Pavel Fitin short biography. Pages of history: Pavel Fitin - the legendary "Alex" - the head of the foreign intelligence of the USSR (10 photos)

E X L I B R I S "MI"

FITIN: CHIEF OF INTELLIGENCE

A.Yu.Bondarenko

Chapter I. "Execution" position.

The most important event that took place in the USSR on May 13, 1939, was not reflected in the pages of Soviet (and even more so - foreign) newspapers. Although in those days, starting from May 12, one mournful topic generally dominated in our press: on the eleventh, as it was written, “during the line of duty as a result of an air crash” - a night flight “blindly” was practiced - wonderful pilots, Heroes of the Soviet Union Anatoly Serov and Polina Osipenko, died, and in all newspapers, from issue to issue, several lines surrounded by a mourning frame were filled with condolences ovations and memories...

But what did the newspapers of May 14, 1939, write about the events of the previous day? In principle, they all wrote the same thing about international and major intra-union events, there was no “exclusive” information. Therefore, let's take the newspaper Pravda, the organ of the Central and Moscow Committees of the CPSU (b), which was then officially considered the "leading daily newspaper of the Bolshevik Party." Its 1st and 2nd strips came out under the “cap”: “Today Moscow buries valiant pilots ...”, the 3rd strip was, as they say, “target”: “ Novosibirsk region in the Third Stalin Five-Year Plan, and the last three pages of the newspaper were devoted to the events of party, intra-union and international life.

At first glance, nothing particularly remarkable happened in our country and in the world on the thirteenth. On the 4th and 5th pages of Pravda, in particular, there is a report from the frontier outpost on the southeastern border and information about the preparation for the release of cadets of the Leningrad Naval Engineering School. Dzerzhinsky - the texts are written according to the principle “we are peaceful people, but our armored train is on the siding”, that is, combat training is going well everywhere. Noteworthy is a letter from I. Zolotarev from the city of Tuapse “Why was I expelled from the party?” - a bitter story about how, in the recent 1937 year, a communist was expelled from the CPSU (b) "for his connection with the enemies of the people and as the son of a kulak." In the editorial commentary accompanying this letter, Pravda correspondent V. Klimov proves that Comrade Zolotarev was maliciously slandered ...

On the 6th, “international” page, the events are already fighting, but they still do not concern our country in any way. Here, on May 13, a TASS correspondent reports from Warsaw: “The Danzig Senate forbade Polish organizations in Danzig to celebrate the anniversary of the death of Marshal Pilsudski (May 12). The Danzig authorities informed the Polish commissar that they did not take responsibility for the safety of the Poles if they organized any meetings on the occasion of this anniversary ... Polish newspapers report on the ongoing anti-Polish terror in Danzig. On May 11, the Nazis sacked a Polish bookstore and smashed windows in other Polish stores. Yesterday all Polish newspapers in Danzig were confiscated...”. The Warsaw Tassovite is echoed by the Parisian, his information was also received from Poland: “According to the Warsaw correspondent of Le Figaro, the German fascists secretly delivered from Germany to Danzig a large number of weapons. Part of the weapons comes to Danzig from East Prussia. Over the past 10 days, about 30 thousand German attack aircraft have entered Danzig under the guise of tourists ... ".

These events can be called the prelude of the Second World War, but few people knew about it. But before the war, which will begin on September 1 with the attack of Nazi Germany on Poland, there were only three and a half months left.

Alarm messages came from Far East, where the Japanese aggressors tried to conquer northern China: “In the southeastern part of Hubei Province, in recent days, Chinese troops have made a number of attacks on enemy positions. In the battles, the Japanese lost over 1,000 people. “May 11 in the area southwest of Canton between the Japanese and Chinese air force there was an air battle. 32 Chinese aircraft and 24 Japanese took part in this battle. (I wonder how many Chinese were among those 32 pilots, or were only Soviet volunteer pilots fighting the Japanese in the air?) And another Tass message, this time from Shanghai, on May 13: “Wang Ching-wei's agents are trying to bribe Chinese newspapers. Thus, the Wenweibao newspaper reports that on May 11 one of Wang Ching-wei's agents appeared at the editorial office of this newspaper and offered it a monthly subsidy of several thousand dollars. The leaders of the newspaper strongly rejected this proposal.

In general, everything that happened to our country did not yet directly concern ... Although, on May 11 - this information has not yet reached the editorial offices of newspapers - the Japanese attacked the closest ally of the USSR, the Mongolian People's Republic. Soviet troops will soon come to the aid of their Mongolian friends, and the aggressor will suffer several crushing defeats. It was then that for the first time the military star of Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov would shine brightly ...

But it was not this regular Japanese aggression that we called at the beginning of our story the most important event of the day on May 13, 1939. The most important event took place in Moscow, where the post of head of the 5th department of the Main Directorate state security The People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs (GUGB NKVD) of the USSR was appointed Pavel Mikhailovich Fitin, who at that time was not even thirty-two years old.

Such a statement is hardly understandable to the modern reader, and even then, back in 1939, no doubt, few would have agreed with him. But in this case, the historian knows better - and we can easily prove our case.

First of all, what is the 5th department? Let us explain that until the end of September 1938 it was called the 5th department of the First Directorate of the NKVD of the USSR, before that - the 7th department of the GUGB of the NKVD of the USSR, and until July 1934 - the Foreign Department of the Main Directorate of State Security of the NKVD of the USSR. (Earlier it had several other names).

"All clear! - the enlightened reader will exclaim. - This is the legendary INO - foreign intelligence!

That's it! But why didn't this appointment make a special impression on Fitin's contemporaries (of course, we are talking about those few who knew about this)? Yes, because, if only, that no one then imagined that with his arrival to the post, the “leapfrog” of foreign intelligence chiefs would end.

After all, how was it?

On February 17, 1938, Abram Aronovich Slutsky, who had been in charge of intelligence since May 1935, died of a heart attack in his office; Sergei Mikhailovich Shpigelglas, who replaced him as acting head of the department, remained in office until June, and in November of the same 1938 he was generally arrested and shot in January 1941; Zelman Isaevich Passov managed intelligence until November 2, 1938, after which he was also removed, arrested and shot three days after Shpigelglas; intelligence for exactly a month - from November 2 to December 2 of the same terrible 1938 - was led by Pavel Anatolyevich Sudoplatov, who was soon declared an "enemy of the people" and expelled from the party ... However, he was very lucky, because on November 25, 1938, Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria came to replace Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov to lead the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the USSR and the wave of repression subsided - although, of course, "handy » Yezhov then shot a lot. Since Sudoplatov did not belong to those, he was simply removed from his post, but not repressed; instead of him, intelligence was headed by Vladimir Georgievich Dekanozov, who six months later, in May 1939, became deputy people's commissar for foreign affairs, and he was shot only at the end of 1953, in the “Beria case”, already as his “assistant”.

Such, as we said, "leapfrog" - unfortunately, in most cases "fatal" - took place at that time around the post of head of foreign intelligence of the NKVD of the USSR. In general, the position in the full sense of the word was "firing". So, it seems that hardly anyone envied the rapid career of the "boy" born in 1907, who in March 1938 came to serve in the NKVD as an army junior lieutenant in reserve (however, this title was not yet officially awarded to him), and in May 1939, with the rank of major of state security, he already took under his command one of the most important departments of the GUGB ... Moreover, hardly anyone thought that Pavel Fitin will lead intelligence not for a few months, like his predecessors, but for seven whole years - and these will be the most difficult years in the history of the Service, because they will fall during the Second World War and the Great Patriotic War. In addition, everything that was done during this most difficult period by foreign intelligence officers under the leadership of Pavel Mikhailovich cannot be overestimated, because intelligence not only made a huge contribution to achieving the Great Victory over Nazism, but also created a huge reserve for the future. That is why we believe that the appointment of Fitin to the post of head of the 5th department of the GUGB of the NKVD of the USSR was the most important event that took place on May 13, 1939 - and maybe throughout that year ... We hope that our readers will agree with this.

And in order to immediately get a certain idea about Pavel Fitin, we will now give a small, but very important and characteristic episode from his biography.

As we remember, in December 1938, the acting head of the 5th department of the GUGB, Sudoplatov, was removed from his post and expelled from the party. Here is what Pavel Anatolyevich wrote about this in the book “Intelligence and the Kremlin”:

“The Party Bureau made this decision with one abstention. Fitin, recently appointed to the post of Deputy Head of the Foreign Department, abstained because, according to him, I was completely unknown to him. His honesty and decency, quite unusual in those circumstances, did not hurt his career ... ".

Another principled reader may say that Fitin should have opposed the decision of the party bureau in general, defended Sudoplatov, but he was not a reckless suicide, and such a desperate speech of his would have changed absolutely nothing in the general “programmed” decision of the party bureau. After all, the fact that he abstained, in the end, also meant nothing, but Pavel Mikhailovich showed himself to be an honest and courageous person, and this, of which there is no doubt, was noticed by everyone, and worthy people appreciated it. It is clear, after all, that in response to Fitin’s words, they say, Sudoplatov is “absolutely unknown” to him, it was quite possible to make an accusation that he overlooked the “enemy of the people”, which means that he completely lacks the “revolutionary vigilance” necessary for an employee of the authorities. It seems that the authorities did not like Fitin's position at that time - but nothing, they swallowed it ...

Well, now, before starting the story about the fate of our hero, we will try to introduce readers to the realities of that difficult and controversial time. Let's start with the most important thing: what is it, an intelligence service, and why is it needed? We will give an answer from the standpoint of those years.

In January 1940, in Moscow, with a circulation of 300,000 copies - fantastic for our present day - the "Political Dictionary" was published, which oriented Soviet citizens in the realities of modern world and explained to them the background of many historical events. We, in this case, are very interested in how the concept of "intelligence" was interpreted. The corresponding entry in the dictionary stated (the beginning of the entry regarding military intelligence, we skip):

“Political intelligence is the collection of secret information about political life and diplomatic activities foreign countries, political parties, government agencies, etc.<...>

Bourgeois spies - spies working in favor of the intelligence services of the capitalist countries. Their espionage activities are combined with sabotage, wrecking and terror. When selecting scouts, foreign intelligence services make extensive use of the fierce enemies of the Soviet people: Trotskyist-Bukharin bandits, fragments of counter-revolutionary parties - Socialist-Revolutionaries, Mensheviks, bourgeois nationalists, as well as criminals. The Soviet people, with the help of their intelligence, destroyed the nests of these foreign intelligence agents. To carry out the tasks of the Third Five-Year Plan, it is necessary to completely eliminate the consequences of counter-revolutionary sabotage, spy-Trotskyist-Bukharin agents of foreign capital, raise Bolshevik vigilance in all work for the construction of communism, and always remember the party’s instruction that as long as there is an external capitalist encirclement, the intelligence agencies of foreign states will send us wreckers, saboteurs, spies and murderers in order to spoil, dirty and weaken our country, in order to hinder the growth of communism in USSR".

