Former head of the KGB Vladimir Kryuchov died of a heart attack. Statesman Vladimir Kryuchkov: biography, activities and interesting facts The ancestral secret of a super spy

(29.02.1924–23.11.2007)

Head of the PGU KGB of the USSR during the years when V.V. Putin worked

in foreign intelligence.

Born in Stalingrad (now Volgograd). Education

received at the All-Union Correspondence Law Institute (1949) and at the Higher

diplomatic school of the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1954). In 1946–1947 folk

Investigator at the Traktorozavodsky District Prosecutor's Office, 1947–1950.

prosecutor of the investigative department of the Stalingrad prosecutor's office, in 1950–1951.

Prosecutor of the Kirovsky district of Stalingrad. Since 1954 at the diplomatic

work: third secretary of the Fourth European Department of the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in

1955–1959 Third Secretary of the USSR Embassy in the Hungarian People's Republic

Republic (Ambassador Yu. V. Andropov). In 1959–1965 in the Central Committee apparatus

CPSU: assistant, head of the sector of the department of the CPSU Central Committee for relations with

communist and workers' parties of socialist countries. IN

1965–1967 Assistant Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Yu. V. Andropov. In 1965

moved with him to the KGB of the USSR. Since 1978, Deputy Chairman, since

1988 Chairman of the KGB of the USSR. In August 1991 he was part of

State Emergency Committee, was arrested. Spent more than a year and a half under investigation in prison

"Sailor's Silence" In February 1994 he was amnestied along with others

participants in the August 1991 events. In the second half of the 1990s

gg. worked at the joint-stock financial corporation Sistema. According to V.A.

Kryuchkov, he would hardly have remembered a person with the last name Putin if the former

the lieutenant colonel did not subsequently turn out to be the director of the FSB. Perhaps V. A. Kryuchkov and

met him during trips to Germany, but all foreign employees

he did not remember intelligence in the GDR in person or by name. Since then he has been V.V. Putin

I have never personally seen or had any contact with him. "Vladimir Kryuchkov

explained Putin's return from the GDR to the Leningrad KGB department for work with

personnel, which at first glance may seem like a demotion, because

Putin, most likely, was not a career intelligence officer, but just

an employee of other KGB units who was sent to the GDR in

assignment for a normal period of five years. After this period, he simply

returned to his previous place of service, as he probably did nothing special in Germany

didn’t show himself" ( Moscow news. 2000, no. 3). V. A. Kryuchkov

also completely dismissed the possibility of “attaching” V.V. Putin to A. A. Sobchak as a secret agent. According to V. A. Kryuchkov, an employee of the current

KGB reserve (in this capacity V.V. Putin became an assistant to his former

teacher) could not simultaneously be used as an agent. A.A.

Moreover, Sobchak knew everything about V.V. Putin’s KGB past. During

August crisis of 1991. V.V. Putin was on vacation in

Baltics. Having learned about the events in Moscow, in the morning of August 20, 1991.

returned to Leningrad and wrote a report on his dismissal from the KGB. By

According to the widespread version, A. A. Sobchak immediately called V. A. Kryuchkov, and on August 21, 1991.

the report was signed. However, serious researchers take this fact under

doubt: it is unlikely that during the days of the August crisis V. A. Kryuchkov was personally involved

the case of a little-known lieutenant colonel from the personnel reserve. Besides,

08/21/1991 V. A. Kryuchkov flew to Foros to see the president M. S. Gorbachev,

and upon his return the same day he was arrested by the Russian authorities. In June

1999, FSB Director V.V. Putin personally came to V.A. Kryuchkov to

Valentin Varennikov, Valentin Pavlov, Gennady Yanaev

Kryuchkov. KGB on the eve of the putsch

G.I. Yanaev. Why didn't the State Emergency Committee win?

(From the book by G.I. Yanaev “GKChP against Gorbachev. The last battle for the USSR”)

"Operation State Emergency Committee"

Why did we create the State Emergency Committee? The answer is obvious to everyone who has tried and is trying to conscientiously understand what happened in the USSR in the last years of its existence. We saw: the Soviet Union is falling apart and dying.

Soviet law enforcement agencies, including, naturally, the state security service, could have prevented the death of the USSR if they had not undergone devastating deformations under Gorbachev. The KGB officers found themselves in an unusually difficult situation. On the one hand, they were influenced as best they could by the Secretary General and his associates with their supposedly democratic-liberal doctrine. On the other hand, the committee members had to at all costs prevent the development of the internal political situation in the most dangerous scenario for the state, fraught with great bloodshed. The implementation of such a scenario was quite possible not only in the “hot” republics of the USSR, but also in the Russian Federation.

The last real chairman of the State Security Committee V.A. Kryuchkov, who lost his post for his active participation in the State Emergency Committee, no matter what his enemies said about Vladimir Alexandrovich, was a deeply decent person. Even his joint work in Budapest with Yu.V. “didn’t spoil him.” Andropov, whom we consider the first and main initiator, the true ideologist of the “liberal” perestroika in the USSR.

Here, it would probably not hurt to try to characterize in some more detail the personality of the security officer who became the head of the CPSU and the Soviet Union after the death of Brezhnev. But such an attempt is unlikely to be crowned with much success. Andropov left behind a fair number of mysteries related to his activities, as well as plans and intentions. Yuri Vladimirovich apparently took the clues with him to the grave.

Why on earth did he favor Gorbachev in the late 1970s, securing a seat for his protégé on the Central Committee? How did this relate to the ideological guidelines and strategic goals of Andropov himself? How was it possible to combine a potential political reformer and a tough conservative who fought against any liberal democratic trends, including musical ones (rock and roll, for example)?

