19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
1985, June 27, 2006
This review is from: Inside the Aquarium: Making of a Top Soviet Spy (Paperback)
In the opening pages of "Inside the Aquarium" the narrator, ex-Soviet agent Viktor Suvorov, describes his first memory as a member of Soviet Military Intelligence: watching a film of an execution of a would-be defector. The officer in question was strapped into a coffin with an open lid, elevated slightly so he could see what was coming, and then traversed slowly down a conveyor belt into a blast furnace, screaming all the way.
With this gut-wrenching scene, Suvorov opens "Inside the Aquarium", his tale of how he was recruited, served, and ultimately defected from, the GRU, the military counterpart (and rival) of the communist KGB.
As an officer, Suvorov was the cream of the cream. A company commander, he participated in the "liberation" of Czechoslovakia in '68, served a tour on the General Staff and in the Spetznaz (the elite Soviet special forces) and was ultimately tapped for service with the GRU, an organization hardly anyone had heard of but whose impact could scarcely have been greater during the Cold War.
Suvorov described the mission, organization, scope and accomplishments of this massive octopus in his companion work, "Inside Soviet Military Intelligence." In sum, its mission was to recruit foreign agents, spy, and steal technology from the West using any and all means -- from bribery and blackmail to intimidation and murder.
Suvorov has many spy tales to enthrall the reader -- his physical and psychological training pitted him against condemned inmates in hand-to-hand combat, punished lapses of memory with electrical shocks, and strove to exploit his emotional pressure points at every turn, until he was for all appearances just the type of pitiless machine-man communism hoped to produce. And his field experiences in the West are an unrelenting tale of deceit, lies and ruthless manipulation. There was nothing the GRU wouldn't do to get its hands on foreign technology and the foreign agents willing to sell it. Success meant medals, promotion and respect; failure meant disgrace, torture and sometimes execution. In Intelligence, like Hollywood, you're only as good as your last job, and the mantra of Suvorov's superiors was unvaryingly: "What have you done for me today?"
The book is most effective for me, however, in conveying the mental and emotional atmosphere which living in the communist penitentiary state produced among its inmates. As a GRU agent, Suvorov had unheard-of priveleges and status, yet the unyeilding pressure to produce results "or else", the knowledge that his every word, action and even facial expression was under constant scrutiny from psychologists and superiors, and the unspoken knowledge that many of his assignments were actually tests of his willingness to betray his friends, all brought me back to Orwell's "1984." To a world where lies, cruelty, double-dealing and fear rule every moment of every day, and all human emotions except lust, cruelty and ambition are discouraged and punished.
The most emotionally difficult moments in the book for me were not the betrayals, murders and interrogations of former pals (conducted on the dreaded "conveyor", which some killed themselves to avoid experiencing) but Suvorov's knowledge that so many idiots in the West were all to willing to give up their freedom and prosperity and become knowing tools of Soviet intelligence. His incredulity and hatred of these people, who he was trained to recruit and treat kindly, is excellent proof that freedom is best appreciated by those who had to risk everything to win it. Suvorov coldly refers to communist-loving Westerners as "expletive-eaters" and this expression was shared by the whole of the GRU. They had to live in a prison: why would anyone want to do it voluntarily?
"Aquarium" (named after the nickname for GRU headquarters), should be required reading for all those daddy-financed college rebels who put on Che Guevera T-shirts and denounce Western capitalism in favor of some kind of Marxian utopia. Suvorov lived in one, and risked being thrown in a blast furnace to escape it.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Classic that deserves to be studied., November 4, 2005
Suvorov takes a deep look at human nature, the Soviet intelligence arena and military intelligence in general. I believe it is a text to be studied and returned to. The following passage is the readers favorite:
"The troops were convinced that human nature was basically vicious and incorrigible. They had good reason. Every day they risked their lives and every day they had an opportunity to observe people on the brink of death. So they divided everybody into the good and the bad. A good person in their eyes was one who did not conceal the animal seated within him. But a person who tried to appear good was dangerous. The most dangerous were those who not only paraded their good qualities but who also believed within themselves they were indeed good people.
The most loathsome disgusting criminal might kill a man, ten men or even a hundred. But a criminal will never kill people by the million. Millions are killed only by those who consider themselves good."
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