On February 6, 2016, the liberal Russian radio station Ekho Moskvy invited intelligence historian Colonel Alexander Bondarenko to talk about his biography of Pavel Fitin, the WWII Soviet intelligence chief, and the WWII Soviet intelligence operations in general. The interview was conducted by Vladimir Ryzhkov. This is the first part of the interview. Below is my translation available only on this blog.
Intelligence Historian
Alexander Bondarenko: Soviet Intelligence During WWII (Part 1)
Ekho Moskvy February 6, 2016
V. Ryzhkov - Good evening, I greet the audience of the Ekho Moskvy radio station. I am Vladimir Ryzhkov, and, as always at this time, the program "The Price of Victory" is on air. Today I am the sole anchor. And today I will discuss with my guest an extremely interesting story, I would even say, a sensational and little-known story.
The story is about Soviet foreign intelligence during WWII. And not only about that, but also about a person who was either classified, or forgotten, or both – we’ll try to figure out all these mysteries. We will talk about Pavel Mikhailovich Fitin, the head of the Foreign Intelligence Service from 1939 to 1946, that is, during the war years. And my guest is Alexander Bondarenko, a historian who, as I understand, published a book about Pavel Mikhailovich Fitin. Right, Alexander?
A. Bondarenko - Yes.
V. Ryzhkov – Let’s start with that. We know there was Richard Sorge, we know there was Beria of course, we know all these other people who were important during the war and linked to intelligence service. Alexander, why is the name Fitin so little known?
A. Bondarenko - You know, when I started working on the book, there were many people who asked me who Fitin was.
V. Ryzhkov – That’s exactly what we’re talking about.
A. Bondarenko - I answered with one word to make it clear. I said: the Soviet Schellenberg - and everyone understood. Everyone remembered the film [TV series] Seventeen Moments of Spring, Oleg Pavlovich Tabakov in the role of Schellenberg, the head of German intelligence - they knew him, but nobody knew our [head of intelligence] Fitin.
V. Ryzhkov - Why?
A. Bondarenko - There are several reasons. The first reason is the secrecy that surrounded these people even when they began their service at the beginning of the war. The second reason is that he left when one leadership team was replaced by another, and when that happens, people are often forgotten.
V. Ryzhkov – Was this in 1953 or earlier?
A. Bondarenko - No, he left intelligence service in 1949, in 1953 he was completely “crossed out,” because quite soon Khrushchev’s falsification of history, which still makes us look through its lenses at the events of the Great Patriotic War, became the order of the day. And the events [connected to Fitin] were simply deleted. So, as it often happens in our history, a hero, a worthy person, was simply forgotten.
V. Ryzhkov – And so I’d like to ask, Alexander, are we perhaps not exaggerating the importance of Pavel Fitin? Maybe he was worthy of praise - I don’t want to offend anyone, I’m just asking a question. Everyone knows Schellenberg because there is a famous movie and so on. Maybe, well, he was just a man who did his job and did it well. Or was he really an extraordinary person with a significant impact on the events during the war?
A. Bondarenko - First of all, he was an amazing person. Because he was the youngest head of Soviet intelligence.
V. Ryzhkov - How old was he when he was appointed?
A. Bondarenko – He was 31 years old. Prior to that, he had just one year of service in the NKVD. That is, his initial training was not in intelligence at all.
V. Ryzhkov - We know why this happened - because almost all senior intelligence officers were arrested and shot and they simply took people, as they say, almost off the street to Lubyanka.
A. Bondarenko - Vladimir, it was not quite like that.
V. Ryzhkov - That is the question. Was this person just lucky and he filled up an empty spot after the Stalinist terror, or were there two factors: luck plus his own talents?
A. Bondarenko - You know, the words “after the Stalinist terror” are very inaccurate - the terror was Yezhov’s. This was in 1939. Stalin was still in charge of the country, thank God. But, under Yezhov, state security institutions were very much weakened. Also, you can’t blame everything on terror, because there were betrayals, there were defections. When an intelligence officer defected – for instance, Orlov-Feldbin, a resident in France, he knew a lot - so people were taken out of there and saved from exposure. But, in general, the state security institutions were weakened, and then the decision was made by Beria who today is cursed by everybody: we need 800 young people...
