Abbreviations and Russian Terms
Cyrillic characters are romanized using the Library of Congress table at https://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/romanization/russian.pdf, except that accents and diacritical marks are omitted; proper names beginning with the letters “ie” and “iu” are rendered as in Yegor and Yurii; and everyday usage takes priority where it differs, as in Ekaterinburg.
agentura—the KGB informer network Bolshevik—relating to the majority faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, which became the ruling party of Soviet Russia in 1917
Cheka—the allRussian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counterrevolution and Sabotage, the Soviet secret police from 1917 to 1922
Chekist—an officer of the Cheka; a generic Russian term for a secret police officer up to the present day
CIA—the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States, responsible for foreign intelligence
Comecon—the Council for Mutual Economic Cooperation, the Soviet led equivalent of the OECD
CPSU—Communist Party of the Soviet Union
dopusk—security clearance
FBI—the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the United States, responsible for domestic counterintelligence
FSB—the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, responsible for domestic counterintelligence
GDP—gross domestic product, the value of final outlays on goods and services. “Gross” signifies the inclusion of replacement investment, and “domestic” signifies activity on a given territory.
Glavlit—Chief Administration for Literature and the Press, the office of the Soviet censorship
GNP—gross national product, equal to GDP plus the net inflow of profits and wages remitted from abroad (normally zero for the Soviet economy, making Soviet GNP interchangeable with GDP)
Gosbank—the USSR State Bank
Gosplan—the USSR State Planning Commission
Gulag—Chief Administration of CorrectiveLabor Camps of the NKVD (later, the MVD)
KGB—Committee of State Security, the Soviet secret police from 1954 to 1991, responsible for both foreign intelligence and domestic counterintelligence.
kompromat—“compromising evidence” providing a basis to suspect a person of disloyal behavior, attitudes, or intentions
konspiratsiia—“conspirativeness,” a code of secretive behavior adopted by the leadership of the Bolshevik Party (and later the CPSU)
kulak—a member of the wealthiest stratum of peasant family farmers, employing hired labor
MVD—Ministry of Internal Affairs
NATO—North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the Americanled Western military alliance
NKVD—People’s Commissariat (i.e., ministry) of Internal Affairs
NMP—net material product, the value of outlays on goods utilized for consumption and accumulation, including intermediate but not final services
nomenklatura—the list of government posts reserved for members of the Bolshevik Party (later the CPSU)
OECD—Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, an association of the wealthiest market economies
Orgburo—the Organization Bureau of the Central Committee of the CPSU, responsible for membership records and the nomenklatura
osoboi vazhnosti—“of special importance,” the highest grade of Soviet secrecy, a subcategory of “top secret”
Politburo—the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the CPSU, the caucus of top party leaders
RDTE—research, development, testing, and experimentation (usually military)
silovik—“strongman,” a leader of the “power ministries” of postSoviet Russia, responsible for the armed forces, secret police, and civilian police
USSR—Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the Soviet Union
VPK—the State Military Industrial Commission of the USSR Council of Ministers
1. SECRET LEVIATHAN
Leviathan, the all-powerful sea monster of the Old Testament, was Thomas Hobbes’s metaphor for the state: “that Mortall God to which wee owe ... our peace and defence.”[9] Without Leviathan’s laws and coercive powers, Hobbes maintained, our lives would be “solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short.” By submitting to Leviathan, he argued, we make our lives free and open to the development of civilization.
Since Hobbes we have learned that there are many Leviathans, not all of them benign. A recent authoritative study of state building classifies them: Despotic Leviathan (the oppressive state), Absent Leviathan (the failed state), and Shackled Leviathan (a state restrained by its own laws and by an active civil society). There is also Paper Leviathan (despotic by intention, but mostly ineffective or absent).[10]
In this book I write about the state of the Soviet Union—a regime that was clearly despotic, with a remarkable coercive capacity. Unlike those forms of despotism that rely on informality, every action of the Soviet state left a winding paper trail of decrees, orders, correspondence, forms, reports, inquiries, investigations, and audits. But this was no ineffective Paper Leviathan, for the paperwork covered every aspect of Soviet life and the decrees and directives had profound impacts on the lives of every citizen.
The Soviet state existed for seventy-four years from the Bolshevik coup d’état of October 1917 to its collapse in December 1991. Those seven and a half decades place the Soviet Union among the most long-lived of modern dictatorships. While it existed, it was also among the most secretive of modern states. The disproportion between what went on behind the scenes and what was disclosed to the public was immense. When the state collapsed, its wealth of secret records was abruptly exposed to scholarly investigation. The records show in detail the deliberate building of a powerful authoritarian state and of its industrial and military power.
I call this state Secret Leviathan. Secrecy was in the genes of the Soviet state from the first days of its creation. The Soviet state took secrecy to an extreme. When secrecy failed, the state collapsed. This book is about Soviet secrecy and its consequences.
All governments of the early twentieth century kept secrets, from military and diplomatic secrets to the confidences that arose in the ordinary business of politics. The government of the Russian Empire before the Bolsheviks was no exception. It is what came next that was exceptional.
In its first days, the new regime did not hesitate to expose the secrets of the old regime such as the record of confidential inter-Ally negotiations on a postwar settlement.[11] Regarding their own secrets, the Bolsheviks’ attitude was entirely different. They set about cloaking their activities and suppressing critical voices far more energetically than before. Their ability to do this was limited at first. It took time for the systems to be built that would enable to them to achieve their goals.
Soviet government was known for its unusual secretiveness during the Cold War. “The main characteristic of the Soviet government,” wrote the American journalist John Gunther, “distinguishing it from all other governments in the world, even other dictatorships, is the extreme emphasis on secrecy.”[12] Western observers were aware that the Soviet state concealed many secrets, that there was comprehensive censorship of the press and media, and that most Soviet people were kept in the dark about nearly everything that went on outside their own narrow circles of acquaintance.[13]
13
Some who wrote knowledgeably during the Cold War about what they could see of Soviet secrecy from the outside were journalists (Gunther, Inside Russia Today, 74-81; Smith, The Russians, 420-57); some were specialists (Bergson, “Reliability and Usability”; Hardt, statement in US Congress Joint Economic Commit¬tee, Allocation of Resources in the Soviet Union and China- Hutchings, Soviet Secrecy, Maggs, Nonmilitary Secrecy; Rosenfeldt, Knowledge and Power and Stalin’s Special Departments'). Among the contributors were also Russian insiders who made it to the West while the Cold War was still on (Vladimirov, “Glavlit”; Zhores Medvedev, Medvedev Papers and Soviet Science; Birman, Secret Incomes; Dunskaya, Security Practices at Soviet Research Facilities; Agursky and Adomeit, “The Soviet Military-Industrial Complex”)