Subtitled 'Lenin and History's Greatest Heist, 1917-1927', this authoritative and deeply researched study offers a major re-evaluation of the origins of the Soviet security state. Drawing extensively on newly opened Russian archives, Boris Volodarsky traces the evolution of the KGB's institutional ancestors from the Tsarist Okhrana, Russia's first political police, to the Cheka, the GPU, and finally the OGPU, the Joint State Political Directorate that dominated Soviet internal security between 1923 and 1934. Volodarsky challenges long-held assumptions about the early Soviet security organs, demonstrating that the Cheka and its successors were initially conceived not as instruments of foreign espionage, but as defensive mechanisms designed to protect the fragile Bolshevik revolution from internal and external threats. In contrast, the Okhrana, operating both within the Russian Empire and across Europe, conducted extensive clandestine campaigns against revolutionary movements - many of them little known until now and reconstructed here in striking detail. The book sheds new light on the turbulent decade following the creation of the Cheka in December 1917, a period that culminated in Leon Trotsky's expulsion and exile and Joseph Stalin's consolidation of power. Particularly original is Volodarsky's reinterpretation of the Communist International (Comintern), presented not merely as an ideological body but as a parallel and highly effective instrument of Soviet foreign subversion and propaganda, operating alongside the formal intelligence services. One of the work's most remarkable contributions lies in its forensic reconstruction of the Bolshevik smuggling of Russia's imperial treasures. Using the latest archival discoveries, Volodarsky corrects decades of misinterpretation, revealing how priceless assets were covertly transferred abroad to finance the new regime. The international dimension of this shadow war is equally compelling. After the Revolution, Mansfield Smith-Cumming, the founding chief of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, attempted to build an entirely new intelligence network inside Soviet Russia. Over the next decade, British and Soviet services became locked in a relentless struggle that extended from Moscow to the Baltic states, Scandinavia, and the great capitals of Europe. While British networks operated inside Russia and later from Riga, Helsinki, and Stockholm, young Soviet officers were dispatched to London, Paris, Berlin and Constantinople. A groundbreaking and rigorously documented portrait of the birth of modern Soviet intelligence, illuminating the clandestine battles, ideological rivalries, and financial intrigues that shaped one of the most powerful and feared security systems of the 20th century. 393 pages, 16 pages of photos.
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