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Vasili Nikitich Mitrokhin (russian: link=no, Васи́лий Ники́тич Митро́хин; March 3, 1922 – January 23, 2004) was a major and senior archivist for the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
's foreign intelligence service, the
First Chief Directorate
The First Main Directorate () of the Committee for State Security under the USSR council of ministers (PGU KGB) was the organization responsible for foreign operations and intelligence activities by providing for the training and management of cove ...
of the
KGB
The KGB (russian: links=no, lit=Committee for State Security, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), a=ru-KGB.ogg, p=kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ, Komitet gosud ...
, who defected to the United Kingdom in 1992 after providing the British embassy in
Riga with a vast collection of his notes purporting to be written copies of KGB files. These became known as the
Mitrokhin Archives
The "Mitrokhin Archive" is a collection of handwritten notes which were secretly made by the KGB archivist Vasili Mitrokhin during the thirty years in which he served as a KGB archivist in the foreign intelligence service and the First Chief Di ...
.
The intelligence files given by Mitrokhin to the
MI6
The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...
exposed an unknown number of Soviet agents, including
Melita Norwood
Melita Stedman Norwood (née Sirnis; 25 March 1912 – 2 June 2005) was a British civil servant, Communist Party of Great Britain member and KGB spy.
Born to a British mother and Latvian father, Norwood is most famous for supplying the Sovie ...
.
He was co-author with
Christopher Andrew of ''The Mitrokhin Archive: The KGB in Europe and the West'', a massive account of Soviet intelligence operations based on copies of material from the archive. The second volume, ''The Mitrokhin Archive II: The KGB in the World'', was published in 2005, soon after Mitrokhin's death.
Education
Mitrokhin was born in
Yurasovo, in
Central Russia
Central Russia is, broadly, the various areas in European Russia.
Historically, the area of Central Russia varied based on the purpose for which it is being used. It may, for example, refer to European Russia (except the North Caucasus and ...
,
Ryazan Oblast
Ryazan Oblast ( rus, Рязанская область, r=Ryazanskaya oblast, p=rʲɪˈzanskəjə ˈobləsʲtʲ) is a federal subject of Russia (an oblast). Its administrative center is the city of Ryazan, which is the oblast's largest city.
Geo ...
,
Russian SFSR
The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian SFSR or RSFSR ( rus, Российская Советская Федеративная Социалистическая Республика, Rossíyskaya Sovétskaya Federatívnaya Soci ...
. After leaving school, he entered artillery school, then attended university in
Kazakh SSR
; kk, Қазақ Советтік Социалистік Республикасы)
*1991: Republic of Kazakhstan (russian: Республика Казахстан; kk, Қазақстан Республикасы)
, linking_name = the ...
, graduating with degrees in history and law.
Career
Military
Towards the end of the
second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
, Mitrokhin took a job in
prosecutor's office in
Kharkiv
Kharkiv ( uk, wikt:Харків, Ха́рків, ), also known as Kharkov (russian: Харькoв, ), is the second-largest List of cities in Ukraine, city and List of hromadas of Ukraine, municipality in Ukraine.[Ukrainian SSR
The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic ( uk, Украї́нська Радя́нська Соціалісти́чна Респу́бліка, ; russian: Украи́нская Сове́тская Социалисти́ческая Респ ...]
. He entered the
MGB as a foreign intelligence officer in 1948. His first foreign posting was in 1952.
During the 1950s, he served on various undercover assignments overseas. In 1956, for example, he accompanied the Soviet team to the
Olympic Games
The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a vari ...
in Australia. Later that year, however, after he had apparently mishandled an operational assignment, he was moved from operational duties to the archives of the KGB's First Chief Directorate and told he would never work in the field again.
Disillusionment
Mitrokhin sometimes dated the beginnings of his disillusionment to
Nikita Khrushchev's famous speech to the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union congress denouncing
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 Secretar ...
, though it seems he may have been harbouring doubts for some time before that. For years, he had listened to broadcasts on the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
and
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 ...
, noting the gulf between their reports and party propaganda.
However, when he began looking into the archives, he claimed to have been shocked by what he discovered about the KGB's
systematic repression of the Soviet people. "I could not believe such evil", he recalled. "It was all planned, prepared, thought out in advance. It was a terrible shock when I read things."
