90-506: Vladimir Bogdanovich Rezun (Russian: Владимир Богданович Резун ; Ukrainian: Володи́мир Богда́нович Рєзу́н ; born 20 April 1947), known by his pseudonym of Viktor Suvorov ( Виктор Суворов ), is a former Soviet GRU officer who is the author of non-fiction books about World War II , the GRU and the Soviet Army , as well as fictional books about the same and related subjects. After defecting to
180-556: A proxy (the "Icebreaker") against the West . The books are based on his personal analysis of Soviet military investments , diplomatic maneuvers, Politburo speeches and other circumstantial evidence . Suvorov also wrote a number of fiction books about the Soviet Army, military intelligence and the pre-war history of the USSR. The trilogy Control , Choice and Snake-eater was a bestseller and
270-711: A General European Treaty on Collective Security in Europe "open to all European States without regard to their social systems", which would have included the unified Germany (thus rendering the EDC obsolete). But Eden, Dulles, and Bidault opposed the proposal. One month later, the proposed European Treaty was rejected not only by supporters of the EDC, but also by Western opponents of the European Defence Community (like French Gaullist leader Gaston Palewski ) who perceived it as "unacceptable in its present form because it excludes
360-615: A UN resolution to establish a nuclear-free zone in Latin America when the other Soviet-aligned countries abstained, or why in 1964 Romania opposed the Soviet-proposed "strong collective riposte" against China (and these are examples solely from the 1963–1964 period). Soviet disinformation tried to convince the West that Ceaușescu's empowerment was a dissimulation in connivance with Moscow. To an extent this worked, as some historians came to see
450-583: A behavior of cunning and deceit in order to climb the ranks. At the age of 19 he was admitted to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). From 1970 to 1971 he was an officer in the intelligence department of the headquarters of the Volga Military District (in the city of Kuibyshev ), and later with the 808th Independent Army Reconnaissance Company ( Spetsnaz ). In 1970 he became
540-495: A major objective of US policy towards Europe: to associate West Germany militarily with the West. The US Department of State started to elaborate alternatives: West Germany would be invited to join NATO or, in the case of French obstructionism, strategies to circumvent a French veto would be implemented in order to obtain German rearmament outside NATO. On 23 October 1954 , the admission of
630-715: A member of the nomenclature ( nomenklatura ) of the Central Committee of the CPSU . In this position he came under the patronage of the commander of the Carpathian Military District, Lieutenant General of Tank Forces (later General of the Army ) Gennady Obaturov . This general was known for suppressing anti-communist uprisings in Hungary in 1956 and later Czechoslovakia in 1968 with ruthless efficiency, for which Obaturov received
720-583: A nationalist, as well as privileged access to NATO counterparts and a seat at various European forums which otherwise he would not have had (for instance, Romania and the Soviet-led remainder of the Warsaw Pact formed two distinct groups in the elaboration of the Helsinki Final Act ). When Andrei Grechko assumed command of the Warsaw Pact, both Romania and Albania had for all practical purposes defected from
810-413: A remilitarized West Germany potentially opposed to the Soviet Union, with no success. On 14 May 1955, the USSR and seven other Eastern European countries "reaffirming their desire for the establishment of a system of European collective security based on the participation of all European states irrespective of their social and political systems" established the Warsaw Pact in response to the integration of
900-495: A son, Aleksandr, and a daughter, Oksana. They were smuggled out of Switzerland to Britain by British intelligence. There Suvorov worked as an intelligence analyst for the government and as a lecturer. Since 1981, he has been writing under the pseudonym Viktor Suvorov, having written his first three books in English: The Liberators , Inside the Soviet Army , and Inside Soviet Military Intelligence . The author explains
990-573: Is Russian. According to his own statements, Suvorov considers himself, his wife and children to be Ukrainians. He was born in the village of Barabash , Primorsky Krai; raised in Ukraine's Cherkasy , where his father served. The family subsequently settled in Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic after his father's retirement. According to Suvorov, he went to first grade in the village of Slavyanka (Primorsky Territory) , then studied in