Or maybe Andropov did not plan any political reforms at all, intending to limit himself to purely economic ones? The fact of the matter is that, apparently, even those close to him were not aware of the true aspirations of this man. In any case, Vladimir Kryuchkov, as far as I know, had very vague ideas about this. Or he considered it his duty to keep “exclusive information” about his old acquaintance secret...

Be that as it may, Bakatin, who replaced Kryuchkov, served as KGB chairman for only about two months. But during this period, he managed to launch so many CIA “consultants” into this “holy of holies” that for some time they resolved issues in our state directly related to its security. Now this is perceived as an unfunny joke, but this actually happened.

During V. Bakatin’s short tenure as Minister of Internal Affairs, the internal affairs bodies turned from an instrument for maintaining order into an armed base for separatism, armed nationalist formations, and an actual merger with organized crime. It was Bakatin in 1989–1990. concluded, on behalf of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs, agreements with the union republics on the transfer of all functions and forces to them, leaving training, international relations, coordination and lawmaking, and representation in the union authorities to the Center. All personnel and material and technical base - everything went to the republics, territories and regions. Under these agreements, the ministry in Moscow turned into a helpless “discussion club”...

The best personnel from the KGB, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the army were expelled, patriots lost their positions and titles. Timelessness has come, or rather, the time of the Grachevs, Murashevs, Erins, Stepankovs. The Yeltsin government generously paid them for the collapse of the Soviet Union...

Former US CIA director Robert Gates, having flown to Moscow as a winner, proudly strolled along Red Square, broadcast: “We understand that the Soviet Union cannot be conquered either by economic pressure, or by the arms race, or even less by force. It can only be destroyed by an explosion from the inside”...

It is hardly worth recalling what unfriendly propaganda attacks the USSR law enforcement system was subjected to in the last years of its existence. In the memory of many fellow citizens, the memories of this have probably not yet been erased.

As for the topic of “well-wishing consultants” sent from the “Washington regional committee”, after the collapse of the USSR it received its natural and indicative development. Already in the first months of 1992, so-called “advisers” from abroad. It was they who substantively advised the Gaidars, Chubais and other advocates of “shock therapy”, loans-for-shares auctions, vouchers, etc. And for their consultations they received such fees as they never dreamed of in their homeland. From what treasury were these rewards paid? Certainly not American. And to be even more precise, from the money that the Yeltsin government borrowed from Western funds, placing additional burdens of foreign debt on the shoulders of Russian taxpayers.

Thus, our fellow citizens were not only repeatedly robbed through “liberal reforms,” but also forced to pay extra for them out of their own pockets.

Let's return to the events of 1991. The extremely alarming and at the same time confusing situation in the country confronted me, as vice president, with a very difficult ideological and moral choice. On the one hand, I understood that changes in the state were necessary, on the other hand, it was obvious that Gorbachev was leading “in the wrong direction.” After all, his first slogan is “Give acceleration!” assumed the rapid development of science and technology, industry and agriculture, education and the social sphere. Who among us could resist this! But what did all this lead to? To nothing. Or rather, no good.

No matter how sickening and ashamed it is to admit it, I was the last member of the Politburo and the Security Council of the USSR to sincerely believe that the president of an immense power simply by definition cannot be an empty, insignificant person, that sooner or later he will use the power given to him for good countries. These illusions were so strong that at Politburo meetings, while openly declaring the flawed nature of the “state course,” I nevertheless tried to defend the Secretary General from harsh attacks from his political opponents.

Moreover, initially the “GKChP operation” was planned by its initiators (primarily V.A. Kryuchkov and O.S. Shenin) in April 1991, when Gorbachev was on a visit to Japan. But I managed to dissuade them from radical actions, which then seemed unjustified and too adventurous. At that time, I still had a glimmer of hope that the president was not a “completely lost man”, that he could still somehow be brought to his senses... Do I need to explain what the degree of my disappointment was after everything that happened in 1991?

While already in “Matrosskaya Tishina”, I read Gorbachev’s “fundamental” book with the characteristic title “Perestroika and new political thinking for our country and the whole world.” And I found so many logical inconsistencies, demagogic “liberties” and nonsense in this “work” that I could not overcome the desire to decorate the margins of this book with all sorts of abusive epithets and comments. Particularly irritating were the unprecedentedly false Gorbachev maxims, such as the following:

“We measure all our successes and mistakes by socialist standards. Those who hope that we will turn away from the socialist path will face deep disappointment... Everything that strengthens socialism - we will listen to all of this, we will take all of this into account. And we will fight against tendencies alien to socialism, but, I repeat, within the framework of the democratic process... We do not want to weaken the role of the center, otherwise we will lose the advantages of a planned economy... At the same time, we were guided by Lenin’s demands for the unity of legality throughout the country, the need to not allow even a shadow of deviation from our laws."

Is there anything worth commenting on here? I don't think so. Well, perhaps it’s worth mentioning in passing the amazing confessions of the last Soviet Secretary General, made after August 1991. It turns out that “at heart” this “fighter against tendencies alien to socialism” was never, in his own words, a communist, but was the most convinced social democrat. It must be understood that he also sought to build a social democratic society in the country. Well, such as in Sweden or Finland, for example. Or, at worst, as in his beloved united Germany, where he once received the title of “best German.”

Vladimir Alexandrovich Kryuchkov(February 29, 1924, Volgograd - November 23, 2007, Moscow) - Soviet statesman, chairman of the KGB of the USSR in 1988-1991.

Army General (01/27/1988). Member of the CPSU(b) since 1944, member of the Central Committee (elected 1986, 1990), member of the Politburo of the Central Committee (09/20/1989 - 07/13/1990).

