Vasili Nikitich Mitrokhin (; March 3, 1922 – January 23, 2004) was an archivist for the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

's foreign intelligence service, the

First Chief Directorate The First Main Directorate () of the Committee for State Security under the USSR council of ministers (PGU KGB) was the organization responsible for foreign operations and intelligence agency, intelligence activities by providing for the training a ...

of the

KGB The Committee for State Security (, ), abbreviated as KGB (, ; ) was the main security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 to 1991. It was the direct successor of preceding Soviet secret police agencies including the Cheka, Joint State Polit ...

, who defected to the United Kingdom in 1992. Mitrokhin first offered his material to the US'

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...

(CIA) in Latvia but they rejected it as possible fakes. After that, he resorted to the UK's MI6 which arranged his defection from Russia. These notes became known as the Mitrokhin Archives. He was co-author with Christopher Andrew of ''The Mitrokhin Archive: The KGB in Europe and the West'', a massive account of Soviet intelligence operations based on copies of material from the archive. The second volume, ''The Mitrokhin Archive II: The KGB in the World'', was published in 2005, soon after Mitrokhin's death.

Education

Mitrokhin was born in Yurasovo, in

Central Russia Central Russia is, broadly, the various areas in European Russia. Historically, the area of Central Russia varied based on the purpose for which it is being used. It may, for example, refer to European Russia (except the North Caucasus and ...

Ryazan Oblast Ryazan Oblast (, ) is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject of Russia (an oblast). Its administrative center is the types of inhabited localities in Russia, city of Ryazan, which is also the oblast's largest city. Geography Ryazan Oblast ...

Russian SFSR The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (Russian SFSR or RSFSR), previously known as the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and the Russian Soviet Republic, and unofficially as Soviet Russia,Declaration of Rights of the labo ...

. After leaving school, he entered artillery school, then attended university in

Kazakh SSR The Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, also known as Soviet Kazakhstan, the Kazakh SSR, KSSR, or simply Kazakhstan, was one of the transcontinental constituent republics of the Soviet Union (USSR) from 1936 to 1991. Located in northern Centr ...

, graduating with degrees in history and law.

Career

Military

Towards the end of the

second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, Mitrokhin took a job in

prosecutor A prosecutor is a legal representative of the prosecution in states with either the adversarial system, which is adopted in common law, or inquisitorial system, which is adopted in Civil law (legal system), civil law. The prosecution is the ...

's office in

Kharkiv Kharkiv, also known as Kharkov, is the second-largest List of cities in Ukraine, city in Ukraine.

in the

Ukrainian SSR The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, abbreviated as the Ukrainian SSR, UkrSSR, and also known as Soviet Ukraine or just Ukraine, was one of the Republics of the Soviet Union, constituent republics of the Soviet Union from 1922 until 1991. ...

. He entered the MGB as a foreign intelligence officer in 1948. His first foreign posting was in 1952. During the 1950s, he served on various undercover assignments overseas. In 1956, for example, he accompanied the Soviet team to the

Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games (Olympics; ) are the world's preeminent international Olympic sports, sporting events. They feature summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a Multi-s ...

in Australia. Later that year, however, after he had apparently mishandled an operational assignment, he was moved from operational duties to the archives of the KGB's First Chief Directorate and told he would never work in the field again.

Disillusionment

Mitrokhin sometimes dated the beginnings of his disillusionment to Nikita Khrushchev's famous speech to the

Communist Party of the Soviet Union The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU),. Abbreviated in Russian as КПСС, ''KPSS''. at some points known as the Russian Communist Party (RCP), All-Union Communist Party and Bolshevik Party, and sometimes referred to as the Soviet ...

congress denouncing

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...

, though it seems he may have been harbouring doubts for some time before that. For years, he had listened to broadcasts on the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

and

Voice of America Voice of America (VOA or VoA) is an international broadcasting network funded by the federal government of the United States that by law has editorial independence from the government. It is the largest and oldest of the American internation ...

, noting the gulf between their reports and party propaganda. However, when he began looking into the archives, he claimed to have been shocked by what he discovered about the KGB's systematic repression of the Soviet people. "I could not believe such evil", he recalled. "It was all planned, prepared, thought out in advance. It was a terrible shock when I read things." Between 1972 and 1984, he supervised the move of the archive of the First Chief Directorate from the Lubyanka to the new KGB headquarters at Yasenevo. While doing so, he made handwritten copies and immensely detailed notes of documents from the archive. He retired in 1985.

