To summarize, from the late 1940s to the early 1960s the Soviet Union went through many changes. The changes were to a large extent unplanned and experimental. Although written from varied perspectives, recent historical studies of the Soviet Union in the Thaw period share a common theme of the unintended consequences of haphazard reforms, including confusion, division, excesses of political dissent, outbreaks of ordinary criminality, and conservative backlashes. Fearing to lose control, the party leaders were forced to give increasing attention to the restoration of order, which took several years to achieve to their satisfaction.[60]
Comparing before and after the Thaw, the Soviet system of authoritarian changed gears, moving from high- to low-intensity repression.[61] High-intensity repression compels by violent actions such as detention, killing, imprisonment, and forced resettlement. High-intensity repression can be targeted but is often indiscriminate. Where high-intensity repression compels by violence, low-intensity repression controls and prevents. It uses harassment and threats, which are targeted selectively on particular persons rather than entire groups.
How did the Thaw affect the Soviet regime of secrecy? Did the original regime persist with minor adjustment, or did it undergo fundamental change? This question can be answered by thinking about the four pillars of Soviet secrecy. The state monopoly of nearly everything was entirely unaffected by the Thaw. Comprehensive censorship remained in place without substantial reorganization. The scope of permitted material was somewhat widened, so now the censors had more work to process than before, and they had to make many difficult decisions as they tried to fix new limits on the public sphere. Within a few years the new limits were clearly established. The party’s conspirative norms were disturbed by a major violation, the leaking of Khrushchev’s “secret speech” to the outside world, but the violation was not repeated, and the code of silence was restored. And behind the scenes, the secret police and the secrete departments continued to safeguard government communications as before.
Once the Thaw had run its course, two things became clear. First, de-Stalinization would not be reversed, but it was to be kept within strict limits, and attempts to push beyond the limits would be punished. Above all, de-Stalinization would not be allowed to put at risk the state’s monopolization of the economy and the party’s monopolization of state power. Soviet repression shifted from high to low intensity, but low-intensity repression was still repression, and the political regime continued to rely on it. Indeed, after the Thaw, the balance of repression continued to evolve so that, under Brezhnev, Soviet rule became steadily less violent but also more intrusive through mass surveillance and individually targeted “preventive” measures.
A second clear outcome of the Thaw was that the Soviet public sphere was permanently widened, and the detailed operations of censorship were reprogrammed to allow more information and a somewhat wider variety of influences to enter public discourse. Important though it was, that was all. Even if a few individuals pushed at the limits, there was no public debate of the need for censorship, which continued as before so that, once the new limits on the public sphere were established, they were strictly enforced. As for the other pillars of secrecy, they stood unaltered. Thus, while the atmosphere of Soviet politics and culture changed markedly, the regime of secrecy continued from Stalin to Khrushchev and Brezhnev with only minor alterations.
For much of its existence the Soviet Union saw the United States as its chief adversary—and conversely. It would be of interest, therefore, to compare the rules and practices of secrecy in the two countries during the Cold War in such a way that we could trace their interaction and coevolution— the consequences of each on the other.[62] While that is beyond the scope of the present work, a first step is to describe the norms of secrecy on each side in comparable terms. Norms do not explain practical working arrangements. No doubt poor practices and violations (some described later in this book) were frequent on both sides. Despite this, a comparison of norms does at least tell us about the expectations that leaders placed on their subordinates on either side of the Cold War.
At first sight, most secrecy systems look the same. The start is a classification hierarchy in which “top secret” matters are distinguished from matters that are merely “secret,” while secret matters are separated from those that are confidential in the ordinary way of doing business. To break a confidence leads to a warning or dismissal. To disclose a secret leads to prison or worse. Both sides used terminologies of this nature.
Beneath the surface, significant differences lay buried. One difference is that the Soviet system was older than the American system. In the United States, spying for a foreign power was made illegal by the Espionage Act of 1917, but the scope of secrecy was not legally defined, so that the act had little force. In two world wars, American press censorship was largely voluntary.[63]
An American system of secrecy was established only after World War II, by President Truman’s Executive Order (EO) no. 10290 (1951), which set out four levels of classification:[64]
“Top Secret,” “Secret,” “Confidential,” and “Restricted” . .. shall be used only for the purpose of identifying information which must be safeguarded to protect the national security....
