Struggle in Soviet Russia

In the early morning, a faint mist filled the woodland with yellowed branches and leaves, and the concrete floor of the boulevard, although it did not rain, still looked wet.

On the sidewalk by the side of the road, Victor, wearing a jewel blue uniform trench coat, knelt on one knee on the sidewalk chair, curiously observing a beetle crawling on the back of the sidewalk chair. This is a pseudo-step beetle. It has been injured and lacks a leg. It limps when crawling, which is very difficult.

Climbing hard to the edge of the back of the row of chairs, the Beetle shook its wings and flew up abruptly. As a result, before it flew far, it plunged into the grass on the side of the road.

The worm was gone, so I didn't have to look. Victor lowered his knees on the bench and let out a long sigh. As the water vapor filled him, he turned and walked towards the small building not far away.

Following him, the six guards who were more than ten meters away from him also moved in the direction of the small building with him, until he entered the door of the building, the six guards dispersed.

Ten minutes later, Victor's figure reappeared at the entrance of the building. This time, he did not continue to wander, but walked directly to the office building of the People's Committee of National Security, which was only two hundred meters away.

After a month of adjustments, the intelligence department of the National Security People’s Committee has been basically completed. The Secretariat and Organization Bureau of the Foreign Intelligence Bureau have been established. The whole department now has 3 bureaus, 2 divisions, 2 special departments and 16 functional departments. These agencies lead the alliance's 154 intelligence agencies overseas, with more than 70,000 registered personnel.

In this huge organization, Victor really focuses on one bureau, two divisions, and a special department. They are the Secretariat, the Secretariat, the Organization Bureau, and the Special Intelligence Analysis Department.

The Special Department of Intelligence Analysis is the largest and most numbered department in the headquarters of the People’s Committee of National Security. There are more than 400 intelligence analysts in it. It brings together the best code-breaking experts in the alliance. , Also has a cooperative relationship with the Soviet Academy of Sciences, and can mobilize experts from all aspects of the Academy of Sciences to participate in intelligence analysis at any time.

Because the number of people is too large, but the work they do is quite special. Therefore, including the Special Intelligence Analysis Department of the Foreign Intelligence Service, the Intelligence Analysis Special Department of the Internal Intelligence Service, and the Intelligence Analysis Special Department of the Counter-Spyware Bureau are not there. Offices in the headquarters building of the People's Committee of National Security.

Comrade Feijing requisitioned the original office building of the Federation of Trade Unions, which was also on Linyin Road, and arranged these three departments and the Technical Equipment Bureau there.

Compared with the Foreign Intelligence Bureau, the Internal Intelligence Bureau has a larger organization. One of the main reasons for this is that the Internal Intelligence Bureau has a huge informant system.

Since Victor took over the work of the Internal Intelligence Agency, the informant system has not been compressed, but has begun to expand rapidly. At his request, the informant system in various places began to adopt a strict registration system.

In the past, when Comrade Merkulov was in charge of related work, he only adopted a roster system for informants, that is, registering informants in the register. And Victor's request is not only to register the roster, but also to register the intelligence information provided by relevant informants.

To be more specific, it is required that the intelligence personnel in charge of the informant must publish the information provided by an informant on a certain year, month and day according to the year, month, and day of the informant, in order to prepare for random checks by higher-level departments at any time. .

Regarding the counterintelligence bureau, in fact, Victor wants to include this department in the scope of the internal intelligence bureau's work, making it a purely operational department. To put it bluntly, it is to arrange the counterintelligence bureau to go there based on the intelligence clues obtained by the internal intelligence bureau. Handling specific cases.

However, his idea was not recognized by the two giants Serov and Fitin. The reason is simple. The Counter-Spyware Bureau is an overall situation in the People’s Committee of the Interior. Even after it is placed under the People’s Committee of National Security, it has many functions. It also overlaps with certain departments of the NKVD.

For example, the Political Security Bureau of the People’s Committee of the Interior, the Workers’ and Peasants’ Police Directorate, the Criminal Investigation Directorate, and even the border defense system are all responsible for counter-intelligence work. Then some of its original functions will soon be taken away.

In other words, the struggle between the NKVD and the NKVD has already begun from the moment it was separated from the NKVD. In many tasks, no matter who takes a step back, it will be better for convenience. Therefore, No one can retire.

What Victor did was to adjust the relationship between the Counter-Spyware Agency and the Internal Intelligence Agency more closely, so that the Counter-Spyware Agency could get more intelligence assistance.