Defection

During the Soviet era, Mitrokhin made no attempts to contact any Western intelligence services. After the

dissolution of the Soviet Union The Soviet Union was formally dissolved as a sovereign state and subject of international law on 26 December 1991 by Declaration No. 142-N of the Soviet of the Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. Declaration No. 142-Н of ...

in 1991, he traveled to

Latvia Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south. It borders Russia to the east and Belarus to t ...

with copies of material from the archive and walked into the American embassy in

Riga Riga ( ) is the capital, Primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Latvia, largest city of Latvia. Home to 591,882 inhabitants (as of 2025), the city accounts for a third of Latvia's total population. The population of Riga Planni ...

officers there did not consider him to be credible, concluding that the copied documents could have been faked. He then went to the British embassy and a young diplomat there saw his potential. Following a further meeting one month later with representatives of the

Secret Intelligence Service The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 (MI numbers, Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of Human i ...

(MI6), operations retrieved the 25,000 pages of files hidden in his house, covering operations from as far back as the 1930s. He and his family were then exfiltrated to the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

, even though authorities of Yeltsin's Russia were not impeding the free travel abroad of active or retired members of secret services or members of their families.

Richard Tomlinson Richard John Charles Tomlinson (born 13 January 1963) is a former officer of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). He argued that he was subjected to unfair dismissal from MI6 in 1995, and attempted to take his former employer to a tri ...

, the MI6 officer imprisoned in 1997 for attempting to publish a book about his career, was one of those involved in retrieving the documents from containers hidden under the floor of the

dacha A dacha (Belarusian, Ukrainian language, Ukrainian and rus, дача, p=ˈdatɕə, a=ru-dacha.ogg) is a seasonal or year-round second home, often located in the exurbs of former Soviet Union, post-Soviet countries, including Russia. A cottage (, ...

. The notes given by Mitrokhin to the

MI6 The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...

revealed exposures about some unknown number of Soviet agents, including

Melita Norwood Melita Stedman Norwood (née Sirnis ; 25 March 1912 – 2 June 2005) was a British Civil service, civil servant, Communist Party of Great Britain member and KGB spy. Born to a British mother and Latvians, Latvian father, Norwood is most famou ...

. However, Norwood was not charged with an offence.

Mitrokhin Archive

These handwritten notes of Mitrokhin are collectively referred to as the

Mitrokhin Archive The Mitrokhin Archive refers to a collection of handwritten notes about secret KGB operations spanning the period between the 1930s and 1980s made by KGB archivist Vasili Mitrokhin which he shared with British intelligence in the early 1990s. Mitr ...

s. *Vasili Mitrokhin and Christopher Andrew, ''The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB'', Basic Books (1999), hardcover, ; trade paperback (September 2000), *Vasili Mitrokhin and Christopher Andrew, ''The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World'', Basic Books (2005) hardcover, 677 pages * *Vasiliy Mitrokhin, ''KGB Lexicon: The Soviet Intelligence Officer's Handbook'', Frank Cass & Co. Ltd (2002), 451 pages, *''"Chekisms", Tales of the Cheka, A KGB Anthology, Compiled and introduced by Vasiliy Mitrokhin. "Чекизмы" The Yurasov Press (2008), 435 pages, . (The book could be obtained from any copyright library).

Other publications

*Mitrokhin, Vasiliy Nikitich
''The KGB in Afghanistan''
English Edition, introduced and edited by Christian F. Ostermann and Odd Arne Westad, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Cold War International History Project, Working Paper No. 40, Washington, D.C., February 2002.

References

Sources * ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...

'', January 29, 2004
obituary
* ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was found ...

'', February 2, 2004

External links

The Mitrokhin Archive
fro
the Cold War International History Project
* *
The Papers of Vasiliy Mitrokhin
held at

Churchill Archives Centre The Churchill Archives Centre (CAC) at Churchill College at the University of Cambridge is one of the largest repositories in the United Kingdom for the preservation and study of modern personal papers. It is best known for housing the papers ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mitrokhin, Vasili 1922 births 2004 deaths People from Ryazansky District, Ryazan Oblast KGB officers Soviet military personnel of World War II Soviet intelligence personnel who defected to the United Kingdom Soviet archivists Historians of espionage Russian non-fiction writers Soviet spies Cold War spies