Sword & Shield - The History of the KGB | Free Documentary History

for the past Century Russian history has also been the history of its Security Services they were used by the Soviet state to crush dissent Millions suffered at their hands but while many things may have changed in today's Russia its security network is arguably stronger than ever and the reason behind that is the rise of a lowly Lieutenant Colonel to president of this vast country I know in the KB better than anyone else because I was part of the inside Circle this is the story of the KGB told by its veterans and its [Music] victims [Music] in a Moscow Comedy Club young people laugh at life as it was living in the shadow of the KGB the jokes compiled from the archives show how humor was often the last Refuge under an authoritarian regime a joke is one of the main ways of dealing with stress he can help you live with the things you can't change M meleno has Unearthed almost 6,000 Soviet political jokes one day Stalin lost his pipe and ordered his security Chief barrier to investigate a bit later he calls barrier and says don't worry I found the pipe barrier replies but we've arrested 100 people and 99 of them have confessed Stalin exclaims only 99 continue the investigation in reality life for most Soviet citizens was no laughing matter this recently opened KGB archive in Kiev contains millions of documents it records the fate of hundreds of thousands sent to the gulags and tens of thousands more sentenced to death those who suffered at the hands of the KGB and KGB officers themselves are well placed to tell us about the biggest state security network the world has ever known on the third day they LED you into a cell to take your fingerprints this is me prisoners called this playing the piano [Music] they came one December night and arrested [Music] me they pushed guns through our cell windows and open [Music] fire they'd shot people without trial God knows what else they did also inside these boxes there are Untold Stories of heroism where KGB agents put their lives on the line to protect their country and Soviet [Music] rule we truly believed that we were protecting our country because the KGB was one of the most powerful Secret services in the [Music] world usually it is associated with some kind of uh enforcement or violence but I'm very proud to be a member of the intelligence [Music] service Russia the largest country on Earth misunderstood by many and feared by even [Music] more invaded repeatedly over the centuries its leaders have adopted a Siege mentality to counter real or perceived threats from abroad Russia's people have been encouraged to view foreigners as the enemy I want to be a citizen of the world and want to be on good terms with the rest of the world but they tell me that this is an enemy and that is an enemy and those over there are also enemies but why is he an enemy maybe I just want to love him enemies have been a preoccupation throughout Russian history in modern times those enemies inside and out have been the target of surveillance assassinations honey traps and hacking scandals the story of the KGB began over a century ago with a revolution after the Bolsheviks took power in 1917 Lenin founded a secret police force as a temporary measure was called the all Russian extraordinary commission for combating counterrevolution and sabotage or checker for short the name changed several times in the last century including ogpu nkvd MGB KGB and finally FSB but even today agents refer to themselves as cists KGB colel Anatoli Sno recalls the ethics that were drummed into him as a young recruit a cist we were told had to have a cool head warm heart and Clean Hands was drilled into us from our very first day it went into our heads Hearts our souls there is a myth of this High morality of this uh moral purity of the chist and other Knights of the Revolution as they were called in January 2018 only 12% of Russians said that they associate the cze car as the Soviet Secret Police with Terror and persecution of dissidents their Moscow headquarters the lubianka quickly became notorious cists were expected to crack down hard on all who opposed the state the first head of the secret police was the son of a Polish Catholic Aristocrat Felix jinsky he soon earned the name iron Felix jinsky came from a strict Catholic background and he had Ambitions to become a priest uh his mother and an uncle had to talk him out of this because they recognized that he was too fond of women to to take up a job as a Catholic priest but jinsky didn't entirely abandon uh his Catholic beliefs he he carried over the ideals of a kind of Jesuit priest into into the idea of what the perfect secret policeman was somebody was part of society but withdrawn from society at the same time somebody with very strict moral values everyone knew he was a man of iron a man of integrity of course he created a monster it was a dreadful organization even some of Lenin's closest Associates were afraid of the Checker back van all these people were really committed Communists they had a very clear vision of uh the future for their country and for the world and we wanted to start a World