The first operation outside the USSR. Yuri Drozdov: "Russia is not a defeated enemy for the United States!" To the blessed memory of a true patriot and a man who was a resident of Soviet intelligence in China and the United States, rescued Rudolf Abel from a New York prison and prepared an opera

Allen Dulles said: "The secret services keep quiet about successful operations, and their failures speak for themselves." However, we are still aware of several successful operations of the KGB of the USSR abroad, which cannot be called failures.

Operation Whirlwind

Late in the evening on November 3, 1956, during negotiations with the Soviet side, the officers of the KGB of the USSR arrested the new Minister of Defense of Hungary, Pal Malater. Already at 6 o'clock in the morning on November 4, the Soviet command sent on the air the code signal "Thunder". It marked the beginning of Operation Whirlwind to suppress the Hungarian uprising.

The task of suppressing the mutiny was entrusted to the Special Corps. In total, more than 15 tank, mechanized, rifle and air divisions, the 7th and 31st airborne divisions, and a railway brigade (more than 60 thousand people) took part in Operation Whirlwind.

To capture city objects, special detachments were created, they were supported by 150 paratroopers and BMD, and 10-12 each. In each detachment there were employees of the USSR KGB: Major General Pavel Zyryanov, Major General Kuzma Grebennik (to be appointed military commandant of Budapest), the well-known illegal Alexander Korotkov. Their tasks included organizing the capture and arrest of members of the Imre Nagy government.

In one day, all the main objects in Budapest were captured, members of the Imre Nagy government took refuge in the Yugoslav embassy.

November 22 at 18.30 at the Embassy of Yugoslavia in Budapest lined up cars and a small bus carrying diplomats and members of the Hungarian government, including Imre Nagy. The colonel of the KGB ordered the passengers of the bus to leave, but did not wait for a reaction. Several armored personnel carriers took the bus into a "box". KGB Chairman Serov reported to the Central Committee that “I. Nagy and his group were arrested, taken to Romania and are under reliable protection. "

Elimination of Stepan Bandera

It was not so easy to liquidate Stepan Bandera. He always went with bodyguards. In addition, Western intelligence services took care of him. Thanks to their assistance, several attempts on the life of the OUN leader were thwarted.

But the KGB knew how to wait. KGB agent Bogdan Stashinsky came to Munich several times (under the name of Hans-Joachim Budait), trying to find traces of Stepan Bandera. In the search helped ... a simple telephone directory. Bandera's pseudonym was "Poppel" (German fool), and Stashinsky found him in the reference book. The address of the alleged victim was also listed there. Then a lot of time was spent on preparing for the operation, looking for escape routes, picking master keys, and so on.

When Stashinsky next arrived in Munich, he was already carrying the murder weapon (a miniature double-barreled device loaded with ampoules of potassium cyanide), an inhaler and protective pills.

The KGB agent began to wait. Finally, on October 15, 1959, at about one in the afternoon, he saw Bandera's car pull into the garage. Stashinsky used a pre-prepared master key and was the first to enter the entrance. There were people there - some women were talking on the upper platforms.

Initially, Stashinsky wanted to wait for Bandera on the stairs, but he could not stay there for a long time - he could be found. Then he decided to go down the stairs. The meeting took place at Bandera's apartment on the third floor. The Ukrainian nationalist recognized Bogdan - before that he had already met him in church. To the question "What are you doing here?" Stashinsky held out a newspaper bundle in the direction of Bandera's face. A shot rang out.

Operation Toucan

In addition to actions of retaliation and organizing the suppression of uprisings, the KGB of the USSR also devoted a lot of effort to supporting the regimes that were pleasing to the Soviet Union abroad and fighting the unwanted ones.

In 1976, the KGB, together with the Cuban special service of the DGI, organized Operation Toucan. It consisted in the formation of the necessary public opinion in relation to the regime of Augusto Pinochet, which has repeatedly stated that its main enemy and the enemy of Chile is the Communist Party. According to the former KGB officer Vasily Mitrokhin, the idea of the operation belonged to Yuri Andropov personally.

Toucan pursued two goals: to give a negative image of Pinochet in the media and to stimulate human rights organizations to start active actions to exert external pressure on the Chilean leader. An information war has been declared. The third most popular American newspaper, The New York Times, has published as many as 66 articles on human rights in Chile, 4 articles on the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia and 3 articles on the observance of human rights in Cuba.

