Next Stop Execution: The Autobiography of Oleg Gordievsky

by Oleg Gordievsky

  My father was working all out as a political lecturer to the troops. When Hitler’s armies invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, he was too old (at forty-five) and too short-sighted to be sent to the front, and he never took part in any fighting, something of which he was secretly ashamed. Yet when I grew up I learned from my cousin Valentin what a brilliant orator he was. As a boy of sixteen Valentin went to one of my father’s lectures, which was given in a summer theatre — an open auditorium with benches all round. For forty-five minutes he held forth on the international situation and the latest position at the front. He spoke with unfaltering brilliance, beginning on a high note, but raising his tone steadily all the time until he finished in a crescendo with two slogans coined by Stalin which had become a ritual: ‘OUR CAUSE IS THE RIGHT ONE!’ and ‘VICTORY WILL BE OURS!’ By then the audience was ready to explode, and it did: people leapt to their feet and roared out a standing ovation. Valentin was immensely impressed by my father’s ability to rouse his listeners and ignite their fervour. He may have been dishing out propaganda to the masses, but clearly he did it with exceptional panache.

  As the Germans advanced rapidly towards Moscow in the late summer of 1941, government departments and foreign embassies began to pull out and evacuate themselves to Kuybyshev, a town on the Volga once (and now again) called Samara. On 16 October there was panic in the capital when people thought that the Germans were going to take the city: widespread looting broke out, and a special regiment of NKVD troops was formed to defend the place to the last, like kamikaze warriors.

  Our own family was evacuated to Kuybyshev, where my father was working temporarily, but the town became so crowded with refugees that, after a short period there, he arranged for us to be sent on to Przhevalsk, in Kirgizia, almost on the Chinese border. There, in the town named after the explorer and geographer Colonel N. M. Przhevalsky (an officer of the Russian army who discovered a species of wild horse), a unit of Borderguard troops was stationed to look after the families of officers who remained in Moscow or were at the front.

  Przhevalsk is the first place of which I have any clear recollection. A typical Russian colonial town, it had beautiful streets of brick houses painted white, and the tall, slim poplars which smell so sweet after rain. Lying nearly a thousand metres above sea-level, the place had a comfortable climate, with crisp, dry frost in the winter, and temperate summers. My father never came there, because it was too far away from his work, and I imagine that my mother must have been lonely, but for two years we lived comfortably enough in lodgings allocated to us. The owner of the house kept a pig, of which my brother and I became fond, and when it was about to be killed for the New Year, my mother made us stay in our room so that we did not witness its slaughter. But then, as soon as it was dead, someone spread a rug over its body, and Vasilko and I sat on it without worrying.

  Other odd recollections filter back through the mist of time. I remember being embarrassed by my shoes, which were old, with torn uppers. I remember going to play among the wooden benches of an outdoor theatre in which, because there was nobody to keep it tidy, wild flowers were growing. On our way to Frunze (now Bishkek), to catch the train back to Moscow, we were driven round the end of the Issuk Kul lake, and I was astonished by the mountains rising steeply from the shores of that vast expanse of water. Then in Frunze flowers again made a strong impression: as we waited for something, we sat in a well-kept square, and the warm September evening air was loaded with the smell of tobacco plants. To this day the sweet, almost sickly scent of nicotiana brings back the scene in every detail. Finally, when we reached Moscow and emerged from the Kazan station into Komsomolskaya Square, I was enormously impressed by the sight of a train crossing above the lower tracks on a viaduct — a train high up in the sky.

  By then, the autumn of 1943, Moscow seemed relatively safe. After the great battles of Stalingrad, in January and February, and Kursk, in the summer, the German armies were on the retreat, and it was clear they would never return or bomb the Soviet capital again. My father had managed to secure us a flat, close to the notorious Butyrky prison, in a solidly built Tsarist barracks which had once housed soldiers guarding the gaol. It was there that I grew up. The surroundings were hardly salubrious, for Butyrky was to Moscow what Moabit was to Berlin: a prison with a hideous past. Often, as we walked round it, we would watch a car approach the entrance and marvel at the way in which, as the guard pressed a button, the huge metal gate would slide back into one wall. Beyond that gate was another of the same kind, so that every vehicle going in or out was caught in a lock. From the little balcony of our flat we could see the circular eighteenth-century brick tower containing cells, in which countless people had suffered.