Revolution and it was a very big idea for many and they they were ready to sacrifice themselves uh sacrifice the population of Russia from their imposing lubianka headquarters the czecher exercised seemingly Limitless Authority only the best cleverest most reliable people were selected so it was considered a great honor to be awarded your certificate as an officer of the KGB state sponsored movies and novels also glamorized the security services through the exploits of men like Nikolai ketov a Russian equivalent of James Bond but while Bond was fictional ketov was very real films depicted his daring behind German lines during the second world war many aspiring agents fell under the ketov spell one lad who dreamt that he joined this prestigious organization was young Vladimir Putin when he was still at school went to the local KGB office and said how do I join and even the KGB there were were fairly disconcerted and said well run along Sunny go go go to university and do a degree and then maybe we'll [Music] talk when I was a young lad I wanted to work for the state Security Services because I was influenced by the books and films of that time it was deliberately romanticized I was very patriotic I wanted to catch spies I wanted to work in Council intelligence all that romantic stuff that excites young people we would be the patriots who would protect the country we were ready to sacrifice our lives for the country once they had caught the bug these idealistic and ambitious recruits underwent specialized training including the dark arts of counterintelligence KGB officer doesn't usually wear a uniform these are the only photos of me in uniform they were taken at the KGB Training Academy in Tash Kent we learned languages and learned to shoot we learned the Art of Photography there were professors specialized research and experienced professionals were assigned to train us how to recruit how to Blackmail to bribe and to abuse in their fortress-like training center on the outskirts of Moscow today's recruits are constantly reminded of Lenin's words ironically borrowed from the Bible whoever is not with me is against me yet Lenin's secret police chief iron Felix jinsky constantly feared for his life and he wasn't wrong he was a very cautious man for example in his office in the lubianka there was an anti- room where his secretary worked and a prisoner was in custody in the cells nearby the man overpowered his guard took his gun and ran into the corridor he was determined to shoot zinski he burst into the anti room but he couldn't see a way into xin's office because the door was hidden behind a wardrobe to get in you had to go through the Wardrobe and strangers didn't know about it but while zinski was always on his guard his boss Lenin believed the revolution could defend itself Lenin had a rather naive attitude towards security it seems he said it'd be enough for the new Soviet state to arrest 50 to 100 leading Bankers Expos their frauds and the Russian people then realize the horrors of capitalism jinsky said no you have to be more brutal than that there are forces at large who wish to destroy the Soviet state uh you need to not just arrest large numbers of people but you need to terrify the opposition so you need to kill large numbers of people zinski himself said we stand for all organized Terror this should be frankly admitted terror is an absolute necessity during times of Revolution the Soviet system the Bolshevik regime seized power they didn't have the support of the people for them the nation peasants the countryside military units were all suspect and they decided to run the country with the use of undercover informers who reported on all spheres of Soviet life everywhere from factories small cooperatives to the Army the Soviet regime trusted no one convinced by zinski that sabots were everywhere Lenin ordered a purge a civil war had broken out and between 1918 and 1920 over a 100,000 people were executed by the czecher it became known as the Red Terror the Red Terror was indiscriminate violence it could be uh shooting prisoners in the basements of the Lanka it could be burning down villages it could be putting prisoners on a boat and just Sinking The Boat watching them all drown it could be putting them in prison camps and letting them starve to death zinski the man who might have become a priest was now orchestrating Mass murder religion was denounced as a competing ideology but it had been ingrained in Russian culture for centuries and couldn't be replaced with atheism [Music] overnight so while hundreds of churches were destroyed across the country and Bishops and Priests executed those few allowed to continue were forced to work with zinsky Security Services only a fraction of the churches that existed in Moscow before the Revolution remained in the 1950s according to the research of a British exchange student in Moscow at the Time Michael Bordeaux in January 1918 uh Lenin himself passed the first anti-religious laws he also took away Church property so religion and the cus regime were put together as being fair game to neutralize what remained of the religious community jasinski's Checker infiltrated