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A Death in Washington: Walter G. Krivitsky and the Stalin Terror
This is the first book to recover all original documents released by the British archives in 2002 and by the FBI, completing the author's ten-year study.
505 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2003
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 3, 2016
Since reading "The Russian Revolution" by Alan Morehead in the late '50's (I was 12), I have been intrigued by the mindset that responds to the totalitarian instinct. I do not understand man's willing abandonment of freedom to absolutist control.
Krivitsky's life ended on our shores in a hotel in Washington, D.C. Once a close associate of Stalin, his death in the early '40's is testament to Stalin's reach beyond the Soviet borders and his intent to instill fear within his people.
His life in the Soviet Union is a window into the terror that authoritarian minds inflict upon both the willing and unwilling subjects.
Krivitsky's life ended on our shores in a hotel in Washington, D.C. Once a close associate of Stalin, his death in the early '40's is testament to Stalin's reach beyond the Soviet borders and his intent to instill fear within his people.
His life in the Soviet Union is a window into the terror that authoritarian minds inflict upon both the willing and unwilling subjects.
February 27, 2023
The difficulties Walter Krivitsky had in defecting to the USA seem strange today. Here was a senior NKVD officer bringing valuable intelligence, yet his Polish origins meant seemingly insuperable problems with US immigration policy. You would think he’d be welcomed with open arms, yet he had to reveal what he knew not through government debriefings but in press articles. In this way he provoked resentment from J. Edgar Hoover, rather than interest.
For someone who grew up in the Seventies with stories of defectors from behind the Curtain while on visits to Britain and the US, Krivitsky’s difficulties seem incomprehensible at first sight. But it was a different world in the Thirties, before the Cold War drew up new rules of engagement. Kern draws a detailed picture of the problems faced by Krivitsky in the US, including attacks from American pro-Communist talking heads and fears that Soviet assassins might reach him as they’d reached his friend Ignace Poretsky in Switzerland.
But this study covers so much more. For instance Kern explores the unreal world of Stalin’s purges, with show trials eradicating the state’s original revolutionaries and denuding the Red Army of competent leaders. He explains the mentality of those agents who obeyed recalls to Moscow knowing that they would be purged, and how commitment to the cause could override even the sense of self-preservation. Also we see how far the reach of Soviet Russia extended through the Comintern, and how much damage Russia did during the Spanish Civil War.
What comes out most clearly for me is how indoctrination can supplant perception, the idea being everything whether or not it fits the facts. This goes some way to explaining how Krivitsky was able to continue to support a system he knew was causing harm. For instance, his visit to the Marino Sanatorium near Kursk exposes him to the grinding poverty and starvation caused by Stalin’s policy of collectivisation. This affects him greatly, but he shifts his focus to the advance of Fascism in Austria and thus justifies his belief in the cause: ‘The Soviet Union still seemed the sole hope of mankind’.
Krivitsky is not presented as a crusader for freedom, but rather as a highly successful foreign agent of the Soviet Union. He seems to lead a charmed life, avoiding arrest and liquidation on visits to Moscow from his operational base in the Netherlands. But following the assassination of his old friend Ignace Poretsky, after the latter has defected to Switzerland with his wife, Krivitsky decides that it’s time he removed himself, with his wife and son, from harm’s way. So it’s fear for their safety that takes the Krivitsky family first to the Sûreté in Paris, and then to the US.
But the high profile achieved by the sensational recasting of his revelations in the Saturday Evening Post, and his 1940 interviews in London with MI5, meant that his mouth needed to be closed, and this led to his death in Washington’s Bellevue Hotel. Seemingly suicide, inevitably Krivitsky’s death comes under more intense scrutiny in the book than any aspect of his life. But it’s not just the death itself, although Kern takes the opportunity to go through the three possible interpretations of the scenario: fake suicide, forced suicide or voluntary suicide. Kern goes through the details of the investigation, such as it was, and the aftermath of the discovery of Krivitsky’s dead body.
This is a well-researched and well-presented study of the life and context of one of the earliest, and most significant, Soviet defectors. Kern’s occasional anti-Communist language may grate sometimes on the reader’s political ear, but then given the material he’s presenting it’s hard to condemn this. It’s a study that’s packed with detail and insight, and makes a valuable contribution to understanding the convoluted and precarious world of the illegal agent during the Stalin terror.
For someone who grew up in the Seventies with stories of defectors from behind the Curtain while on visits to Britain and the US, Krivitsky’s difficulties seem incomprehensible at first sight. But it was a different world in the Thirties, before the Cold War drew up new rules of engagement. Kern draws a detailed picture of the problems faced by Krivitsky in the US, including attacks from American pro-Communist talking heads and fears that Soviet assassins might reach him as they’d reached his friend Ignace Poretsky in Switzerland.
But this study covers so much more. For instance Kern explores the unreal world of Stalin’s purges, with show trials eradicating the state’s original revolutionaries and denuding the Red Army of competent leaders. He explains the mentality of those agents who obeyed recalls to Moscow knowing that they would be purged, and how commitment to the cause could override even the sense of self-preservation. Also we see how far the reach of Soviet Russia extended through the Comintern, and how much damage Russia did during the Spanish Civil War.