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#17330925751251080-760: The Carpathian Military District in Ukraine, participating in the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia , Operation Danube . This experience is narrated in his 1981 book The Liberators: My Life in the Soviet Army . The book was Suvorov's first after his defection and in it he narrates his eyewitness account of the invasion, recounting the daily life within the Soviet Army . He points to deficiencies in readiness and in mindset. Suvorov mentions that middle-ranking officers struggled to impress their superiors, something that does not contribute to military effectiveness or discipline – instead fostering on officers
1170-605: The Cheka , who served until 1935 and again in 1937. He was arrested in May 1938 and subsequently murdered in July 1938 during the so-called " Latvian Operation " of Joseph Stalin 's Great Purge . The GRU in its modern form was created by Stalin in February 1942, less than a year after the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany . From April 1943 the GRU handled human intelligence exclusively outside
1260-656: The Cold War . The term "Warsaw Pact" commonly refers to both the treaty itself and its resultant military alliance , the Warsaw Treaty Organization ( WTO ). The Warsaw Pact was the military complement to the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon), the economic organization for the Eastern Bloc states. Dominated by the Soviet Union, the Warsaw Pact was established as a balance of power or counterweight to
1350-870: The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) in 1992, and the Shanghai Five in 1996, which was renamed the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) after Uzbekistan 's addition in 2001. In November 2005, the Polish government opened its Warsaw Treaty archives to the Institute of National Remembrance , which published some 1,300 declassified documents in January 2006, yet the Polish government reserved publication of 100 documents, pending their military declassification. Eventually, 30 of
1440-517: The Icebreaker , M Day and several follow-up books Suvorov argued that Stalin planned to use Nazi Germany as a proxy (the “Icebreaker”) against the West. For this reason, Stalin provided significant material and political support to Adolf Hitler , while at the same time preparing the Red Army to "liberate" the whole of Europe from Nazi occupation. Suvorov argued that Hitler had lost World War II from
1530-542: The Imre Nagy government of the withdrawal of Hungary from the Warsaw Pact, Soviet troops entered the country and removed the government . Soviet forces crushed the nationwide revolt, leading to the death of an estimated 2,500 Hungarian citizens. The multi-national Communist armed forces' sole joint action was the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia , another Warsaw Pact member state, in August 1968. All member countries, with
1620-659: The Marshall Plan ." In November 1956, Soviet forces invaded Hungary , a Warsaw Pact member state, and violently put down the Hungarian Revolution . After that, the USSR made bilateral 20-year-treaties with Poland (17 December 1956), the GDR (12 March 1957), Romania (15 April 1957; Soviet forces were later removed as part of Romania's de-satellization ), and Hungary (27 May 1957), ensuring that Soviet troops were deployed in these countries. The founding signatories of
1710-530: The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Western Bloc . There was no direct military confrontation between the two organizations; instead, the conflict was fought on an ideological basis and through proxy wars . Both NATO and the Warsaw Pact led to the expansion of military forces and their integration into the respective blocs. The Warsaw Pact's largest military engagement was
1800-866: The Order of the Red Banner . From 1971 to 1974, Suvorov studied at the Military Diplomatic Academy, known as "the Conservatory", located in Moscow. The Academy trained officers for work abroad as intelligence operatives or "scouts" ( razvedchiki in the Russian language). These worked often "under diplomatic cover" ("jackets", in the jargon of Soviet intelligence operatives), and also as "illegals", meaning intelligence operatives not under diplomatic cover or (quasi-declared) commercial cover. For four years, Suvorov worked in
1890-606: The Pan-European Picnic in August 1989. East Germany withdrew from the pact following German reunification in 1990. On 25 February 1991, at a meeting in Hungary, the pact was declared at an end by the defense and foreign ministers of the six remaining member states. The USSR itself was dissolved in December 1991 , although most of the former Soviet republics formed the Collective Security Treaty Organization shortly thereafter. In
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#17330925751251980-793: The Soviet–Polish War , it was elevated in status to become the Second (Intelligence) Directorate of the Red Army Staff, and was thereafter known as the Razvedupr . This probably resulted from its new primary peacetime responsibilities as the main source of foreign intelligence for the Soviet leadership. As part of a major re-organization of the Red Army, sometime in 1925 or 1926 the RU (then Razvedyvatelnoe Upravlenye) became