it at every level I would go as far as to say that the ruling group uh of of of Bishops uh was was more or less a KGB agency the Communist Party found new uses for some church property the dark elements of early Soviet history have become a special interest to historian Mara shilova this is the John the Baptist Convent in 1918 it was closed and the Bolsheviks turned it into one of the largest concentration camps of the early Soviet era as many as 8800 prisoners were held here interestingly the concentration camp and the convent somehow shared the space until 1926 100 nuns continued to live [Music] here when Lenin died in 1924 zinski was instrumental in the ensuing power struggle he helped Sidetrack Trotsky the air apparent and actively supported Joseph Stalin his reward came when Stalin chose to expand the Secret Service the new leader was determined to drag the Soviet Union into the 20th century at any cost but his modernization would need vast Manpower when Stalin began his forc modernization the KGB became more important gags were created the role of the KGB in modernization ation is colossal hundreds of thousands of agitators criminals and innocent people were deported to a system of camps called the goolag the gulag started out as a set of prison camps for the enemies of the party um the the enemies of the Revolution very quickly though it turned into something else it had an economic function the Bolshevik saw that they had all these extra people these useless people who really couldn't be used in any way by Society will not put them to work for the state and help grow the state the gulag system zinski pioneered was run mainly by the security services it lasted for 60 years though he died in [Music] 1926 Russian soap star yeva tva's family was sent to Siberia in the 194 40s suspected of collaboration with the Nazis the youngest were thrown into orphanages the oldest to the gulag that really is how the ministry of security the state influenced the lives of my family they lied deceived and murdered people it's a miracle that my family survived they were supposed to [Music] die [Music] in the old days people could be arrested just for telling a joke I told a joke when school teacher Vera golb told a joke she paid a terrible price in Moscow in Faya Street they were planting trees along the boulevard the joke was the whole world is arming itself while we're planting flowers that's all I said but they came in the night and arrested me I was 8 months pregnant and looking forward to Motherhood ver gave birth in custody there were complications and for a time she was unconscious but eventually she came around when they brought me my dead baby I passed [Music] out they show showed him to me that's all at 99 years old Vera still Mourns it's deeply painful even now I feel like an orphan alone in the world she lost her only child and was to the gulag for 8 years and it all started when she told a joke I'm sorry the reality is that much of Soviet modernization was achieved on the back of Gulag slavery why During the period of the Great Depression when World economics were collapsing especially in the US Britain and France why was Russia enjoying crazy growth because Stalin had complete control through the party and the security service some gulak survivors take comfort from the notion that they helped build a modern Nation I was building a railroad chopping wood and draining swamps it was hard work for a woman people needed the railroad we understood that and we all worked hard all this work was for the benefit of the people the problem was that tens of hundreds of thousands of people were sent to these prisons it was class Warfare very cruel today the old and young Generations condemn that whole system and consider it to be a grave mistake of Stalin and the policies of that time through more than six decades the gulag system extracted forced labor the main feature of that work was that it was hard if you refuse to work you are immediately punished many people didn't receive medical treatment there was a lovely joke of our doctors to bring some dentists to the camp to make a home put arent in and say it will take few days then we will come back and uh finish and they never came back so you cannot repair by yourself so it's permanent suffering [Music] and there was a special chamber where they held the most violent thugs I understood that it was a press house prisoners there break [ __ ] and kill people on the orders of the administration when they put me into that chamber I thought it was the [Music] end in a camp you just have to survive every moment is a challenge to your dignity human rights activist Sergey kovalov was one of the most prominent Soviet dissidents he served 7 years in prisons including the infamous perm 36 Gulag over a th000 km east of his Moscow home I've known some unfortunates who've been imprisoned every minute and every second of their lives every second they suffered the burden of imprisonment they had nothing they had no family their families were far [Music] away they were miserable every second it's horrible even with the slave labor of Millions Stalin felt that modernization was progressing