Intelligence services of the White movement. Counterintelligence. 1918-1922 Kirmel Nikolai Sergeevich

2. Suppression of reconnaissance and subversive actions of special services and organizations of Soviet Russia and foreign states

After October revolution 1917 territory split Russian Empire became an arena of struggle for power, spheres of influence, Natural resources and markets for both internal and external forces seeking to dismember the country. Therefore, increased attention to the White Guard state formations that fought “for one and indivisible” was shown not only by Soviet Russia and Germany, but also by limitrophe countries and even allies - England, the USA, France and Japan. Virtually all powers that participated in one form or another in the Russian Civil War were engaged in espionage against the White regimes.

When creating its security agencies, the command of the Volunteer Army was guided by the “Temporary Regulations on the Counterintelligence Service” of 1917. The first paragraph of this document defined the task of counterintelligence, which consisted “... exclusively of detecting and examining enemy spies...”. Spies were people who “secretly or under false pretenses collected or tried to collect information of a military nature with the intention of communicating it to the enemy,” and espionage meant “collection of all kinds of information.”

In November 1918, the head of the special department, based on the experience of the first months Civil War, in a report to the chief of the General Staff, explained that “the concepts of “spy” and “enemy” cannot be understood as a subject or agent of a foreign power with which we are at war. Anyone who, through his activities, seeks to harm the unity and power of the state should be considered an enemy.” Colonel V.V. Kreiter rightly believed that in order to “successfully combat enemy reconnaissance, it is necessary to monitor his work, go parallel with him and prevent his attacks.”

However, in the initial period of their existence, Denikin’s counterintelligence agencies, which were not yet strong enough, were forced to devote their forces and resources, first of all, to the fight against Bolshevik underground organizations. “The range of responsibilities of counterintelligence, defined by the “Regulations on the Counterintelligence Service,” does not at all meet the requirements of the time, since the fight against enemy military espionage is now a secondary task,” says the report of the chief quartermaster of the headquarters of the commander of the troops of the South-Western Territory. “The civil war, being a political struggle, cannot leave counterintelligence aside from politics.” One can only partially agree with this argument. Documents show that the Bolshevik underground directed its efforts not only to organizing armed uprisings and propaganda activities, but also penetrated army headquarters to obtain intelligence data. At the same time, the work of foreign intelligence agencies was not limited to “pure” intelligence, but was also aimed at weakening the potential of the Denikin regime: supporting opposition forces, propaganda, decomposition military units, sabotage, etc.

Speaking about the priorities in the activities of Denikin’s counterintelligence at the initial stage of the Civil War, it should be borne in mind that the intelligence services of the main enemy - Soviet Russia - were in the process of formation. Only on November 5, 1918, a central military intelligence agency was created - the Registration Directorate of the Field Headquarters of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic (RVSR). Lack of financial resources and qualified personnel, the Register did not immediately manage to create intelligence networks in the White Guard rear and organize the collection of information necessary for the command.

The organs of the Cheka in 1918 did not have specialized intelligence structures; their main efforts were concentrated on the “fight against counter-revolution” within the country and suppressing pockets of anti-Soviet protests. The main task of the Special Department of the Cheka, created on December 19, 1918, was the fight against espionage and counter-revolution in institutions and units of the Red Army. Only at the end of 1919 did local special departments take up foreign counterintelligence.

During their formation, the Red special services did not conduct active work in the White Guard rear. This circumstance caused some calm among the officials of Denikin’s counterintelligence, which concentrated all its efforts on the fight against Bolshevik underground organizations. Thus, the head of the special department of the General Staff of the Military Directorate, Colonel P.G. Arkhangelsky in 1919 wrote about the removal of counterintelligence “from fulfilling its immediate responsibility - monitoring enemy intelligence officers and agents.”

The peak of the confrontation between Soviet intelligence and White Guard counterintelligence in the South of Russia occurred in 1919, during the period of intense military operations.

Analysis of the documents allows us to judge that the Red intelligence services acted in two ways: on the one hand, they sent lone intelligence officers to the White Guard headquarters to collect information of a military nature, and on the other hand, they carried out a massive deployment of agents to carry out reconnaissance and subversive activities behind enemy lines, often in interaction with underground organizations. It was the latter who, for the most part, became objects of development by Denikin’s counterintelligence.

The White Guard security agencies established that in the North Caucasus three Soviet military organizations conducted reconnaissance against the AFSR: the Revolutionary Military Council, the headquarters and a special department of the 11th Army. The Soviet command, intending to cut off the oil region from the White Army, launched an attack on Kizlyar. To conduct operational reconnaissance, commit terrorist acts and agitation among the mountain population and workers, the Bolsheviks sent about 600 inexperienced agents to the North Caucasus. The main mass of intelligence officers, according to White Guard counterintelligence, went to Kizlyar, Petrovsk, Baku, Grozny, the rest - to Stavropol, Rostov-on-Don, Velikoknyazheskaya, Tsaritsyn, Orenburg, Guryev. The Whites managed to capture some of the agents and find out the plans of the Red Command.