These are the tasks officially faced by the Soviet foreign intelligence, headed by Pavel Fitin.

And here's what else is said - but this is already in the article "People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD)":

"Soviet intelligence enjoys the love and constant help of all working people in the fight against the enemies of the people".

(There is no point in explaining that it was written outright stupidity - and intelligence does not fight against "enemies of the people", and "all working people" can hardly help it in any way - but it sounds proud and convincing!)

In general, it is characteristic that if today we only know that we apologize to everyone for our real or, much more often, imaginary sins of the past, then here the position of a great power is clearly indicated: they are bad, we are good, their opinion is indifferent to us. That is why it is only "bourgeois spies" who combine their espionage activities "with sabotage, wrecking and terror." And we, no, no, we are, so to speak, “white and fluffy” ... Although, indeed, when on May 23, 1938, the scraps left over from the OUN leader Yevgen Konovalets, “liquidated” by Pavel Sudoplatov, known to us, were removed from the walls and ceiling of the Rotterdam restaurant “Atlanta”, everyone was sure that either a nationalist “showdown” had taken place here, or the Nazi “owners” themselves removed their salary And when on August 20, 1940, in distant hot Mexico City, the “demon of the revolution” Lev Trotsky received a mortal blow with an ice pick on the head with an ice pick, no one could connect it with Soviet intelligence either - although the Spaniard Ramon Mercader, the direct executor of the action, was detained and spent two whole decades in prison, without confessing to anything!

The guys worked brilliantly, you can’t say anything! And the “Westerners”, then, were more often pierced, which is why it was possible to officially hang all the dogs on them - even in “ Political Dictionary". However, we will return to this very curious and informative publication, which conveys the very rapid breathing of its time, more than once, but for now, nevertheless, we will specifically explain what the foreign intelligence service of the NKVD of the USSR was like by the middle of 1939, what tasks it solved.

The foreign department of the Cheka (All-Russian Extraordinary Commission) was formed on December 20, 1920, and in February 1922 it became part of the Secret Operational Directorate of the State Political Administration under the NKVD, then, a little later, the United State Political Administration under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR (OGPU NKVD USSR). The main task of the INO was considered to be "the identification on the territory of foreign states of counter-revolutionary organizations conducting subversive activities against our country." It is clear that only organizations made up of White Guards, Russian emigrants and the like, who were preparing the overthrow of Soviet power, so that this task was related to those functions that were subsequently solved by external counterintelligence - structural intelligence units protecting the Service itself, as well as Soviet representations abroad, from the penetration of foreign special services. Tasks of the same nature include "Obtaining documentary materials in all areas of work, including such materials that could be used to compromise both the leaders of counter-revolutionary groups and entire organizations", "Identification abroad of government and private organizations engaged in military, political and economic espionage", and also - "Counterintelligence support of Soviet institutions and citizens abroad". As a purely intelligence direction of the work of the INO, it can be called "Illumination of the political line of each state and its government on major issues international politics, revealing their intentions towards Russia, obtaining information about their economic situation.

The central intelligence apparatus was about seventy people, for the management of foreign residencies, which were then cumbersomely called "reconnaissance apparatuses" - by the way, these "apparatuses" employed from two to four employees who were officially listed as employees of diplomatic or trade missions - six sectors were formed. "Northern" dealt with the Baltic and Scandinavian countries; “Polish”, respectively, worked according to our “sworn friend” - Poland, which, having finally acquired independence after all the “Polish partitions” of the 18th-19th centuries, again felt ambitions at the level of almost the “Rzech Commonwealth” of the 16th century, when its territory stretched from the Baltic almost to the Black Sea, and began to annoy its eastern neighbor; The "Central European" department had residencies in Berlin and London, dealing with the great states of Europe; the department "South European and Balkan countries" worked on those states where many White Guard emigrants first settled near the Russian borders; The "Eastern" department "cut off" a vast geographical area from Turkey and Iran to Japan and China; the interests of the "American" department were limited North America- his residencies were in New York and Montreal.

In 1930, the staff of the INO OGPU was 122 people, half of whom worked abroad. We can say that this is not much, but let's not forget that any special service, first of all, is strong with its assistants, who determine the level of its intelligence capabilities.

By that time, the tasks and directions of work of Soviet intelligence had changed significantly. Firstly, the objects of the greatest intelligence interest were clearly defined: England, France, Germany, Poland, Romania and Japan, and from the northwest - the three Baltic states and Finland. Secondly, intelligence, among others, was now given a number of completely new tasks: “Disclosure of interventionist plans developed by the leading circles of England, Germany, France, Poland, Romania, Japan, and clarification of the timing of the implementation of these plans”; “Identification of the plans of the leading circles of the listed countries for the financial and economic blockade of our state”; “Obtaining documents on secret military-political agreements and treaties between the indicated countries”; "Obtaining for our industry information about inventions, design and production drawings and diagrams, technical innovations that cannot be obtained in the usual way."

It can be understood that our intelligence has become real strategic intelligence in all respects. However, what does this notion mean?

“Strategic intelligence provides the knowledge on which the foreign policy our country, both during the war and in Peaceful time”, - wrote the American intelligence specialist S. Kent.

It seems that the information that the INO employees received helped the Soviet leadership in determining the foreign policy line of the USSR - except for those cases, of course, when the "leaders" considered themselves smarter and more perspicacious than everyone else (as is known, this happened in our history quite often and with frightening frequency) and acted as they please. Well, okay, it’s not about the “leaders” now ...

Since the second half of the 1920s, Germany has been of particular interest to foreign intelligence - more precisely, the processes that took place in this country, a long-standing and permanent source of European concern. It would seem that, having suffered a crushing defeat in the World War of 1914-1918, she should have calmed down a little, tempered her warlike ardor, forgotten past ambitions and healed the wounds received. But no, this did not happen, and for the reason that, following the military defeat, Germany was subjected to a truly provocative national humiliation.

The agreement on the cessation of hostilities between the Entente and Germany was concluded on November 11, 1918 in the French region of Picardy, near the city of Compiegne, in the railway carriage of Marshal Ferdinand Foch. This detail must be remembered!

On June 28, 1919, an agreement was signed at Versailles, officially ending the war between England, France and Italy with Germany. In accordance with this humiliating agreement, Germany returned Alsace and Lorraine to France - the provinces that were taken from the French as a result of the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1871. Well, everything here is clear and fair enough. But for some reason Poland got access to Baltic Sea- the so-called "Polish Corridor", which cut off East Prussia from Germany, called the "cradle of Prussian militarism"; the ancient German port of Danzig was turned into a "free city" under the protection of the League of Nations, and the Saar coal basin, which fed the heavy industry of Germany, fell under the control of the same organization - for a whole decade and a half; three districts annexed to Belgium were torn away from Germany, part of German Schleswig went to Denmark, and Memel was soon transferred to Lithuania ... In addition, a few German colonies were divided among themselves by England, France and Japan - the latter also took a certain part in the World War on the side of the Entente.

So after all, this is not enough! Having pretty much cut off the German territories and thoroughly plundered Germany financially, the Anglo-French also took away their “favorite toys” from the Germans - military equipment and weapons, and pretty cut the German army. Under the terms of the peace treaty, Germany was to transfer to the Entente countries 5,000 artillery pieces, 30,000 machine guns, 3,000 mortars, 5,000 locomotives and 150,000 wagons, 2,000 aircraft, 10,000 trucks, 10 battleships, 6 heavy and 8 light cruisers, 50 destroyers and 160 submarines. All other ships of the German navy were disarmed... The German delegation desperately resisted and, without defending a single inch of German land, managed to bargain for itself five thousand machine guns, three hundred aircraft and five thousand trucks... The Allies also set the most severe conditions: the size of the army - the Reichswehr - should not exceed one hundred thousand people, united in seven infantry and three cavalry divisions, without tanks, without heavy artillery and aviation. For the Germans, it was humiliating!

Well, they did not forgive their offenses and did not forget. It was not for nothing that twenty years later, on June 22, 1940, when Germany had already crushed France in World War II, Hitler not only chose the same Compiègne Forest as the place for signing the armistice, but also ordered the commemorative carriage of the long-dead Marshal Foch, which was stored in one of the French museums, to be delivered there - in this carriage the French capitulated...

In the meantime, Germany lived in the expectation of revenge. But German industrialists and politicians understood that if it was only possible to take away from the countries of the West - or return back what was previously taken away, then, following the East, it was possible not only to seriously expand the living space, but also to acquire new sources of raw materials, which was urgently required for the developing industry.

This was clearly understood by the "Fuhrer of the German nation" Adolf Hitler, who became Reich Chancellor on January 30, 1933 and received the powers of the head of state as a result of the referendum held on August 19 of the following year. Having seized power, the Fuhrer confidently began preparations for a new world war. Hitler was not going to hide who this war would be against. In his "programmatic work" book "Mein Kampf", the first edition of which was published back in 1925, he wrote with the utmost frankness:

«<...>We National Socialists quite consciously put an end to all pre-war German foreign policy. We want to return to the point where our old development stopped 600 years ago. We want to put a stop to the eternal German drive to the south and west of Europe and definitely point the finger in the direction of the territories located in the east. We are finally breaking with the colonial and commercial policy of the pre-war period and consciously moving on to a policy of conquering new lands in Europe.

When we talk about the conquest of new lands in Europe, we can, of course, have in mind primarily only Russia and those border states that are subordinate to it.<...>

The modern rulers of Russia have absolutely no thought of concluding an honest alliance with Germany, and even more so of fulfilling it, if they had concluded it.<...>» .