too slowly Stalin taking his usual summer holiday in the Caucasus meets one of the local secret police Chiefs yof yof persuad Stalin that some of the problems they're experiencing the Soviet state notably the failure to rapidly industrialize are the result of spies inside the mines and the factories to disguise the shortcomings of industrialization a search for scapegoats began fears were spread fear of the state and of each other as Stalin mounted a show trial in the industrial town of Shakti the shaki show trial was a way of mobilizing popular support in a a pitchfork style display of mob Justice even though when they carry in all the documents into the courthouse the only real evidence they've got are the confessions of the accused there's no other material evidence whatsoever Stalin declared the accused class enemies 44 went to the goolag five were executed Stalin loved the idea of blaming other people for his mistakes it had a an economy to it which amused and pleased him he loved the idea of forcing other people to stand in court and confess the crimes which he himself had committed controlling a diverse population across vast territory was his constant concern he seized on uprisings real or imagined to wield power against his enemies offer an army officer leading a unit of 400 men says Stalin is a traitor the Soviet rule is counterrevolutionary trotsky's a hero and the Kremlin should be seized Stalin was determined that he alone must rule in 1936 he ordered a murderous Crackdown that became known as the great Terror the security services were ordered to destroy all opposition no matter how many Innocents were caught up in the [Music] process [Music] Stalin was the source of the terror he personally signed the arrest lists for senior party officials he was the top man in the hierarchy of Terror his new henchmen as chief of the secret police was Nikolai yov he was a ruthless and sadistic man and Stalin kept him very busy very quickly the great Terror moved into an attack on people who had um people who were inside the party in many cases people who had been leaders of the party and who were now feared to be possible traitors to the party in almost every party cell there was a kind of hysterical self-examination process as people began looking for enemies within the ranks orders were issued different orders like in your region 50,000 people must be arrested they're all counterrevolutionaries in your region let's say 30,000 in yours 70,000 people it doesn't mean that all the people who were killed in the great Terror were conspirators of course 99% were innocent it was execution on an industrial scale suspects were rounded up and delivered by the truckload to Killing Fields including this one just south of Moscow Security Services usually received execution orders at the end of the day prisoners selected for execution were collected from various prisons shooting would usually start at dawn toid panic and subdued the prisoners in transit they came up with an absolutely Savage [Music] idea exhaust fumes were piped into the truck where the prisoners were carried they were breathing the noxious fumes for the whole journey by the time they arrived they were [Music] [Applause] helpless so the remains of around 21,000 people lie here yov was an important instrument for Stalin during the Great Terror he was exactly the sort of person needed for this very dirty very bloody task it was in his nature to carry out these atrocious orders without [Music] protest during 1937 and 1938 nearly 700,000 people were executed and over a million more sent to the gulag their images were expunged from official [Music] photographs at first everyone thinks that there's been a mistake because they see themselves as class Warriors most of those arrested considered themselves good Communists so they couldn't understand what was going on then they fall into this machine which immediately dehumanizes them you were stripped naked locked in a cell and prevented from sleeping they bomb B you with ludicrous charges then accuse you of spying for the English Americans Germans polish French Japanese Chinese all at once and maybe you were planning to assassinate Stalin you just can't process all this stuff people always believe that there must have been some mistake that this nightmare will end but the only escape from this nightmare is the firing squad or Siberia and once you're there it is too late KGB Chief yov said there will be some victims better the 10 Innocents suffer than one spy gets away after 2 years of Relentless killing Stalin wanted someone to blame for the excesses the head of the security services Nikolai yov was arrested and executed did this was Nikolai y's home he had a modest apartment in this building he was the bloodiest of them all he was arrested in 1939 and shot in 1940 his remains now lie in the same mass grave as many of his victims [Music] relatives have laid plaques for some of the 8,000 victims whose ashes lie here in a Moscow Cemetery there is no plaque for yov Stalin replaced him with fellow Central Committee Member lenti barrier a name that would become infamous in Soviet history and yet his First Act was the release