Defense of Sudoplatov. The story of an NKVD general with a “license to kill”
Plot World History with Andrey Sidorchik
“Everything that the bearer of this has done has been done on my orders and for the good of the state.
Alexandre Dumas, “Three Musketeer».
As long as the institution of the state itself exists, it will need people to protect its interests, including the most severe methods. The truth, known since ancient times, has not lost its relevance and to this day.
Feats not for a mass audience
James Bond, literary, and then the movie character invented by British intelligence officer Ian Fleming has driven the world crazy. The adventures of “agent 007” raved in the USSR, lamenting the fact that we we didn had no such heroes.
A stern knight of the revolution Felix Dzerzhinsky was not known for his signature cocktail, cravings for luxury cars and beautiful women. The image of a stern ascetic, clad in the armor of established norms, spread to & nbsp; all Soviet special services.
Soviet spy brandishing a “license to” kill and bringing from a business trip a sultry beauty — nonsense. About the fact that in everything was much cooler than in the most popular films, in our country began to learn already the collapse of the USSR, when many secrets of the departed power could be revealed.
Then for the first time and the surname Sudoplatov was mentioned, which until then only a few dedicated professionals knew. The man who became the tip of the smashing spear of the “Red Empire” became a victim of repression at the moment when, according to the official version, the innocently repressed were released.
I left the hut, went to fight…
The civil war in Russia was of the most violent nature. The Whites who lost in it did not at all consider the withdrawal from the Crimea to be the end of the struggle. Driven abroad, they plotted revenge without limiting their means. Individual terror, gang attacks on border areas, preparations for intervention — the opponents of the Bolsheviks did not see any obstacles for themselves. Collaboration with foreign special services to achieve the set goals was not considered a sin.
For the newly created special services of the Soviet Republic, neutralizing such attacks was a matter of survival.
Pavel Sudoplatov, a native of Melitopol, joined the Red Army as a volunteer at the age of 12, and never regretted his choice. He was 14 when he had to replace the deceased cryptographer in the Special Section of the division. The teenager was appointed to a responsible post out of desperation, but he fully justified the trust.
After the Civil War, Sudoplatov combined his studies with work in the GPU, and in 1933 he was transferred to ;elite — Foreign department.
Explosive taste for the leader of nationalists
Pavel knew the Ukrainian language perfectly, and he was assigned to work for nationalists. Sudoplatov showed his best side. He managed to infiltrate the nearest environment Ukrainian nationalist leader Yevhen Konovalets. By that time, the leader of the radicals worked closely with the German intelligence services, and these ties posed a real danger to the SSR. The Soviet agent received the liquidation order and handled the task masterfully.
Knowing that Konovalets cannot resist chocolates, Sudoplatov delivered a present to him in Rotterdam.
I entered the restaurant, sat down beside then agreed to meet again in the center of Rotterdam at 17:00. I handed him a gift, a box of chocolates, and said that I had to get back to the ship now. As I left, I placed the box on the table next to he. We shaked hands, and left controlling my instinctive desire to run immediately — recalled the saboteur.
The operation was carried out clearly, and a whole novel can be written about Sudoplatov's departure, which will easily overshadow Fleming's creations.
Some historians assured that the assassination of Konovalets did not destroy the structure of Ukrainian nationalism, but this is not at all true. The death of the recognized leader led to a split and enmity between the factions, which definitely played into the hands of the USSR.
“Duck” with ice pick
Having passed along the edge during the period of the “Great Terror”, Sudoplatov survived and became the main specialist in sabotage activities. In this capacity, he supervised the preparation and operation "Duck" — physical elimination of Leo Trotsky.
Having lost the struggle for power in the USSR, the organizer of the Red Army became extremely dangerous against the background of the approaching world conflict. The Spanish Civil War, lost by the Republicans, showed that the conflicts between the “Trotskyists” and "Stalinists" have devastating consequences. Lev Davidovich was not going to give up his political ambitions, and the threat that he would try to take advantage of the big war in his own interests was very great. The scale of Trotsky's figure was such that it was not difficult for him to raise like-minded people everywhere, including in the Soviet Union. , of course, was not an example of nobility and pure politics. But and Lev Davidovich himself did not shy away from such methods in the revolutionary years. The variant with a blow in to the back from the left with Trotsky's death was closed.
After the outbreak of World War II, Sudoplatov headed the Special Group under the NKVD, which oversaw partisan operations and reconnaissance and sabotage activities behind enemy lines. The most successful acts of sabotage, the destruction of high-ranking representatives of the occupation administration, strikes on transport networks — Pavel Sudoplatov held the threads from all this in his hands.
“Monastyr” and "Berezino": victory without firing a shot
But scouts, as you know, are “knights of the cloak and dagger.” By & nbsp; mastery of the "dagger" we already said, but Sudoplatov knew how to work and without resorting to extreme methods. In 1941, he launched an operation codenamed “Monastery” — the Germans were planted with information about the existence of the monarchist organization Throne in the USSR, seeking contacts with German intelligence. The Nazis did not just believe in the legend, but and received information from "their man in the General Staff of the Red Army". And they continued to believe the agent even after they were given misinformation that influenced the outcome of the Battle of Stalingrad!
Sudoplatov repeated his success in the course of the radio game "Berezino" — the Germans believed in the existence of a German group in the forests of Belarus in 2000, a person waging a guerrilla war. The Nazis continued to supply the detachment until May 1945 of the year, not knowing that all their deliveries and agents arrive directly into hands of the NKVD.
The war had not yet died down, and Sudoplatov had to switch to the western direction. In the head of department "C" he led operations to obtain information on "nuclear topics". And, as always, he did an excellent job, saving Soviet physicists and engineers several years of work.
The death of Stalin and the fall of Lavrentiy Beria hit more than for those who worked in the repressive system, but and for those who performed reconnaissance and sabotage operations for the country.
15 years from Nikita Khrushchev
For Khrushchev, Sudoplatov was “Beria's man”, which means he was subject to neutralization.
Five years in investigative insulators and psychiatric clinics, and then a sentence — 15 years in prison "for active complicity with the traitor of the Motherland Beria in preparing a coup d'état, performing experiments on people, kidnappings and numerous murders".
After the time served, oblivion set in: he was allowed to work in the veterans' movement, but books were only allowed to be published under a pseudonym and on neutral topics.
An evil twist of fate — Sudoplatov was rehabilitated in 1992 the year when there was no longer the country he served. His book “Intelligence and the Kremlin: Notes of an Unwanted Witness” became a world sensation, but in Russia it came out in 1996, in the year of the death of saboteur No 1».
Over the nothing more honest, and the goals on which Sudoplatov worked are no less relevant today. Ukrainian nationalists, beheaded in 1938 with a box of chocolates, are again being used by foreign powers to harm our country.
In the liberated Melitopol, Lieutenant General Sudoplatov was unveiled in 2022. Time puts everything in its place.
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