andrei Siniavskii, ‘Sviatoi palach’, Demokraticheskaia Rossiia, no. 24, 6–12 Sep-
tember 1991, p.€7. This point is supported elsewhere in the memoir literature;
for example, a Soviet airforce colonel, speaking in 1985, recalled that he had
idolized Dzerzhinsky as a child, but placed Lenin in a separate, higher cat-
egory; Tumarkin, Lenin Lives!, p.€270.
216 A Mayakovsky line, ‘To the young man, thinking through lifeâ•›.â•›.â•›.’ [Yunoshe,
obdumyvaiushchemu zhit’e] became a catchphrase and shorthand for Dzerzhin-
sky tributes.
217 ‘Besstrashnomu rytsariu revoliutsii’, p.€ 3 and ‘Torzhestvennoe otkrytie v
Moskve’, p.€ 2. Other examples where the poem is cited include Yulian
Semenov, ‘Predislovie’, in Polikarenkov, O Felikse Dzerzhinskom, p.€ 11; and F.
Markova, ‘Yunoshe, obdumyvaiushchemu zhit’eâ•›.â•›.â•›.’, Sovetskii ekran, 9, May
1964, 8.
218 G. Vlasenko, ‘Zhivaia sila partiino-Â�revoliutsionnykh traditsii’, Pogranichnik, 23,
December 1967, 21.
219 Chebrikov et al., Istoriia sovetskikh organov, p.€583.
220 This is how Andropov put it in April 1971:
Decisively suppressing hostile activities .â•›.â•›. we must at the same time avoid
onesidedness, [we must] know how to separate from the enemy those indi-
viduals who have ended up in hostile circles by chance, are losing their way
politically or are being used by the opponent.
(Cited Khlobustov, ‘Perechityvaia zanovo’)
221 A. Malygin, ‘Rytsari revoliutsii’, Komsomol’skaia pravda, no. 295, 20 December
1967, p.€2.
222 Ibid.
223 Cited Sidorenko, ‘Zhizn’, otdannaia sluzheniiu otechestvu’.
224 Stenin, ‘Rodine vernye’, p.€38.
225 See for example Chebrikov et al., Istoriia sovetskikh organov, pp.€584, 586.
226 Cited Papovian, ‘Primenenie stat’i 58–10 UK RSFSR’, in Korni travy.
227 Cited Izgoev, ‘Dzerzhinskii’.
228 Vladimir Voinovich, Anti-Â�sovetskii sovetskii soiuz. Dokumental’naia fantasmagoriia
v 4-kh chastiakh, Moscow: Materik, 2002, p.€168.
 Notes╇╇ 209
3╇ Screening the historical chekist
╇╇ 1 The film was based on a book of the same title published in 1956. Aleksei
Mikhalev is also the hero of another story by the same authors (Lukin and
Polianovskii) published in 1963: A. Lukin and D. Polianovskii, ‘â•›“Sedoi”â•›’, in V.
Petrov, ed., Chekisty. Povesti i rasskazy, Kaliningrad: Kaliningradskoe knizhnoe
izdatel’stvo, 1963, pp.€3–136.
╇╇ 2 V. Goland, ‘Na ekrane – chekisty’, Literaturnaia gazeta, no. 33, 17 March 1964,
p.€4.
╇╇ 3 The chair of the meetings, Aleksandr Ptushko, pointed out in December that
When Boris Izrailevich [Volchek] showed me the first literary screenplay,
produced by him without an agreement with the studio, with a group of
authors, and he was the initiator of bringing in this group of authors, that
is, he thereby demonstrated his attitude to the screenplay, and the authors
themselves, without having an agreement, wrote the screenplay – this
already speaks of the fact that they believe in [this] piece, for in our times it
is difficult to find an author who would write a screenplay without an
agreement.
(RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1391, l. 5)
╇╇ 4 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1391, l. 62.
╇╇ 5 Lukin had served in Dmitrii Medvedev’s famous ‘Victors’ partisan detach-
ment. He wrote numerous articles about chekists including ‘Valia kazachka’,
Ogonek, 3, 17 January 1965, 10–11; ‘Operatsiia “Dal’nii pryzhok”â•›’, Ogonek, 33,
15 August 1965, 25–7; and 34, 22 August 1965, 25–7. His co-Â�authored book
The Chekist was among those recommended for the training of borderguards
in 1967; Stenin, ‘Rodine vernye’, p.€34. Lukin was later co-Â�opted to work with
the KGB Press Bureau in the 1970s; Kononenko, ‘Ot Press-Â�biuro KGB SSSR
do TsOS FSB Rossii’, p.€9. He authored the screenplay for the 1967 film Sil’nye
dukhom about razvedchik hero Nikolai Kuznetsov who had been one of
Lukin’s subordinates during the war.
╇╇ 6 For details on the procedures involved in drafting scripts and other aspects of
production in the Soviet cinema industry, see Josephine Woll, Real Images:
Soviet Cinema and the Thaw, London: I. B. Tauris, 2000.
╇╇ 7 Golovskoy with Rimberg, Behind the Soviet Screen, p.€25.
╇╇ 8 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1371, l. 35; second line cut from d. 1372.
╇╇ 9 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1371, l. 51; cut from d. 1372. Incidentally, the deleted
passage indicates that the First Secretary was highly supportive of this film
project and described it as fitting very well with the Komsomol’s current line
on educating the younger generation.
╇ 10 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1573, l. 16.
╇ 11 Initials not quite legible, but this was most likely the screenwriter Mikhail
Vol’pin, who had been imprisoned at one point during the Stalin era.
╇ 12 The Soviet concept of ‘rasstrel’ is highly culturally specific and difficult to
translate; for a detailed analysis of the term see Gasan Guseinov, ‘Ideologema
“Rasstrel”â•›’, Otechestvennye zapiski, 3, 2002.
╇ 13 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1371, l. 28; removed from d. 1372, though the ori-
ginal page numbering was not amended accordingly.
╇ 14 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1371, l. 25.
╇ 15 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1371, l. 27.
╇ 16 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1391, l. 56.
╇ 17 See for example RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1402, l. 35.
╇ 18 See for example RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1391, l. 31.
╇ 19 See for example RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1382, l. 35.
210╇╇ Notes
╇ 20 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1391, l. 42.
╇ 21 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1382, l. 22.
╇ 22 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1382, l. 36.
╇ 23 The film The Rumiantsev Case (1956, dir. Kheifits), which dealt with an inno-
cent man who had been unjustly imprisoned by the militia, was the first Soviet
film to nudge the taboos governing depiction of the law enforcement authori-
ties, and to acknowledge that the state’s agents were capable of making mis-
takes, though it stopped short of touching upon the KGB or the Great Terror;
see Dmitry Shlapentokh and Vladimir Shlapentokh, Soviet Cinematography,
1918–1991: Ideological Conflict and Social Reality, New York: Walter de Gruyter,
1993, p.€134.
╇ 24 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1382, ll. 36–7.
╇ 25 At any rate, this is one way of interpreting his comments, which are somewhat
oblique:
[In the case of the character of Illarionov] the dramatists are very correctly
doing the following thing: they are showing that the ChK is [an] organ
which was created in the years of the revolution for certain things. Then a
period came in the history of our state when this organ ceased to be a pun-
ishing sword, and began to engage in different work. Therefore everything
that concerns the VChK is especially interesting and important for today’s
viewer.
(RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1382, l. 11)
╇ 26 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1382, l. 12.
╇ 27 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1382, l. 14.
╇ 28 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1382, l. 35.
╇ 29 See RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1402, ll. 26–45.
╇ 30 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1402, l. 42.
╇ 31 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1402, l. 44.
╇ 32 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1391, l. 32.
╇ 33 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1382, l. 25.
╇ 34 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1391, ll. 61–2.
╇ 35 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1391, l. 62.
╇ 36 See Fomin, Kino i vlast’, p.€289. This film, which was to be directed by Mark
Donskoi, is presumably the unrealized screenplay about Kedrov mentioned by
Donskoi’s son: Aleksandr Donskoi, ‘O romantikakh, neorealistakh, gorod-
skikh sumasshedshikh, vlastiami oblaskannykh i obrugannykhâ•›.â•›.â•›.’, SK-Â�Novosti,
8, 16 March 2001, 11. Mikhail Kedrov seems to have been a key chekist martyr
at the time, especially useful for a number of reasons. He was a close associate
of Dzerzhinskii, and fell victim to Beria after attempting to have Beria
removed; despite Kedrov’s own history of involvement in repressions and
atrocities, it was thus possible to salvage him as evidence of attempts to fight
the terror from within the secret police itself, and as part of the campaign to
demonize Beria. Khrushchev cited Kedrov’s appeal from prison as part of his
Secret Speech; Arkadii Vaksberg, Neraskrytye tainy, Moscow: Novosti, 1993,
p.€69.
╇ 37 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1573, titul’nyi oborot.
╇ 38 This description refers to Aleksei Mikhalev’s representation in literary form;
see Aksenova and Vasil’eva, Soldaty Dzerzhinskogo, p.€48, with regard to the 1966
edition of A. Lukin and D. Polianovskii, Sotrudnik ChK. – ”Tikhaia” Odessa.
Povesti o chekistakh, Moscow: Voenizdat, 1966.
╇ 39 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1371, l. 43.
╇ 40 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1371, l. 69.
╇ 41 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1371, l. 61.
 Notes╇╇ 211
╇ 42 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1391, l. 57.
╇ 43 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1572, l. 16.
╇ 44 Ibid.
╇ 45 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1572, ll. 14–15.
╇ 46 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1572, ll. 16–17.
╇ 47 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1391, l. 23.
╇ 48 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1572, ll. 17–18.
╇ 49 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1572, l. 18.
╇ 50 Sergei Aleksandrovich Yermolinskii, a screenwriter who had been imprisoned
and exiled in the 1940s.
╇ 51 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1371, l. 41.
╇ 52 Ibid.
╇ 53 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1382, l. 22.
╇ 54 Geller, Kontsentratsionnyi mir, p.€288.
╇ 55 The same can be said of a particular strand of the Western revisionist histori-
ography, which was animated by a desire to retrieve this period as evincing
the unrealized possibilities of the revolution. Some of the latest generation of
historians have sought to debunk this myth; see for example, Naiman, Sex in
Public.
╇ 56 For example, Yagoda played a prominent role in the campaign against child
homelessness, but after he fell from grace, the history of the campaign was
rewritten with a view to downplaying Yagoda’s role and exaggerating that of
Dzerzhinsky; see G. Hillig, ‘A. S. Makarenko i Bolshevskaia kommuna’, Postme-
todika, 2, 2001. For a recent article interrogating the legends that have sprung
around the history of child welfare in the 1920s, see A. Yu. Rozhkov, ‘Bor’ba s
besprizornost’iu v pervoe sovetskoe desiatiletie’, Voprosy istorii, 1, January 2000,
134–9.
╇ 57 As the Russian scholar Dmitrii Likachev put it, the mass executions of the
1920s and early 1930s were made to appear ‘natural’, through the power of
‘the myth that the most cruel period of repressions came in the years
1936–37’. A former inmate of the Lenin-Â�era concentration camp at Solovki,
Likhachev set out to debunk this myth in his memoirs; D. S. Likhachev, Izbran-
noe. Vospominaniia, 2nd edn, St Petersburg: LOGOS, 1997, pp.€154–5. On the
impact of Mandelstam’s memoir of the 1920s on the Khrushchev-Â�era genera-
tion, see Orlova and Kopelev, My zhili v Moskve, p.€64.
╇ 58 See Dina Khapaeva, ‘Ocharovannye stalinizmom: massovoe istoricheskoe soz-
nanie v preddverii vyborov’, Neprikosnovennyi zapas, 5, 2007. Online. Available
at: http://magazines.russ.ru/nz/2007/55/ha6.html (accessed 24 November
2010).
╇ 59 ‘Dzerzhinskogo vernut Moskve?’, Radio Svoboda, 19 September 2002. Online.
Available at: http://archive.svoboda.org/programs/rt/2002/rt.091902.asp
(accessed 24 November 2010).
╇ 60 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1391, l. 58.
╇ 61 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1371, l. 62.
╇ 62 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1391, l. 58.
╇ 63 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1382, l. 18.
╇ 64 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1391, l. 21.
╇ 65 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1391, ll. 20–1.
╇ 66 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1391, l. 80.
╇ 67 Kolpakidi and Seriakov, Shchit i mech, p.€323.
╇ 68 Most famously in the case of the Lockhart Plot.
╇ 69 Most famously in the case of Nikolai Khokhlov, on whom see Chapter 4.
╇ 70 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1572, l. 25.
╇ 71 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1402, l. 27.
212╇╇ Notes
╇ 72 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1402, l. 42.
╇ 73 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1572, l. 7.
╇ 74 On which see Chapter 4.
╇ 75 Liudmila Vladimirovna Golubkina, a Mosfil’m editor.
╇ 76 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1371, l. 13.
╇ 77 See M. M. Gol’din, Opyt gosudarstvennogo upravleniia iskusstvom. Deiatel’nost’
pervogo otechestvennogo Ministerstva kul’tury, Moscow: 2000, p.€64.
╇ 78 Kirill Nikolaevich Zamoshkin, an editor at Mosfil’m, who was later to become
the studio’s party committee secretary.
╇ 79 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1371, l. 18.
╇ 80 Ibid.
╇ 81 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1371, l. 19.
╇ 82 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1371, l. 65.
╇ 83 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1371, l. 19.
╇ 84 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1371, l. 13; cut from d. 1372.
╇ 85 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1391, ll. 45 and 47. This ‘I told you so’ approach is
somewhat difficult to swallow given that it was precisely Vol’pin whose com-
ments that the population saw chekists as ‘executioners’ and ‘bandits’ had
been torn out of the amended version of the stenogram of the May 1962
meeting, and it is thus tempting to speculate that his criticism of the film here
should be seen in the light of this, possibly as an attempt to redeem or protect
himself.
╇ 86 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1391, ll. 59–61.
╇ 87 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1391, l. 57.
╇ 88 See Louis Harris Cohen, The Cultural-�Political Traditions and Developments of the
Soviet Cinema 1917–1972, New York: Arno Press, 1973, pp.€286–8.
╇ 89 ‘Slovo partii okryliaet!’, Sovetskii ekran, 1, January 1963, 1.
╇ 90 Cohen, Cultural-�Political Traditions, p.€288.
╇ 91 Woll, Real Images, p.€151.
╇ 92 See Anatoly Gladilin, The Making and Unmaking of a Soviet Writer: My Story of the
‘Young Prose’ of the Sixties and After, trans. David Lapeza, Ann Arbor: Ardis,
1979, pp.€105 and 107–9.
╇ 93 Friedberg, A Decade of Euphoria, p.€304. The Commission had been created in
November 1962.
╇ 94 Cited ibid., p.€305.
╇ 95 Cited ibid., p.€307.
╇ 96 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 29, ll. 5–6.
╇ 97 Cited Valerii Fomin, ‘God 1964’, SK-Â�Novosti, 98, 2004.
╇ 98 The Artistic Council received the literary screenplay back in early January
1963, and spent a substantial part of January–March 1963 reworking it. On 14
March 1963 they received permission to proceed to the director’s razrabotka.
They spent late March and early April 1963 working on the director’s screen-
play, which was finally approved on 8 April 1963; RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d.
1402, l. 2.
╇ 99 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1391, l. 54.
100 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1391, l. 65.
101 Incidentally, Volchek mentions in passing that the KGB had also raised con-
cerns about the title, on the grounds that the phrase ‘Sotrudnik ChK’ should
only be used to refer to Feliks Dzerzhinsky, an incident which underlines
again the extent to which ‘Dzerzhinsky’ and ‘the chekist’ were synonymous;
see RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1391, l. 82.
102 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1391, l. 83.
103 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1391, l. 84.
104 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1391, ll. 82–3.
 Notes╇╇ 213
105 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1391, l. 21.
106 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1391, l. 41.
107 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1391, ll. 31–2.
108 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1391, l. 80.
109 Arkadii Vaksberg, Moia zhizn’ v zhizni. Tom 2, Moscow: Terra-Â�Sport, 2000,
p.€299.
110 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1572, l. 99.
111 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1576, l. 89.
112 Goland, ‘Na ekrane – chekisty’.
113 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1391, l. 66.
114 Ibid.
115 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1391, l. 81.
116 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1391, l. 66.
117 Ibid.
118 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1576, ll. 3–7.
119 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1391, l. 23.
120 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1391, ll. 23–4.
121 Sotrudnik ChK, Mosfil’m, 1963.
122 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1573, l. 18.
123 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1391, l. 46.
124 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1576, ll. 85–7.
125 See Orlova and Kopelev, My zhili v Moskve, pp.€63–4.
126 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1402, l. 15.
127 Zubov, ‘Boitsy nevidimogo fronta’.
128 Woll, Real Images, pp.€107–8. Other film projects from the time were aborted
in 1963 because of the ideological snag caused by this particular theme. Work
on the film Korotkoe zamykanie was abandoned, as Surin reported to the
Central Committee’s Ideological Commission in January 1964, not only
because the young directors were failing to cope with the task, but because
the Vladimir Tendriakov story on which the film was based had an ‘obvious
tendency of opposition of generations’; RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 29, l. 2.
129 Goland, ‘Na ekrane – chekisty’.
130 Markova, ‘Yunoshe, obdumyvaiushchemu zhit’eâ•›.â•›.â•›.’.
131 See Mikhail Kozakov, Akterskaia kniga, Moscow: Vagrius, 1996, p.€127.
132 Yevgenii Vorob’ev, ‘Nevidimaia storona dushi’, Sovetskii ekran, 2, January 1963,
3.
133 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 1402, l. 28. Polianovskii was referring in this instance
to the character of Brokman, the chair of the local cheka.

4╇ Screening the contemporary chekist

╇╇ 1 L. Volgina, ‘Vystrel v tumane’, Sovetskii ekran, 19, October 1963, 2.
╇╇ 2 The making of this film coincided roughly with the making of another film
featuring a KGB officer, produced in Leningrad: State Criminal (also released
in 1964; produced by Lenfil’m studios).
╇╇ 3 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 693, l. 6.
╇╇ 4 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 637, l. 51.
╇╇ 5 Kononenko, ‘Ot Press-Â�biuro KGB SSSR do TsOS FSB Rossii’, in Tainoe stano-
vitsia yavnym, p.€7.
╇╇ 6 Shmelev would later go on to edit numerous volumes of chekist stories and
memoirs, such as Soldaty nevidimykh srazhenii. Rasskazy o podvigakh chekistov,
Moscow: Voenizdat, 1968; and Chekisty rasskazyvaiut, Moscow: Sovetskaia
Rossiia, 1976.
╇╇ 7 In April 1962 Belokonev had been removed from his post as head of the
214╇╇ Notes
Moscow Directorate and appointed head of the KGB Chair’s Group for study-
ing and summarizing the experience of the work of the state security organs
and of data on the adversary; Kokurin and Petrov, Struktura Tsentral’nogo appa-
rata KGB.
╇╇ 8 See for example Fomin, Kino i vlast’, p.€95.
╇╇ 9 See for example RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 693, l. 18. Belokonev also handled
manuscripts; for example, he signed the letter officially rejecting historian
Aleksandr Nekrich’s manuscript of 22 iiunia 1941; see Aleksandr Nekrich,
‘Otrekshis’ ot strakha’, Neva, 6, 1995.
╇ 10 James C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts, New
Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1990, p.€xii.
╇ 11 Golovskoy with Rimberg, Behind the Soviet Screen, p.€35.
╇ 12 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 688, ll. 9–10.
╇ 13 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 693, ll. 64–5. Other speakers at the meeting agreed
with Pyr’ev that the foreign scenes should be cut.
╇ 14 Merkulov (Narkom for State Security February–July 1941 and April 1943–May
1946; from March 1946, Minister for State Security) appears to have been an
important patron presiding over the post-�war influx of chekists into the world
of cinema. Merkulov had dabbled in amateur film-�making and photography,
and had longstanding literary leanings; Gladkov, Lift v razvedku, p.€ 137.
Merkulov may in fact have owed his rising career to his literary abilities; by his
own account, he was initially taken up by Beria on the strength of his writing
ability, and effectively became Beria’s speechwriter. Merkulov speculated that
Beria used him to cover up his own deficiencies in education and eloquence;
Kolpakidi and Seriakov, Shchit i mech, pp.€ 447–8. Merkulov mixed in artistic
circles, in particular with film directors, and he allowed his subordinates
Dmitrii Medvedev and Makliarskii to take time off to write works about chekist
exploits; see Yevgenii Zhirnov, ‘Teatr odnogo narkoma’, Kommersant”-Vlast’, 26
June 2001. Online. Available at: www.fsb.ru/fsb/history/author/single.htm!id
%3D10318046%40fsbPublication.html (accessed 24 November 2010); and
Gladkov, Lift v razvedku, p.€138.
╇ 15 David Caute, The Dancer Defects: The Struggle for Cultural Supremacy during the
Cold War, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003, p.€154.
╇ 16 See further Dmitrii Minchenok, ‘Antikiller No 1’, Ogonek, 18, May 2004; and
Katya Drozdova, ‘A Brief History of Soviet Torturers and Assassins, Some of
Whom Had Second Thoughts’, Hoover Digest, 3, 2007. Online. Available at:
www.hoover.org/publications/hoover-�digest/article/5852 (accessed 24
November 2010).
╇ 17 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 693, l. 68.
╇ 18 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 693, ll. 54–5.
╇ 19 It was not mentioned for example in the list of ideologically dubious elements
of the screenplay dated 14 May 1962; RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 693, ll. 73–4.
╇ 20 For example, in late December 1962 a Mosfil’m official wrote to Makliarskii
and Alekseev complaining that they had yet to amend this plot-�line in accord-
ance with the KGB consultants’ request; RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 693, l. 54.
╇ 21 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 693, l. 18.
╇ 22 A. Bobrovskii, ‘Ob Aleksandre Serom’, Kinograf, 8, 2000. Online. Available at:
http://kinograph.livejournal.com/2898.html (accessed 24 November 2010).
╇ 23 Andrew and Mitrokhin, Mitrokhin Archive, p.€471.
╇ 24 Khokhlov also spoke openly about his assassination mission at a press
conference.
╇ 25 ‘Murder as an Instrument of Policy’, Background Reports, Records of Radio
Free Europe/Radio Liberty Research Institute, Open Society Archives Fonds, HU
OSA 300–8–3, p.€3.
 Notes╇╇ 215
╇ 26 Ibid., p.€2.
╇ 27 See Andrew and Mitrokhin, Mitrokhin Archive, p.€471.
╇ 28 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 637, l. 29.
╇ 29 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 637, l. 29.
╇ 30 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 637, ll. 33–4.
╇ 31 See RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 693, l. 31, comprising a request to extend the
deadline in light of the above.
╇ 32 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 693, l. 35.
╇ 33 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 693, l. 59.
╇ 34 Woll, Real Images, p.€127. According to Stites, this focus on science should be
seen partly in light of the revived assault on the Church from 1959; see
Richard Stites, Soviet Popular Culture: Entertainment and Society since 1900, Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992, p.€145.
╇ 35 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 693, l. 59.
╇ 36 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 693, l. 73.
╇ 37 Thus, for example, the October 1962 synopsis of the film noted that the
names of many outstanding Soviet scientists remained undisclosed for security
reasons, and that Khrushchev had recently paid tribute to precisely such
unsung heroes; RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 693, l. 59.
╇ 38 On Khrushchev’s rhetoric during this period see for example S. J. Ball, The
Cold War: An International History, 1947–1991, London: Arnold, 1998, pp.€72–3.
╇ 39 On the KGB’s role in guaranteeing secrecy in Soviet science, see Oleg A.
Bukharin, ‘The Cold War Atomic Intelligence Game, 1945–70: From the
Russian Perspective’, Studies in Intelligence, 48:2, 2004 (focusing on atomic
science in particular). Online. Available at: https://www.cia.gov/library/
center-�for-the-�study-of-�intelligence/csi-�publications/csi-�studies/studies/
vol.48no2/article01.html (accessed 24 November 2010).
╇ 40 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 692, l. 51.
╇ 41 Valerii Soifer, ‘Zagublennyi talant’, Kontinent, 125, 2005. Online. Available
at: http://magazines.russ.ru/continent/2005/125/so19.html (accessed 24
November 2010).