  In spite of our proximity to the gloomy prison, for a boy of five Moscow seemed a fine place. There were few people — so many having gone away to, or because of, the war — and practically no traffic. The city was clean, and there were still some streets of wooden houses, with gardens in front and behind, where lilac bloomed in the spring. In the main thoroughfares, though, all the trees had gone, cut down on the orders of Stalin and Kaganovich, who regarded trees as unnecessary and got rid of them when they started trying to rebuild the capital. Our own road was Lesnaya Ulitza, or Wood Street, so called because it had once been a timber market.

  The building next door to ours contained a curious relic. On one wall was an ancient, pre-revolutionary sign, including some of the letters which the Bolsheviks abolished, and proclaiming KALANDADZE WHOLESALE COMPANY FOR CAUCASIAN FRUIT. The place had been a clandestine print shop, in which Bolshevik leaflets were produced from a press hidden in the basement. In my day it was kept as a little museum, and the ground floor looked like an old-fashioned merchant’s office, where you could put in an order for fruit from the south.

  One of my most vivid childhood memories dates from the winter of 1944, when I was just over six. The authorities, having decided to stage a major propaganda event, announced that on a certain day German prisoners of war would be paraded through the city. The newspapers carried preliminary articles describing how these men had invaded a peaceful country, but were now beaten, and inciting Muscovites to turn out to see them.

  Out we went with my mother to watch — and an unforgettable event it proved. On a dry, cold day, with no snow lying, an endless column of men marched past, most still wearing some sort of uniform, and shepherded by a few guards with machine-guns. The crowd stood silent: nobody jeered or threw anything, and nobody even muttered, for people simply did not know how to react. Later it occurred to me that they were struck by the sudden realization that these Germans were human beings caught in an unpleasant situation, trapped, guarded and led like animals. Many had nice faces, but their expressions were sad as death. Obviously they knew that the parade had been laid on to humiliate them and whip up anti-Nazi hatred, but the crowd could not feel that these men were their bitter enemies, and the spectators remained inert. All the same, the march was a propaganda success, since films of it were shown in numerous countries abroad, demonstrating once and for all that Moscow had never surrendered to Hitler’s invading horde.

  *

  Vasilko and I got on well, but because he was five years older we were never particularly close. Even so, we spent a good deal of time together, and one of our favourite resorts was the colossal wreck of the Aleksandr Nevsky church in Miussky Square, not far from our home. The authorities had tried to blow up the building, but so massive was its construction that they had failed to demolish it, and its ruin, full of crumbling brick arches, furnished us with a thrilling playground, extensive by any standards but positively immense to a small boy. (The ruins remained until late in the 1960s; then at last they were demolished and a Young Pioneer house of pretentious modern design went up in their place — a typical, shabby Soviet building covered with coloured plastic panels, which made a sad contrast with the grandeur of the church.) We also loved going to Gorki Park, where German tanks, guns, aircraft, cars, motorcycles an
d other equipment were permanently exhibited along the river front.

  Vasilko’s favourite place, however, was the garage in the courtyard behind our block of flats. The yard housed a car workshop, with some spaces for the vehicles of KGB officers who lived in the next block; there were also rows upon rows of German motorcycles, together with a mass of spare parts — wheels, gearboxes, and a whole mountain of tyres over which we used to climb. The place was used as a base by a few professional motorbike racers, including the legendary Korol (Russian for King), then the Soviet champion, who occupied one of the ground-floor flats. At the age of twelve my brother became fascinated by motorbikes, and developed a passion for everything mechanical and technical — cars, typewriters, radios. He was naturally good with his hands, and the courtyard confirmed his bent.