2070-691: The Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia , its own member state, in August 1968 (with the participation of all pact nations except Albania and Romania ), which, in part, resulted in Albania withdrawing from the pact less than one month later. The pact began to unravel with the spread of the Revolutions of 1989 through the Eastern Bloc, beginning with the Solidarity movement in Poland, its electoral success in June 1989 and
2160-629: The American hegemony (mainly military and economic) over NATO, all decisions of the North Atlantic Alliance required unanimous consensus in the North Atlantic Council and the entry of countries into the alliance was not subject to domination but rather a natural democratic process. In the Warsaw Pact, decisions were ultimately taken by the Soviet Union alone; the countries of the Warsaw Pact were not equally able to negotiate their entry in
2250-518: The Federal Republic of Germany into NATO, declaring that: "a remilitarized Western Germany and the integration of the latter in the North-Atlantic bloc [...] increase the danger of another war and constitutes a threat to the national security of the peaceable states; [...] in these circumstances the peaceable European states must take the necessary measures to safeguard their security". One of
2340-473: The Federal Republic of Germany to the North Atlantic Pact was finally decided. The incorporation of West Germany into the organization on 9 May 1955 was described as "a decisive turning point in the history of our continent" by Halvard Lange , Foreign Affairs Minister of Norway at the time. In November 1954, the USSR requested a new European Security Treaty, in order to make a final attempt to not have
2430-586: The Fourth (Intelligence) Directorate of the Red Army Staff, and was thereafter also known simply as the "Fourth Department." Throughout most of the interwar period, the men and women who worked for Red Army Intelligence called it either the Fourth Department, the Intelligence Service, the Razvedupr , or the RU. […] As a result of the re-organization [in 1926], carried out in part to break up Trotsky's hold on
2520-574: The GRU's operations. Nonetheless, the Cheka infiltrated the GRU in 1919. That worsened a fierce rivalry between the two agencies, which were both engaged in espionage. The rivalry became even more intense than that between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Central Intelligence Agency in the US. The existence of the GRU was not publicized during the Soviet era, but documents concerning it became available in
2610-534: The GRU, Colonel general Yevgeny Timokhin. On 10 June 1978 he disappeared from his Geneva apartment with his wife and two children. According to Suvorov himself, he made contact with British intelligence because the Geneva station wanted to make him a "scapegoat" of a major failure. On 28 June 1978 British newspapers reported that Rezun was in England with his family. At the time, he was married to Tatiana Korzh. The couple had
2700-587: The Geneva GRU as an employee of the legal residency of military intelligence under the cover of the Permanent Mission of the USSR at the European United Nations Office at Geneva . According to the autobiographical book Aquarium , he received the rank of major while working in residency. The same title was named in an interview of 1992 with the newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda by then head of
2790-545: The Pact consisted of the following communist governments: [REDACTED] Mongolia : In July 1963, the Mongolian People's Republic asked to join the Warsaw Pact under Article 9 of the treaty. Due to the emerging Sino-Soviet split , Mongolia remained in an observer status. In what was the first instance of a Soviet initiative being blocked by a non-Soviet member of the Warsaw Pact, Romania blocked Mongolia's accession to
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2880-476: The Pact nor the decisions taken. Although nominally a "defensive" alliance, the Pact's primary function was to safeguard the Soviet Union's hegemony over its Eastern European satellites, with the Pact's only direct military actions having been the invasions of its own member states to keep them from breaking away. Romania and, until 1968, Albania – were exceptions. Together with Yugoslavia, which broke with
2970-439: The Pact. In the early 1960s, Grechko initiated programs meant to preempt Romanian doctrinal heresies from spreading to other Pact members. Romania's doctrine of territorial defense threatened the Pact's unity and cohesion. No other country succeeded in escaping from the Warsaw Pact like Romania and Albania did. For example, the mainstays of Romania's tank forces were locally developed models. Soviet troops were deployed to Romania for
3060-854: The Registration Department was not directly subordinate to the General Staff (at the time called the Red Army Field Staff ;– Polevoi Shtab ). Administratively, it was the Third Department of the Field Staff's Operations Directorate. In July 1920, the RU was made the second of four main departments in the Operations Directorate. Until 1921, it was usually called the Registrupr (Registration Department). That year, following