Between 1972 and 1984, he supervised the move of the archive of the First Chief Directorate from the
Lubyanka to the new KGB headquarters at
Yasenevo. While doing so, he made handwritten copies and immensely detailed notes of documents from the archive. He retired in 1985.
Defection
During the Soviet era, Mitrokhin made no attempts to contact any Western intelligence services. After the
dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, he traveled to
Latvia with copies of material from the archive and walked into the American embassy in
Riga.
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, ...
officers there did not consider him to be credible, concluding that the copied documents could have been faked. He then went to the British embassy and a young diplomat there saw his potential. Following a further meeting one month later with representatives of the
Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), operations retrieved the 25,000 pages of files hidden in his house, covering operations from as far back as the 1930s. He and his family were then
exfiltrated to the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
, even though authorities of Yeltsin's Russia were not impeding the free travel abroad of active or retired members of secret services or members of their families.
Richard Tomlinson
Richard John Charles Tomlinson (born 13 January 1963) is a former officer of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). He argued that he was subjected to unfair dismissal from MI6 in 1995, and attempted to take his former employer to a ...
, the MI6 officer imprisoned in 1997 for attempting to publish a book about his career, was one of those involved in retrieving the documents from containers hidden under the floor of the
dacha
A dacha ( rus, дача, p=ˈdatɕə, a=ru-dacha.ogg) is a seasonal or year-round second home, often located in the exurbs of post-Soviet countries, including Russia. A cottage (, ') or shack serving as a family's main or only home, or an outbu ...
.
Mitrokhin Archive
These works are collectively referred to as the
Mitrokhin Archive
The "Mitrokhin Archive" is a collection of handwritten notes which were secretly made by the KGB archivist Vasili Mitrokhin during the thirty years in which he served as a KGB archivist in the foreign intelligence service and the First Chief Dir ...
s.
*Vasili Mitrokhin and Christopher Andrew, ''The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB'', Basic Books (1999), hardcover, ; trade paperback (September 2000),
*Vasili Mitrokhin and Christopher Andrew, ''The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World'', Basic Books (2005) hardcover, 677 pages
*
*Vasiliy Mitrokhin, ''KGB Lexicon: The Soviet Intelligence Officer's Handbook'', Frank Cass & Co. Ltd (2002), 451 pages,
*''"Chekisms", Tales of the Cheka, A KGB Anthology, Compiled and introduced by Vasiliy Mitrokhin.
"Чекизмы". The Yurasov Press (2008), 435 pages, . (The book could be obtained from any copyright library).
Other publications
*Mitrokhin, Vasiliy Nikitich
''The KGB in Afghanistan'' English Edition, introduced and edited by Christian F. Ostermann and Odd Arne Westad, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Cold War International History Project, Working Paper No. 40, Washington, D.C., February 2002.
See also
*
Mitrokhin Archive
The "Mitrokhin Archive" is a collection of handwritten notes which were secretly made by the KGB archivist Vasili Mitrokhin during the thirty years in which he served as a KGB archivist in the foreign intelligence service and the First Chief Dir ...
*
List of Eastern Bloc defectors
*
List of KGB defectors
This is a list of KGB officers and agents who have defected.
See also
* List of GRU defectors
* List of Soviet and Eastern Bloc defectors
* List of Soviet Union defections
* List of Cold War pilot defections
* Petrov Affair
The Petrov ...
References
Sources
* ''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...
'', January 29, 200
* ''
The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally.
It was f ...
'', February 2, 2004
External links
The Mitrokhin Archivefro
the Cold War International History Project*
*
The Papers of Vasiliy Mitrokhinheld at
Churchill Archives Centre
The Churchill Archives Centre (CAC) at Churchill College at the University of Cambridge is one of the largest repositories in the United Kingdom for the preservation and study of modern personal papers. It is best known for housing the papers of ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mitrokhin, Vasili
1922 births
2004 deaths
People from Ryazansky District, Ryazan Oblast
KGB officers
Soviet military personnel of World War II
Soviet intelligence personnel who defected to the United Kingdom
Soviet archivists
Historians of espionage
Russian non-fiction writers
Soviet spies
Cold War spies