Alexander Grigoryevich Barmin (russian: Александр Григорьевич Бармин, ''Aleksandr Grigoryevich Barmin''; August 16, 1899 – December 25, 1987), most commonly Alexander Barmine, was an officer in the
Soviet Army
uk, Радянська армія
, image = File:Communist star with golden border and red rims.svg
, alt =
, caption = Emblem of the Soviet Army
, start_date ...
and diplomat who fled the purges of the
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...
era for France and then United States, where he served the US government (including the
OSS,
VOA
Voice of America (VOA or VoA) is the state-owned news network and international radio broadcaster of the United States of America. It is the largest and oldest U.S.-funded international broadcaster. VOA produces digital, TV, and radio content ...
, and
USIA
Usia is a village in Kamsaar, Uttar Pradesh, India. It lies southeast of Ghazipur and east of Dildarnagar, close to the Bihar State border.USIA is a historical village of ghazipur as well as uttar pradesh, it was founded by 1. Barbal khan 2. ...
) and also testified before congressional committees (including the
SISS).
[
][
][
]
Background
Alexander Grigoryevich Barmin was born on August 16, 1899, in
Mogilev
Mogilev (russian: Могилёв, Mogilyov, ; yi, מאָלעוו, Molev, ) or Mahilyow ( be, Магілёў, Mahilioŭ, ) is a city in eastern Belarus, on the Dnieper River, about from the border with Russia's Smolensk Oblast and from the bor ...
, Mogilev Government,
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
(now
Belarus
Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by R ...
). His father, whose surname was originally Graff, was a teacher and came from an ethnic German colonist family, while Alexander's mother was Ukrainian. Alexander attended a state
gymnasium in
Kiev
Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the List of European cities by populat ...
, followed by St. Vladmir University also in Kiev, Infantry Officer's School in Minsk,
M. V. Frunze Military Academy
The M. V. Frunze Military Academy (russian: Военная академия имени М. В. Фрунзе), or in full the Military Order of Lenin and the October Revolution, Red Banner, Order of Suvorov Academy in the name of M. V. Frunze (rus ...
in Moscow, and the Oriental Languages Institute in Moscow.
[
]
Career
USSR government
In 1919, Barmine joined the Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...
and participated in the Russian Civil War
, date = October Revolution, 7 November 1917 – Yakut revolt, 16 June 1923{{Efn, The main phase ended on 25 October 1922. Revolt against the Bolsheviks continued Basmachi movement, in Central Asia and Tungus Republic, the Far East th ...
that followed the Russian Revolution
The Russian Revolution was a period of Political revolution (Trotskyism), political and social revolution that took place in the former Russian Empire which began during the First World War. This period saw Russia abolish its monarchy and ad ...
; he stayed with the Red Army until 1935. Sent to a Red Army officer's academy, he served in several battles. In 1921, he served as a military attaché at the Soviet embassy in Bukhara
Bukhara (Uzbek language, Uzbek: /, ; tg, Бухоро, ) is the List of cities in Uzbekistan, seventh-largest city in Uzbekistan, with a population of 280,187 , and the capital of Bukhara Region.
People have inhabited the region around Bukhara ...
.
By the age of 22, he had risen to the rank of brigadier general in the Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...
.
As a member of the Soviet GRU
The Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, rus, Гла́вное управле́ние Генера́льного шта́ба Вооружённых сил Росси́йской Федера́ци ...
, Barmine was assigned in 1935 to work abroad under diplomatic cover with the Soviet Foreign Office and Trade Ministry Commissariat under various diplomatic and trade representative titles. Late that same year, Barmine moved to Athens, Greece to take up an appointment as chargé d'affaires
A ''chargé d'affaires'' (), plural ''chargés d'affaires'', often shortened to ''chargé'' (French) and sometimes in colloquial English to ''charge-D'', is a diplomat who serves as an embassy's chief of mission in the absence of the ambassador ...
to the Soviet Embassy in Athens, Greece.
According to Barmine, Stalin's Great Purge
The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Nikolay Yezhov, Yezhov'), was General ...
began with the assassination of the Leningrad party leader Sergei Kirov
Sergei Mironovich Kirov (né Kostrikov; 27 March 1886 – 1 December 1934) was a Soviet politician and Bolshevik revolutionary whose assassination led to the first Great Purge.
Kirov was an early revolutionary in the Russian Empire and membe ...
. Kirov was widely admired in the Communist Party for his efficiency as administrator of the Leningrad District, and his willingness to stand up to Stalin (Kirov gave orders that Leningrad party dissidents were not to be persecuted by the police). As a result, he drew the unwelcome attention of Stalin. Viewing Kirov's growing popularity as a threat to his hold on power, Stalin ordered the Soviet secret police, the NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union.