The fact that the priorities of fascist Germany do not change was also evidenced by the Soviet special services. Their signals became especially disturbing a little later - when, after the defeat of Poland, Germany received a common border with the Soviet Union:

“According to our information, the Gestapo is preparing to transfer to the territory of the USSR a group of its agents who graduated from a special intelligence school in Linz. Of these, we know: Johann Wagner, Franz Schwarzel - from Vienna, Tologoybel, Datsshek, Goering, Oleshau, Rangantiner.<...>

It is possible that the listed persons will be abandoned in the USSR under the guise of deserters from the German army who fled due to persecution for revolutionary activity. <...>", - reported on December 4, 1939, Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Ukrainian SSR, Captain of State Security Gorlinsky.

«<...>According to border troops Ukrainian SSR, the arrival of German infantry and tank units in the border zone in the direction of the city of Przemysl and the transfer of troops from this area to the north is noted, - reported on July 14, 1940, the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria, specifying what was said. - Recently, newly arrived parts of the German army have been noted: in the city of Krosno (65 km southeast of Przemysl) - five infantry regiments; in the city of Yaroslav (20 km north of Przemysl) - the 39th infantry and 116th artillery regiments; in the city of Rzeszow (60 km northwest of Przemysl - the 129th infantry, anti-aircraft and artillery regiments ...

On July 7, 1940, three echelons of German troops with 70 tanks arrived in Yaroslav. The arrival of a tank unit in the city of Lublin (100 km southwest of Brest-Litovsk) was noted<...>» .

By the way, this is a large document, so there are a lot of Nazi units that approached the borders of the Soviet Union.

“On September 5, 1940, the head of the border troops of the NKVD of the Ukrainian SSR reported:
"On August 31 of this year, at the site of the 92nd border detachment (Przemysl, Ukrainian SSR), a border violator from Germany, Iosif Prokopevich Pinchuk, born in 1917, a resident of the city of Drogobych, was detained. On January 2 of this year, while serving in the police, he fled to Germany, went back to the USSR with the assignment of German intelligence to collect information about fortified areas and organize OUN cells.<...>", - reported Lieutenant General Ivan Ivanovich Maslennikov, Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR.

But did the Kremlin listen and want to hear these warnings? It seems not.

When the Nazi troops, as it should have happened, attacked ... the USSR, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov, Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, spoke on the radio with sincere indignation, addressing the Soviet people:

“This unheard-of attack on our country is treachery unparalleled in the history of civilized peoples. The attack on our country was carried out despite the fact that a non-aggression pact was concluded between the USSR and Germany, and the Soviet government fulfilled all the conditions of this pact in all good faith. The attack on our country was carried out despite the fact that during the entire period of the validity of this treaty the German government could never make a single claim against the USSR regarding the fulfillment of the treaty. All responsibility for this robbery attack on Soviet Union falls entirely on the German fascist rulers.<...>» .

The People's Commissar said everything correctly, although it was not necessary to be surprised here, not to be indignant at treachery, which, in general, did not exist - the Fuhrer wrote that all these agreements were a fiction, but before that we had to prepare for war properly! “Learning military affairs in a real way,” once recommended the founder of the Soviet state, V.I. Lenin, a very tough and pragmatic politician, and this slogan was posted at the location of almost all parts of the Soviet Army (we don’t undertake to say about the Red Army, they still often hung out posters with quotes from I.V. Stalin). But it seems that then everyone should have studied, at absolutely all levels, from an ordinary soldier to the commander of the military district, to the chief of the General Staff and the people's commissar of defense, and maybe even someone higher. Then the information received by intelligence - when the war starts, where and with what forces the enemy will act - would not be wasted ... "Praemonitus praemunitus" - "He who is warned is armed," the ancient Romans said. That's how it is, but in order to arm yourself, you must heed the incoming warnings, and not dismiss them!

However, we still have a conversation about the information received by intelligence, as well as about many other events related to this topic, but for now we will turn to the biography of the hero of our book, Pavel Mikhailovich Fitin.

Chapter 1. FITIN PAVEL MIKHAILOVICH

It was May 1939. The "purges" of the state security agencies, popularly called "Yezhovshchina" and accompanied by a wave of unjustified repressions, began to wane. As a result of the repressions, the victims of which were more than 20 thousand Chekists, foreign intelligence was beheaded, its foreign apparatuses were destroyed and did not operate for several months. By the decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, a young graduate of accelerated courses from the Special Purpose School, Pavel Fitin, was appointed to the post of head of the 5th department of the Main Directorate of State Security of the NKVD.

The head of foreign intelligence of the security agencies at that time was only 32 years old, and he did not yet know that he would have to lead it all the years of war hard times.

Pavel Mikhailovich Fitin was born on December 28, 1907 in the village of Ozhogino, Yalutorovsky district, Tobolsk province, into a peasant family. Later, his village went to the Kurgan region. After graduation elementary school in 1920, at the age of less than thirteen, he went to work in an agricultural commune created in his native village. There he was admitted to the Komsomol. The country needed competent personnel, and soon Pavel was sent to study at a secondary school. After receiving secondary education, Pavel entered the engineering department of the Agricultural Academy named after K.A. Timiryazev. After graduating from the academy in 1932, Fitin until 1934 worked as the head of the editorial office of the Agricultural State Publishing House. In 1934-1935 he served in the Red Army. After demobilization, he again worked until 1938 in the same publishing house as deputy editor-in-chief, engaged in the production of books on agriculture and agricultural technology.

The mass repressions that hit the country in the late 1930s also affected foreign intelligence personnel. The leadership of the country was faced with the issue of replenishing foreign intelligence with young employees who had higher education. In March 1938, Pavel Fitin was sent to study at the Central School of the NKVD. After graduating from special accelerated courses at the Special Purpose School (SHON) of the NKVD, which trained personnel for foreign intelligence, in October of the same year he was appointed an intern in the 5th (intelligence) department of the GUGB of the NKVD of the USSR. A month later, Fitin became the operational commissioner of the department for the development of Trotskyists and "rightists" abroad. Due to the acute shortage of intelligence personnel, when sometimes there was not a single employee in the departments of the 5th department, in December 1938, the novice security officer was appointed deputy head of this department. And in May 1939, a new appointment followed: Pavel Mikhailovich Fitin became the head of foreign intelligence.

He inherited a heavy legacy. In 1938, Hitler Germany, with the connivance of England and France, which were guarantors of the implementation of the Versailles agreements, annexed Austria, annexed the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia to its possessions, and in March 1939 completely occupied it, trampling on the Munich agreements. The air smelled of the gunpowder burn of a major European conflict, the Western powers clearly wanted to set Hitler against the Soviet Union and at his expense satisfy Germany's territorial claims. Moscow needed to know the real intentions of Hitler and his European partners, but there was almost no information on this subject from foreign intelligence apparatuses.

In May 1938, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks considered the issue of improving the work of foreign intelligence of the state security agencies. Its total staff has doubled and amounted to 210 people. Thirteen departments were created in its structure, seven of which were built according to the geographical principle and were engaged in the management of foreign residencies. Given the acute shortage of personnel, an intelligence school of the NKVD was organized - the School for Special Purposes (SHON). Its first graduates came to foreign intelligence - people with higher education, with experience in party and organizational work, one of which was Fitin himself. However, this did not solve the problem, since, as a rule, they had no experience of working abroad. It was necessary to radically reorganize the activity of foreign intelligence as a whole, taking into account the exceptionally difficult situation that had developed in Europe.

The new chief of foreign intelligence began his activities with the restoration of the combat capability of residencies abroad, both "legal" and illegal. During 1939, experienced intelligence officers Vasily Zarubin, Dmitry Fedichkin, Boris Rybkin, Mikhail Allahverdov, Alexander Korotkov and many others were sent across the cordon to restore contact with the mothballed agents.

As a result measures taken managed to recreate 40 foreign residencies, send more than 200 intelligence officers to them, and also restore many illegal residencies. This immediately affected the results of the work of foreign intelligence.

In 1940, an experienced illegal intelligence officer Elizaveta Zarubina (Vardo) was sent to Berlin for a "legal" residency. On December 10, she met with the wife of a prominent Nazi diplomat, Augusta, with whom the illegal intelligence officer Fyodor Parparov had previously maintained contact. She brought with her a letter from a scout. At first, "Augusta" did not believe Elizabeth, who spoke excellent German, considering this meeting "a provocation by the Gestapo." However, Vardo managed to convince her to continue contact with Soviet intelligence, and a trickle of important secret information flowed from the "Augusta" to the Center.

In April 1941, Vardo re-established contact with another valuable source of foreign intelligence, the wife of a prominent Nazi diplomat, recruited by the state security forces during his work at the German embassy in Moscow. This woman agreed to continue cooperation with Soviet intelligence in Berlin, and soon important information was received from her about the impending Nazi invasion of our country.

In July 1940, a young intelligence officer Alexander Korotkov arrived in Berlin to restore contact with the most valuable sources of residency - an employee of the Luftwaffe intelligence department, Lieutenant Harro Schulze-Boysen ("Foreman") and senior government adviser to the Imperial Ministry of Economics, Dr. Arvid Harnack ("Corsican"). The term of his business trip was determined to be one month, but the business trip dragged on for six months.

Korotkov restored contact with the Corsican in September 1940. The agent handed over to the operative a number of valuable intelligence materials, including information about Germany's military plans against the Soviet Union. Soon, through him, a connection was established with the "Starshina", as well as other members of the underground anti-fascist organization, which later received the name "Red Chapel". The anti-fascist heroes worked until August 1942, when they were arrested by the Gestapo.

In September, Korotkov reestablishes contact with another valuable source of the Berlin NKVD residency, the head of the "Soviet" department of the Gestapo, Willy Lehmann ("Breitenbach"), from whom important documentary materials were received on the eve of the war. Among them is a report prepared on June 10, 1941 by the Gestapo for Himmler and entitled: "On Soviet subversive activities." It followed from the document that the Hitlerite leadership did not know anything serious about the operational activities of the NKVD and GRU residencies in Germany.

The work of the cordon reconnaissance apparatus was gradually getting better, although in full force foreign intelligence of the state security agencies was able to start working only from April 1941. In January 1939, intelligence reported on Anglo-French negotiations to develop plans for a joint action in the event of war with Germany and Italy. On March 15, when Hitler's troops entered Prague, the Center received a message from the Parisian NKVD station, according to which England intended to encourage Hitler's aggression in the East.

