What Stalin Knew (21 page)

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WHO WERE YOU, DR. SORGE?

in late 1936 was returned with the instruction: ‘‘I ask you not to send me

any more of this German disinformation.’’17

As late as August 11, 1941, when the war Sorge had predicted was

overwhelming the Red Army and Sorge’s network was straining to respond

to Moscow’s orders to determine whether Japan would attack the Soviet

Far East, a memorandum was prepared at the RU headquarters casting

doubt on Sorge’s loyalty. It used testimony incriminating Sorge from of-

ficers who during the purges had admitted that they were German and

Japanese spies; supposedly, they had named Sorge to their German and

Japanese interrogators as a Soviet intelligence officer. The memorandum

argued that Sorge must be under hostile control as the enemy already

knew the truth about him. Each of the three officers named was later reha-

bilitated.18 This negative attitude toward Sorge had other consequences. In

February 1941, when Soviet military intelligence in Moscow should have

been concerned with what Sorge could produce, Golikov informed him

that ‘‘I consider it necessary to reduce expenses in your office to 2,000 yen

per month.’’ On March 26, 1941, Sorge replied: ‘‘When we received your

orders to cut our expenses in half, we took it as a kind of punishment. You

have probably received our detailed telegram in which we tried to show

you that cutting [funds] in half . . . is tantamount to destroying our appara-

tus.’’19 Contrast this behavior with that of Golikov’s immediate predeces-

sor, Proskurov, when he had to refuse Sorge’s request to return to Moscow

in June 1939. Proskurov sent this note to the Japanese section of the RU

handling the Sorge case: ‘‘Think carefully about how we could compensate

for Ramsay’s [Sorge’s] recall. Prepare a telegram and letter to Ramsay with

excuses for the delay in replacing him and listing the reasons it is neces-

sary for him to remain in Tokyo. Give Ramsay and the other members of

his organization a onetime monetary bonus.’’20

For his part, as late as the early 1960s Golikov apparently still believed

Sorge had been under hostile control. In the middle of a screening of the

Franco-German film
Wer Sind Sie, Dr. Sorge?
to senior officers, Marshal

Zhukov, angry at not having been shown the Sorge reports predicting the

war and its exact date, stood up in the theater and called out to Golikov:

‘‘Why, Filipp Ivanovich, did you hide these reports from me? Not report such

information to the chief of the general staff?’ Golikov replied, ‘‘And what

should I have reported to you if this Sorge was a double, ours and theirs?’’21

On June 23, the day after the invasion began, RU Moscow sent this pe-

remptory message to Sorge: ‘‘Report your information on the position of

WHO WERE YOU, DR. SORGE?

89

the Japanese government with regard to the German war against the So-

viet Union.’’ His responses to this vital question would be Sorge’s last gift to

the land of his birth before his arrest on October 18, 1941. Sorge reported

fully on Ambassador Ott’s frustration during July and August as the Japa-

nese resisted German efforts to obtain a firm answer to the question of

whether they would attack the Soviet Far East. On July 10 Sorge reported

that ‘‘thirty-seven troop transports were on their way to Formosa.’’ He also

said that ‘‘the Japanese would go ahead with their plans for French Indo-

china but would at the same time remain ready for action against the

USSR if the Red Army were to be defeated.’’ However, Ott told Sorge that

‘‘the Japanese would begin to fight only when the Germans reached Sverd-

lovsk!’’ In a meeting with Ott, Foreign Minister Yosuke Matsuoka ex-

pressed concern that ‘‘the Japanese people would experience air raids on

the population centers of Japan.’’ Ott said ‘‘this would not be possible

because the Red Army had only two types of bombers that could raid

Japan and return, and neither was yet in the Far East.’’ Comments added to

this report by the acting chief of the RU, Major General of Tank Troops

Aleksei P. Panfilov, suggested a sea change in attitude toward Sorge. Pan-

filov wrote: ‘‘Considering his great possibilities as a source and the re-

liability of a significant amount of his previous reporting, this report in-

spires confidence.’’22

Japanese vacillation concerning an attack on Soviet positions in the Far

East was a direct result of the government’s decision to delay entry into the

Soviet-German war unless it became apparent that the Red Army had been

decisively defeated. Actions were taken during the summer of 1941 to

strengthen the Kwantung army in the event the Germans succeeded. A

much higher priority, however, was the acquisition of sources of key raw

materials in the Netherlands East Indies and elsewhere in the South Pacific.

By mid-September it had become clear to Ambassador Ott and his

military and naval attachés that there was no hope of Japan’s entering the

war against the USSR. As one Japanese Foreign Ministry official put it, ‘‘If

Japan goes to war, it will only be in the south, where it can obtain raw

materials—oil and metals.’’23 By early fall 1941, Japan saw America as its

major foe. As this news sank in at the Stavka (General Headquarters of the

Supreme Command) in Moscow, preparations began for the movement of

Soviet troops from the Soviet Far East to the Moscow region.