On October 12, 1919, the head of the KRO at the headquarters of the commander-in-chief and commander of the troops of the Terek-Dagestan region, Captain Novitsky, reported on the disclosure of the entire organization of Soviet intelligence in the rear of the AFSR.

On October 18, 1919, the captain reported that after the defeat of the Kizlyar and Grozny organizations, the Bolsheviks held a meeting in Baku, at which they decided to form a new intelligence network, sending agents to Tiflis, Batumi, and from there to Sochi, Tuapse, Maikop, Novorossiysk and further to North Caucasus.

Denikin’s special services established the goals, objectives, and areas of action of some leaders of the Caucasian Communist Committee (KKK), which was engaged in reconnaissance and subversive activities in the rear of the AFSR. His connection with the English workers' party in Moscow and the Transcaucasian Peasants and Workers' Congress in Tiflis was documented. The security authorities of the AFSR managed to learn about the plan for sinking the ships of the Caspian Flotilla, which was developed by the KKK together with the command of the Red Army. In October 1919, counterintelligence arrested the main executor of the upcoming sabotage act and instead introduced its own agent into the organization, thanks to which it had reliable information about the impending explosions. Soon members of the underground were arrested and handed over to a naval court.

In November 1919, counterintelligence at the headquarters of the commander of the North Caucasus troops noted that the Bolsheviks were spending huge amounts of money on intelligence and propaganda. Moreover, in order to lower the exchange rate of the ruble and the cost of living, Soviet emissaries flooded foreign markets with all-Russian banknotes, which caused discontent among the population with the White Guard authorities. The aforementioned Caucasian Communist Committee spared no expense in attracting officials of the Volunteer Army to secret cooperation, organizing rebel movements in the rear of the AFSR, bribing smugglers and the administration. The heads of Denikin's special services proposed that the authorities withdraw from circulation those banknotes that were distributed in unlimited quantities by Soviet Russia and Germany.

Since the appearance of British transports with equipment and weapons in the Novorossiysk seaport, counterintelligence officers have recorded an increase in the activity of Soviet agents, accompanied by the destruction of military supplies, systematic inhibition of the supply of artillery shells to the front, theft of uniforms, etc.

The port workers, exposed to Bolshevik agitation, according to secret sources, intended to sabotage the work on supplying the army by holding strikes.

The author is far from thinking that the above facts characterize the activities of all the red intelligence officers and agents exposed by Denikin’s counterintelligence. It seems that there were several more of them, but gaps in the source base do not allow us to name specific numbers, names, nicknames of agents, the reasons and circumstances of their exposure, etc. The documents that appeared as a result of the approval of the Quartermaster General could probably tell researchers a lot headquarters of the Commander-in-Chief of the AFSR in August 1919, “Instructions for conducting undercover work by counterintelligence agencies.” The document was intended to ensure secrecy, systematization, regulation and accounting of investigative work, and also established a mandatory procedure for undercover office work for all KROs.

All correspondence about suspects was conducted by the assistant to the head of the department for the investigative part or the head of the point, with the involvement of the most trusted officials for assignments. Paragraph 6 of the instructions read: “All secret employees working on orders from counterintelligence agencies may be recorded exclusively in their personal notebook the head of the counterintelligence agency, which he must always have with him and destroy it at the slightest danger. The entire entry must contain three words: the employee’s first name, patronymic and last name, without mentioning any words relating to the agency, its place of residence and occupation. The employee’s recording must be encrypted with a personally invented code of the head of the counterintelligence agency.” The alphabetical book of secret employees was kept only with an indication of their nicknames and marks of those violations of service and cases of negative behavior of agents that were unacceptable and led to the refusal to register the agent and his expulsion. They were to be stored along with the codes and were accessible only to the heads of counterintelligence agencies and persons in charge of agents.

To consolidate and develop success in the fight against reconnaissance and subversive activities of the Reds, Denikin’s security agencies lacked material and financial resources, experienced staff members and agents. A serious obstacle was the daily turnover and bureaucratic routine, the lack of interaction between counterintelligence bodies of various departmental subordination - the headquarters of the AFSR and the General Staff department of the Military Directorate.

If the white intelligence services achieved certain results in exposing Soviet intelligence organizations, then identifying lone agents hunting for secrets at headquarters turned out to be a difficult task for counterintelligence. Bolshevik agents who infiltrated institutions often remained undiscovered.