In May 1939, Fitin reported to Stalin a summary of intelligence information about the Weiss plan approved by Hitler, which provided for the occupation of Poland by Germany. Intelligence also became aware of the deadline for a possible attack on Poland - September 1, 1939, which meant the beginning of a new world war. When a joint Anglo-French delegation went to Moscow in August 1939 to negotiate joint actions to prevent Hitler's aggression, the London and Paris NKVD residencies reported to the Center the contents of the secret instructions received by these delegations. At the same time, information was received from the "Cambridge Five" that Germany and England were conducting secret negotiations to conclude a non-aggression pact. Less than two weeks remained before the outbreak of World War II.

The war began on September 1, 1939 with a provocation arranged by the Nazis near the Polish town of Gleiwice. A group of criminals, specially released from German prisons and dressed in Polish military uniforms, seized the radio station and made a radio call to start a war with Germany. In response, Hitler gave the order to attack Poland. The very fact of the provocation that led to the outbreak of World War II made a deep impression on the Soviet leadership and Stalin himself, who most of all began to fear such provocations from the Nazis and was suspicious of intelligence reports that warned him of an impending German attack.

However, the collapse of foreign intelligence in the 1930s was still too palpable. Despite the active measures taken by Fitin to restore foreign vehicles, intelligence failed to warn the Center about the German attack on France on May 10, 1940 and about its simultaneous occupation of the Benelux countries. The war became a national catastrophe for France, which lost its national independence as a result of the German Blitzkrieg. In the first days of the war alone, the Germans captured 700,000 French troops. On June 22, France capitulated. Another 1,400,000 French soldiers and officers were captured. The results of the defeat of the largest army in Europe made a stunning impression on the whole world.

The foreign intelligence of the state security agencies, led by the young chief Pavel Fitin, was able to work at full strength only when Hitler began to transfer his troops to our borders. A month after the surrender of France, on July 22, 1940, Hitler signed a directive on the development of a plan of attack on the Soviet Union, called the Barbarossa plan. By the end of the year, the preparation of the plan for the war against the USSR was completed, and on December 18, 1940, Hitler signed the top secret Directive No. 21. It stated that the German armed forces should defeat Soviet Russia in a short campaign even before the war against England was over. Preparations for the implementation of the Barbarossa plan were planned to begin immediately and be completed by May 15, 1941. Decisive importance was attached to disinforming the enemy and keeping Germany's military preparations secret.

It should be recognized that not a single intelligence service in the world, including the Soviet one, was able to obtain the Barbarossa plan. However, before the start of the war, Soviet intelligence officers managed to find out its main content. So, immediately after the defeat of France, on July 4, 1940, intelligence informed the Kremlin about the transfer of the first German divisions to the Soviet border. In total, from July 1940 to June 1941, foreign policy intelligence sent more than 120 detailed messages to the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. They tracked not only the military preparations of Germany, but also contained information about military and economic preparations for the exploitation of Soviet territories that would be captured by the Wehrmacht.

Pavel Fitin worked intensively, tirelessly. The burning breath of the war became more and more tangible, from the residencies every day came disturbing information about its inevitability. However, Lavrenty Beria, who knew that Stalin did not want war and was striving to prevent it, threatened to “wipe into camp dust” anyone who spoke of its inevitability.

It was not easy for the head of intelligence: the reports of foreign apparatuses became more and more alarming, they testified that all Hitler's preparations for an attack on the USSR were completed, and the war could begin any day. This, in particular, was reported by foreign intelligence residencies in Berlin, Rome, Prague, Helsinki, and Shanghai. An experienced illegal intelligence agent Vasily Zarubin, who met in Shanghai with Chiang Kai-shek's military adviser Walter Stennes ("Friend"), informed Moscow that, according to the source, the Nazi attack would take place in May 1941. At the next meeting, "Friend", referring to a high-ranking German diplomat, told Zarubin that the deadline for the start of the war was set by Hitler for June 24th.

Getting acquainted with the encryption from Zarubin, Pavel Fitin involuntarily remembered that intelligence had already named eight dates for the Nazi invasion. In May, which was mentioned by many intelligence reports, the attack did not take place: Hitler invaded Yugoslavia and also occupied the island of Crete. And now information about the ninth date is coming. What is it: the ultimate truth or another bluff demon-possessed Fuhrer? After all, under various pretexts, he endured his attack on France thirty-eight times! However, an inner voice told him that this time the intelligence sources were not mistaken.

On April 12, 1941, the Center received a message from London from Kim Philby, then working in the British intelligence services. It stated that "127 German divisions are deployed near the Soviet borders, including 58 in Poland. In total, there are 223 divisions in the German armed forces." This information confirmed the information obtained by intelligence in Bulgaria. However, are they true? Only after the war will it become known that in fact Hitler had 50 more divisions.

By May 1941, the information of the residencies had become so detailed that the leadership of foreign intelligence knew the locations of divisions, the location of battalions, individual barracks, and unit headquarters. In April - May, intelligence reported to the country's leadership the latest information about Germany's preparations for a strike. In the document, intelligence reported on the completion of the construction of roadways, the strengthening of bridges, the secret concentration of crossing facilities, the unloading of ammunition directly onto the ground, the restriction of the movement of civilians in the border zone and the conversion of schools into hospitals, the introduction of partial blackout.

Finally, on June 16, 1941, an urgent message was received from the Berlin residency of the NKGB, received from the "Sergeant", with the following content:

"All German military preparations for preparing an armed uprising against the USSR have been completely completed, and an attack can be expected at any time."

This information was immediately reported to the People's Commissar of State Security Vsevolod Merkulov. On his instructions, the head of intelligence, Pavel Fitin, ordered the head of the German branch, Pavel Zhuravlev, to urgently prepare generalized information for Stalin. We have already talked about Stalin's reaction to this information above.

After the report in the Kremlin, several anxious days passed. At dawn on June 22, Fitin, who worked at night, as the leader demanded, left his office in the Lubyanka. After a recent meeting with Stalin, he was persistently tormented by one question: is the message of the "Sergeant" really disinformation? With these heavy thoughts, he came home and lay down, but he could not rest: the phone rang. It was five o'clock in the morning on June 22, 1941.

Comrade General, the people's commissar is urgently summoning you.

Pavel Fitin understood the reason for such an urgent call to the people's commissar: intelligence information was confirmed. Employees of the people's commissariat, who arrived at the call of Merkulov, were invited to his office. The Commissar looked depressed. He said that fighting was going on all along the western border - from the Baltic to the Black Sea. It is necessary to think over the action plan of the state security agencies, taking into account the current situation. Turning to Fitin, he said:

And you need to prepare appropriate instructions for overseas residencies. I'll call you in an hour or two.

Telegrams signed by the chief of intelligence went to the residencies, in which their tasks were specified in connection with the outbreak of the war. The main task is to reveal the real military-political plans of Nazi Germany and its allies in relation to the USSR. However, due to the rapid advance of the German army deep into the territory of the USSR, it was not immediately possible to establish the work of foreign intelligence abroad in accordance with the requirements of wartime in full.

The foreign intelligence station in Berlin found itself in a particularly difficult situation. On the very first day of the war, the Gestapo blocked the Soviet embassy in the German capital, forbidding any personnel to enter the city. True, Deputy Resident Korotkov managed to meet with "Corsican" and "Sergeant" and give them a radio station and instructions for the period of hostilities. Nevertheless, in the very first days of the war, communication with the anti-fascist underground in Germany was broken. Before the war, it was assumed that the members of the Red Chapel would transmit their encrypted messages by radio to the intelligence reception center deployed near Brest. However, due to the occupation of Brest, he was evacuated to the rear, and contact with the underground in Germany was lost.

In connection with the successful advance of the Wehrmacht to the East, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on July 18, 1941, adopts a special resolution "On the organization of the struggle in the rear of the German troops." At the same time, a decision is made on the next reorganization of the foreign intelligence of the state security agencies. The People's Commissariat of State Security was liquidated, and foreign intelligence again returned to the NKVD, which was led by Beria.

Pavel Fitin becomes the head of the First (Intelligence) Directorate of the NKVD. The main task of its administration is to develop active intelligence work abroad. At the same time, the Fourth (reconnaissance and sabotage) directorate of the NKVD was created, the main task of which was to conduct reconnaissance and sabotage work in the rear of the German troops. Fitin's deputy, General Sudoplatov, is appointed head of the Fourth Directorate.

With the beginning of the Nazi invasion, the foreign intelligence led by Fi-tin faced the acute question of whether Japan would enter the war on the side of Germany. This problem was regularly monitored by intelligence residencies in Japan, China and other countries. Already in the first months of the war, they received reliable information indicating that Japan would take a wait-and-see attitude and was not going to attack the USSR in the near future. This political intelligence information, supported by military intelligence data and from other sources, allowed Stalin during the battle for Moscow to withdraw Siberian divisions from the Far East and transfer to the Western Front, which decided the outcome of this battle and defended the Soviet capital. However, the question of Japan's possible entry into the war against the USSR was not removed from the intelligence agenda until 1943, when the battle for Stalingrad ended in the defeat of the Nazi army.

Already the first months of German aggression showed that Hitler was waging a war of extermination against the USSR and pursuing the goal of destroying the Soviet state. However, gradually the war began to take on a protracted character, which required the exertion of all forces, including the forces of foreign intelligence. Its "legal" residencies, which worked on the territory of Germany and a number of those occupied by Hitler European countries ceased to exist with the outbreak of the war. And the deployment of the work of illegal residencies, created for the period of the war, faced certain difficulties. At the end of August 1942, the Gestapo arrested members of the underground groups "Sergeant" and "Corsican". In total, over 200 people were arrested in Germany in the case of the Red Chapel, and taking into account the countries occupied by it, 600 people, most of whom were executed. In the same year, a valuable foreign intelligence agent in Germany, Breitenbach, was executed.

Despite the short period of work during the war period, the groups led by "Corsican" and "Sergeant" managed to transfer a number of valuable information to Moscow.

From them, in particular, pre-emptive information was received that in 1942 Hitler would deliver the main blow to the Caucasus, refusing to attack Moscow. Stalin, however, ignored this intelligence information, which led to the breakthrough of the Paulus Army Group in the summer of 1942 to Stalingrad.

