On December 29, 2017,
the liberal, anti-regime Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta published an interview of Nikita Petrov, a libertarian scholar of Soviet state security
system. Petrov is the author of several books on Soviet state security,
including the biographies of Nikolay Yezhov and Ivan Serov. He is a deputy board
chairman of the Moscow-based human rights organization Memorial. Below is my
English translation available only on this blog.
Elena Racheva: Intelligence Historian Nikita Petrov on Anachronism and Legal Nihilism in the FSB
Novaya Gazeta December
29, 2017
Nikita Petrov, an
expert in the history of the Soviet state security and intelligence services, comments
on the interview of the director of the Federal Security Service (FSB)
Alexander Bortnikov. In the interview, he finds old myths, fake statistics,
and non-existent documents and explains why one should not take it
seriously.
The FSB officers boisterously
celebrated their professional holiday: on the eve of the centenary of the
formation of the VChK-a on December 20, 1917, the current director of the
Russian FSB, General of the Army Alexander Bortnikov, gave a programmatic interview to the editor-in-chief
of Rossiyskaya Gazeta. Entitled in the Soviet manner “What the FSB Emphasizes,”
it traced the century-old history of the struggle of the state security against
spies, terrorists and “white emigres,” depicted Russia as a fortress surrounded
by enemies, transparently hinted at the guilt of many who were repressed under
Stalin, deplored the collapse of the Soviet Union, and looked like a gigantic
FSB press release published across two pages by a leading state newspaper.
The interview caused a
public outrage. A group of academicians and corresponding members of the
Russian Academy of Sciences published an open letter criticizing the interview
and stating that “for the first time since the 20th Congress of the
CPSU [Communist Party of the Soviet Union], one of the highest officials of our
state justified the mass repressions of the 1930s-1940s.” [The letter] also
noted that [during that time] “a large number of remarkable scientists were killed
in the prime of their work.” The Congress of the Intelligentsia
[a civil society organization] demanded the immediate resignation of Alexander
Bortnikov who “made a number of outrageous statements discrediting the legal
foundations of our country.” The statement of the Congress was signed, in
particular, by Lyudmila Alekseyeva, Lev Gudkov, Irina Prokhorova, Lev
Shlosberg, Svetlana Gannushkina, and Lev Ponomarev.
In particular, the
outrage was caused by the fact that Alexander Bortnikov proudly derived the
history of the current FSB from the VChK-a of the 1920s and the NKVD of the
1930s. We asked Nikita Petrov, a historian and a well-known expert in the
history of Soviet state security organizations, to comment on the interview.
[The interview was conducted by Elena Racheva]
-Let’s start from the
beginning. What do you find problematic in Bortnikov’s interview?
- The first thing that
sickened me was the statement that there was something objective behind the
Moscow trials of 1937-1938.
- Here’s the quote
[from the interview]: “The archival materials testify to the presence of an
objective side in the significant number of the prosecuted cases, including
those that formed the basis of the [Moscow] trials. The plans of L. Trotsky’s
supporters to remove or even liquidate I. Stalin and his supporters in the
leadership of the VKP(b) [the All-Union Communist Party - Bolsheviks] are by no
means an invention, and neither are the links of the conspirators with foreign intelligence
services.”
- In fact, Bortnikov
is repeating A Short Course on the History of the VKP(b), which clearly
states that the [anti-Stalin] opposition is the vanguard of the world [capitalist]
reaction, that these are the villains who “took the path of organizing acts of
sabotage and the path of espionage.” To repeat this today is not just an
anachronism. It goes against all historical research. It runs counter to the
policy of the current Russian government, which has erected a monument to the
repressed. And it is contrary to the previously adopted legal decisions. I
think that Bortnikov is aware that all the people who went through these court
processes - with the exception of Genrikh Yagoda - were rehabilitated. To argue
that there was something [objective] in the charges is not just retrograde obscurantism
but is also legal nihilism. This is the first thing. The second thing that
surprised me was the statistics of the repressed.
- Bortnikov says: “Already
in the late 1980s, the 1954 document from the Soviet Ministry of Internal
Affairs (MVD) was declassified about the number of people convicted of
counter-revolutionary and other especially dangerous state crimes, including
banditry and military espionage from the period from 1921 to 1953. The number
is 4,060,306 people. Out of this number, 642,980 were sentenced to capital
punishment and 765,180 to exile and deportation.”