╇ 42 Sakharov had to push a special button to summon them whenever he left his
flat; see A. D. Sakharov, Vospominaniia v 2-kh t., Moscow: Prava cheloveka,
1996, Ch. 13. Roi Medvedev says that in the early 1960s, Sakharov had refused
to accept open bodyguards, but was unable to resist being escorted by secret
bodyguards; R. A. Medvedev, ‘Andrei Sakharov i Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’,
Voprosy istorii, 11–12, 2001, 4. Rumours of Sakharov’s armed guards, known
colloquially as his ‘secretaries’, are also mentioned in Voinovich, Anti-Â�sovetskii
sovetskii soiuz, p.€97.
╇ 43 The novel was eventually published in the Gorbachev era. Dudintsev initially
submitted the manuscript to Novyi mir but then, seemingly to avoid making
extensive revisions demanded by the KGB, withdrew it and took it to Neva
instead; Grigorii Lesnichenko, ‘â•›“Novyi mir” i KGB’, in Yelena Oznobkina et
al., eds, KGB: vchera, segodnia, zavtra. III konferentsiia. Sbornik dokladov, Moscow:
Znak-Â�SP, Obshchestvennyi fond ‘Glasnost’â•›’, 1994, p.€178.
╇ 44 The KGB demanded that all references to the fact that the atomic scientist in
the novel was working under NKVD command be removed; ibid.
╇ 45 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 693, l. 31.
╇ 46 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 690, l. 63.
╇ 47 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 693, l. 67.
╇ 48 Bobrovskii, ‘Ob Aleksandre Serom’.
╇ 49 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 692, ll. 51–2. In the final product, the reference to
Lagutin’s ‘love’ for Yevdokimov is no longer present.
╇ 50 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 690, ll. 23–4.
216╇╇ Notes
╇ 51 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 689, l. 27.
╇ 52 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 693, l. 73.
╇ 53 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 637, l. 13.
╇ 54 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 637, l. 20.
╇ 55 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 637, l. 29.
╇ 56 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 693, l. 6.
╇ 57 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 637, l. 16.
╇ 58 Early examples include the films Four and Five (1924) and Death Ray (1925).
In reality, Soviet intelligence services were much more active in the theft of
Western technology than the other way round. In the KGB’s annual report
submitted to Khrushchev in early 1961, it was claimed that throughout the
course of 1960 the scientific-Â�technical branch of the KGB had acquired ‘8,029
classified technologies, blueprints, and schemas, as well as 1,311 different
samples of equipment’; ‘Report for 1960’, 14 February 1961, cited Vladislav
M. Zubok, ‘Spy vs. Spy: The KGB vs. the CIA, 1960–1962’, Cold War Interna-
tional History Project Bulletin, 4, Fall 1994, 22–33. By the early 1980s, ‘probably
70 per cent of all Warsaw Pact weapons systems depended on the theft of
Western technology’; Christopher Andrew, ‘Intelligence in the Cold War:
Lessons and Learning’, in Harold Shukman, ed., Agents for Change: Intelligence
Services in the Twenty-Â�First Century, London: St Ermin’s Press, 2000, p.€18.
╇ 59 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 690, ll. 27–8.
╇ 60 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 692, l. 47.
╇ 61 Either Bachurin has made an error here, or he is referring to yet another
draft, not contained in the files.
╇ 62 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 637, l. 12.
╇ 63 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 637, l. 32.
╇ 64 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 637, ll. 45–6.
╇ 65 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 637, l. 32.
╇ 66 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 693, l. 10.
╇ 67 A Shot in the Fog, dir. A. I. Seryi and A. A. Bobrovskii, Mosfil’m, 1964.
╇ 68 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 637, l. 11.
╇ 69 Ibid.
╇ 70 Ibid.
╇ 71 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 637, l. 12.
╇ 72 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 637, l. 18.
╇ 73 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 637, l. 32.
╇ 74 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 637, ll. 46–7.
╇ 75 Minaev, Tainoe stanovitsia yavnym, p.€325.
╇ 76 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 693, l. 25.
╇ 77 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 637, l. 15.
╇ 78 Ibid.
╇ 79 On this point the Artistic Council seems to have simply ignored and passed
over Bachurin’s criticism.
╇ 80 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 690, l. 5.
╇ 81 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 693, l. 62ob.
╇ 82 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 690, l. 53.
╇ 83 A Shot in the Fog, dir. A. I. Seryi and A. A. Bobrovskii, Mosfil’m, 1964.
╇ 84 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 693, l. 62ob. This tendency to lay on the ‘cultured-
ness’ with a trowel was also characteristic of works depicting the militia in this
period; see for example Svetov’s comments on Yulian Semenov’s clumsy
attempts to insert cultural references into his militia theme novel, Petrovka, 38,
aimed at creating an aura of erudition around the figure of the militiaman;
Feliks Svetov, ‘â•›“Prosto” ili “ne prosto” detektiv?’, Novyi mir, 1, January 1964,
252–6.
 Notes╇╇ 217
╇ 85 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 637, l. 26.
╇ 86 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 637, ll. 29–30.
╇ 87 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 637, l. 56. The term syshchik is associated with the tsarist
secret police and, like its rough English equivalent, ‘secret policeman’, has pejo-
rative overtones suggestive of underhandedness, moral slipperiness, duplicity.
╇ 88 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 693, l. 31.
╇ 89 Ibid.
╇ 90 A Shot in the Fog, dir. A. I. Seryi and A. A. Bobrovskii, Mosfil’m, 1964.
╇ 91 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 690, ll. 38–9.
╇ 92 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 637, l. 29.
╇ 93 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 693, l. 7.
╇ 94 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 693, l. 17.
╇ 95 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 637, l. 33.
╇ 96 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 637, l. 33.
╇ 97 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 637, l. 36.
╇ 98 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 637, l. 47.
╇ 99 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 637, l. 47.
100 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 693, l. 10.
101 Bobrovskii, ‘Ob Aleksandre Serom’.
102 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 637, ll. 60–1.
103 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 693, l. 19.
104 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 693, l. 19.
105 Ibid.
106 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 693, ll. 19–20.
107 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 693, l. 26.
108 A Shot in the Fog, dir. A. I. Seryi and A. A. Bobrovskii, Mosfil’m, 1964.
109 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 693, l. 20.
110 Ibid.
111 Ibid.
112 Ibid.
113 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 693, l. 10.
114 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 693, l. 5.
115 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 693, l. 7.
116 Bobrovskii, ‘Ob Aleksandre Serom’.
117 Ibid.
118 On the classification category system see further Woll, Real Images, p.€6.
119 Valerii Golovskoi, ‘Fil’m “Pered sudom istorii”, ili ob odnom kinoepizode v
zhizni V. V. Shul’gina’, Vestnik, no. 26, 24 December 2003. Online. Available
at: www.vestnik.com/issues/2003/1224/win/golovskoy.htm (accessed 24
November 2010).
120 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 29, l. 3.
121 ‘Zapiska Ideologicheskogo otdela TsK KPSS o vypolnenii kinostudiiei
“Mosfil’m” ukazanii iiun’skogo (1963 g.) plenuma TsK KPSS o povyshenii
ideino-Â�khudozhestvennogo urovnia kinofil’mov’, in Afanas’eva et al., Ideolog-
icheskie komissii, p.€467.
122 The media campaign against the film may have guaranteed it larger audiences
from people curious to see why the film had not met with favour; when the
film received negative reviews, Bobrovskii was congratulated by another direc-
tor, who told him that this was the best advertisement for a film; Bobrovskii,
‘Ob Aleksandre Serom’.
123 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 693, l. 4. This success meant that the film was subse-
quently upgraded to second category, which prompted the directors to ask
(unsuccessfully) for increased royalties, in August 1965; RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4,
d. 693, ll. 1 and 3–4.
218╇╇ Notes
124 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 637, l. 51.
125 Cohen, Cultural-�Political Traditions, p.€283.
126 On Stalin and cinema, see in particular G. Mar’iamov, Kremlevskii tsenzor. Stalin
smotrit kino, Moscow: Kinotsentr, 1992.
127 Cited ‘Censorship in the Soviet Cinema’, in Martin Dewhirst and Robert
Farrell, eds, The Soviet Censorship, Metuchen: The Scarecrow Press, 1973,
p.€111.
128 Bobrovskii, ‘Ob Aleksandre Serom’.
129 Ibid.
130 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 693, l. 43.
131 Bobrovskii, ‘Ob Aleksandre Serom’.
132 Ibid.
133 He called them names, such as, somewhat inexplicably, the skoroshivateli (liter-
ally ‘loose-Â�leaf binders’, perhaps best rendered as ‘walking filing-Â�cabinets’);
cited ibid.
134 Ibid.
135 See further Tony Shaw, British Cinema and the Cold War, London: I. B. Tauris,
2001, especially Ch. 2. The involvement of the British secret services in cinema
(in the form of supervision and financial support for certain projects) is also
mentioned in Ball, The Cold War, p.€195.
136 Shaw, British Cinema and the Cold War, p.€94.
137 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 693, l. 40.
138 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 637, ll. 3 and 5.
139 RGALI, f. 618, op. 18, d. 91, l. 29.
140 Ibid.
141 RGALI, f. 618, op. 18, d. 91, l. 31.
142 Just as Finland provided the backdrop for the majority of Western-�made espi-
onage films set in the Soviet Union.
143 The detective-�adventure genre had fallen out of favour during the Stalinist
Cultural Revolution. By 1934, the Soviet Literary Encyclopedia stated that the
early Soviet attempt to create a ‘Red Pinkerton’ had been a failure, and had
thus been rightly abandoned. The detective genre was irredeemable, by dint
of its origins as a bourgeois weapon to keep the workers down, mask bour-
geois domination, and glorify the police; ‘Pinkertonovshchina’, in Literatur-
naia entsiklopediia, t. 8, Moscow: Sovetskaia entsiklopediia, 1934.
144 RGALI, f. 2453, op. 4, d. 637, l. 33.

Introduction
1 Lev Moskovkin, ‘Kak ya nosil Dzerzhinskogo po dumskim koridoram’, Sait L’va
Moskovkina, 27 September 2002. Online. Available at: http://leo-�mosk.narod.ru/
works/02_09_27_dzer.htm (accessed 25 November 2010).
2 As Russian human rights activist Sergei Kovalev has pointed out, it is difficult to
imagine a contemporary German intelligence officer describing him/herself
proudly as a former Gestapo agent; yet a similar rupture has not occurred in the
Russian context; see interview with Sergei Kovalev, in ‘Sobliudenie prav
cheloveka v Rossii i pravovaia osnova ikh obespecheniia’, Ekho Moskvy, 11 Decem-
ber 2000. Online. Available at: www.echo.msk.ru/programs/beseda/12654/
(accessed 25 November 2010). Yevgenia Albats makes the same point in her
book, State within a State, p.€8.
3 The first shortlived romance having dated to the Andropov era; Anna Aleksan-
drovna, ‘Dvizhenie bezopasnosti’, Kar’era, 7, 2001. Online. Available at: www.
kariera.orc.ru/07–01/Pravi024.html (accessed 25 November 2010).
4 Examples of analyses leaning towards the hyperbolic include J. Michael Waller,
 Notes╇╇ 219
‘Russia: Death and Resurrection of the KGB’, Demokratizatsiya, 12:3, summer
2004, 333–55; and to a lesser extent the quantitative study produced by O. Kry-
shtanovskaya and S. White, ‘Putin’s Militocracy’, Post-Â�Soviet Affairs, 19:4, 2003,
289–306. Those calling for a more neutral approach to chekism include Bettina
Renz, ‘Putin’s Militocracy? An Alternative Interpretation of Siloviki in Con-
temporary Russian Politics’, Europe-Â�Asia Studies, 58:6, 2006, 903–24; and Edwin
Bacon and Bettina Renz with Julian Cooper, Securitising Russia; The Domestic Pol-
itics of Putin, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2006, pp.€184–5.
5 From late 2004 in particular many press articles have sounded the alarm over the
recrudescence of chekism and the growing pressure to worship chekists; see for
example Viktoriia Shokhina, ‘Poety i gosudarstvo. O liubvi k NKVD, prezrenii k
“pravozashchitnoi shpane” i perevodakh iz Turkmenbashi’, Nezavisimaia gazeta, no.
276, 20 December 2004, p.€2; Viktor Yerofeev, ‘Chekizm’, Moskovskie novosti, no. 49,
24 December 2004; and Mikhail Sokolov, ‘Kul’t spetssluzhb v sovremennoi Rossii’,
Neprikosnovennyi zapas, 42, 2005. Online. Available at: http://magazines.russ.ru/
nz/2005/42/so18.html (accessed 25 November 2010).
6 Writing in Vestnik in 1978, cited John B. Dunlop, The Faces of Contemporary Russian
Nationalism, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983, p.€283.
7 Richard Sakwa, Putin: Russia’s Choice, London: Routledge, 2004, p.€6.

5╇ Re-�inventing chekist traditions

╇╇ 1 Vadim Bakatin, Izbavlenie ot KGB, Moscow: Novosti, 1992, p.€26.
╇╇ 2 Ex-Â�chekist Shironin, for example, describes ‘the little word, “chekism”â•›’ as a
‘trump-Â�card’ which, he says, Bakatin used masterfully in his dealings with the
media in order to frighten the Russian populace; Viacheslav Shironin, KGB-�
TsRU. Sekretnye pruzhiny perestroika, Moscow: Yaguar, 1997, p.€258.
╇╇ 3 Vladimir Kriuchkov, Lichnoe delo. V 2 chastiakh. Chast’ 1, Moscow: Olimp, 1996,
p.€439.
╇╇ 4 Eric Hobsbawm, ‘Introduction: Inventing Traditions’, in Eric Hobsbawm and
Terence Ranger, eds, The Invention of Tradition, Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 1983, p.€12.
╇╇ 5 The FSB was created on the base of its predecessor, the FSK (the Federal
Counter-Â�Intelligence Service) (December 1993–April 1995), on 12 April 1995.
Unlike its predecessors the FSB was to be subordinate to the president alone.
╇╇ 6 Previous incarnations include the AFB (Federal Security Agency) (November–
December 1991) and the MSB (Inter-�Republican Security Service) (November�
–December 1991); the MB (Ministry for Security) (January 1992–December
1993); and the FSK (see above).
╇╇ 7 See A. I. Podberezkin et al., eds, Belaia kniga rossiiskikh spestsluzhb, Moscow:
Obozrevatel’, 1995, p.€40.
╇╇ 8 The sword symbolizes ‘revenge’, and the shield symbolizes a barrier against
enemies, as well as the fact that the chekist took the first blows upon himself;
see ‘Shchit i mech’, Komsomol’skaia pravda, no. 295, 20 December 1967, p.€1.
Sometimes references to the shield were dropped, and the sword alone func-
tioned as a metonym for the secret police, most often via the cliché ‘the pun-
ishing sword’. Stalin also referred to the OGPU as the ‘unsheathed sword of
the proletariat’; cited An. Mednikov, ‘Na slavnom postu’, in Dzerzhinets, p.€8.
╇╇ 9 Zdanovich was appointed head of the FSB’s Centre for Public Links (TsOS)
in 1996, replacing Aleksandr Mikhailov, who was perceived to have failed in
securing the ‘information front’ during the First Chechen War (1994–6) and
the Pervomaiskoe hostage crisis in particular (January 1996). From November
1999, Zdanovich also headed up the FSB’s newly created Directorate of Pro-
grammes of Assistance (UPS), which incorporated TsOS.
220╇╇ Notes
╇ 10 Aleksandr Zdanovich, ‘TsOS FSB upolnomochen soobshchit’â•›.â•›.â•›.’, in Tainoe
stanovitsia yavnym, pp.€122–3.
╇ 11 Aleksandr Zdanovich, ‘Spetsluzhby i obshchestvo. Dialog neobkhodim’, Poli-
tika, 1, January 1999. Online. Available at: www.fsb.ru/fsb/smi/interview/
single.htm!id%3D10342790@fsbSmi.html (accessed 25 November 2010).
╇ 12 Nikolai Patrushev, ‘Vo imia interesov lichnosti, obshchestva i gosudarstva’,
Politika, 7, December 1999. Online. Available at: www.fsb.ru/fsb/comment/
rukov/single.htm!id%3D10309747%40fsbAppearance.html (accessed 25
November 2010).
╇ 13 See for example the assertion made on the Voronezh UFSB official website
that ‘It is time, finally, to recognize the historical continuity of the Russian
special services working before and after the revolution’; V. G. Shamaev, ‘Dlia
okhraneniia prerogativ vlasti i ograzhdeniia prav grazhdan’, at UFSB for Voro-
nezh region official website. Online. Previously available at: http://fsb.vrn.ru
(accessed 2 September 2007; URL no longer active).
╇ 14 Ye. Primakov, ed., Ocherki istorii rossiiskoi razvedki: V 6-ti tt. T. 1: Ot drevneishikh
vremen do 1917 goda, Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia, 1995, pp.€14–15.
╇ 15 ‘Radioobrashchenie. Boris Yel’tsin: nikogda bol’she spetssluzhby ne budut “tsep-
nymi psami”â•›’, Kommersant-Â�Daily, no. 220, 20 December 1997. Online. Available at:
www.kommersant.ru/doc.aspx?DocsID=189888 (accessed 25 November 2010).
╇ 16 Cited Boris Sokolov, ‘Nasledstvennost’ i izmenchivost’â•›’, grani.ru, 20 December
2007. Online. Available at: www.grani.ru/Politics/Russia/m.131531.html
(accessed 25 November 2010).
╇ 17 A. A. Kotel’nikov, ‘K chitateliu’, in A. A. Kotel’nikov et al., eds, Vera i pravda, at
Yaroslavl’ UFSB official website. Online. Available at: www.yaroslavl.fsb.ru/
book/book2.html (accessed 25 November 2010).
╇ 18 Zdanovich, ‘Spetsluzhby i obshchestvo’.
╇ 19 Pozharov, ‘KGB SSSR v 1950–60-e gody’, p.€146.
╇ 20 Sobolev et al., Lubianka, 2, p.€ 11. Elsewhere the authors speculate on the
origins of the word ‘Lubianka’; they favour a hypothesis which posits that the
district was named by inhabitants of Great Novgorod who were forcibly reset-
tled in central Moscow in the late fifteenth century, and that etymologically it
may derive from the word lubenet’, ‘to make something firm’ (ibid., p.€18). For
propagandist purposes, this story seems too good to be true, combining as it
does associations with a crucial period in the formation of the Russian state
(‘the period of definitive liquidation of the feudal fragmentation of Rus’â•›’);
the democratic traditions of Great Novgorod; and the notion of ‘making
things firm’.
╇ 21 Ibid., pp.€24–7 and 35 respectively.
╇ 22 Indeed, the novelist Viktor Yerofeev recently described the bogatyri ironically
as ‘Russia’s first chekists’; Viktor Yerofeev, ‘Chekizm’, Moskovskie novosti, no.
49, 24 December 2004.
╇ 23 See for example the Penza UFSB website which asserts that
At the current crucial turning-�point in the formation and development of
the Russian state, the staff of the Russian UFSB for Penza region are return-
ing once more to the pages of the past, to that time when the main princi-
ples of the activities of the chekist organs crystallized, when their glorious
traditions were laid down, in order to clarify once again the past experience
of solving complex tasks, to combine it, disputable as this may be, with our
practical activities today.
(‘Ot VChK do FSB’, undated, at UFSB for Penza region official website.
Online. Available at: www.penza.fsb.ru/content/history/history1.html
(accessed 25 November 2010))
 Notes╇╇ 221
╇ 24 Officially it was reinstated as the wordy and unwieldy Day of Employee of the
RF Security Organs – possibly in order to avoid the use of the more loaded
‘Chekist’; but it is popularly referred to as Chekist’s Day; see Pavel Yevdoki-
mov, ‘My iz KGB’, Spetsnaz Rossii, 12, December 2002. Online. Available at:
www.specnaz.ru/association/109 (accessed 25 November 2010).
╇ 25 V. L. Shul’ts, ‘Predislovie’, in Aleksandr Khinshtein, Podzemel’ia Lubianki,
Moscow: Olma Media Group, 2008, p.€3.
╇ 26 Cited ‘Direktor Federal’noi sluzhby bezopasnosti Rossii Nikolai Patrushev:
Yesli my “slomaemsia” i uidem s Kavkaza – nachnetsia razval strany’,
Komsomol’skaia pravda, 20 December 2000.
╇ 27 In 1991, Bakatin failed to give the traditional address and congratulations in
his new role as KGB chair, and for this, he says, he was never forgiven;
Bakatin, Izbavlenie ot KGB, p.€146.
╇ 28 Thus, for example, it does not figure in the list of professional holidays con-
tained in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1972); Bol’shaia sovetskaia entsiklopediia,
3rd edn, Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Sovetskaia entsiklopediia, 1972, vol. 8,
pp.€99–100.
╇ 29 According to Colonel Boris Zinchenko, head of the analytical section of the
Voronezh UFSB, cited in ‘20 dekabria – den’ rabotnik organov bezopasnosti
Rossii’, Komsomol’skaia Pravda – Voronezh, undated but apparently December
2000, at Voronezh FSB website. Online. Previously available at: http://fsb.vrn.
ru/3_7.htm (accessed 3 April 2003; URL no longer active).
╇ 30 Nikolai Patrushev, cited ‘Direktor Federal’noi sluzhby bezopasnosti’.
╇ 31 Zdanovich, ‘TsOS FSB upolnomochen soobshchit’â•›.â•›.â•›.’, in Tainoe stanovitsia
yavnym, pp.€123–4.
╇ 32 Cited Viktor Zakharov, ‘FSB vedet svoiu istoriiu s XVII veka’, Nezavisimaia
gazeta, 20 December 2000. Online. Available at: www.fsb.ru/fsb/smi/inter-
view/single.htm!id%3D10342787%40fsbSmi.html (accessed 25 November
2010).
╇ 33 See for example Sobolev et al., Lubianka, 2 (1999), p.€ 7, where it is asserted
that ‘traditions and continuity occupy a special place in the life of the special
services’.
╇ 34 Ye. M. Primakov, ‘Predislovie’, in Primakov, Ocherki istorii rossiiskoi vneshnei raz-
vedki, p.€8.
╇ 35 Goncharov is also president of the Association of Veterans of the ‘Al’fa’ Anti-Â�
terror Subdivision.
╇ 36 Yevdokimov, ‘My iz KGB’.
╇ 37 Ibid.
╇ 38 See for example the 1995 Law on Operational-�Investigative Activities and the
Law on Security.
╇ 39 ‘Krasnoe znamia reabilitirovano’, Izvestiia, no. 72, 17 April 1996.
╇ 40 Oleg Voronkov, ‘God nyneshnii – god zatykaniia rtov?’, Pravo-Â�zashchita
(Nizhnii Novgorod), 2, November 1995. Online. Available at: www.uic.
unn.ru/hrnnov/rus/nnshr/paper/list2/list3.htm (accessed 29 November
2010).
╇ 41 For different theories on the significance which the events of October 1993
had for Yeltsin’s relations with the security apparatus, see Vladimir Bukovskii,
Moskovskii protsess, Paris and Moscow: Russkaia mysl’ and MIK, 1996, p.€ 508;
Aleksandr Kichikhin, cited ‘Osen’ 1993’, Radio Svoboda, 19 September 2003.
Online. Available at: http://archive.svoboda.org/programs/10ya/2003/01.
asp (accessed 29 November 2010); and Timothy J. Colton, Yeltsin: A Life, New
York: Basic Books, 2008, p.€259. It should also be noted that Yeltsin was incon-
sistent here; once a fierce critic of the KGB, after coming to power he
attempted to create a kind of super-�KGB in December 1991, for example, but
222╇╇ Notes
was prevented from doing so by the Constitutional Court; see Andrei Soldatov
and Irina Bogoran, ‘Mutatsiia organov bezopasnosti’, Indeks/Dos’e na tsenzury,
26, 2007. Online. Available at: www.index.org.ru/journal/26/sobo26.html
(accessed 29 November 2010).
╇ 42 Attitudes in this ministry towards contact with foreigners accordingly under-
went a shift as a result; see Vasilii Smolenskii, ‘Krasnye glaza vysmotreli
shpiona’, Grani.ru, 9 January 2002. Online. Available at: www.grani.ru/
Politics/m.6641.html (accessed 29 November 2010).