A member of the State Emergency Committee of the USSR - a member of a criminal group that committed a coup.

Vladimir Alexandrovich Kryuchkov

Predecessor: Viktor Mikhailovich Chebrikov

Successor: Leonid Vladimirovich Shebarshin (acting) Vadim Viktorovich Bakatin

Member of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee 09/20/1989 - 07/13/1990 Party: All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) since 1944 Education: VYUZI (1949), VDSh (1954)

Buried: Troekurovskoye Cemetery

Father: Kryuchkov Alexander Efimovich (1889-1951)

Mother: Kryuchkova Maria Fedorovna (1896-1987)

Spouse: Kryuchkova Ekaterina Petrovna

Military service Affiliation:

KGB USSR Rank:

Awards:

In 1941-1942 he worked at artillery plant No. 221 in Stalingrad as a marker, and in 1942-1943 he was a marker at artillery plant No. 92 in Gorky. Since 1943 - at Komsomol work.

In 1943-1944, he was a Komsomol organizer of the Komsomol Central Committee in the Special Construction and Installation Unit 25 of the USSR Ministry of Construction in Stalingrad.

In 1944-1945, first secretary of the Komsomol district committee of the Barrikadny district (Stalingrad).

In 1945-1946 he studied full-time at the Saratov Law Institute, then transferred to the All-Union Correspondence Law Institute. In 1946 he became the second secretary of the Stalingrad city committee of the Komsomol.

In 1946-1947, people's investigator of the prosecutor's office of the Traktorozavodsky district of Stalingrad.

In 1947-1950 he was a prosecutor in the investigative department of the Stalingrad prosecutor's office. In 1949 he graduated from the All-Union Correspondence Law Institute with a degree in law.

In 1950-1951, prosecutor of the Kirov district of Stalingrad. In 1951, he was sent on assignment to study at the Higher School of Art.

He graduated from the Higher Diplomatic School of the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he studied in 1951-1954, then was assigned to the IV European Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In 1955-1959, third secretary of the USSR Embassy in the Hungarian People's Republic. Participated in the suppression of the Hungarian uprising of 1956. At this time, Yuri Andropov was the USSR Ambassador to Hungary. From that time on, Vladimir Kryuchkov became Andropov’s ward and his further career was closely connected.

In 1959-1963 he was a referent in the Hungarian and Romanian sector of the CPSU Central Committee Department for Relations with Communist and Workers' Parties of Socialist Countries. In 1963-1965 - head of the sector of the Department of the CPSU Central Committee.

In 1965-1967, assistant secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Yu. V. Andropov.

In 1967-1971, head of the KGB Secretariat.

Since 1971, first deputy, in 1974-1988, head of the First Main Directorate of the KGB of the USSR (foreign intelligence).

In 1978-1988, Deputy Chairman of the KGB of the USSR.

During the war in Afghanistan, he participated in organizing the entry of Soviet troops into Afghanistan, the formation of the KGB representative office in Kabul, and in preparing the assault on Amin’s palace by the KGB special forces “Grom” and “Zenith”.

In 1988 he became chairman of the KGB of the USSR. Since September 20, 1989, member of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee, since March 1990, member of the Presidential Council of the USSR, since March 1991, member of the Security Council of the USSR.

On Kryuchkov’s initiative, the Law “On State Security Bodies in the USSR” was adopted in May 1991. In June 1991, at a session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, he joined the demand of Prime Minister Valentin Pavlov to grant the Cabinet of Ministers of the USSR emergency powers.

Member State Emergency Committee of the USSR. From August 5 to 17, 1991, he organized meetings and conferences of future members of the Emergency Committee with the aim of organizing a political coup in the USSR. On the night of August 18 to 19, 1991, he signed a document on the removal of Mikhail Gorbachev from power and the introduction of a state of emergency in the country.

In connection with the events of August 1991, he was arrested on August 22, 1991 under the article “treason” and spent 17 months in the Matrosskaya Tishina prison, in December 1992 he was released on his own recognizance, and was amnestied by the State Duma of the Russian Federation in 1994. Kryuchkov's lawyers in the State Emergency Committee case are Yuri Ivanov and Yuri Pilipenko.

On July 3, 1992, Kryuchkov made an appeal to President B.N. Yeltsin, in which, in particular, he accused Boris Yeltsin of shifting the blame for the collapse of the USSR onto members of the Emergency Committee.

He was the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Region JSC, part of the Sistema financial corporation, and was an adviser to the Director of the FSB of the Russian Federation V.V. Putin.

He was a member of the organizing committee of the Movement in Support of the Army.

Wife Ekaterina Petrovna, two sons, grandchildren. He spoke German and Hungarian.

He died on November 23, 2007 in Moscow at the age of 84 after a serious long-term illness. He was buried in Moscow at the Troekurovsky cemetery.

The life path of Army General V. Kryuchkov is an example of selfless service to his Fatherland and people. He always enjoyed well-deserved authority and deep respect not only as a professional of the highest class, but also as a person distinguished by his goodwill, warmth and attentive attitude towards others.

From a message from the Central Operations Center of the FSB of Russia

In recent years he has been working on memoirs, writing the books “Personal Affair” (1996); “On the Edge of the Abyss” (2003); “Personality and Power” (2004); “Without a Statute of Limitations” (2006).

• Major General (05/17/1968)
• Lieutenant General (12/17/1973)
• Colonel General (12/16/1982)
• Army General (01/27/1988)

**************************

Vladimir Aleksandrovich Kryuchkov is a Soviet officer and politician, former chairman of the KGB of the USSR (1988-1991), one of the main figures in the attempted coup, the so-called “August Putsch” of 1991.