During Operation Toucan, the KGB also fabricated a letter accusing American intelligence of political persecution of the Chilean intelligence service DINA. Later, many journalists, including Jack Anderson from the New York Times, even used this fabricated letter as evidence of the CIA's involvement in the hard-hitting moments of Operation Condor, aimed at eliminating political opposition in several countries in South America.

Recruiting John Walker

The KGB was known for its many successful recruits of Western intelligence specialists. One of the most successful was the recruitment of American ransomware John Walker in 1967.

At the same time, the KGB ended up with the American KL-7 encryption machine, which was used by all US services to encrypt messages. According to journalist Pete Earley, who wrote a book about Walker, the recruitment of an American cryptographer created a situation "as if the US Navy opened a branch of its communications center right in the middle of Red Square."

All the years (17 years!) Until John Walker was declassified, the US military and intelligence forces found themselves in a stalemate. Wherever the secret exercises, organized in accordance with all the rules of secrecy, took place, the KGB officers were always nearby. Walker handed over the key tables to the encryption codes every day, but he involved his family in his agent network, which killed him.

He ended up in the dock thanks to testimony ex-wife Barbara. He was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Release of Hezbollah hostages

On September 30, 1985, four employees of the Soviet embassy were captured in Beirut (two of them were KGB personnel Valery Myrikov and Oleg Spirin). The capture took place "in the classics": blocking cars, black masks, shooting, threats. Consular officer Arkady Katkov tried to resist, but one of the attackers stopped him with a machine-gun burst.

The Lebanese group Khaled Bin al-Walid's Forces claimed responsibility for the seizure, but the Beirut KGB station established that the real organizers of the seizure were Hezbollah Shiite fundamentalists and Palestinian Fatah activists. There was also information that the seizure of Soviet diplomats was coordinated with the radical representatives of the Iranian clergy, and the terrorists received the blessing of the Hezbollah religious leader Sheikh Fadlallah.

Some foreign operations of the GRU special forces become public knowledge.

The Soviet Union had extensive military capabilities. Giant intercontinental missiles, the world's largest and fastest nuclear submarines, thousands of tanks, a powerful ocean fleet and other delights Cold war... But in addition to the most powerful club for a full-scale clash with the West, there was also an almost invisible special forces of the GRU, capable of performing tasks of fantastic complexity on the territory of other states, while remaining under the veil of the strictest secrecy.

Gradually, the period for imposing a secrecy stamp on the actions of the USSR Main Intelligence Directorate expires, and some foreign operations of the GRU special forces become public knowledge. A selection of such episodes, capable of plugging any American action movie in the belt, is presented to you by the magazine "Word and Deed".

Throw on "Cobra"

The first major operation of this kind dates back to 1968. Ten people from the GRU special forces attacked a secret American facility located in Cambodia almost on the border with Vietnam. From this base, the Americans carried out reconnaissance and sorties for the downed pilots.

The base had a number of different helicopters, among which there were four new "Cobras" equipped with a previously unknown guidance system and guided missiles.

As a result of a carefully prepared attack, one Cobra was hijacked to Vietnam, and the rest of the equipment was destroyed. The entire operation took 25 minutes and was without loss. At the same time, only a few years later, due to a leak in the KGB, the Americans learned that the secret helicopter was taken from under their noses by Russian special forces.

Hot 1968

The "Prague Spring" of 1968 ended with Operation Danube, during which the united group of troops of the Warsaw Pact countries was brought into Czechoslovakia. The GRU special forces were the first to start the operation in the strictest secrecy.

So that no one would suspect anything, the plane, on board which was a special forces detachment, imitated emergency with engine failure and landed at Prague airport. Further events developed with dizzying rapidity; the capture of the airport was completed in 9 minutes 21 seconds.

Immediately after the report on the success of the operation, the airborne division began to be transferred to the captured airfield, and the special forces promptly seized train stations, telegraph stations and government offices. The government of Czechoslovakia was taken to Moscow, and the GRU special forces chalked up another operation, which the famous German saboteur Otto Skorzeny called "brilliant".