  Looking back, I know that we must have lived on a basic diet: we regarded sugar, for instance, as a rare luxury, so hard was it to come by. But I never remember going hungry, and I believe that as a family we owed a great deal to my grandmother. A resolute woman with the true common sense of a peasant, she was determined not to become a parasite in middle and old age; she therefore travelled from one daughter to another, giving help to whatever branch of her family needed it most.

  Being semi-literate, and knowing no better, she wrote whole letters without any division between the words — luckily her children could decipher them. She was a sound Christian: she knew a good deal about the Gospels and the life of Jesus, and quietly tried to introduce her grandchildren to Christianity. It was alleged that she had my brother baptized in secret, and had been on her way to church to baptize me when she was intercepted by my father. The discovery gave him an awful shock: for one thing, he was by then an atheist, and for another, 1938 was the year of the worst purges. If word had got out that his child had been baptized, the authorities could easily have had him shot: the secret practice of religion would certainly have been a capital offence. When he caught her in the act, he told her off in the most forceful terms, and she was terrified. As a result, I was never baptized. Nevertheless, my grandmother persisted in her faith: as I grew older, she told me about religious ceremonies, and extolled the beauty of Russian Orthodox services, and her words gave me a long-lasting interest in religion. She was fascinated by the life of Christ, and knew every detail of it: she had a particularly soft spot for donkeys, because Jesus had ridden into Jerusalem on an ass.

  Not the least of Lukeria’s virtues was her excellence as a cook. No one could make better pirogi, the big open pies filled with spiced meat which all Russians adore, or piroshki, tiny pancakes stuffed with meat, fish, cabbage and egg. She also produced wonderful pilmeni, or little dumplings, with a wide variety of fillings. Our family had some connection with the Urals, where people made a special type of Siberian dumpling, and our grandmother knew everything there was to know about making them. If we had company, she would have at least three pots of them on the boil. When the first lot were ready, out they would come: each person would get a dozen or so, and we would eat them with salt, pepper, mustard and vinegar, the men washing them down with vodka. As soon as the first helping had been eaten, the next would be served — and when we were growing boys, we could put away incredible numbers.

  ‘Bratik,’ I would gasp at Vasilko, ‘I’ve eaten forty!’

  ‘That’s nothing,’ he would groan. ‘I’ve eaten fifty-five!’

  Another vivid snatch of memory dates from the end of the war. One day I was sitting in the courtyard of our block when some boy came running and shouting, ‘Have you heard the news?’

  ‘No, what?’

  ‘You’ve got a sister!’

  That was Marina, born on 31 March 1945. Five weeks later, on 9 May, we celebrated Victory Day, one day behind Western Europe as a result of difficulties caused by Stalin’s demand that the Germans should surrender to him as well as to the rest of the Allies.

  One man who brought fun and excitement into our lives was our cousin Igor Yashkin, son of Aunt Yevgenia. An airforce navigator, who flew in some of the first jets, he served in the squadron commanded by Vassily Stalin, son of the dictator; and twice a year, on 1 May and 7 November, this crack unit took part in the ceremonial fly-past over Red Square. After each big occasion the members of the squadron went on leave and blew their pay on drink and debauchery: it was on those leaves that Igor would visit us, always sparkling with life and jokes, a marvellous raconteur, especially at table. Alas, drink got the better of him in the end, and he finished his career as an impoverished air-controller.

  During our stay in Kirgizia I had escaped kindergarten, because my mother was not working and was at home to look after me. But by the age of five or six I had learned to read — taught by her, I imagine — and from my earliest days I was fascinated by the written word. In 1945, while still only six, I began to read a weekly magazine called British Ally, published in Russian by the British Embassy in Moscow, and I also made a start on the Literary Gazette, which, although of course I could not appreciate it, was much better written than most Party publications. Thus when the time came for me to start school in September 1946, I was eager to begin learning properly.

