Vasili Mitrokhin - KGB.Lexicon: The Soviet Intelligence Officers Handbook

First Published in 2002 in Great Britain by

FRANK CASS & CO. LTD

Reprinted 2004

By Frank Cass

2 Park Square, Milton Park Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

Transferred to Digital Printing 2006

Frank Cass is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group

Copyright Frank Cass & Co. Ltd.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data:

KGB lexicon: The Soviet Intelligence Officer's Handbook

1. Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Komitet gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti 2. Intelligence service

Soviet Union - Dictionaries 3. Secret service - Soviet Union - Dictionaries

I. Mitrokhin, Vasiliy, 1922- 327.1247

ISBN 0 7146 5257 1 (cloth)

ISBN 0 7146 8235 7 (paper)

Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data:

KGB lexicon: the Soviet intelligence officer's handbook / edited and

introduced by Vasily

Mitrokhin.

p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN 0-7146-5257- 1 - ISBN 0-7146-8235-7 (pbk.)

1. Intelligence service-Soviet Union-Dictionaries. 2. Soviet Union. Komitet gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti. I. Mitrokhin, V. N. (Vasiliy Nikitich)

JN6529.I6K4 2001

327.1247'003-dc21

2001047670

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher

Typeset by Frank Cass & Co. Ltd

Publishers Note

The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original may be apparent

Those who wish to penetrate the inner mind of a clandestine institution, whether for counter-intelligence or scholarly purposes, must first get their hands on the secret rulebooks that govern its most private practices. For the hardest targets this is rarely possible and no target came tougher than the Russian Intelligence Service.

Now, thanks to Vasiliy Mitrokhin, the KGB Lexicon is an open book for Western Intelligence, students of intelligence history and the general reader alike. It represents a windfall of a rarity and a grimness that sets it apart as a piece of primary historical material.

For, to borrow Mr Mitrokhins own imagery in conversation with me, the world illuminated within these pages represented the darkest of dark spheres for those who needed to defend themselves against its purposes. Laid out here in relentless detail is the official mind of Soviet state security which governed the lives and practices of the secret servants of the USSR in a manner that left little to chance.

Each page is as dispiriting as it is revealing a window into a world of demons where for every demon there is a drill or an instruction. The KGB Lexicon is best read in instalments with a stiffish drink by ones side. And, when you reach the end, raise your glass in merciful recognition that the compilers of this work and those they served did not prevail!

Peter Hennessy

Attlee Professor of Contemporary British History,

Queen Mary, University of London,

Guy Fawkes Day, 2001

A good number of well-wishers were to be found who helped the dictionaries to come out. To them all, and to each one individually, I extend my profound gratitude, my heartfelt thanks and will not forget their kindness. They undoubtedly deserve the readers highest approval.

I also recognise the painstaking work of the translator; I express my sincere appreciation of his English translation of the KGB Lexicon and its Introduction.

The entries in this lexicon follow the order in which they appear in the original Russian. This is because the sequence of the Russian Cyrillic alphabet is different from the sequence of the Roman alphabet in which English is written.

There is no single internationally accepted system of transliteration from Russian to English. The system used in these lexicons broadly follows the method used by the BBC Monitoring Service, where the Russian hard and soft signs, sometimes rendered as an apostrophe in other transliteration systems, are not indicated.

AND (Agenturno-nablyudatelnoye delo) agent monitoring file

AOO (Agenturno-operativnaya obstanovka) agent-operational situation

BREM (Byro po delam russkoy emigratsii) Bureau for the Affairs of Russian Emigrs in Manchuria

DAR (Delo agenturnoy razrabotki) agent cultivation/ development file

DKS (Dokument kodirovannoy svyazi) encoded communications document DLB (Dead letter box)

DOP (Delo operativnoy perepiski) operational correspondence file

DOR (Delo operativnoy razrabotki) operational cultivation/development file ECB (Evangelical Christian baptists)

GPU (Gosudarstvennoye politicheskoye upraveleniye pri NKVD RSFSR) State political directorate attached to the Peoples commissariat for internal affairs of the Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic.

GRU (Glavnoye razvedyvatelnoye upravleniye generalnogo shtaba Sovetskoy armii) The Chief Intelligence Directorate

GUGB (Glavnoye upravleniye gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti) Chief Directorate of State Security

INO (Inostrannyy otdel) Foreign Department

ISZ (Iskusstvennyy sputnik zemli) artificial earth satellite

KOMSOMOL (Vsesoyuznyy Leninskiy Kommunisticheskiy Soyuz Molodyozhi) the All-Union Leninist Communist Union of Youth

KPP (Kontrolno-propusknoy punkt) border crossing control point KPP (Kontrolno-proverochnyy punkt) monitoring control point

KPSS (Kommunisticheskaya partiya Sovetskogo Soyuza) the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (often referred to simply as the Party

KRO (Kontrrazvedyvatelnyy otdel) Counter-intelligence Department KSP (Kontrolno-sledovaya polosa) surveillance ploughed strip

MOOP (Ministerstvo okhrany obshchestvennogo poryadka) Ministry for the Protection of Public Order

MVD (Ministerstvo vnutrennikh del) Interior Ministry

NKGB (Narodnyy komissariat gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti) Peoples Commissariat of State Security

NKVD (Narodnyy komissariat vnutrennikh del) National Commissariat for Internal Affairs

NN (Naruzhnoye nablyudeniye) surveillance

OGPU (Obyedinyonnoye gosudarstvennoye politicheskoye upravleniye pri Sovete narodnykh komissarov SSR) Combined State Political Directorate

OK (Operativnaya karta) operational map

OPS (Obshchaya pereschifrovalnaya sistema) common reciphering system

OVIR (Otdel viz i registratsii inostrannykh grazhdan i lits bez grazhdanstva) Department of visas and registration of foreigners and persons without citizenship

PK (Perlyustratsiya korrespondentsii) postal censorship

RFS (Rossiskiy fashistskiy soyuz) Russian Fascist Union

RPG (Razvedyvatelnaya poiskovaya gruppa) intelligence-gathering group

RSFSR (Rossiyskaya Sovetskaya Federativnaya Sotsialisticheskaya Respublika) the Russian Soviet Federation Socialist Republic

RV (Rendez-vous )

SNK (Sovet Narodnykh Komissarov) Council of Peoples Commissars SPO (Sekretno-politicheskiy otdel) Secret Political Department

SW (secret writing) taynopis

VChK (cheka) (Vserossiyskaya chrezvychaynaya komissiya po borbe s kontrrevolyutsiyey i sabotazhem) All-Russia Emergency Commission to combat counter-revolution and sabotage