| Glavnoje Razvedyvatel'noje Upravlenije ГРУ СССР Главное разведывательное управление | |
 | |
| Agency overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | 5 November 1918 as Registration Agency;GRU since 1942 |
| Preceding agencies |
|
| Dissolved | 7 May 1992 |
| Superseding agency | |
| Jurisdiction |
|
| Headquarters | Moscow |
| Employees | Classified |
| Annual budget | Classified |
| Parent agency | Ministry of Defense |
| Child agencies | |
Main Intelligence Directorate (Russian:Главное разведывательное управление,romanized:Glavnoye razvedyvatel'noye upravleniye,IPA:[ˈglavnəjərɐzˈvʲɛdɨvətʲɪlʲnəjəʊprɐˈvlʲenʲɪjə]), abbreviatedGRU (Russian:ГРУ,IPA:[ɡɨ̞‿rɨ̞‿ˈu],[gru]), was the foreignmilitary intelligence agency of theGeneral Staff of the Soviet Armed Forces until 1991. For a few months it was also the foreign military intelligence agency of the newly establishedRussian Federation until 7 May 1992 when it was dissolved and theRussian GRU took over its activities.
The GRU's first predecessor in Russia formed on October 21, 1918 by secret order under the sponsorship ofLeon Trotsky (then the civilian leader of the Red Army), signed byJukums Vācietis, the firstcommander-in-chief of theRed Army (RKKA), and byEphraim Sklyansky, deputy to Trotsky;[1] 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, 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 theRegistrupr (Registration Department). That year, following theSoviet–Polish War, it was elevated in status to become the Second (Intelligence) Directorate of the Red Army Staff, and was thereafter known as theRazvedupr. 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 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, theRazvedupr, or the RU. […] As a result of the re-organization [in 1926], carried out in part to break up Trotsky's hold on the army, the Fourth Department seems to have been placed directly under the control of theState Defense Council (Gosudarstvennaia komissiia oborony, or GKO), the successor of theRVSR. Thereafter its analysis and reports went directly to the GKO and thePolitburo, apparently even bypassing the Red Army Staff.[2]
The first head of the 4th Directorate wasYan Karlovich Berzin, a Latvian Communist and former member of theCheka, 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" ofJoseph Stalin'sGreat Purge.
The GRU in its modern form was created by Stalin in February 1942, less than a year after theinvasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany. From April 1943 the GRU handled human intelligence exclusively outside the USSR.[3][4]
The GRU had the task of handling allmilitary intelligence, particularly the collection of intelligence of military or political significance from sources outside the Soviet Union. It operatedrezidenturas (residencies) all over the world, along with thesignals intelligence (SIGINT)station in Lourdes, Cuba, and throughout theSoviet-bloc countries.
The GRU was known in the Soviet government for its fierce independence from the rival "internal intelligence organizations", such as theMain Directorate of State Security (GUGB),State Political Directorate (GPU),MGB,OGPU,NKVD,NKGB,KGB and theFirst 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 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 theFederal Bureau of Investigation andCentral Intelligence Agency in the US.
The existence of the GRU was not publicized during the Soviet era, but documents concerning it became available in 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 ofWalter Krivitsky (I Was Stalin's Agent), who was the most senior Red Army intelligence officer ever to defect.[5] It became widely known in Russia, and in the West outside the narrow confines of theintelligence community, duringperestroika, in part thanks to 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 theGeneral Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, when entering the GRU headquarters, needed to go through a security screening. InAquarium Suvorov alleges that during his training and service he 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.,[6][page needed]
During theCold War, the Sixth Directorate was responsible for monitoringIntelsatcommunication satellites traffic.[7]
GRU Sixth Directorate officers reportedly visitedNorth Korea following the capture (January 1968) of theUSSPueblo, inspecting the vessel and receiving some of the captured equipment.[8]
| No. | Head | Term | Leader(s) served under |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Semyon Aralov | November 1918 – July 1919 | Vladimir Lenin |
| 2 | Sergei Gusev | July 1919 – January 1920 | |
| 3 | Georgy Pyatakov | January 1920 – February 1920 | |
| 4 | Voldemar Aussem | February 1920 – August 1920 | |
| 5 | Yan Lentsman | August 1920 – April 1921 | |
| 6 | Arvid Zeybot | April 1921 – March 1924 | |
| Joseph Stalin | |||
| 7 | Yan Karlovich Berzin | 1924 – April 1935 | |
| 8 | Semyon Uritsky | April 1935 – July 1937 | |
| (7) | Yan Karlovich Berzin | July 1937 – August 1937 | |
| 9 | Alexander Nikonov | August 1937 – August 1937 | |
| 10 | Semyon Gendin | September 1937 – October 1938 | |
| 11 | Alexander Orlov | October 1938 – April 1939 | |
| 12 | Ivan Proskurov | April 1939 – July 1940 | |
| 13 | Filipp Golikov | July 1940 – October 1941 | |
| 14 | Alexei Panfilov | October 1941 – November 1942 | |
| 15 | Ivan Ilyichev | November 1942 – June 1945 | |
| 16 | Fyodor Kuznetsov | June 1945 – November 1947 | |
| 17 | Nikolai Trusov | September 1947 – January 1949 | |