- These figures are an
arbitrary quote from an archival source. Here is the document on the work of
the VChK-OGPU-NKVD-MGB, signed by the acting head of the first special
department of the Soviet Ministry of Internal Affairs, Colonel Pavlov in
December 1953. It indicates that just from 1921 to 1938, the state security authorities
arrested 4,835,937 people and by 1953, 6 million people. The document does state
that the number of the conviction from 1921 to 1953 was 4,060,306 as pointed
out by Bortnikov. But, at the same time, the number of those sentenced to death
was 799,455. In addition to that, the document does not include the number of
people repressed by the SMERSH and other significant cases, such as the “Katyn
case.” According to Memorial [a human rights organization], the total number of
those executed during that period of time is about one million. Any smaller
numbers are an attempt to obscure the issue. Although, if you think about it, 4
million is also a huge number. In general, the state did not lift a finger to
make public the official and verified number of the victims of Soviet terror. In addition, Bortnikov
says: “765,180 people were sentenced to exile and deportation.” But where are the
mass-deported ethnic minorities? Where are the former kulaks who were also
deported? Here we are talking about those who were sentenced to deportation and
exile [by the courts], and not about those deported through administrative
measures. Bortnikov does not elaborate on this.
-Does the document
Bortnikov referred to really exist?
- Yes, it is kept in
the State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF) and has been published
several times, for example, in the document collection GULAG in 2000.
But it was not declassified in the late 1980s, as Bortnikov says. It remained
classified as “top secret” even during the years of perestroika. During the
Gorbachev period, quite a lot was written about the fact that there were mass repressions,
and the process of rehabilitation was underway. But the numbers began to surface
only after August 1991. Statistics always contradicted the official line.
Bortnikov could go to the FSB archive, open the document fund No. 8, and sit
for a month with those papers. Then he would come up with different numbers.
But, in general, the interview creates a harmonious picture and is silent about
the tragic pages. For example, we do not learn from it that all the people’s
commissars [ministers] of state security, starting with Yagoda and ending with
Beria, were shot and have not been rehabilitated to this day. How should we understand
this fact? Did they shoot them correctly or not? Was Beria good or bad?
- Good, of course. The
quote: “Under L. Beria, some of them [the repressed Chekists] were returned to work
in the state security institutions.”
- Yes, and then comes a
deception. The quote: “In total, from 1933 to 1939, 22,618 NKVD officers were
subjected to repression.” Is this true? Yes, of course, there is such a document
in the FSB archive. But it is clear that among these 22 thousand, there were
mainly regular police officers, the employees of registry offices, firemen,
border guards, and internal security personnel. And in the document, where this
figure is given, it is indicated that they were convicted, including some with
suspended sentences, for general violations and abuse: money issues, professional
neglect, inability to properly organize counterintelligence work.
- That is, among those
22 thousand, there is probably a border guard who lost his rifle.
- … And Karatsupa when
his dog ran away [Karatsupa was a well-known Soviet border guard known for the
use of trained dogs; Petrov is being sarcastic].
And on the counterrevolutionary charges, which is what Bortnikov is talking about,
only a couple of thousand Chekists were repressed in 1937 and 1938. Let me
remind you that at the beginning of 1937, only about 25 thousand people worked
in the state security system (UGB–GUGB NKVD).
- It turns out that
Bortnikov wants to create a myth that the Chekists themselves suffered from mass
repression, and then Beria came around and put things in order.
- Beria did return
some of these people into the state security institutions in 1941. The war
began and there was no one to work in the military counterintelligence. And the
Chekists, who had previously been arrested for violating Soviet laws, for
beating up those under investigation, began to be assigned to the Special
Departments of the NKVD, from where they were transferred to SMERSH in 1943,
bringing along with them their habitual methods of work. Bortnikov could have
said: “For a long time, the state security institutions were commanded by a
handful of political adventurers who infiltrated their ranks.” That’s what they
wrote in the history textbook of the CPSU, and even now everyone would
understand it.
- But it would also
cast a shadow on the state security system.