The fight against espionage at that time was carried out according to the following simple scheme: obtaining primary information, monitoring individuals, exposing them, arresting them and putting them on trial. These tasks were solved through internal (secret agents) and external (filters) surveillance. Receiving information from various sources, counterintelligence officials systematized all the data, developed the material received, and kept records and registration of persons suspected of espionage. For all its apparent simplicity, identifying enemy intelligence officers or agents was a complex matter. “The greatest difficulty is in obtaining information about persons suspected of military espionage due to the fact that the spy works alone, not together, as was the case in underground political organizations, where you can always find dissatisfied Azefs,” he writes in his book “Secret Military Intelligence and fight against it” General N.S. Batyushin. - Therefore, to detect a spy, who usually does not stand out in any way from environment, the matter is not easy and is possible only with the broad assistance of not only government bodies knowledgeable in this matter, but mainly all segments of the population, intelligently educated in order to preserve the military secrets of the state, that is, as a result, their own interests, with the collapse of the state they usually suffer and private interests of subjects."

In our opinion, the fight against the agents of the Soviet special services was partly made more difficult by the fact that the war was waged against fellow tribesmen, speakers of the same language, culture and mentality. The resulting split in society separated different segments of the population on opposite sides of the barricades: the intelligentsia, officers, nobility, employees who were secret employees of the Soviet secret services and underground Bolshevik organizations. The system for protecting military secrets at headquarters did not work, and counterintelligence officers did not have the proper qualifications to identify lone intelligence officers.

Presumably for this reason white for a long time It was not possible to reveal the red intelligence officer and underground fighter P.V. Makarov, who acted under the cover of the adjutant of the commander of the Volunteer Army, General V.Z. May-Maevsky. Testing newly arrived officers for loyalty was then simple: they were sent to the front line and only after real active participation in hostilities were allowed to work at headquarters. Since P.V. Makarov knew encryption well, he managed to quickly make a career and gain access to secret information. Taking advantage of his official position, the officer hired his brother, the head of an underground organization, as a telegraph operator at the headquarters of the Volunteer Army, which gave additional opportunities to extract useful information. It was precisely the connection with the underground that led to the failure of the red intelligence officer. Naval counterintelligence arrested members of the organization preparing the uprising in Sevastopol, including V.V. Makarov, and then “his excellency’s adjutant.”

As world and domestic experience shows, the most frequent failures of intelligence officers were associated with the leakage of information to the enemy as a result of betrayal or penetration of his agents into the intelligence agency. In other words, in order to expose red lone intelligence officers in white headquarters, Denikin’s counterintelligence had to introduce its agents, for example, into the intelligence department of the headquarters of the Southern Front or the intelligence departments of army headquarters. But, apparently, there were none in 1919, at least the author does not know about them. But something is known about the work of Soviet agents in White Guard headquarters.

Thus, counterintelligence was unable to hide from enemy intelligence the concentration of Denikin’s armies in the Donetsk basin in February 1919, which allowed the command of the Southern Front to transfer the main forces to the Donbass direction.

In July 1919, intelligence agencies of the Southern Front learned about Denikin's impending attack on Kursk - Orel - Tula.

During the siege of Kharkov by the Volunteer Army, the Bolshevik headquarters had completely accurate information about the number and location of the White Guard units. During the investigation, it turned out that agents under the guise of nurses, representatives of the Red Cross or defectors conducted reconnaissance among officers and soldiers, eliciting the necessary information.

It was no secret to the commander of the South-Eastern Front V.I. Shorin's plan for the White Guard command to break through to Balashov in November 1919. The Whites were then able to break through the defenses on the right flank of the 9th Army, capture Novokhopersk and Art. Povorino. But they were unable to consolidate their success then - during the battles the Reds launched a general counter-offensive.

Some Red intelligence officers managed to work in the White Guard rear for quite a long time (up to six months) and remain undetected while carrying out an important mission. In particular, B.I. Pavlikovsky and A.I. Kholodov established the number of ships and submarines in Sevastopol, the number of teams and their mood.

When the Caucasian Front stood on the Manych River, preparing to strike the troops of A.I. Denikin, red intelligence learned about disagreements between the Kuban Cossacks and the White Guards, which largely contributed to the successes of the Soviet troops.

A group of intelligence officers from the Kyiv underground revolutionary committee led by D.A. turned out to be undisclosed. Teacher (Kramov), who penetrated the headquarters of Lieutenant General N.E. Bredov and supplied the most important information about the plans of the White Guards to the command of the Red Army and partisan rebel detachments.

In Sevastopol, in the Naval Directorate, the reconnaissance station of the 13th Army of the Southern Front of the Red Army also successfully operated, which transmitted qualified intelligence data on the composition and movement of the white fleet, artillery, fuel reserves on ships, and the composition of teams. According to the Crimean researcher V.V. Krestyannikov, white “counterintelligence failed to uncover this residency, which worked successfully before the Red Army arrived in Sevastopol.”

