The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB

73. k-9,73. On the publication of the Tanaka memorandum, see Klehr, Haynes and Firsov, The Secret World of American Communism, pp. 52-3. The published version of the memorandum has been regarded by some scholars, unaware of the OGPU’s success at this period in intercepting Japanese communications in Harbin and Seoul, as a forgery fabricated by the OGPU. The KGB record of its interception, however, describes it as genuine. It is possible, though Mitrokhin discovered no evidence of this, that the published version was doctored to improve its propaganda value.

74. Primakov et al., Ocherki Istorii Rossiyskoi Vneshnei Razvedki, vol. 2, p. 257.

75. Article by Stalin of July 23, 1927, in Degras (ed.), Documents on Soviet Foreign Policy, vol. 2, pp. 233-5. The article also reflected alarm at the massacres of Chinese Communists by their former allies, the nationalist Kuomintang.

76. vol. 7, ch. 9, item 1. There is interesting detail on the Ilk-Weinstein residency in West and Tsarev, The Crown Jewels, ch. 3. The authors do not, however, appear to have had access to all the files seen by Mitrokhin, and conclude that the residency of Ilk and “Wanshtein” (sic—presumably a literal retransliteration from the Cyrillic) was “extremely effective” and pay tribute to “Ilk’s great organizational skill.” This judgment is somewhat at variance with the authors’ acknowledgement that the quality of the residency’s abundant British intelligence “left much to be desired”; the documents which they cite on Ilk’s attempts to excuse the quality of the intelligence probably deserve a less charitable interpretation. Both Ilk and Weinstein are conspicuous by their absence from the biographies of seventy-five foreign intelligence heroes published by the SVR in 1995 on the seventy-fifth anniversary of the founding of the Cheka’s foreign department. Since the “Great Illegals” of the inter-war period are included, the SVR evidently accepts that Ilk and Weinstein were not among them.

77. Trotsky, My Life, pp. 539ff; Deutscher, Trotsky, vol. 2, pp. 392-4; Volkogonov, Trotsky, pp. 305ff.

78. A “special courier,” whom he refused to identify in his memoirs, delivered an additional eight or nine secret batches of correspondence from Moscow which, he claimed, kept him informed of “everything that was going on” in the capital. Trotsky replied to his Moscow informants by the same secret channel (Trotsky, My Life, p. 556). The KGB archives identify the “special courier” as a member of the carters’ cooperative which transported freight between Alma-Ata and the nearest railway station in Frunze. OGPU surveillance teams reported that the carter would meet Trotsky’s wife or elder son in the Alma-Ata market place, unobtrusively slip into their shopping baskets messages which had arrived at Frunze by the Trans-Siberian Express and collect the replies. vol. 6, ch. 3, part 1.

79. Volkogonov, Trotsky, p. 312. Menzhinsky became head of OGPU on Dzerzhinsky’s death in 1927.

80. vol. 6, ch. 3, part 1.

81. Deutscher, Trotsky, vol. 3, pp. 1-3.

82. k-4,198.

83. Ostryakov, Voyennye Chekisty, ch. 2. Andrew and Gordievsky, KGB, p. 170. In this instance, the published KGB version of events (summarized by Ostryakov) agrees with its archival record (vol. 6, ch. 3, part 1). Volkogonov suggests that Blyumkin “was guilty of nothing more than having visited Trotsky” (Trotsky, p. 329), but overlooks the fact that Trotsky himself later acknowledged that Blyumkin was “trying to establish a connection between Trotsky and his co-thinkers in the USSR.” Article signed “G. Gourov” [Trotsky] in La Voix Communiste, October 30, 1932; Vereeken, The GPU in the Trotskyist Movement, p. 13.

84. There is a sanitized version of Gorskaya’s career in Samolis (ed.), Veterany Vneshnei Razvedki Rossii, pp. 53-5.

85. Agabekov, OGPU, pp. 202-3, 207-8, 219-21, 238-40. Poretsky, Our Own People, pp. 146-7. Orlov, The Secret History of Stalin’s Crimes, pp. 200-3. There are minor discrepancies between these memoirs, based on the authors’ varying personal knowledge of the affair. All agree, however, on Blyumkin’s meeting with Trotsky, Gorskaya’s involvement and Blyumkin’s execution. The records noted by Mitrokhin contain no details of Blyumkin’s recall to Moscow or of his interrogation; they mention only Blyumkin’s attempt to set up “a line of communication for Trotsky with the Trotskyites in Moscow” and his subsequent execution. vol. 6, ch. 3, part 1.

86. Andrew and Gordievsky, KGB, pp. 165-6.

87. k-4,198,206.