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Vladimir Alexandrovich Kryuchkov (russian: Влади́мир Алекса́ндрович Крючко́в, link=no; 29 February 1924 – 23 November 2007) was a
Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
lawyer, diplomat, and head of the KGB, member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the
CPSU "Hymn of the Bolshevik Party" , headquarters = 4 Staraya Square, Moscow , general_secretary = Vladimir Lenin (first)Mikhail Gorbachev (last) , founded = , banned = , founder = Vladimir Lenin , newspaper ...
. Initially working in the Soviet justice system as a prosecutor's assistant, Kryuchkov then graduated from the Diplomatic Academy of the Soviet Foreign Ministry and became a diplomat. During his years in the foreign service, he met
Yuri Andropov Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov (– 9 February 1984) was the sixth paramount leader of the Soviet Union and the fourth General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. After Leonid Brezhnev's 18-year rule, Andropov served in the ...
, who became his main patron. From 1974 until 1988, Kryuchkov headed the foreign intelligence branch of the KGB, the First Chief Directorate (PGU). During these years, the Directorate was involved in funding and supporting various communist, socialist, and anti-colonial movements across the world, some of which came to power in their countries and established pro-Soviet governments; in addition, under Kryuchkov's leadership the Directorate had major triumphs in penetrating Western intelligence agencies, acquiring valuable scientific and technical intelligence and perfecting the techniques of
disinformation Disinformation is false information deliberately spread to deceive people. It is sometimes confused with misinformation, which is false information but is not deliberate. The English word ''disinformation'' comes from the application of the ...
and active measures.Robert W Pringle, ''Historical Dictionary of Russian and Soviet Intelligence'' Kryuchkov, Vladimir At the same time, during his tenure the Directorate became plagued with defectors and had the major responsibility for encouraging the Soviet government to invade Afghanistan, and its ability to influence Western European communist parties diminished even further. From 1988 until 1991, Kryuchkov served as the 7th Chairman of the KGB. He was the leader of the abortive
August coup August is the eighth month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars, and the fifth of seven months to have a length of 31 days. Its zodiac sign is Leo and was originally named '' Sextilis'' in Latin because it was the 6th month in ...
and its governing committee.


Early life and career

Kryuchkov was born in February 1924 in Tsaritsyn (later Stalingrad, and now Volgograd), to a working-class family. His parents were strong supporters of
Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet Union, Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as Ge ...
. He joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1944 and became a full-time employee of the Communist Youth League ( Komsomol). After earning a law degree, Kryuchkov embarked on a career in the
Soviet justice system The Ministry of Justice of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) (russian: Министерство юстиции СССР, ''Ministerstvo Yustitsii SSSR''), formed on 15 March 1946, was one of the most important government offices in t ...
, working as an investigator for the prosecutor's office in his home city of Stalingrad.


Diplomatic service

Kryuchkov then joined the Soviet diplomatic service, stationed in
Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Cr ...
until 1959. He then worked for the Communist Party Central Committee for eight years, before joining the KGB in 1967 together with his patron
Yuri Andropov Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov (– 9 February 1984) was the sixth paramount leader of the Soviet Union and the fourth General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. After Leonid Brezhnev's 18-year rule, Andropov served in the ...
. He was appointed head of the First Chief Directorate in the summer of 1971, upon the order of Andropov, and Deputy Chairman in 1978. In June 1978, he traveled to
Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is borde ...
, and in July 1978 became the KGB rezident in Kabul where he took a very active part in the overthrow of its government at the beginning of the
Soviet–Afghan War The Soviet–Afghan War was a protracted armed conflict fought in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989. It saw extensive fighting between the Soviet Union and the Afghan mujahideen (alongside smaller groups of anti-Soviet ...
. In 1988, he was promoted to the rank of General of the Army and became KGB Chairman. In 1989–1990, he was a member of the Politburo. A political hard-liner, Kryuchkov was among the members of the Soviet intelligence community who misinterpreted the 1983
NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two N ...
exercise Able Archer 83 as a prelude to a
pre-emptive nuclear strike In nuclear strategy, a first strike or preemptive strike is a preemptive surprise attack employing overwhelming force. First strike capability is a country's ability to defeat another nuclear power by destroying its arsenal to the point where t ...
. Many historians, such as Robert Cowley and John Lewis Gaddis, believe the Able Archer incident was the closest the world has come to nuclear war since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.