V. Ryzhkov – In what year was that?
A. Bondarenko – It was in 1938. Young people with higher education or close to completing higher education, mostly communists, who went through the school of party work - it was a great school, by the way - were drafted from other national posts into the ranks of the NKVD.
V. Ryzhkov – Where were they taken from? In general, what were the selection criteria?
A. Bondarenko - Well, I already mentioned them.
V. Ryzhkov – Young party members?
A. Bondarenko - With higher education or close to completing it. And, in general, a very interesting group came in, and he [Fitin] was one of them. He graduated from the Central School of the NKVD in six months.
V. Ryzhkov – Was this the so-called crash course?
A. Bondarenko – Yes, that’s how it was. After that, he served in various positions within the intelligence department, and then Beria wisely pointed his finger at him and said: here’s the head of the department.
V. Ryzhkov - What made him stand out among 800 who were hired? After all, the chief of foreign intelligence is the top position.
A. Bondarenko – It sure is.
V. Ryzhkov – And with very special requirements. Why was he chosen out of 800? As I understand, he was born in a small village.
A. Bondarenko - He was from a small village.
V. Ryzhkov – A Siberian village. He was from the Tobolsk province.
A. Bondarenko – Well, yes, that region frequently changed jurisdictions. It was a part of the Chelyabinsk province at one time and the Kurgan province at another.
V. Ryzhkov – I think Ozhogino was the name of the village.
A. Bondarenko – Yes, Ozhogino. They still remember and honor him there. I’ve been there several times to collect materials for my book. They hold him in the highest regard.
V. Ryzhkov – Do any of his relatives still live there?
A. Bondarenko - No, but there are some in St. Petersburg and in Moscow. His grandson is a friend of mine.
V. Ryzhkov - He came from the peasant background.
A. Bondarenko – Yes, and he was active in the Young Pioneer, Komsomol [Communist Youth], and party work.
V. Ryzhkov - That is, he had a knack for organizing things.
A. Bondarenko – He was very authoritative and also very charming.
V. Ryzhkov – So he was very communicative…
A. Bondarenko - When some Komsomol members were not admitted to an institute in Kurgan, he went there - about two hundred kilometers, and that was in the late 1920s…
V. Ryzhkov - I see.
A. Bondarenko - He got there, met with the leadership of the institute and said: how can this be? Such a scrawny guy - short, stocky, but nice. So, he convinced the professors that people should be admitted because they were Komsomol members. That is, he was very persuasive.
V. Ryzhkov – He had leadership inclinations and qualities.
A. Bondarenko - Yes, yes, yes. And a lot of charm.
V. Ryzhkov - Alexander, but how - after all, this is also an achievement - I looked at his biography, he enrolled at Timiryazevka [Timiryazev Agricultural Academy], right? He enrolled at Timiryazevka in Moscow and graduated from the engineering faculty - that is also an achievement.
A. Bondarenko― Well, you know, in those days the system was centralized, so the fact that he was chosen meant that he had talents.
V. Ryzhkov - He received a diploma?
A. Bondarenko – Yes, and then he was sent to the Selkhozgiz [The book company publishing books on agriculture].
V. Ryzhkov – That’s interesting. That is, in this publishing house, he rose to one of the top positions.
A. Bondarenko – Yes, he was the deputy editor-in-chief of the publishing house. And initially he directed one of the editorial boards.
V. Ryzhkov - This was already in the 1930s?
A. Bondarenko - In 1935, he served one year in the military as a person with higher education [others served much longer], and, in addition to this training, to this experience, he constantly engaged in the Komsomol and Communist party work ...
V. Ryzhkov - But before Beria’s directive, he had no relations with the state security institutions?
A. Bondarenko - Unlike Schellenberg ...
V. Ryzhkov – He was, as they say, a civilian, right?
A. Bondarenko - Yes.
V. Ryzhkov - He was also not a recruited agent [informer]... that is, he was literally pulled out of a civilian job?
A. Bondarenko - Unlike Schellenberg, who, already as a student – and he proudly writes about that in his book Labyrinth - informed on both his teachers and his comrades and on their opinions and states of mind. Fitin had absolutely nothing to do with that. He was ordered by the party to go to a new job and he obeyed.