With the loss of intelligence capabilities directly in Germany, Pavel Fitin relied on the intensification of the work of "legal" residencies in countries such as England, the USA, Bulgaria, Turkey, China, Iran, Afghanistan, Sweden, Japan and a number of others. The most significant results of foreign intelligence under the leadership of Fitin were achieved in England, where the famous "Cambridge Five" was active, consisting of Kim Philby, John Cairncross, Anthony Blunt, Donald McLean and Guy Burgess. Thanks to them, the foreign intelligence of our country during the entire period of the war had access to secret documents of the Cabinet of Ministers and the British War Department, to the correspondence of Prime Minister Churchill with US President Roosevelt and other heads of state, as well as Foreign Minister Eden with British ambassadors abroad.

A special place belongs to the foreign intelligence residencies in England and the USA in obtaining the secrets of atomic weapons. The first information that work is underway in the UK to create a "superweapon" came from an agent of the London residency Cairncross. People's Commissar Beria at first reacted negatively to this information, regarding it as an attempt by the ruling circles of Great Britain to divert the forces and means of the Soviet Union to secondary goals. However, thanks to Fitin's perseverance, in July 1943 the State Defense Committee of the USSR adopted a special resolution on the start of work on atomic weapons in our country and determined the tasks of foreign intelligence on this issue.

In connection with the emerging turning point in the course of the war in April 1943, a new reorganization of the state security agencies took place: the People's Commissariat of State Security of the USSR was again recreated.

Pavel Fitin becomes the head of his First Directorate and stubbornly proves the need to work on the atomic project. The persistence of the chief of foreign intelligence unexpectedly finds support from Stalin. The young scientist Kurchatov is appointed the head of the Soviet atomic project, and Beria is the curator of this topic. Intelligence of the state security agencies, led by Fitin, successfully coped with the tasks assigned to it. No wonder the work on the "atomic project" is one of the most important achievements of Soviet foreign intelligence in the entire history of its existence.

In 1944-1945, Feklisov, an operative of the New York residency, who worked with the German scientist Klaus Fuchs, who emigrated to London before the war, who worked in the USA on the creation of an atomic bomb as part of a group of British scientists, received from him all the necessary calculations and drawings. In the post-war period, materials were received from Klaus Fuchs about work in the United States on the creation of hydrogen weapons. The information received from the source allowed the USSR not only to save significant funds and gain time, but also to get ahead of the United States in creating a hydrogen bomb.

In addition to the atomic problem, intelligence during the war years solved a lot of other important tasks.

So, on November 27, 1941, in the United States, a telegram signed by the head of foreign intelligence, which specified the tasks of the residency, was sent to Resident Zarubin. The priority task was to find opportunities for obtaining political, economic and military information on Germany and its allies. Particular attention was also paid to the timely identification of US plans and intentions with respect to the USSR, as well as the Axis countries. On the eve of his departure for the United States, Zarubin was received by Stalin, who set him the task of ensuring that the ruling circles of the United States did not agree with Nazi Germany behind the back of the USSR and did not end the war with a separate peace.

In August 1941, British Ambassador to Moscow Cripps conveyed his government's proposal to establish cooperation between the intelligence services of the two countries in their work against Nazi Germany. Soon, a representative of British intelligence, General George Hill, arrived in Moscow, who had previously worked in our country and was even a participant in the “conspiracy of ambassadors” against the Soviet Republic. In September of the same year, an experienced Soviet intelligence officer Ivan Chichaev was sent to London to maintain contacts. The most successful cooperation between the intelligence services of the two countries was in Iran and Afghanistan, which, undoubtedly, was the merit of J. Hill himself, who had certain sympathies for our country.

Thus, the joint efforts of the intelligence services of the USSR and Great Britain during the Tehran conference of the "Big Three", held in the Iranian capital on November 30 - December 1, 1943, prevented an attempt on the heads of state of the anti-Hitler coalition and defeated the intelligence network of the German special services. In Afghanistan, the special services of the two countries liquidated the intelligence network of the Axis countries, called the Marauders. By the middle of 1943, Soviet intelligence in Afghanistan had already completely controlled all the work of the German residency in this country, in India, as well as in the Soviet border areas.

The head of foreign intelligence, Fitin, suggested that People's Commissar of State Security Merkulov try to recruit Rasmus, a resident of German intelligence in Afghanistan, using indisputable materials about the failure of his network. In December 1943, Korotkov flew to Kabul to conduct a recruiting conversation with Rasmus. He met with the German resident and in a conversation with him presented ciphers and codes obtained by Soviet intelligence, which made it possible to decipher all his correspondence with Berlin and arrest German agents. The German was presented with documents for the money that the recruited agents handed over to the Soviet side and which went to the defense fund. Korotkov invited Rasmus to cooperate with Soviet intelligence. The German promised to think over the intelligence officer's proposal and give an answer in a day. However, he did not come to the appointed meeting and secretly left Kabul a few days later. It turned out that he reported to Berlin about the recruiting approach to him and was recalled from the country.

After the defeat of the Nazi troops near Stalingrad, the intelligence was faced with the question of further strategic plans Hitler on the Eastern Front. On April 25, 1943, the British, who even before the war received the German Enigma cipher machine and read the correspondence of the Hitlerite General Staff, intercepted and decoded a telegram from the southern group of troops addressed to Hitler. It reported that in the summer the German troops intended to launch an offensive in the Kursk region. The content of the decoded telegram was handed over by J. Cairncross to his curator from the London residency and immediately sent to the Center. Fitin reported this message to the Supreme Commander. This time, Stalin believed the report of foreign intelligence, the Soviet command took the necessary measures, which played a decisive role in the defeat of the Nazi troops on the Kursk Bulge and the transition strategic initiative into the hands of the Soviet Army.

After the Great Patriotic War turned in favor of the Soviet Union, an important place in the work of foreign intelligence abroad began to be occupied by issues related to the timing of the opening of a second front and separate negotiations that Britain and the United States tried to conduct with Nazi Germany behind the back of the USSR. Even earlier, in letters to Churchill, Stalin raised the question of a second front, but England, under various pretexts, shied away from fulfilling its obligations. Foreign intelligence regularly informed the Center about all the nuances of Churchill's cabinet policy on this issue. From the documentary materials obtained by her, it followed that it was the British Prime Minister who, under various pretexts, evaded fulfilling his obligations, hoping that a protracted war between Germany and the USSR would exhaust these countries, and this would be beneficial to England.

It is known that the question of opening a second front was finally decided at the Tehran Conference, when it became clear that the Soviet Union could single-handedly defeat Nazi Germany. In an effort to prevent such a development of events, the United States and Britain opened a second front in Europe only on July 6, 1944. Moreover, initially Churchill insisted on the landing of allied troops in the Balkans in order to prevent the Soviet Army from liberating the European countries occupied by Hitler and strengthening the influence of the USSR in Europe.

Foreign intelligence led by Fitin closely followed the separate negotiations of our allies in the anti-Hitler coalition. In May 1942, the foreign intelligence station in Stockholm reported to the Center that an employee of the German embassy had secretly flown to London to negotiate with the British side on the terms of Germany's withdrawal from the war. The report noted that behind the circles opposed to the Nazi regime were the pre-war Chancellor of Germany von Pappen and a number of high-ranking military and political figures of the country. Fitin reported this information to Stalin, as well as data from the London residency that this time England had rejected the Germans' proposals and interned the Nazi diplomat. In the future, intelligence residencies regularly informed the Center about the attempts of the German side to establish contacts with the British in Ankara, Bern and the Vatican. Separate contacts between the British and the Germans also took place in 1943 in Madrid and Lisbon.

In February 1943, a prominent representative of the German aristocracy, Prince Hohenlohe, arrived in Switzerland, who established contact with the regional head of the US Office of Strategic Services (intelligence) in Europe, Allen Dulles. In 1944, retired Nazi General von Brauchitsch met with an American intelligence officer in Bern. During the negotiations, the issues of removing Hitler from power and creating a military government in Germany, which would be supported by England and the United States, were discussed. Similar contacts took place in 1945.

As we can see, during the war years, Pavel Fitin regularly reported to the Soviet government information from foreign intelligence about separate negotiations between representatives of Germany and our Western allies. On April 7, 1945, when Soviet troops were approaching Berlin, Stalin sent a personal message to US President Roosevelt, in which he stressed the inadmissibility of separate negotiations with Germany on the eve of her defeat. He urged the participation of the Soviet side in all ongoing negotiations on the terms of Germany's surrender. At the direction of Roosevelt, Dulles broke off negotiations with the Germans, and Germany failed to split the anti-Hitler coalition.

The prominent American intelligence officer Allen Dulles called the ultimate dream of any intelligence in the world, in post-war years who headed the US CIA, information obtained by Soviet intelligence during the war years. This, undoubtedly, was the merit of its leader, Lieutenant General Fitin.

On the eve of the preparations for the Yalta Conference, intelligence received a copy of the cipher telegram that Churchill had sent to Roosevelt discussing how best to beat Stalin at the meeting in the Crimea. Fitin informed the Soviet government about this telegram, and also that Britain and the United States intended to support the Polish government in exile at the conference. On January 23 and 28, 1945, the head of intelligence reported to Stalin the main documents of the US and British governments prepared for the Crimean Conference. They considered questions post-war device in Europe, including proposals for the dismemberment of Germany, the transfer of the German population from the territories it occupied, and the treatment of major war criminals.

The documents obtained by intelligence allowed the Soviet government to get the United States and England to adopt decisions in Yalta that take into account the real interests of the USSR on all major issues of the post-war structure in Europe, and to defend the interests of Poland and other countries. of Eastern Europe. In June 1945, when Nazi Germany was defeated by Soviet troops and surrendered unconditionally, foreign intelligence sent Stalin a report from the British Chiefs of Staff to Prime Minister Churchill entitled "The Security of the British Empire." In this document, the Soviet Union, because of its support for national liberation movements in the countries of the Third World, was declared "the main enemy of Great Britain and everything Western world". The authors of the document recommended that the British government take a series of foreign policy and military measures in order to prevent the restoration of the destroyed economy of the USSR.

