Viktor Suvorov | |
|---|---|
 (2007) | |
| Native name |
|
| Born | Vladimir Bogdanovich Rezun (1947-04-20)20 April 1947 (age 78) Barabash, Primorsky Krai, Soviet Union |
| Notable works | Aquarium,Icebreaker |
| Spouse | Tatiana Korzh |
Vladimir Bogdanovich Rezun (Russian:Владимир Богданович Резун; Ukrainian:Володи́мир Богда́нович Рєзу́н; born 20 April 1947), known by his pseudonym ofViktor Suvorov (Виктор Суворов), is a formerSoviet GRU officer who is the author ofnon-fiction books aboutWorld War II, the GRU and theSoviet Army, as well as fictional books about the same and related subjects.
After defecting to 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 theSoviet military,intelligence, andsecret police. He writes in Russian with a number of his books translated into English, including his semi-autobiographicalThe Liberators (1981). In theUSSR, according to Suvorov and according to aninterview with the former head of the GRU, he wassentenced to death in absentia.[1][2]
In hismilitary history books, he offers an alternative view of the role of theUSSR in World War II; the first and most well-known book on this topic beingIcebreaker: Who started the Second World War?. The proposed concept and the methods of its substantiation have causednumerous discussions and criticism in historical and social circles. InIcebreaker,M Day and several follow-up books Suvorov argued thatJoseph Stalin planned to useNazi Germany as aproxy (the "Icebreaker") against theWest.[3] The books are based on his personal analysis of Sovietmilitary investments,diplomatic maneuvers,Politburo speeches and othercircumstantial evidence.
Suvorov also wrote a number of fiction books about the Soviet Army, military intelligence and the pre-war history of the USSR. The trilogyControl,Choice andSnake-eater was a bestseller and was approached formovie adaptations. According toNovye Izvestia, an online newspaper, the circulation of some of Suvorov's books exceeds a million copies.[3]
Suvorov, born Vladimir Bogdanovich Rezun, comes from a military family of mixed Ukrainian-Russian descent; his father, Bogdan Vasilyevich Rezun, was a veteran ofWWII and a Ukrainian, while his mother Vera Spiridonovna Rezun (Gorevalova) is Russian. According to his own statements, Suvorov considers himself, his wife and children to be Ukrainians. He was born in the village ofBarabash, Primorsky Krai; raised in Ukraine'sCherkasy, where his father served. The family subsequently settled inUkrainian Soviet Socialist Republic after his father's retirement.
According to Suvorov, he went to first grade in the village ofSlavyanka (Primorsky Territory), then studied in the village of Barabash. In 1957, after graduating on four classes, at the age of 11 he entered theSuvorov Military School inVoronezh (from 1958 to 1963). In 1963, the school was disbanded, and the students, including Rezun, were transferred to the Kalinin (nowTver) Suvorov Military School (from 1963 to 1965).[4] In 1965, Rezun graduated from said school and was admitted without examinations to the second year of the Kyiv Higher Combined Arms Command School then named after GeneralMikhail Frunze (nowOdesa 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 inChernivtsi as a tank platoon commander with the 145th Guards Motor Rifle Regiment,66th Guards Training Motor Rifle Division, of theCarpathian Military District in Ukraine, participating in theWarsaw Pact invasion ofCzechoslovakia,Operation Danube. This experience is narrated in his 1981 bookThe 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 theSoviet Army. He points to deficiencies in readiness and in mindset.[5] Suvorov mentions thatmiddle-ranking officers struggled to impress their superiors, something that does not contribute to military effectiveness ordiscipline – instead fostering on officers a behavior of cunning anddeceit in order to climb the ranks.
At the age of 19 he was admitted to theCommunist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). From 1970 to 1971 he was anofficer in the intelligence department of theheadquarters of theVolga Military District (in the city ofKuibyshev), and later with the 808th Independent ArmyReconnaissance Company (Spetsnaz). In 1970 he became a member of the nomenclature (nomenklatura) of theCentral Committee of the CPSU. In this position he came under thepatronage of the commander of the Carpathian Military District, Lieutenant General of Tank Forces (laterGeneral of the Army)Gennady Obaturov. This general was known for suppressing anti-communist uprisings inHungary in 1956 and later Czechoslovakia in 1968 with ruthless efficiency, for which Obaturov received theOrder of the Red Banner.
From 1971 to 1974, Suvorov studied at the Military Diplomatic Academy,[6] 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 the GenevaGRU as an employee of the legal residency of military intelligence under the cover of the Permanent Mission of the USSR at the EuropeanUnited Nations Office at Geneva. According to the autobiographical bookAquarium, he received the rank of major while working in residency. The same title was named in an interview of 1992 with the newspaperKrasnaya Zvezda by then head of 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 withBritish intelligence because the Geneva station wanted to make him a "scapegoat" of a major failure. On 28 June 1978 British newspapers[which?] reported that Rezun was in England with his family. At the time, he was married to Tatiana Korzh. The couple had a son, Aleksandr, and a daughter, Oksana. They were smuggled out of Switzerland to Britain by British intelligence. There Suvorov worked as anintelligence analyst for the government and as a lecturer.[4][7]
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, andInside Soviet Military Intelligence. The author explains 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 teachestactics andmilitary history at a British military academy and lives inBristol.
Suvorov drew on his experience and research to write non-fiction books in Russian about the Soviet Army,military intelligence, andspecial 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 was in participant the movieThe Soviet Story (2008).
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 wasIcebreaker (1989), followed byM Day,The Last Republic,Cleansing,Suicide,The Shadow of Victory,I Take it Back,The Last Republic II,The Chief Culprit, andDefeat.
In theIcebreaker,M Day and several follow-up books Suvorov argued thatStalin planned to useNazi Germany as a proxy (the “Icebreaker”) against the West. For this reason, Stalin provided significant material and political support toAdolf Hitler, while at the same time preparing theRed Army to "liberate" the whole of Europe from Nazi occupation. Suvorov argued that Hitler had lostWorld War II from the time when he attacked Poland: not only was he going to war with the powerfulAllies, but it was only a matter of time before theSoviet 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 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 inEastern Europe, China andNorth 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 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 wasa 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 asGabriel Gorodetsky andDavid Glantz disputed or rejected this claim.[13][14][15][16][17][18] But it received some support from others, such asValeri Danilov,Joachim Hoffmann,Mikhail Meltyukhov, andVladimir Nevezhin.
