Word: nkvd
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Like the NKVD, U.S. readers would do well to ponder this political autobiography. It is important as history, supplying much material the world never knew or has already forgotten about Russia's internal and external affairs from 1936 to 1939. (Barmine points out that the Purge, and Soviet charges that most of Russia's general staff and high diplomats had committed treason with Germany, was one reason why Britain and France did not push harder for a Russian alliance in 1939.) The book is important as a record of the mechanics of the change whereby socialist states...
...time the Purge petered out, the highest measure of social protection had been extended to six presidents of federated Soviet republics, most of the Red Army's general staff, most of the leading sections of the NKVD, most of the Peoples Commissars, herds of Communist bureaucrats, droves of Old Bolsheviks and masses of Soviet citizens of all ranks, political shadings, sizes & shapes. Even the keeper of the Moscow zoo did not escape: he was charged with improperly feeding the lions. A certain "dizziness from success" led to excesses. Some comrades were liquidated by mistake. But they were posthumously reinstalled...
...tragedy of blood was the weird fugitives who, shouting "Sanctuary!", suddenly hurtled out of the Communist night that had covered the activities of many of them and sought refuge in capitalist countries. Among the more distinguished refugees were Ignace Reiss (assistant chief of the West European Section of the NKVD), General Walter Ginsberg Krivitsky (chief of the West European Section of the Red Army's Military Intelligence) and Alexander Barmine. Reiss's body was found riddled with 15 bullets on a lonely road in Switzerland. Krivitsky's body was found in an obscure Washington, D. C. hotel...
...legation's secret NKVD agent took Barmine out for a drink and regaled him with stories of his former success in kidnapping recalcitrant comrades. Then he added: "You know, it wouldn't be difficult to get rid of a man in this country. There's always somebody willing to undertake a little job of that kind for five or ten thousand drachmas, and you can take it from me the police will know nothing...
Barmine fled to Paris, where friends helped him to get a job at an airport. With the NKVD constantly at his heels, he came to the U.S. He served as a private in the U.S. Army, is now a citizen...