V. Ryzhkov - I have another question, just out of curiosity. Look, foreign intelligence, after all, involves the work abroad. It assumes knowledge of languages, foreign cultures. He knew nothing about this at all. He spoke no foreign language, right? How can a person who has never been abroad, a person who [perhaps] had no idea that there was Versailles, and that Versailles was different from Marseille, and Le Tour Eiffel from Tour de France, right? How – I can’t understand it - how can a person not knowing any of this build the networks of agents in capitalist countries, in Asia, and they all worked like a clockwork. How can this be?
A. Bondarenko― You know, I discussed that in my book. Leaders can approach such a situation in two ways.
V. Ryzhkov – How so?
A. Bondarenko― The first way is to surround yourself with smart people and listen to their advice. The second – and this one is, unfortunately, found in our country more often - is to surround yourself with idiots and then, among them, you look like a star. So, Fitin immediately began to rely on those around him. He had to deal with a catastrophic situation when he came in...
V. Ryzhkov ... everything was chaotic there.
A. Bondarenko - There were people, it was not that there was no personnel, but the situation was more complex. There were people who were called back from abroad, [but] who were now considered as mere trainees, and they were experienced intelligence officers, such as Zarubin and ...
V. Ryzhkov – The seasoned professionals.
A. Bondarenko - Yes.
V. Ryzhkov - They were apparently older than him?
A. Bondarenko – Yes, they were. But even Sudoplatov, who was the same age, was in the VChK-a since he was 14. And now they were on the same leadership level. But Sudoplatov accepted his leadership. When Sudoplatov was supposed to be expelled from the party, and then shot, though everybody else voted affirmatively, Fitin suddenly said: I abstain. And this was during a political emergency. They said: why? – [He said] I don’t know him, so I can’t say anything good or bad. I refrain from voting. Sudoplatov later wrote in his memoirs that this was a courageous act, and that he was saved by it. And Fitin, with all these intelligence aces - and, to be honest, they could have made a lot of trouble for him – such a young man…
V. Ryzhkov – Yes, he was only 31! And came from the Selkhozgiz.
A. Bondarenko - Yes.
V. Ryzhkov - From the village of Ozhogino. And here there are all these hardened veterans.
A. Bondarenko – Yes, people who were already on many serious missions abroad.
V. Ryzhkov - Yes, in Paris and in Stockholm…
A. Bondarenko - Yes. And he said to them: Comrades, you know so much, and I will learn from you. Please help.
V. Ryzhkov - Alexander, let me ask you this. And why didn’t Beria - I just don’t understand the logic - why didn’t Beria choose one of these veterans? That is, why did he put this 31-year-old publisher of agricultural literature in charge? They had so much more experience, right?
A. Bondarenko – Yes.
V. Ryzhkov – A Komsomol member.
A. Bondarenko - You know, there are all kinds of subtleties in intelligence work. For example, out of all the illegal intelligence officers who were considered the smartest, most experienced, and so on, only one was ever in a leadership position - Alexander Mikhailovich Korotkov. The rest were not. Their work was different, it required different skills. What was needed was an effective manager, as they say now, the person who could organize the work, who could bring everybody together. Plus – Fitin faced a difficult situation, He came in - and there were three factions within the foreign intelligence service.
V. Ryzhkov – Could you remind us again when this was?
A. Bondarenko - It was in 1939.
V. Ryzhkov – When exactly?
A. Bondarenko - In May 1939.
V. Ryzhkov - That is, there were literally 3-4 months left before the start of World War II.
A. Bondarenko - Yes. And before the start of the Finnish war [the Winter War with Finland] …
V. Ryzhkov - That is, he came in on the eve of some key events in world history?
A. Bondarenko - Yes.
V. Ryzhkov - May 1939. And you say there were three factions in the service.
A. Bondarenko – Yes, three factions. Well, each of us thinks, each soldier considers his trench is the most important one.