╇ 43 Some would argue that this shift had already occurred in the mid-�1990s.
‘Memorial’ historian Nikita Petrov has described 1995 as the year of the ‘great
turning point’ on archival policy, particularly with regard to security archives
and declassification policies, whereby the security apparatus was reasserting its
right to a privileged position as custodian of the national memory. Petrov read
these events as sounding the death-�knell for the democratic movement in
Russia; Nikita Petrov, ‘Pochemu oni segodnia prazdnuiut’, Karta, 21, 1997,
47–8. Online. Available at: http://picasaweb.google.com/hro.org/KartaJour-
nal#5537341143902688306 (accessed 29 November 2010). On the August
1995 decision to place a 50-year rule on declassification of secret informers’
files, see Ravil’ Zaripov, ‘Podpischiki “KP” 2040 goda uznaiut vsekh seksotov
poimenno!’â•›’, Komsomol’skaia pravda, no. 153, 25 August 1995, p.€1.
╇ 44 The phrase is quoted in for example Zdanovich, ‘TsOS FSB upolnomochen
soobshchit’â•›.â•›.â•›.’, in Tainoe stanovitsia yavnym, p.€ 123; and Oleg Khlobustov,
‘Gosbezopasnost’ pod udarom. Iz zapisok professionala’, Khronos, 6 June 2008.
Online. Available at: www.hrono.info/statii/2008/hlbst_kgb.html (accessed
29 November 2010).
╇ 45 ‘Radioobrashchenie. Boris Yel’tsin: nikogda bol’she spetssluzhby ne budut
“tsepnymi psami”â•›’.
╇ 46 Oleg Matveev and Vladimir Merzliakov, ‘Professor Kontrrazvedki’, FSB official
website, 20 May 2002. Online. Available at: www.fsb.ru/fsb/history/author/
single.htm!id%3D10318079@fsbPublication.html (accessed 29 November
2010).
╇ 47 For example, the ‘VChK, KGB, FSB – Against Espionage and Terrorism’ exhi-
bition in St Petersburg in March 2001; and ‘The First Chekist’ exhibition
(dedicated to Dzerzhinsky) held in the Tiumen’ Regional Scientific Library
from September 2002; see Nadezhda Kartseva, ‘Vystavka “VChK, KGB, FSB –
protiv shpionazha i terrorizma” otkrylas’ v Sankt-Â�Peterburge’, RIA Novosti, 20
March 2001, at FSB official website. Online. Available at: www.fsb.ru/smi/
ufsb/2001/010320–1.html (accessed 2 February 2003; URL no longer active).
╇ 48 This annual conference was inaugurated in 1997 and is run jointly by the FSB
Academy and the FSB’s Centre for Public Links. Proceedings are available on
the FSB’s website.
╇ 49 Pozharov, ‘KGB SSSR v 1950–60-e gody’, p.€146.
╇ 50 Bobkov, KGB i vlast’, p.€95. Thus, for example, the official Ocherki istorii rossi-
iskoi razvedki series was conceived in part, according to one of the veterans
involved in the project, specifically as a counter-�weight to the post-�1991 wave
of memoir literature, particularly the memoirs of KGB defectors; Kirpichenko,
Razvedka: litsa i lichnosti, p.€245.
╇ 51 Andrei Chernenko, ‘Vysokaia planka TsOS’, in Tainoe stanovitsia yavnym. TsOS
FSB upolnomochen zaiavit’, Moscow: LG Informeishn Grup, GELEOS and
Izdatel’stvo AST, 2000, p.€93.
╇ 52 Cherkesov is one of Putin’s long-Â�term associates; he was head of the UFSB for
St Petersburg and Leningrad Region from 1992 to 1998; first deputy director
of the FSB RF in 1998–2000; and presidential plenipotentiary envoy to the
North-�Western federal district from 2000 to 2003. In the Soviet period, he was
 Notes╇╇ 223
noted as a key ‘dissident hunter’ in St Petersburg. From 2003 to 2008 he was
head of the powerful State Committee (renamed a Federal Service in 2004)
for the Control of the Circulation of Narcotics and Psychotropic Substances.
In 2008 to 2010 he was also head of the Federal Agency for the Procurement
of Military and Special Equipment. He has been tipped by some as a possible
future director of the FSB; Victor Yasmann, ‘Analysis: “The Burden of Main-
taining the State Has Been Laid on our Shoulders”â•›’, Radio Free Europe/Radio
Liberty, 9 February 2005. Online. Available at: www.rferl.org/content/
article/1057358.html (accessed 30 November 2010).
╇ 53 Viktor Cherkesov, ‘Moda na KGB?’, Komsomol’skaia pravda, 29 December 2004.
╇ 54 Zdanovich, ‘Spetssluzhby i obshchestvo’.
╇ 55 An earlier milestone in the process of reclaiming the Lubianka was the erec-
tion of the Solovetskii Stone on the square in October 1990, an initiative of
the Memorial Society, achieved after a long and hard struggle against bitter
resistance from the KGB leadership; Nikita Petrov, ‘Mémorial. Historique de
la création et activités actuelles’, Communisme, 59–60, 1999, 192–3. On the his-
torical revolution under Gorbachev, see R. W. Davies, Soviet History in the Gor-
bachev Revolution, Houndmills and London: Macmillan, 1989.
╇ 56 This was underlined by graffiti painted on the Dzerzhinsky statue, and the
Andropov plaque at the Lubianka; for photographs, see Argumenty i fakty,
no. 34, August 1991, p.€1; and Aleksandr Shchuplov, ‘Zalozhniki sobstven-
nogo slova’, Nezavisimaia gazeta, no. 15, 28 January 2000. The Dzerzhinsky
statue’s empty pedestal came to function as a battleground for competing
versions of the past. In one symbolic reclamation of the square, Cossacks
mounted an Orthodox cross on the pedestal in memory of the victims of
the Soviet regime. Others removed the cross and graffitied the slogan
‘Forgive us, Feliks!’ on the empty pedestal. The cross was remounted and
removed several times in this way until the pedestal itself was finally
removed from the site; see ‘Krest na Dzerzhinskom’, Argumenty i fakty, no.
41, October 1992, p.€4; ‘Nesut svoi krest. V ocherednoi raz’, Krasnaia zvezda,
no. 192, 22 August 1992; ‘Kak snimali Feliks’, Yezhenedel’nyi zhurnal, no. 37,
24 September 2002; and S. I. Inshakov, ‘Degradatsiia’, Duel’, 24, 1998.
Online. Available at: www.duel.ru/199824/?24_2_1 (accessed 30 November
2010).
╇ 57 Cited ‘Vmesto “zheleznogo Feliksa” Lubianku mozhet ukrasit’ pamiatnik
Nemtsovu, schitaiut v merii’, Izvestiia.Ru, 17 September 2002. Online. Availa-
ble at: www.izvestia.ru/news/news24830 (accessed 30 November 2010).
╇ 58 Igor’ Moiseev, ‘Tak i zhivem. Zheleznyi Feliks: vtoroe prishestvie’, Moskovskii
komsomolets, no. 221, 2 October 2002, p.€6. See also Gosduma deputy Nikolai
Kharitonov’s comments linking the Dzerzhinsky statue to memory, and effect-
ively equating its toppling to an attempt to destroy the memory of ‘how we
lived, how we workedâ•›.â•›.â•›.’; cited Ekho Moskvy, interview with Nikolai Khari-
tonov, 6 July 2000. Online. Available at: www.echo.msk.ru/programs/
beseda/10086 (accessed 30 November 2010). The same argument is made by
Communist Party deputies calling for the statue’s restoration; see Anatolii
Lokot’’s address to the Gosduma, Stenogramma zasedanii Gosudarstvennoi Dumy,
11 September 2007. Accessed via Baza dannykh ‘Stenogrammy zasedanii Gos-
udarstvennoi Dumy’. Online. Available at: http://wbase.duma.gov.ru/steno/
nph-�sdb.exe?B0CW (accessed 30 November 2010).
╇ 59 See for example Nikolai Leonov’s assertion that
The period of negation of the whole preceding experience, based on our
national-�state tradition, is drawing to an end .╛.╛. We have .╛.╛. undergone a
revolution. Having begun in ‘90, it is ending in 2000. By small steps, we are
224╇╇ Notes
emerging from the state of unconsciousnessness [bespamiatstvo], when all
values were destroyed, when the poles were reversed.
(Pavel Yevdokimov, ‘Russkaia Pravda generala Leonova’, Spetsnaz Rossii, 5,
April 2001. Online. Available at: www.specnaz.ru/archive/05_2001/6.htm
(accessed 30 November 2010))
See also A. Vitkovskii, ‘Razvedchik’, Parlamentskaia gazeta, 1 December 2001.
╇ 60 Cited ‘Pravda o chekistakh’, Knizhnoe obozrenie, no. 48, 24 November 2003,
p.€2.
╇ 61 Matveev and Merzliakov, ‘Professor Kontrrazvedki’.
╇ 62 Shironin, KGB-�TsRU, p.€249.
╇ 63 Kirpichenko, Razvedka: litsa i lichnosti, p.€180.
╇ 64 Krylov writes of Bakatin that ‘Perhaps, this person has earned his rightful
place in world history – somewhere between Herostratus, Brutus and Judas’;
Konstantin Krylov, ‘Moment istiny’, Spetsnaz Rossii, 12, December 2002.
Online. Available at: www.specnaz.ru/gosudarstvo/105 (accessed 30 Novem-
ber 2010).
╇ 65 Vladimir Khaustov, ‘Ne zacherkivat’ sobstvennuiu istoriiu’, Tambovskaia zhizn’
(Tambov), 16 January 2002, at FSB official website. Online. Available at: www.
fsb.ru/fsb/history/author/single.htm!id%3D10318024@fsbPublication.html
(accessed 30 November 2010).
╇ 66 Yevgenii Vorontsov, ‘Na strazhe bezopasnosti Rodiny’, in N. T. Panchishkin et
al., eds, Kubanskaia ChK organy gosbezopasnosti Kubani v dokumentakh i vospomi-
naniiakh, Krasnodar: Sovetskaia Kuban’, 1997, pp.€ 6–7. See also in this vein
‘Nikolai Leonov: “Politika – eto sluzhenie Otechestva”â•›’, Rossiiskaia Federatsiia
segodnia, 7, 2005. Online. Available at: www.russia-�today.ru/archive/2005/
no_07/07_portrait.htm (accessed 30 November 2010).
╇ 67 Primakov, Ocherki, p.€29.
╇ 68 See Podberezkin et al., Belaia kniga, pp.€37–8.
╇ 69 ‘Radioobrashchenie. Boris Yel’tsin: nikogda bol’she spetssluzhby ne budut
“tsepnymi psami”â•›’ (my emphasis).
╇ 70 Vera Skvirskaya, ‘New Economic Forms and Social Imaginary in Post-Â�Socialist
Russia: The Case of Rural Periphery, Yamal Region, Siberia’, unpublished
PhD thesis, Cambridge: 2005, introduction. On Russian mythic images of the
state see also Caroline Humphrey, The Unmaking of Soviet Life: Everyday Econo-
mies after Socialism, Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2002,
pp.€28–9.
╇ 71 Cited Mark Deich, ‘Monstr vozvrashchaetsia?’, Moskovskii komsomolets, 15 Feb-
ruary 2001.
╇ 72 Valerii Borshchev, ‘Grazhdanskii kontrol’ nad silovymi strukturami i zakrytymi
uchrezhdeniiami’, presentation to the All-Â�Russian Congress in Defence of
Human Rights, 20–21 January 2001.
╇ 73 A. S. Panarin, ‘Pomimo levykh i pravykh: novye gorizonty rossiiskogo tsen-
trizma’, Politicheskii tsentrizm v Rossii, Moscow: 1999, p.€31.
╇ 74 Russian cultural historian Andrei Zorin, for example, wrote in 2000 that many
ex-�liberals amongst the Russian cultural intelligentsia had begun to metamor-
phose into derzhavniki. Zorin described this trend as an ‘epidemic’ which was
gathering momentum; Andrei Zorin, ‘Skuchnaia istoriia. Panoptikon
kul’turnogo soobshchestva’, Neprikosnovennyi zapas, 4, 2000. Online. Available
at: http://magazines.russ.ru/nz/2000/4/reporter_9.html (accessed 30
November 2010).
╇ 75 Viktoriia Shokhina, ‘Poety i gosudarstvo. O liubvi k NKVD, prezrenii k “pravo-
zashchitnoi shpane” i perevodakh iz Turkmenbashi’, Nezavisimaia gazeta, no.
276, 20 December 2004, p.€2.
 Notes╇╇ 225
╇ 76 In a 2003 newspaper article, Khlobustov (a senior researcher at the FSB
Academy) wrote of the book, ‘This unique publication played an important
role in the serious, professional illumination of a complex of problems of
national security linked with the activities of the reformiruemykh state secur-
ity organs’; Oleg Khlobustov, ‘Ataka na gosbezopasnost’â•›’, Nezavisimoe voennoe
obozrenie, 19 September 2003.
╇ 77 Podberezkin et al., Belaia kniga rossiiskikh spetssluzhb, p.€ 7. Ex-�chekist Nikolai
Leonov made the same point in 2002, arguing that 1991 had marked a cata-
strophic rupture in the traditional Russian understanding of state–society rela-
tions, when ‘For the first time in the history of Russia the state absolved itself
of any responsibility for the narod’s material and spiritual life’ and that ‘It was
publicly declared and constantly postulated that the individual had priority
over the interests of society and state’; N. S. Leonov, Krestnyi put’ Rossii
1991–2000, Moscow: Russkii Dom, 2002, pp.€522–3.
╇ 78 ‘Radioobrashchenie. Boris Yel’tsin: nikogda bol’she spetssluzhby ne budut
“tsepnymi psami”â•›’.
╇ 79 On the de-�coupling of ideology and patriotism in this connection, as applied
to the Russian intelligence services, see Primakov, ‘Predislovie’, in Primakov,
Ocherki istorii rossiiskoi vneshnei razvedki, pp.€6–7.
╇ 80 Patrushev, ‘Vo imia interesov lichnosti, obshchestva i gosudarstva’. Note that
these sentiments were shared by nationalists like Prokhanov who, in 2001, also
urged the new chekist elite to hold fast to the ‘religious, metaphysical
meaning’ of its mission; Aleksandr Prokhanov, ‘Rossiia – imperiia sveta’,
Zavtra, no. 24, 12 June 2001, p.€1.
╇ 81 Sergei Kovalev, ‘Apofeoz chekizma’, Fokus, January 2000. Online. Available at:
www.hrights.ru/text/koval/index.htm (accessed 4 April 2003; link on page
no longer active).
╇ 82 J. Michael Waller, ‘Yeltsin Keeps It All “in the Family”â•›’, Insight, 6 September
1999, reprinted in Publications of the Center for Security Policy, no. 00-F3, 5
January 2000.
╇ 83 Russia Reform Monitor, no. 751, 1 March 2000. See further Chapter 6.
╇ 84 Stanislav Lunev, ‘Russia’s Secret Police: Powerful Tool for Totalitarianism’,
The Eurasian Politician, 3, February 2001.
╇ 85 Igor’ Korotchenko, ‘Sluzhbe vneshnei razvedki Rossii – 80 let’, Nezavisimaia
gazeta, 20 December 2000.
╇ 86 ‘Mogushchestvennaia ten’ KGB’, El Pais, 24 October 2002. Online. Available
at: www.charter97.org/rus/news/2002/10/24/18 (accessed 30 November
2010).
╇ 87 ‘Stikhi Kombatova’, 18 December 2006. Online. Available at: www.chekist.ru/
article/1429 (accessed 30 November 2010). In another poem (2004) available
at the same website, Kombatov writes of a chekist who dreams of retirement,
fishing and grandchildren, but is duty-�bound to go to the Lubianka every
morning so long as the country is under threat, with an ‘orange storm’
brewing (a reference to the Ukrainian colour revolution).
╇ 88 ‘S ChK nachinaetsia Rodina’, Moskovskii komsomolets, no. 288, 20 December
2004, p.€7.
╇ 89 A notable milestone during the intervening period were major structural
reforms of the security apparatus which made the FSB more powerful than
ever. For a comprehensive account of these reforms, see Soldatov and
Bogoran, ‘Mutatsiia organov bezopasnosti’. An important thrust of these
reforms was to reverse actions taken by Yeltsin to increase control through the
creation of separate branches, on which see Colton, Yeltsin: A Life, pp.€258–9.
╇ 90 See for example Tret’iakov’s comments that the intelligentsia had vilified
informers for so long that now, when the country really needed them, none
226╇╇ Notes
could be found; cited ‘Pomogut li neglasnye osvedomiteli gosudarstva?’, Ekho
Moskvy, 7 October 2004. Online. Available at: www.echo.msk.ru/programs/
beseda/27209 (accessed 30 November 2010).
╇ 91 See further ibid., and Chapter 6.
╇ 92 Cited ‘Bezopasnost’ gosudarstva – v ikh rukakh’, Vlast’. Biznes. Politika, 23,
December 2003, at UFSB Yaroslavl’ region website. Online. Available at: www.
yaroslavl.fsb/smi/interw.html (accessed 10 February 2004; URL no longer
active).
╇ 93 Note however that for example, ratings for the 2004 Chekist’s Day concert
were lower than for the Transport Militia jubilee concert which was broadcast
almost simultaneously on another channel; ‘Telelidery s Arinoi Borodinoi’,
Kommersant”-Daily, no. 239, 22 December 2004, p.€8.
╇ 94 See N. M. Zakovich, Sovetskaia obriadnost’ i dukhovnaia kul’tura, Kiev: Naukova
dumka, 1980, pp.€48 and 55; and Anatolii Mazaev, Prazdnik kak sotsial’no-khu-
dozhestvennoe yavlenie. Opyt istoriko-�teoreticheskogo issledovaniia, Moscow: Nauka,
1978, p.€236.
╇ 95 The phrase comes from Ye. M. Babosov, Dukhovnyi mir sovetskogo cheloveka,
Minsk: Belarus, 1983, p.€248.
╇ 96 Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance, especially Chapter 3.
╇ 97 One commentator interprets these as intended to send a message to other
construction firms that ‘the owners of “Krost” have a close relationship with
state security staff, and it is better not to argue with them’; Yekaterina China-
rova, ‘Zelenyi den’ kalendaria’, Kompaniia, 14 February 2006. Online. AvailÂ�
able at: www.hrm.ru/db/hrm/821DB7A94605B3ECC3257114003D83AC/
category.html (accessed 30 November 2010). Krost is the company that
carried out the restoration of the FSB church at the Lubianka, to be discussed
in Chapter 7.
╇ 98 Yevgenii Vasil’ev, ‘Den’ chekista. Vse pod kontrolem’, Profil’, 48, 26 December
2005, 34.
╇ 99 Commemorative chekist postage stamps were issued in 1998 (the Razvedchik
Heroes of the Russian Federation series); in 2000 (marking the eightieth
jubilee of the foreign intelligence service); and in 2002 (on the eightieth
jubilee of counter-�intelligence, commemorating in particular officers who
perished under Stalin).
100 See Vladimir Voronov, ‘U Federal’noi sluzhby bezopasnosti (FSB) i
Federal’noi sluzhby okhrany (FSO) novaia forma: teper’ chekisty stali issinia-Â�
chernymi’, Novoe vremia, 27, 13 August 2007. Online. Available at: http://new-
times.ru/articles/detail/10706 (accessed 30 November 2010).
101 Sobolev et al., Lubianka, 2, p.€79.
102 Ibid.
103 FSB press release, 17 December 2007. Online. Available at: www.fsb.ru/fsb/
press/message/single.htm!id%3D10434563%40fsbMessage.html (accessed 30
November 2010).
104 Aleksandr Zaborovskii, cited Shenderovich, ‘Kommentarii k sobytiiam’.
105 ‘V Volgograde otkroetsia vystavka “Dzerzhinskii v istorii Tsaritsyna, Stalin-
grada, Volgograda’, 8 September 2007, at FSB official website. Online. AvailÂ�
able at: www.fsb.ru/fsb/comment/ufsb/single.htm!id%3D10362502%40fsb
Comment.html (accessed 30 November 2010).
106 ‘â•›“Ya Vas liubliuâ•›.â•›.â•›.”â•›’, 11 September 2007, at FSB official website. Online. Avail-
able at: www.fsb.ru/fsb/history/author/single.htm!id%3D10362517%40fsbPu
blication.html (accessed 30 November 2010).
107 See Nikolai Kirmel’, ‘â•›“Ya zhil ne dolgo, no zhilâ•›.â•›.â•›.”â•›’, Chekist.ru, 11 September
2007. Online. Available at: http://chekist.ru/article/1799 (accessed 30
November 2010).
 Notes╇╇ 227
108 Aleksandr Plekhanov, ‘Dzerzhinskii khotel posadit’ Beriia’, Vek, 31, January
2002. Online. Available at: www.fsb.ru/fsb/history/author/single.htm!id%3D
10318116%40fsbPublication.html (accessed 30 November 2010).
109 Aleksandr Bondarenko, ‘Protianut “Ruku Druga”, ili dve dorogi iz odnikh
vorot’, Krasnaia zvezda, 21 March 2007.
110 A. Skvortsova, ‘Akademiia russkoi simvoliki. K yubileiu Feliksa Edmundovich
Dzerzhinskogo’, Lubianka: Istoriko-Â�publitsisticheskii al.’manakh, 6, 2007. Online.
Available at: www.a-�lubyanka.ru/index.php?id=4&pub=127 (accessed 30
November 2010).
111 Only 12 per cent agreed unequivocally with the statement that Dzerzhinsky
‘destroyed completely innocent people mercilessly’; and only 7.2 per cent that
he was a butcher and a criminal; see Khapaeva, ‘Ocharovannye stalinizmom’.
112 Patrushev, ‘Vo imia interesov lichnosti’.
113 ‘Direktor Federal’noi sluzhby bezopasnosti Rossii Nikolai Patrushev: Yesli my
“slomaemsia” i uidem s Kavkaza – nachnetsia razval strany’, Komsomol’skaia
pravda, 20 December 2000.
114 ‘Nasha zadacha, kak i prezhde – predotvratit’ prestuplenie (FSB zakryvaet
“pustoty bezopasnosti”)’, Nasha vlast’: dela i litsa, 1, 2001. Online. Available at:
www.fsb.ru/fsb/comment/rukov/single.htm!id%3D10309783%40fsbAppeara
nce.html (accessed 30 November 2010). See also Zdanovich’s description of
this ‘state-Â�oriented elite of the special services’ as ‘essential ballast for the ship
of the state, lending it stability in the fresh wind of transformations in the
eternally stormy sea of geo-Â�political interests’; Zdanovich, ‘Spetsluzhby i obsh-
chestvo’. As of 30 August 2006, the FSB and other branches also have a new
parade uniform to match their elite status; see Soldatov and Bogoran, ‘Mutat-
siia organov bezopasnosti’. Soldatov and Bogoran argue that this change of
uniform was intended to bring chekists closer to the sacred (the new uniforms
are almost black in colour). See also Dmitrii Popov and Sergei Drobiazko, ‘V
FSB nastali chernye vremena’, Moskovskii komsomolets, 2 September 2006.
115 On which see Kryshtanovskaya and White, ‘Putin’s Militocracy’.
116 The phrase is cited by Shul’ts in ‘Nasha zadacha’. For examples of such
reports see Irina Bogoran, ‘Zagovor generalov’, Versiia, 17 June 2002; Vladimir
Pribylovskii, ‘Itogi trekhletnego pravleniia V. V. P.’, Russkaia mysl’, 4438, 9
January 2003. Such commentary has been described in Spetsnaz Rossii as ‘hys-
teria’ and scare-Â�mongering; Yevdokimov, ‘Chekisty vo vlasti’.
117 See for example Shul’ts’ comments aimed at reassuring the population after
the election of FSB general Vladimir Kulakov as governor of Voronezh region,
in ‘Nasha zadacha’.
118 ‘Direktor Federal’noi sluzhby bezopasnosti Rossii Nikolai Patrushev’.
119 Skvortsova, ‘Akademiia russkoi simvoliki’, p.€258.
120 Sergei Smirnov, ‘Nasha glavnaia traditsiia – liubov’ i predannost’ Rodine i
svoemu narodu’, Krasnaia zvezda, 19 December 2007. Online. Available at:
www.fsb.ru/fsb/comment/rukov/single.htm!id=10434484@fsbAppearance.
html (accessed 30 November 2010).