Vladimir Kryuchkov was born in 1924 in Tsaritsyn (now Volgograd). From 1941 to 1944 he worked at the 221 artillery plant in Stalingrad. Since 1944, Vladimir Kryuchkov began working as a Komsomol activist. In 1944-1945 he was the first secretary of the Republic of Komsomol of the Barrikadny District (Volgograd). In 1945 - 1946, Vladimir Kryuchkov studied at the Saratov Law Institute. In 1946 he was appointed second secretary of the Stalingrad city committee of the Komsomol, a member of the CPSU since 1944.

He worked as an investigator of the prosecutor's office in the Traktorozavodsky district of Volgograd (1946-1947). In 1947-1950, he was a prosecutor of the investigative department of the Volgograd prosecutor's office. In 1950-1951, the prosecutor of the Kirov district of Volgograd

In 1949, Vladimir Kryuchkov graduated in absentia from the All-Union Correspondence Law Institute as a lawyer, and in 1954 from the Higher Diplomatic School of the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs. From 1954 to 1959 he was in diplomatic work at the USSR Foreign Ministry Embassy in Hungary. From 1955 to 1959, he held the position of third secretary of the USSR Embassy in the Hungarian People's Republic. In 1954, Vladimir Kryuchkov graduated from the KGB Higher School and was appointed third secretary in the European Department. In Hungary, his boss was Yuri Andropov. Vladimir Kryuchkov took part in the events in Hungary. In 1965-1967 he was assistant secretary of the CPSU Central Committee. Vladimir Kryuchkov began working in the security system in 1967. In 1978, he was appointed deputy chairman of the KGB. Personal number E-104577. In 1978-1988 he was the head of foreign intelligence.

In this position he proved himself to be a good organizer. Under his leadership, foreign intelligence became comprehensive, but the high rate of personnel growth led to a decrease in the requirements of the accepted rank and file, which in most cases was recruited from the party line.

Under the leadership of Vladimir Kryuchkov, Soviet intelligence achieved a number of huge successes, among which the most significant in 1985 was the recruitment of high-ranking CIA officer Ames Aldrich. He was responsible for countering Soviet intelligence operations. With his help, the KGB had the most important CIA documents and exposed many of its employees recruited by American intelligence. Ames was only accidentally discovered in 1994.

During the war in Afghanistan, he participates in the preparation of the KGB special forces "Grom" and "Zenith" for the assault on Amin's palace and later negotiates the creation of a KGB representative office in Afghanistan. Vladimir Kryuchkov was the head of the KGB from 1988 to August 1991, and a member of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee from 1989 to 1990.

August putsch - 1991.

Vladimir Kryuchkov, a member of the State Committee for the State of Emergency, carried out an unsuccessful putsch on August 19-21, 1991. From August 5 to August 17, meetings of committee members were held. On the night of August 17 to August 18, members of the State Emergency Committee signed a document about the illness of Mikhail Gorbachev and the introduction of a state of emergency in the country. From August 17 to 19, the KGB special forces and foreign intelligence task force (training regiment of department "C") were in combat readiness. On August 20, the Alpha special forces were supposed to attack the White House. However, the coup failed and this did not happen.

“Conclusion based on the investigation of the role and participation of USSR KGB officials in the events of August 19-21, 1991” ... in December 1990, Chairman of the USSR KGB V.A. instructed the former deputy head of the PGU KGB of the USSR V.I. Zhizhin. and assistant to the former first deputy chairman of the KGB of the USSR V.F. Grushko. - Egorov A.G. to carry out the study of possible initial measures to stabilize the situation in the country in the event of a state of emergency. From the end of 1990 to the beginning of August 1991, Kryuchkov V.A. together with other future members of the State Emergency Committee, they took possible political and other measures to introduce a state of emergency in the USSR by constitutional means. Having not received the support of the President of the USSR and the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, from the beginning of August 1991 they began to implement specific measures to prepare for the introduction of a state of emergency by illegal means.

Members of the State Emergency Committee justified their participation in the putsch as an attempt to resist the collapse of the USSR. In this regard, along with other participants, Vladimir Kryuchkov was removed from office and brought to trial. He was arrested and sent to Matrosskaya Tishina prison. In 1994, the State Duma of Russia granted amnesty to Vladimir Kryuchkov.

After the failed coup in 1991 under Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin, Kryuchkov remained isolated from public life. Under his successor, Vladimir Putin, he again became involved in public events.

In an open letter published by the Zavtra newspaper, Nikolai Kryuchkov called on the hitherto warring factions of the Federal Security Service (FSB), led by Nikolai Patrushev, and the drug control service, led by Viktor Cherkesov, to reconcile, because this could lead to the collapse of Russia. “Otherwise - and you can trust our experience! - Big problems will arise, which should not be allowed,” Kryuchkov warned in his letter.

Vladimir Kryuchkov was an avid theatergoer and speed reader. He possesses a personal file with more than 300,000 clippings containing quotes from books, articles and news reports that he enjoyed during his life.

"The archive, which I began to maintain in 1967, i.e., from the moment I joined the KGB, is a card index specially developed by me with approximately 150 items on domestic and international problems by country and region. I continue to add to it today short, concise information from the media, reflecting the changes taking place daily in the world... And since all this is in the system, thanks to such a card index, the movement of political, economic, military and other forces is immediately visible, so to speak... just like You can immediately see the movement of funds in the balance sheet: what comes from where, where it goes and why it goes there!

I needed such an archive to feel like a fish in water in the ocean of world problems. You can’t do without such an archive if you want your intelligence activities to be worth something and not be romantic chatter.”