...
, to arrange Kirov's assassination; the GPU used a fanatic with a history of mental illness to accomplish the deed, Leonid Nikolaev
Leonid Vasilevich Nikolaev (10 May 1904 – 29 December 1934) was the assassin of Sergei Kirov, the first secretary of the Leningrad branch of the Communist Party.
Early life
Nikolaev was a troubled young Soviet Communist Party member in ...
. On December 1, 1934, Nikolaev shot Kirov in the Smolny Institute
The Smolny Institute (russian: Смольный институт, ''Smol'niy institut'') is a Palladian edifice in Saint Petersburg that has played a major part in the history of Russia.
History
The building was commissioned from Giacomo Quar ...
in Leningrad. After his funeral, Stalin blamed Kirov's assassination on reactionary elements within the Communist Party. Later, in an act of supreme irony, Stalin had the Leningrad opposition leaders and many other party officials executed on the grounds that they had plotted with the assassin to kill Kirov.[
] This act began the series of prosecutions, assassinations, and disappearances of Soviet military and government officials at Stalin's direction, known as the Great Purge
The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Nikolay Yezhov, Yezhov'), was General ...
.
Barmine had been a protege, co-worker, subordinate, or confidant of many of the Soviet Union's leading generals, diplomats, and government officials, nearly all of whom were arrested, imprisoned, and shot during the Stalin's purges during the late 1930s. During this time, Barmine was serving in the Foreign Office, and was posted to the Soviet legation in Athens, Greece. When Barmine's immediate superiors in the military and diplomatic corps began to disappear, or were announced to have been arrested and shot, Barmine began to fear that a similar fate was in store for himself. In July 1937, after discovering co-workers rifling his desk and searching his offices in the dead of night, he received a letter from his 14-year-old son Boris, who wrote his father that he, his brother, and Barmine's mother were going "far, far away to bathe in the sea." Boris also wrote: Dear Papa, they read to us in school the sentence passed on the Trotskyist spies, Tukhachevsky, Yakir, Kork, Uborevich
Ieronim Petrovich Uborevich ( lt, Jeronimas Uborevičius; russian: Иерони́м Петро́вич Уборе́вич; – 12 June 1937) was a Soviet Union, Soviet military commander of the Red Army during the Russian Civil War, reaching th ...
, and Feldman
Feldman is a German and Ashkenazi Jewish surname. Notable people with the surname include:
Academics
* Arthur Feldman (born 1949), American cardiologist
* David B. Feldman, American psychologist
* David Feldman (historian), American historian
* ...
... Wasn't it Feldman who used to live in our apartment house?
That same month, Barmine received an insistent invitation to dine aboard a Soviet ship, the ''Rudzutak'', which suddenly docked at Piraeus
Piraeus ( ; el, Πειραιάς ; grc, Πειραιεύς ) is a port city within the Athens urban area ("Greater Athens"), in the Attica region of Greece. It is located southwest of Athens' city centre, along the east coast of the Saronic ...
(Athens's port) without prior notification to the Soviet legation. Barmine declined to go aboard but agreed to dine with the captain at a local restaurant, where he was strongly urged to return home. Constantly followed by NKVD agents, Barmine decided to defect to the West. He wrote in ''One Who Survived'' that "if I should be imprisoned as the result of some vile, lying charge ... y family
Y, or y, is the twenty-fifth and penultimate letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. According to some authorities, it is the sixth (or seventh ...
would believe the official communiqué. Nobody would dare speak for me, and I would never be able to clear myself. I would lose them as sons forever."
Defection
Barmine fled Athens in 1937 to Paris. It was at this time that Soviet agents assassinated the former chief of the Soviet intelligence service in Western Europe, Ignace Reiss
Ignace Reiss (1899 – 4 September 1937) – also known as "Ignace Poretsky,"
"Ignatz Reiss,"
"Ludwig,"
"Ludwik", "Hans Eberhardt,"
"Steff Brandt,"
Nathan Poreckij,
and "Walter Scott (an officer of the U.S. military intelligence)" ...
. It was later revealed that the Soviet NKVD under Nikolai Yezhov
Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov ( rus, Никола́й Ива́нович Ежо́в, p=nʲɪkɐˈɫaj ɪˈvanəvʲɪt͡ɕ (j)ɪˈʐof; 1 May 1895 – 4 February 1940) was a Soviet secret police official under Joseph Stalin who was head of the N ...
spent 300,000 French francs to accomplish the ''wet business''.