V. Ryzhkov - Well, of course!
A. Bondarenko - Otherwise it would be bad, because if he really knew…
V. Ryzhkov - Yes, you are right.
A. Bondarenko - So there were these three factions. Initially, the main enemy was Poland. Poland surrounded us with a vast network of agents – they even had people in the Far East working against the Soviet Union. Hence, in the Poland-oriented group [within the Soviet intelligence service] there were some very serious, very authoritative people. The second group specialized on Germany.
V. Ryzhkov - Naturally.
A. Bondarenko – And the third group dealt with the emigres. It performed the role of external counterintelligence in the intelligence services of the enemy. And so, it dealt with the organizations such as the Russian All-Military Union (ROVS) and other such organizations. These three factions were in conflict with each other over who should be in charge and where the greatest danger would come from. It was possible to appoint someone from one of these factions, but that would have meant to prioritize one approach over the others.
V. Ryzhkov – So they found a neutral, outside person.
A. Bondarenko - Yes.
V. Ryzhkov – The arbiter.
A. Bondarenko - Yes, somebody who was above any specific loyalty.
V. Ryzhkov – Somebody who approached the issues objectively.
A. Bondarenko – Yes, and who also said: colleagues, I want to learn from you. He did not take any sides, he collected information from everybody, and they respected him. That is, he had no favorites. Plus, those other 800 young people who came into the intelligence service at the same time also respected him. When your friend actually becomes a boss, well, you know, it’s very difficult. In the army, when someone becomes a sergeant, it’s tough to find a right tone with former mates. But he did it. That is, he was respected as a boss, and he was loved as a comrade. When there were some personal questions and the personal help was needed - that was one thing, but when it was necessary to give orders, he knew how to change the tone. And, in this way, he was able to direct the intelligence service very successfully. And he did it very effectively during the entire war. To understand how successful he was, suffice it to say that the so-called neighbors - military intelligence calls foreign intelligence “neighbors” and vice versa – well, the neighbors in military intelligence had five different chiefs in the same period, from 1939 to 1946. Whereas Fitin kept his position during all those years.
V. Ryzhkov - Alexander, I’m interested in how the system of reports was arranged. Right now, in the Russian Federation, Mikhail Fradkov [the SVR chief at the time of the interview] reports directly to the President and he is a member of the Security Council. That is, the report goes directly from the hands of the head of the SVR to the hands of the president of the country. What was the system at that time, did Pavel Mikhailovich Fitin report to Beria, and then Beria reported to Stalin, or did Fitin lay the reports on Stalin’s table personally? What was the way he interacted with the political leadership of the country?
A. Bondarenko – It was different when compared to military intelligence at the time. If the head of military intelligence was in Stalin’s office quite often, Fitin was there just a few times. Moreover, it is not known how many times.
V. Ryzhkov – What about the visitors’ logs?
A. Bondarenko - You know, I worked with those journals [logs] and I saw that they have been ...
V. Ryzhkov – tempered with?
A. Bondarenko - Yes. Not only did I not find a single intelligence officer visiting Stalin, but even the dear, unfortunately, late Nikolay Konstantinovich Baybakov, who was initially the deputy people’s commissar, and then the people’s commissar of the oil industry, and who personally told me how much time he spent in Stalin’s office is not mentioned a single time from 1939 to 1946. Before that, yes, and after that, yes. But, during the war, he is not to be found. So, I would say that these journals are not very reliable.
V. Ryzhkov - Either they have been censored, or doctored deliberately, or perhaps were not accurately kept in the first place.
A. Bondarenko - But who would cross out Baybakov?
V. Ryzhkov - Coming back to Fitin, why was he not a frequent visitor if he was so important and effective? And why was the head of the GRU there, but was replaced every year? Where is the logic?
A. Bondarenko – First ...
V. Ryzhkov - Or was Beria jealous and didn’t have him invited?
A. Bondarenko - Well, you shouldn’t say negative things about Beria.
V. Ryzhkov - I am not saying negative things, I am just asking the question: why is the head of the SVR now directly reporting to the president and then this was not the case? It’s a simple question.