The major criterion for the assignment of [“Top Secret”] shall be recognition of the fact that unauthorized disclosure of information so classified would or could cause exceptionally grave danger to the national security. The classification “Secret” . . . shall be given only to information which requires extraordinary protection in the interest of national security. The classification “Confidential” . .. shall be given to such information as requires careful protection in order to prevent disclosures which might harm national security. The classification “Restricted” . . . shall be applied to information having such bearing upon national security as to require protection against unauthorized use or disclosure, particularly information which should be limited to official use.
For comparison, a KGB training handbook of the 1970s sets out the rules of Soviet classification.[65]
There were four classes of secrecy, beginning with a supersecret category called “Top secret (of special importance)” (sovershenno sekretno [osoboi vazhnosti]).[66] This was followed by “top secret” (without any qualifiers), “secret,” and finally “restricted” (dlia sluzhebnogo pol’zovaniia, literally “for staff use”).
In Soviet parlance, matters are classified “top secret” (whether of special importance or not) if their disclosure can “cause harm to the interests of the Soviet state”; the degree of harm is not considered. This is enough to make them state secrets. Matters that are state secrets are listed in periodic decrees of the USSR Council of Ministers (dated 9 June 1947,28 April 1956, and 15 September 1966, for example); these lists were themselves state secrets. In consultation with the KGB, particular ministries can also declare aspects of their activity to be state secrets. Unauthorized disclosure of top secrets is a “state crime” (treason, in other words).
“Secret” matters are administrative secrets, not state secrets; their disclosure can harm a government agency or facility, rather than the state as a whole. Unauthorized disclosure may be a crime or an administrative violation, depending on circumstances, but it is not a “state crime.” The importance of the distinction is illustrated by a story from Vilnius in 1973. While drinking in a bar, a police lieutenant lost an informer’s paperwork documenting their code name, real name, address, life story, associates, criminal activities, and police contacts. Taken together, were these a state secret, leading to prosecution, or just an administrative secret? Local officials wanted the more serious charge, but Moscow overruled them. The officer lost his job, but criminal charges were dropped for lack of a crime.[67]
60
These themes are shared by various recent histories of the Thaw: Bittner, Many Lives of Khrushchev’s Thaw; Dobson, Khrushchev’s Cold Summer; Hardy, Gulag after Stalin; Hornsby, Protest, Reform, and Repression; Jones, ed., Dilemmas of De-Stalinization; Jones, Myth, Memory, Trauma.
61
For the distinction see Frantz, Authoritarianism, 107. The title of Hardy and Skorobogatov, “‘We Can’t Shoot Everyone’,” captures the spirit of the transition: in 1962, Leonid Brezhnev wrote that “we can’t shoot everyone,” but that sense of restraint would not have occurred to anyone in 1937.
62
Starting points can be found in Krementsov, Stalinist Science, and Jenks, “Securitization and Secrecy.”
63
Sam Lebovic, “The Surprisingly Short History of American Secrecy,” July 5, 2016, American Historical Association, https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/summer-2016/the-surprisingly-short-history-of-american-secrecy.
64
Executive Order no. 10290,27 September 1951, Federation of American Scientists website under “Selected Executive Orders on National Security,” https:// fas.org/irp/offdocs/eo/. In this chapter, further references to executive orders are given in the text by the name of the president followed by the number of the order and the year of its publication, the text of the order being available at the same address on the Federation of American Scientists website unless otherwise mentioned. See also helpful discussion by Aftergood, “Secrecy and Accountability in U.S. Intelligence”; Elsea, “Protection of Classified Information”; Moynihan Commission, Report; Quist, Security Classification of Information, vol. 1.
66
Also called “top-top secret” by Agursky and Adomeit, “Soviet Military- Industrial Complex,” 28.
67
Hoover/LYA K-1/10/405, 24-26 and 27-28 (memos to USSR KGB investigation department chief Volkov A. F., both signed by Lithuania KGB investigation department chief Kismanis E., 6 November 1973 and 1 March 1974, respectively)