Vladimir Kryuchkov was awarded the Order of Lenin, two Orders of the Red Banner, the Order of the October Revolution, the Red Banner of Labor and many other Soviet and foreign awards.

Vladimir Kryuchkov was a member of the organizing committee of the Movement in Support of the Army. According to the newspaper Argumenty i Fakty, Kryuchkov was in close cooperation with government agencies. He spoke German and Hungarian. The author of five books, in recent years he has written memoirs.

Sergey MASLOV. THE LAST OF THE KGB

(interview with Vladimir KRYUCHKOV). Tribune, Moscow, December 16, 2005

Vladimir Alexandrovich, at one time Vladimir Putin went with you on reconnaissance missions. Tell me, today would you be ready to go “on reconnaissance” with him?

We worked in the same organization, but at different levels. I am among the heads of intelligence, he is abroad as an operative. In Dresden. I remember during one of the trips I had a meeting with the personnel. I saw Putin there. But this was only a visual acquaintance. I recognized Vladimir Putin as Vladimir Putin in 1991, when the former mayor of the city on the Neva, Anatoly Sobchak, called me and asked me to release Putin from our work to “civilian life.” Sobchak wanted to take Putin to his place. I remember how this departure happened. As usual in such situations, I made inquiries, but we had no personal contact. I met Putin after he became head of the FSB. He invited me on my birthday. He gave me a welcome address and a bouquet of flowers. Our next meeting took place when he was already president. I'll tell you that I asked around comrades who knew him directly from his service. Not a single critical review, and everyone noted its reliability.

Of course, he even outwardly differed favorably from his predecessor, who was characterized by unpredictability of character and lack of culture. And then suddenly - and this was already a lot, for example, after Yeltsin’s drunken escapades with a conductor’s baton in Berlin - a normal person is at the head of the state.

Putin received a very difficult legacy: an explosive political situation, a catastrophic economic situation, a society in a state of ferment. I understand that fixing everything will not be easy. It's just easy to destroy. The country was thrown back far. There were even attempts at calculations on this score. According to them, if you destroy a country within a year, it will take five years to rebuild. And under Yeltsin we destroyed ten! I look at many things differently than Putin. I believed that reforms in our country would take place within the framework of a socialist society. By the way, I still believe that this could bring us big dividends in the future. As for market relations and political pluralism, our party followed this path back in 1990, abandoning its leading role in society. But it was necessary to act gradually. We shouldn't have rushed head over heels towards the future. The transition from one quality to another takes time. We will have to pay for what we have done for a long time.

In my book “Personality and Power” I wrote that Putin is the president of hopes. In the sense that people trusted him. Whether or not he lives up to these hopes depends mainly on him. I would like him, in the remaining two years of his presidency, to finally get out of the rut that the previous leadership of the country offered him. Just look at what is happening now and what has deep roots in the past - they are now sprouting everywhere. Take the Stabilization Fund, for example. We invest this money in the prosperity of the American economy instead of investing in our own economy, which is suffocating from lack of money. We keep money in the West, receiving a meager interest - some 1-2 percent per year. And at the same time, we take out loans at 14 percent or more per year. These are impossible things! Recently, Putin, in my opinion, has taken the path of correcting the current situation. This is noticeable even in the passing weeks of autumn and early winter. In this regard, it seems to me that it makes sense to support him. At the same time, I would still like to correct the inaccuracy made by the respected newspaper that published my interview last week: it is not true that I work at the Interregional Foundation for Presidential Programs.

How right do you think those pundits who - especially in the mid-90s - predicted that the importance of intelligence would decline in the future?

I worked in intelligence for a total of two decades. And I will tell you that intelligence is a tool that no self-respecting state in the world can do without. Well, at the same time, I do not want to offend those states that, for one reason or another, themselves seek the shoulder of another in matters of ensuring their own security.

Without intelligence, one fine morning we may find ourselves faced with a situation for which we are simply not prepared and we will not have any pre-prepared - as a last resort - recipes for resolving it in our favor. I don’t know how many generations later there will be no need for intelligence. But I think that there will be more than a dozen of these generations.

The interests of different states do not coincide or are not compatible at all. There is a difference in economic and political interests, ethnic, racial, regional problems. There are a lot of them. And you can’t solve them all at once. The answer to all questions will be given by future historical development. But I can draw one very definite conclusion now. It so happened historically that Russia can ensure its viability only by being strong. Our destiny is to be only a strong state. Without intelligence, this state will find itself in the position of a helpless blind man.

You are a supporter of recreating a multi-purpose structure like the KGB from 7-8 independent special services that arose from its ruins. Not all of their employees share your point of view. And, as far as I can understand, most of your opponents are in the ranks of foreign intelligence officers.

During the existence of the Committee, we had a centralization of forces to solve security problems both inside and outside the Soviet Union. Partition took place in 1991. The decision was purely political, dictated by the will of those who fought against Soviet power. I said then that it would cause harm. After all, people came to the leadership of the KGB with a task defined by them from above: not to create, but to destroy. Bakatin wrote this in his book: he came to the KGB to destroy it.

As a result, the Committee split into 9 organizations. Who benefited from this? It was absolutely unprofitable economically. Because instead of one person in the rank or position of a minister, 9 were required. Accordingly, the number of deputies, boards, etc. increased ninefold. Poor Russia! By the way, I am not a supporter of taking everything now and returning it overnight. For this, appropriate conditions must be created, they must be available - and in abundance! - personnel, funds, legislative framework. Caution and accuracy are required. By the way, the question of spinning off intelligence and granting it independence was raised even during the existence of the KGB. I objected. Because he understood that in this case the interaction between intelligence and counterintelligence would be disrupted. In the 80s, we exposed a lot of enemy agents - dozens of agents. They were found not only with the help of Ames. Some of the residents have worked for decades. And not because our counterintelligence was lazy - it was simply not able to stop their activities. And we reached the enemy agents thanks to those positions, that is, those sources that intelligence acquired. And this is an irresistible argument in favor of the fact that intelligence and counterintelligence cannot be separated.