3150-400: The Russians and to press on the European Defense Community". According to John Gaddis , "there was little inclination in Western capitals to explore this offer" from the USSR, while historian Rolf Steininger asserts that Adenauer's conviction that "neutralization means sovietization ", referring to the Soviet Union's policies towards Finland known as finlandization , was the main factor in
3240-565: The Soviet Army, military intelligence , and special forces . He publishes these works under the pseudonym "Viktor Suvorov." Suvorov also wrote several fiction books set in the pre-World War II era in the Soviet Union. Suvorov has written ten books about the outbreak of the Nazi-Soviet War in 1941 and the circumstances related to it. The first such work was Icebreaker (1989), followed by M Day , The Last Republic , Cleansing , Suicide , The Shadow of Victory , I Take it Back , The Last Republic II , The Chief Culprit , and Defeat . In
3330-425: The Soviet Union before the Warsaw Pact was created, these three countries completely rejected the Soviet doctrine formulated for the Pact. Albania officially left the organization in 1968, in protest of its invasion of Czechoslovakia. Romania had its own reasons for remaining a formal member of the Warsaw Pact, such as Nicolae Ceaușescu 's interest of preserving the threat of a Pact invasion so he could sell himself as
3420-402: The Soviet Union already had an armed presence and political domination all over its eastern satellite states by 1955, the pact has been long considered "superfluous", and because of the rushed way in which it was conceived, NATO officials labeled it a "cardboard castle". The USSR, fearing the restoration of German militarism in West Germany, had suggested in 1954 that it join NATO, but this
3510-655: The Soviet Union arrogated the right to define socialism and communism and act as the leader of the global socialist movement. A corollary to this was the necessity of military intervention if a country appeared to be "violating" core socialist ideas, i.e. breaking away from the Soviet sphere of influence , explicitly stated in the Brezhnev Doctrine . estimates On 12 March 1999, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland joined NATO ; Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovenia and Slovakia joined in March 2004; Croatia and Albania joined on 1 April 2009. The USSR's successor Russia and some other post-Soviet states joined
3600-405: The Soviet government for its fierce independence from the rival " internal intelligence organizations ", such as the Main Directorate of State Security (GUGB), State Political Directorate (GPU), MGB , OGPU , NKVD , NKGB , KGB and the First Chief Directorate (PGU). At the time of the GRU's creation, Lenin infuriated the Cheka (the predecessor of the KGB) by ordering it not to interfere with
3690-399: The Soviets decided to declare their "readiness to examine jointly with other interested parties the question of the participation of the USSR in the North Atlantic bloc", specifying that "the admittance of the USA into the General European Agreement should not be conditional on the three Western powers agreeing to the USSR joining the North Atlantic Pact". Again, all Soviet proposals, including
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3780-420: The Soviets that it would remain in the Pact, this broke the brackets of Eastern Europe, which could no longer be held together militarily by the Warsaw Pact. Independent national politics made feasible with the perestroika and liberal glasnost policies revealed shortcomings and failures (i.e. of the soviet-type economic planning model) and induced institutional collapse of the Communist government in
3870-417: The USA from participation in the collective security system in Europe". The Soviets then decided to make a new proposal to the governments of the US, UK, and France to accept the participation of the US in the proposed General European Agreement. As another argument deployed against the Soviet proposal was that it was perceived by Western powers as "directed against the North Atlantic Pact and its liquidation",
3960-424: The USSR , and the Chief of Combined Staff of the Unified Armed Forces of the Warsaw Treaty Organization was also a First Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Soviet Armed Forces . On the contrary, the Secretary General of NATO and Chair of the NATO Military Committee are positions with fixed term of office held on a random rotating basis by officials from all member countries through consensus. Despite
4050-431: The USSR in 1991. From 1989 to 1991, Communist governments were overthrown in Albania , Poland , Hungary , Czechoslovakia , East Germany , Romania , Bulgaria , Yugoslavia , and the Soviet Union . As the last acts of the Cold War were playing out, several Warsaw Pact states (Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary) participated in the US-led coalition effort to liberate Kuwait in the Gulf War . On 25 February 1991,