But intelligence officer G.G. Lafar, better known in historical and fiction under the name Georges de Lafar, it was not destined to return from Odessa to Moscow after completing the task. At the end of 1918, on instructions from the Cheka, he was sent to Odessa, occupied by the British and French, with the task of infiltrating the headquarters of the French troops and obtaining information about the plans of the Allies, as well as their numbers. Having settled down as a translator at the headquarters of the French expeditionary force under the operational pseudonym “Charles”, G.G. Lafar managed to send four written intelligence reports to Lubyanka (of which only two reached the addressee). Denikin's counterintelligence was on his trail. Hunt for G.G. Lafar began after the interception by Azbuka of his second report to Moscow from February 12–14. In a message from the Odessa ABC station to the head of the political office under the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Southern Russia, Colonel D.L. Tchaikovsky on March 4, 1919 said: “This elusive “Charles” from Odessa again yesterday sent a (third) letter to Moscow via a well-known channel, we believe (to) his node on Lubyanka. When his first letter arrived, “Izhe-P” (representative) of the Moscow station visited the address indicated on the envelope; such Leger Henrietta, living at the indicated address, has not been identified. Kiselny Lane is located in close proximity to Lubyanka...” Red Scout G.G. Lafar was arrested by White Guard counterintelligence at the end of March 1919.

The detection of Red Agent Walkers was sometimes random. Thus, on December 4, 1919, the head of the KRO department of the Quartermaster General of the Caucasian Army, Colonel Churpalev, reported with a report to the head of the KRC that a certain N. Chistyakov was detained while crossing to the right bank of the Volga, and during a search he was found to have the ID of a Bolshevik intelligence officer.

By the end of the war, the intensity of the work of the front-line military intelligence units of the Red Army was increasing, as evidenced by the intelligence reports regularly received by the Red command.

In May 1920, White Guard agents working in Soviet headquarters drew the attention of counterintelligence leaders to the Reds' awareness of the operational plans of the Russian Army command. In particular, the agents reported that the Bolsheviks knew in advance about the planned transfer of the corps of General Ya.A. Slashchev to the Kerch Peninsula. But identifying Red agents in their own counterintelligence headquarters turned out to be difficult. Only after the departure of the assistant to the 2nd Quartermaster General, Colonel Siminsky, to Georgia, the disappearance of the code and a number of secret documents was discovered. An investigation into this fact showed that the colonel was an agent of the Bolsheviks.

In the fall of 1920, counterintelligence officers identified and arrested two Red intelligence officers - Colonel Skvortsov and Captain Demonsky, who were in contact with the military representative of Soviet Russia in Georgia and conveyed to him information about the Russian army and the plans of its command. After this incident, staff officers reasonably attributed the failure of the Kuban landing operation mainly to the activities of these individuals.

Wrangel's counterintelligence was more successful in neutralizing the walker agents. “Throwing all its free forces to the south, the Red command simultaneously took measures to strengthen its work in our rear,” wrote General P.N. Wrangel. - Recently, again... work on military espionage has intensified, led by the registration department ("Registrodom") of the Caucasian Front... This "Registrod" through its registration points No. 5 and 13, located in Temryuk (Kuban region) and through special points ( “Ortchk”) sent a number of scouts to the coast of the Taman Peninsula, directing them to Temryuk-Taman, and then through the narrow Kerch Strait to the coast of the Kerch Peninsula and further to Crimea and received them back the same way. Within a month, in the city of Kerch and in the adjacent area, six Soviet spies were arrested and a “communication service” organized by the Bolsheviks on our territory with the Taman coast was discovered, which located secret stations equipped with signal flares in Kerch and in the village of Yurgaki (on the Sea of ​​Azov). , spherical mirrors for optical signaling and chemical writing materials. One of these spies, among other documents, also had an instruction to “contact Mokrousov” and “appearance,” that is, instructions on how to find this latter. Guided by the experienced hand of General Klimovich, the work of our counterintelligence radically stopped the enemy’s attempts. Enemy agents invariably fell into our hands, were handed over to a military court and were decisively punished.”

Let us note that P.N. Wrangel somewhat exaggerated the role of the special department of his headquarters in ensuring the security of the army and its rear. Soviet sources refute the commander-in-chief's words. In particular, in September 1920, Red intelligence accurately reported the number of White Guard ground forces in Northern Tavria and naval forces interacting with British, American, French and Italian warships.

On final stage During the war, counterintelligence personnel and their agents from among local residents were given the task of infiltrating the Soviet authorities. A special target for penetration into Bolshevik structures were military revolutionary committees, commissariats, Red Army headquarters, tribunals and the Cheka. The development of such work and its plan were reported in detail by the Chief of Staff of the Commander-in-Chief, Lieutenant General P.S. Makhrov to General P.N. Wrangel and were approved by him.