Second World War ended in August 1945 with the defeat of militarist Japan. The defeat of the Kwantung Army, armed to the teeth, which occupied Manchuria, which had been occupied by a million people, contributed to the victory of the people's revolution in China. During these years, P.M. Fitin constantly informed the Kremlin about the plans of the West to oppose the Chinese revolution, the attempts of Great Britain and France to maintain colonial orders in China and Southeast Asia, India, Pakistan, east of Suez. Soviet intelligence information reported by Lieutenant General Fitin to the political leadership of the country was positively assessed by Stalin and influenced his decisions in this area.

After the war, Fitin's worries did not diminish. Our yesterday's allies, who had mastered the secret of atomic weapons, were developing plans for an attack on the USSR. Foreign intelligence regularly informed the Soviet government about all the nuances of the West's policy towards our country. Not a trace remained of Stalin's former mistrust of intelligence reports. The authority of the intelligence chief himself was also strengthened, whose pre-war information about Hitler's attack on the Soviet Union was confirmed contrary to Beria's forecasts.

However, after the war, Beria completely paid off with the obstinate head of intelligence. At the end of June 1946, by his personal order, Lieutenant General Fitin was relieved of his post, in which he had so brilliantly established himself during the war years. Until December, he was at the disposal of the personnel department without any appointment.

In December 1946, P.M. Fitin was sent as Deputy Commissioner of MTB to Germany, where he worked until 1947. In the future, Beria again demotes him: Fitin is appointed to the post of deputy head of the state security department for Sverdlovsk region. Then he was transferred to Alma-Ata to the post of head of the MTB of the Union Republic, and soon he was returned to Sverdlovsk as the head of the regional department of the MGB.

Lavrenty Beria, however, did not dare to directly physically punish Fitin, knowing that Stalin listened to his opinion during the war years and appreciated the contribution of intelligence led by him to ensuring a common victory over the enemy.

In July 1953, P.M. Fitin was relieved of his post, and in November of the same year he was dismissed from the state security agencies. At the same time, it should be noted that the 46-year-old lieutenant general was deprived of a military pension, since he did not have the corresponding length of service. Until 1959, he held senior positions in the Ministry of State Control of the USSR, and then headed the photographic plant of the Union of Soviet Societies for Friendship and Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries, where he worked until the end of his days.

On December 24, 1971, the outstanding organizer of the activities of the Soviet foreign intelligence during the Great Patriotic War, Pavel Mikhailovich Fitin, died.

For merits in ensuring the state security of our country, Lieutenant General Fitin was awarded two Orders of the Red Banner, the Orders of the Red Star and the Red Banner of Tuva, many medals, as well as the badge "Honored Worker of the NKVD". His work was also marked by high awards from a number of foreign countries.

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“At the head of intelligence was Pavel Mikhailovich Fitin, a slender, calm, imposing blond. He was notable for his taciturnity and restraint, ”notes the Hero of Russia, Colonel Alexander Semyonovich Feklisov. As in the case of Nikolai Kuznetsov, again a bright Aryan appearance, a calm Nordic character. And this is not surprising: Pavel Fitin is also from Western Siberia, from a peasant family. He was born in the village of Ozhogino, Yalutorovsky district, Tobolsk province, and in 1926-1927 he even studied with Nikolai Kuznetsov on the same street in Tyumen: Kuznetsov at the Agricultural College, and Fitin at the preparatory courses at the university.

After graduating in 1932 from the engineering department of the Agricultural Academy. Timiryazev in Moscow, Pavel Fitin grows up to the deputy editor-in-chief of the Selkhozgiz publishing house. And then he makes a dizzying career: having come in March 1938 as a trainee to the 5th department of the GUGB of the NKVD of the USSR (foreign intelligence), on November 1 (that is, six months later) he becomes deputy head, and in May 1939 at the age of 31 and with the rank of major of the GB - head of foreign intelligence of the NKVD of the USSR.

The secret of such a rise, around which, of course, a lot of rumors and fictions are piled up in the spirit of “promoted”, “lack of personnel”, “big purge”, etc. , is really simple. Pavel Mikhailovich Fitin became the first Russian in this post.

On December 20, 1920, the Chairman of the Cheka, Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky, signed the historic order No. 169 on the creation of the Foreign Department (INO) in order to strengthen intelligence work abroad. Its first head was the Armenian revolutionary Yakov Khristoforovich Davtyan (Davydov). On behalf of Dzerzhinsky, he developed a regulation on the Foreign Department, its staffing, structure. In 1921, Davtyan was replaced for some time by his classmate at the 1st Tiflis Gymnasium, Ruben Katanyan. Further, the position of chief of foreign intelligence was successively occupied by Solomon Mogilevsky, Meer Abramovich Trilisser, Stanislav Adamovich Messing, Artur Khristianovich Artuzov (Frauchi), Abram Aronovich Slutsky, Sergei Mikhailovich Shpigelglas, Zelman Isaevich Passov and Vladimir Georgievich Dekanozov (Dekanozishvili) - another classmate of Davtyan and Katanyan at the 1st Tiflis gymnasium.

All these years, the selection of personnel for work in the INO was carried out mainly through the Comintern, conceived by Lenin as the headquarters of the "world revolution". But when Stalin took the course of building socialism in a single country, against which Trotsky, Bukharin, Zinoviev, Kamenev and other representatives of not so much the anti-Stalinist as the anti-Russian opposition actively opposed, and then further transformed this course into the task of recreating a powerful Russian state, then the representatives of the Comintern oriented towards the “world revolution” responded with betrayal. And it began before 1937-1938. Back in 1935, one of the traitors, a high-ranking employee of the INO, Walter Krivitsky, aka Samuil Ginzburg, in a conversation with his friend and the same traitor Natan Poretsky (Reiss) said: “They don’t trust us ... they can’t trust internationalist communists. They will replace us with Russians, for whom the revolutionary movement in Europe means nothing.” That's right: it's one thing to use Russia as "brushwood" to fan the world fire and work for no one knows who, and it's quite another thing to build a powerful Russian state, including to repel external aggression. That is why Stalin's stake on the Russian people caused such a negative reaction among the adherents of the "world revolution". The escapes of the now-sung "fighters against Stalinism" to the West began, accompanied by the surrender of agents.

Moscow's retaliatory measures were not long in coming. On May 13, 1939, Major Pavel Mikhailovich Fitin was appointed to the post of head of foreign intelligence of the NKVD of the USSR. Pavel Anatolyevich Sudoplatov and Vasily Mikhailovich Zarubin, also Russians, became his deputies. It was a genuine personnel revolution that marked the beginning of the creation of a powerful national intelligence service, which brilliantly proved itself already during the Great Patriotic War in clashes with the most experienced secret services of the Third Reich, as well as in the course of operations to obtain American atomic secrets. It is not for nothing that on October 5, 2017, the grand opening of the monument to the founder of the national intelligence service, Lieutenant General Pavel Mikhailovich Fitin, will take place near the Press Bureau of the Foreign Intelligence Service in Moscow. The initiative to install the monument belongs to the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, " Military -sports fund – Ural ”, to the Coordinating Bureau of the Council of Veterans of Security Agencies in the Ural Federal District and timed to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the security authorities.

“In the person of Fitin, Soviet foreign intelligence found the necessary, capable, decent and completely devoted Chekist,” notes in his book “Among the Gods”, an employee of the OMSBON of the 4th Directorate of the NKVD of the USSR, Hero of Russia, Colonel Yuri Kolesnikov. - People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs Beria treated him with some degree of sympathy and understanding. I was sure of him."

Pavel Mikhailovich knew how to foresee circumstances and firmly adhere to his position. “Knowing Stalin’s wary attitude towards intelligence information coming from abroad,” writes Kolesnikov, “Fitin nevertheless continued to report it to the country’s leadership without delay. Neither Fitin, nor Merkulov, nor even Beria could predict the reaction of the Secretary General to the message received from Berlin ... Life was at stake here.

On January 18, 1942, by decision of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, on the basis of the Special Group under the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs Beria, the 4th (reconnaissance and sabotage) Directorate of the NKVD of the USSR was created, which was separated from the 1st Directorate of the NKVD of the USSR. The 4th Directorate was headed by Senior Major of State Security Pavel Anatolyevich Sudoplatov. The remaining foreign intelligence staff, under the leadership of senior major of state security Pavel Mikhailovich Fitin, was focused on covering the policy of the United States and England and conducting scientific and technical intelligence.

On the initiative of Pavel Mikhailovich, the deputy resident in New York, Major Leonid Romanovich Kvasnikov was appointed responsible for obtaining atomic secrets (Operation Enormous). As Pavel Mikhailovich writes in his recently declassified memoirs, “the great merit of foreign intelligence during this period, especially the residencies of the First Directorate in the USA, Canada, England, was the receipt of scientific and technical information in the field of atomic energy, which greatly helped to speed up the solution of the issue of creating an atomic bomb in the Soviet Union. I often had to meet with Igor Vasilyevich Kurchatov, who expressed great gratitude for the materials received from our intelligence on atomic energy issues.

On August 20, 1945, a Special Committee was created, which was entrusted with the "leadership of all work on the use of intra-atomic energy of uranium." Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria became the Chairman of the Special Committee, who, on the one hand, supervised the receipt of all the necessary intelligence information, and on the other hand, carried out the general management of the entire project.

On August 29, 1949, the first Soviet atomic bomb was tested at the Semipalatinsk test site in Kazakhstan, which became an exact copy of the American one dropped on Nagasaki. Pavel Mikhailovich writes: “In the postwar years, for almost five years I had to deal with issues related to the special production and commissioning of uranium plants, and in this regard, I again repeatedly met with Igor Vasilyevich, a talented scientist and wonderful person. In conversations, he again emphasized what an invaluable service in solving the atomic problem in the USSR was played by the materials obtained by Soviet intelligence.

In 1951-1953, Pavel Mikhailovich Fitin was the Minister of State Security of the Kazakh SSR, and from March 16, 1953, after Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria again headed the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs, which also included state security, he was the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Sverdlovsk region.

Literally a few days after Beria was killed during the coup d'état carried out by Khrushchev on June 26, 1953, with the support of a group of military coup d'état, Pavel Mikhailovich was removed from his post, and on November 29, 1953 he was finally dismissed from the bodies "due to service inconsistency" - without a pension, since he did not have the necessary length of service ...