4140-401: The USSR. The GRU had the task of handling all military intelligence , particularly the collection of intelligence of military or political significance from sources outside the Soviet Union. It operated rezidenturas (residencies) all over the world, along with the signals intelligence (SIGINT) station in Lourdes, Cuba , and throughout the Soviet-bloc countries . The GRU was known in
4230-417: The United Kingdom in 1978, Suvorov began his writing career, publishing his first books in the 1980s about his own experiences and the structure of the Soviet military , intelligence , and secret police . He writes in Russian with a number of his books translated into English, including his semi-autobiographical The Liberators (1981). In the USSR , according to Suvorov and according to an interview with
4320-411: The United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies implemented strategic policies aimed at the containment of each other in Europe, while working and fighting for influence within the wider Cold War on the international stage. These included the Korean War , Vietnam War , Bay of Pigs invasion , Dirty War , Cambodian–Vietnamese War , and others. In 1956, following the declaration of
4410-412: The United States over the Western Bloc . All Warsaw Pact commanders had to be, and have been, senior officers of the Soviet Union at the same time and appointed for an unspecified term length: the Supreme Commander of the Unified Armed Forces of the Warsaw Treaty Organization , which commanded and controlled all the military forces of the member countries, was also a First Deputy Minister of Defence of
4500-413: The United States, meeting Nixon , Eisenhower , and Dulles . Ratification of the EDC was delayed but the US representatives made it clear to Adenauer that the EDC would have to become a part of NATO. Memories of the Nazi occupation were still strong, and the rearmament of Germany was feared by France too. On 30 August 1954, the French Parliament rejected the EDC, thus ensuring its failure and blocking
4590-484: The Warsaw Pact was declared disbanded at a meeting of defence and foreign ministers from remaining Pact countries meeting in Hungary. On 1 July 1991, in Prague , the Czechoslovak President Václav Havel formally ended the 1955 Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance and so disestablished the Warsaw Treaty after 36 years of military alliance with the USSR. The USSR disestablished itself in December 1991. The Warsaw Treaty's organization
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#17330925751254680-408: The Warsaw Pact, regardless of military power, was the Pan-European Picnic in August 1989. The event, which goes back to an idea by Otto von Habsburg , caused the mass exodus of GDR citizens and the media-informed population of Eastern Europe felt the loss of power of their rulers and the Iron Curtain broke down completely. Though Poland's new Solidarity government under Lech Wałęsa initially assured
4770-449: The Warsaw Pact. The Soviet government agreed to station troops in Mongolia in 1966. At first, China , North Korea , and North Vietnam had observer status, but China withdrew in 1961 as a consequence of the Albanian-Soviet split , in which China backed Albania against the USSR as part of the larger Sino-Soviet split of the early 1960s. For 36 years, NATO and the Warsaw Pact never directly waged war against each other in Europe;
4860-436: The West in the late 1920s, and it was mentioned in the 1931 memoirs of the first OGPU defector, Georges Agabekov , and described in detail in the 1939 autobiography of Walter Krivitsky ( I Was Stalin's Agent ), who was the most senior Red Army intelligence officer ever to defect. It became widely known in Russia, and in the West outside the narrow confines of the intelligence community , during perestroika , in part thanks to
4950-428: The army, the Fourth Department seems to have been placed directly under the control of the State Defense Council (Gosudarstvennaia komissiia oborony, or GKO), the successor of the RVSR . Thereafter its analysis and reports went directly to the GKO and the Politburo , apparently even bypassing the Red Army Staff. The first head of the 4th Directorate was Yan Karlovich Berzin , a Latvian Communist and former member of
5040-447: The capture (January 1968) of the USS Pueblo , inspecting the vessel and receiving some of the captured equipment. Warsaw Pact The Warsaw Pact ( WP ), formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance ( TFCMA ), was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw , Poland , between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist republics of Central and Eastern Europe in May 1955, during
5130-399: The choice of pseudonym by the fact that his publisher recommended that he choose a Russian surname of three syllables, evoking a slight "military" association among Western readers. According to Viktor himself, he teaches tactics and military history at a British military academy and lives in Bristol . Suvorov drew on his experience and research to write non-fiction books in Russian about