121 This same passage is repeated almost word-Â�for-word by Shul’ts and Zdanovich
(Shul’ts’ version also mentions ‘the struggle with child homelessness’, but is
otherwise identical to the text cited above). The near identity of the text sug-
gests that this is a formula which has been officially approved and endorsed;
Zdanovich, ‘TsOS FSB upolnomochen soobshchit’â•›.â•›.â•›.’, in Tainoe stanovitsia
yavnym, p.€124; and Shul’ts, cited ‘Nasha zadacha’.
122 The case of Lt-�Gen. Nikolai Potapov, counter-�intelligence chief in the tsarist
army’s General Staff, is often cited in the new chekist histories to make a
similar point. After October, Potapov ‘remained true to his professional duty’
and went on to serve the new Soviet regime, thus bringing the benefit of his
228╇╇ Notes
experience to the fledgling Soviet counter-�intelligence apparatus; Primakov,
Ocherki istorii rossiiskoi razvedki, p.€ 234. See also Sobolev et al., Lubianka, 2,
p.€163. Again, Potapov’s allegiance was to the Russian nation, throughout the
rise and fall of political regimes; he is located ‘beyond’ politics. By extension,
it is not only acceptable and plausible but highly desirable that ex-�Soviet chek-
ists should continue to serve the new Russian state, contrary to the claims of
their detractors.
123 Yevdokimov, ‘Chekisty vo vlasti’.
124 Nikolai Leonov, ‘U Rossii yest’ budushchee!’, Zavtra, 19 June 2001.
125 ‘Direktor Federal’noi sluzhby bezopasnosti Rossii Nikolai Patrushev’.
126 Cherkesov, ‘Moda na KGB?’.
127 Leonov, ‘U Rossii yest’ budushchee!’. Elsewhere too Leonov says ‘After all,
what is a KGB employee? This is, first and foremost, a servant of the state’;
Yevdokimov, ‘Russkaia Pravda’.
128 Yaroslav Dobroliubov, ‘Budushchee sistemy’, Spetsnaz Rossii, 2, December
2007. Online. Available at: www.specnaz.ru/article/?1185 (accessed 30
November 2010).
129 V. I. Alidin, Gosudarstvennaia bezopasnost’ i vremia, Moscow: Izografus, 2001,
p.€320.
130 Yaroslav Dobroliubov, ‘Budushchee sistemy’, Spetsnaz Rossii, 12, December
2007. This is a reference to John McCain’s quip that he had looked into
Putin’s eyes and seen three letters: KGB. As this quote illustrates, all of the
above metaphors and images also intersect with and feed into Putin’s leader-
ship cult and help to explain Putin’s massive popularity in Russia today. On
this connection see Mark Lipovetskii, ‘Prezident Shtirlits’, Istoriia kino, 11,
2000, 73–6; Galina Orlova, ‘Politicheskoe telo prezidenta’, Kritika i semiotika,
3–4, 2001, 67–77; and Mikhail Sokolov, ‘Kul’t spetssluzhb v sovremennoi
Rossii’, Neprikosnovennyi zapas, 42, 2005.
131 Baklanov, ‘Slovo Dzerzhinskomu’.
132 The statue now stands in the Sculptures’ Park at Krymskii Val, where it was
moved in October 1991, together with other Soviet monuments, by decision
of the Moscow City Soviet’s Presidium. In 1994 the statue was remounted on
its original pedestal; see further Aleksandr Dobrovol’skii, ‘Odnazhdy v
Moskve. Slezy Edmundovicha’, Moskovskii komsomolets, no. 237, 21 October
2002, p.€4. Nevertheless, the perception among many chekists, such as retired
chekist and chair of the Krasnodar region UFSB’s Veterans’ Council, is that
the monument is ‘languishing on a rubbish-Â�dump’ (valiaetsia na svalke); K.
Gorozhanin, ‘Delo ne v pamiatnikie, a v pamiati’, Trud, no. 126, 23 July 2002,
p.€5.

6╇ The cult of Andropov

╇╇ 1 Lev Kolodnyi, ‘Sverzhenie zheleznogo Feliksa’, Moskovskaia pravda, no. 128, 14
July 1998.
╇╇ 2 Six months earlier, Putin also laid flowers at Andropov’s grave on the eighty-Â�
fifth anniversary of Andropov’s birth. One commentator described the
restored Andropov memorial plaque and Dzerzhinsky’s suspended statue as
‘links of one and the same chain which shackles us to the past’; Faibisovich,
‘O pokaianii’.
╇╇ 3 Aleksandr Prokhanov, ‘FSB uchredila “Orden Bakatina”â•›’, Zavtra, no. 26, 23
June 2004.
╇╇ 4 The monument was unveiled (amidst local protests) in June 2004.
╇╇ 5 There were widespread media reports on this in autumn 2003; see for
example ‘Moskvu ukrasit pamiatnik Andropovu’, grani.ru, 6 October 2003.
 Notes╇╇ 229
Online. Available at: http://grani.ru/Politics/Russia/FSB/m.45926.html
(accessed 16 December 2010). It should be noted that the provenance of
these reports was unclear, and some dismissed them as ‘black PR’. Such plans
were mooted the previous year, but in September 2002 the Duma voted
against a proposal to build a monument to Andropov on Lubianka Square;
see ‘Andropova na mesto Dzerzhinskogo stavit’ ne budut’, Izvestiia.Ru, 27 Sep-
tember 2002. Online. Available at: www.izvestia.ru/news/news25926 (accessed
16 December 2010). For more details on the official commemoration of
Andropov in 2004 see also Julius Strauss, ‘Butcher of Budapest Becomes the
New Inspiration’, Daily Telegraph, 16 June 2004.
╇╇ 6 Including ‘The Mysterious Gensek’ (NTV, 1999), ‘Andropov’ (NTV, 2000),
‘Andropov: Corridors of Power’ (Channel 1, 2003), ‘Andropov: The Burden
of Power’ (Channel 2, 2003) and ‘Yurii Andropov’s Private Life’ (Channel 1,
2004).
╇╇ 7 These included Roi Medvedev, Neizvestnyi Andropov, Moscow: Prava cheloveka,
1999 (launched at the Lubianka on the Cheka’s eighty-Â�fifth jubilee in 2002)
and Yurii Andropov: Neizvestnoe o neizvestnom, Moscow: Vremia, 2004; Igor’
Minutko, Yurii Andropov: Real’nost’ i mif, Moscow: AST-Â�PRESS, 2004; and S. N.
Semanov, Yurii Andropov, Moscow: Eksmo, 2003. Not all of these are hagiogra-
phies; some set out to debunk the myths about Andropov; others have strong
anti-�Semitic overtones. Other recent Andropov biographies and memoirs not
examined here include: S. Chertoprud, Andropov i KGB, Moscow: Eksmo;
Yauza, 2004; Boris Prozorov, Rassekrechennyi Andropov, Moscow: Gudok, 2004;
Igor’ Sinitsin, Andropov vblizi. Vospominaniia o vremenakh “ottepeli” i “zastoiia”,
Moscow: Rossiiskaia gazeta, 2004; and A. A. Zdanovich, ed., Komanda Androp-
ova (Iz sekretnykh i lichnykh arkhivov), Moscow: Rus’, 2005. In 2007 Roi
Medvedev was awarded an FSB prize for his biography of Andropov, published
in 2006; Yekaterina Anisimova, ‘Premii FSB Rossii’, Krasnaia zvezda, 19 Decem-
ber 2007.
╇╇ 8 Eduard Sharapov, ‘Politik, chekist, romantik. Yu. V. Andropov v vospominani-
iakh veteranov razvedki’, Krasnaia zvezda, 20 December 2001.
╇╇ 9 Yurii Luzhkov, ‘Andropov i Moskva’, Politika, 67, May 2004. Online. Available
at: www.politika-�magazine.ru/%B967/_statia-�05.html (accessed 16 December
2010).
╇ 10 Nikolai Patrushev, ‘Chelovek bol’shogo kalibra’, Politika, 67, May 2004.
Online. Available at: www.politika-�magazine.ru/%B967/_statia-�04.html
(accessed 16 December 2010).
╇ 11 Khlobustov, ‘Perechityvaia zanovo’.
╇ 12 Yurii Drozdov and Vasilii Fartyshev, Yurii Andropov i Vladimir Putin: Na puti k
vozrozhdeniiu, Moscow: OLMA-�PRESS, 2002.
╇ 13 Valerii Vyzhutovich, ‘Putin – eto Andropov segodnia’, Moskovskie novosti, no.
22, 18 June 2004.
╇ 14 Sharapov, ‘Politik, chekist, romantik’.
╇ 15 Nikolai Patrushev, ‘Taina Andropova’, Rossiiskaia gazeta, 15 June 2004.
╇ 16 This ‘love’ is mentioned for example in Khlobustov, ‘Perechityvaia zanovo’.
╇ 17 See for example Yurii Ryzhov, ‘Ocherednoi mif ili utrachennyi shans’, Mosko-
vskie novosti, no. 44, 16–22 November 1999, p.€16.
╇ 18 Luzhkov, ‘Andropov i Moskva’.
╇ 19 A 2003 ‘ROMIR monitoring’ survey asking ‘Which of the state leaders since
1917 is closest to you?’ put Andropov in fifth place (after Putin, Brezhnev,
Lenin and Stalin, in that order). There may be something in these claims,
however, if we are to take seriously the results of a March 1991 VTsIOM poll
in which Andropov received twice as many votes as Gorbachev or Lenin as the
figure most likely to be remembered in decades to come. All of the above are
230╇╇ Notes
cited in ‘Andropov – na piatom meste’, Izvestiia, no. 22, 9 February 2004,
p.€15. Other surveys suggest that Andropov occupies an insignificant place in
popular memory, receiving around 1 per cent of the vote, for example, as
‘man of the century’ in a 2000 survey conducted by ‘Obshchestvennoe
mnenie’; ‘Obshchestvennoe mnenie. V troike liderov – Lenin, Stalin i Sakha-
rov’, Novye izvestiia, no. 235, 27 December 2000, p.€1.
╇ 20 Cited ‘Nasha zadacha’.
╇ 21 RIA Novosti, 31 May 2002.
╇ 22 See for example Ellen Carnaghan, ‘Have Your Cake and Eat It Too: Tensions
between Democracy and Order among Russian Citizens’, Studies in Public
Policy, 352, 2001. As Humphrey points out, the Russian concept of ‘order’ is
one whereby order is based in power and hence the state, as opposed to in
law, principles or civil society; Caroline Humphrey, The Unmaking of Soviet Life:
Everyday Economies after Socialism, Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press,
2002, p.€28.
╇ 23 Luzhkov, ‘Andropov i Moskva’.
╇ 24 Cited Aleksandr Bondarenko, ‘Gensek iz KGB’, Krasnaia zvezda, 12 November
2002. Compare with Arkadii Vol’skii’s account attributing this policy to Andro-
pov, cited Mikhail Rostovskii and Marina Ozerova, ‘Igra patriotov. Spasitel’ s
Lubianki’, Moskovskii komsomolets, no. 260, 19 November 2002, p.€2.
╇ 25 Norman Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and
Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages, revised and expanded edn, New York:
Oxford University Press, 1970, p.€21.
╇ 26 Sergei Bychkov and Aleksei Rukavishnikov, ‘V ch’ikh rukakh serdtse prezi-
denta?’, Moskovskii komsomolets, 16 August 2000. This story was first publicized
by Father Tikhon (rumoured to be Putin’s confessor), who revealed this story,
which he says Putin had recounted to him during a personal chat, in a TV
interview in late 1999. Putin reportedly interpreted this incident as a sign that
only spiritual values were eternal. Others have argued that this should be seen
as a kind of miracle or omen pointing to Putin’s sacred mission as leader of
Russia.
╇ 27 Rostovtseva, ‘Po izvestnomu adresu’.
╇ 28 Cherkesov, ‘Moda na KGB?’.
╇ 29 Cited Yevdokimov, ‘Russkaia Pravda generala Leonova’.
╇ 30 Yevdokimov, ‘Chekisty vo vlasti’.
╇ 31 Ibid.
╇ 32 Stenogramma zasedaniia Gosdumy, 18 September 2002.
╇ 33 Yevdokimov, ‘Russkaia Pravda generala Leonova’.
╇ 34 Zdanovich, ‘Spetsluzhby i obshchestvo’.
╇ 35 Cited ‘Nasha zadacha’.
╇ 36 Many commentators have made this point, including Brezhnev’s grandson,
who suggested replacing the Dzerzhinsky monument on Lubianka Square
with a statue of Andropov since this would ‘not cause emotions to run so
high’; ‘Brezhnev Scion Suggests Andropov Monument’, RFE/RL Newsline, 9
December 1998.
╇ 37 See Nedelia, 6, 1961, 5.
╇ 38 See for example Medvedev, Neizvestnyi Andropov, p.€ 99; and Bobkov, KGB i
vlast’, p.€203.
╇ 39 See for example, accounts of Dzerzhinsky’s reluctance to give up his iron bed
at the Lubianka and move to the Kremlin (Shteinberg, Yekab Peters, p.€119); or
various stories of Dzerzhinsky’s self-Â�denial when it came to food, even in the
face of exhaustion and health problems (see Yurii German, ‘Vospominaniia’,
in Podpolkovnik meditsinskoi sluzhby. Nachalo. Butsefal. Lapshin. Zhmakin. Vospomi-
naniia, Leningrad: Leningradskoe otdelenie izdatel’stva “Sovetskii pisatel’â•›”,
 Notes╇╇ 231
1968, p.€ 632; and Velidov et al., Feliks Edmundovich Dzerzhinskii, p.€ 24); or
Dzerzhinsky’s note to Yagoda instructing him that portraits of himself be
removed from walls of subordinates (RGASPI, f. 76, op. 3, d. 139). For a refer-
ence to Andropov’s alleged indifference to medals, see Aleksandr Ageev,
‘Uvelichenie biustov’, Profil’, no. 39, 20 October 2003.
╇ 40 See for example ‘Viktor Sharapov: “On predpochital liudei vysylat’, a ne
sazhat’”â•›’, Izvestiia, 9 February 2004, p.€15. Shelley argues that this reputation
was unjustified, pointing to revelations of the KGB’s illegal foreign currency
trading and other such activities; Louise I. Shelley, Policing Soviet Society: The
Evolution of State Control, London and New York: Routledge, 1996, p.€49.
╇ 41 See Richard Rose and Neil Munro, Elections without Order: Russia’s Challenge to
Vladimir Putin, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002, p.€222.
╇ 42 Cited ‘Nasha zadacha’.
╇ 43 Stenogramma zasedaniia Gosdumy, 18 September 2002.
╇ 44 To cite just a few examples: Luzhkov, ‘Andropov i Moskva’; ‘Zagadochnyi
Andropov’, Vecherniaia Moskva, no. 124, 12 July 2005; Fedor Burlatskii,
‘Potaennyi Andropov’, Izvestiia nauki, 16 June 2004; Yevgenii Kiselev’s film
Zagadochnyi Gensek (1999).
╇ 45 His detractors make much of these, focusing in particular on his Jewish blood,
and his role in the Leningrad Affair. The blank spots have also opened up a
space for bizarre claims, such as the legend that Zhirinovsky is Andropov’s
love child.
╇ 46 With the exception, that is, of his famous statement that ‘We do not know
the country in which we live’. I have only come across two other Andropo-
visms: ‘One must be intellectually superior to one’s adversary’, and ‘One
must see events and phenomena beyond the horizon’ – hardly world-Â�shaking
stuff. These are cited in A. G. Shavaev and S. V. Lekarev, Razvedka i kontrraz-
vedka. Fragmenty mirovogo opyta istorii i teorii, Moscow: BDTs-�press, 2003,
p.€266. On the other hand, Andropov was reportedly fond of quoting Stalin,
particularly Stalin’s 1952 comment that ‘communists who look askance to
intelligence, at the ChK’s work, who are frightened of soiling themselves,
should be thrown down a well head-Â�first’; cited V. V. Pozdniakov, ‘Razvedka,
razvedyvatel’naia informatsiia i protsess priniatiia reshenii’. Online. AvailÂ�
able at: www.pseudology.org/Abel/ColdWar_Razvedka.htm (accessed 16
December 2010).
╇ 47 Patrushev, ‘Taina Andropova’.
╇ 48 Cited Aleksandr Khinstein, ‘Chlen Politbiuro Viktor Chebrikov: “Ya ne mog
otkazat’ Brezhnevu”â•›’, Moskovskii komsomolets, 23 December 1998.
╇ 49 Cited Bondarenko, ‘Gensek iz KGB’.
╇ 50 Bobkov, KGB i vlast’, p.€40.
╇ 51 Ibid., pp.€38–42. Meanwhile, as the party grew more corrupt and lost author-
ity, ‘simple people’ began to turn their gazes towards the KGB; Podberezkin et
al., Belaia kniga, p.€39.
╇ 52 Bobkov, KGB i vlast’, p.€363.
╇ 53 Cited Khlobustov, ‘Perechityvaia zanovo’.
╇ 54 Sidorenko, ‘Zhizn’, otdannaia sluzheniiu otechestvu’.
╇ 55 Kirpichenko, Razvedka: litsa i lichnosti, p.€180.
╇ 56 Luzhkov, ‘Andropov i Moskva’.
╇ 57 See for example Sobolev et al., Lubianka, 2, p.€ 290; and Podberezkin et al.,
Belaia kniga, p.€39.
╇ 58 Shironin, Pod kolpakom kontrrazvedki, p.€6.
╇ 59 Ibid., p.€ 157. This notion that Gorbachev was unreceptive to KGB reporting
has been disputed by Aleksandr Yakovlev, who says that Gorbachev was in fact
heavily influenced by the KGB, which was feeding him disinformation and
232╇╇ Notes
kompromat on the democrats in his entourage with a view to poisoning him
against them; see Aleksandr Yakovlev, Omut pamiati, Moscow: Vagrius, 2001.
╇ 60 Podberezkin et al., Belaia kniga, p.€39.
╇ 61 Ibid.
╇ 62 Rostovskii and Ozerova, ‘Igra patriotov’.
╇ 63 Filipp Bobkov, ‘Yurii Andropov, kakim ya yego znal’, Rossiiskii kto yest’ kto,
Online. Available at: www.fsb.ru/fsb/smi/interview/single.
htm!id%3D10342711@fsbSmi.html (accessed 16 December 2010).
╇ 64 Cited Yevdokimov, ‘Russkaia Pravda generala Leonova’.
╇ 65 Vasilii Stavitskii, ‘Kak sozdavalas’ eta kniga’, in Tainoe stanovitsia yavnym,
pp.€132–3.
╇ 66 Robert S. Robins and Jerrold M. Post, Political Paranoia: The Psychopolitics of
Hatred, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1997, p.€57.
╇ 67 One of the more original of these theories claims that party ideologues delib-
erately transformed Marxism-�Leninism into dull scholasticism with nothing to
do with reality, rendering it ridiculous, such that no sane person could take it
seriously, and so on, in order to render it a weapon directed against the USSR
itself. The authors meticulously cite numerous examples of the regime’s stu-
pidity and clumsiness as evidence of this theory; V. A. Lisichkin and L. A. Shel-
epin, Tret’ia mirovaia (informatsionno-Â�psikhologicheskaia) voina, Moscow: Eksmo,
2003, p.€8 and elsewhere.
╇ 68 Shironin, KGB-�TsRU, p.€151. See also his Pod kolpakom kontrrazvedki.
╇ 69 Shironin, KGB-�TsRU, p.€157.
╇ 70 Kriuchkov, Lichnoe delo, vol. 1, pp.€ 409, 411–12; and Vladimir Kriuchkov,
‘Posol bedy’, Sovetskaia Rossiia, no. 18, 13 February 1993, pp.€1 and 5.
╇ 71 See ‘Agenty vliianiia’, Sovetskaia Rossiia, no. 147, 21 November 1992.
╇ 72 See further Mark Deich, ‘Zloveshchii “plan Dallesa”. Proiski shefa amerikan-
skoi razvedki ili fal’shivka?’, Moskovskii komsomolets, 20 January 2005; Aleksandr
Kochukov, ‘Allen Dalles – voina posle voiny’, Krasnaia zvezda, 28 October
2004; and my article ‘Chekists Look Back on the Cold War’, forthcoming in a
special issue of the journal Intelligence and National Security (2011).
╇ 73 Cherkesov, ‘Moda na KGB?’.
╇ 74 See for example Sidorenko, ‘Zhizn’, otdannaia sluzheniiu otechestvu’.
╇ 75 Cherkesov, ‘Moda na KGB?’.
╇ 76 See for example Shokhina, ‘Poety i gosudarstvo’, p.€2.
╇ 77 ‘My sluzhim Rossii’, Literaturnaia gazeta, nos. 50–1, 18 December 2002. Online.
Available at: www.fsb.ru/fsb/comment/rukov/single.htm!id=10309768@
fsbAppearance.html (accessed 16 December 2010).
╇ 78 Ibid.
╇ 79 New research into Soviet cultural production and the relationship between
the intelligentsia and the authorities is providing a more complex picture of
how the regime’s co-Â�opting of the intelligentsia worked. This has involved,
among other things, directing attention to the role played by mediators
between the regime and the cultural intelligentsia: the role of editors, screen-
writers, and so on, who negotiated between artists and bureaucrats; see for
example K. Aimermakher and G. Bordiugov, ‘Kul’tura i vlast’â•›’, in K. Aimer-
makher and G. Bordiugov, eds, Kul’tura i vlast’ v usloviiakh kommunikatsionnoi
revoliutsii XX veka. Forum nemetskikh i rossiiskikh kul’turologov, Moscow: AIRO-
Â�XX, 2002, pp.€9–13.
╇ 80 The most famous example is Stirlitz, the fictional chekist hero of Yulian
Semenov’s Seventeen Moments of Spring. Andropov reportedly sought out the
friendship of Semenov, who was one of the key writers associated with this
‘renaissance’; see Medvedev, Neizvestnyi Andropov, p.€90.
╇ 81 Chasovye sovetskikh granits, p.€313.
 Notes╇╇ 233
╇ 82 Cited M. Ya. Geller, Rossiiskie zametki 1969–1979, Moscow: MIK, 1999, p.€49.
╇ 83 Cited ibid., p.€48.
╇ 84 Andrei Bachurin, who was a member of this initial group, was one of the
driving forces behind the creation of the KGB Press Bureau, and his attempts
to push for its creation began precisely in the early 1960s; Kononenko, ‘Ot
Press-Â�biuro KGB SSSR do TsOS FSB Rossii’, in Tainoe stanovitsia yavnym,
pp.€7–8.
╇ 85 See ibid., p.€8. Tsvigun’s literary endeavours largely involved spinning myths
about his own wartime career; see Bobkov, KGB i vlast’, pp.€ 249–50. He also
acted as chief consultant on Seventeen Moments of Spring (under one of his
pseudonyms, General-�Colonel S. K. Mishin); Leonid Mlechin, KGB. Presedateli
organov gosbezopasnosti. Rassekrechennyi sud’by, 3rd edn, Moscow: Tsentrpoligraf,
2002, p.€ 240. Tsvigun also wrote screenplays under the name ‘Dneprov’. He
was reportedly paid three times for his work on films: once as author of the
original book, Tsvigun; once as screenwriter Dneprov; and once as consultant
Mishin; Golovskoy with Rimberg, Behind the Soviet Screen, p.€35.
╇ 86 Tainoe stanovitsia yavnym, p.€8.
╇ 87 Andrew and Mitrokhin, Mitrokhin Archive, p.€656. Other authors attribute the
push to create chekist mass culture during this period to the increasing
number of KGB defectors, as well as the damage caused by Khrushchev’s reve-
lations; see for example Dmitrii Bykov et al., ‘Shtirlits i seichas zhivee vsekh
zhivykh’, Sobesednik, 23, 2000.
╇ 88 Tainoe stanovitsia yavnym, p.€4.
╇ 89 Ibid., pp.€4–5.
╇ 90 On the ‘horizontal surveillance’ operating in this way in Soviet society, see
Oleg Kharkhordin, The Collective and the Individual in Russia: A Study of Prac-
tices, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1999.
╇ 91 Malygin, ‘Rytsari revoliutsii’, p.€2.