However, this approach has caused a certain degree of backlash in the Internal Intelligence Agency, because the Internal Intelligence Agency also has its own operational department, and there is also a crossover of functions between them and the Counterintelligence Agency. In the same case, the internal intelligence When the bureau first obtains the information, they certainly do not want to share it with the Counter-Spyware Bureau.

Therefore, not only is there a competitive relationship between the NKVD and the NKVD, there are also competitive relationships among the various departments within the NKVD.

As a leader, it is really a headache for Victor to coordinate these conflicts that are closely related to interests.

When Victor arrived at his office, there was already a person waiting at the door of the office.

This person is slightly fat, with a round face with a beard, which makes people look a little funny.

Don't look at the funny people, but their skills are not small. His name is Anton Antonovich Semenov. He has studied abroad in Germany. He is a high-achieving student in the Department of Communication Engineering of Karlsruhe University of Technology and holds a master's degree.

But because of this experience, he was almost killed as a German spy last year. Thanks to Beria's veto of his death sentence, from this point, Comrade Beria has done some good deeds.

Today, Semenov is the head of the Technical Equipment Bureau of the People's Committee of National Security, focusing on the technical improvement of communication facilities.

Handing the keys to Sofia and asking her to open the office door, Victor smiled and said to Anton, "How is it, is there any progress in the work at Silver Pinewood?"

"Comrade report committee, the design has been done, and now only the specific implementation is left," Anton said, shaking the roll of drawings in his hand, "I will report to you the plan. If you think it is okay, I will Just arrange for someone to decorate it."

Victor nodded and said to Sophia who had just opened the door: "Go get Comrade Anton a cup of coffee."

"Okay," Sophia replied, turning and walking away.

In the office, Victor asked Anton to sit down on the sofa and watched him unfold the drawing in his hands.

This is a building structure drawing of a three-story villa. Many places are marked with icons with red dots. Victor knows that these dots are places where bugs are to be installed.

The so-called "Silver Pine Forest" is a small island located at the bend of the Moskva River, at the intersection of the Moskva River and the Small Canal, covering an area of ​​more than 300 hectares.

Earlier, the Americans had taken a fancy to that place, hoping to assign the island to them as the seat of the US Embassy in Moscow.

Since the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and the United States in the 1930s, its embassy has been using a two-story building from the imperialist-Russian period. In the past, Soviet-American relations were not harmonious and the exchanges between the two sides were relatively small. Therefore, the US embassy in Moscow was not very staffed, and the small two-story building was considered sufficient.

However, since the outbreak of the war, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United Kingdom have formed an alliance. The number of personnel in the US Embassy in Moscow has skyrocketed, making the original small building completely insufficient. Up to now, even the office of Ambassador Harriman is only 20 years old. square.

Therefore, Harriman has submitted three applications to the People’s Committee for Foreign Affairs, asking the Soviet government to assign Silver Pine Forest Island to the American Embassy—yes, the entire island is assigned to them for the construction of a new embassy.

The fundamental reason why the Americans demanded the entire Silver Pine Forest Island was not because of the good scenery there, but that the island was large enough and located in the middle of the Moskva River, with a distance from the island to both banks of the river.

In addition, if a building with four floors or more is built on the island, a sentry can be set up at the top of the building to monitor the situation within a radius of nearly two kilometers. Because there are fewer buildings in that area, there is no need to worry about being monitored or monitored. It is monitoring.

Although they are allies, the intelligence station between the Soviet Union and the United States has never stopped. Both sides are very cautious, not to mention the embassy issue.

In the past year or so, the People’s Committee for Foreign Affairs led by Comrade Molotov has been delaying this matter. They even offered Harriman several other options, but the Americans were determined and had to ask for that. island.

Fortunately, last month, the technical equipment department led by Anton made a breakthrough. They designed a new miniature bug, the size of half a matchbox, but the effective signal transmission range is up to five miles.

This kind of bug looks like a big button. It not only has a large signal transmission radius, but is also very durable. It is waterproof and shockproof, and can even be shot out with an air gun after applying special glue.

After repeated tests and determination of reliability, the People’s Committee for Foreign Affairs accepted Harriman’s request and granted Silver Pine Forest Island to the Americans, allowing them to build a new embassy on the island, and assured them that the Soviet Union The government will not construct any buildings on the banks of the Moskva River around the island.

Comrade Stalin assigned the task of installing eavesdropping devices in the U.S. Embassy to the intelligence department of the National Security People’s Committee under Victor’s leadership. The internal intelligence agency is specifically responsible for the implementation.

This task is a bit arduous, because the embassy's design drawings and construction supervisors are all Americans.