Russia • Military / Security Historical Dictionaries of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, No. 5 At its peak, the KGB (Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti) was the largest secret police and espionage organization in the world. It became so influential in Soviet politics that several of its directors moved on to become premiers of
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the Soviet Union. In fact, Russian president Vladimir V. Putin is a former head of the KGB. The GRU (Glavnoe Razvedvitelnoe Upravleniye) is the principal intelligence unit of the Russian armed forces, having been established in 1920 by Leon Trotsky during the Russian civil war. It was the first subordinate to the KGB, and although the KGB broke up with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the GRU remains intact, cohesive, highly efficient, and with far greater resources than its civilian counterparts.
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The KGB and GRU are just two of the many Russian and Soviet intelligence agencies covered in Historical Dictionary of Russian and Soviet Intelligence.
HISTORICAL DICTIONARY OF
Through a list of acronyms and abbreviations, a chronology, an introductory essay, a bibliography, and hundreds of cross-referenced dictionary entries, a clear picture of this subject is presented. Entries also cover Russian and Soviet leaders, leading intelligence and security officers, the Lenin and Stalin purges, the gulag, and noted espionage cases.
with a lifelong interest in Russian security. He has served as a diplomat and intelligence professional in Africa, the former Soviet Union, and Eastern Europe.
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Scarecrow Press, Inc. A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200 Lanham, Maryland 20706 1-800-462-6420 • fax 717-794-3803 www.scarecrowpress.com
ISBN-13: 978-0-8108-4942-6 ISBN-10: 0-8108-4942-9
INTELLIGENCE
Robert W. Pringle is a former foreign service officer and intelligence analyst
RUSSIAN &INTELLIGENCE SOVIET R O B E R T W. P R I N G L E
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