Recently, something has been done in terms of unification. So the border guards joined the FSB. Some technical services became part of the Federal Security Service. This is a natural process. We'll have to see how he goes further. But personally, I believe that this issue should not be artificially sharpened now. Is it necessary to pit the special services against each other when the danger of the collapse of Russia is greater than ever? Imagine that the collapse will follow along national-ethnic lines and certain states will appear in the very heart of our country - what will remain of Russia?

I told some of my interlocutors that I was not really inclined to live in the Moscow appanage principality. To which I received something rather malicious in response: do people in Liechtenstein live badly?

They simply won’t let us live like in Liechtenstein. Imagine that, say, a couple dozen of them will appear on our territory. The Liechtensteins will be there, but we won’t be. We will be torn apart, trampled, and then completely renamed. Almost every state along the perimeter of the Russian borders has one or another claim to our country. Some sound frank and somewhat intrusive, while others prefer not to talk about others for the time being. Finland is not raising the territorial issue now, but we nevertheless know what views it has for Karelia. In Poland, from time to time, publications appear indicating that some Russian territories are supposedly originally Polish. There is nothing to say about Estonia’s desire to stake its claim to this or that piece of Russian land. Someone is making financial claims, groundless demands for some kind of compensation. But you never know among our neighbors who are eager to make money at our expense. If Russia falls apart, you will see a lot of problems that will immediately emerge when the situation matures.

Financially, it was always difficult for Soviet intelligence to compete with the CIA. But we had an idea. She brought “initiatives” into the ranks of your agents, who did not even need to be recruited - you just had to make sure that this was not a “set-up”. What's left now? Bribery or blackmail of some homosexuals or, God forbid, pedophiles? With their help, accomplish the noble cause of protecting the interests of the Motherland? What do you think about it?

Agents worked for us both on a material basis and on an ideological basis. I won’t tell you the exact proportions now, but approximately half and half. Moreover, the most valuable acquisitions were those people who were truly driven by the idea. We especially valued them. These people, as a rule, were not very rich, but they never allowed themselves to take any money from us when we tried to somehow help them financially. And there were those who worked for money. But what strange metamorphoses happened to them. After a couple of years of working for Soviet intelligence, some of them suddenly refused to pay for their services. They also became, so to speak, ideological. Because we treated the agents with special attention, we took them into account, they began to understand that we see them not just as agents, but as assistants, friends - our people, in a word.

Now, of course, the situation is different. We have taken a path that some people in the West do not accept. Naturally, their attitude towards us changed, and it became much more difficult for our intelligence officers. But at the same time, there is still sympathy for Russia. We did not support American aggression in Iraq. We did not support the war against Yugoslavia, although we could do little to support that country. We do not support the aggressive aspirations of the United States towards Syria and Iran. It seems to me that if in our politics we again bring to the forefront the struggle for peace, justice, for fair economic relations, then we will again gain the support of those forces that sympathized with us before.

You talk about exploration as a profitable business, that a ruble invested in exploration pays off many times over. But at one time, the most competent people said the same thing about the space industry. The end result is that today our cosmonautics are on a starvation diet. On the other hand, our former intelligence officers in their memoirs (Maksimov. “Operation “Tournament”) note with bitterness that the most valuable foreign scientific and technical secrets they obtained with great difficulty remained useless to anyone.

And I am ready to confirm my statement about the highest degree of profitability of exploration. First of all, scientific and technical intelligence. Everything is elementary. We don’t buy some very valuable new technologies, samples, etc. But, nevertheless, we get them. Of course, this is also worth something. But the costs in this case are not comparable with real prices. Our intelligence officers are obtaining things that are worth not even millions, but billions. And some things simply have no price. A classic example is the theft of atomic secrets from Americans. I think that Stalin, no matter how hard he tried, would not have been able to find money for the independent development and production of atomic weapons by the Soviet Union. What would happen to us if the Americans turned out to be its sole owners? I guess there's no need to explain.

That's why I say: exploration is a profitable business. But there is a very serious problem here. The information obtained by scientific and technical intelligence still needs to be implemented. That is, in essence, to legalize, to block the possibility of accusing us of theft, plagiarism, etc. In Soviet times, a special organization under the Council of Ministers worked on the problems of implementing information. There was a whole system that made it possible to use the fruits of the scouts’ labor as profitably and safely as possible.

In recent years, scientific and technological revolution has become one of the most important areas of intelligence activity. By the way, not only here, but also among the Americans. They also stole secrets from us very well. For example, there was Tolkachev, an American intelligence agent. He handed over to the Americans the technical documentation of our system for identifying air targets on the “friend or foe” principle. What colossal damage was caused to the country's defense capability! After all, we had to change, install, and debug this system again across the entire Armed Forces. We can, of course, try to invent everything ourselves. But won't it cost us a lot? The world is interdependent. And at the same time run into scientific omnivorousness... For example, Japan has something that America does not have. And America has something that Japan doesn’t have. They also steal from each other.

You were the first, as far as I understand, to introduce the general Soviet public to the problem of “agents of influence.” But not everyone believes in this problem. Including because there is no obvious fight against such agents. Is it possible, in your opinion, to fight them at all - so that it does not look like a “witch hunt”? By the way, you never directly accused anyone...