A. Bondarenko -I will explain why I defended Beria right away. There are things to criticize him for, and they, apparently, had a reason to shoot him. But he has done so many good things that we have “happily” forgotten. So, we have to be fair. This man not only selected Fitin, but he also guided him, he helped him, and even after the war, he did not let him down. And Fitin reciprocated in due course. When everyone turned his back on Beria, Fitin didn’t do so. He was not involved in Beria’s crimes, so he was not arrested or shot. Let’s not forget that when Fitin became the foreign intelligence chief, it was called the 5th Department of the Main Directorate of State Security of the NKVD of the USSR.
V. Ryzhkov – That is, he was on the third level from the top?
A. Bondarenko – Yes.
V. Ryzhkov – the NKVD leadership, then the Main Directorate, then the departments.
A. Bondarenko – Yes.
V. Ryzhkov - That is, he was lower in the hierarchy than the current head of the SVR, right?
A. Bondarenko – Much lower.
V. Ryzhkov – At the rank of a department?
A. Bondarenko - Yes, the head of a department.
V. Ryzhkov - And that is why he was not very close to the General Secretary [Stalin], right?
A. Bondarenko - Yes. Although the funny thing is that, in fact, all the [secret] materials that intelligence received went to the Kremlin. Stalin demanded that all intelligence materials be provided to the Kremlin.
V. Ryzhkov - Did he personally read them?
A. Bondarenko - He probably tried. But we had a lot of intelligence services. In addition to foreign intelligence and military intelligence, there was naval intelligence, there was intelligence from the border troops, there was intelligence from the Comintern - the list can be expanded even further - all this went to the Kremlin. Probably, Stalin did not really trust intelligence services, on the one hand, but this was the style of political leadership in general at the time, not only in the Soviet Union.
V. Ryzhkov - Perhaps that’s reasonable when you receive information from different sources. Everybody does it. Americans also have a lot of intelligence services.
A. Bondarenko - It is much more reasonable when analysts make their conclusions and that is what is passed on [to the leadership]. Our intelligence services fought for something like this for a very long time. But, I will tell you, returning to the topic, that Churchill, who had an analytic service, said: no, gentlemen-comrades (referring to his intelligence officers), I do not believe in the collective mind, so you give all your materials to me. And he even convinced Roosevelt of the value of this stupid approach. He told him that, no, you have to read everything. As a result, they were getting confused all the time. [On the other hand] Fitin insisted for a very long time, and, even before him, people insisted that an analytical department be established. In the end, it was created in 1943.
V. Ryzhkov – Wasn’t there one before?
A. Bondarenko - No. But soon it began to grow by leaps and bounds, and now it is a powerful information department, which the respected Nikolay Sergeyevich Leonov headed for a long time [during the Soviet period].
V. Ryzhkov - Yes.
A. Bondarenko – He [Leonov] was one of the best-known chiefs. But before that, they sent all the materials to the top. And since there are a lot of falsifications in the literature on the history of our intelligence, and in the semi-official literature, one often comes across that Beria hated Fitin because he reported to the Kremlin on the impending German attack…Yes, Fitin reported it, but Fitin only signed the report, and, at the top [of the page], there was Beria’s signature until February [1941], then Merkulov’s signature [the new chief] after that...
V. Ryzhkov – I have a question about that, Alexander. Look, he came in, Fitin came to the Lubyanka in May 1939.
A. Bondarenko - Yes.
V. Ryzhkov - Did he manage to inform Stalin about the German attack on Poland? Did our intelligence know, or was he busy with other things in these first four months? Did the Polish section fail or not, did the Polish section know about the attack? Or the German section, or both of these sections? That is, did Stalin know, and did everyone know, that there would be an attack on September 1?
A. Bondarenko – I’ll tell you something that’s even funnier: our foreign intelligence knew about this attack, but they did not know about our own troops’ going into Poland.
V. Ryzhkov – They didn’t know?
A. Bondarenko – Well, yes, that’s how it was. But why, what was the difficulty? One man, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov. In addition to the fact that he was then the chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars, he was also the People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs. And he had his own account to settle with the NKVD for the arrests of all of his assistants ...