- Certainly. And therefore
he decided it was best not to say anything about it at all.
- The director of the
FSB says that the VChK-a was tasked with intelligence and counterintelligence
but does not mention its role within the country itself.
- Yes. Why didn’t he
say anything about the “Special Bureau for the Administrative Expulsion of the Anti-Soviet
Elements of the Intelligentsia” created in 1922 in the Secret- Operational
Directorate of the GPU? Or, in general, about the suppression of any forms of
resistance [opposition] to Soviet power by the state security? It’s easy to
hide behind the struggle against foreign intelligence services. And how about the fact
that the state security institutions became an instrument of the Communist
Party in the struggle against its own people? Or that, starting in 1937, the torture
and beatings of those under investigation were widely used?
- There is only one
place in the interview where there is the word “excesses”: “The brutal methods used
by the state gave rise to the opposition within the Soviet public. Even within
the OGPU, a conflict arose between the chairman G. Yagoda and his deputy S.
Messing, who in 1931, together with a group of like-minded associates, spoke
out against the mass arrests. The “purges” [within the OGPU] began and intensified
even more after the murder of S. Kirov in December 1934. At the slightest
suspicion of “unreliability,” highly skilled officers were transferred to the
periphery, fired, or arrested. Their place was taken by people without any
experience in operational and investigative work, but ready to carry out any [top-level]
instructions for the sake of their careers. This partly led to the ‘excesses’
in the work of the OGPU – NKVD.”
- The conflict ended
with the fact that Messing and several leading officers were indeed removed
from the OGPU. But these people, who accused Yagoda of violating the law,
violated the law themselves. For example, they fabricated the case of
microbiologists, the case of bacteriological sabotage. They fought against
Yagoda, not for the [ethical] purity of their work, and they kicked them out
not because they violated the law, but because they violated the monolithic
unity in the ranks of the OGPU. In Bortnikov’s account, all this is presented
as the fight of the good state security officers against the bad ones. The same goes for the
period under Andropov. Was this period good or bad?
-It was good. The
quote: “A direction was taken towards the greater public openness about the KGB
and the results of its activities (...) The emphasis shifted to preventive and
administrative measures.”
- First, the greater
openness did not begin under Andropov, but under Khrushchev. Secondly, the focus
on “preventive measures” was announced as a component of Khrushchev’s general
policies in 1959. It was now believed that a person was not so bad that the
collective couldn’t re-educate him, and so there was no need to drag to prison
everyone who, thoughtlessly, carried on anti-Soviet conversations, it was
enough to do so with several dozen people a year and the rest would live in
fear. This approach was later developed under Andropov, but Andropov did not invent
it. Where in Bortnikov’s interview is the account of the fact that, under Andropov,
the KGB enforced ideological control by repressing people who expressed
critical judgments about the Soviet regime? That they were condemned to be
under the supervision of the KGB, to sit in a psychiatric hospital, to undergo “preventive”
measures, or to be sent to prison or forced to emigrate? How could you write
about Andropov without writing anything about Sakharov and Solzhenitsyn?
- In the interview,
the emphasis was placed on the struggle against “foreign,” as they say now, “partners.”
Bortnikov describes how, during the entire hundred-year period, the state
security fought against espionage and external enemies, but its domestic
activities are left in the shadows. How unexpected is this for you?
- The pathos of the
glorification of the KGB under Brezhnev consisted in this: we have our own unique
line of historical development, we are developing a new socialist society for
the first time, and therefore we are surrounded by the “ideological enemies” while the ideological
struggle is intensifying. In Stalin’s time, this
concept of a “besieged fortress” was brought to a logical perfection, which is,
apparently, admired by the current leadership of the FSB. The pathos of the struggle
against foreign intelligence services and the suspicion of everyone of working
for them is a common place in the Stalinist system of repression. Now we see
the reflected light of the Stalinist era: we have again become hostile to the
whole world, and it appears hostile to us. But Bortnikov’s ideological
postulates about who we are, where we are, and who our enemies are – they are
the reincarnation of Stalin’s A Short Course on the History of the VKP(b). But the most
surprising thing for me in the interview is the real Chekist paranoia focused on
the concept of “agent of influence.” Bortnikov is asked: is an agent of
influence a modern slang? “No, this term was first used by Yu. Andropov in a
report for the Politburo back in 1977 entitled ‘On the Hostile Activities of the
U.S. CIA on Breaking Down the Soviet Society and Disorganizing the Socialist Economy
Through the Agents of Influence.’”
