Haslam, Jonathon Near and Distant Neighbours: A New History of Soviet Intelligence (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 361 Le Blanc takes Trotskii’s major works, and explains them to the reader, with no attempt at analysis or criticism. My Life is ‘an activist’s resource’ (p. 73); The History of the Russian Revolution is a ‘literary masterpiece’ constructed around the ‘conceptual framework of the theory of permanent revolution’ (p. 77); The RevolutionBetrayedillustrateshowtheSovietSectionoftheFourthInternational would lead the masses in the revolutionary overthrow of ‘the bureaucracy’ (p. 109). Le Blanc’s agitprop efforts become fantasy pure and simple when he writes: ‘In 1937 small groups of dissident communist heroes and heroines, the men and women of the Left Opposition, waged their final struggle against the bureaucratic and murderous authoritarianism of the Stalin regime in the USSR, and for the original ideas of the Russian Revolution of 1917’ (p. 117). The final two sentences say it all: ‘Long after his death, Trotsky’s passion and his ideas have continued to resonate. Whether they will again animate multitudes, reaching for a hopeful future, remains to be seen’ (p. 186). This is not a serious academic study, but a primer for the faithful. Central and East European Studies Geoffrey Swain University of Glasgow Haslam, Jonathon. Near and Distant Neighbours: A New History of Soviet Intelligence. Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York, 2015. 366 pp. Map. Appendices. Notes. Bibliography. Index. £20.00. Jonathon Haslam’s intention with this book is to condense our expanding knowledge of Soviet intelligence into a single accessible volume, which can also function as a window onto the strengths and weaknesses of the Soviet system itself. This is an excellent idea, for Soviet intelligence has hitherto been a relatively obscure subject — in part, of course, because of the challenge of getting reliable sources on the theme. The remit of the volume is broader than the widely-acclaimed works on the KGB by Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin. It aspires to cover all branches of intelligence: the KGB (civilian intelligence) and the GRU (military intelligence); human communications and cryptography; and foreign and counter-intelligence. As Haslam explains, this integrated approach is important for a number of reasons: much has been written on the KGB, but the GRU is less well-known; cryptography needs adequate attention, because the exaggerated emphasis on human intelligence in the Soviet Union was very costly for the regime; and counter-intelligence has been less studied because the relative paucity of defectors in this area has meant fewer memoirs to build upon. Haslam outlines the institutional history of the KGB and GRU in some detail, at the same time emphasizing their independence from one another and recurring rivalry; and in doing so he challenges any temptation we may have SEER, 94, 2, APRIL 2016 362 to see Soviet intelligence as a single cohesive operation. Another important theme of his book is the way Stalin’s paranoia at times undermined the Soviet intelligence effort. The Terror took its toll on the intelligence community, as it did in other areas of Soviet life. Of course, Stalin’s most disastrous mistake was his decision not to heed warnings about the imminent Nazi invasion in 1941. But the regime’s failure to invest adequately in cryptography was also rooted in his misjudgements. Of course, this failure links the history of intelligence with the wider history of Soviet science; the USSR’s technological deficit in intelligence had its roots in the personalized nature of the system, just as did its failures in the spheres of genetics and agriculture. Other figures also come in for criticism alongside Stalin, including Beria — ‘the most disastrous head of intelligence the Soviet Union ever had’ — and Khrushchev’s first choice as head of the KGB, Ivan Serov — ‘a natural bully, but innately clever’. Haslam makes it clear that it is impossible to understand some of the key events in Soviet history without understanding the relevant intelligence history: for example, the Polish interception of Soviet signals was a vital factor in checking the Bolshevik advance on Warsaw in 1920; already in 1941 intelligence reports were reaching Moscow from the West on the emerging project to create an atomic bomb; the Soviet victory at the battle of Kursk owed much to the information passed to them by British...