Thus, in addition to solving problems of providing assistance to their military units directly in the front line, counterintelligence agencies began to solve strategic problems of creating a base for a long-term struggle, designed for many years.

So, during the Civil War, the struggle between Soviet intelligence and White Guard counterintelligence in the South of Russia was carried out with varying success and was episodic in nature, since both intelligence services were, by and large, still at initial stage of its development. But at the same time, the following trend is still visible: with the strengthening of the power of the state, its intelligence services are strengthened, and vice versa. The victories won by the Red Army expanded the potential of Soviet intelligence, and the defeats of the Russian Army, the reduction of territories, human and material resources narrowed the capabilities of Wrangel’s counterintelligence. For this reason, the struggle of white émigré organizations against Soviet Russia was doomed to defeat. Further developments convincingly confirm this conclusion.

After the conclusion of the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty Germany occupied Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic states. It was important for the Germans to control the Bolshevik government so that the Eastern Front would not be restored against them, to support separatist-minded national outskirts in order to prevent the unification of Russia and pumping out material resources. The head of the German Foreign Ministry, R. von Kühlmann, instructed the ambassador in Moscow: “Please use large sums, since we are extremely interested in the Bolsheviks surviving... We are not interested in supporting the monarchical idea that will reunite Russia. On the contrary, we should try to prevent the consolidation of Russia as much as possible, and from this point of view we should support the extreme left parties."

Germany made a bet on separatism even before the First World War. The well-known Count F. Schullenburg, who arrived in Tiflis in 1911 as a vice-consul, having studied Transcaucasia well and established extensive connections in high-society Georgian-Armenian circles, concentrated his efforts on working among Georgian nationalists with the goal of proclaiming the independence of Georgia under the protectorate of Germany.

The war for some time interrupted the active intelligence activities of F. Schullenburg in the Transcaucasus. Two months before it began, he unexpectedly went on vacation to his homeland and soon took an active part in the formation of the Georgian national legion, which later fought on the side of Germany on the Turkish front.

At the end of 1918, F. Schullenburg reappeared in Transcaucasia as the head of the diplomatic mission under the commander of the German occupation forces, General K. von Kress, and carried out a number of political combinations to conclude agreements between the mountaineers and the Musavatists with the aim of uniting Transcaucasia and the North Caucasus into a single state system. Again under German protectorate.

The organization by F. Schullenburg of a new residency under the legal name “German-Georgian Verein”, headed by the German military doctor Merzweler, also dates back to this period. There is also an attempt to organize a “German-Armenian Verein”, but it ended in failure.

According to the German researcher X. Revere, in the First world war Germany made considerable efforts to develop separatism in Ukraine with the aim of separating it from Russia. Conspiracy events were carried out by diplomatic missions in Bucharest and Constantinople. However, the efforts of German agents over several years of war did not bring the desired results. Ukrainian separatism began to noticeably manifest itself only after February 1917.

Even after the revolution of November 1918, having withdrawn its troops from Ukraine and Crimea, Germany continued to secretly solve its political problems, maintaining operational connections and an intelligence network.

The head of German military intelligence, V. Nikolai, believed that the cessation of hostilities in Europe did not lead to the end of the secret war. He preserved the Kaiser's intelligence archives, thereby facilitating the creation of a new secret service hidden from the victorious states. Thus, in September 1919, a military intelligence and counterintelligence body (Abwehr) was created as part of the Military Directorate. As an official area of ​​activity, he was entrusted with the tasks of counterintelligence support for the armed forces. However, in practice, the Abwehr conducted reconnaissance against European countries.

The most far-sighted leaders of the White Guard intelligence services expressed a reasonable assumption that Germany would not be able to come to terms with the loss of its former economic power, therefore it needed a weak Russia for revival and development. On February 13, 1919, the chief quartermaster of the headquarters of the troops of the South-Western Territory reported to the head of the special branch of the General Staff department: “German capital and banks, led by Jewish agents, remained in Russia and in particular concentrated in Odessa, there is reason to believe that the direction is towards the destruction of the Russian state continues. Therefore, the fight against banks dependent on German capital, penetration into their secrets is one of the types of struggle.”

The set task of dismembering Russia and strengthening influence on the outskirts was carried out through German banks and a Jewish organization of large local financiers led by A.R. Hari, Getter and Babushkin. As was established by secret surveillance, they set out to support Ukraine through various political directions and sought to hinder the implementation of the ideas of the Volunteer Army to recreate a united Russia.