╇ 92 Cited Khlobustov, ‘Perechityvaia zanovo’.
╇ 93 The document is reproduced in Fomin, Kino i vlast’, p.€94.
╇ 94 On which see Adam Johnson, ‘The Construction of a History of the KGB in
Contemporary Russia’, unpublished MPhil in Historical Studies, St John’s
College, Cambridge, 2001.
╇ 95 See for example Kononenko, ‘Ot Press-Â�biuro KGB SSSR do TsOS FSB Rossii’,
in Tainoe stanovitsia yavnym. TsOS FSB also traces its roots further back to the
VChK’s Press Bureau which operated during the Civil War period. Vladimir
Strunin, head of the KGB Press Bureau 1987–90, for example, proudly traces
TsOS FSB back to its ‘great-Â�grandfather’, the VChK Press Bureau, which was
run by ‘wise people’; Vladimir Strunin, ‘Dela davno minuvshikh let’, in Tainoe
stanovitsia yavnym, p.€ 21. On early chekist propaganda during the Civil War
period, see further Velidov, ‘Predislovie’, Krasnaia kniga VChK (1989), p.€18;
and Kutuzov et al., Chekisty Petrograda, p.€115.
╇ 96 Chasovye sovetskikh granits, p.€315 (on the creation of the prizes in 1979); and
Liza Novikova and Maiia Stravinskaia, ‘Polozhitel’nyi opyt KGB SSSR’, Kom-
mersant”, no. 21, 7 February 2006 (on the winding up of the prizes in 1988).
╇ 97 Sergei Vasil’ev, ‘Proidennogo puti u nas nikto ne otberet’, in Tainoe stanovitsia
yavnym, p.€55.
╇ 98 Ibid.
╇ 99 Cited Novikova and Stravinskaia, ‘Polozhitel’nyi opyt’.
100 In 2000, for example, Teodor Gladkov was awarded an SVR RF prize for his
book about razvedchik Nikolai Kuznetsov.
101 ‘V TsOS FSB nagradili laureatov’, RIA Novosti, 31 May 2002. Online. Available
at: www.fsb.ru/fsb/comment/remark/single.htm!id%3D10310024@fsbCom-
ment.html (accessed 16 December 2010). Winning playwrights are presented
234╇╇ Notes
with tea services decorated with chekist symbols, and books on the history of
the Russian state security organs.
102 See Tat’iana Kuznetsova et al., ‘Premiia FSB’, Argumenty i fakty, no. 14, 5 April
2006, p.€6.
103 Cited Novikova and Stravinskaia, ‘Polozhitel’nyi opyt’.
104 ‘Podvedeny itogi konkursa FSB Rossii na luchshee proizvedenie literatury i
iskusstva o deiatel’nosti organov Federal’noi Sluzhby Bezopasnosti’, FSB Press
Release, 8 December 2006. Online. Available at: www.fsb.ru/fsb/press/
message/single.htm!id%3D10341121@fsbMessage.html (accessed 16 Decem-
ber 2010).
105 Cited Novikova and Stravinskaia, ‘Polozhitel’nyi opyt’.
106 Including the best-�selling crime writer Polina Dashkova; film director Fyodor
Bondarchuk; Mikhail Nozhkin; Vasilii Nesterenko; head of Channel One Kon-
stantin Ernst; and chair of the board of the Russian Writers’ Union Valerii
Ganichev.
107 ‘Podvedeny itogi konkursa’. In 1994 cultural theorist Cherednichenko
described Liube’s image as bringing together features of ‘the legendary 1920s,
moreover with a military-Â�chekist inclination’, expressed through leather-Â�
jackets and the ‘worker-Â�peasant’ physiology of the band members; Tat’iana
Cherednichenko, Mezhdu ‘Brezhnevym’ i ‘Pugachevoi’. Tipologiia sovetskoi masso-
voi kul’tury, Moscow: RIK Kul’tura, 1994, p.€ 242. In 2010 Rastorguev was
elected to the State Duma.
108 See ‘â•›“Ordena i medali naidut nas edva liâ•›.â•›.â•›.”â•›’, Novaia gazeta, no. 98, 25 Decem-
ber 2006.
109 Ibid.
110 Cited ‘V TsOS FSB nagradili laureatov’.
111 Ibid. By the same token, the perceived desecration of Andropov’s armchair in
this office at the Lubianka when the dissident Vladimir Bukovskii sat in the
chair in August 1991 is recalled with particular horror in one chekist’s
memoirs; Yarovoi, Proshchai, KGB, p.€27.
112 Andrei Soldatov and Irina Bogoran, ‘Chekistskii zakaz na mify’, Yezhenedel’nyi
zhurnal, 2 May 2006.
113 According to its creators, cited Zhanna Sergeeva, ‘Trotilovaia operetta’, Vedo-
mosti, no. 225, 7 December 2004.
114 Cherkesov, ‘Moda na KGB?’.
115 The director Shmelev won first prize in the cinema category, and its leading
actor, Anastasiia Zavorotniuk, was awarded second prize for her role as an FSB
officer; see Timofei Borisov, ‘Kod premii FSB’, Rossiiskaia gazeta, no. 4546, 18
December 2007, and Anisimova, ‘Premii FSB Rossii’.
116 Cited Maiia Stravinskaia, ‘Polnometrazhnyi patriotizm’, Kommersant”-Den’gi,
no. 46, 26 November 2007.
117 Cited ibid.
118 See ‘Pomogut li neglasnye osvedomiteli gosudarstva?’.
119 That is, leaving aside Andropov’s involvement in events such as the suppres-
sion of the Hungarian uprising and the Prague spring, or the Soviet invasion
of Afghanistan.
120 See further Robert W. Pringle, ‘Andropov’s Counterintelligence State’, Inter-
national Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, 13:2, summer 2000,
193–203.
121 See for example ‘Viktor Sharapov’, p.€ 15; and Khlobustov, ‘Perechityvaia
zanovo’.
122 Vladimir Bukovskii, Moskovskii protsess, Paris and Moscow: Russkaia mysl’ and
MIK, 1996, p.€166.
123 According to a recent Pravda article, the revelations about Andropov’s taste for
 Notes╇╇ 235
things English and American are dubious and originated largely with ex-�KGB
agent Vladimir Sakharov, who essentially fabricated them, and passed them to
the Western press in the summer of 1982, prompting a series of articles such as
those by Harrison Salisbury in the New York Times; Dmitrii Chirkin, Pravda, 17
March 2003, translation at RFE/RL Newsline, 17 March 2003. For an attempt to
trace the provenance of the Western media myth of Andropov, see Edward Jay
Epstein, ‘The Andropov Hoax’, New Republic, 7 February 1983.
124 See for example Andrew and Mitrokhin, Mitrokhin Archive, Ch. 19.
125 Viacheslav Kevorkov quote from Andropov: Bremia vlasti (broadcast on Channel
2 in December 2003), cited ‘Formula kino. Andrei Konchalovskii’, Radio
Svoboda, 27 November 2003.
126 See ibid.
127 Andrew and Mitrokhin, Mitrokhin Archive, p.€406.
128 This came to be known as the ‘third emigration’; see Medvedev, Neizvestnyi
Andropov, p.€125. See also ‘Viktor Sharapov’.
129 Aleksandr Zinov’ev, Russkaia sud’ba. Ispoved’ otshchepentsa, Moscow: Tsentrpoli-
graf, 1999, p.€12.
130 ‘Viktor Sharapov’. According to Arkadii Vol’skii, Andropov wanted to bring
Sakharov back from exile, but found it difficult to devise a way to invite him to
return without losing face. Andropov demanded that Sakharov sign a written
declaration of some kind, and Sakharov found this request humiliating and
turned it down; cited Rostovskii and Ozerova, ‘Igra patriotov’.
131 See Yakovlev, Omut pamiati, p.€184.
132 Viktor Chebrikov (KGB chair 1982–8) appears to be the main source of this
claim, popularized primarily by Roi Medvedev; see Chebrikov cited ‘Yurii
Andropov. V labirinte vlasti’, screened ORT, 17 December 2003.
133 For example, Vysotskii was forced in his private and professional life to deal
constantly with informers whom the KGB attached to him; his own father was
reportedly co-Â�opted by the KGB; see Vadim Gorskii, ‘Lui Armstrong yevre-
iskogo rozliva. Filerskaia zapis’ razgovorov Vysotskogo’, Ural, 8, 2000. Online.
Available at: http://magazines.russ.ru/ural/2000/8/ural10.html (accessed 16
December 2010).
134 In 1969 Vysotskii wrote a personal appeal to KGB General Svetlichnyi, com-
plaining that ‘I cannot even write to [my fans] that I have been forbidden to
sing, because nobody has officially forbidden me to sing, for nobody has given
me permission [to sing]. A vacuum has taken shape around me’; Vladimir
Vysotskii, letter to KGB General Svetlichnyi, 9 June 1969.
135 Vysotskii was awarded a State Prize posthumously; Mark Tsybul’skii and Sergei
Takvareli, ‘Poterpevshii Vladimir Vysotskii’, Literaturnaia Rossiia, no. 27, 2 July
2004, p.€ 10. Andropov reportedly overrode the Moscow party authorities on
several issues related to Vysotskii’s funeral and place of burial, but again, his
record is contradictory, and in the following year, he was instrumental in the
banning of a play about Vysotskii; see Mark Tsybul’skii, ‘Vladimir Vysotskii i
general’nye sekretari’, Gomel’skie vedomosti, nos 51–2, 8 October 1998, p.€8.
136 Konstantin Kedrov, ‘Chelovek s gitaroi, protiv cheloveka s ruzh’em’, Russkii
kur’er, no. 151, 23 July 2004, p.€21.
137 Golovskoy with Rimberg, Behind the Soviet Screen, p.€34.
138 Shlapentokh and Shlapentokh, Soviet Cinematography, p.€156.
139 See further Johnson’s Russia List, no. 5620, 29 December 2001; Aleksandr
Yefremov, ‘Vertolet’, Zavtra, no. 5, 28 January 2002; Igor’ Kozhevin, ‘Vladimir
Putin: vokrug figury Vysotskogo mozhno ob”ediniat’sia’, Vesti.Ru, 25 January
2003; and ‘Putiny pochtili pamiat’ Vysotskogo’, Kommersant”, 25 January 2003.
140 In fact the FSB has not admitted that a KGB file on Vysotskii exists; see V. Per-
evozchikov, ‘Vysotskii i KGB’, Sovershenno sekretno, 7, 1997.
236╇╇ Notes
141 Bobkov, ‘Yurii Andropov, kakim ya ego znal’. Other chekists are vague and
evasive on this topic; see for example interview with Chebrikov: Aleksandr
Sargin, ‘.â•›.â•›.â•›Kak istinnyi rytsar’ puchiny, On umer s otkrytym zabralom’, Argu-
menty i fakty, no. 4, January 1998.
142 Cited Perevozchikov, ‘Vysotskii i KGB’. The role had reportedly been written
specially with Vysotskii in mind; Yelizaveta Maetnaia, ‘Rokovaia muza Yuma-
tova’, Moskovskii komsomolets, 16 March 2001.
143 Boris Kagarlitskii, ‘Rynochnyi chekizm’, Novaia gazeta, 20 June 2002.
144 Bobkov, KGB i vlast’, p.€42.
145 Cited Medvedev, Neizvestnyi Andropov, p.€118.
146 Cited Khlobustov, ‘Perechityvaia zanovo’.
147 Sidorenko, ‘Zhizn’, otdannaia sluzheniiu otechestvu’.
148 Andrew and Mitrokhin, Mitrokhin Archive, p.€430.
149 Cited Medvedev, Neizvestnyi Andropov, p.€131.
150 See Boris Prozorov, ‘Yurii Andropov. Bez grifa “SEKRETNO”â•›’, Fel’dPochta, no.
20, 8 March 2004.
151 See his obituary ‘Umer Boris Leonidovich Prozorov’, Fel’dPochta, no. 40, 26
July 2004.
152 And hence, Prozorov says, the title of the branch of the KGB dealing with
them: the Fifth Directorate.
153 See Boris Prozorov, ‘Yurii Andropov. Bez grifa “SEKRETNO”â•›’, Fel’dPochta, nos
20 and 24, 8 and 22 March 2004.
154 Medvedev, Neizvestnyi Andropov, p.€131.
155 Bukovskii identified this linkage, citing an Andropov report recommending
that this be explained to West European communists: ‘It would be desirable at
a convenient moment to conduct .╛.╛. high-�level conversations with French and
Italian comrades .â•›.â•›. to explain to them that the struggle with so-Â�called “dissi-
dents” is for us not an abstract question of democracy in general, but a vitally
important necessity for the protection of the security of the Soviet state’; cited
Bukovskii, Moskovskii protsess, p.€131.
156 See Victor Yasmann, ‘How Many Secret Services Does Yeltsin Have?’, Prism,
1:4, 26 May 1995.
157 Such as Viktor Cherkesov.
158 Examples where the quote is used include: Kirpichenko, Razvedka: litsa i
lichnosti, p.€148; Podberezkin et al., Belaia kniga, p.€39; Shironin, Pod kolpakom
kontrrazvedki, p.€308; and Sobolev et al., Lubianka, 2, p.€289.
159 Richard Sakwa, Putin: Russia’s Choice, London: Routledge, 2004, p.€37.
160 This prompted an angry response from Elena Bonner, who issued a public
appeal not to support the Moscow authorities’ fundraising appeal for a Sakha-
rov monument; see ‘Moskvu ukrasit pamiatnik Andropovu’.

7╇ Securitizing the Russian soul

╇╇ 1 A. I. Podberezkin et al., eds, Belaia kniga rossiiskikh spestsluzhb, Moscow: Obozre-
vatel’, 1995, p.€14.
╇╇ 2 Svetlana Gamova, ‘Khram Sofii na kontrrazvedke’, Segodnia, no. 114, 29 May
2000.
╇╇ 3 Patrushev presented the Patriarch with a symbolic key to the church and an
icon of St Aleksei, Moscow metropolitan; the Patriarch recriprocated with the
Mother of God ‘Umilenie’ icon, as well as an icon representing Patrushev’s
own patron saint, St Nikolai; ‘Sviateishii Patriarkh Aleksii osviatil Khram Sofii,
Premudrosti Bozhiei, na Lubianke’, press release issued by Communications
Service, Section for External Church Relations, Moscow Patriarchate, 6 March
2002.
 Notes╇╇ 237
╇╇ 4 Cited ‘Ni buri, ni ispytaniia’, Moskovskaia perspektiva, no. 10, 12 March 2002.
Online. Available at: www.stroi.ru/newspaper/2002/10_2002/10_7.asp
(accessed 16 December 2010).
╇╇ 5 Cited ‘Pokrovitel’ spetssluzhb’, Kommersant”-vlast’, 18 July 2005.
╇╇ 6 An exception here is Bacon et al., Securitising Russia, pp.€93–6.The emergence
of a new ideological linkage between security and spirituality has received
more attention in Russia itself, notably in the writings of Apostolate Orthodox
Church priest, historian and journalist Yakov Krotov, whose article ‘State
Security as National Idea’ first drew my attention to the fact that the govern-
ment’s 2000 National Security Concept frequently invoked a new category, ‘spir-
ituality’, with reference to Russia’s security; Yakov Krotov, ‘Gosbezopasnost’
kak natsional’naia ideiia’, Obshchaia gazeta, 27 January 2000, p.€1.
╇╇ 7 A definition formulated by a 2006 academic conference held on spirituality
and security listed over ten separate components making up ‘spiritual life’ in
this connection, including ideological, moral, aesthetic, cultural, educational
and scientific-�technical dimensions of life; V. M. Zhuravlev, N. V. Nalivaiko
and V. Ye. Ushakova, ‘Dukhovnost’ i bezopasnost’ Rossii’, Filosofiia obrazovaniia
(Novosibirsk), 3, 2006, 312.
╇╇ 8 One-�time leader of the Motherland party, and as of January 2008, Russian
Ambassador to NATO. See the entry ‘Spiritual Security’ in his Dictionary of
War and Peace in Terms and Definitions (2004); Dmitrii Rogozin, ed., Slovar’
“Voina i mir v terminakh i opredeleniiakh”, 2004. Online. Available at: http://
vojna-�i-mir.ru (accessed 16 December 2010). Rogozin is the recipient of a per-
sonal weapon awarded by order of the FSB director and the defence minister
for his achievements in guaranteeing state security and defence capability.
╇╇ 9 See for example, ‘Aleksandr Dugin: Pravil’no postavlennyi vopros’, Rossiia, 30
July 2004. Dugin is leader of the Eurasianist movement.
╇ 10 See Podberezkin et al., Belaia kniga, p.€14. Podberezkin was awarded an Andro-
pov Prize in 2003 for his outstanding contribution to guaranteeing Russia’s
security. He was founder of the ‘Spiritual Heritage’ political movement.
╇ 11 Valentin Radaev, ‘Dukhovnaia bezopasnost’ Rossii’, Russkaia pravda
(Ukraine), 25 March 2004.
╇ 12 ‘Russia’s Spirituality and Security’ was the title of a major Siberian regional
academic conference held with FSB participation in July 2006; see Zhuravlev
et al., ‘Dukhovnost’ i bezopasnost’ Rossii’, pp.€ 312–25. See also for example
various articles in Bezopasnost’ (a journal produced by the Foundation for
National and International Security, available online at www.fnimb.org/is.
htm); Fakty, sobytiia, kommentarii; the journal Zhizn’ i bezopasnost’; N. P. Zolo-
tova, ‘Teatr kak sotsiokul’turnyi faktor dukhovnoi bezopasnosti strany’, in
Teatr v sovremennoi Rossii (sostoianie i perspektivy)/Analiticheskii vestnik Soveta Fed-
eratsii FS RF, 4, 1998, 45–8; and Rudol’f Yanovskii, ‘Dukhovno-Â�nravstvennaia
bezopasnost’ Rossii’, Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia, 12, 1995, 39–47.
╇ 13 Ye. Yamburg, ‘â•›“Ob odnom proshu: spasi ot nenavistiâ•›.â•›.â•›.” Demonologiia
kul’tury i osnovy dukhovnoi bezopasnosti’, Uchitel’skaia gazeta, 12, 2000.
Online. Available at: www.ug.ru/old/00.12 (accessed 16 December 2010); A.
S. Zapesotskii, ‘Gumanitarnoe obrazovanie i problemy dukhovnoi bezopas-
nosti’, Pedagogika, 2, 2002, 3–8.
╇ 14 Kontseptsiia natsional’noi bezopasnosti Rossiiskoi Federatsii, adopted by Presidential
Decree on 10 January 2000:
Guaranteeing the Russian Federation’s national security also includes
defence of the cultural and spiritual-�moral inheritance, historical traditions
and norms of social life, preservation of the cultural property of all the
peoples of Russia, formation of state policy in the sphere of the spiritual
238╇╇ Notes
and moral education of the population, the introduction of bans on the use
of airtime in the electronic mass media for distribution of programmes
propagating violence, exploiting base displays, and also includes counter-
acting the negative influence of foreign religious organizations and
missionaries.
This replaced the version adopted by Yeltsin in December 1997.
╇ 15 Doktrina informatsionnoi bezopasnosti Rossiiskoi Federatsii, adopted by Presidential
Decree on 9 September 2000:
The greatest danger in the sphere of spiritual life is posed by the following
threats to the Russian Federation’s information security: deformation of the
mass information system .â•›.â•›. deterioration of .â•›.â•›. Russia’s cultural inheritance
.â•›.â•›. the possibility of violation of social stability, the inflicting of harm to the
health and life of citizens as a result of the activities of religious associations
preaching religious fundamentalism, and also of totalitarian religious sects.
╇ 16 See speech given by presidential plenipotentiary representative to the Volga
Federal District S. V. Kirienko, ‘Svetskoe – ne znachit bezreligioznoe’, Joint
Concluding Session of Conference ‘Reforma sistemy dukhovnogo obrazova-
niia RPTs’ and ‘Vziaimodeistvie gosudarstva i religioznykh ob”edinenii v sfere
obrazovaniia’, Moscow Spiritual Academy, 11 October 2002.
╇ 17 Luzhkov was speaking at a special expanded session of the Central Federal
District’s Council devoted to spiritual security in July 2004 in Kursk; Anna
Popova, ‘Rossiianam obespechat “dukhovnuiu bezopasnost’â•›”â•›’, RBK Daily, 26
July 2004. Rushailo used the phrase in March 2003 to describe the purpose of
his recent meeting with an Orthodox Church representative to discuss joint
Church–state efforts in this sphere; see Svetlana Ofitova, ‘Ministerstvo dukhov-
noi bezopasnosti’, Nezavisimaia gazeta, no. 58, 25 March 2003.
╇ 18 See Nail’ Gafutulin, ‘Khranit’ rodniki patriotizma’, Krasnaia zvezda, no. 235,
21 December 2002, p.€1. The meeting comprised an expanded session of the
RF Security Council’s section for military security.
╇ 19 See Inga Mikhailovskaia, ‘O parlamentskom kontrole nad spetssluzhbami’,
Rossiiskii istoricheskii i pravozashchitnyi zhurnal “Karta”, 2, 1992.
╇ 20 Note that while the law refers to ‘spiritual values’ in connection with security,
it does not use the actual phrase ‘spiritual security’, which had yet to enter the
political vocabulary at this point.
╇ 21 While there have been attempts to employ the concept of spiritual security as
part of calls for a new thinking on security based not on state force and viol-
ence, but on a strong civil society and the nurturing of Russian culture, such
voices are very much in the minority. The example referred to here is
Yanovskii, ‘Dukhovno-Â�nravstvennaia bezopasnost’ Rossii’. I noticed another
somewhat unusual instance of the term in spring 2008 in the Tver’ city library,
where a special display section near the entrance was labelled ‘Russia’s Spirit-
ual Security’. The books displayed in the section were an eclectic mix, which
seemed to focus in particular on the writings of authors who perished in the
Stalin era.
╇ 22 As one writer points out, during the Soviet period, ‘the pronuncation of such
words as “the spiritual security of the country” would have aroused embarrass-
ment in the ranks fo the Soviet party nomenklatura’; Leonid Antipenko,
‘Dukhovnaia bezopasnost’ Rossii’, Molodaia gvardiia, 5, 2002, 80.
╇ 23 ‘V Gosdume proidut slushaniia po probleme obespecheniia dukhovnoi bezo-
pasnosti’, ITAR-Â�TASS, 10 June 2003. A linkage between the Soviet past and
‘spirituality’ (broadly understood, and probably referring more to moral
values than to religion) has become commonplace in contemporary Russian
 Notes╇╇ 239
discourse. As one writer pointed out in 2000, one key fault-�line in Russian
society today divides those who view the Soviet period as ‘a shining age of high
spirituality’, and those who see it as a ‘kingdom of ghosts, chimeras and
demons’; Faibisovich, ‘O pokaianii’. On the other hand, meanwhile, some
anti-Â�communists project the notion of spiritual security into Russia’s past,
describing the October Revolution itself as a result of Russia’s ongoing vulner-
ability in this area.
╇ 24 Vladimir Shul’ts, ‘Khram Sofii Premudrosti Bozhiei na Lubianke’, Politika, 55,
2002. Online. Available at: www.fsb.ru/fsb/comment/rukov/single.htm%21id
%3D10309785%40fsbAppearance.html (accessed 16 December 2010).
╇ 25 Viktor Yerofeev, ‘Chekizm’, Moskovskie novosti, no. 49, 24 December 2004.
╇ 26 See its official website: www.pobeda.ru.
╇ 27 ‘Pokrovitel’ spetssluzhb’, Kommersant-Â�vlast’, 18 July 2005.
╇ 28 ‘Sviateishii patriakh Aleksii II nagradil V. V. Cherkesova ordenom sviatogo
muchenika Trifona’, Russkaia liniia (Pravoslavnoe informatsionnoe agentstvo), 23
March 2006. Online. Available at: http://rusk.ru/st.php?idar=208619
(accessed 16 December 2010).