- Was there such a
report?
- There was no such
report! And that’s the crux of the matter! In the summer of 1991, at a closed
meeting of the Supreme Council of the Soviet Union, the chairman of the KGB,
Vladimir Kryuchkov, extensively quoted from a note allegedly from Andropov,
which was allegedly submitted to the Central Committee of the CPSU. The term “agents
of influence” appeared in it. They [the agents of influence] were trained and
supported by the West, they sat in the Kremlin already under Andropov and
ruined the country. Kryuchkov even stated the date of this note - January 24,
1977, but he never published it anywhere, indicating its source. That’s because
he wrote it himself. In 1977, Kryuchkov was
the head of the First Main Directorate of the KGB and, I believe, he himself
prepared that note. Maybe he even handed it over to Andropov, but he was
unlikely to send it to the Central Committee - that would have invited ridicule
from others. “Agents of influence” is simply Kryuchkov's invention. I have read
his text. That’s nonsense. That’s paranoia. Even in 1977, it was not possible to
send something like this to the Central Committee of the CPSU. And now Bortnikov is
trying to ascribe Kryuchkov’s invention to Andropov and states his belief in the
“agents of influence”. Well, some also believe in The Protocols of the
Elders of Zion. When the FSB cannot
understand the motives behind the actions of this or that democratically minded
person, it declares him an “agent of influence.” It’s convenient, you don’t
need to prove anything. This way of thinking should be rejected by the head of an
institution, which, among other things, is responsible for ensuring the compliance
with the law.
- The interview lists
several cases of the foreign spies being caught by the VChK-a. For example: “The
first significant success of the Soviet counterintelligence was the exposure of
the “Conspiracy of Ambassadors” of the Entente countries under the leadership
of the head of the British diplomatic mission R. Lockhart in September 1918.”
Was there such a conspiracy?
- The conspiracy of
the Entente countries is a provocation of the VChK-a. It was done in a very
simple way: several Chekists disguised as Latvian riflemen guarding the Kremlin
came to the head of the British mission and said that there was an opportunity
to overthrow the Bolshevik government. They were not driven out, but allegedly
even given some money, which became the basis for discrediting the diplomatic
corps. Other provocative operations, such as Operation Trust, were also carried
out, and Bortnikov mentions them. Since then, the Soviet state security has
become very fond of what we call the method of provocation. It was believed
that using this method, one can control the actions of the enemy and distract
him with a made-up story, with an invented organization. And, at the same time,
one can show to the public that the opponents are in fact conspirators, enemies
of the state.
-Does Bortnikov
understand that it was a provocation?
- I am not so sure. In
the official KGB textbook published in 1977 (in our country, it is still considered
top secret, but it is available on the website of the U.S. Library of Congress)
Lockhart’s conspiracy is presented as a glorious page in its history. Likewise,
Operations Trust and Syndicate. There is no word “provocation,” it is stated
that this was the modus operandi. Bortnikov believes that the method was
a great success and presents it as such.
- It turns out that
the director of the FSB does not just list Soviet myths, but that he believes
in them, too?
- We can classify the
features we see in the interview. First, the old [Soviet] myths “about the main
thing,” which contemporary Chekists also believe in. Secondly, a statement of
facts about something that really took place, which is either not presented
completely, or is interpreted incorrectly. Somebody may say to me: “How do you
know how to interpret correctly?” Well, if there was a mass rehabilitation of the
victims of political repression, then it is not necessary to cast a shadow on
it and call those who were rehabilitated guilty. Otherwise, this is not just an
anachronism, but also legal nihilism. Third, there is the
construction of a new ideology. According to this ideology, the state security
institutions have always guarded the state and its sovereignty but the [Communist]
party sometimes made wrong decisions and forbade them to do their work. According
to the way that the KGB was positioned in the Soviet system, the state security
officers were an armed detachment of the Communist Party and always subordinated
to it. Now the director of the FSB is constructing a myth that the KGB has
always been on the forefront of the protection of the state, but the state was
ruled by an incompetent organization such as the CPSU. But then the question
arises: if they have protected the state so well, why did it collapse?
