Review: Comrade Kryuchkov's Instructions
| Published date | 01 December 1994 |
| Date | 01 December 1994 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070209404900414 |
| Author | David A.T. Stafford |
| Subject Matter | Review |
REVIEWS
959
Korea
was
ripe
for
insurrection
and
easy
conquest;
Stalin
was
prepared
to
encourage
Kim
to
undertake
what
appeared
an
easy
gain
for
the
communist
camp
at
no
cost
to
the
Soviet
Union; and
Mao,
whose
doubts about
North
Korea's
prospects
made
him
the
only
realist
of
the
three,
had
no
choice
but
to
endorse
Kim's
goal
of
national
unification.
The
consequence
was
Chinese
intervention,
at
enormous
price,
to
sal-
vage
Kim.
But
that effort
removed
Stalin's suspicions
about
the
depend-
ability
and
commitment
of
his
Chinese
ally.
Many
aspects
of
the
Moscow-Beijing
relationship
are
formulated
with
incisiveness:
two
illustrations
will
have to
suffice.
In
1948,
as
the
Chinese
communists
neared
victory in
the
civil
war,
the question
facing
Mao
and
his
colleagues
was
how to
balance
'apparent
obeisance
to
the
Soviet
Union
with
their
insistence
on
dominance
at
home.'
And
in
a
memo-
rable
turn
of
phrase,
the
authors
observe
that
'in
the
history
of
bilateral
Sino-Soviet
relations,
the United
States
was
always
the
third
partner.'
Sixty
pages
of
Chinese
and
Soviet
documents,
most
of
them
never
before
rendered
into
English,
complete
this
well
written,
tightly
argued,
and
most
impressively
researched book.
David
P.
Barrett/McMaster
University
COMRADE KRYUCHKOV'S INSTRUCTIONS
Top secret
files
of
KGB
foreign
operations,
1975-1985
Edited
by
Christopher
Andrew
and
Oleg
Gordievsky
Stanford
CA:
Stanford
University
Press,
1993,
xviii,
240pp,
US$39.50
cloth,
US$1
4.95
paper
The
top secret
documents
in
this
volume consist
of
KGB
instructions
to
foreign residencies
during
the
decade
that
culminated
in
Gorba-
chev's
accession
to
power in
1985.
Throughout
this
period the
head
of
the
KGB'S
First
Chief
(Foreign Intelligence)
Directorate,
or
FCD,
was
General
Vladimir
Aleksandrovich
Kryuchkov,
who
later
became
KGB
chairman and
was
one
of
the conspirators
in
the
1991
coup.
During
the
same
period
Oleg
Gordievsky,
a
leading
KGB
intelligence
officer,
was
also
working
as
a
double
agent
for
the
British.
The
volume consists
To continue reading
Request your trial