V. Ryzhkov - And his wife, too.
A. Bondarenko― And his wife. But that was later. And Molotov, seeing the chaos that went on in the state security institutions under Yezhov, under Yagoda, and so on, said: why are they needed at all? These are like some boys who don’t know anything. We have experienced diplomats, so let’s trust information they can gather.
V. Ryzhkov - Did they [the Soviet government] mainly work through them?
A. Bondarenko― Yes, they worked through them. And foreign intelligence service was pushed back. That is, it had to establish its own authority. And so, it happened that only by 1943, the leadership really began to take foreign intelligence service seriously. In the end, the success in the Battle of Kursk was, in many respects, made possible precisely through intelligence efforts. Because, in the summer of 1942, when intelligence claimed that the Germans were going to attack Stalingrad, that the Germans were going to attack the Caucasus, the Kremlin said: no, comrades, the Germans are in Rzhev, the Germans will try to attack Moscow again, Moscow is the most important ... The Germans were also able to infiltrate disinformation, and therefore all the information from intelligence was in vain. And when they hit …
V. Ryzhkov - … to the south, where our troops were not ready.
A. Bondarenko - Yes, they were not ready, and it turned out that our intelligence service was not so dumb after all. That is, intelligence had to fight to prove its value. And, by the way, Fitin started out as the chief of the 5th Department of the NKVD’s Main Directorate, but when he left, it was the 1st Main Directorate of the MGB.
V. Ryzhkov - That is, he advanced in the hierarchy by two levels?
A. Bondarenko - Yes, he raised the importance of foreign intelligence service to that level ...
V. Ryzhkov - To the Main Directorate.
A. Bondarenko – Yes, the PGU, as it was called in the USSR, the 1st Main Directorate.
V. Ryzhkov - Alexander, if he [Fitin] began his work in 1939, when did he first have an important success, either analytical or operative? When did he first get reliable information? And tell our listeners this story: is it true that Fitin and foreign intelligence service warned not just about Germany’s attack on the USSR, but they also noted the exact date - June 22? Tell this story, it’s very interesting.
A. Bondarenko - First, Fitin did not just sit in the office all the time, because when you go somewhere where there is shooting, and the boss who sits in the office starts criticizing you later, you can calmly ask him (I was in that situation): were you there? why are you criticizing me? Fitin went on two short-term trips abroad. He was in Germany in 1940, and in Turkey in May-June 1941 right before the attack. These were [strategically] the most important places. He already knew what was being done, how our people worked in the field, and he was building up his own authority. And the fact that there was information with the precise date of the attack, with the date of the beginning of the war, is well-known.
V. Ryzhkov - Who gave it? The rezident [station chief] in Germany? ...
A. Bondarenko – There were many sources.
V. Ryzhkov – Many sources? There were many leaks from Germany?
A. Bondarenko - Yes, Lord, and, in addition, there was information from London, the “Cambridge Five” worked very effectively. Information also came from the occupied Poland [from the sources] connected to the Red Orchestra. Lastly, the intelligence service of the border troops also knew what was happening - the [German] troops were massing on the other side.
V. Ryzhkov – They could see them with their own eyes.
A. Bondarenko – Not only that. They had agents on the other side. That is, the military units on the border and a few related things - this was all known. But the date [of the attack] was shifting. The Germans had wanted to attack in April ...
V. Ryzhkov - I have another question. Did Beria hide something from Stalin, or did he put everything on the table, all the information that came from foreign intelligence service?
A. Bondarenko – Well, Fitin was in Stalin’s office on June 17, 1941 ...
V. Ryzhkov - Five days before the attack?
A. Bondarenko - Yes. Fitin brought [a report] to Stalin…
V. Ryzhkov - How did Fitin get to him?
A. Bondarenko – He was summoned. And he brought a report – it was not an analytical report, even though some [historians] argue to the contrary, it was only a collection of information. And Rybkina and Zhuravlyov, the head of the German department at that time, prepared a report on the messages from the Red Orchestra, from the Berlin station, about the beginning of the war.
V. Ryzhkov - Alexander, we will now take a short break for the news. We will focus on this very important moment when the report on the beginning of the war was presented to Stalin and, after the news, you will tell us in detail what was in this report and how Stalin reacted to it. And now the news break.
(End of Part 1)