KGB chairmanship

After KGB Chairman
Viktor Chebrikov Viktor Mikhailovich Chebrikov (russian: Виктор Михайлович Чéбриков; 27 April 1923 – 2 July 1999) was a Soviet public official and security administrator and head of the KGB from December 1982 to October 1988.Montgomery, ...
sided with General Secretary
Mikhail Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet politician who served as the 8th and final leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to the country's dissolution in 1991. He served as General Secretary of the Com ...
's rival
Yegor Ligachyov Yegor Kuzmich Ligachyov (also transliterated as Ligachev; russian: Егор Кузьмич Лигачёв, link=no; 29 November 1920 – 7 May 2021) was a Soviet and Russian politician who was a high-ranking official in the Communist Party o ...
in opposition to glasnost and perestroika, he was replaced by Kryuchkov in October 1988. Kryuchkov also opposed Gorbachev's reforms, and in his memoirs defended
Stalinism Stalinism is the means of governing and Marxist-Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union from 1927 to 1953 by Joseph Stalin. It included the creation of a one-party totalitarian police state, rapid industrialization, the the ...
and condemned most reforms to the Soviet political system since the rule of
Nikita Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev s ...
. However, Gorbachev appointed Kryuchkov anyways because he had specialized primarily in foreign intelligence rather than domestic services. Kryuchkov had also been recommended by Gorbachev's predecessor and mentor Andropov and his reformist colleague Alexander Yakovlev. After the 1990 Soviet constitutional reforms began working with other hardline officials in the new presidential cabinet such as Boris Pugo,
Valentin Pavlov Valentin Sergeyevich Pavlov (russian: Валéнтин Серге́евич Па́влов; 27 September 1937 – 30 March 2003) was a Soviet official who became a Russian banker following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Born in the c ...
, and
Gennady Yanayev Gennady Ivanovich Yanayev (russian: Генна́дий Ива́нович Яна́ев, link=no; 26 August 193724 September 2010) was a Soviet politician who served as the first and only vice president of the Soviet Union. Yanayev's political ...
to undermine Gorbachev's rule. This group of eight ministers eventually became the State Committee on the State of Emergency (GKChP). Gorbachev attempted to appease Kryuchkov with a presidential decree expanding the powers of the KGB, and ordered him to keep the anti-Communist RSFSR President
Boris Yeltsin Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin ( rus, Борис Николаевич Ельцин, p=bɐˈrʲis nʲɪkɐˈla(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈjelʲtsɨn, a=Ru-Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin.ogg; 1 February 1931 – 23 April 2007) was a Soviet and Russian politician wh ...
and the dissident leader Andrei Sakharov under surveillance. Kryuchkov's intelligence may have deceived Gorbachev into underestimating the risk to his rule and distancing himself in favor of his old reformist colleagues in favor of the hardliners. According to Sergei Tretyakov, Kryuchkov secretly sent US$50 billion worth of funds of the Communist Party to an unknown location in the lead up to the
collapse of the Soviet Union The dissolution of the Soviet Union, also negatively connoted as rus, Разва́л Сове́тского Сою́за, r=Razvál Sovétskogo Soyúza, ''Ruining of the Soviet Union''. was the process of internal disintegration within the Sov ...
.