At the same time, Germany tried, through diplomatic combinations, to appoint its proteges to leadership positions, which were a guarantee of the safety and integrity of German agents. In particular, attorney Fuhrman, who worked for German intelligence before the war, was appointed to the post of Bulgarian consul in Kyiv. The post of Danish consul in Odessa was held by A.R. Hari, director of the local branch of the Russian-Asian Bank, through him money transfers and directives to German spy organizations were made. Hari, together with other persons, during the French stay in Odessa, bought French currency, which contributed to the depreciation of the ruble. Local counterintelligence knew about this, but did not take any measures. But when the population became outraged, she arrested the entire group. However, the attackers were soon released under the guarantee of a certain Botkin, an adventurer who played a prominent role in Odessa counterintelligence.

In the South of Russia, the Germans were guided by political forces that did not share allied relations with the Entente countries and stood for an alliance with Germany. In hidden opposition to the command of the Volunteer Army and the All-Russian Socialist Republic was the monarchist party, which represented a significant, although not really manifested, force. In addition to the aristocracy, it included a significant number of officers and even soldiers. With the help of the monarchists, the Germans hoped to organize a conspiracy to remove the senior command of the AFSR and replace it with people of German orientation, in order to then conclude an alliance with Russia.

In addition, German intelligence pinned its hopes on Russian officers returning from Germany to their homeland, providing them with appearances to their agents in Russia and Constantinople to provide them with money and provide instructions.

Despite the unsystematic nature of countering German espionage, White Guard counterintelligence identified German intelligence centers in Constantinople, Novorossiysk, Rostov, Kharkov, Nikolaev, Simferopol and Sevastopol, as well as their agents. According to verified data, in Rostov, Taganrog and Novocherkassk there were about 100 German officers left by intelligence after the occupation as residents. However, due to the lack of loans for the maintenance of agents and payment for the services of random informants, the counterintelligence unit lost any opportunity to pay attention to the German spy organization. Further observation in this direction was sporadic.

Some organizations oriented towards Germany were nevertheless liquidated by the White Guards. But for the reasons stated above, counterintelligence was unable to bring the matter to its logical conclusion - to bring the perpetrators to justice. Head of the KRC special branch of the General Staff department, captain L.S. Dmitriev wrote in August 1919 that, having observed the counterintelligence of the AFSR for six months, he had not heard of a single spy liquidation, or a single completed process, except for lynchings.

Nevertheless, German intelligence was never able to realize the political goals of its government - to bring pro-German politicians to power in Russia and conclude an agreement with them that was beneficial for Germany. However, this can hardly be attributed to the White Guard intelligence services. Germany's further policy was influenced by its defeat in the First World War, which ended with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles on June 28, 1919, as a result of which the country was deprived of the right to have a General Staff and intelligence service, and suffered an economic crisis and internal political turmoil.

The intention of the leaders of the White movement to preserve the integrity of Russia was considered by the ruling circles of the states formed on the territory of the former empire as great-power Russian chauvinism. Therefore, already in 1918, the newly formed intelligence services of the “independent” Ukrainian People's Republic (UNR)- the intelligence and foreign (he supervised the work of the military attache) departments of the 1st Quartermaster General of the General Staff - began active reconnaissance and subversive activities against the White movement in the South of Russia. The Hetman's special services collected intelligence information about the military potential of the Volunteer Army and the “aggressive” plans of its command regarding the UPR, as well as about political organizations that carried out subversive work in Ukraine in the interests of the White Guards. The work of Ukrainian intelligence was not limited to obtaining important secret information. She began to carry out special operations, in particular, to secretly provide support to the Regional Government of Kuban in its struggle for independence and maintaining the status of a close ally of Ukraine, and worked to deepen the antagonism between local politicians and the command of the Volunteer Army, since Hetman P. Skoropadsky planned to annex Kuban to Ukraine as a separate administrative unit.

In order to “annex” Kuban, a landing operation on Taman was being prepared by the forces of the Separate Zaporozhye Division, stationed on the southeastern borders of Ukraine. With the close participation of intelligence, heavy and small arms (21 thousand rifles, 8 guns and machine guns), as well as ammunition, were secretly transported from Kyiv to Kuban.

“The political situation in the Kuban,” noted the first secretary of the UPR embassy in Yekaterinodar, K. Polivan, “requires the Ukrainian embassy to immediately begin the broadest and most energetic work possible in spreading the political influence of the Ukrainian state.”

Taking advantage of the favorable counterintelligence regime, UPR intelligence officers, operating under the cover of diplomatic institutions, in the second half of 1918 did a lot of work to bring Ukraine closer to Kuban with the goal of the subsequent possible entry of the region into the whole “on the terms of the federation.” In December 1918, intelligence officers presented proposals regarding the expansion of the presence of Ukrainian special services and the preparation of an armed uprising in the Kuban against the Volunteer Army, but their arguments were not always listened to by leaders, and after the fall of the hetmanate, the matter “was lost.”