  Chapter Three – School Days

  School No. 130 lay within easy walking distance of home, only a couple of blocks along Lesnaya Ulitsa, which was one of the reasons my mother chose it. The building, put up in the 1930s, was like dozens of others in Moscow erected at that time: plain, with four storeys and basic classrooms. The classes were very large — between thirty-seven and forty-two — and the standard of the pupils varied widely. When I joined, they were all boys, and about a third of them were from the lumpen proletariat: they lived in slums directly behind the building, and had little interest in learning.

  By Moscow standards our school was only medium-sized, with just over a thousand children, but the building was used to capacity, with everybody, pupils and staff alike, working in two shifts. The first started at 8.30 a.m., and the second at 2.30 p.m., each working day being of six hours, with short breaks between periods. There was a small canteen, and some boys had a few kopeks with which they bought sausages and bread rolls, but most of us regarded such expenditure as folly, and saw no need to eat while at school: after all, we had breakfast or lunch before we started, and another meal when we got home.

  When I first went to school, almost all the teachers were women; the male population had been so drastically diminished by the war that there were very few men teachers left. Our own form teacher was a girl of twenty-two, just out of university. Thousands of women were without husbands, and although the prospect of finding a partner was so poor, many were desperate to have children, purely so that they would not be lonely in old age. I suppose, therefore, it was hardly surprising that in the middle of my school career one of the teachers, aged almost forty, became pregnant by a sixteen-year-old pupil. Nevertheless, the news caused a sensation, and made me start to think seriously about relations between the sexes. I am glad to say that in this instance the authorities, who were often brutally censorious over moral issues, decided to damp the affair down: the teacher had the baby and was allowed to keep her job.

  Our school facilities were simple. The only commodity of which we had a good supply was ink, which came in powdered form, and had to be mixed with water. Apart from blackboard and chalk, the staff had no equipment — nothing so up-to-date as a slide projector or magic lantern. Luckily for me there were two exceptionally intelligent boys in my form. One was Alfred Shmelkin, like his physicist father a brilliant mathematician; the other, Viktor Pismenny, was the son of an army officer who had died during the Finnish war, and had been posthumously decorated with the highest order of the Soviet Union. We three formed a nucleus in our class and drove each other on, the other two leading in scientific subjects, I in history and languages. Our teacher was glad to have at least three boys who showed real interest in their work, and she gave us more than our share of attention. (Viktor later became an engineer but because his father was Jewis
h, he was never allowed to join the operational KGB, and could only work in the organization’s maintenance and administrative Directorate. That his father was a Hero of the Soviet Union could not defeat the entrenched anti-Semitism. Alfred Shmelkin, however, who was also Jewish, managed to defeat the system. Even in the mathematics faculty of Moscow University the authorities tried to create obstacles for Jews, but Alfred’s gifts were so outstanding that he overcame them, and worked there with distinction.)

  Once a week we had a physical culture period, but facilities for sports were minimal: the sports hall was only the size of two classrooms put together and, apart from gymnastics, we could only play basketball. Instinctively I felt deprived: although too young to realize that I needed regular exercise, I wanted to play more games and now I much regret that I did not discover badminton when I was ten or so. Had I made an early start, I might have become quite good at the game, because it suited me well: tactics are subtle and complicated, as the shuttlecock, slowing down in the final few seconds of its flight, gives a player the chance to use his wits and change his shot at the last moment. This I enjoyed, but as I did not try the game until I was thirty, I never achieved my full potential at it.

  When I was ten or eleven my mother took me along to the Dynamo stadium (Dynamo being the sports club of the KGB and the Ministry of the Interior). There I belatedly discovered that she was not well educated in certain areas, for I found that she knew nothing about sport. Rather than telling me about the choices available, she simply asked which club I would like to join. I, being even more ignorant, showed no initiative and let her put me down for the most obvious, gymnastics, which I soon found I hated. One day I was sitting in the gym, waiting for my turn on the rings, when a group of boys ran into the room with glowing cheeks and the aura of the great outdoors about them: they were members of the Track and Field Club, and I looked at them longingly, thinking, ‘That’s what I’d like to do — to run.’ But I was much too timid and well disciplined to speak up.