Right. But it always became clear to everyone who we were talking about. Direct accusations should not have come from the mouth of the KGB chairman. I'm not a judge. But, nevertheless, there were no mistakes here.

I think that actions and statements of individuals that run counter to our national interests and benefit exclusively another state must be correctly assessed by those in power. People are very easily identified by their deeds; their position in one form or another can be seen in the media.

Take Kozyrev. In 1991, he stated with a feeling of regret that, having ended the Moscow totalitarian regime, we did not end the totalitarian regime in Kabul. It was a monstrous statement. It made it clear to everyone that Moscow could sacrifice Najibula. And so it happened. He was brutally killed. And we have lost a sincere friend. Kozyrev consistently took a pro-American position. And now he lives quietly in America.

Once in one of your interviews you touched upon Academician Arbatov...

I remember. Arbatov worked under different leaders of the country. They were pleased with him and treated him with respect. But after a series of his speeches, I realized that this is not the person who can benefit our state, who strengthens our relations with America not on a parity basis, as they say, but by surrendering our positions. By the way, he actively opposed our army.

Which, by the way, he spoke about in detail in his book “Man of the System”...

And the military couldn’t stand him. Now he can triumph: we have become a country with a weak army, and NATO has moved close to our borders. This, as you understand, did not strengthen our positions. Fortunately, our leadership is trying to somehow improve the situation. But these are still the first steps. I understand Minister Ivanov, who expresses his joy over the acquisition of 31 modern tanks for our army. But this is a battalion. What can he do?

Did Soviet intelligence in the 80s predict the surge in terrorism that is sweeping the world today?

Predicted. In 1987, I spoke at a meeting at the Foreign Ministry. He said that terrorism is a problem that we must under no circumstances neglect. Even then he spoke about the emergence of some groups affiliated with the terrorist movement that could resort to the use of nuclear weapons. Because the time has come when the creation of such weapons - albeit in the form of a so-called "dirty" bomb, - from a technical point of view, does not represent an impossible task for terrorists. Whatever the bomb is, they will be able to blackmail entire states and even regions with it. Then some meeting participants reacted to my speech skeptical. But the leadership of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, nevertheless, considered that my statement deserved attention.

For a long time, terrorism did not directly affect us. And this is natural. We did not seek to gain positions to the detriment of those states from which the terrorists came. But then, after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the escalation of internal conflicts, the situation began to change. The most illustrative example is Chechnya. This is not purely an internal conflict. Chechen terrorism has international roots. Al-Qaeda is not going against us yet. But it’s already helping. I think we must pursue a very careful, flexible policy so as not to invite fire on ourselves. For what?

You can approach terrorists in different ways. One of them is operational, which will allow us to receive reliable information about their intentions. To avoid an open clash with international terrorism, there is another way - political. We must do everything to weaken the basis on which the aggressive attitude of terrorists towards our country is based. The fact that we avoided any kind of participation in the American adventure in Iraq allows us to hope that we have taken a very advantageous position for us. Don’t be like the Americans, who act hastily, without calculating the situation many years in advance.

You have repeatedly debunked as myths all sorts of gossip in the media about the existence of the “party’s gold” and its disappearance. But there is no smoke without fire?

You know, it happens. I don't understand Gorbachev's position. Well, isn't he ashamed! He, too, should have said that there was no “party gold.” This is all a myth, a real myth. When the KGB and the Central Committee of the party were liquidated, documents were discovered from which it follows that we transferred 200 million dollars to the fraternal parties over the course of 10 years - for the maintenance of the apparatus, salaries, rest, treatment. Previously, such things were a sealed secret, but now the documents have been published. And the fuss began. Who benefited from it? From publications I know that the new government allocated huge sums - according to some sources, about 220 million dollars - to find... 200 million. The allocated money was spent, but the “party gold” was not found. But he wasn’t there.

The United States, by the way, did not support this entire noisy campaign. Because it was not profitable for them. Because they themselves spend billions to support the parties and movements they need in different countries. The Americans simply did not want to attract unnecessary attention to themselves. I would really like the testimony that I voluntarily gave in prison to be published. But they must be somewhere. I wrote almost 30 pages by hand then.

Gorbachev knows that there was no “party gold”. I think: well, tell me about it. No, he is silent.

Vladimir Aleksandrovich, what do you consider your greatest success during your time leading foreign intelligence?

When Andropov was chairman of the KGB, we managed to strengthen intelligence both organizationally and personnel-wise, and strengthen its position abroad. The role of intelligence in exposing enemy agents in our country is enormous. After all, during the 80s we managed to uncover as many agents in our country as were not uncovered during all the years of Soviet power. I consider this a very great success. We neutralized enemy agents in the military-industrial complex, in the Ministry of Defense, and in a number of other organizations. And in the KGB, including in intelligence. I think the time will soon come when wide publicity regarding all this can be ensured.

On the evening of November 23, 2007, ex-chairman of the USSR KGB Vladimir Kryuchkov died at the age of 84. For a long time the head of Soviet foreign intelligence (the First Main Directorate of the KGB), he remained in memory as in fact the last head of the KGB (his successors - Leonid Shebarshin and Vadim Bakatin - occupied only a nominal post at the head of the dismantled organization) and one of the leaders of the State Emergency Committee.

The future head of the most powerful of the Soviet intelligence services was born on February 29, 1924 in Tsaritsyn (Volgograd). Kryuchkov did not take part in the Great Patriotic War, working at artillery factories No. 221 in Stalingrad, and then No. 92 in Gorky. At the end of the war, he began his political career, becoming the first secretary of the Komsomol district committee.