Angolan trophy

The Cold War did not bypass Africa either, although only military clashes with the participation of Egypt were more or less untwisted. But the rest of the Black Continent was also hot.

So, out of nowhere, the Stinger MANPADS appeared in the armament of the rebels from Angola. This happened long before the servicemen of the USSR in Afghanistan got acquainted with the American MANPADS. Naturally, the GRU special forces were tasked with obtaining such a complex for research.

Unfortunately, they did not succeed in capturing the Stinger in Angola, but in the end, a Chinese T-59 tank, captured not far from Luanda, was taken to the territory of the USSR by the GRU special forces.

Beirut proposal

At the end of September 1985, several employees of the USSR embassy were taken hostage by the Hezbollah unit of Munat al Jihad al-Islami, headed by Imad Mughniya. The hostages had to be rescued immediately, so the Vympel group under the command of General Yuri Drozdov was involved in the operation.

In the shortest possible time, more than 10 commanders of the Lebanese special services, who were the closest associates of Mughniya, disappeared without a trace. After these disappearances, a letter was planted on him with a proposal to choose the next victim of the abduction. Mugniya quickly realized that if the letter was delivered to him with such ease, then they could be kidnapped without batting an eye, and the next day the hostages were released.

Amin's palace

The seizure of the palace of the head of Afghanistan, Hafizul Amin, is perhaps the most famous operation of the GRU special forces. The Taj-Bek palace was captured in 40 minutes by the GRU and the Grom and Zenit groups (which later became directorates A - Alpha and B - Vympel).

The losses of the GRU special forces amounted to 7 people, despite the fact that there were four times more people guarding the palace than the attackers, and the training of these guards was higher than that of ordinary soldiers. During the assault, Amin was destroyed, which is an unequivocal success of the operation.

"Stinger"

In Angola, it was not possible to capture the latest American MANPADS, but it was critically necessary to do so in Afghanistan, since the Mujahideen successfully used them against Soviet aviation.

Luck smiled at the GRU special forces group under the command of Senior Lieutenant Vladimir Kovtun. Having found a group of motorcyclists' spooks, our commandos organized a chase, as a result of which a trophy "Stinger" was in Kovtun's hands, which was instantly sent by helicopter to the base and further for study in the USSR.

Finally

The special forces of the GRU in Russia were replaced by the Special Operations Forces. There is no doubt that the traditions of elite special-purpose units were passed on to this new Russian structure, and the MTR fighters are worthily continuing the work of the GRU special forces. However, there is no exact information. Secrecy…

On June 25, 1941, Soviet aviation began the first offensive operation outside the USSR: airfields in Finland, on which the planes of the German fascist troops were based, were bombed from the air.

By the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, Finland pursued a two-faced policy. On the one hand, the country's leadership declared neutrality and in every possible way denied preparations for a war against Soviet Union... On the other hand, back in September 1940, the Finnish generals agreed with the German General Staff on joint military operations against the USSR. This was in direct violation of the Moscow Peace Treaty of March 12, 1940, in which Finland and the USSR pledged to refrain from attacking each other and from participating in hostile coalitions.

In June 1941, German troops began to arrive in Finland, which, with the start of Operation Barbarossa, were to invade the territory of the USSR. The number of the German grouping exceeded 30,000 people, at its disposal were the mechanized units of the SS "Nord" division. The Nazis concentrated more than 40 military ships off the coast of Finland. The Finnish military was preparing to support the allies: on June 20, they moved to the state border, from where 45 thousand civilians were evacuated in advance. The Finnish army planned to launch an invasion on June 28, but on the 21st, Finnish soldiers, in violation of interstate agreements, occupied the demilitarized Aland Islands, arresting all the staff of the Soviet consulate.

German aircraft used the Finnish airfields and began their operations before the general invasion of the German forces. At two o'clock in the morning on June 22, 18 Junkers-88 bombers crossed our border and headed towards Leningrad, but were driven away by Soviet Air Force fighters. On June 22, German seaplanes delivered Finnish saboteurs to the locks of the White Sea-Baltic Canal. Our observers have repeatedly noticed bombers flying from across the Finnish border.