5220-455: The complete withdrawal of the Soviet Army from its territory in 1958. The Romanian campaign for independence culminated on 22 April 1964 when the Romanian Communist Party issued a declaration proclaiming that: "Every Marxist–Leninist Party has a sovereign right...to elaborate, choose or change the forms and methods of socialist construction." and "There exists no "parent" party and "offspring" party, no "superior" and "subordinated" parties, but only
5310-411: The country. Moscow controlled the Communist parties that ruled the satellite states, and they followed orders from the Kremlin. Historian Mark Kramer concludes: "The net outflow of resources from eastern Europe to the Soviet Union was approximately $ 15 billion to $ 20 billion in the first decade after World War II, an amount roughly equal to the total aid provided by the United States to western Europe under
5400-409: The exception of the Socialist Republic of Romania and the People's Republic of Albania , participated in the invasion. The German Democratic Republic provided only minimal support. (Albania withdrew from the pact one month after this intervention.) In 1989, popular civil and political public discontent toppled the Communist governments of the Warsaw Treaty countries. The beginning of the end of
5490-437: The following 20 years, the Warsaw Pact countries outside the USSR each joined NATO (East Germany through its reunification with West Germany; and the Czech Republic and Slovakia as separate countries), as did the Baltic states . Before the creation of the Warsaw Pact, the Czechoslovak leadership, fearful of a rearmed Germany, sought to create a security pact with East Germany and Poland. These states protested strongly against
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#17330925751255580-546: The former head of the GRU, he was sentenced to death in absentia. In his military history books, he offers an alternative view of the role of the USSR in World War II ; the first and most well-known book on this topic being Icebreaker: Who started the Second World War? . The proposed concept and the methods of its substantiation have caused numerous discussions and criticism in historical and social circles. In Icebreaker , M Day and several follow-up books Suvorov argued that Joseph Stalin planned to use Nazi Germany as
5670-517: The founding members, East Germany , was allowed to re-arm by the Soviet Union and the National People's Army was established as the armed forces of the country to counter the rearmament of West Germany. The USSR concentrated on its own recovery, seizing and transferring most of Germany's industrial plants, and it exacted war reparations from East Germany, Hungary , Romania , and Bulgaria using Soviet-dominated joint enterprises. It also instituted trading arrangements deliberately designed to favour
5760-416: The hand of Moscow behind every Romanian initiative. For instance, when Romania became the only Eastern European country to maintain diplomatic relations with Israel, some historians have speculated that this was at Moscow's whim. However, this theory fails upon closer inspection. Even during the Cold War, some thought that Romanian actions were done at the behest of the Soviets, but Soviet anger at said actions
5850-405: The intelligence and security services. Not only did Romania not participate in joint operations with the KGB, but it also set up "departments specialized in anti-KGB counterespionage". Romania was neutral in the Sino-Soviet split . Its neutrality in the Sino-Soviet dispute along with being the small Communist country with the most influence in global affairs enabled Romania to be recognized by
5940-503: The large family of communist and workers' parties having equal rights." and also "there are not and there can be no unique patterns and recipes". This amounted to a declaration of political and ideological independence from Moscow. Following Albania's withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact, Romania remained the only Pact member with an independent military doctrine which denied the Soviet Union use of its armed forces and avoided absolute dependence on Soviet sources of military equipment. Romania
6030-417: The last time in 1963, as part of a Warsaw Pact exercise. After 1964, the Soviet Army was barred from returning to Romania, as the country refused to take part in joint Pact exercises. Even before the advent of Nicolae Ceaușescu , Romania was in fact an independent country, as opposed to the rest of the Warsaw Pact. To some extent, it was even more independent than Cuba (a communist Soviet-aligned state that
6120-403: The re-militarization of West Germany . The Warsaw Pact was put in place as a consequence of the rearming of West Germany inside NATO . Soviet leaders, like many European leaders on both sides of the Iron Curtain , feared Germany being once again a military power and a direct threat. The consequences of German militarism remained a fresh memory among the Soviets and Eastern Europeans. As