╇ 29 For example, head of the UFSB for Smolenskaia oblast’ Viktor Maslov (who
later became governor of the oblast’ in May 2002) was praised in February
2002 by the Metropolitan of Kaliningrad and Smolensk regions; Yelena Ryk-
ovtseva, ‘Il’ia Muromets iz FSB’, Radio Svoboda, 18 May 2002. The UFSB head
of Vladimirskaia oblast’, Riurik Sivanov, was decorated ‘for help in the
matter of returning to [the Church] property which had ended up in the
hands of schismatic religious formations’; Andrei Soldatov and Irina
Bogoran, ‘Rossiia vo mgle’, 22 March 2004, partially published in Moskovskie
novosti, 10, 2004. Online. Full version available at: www.agentura.ru/dossier/
russia/ideology (accessed 16 December 2010).
╇ 30 Rykovtseva, ‘Il’ia Muromets iz FSB’.
╇ 31 This body was created in May 2007; Andrei Soldatov and Irina Bogoran, ‘Spet-
skontrol’â•›’, Indeks/Dos’e na tsenzuru, 27, 2007. Online. Available at: www.index.
org.ru/journal/27/sol27.html (accessed 16 December 2010).
╇ 32 Timofei Borisov, ‘Lubianka nagrazhdaet’, Rossiiskaia gazeta, no. 4816, 18 Decem-
ber 2008. The book, Pobedivshie zlo dobrom. Sviatye, pokroviteli sil spetsial’nogo
naznacheniia, Moscow: Planeta, 2008, is advertised at the FSB’s official website.
╇ 33 The phrase comes from a statement by Metropolitan Krutitskii and Kolomen-
skii at the FSB’s official website, praising Pogrebniak’s book.
╇ 34 K. Lobkov, ‘Voskreshenie traditsii’, Boevaia vakhta, no. 29, 13 April 1996.
╇ 35 D’iakon Andrei (Khvylia-Â�Olinter), ‘Problemy dukhovnoi bezopasnosti obsh-
chestva i lichnosti v missionerskoi deiatel’nosti Russkoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi’,
Missionerskoe obozrenie (Belgorodskaia Pravoslavnaia Dukhovnaia seminariia),
12, 2002. Online. Available at: http://seminaria.bel.ru/pages/mo/2002/
mo12_st_2.htm (accessed 16 December 2010).
╇ 36 In March 2003 Putin abolished the FPS and restored the Soviet-�era structures
of border control by merging the border guards into the FSB. See ‘Pokrovitel’
spetssluzhb’; and ‘Pokrovitel’ pogransluzhby FSB RF – Prepodobnyi Iliia
Muromets’, undated, website of Synodal Section of the Moscow Patriarchate
for Cooperation with Armed Forces and Law-�Enforcement Institutions.
Online. Available at: www.pobeda.ru (accessed 16 December 2010). Border-
troops serving at the westernmost point of the Russian border (the North-�
Western bordertroops) have their own patron saint, Aleksandr Nevskii, whose
icon was ceremonially presented to bordertroops by Church representatives
in Kaliningrad in 1998; Valerii Gromak, ‘Pod pokrovitel’stvom ikony Aleksan-
dra Nevskogo’, Krasnaia zvezda, no. 158, 17 July 1998. Nevskii has particular
significance as an anti-�Western figure.
240╇╇ Notes
╇ 37 ‘Ikona pogransluzhby FSB RF↜’, BG-Â�znanie.ru, undated. Online. Available at:
http://bg-�znanie.ru/article.php?nid=11723 (accessed 16 December 2010).
╇ 38 Sergei Kulichkin, ‘My – glavnyi argument Rossii’, Russkoe voskresenie, April–May
2007. Online. Available at: www.voskres.ru/army/publicist/kulishkin.htm
(accessed 16 December 2010).
╇ 39 The perceived inviolability of borders is, of course, psychologically important
for all nations. Borders are a key preoccupation of all national security dis-
courses; see Matt McDonald, ‘Border Anxiety and the Assault on Hope in
Contemporary Society’, Borderlands e-Â�journal, 2:3, 2003. Online. Available at:
www.borderlands.net.au/vol. 2no3_2003/mcdonald_hage.htm (accessed 16
December 2010).
╇ 40 As ex-Â�KGB chair Vladimir Kriuchkov put it, ‘In no other state in the world did
borders have as much significance as in the Soviet Union’; Vladimir Kri-
uchkov, Lichnoe delo. V 2 chastiakh. Chast’ 1, Moscow: Olimp, 1996, p.€364. On
the place occupied by borders in the Soviet imaginary, see A. V. Golubev,
‘â•›“Dobro pozhalovat’ ili postoronnim vkhod vospreshchen”: k voprosu o zakry-
tosti mezhvoennogo sovetskogo obshchestva’, Otechestvennaia istoriia, 4, 2004,
32–53; and Gasan Guseinov, ‘Karta nashei Rodiny i “granitsa na zamke”:
prevrashchenie ideologemy’, in O. Brednikova and V. Voronkov, eds, Kochu-
iushchie granitsy. Materialy mezhduranodnogo seminara (na russkom i angliiskom
yazykakh), St Petersburg: Tsentr nezavisimykh sotsiologicheskikh issledovanii,
1999. Online. Available at: www.indepsocres.spb.ru/gusein_r.htm (accessed
16 December 2010).
╇ 41 For example, in March 2005 Motherland bloc Gosduma deputy Andrei
Savel’ev commented: ‘We don’t need the Russia of the “yeltsinites” in the
current borders, we need the true Russia in the borders of the empire’; cited
‘Gosudarstvennaia Duma otklonila ideiiu vosstanovleniia Rossii v
istoricheskikh granitsakh’, Russkaia liniia (Pravoslavnoe informatsionnoe agent-
stvo), 11 March 2005. Online. Available at: http://rusk.ru/newsdata.
php?idar=160231 (accessed 16 December 2010).
╇ 42 Anxiety over dissolving borders and amorphous threats which float across
borders is expressed by one spetsnaz officer’s quip that Médecins sans frontières
(MSF↜) were ‘Enemies without Borders’ (‘vragi bez granits’, a pun on ‘Vrachi
bez granits’, the Russian title of MSF↜); Dmitrii Lysenkov, ‘Drugaia voina’, Spet-
snaz Rossii, 8, August 2001. Online. Available at: www.specnaz.ru/
archive/08_2001/2.htm (accessed 16 December 2010).
╇ 43 Rossiia: ostorozhno, religiia’, Prava cheloveka v Rossii portal, 2 February 2004.
╇ 44 ‘Doroga k khramu’, Yezhenedel’nik ‘Krasnodar’, no. 13, 28 March–3 April 2003.
╇ 45 See further Yurii Maksimov, ‘Il’ia Muromets: sviatoi bogatyr’â•›’, pravoslavie.ru,
29 December 2001. Online. Available at: www.pravoslavie.ru/put/sv/
muromec.htm (accessed 16 December 2010); and Richard S Wortman, Scenar-
ios of Power: Myth and Ceremony in Russian Monarchy Volume Two. From Alexander
II to the Abdication of Nicholas II, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000,
p.€ 426 (on the use of the figure of the bogatyr’ as a motif in official rhetoric
and propaganda under Aleksandr III).
╇ 46 Boris Nikol’skii, ‘Voiny Rossii’, Russkii kolokol, 3, 1998. Online. Available at:
http://gosudarstvo.voskres.ru/army/nikolsky.htm (accessed 16 December
2010).
╇ 47 Rykovtseva, ‘Il’ia Muromets iz FSB’.
╇ 48 For an overview of this securitization model, see Barry Buzan, Ole Wæver and
Jaap de Wilde, eds, Security: A New Framework for Analysis, Boulder: Lynne
Rienner Publishers, 1998, especially Ch. 2, ‘Security Analysis: Conceptual
Apparatus’. A number of scholars have in recent times begun to apply this
model to post-Â�Soviet Russia; see Bacon et al., Securitising Russia; Bobo Lo, ‘The
 Notes╇╇ 241
Securitization of Russian Policy under Putin’, in G. Gorodetsky and W. Wei-
denfeld, eds, Regional Security in the Wake of the Collapse of the Soviet Union, Bonn:
Europa Union, 2002; and Mark Galeotti, ‘What Implications for Russia’s
Development Have Securitisation, Crime and Corruption?’, in Robert L.
Larsson, ed., Whither Russia? Conference Proceedings, Swedish Defence Research
Agency, Stockholm, 6–7 May 2004, no. 15 (September 2004), p.€12. Galeotti
uses the term to refer to ‘the rise of both the security and military élites (silo-
viki) and their values’; ibid.
╇ 49 Aleksandr Dvorkin, Desiat’ voprosov naviazchivomu neznakomtsu ili posobie dlia
tekh, kto ne khochet byt’ zaverbovannym, Moscow: Section for Religious Education
and Catechesis, Moscow Patriarchate, 1995.
╇ 50 Cited ‘Ni buri, ni ispytaniia’.
╇ 51 The USSR Law ‘On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organisations’ was
passed on 1 October 1990, followed by the RSFSR Law ‘On Freedom of Reli-
gious Denomination’ on 25 October.
╇ 52 State Duma deputy Sergei Kuz’min, speaking at an October 1996 conference
‘Religious Totalitarianism and Young People’ in Moscow, cited O. Kuznetsov,
‘Sekty – seti’, Zavtra, no. 42, 15 October 1996.
╇ 53 Viktor Yasmann, ‘O monopolii KGB na informatsiiu. Zakon o svobode infor-
matsii kak sredstvo ee preodoleniia’, in Yelena Oznobkina et al., eds, KGB:
vchera, segodnia, zavtra. III konferentsiia. Sbornik dokladov, Moscow: Znak-�SP,
Obshchestvennyi fond “Glasnost’â•›”, 1994, p.€234.
╇ 54 It should be noted however that actual implementation of this 1997 law has
been patchy and inconsistent, and in some cases the law has been tempered
by lenient interpretations at the federal level; for a detailed discussion see
Geraldine Fagan, ‘Russia: Religious Freedom Survey, July 2003’, Forum 18, 29
July 2003. Online. Available at: www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=116
(accessed 16 December 2010).
╇ 55 At least initially; see further Larisa Honey, ‘The Myth of a Moral Vacuum:
Competing Voices in Moscow’s New Spiritual Landscape’, paper presented to
Europe and the World: Intergration, Interdependence, Exceptionalism?, 2004 Confer-
ence of Europeanists, Chicago, 11–13 March 2004, pp.€7–8.
╇ 56 One recent article, for example, gives the figure (provided by Dvorkin’s St
Irenaeus of Lyon Centre for Religious Studies) of 800,000 Russians (that is,
roughly one in 180 Russians) currently belonging to totalitarian sects; Aleksei
Krashakov, ‘Chem vladeiut sekty’, Argumenty i fakty, no. 32, 11 August 2004.
╇ 57 Yurii Savenko, ‘Human Rights in the Sphere of Mental Health: General
Trends’, in Human Rights and Psychiatry in the Russian Federation, Moscow:
Moscow Helsinki Group, 2004, p.€171.
╇ 58 See for example Boris Falikov, ‘Anatomiia mifa’, NG-Â�Religii, supplement to
Nezavisimaia gazeta, 11 April 2001. Online. Available at: http://religion.ng.ru/
printing/2001–04–11/7_myth.html (accessed 16 December 2010); Igor’
Kanterov, ‘â•›“Destruktivnye”, “totalitarnye” .â•›.â•›. i dalee vezde’, presentation to
seminar 10 let po puti svobody sovesti. Problemy realizatsii konstitutsionnogo prava na
svobodu sovesti i deiatel’nosti religioznykh organizatsii, undated, Slavianskii pra-
vovoi tsentr. Online. Available at: http://nauka-�i-religia.narod.ru/sektoved/
kanterov.html (accessed 16 December 2010); Boris Falikov, ‘Nash otvet
Kerzonu’, Mir religii, no. 68, undated. Online. Available at: www.religio.ru/
relisoc/68.html (accessed 16 December 2010); and Aleksandr Vladimirov,
‘Chapter 3. Politics and Theology’ in his V poiskakh pravoslaviia, Moscow:
Belovod’e, 2000.
╇ 59 For example, a 1997 publication of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Missionary
Section makes the case for rendering this an official term to be used in state
legislation at some length, providing exhaustive lists of cases when the term
242╇╇ Notes
has been used by ‘specialists’ and in ‘extremely authoritative documents’; see
Novye religioznye organizatsii Rossii destruktivnogo i okkul’tnogo kharaktera, Moscow:
Missionary Section of the Moscow Patriarchate, 1997. Numerous regional con-
ferences on this issue held throughout Russia and beyond also actively lobbied
for official recognition of the term.
╇ 60 Postanovlenie Gosudarstvennoi Duma RF “Ob obrashchenii Gosudarstevnnoi Duma
Federal’nogo Sobraniia RF ‘K Prezidentu RF ob opasnykh posledstviiakh vozdeistviia
nekotorykh religioznykh organizatsii na zdorov’e obshchestva, sem’i, grazhdan Rossii’â•›”,
15 December 1996.
╇ 61 Doktrina informatsionnoi bezopasnosti Rossiiskoi Federatsii, adopted by Presidential
Decree, 9 September 2000.
╇ 62 Meanwhile, Putin denied that the Beslan tragedy bore any relation to the con-
flict in Chechnya; cited Anna Politkovskaya, ‘Poisoned by Putin’, Guardian, 9
September 2004.
╇ 63 RIA Novosti, 28 October 2003. The speaker who made this statement was Igor’
Oleinik, general director of the Research Centre for Strategies of Develop-
ment and National Security. He was reportedly unable to answer a journalist’s
question as to which sect the Nord-�Ost terrorists belonged to, but he called
for training law-�enforcement personnel to enable them to identify totalitarian
sects; see ‘Moskva: Uchastniki kruglogo stola predlagaiut sozdat’ programme
“razoruzheniia totalitarnykh sekt”â•›’, Open Christian Forum, 29 October 2003.
Online. Available at: www.jesuschrist.ru/forum/114681 (accessed 16 Decem-
ber 2010).
╇ 64 A. L. Dvorkin, ‘Lobbirovanie pravitel’stvom SShA interesov totalitarnykh sekt
– prepiatstvie dlia dialoga tsivilizatsii’, Second International Forum ‘Dialogue
of Civilisations’, Rhodes, 2 October 2004. Online. Available at: www.iriney.ru/
document/030.htm (accessed 16 December 2010).
╇ 65 Nikolai Dzis’-Voinarovskii, ‘Stikhiinoe pravoslavie’, Lenta.ru, 23 December
2003. Online. Available at: www.lenta.ru/articles/2003/12/23/orthodox
(accessed 16 December 2010). As I saw in spring 2008, the museum in the
‘Rus’â•›’ Sanatorium for Chechen and Afghan veterans (the Likhodei Centre for
Medical Rehabilitation) in Ruza features a kind of altar to Yevgenii Rodionov.
╇ 66 Vladimir Mel’nik, ‘Zamirotochila ikona voina Yevgeniia Rodionova’, Blagovest,
13 December 2002. Online. Available at: www.zaistinu.ru/chudo/radionov.
shtml?print (accessed 16 December 2010).
╇ 67 Liubov’ Rodionova, ‘Rasskaz materi. Biografiia muchenika voina Yevgeniia’,
in Novyi muchenik za Khrista voin Yevgenii, 3rd edn, Moscow: Novaia kniga,
2000, pp.€38–9.
╇ 68 Ivan Samoilov, ‘Pokushenie na “Russkii dom”â•›’, Spetsnaz Rossii, 4, April 2001.
Online. Available at: www.specnaz.ru/archive/04_2001/5.htm (accessed 16
December 2010).
╇ 69 See for example ‘Podvig’ (on a Zavtra roundtable on the topic), Zavtra, no.
13, 30 March 1999; Vladimir Bondarenko, ‘Pamiati russkogo muchenika’,
Zavtra, no. 18, 4 May 1999; Otets Konstantin, ‘Podviga svet negasimyi’, ibid.;
Liubov’ Rodionova, ‘Syn pogib za Otechestvo’, ibid.; and Leonid Simonovich,
‘Khorugv’ i znameniia (Moleben na den’ ubieniia Voina Yevgeniia)’, Zavtra,
no. 23, 4 June 2002.
╇ 70 See Anna Politkovskaia, ‘Bor’ba za mir smertel’no opasna’, Novaia gazeta, 25
October 2004 and ‘Alksnis Wants Soldiers’ Mothers Investigated’, Chechnya
Weekly, 5:39, 27 October 2004.
╇ 71 ‘Patriarkh Aleksii II osviatil na Lubianke khram dlia sotrudnikov FSB’,
NEWSru.com, 6 March 2002. Online. Available at: www.newsru.com/arch/
religy/06mar2002/lubianka_hram.html (accessed 16 December 2010).
╇ 72 The special relationship between the Orthodox Church and the security
 Notes╇╇ 243
apparatus is even stronger in the neighbouring dictatorship of Belarus, where
the Russian Patriarch visited in June 2001, decorating several KGB officers
there for their contributions to ‘spiritual revival, the preservation of interde-
nominational peace and harmony, and the strengthening of the spiritual
foundations of society’ in Belarus; RFE/RL (Un)Civil Societies, 2:27, 11 July
2001.
╇ 73 See for example Mikhail Edelstein, ‘Russia: FSB-Â�inspired Smears on Pentecos-
tals in Kostroma Media’, Keston News Service, 24 November 2000. Online. Avail-
able at: www.keston.org.uk/kns/2000/001124RU.htm (accessed 17 December
2010); Natalya Shulyakovskaya, ‘Police Seize Records at Center for Scientol-
ogy’, The Moscow Times, no. 1652, 26 February 1999; ‘Putevki v rai. Skidki’,
Nizhny Novgorod Information Service, 26 April 2004 (accessed online 10 Feb-
ruary 2005 via www.nizhny.ru; URL no longer active); and Geraldine Fagan,
‘Russia: Increasing Crackdown on Muslim “Extremist” Books’, Forum 18, 14
September 2004. Online. Available at: www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_
id=410 (accessed 16 December 2010).
╇ 74 See for example A. Verkhovskii, ‘Doklad o sobliudenii prav cheloveka v Rossi-
iskoi Federatsii v 2003 godu’, Moscow: Moscow Helsinki Group, undated.
Online. Available at: www.mhg.ru/publications/3BA8995 (accessed 17
December 2010); Edelstein, ‘Russia: FSB-Â�inspired Smears’; S. Grigor’iants,
“Kuda my idem?’, GlasnostOnLine, 2 June 2001. Online. Available at:
http://t-�de-f.narod.ru/Grigorianc.htm (accessed 17 December 2010); and
Adelaida Sigida, ‘Dissidenty otschitalis’ pered pressoi’, Kommersant”, no. 97, 6
June 2001. Online. Available at: www.kommersant.ru/doc.
aspx?DocsID=269802 (accessed 17 December 2010).
╇ 75 For an account of the Moscow UFSB’s activities in this sphere see V. I. Alidin,
Gosudarstvennaia bezopasnost’ i vremia, Moscow: Izografus, 2001, pp.€367–74.
╇ 76 Ibid., pp.€371–2.
╇ 77 He was referring to Yeltsin’s 1997 National Security Concept of the Russian Federa-
tion, which officially recognized the special role played by the Russian Ortho-
dox Church in preserving Russian cultural values.
╇ 78 Cited Marina Petrova, ‘Altaiskii general i severokavkazskii irlandets’, NG-Â�
Religii, supplement to Nezavisimaia gazeta, no. 4, 24 February 1999.
╇ 79 See N. S. Leonov, Krestnyi put’ Rossii 1991–2000, Moscow: Russkii Dom, 2002,
pp.€ 522–3; and ‘Dukhovnaia bezopasnost’â•›’ entry in Rogozin, ed., Slovar’
“Voina i mir”. Rogozin defines spiritual security as
a component of national security, expressed in the qualitative level of
national self-Â�consciousness, reflecting the traditions of a society’s way of life,
its culture and history, and also the level of moral-�political unity of society.
Spiritual security is linked with morality and patriotism, and can guarantee
state security, expressing it in the people’s support of the government’s
domestic and foreign policy, in trust in the regime.
╇ 80 He harks back to pre-Â�revolutionary models such as Uvarov’s triad, and the Sla-
vophile concept of sobornost’, which he counterposes to individualism, mis-
guidedly borrowed from the West after 1991; Leonov, Krestnyi put’ Rossii,
pp.€522–3.
╇ 81 Ibid.
╇ 82 For example, staff of state institutions and law-�enforcement agencies are
included among target readers listed in the guide to new religious movements
produced by the Missionary Section of the Moscow Patriarchate; see M. S.
Stetskevich, ‘Mify o “totalitarnykh sektakh” i “vakhkhabitakh” v sovremennoi
Rossii: popytka analiza’, in Smysly mifa: mifologiia v istorii i kul’ture. Sbornik v
chest’ 90-letiia professora M. I. Shakhnovicha, St Petersburg: Izdatel’stvo
244╇╇ Notes
�
ankt-�Petersburgskogo filosofskogo obshchestva, 2001. Online. Available at:
http://anthropology.ru/ru/texts/stetskevich/misl8_73.html (accessed 24
December 2010).
╇ 83 See for example Aleksandra Kolymagina, ‘Riasa s portupeei’, Obshchaia gazeta,
no. 51, 23 December 1999.
╇ 84 See S. A. Bur’ianov, ‘Zakonotvorcheskii protsess i noveishie tendentsii trans-
formatsii zakonodatel’stva o svobode sovesti v Rossii’, Konstitutsionnoe i
munitsipal’noe pravo, 8, 2006, 20–3.
╇ 85 Alidin, Gosudarstvennaia bezopasnost’ i vremia, p.€363.
╇ 86 ‘FSB protiv sektantov’, ITAR-Â�TASS/Pravoslavie, 14 June 2000. Online. Available
at: www.pravoslavie.ru/news/06_12/13.htm (accessed 17 December 2010).
╇ 87 Aleksandr Grishchenko, cited Aleksandr Shutov, ‘Pora postavit’ eti sekty na
mesto’, BASHVest” (Elektronnaia gazeta Respubliki Bashkortostan), 26 June 2003.
Online. Available at: www.bashvest.ru/articles/2810 (accessed 17 December
2010).
╇ 88 Cited ‘Provintsial’nye chinovniki Miniusta reshili perepisat’ vsekh protestan-
tov’, Doroga k khramu, religious section of Russian Information Network, 24
March 2004. Online. Available at: www.religio.ru/24Mar2004/news/7738_
save.html (accessed 17 December 2010).
╇ 89 See further ‘â•›“Chtoby ne dat’ vostorzhestvovat’ Rimskomu Pape”â•›’, Vremia novostei,
no. 63, 10 April 2002. Online. Available at: www.vremya.ru/2002/63/4/21819.
html (accessed 17 December 2010); ‘Vysylka katolicheskikh sviashchennikov’,
Agentura Taimlain Agentura Taimlain. Online. Available at: www.agentura.ru/
timeline/2002/catholic (accessed 17 December 2010); RFE/RL Newsline, 10 Sep-
tember 2002. Online. Available at: www.rferl.org/content/article/1142755.html
(accessed 17 December 2010); RFE/RL (Un)Civil Societies, 3:37, 11 September
2002. Online. Available at: www.rferl.org/content/article/1347280.html
(accessed 17 December 2010); and RFE/RL (Un)Civil Societies, 3:36, 4 September
2002. Online. Available at: www.rferl.org/content/article/1347279.html
(accessed 17 December 2010). For an example of similar accusations made
against Mormons in Saratov, see Sergei Kazovskii, ‘Chuzhie sredi svoikh. Ino-
vertsy okazalis’ shpionami’, Russkii kur’er, no. 340, 2 August 2004.
╇ 90 The Patriarch died in December 2008.
╇ 91 Most recently, on 20 September 2000 the Orthodox Church issued another
official denial that Patriarch Aleksi II had ever worked for the KGB; RFE/RL
Security Watch, 1:10, 25 September 2000. Online. Available at: www.rferl.org/
content/article/1344744.html (accessed 17 December 2010).
╇ 92 This point is made in ‘A Missed Opportunity to Speak Out’, Moscow Times, 8
March 2002, p.€ 8; and Yevgenii Komarov, ‘FSB podtianula RPTs. K svoemu
“piaru”â•›’, Novye izvestiia, no. 41, 12 March 2002, p.€1.
╇ 93 Shul’ts, ‘Khram Sofii Premudrosti Bozhiei na Lubianke’.
╇ 94 See further on the failure of the leadership of the Church and the security
organs to articulate a clear position with regard to their shared past, Faibisov-
ich, ‘O pokaianii’.
