Putin

The bronze medal Putin was awarded was pooh-poohed by Markus Wolf, the Stasi intelligence chief, who said it was awarded to every secretary provided she didn’t have any gross violations on her record. Bristling, Putin said Wolf was “entirely correct…. He just confirmed that I didn’t have any gross violations in my record” and pointed out where Wolf was incorrect—in saying that Putin was awarded the medal simply for “services” when it had in fact been awarded for “outstanding services.” Spies can be as vain as ballerinas.

Those who denigrate his rising only to the rank of lieutenant colonel neglect to mention that the KGB has two hierarchies—a military-style one rising from private to general, and a parallel one among case officers and administrators. For example, a senior case officer like Putin would have authority over someone with a higher rank if that person was working for Putin on a given operation.

Putin’s promotions came more on the administrative side than on that of the more formal ranks. As he says: “I was a senior case officer. My next job was assistant to the head of the department. That was considered quite a good advance. And then I was promoted to senior assistant. There was nothing higher. Above me was the top managerial level, and we only had one boss.”

The KGB in the late 1980s was ruled, as one officer put it, by “Lord Paperwork.” There was no time for either spectacular successes or catastrophic failures—agents were too busy filling out forms and filing reports.

And if Putin had had any significant successes in Dresden they would have by their very nature remained secret. In espionage a known success is half a failure.

In those increasingly dreary years, Putin had three consolations: family, beer, and Gogol. He adored his daughters and every day would take Masha to the day-care center and Katya to the nursery. Things were a bit more complicated with his wife, Lyudmila, a good-looking blonde and former Aeroflot stewardess. Lyudmila is on record as saying that their first years together were “lived in total harmony … a continuous sense of joy, as though we were on holiday.” In fact, there had been some problems right from the start—she found him even more reserved than most Leningraders, and he could be insultingly, infuriatingly late for their dates, an hour and a half being more or less the norm. Already in the KGB, he never told her that, saying he worked with the police. Lyudmila frequently had the feeling she was being probed and tested by Putin. It was the wife of one of Putin’s friends who told her he was KGB, and a young man who appeared out of nowhere on the street declaring his love for Lyudmila may have been set up by Putin to check her reactions and her loyalty. He considered any housework beneath him and always imposed his will, to which, she says, she “always submitted.” She wanted their second daughter, born in East Germany, to be called Natasha, but Putin said, “No, it will be Masha,” and despite all Lyudmila’s tears and pleas, Masha it was.

Not a natural cook and homemaker, she trembled inwardly awaiting his reaction to dinner. He’d never say anything. Finally, once unable to restrain herself, she asked: “How’s the meat?”

“On the dry side.”

His second consolation was the excellent and easily available German beer. He was buying his beloved Radeberg by the keg, and since it was only a five-minute walk from house to office he put on twenty-five pounds in no time.

And reading Gogol’s novel Dead Souls was particularly piquant because the hero, Chichikov, goes about provincial nineteenth-century Russia buying up serfs who have died but are still on the census rolls and thus can be used as collateral until the next count is made. A good deal of the paperwork done by the KGB in the late 1980s was based on the reports of invented agents and was actually information gleaned from local newspapers. Gogol would have loved it.