of of 100,000 political prisoners he wasn't a mass murderer like yov he tried to reduce that but he was quite prepared to kill or incarcerate anyone who resisted the Soviet system like Stalin barrier was from Georgia and he arrived with a Cadre of trusted left tenants they soon established a more comfortable environment for their intrigues the aragvi it became one of the most celebrated and Infamous restaurants in Russia everybody liked Georgian Cuisine back then it was the most exotic in Moscow Soviet cist controlled the aragvi from the very beginning it was created under the patronage of the nkvd barrier himself helped set up the it will become a den for senior members of the security services cists met with diplomats here and also with agents lenti Beria met his own agents here he had quite a few that he ran personally a lot of foreigners English speakers from various countries came here it was a good place for a quiet chat a quiet chat perhaps but it was said that every table had a hidden [Music] microphone barrier's intelligence network was also raising the alarm about activities beyond the Soviet [Music] borders Hitler's German war machine had been growing since 1933 all the ussr's resources went into the preparation of the army but when in 1936 they held Maneuvers in Ukraine and Belarus it became clear that the Army was not ready for war countless officers of the Red Army have been executed in the great Terror now Stalin needed time to rebuild it in August 1939 he signed a peace treaty with Germany agreeing to carve up Poland between them Hitler with his Eastern flank secure was ready for war just one week later later he invaded Western [Music] Poland as German forces Advanced the Red Army moved to Annex Eastern Poland almost half a million polish prisoners fell into Russian hands barrier's Security Service took charge sifting out Military Officers priests and the [Music] intelligencia Intelligence Officers were sent there to gauge the attitude of the poles what do they think of Russia if Hitler attacks would they fight for Russia against [Music] Hitler when they had established that the polls had a negative attitude against Russia I think that became a reason to shoot them they woke us up a few minutes before 5:00 a.m. and divided us up into groups the day hasn't started out well we're piled into a prison truck with guards and driven into some Forest we're undergoing a thorough cavity search they took my watch the time was either 6:30 or 8:30 in the morning they're asking for our wedding rings but they took from me rubles belts pocket knife what happens next on barrier's personal recommendation over 20,000 polish prisoners of War were executed thousands right here in kattin [Music] Forest nearly 3 years later after German forces had captured the territory they exposed the mass graves in their anti-soviet propaganda Stalin denied responsibility for years but subsequent administrations have acknowledged his guilt katin is still a stumbling block and a focal point even for the present Russian government it's still an issue and justifications are still put forward even though the guilt has long been recognized but it's a terrible crime against humanity a mass killing of prisoners of War for no reason it shows that the Soviet Union was no better than Hitler's regime the Third Reich it seems that the Soviet Union could also secretly send thousands of people to their death without reason and then try to cover up the [Music] crime even as Hitler waged War across half of Europe Stalin still refused to believe that the Germans would open another front to the east but his security Chief lenti barer was better informed he had a mole in Nazi High command villy Layman ran the division combating Soviet Espionage while himself spying for Moscow on the 19th of June 1941 Layman warned that Germany would invade the Soviet Union in just 3 days time when Stalin read the report he flew into a rage saying you can send your source to his [ __ ] mother this is not a source but disinformation it was exactly what he didn't want to hear Stalin had a preconceived View and he only wanted information that proved him right in his eyes any information that contradicts his view comes from incompetent sources vly lay was later shot by the Gustavo for spying the information he passed to the Soviets had been accurate down to the exact date when the Germans would attack the Soviet Union it was June 22nd 1941 when Hitler turned East the Soviets were totally unprepared soon after the first strikes hit the cities of Western Ukraine Lviv prison held over, 1600 political [Music] Prisoners the prison was run by barrier's secret police who had their Regional headquarters [Music] here with the German Army bearing down on them they had a problem what to do with the political prisoners their solution was a war crime later exploited for propaganda purposes by the Germans and which still provokes outrage today in 1941 when the war between the USSR and Germany started an order came from Moscow to clear the prisons as the prisoners waited 30 or more in each cell they could hear rushing footsteps coming towards them in the basement then the first explosion