╇ 95 Yakunin was defrocked in 1993 and excommunicated in 1997; he has since
established the Apostolate Orthodox Church.
╇ 96 Many chekists are still furious over Yakunin’s having gained access to the
archives, and continue to dwell on this. One recent memoir published by an
ex-�counter-intelligence officer of the KGB, for example, includes a compre-
hensive and bitter attack on Yakunin, in which the author claims that Yakun-
in’s real purpose was to destroy archival documents that supposedly
compromised Yakunin himself; Viacheslav Shironin, Pod kolpakom kontrraz-
vedki. Tainaia podopleka perestroika, Moscow: Paleiia, 1996, p.€ 345. This is a
common charge levelled against Russians seeking access to KGB archives.
 Notes╇╇ 245
╇ 97 See further Andrew and Mitrokhin, Mitrokhin Archive, ‘Chapter 28: The Pene-
tration and Persecution of the Soviet Churches’; and Konstantin Kedrov,
‘Svoboda trebuet sovesti’, Izvestiia, no. 61, 4 April 1995.
╇ 98 Vera Tolz, ‘Access to KGB and CPSU Archives in Russia’, RFE/RL Research
Report, 1:16, 17 April 1992, 4.
╇ 99 Ibid., 5.
100 In some cases the KGB seems to have forged the relevant documents and
deliberately leaked and disseminated them in order to discredit particular dis-
sidents; see for example Les’ Taniuk, ‘KGB: sozdanie fantomnogo prostran-
stva, ili Mertvyi khvataet zhivogo’, in Oznobkina et al., KGB: vchera, segodnia,
zavtra, pp.€30–40.
101 The assertion is journalist Aleksandr Minkin’s; see Yakov Krotov, ‘Vse yeshche
ishchut mauzer pod mantiei’, Obshchaia gazeta, no. 43, 29 October 1998, p.€5.
It is the case that spreading rumours that a particular individual was a KGB
secret informer was a tactic used by the KGB to discredit its critics and to
create divisions amongst dissidents; see further Vladimir Kara-Â�Murza, ‘V stuke
obviniaetsia’, Kommersant” Vlast’, no. 34, 1–7 September 2003, p.€42.
102 Andrew and Mitrokhin, The Mitrokhin Archive, p.€661; and Gleb Yakunin, ‘â•›“Vy
prevratili khram v dom torguiushchikhâ•›.â•›.â•›.”â•›’, Ekspress Khronika, 17 May 1996.
Online. Available at: www.stetson.edu/~psteeves/relnews/yakunin1705rus.
html (accessed 17 December 2010).
103 See documents cited Boris Sobolev and Sergei Sokolov, ‘Aleksii II – agent
KGB po klichke “Drozdov”?’, Novaia gazeta, 13 October 1998.
104 Note that Patriarch Aleksi repudiated Sergianism in the early 1990s; Jane Ellis,
The Russian Orthodox Church: Triumphalism and Defensiveness, Houndmills: Mac-
millan, 1996, pp.€127–8.
105 Cited ‘Kamo griadeshi, sviataia tserkov’?’, Ogonek, 18–19, May 1992, 12.
106 That is, of processes aimed at identifying ex-�collaborators and ex-�secret police-
men and banning them from certain professions and posts.
107 Adam Michnik, ‘The Rebirth of Civil Society’, public lecture, LSE Ideas of 1989
Public Lecture Series, 20 October 1999. The position adopted by Michnik has in
turn laid him open to accusations that Michnik himself must have something
to hide. Anne Applebaum suggested in 1996 that anti-�lustration ex-�dissidents
like Adam Michnik were motivated primarily by a desire to protect former
informers active within the dissident movement; see Anne Applebaum, ‘A
Dearth of Feeling’, in Roger Kimball and Hilton Kramer, The Future of the Euro-
pean Past, Chicago: 1997. Online. Available at: www.anneapplebaum.
com/1996/10/11/a-�dearth-of-�feeling (accessed 17 December 2010).
108 See Roman David, ‘Transitional Injustice? Criteria for Conformity of Lustra-
tion to the Right of Political Expression’, Europe-Â�Asia Studies, 56:6, September
2004, 789–812.
109 According to Mikhail Sokolov, ‘Kul’t spetssluzhb v sovremennoi Rossii’,
Neprikosnovennyi zapas, 42, 2005. Online. Available at: http://magazines.russ.
ru/nz/2005/42/so18.html (accessed 17 December 2010).
110 See for example proceedings of the October 2003 Moscow roundtable ‘Totali-
tarian Sects: A Weapon of Mass Destruction’; ‘Moskva: Uchastniki kruglogo
stola predlagaiut sozdat’ programmu “razoruzheniia totalitarnykh sekt”â•›’.
111 Zorkal’tsev was not returned in the December 2003 Duma elections. He died
in December 2010.
112 Viktor Zorkal’tsev, ‘Problemy razvitiia zakonodatel’stva o svobode sovesti i o
religioznykh ob”edineniiakh’, a report to a seminar held in the Duma on
Church–state relations, 18 June 2003. Online. Available at: www.religare.
ru/2_5222.html (accessed 17 December 2010).
113 Cited Ernst Chernyi, “Shpiony” rozhdaiutsia na Lubianke, Moscow: Moscow
246╇╇ Notes
�
Helsinki Group, 2003. Online. Available at: www.mhg.ru/files/006/chernyi.
doc (accessed 17 December 2010).
114 ‘Putin: Spetssluzhby, ne suite svoi nos v grazhdanskoe obshchestvo!’, Grani.ru,
26 September 2003. Online. Available at: www.grani.ru/Politics/Russia/
FSB/m.44812.html (accessed 17 December 2010). Occasional statements in
this vein have not generally been matched by actual policies and practices, as
we shall see below.
115 Ella Pamfilova, cited Aleksandr Podrabinek, ‘Laskovaia ugroza. V igre v
“khoroshego” i “plokhogo” sledovatelia prezident ispolniaet obe role srazu’,
Novoe vremia, no. 41, 10 October 2004. For a summary of developments in this
sphere under Putin, see Bacon and Renz with Cooper, Securitising Russia, Ch.
5: ‘Civil Society’.
116 See further Podberezkin’s presentation, in his capacity as a member of the Presi-
dential Council for Assisting the Development of Institutions of Civil Society and
Human Rights, to the seminar ‘Human Rights and Spiritual Values’, Sviato-Â�
Danilov Monastery, 28 February 2006, in which he argued that whereas the
USSR used to counterpose a socio-�economic vision of human rights to counter
Western criticism on human rights grounds, a change of tactics was now
required, focused on defending human rights ‘in the sphere of historical, spirit-
ual and cultural heritage’, on the one hand, and opposing the violent imposition
of the Western vision of human rights via colour revolutions, on the other; A.
Podberezkin, presentation to Prava cheloveka i dukhovnye tsennosti seminar, Sviato-�
Danilov Monastery, 28 February 2006. Online. Available at: http://allrus.info/
main.php?ID=250725 (accessed 17 December 2010).
117 Cited Podrabinek, ‘Laskovaia ugroza’.
118 Politkovskaia, ‘Bor’ba za mir smertel’no opasna’; and ‘Alksnis Wants Soldiers’
Mothers Investigated’.
119 The scandal appears to have been timed in order to justify the passage of a
new law on NGOs which gave the state greatly expanded powers to monitor,
control and shut down NGOs.
120 The full quote runs as follows:
There are people who are the face of one or another system. They are the
expressers of its spirit, its principles. Such a person is retired general-�
lieutenant Nikolai Sergeevich Leonov. As one of the leaders of Soviet intel-
ligence, and then the ‘KGB’s chief analyst’, he was known to a limited circle
of individuals. Now the whole country knows him, both as a talented publi-
cist, and as a permanent commentator on the television programme
‘Russkii Dom’.
(Yevdokimov, ‘Russkaia Pravda generala Leonova’)
121 Ibid.
122 N. S. Leonov, Likholet’e, Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia, 1995.
123 Sergei Katkanov, ‘Dukhovnost’ protiv narkomanii’, Vologodskaia nedelia, 1,
January 2004.
124 Leonov is also a regular contributor and member of the editorial board of the
journal of the same name, published with the blessing of Patriarch Aleksi II.
125 See further on Russkii Dom Sergei Zassorin, ‘Modern Russian Nationalism on
Television and Radio as a Reflection of Political Discourse’, in Jan Herman
Brinks, Edward Timms and Stella Rock, eds, Nationalist Myths and Modern
Media: Contested Identities in the Age of Globalization, London and New York: I. B.
Tauris, 2006, pp.€191–4.
126 There are also rumours that it was Leonov who introduced Tikhon to Putin;
Timur Poliannikov, ‘Res publica. Logika avtoritarizma’, Svobodnaia mysl’, 1,
2005, 62.
 Notes╇╇ 247
127 He was unsuccessful in the 1999 parliamentary elections, but won a seat in
2003 when he ran as a candidate on the list of the nationalist ‘Motherland’
electoral bloc. He went on to sit on a number of key parliamentary commit-
tees, including the Committee for Security, and the committee overseeing
federal expenditure on defence and security. He was not re-�elected in 2007.
128 Nikolai Leonov, ‘Na kogo rabotaiut “pravozashchitniki” v Rossii’, Radonezh,
no. 9, 3 November 2003. Online. Available at: www.radonezh.ru/main/get-
print/8730.html (accessed 17 December 2010).
129 Irina Langueva-Â�Rep’eva ‘Novyi trekhtletnii pokhod pravozashchitnikov’, pub-
lished on Radonezh site, cited Anna Gal’perina, ‘Khorosho oplachennaia
nenavist’â•›’, Pravoslavie.ru, 4 November 2003. Online. Available at: www.pravo-
slavie.ru/press/4859.htm (accessed 17 December 2010).
130 Tat’iana Poret, ‘Gud bai, Amerika!â•›.â•›.â•›.’, Yezhednevnye novosti – Podmoskov’e, no.
210, 9 November 2002. Online. Available at: http://moscow.hrights.ru/deti/
data/deti_15_11_2002–1.htm (accessed 17 December 2010).
131 Ibid.
132 ‘Nikolai Patrushev dovolen rezul’tatami deiatel’nosti FSB v etom godu’, strana.
ru, 20 December 2002. Online. Available at: www.fsb.ru/fsb/comment/
remark/single.htm!id%3D10310134%40fsbComment.html (accessed 17
December 2010). See also Vladimir Kovalev, ‘The Peace Corps in Russia:
Who’s Helping Whom?’, RFE/RL Newsline, 7:4, 8 January 2003. Online. AvailÂ�
able at: www.rferl.org/content/article/1142830.html (accessed 17 December
2010).
133 Cited ‘â•›“Grazhdanskoe obshchestvo vyrastet samo. Ili ne vyrastet”â•›’, Novoe
vremia, no. 41, 10 October 2004.
134 On the vilification of Kovalev see Emma Gilligan, Defending Human Rights in
Russia: Sergei Kovalyov, Dissident and Human Rights Commissioner, 1969–2003,
London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004, passim.
135 See Aleksandr Podrabinek, ‘Politseiskaia psikhiatriia: proshloe ili budush-
chee?’, Prima News, 8 December 2004.
136 See Aleksandr Podrabinek, ‘Psikhiatry lechat pamiat’â•›’, Grani.Ru, 6 February
2002. Online. Available at: www.grani.ru/Society/History/m.3783.html
(accessed 17 December 2010).
137 More precisely, the Serbskii State Scientific Centre for Social and Judicial Psy-
chiatry, which was called the Serbskii Central Psychiatric Research Institute
during the Soviet period.
138 For example, Polishchuk’s theories on ‘cults’ were used in the mid-Â�1990s in
the formulation of policy in the Russian Interior and Health Ministries, and
in court cases against new religious organizations; see comments by Yurii
Savenko, cited Zoia Or’iakhova, ‘Rossiiane ne dolzhny ogorchat’sia’, Prima
News, 19 September 2002. Kondrat’ev was chair of a Russian Health Ministry
group tasked with preparing a programme of medical assistance for victims of
sects; Kuznetsov, ‘Sekty – seti’.
139 See for example Fedor Kondrat’ev, ‘Satanizm kak real’nost’ i “satanizm” kak
psikhicheskoe rasstroistvo’, in Liudi pogibeli. Satanizm v Rossii: popytka analiza,
Moscow: Moskovskoe Podvor’e Sviato-Â�Troitskoi Sergievoi Lavry, 2000. Online.
Available at: www.vernost.ru/pogib02.htm (accessed 17 December 2010); and
Gal’perina, ‘Khorosho oplachennaia nenavist’.
140 Yurii Polishchuk speaking at October 2003 roundtable ‘Totalitarian Sects – A
Weapon of Mass Destruction’, cited ibid.
141 Yurii Polishchuk speaking at the October 1996 Moscow conference ‘Religious
Totalitarianism and Young People’, cited Kuznetsov, ‘Sekty – seti’.
142 See for example the comments of Deacon Andrei (Khvylia-�Olinter); cited Ger-
aldine Fagan, ‘Russia: Foreign Missionaries in Sakhalin Face Restrictions’,
248╇╇ Notes
Forum 18, 16 June 2004. Online. Available at: www.forum18.org/Archive.
php?article_id=342 (accessed 17 December 2010).
143 Deacon Andrei (Khvylia-�Olinter) is a prolific commentator on spiritual secur-
ity and a strong advocate of Church cooperation with state security and mili-
tary structures. Now head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Synodal Missionary
Section’s Information-Â�Analytical Centre, he was previously an MVD colonel
with particular expertise in sects and their attempts to penetrate government
and mass media; see further the report on his presentation to the 1996
Moscow Conference on ‘Religious Totalitarianism and Young People’, in
Kuznetsov, ‘Sekty – seti’.
144 See Fagan, ‘Russia: Foreign Missionaries in Sakhalin’.
145 Or’iakhova, ‘Rossiane ne dolzhny ogorchat’sia’.
146 Cited ‘Psikhicheskie rasstroistva u detei v rakurse natsional’noi bezopasnosti’,
Meditsinskii vestnik, 26, 2001. Online. Available at: http://medi.ru/
doc/731261.htm (accessed 24 December 2010). This problem is linked to
national security also in recent studies such as Ye. B. Breeva, Dezadaptatsiia
detei i natsional’naia bezopasnost’ Rossii, Moscow: Vlast’, 2004.
147 Cited Mikhail Gokhman, ‘Vse li sekty totalitarnye?’, Russkaia mysl’, 4 February
1997. Viktor Cherkesov has also publicly denied that any mentally healthy dis-
sidents were subjected to forced psychiatric treatment; cited Inga Rostovtseva
and Konstantin Zborovskii, ‘Noveishaia istoriia. Peterburgskii smotritel’â•›’,
Profil’, no. 23, 19 June 2000, p.€72.
148 This occurred in December 2002. Budanov subsequently underwent a re-�trial
later in 2003 and was sent to prison for ten years. He was granted an early
release in December 2008.
149 See ‘Improvizatsiia na temu Minoborony. Ekspertiza ekspertizy Budanova’,
Polit.Ru, 28 May 2002. Online. Available at: www.polit.ru/
world/2002/05/27/479406.html (accessed 24 December 2010).
150 Cited Podrabinek, ‘Politseiskaia psikhiatriia’.
151 Tat’iana Dmitrieva joined the staff of the Serbskii Institute in 1976, became
director in 1990, and in August 1996 was appointed RF Health Minister (she
remained in this post until 1998). She was also an Academician, and sat on
the General Council of the United Russia party. She died in March 2010.
152 Tat’iana Dmitrieva, speaking on RTR Russia TV, 12 January 2006, translation
by BBC Monitoring, reprinted Johnson’s Russia List, no. 14, 16 January 2006.
153 Barry Buzan, Ole Wæver and Jaap de Wilde, eds, Security: A New Framework for
Analysis, Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1998, pp.€24–6.
154 Vitalii Azarov, ‘Dukhovnost’ sovremennoi armii’, Krasnaia zvezda, no. 133, 20
July 2000, p.€1.
155 ‘Dukhovnaia bezopasnost’â•›’, entry in Rogozin, Slovar’ “Voina i mir”.
156 The late Metropolitan Ioann was notorious for his extreme nationalist views;
Ellis, The Russian Orthodox Church, pp.€105–8. He was a frequent commentator
on spiritual security, especially as it related to globalization. He died in 1995.
The quote here comes from Sovetskaia Rossiia, 12 September 1992, cited ibid.,
p.€ 105. Such discourses frequently invoke the concept of the ‘Russian soul’,
which has undergone a renaissance since the Gorbachev era; see Dale
Pesmen, Russia and Soul: An Exploration, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000,
‘Introduction’.
157 See for example Shironin, KGB-�TsRU, p.€151; or Leonov, cited Pavel Yevdoki-
mov, ‘Russkaia Pravda generala Leonova’.
158 Cherkesov, ‘Moda na KGB?’.
159 Ibid.
160 Ibid.
161 Ibid.
 Notes╇╇ 249
162 ‘Aleksandr Dugin’.
163 Doktrina informatsionnoi bezopasnosti Rossiiskoi Federatsii, adopted by Presidential
Decree on 9 September 2000.
164 Viktor Zorkal’tsev, ‘Rol’ obshchestvennykh ob”edinenii v sokhranenii obsh-
chestvennoi i dukhovnoi bezopasnosti strany’, Religiia i SMI, 21 May 2003.
Online. Available at: www.religare.ru/2_4302.html (accessed 24 December
2010).
165 See for example report given by General Makhmut Gareev, President of the
Academy of Military Sciences, to the Russian Security Council session on ‘Sci-
entific Grounding of the Significance of the Spiritual Factor as a Crucial Com-
ponent of the Military Security of the Russian Federation’, covered in
Gafutulin, ‘Khranit’ rodniki patriotizma’.
166 ‘Efesbeshniki vsled za mentami’, KURITSYNweekly, no. 47, 9 March 2000.
Online. Available at: www.guelman.ru/slava/archive/09–03–00.htm (accessed
24 December 2010). Stavitskii is also author and editor of various books on
intelligence and security, including a ‘fictional-Â�documentary’ work about the
Edmund Pope case: Vasilii Stavitskii, Shpionskie pokhozdeniia Poupa v Rossii,
Moscow: Mir, 2001. On Stavitskii, see Yelizaveta Velikanova, ‘Kogda Poup ver-
netsia v Rossiiu’, Versiia, no. 27, 2002. Online. Available at: www.agentura.ru/
timeline/2000/pope/kniga (accessed 24 December 2010). In keeping with
the Soviet-Â�era mythology surrounding the chekist’s special care for children,
Stavitskii has devoted particular attention to the issue of the spiritual security
of children; see his article ‘On the Security of the Child’s Soul’, in V. Stavit-
skii, ed., Igra na chuzhom pole, Moscow: AST-�Group, 2001.
167 ‘Novye knigi Rossii’, Zavtra, no. 9, 14 August 2001.
168 Velikanova, ‘Kogda Poup vernetsia’.
169 See Leonid Gol’denmauer, ‘Narodnye pesni’, Ex Libris, supplement to Nezavi-
simaia gazeta, 2 December 1999.
170 Vasilii Stavitskii, ‘Zhiznennyi krest’. See further Soldatov and Bogoran, ‘Mutat-
siia organov bezopasnosti’, and Soldatov, ‘Chekistskii zakaz na mify’. This
song is apparently one of Stavitskii’s most popular; Velikanova, ‘Kogda Poup
vernetsia’. The chorus includes the refrain ‘Don’t touch the fatherland:/The
Cheka is on the alert’ [Cheka na cheku].

Conclusion
1 Andrei Piontkovsky, ‘Russia’s National Zombie’, openDemocracy, 13 December
2010. Online. Available at: www.opendemocracy.net/od-�russia/andrei-�
piontkovsky/russias-�national-zombie-�0 (accessed 28 December 2010).
2 From his preface to a book marking the eightieth jubilee of the VChK-�FSB. The
book, which comprises a history of the Kuban chekists, also marks the sixtieth
jubilee of the Krasnodar region’s local branch of the security organs; Yevgenii
Vorontsov, ‘Na strazhe bezopasnosti Rodiny’, in N. T. Panchishkin et al., eds,
Kubanskaia ChK organy gosbezopasnosti Kubani v dokumentakh i vospominaniiakh
(Krasnodar: Sovetskaia Kuban’, 1997), p.€8.
3 Cherkesov, ‘Moda na KGB?’.
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Films
Kod apokalipsis (dir. Vadim Shmelev, 2007).
Lichnyi nomer (dir. Yevgenii Lavrent’ev, 2004).
Sotrudnik ChK (dir. Boris Volchek, 1963).
Vystrel v tumane (dir. A. I. Seryi and A. A. Bobrovskii, 1964).