At first, the Soviet leadership tried to prevent the direct entry of the Finns into the war through diplomacy. Including there was even an instruction from the military command against them not to take any military action and not to cross the Finnish border. But when, including from intelligence, it became clear that Finland could turn into a convenient "take-off site" for the Nazi bombing of Leningrad, it was decided to launch a preemptive strike. It was initiated by the commander of the Air Force of the Northern Front, created on the basis of the Leningrad Military District, Alexander Novikov. The plan was to bomb the German and, at the same time, Finnish aircraft at the base airfields, destroy the aviation infrastructure and, thus, protect Leningrad from an air attack.

On June 25, 1941, over 260 bombers and more than 220 fighters from the Northern Front and the Baltic Fleet took off. They struck 18 airfields, destroyed 30 aircraft on the ground and 11 in the air. The raids then continued daily for six days. According to official data, Soviet pilots at that time made almost 1000 sorties, bombed 39 airfields (some of them more than once), and destroyed 130 enemy aircraft.

Of course, Finnish and Western sources provide other, much more modest data on the successes of the Soviet Air Force. But, be that as it may, after the air operation, enemy aircraft raids on Leningrad from Finnish territory stopped and were no longer carried out.

Throw on "Cobra"

The base had a number of different helicopters, among which there were four new "Cobras" equipped with a previously unknown guidance system and guided missiles.

Hot 1968

So that no one would suspect anything, the plane carrying a special forces detachment simulated an emergency situation with an engine failure and landed at the Prague airport. Further events developed with dizzying rapidity; the capture of the airport was completed in 9 minutes 21 seconds.

Angolan trophy

The Cold War did not bypass Africa either, although only military clashes with the participation of Egypt were more or less untwisted. But the rest of the Black Continent was also hot.

Beirut proposal

Amin's palace

"Stinger"

In Angola, it was not possible to capture the latest American MANPADS, but it was critically necessary to do so in Afghanistan, since the Mujahideen successfully used them against Soviet aviation.

Finally

Pavel Anatolyevich Sudoplatov is one of the most mysterious and tragic figures in the history of Soviet special services. His name was erased from the people's memory for decades. His investigation file, which describes all the special operations carried out by him personally or under his leadership, is still classified.

From the declassified part of the personal file No. - *** of the Commissioner state security 3rd rank of the NKVD of the USSR Sudoplatov Pavel Anatolyevich

Pavel Sudoplatov was born on July 7, 1907 in the city of Melitopol in the family of a miller. Ukrainian. In 1914 he entered the first grade of the city school and studied there for five years. In 1919, left without his parents, he fled to Odessa, where he joined the company of street children who traded in begging and stealing food in the bazaar, but, being a little smart, he had no conflicts with the law. Raised on the postulates of the New and Old Testament learned in school, Paul experienced remorse from the life he was forced to lead. Having abruptly changed the vector of his aspirations, he got a job as a laborer in a seaport.

In early 1920, after the flight of whites from Odessa, Pavel, a 12-year-old starving orphan, was attached by good people as a "son of a regiment" to the 14th Army of the Red Army, where he became an assistant to the telegraph operator of a communications company. As part of the army, he took part in battles in the Ukraine and on the Polish front.

In May 1921, during a routine inspection of the personal belongings of the Red Army soldiers, the head of the Special Department (military counterintelligence) of the division found Bukharin's book "The ABC of the Revolution" in Sudoplatov's travel bag. Paul's handwritten margins testified to his political maturity, and he was sent to training courses for political workers. At the end of them, since September 1923, the young Red Army soldier Sudoplatov at the Komsomol work in Melitopol: head of the information department of the district committee of the LKSMU, member of the board and commandant of the Working Youth Club, secretary of the LKSMU cell of the V. Vorovsky plant.

In February 1925, the district committee of the LKSMU sent Sudoplatov to the Melitopol department of the GPU, where, for three years as a junior operative, he was responsible for the work of agents operating in the Greek, Bulgarian and German settlements.

So at the age of 17, Pavel Sudoplatov became a personnel security officer.

He has brilliant language skills, a phenomenal memory, an absolute ear for music, and a year later he speaks fluent Greek, Bulgarian and German. This helped establish a more trusting relationship with undercover agents and improved the quality of the information they provided.