| 18 | Matvei Zakharov | January 1949 – June 1952 | |
| 19 | Mikhail Shalin | June 1952 – August 1956 | |
| Nikita Khrushchev | |||
| 20 | Sergei Shtemenko | August 1956 – October 1957 | |
| (19) | Mikhail Shalin | October 1957 – December 1958 | |
| 21 | Ivan Serov | December 1958 – February 1963 | |
| March 1963 – July 1987 | |||
| 22 | Pyotr Ivashutin | Leonid Brezhnev Yuri Andropov Konstantin Chernenko | |
| Mikhail Gorbachev | |||
| 23 | Vladlen Mikhailov [ru] | July 1987 – October 1991 |
| Name | Rank | Defection date | Country of defection | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aleksandr Yanovich Sipelgas[9] | late 1924 |  Finland | Intelligence illegal. Published under the pan names Andrey Smirnov and Olshanskiy | |
| Vladimir Stepanovich Nesterovich[10] | Kombrig | April 1925 |  France | Assassinated in August 1925 |
| Ignatiy Leonovich Dzevaltovskiy[11] | November 1925 |  Poland | ||
| Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Sobolev[12] | Lieutenant | April 1930 |  Sweden | Naval attaché inStockholm |
| Ignace Reiss[13] | Kombrig | July 1937 | France | Real name, Ignatiy Stanislavovich Poretskiy. Assassinated inSwitzerland in September 1937 |
| Aleksandr Grigoriyevich Graff[14][15] | Kombrig | July 1937 | France | Known after defection as Alexander Gregory Barmine |
| Walter Germanovich Krivitsky[16][17] | Kombrig | October 1937 | France | Real name, Samuel Gershovich Ginzberg. Emigrated to theUnited States in 1939. Died under suspicious circumstance in 1941. |
| Ivan Matveyevich Grachev[18] | Major | September 1941 |  Nazi Germany | |
| Georgiy Petrovich Ryabtsev[19] | Major | September 1941 | Nazi Germany | Commander of reconnaissance battalion |
| Anatoliy Mikhailovich Odintsov[20] | Captain | September 1941 | Nazi Germany | Chief of an intelligence section in the Kiev special military district |
| Bogdan Leontyevich Velepolskiy[21] | October 1941 | Nazi Germany | Member of behind-the-lines intelligence team | |
| Petr Trofimovich Gryadunov[22] | October 1941 | Nazi Germany | Radio operator for behind-the-lines intelligence team | |
| Vitaliy Grigoryevich Lyuboslavskiy[23] | November 1941 | Nazi Germany | Member of behind-the-lines intelligence team of the Northwestern Front | |
| Lev Mikhailovich Kolosov[24] | December 1941 | Nazi Germany | Member of behind-the-lines intelligence team of the Leningrad Front | |
| Ismail Guseynovich Akhmedov[25][26] | Lieutenant colonel | May 1942 |  Turkey | Under journalist cover in Turkey. Interviewed byKim Philby in 1947, emigrated to theUnited States in 1948 |
| Nina Ilinichna Chaplygina[27] | June 1942 | Nazi Germany | Radio operator for behind-the-lines intelligence team of the North Caucasus Front | |
| Magsum Akhmetkhanovich Akhmetshin[28] | July 1942 | Nazi Germany | Member of behind-the-lines intelligence team of the Volkhov Front | |
| Khelge Eynarovich Vainio[29] | August 1942 | Finland | Member of behind-the-lines intelligence team of the Leningrad Front | |
| Vladimir Dmitriyevich Fomenko[30] | October 1942 | Nazi Germany | Member of stay-behind intelligence team | |
| Yuriy Ivanovich Sedashov[31] | 1942 | Nazi Germany | Member of behind-the-lines intelligence team in Voroshilovgrad Oblast (nowLugansk Oblast), Ukraine | |
| Nikolay Vasilyevich Sivtsov[32] | 1942 | Nazi Germany | Member of stay-behind intelligence team inZhytomyr Oblast, Ukraine | |
| Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Danilov[33] | May 1945 | Nazi Germany | Member of intelligence section of the Black Sea Fleet Air Force | |
| Igor Sergeyevich Gouzenko[34][35] | Lieutenant | September 1945 |  Canada | Code clerk at Soviet embassy in Ottawa. Defection led to theGouzenko Affair |
| Aleksandr Stepanovich Kirsanov[36] | Lieutenant | 1946 | Canada | Naval GRU. Radioman in a Special Purpose Radio Detachment, Red Banner Danube Flotilla Headquarters |
| Vladimir Aleksandrovich Skripkin[37] | Lieutenant | August 1946 |  Japan United States United Kingdom | Offered to defect but was caught and forcibly returned to the Soviet Union |
| Mikhail Filippovich Denisov[38] | August 1947 | United States | Interpreter for the GRU section of theRed Banner Danube Fleet | |
| Vadim Ivanovich Shelaputin[39] | Senior Lieutenant | March 1949 | United States | Posted to Soviet embassy inVienna |
| Nikolay Ivanovich Marchenkov[40] | Captain | March 1950 |  Germany | Member of Operational-Intelligence Section of a GRU unit,Group of Soviet Forces in Germany |
| Karapet Arutyunovich Anakyan[41] | July 1953 | Turkey | Intelligence illegal | |
| Ivan Vasilyevich Ovchinnikov[42] | Lieutenant | December 1955 | Germany | Translator in the 28th Special Purpose (Intercept) Regiment inStahnsdorf, Germany |
| Kaarlo Tuomi[43] | March 1959 | United States | Intelligence illegal | |
| Stanislav Lunev[44] | Colonel | 1992 | United States | |
| Vladimir Bogdanovich Rezun[45] | Captain | June 1978 |  Switzerland | Published multiple books under the pen name Viktor Suvorov |
| Iavor Entchev | United States | No further information available |
Other collateral sources reported that a group of Soviet military intelligence officers from the Sixth Directorate (responsible for Soviet SIGINT matters) of the Chief Intelligence Directorate (GRU) visited North Korea shortly after the seizure of the ship and inspected the vessel. Later, the North Koreans were reported to have turned over some of the captured equipment to the GRU. Apparently, some of this equipment was taken to Soviet radio plants in Kharkov, Voronezh, and Gorkij for examination by technicians.