The GRU lays great stress on questions of training specialists for the information directorates. Alongside professional intelligence officers work the best specialists from a wide range of scientific, technical and industrial fields. The GRU has the right to co-opt any specialist from cosmic research or atomic energy, microbiology or computer technology, strategic planning or international relations. Such a right was accorded to the GRU by the Central Committee on the principle that it is better for the Soviet Union to be in the know about the most modern achievements of the United States, Japan, Great Britain, France and the Federal Republic of Germany than to work out its own. In conformity with this the GRU, during the most dramatic moments of the space race of the sixties, unceremoniously co-opted the leading Soviet specialists in the field of piloted cosmic flights and, with their help, monitored every step of the Americans' progress. It is evident that every Soviet programme was based on an American model, but launched days or even months before the Americans carried out theirs. As a result every record, including the first orbital flight, the first multi-seater spaceship, the first entry into outer space went to the Soviet Union. This state of affairs continued right up to the time when the adventurism of the Soviet programme produced a series of tragic accidents.

The information directorates of the GRU have at their disposal the highest quality electronic equipment produced by the best American firms, and the GRU leadership, not without reason, considers that the technical equipment of the processing organs of the GRU is vastly superior to that of comparable units within the CIA - in spite of the fact that some Western specialists have said that the GRU information service is not as effective as it should be. They base this on two facts: that in 1941 the GRU had all the data on the forthcoming German invasion but was unable to evaluate correctly the information it had, and secondly, that much of the intelligence material was reported to the higher command in a 'grey' unprocessed state. It is impossible to deny either of these facts, although one may complain that they belong to past history and not the present. If the GRU information service is truly less effective than it should be, the answer lies in the communist system itself. General Golikov did possess detailed German plans for the invasion, but Stalin was not of a mind to believe them. Two years before, he had twice liquidated the whole staff of Soviet military intelligence from the chief of the GRU downwards. So what more was Golikov to do? Thirteen years later, the new chief of the GRU, General Shtemyenko, found the solution. He ordered the publication of an intelligence summary each night, which would include 'grey', unprocessed information and unsubstantiated data. In this way the gallant general implied that 'this is not my opinion, it is the opinion of my residents'. The GRU chief and the head of information would only give their own opinion twenty-four hours later in the next issue of the summary. (This stroke of genius on the part of the GRU was immediately adopted by the KGB too, which in the same way began to print 'grey' information each night and save its judgements for the following day.)

In a totalitarian state, every lower level is completely dependent on its superior, and there is no organ which can defend it from the caprices of its superior. This is the very essence of the Soviet Union, and this is why it is necessary for the leaders of Soviet intelligence to have recourse to such cunning. The system has been well-tried up to the present time and serves as a kind of lightning conductor. The chief of the GRU camouflages his own opinion, always adopting the position adopted by the general secretary of the Party at a given moment, and at the same time he is able to present the developing situation to the leadership in a most objective way, thus transferring all responsibility from his shoulders to the shoulders of his subordinates. The overseas intelligence organs, separated by thousands of kilometres from Moscow, cannot possibly know what opinion their rulers hold at a given moment. They are therefore forced to give simply objective material which can be directly reported to the higher command. Only in this way can the intelligence leadership exert any influence on its stubborn masters when the latter do not wish to listen to any opinion which contradicts their own.

But the totalitarian system still exerts a crushing influence on all branches of society, including the intelligence services. Nobody has the right to object to, or contradict, the supreme command. Thus it was under Lenin and Stalin and Kruschev and Brezhnev, and thus it will be in the future. Should the supreme command have an incorrect view of things, then no intelligence or information service can convince it otherwise; it does not dare. Nor does first-class American equipment help, nor the very best specialists. It is not the fault of the intelligence services, it is the system's fault. In cases where the supreme command is frankly deluded, as Stalin was in 1941, intelligence has absolutely no chance of influencing him and its effectiveness at that moment is nil.