Index
IX Party Congress 4
XX Party Congress 32, 33, 43, 84, 91
XXI Party Congress 52, 53, 54, 200n55,
203n113
XXII Party Congress 30, 43, 52, 84,
194n138, 197n31, 206n191
22 iiunia 1941 214n9
Abakumov, Viktor 200n56
Abel, Rudolf 42, 202n97
Adzhubei, Aleksei 199n51
AFB see Federal Security Agency
Afghanistan 234n119
agents of influence 147
Aksakov, Konstantin 164
Aksenov, Vasilii 152, 207n201
Albats, Yevgenia 49, 218n2
Alekseev 214n20
Alekseeva, Liudmila 175
Aleksi II, Patriarch of Moscow and All
Russia 160, 163, 164–5, 168, 170–1,
236n3, 244n90, n91, 245n104,
246n134
Alidin, V.I. 137
Alksnis, Viktor 173
Ambassadors’ Plot, The 202n98
Andrew, Christopher 185n4, 199n43
Andropov, Yurii 5, 7, 31, 44, 47, 53, 54,
55, 85, 112, 119, 131, 133, 136;
chapter 6 passim 200n58, 206n193,
207n206, n208, 208n220, 218n3,
223n56, 228n2, 229n5, n19, 230n24,
n36, 231n39, n45, n46, 232n80,
234n111, n119, n123, 235n130, n135,
236n155, 237n10
Andropov: The Burden of Power 156
Animal Farm 113
Apocalypse Code, The 155
Applebaum, Anne 245n107
Artuzov Prize 152
At Home 43, 202n103
August 1991 coup 2, 119, 121, 138,
145–6, 147, 148, 171, 234n111
Azadovskii, Konstantin 52
Babel, Isaac 6, 29, 195n169
Bachurin, Andrei 88, 98, 101, 103,
233n84
Bagritskii, Eduard 24, 195n169
Bakatin, Vladimir 121, 128, 147, 219n2,
220n27, 224n64
Baltic states 114
Barthes, Roland 8, 23
Bazhenov, Sergei 155
Bednyi, Dem’ian 24
Belarus 25, 35, 134, 187n10, 243n72
Belokonev, V.S. 88, 213n7, 214n9
Belye odezhdy 94, 215n43
Benckendorff, Count 16
Beria, Lavrentii 33, 35, 44, 62, 71, 90,
134, 200n56, 210n36, 214n14
Beslan massacre 131–2, 155, 242n62
Bezymenskii, Aleksandr 12, 25, 26
Blake, George 202n95
Bobkov, Filipp 5, 127, 141, 144, 146,
157, 200n55, 204n127
Bobrovskii, Anatolii 87, 90, 109, 111,
113, 217n122
Bogoran, Irina 180, 185n7, 186n8
Bolshoi Theatre 25
Bond, James 40, 91, 155, 201n84
Bondarchuk, Fyodor 234n106
Bonner, Elena 236n160
Borshchev, Valerii 130
Boym, Svetlana 5
Brezhnev, Leonid 32, 57, 61, 78, 85,
141, 149, 206n187, 229n19, 230n36
Bryant, Louise 191n84
Budanov, Yurii 177, 248n148
Buikis, Yan 13, 42, 202n98
280╇╇ Index
Bukharin, Nikolai 4, 13, 22
Bukovskii, Vladimir 156, 234n111,
236n155
But What If This Is Love? 207n213
Buzan, Barry 164, 178
Caprio, Father Stefano 170
Carnival Night 199n53
Chapman, Anna 182
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) 145,
206n188
Chebrikov, Viktor 53, 144, 200n58,
235n132, 236n141
Chechnya 125, 154, 166–7, 174, 176,
177, 182, 219n9, 242n62, n65
Chekist, The (Sotrudnik ChK) chapter 3
passim 88, 90, 114, 209n5
Chekist’s Day 44, 123–7, 131–5, 152,
175, 196n6, 198n39, 221n24, n27,
n28, 226n93
Cherednichenko, Tat’iana 234n107
Cherkasov, Aleksandr 52
Cherkesov, Viktor 127, 137, 142, 143,
148, 154, 162, 178–9, 183, 222n52,
248n147
Chiaureli, Mikhail 72
Chuprikov, Anatolii 177
CIA see Central Intelligence Agency
Civil War 19, 20, 26, 38, 57, 67, 71, 78,
80, 83, 136, 166, 191n81, 233n95
Clark, Katerina 198n35
Cohen, Morris 125
Cold War 24, 87, 89, 113, 137, 148,
206n188
Committee for State Security see KGB
Confrontation 157
Countdown 154
Darnton, Robert 6, 11
Dashkova, Polina 234n106
Day of Soviet Youth 37
Death Ray 216n58
Dening, Greg 3, 195n160
de-Stalinization 35, 40, 51, 65, 84, 100,
182, 199n45; see also Thaw
dissidents 32, 53, 55, 56, 127, 129, 145,
148, 151, 155–9, 207n201, 208n220,
223n52, 234n111, 236n155, 244n96,
245n100, n101, n107
Dmitrieva, Tat’iana 177, 248n151, n152
Dneprov see Tsvigun, Semen
Dobroliubov, Yaroslav 137
Donskoi, Mark 210n36
doverennye litsa see KGB informers
Drozdov, Yurii 140, 202n97
Dubrovka siege 131, 154, 242n63
Dudintsev, Vladimir 94, 215n43
Dugin, Aleksandr 161, 179
Dulles, Allen see ‘Dulles Plan’
‘Dulles Plan’ 147–8
‘Duty, Honour, Dignity’ Contest 152,
154
Dvorkin, Aleksandr 164, 165–6, 241n56
Dzerzhinskaia, Sofiia 24
Dzerzhinsky, Feliks 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7,
11–29, 32, 34–5, 36, 45, 46, 47–8,
54, 55–6, 57, 65, 66, 67, 69–70, 71,
76–8, 82, 86, 108, 119, 121, 128,
133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 142,
143, 144, 159, 187n31, n7; n10,
188n14, n29, 189n34, n37, n40, n41,
n45, n46, n48, 190n52, n59, n61,
n62, 191n75, 191n80, n83, n84,
192n98, n108, n110, 193n122, n126,
n130, n133, 194n142, 197n25, n32,
198n33, n38, 199n45, 200n66,
204n125, 207n209, 208n215, n216,
210n36, 211n56, 212n101, 222n47,
223n56, n58, 227n111, 228n132, n2,
230n36, n39
Dziak, John J. 206n189
Ernst, Konstantin 234n106
Etkind, Alexander 5
European Youth Campaign 206n188
FBI see Federal Bureau of Investigation
Federal Agency for Culture and
Cinematography 154
Federal Border Service (FPS) 163,
239n36
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
45
Federal Counter-Intelligence Service
(FSK) 219n5
FPS see Federal Border Service
Federal Security Agency (AFB) 219n5
Federal Security Service (FSB) 122,
123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 130, 131,
132, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139,
140, 141, 143, 144, 147, 148, 155,
158, 160, 162, 163, 164, 167, 168,
169, 170, 171, 175, 180, 181, 182,
205n173, 219n5, 220n13, n23,
221n29, 222n47, n48, n52, 225n76,
n89, 227n114, n117, 235n140, 237n8,
n12, 239n29, n36, 243n75; and
cultural prizes 133, 149, 150, 152–4,

155, 229n7, 233n101, 234n106,
234n115; Centre for Public Links
(TsOS) 151–2, 153, 219n9, 222n48,
233n95; see also Chekist’s Day
Foreign Intelligence Service see SVR
FSB see Federal Security Service
FSK see Federal Counter-Intelligence
Service
Fedorchuk, Vitalii 200n58
Fifth Directorate see KGB Fifth
Directorate
Foundation for the Support of Patriotic
Cinema 155
Four and Five 216n58
Friedberg, Maurice 203n124
Galeotti, Mark 241n48
Galkin, Aleksei 154
Ganichev, Valerii 234n106
Gareev, Makhmut 249n165
Gavrilov, E. 202n103
Geertz, Clifford 24
Georgia 178
German, Yurii 17, 20, 44, 134, 189n37,
n38
Gladkov, Teodor 233n100
glasnost’ 46, 49, 144, 145
Gogol, Nikolai 25
Golitsyn, Anatolii 202n95
Golovskoy, Val S. 88
Golubkina, Liudmila 72, 73, 74, 212n75
Goncharov, Sergei 125, 221n35
Gorbachev, Mikhail 46, 63, 132, 145,
147, 152, 171, 187n29, 199n44,
203n111, 215n43, 229n19, 231n59,
248n156
Gordievsky, Oleg 40
Gorky, Maxim 18, 20, 23, 190n72,
202n96
GPU 21, 25, 130
Granin, Daniil 94, 215n44
Great Terror 7, 30, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36,
45, 59, 61–7, 74, 77–8, 79–83, 84, 86,
100, 129, 197n31, 198n36, 199n44,
n45, 203n113, n121, 206n189,
210n23, 211n57, 226n99, 238n21
Gribanov, Oleg 200n55
Groundswell 202n96
Gulag Archipelago, The 8
Heller, Mikhail 69
Herriot, Édouard 191n84
Hingley, Ronald 13
Hitler, Adolf 40, 146
Index╇╇ 281
Hobsbawm, Eric 121, 132
Holmes, Sherlock 39
Horvath, Robert 186n22
Humphrey, Caroline 230n22
Hungarian uprising 34, 35, 234n119
Ignat’ev, Semen 200n56
Il’ichev, Leonid 75, 84
Il’ich’s Gate 42, 207n213
Ilovaiskaia, Irina 120
International Student Federation
206n188
Inter-Republican Security Service
(MSB) 219n6
In the First Circle 93
Invisible Front, The 153
Ioann of St Petersburg and Ladoga,
Metropolitan 178, 248n156
Ivanov, Sergei 143
Ivan the Terrible 129
Izvestiia 1, 4, 34, 35, 199n51
Kagarlitskii, Boris 158
Kalatozov, Mikhail 78
Kamenev, Lev 25
Kedrov, Mikhail 210n36
Kevorkov, Viacheslav 156
KGB 2, 4, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 43, 44
[chapter 2 passim], 80, 83, 125, 127,
128, 132, 137, 142, 143, 144, 145,
147, 148, 168, 170, 199n43, 200n57,
n58, 201n66, n67, 202n96, 203n113,
205n185, 206n188, 207n208,
210n23, 214n7, 221n27, n41,
222n50, 223n55, 228n127, n130,
231n51, n59, 233n87, 235n123,
n132, n134, n140, 240n40, 245n100,
n101, 246n120; and cinema 38, 43,
65–6, 73, 76, 85; chapter 4 passim
150, 151, 201n74, 206n187, 210n23,
212n101, n2, 214n20; and cultural
prizes 131, 149, 150, 152, 153, 154,
233n96; and science 87, 89, 91,
92–9, 106, 110, 111, 215n39, n43,
n44, 216n58; Centre for Public
Links 151; Fifth Directorate 5, 44,
148, 151, 155, 207n206, 236n152;
Fourth Directorate 44, 89, 205n161;
informers 34, 45, 47–50, 51, 108,
132, 150, 171, 203n121, n124,
204n145, n156, 205n160, n161,
n162, n164, 225n90, 244n91,
245n106; Moscow Directorate 88;
Press Bureau 112, 150–2, 209n5,
233n84, n95; reforms under
282╇╇ Index
KGB continued
Khrushchev 30, 31, 33, 37, 38, 43–4,
53, 123, 196n6, 200n60, 204n127,
206n189, n191, 207n195; Second
Chief Directorate 44, 200n55; see also
dissidents
Kharitonov, Nikolai 223n58
Kheifits, Iosif 210n23
Khlebnikov, Velimir 6
Khlobustov, Oleg 225n76
Khmelik 71
Khokhlov, Nikolai 89, 90, 211n69,
214n24
Khoreva, G.P. 64
Khrushchev, Nikita 7, 13, 24, 30, 31, 32,
33, 34, 35, 36, 38, 39, 40, 42, 43
[chapter 2 passim], 65, 72, 75, 76, 83,
84, 92, 93, 99, 100, 106, 112, 123,
150, 189n47, 198n35, 199n51, n54,
200n55, n56, 206n187, n189,
206n191, 207n213, 210n36, 215n37,
n38, 216n58, 233n87; see also KGB
reforms under Khrushchev Secret
Speech; Thaw
Khrzizhanovskii, Gleb 28
Khutsiev, Marlen 42
Khvylia-Olinter, Andrei 176, 247n142,
248n143
Kikabidze, Vakhtang 152
Kirov, Sergei 189n47
Kiselev, Yevgenii 231n44
Kobrin, Kirill 70
Kombatov, Aleksandr 131, 225n87
Komsomol 36–8, 52, 53–4, 61, 83,
199n54, 200n56, 200n58, n64,
206n188, 207n201
Komsomol’skaia Pravda 56, 83, 127, 151,
178, 199n51, 209n9
Kondrat’ev, Fedor 176, 177, 247n138
Kopelev, Lev 205n160
Korolenko, Vladimir 187n29
Korolev, Sergei 93
Korotkoe zamykanie 213n128
Kovalev, Sergei 125, 130, 131, 176,
218n2, 247n134
Kozakov, Mikhail 22
Kozhevnikov, Vadim 38, 114, 201n82,
202n97
Kozyrev, Andrei 126
Krakhmal’nikova, Zoia 172
Kravchenko, Vladimir 88
Kremlin 19, 43, 113, 230n39
Kremnev, V. 202n103
Kriuchkov, Vladimir 121, 146, 200n58,
240n40
Krokodil 207n201
Krotov, Yakov 237n6
Kruglov, Sergei 200n56
Krylov, Konstantin 224n64
Kulakov, Vladimir 227n117
Kurchatov Institute 113
Kuz’min, Sergei 241n52
Kuznetsov, Anatolii 43
Kuznetsov, Nikolai 209n5, 233n100
Kuzovkin, Gennadii 53
Lavrent’ev, Yevgenii 154
Lavrov, A. 76
Lazurkina, Dora 194n138
Lebedev, Sergei162
Lenfil’m Studios 213n2
Leningrad Affair 231n45
Leningradskaia pravda 207n209
Lenin, Vladimir 4, 13, 16, 21, 22, 23,
28, 45, 46–7, 48, 54, 66, 70, 84, 123,
133, 140, 189n45, n48, 191n78,
192n110, 194n138, n142, 195n156,
199n43, n47, 208n215, 211n57,
229n19
Leonov, Nikolai 136, 137, 142, 146,
168–9, 173–4, 223n59, 225n77,
228n127, 243n80, 246n120, n124,
n126, 247n127
Let’s Drink to … 153
Lichnyi nomer see Countdown
Likhachev, Dmitrii 69, 211n57
Lipatov, Vil’ 149
Literaturnaia gazeta 148
Litvinenko, Aleksandr 120
Liube 153, 234n107
Liubimov, Mikhail 31
Lockhart Plot 73, 74, 202n98, 211n68
Lokot’, Anatolii 223n58
Lubianka 19, 32, 34, 35, 36, 56, 78, 123,
126, 127, 128, 133–4, 136, 139, 141,
142, 143, 144, 146, 154, 159, 160,
162, 163, 171, 193n133, 196n19,
197n31, n32, 198n33, n36, 206n187,
220n20, 223n55, n56, 225n87, 229n5,
230n36, n39, 234n111
Lukin, Aleksandr 60, 67, 209n1, n5
Luzhkov, Yurii 128, 139, 140, 141, 145,
161, 238n17
McCain, John 228n130
Maiorov, Mikhail 105, 107, 111
Makarenko, Anton 191n72, 194n142
 Index╇╇ 283
Makliarskii, Mikhail 88, 89, 99, 102, Nikulin, Lev 202n96
108, 202n98, 214n14, n20, 218n133 NKVD 2, 35, 36, 59, 61, 63, 64, 65, 80,
Maksimenko, P.N. 88, 112 81, 86, 94, 130, 143, 199n45, 200n56
Mandelstam, Nadezhda 13, 44, 69, Nora, Pierre 198n34
192n102, 203n111 Nosenko, Yurii 202n95
Marshal, Aleksandr 153 Novocherkassk 37
Maslov, Viktor 164, 239n29 Novyi mir 43, 202n104, 215n43
Matveev, Oleg 126, 128, 153 Nozhkin, Mikhail 234n106
Mayakovsky, Vladimir 15, 55, 208n216 NTS 89
Mayer, Arno J. 29
Médecins sans frontiers 240n42 Ogol’tsov 200n56
Medvedev, Armen 53 OGPU 20, 219n8
Medvedev, Dmitrii (b. 1965) 182 Okhrana 5, 28, 45
Medvedev, Dmitrii (b. 1898) 209n5, Okolovich, Georgii 89
214n14 Okudzhava, Bulat 205n174
Medvedev, Roi 158, 215n42, 229n7, Oleinik, Igor’ 242n63
235n132 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 50,
Mel’gunov, Sergei 187n29 202n104
‘Memorial’ Society 197n31, 222n43, One of Us 157
223n55 Our Service is Both Dangerous and Difficult
Menzhinsky, Viacheslav 23, 46, 200n56 131
Merkulov, Vsevolod 89, 200n56, 214n14 Operation TREST 42, 202n96
Merzliakov, Vladimir 126, 128
Michnik, Adam 172, 245n107 Papovian, Yelena 38
Mikhailov, Aleksandr 219n9 Paramonova 76, 77
Mikhailov, V. 207n209 Partial Test Ban Treaty 111
Miller, Arthur 203n124 Pass for Life, A 36
Minaev, Vladislav 73 Pasternak, Boris 54
Ministry for Security (MB) 219n6 Patrushev, Nikolai 122, 123, 124, 130,
Minkin, Aleksandr 245n101 132, 135, 137, 139, 143, 144, 148,
Mishin, S.K see Tsvigun, Semen 149, 154, 155, 160, 162, 175, 236n3
Mitrofanov, Aleksei 142, 143 Pavlov 61
Mitrokhin, Vasilii 199n43 Penkovskii, Oleg 108, 202n95
Molody/Lonsdale 202n95 Perepelitsyn, Aleksandr 88, 109
Moscow Helsinki Group 174, 175 perestroika 144, 145
Moscow International Film Festival 39, Pervomaiskoe hostage crisis 219n9
200n74 Peters, Yekab 191n75
Mosfil’m Studios 43, 58, 59, 60, 75, 76, Petrov, Nikita 222n43
78, 85, 87, 88, 89, 94, 95, 96, 105, Philby, Kim 41
111, 114, 201n67, 202n103, 212n75, Pil’niak, Boris 38
n78, 214n20 Piontkovskii, Andrei 182
Moskovskii komsomolets 128, 131, 146 Pipes, Richard 120
MSB see Inter-Republican Security Podberezkin, Aleksei 161, 237n10,
Service 246n116
Muromets, Il’ia 123, 163–4 Pogranichnik 14, 54, 202n98
MVD 163, 176 Pogrebniak, Archpriest Nikolai 163,
239n33
Naiman, Eric 187n32 Poland 24, 34, 136, 197n32
Nedelia 202n98 Poliakov, Yurii 148–9
Nekrich, Aleksandr 214n9 Polianovskii, D. 62, 63, 67, 70, 71, 76,
Nesterenko, Vasilii 234n106 81, 86, 209n1, 213n133
Neva 215n43 Polishchuk, Yurii 176, 177, 247n138,
Nevskii, Aleksandr 239n36 n140, n141
Nicholas the First 16 Ponomarev, Lev 171
284╇╇ Index
Potapov, Nikolai 227n122
Pozharov, A.I. 204n126
Powers, Gary 102, 198n36
Prague Spring 234n119
Pravda 11, 12, 13, 23, 24, 25, 27, 34, 46,
75, 234n123
Primakov, Yevgenii 123, 124, 126
profilaktika 4, 51–6, 77, 83, 107, 108,
178, 205n173, n174, n185
Prokhanov, Aleksandr 225n80
Prozorov, Boris 158–9, 236n152
Ptushko, Aleksandr 209n3
Pushkov, Aleksei 175
Putin, Vladimir 4, 7, 114, 119, 122, 126,
131, 136, 137, 139, 140, 141, 142,
143, 146, 152, 154, 155, 157, 159,
160, 161, 166, 173, 174, 182,
228n130, n2, 230n26, 239n36,
242n62, 246n126
Pyr’ev, Ivan 89, 101, 105, 107, 109, 114,
214n13
Radek, Karl 57
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty 90
Radio Liberty 56
Radonezh 174–5
Rastorguev, Nikolai 153
Razvedchik’s Feat, The 89
Red Terror 1, 4, 11, 16, 19, 22, 26, 36,
46, 191n78, 194n139
Reference Point 157
Reisner, Larisa 193n114
RGALI 58, 114
Riakhovskii, Bishop Sergei 170
Robespierre, Maximilien 190n52
Rodionov, Yevgenii 166–7, 242n65
Rogozin, Dmitrii 161, 168, 178, 237n8,
243n79
Rozanov, Ivan 88
Rozantsev, Nikolai 202n98
Rushailo, Vladimir 161
Russian Orthodox Church 133; chapter
7 passim 215n34
Russkii dom 167, 174, 246n125
Ryan, Karen L. 193
Ryss, Yevgenii 71, 77, 82
Sakharov, Andrei 32, 93–4, 157, 159,
215n42, 235n130, 236n160
Sakharov, Vladimir 235n123
Sakwa, Richard 120, 159
Salisbury, Harrison 234n123
Savel’ev, Andrei 240n41
Savenko, Yurii 166, 247n138
Scott, James C. 88, 133
Seal bug scandal 72, 102
Secret Mission, The 89, 102
Secret Speech 30, 32, 33, 34, 59, 65, 72,
210n36
Semenov, Yulian 78, 192n103, 202n98,
216n84, 232n80
Semichastnyi, Vladimir 31, 32, 35, 37,
44, 54, 196n18, 200n58, n63, 201n74
Serebrov 204n137
Sergii, Patriarch 171–2
Serov, Ivan 32–4, 37, 38, 196n15, n18,
197n24, 200n56, n57, 206n189
Seryi, Aleksandr 87, 113
Seventeen Moments of Spring 149, 232n80,
233n85
Sharapov, Viktor 144, 157
sharashki 93
Shatrov, Mikhail 63
Shebarshin, Leonid 158
Shelepin, Aleksandr 30, 31, 32, 34, 35,
37, 38, 43–4, 45, 52, 53, 90–1,
199n54, 200n58, n60, 203n113,
206n188, n189, 207n195, n201
Shelley, Louise 231n40
Shevkunenko, Yu. A. 105
Shield and the Sword, The 38, 114,
202n97
Shironin, Viacheslav 146, 147, 219n2
Shitova 104
Shmelev, I.I. 88, 91, 96, 98–9, 102, 107,
108, 115, 213n6
Shmelev, Vadim 155, 234n115
Shokhina, Viktoriia 130
Shot in the Fog, A 51, 58, 66; chapter 4
passim 200n65, 201n67, 216n67,
217n90
Shul’ts, Vladimir 141, 143, 162, 171,
227n116, n117, n121
Sidorenko, Andrei 145, 158
Sil’nye dukhom 209n5
siloviki 4–5
Sivanov, Riurik 239n29
Skvirskaya, Vera 129
Smirnov, Sergei 136
Soldatov, Andrei 180, 185n7, 186n8
Solovetskii Stone 223n55
Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr 8, 93, 156,
192n102, 202n104; see also One Day in
the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Sorge, Richard 40–2, 146, 202n90, n93
Sorin, Semen 22
Sovetskaia Rossiia 147
Sovetskii ekran 75, 84

Sovexportfilm 206n187
Soviet Writers’ Congress 36
Sovremennik Theatre 84
Spetsnaz Rossii 30, 137, 142, 174
Stalin, Joseph 13, 26, 30, 31, 33, 35, 50,
65, 71, 86, 87, 93, 112, 134, 140, 182,
189n45, n47, 194n138, 196n6,
199n44, 205n164, 218n126, 219n8,
226n99, 229n19, 231n46; see also
de-Stalinization; Great Terror;
Stalinism
Stalinism 33, 35, 50, 72, 73, 74, 89, 100,
115, 129
Stashinskii, Bogdan 90–1
State Criminal 51, 200n65, 213n2
Stavitskii, Vasilii 147, 180–1, 249n166,
n170
Stepashin, Sergei 126
stiliagi 207n201
Stirlitz 232n80
Stites, Richard 19, 215n34
Sudoplatov, Pavel 88
Sukhorenko, Stepan 25
Surin, Vladimir 43, 111, 213n128
Suslov, Mikhail 157
Suvorov, Viktor 206n188
Sverdlov, Yakov 21
Svetov, Feliks 216n84
SVR 135, 162; Press Bureau 151
Tarkovsky, Andrei 75
TASS is Authorised to Announce 152
Tendriakov, Vladimir 213n128
Thaw 24, 30, 37, 52, 53, 58, 59, 75, 84,
85, 94, 206n187, n188, 210n23
The Borderguard, see Pogranichnik
The Rumiantsev Case 63, 210n23
Through the Tall Grass 153
Tikhon (Shevkunov), Father 174,
230n26, 246n126
Time 137
Timofeev 64, 68–9
Tolstykh, V.I. 96, 97, 101
Tret’iakov, Vitalii 225n90
Tsitsina 73, 73
Tsvetaeva, Marina 203n110
Tsvigun, Semen (pseudonyms:
Dneprov, and S.K. Mishin) 143, 150,
233n85
Tumarkin, Nina 13
Tupolev, Andrei 93
Ukraine 51, 177–8, 196n15, 198n35,
225n87
Index╇╇ 285
Unforgettable Year of 1919; The 72
United States Information Agency
(USIA) 201n83
Uralov 23
Ushakov, Viacheslav 155
USIA see United States Information
Agency
Utkin, Iosif 24
Uvarov, Sergei 243n80
Vaksberg, Arkadii 78
Vasil’ev, Sergei 152
Velidov, Aleksei 199n44
VGIK 53–4
View from a Bridge, A 203n124
Vilnius 35
Virgin Lands campaign 36
Volchek, Boris 59, 65–6, 73, 74, 76,
80–1, 209n3, 212n101
Voloshin, Vladimir 177
Vol’pin, Mikhail 61, 74, 76, 82, 209n11,
212n85
Vol’skii, Arkadii 230n24, 235n130
vospitanie 36, 56, 161
Vstrechi na rassvete 202n103
Vysotskii, Vladimir 156, 157, 235n133,
n134, n135, n140, 236n142
War Communism 38
White Book of the Russian Special Services,
The 130, 160
Who Are You, Dr Sorge? 201n89
World Federation of Democratic Youth
52, 206n188
World Festival of Youth and Students
36–7, 39, 206n188
Wynne, Greville 202n95
Yagoda, Genrikh 69, 200n56, 211n56,
231n39
Yakovlev, Aleksandr 43, 147, 231n59
Yakunin, Gleb 171, 244n95, n96
Yasmann, Victor 165
Yefremov, Oleg 84
Yeltsin, Boris 7, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126,
127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 147,
159, 221n41, 225n89, 238n14,
243n77
Yeltsov, Igor 112
Yermolinskii, Sergei 68, 211n50
Yerofeev, Viktor 162, 220n22
Yevdokimov, Pavel 142
Yevtushenko, Yevgenii 208n214
Yezhov, Nikolai 62, 71, 199n45, 200n56
286╇╇ Index
Yutkevich, Sergei 114
Zagadochnyi Gensek 231n44
Zakharov, Viktor 124
Zamoshkin, Kirill 72–3, 212n78
Zarkhi, Aleksandr 83
Zavorotniuk, Anastasiia 234n115
Zavtra 167
Zdanovich, Aleksandr 122, 123, 128,
143, 154, 219n9, 227n114, n121
Zetkin, Clara 20
Zhirinovsky, Vladimir 231n45
Zhuravlev 71
Zinchenko, Boris 221n29
Zinov’ev, Aleksandr 156, 157
Zinoviev, Grigorii 25
Zorin, Andrei 224n74
Zorkal’tsev, Viktor 172, 180
Zubr 94, 215n44