Bortnikov promotes a new myth that the disintegration of the KGB began during
the years of Perestroika. The blame is attributed to Gorbachev who allegedly
destroyed the Soviet Union.
- In the interview,
there is a hint that the state security institutions fought for the preservation
of the USSR but that they were not successful.
- Their main battle
was the putsch in August 1991. The coup failed because the population did not
support the KGB. In the Gorbachev era, the KGB was an extremely anachronistic
organization that resisted the reforms. That is not stated in the interview.
- Nevertheless,
Bortnikov derives the continuity of the FSB from the KGB.
- Yes, and I have a
completely childish question: why? Wasn’t it easier to cast aside the past and
say: “We must critically analyze the history of state security institutions and
condemn their crimes”? Yeltsin proposed a new founding date for the FSB -
January 24, 1992, the creation of the Russian Ministry of Security. They didn't
like it. So, since 1995, the FSB returned to the old [Soviet] founding date -
December 20, 1917. And now it has found itself under constant criticism only
because it cannot cope with this past.
- I wonder what the
director of the FSB was trying to achieve with this interview.
- We have the
officially adopted documents, for example, “The State Policy for Perpetuating
the Memory of Victims of Political Repression,” we have a monument, The Wall of
Grief. At its unveiling, President Putin said that there can be no excuse for mass
repressions. These words represent the turning point.There are always such
turning points in history: for example, Khrushchev’s report on the cult of
personality, or Gorbachev’s speech on the 70th anniversary of the October
Revolution, where he said: “Stalin’s guilt is enormous and unforgivable.” These
words signified a new step in relation to the past. But suddenly there is an interview
with one of the top figures of the regime, which is completely contrary to the
articulations of the state policy and, moreover, returns us to the ideological
system of Stalin’s times. And the question arises: why? As soon as the
interview came out, a claim appeared that this was a trial balloon, an attempt
to see how the public would react. The public did not like this interview, there
were numerous critical and negative responses. I don’t believe in conspiracy
theories and I don’t believe that the Kremlin told Bortnikov: come on, be
uncompromising, and let’s see the reaction, since we made too many concessions
when unveiling the Wall of Grief. Of course, this would be neat, because it
would mean that our country is governed according to a plan from the Center,
which knows how to mix a bit of severity with a bit of meekness [Petrov is sarcastic
here]. But we have a state where every top-level official can say what he wants.
Bortnikov is no exception and he can freely broadcast his anachronistic views. I suspect he got this
material from the FSB Center for Public Relations. They crammed a report with
all the glorious successes of the state security institutions [sarcasm, again],
and it sounded fine to Bortnikov. But, if he did not anticipate that society
would be critical of this material, then he is cut off from social reality.
And, you know, that often happens.
- To summarize then,
it turns out that Bortnikov just wanted to add some flare to the celebration of
the Chekist holiday. The piece in Rossiyskaya Gazeta is like a concert
dedicated to the day of the Chekist with a military orchestra and Oleg Gazmanov
[a pop singer].
- Yes, although the
FSB, just like the Gazprom, could afford to invite Deep Purple, too. I see in
this interview, first, a very symptomatic attempt to justify a century-long
history of terror against our own people. Secondly, I see the futility and ultimate
failure of these justifications, since Bortnikov’s material itself goes against
them. Thirdly, I see that the freedom of opinion still exists in our country. It
would surprise me if the Kremlin reprimands Bortnikov for this interview. This
interview will hardly be remembered, the way few people remember what Kryuchkov
said in his speech on the anniversary of October Revolution in 1989. Bortnikov’s attempt to
create a positive and coherent history of state security institutions failed:
the pieces of the interview are not logically connected and the plot is falling
apart. This institution [FSB] does not have a convincing and thoughtful
understanding of the Soviet past, just as there is no general understanding of
how to study history in Russia today. The direction that the Kremlin would like
to pursue is untenable because it contradicts the history itself. And the
public knows well what the state security system is all about and why one
should be afraid of it.