grenades were thrown through the cell windows then another team came and shot anyone who was still [Music] alive in the first week of the war the nkvd killed 1,681 people in this [Music] prison there were a whole lot of reports describing crimes during the retreat of the nkvd they had orders not to leave any prisoners behind the security service boss admitted I had no transport for them if I didn't shoot them I'd get shot myself as the German Army Advanced deep into Soviet territory the Soviet state demanded complete Sacrifice from every quarter women worked in factories on the land and in civil defense some took on another dangerous role consorting With the Enemy to gather intelligence KGB officers coordinated these efforts there were groups of women many of them married but these were beautiful women who under the eye of KB agents came into contact often intimate contact with foreigners and got information certainly women can fish for information in bed more effectively than men approaching them in the daytime the role of barrier's security service was greatly expanded during the war with a formation of 53 nkvd divisions made up of over half a million men and women both fighting on the front line and against suspected enemies at home from the start of the War the nkvd took control it dealt with every issue economics transport moving our manufacturing base East to the Ural Mountains away from the front line they organized the partisan movement they created their own brigades they dealt with deserters they broke through Enemy Lines all this was handled by the nkvd under Stalin's direct orders the nkvd also deported entire ethnic groups suspec of collaboration with the Germans to Siberia and Central Asia and nkvd troops were stationed behind the front lines to prevent regular army units from retreating or deserting in the battle for Stalingrad alone they killed over 13,000 deserters to terrify any who might consider running security bodies were always acting on from the top it was necessary to take Extreme Measures the Soviet Union suffered an estimated 27 million casualties in World War II around 18 million of them were civilians the siege of Leningrad alone cost a million civilian lives and lasted well over 2 years it had caused the greatest destruction and largest loss of life ever known in a modern city yet the suffering and heroism in the fight against the German Invaders would become a unifying and defining experience for the Soviet Union to protect the Homeland at any cost would have the utmost priority from now on [Music] by April 1945 Hitler's armies were almost defeated the Soviet assault on Berlin marked the end of World War II in [Music] Europe in the glow of Victory the security services were officially hailed as Heroes and Stalin's ruthless leadership was [Music] applauded Stalin was the most brutal of all the Soviet leaders but at the same time he was the one who achieved the most it seems he industrialized Russia and of course he was the man who carried them through the second world war but the enforcers of the security services had also played a crucial role the freny barrier was awarded the title hero of the Soviet Union and promoted to Marshall he was at the same time a highly intelligent leader and a brutal executioner a paradoxical character a complete Enigma barrier certainly had positive as well as negative qualities as a government leader and a great organizer and we can't deny either of these there are great piles of documents outlining barriers many crimes he was a man who had power and used it he was also a cruel man with no moral Scruples about the use of Violence by the authorities [Music] for look it's hard to present barrier as anything other than an extraordinarily awful human being but he was incredibly efficient there are some people who try and say barer and the people like him were not bastards after all and clearly they were and but then there are others who have a a different or more nuanced approach which is unfortunately this was a time when we needed bastards and this is a different form of revisionism which is in some ways even more pernicious lenti barrier's crowning Glory was a secret Espionage operation which would change the world's power structure for the rest of the 20th century and Beyond when at the Potsdam Conference in July 1945 American President Truman proudly informed Stalin that the US had developed a new super weapon Stalin seemed unimpressed but what Truman Churchill nor anyone else in the west knew was that barrier's spies were already amongst the scientists who would achieve this Fe feet and were supplying Moscow with the secret of how to build one of their own 4 3 2 1 now the Americans had spent a vast Fortune developing the atomic bomb but lenti barrier and his network of agents and spies matched the threat for a fraction of the cost and so they triggered an arms race which would risk the destruction of the planet the Spy game of the Cold War had just [Music] begun

Channel: Free Documentary - History

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Id: 7sHFzZd_i7Q

Length: 52min 9sec (3129 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 19 2024