6210-452: The region, such as Czechoslovakia and Poland. At the start of 1990, the Soviet foreign minister, Eduard Shevardnadze , implicitly confirmed the lack of Soviet influence over Ceaușescu's Romania. When asked whether it made sense for him to visit Romania less than two weeks after its revolution , Shevardnadze insisted that only by going in person to Romania could he figure out how to "restore Soviet influence". Romania requested and obtained
6300-410: The rejection of the Soviet proposals. Adenauer also feared that German unification might have resulted in the end of the CDU's leading political role in the West German Bundestag. Consequently, Molotov, fearing that the EDC would be directed in the future against the USSR and "seeking to prevent the formation of groups of European States directed against the other European States", made a proposal for
6390-426: The request to join NATO, were rejected by the UK, US, and French governments shortly after. Emblematic was the position of British General Hastings Ismay , a fierce supporter of NATO expansion . He opposed the request to join NATO made by the USSR in 1954 saying that "the Soviet request to join NATO is like an unrepentant burglar requesting to join the police force". In April 1954, Adenauer made his first visit to
6480-798: The reunification of Germany were nothing new: earlier on 20 March 1952, talks about a German reunification, initiated by the so-called ' Stalin Note ', ended after the United Kingdom , France , and the United States insisted that a unified Germany should not be neutral and should be free to join the European Defence Community (EDC) and rearm. James Dunn (US), who met in Paris with Eden, Konrad Adenauer (West Germany), and Robert Schuman (France), affirmed that "the object should be to avoid discussion with
6570-683: The second year of the Kyiv Higher Combined Arms Command School then named after General Mikhail Frunze (now Odesa Military Academy ). In 1968, Suvorov graduated with honours from the Frunze Red Banner Higher Military Command School in Kyiv. At the same year, he served in Chernivtsi as a tank platoon commander with the 145th Guards Motor Rifle Regiment, 66th Guards Training Motor Rifle Division , of
6660-553: The sponsorship of Leon Trotsky (then the civilian leader of the Red Army), signed by Jukums Vācietis , the first commander-in-chief of the Red Army (RKKA), and by Ephraim Sklyansky , deputy to Trotsky; it was originally known as the Registration Directorate ( Registrupravlenie , or RU). Semyon Aralov was its first head. In his history of the early years of the GRU, Raymond W. Leonard writes: As originally established,
6750-459: The time when he attacked Poland: not only was he going to war with the powerful Allies , but it was only a matter of time before the Soviet Union would seize the opportune moment to attack him from the rear. According to Suvorov, Hitler decided to direct a preemptive strike at the Soviet Union, while Stalin's forces were redeploying from a defensive to an offensive posture in June 1941. Although Hitler had an important initial tactical advantage, that
6840-455: The treaty signatories were based upon mutual non-intervention in the internal affairs of the member countries, respect for national sovereignty , and political independence. However, de facto , the Pact was a direct reflection of the USSR's authoritarianism and undisputed domination over the Eastern Bloc , in the context of the so-called Soviet Empire , which was not comparable to that of
6930-506: The usage of the term "independent" to describe Romania's relations with the Soviet Union, favoring "autonomy" instead on account of the country's continued membership within both the Comecon and the Warsaw Pact along with its commitment to socialism, this approach fails to explain why in July 1963 Romania blocked Mongolia 's accession to the Warsaw Pact, why in November 1963 Romania voted in favor of
7020-568: The village of Barabash. In 1957, after graduating on four classes, at the age of 11 he entered the Suvorov Military School in Voronezh (from 1958 to 1963). In 1963, the school was disbanded, and the students, including Rezun, were transferred to the Kalinin (now Tver ) Suvorov Military School (from 1963 to 1965). In 1965, Rezun graduated from said school and was admitted without examinations to
7110-1169: The whole continent of Europe. Most historians agreed that the geopolitical differences between the Soviet Union and the Axis made war inevitable, and that Stalin had made extensive preparations for war and exploited the military conflict in Europe to his advantage. However, there was a debate among historians as to whether Joseph Stalin planned to attack Axis forces in Eastern Europe in the summer of 1941. A number of historians, such as Gabriel Gorodetsky and David Glantz disputed or rejected this claim. But it received some support from others, such as Valeri Danilov , Joachim Hoffmann , Mikhail Meltyukhov , and Vladimir Nevezhin . GRU (Soviet Union) Main Intelligence Directorate (Russian: Главное разведывательное управление , romanized : Glavnoye razvedyvatel'noye upravleniye , IPA: [ˈglavnəjə rɐzˈvʲɛdɨvətʲɪlʲnəjə ʊprɐˈvlʲenʲɪjə] ), abbreviated GRU (Russian: ГРУ , IPA: [ɡɨ̞‿rɨ̞‿ˈu] , [gru] ),
