Secret Operations of the Soviet Security Services against the Jehovah’s Witnesses in Ukraine (1949—1955)

Abstract

This article reconstructs the history of one KGB operation against the Jehovah’s Witnesses in Ukraine, launched by the Ukrainian security services in 1951. The operation aimed to infiltrate the Jehovah’s Witness underground organization in Ukraine and to organize a Witness country committee as a covert operation. The plan was designed such that the Soviet security service became the head of the Jehovah’s Witnesses organization, and the headquarters of the official Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society became a channel in their counter-intelligence operations. This article tells about the failures and unexpected side-effects of the secret operation caused by internal conflicts within the Soviet politics of religion. Paradoxically, in the context of a disintegrated Witness underground network, caused by the post-war deportations and mass arrests, severed communication channels with the Watch Tower Society and the absence of religious literature, the Soviet security service became an alternative communication channel between the faith communities and a source of religious reproduction (including the source of the production of Watch Tower literature). This study dwells upon historical materials from recently opened SBU (former KGB) archives in Ukraine.