Ukrainian historian D.V. Vedeneev found documents in the central state historical archive in Lviv about the activities of the hetman’s intelligence in the Kuban. Under the cover of the post of first secretary of the UPR embassy in Yekaterinodar, the Ukrainian intelligence resident K. Polivan, already mentioned above, acted. According to a report presented in December 1918, the station led by him collected material about the situation in the region and the balance of political forces. A good knowledge of the situation allowed her to carry out political and propaganda actions aimed at deepening the contradictions between the Volunteer Army and the Kuban Cossacks. Denikin's counterintelligence uncovered and arrested K. Polivan. However, according to the report, he managed to return home. Less fortunate was the ambassador, Colonel F. Borzhinsky, who was arrested by the whites and then shot “for treason against Russia.”

In Odessa, counterintelligence identified a center in which officers were grouped who maintained contact with the Petliurists and carried out their intelligence missions. The White Guard intelligence services had information about the location and activities of other intelligence points of the Directory.

Despite the setbacks, Ukraine continued through its emissaries to maintain secret contacts with the ruling circles of the Kuban Cossacks. Thus, on the instructions of the supreme power of the UPR, Yu. Skugar-Skvarsky repeatedly crossed the front line with false documents, collected information about the forces and action plans of the Volunteer Army, and also tried to persuade the Kuban authorities to open armed action against A.I. Denikin. In Yekaterinodar, a Ukrainian intelligence officer received information from a member of the Special Meeting, I. Makarenko, about the redeployment of White military units. On September 15, 1919, he took part in a secret meeting of the Kuban Council, where he called for a common struggle for independence against the forces of Russian reaction. At the end of the month, the emissary provided S.V. Petliura gave a detailed report on his journey. However, this matter did not receive further development. Let us note that the illegal contacts of the top of the Kuban Cossacks with Ukraine were not a secret for the command of the All-Soviet Union of Socialists.

The author does not have any other information about the active activities of UPR intelligence on the territory of the White South. Perhaps she wasn't there. Otherwise, historians of the special services of the current “independent” Ukraine, who consider the White Guards to be Russian chauvinists, would try to fill this gap.

She was very active against the AFSR Makhnovist counterintelligence, combining the functions of counterintelligence and military intelligence. The leadership of the military counterintelligence department behind enemy lines was carried out by the operational department of the headquarters of the rebel army.

The so-called counterintelligence intelligence centers were located in all cities, towns and large villages in the south and east of Ukraine. The main counterintelligence headquarters were located in Odessa, Kherson, Nikolaev, Poltava, Yuzovka, Taganrog, Rostov-on-Don, Yeisk, Sevastopol, Kharkov, Cherkassy, ​​Kyiv. As a rule, they were located in hotels, restaurants, canteens, shoemakers or tailors, as well as factories, factories, and mines. From there, information about the state of the rear and the mood of the workers flowed to the Makhnovist headquarters. According to some reports, Makhnovist agents worked in all White Guard headquarters and military units.

In all likelihood, Denikin’s counterintelligence never managed to reach them. At least, the author has not seen documentary evidence of the identification and arrests of “Father Makhno” agents by the White Guard intelligence service.

Researcher V. Azarov provides data on the effective work of agents behind the lines of the white troops in September 1919. Thus, before the decisive battle near Peregonovka, Makhnovist agents reported to the headquarters of the rebel army “that there were no regular Denikin units as far as Nikopol.”

The counterintelligence unit of the special branch of the General Staff department came to the attention of Polish intelligence (“Military Polish Organization” (VPO), created by Yu.K. Pilsudski back in 1916 for the purpose of conducting military-political intelligence. According to counterintelligence data, on the territory of Russia the VPO recruited agents from among newspaper employees, therefore, in their opinion, Polish newspapers on the territory of Russia could unmistakably be considered as intelligence cells. One such newspaper in Kyiv was the Kiev Diary. Here was the center of the Polish organization in Ukraine, headed by Benevsky. Communication was maintained between Kiev and Warsaw by couriers (mostly women), reports were transmitted on photographic film. Information from the VPO was received by the information department of the Polish General Staff.

During the Bolsheviks' stay in Kyiv, the VPO was in close contact with the Kyiv center of the Volunteer Army. Employees of Denikin’s special services did not rule out the presence of Polish agents in the AFSR, since “the Poles are aware of what is happening here.” However, the KRF of the special branch of the General Staff department, apparently, was never able to identify Polish agents in the headquarters and institutions, since in the report to the management, dated November 30, 1919, the head of the counterintelligence unit did not report anything about this.