During October and November Stalin transferred eight to ten rifle

divisions, along with 1,000 tanks and 1,000 aircraft, from the Far East to

the Moscow area. In the early morning hours of December 5, the Soviet

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WHO WERE YOU, DR. SORGE?

counteroffensive began. Thanks to Richard Sorge, Moscow would never

again be seriously threatened by the German army.24

And how was Sorge repaid for his exceptional services? Professor

Hasaya Shirai, president of the Japanese-Russian Center for Historical

Research, reports the following: ‘‘When Sorge had been sentenced to death

and was in prison in Japan awaiting execution, Tokyo proposed to Stalin

swapping Sorge for a Japanese military officer, but Stalin replied, ‘Richard

Sorge? I do not know a person of that name.’ ’ 25

Ω

C H A P T E R

NKVD Foreign Intelligence

In addition to the RU, the principal organization

involved in providing intelligence to Stalin from agent sources was the

Fifth (Foreign Intelligence) Department of the NKVD’s Chief Directorate

for State Security (Glavnoe Upravlenie Gosudarstvennoi Bezopastnosti, or

GUGB). It began as the Foreign Department of the All-Russian Extraordi-

nary Commission (Cheka) on December 20, 1920. For most of the 1920s it

focused on foreign threats to the young socialist state ranging from Rus-

sian émigrés to the followers of Leon Trotsky. Gradually it broadened its

coverage to include the acquisition of foreign technical secrets. With Hit-

ler’s rise to power in Germany, it began to expand its legal and illegal

residencies abroad to met the new danger.1

The reason the NKVD/GUGB’s Fifth Department did not contribute

more to what Stalin knew is that it was decimated by Stalin’s own purges.

Post-Soviet publications by the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR)

emphasize losses suffered earlier by the Soviet Foreign Intelligence Service

owing to ‘‘repression.’’ This anodyne expression is apparently preferred to

the more precise characterizations of the manner in which the purges

actually operated. Hundreds of members of the NKVD’s Foreign Intel-

ligence Service were arrested, tortured during interrogation to extract con-

fessions based on trumped-up charges, and then either shot or sent to the

GULAG. During 1938, for example, almost all illegal residencies were liqui-

dated. Contact was lost with valuable agent sources, and for long periods

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NKVD FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE

no intelligence was received in Moscow. Many legal residencies were re-

duced to an officer or two, mainly young and inexperienced. Nor did the

Central Headquarters of Foreign Intelligence escape the loss of senior offi-

cials, including chiefs of the service. To help the intelligence service re-

cover, party organizations selected individuals from civilian life and the

armed forces, sent them to special schools for training, and assigned them

to positions in the service. The best known of those who became foreign

intelligence officers in this manner was Pavel M. Fitin.2

Fitin was born on December 28, 1907, of Russian peasant parents in

the village of Ozhogino, now in Tyumenskaia Oblast, Russian Federa-

tion. After finishing primary school, he worked in a rural cooperative in

Ozhogino. Commencing in May 1927, Fitin was chairman of a Young Pi-

oneers Buro and deputy secretary of the District Committee of the Kom-

somol. That year he became a member of the Party.

In June 1928, after completing middle school, Fitin began a prepara-

tory course for higher education run by the Tyumen Regional Education

Department. In August he entered the Institute of Mechanization and

Electrification of Agriculture. After completing the institute’s courses in

July 1932, he stayed on as an engineer in the Laboratory of Agricultural

Machines. In October 1932 he became the chief editor for industrial litera-

ture of the Selkhozgiz publishing house. Drafted into the Red Army in

October 1934, he served as a private in the Moscow Military District. He

was demobilized in October 1935 and returned to Selkhozgiz, where he

rose to become deputy chief editor.

In March 1938 the party sent him to the Central NKVD School. He

finished the school five months later and was sent to the Fifth Department,

NKVD/GUGB, as a probationer. A lack of experienced cadres meant Fitin

rose rapidly, becoming case officer, then chief of the Ninth Section (work-

ing against Trotskyites and right wingers abroad). On November 1, 1938,

he was named deputy chief of the Fifth Department when Vladimir G.

Dekanozov was promoted to chief. On May 13, 1939, Stalin had Dekano-

zov transferred to the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs (NKID) to

oversee the purge of pro-Litvinov diplomats; Fitin succeeded him in the

Fifth Department, NKVD/GUGB. Pavel A. Sudoplatov, who had been act-

ing chief of the department prior to Dekanozov’s appointment, was passed

over for the chief’s post but remained as deputy of the department. When

NKVD/GUGB became the People’s Commissariat for State Security on

February 3, 1941, Fitin became chief of the First, or Foreign Intelligence,

NKVD FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE

93

Directorate, NKGB, which on July 31, 1941, was again placed under the

NKVD/GUGB.3

The Sudoplatov-Fitin relationship is interesting. The two men were

quite different. Sudoplatov was a tough customer who had spent his entire

career in the special operations element of state security, responsible for

sabotage, kidnaping, and assassination of Stalin’s enemies. He had made a

name for himself in May 1938 with the murder of Yevhen Konovalets, the

Ukrainian nationalist, who was living in Rotterdam. Later, he directed

the assassination of Leon Trotsky in Mexico. Sudoplatov clearly resented

the fact that Fitin, as a newcomer to intelligence work, was made chief of

the service while he remained deputy. Also, Sudoplatov was closely tied to

Beria and followed his lead in condemning intelligence reports that ran

counter to Stalin’s view that Hitler would not invade the Soviet Union. On

June 19, 1941, for example, when the Rome NKGB residency reported that

the Italian ambassador in Berlin had been told by high-level German mili-

tary officers that Germany would commence military operations against

the USSR between June 20 and 25, Sudoplatov made this marginal com-

ment on the telegram: ‘‘It appears that this is strictly disinformation.’’4

Fitin, by contrast, was well liked by his subordinates and considered a

thoughtful, kindly chief who had his own approach to any question but

was always ready to listen to the views of others. While it is true he was new

to the Foreign Intelligence Service, he seemed to have an instinct for it. In

his careful, meticulous way, he became a superb manager.5

The Fifth Department headed by Fitin in 1939 was unlike the KGB’s

much larger First Chief Directorate for Foreign Intelligence and Coun-

terintelligence, which emerged during the Cold War. Indeed, even at the

time it was outgunned by most of the other departments, all of which were

concerned with internal security. These included the First Department,

which was responsible for protection of the leadership. The Second, or

Secret Political, Department maintained a network of secret agents at all

levels of Soviet society. The Third, or Counterintelligence, Department ran