In the last years of his life, he worked as the director of the photographic plant of the Union of Soviet Societies for Friendship and cultural ties with foreign countries. On December 24, 1971, Pavel Mikhailovich Fitin died in Moscow on the operating table. He was 63 years old, he looked great. According to relatives, there were no indications for surgery for a perforated ulcer ...

But the following is noteworthy: shortly before his death, in May 1971, at the initiative of the Chairman of the KGB of the USSR Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov, the legendary head of illegal intelligence and a special task force, Yakov Serebryansky, was rehabilitated, who was involved in the "Beria case" and died in 1956 during interrogation by an investigator in Butyrka prison. Apparently, the beginning of the process of rehabilitation of the victims of Khrushchev's repressions and the restoration of historical justice was not included in anyone's plans.

, Kurgan region)

Death: December 24(1971-12-24 ) (63 years old)
Moscow, Russian SFSR, USSR Place of burial: at the Vvedensky cemetery in Moscow The consignment: VKP(b), CPSU since 1927 Education: Agricultural Academy. Timiryazev
Special Purpose School Military service Type of army: Intelligence service Rank: Lieutenant General

: Invalid or missing image

Awards:

Pavel Mikhailovich Fitin(December 15 (28), Ozhogino village, now Kurgan region - December 24, Moscow) - head of foreign intelligence (INO GUGB NKVD -NKGB) (-). Minister of State Security of the Kazakh SSR (-). Lieutenant General (1945).

Biography

pre-war period

Pavel Mikhailovich Fitin was born on December 15 (28) in the village. Ozhogino, Shatrovskaya volost, Yalutorovsky district, Tobolsk province (now Shatrovskiy district, Kurgan region) in peasant family. After graduating from school in 1920, he worked in the Zvezda agricultural artel. In 1922, in Yalutorovsk, he was admitted to the Komsomol. In 1922-1926 he studied at the secondary school in Yalutorovsk. Since March 1927 - a member of the CPSU (b), since 1952 - the CPSU. From May 1927 to June 1928 - Chairman of the Bureau of Young Pioneers, Deputy Executive Secretary of the Shatrovskiy District Committee of the Komsomol (Tyumen District).

At the head of intelligence during the war years

Fitin was one of the first to report to Stalin on the date of the German attack on the USSR.

Pavel Mikhailovich Fitin showed outstanding organizational skills during the Great Patriotic War. IN short term he restored most of the residencies abroad, oversaw special-purpose schools where leaders of partisan detachments were trained, created an information and analytical department where data from agents abroad was analyzed.

Heading foreign intelligence, he made great efforts to provide the country's leadership with information about the plans of the German command, information about the possibility of opening a "second front".

Intelligence received a plan for the German offensive on the Kursk Bulge, information was obtained about separate negotiations between the Americans and the Nazis in Switzerland, "radio games" were conducted, and assistance was provided to the partisan movement.

The service led by Fitin made an invaluable contribution to the creation of nuclear weapons in the USSR.

post-war period

It is believed that Lavrenty Beria, who had treated Fitin badly since pre-war times, in June 1946 achieved his release from his post, transfer to the personnel department of the USSR Ministry of State Security and direction to the Soviet occupation zone in Germany as deputy commissioner of the Ministry of State Security in Germany (September 1946 - April 1, 1947). According to another version, N. S. Khrushchev was the initiator of Fitin's resignation.

After his resignation, he worked as the Chief Controller of the Ministry of State Control of the USSR (April 1954 - April 1958), senior controller of the Commission of Soviet Control of the Council of Ministers of the USSR (April 1958 - August 1959).

IN last years P. M. Fitin worked as director of the photographic plant of the Union of Soviet Societies for Friendship and Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries (since August 1959, last mentioned in July 1963).

Pavel Mikhailovich Fitin died on December 24, 1971 in Moscow. He was buried in Moscow at the Vvedensky cemetery.

Memory

On August 14, 2014, a memorial plaque was installed in Yalutorovsk on the building former school where Pavel Fitin studied. Now this building houses the Yalutorovsk Orthodox Gymnasium.

Some researchers believe that under P. M. Fitin, Soviet intelligence achieved the most outstanding results.

Memorial plaque P.M. Fitina was opened in Yekaterinburg on the building of the Sverdlovsk Department of the FSB on June 21, 2016

Ranks

Awards

USSR

• Two Orders of the Red Banner (April 26, 1940, ...)
• Order of the Red Star (September 20, 1943)
• 8 medals
• Badge "Honored Worker of the NKVD" No. 000623 (February 4, 1942)

Foreign awards

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Notes

Literature

• // Petrov N.V., Skorkin K.V./ Ed. N. G. Okhotin and A. B. Roginsky. - M .: Links, 1999. - 502 p. - 3000 copies. - ISBN 5-7870-0032-3.
• Bondarenko A. Yu.. - M .: Young Guard, 2015. - 400 p. - 3000 copies. - ISBN 978-5-235-03816-5.
• Antonov V. S. Foreign Intelligence Service. History, people, facts. M., 2013, p. 69-70

Links

see also

• List of chiefs of Soviet and Russian foreign intelligence

Heads of the GUGB Deputy Heads of the GUGB Heads of counterintelligence department Heads of the secret political department Heads of a special department Heads of foreign department Heads of the Investigative Department Special ranks

An excerpt characterizing Fitin, Pavel Mikhailovich

– Why do you know?
- I know. This is not good, my friend.
“And if I want ...” said Natasha.
“Stop talking nonsense,” said the Countess.
- And if I want ...
Natasha, I'm serious...
Natasha did not let her finish, she pulled the countess's large hand to her and kissed it from above, then on the palm, then turned again and began to kiss her on the bone of the upper joint of the finger, then in the gap, then again on the bone, saying in a whisper: "January, February, March, April, May."
- Speak, mother, why are you silent? Speak, - she said, looking back at her mother, who looked at her daughter with a tender look and because of this contemplation, it seemed that she forgot everything she wanted to say.
“That won’t do, my soul. Not everyone will understand your childhood connection, and seeing him so close to you can harm you in the eyes of other young people who travel to us, and, most importantly, torment him in vain. He may have found himself a party of his own, rich; and now he's going crazy.
- Coming down? Natasha repeated.
- I'll tell you about myself. I had one cousin...
- I know - Kirilla Matveich, but he is an old man?
“There was not always an old man. But here's the thing, Natasha, I'll talk to Borey. He doesn't have to travel so often...
“Why not, if he wants to?”
“Because I know it won’t end.”
- Why do you know? No, mom, you don't tell him. What nonsense! - Natasha said in the tone of a person from whom they want to take away his property.
- Well, I won’t get married, so let him go, if he’s having fun and I’m having fun. Natasha looked at her mother smiling.
“Not married, but like this,” she repeated.
- How is it, my friend?
- Yes, it is. Well, it’s very necessary that I won’t get married, but ... so.
“So, so,” repeated the countess, and, shaking with her whole body, she laughed a kind, unexpected old woman’s laugh.
- Stop laughing, stop it, - Natasha shouted, - you are shaking the whole bed. You look terribly like me, the same laughter ... Wait a minute ... - She grabbed both hands of the countess, kissed the bone of the little finger on one - June, and continued to kiss July, August on the other hand. - Mom, is he very in love? How about your eyes? Were you so in love? And very nice, very, very nice! Only not quite to my taste - it is narrow, like a dining room clock ... Don't you understand? ... Narrow, you know, gray, light ...
– What are you lying about! said the Countess.
Natasha continued:
- Do you really not understand? Nikolenka would understand... Earless - that blue, dark blue with red, and it is quadrangular.
“You flirt with him, too,” said the countess, laughing.
“No, he is a Freemason, I found out. He is nice, dark blue with red, how do you explain ...
“Countess,” came the voice of the count from behind the door. - Are you awake? - Natasha jumped up barefoot, grabbed her shoes in her hands and ran into her room.
She couldn't sleep for a long time. She kept thinking about the fact that no one can understand everything that she understands and what is in her.
"Sonya?" she thought, looking at the sleeping, curled-up kitty with her huge braid. “No, where is she! She is virtuous. She fell in love with Nikolenka and doesn't want to know anything else. Mom doesn't understand. It’s amazing how smart I am and how… she’s nice,” she continued, speaking to herself in the third person and imagining that some very smart, smartest and most intelligent person was talking about her. good man... “Everything, everything is in her,” this man continued, “she is unusually smart, sweet and then good, unusually good, dexterous, swims, rides excellently, and her voice! You can say, an amazing voice! She sang her favorite musical phrase from the Cherubinian opera, threw herself on the bed, laughed at the joyful thought that she was about to fall asleep, shouted to Dunyasha to put out the candle, and before Dunyasha had time to leave the room, she had already passed into another, even happier world of dreams, where everything was as easy and beautiful as in reality, but only it was even better, because it was different.

The next day, the countess, having invited Boris to her place, had a talk with him, and from that day he stopped visiting the Rostovs.