It was during that period that Sudoplatov emerged as a professional recruiter, a “bounty hunter”. And the acquired skills to reincarnate - pass for a Greek or a Bulgarian - will more than once serve him well when traveling to Western Europe and Finland as an illegal scout in 1930-1940.

August 1927 was marked for Sudoplatov by four fateful events: he was accepted as a member of the CPSU (b), promoted and transferred to the secret-political department of the GPU of the Ukrainian SSR in Kharkov (the capital of Ukraine in those years), accepted at the workers' faculty of the GPU, met (!) with his future wife.

GOLDEN BEAUTY EMMA

Is it true that a great love for a woman brings a man onto the road of life? Pavel, 20, found the answer for himself when he met Emma Kaganova (Kogan). A blue-eyed Jewess with wild honey hair instantly won his heart and thoughts.

Pavel Sudoplatov with his wife Emma. Photos courtesy of the author

Emma was as beautiful as she was intelligent. At 22, she graduated from several classes of the Gomel gymnasium, was fond of literature, music, theater. She was fluent in Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Yiddish and German. In the central office of the GPU of the Ukrainian SSR, Emma coordinated the activities of secret agents who worked among the Ukrainian creative intelligentsia - writers and theatrical figures.

According to Sudoplatov, Emma, "this commissar in a skirt", from the first days of acquaintance took over his patronage: not only introduced him to the theater, music and Russian classical literature, but also, having more experience of operational work, provided him with practical advice and recommendations.

In 1928, young people got married, but the marriage was officially registered only 23 years later. At that time, this phenomenon was widespread everywhere, becoming a kind of Soviet tradition.

In February 1932, the spouses were transferred to Moscow to the central office of the OGPU of the USSR.

Emma was assigned to the secret-political department, where she supervised the work of secret agents operating in the Writers' Union and other creative associations of the USSR. And Sudoplatov, preparing to work in Germany, at the headquarters of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), which was created and headed by Evgen Konovalets, began to study German... Pavel studied it so thoroughly that even at home he spoke only German with Emma ...

DEATH HIDES IN A CANDY BOX

During the First World War, Evgen Konovalets, a colonel in the Austro-Hungarian army, fought against Russia on the Southwestern Front. In 1918, after three years in Russian captivity, he returned to Ukraine and, at the head of a gang of Ukrainian nationalists, engaged in robberies and Jewish pogroms. After the elimination of the gang, taking two suitcases with looted jewelry, he fled to Germany.

In 1922 Konovalets met Hitler. From the very first meeting, a friendship arose between them, which was fueled by a common hatred of Russia. On the initiative of Hitler and with the help of German intelligence officers, Konovalets created the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN).

In 1928, special schools were opened in Germany for members of the OUN, where German officers taught them the craft of sabotage and the organization of terrorist attacks. And in 1934, Konovalets' militants successfully passed the examination for a certificate of maturity for hired killers: in Warsaw, they killed the Polish minister Peratsky, and in Lvov, the Soviet diplomat Mailov.

In 1935, Sudoplatov, under the cover of a representative of the Ukrainian anti-Soviet underground, was introduced to the leadership of the OUN in Berlin. He managed to get to study at a special Nazi party school of the NSDP in Leipzig, where Konovalets's assistants were trained. Having won the favor of the OUN leader, Pavel accompanied him on inspection trips to Vienna and Paris. This, in particular, was facilitated by his impeccable command of the German language ...

Konovalets was so imbued with confidence in Sudoplatov that he appointed him as his plenipotentiary representative in Ukraine and dedicated him to strategic plans OUN.

So, relying on the support of the Germans, he was going to "liberate" a number of regions of Ukraine. For this, he formed two brigades of militants in 2 thousand sabers. The "action of tearing away" the Ukrainian territories from the USSR was financed by the German military intelligence. Konovalets also planned to arrange a series of attempts on the life of responsible party officials of the central apparatus of the CPSU (b) in Moscow.

The obtained information Sudoplatov reported personally to Stalin. The award was not long in coming: Sudoplatov was awarded the Order of the Red Banner for the successful completion of the assignment and "the endurance and ingenuity shown at the same time."

On Stalin's instructions, a plan was developed for preemptive operational measures against the OUN, in particular the elimination of Konovalets. It was to be carried out by Sudoplatov.