In his 1952 memoir, Whittaker Chambers
Whittaker Chambers (born Jay Vivian Chambers; April 1, 1901 – July 9, 1961) was an American writer-editor, who, after early years as a Communist Party member (1925) and Soviet spy (1932–1938), defected from the Soviet underground (1938), ...
describes the impact of the defections and (in most cases) assassinations of fellow spies: Suddenly, revolutionists with a lifetime of devoted activity would pop out, like rabbits from a burrow, with the G.P.U. close on their heels—Barmine from the Soviet legation in Athens, Raskolnikoff from the Soviet legation in Sofia, Krivitsky from Amsterdam, Reiss from Switzerland. Not that Reiss fled. Instead, a brave and a lonely man, he sent his single-handed defiance to Stalin: Murderer of the Kremlin
The Kremlin ( rus, Московский Кремль, r=Moskovskiy Kreml', p=ˈmɐˈskofskʲɪj krʲemlʲ, t=Moscow Kremlin) is a fortified complex in the center of Moscow founded by the Rurik dynasty, Rurik dynasty. It is the best known of th ...
cellars, I herewith return my decorations and resume my freedom of action. But defiance is not enough; cunning is needed to fight cunning. It was foredoomed that sooner or later the door of a G.P.U limousine would swing open and Reiss's body with the bullets in the defiant brain would tumble out—as happened shortly after he deserted. Of the four I have named, only Barmine outran the hunters.[
]
USA government
In New York City, Barmine applied for political asylum and citizenship as one of the earliest high-ranking Soviet government defectors to the United States. In the days before the formation of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
, Barmine does not appear to have been debriefed at all by the United States government regarding his extensive knowledge of Soviet leaders and policies.
In 1941, Barmine joined a U.S. Army anti-aircraft unit as a 42-year-old private soldier. In 1942, he obtained his U.S. citizenship. In 1943 and 1944, Barmine worked for the U.S. Office of Strategic Services
The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was the intelligence agency of the United States during World War II. The OSS was formed as an agency of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to coordinate espionage activities behind enemy lines for all branc ...
, the wartime agency responsible for external intelligence and sabotage against Axis countries.
After a period of writing articles for various journals as well as his second book in 1945, Barmine joined Voice of America
Voice of America (VOA or VoA) is the state-owned news network and international radio broadcaster of the United States of America. It is the largest and oldest U.S.-funded international broadcaster. VOA produces digital, TV, and radio content ...
in 1948, serving for sixteen years as chief of its Russian branch.
Testimony
On December 14, 1948, after an interview with Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, ...
agents, Barmine revealed that Soviet GRU
The Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, rus, Гла́вное управле́ние Генера́льного шта́ба Вооружённых сил Росси́йской Федера́ци ...
Director Yan Karlovich Berzin
Yan (Ian) Karlovich Berzin (russian: Ян Карлович Берзин; lv, Jānis Bērziņš; real name Pēteris Ķuzis; , Kreis Riga (now in Zaube parish), the Russian Empire – 29 July 1938, Moscow, the USSR), was a Latvian Soviet communi ...
had informed him prior to his 1937 defection that American professor and former Office of War Information
The United States Office of War Information (OWI) was a United States government agency created during World War II. The OWI operated from June 1942 until September 1945. Through radio broadcasts, newspapers, posters, photographs, films and other ...
director Owen Lattimore
Owen Lattimore (July 29, 1900 – May 31, 1989) was an American Orientalist and writer. He was an influential scholar of China and Central Asia, especially Mongolia. Although he never earned a college degree, in the 1930s he was editor of ''Pacif ...
was a Soviet agent. In 1952, Barmine testified under oath before a Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security (McCarran Committee
The United States Senate's Special Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws, 1951–77, known more commonly as the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (SISS) and sometimes the M ...
) that he was told by Soviet GRU Director Berzin that Lattimore was "one of our men".[
]
In his memoirs, Barmine related how he and fellow members of the Soviet GRU were surprised to learn of the burgeoning support for Soviet communism among intellectuals in the Western democracies after release of Soviet propaganda on the Five Year Plan, just when he and other commanders had begun to lose hope in the Bolshevik revolution. This revelation soon inspired a massive espionage and propaganda effort worldwide, with particular emphasis on nations with democratic governments.
Later years
From 1964 to 1972 Barmine served as senior adviser on Soviet affairs at the U.S. Information Agency
The United States Information Agency (USIA), which operated from 1953 to 1999, was a United States agency devoted to " public diplomacy". In 1999, prior to the reorganization of intelligence agencies by President George W. Bush, President Bill ...