After the war, Vladimir Kryuchkov received a higher legal education. In 1949, he graduated from the All-Union Correspondence Law Institute (now the Moscow City Law Academy). Then he went to work in law enforcement agencies - in 1946-51 he successively held the positions of investigator, prosecutor of the investigative department and, finally, district prosecutor in Stalingrad.

Soon he moved to the state security system. Vladimir Kryuchkov received his second higher education at the Higher Diplomatic School of the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which he graduated in 1954. Since 1954 he was on diplomatic work. The first significant event in his intelligence career was the 1956 unrest in Hungary, where Kryuchkov worked together with the future KGB chairman Yuri Andropov, then the USSR Ambassador to the Hungarian People's Republic.

Since 1959, Kryuchkov, following his boss, switched to party work, successively holding the positions of assistant, sector head and assistant secretary of the CPSU Central Committee. In 1967, he returned to the KGB system, becoming an assistant to Andropov, who took the position of chairman of the committee, which then still bore the modest prefix “... under the Council of Ministers of the USSR.”

In 1971, Vladmir Kryuchkov became deputy head of the First Main Directorate of the KGB, or, as it was called, PGU. This department was in charge of all foreign intelligence of the USSR, with the exception of specific military issues, which were under the jurisdiction of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff (GRU).

In 1978, Kryuchkov received the post of head of foreign intelligence and Andropov's deputy. The KGB then lost the prefix “...under the Council of Ministers”, becoming an independent agency, controlled only by the Central Committee of the CPSU.

As head of Soviet foreign intelligence, Kryuchkov took an active part in the foreign policy activities of the USSR. Thus, he was directly involved in organizing the entry of Soviet troops into Afghanistan, the formation of the KGB representative office in Kabul, and in preparing the storming of Amin’s palace by the KGB special forces “Grom” and “Zenith”. Directly on the spot, the operation was led by Major General Yuri Drozdov, head of Directorate S, head of the “illegal wing” of Soviet foreign intelligence.

Under Kryuchkov's leadership, Soviet intelligence achieved a number of outstanding successes. Among them is the 1985 recruitment of Aldrich Ames, a high-ranking CIA officer responsible for countering Soviet intelligence operations.

...in December 1990, Chairman of the KGB of the USSR V.A. Kryuchkov. instructed the former deputy head of the PGU KGB of the USSR V.I. Zhizhin. and assistant to the former first deputy chairman of the KGB of the USSR V.F. Grushko. - Egorov A.G. to carry out the study of possible initial measures to stabilize the situation in the country in the event of a state of emergency. From the end of 1990 to the beginning of August 1991, Kryuchkov V.A. together with other future members of the State Emergency Committee, they took possible political and other measures to introduce a state of emergency in the USSR by constitutional means. Having not received the support of the President of the USSR and the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, from the beginning of August 1991 they began to implement specific measures to prepare for the introduction of a state of emergency by illegal means.

With the help of Ames, the KGB gained access to many of the most important CIA documents and managed to expose a number of its employees recruited by American intelligence. Ames was discovered only in 1994 and, according to the Americans themselves, managed to inflict enormous damage on the CIA.

In 1988, Vladimir Kryuchkov became chairman of the KGB. During this period, the processes that subsequently led to the collapse of the USSR were already in full swing - unrest on ethnic grounds broke out on the outskirts, the country's economy was increasingly in a fever, and at the top they were thinking about ways to reform the Soviet political system. The reform, for a number of reasons, turned into a collapse. By the beginning of the 90s, the impending catastrophe was obvious to the KGB chairman, and in these conditions, Army General Kryuchkov decided to try to preserve the USSR by introducing a state of emergency in the country.

The coup attempt, now known as the August Putsch, was unsuccessful. The indecisiveness of the actions of the putschists, combined with the defection of a number of key commanders to Boris Yeltsin’s side (Konstantin Kobets, Alexander Lebed and others), led to the failure of the plans of the Emergency Committee.

After the failure of the coup, Vladimir Kryuchkov was arrested and put on trial on charges of treason (Article 64 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR). In 1994, the former chairman of the KGB of the USSR was granted amnesty.

In retirement, Army General Kryuchkov took up literary activity, writing and publishing the books “A Personal File. Three Days and the Whole Life,” “On the Edge of the Abyss,” “Personality and Power,” and “Without a Statute of Limitations.” These books became the memoirs of the former KGB chairman.

Evaluation of the activities of Soviet and Russian state security forces and their leaders in our country, and beyond its borders, too often depends on the personal emotions of the assessor. The real and mythical capabilities of the KGB, its active intervention in various political processes in the USSR and abroad led to the fact that there are almost no people left who are indifferent to the “Kontora”. On the other hand, it would be incorrect to avoid evaluation by acting according to the principle “de mortius aut bene aut nihil.” Vladimir Aleksandrovich Kryuchkov is too large a figure in Russian history for an obituary about him to be reduced to simply listing the basic facts of his biography. Under these conditions, one can cite the opinion of people who personally knew Kryuchkov. For example, the words of Army General Philip Bobkov, who held the position of head of the fifth directorate of the KGB of the USSR (fighting dissidents) during Soviet times, were quoted by the Kommersant newspaper: “Vladimir Alexandrovich has always been a very integral person, a sincere and consistent communist. I communicated with him until the very last his days and I can testify: he remained true to his convictions to the end."

Assessing the activities of Vladimir Kryuchkov as chairman of the State Security Committee of the USSR, it will be enough to say the following: the leadership of the organization designed to protect the country from political disasters and ensure its peaceful existence turned out to be obviously not up to the task.