Several methods of eliminating the OUN leader were considered. We settled on Sudoplatov's proposal: to use Konovalets' pathological passion for chocolate. To do this, an explosive device with a clockwork was mounted in a box of his favorite chocolates. To bring the device into combat condition, it was enough to give the box a horizontal position. The mine went off after 20 minutes, which, according to the developers of the operation, made it possible for Sudoplatov to leave unharmed and created an alibi for him.

On August 21, 1938, Sudoplatov left Leningrad for Norway as a radio operator of the dry-cargo ship "Shilka". From there he called Konovalets and made an appointment in Rotterdam.

On August 23 at 11.50 Sudoplatov and Konovalets met at the Atlant restaurant. After mutual greetings, Pavel said that the meeting would be very short, since he was obliged to return to the ship, but at 17.00 they would meet again to discuss everything “thoroughly”. Pavel immediately put a box of chocolates on the table in front of Konovalets.

To change his appearance, Sudoplatov bought a hat and a white raincoat in a nearby store, and upon leaving he heard a faint pop of an explosion, reminiscent of the sound of a bursting tire ...

BLESSING OF STALIN

- There are no important political figures in the Trotskyist movement, except for Trotsky himself. Having finished with it, we will eliminate the threat of the collapse of the Comintern ...

Stalin lit his pipe and looked at Beria and Sudoplatov, who were sitting on the other side of the table. Then, chasing words, as if giving an order, he said:

- You, comrade Sudoplatov, are instructed by the party to carry out an action to eliminate Trotsky. You are obliged to personally conduct all preparatory work and personally send a special team from Europe to Mexico. Any help and support will be provided to you. You will report everything directly to Comrade Beria and to no one else. The Central Committee demands that all reports on the operation be submitted exclusively in handwritten form in a single copy!

So, late at night on May 9, 1939, a meeting in the Kremlin of the "small three" - Stalin, Beria, Sudoplatov - ended and the NKVD's special operation, code-named "Duck", began to liquidate Trotsky (nicknamed Old Man).

Over time, the "Duck" will be recognized as a classic model of a multifaceted multi-step operation and will not only be included in the methodological manuals of the KGB and the GRU - it will be studied in the classrooms of the world's leading intelligence services.

CHERCHEZ LA FEMME!

On May 10, the day after the meeting, Sudoplatov received a promotion - he was appointed deputy chief of the NKVD's foreign intelligence.

Of the agents who settled in Mexico after graduation civil war in Spain, as well as from agents living in Western Europe and the USA, Sudoplatov, with his deputy, Eitingon, formed two groups. The first is The Horse, headed by David Siqueiros, a famous Mexican artist. The second is "Mother" under the leadership of Caridad Mercader, a Spanish revolutionary, courageous and selfless woman. Her eldest son was killed in battles with Franco's troops; middle - Ramon in 1936 fought in a partisan detachment; the youngest, Louis, with other children of Republican fighters who fled from the Franco regime, ended up in Moscow.

"Horse" and "Mother" acted autonomously and did not know about each other's existence. And the tasks for the groups were different: "Horse" was preparing to storm Trotsky's villa in Coyacan, a suburb of Mexico City, and "Mother" had to introduce her people into the Old Man's entourage, since there was not a single NKVD agent there. Because of this, the work of the first group was stalled - after all, there was no plan of the villa, no data about the system and the number of guards, no information about Trotsky's daily routine.

Life has suggested that the path to Trotsky's inner circle lies through the heart of a woman. And the handsome macho Ramon was brought in Paris to a certain Sylvia. As conceived by Sudoplatov and Eitingon, it was a double blow, where the decisive role was to be played not by Sylvia herself, but by her sister Ruth Agelov, an employee of the secretariat and liaison of the Old Man with his supporters in the United States.

Ramon turned Sylvia's head, and it was going to the wedding. In January 1940, they appeared together in Mexico City. Ruth Agelov interceded with Trotsky for her sister, and he hired her as a secretary. So, using the "blind" of the two sisters, Ramon became a visitor to Trotsky's house. Since March 1940, he visited there 12 times and even talked with Trotsky, introducing himself as Jean Mornard, a journalist, a citizen of Belgium.

RESCUE BED

The information obtained by Ramon was used by Siqueiros to storm the villa.