. Barmine won three awards for outstanding public service while in the federal government.
Family
After attending the Red Army's general staff school, he was eventually assigned to the Soviet Foreign Office and Commissariat of Trade. He married a widow with prominent connections in the Communist Party, Olga Federovna, and the two traveled to Soviet Turkestan
Turkestan, also spelled Turkistan ( fa, ترکستان, Torkestân, lit=Land of the Turks), is a historical region in Central Asia corresponding to the regions of Transoxiana and Xinjiang.
Overview
Known as Turan to the Persians, western Turke ...
to work in the party apparatus. There they both became ill with severe cases of malaria. Returning to Moscow, the couple had two twin boys, but his wife died in childbirth.
In 1948, Barmine married Edith Kermit Roosevelt, granddaughter of President Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or by his initials, T. R., was an American politician, statesman, soldier, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26t ...
. They had one daughter, Margot Roosevelt
Margot Roosevelt (born Margot Roosevelt Barmine; August 13, 1950) is an American journalist who covers economic and labor news for the ''Los Angeles Times''. She is a great-granddaughter of President Theodore Roosevelt.
Early life
Roosevelt is ...
. In 1952, they divorced. Barmine then married Halyna Barmine.
Alexander Barmine died at age of 88 on December 25, 1987, in Rockville, Maryland
Rockville is a city that serves as the county seat of Montgomery County, Maryland, and is part of the Baltimore–Washington metropolitan area. The 2020 census tabulated Rockville's population at 67,117, making it the fifth-largest community in ...
.
Writings
Barmine began publishing anti-Stalinist, anti-communist writings within less than a month of his defection. He also published a short treatment of the Moscow trials, dated December 22, 1937, in an American foreign affairs magazine.[
]
He published his first book on Stalin's Terror, ''Memoirs of a Soviet Diplomat'', in 1938.[
]
After the assassinations and questionable accidental deaths of several exiled Soviet citizens in Western Europe, including Trotsky's own son, Lev Sedov
Lev Lvovich Sedov (russian: Лев Львович Седов, also known as Leon Sedov; 24 February 1906 – 16 February 1938) was the first son of the Russian communist leader Leon Trotsky and his second wife Natalia Sedova. He was born when his f ...
, he and an unidentified person left Europe for the United States in 1940. Barmine's aging mother and his two sons remained behind in the Soviet Union; unable to get them out of the country, he never saw them again.
He published a second book, ''One Who Survived'', in 1945, in which he wrote:When I work on my book, I feel as though I were walking in a graveyard. All my friends and life associates have been shot. It seems to be some kind of a mistake that I am alive.
By making his revelations public, Barmine felt the book might help frustrate Stalin's immediate desire to silence him. Upon its release, the Soviet government made no comment on Barmine's revelations, though they had denounced earlier works by other Soviet émigré authors.
;Articles
* "Russian View of the Moscow Trials" in ''International Conciliation'' journal (February 1938)
;Books
* ''Memoirs of a Soviet Diplomat: Twenty Years in the Service of the USSR'', translated by Gerard Hopkins (1938)
''One Who Survived: The Life Story of a Russian Under the Soviets''
introduced by Max Eastman
Max Forrester Eastman (January 4, 1883 – March 25, 1969) was an American writer on literature, philosophy and society, a poet and a prominent political activist. Moving to New York City for graduate school, Eastman became involved with radical ...
(1945)
See also
* Moscow Trials
The Moscow trials were a series of show trials held by the Soviet Union between 1936 and 1938 at the instigation of Joseph Stalin. They were nominally directed against "Trotskyists" and members of "Right Opposition" of the Communist Party of th ...
* Margot Roosevelt
Margot Roosevelt (born Margot Roosevelt Barmine; August 13, 1950) is an American journalist who covers economic and labor news for the ''Los Angeles Times''. She is a great-granddaughter of President Theodore Roosevelt.
Early life
Roosevelt is ...
* Whittaker Chambers
Whittaker Chambers (born Jay Vivian Chambers; April 1, 1901 – July 9, 1961) was an American writer-editor, who, after early years as a Communist Party member (1925) and Soviet spy (1932–1938), defected from the Soviet underground (1938), ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Barmine
United States Army personnel of World War II
People of the Office of Strategic Services
Soviet defectors to the United States
Soviet military personnel of the Russian Civil War
Soviet Army officers
GRU officers
Frunze Military Academy alumni
People from Mogilyovsky Uyezd (Mogilev Governorate)
People from Mogilev
Belarusian people of German descent
Russian people of German descent
1899 births
1987 deaths