However, it is not always like that. If the desires of the dictator and his intelligence service coincide, then the latter's effectiveness grows many times greater. In this case, the totalitarian system is not a brake but an accelerator. The dictator does not care at all for moral sides of a question. He is not at all answerable before society for his actions; he fears no opposition or discussion; and he is able to supply his intelligence service with any amount of money, even at a moment when the country is suffering from hunger. The GRU has carried out its most brilliant operations at exactly such moments, when the opinions of the dictator and the intelligence service coincided. And the information service has played a first-class role on these occasions.

Let us consider one example. During the Second World War a section of the tenth directorate (economics and strategic resources) was studying the trends in the exchange of precious metals in the United States. The specialists were surprised that an unexpectedly large amount of silver was allocated 'for scientific research'. Never before, either in America or in any other country, had such a large amount of silver been spent for the needs of research. There was a war going on and the specialists reasonably supposed that the research was military. The GRU information analysed all the fields of military research known to it, but not one of them required the expenditure of so much silver. The second reasonable assumption by the GRU was that it was some new field of research concerning the creation of a new type of weapon. Every information unit was brought to bear on the study of this strange phenomenon. Further analysis showed that all publications dealing with atomic physics had been suppressed in the United States and that all atomic scientists, fugitives from occupied Europe, had at the same time disappeared without trace from the scientific horizon. A week later the GRU presented to Stalin a detailed report on developments in the USA of atomic weapons. It was a report which had been compiled on the basis of only one unconfirmed fact, but its contents left no room for doubt about the correctness of the deductions it made. Stalin was delighted with the report: the rest is well known.

All GRU organs which are not directly concerned with the provision or processing of intelligence material are considered as support services. It is not possible for us to examine all of these, but we will simply take briefly the most important of them.

The Political Department is concerned with the ideological monitoring of all GRU personnel. The military rank of the head of the political department is lieutenant-general and again he is a deputy to the GRU chief. As opposed to any other political departments the GRU political department is made up not of party officials but of professional intelligence officers. There are also several other differences. All political directorates and departments of the Soviet Army are subordinated to the chief political directorate of the Soviet Army, which is at the same time one of the Central Committee departments. The GRU political department, however, is subordinated directly to the Central Committee administrative department. The political department of the GRU has considerable weight in Moscow, especially as regards staff movements, but it has no right to interfere in intelligence work. It exerts practically no influence on the activities of overseas branches of the GRU. Overseas the residents are personally responsible for the ideological monitoring of their officers.

The Personnel Directorate is directly beneath the chief of the GRU. The head of the directorate, a lieutenant-general, is also a deputy to the chief of the GRU. The directorate is staffed only by intelligence officers who, in common with officers of the procurement and processing organs, the political department and other branches of the GRU, regularly go abroad for a period of several years and then return to work at domestic postings.

The personnel directorate has exceptional influence both in the GRU and outside. It directs the movements of all officers, not only inside the GRU, but in a number of satellites, in fleet intelligence, intelligence directorates of military districts and groups of forces too, and also in the intelligence services of Eastern bloc countries.

The Operational/Technical Directorate is concerned with the development and production of all espionage equipment and apparatus. Within its dominion fall several scientific research institutes and specialised undertakings. On the orders of the procurement organs the directorate prepares equipment for secret writing and micro-photography, several kinds of dead letter-box, radio appliances, eavesdropping material, armaments and poisons, to name but a few. Its head is a lieutenant-general, although he is not classed officially as a deputy.

The Administrative/Technical Directorate is in charge of foreign currencies and other items of value, gold and diamonds, for example. This directorate is the currency middle-man between the military industrial commission and the operational users. It controls all the currency resources of the GRU and also carries out secret speculative operations on the international market. Possessed of colossal currency resources, it frequently uses them in order to exert secret pressure on individual businessmen, statesmen and sometimes even on whole governments. No less important, it is responsible for the growth of capital belonging to the GRU and for the acquisition of 'clean' currency.