Worked against the White Guards in the South of Russia and Georgian intelligence service. For example, she managed to obtain secret information from the headquarters of the Commander-in-Chief of the AFSR, signed by the head of the intelligence department, Colonel S.N. Ryasnyansky and Colonel Melnitsky; secret reports the chief of staff of the Commander-in-Chief of the AFSR, General Romanovsky, then published in the Tiflis newspaper “Fight”; telegram from the head of the Military Directorate, Lieutenant General V.E. Vyazmitinova regarding Georgia. The White Guard command became aware of this only in the summer of 1919. And in September, the agents received information about the Georgian special services recruiting officers dismissed from the army and sending them as agents to the White Guard rear. Quartermaster General of the headquarters of the Commander-in-Chief of the AFSR, Major General Yu.N. Plyushchevsky-Plyushchik asked the head of the department of the General Staff of the Military Directorate to order checkpoints on the Black Sea coast to report the passage of such persons from Georgia to the head of the PRC, indicating their surnames, first names, and patronymics.

Between allies Relations with the command of the AFSR were not easy, since each side in the Civil War pursued its own interests. The leaders of the White movement advocated for a “united and indivisible” Russia. The British adhered to the principle of “divide and conquer.” Based on world practice, it can be assumed with a high degree of probability that the interventionists carried out reconnaissance and subversive activities on the territory of the AFSR. It is very difficult to judge the scale of the intelligence work of Western intelligence services from the White Guard funds of the central state archives, since only a few documents are found on this problem. In particular, it is known that Denikin’s security agencies managed to identify the center of French counterintelligence in Constantinople, as well as a British intelligence organization operating under the flag of the Red Cross. On July 1, 1920, the representative of the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army in Switzerland, Efremov, did not rule out the possibility of transferring military information obtained by this mission to the Bolsheviks for reporting to London. Let us remember that it was at that time that the British demanded that the white governments capitulate to Lenin’s “amnesty.”

The naval agent in Turkey learned that a junior officer of the British intelligence department in Constantinople submitted a report to the commander of the Mediterranean Fleet, in which he outlined the reasons for the disintegration of the army of the Odessa region and its rapid abandonment of Odessa. The naval agent informed the Maritime Administration about this case.

In November 1919, external counterintelligence reported that the governments of the Great Powers, not content with the activities of their diplomatic, military and other representatives, were forced to use private organizations such as the International Red Cross, trading societies, etc. for propaganda and intelligence purposes. The intelligence services included such organizations as Young People's Christian Union. Counterintelligence received information from Polynya and Constantinople that representatives of the KHSML were planning to arrive at the location of the AFSR. Taking into account their sabotage activities, Colonel S.N. Ryasnyansky considered it undesirable to allow these persons into the territory controlled by the AFSR. If they appeared, he proposed to establish control over their activities.

Anticipating an increase in intelligence and subversive activities of foreign states against the White South and knowing the level of professional qualifications of intelligence officers, the head of the General Staff department decided to prepare a practical guide for counterintelligence service officials. For this purpose, in December 1919, he asked the military representative of the Commander-in-Chief of the AFSR in Paris to send following materials: laws of foreign countries on combating espionage; description of known espionage processes, practical methods of combating espionage and organizing the fight on the territory of foreign states; printed works on intelligence and counterintelligence issues; instructions and guidelines for conducting espionage, counter-espionage and political investigation; ciphers, systems of secret writing and transportation of secret correspondence abroad; publications on this topic in periodicals. The telegram emphasized that supplying the General Staff department with the specified information is the constant task of the military representative. Whether this manual was prepared - there is no evidence. Even if it was possible to publish it, it is unlikely that this work could be useful to Wrangel’s counterintelligence officers, who found themselves in exile after the defeat of the Russian army. They themselves could teach their Western “partners” the experience of fighting Bolshevik intelligence and counterintelligence.

White Guard regimes in Siberia Not without reason, they saw the main threat to their security in Soviet Russia and Germany, so the efforts of their counterintelligence agencies were aimed at countering the intelligence activities of these countries.

The document entitled " General concept about espionage and related phenomena" gave the following definition of military espionage or military intelligence: "... the collection of all kinds of information about the armed forces and fortified points of the state, as well as the collection of geographical, topographical and statistical data about the country of military significance. This information may be collected for the purpose of transmitting it to a foreign power.” It also defined other types of espionage - economic, diplomatic, political, maritime. An important clarification is made in the appendix that the work of secret agents is not limited only to collecting information, but is sometimes aimed at creating behind enemy lines “conditions that weaken his defensive strength.”

Burovsky Andrey Mikhailovich

RED PROPAGANDA FROM SOVIET RUSSIA On October 28, the new German government breaks off diplomatic relations with the RSFSR: a very terrible ally. The Bolsheviks have already done their job, they brought the Russian Empire out of the war. Now the ally is becoming more and more every day