What comes out most clearly for me is how indoctrination can supplant perception, the idea being everything whether or not it fits the facts. This goes some way to explaining how Krivitsky was able to continue to support a system he knew was causing harm. For instance, his visit to the Marino Sanatorium near Kursk exposes him to the grinding poverty and starvation caused by Stalin’s policy of collectivisation. This affects him greatly, but he shifts his focus to the advance of Fascism in Austria and thus justifies his belief in the cause: ‘The Soviet Union still seemed the sole hope of mankind’.
Krivitsky is not presented as a crusader for freedom, but rather as a highly successful foreign agent of the Soviet Union. He seems to lead a charmed life, avoiding arrest and liquidation on visits to Moscow from his operational base in the Netherlands. But following the assassination of his old friend Ignace Poretsky, after the latter has defected to Switzerland with his wife, Krivitsky decides that it’s time he removed himself, with his wife and son, from harm’s way. So it’s fear for their safety that takes the Krivitsky family first to the Sûreté in Paris, and then to the US.
But the high profile achieved by the sensational recasting of his revelations in the Saturday Evening Post, and his 1940 interviews in London with MI5, meant that his mouth needed to be closed, and this led to his death in Washington’s Bellevue Hotel. Seemingly suicide, inevitably Krivitsky’s death comes under more intense scrutiny in the book than any aspect of his life. But it’s not just the death itself, although Kern takes the opportunity to go through the three possible interpretations of the scenario: fake suicide, forced suicide or voluntary suicide. Kern goes through the details of the investigation, such as it was, and the aftermath of the discovery of Krivitsky’s dead body.
This is a well-researched and well-presented study of the life and context of one of the earliest, and most significant, Soviet defectors. Kern’s occasional anti-Communist language may grate sometimes on the reader’s political ear, but then given the material he’s presenting it’s hard to condemn this. It’s a study that’s packed with detail and insight, and makes a valuable contribution to understanding the convoluted and precarious world of the illegal agent during the Stalin terror.
January 5, 2019
Gary Kern provides a thoroughly and meticulously researched account of the life of Walter Krivitsky, a master spy for the Soviet Union who later defected to the West. Kern chronicles Krivitsky’s actions and his gradual disillusionment with Stalinism which led to his decision to defect and to work to defeat Soviet Communism, the cause to which he had dedicated his life. Between 1938, when he defected, and his death in 1941, Krivitsky’s accomplishments, as documented by Kern, included exposing dozens of Soviet agents as well as Soviet involvement in crimes such as assassinations, counterfeiting and passport fraud. Kern also credits Krivitsky with inspiring men such as Whittaker Chambers and the writer Isaac Don Levine to carry on the fight against Communism.
Krivitsky died from a gunshot wound in a Washington, DC hotel in 1941, and Kern thoroughly examines the bungled investigations of his death by the Washington, DC police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and he carefully weighs the evidence as to whether Krivitsky voluntarily committed suicide, was forced to commit suicide or was murdered.
Among other things, readers of Kern’s book will learn how the Soviets took over Republican Spain, why dedicated Bolsheviks meekly submitted to Stalin during the purges, and how Soviet agents toyed with a scheme to restore the monarchy in Germany. They will also be made aare of what is arguably the greatest heist in history—the theft of Spain’s entire gold reserve by Stalin’s agents.
Kern also demonstrates how woefully unprepared the United States was at the time to deal with Soviet espionage. Having no intelligence agency such as the CIA, no Soviet squad at the FBI, a dearth of expertise on Soviet affairs in the fledgling House of Representatives Committee on Un-American Activities, and an indifferent administration, Soviet agents found it easy to penetrate the government. Kern also recounts the struggle between the pro Soviet members of President Roosevelt’s foreign policy establishment such as Joseph Davies, Henry Wallace and Harry Hopkins and the hardliners that included Loy Henderson, George Kennan and William C. Bullitt.
A Death in Washington: Walter Krivitsky and the Stalin Terror is to be recommended for anyone interested in Soviet espionage, Stalinism,or the origins of the Cold War.
Krivitsky died from a gunshot wound in a Washington, DC hotel in 1941, and Kern thoroughly examines the bungled investigations of his death by the Washington, DC police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and he carefully weighs the evidence as to whether Krivitsky voluntarily committed suicide, was forced to commit suicide or was murdered.
Among other things, readers of Kern’s book will learn how the Soviets took over Republican Spain, why dedicated Bolsheviks meekly submitted to Stalin during the purges, and how Soviet agents toyed with a scheme to restore the monarchy in Germany. They will also be made aare of what is arguably the greatest heist in history—the theft of Spain’s entire gold reserve by Stalin’s agents.
Kern also demonstrates how woefully unprepared the United States was at the time to deal with Soviet espionage. Having no intelligence agency such as the CIA, no Soviet squad at the FBI, a dearth of expertise on Soviet affairs in the fledgling House of Representatives Committee on Un-American Activities, and an indifferent administration, Soviet agents found it easy to penetrate the government. Kern also recounts the struggle between the pro Soviet members of President Roosevelt’s foreign policy establishment such as Joseph Davies, Henry Wallace and Harry Hopkins and the hardliners that included Loy Henderson, George Kennan and William C. Bullitt.
A Death in Washington: Walter Krivitsky and the Stalin Terror is to be recommended for anyone interested in Soviet espionage, Stalinism,or the origins of the Cold War.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews