The Secret Services of the Soviet Union: A Revealing Look at Their Origins, Organization, and Workings, and Their Influence on Twentieth-Century History

A revealing look at their origins, organization and working methods and their influence on the history of the twentieth century. With previously unpublished photographic material from the KGB archives.

The suppression of the Hungarian and Czechoslovak uprisings against the Soviet regime, the theft of the American secret plans for the atomic bomb, the inhumane Gulag prison camps where millions of innocent civilians were killed, or the assassination of Leon Trotsky: the secret services of the Soviet Union left a heavy and often bloody mark on Russian and international history of the twentieth century. In this book, Slava Katamidze, herself a former officer in the Soviet army, paints a revealing portrait of these notorious secret services, which over the years had various names such as Cheka, NKVD or KGB, but which all had the same goal: the eradication of all internal resistance and the protection and expansion of the communist ideology. For his in-depth research, the author was able to use recently declassified official documents, interviews with important Soviet commanders, data from private archives and personal accounts of former spies. In this way he has succeeded in placing the organization, the functioning and the leaders of one of the world's most secretive secret services in a new light. Richly provided with unique visual material, much of which had never been allowed to leave the KGB archives, this book is a unique reference work on a dark chapter in Russian history. Slava Katamidze was born in Georgia in 1944. He studied as an officer at the Military Institute of Foreign Languages ​​of the Soviet Army and at the Institute of International Law in Moscow. He worked, among other things, as a military observer for the UN in the Middle East, as a TV producer and director and as a reporter and radio commentator. He is the author of several Russian works on political and military subjects. He currently lives in the United Kingdom.