August Coup

Kryuchkov's strategy eventually shifted to a
coup d'état A coup d'état (; French for 'stroke of state'), also known as a coup or overthrow, is a seizure and removal of a government and its powers. Typically, it is an illegal seizure of power by a political faction, politician, cult, rebel group, m ...
in which a state of emergency would enable the KGB to restore the Soviet Union's hardline Communist political system. During the August Coup of 1991, Kryuchkov was the initiator of creation of the GKChP which arrested President
Mikhail Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet politician who served as the 8th and final leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to the country's dissolution in 1991. He served as General Secretary of the Com ...
. However, the coup failed because of the indecisiveness of Kryuchkov and the other conspirators. Kryuchkov notably mobilized the Alpha Group to arrest Yeltsin but then refused to give it the order to do so. Kryuchkov had also allowed the
Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian SFSR or RSFSR ( rus, Российская Советская Федеративная Социалистическая Республика, Rossíyskaya Sovétskaya Federatívnaya Soci ...
to assume control of domestic KGB activity under its jurisdiction after Chairman Yeltsin's Declaration of State Sovereignty of Russia. Many Russian KGB agents had demonstrated their loyalty to the new government by defying Kryuchkov's order to vote against Yeltsin in the 1991 Russian presidential election. After the defeat of the committee, Kryuchkov was imprisoned for his participation. Kryuchkov was replaced as chairman of the KGB by
Vadim Bakatin Vadim Viktorovich Bakatin (russian: link=no, Вадим Викторович Бакатин; 6 November 1937 – 31 July 2022) was a Russian politician who served as the last chairman of the KGB in 1991. He was the last surviving former chairm ...
, released on recognizance not to leave in January 1993, and pardoned by the State Duma in 1994. Many analysts of the Soviet Union at the time and since, including former U.S. Ambassador Jack F. Matlock Jr., have held that Kryuchkov was inadvertently responsible for the
collapse of the Soviet Union The dissolution of the Soviet Union, also negatively connoted as rus, Разва́л Сове́тского Сою́за, r=Razvál Sovétskogo Soyúza, ''Ruining of the Soviet Union''. was the process of internal disintegration within the Sov ...
by staging the coup and destroying the Communist Party's authority. Matlock wrote in his memoir "People do make a difference, and Vladimir Kryuchkov made a big difference. The Soviet Union might exist in some modified form today if another person had been running the KGB in 1990 and 1991." Immediately after the collapse of the coup Kryuchkov unsuccessfully requested a pardon for himself and his co-conspirators on the basis of their old age. On 3 July 1992, Kryuchkov appealed to Russian president
Boris Yeltsin Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin ( rus, Борис Николаевич Ельцин, p=bɐˈrʲis nʲɪkɐˈla(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈjelʲtsɨn, a=Ru-Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin.ogg; 1 February 1931 – 23 April 2007) was a Soviet and Russian politician wh ...
, accusing him of laying the blame for the
dissolution of the Soviet Union The dissolution of the Soviet Union, also negatively connoted as rus, Разва́л Сове́тского Сою́за, r=Razvál Sovétskogo Soyúza, ''Ruining of the Soviet Union''. was the process of internal disintegration within the Sov ...
on members of the State Committee on the State of Emergency. Kryuchkov was finally freed in 1994 with a pardon by the State Duma. He subsequently returned to public life with writings condemning Gorbachev's rule. His writings improved his reputation with the Russian public, with a 2007 Levada Center poll revealing that only 12 percent of respondents would have actively opposed his coup. On 7 May 2000, Kryuchkov attended the first inauguration of
Vladimir Putin Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who holds the office of president of Russia. Putin has served continuously as president or prime minister since 1999: as prime min ...
as
President of Russia The president of the Russian Federation ( rus, Президент Российской Федерации, Prezident Rossiyskoy Federatsii) is the head of state of the Russian Federation. The president leads the executive branch of the federa ...
.


Family

His son was a resident of
Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
in the 1990s where very large sums were transiting during the 1990s looting of Russia. Yevgeny Primakov blocked the Duma's Ponomarev investigative commission from accessing KGB, FCD, and SVR documents.


Death

Kryuchkov died at the age of 83 on 23 November 2007. His body was buried at the Troyekurovskoye Cemetery in
Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...
.


References


Bibliography

* Kryuchkov, Vladimir Alexandrovich (1996). ''Personal Business. Moscow: Olympus. pp. 872. {{DEFAULTSORT:Kryuchkov, Vladimir 1924 births 2007 deaths Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union members Expelled members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Politicians from Volgograd Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union members KGB chairmen State Committee on the State of Emergency members Russian communists Burials in Troyekurovskoye Cemetery Kutafin Moscow State Law University alumni Neo-Stalinists