7200-540: The world as the "third force" of the Communist world. Romania's independence – achieved in the early 1960s through its freeing from its Soviet satellite status – was tolerated by Moscow because Romania was not bordering the Iron Curtain – being surrounded by socialist states – and because its ruling party was not going to abandon communism. Although certain historians such as Robert King and Dennis Deletant argue against
7290-552: The writings of " Viktor Suvorov " ( Vladimir Rezun ), a GRU officer who defected to Great Britain in 1978 and wrote about his experiences in the Soviet military and intelligence services. According to Suvorov, even the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , when entering the GRU headquarters, needed to go through a security screening. In Aquarium Suvorov alleges that during his training and service he
7380-508: Was "persuasively genuine". In truth, the Soviets were not beyond publicly aligning themselves with the West against the Romanians at times. The strategy behind the formation of the Warsaw Pact was driven by the desire of the Soviet Union to prevent Central and Eastern Europe being used as a base for its enemies. Its policy was also driven by ideological and geostrategic reasons. Ideologically,
7470-404: Was approached for movie adaptations . According to Novye Izvestia , an online newspaper, the circulation of some of Suvorov's books exceeds a million copies. Suvorov, born Vladimir Bogdanovich Rezun, comes from a military family of mixed Ukrainian-Russian descent; his father, Bogdan Vasilyevich Rezun, was a veteran of WWII and a Ukrainian, while his mother Vera Spiridonovna Rezun (Gorevalova)
7560-460: Was not a member of the Warsaw Pact). The Romanian regime was largely impervious to Soviet political influence, and Ceaușescu was the only declared opponent of glasnost and perestroika . On account of the contentious relationship between Bucharest and Moscow, the West did not hold the Soviet Union responsible for the policies pursued by Bucharest. This was not the case for the other countries in
7650-500: Was often reminded that exiting the GRU (retiring) was only possible through "The Smoke Stack". This was a GRU reference to a training film shown to him, in which he alleges he watched a condemned agent being burned alive in a furnace., During the Cold War , the Sixth Directorate was responsible for monitoring Intelsat communication satellites traffic. GRU Sixth Directorate officers reportedly visited North Korea following
7740-521: Was rejected by the US. The Soviet request to join NATO arose in the aftermath of the Berlin Conference of January–February 1954. Soviet foreign minister Molotov made proposals to have Germany reunified and elections for a pan-German government, under conditions of withdrawal of the four powers ' armies and German neutrality, but all were refused by the other foreign ministers, Dulles (US), Eden (UK), and Bidault (France). Proposals for
7830-526: Was strategically hopeless because he subjected the Nazis to having to fight on two fronts. At the end of the war, Stalin achieved only some of his initial objectives by establishing Communist regimes in Eastern Europe , China and North Korea . According to Suvorov, this made Stalin the primary winner of World War II, even though he was not satisfied by the outcome, having intended to establish Soviet domination over
7920-619: Was the foreign military intelligence agency of the General Staff of the Soviet Armed Forces until 1991. For a few months it was also the foreign military intelligence agency of the newly established Russian Federation until 7 May 1992 when it was dissolved and the Russian GRU took over its activities. The GRU's first predecessor in Russia formed on October 21, 1918 by secret order under
8010-440: Was the only non-Soviet Warsaw Pact member which was not obliged to militarily defend the Soviet Union in case of an armed attack. Bulgaria and Romania were the only Warsaw Pact members that did not have Soviet troops stationed on their soil. In December 1964, Romania became the only Warsaw Pact member (save Albania, which would leave the Pact altogether within 4 years) from which all Soviet advisors were withdrawn, including those in
8100-643: Was two-fold: the Political Consultative Committee handled political matters, and the Combined Command of Pact Armed Forces controlled the assigned multi-national forces, with headquarters in Warsaw , Poland. Although an apparently similar collective security alliance, the Warsaw Pact differed substantially from NATO. De jure , the eight-member countries of the Warsaw Pact pledged the mutual defense of any member who would be attacked; relations among
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