In the early morning of May 24, 1940, 20 people in police uniforms drove up to the gates of the fortress villa. Neutralized the guards at the entrance. Having penetrated inside, they turned off the alarm, tied up all the guards and, dispersed around the Old Man's bedroom, opened heavy fire from revolvers and a light machine gun.

Trotsky, who lived in constant expectation of an assassination attempt, reacted instantly: grabbing his wife in an armful, threw himself out of bed on the floor and hid under the bed.

A massive bed of bog oak saved both of them: they had no scratches, and the bedroom was turned into crumbly - the attackers fired (!) More than 200 bullets.

The police failed to detain a single attempted murder. Except for Siqueiros. But he spent only a couple of days in the dungeon: the President of Mexico was a passionate admirer of his talent and let him go to all four sides ...

MERCADER - VIRTUOS ICE

The failure of the action to eliminate the Old Man by the Siqueiros militants was painfully perceived in the Kremlin. The directors of the play "The Duck" were forced "on the march" to redo the script, assigning the actors of the troupe to roles that were unusual for them. So, having changed the role of a seducer for the role of a liquidator, Ramon Mercader came to the fore.

In early August, he showed his article to Trotsky (compiled by craftsmen from the Lubyanka) about Trotskyist organizations in the United States and asked for his opinion. Trotsky took the article and offered to come in for discussion on August 20.

Ramon showed up at the appointed time, carrying a pistol and an ice ax. In case the guards took away the pistol and ice ax, he hid a knife in the lining of his jacket. There was nothing: no one stopped or searched.

Ramon went into Trotsky's office. He sat down at the table and, holding an article in his hands, began to express his opinion. Mercader stood slightly behind and to the side, pretending to heed the teacher's remarks. Deciding that it was time to act, he grabbed an ice ax from under his jacket and hit Trotsky on the head.

Either the blow was weak, or the head was hot, but Trotsky turned around briskly, screamed wildly and bit into Ramon's hand with his teeth. The bursting guard twisted him and beat him to a pulp.

Trotsky was transported to a hospital, Mercader to prison.

Trotsky died a day later, Mercader was released from prison 20 years later.

By the way, the Old Man almost deprived Mercader of his hand - a purulent inflammation arose at the site of the bite, which threatened to turn into gangrene. The abscess was managed with a penicillin blockade. Penicillin, which had just appeared on the world medical market, was bought by Eitingon's agents in the United States for huge money and taken to prison by fraudulent means.

For the fulfillment of the "special assignment" Eitingon and Caridad were awarded the Orders of Lenin, Sudoplatov - the Order of the Red Banner.

Mercader was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union with the award of the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal, but he found them only on May 31, 1960 in Moscow ...

... Later, on the eve and during the Great Patriotic War, State Security Commissioner of the 3rd rank Sudoplatov not only held a significant post in the hierarchy of state security of the Soviet Union, but also made a significant contribution to our Victory, being the leader and taking direct part in the unique special operations of the NKVD "Monastyr" and "Berezino", carried out in order to misinformation of the German military intelligence and the Wehrmacht ...

INSTEAD OF AN AFTERWORD

It's hard to believe it, but, despite all the services to the Motherland, Pavel Anatolyevich Sudoplatov, Chevalier of the Order of Lenin, three Orders of the Red Banner, Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree, Order of Suvorov, 2nd degree, two Orders of the Red Star, ten medals, as well as the highest departmental award "Honored Worker of the NKVD", on August 21, 1953, he was arrested in his own office and charged with the Beria conspiracy aimed at "the destruction of members of the Soviet government and the restoration of capitalism in the USSR."

Subsequently, Sudoplatov was sentenced to imprisonment for 15 years. From September 1958 he served his sentence in the Vladimir prison. There he suffered three heart attacks, went blind in one eye, became a disabled person of the second group, but was not spiritually broken. He was fully rehabilitated only in 1992. He died in 1996, six months before his 90th birthday.

In October 1998, by decree of the President of the Russian Federation, Lieutenant-General Sudoplatov was posthumously reinstated in rights to the state awards confiscated during arrest.

Igor G. Atamanenko- Writer, historian of special services, veteran of KGB counterintelligence, retired lieutenant colonel.