On the 31st of December, on the eve of the new year 1810, le reveillon [night dinner], there was a ball at the Catherine's nobleman. The ball was supposed to be the diplomatic corps and the sovereign.
On the Promenade des Anglais, the famous house of a nobleman shone with countless lights of illumination. At the illuminated entrance with red cloth stood the police, and not only the gendarmes, but the police chief at the entrance and dozens of police officers. The carriages drove off, and new ones kept coming up with red footmen and with footmen in feathers on their hats. Men in uniforms, stars and ribbons came out of the carriages; ladies in satin and ermine carefully descended the noisily laid steps, and hurriedly and soundlessly passed along the cloth of the entrance.
Almost every time a new carriage drove up, a whisper ran through the crowd and hats were taken off.
- Sovereign? ... No, minister ... prince ... envoy ... Can't you see the feathers? ... - said from the crowd. One of the crowd, dressed better than the others, seemed to know everyone, and called by name the noblest nobles of that time.
One-third of the guests had already arrived at this ball, and the Rostovs, who were supposed to be at this ball, were still hastily preparing to dress.
There were many rumors and preparations for this ball in the Rostov family, many fears that the invitation would not be received, the dress would not be ready, and everything would not work out as it should.
Together with the Rostovs, Marya Ignatievna Peronskaya, a friend and relative of the countess, a thin and yellow maid of honor of the old court, who led the provincial Rostovs in the highest St. Petersburg society, went to the ball.
At 10 pm, the Rostovs were supposed to call for the maid of honor to the Tauride Garden; and meanwhile it was already five minutes to ten, and the young ladies were still not dressed.
Natasha was going to the first big ball in her life. She got up that day at 8 o'clock in the morning and was in feverish anxiety and activity all day long. All her strength, from the very morning, was focused on ensuring that they all: she, mother, Sonya were dressed in the best possible way. Sonya and the countess vouched for her completely. The countess was supposed to be wearing a masaka velvet dress, they were wearing two white smoky dresses on pink, silk covers with roses in the corsage. The hair had to be combed a la grecque [in Greek].
Everything essential had already been done: the legs, arms, neck, ears were already especially carefully, according to the ballroom, washed, perfumed and powdered; shod already were silk, fishnet stockings and white satin shoes with bows; the hair was almost finished. Sonya finished dressing, the countess too; but Natasha, who worked for everyone, fell behind. She was still sitting in front of the mirror in a peignoir draped over her thin shoulders. Sonya, already dressed, stood in the middle of the room and, pressing painfully with her little finger, pinned the last ribbon that squealed under the pin.
“Not like that, not like that, Sonya,” said Natasha, turning her head from her hairdo and grabbing her hair with her hands, which the maid who held them did not have time to let go. - Not so bow, come here. Sonya sat down. Natasha cut the ribbon differently.
“Excuse me, young lady, you can’t do that,” said the maid holding Natasha’s hair.
- Oh, my God, well after! That's it, Sonya.
- Are you coming soon? - I heard the voice of the countess, - it's already ten now.
- Now. - Are you ready, mom?
- Just pin the current.
“Don’t do it without me,” Natasha shouted: “you won’t be able to!”
- Yeah, ten.
It was decided to be at the ball at half past ten, and Natasha still had to get dressed and stop by the Tauride Garden.
Having finished her hair, Natasha, in a short skirt, from under which ballroom shoes were visible, and in her mother's blouse, ran up to Sonya, examined her and then ran to her mother. Turning her head, she pinned the current, and, barely having time to kiss her White hair, again ran to the girls who were hemming her skirt.
The case was behind Natasha's skirt, which was too long; it was hemmed by two girls, hastily biting the threads. A third, with pins in her lips and teeth, ran from the countess to Sonya; the fourth held the entire smoky dress on a high hand.
- Mavrusha, rather, dove!
- Give me a thimble from there, young lady.
– Will it be soon? - said the count, entering from behind the door. “Here are the spirits. Peronskaya was already waiting.
“It’s ready, young lady,” said the maid, lifting a hemmed smoky dress with two fingers and blowing and shaking something, expressing with this gesture the awareness of the airiness and purity of what she was holding.
Natasha began to put on a dress.
“Now, now, don’t go, papa,” she shouted to her father, who opened the door, still from under the haze of a skirt that covered her entire face. Sonya closed the door. A minute later, the count was let in. He was in a blue tailcoat, stockings and shoes, perfumed and pomaded.
- Oh, dad, you're so good, lovely! - said Natasha, standing in the middle of the room and straightening the folds of smoke.
“Excuse me, young lady, excuse me,” the girl said, kneeling, pulling at her dress and turning the pins from one side of her mouth to the other.
- Your will! - Sonya cried out with despair in her voice, looking at Natasha's dress, - your will, again long!
Natasha stepped aside to look around in the dressing-glass. The dress was long.
“By God, madam, nothing is long,” said Mavrusha, who was crawling along the floor after the young lady.
“Well, it’s a long time, so we’ll sweep it, we’ll sweep it in a minute,” said the resolute Dunyasha, taking out a needle from a handkerchief on her chest and again set to work on the floor.
At that moment, shyly, with quiet steps, the countess entered in her toque and velvet dress.
- Wow! my beauty! shouted the Count, “better than all of you!” He wanted to hug her, but she pulled away, blushing, so as not to cringe.
“Mom, more on the side of the current,” Natasha said. - I'll cut it, and rushed forward, and the girls who were hemming, who did not have time to rush after her, tore off a piece of smoke.
- My God! What is it? I don't blame her...
“Nothing, I notice, you won’t see anything,” said Dunyasha.
- Beauty, my darling! - said the nanny who came in from behind the door. - And Sonyushka, well, beauties! ...
At a quarter past eleven we finally got into the carriages and drove off. But still it was necessary to stop by the Tauride Garden.
Peronskaya was already ready. Despite her old age and ugliness, she had exactly the same thing as the Rostovs, although not with such haste (it was the usual case for her), but also was inflated, washed, faded, ugly body, and even carefully washed behind her ears, and even, just like the Rostovs, the old maid enthusiastically admired the outfit of her mistress with a yellow dress with a shifer In the living room. Peronskaya praised the Rostovs' toilets.
The Rostovs praised her taste and dress, and, taking care of their hair and dresses, at eleven o'clock they got into the carriages and drove off.

Natasha had not had a moment of freedom since the morning of that day, and had never had time to think about what lay ahead of her.
In the damp, cold air, in the cramped and incomplete darkness of the swaying carriage, for the first time she vividly imagined what awaited her there, at the ball, in the illuminated halls - music, flowers, dances, sovereign, all the brilliant youth of St. Petersburg. What awaited her was so wonderful that she did not even believe that it would be: it was so inconsistent with the impression of cold, crowdedness and darkness of the carriage. She understood everything that awaited her only when, having walked along the red cloth of the entrance, she entered the hallway, took off her fur coat and walked beside Sonya in front of her mother between the flowers along the illuminated stairs. Only then did she remember how she had to behave at the ball and tried to adopt that majestic manner that she considered necessary for a girl at the ball. But fortunately for her, she felt that her eyes were running wide: she could not see anything clearly, her pulse beat a hundred times a minute, and the blood began to beat at her heart. She could not adopt the manner that would have made her ridiculous, and she walked, dying from excitement and trying with all her might only to hide it. And this was the very manner that most of all went to her. In front and behind them, talking in the same low voice and also in ball gowns, the guests entered. The mirrors on the stairs reflected ladies in white, blue, pink dresses, with diamonds and pearls on their open arms and necks.

Fitin Pavel Mikhailovich(December 15 (28), 1907, the village of Ozhogino, Shatrovskaya volost, Yalutorovsky district, Tobolsk province (now the Shatrovsky district of the Kurgan region) - December 24, 1971, Moscow) - head of Soviet political intelligence (INO GUGB NKVD-NKGB) in 1939-1946, lieutenant general (1945).

pre-war period

Born into a peasant family. After graduation high school worked in the Zvezda agricultural artel.

• Since March 1927 - a member of the CPSU (b), since 1952 - the CPSU.
• From May 1927 to June 1928 - Chairman of the Bureau of Young Pioneers, Deputy Executive Secretary of the Shatrovskiy District Committee of the Komsomol (Tyumen District).
• In 1932 he graduated from the engineering faculty of the Agricultural Academy. Timiryazev.
• From July to October 1932 - engineer of the laboratory of agricultural machines of the Moscow Institute of Mechanization and Electrification of Agriculture.
• From October 1932 to October 1934 he worked at the Selkhozgiz publishing house as the head of the editorial board of industrial literature.
• From October 1934 to November 1935 he served in the Red Army as a private in military unit 1266 MVO.
• In November 1935 he returned to the publishing house, from November 1936 he became deputy editor-in-chief.

In March 1938, in the midst of mass repressions, due to the lack of qualified personnel, it was decided to conduct a “party recruitment” for the NKVD bodies. Fitin was sent to study at special accelerated courses of the School for Special Purposes, among other civilian specialists.

In November 1938, he became an intern in the 5th department of the GUGB of the NKVD of the USSR (foreign intelligence) and at the end of the same year he was appointed deputy head of the department, and in 1939 he headed all foreign intelligence of the state security agencies and worked in this position until 1946.

Pavel Mikhailovich Fitin held the following positions:

• Security officer, head of the 9th department of the 5th department of the NKVD GUGB (August - October 1938)
• Deputy Head of the 5th Department of the GUGB of the NKVD of the USSR (November 1, 1938 - May 13, 1939)
• Head of the 5th department of the GUGB of the NKVD of the USSR (May 13, 1939 - February 26, 1941)
• Head of the 1st Directorate of the NKGB of the USSR (February 26 - July 31, 1941)
• Head of the 1st Directorate of the NKVD of the USSR (July 31, 1941 - May 12, 1943)
• Head of the 1st Directorate of the NKGB - MGB of the USSR (May 12, 1943 - June 15, 1946)
• Until September 1946 - at the disposal of the personnel department of the USSR Ministry of State Security

At the head of intelligence during the war years

Outstanding organizational abilities of P. M. Fitin manifested themselves during the Great Patriotic War. Heading foreign intelligence, he made great efforts to provide the country's leadership with information about the plans of the German command, information about the possibility of opening a "second front".

Intelligence received a plan for the German offensive on the Kursk Bulge, received information about separate negotiations between the Americans and the Nazis in Switzerland, conducted “radio games”, and provided assistance partisan movement.

An invaluable contribution was made by the service led by Fitin to the creation in the USSR nuclear weapons.

post-war period

It is believed that Lavrenty Beria, who had treated Fitin badly since pre-war times, in June 1946 achieved his release from his post and was sent to the Soviet occupation zone in Germany as deputy commissioner of the MGB in Germany (September 1946 - April 1, 1947).

On April 1, 1947, P. M. Fitin was appointed to the post of deputy head of the state security department for the Sverdlovsk region, and on September 27, 1951, he was transferred to the post of Minister of State Security of the Kazakh SSR. From March 16 to July 16, 1953 he was the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Sverdlovsk region.

On November 29, 1953, after the arrest of L.P. Beria, P.M. Fitin was dismissed from the security agencies for service inconsistency without a pension, since he did not have the necessary length of service.

After his resignation, he worked as the Chief Controller of the Ministry of State Control of the USSR (April 1954 - April 1958), senior controller of the Commission of Soviet Control of the Council of Ministers of the USSR (April 1958 - August 1959).

In the last years of his life, P. M. Fitin worked as the director of the photographic plant of the Union of Soviet Societies for Friendship and Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries (since August 1959, last mentioned in July 1963).